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When it comes to books devoted to eschatology in general and the Rapture specifically, they often either read like a formal academic argument written solely for the benefit of scholars or employ the use of fiction to avoid directly handling the underlying biblical text. As with Jacob's previous books and exhaustive list of sermons covering nearly every area of theology, Harpazo presents the doctrine of the Rapture and Resurrection in the strictest biblical sense possible, leveraging the handling of Scripture in the same manner as passed along to us by Christ through the Apostles and Early Church of the 1st century.
Often the typical format of such books is to spend more time explaining and refuting all the positions the author does not subscribe to rather than focus exclusively on what they believe and have derived from Scripture. Harpazo may be unique in the complete absence of charts and seemingly endless trips to sidebars to constantly compare alternate interpretations the author does not subscribe to in the first place. Jacob was asked to continue to employ in an expanded book format the same exegesis of Scripture which is present in all of his teachings regardless of whether or not they are eschatological. After all, "The Apocalypse" means "unveiling", and that "lifting of the curtain", so to speak, as we approach the ever nearer Return of Christ is the Holy Spirit's revelation of Scripture as already given, not a new opinion by man..
The Gospels are clear that immediately in the wake of His Resurrection, Christ not only imparted the Holy Spirit to His disciples, but directly instructed them in how He was the fulfillment of the whole of Scripture. (Lk. 24:27, 44-45) In other words, the interpretation of all of God's Word, every Book of the Old Testament included, was re-cast as Christological, having not just a literal, primary meaning for the times any Scripture was originally given, but an added meaning for either Christ's First Coming, Second Coming, or both. Like every doctrine and theology, the Rapture and Resurrection are illustrated through many scriptural people, places and events throughout the whole of God's Word and not simply limited to a single biblical reference.
Using the Early Church hermeneutics of typology to illustrate and illuminate doctrine, Jacob shows how there are many raptures and rescues in Scripture which combine to teach what is going to ultimately take place in the Parousia—the Second Coming of Christ. Likewise, there is a wealth of similar events and patterns throughout Scripture which teach us what to expect from related issues such as the Two Witnesses, the role of the 144,000 and Israel yet to come, the pattern of judgments in Revelation and how they actually replay Old Testament and historical parallels, and a wealth of other such End Times teachings already established in the canon of Scripture.
Jesus Himself established this hermeneutic by categorically teaching that the Last Days would be realized in the character of the days of Noah as well as Lot. The Apostles in their writings not only confirmed these specific examples but built upon them. The question for believers in the Last Days is not whether or not some kind of "new" revelation or word from God has been revealed, but how what has already been given is, in these final hours, being unveiled to believers by the Holy Spirit. What Daniel was told to seal until the end, John was told would be ultimately unsealed.
Some of the chapter titles in Harpazo will sound familiar to those already acquainted with Jacob's teachings, but he has never tied everything together overall to this degree before. This book is not about creating another End Times chart, but making a good faith effort to draw together in one place what the whole counsel of God's Word is teaching not just for a single event or prophetic fulfillment, but the overall doctrinal basis by which believers are supposed to act and behave as they are putting His Word into practice. Whereas many limit their teaching on the Rapture to just the drama of the physical event itself, one of the remarkable differences presented in Harpazo is the believer's place in the Rapture and Resurrection and their active role in preparation for it. Recognition of the nearness of His Return invokes a responsibility to live accordingly.
Those expecting an academic treatment of eschatology or hoping for a formal rebuttal of alternative positions will not find such in Harpazo. But those placing a priority on what God's Word is saying more than the word and opinions of man will derive tangible benefits from the book regardless of which "ism" or eschatology currently held. Jacob presents us with a thorough proactive exegesis of Scripture by concentrating on what Scripture affirms rather than a reactive rebuttal of the beliefs of man, which all too often actually fall outside biblical boundaries.
Reiew
Electronic version is now available as anEbookand is available at Amazon for $9.99.
Often the typical format of such books is to spend more time explaining and refuting all the positions the author does not subscribe to rather than focus exclusively on what they believe and have derived from Scripture. Harpazo may be unique in the complete absence of charts and seemingly endless trips to sidebars to constantly compare alternate interpretations the author does not subscribe to in the first place. Jacob was asked to continue to employ in an expanded book format the same exegesis of Scripture which is present in all of his teachings regardless of whether or not they are eschatological. After all, "The Apocalypse" means "unveiling", and that "lifting of the curtain", so to speak, as we approach the ever nearer Return of Christ is the Holy Spirit's revelation of Scripture as already given, not a new opinion by man..
The Gospels are clear that immediately in the wake of His Resurrection, Christ not only imparted the Holy Spirit to His disciples, but directly instructed them in how He was the fulfillment of the whole of Scripture. (Lk. 24:27, 44-45) In other words, the interpretation of all of God's Word, every Book of the Old Testament included, was re-cast as Christological, having not just a literal, primary meaning for the times any Scripture was originally given, but an added meaning for either Christ's First Coming, Second Coming, or both. Like every doctrine and theology, the Rapture and Resurrection are illustrated through many scriptural people, places and events throughout the whole of God's Word and not simply limited to a single biblical reference.
Using the Early Church hermeneutics of typology to illustrate and illuminate doctrine, Jacob shows how there are many raptures and rescues in Scripture which combine to teach what is going to ultimately take place in the Parousia—the Second Coming of Christ. Likewise, there is a wealth of similar events and patterns throughout Scripture which teach us what to expect from related issues such as the Two Witnesses, the role of the 144,000 and Israel yet to come, the pattern of judgments in Revelation and how they actually replay Old Testament and historical parallels, and a wealth of other such End Times teachings already established in the canon of Scripture.
Jesus Himself established this hermeneutic by categorically teaching that the Last Days would be realized in the character of the days of Noah as well as Lot. The Apostles in their writings not only confirmed these specific examples but built upon them. The question for believers in the Last Days is not whether or not some kind of "new" revelation or word from God has been revealed, but how what has already been given is, in these final hours, being unveiled to believers by the Holy Spirit. What Daniel was told to seal until the end, John was told would be ultimately unsealed.
Some of the chapter titles in Harpazo will sound familiar to those already acquainted with Jacob's teachings, but he has never tied everything together overall to this degree before. This book is not about creating another End Times chart, but making a good faith effort to draw together in one place what the whole counsel of God's Word is teaching not just for a single event or prophetic fulfillment, but the overall doctrinal basis by which believers are supposed to act and behave as they are putting His Word into practice. Whereas many limit their teaching on the Rapture to just the drama of the physical event itself, one of the remarkable differences presented in Harpazo is the believer's place in the Rapture and Resurrection and their active role in preparation for it. Recognition of the nearness of His Return invokes a responsibility to live accordingly.
Those expecting an academic treatment of eschatology or hoping for a formal rebuttal of alternative positions will not find such in Harpazo. But those placing a priority on what God's Word is saying more than the word and opinions of man will derive tangible benefits from the book regardless of which "ism" or eschatology currently held. Jacob presents us with a thorough proactive exegesis of Scripture by concentrating on what Scripture affirms rather than a reactive rebuttal of the beliefs of man, which all too often actually fall outside biblical boundaries.
Reiew
Electronic version is now available as anEbookand is available at Amazon for $9.99.
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How to Win the Battle
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1 Samuel 17, Goliath"s challenge.
Now the Philistines gathered their armies for battle; and they were gathered at Socoh which belongs to Judah, and they camped between Socoh and Azekah, in Ephes-dammim.
Saul and the men of Israel were gathered and camped in the valley of Elah, and drew up in battle array to encounter the Philistines. The Philistines stood on the mountain on one side while Israel stood on the mountain on the other side, with the valley between them. Then a champion came out from the armies of the Philistines named Goliath, from Gath…
Today it"s near Kiriath Gat, a settlement of Russian Jews.
…whose height was six cubits and a span. He had a bronze helmet on his head, and he was clothed with scale-armor which weighed five thousand shekels of bronze. He also had bronze greaves on his legs and a bronze javelin slung between his shoulders. The shaft of his spear was like a weaver"s beam, and the head of his spear weighed six hundred shekels of iron; his shield-carrier also walked before him.
Whenever you see a superhuman villain in the Bible, somebody distinct from other people who is a nefarious creature, and you see a combination of three sixes in association with him, we"re looking at a type of the Antichrist. Let"s again look at the dimensions of Goliath"s armor. Height was six cubits " one span, then the weight was five. Then of course, we get down to the weaver"s beam, the size of the spear, which it"s weight was six hundred. So you put it together, obviously you have six-six-six. There"s three sixes. Whenever you see a play on numbers adding up to three sixes where it"s multiples of eighteen in association with a nefarious creature, we"re looking at someone who typifies Antichrist in some way. And not infrequently when you find someone who typifies Antichrist you"ll find someone going before him. Here it"s the armor bearer. Of course the false prophet goes before the beast. There are many, many clues about the Antichrist and what he will be like and what he will do throughout Scripture, but we should always be looking for the number of the beast. Among other things you're looking for somebody who's not just a villain but a villain of superhuman quality because he"s trying to counterfeit Christ " a superhuman.
Now the villain"s conspicuously superhuman; Christ was inconspicuously superhuman. He had no formal comeliness that we shall look upon Him. (Isa 53:2) That tells us something in itself about the spirit of Antichrist and how it works. It can take people in because it"s conspicuous. Only those who are discerning will see through it, but only those who are really discerning will see the meekness of Christ, the One who really is superhuman, instead of the counterfeits. Now I only mention this in passing because we know that Antichrist uses false religion in conjunction with the world"s political system to attempt to usurp the dominion of Christ before Jesus comes back.
He stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel and said to them, "Why do you come out to draw up in battle array? Am I not the Philistine and you servants of Saul? Choose a man for yourselves and let him come down to me. If he is able to fight with me and kill me, then we will become your servants; but if I prevail against him and kill him, then you shall become our servants and serve us."
The ultimate struggle is between Christ and Antichrist. Recall Jesus in Judaism, in Judeo-Christianity, "ben-David Yeshua" " "Jesus, Son of David". Our victory is always in Him. Christ must conquer Antichrist; Jesus must conquer the devil. Our victory is always in our Leader. His victory becomes ours. The outcome of the battle will not be determined by what we do but by what our Leader has done.
Once Israel saw that their leader as a working David, humble and out of nowhere, killed the leader of the Philistines, Israel"s victory was assured. And so our victory is assured.
Again the Philistine said, "I defy the ranks of Israel this day; give me a man that we may fight together." When Saul and all Israel heard these words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid. Now David was the son of the Ephrathite of Bethlehem in Judah, whose name was Jesse…
…that is, "Yishay"…
and he had eight sons. And Jesse was old in the days of Saul, advanced in years among men. The three older sons of Jesse had gone after Saul to the battle. And the names of his three sons who went to the battle were Eliab the firstborn, and the second to him Abinadab, and the third Shammah. David was the youngest. Now the three oldest followed Saul, but David went back and forth from Saul to tend his father"s flock at Bethlehem.
So often the people God uses are shepherds. If you can look after a few sheep you can look after a flock. Amos, Moses " all types of Christ as the Good Shepherd.
The Philistine came forward morning and evening for forty days and took his stand.
"40" is the number of testing in biblical typology, isn't it? It rained 40 days and 40 nights in the saga of Noah, Gideon faced the invader for 40 days, Jesus fasted 40 days and 40 nights, Moses fasted 40 days and 40 nights, the children of Israel sojourned 40 years in the wilderness, and Jonah gave the Ninevites 40 days to repent. "40" is the number of testing, of divine testing. The story then continues…
Then Jesse said to David his son, "Take now for your brothers an ephah of this roasted grain and these ten loaves and run to the camp to your brothers. "Bring also these ten cuts of cheese to the commander of their thousand, and look into the welfare of your brothers, and bring back news of them.
Resembles the story of Joseph and it prefigures Christ being sent to look after the welfare of His brothers.
"For Saul and they and all the men of Israel are in the valley of Elah, fighting with the Philistines."
So David arose early in the morning and left the flock with a keeper and took the supplies and went as Jesse had commanded him. And he came to the circle of the camp while the army was going out in battle array shouting the war cry. Israel and the Philistines drew up in battle array, army against army. Then David left his baggage in the care of the baggage keeper, and ran to the battle line and entered in order to greet his brothers. As he was talking with them, behold, the champion, the Philistine from Gath named Goliath, was coming up from the army of the Philistines, and he spoke these same words; and David heard them.
When all the men of Israel saw the man, they fled from him and were greatly afraid. The men of Israel said, "Have you seen this man who is coming up? Surely he is coming up to defy Israel. And it will be that the king will enrich the man who kills him with great riches and will give him his daughter and make his father"s house free in Israel."
"Free" meaning "tax-exempt."
Then David spoke to the men who were standing by him, saying, "What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and takes away the reproach from Israel? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should taunt the armies of the living God?" The people answered him in accord with this word, saying, "Thus it will be done for the man who kills him."
Now Eliab his oldest brother heard when he spoke to the men; and Eliab"s anger burned…
…not against Goliath, but…
against David and he said, "Why have you come down? And with whom have you left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know your insolence and the wickedness of your heart; for you have come down in order to see the battle." But David said, "What have I done now? Was it not just a question?" Then he turned away from him to another and said the same thing; and the people answered the same thing as before.
When the words which David spoke were heard, they told them to Saul, and he sent for him. David said to Saul, "Let no man"s heart fail on account of him; your servant will go and fight with this Philistine." Then Saul said to David, "You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him; for you are but a youth while he has been a warrior from his youth." But David said to Saul, "Your servant was tending his father"s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and took a lamb from the flock, I went out after him and attacked him, and rescued it from his mouth; and when he rose up against me, I seized him by his beard and struck him and killed him. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; and this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, since he has taunted the armies of the living God." And David said, "The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, He will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine." And Saul said to David, "Go, and may the Lord be with you." Then Saul clothed David with his garments and put a bronze helmet on his head, and he clothed him with armor. David girded his sword over his armor and tried to walk, for he had not tested them. So David said to Saul, "I cannot go with these, for I have not tested them." And David took them off. He took his stick in his hand and chose for himself five smooth stones from the brook, and put them in the shepherd"s bag which he had, even in his pouch, and his sling was in his hand; and he approached the Philistine.
Now of course we know the Torah as the five books and the Law as engraved on stone according to Corinthians. (2 Cor 3:7) The Torah is engraved on stones, these five stones obviously represents the Hebrew Bible.
Then the Philistine came on and approached David, with the shield-bearer in front of him.
The types of the Antichrist usually have this forerunner, a counterfeit harbinger. What John the Baptist was to Jesus, what the ministry of Elijah is to the return of Christ, so the false prophet will be an equivalent, the Satanic equivalent, of that with the Antichrist. You know what I"m saying? One is a counterfeit of the other.
When the Philistine looked and saw David, he disdained him; for he was but a youth, and ruddy, with a handsome appearance. The Philistine said to David, "Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks?" And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. The Philistine also said to David, "Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the sky and the beasts of the field."
This, of course, resembles Ezekiel 37 through 39.
Then David said to the Philistine, "You come to me with a sword, a spear, and a javelin…
Notice he had a short-range weapon, a medium-range weapon, and a long-range weapon.
…but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have taunted. "This day the Lord will deliver you up into my hands, and I will strike you down and remove your head from you. And I will give the dead bodies of the army of the Philistines this day to the birds of the sky and the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel,
David was not seeking his own glory but God's and the honor of His people.
and that all this assembly may know that the Lord does not deliver by sword or by spear; for the battle is the Lord"s and He will give you into our hands."
He"s not looking for the glory only for himself " "our hands".
Then it happened when the Philistine rose and came and drew near to meet David, that David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet the Philistine.
Everybody else was afraid, he ran for it.
And David put his hand into his bag and took from it a stone and slung it, and struck the Philistine on his forehead. And the stone sank into his forehead, so that he fell on his face to the ground.
Thus David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone, and he struck the Philistine and killed him; but there was no sword in David"s hand. Then David ran and stood over the Philistine and took his sword and drew it out of its sheath and killed him, and cut off his head with it. When the Philistines saw that their champion was dead, they fled. The men of Israel and Judah arose and shouted and pursued the Philistines as far as the valley, and to the gates of Ekron. And the slain Philistines lay along the way to Shaaraim, even to Gath and Ekron. The sons of Israel returned from chasing the Philistines and plundered their camps. Then David took the Philistine"s head and brought it to Jerusalem, but he put his weapons in his tent.
Now when Saul saw David going out against the Philistine, he said to Abner the commander of the army, "Abner, whose son is this young man?" And Abner said, "By your life, O king, I do not know." The king said, "You inquire whose son the youth is." So when David returned from killing the Philistine, Abner took him and brought him before Saul with the Philistine"s head in his hand. Saul said to him, "Whose son are you, young man?" And David answered, "I am the son of your servant Jesse the Bethlehemite."
And of course from this lineage, the Messiah to come going back to the book of Ruth.
Now the Philistines gathered their armies for battle; and they were gathered at Socoh which belongs to Judah, and they camped between Socoh and Azekah, in Ephes-dammim.
Saul and the men of Israel were gathered and camped in the valley of Elah, and drew up in battle array to encounter the Philistines. The Philistines stood on the mountain on one side while Israel stood on the mountain on the other side, with the valley between them. Then a champion came out from the armies of the Philistines named Goliath, from Gath…
Today it"s near Kiriath Gat, a settlement of Russian Jews.
…whose height was six cubits and a span. He had a bronze helmet on his head, and he was clothed with scale-armor which weighed five thousand shekels of bronze. He also had bronze greaves on his legs and a bronze javelin slung between his shoulders. The shaft of his spear was like a weaver"s beam, and the head of his spear weighed six hundred shekels of iron; his shield-carrier also walked before him.
Whenever you see a superhuman villain in the Bible, somebody distinct from other people who is a nefarious creature, and you see a combination of three sixes in association with him, we"re looking at a type of the Antichrist. Let"s again look at the dimensions of Goliath"s armor. Height was six cubits " one span, then the weight was five. Then of course, we get down to the weaver"s beam, the size of the spear, which it"s weight was six hundred. So you put it together, obviously you have six-six-six. There"s three sixes. Whenever you see a play on numbers adding up to three sixes where it"s multiples of eighteen in association with a nefarious creature, we"re looking at someone who typifies Antichrist in some way. And not infrequently when you find someone who typifies Antichrist you"ll find someone going before him. Here it"s the armor bearer. Of course the false prophet goes before the beast. There are many, many clues about the Antichrist and what he will be like and what he will do throughout Scripture, but we should always be looking for the number of the beast. Among other things you're looking for somebody who's not just a villain but a villain of superhuman quality because he"s trying to counterfeit Christ " a superhuman.
Now the villain"s conspicuously superhuman; Christ was inconspicuously superhuman. He had no formal comeliness that we shall look upon Him. (Isa 53:2) That tells us something in itself about the spirit of Antichrist and how it works. It can take people in because it"s conspicuous. Only those who are discerning will see through it, but only those who are really discerning will see the meekness of Christ, the One who really is superhuman, instead of the counterfeits. Now I only mention this in passing because we know that Antichrist uses false religion in conjunction with the world"s political system to attempt to usurp the dominion of Christ before Jesus comes back.
He stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel and said to them, "Why do you come out to draw up in battle array? Am I not the Philistine and you servants of Saul? Choose a man for yourselves and let him come down to me. If he is able to fight with me and kill me, then we will become your servants; but if I prevail against him and kill him, then you shall become our servants and serve us."
The ultimate struggle is between Christ and Antichrist. Recall Jesus in Judaism, in Judeo-Christianity, "ben-David Yeshua" " "Jesus, Son of David". Our victory is always in Him. Christ must conquer Antichrist; Jesus must conquer the devil. Our victory is always in our Leader. His victory becomes ours. The outcome of the battle will not be determined by what we do but by what our Leader has done.
Once Israel saw that their leader as a working David, humble and out of nowhere, killed the leader of the Philistines, Israel"s victory was assured. And so our victory is assured.
Again the Philistine said, "I defy the ranks of Israel this day; give me a man that we may fight together." When Saul and all Israel heard these words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid. Now David was the son of the Ephrathite of Bethlehem in Judah, whose name was Jesse…
…that is, "Yishay"…
and he had eight sons. And Jesse was old in the days of Saul, advanced in years among men. The three older sons of Jesse had gone after Saul to the battle. And the names of his three sons who went to the battle were Eliab the firstborn, and the second to him Abinadab, and the third Shammah. David was the youngest. Now the three oldest followed Saul, but David went back and forth from Saul to tend his father"s flock at Bethlehem.
So often the people God uses are shepherds. If you can look after a few sheep you can look after a flock. Amos, Moses " all types of Christ as the Good Shepherd.
The Philistine came forward morning and evening for forty days and took his stand.
"40" is the number of testing in biblical typology, isn't it? It rained 40 days and 40 nights in the saga of Noah, Gideon faced the invader for 40 days, Jesus fasted 40 days and 40 nights, Moses fasted 40 days and 40 nights, the children of Israel sojourned 40 years in the wilderness, and Jonah gave the Ninevites 40 days to repent. "40" is the number of testing, of divine testing. The story then continues…
Then Jesse said to David his son, "Take now for your brothers an ephah of this roasted grain and these ten loaves and run to the camp to your brothers. "Bring also these ten cuts of cheese to the commander of their thousand, and look into the welfare of your brothers, and bring back news of them.
Resembles the story of Joseph and it prefigures Christ being sent to look after the welfare of His brothers.
"For Saul and they and all the men of Israel are in the valley of Elah, fighting with the Philistines."
So David arose early in the morning and left the flock with a keeper and took the supplies and went as Jesse had commanded him. And he came to the circle of the camp while the army was going out in battle array shouting the war cry. Israel and the Philistines drew up in battle array, army against army. Then David left his baggage in the care of the baggage keeper, and ran to the battle line and entered in order to greet his brothers. As he was talking with them, behold, the champion, the Philistine from Gath named Goliath, was coming up from the army of the Philistines, and he spoke these same words; and David heard them.
When all the men of Israel saw the man, they fled from him and were greatly afraid. The men of Israel said, "Have you seen this man who is coming up? Surely he is coming up to defy Israel. And it will be that the king will enrich the man who kills him with great riches and will give him his daughter and make his father"s house free in Israel."
"Free" meaning "tax-exempt."
Then David spoke to the men who were standing by him, saying, "What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and takes away the reproach from Israel? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should taunt the armies of the living God?" The people answered him in accord with this word, saying, "Thus it will be done for the man who kills him."
Now Eliab his oldest brother heard when he spoke to the men; and Eliab"s anger burned…
…not against Goliath, but…
against David and he said, "Why have you come down? And with whom have you left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know your insolence and the wickedness of your heart; for you have come down in order to see the battle." But David said, "What have I done now? Was it not just a question?" Then he turned away from him to another and said the same thing; and the people answered the same thing as before.
When the words which David spoke were heard, they told them to Saul, and he sent for him. David said to Saul, "Let no man"s heart fail on account of him; your servant will go and fight with this Philistine." Then Saul said to David, "You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him; for you are but a youth while he has been a warrior from his youth." But David said to Saul, "Your servant was tending his father"s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and took a lamb from the flock, I went out after him and attacked him, and rescued it from his mouth; and when he rose up against me, I seized him by his beard and struck him and killed him. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; and this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, since he has taunted the armies of the living God." And David said, "The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, He will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine." And Saul said to David, "Go, and may the Lord be with you." Then Saul clothed David with his garments and put a bronze helmet on his head, and he clothed him with armor. David girded his sword over his armor and tried to walk, for he had not tested them. So David said to Saul, "I cannot go with these, for I have not tested them." And David took them off. He took his stick in his hand and chose for himself five smooth stones from the brook, and put them in the shepherd"s bag which he had, even in his pouch, and his sling was in his hand; and he approached the Philistine.
Now of course we know the Torah as the five books and the Law as engraved on stone according to Corinthians. (2 Cor 3:7) The Torah is engraved on stones, these five stones obviously represents the Hebrew Bible.
Then the Philistine came on and approached David, with the shield-bearer in front of him.
The types of the Antichrist usually have this forerunner, a counterfeit harbinger. What John the Baptist was to Jesus, what the ministry of Elijah is to the return of Christ, so the false prophet will be an equivalent, the Satanic equivalent, of that with the Antichrist. You know what I"m saying? One is a counterfeit of the other.
When the Philistine looked and saw David, he disdained him; for he was but a youth, and ruddy, with a handsome appearance. The Philistine said to David, "Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks?" And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. The Philistine also said to David, "Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the sky and the beasts of the field."
This, of course, resembles Ezekiel 37 through 39.
Then David said to the Philistine, "You come to me with a sword, a spear, and a javelin…
Notice he had a short-range weapon, a medium-range weapon, and a long-range weapon.
…but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have taunted. "This day the Lord will deliver you up into my hands, and I will strike you down and remove your head from you. And I will give the dead bodies of the army of the Philistines this day to the birds of the sky and the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel,
David was not seeking his own glory but God's and the honor of His people.
and that all this assembly may know that the Lord does not deliver by sword or by spear; for the battle is the Lord"s and He will give you into our hands."
He"s not looking for the glory only for himself " "our hands".
Then it happened when the Philistine rose and came and drew near to meet David, that David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet the Philistine.
Everybody else was afraid, he ran for it.
And David put his hand into his bag and took from it a stone and slung it, and struck the Philistine on his forehead. And the stone sank into his forehead, so that he fell on his face to the ground.
Thus David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone, and he struck the Philistine and killed him; but there was no sword in David"s hand. Then David ran and stood over the Philistine and took his sword and drew it out of its sheath and killed him, and cut off his head with it. When the Philistines saw that their champion was dead, they fled. The men of Israel and Judah arose and shouted and pursued the Philistines as far as the valley, and to the gates of Ekron. And the slain Philistines lay along the way to Shaaraim, even to Gath and Ekron. The sons of Israel returned from chasing the Philistines and plundered their camps. Then David took the Philistine"s head and brought it to Jerusalem, but he put his weapons in his tent.
Now when Saul saw David going out against the Philistine, he said to Abner the commander of the army, "Abner, whose son is this young man?" And Abner said, "By your life, O king, I do not know." The king said, "You inquire whose son the youth is." So when David returned from killing the Philistine, Abner took him and brought him before Saul with the Philistine"s head in his hand. Saul said to him, "Whose son are you, young man?" And David answered, "I am the son of your servant Jesse the Bethlehemite."
And of course from this lineage, the Messiah to come going back to the book of Ruth.
Tours
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Tongham Christian Fellowship
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Poyle Road
Tongham GU10 1DU
www.yeshuaspeople.com Bible Seminars for 2015 Date and Time Speaker Venue February 2015
Saturday 7th Feb - 10.30 to 4.30
Sunday 8th Feb - 10.30 to 12.30 James Jacob Prasch
Moriel Ministries Tongham Christian Fellowship
Fellowship Hall
Poyle Road
Tongham, Surrey
GU10 1DU March 2015
Sunday 8th March - 10.30 to 4.30 David Royle Tongham Christian Fellowship
Fellowship Hall
Poyle Road
Tongham, Surrey
GU10 1DU April 2015
Saturday 11th April - 10.30 to 4.30
Sunday 12th April - 10.30 to 12.30 Ronnie Mc Cracken Tongham Christian Fellowship
Fellowship Hall
Poyle Road
Tongham, Surrey
GU10 1DU June 2015
Saturday 6th June - 10.30 to 4.30 Tony Pearce
Saturday Only Tongham Christian Fellowship
Fellowship Hall
Poyle Road
Tongham, Surrey
GU10 1DU July 2015
Saturday 18th July- 10.30 to 4.30
Sunday 19 July - 10.30 to 12.30 Bill Randles Tongham Christian Fellowship
Fellowship Hall
Poyle Road
Tongham, Surrey
GU10 1DU October 2015
Saturday 10th Oct - 10.30 to 4.30
Sunday 11th Oct - 10.30 to 12.30 Colin LeNoury Tongham Christian Fellowship
Fellowship Hall
Poyle Road
Tongham, Surrey
GU10 1DU November 2015
Saturday 28th Nov - 10.30 to 4.30
Sunday 29th Nov - 10.30 to 4.30 Bible Seminars Tongham Christian Fellowship
Fellowship Hall
Poyle Road
Tongham, Surrey
GU10 1DU Tea and coffee and biscuits will be served between sessions. Please bring packed lunch for Saturday. And bring lunch on Sunday for Arnold Fruchtenbams meeting. Everyone is welcome. Why not bring a friend?
Please visit the web site www.yeshuaspeople.com for details, maps & if there is a cancellation or ring John & Trish Baker 01483 831007
Tongham GU10 1DU
www.yeshuaspeople.com Bible Seminars for 2015 Date and Time Speaker Venue February 2015
Saturday 7th Feb - 10.30 to 4.30
Sunday 8th Feb - 10.30 to 12.30 James Jacob Prasch
Moriel Ministries Tongham Christian Fellowship
Fellowship Hall
Poyle Road
Tongham, Surrey
GU10 1DU March 2015
Sunday 8th March - 10.30 to 4.30 David Royle Tongham Christian Fellowship
Fellowship Hall
Poyle Road
Tongham, Surrey
GU10 1DU April 2015
Saturday 11th April - 10.30 to 4.30
Sunday 12th April - 10.30 to 12.30 Ronnie Mc Cracken Tongham Christian Fellowship
Fellowship Hall
Poyle Road
Tongham, Surrey
GU10 1DU June 2015
Saturday 6th June - 10.30 to 4.30 Tony Pearce
Saturday Only Tongham Christian Fellowship
Fellowship Hall
Poyle Road
Tongham, Surrey
GU10 1DU July 2015
Saturday 18th July- 10.30 to 4.30
Sunday 19 July - 10.30 to 12.30 Bill Randles Tongham Christian Fellowship
Fellowship Hall
Poyle Road
Tongham, Surrey
GU10 1DU October 2015
Saturday 10th Oct - 10.30 to 4.30
Sunday 11th Oct - 10.30 to 12.30 Colin LeNoury Tongham Christian Fellowship
Fellowship Hall
Poyle Road
Tongham, Surrey
GU10 1DU November 2015
Saturday 28th Nov - 10.30 to 4.30
Sunday 29th Nov - 10.30 to 4.30 Bible Seminars Tongham Christian Fellowship
Fellowship Hall
Poyle Road
Tongham, Surrey
GU10 1DU Tea and coffee and biscuits will be served between sessions. Please bring packed lunch for Saturday. And bring lunch on Sunday for Arnold Fruchtenbams meeting. Everyone is welcome. Why not bring a friend?
Please visit the web site www.yeshuaspeople.com for details, maps & if there is a cancellation or ring John & Trish Baker 01483 831007
Catholic
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Hello, my dear friends. I"m speaking, of course, to our Catholic friends, and I mean friends. I have many Catholic friends and, on my mother"s side of the family, Catholic relatives, including my mother. My mother is of Irish-Catholic background. In her family there are members of the Roman Catholic clergy in Ireland and in America and in Canada. I've always had a love of the Catholic people, and I spent 11 years of my youth in Catholic schools through my mother's insistence. But like many other young people at that time I began to question the established religious values of the time and began to do my own seeking and my own searching.
Now I should tell you my own family is a mixture of Roman Catholic and Jewish, and partially for that reason I'm able to speak and read the Hebrew language, and I've also learned Greek. I looked at other faiths " Judaism, Protestantism, Roman Catholicism " most of all I studied the Scriptures with an emphasis on studying them in the original languages. I don't say I'm the greatest scholar or theologian in the world, but I do know what I believe and why I believe it.
I have a book here, Rome Has Spoken, written by two academic Roman Catholic nuns Maureen Fiedler and Linda Rabben " they"re the editors. They are both Ph.D.'s, both Roman Catholic nuns, both quite scholarly women. The book is published by Crossroad Publishing Company and it"s a very, very interesting book, a compilation of Vatican- and papal-issued statements from different times in history.
I"d like to ask you some questions as a Roman Catholic, questions of the sort I once asked myself, questions that other people like me have asked. But before I do that I"d like to read you some quotes from Roman Catholic documents " official Vatican documents " that areimprimatur and nihil obstat, official Roman Catholic documents.
In the year 420, Boniface I, Bishop of Rome: "Instead of what is lawful for what has been decided by the apostolic see to be reconsidered, the Second Council of Constantinople in 553, the current pope vigilist was found guilty of heresy and formally excommunicated from the body of the faithful. And at the Third Council of Constantinople in 681, Pope Honorius had confirmed the impious opinions of the heretic Sergius and anathematizee the pope from the church." According to Roman Catholic history, Roman Catholic documents, popes have been kicked out of office and excommunicated by councils of the church. It was not the belief, according to the Roman Catholic Church, that the pope at that time was somehow infallible in what he was proclaiming.
Of course now they claim, since 1870, when he speaks ex-cathedra he is, but I've never heard in modern history of a Pope being fired " sacked by the church. But things began to change by the medieval church, and again I'm only reading from Roman Catholic history that the creedom of 1140, where matters of faith are concerned, a General Counsel " a kind of magisterium " is greater than a pope. For though the Roman pope has sometimes erred, this does not mean that the Roman Church has. In other words, popes can say things that are erroneous and the church doesn"t have to support them.
By 1200 A.D. Pope Innocent III: "Every cleric must obey the pope, even if he commands what is evil; for no one may judge the pope." In the year 1200 the papacy decreed you have to obey the pope even if he tells you to do something which is evil and that no one may judge it, although the earlier councils of the church fired popes. A religion that came to teach you have to follow a man even when he's telling you to do something evil.
In the year 1302, Pope Boniface VIII, "Unam Sanctam": "We declare, affirm, and define as a truth necessary for salvation that every human being is subject to the Roman Pontiff." In the year 1302 it was decreed by Pope Boniface VIII that to have salvation " that is escape hell and go to heaven " you have to be subject to the pope.
Let"s move to the modern era.
1854, Pope Pius IX, "Ineffablis Deus": "If anyone shall dare to think otherwise the most Blessed Virgin was from the first moment of her conception preserved immune from all stain of original sin. if anyone dares to think otherwise that has been defined here by us, let him know that he certainly has abandoned the divine and Catholic church." The church is proclaimed as divine and if you don't believe that Mary was sinless you"ve abandoned it. That was in 1854. Why was it not taught earlier? The term "theoticos" ""mother of God" is not in the Bible or in the Greek text anywhere, it"s not in the Vulgate. Pius IX was the same pope who issued a papal encyclical in which democracy was condemned " "Quanta Cura".
In the first Vatican Council in the year 1870, "Pastor Aeternus": "We teach and define that the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra, that is when in the exercise of his offices pastor and teacher of all Christians, he defines by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority a doctrine of faith and morals which is to be held by the whole Church. It is by reason of the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, possessed of that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer wished His church to be endowed in defining doctrines of faith and morals." Since 1870 there"s been an official doctrine that the pope, when he speaks ex cathedra from the chair of Peter cannot make a mistake; a human being who cannot make a mistake even though earlier church councils said that popes can make mistakes even in matters of doctrine and some were excommunicated for it.
Quite a book. A book not containing Protestant documents, a book compiled by Roman Catholics containing Roman Catholic documents.
Again, Boniface VIII, "Unum Sanctum", 1302: "We declare, affirm, and define as a truth necessary for salvation that every human being is subject to the Roman Pontiff." If you"re not a Catholic you can"t go to heaven they said.
There was a Pope Leo XIII, "Satis Cognitum", 1896: "Let such as these take counsel with themselves and realize that they can in no wise be counted among the children of God unless they take Christ Jesus as their brother and at the same time the church, that is the church of Rome, as their mother." Jesus as your brother and the Roman Catholic Church as your mother. And if that is not the case, you"re not a child of God. John 1 says to all who believed Him, who believed in His name, to all who received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God. (Jn. 1:12)
1948. the Holy Office, "Cum Comperum" reminded Catholics of canonical prohibitions against unauthorized prohibition and so-called ecumenical meetings with non-Catholic Christians and in shared worship. They were warned against it in 1948, now all of the sudden it"s to be pursued in order to get people to become Catholic. That tells me something. At one time they were afraid of Catholics being lured away from the church by associating with other Christians; now they think the time is ripe to lure other Christians into the Roman Church.
The Second Vatican Council in 1964, Dogmatic Constitution of the Church: "Those who through no fault of their own do not know the gospel of Christ or His church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart and moved by grace tray in their actions to do His will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience, these too may attain eternal salvation." Which directly, of course, contradicts the earlier pronouncement Unum Sanctum.
Contradiction upon contradiction; things have devolved and changed. Yet the constitutional motto of the Roman Church is "Semper Idem" " "always the same". Well, it"s not; it"s changed, changed, and changed. What the Roman Catholic Church is today it became at the Council of Trent, basically, in the aftermath of the Reformation. We can document it from their own documents. Some Catholic scholars admit it. Yet in a way it is Semper Idem. Once they make another doctrine they can"t change it. There are two kinds of doctrines in the Roman Church:proxima fide and de fide You can change a proxima fide doctrine like making the mass from Latin into English, but a de fide doctrine " transubstantiation, purgatory, indulgence " they couldn't change that stuff.
And so looking at these contradictions, coming from a Catholic background on my mother"s side of the family, I have to ask some questions of my Catholic friends " sincere questions. Again, I"m not attacking you, it would be attacking my own family, indeed my own mother. I'm not attacking you, I'm simply trying to arrive at the truth. I'm only asking you questions that I once asked myself.
Now I should tell you my own family is a mixture of Roman Catholic and Jewish, and partially for that reason I'm able to speak and read the Hebrew language, and I've also learned Greek. I looked at other faiths " Judaism, Protestantism, Roman Catholicism " most of all I studied the Scriptures with an emphasis on studying them in the original languages. I don't say I'm the greatest scholar or theologian in the world, but I do know what I believe and why I believe it.
I have a book here, Rome Has Spoken, written by two academic Roman Catholic nuns Maureen Fiedler and Linda Rabben " they"re the editors. They are both Ph.D.'s, both Roman Catholic nuns, both quite scholarly women. The book is published by Crossroad Publishing Company and it"s a very, very interesting book, a compilation of Vatican- and papal-issued statements from different times in history.
I"d like to ask you some questions as a Roman Catholic, questions of the sort I once asked myself, questions that other people like me have asked. But before I do that I"d like to read you some quotes from Roman Catholic documents " official Vatican documents " that areimprimatur and nihil obstat, official Roman Catholic documents.
In the year 420, Boniface I, Bishop of Rome: "Instead of what is lawful for what has been decided by the apostolic see to be reconsidered, the Second Council of Constantinople in 553, the current pope vigilist was found guilty of heresy and formally excommunicated from the body of the faithful. And at the Third Council of Constantinople in 681, Pope Honorius had confirmed the impious opinions of the heretic Sergius and anathematizee the pope from the church." According to Roman Catholic history, Roman Catholic documents, popes have been kicked out of office and excommunicated by councils of the church. It was not the belief, according to the Roman Catholic Church, that the pope at that time was somehow infallible in what he was proclaiming.
Of course now they claim, since 1870, when he speaks ex-cathedra he is, but I've never heard in modern history of a Pope being fired " sacked by the church. But things began to change by the medieval church, and again I'm only reading from Roman Catholic history that the creedom of 1140, where matters of faith are concerned, a General Counsel " a kind of magisterium " is greater than a pope. For though the Roman pope has sometimes erred, this does not mean that the Roman Church has. In other words, popes can say things that are erroneous and the church doesn"t have to support them.
By 1200 A.D. Pope Innocent III: "Every cleric must obey the pope, even if he commands what is evil; for no one may judge the pope." In the year 1200 the papacy decreed you have to obey the pope even if he tells you to do something which is evil and that no one may judge it, although the earlier councils of the church fired popes. A religion that came to teach you have to follow a man even when he's telling you to do something evil.
In the year 1302, Pope Boniface VIII, "Unam Sanctam": "We declare, affirm, and define as a truth necessary for salvation that every human being is subject to the Roman Pontiff." In the year 1302 it was decreed by Pope Boniface VIII that to have salvation " that is escape hell and go to heaven " you have to be subject to the pope.
Let"s move to the modern era.
1854, Pope Pius IX, "Ineffablis Deus": "If anyone shall dare to think otherwise the most Blessed Virgin was from the first moment of her conception preserved immune from all stain of original sin. if anyone dares to think otherwise that has been defined here by us, let him know that he certainly has abandoned the divine and Catholic church." The church is proclaimed as divine and if you don't believe that Mary was sinless you"ve abandoned it. That was in 1854. Why was it not taught earlier? The term "theoticos" ""mother of God" is not in the Bible or in the Greek text anywhere, it"s not in the Vulgate. Pius IX was the same pope who issued a papal encyclical in which democracy was condemned " "Quanta Cura".
In the first Vatican Council in the year 1870, "Pastor Aeternus": "We teach and define that the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra, that is when in the exercise of his offices pastor and teacher of all Christians, he defines by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority a doctrine of faith and morals which is to be held by the whole Church. It is by reason of the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, possessed of that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer wished His church to be endowed in defining doctrines of faith and morals." Since 1870 there"s been an official doctrine that the pope, when he speaks ex cathedra from the chair of Peter cannot make a mistake; a human being who cannot make a mistake even though earlier church councils said that popes can make mistakes even in matters of doctrine and some were excommunicated for it.
Quite a book. A book not containing Protestant documents, a book compiled by Roman Catholics containing Roman Catholic documents.
Again, Boniface VIII, "Unum Sanctum", 1302: "We declare, affirm, and define as a truth necessary for salvation that every human being is subject to the Roman Pontiff." If you"re not a Catholic you can"t go to heaven they said.
There was a Pope Leo XIII, "Satis Cognitum", 1896: "Let such as these take counsel with themselves and realize that they can in no wise be counted among the children of God unless they take Christ Jesus as their brother and at the same time the church, that is the church of Rome, as their mother." Jesus as your brother and the Roman Catholic Church as your mother. And if that is not the case, you"re not a child of God. John 1 says to all who believed Him, who believed in His name, to all who received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God. (Jn. 1:12)
1948. the Holy Office, "Cum Comperum" reminded Catholics of canonical prohibitions against unauthorized prohibition and so-called ecumenical meetings with non-Catholic Christians and in shared worship. They were warned against it in 1948, now all of the sudden it"s to be pursued in order to get people to become Catholic. That tells me something. At one time they were afraid of Catholics being lured away from the church by associating with other Christians; now they think the time is ripe to lure other Christians into the Roman Church.
The Second Vatican Council in 1964, Dogmatic Constitution of the Church: "Those who through no fault of their own do not know the gospel of Christ or His church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart and moved by grace tray in their actions to do His will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience, these too may attain eternal salvation." Which directly, of course, contradicts the earlier pronouncement Unum Sanctum.
Contradiction upon contradiction; things have devolved and changed. Yet the constitutional motto of the Roman Church is "Semper Idem" " "always the same". Well, it"s not; it"s changed, changed, and changed. What the Roman Catholic Church is today it became at the Council of Trent, basically, in the aftermath of the Reformation. We can document it from their own documents. Some Catholic scholars admit it. Yet in a way it is Semper Idem. Once they make another doctrine they can"t change it. There are two kinds of doctrines in the Roman Church:proxima fide and de fide You can change a proxima fide doctrine like making the mass from Latin into English, but a de fide doctrine " transubstantiation, purgatory, indulgence " they couldn't change that stuff.
And so looking at these contradictions, coming from a Catholic background on my mother"s side of the family, I have to ask some questions of my Catholic friends " sincere questions. Again, I"m not attacking you, it would be attacking my own family, indeed my own mother. I'm not attacking you, I'm simply trying to arrive at the truth. I'm only asking you questions that I once asked myself.
The Rock of the Church?
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The second question I would like to ask is this one: I was always told in Catholic schools and by my mother that Peter was "the rock". "Upon this rock I will build my church" from Matthew 16. (Mt. 16:18)
I was told that in English and, when I was a little boy, I was taught to read Latin. The Bible was the Vulgate, the only one read ritually; it was not studied. However, having learned to read the original Greek and Hebrew languages, I looked at the original meaning in the original languages. I would not call myself a Protestant, but remember Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, Cranmer and every one of the reformers, every one of the leaders of the Protestant Reformation was from the intelligentsia of the Roman Catholic priesthood. Everyone had been a Roman Catholic priest who went back and read the Scriptures in the original languages. I"m not defending Protestantism, I don't identify with it; I"m a Christian, but I"m just asking the question, "Is Peter the rock?"
I lived in Israel for many years and at the base of Mt. Herman there"s a place called "Banyas". In the Bible it was called "Caesarea Philippi" and it is there where Jesus said, "Upon this rock I will build My church". And I was told that He gave the keys and power to Peter. "Whatever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven". (Mt. 16:19)
I'd like to read directly from the Greek language what it says in the New Testament. Jesus spoke Aramaic, but when Matthew wrote it down on the testimony of the apostles who"d been eyewitnesses he wrote it in Greek. Or if it was written in another language it was quickly translated into Greek. We have one historical reference that Matthew might have been in Hebrew or the Hebrew dialect of Aramaic according to Haggis Sippus, but there"s no manuscript ever found. We have the Greek. And it is the translation of the Greek which the Roman Catholic church bases its doctrine that Peter is "the rock". Is that what it says?
Verse 18, and I"ll translate it word by word:
"Kago de" " "Also I" or "And also I"…
…"soi lego" " "to thee" or "to you say"…
…"hoti sy ei Petros" " "thou art Peter" or "you are Peter"…
…"kai" " "and"…
…"epi" " "around" or "on, but in the context it would mean "on", with that I agree…
…"taute te petra" " "on this rock"…
…"oikodomeso… (from where we get the word "oikos" " "house") …mou" " "I will build of Me"…
…"ten ekklesian" " "the church".
It would be built on Christ, not of Peter.
At Banyas " Caesarea Philippi, there"s a cascade with millions and millions of flat chips of stone washed out of the cascade. The Greek word "petros" " "Peter", "little Peters". There is a big boulder on which the temple of the Greek god Pan that had been there at one time had been built and the temple to Caesar Augustus, the deified emperor, had been built that Jesus was referring to where the house would be built. That is called a "petra". "You are one of these little chips of stone; upon this boulder I will build my church of Me."
When asked to explain this, Roman Catholic scholars say, "But Jesus was speaking Aramaic, or a language related to Hebrew. and because Peter was a male He had the use the masculine form 'petros', which is the word for 'a little rock' instead of 'petra' which is the word for 'a boulder"". I went to a pretty good university and a pretty good bible college and I'm told by people who are from Greece that my Greek is not bad so far as my understanding of its meaning. But I know people who are really, really fluent in Greek, they grew up speaking it and they"re experts in reading the Old Testament, the church fathers, and so forth, they are from Greece. I know people like this in Australia particularly, and they confirm what I say is right. And so if there"s any academic or a person with a degree in Greek saying what I say is right, what I say is what I was taught. Gender in Greek does not have to do with sex in any primary sense; it has to do with the way a word is used in the context of the sentence. It is not male and female as in sex, it"s male and female as in the way the word is used in the context.
Let us look 1 Corinthians 10:4…
and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ.
In Greek it says, "de he petra en ho Christos". "Petra". Christ Himself who was a male is referred to in the feminine. The idea that they changed the gender because Peter was a male is ridiculous. That is not how Greek grammar works. I don't believe St. Paul made a mistake, nor did the Holy Spirit when He inspired St. Paul to write Corinthians. "The rock" is Christ and it"s called "petra". What does it say in Matthew 16? "You are "petros" and upon the "petra" I will build My church." You cannot use a little chip of stone the size of your thumb as the foundation for a building; you cannot use a "petros" as the foundation for a building; you can only use a "petra". If you"ve been to Caesarea Philippi you would see it makes no logical sense. If you know Greek you would see it makes no logical sense.
But there's more. In 1 Corinthians 3:11 we read something else.
For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man"s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man"s work. If any man"s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man"s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.
If anyone " if anyone " builds on the foundation of something else " gold, silver, precious stones, etc., it"ll be manifested on the day of the Lord; it will be revealed with fire; it won't stand. The only foundation we can build on is Christ, not Peter. Was St. Paul wrong? For that matter, were the early Roman Catholic popes and councils wrong? Or were the later ones wrong who said that Peter is "the rock" instead of Christ even though the New Testament says the opposite, and even though their early popes said the opposite?
The Roman Catholic Church claims that its doctrines are not only "apostolic", but "patristic" " they come from the church fathers. I do not believe in the doctrinal authority of the church fathers. I do not believe the "apostolic" necessarily equals the "patristic". However, even if I did, of the church fathers the Roman Catholic church looks to as a way to define what the apostles believed, most of the church fathers said that "the rock" was Christ, not Peter. A minority of them said "the rock" was the faith of Peter. Most say "the rock" was Christ, a few said "the rock" was Peter"s faith. None " not even one of their own church fathers " not only one of your church fathers has ever said that "the rock" was Peter,
Given the fact that you cannot use a chip of stone the size of your thumb " a flat chip of stone the size of your thumb " as the foundation for a building, given the fact that the original language says "You are the "chip of stone" and upon "the boulder" I will build My church", given the fact as St. Paul says we can build on no foundation other than Christ Himself, and given the fact of the New Testament says that Christis "the rock" " "petra", "the boulder", and given the fact that none of your own church fathers of the Roman Church believed that "the rock" was Peter, why do you? Why do you believe something which is practically, historically, biblically, patristically unfounded? And in fact, having been to Caesarea Philippi so many times, I have to say asbsurd. Why, in the early centuries, did no one believe it? Popes were fired " sacked by church councils. That is the question.
My mother has the view that many people would have " Irish, Catholic, British, Protestant. I just got back from Ireland a few days ago and I"ve studied Irish history at some length. I was astounded to discover that most of the founders of Irish Republicanism, originally called "The Home Rule Movement" " Isaac Butt, Theobold, Napper Tandy, Charles Parnell, Wolfe-Tone " every one of them was a Protestant. "The Irish patriots like Jonathan Swift, the author of Gulliver's Travels, was a Protestant. It was only later identified with Catholicism in the times of Daniel O'Connor and so forth. But I was more astounded to learn how the "English", quote/unquote, first got involved in Ireland. There was a non-English king, an ethnic Norman. He was not Anglo-Saxon, he was a French Viking. Henry II was threatened with excommunication by Pope Adrian IV if he would not invade Ireland and put an end to the local Celtic church in Ireland, and force them to acquiesce to Rome and the papacy. How did the English first become involved in invading and occupying Ireland? The pope sent them.
The term is "revisionism". I"m no admirer of Voltaire"s values, but he was a talented writer. And he was right about one thing: "History is the lie everybody agrees on". When you read what really happened you get a different picture. But the problem I have in speaking to my very Catholic mother is her Catholic identity is part and parcel of her Irish identity and can't see beyond it. There is a historical prejudice that's emotionally charged. It would be family disloyalty. Jesus said, "He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me". (Mt. 10:37) Do I love my mother? Yes, but I love God first and I want them to know the truth.
When I looked for the truth I found that "the rock" was and is Christ, not Peter, not only according to the New Testament but according to Roman Catholic history itself, That's my second question: Why do you believe Peter is "the rock" when the New Testament and your own church fathers and just the practical circumstances of trying to build a house on a chip of stone all dictate he could not possibly be?
Popes have been warlords. They ordered nations to go to war with each other. They"ve been homosexuals, they"ve had illegitimate children. The banking families of Europe would vie to get their man into the papacy " the Borgia popes, the Medici family. Sometimes there would be two or three people claiming to be pope and the one that had the biggest military backing, usually from France, would declare the others to be antipopes. Well, I'll leave that to others to sort out. The only question I'm asking you is how can Peter be "the rock"?
And even if he was "the rock", where does it say that Peter was empowered to pass that position on to others? If Peter was the first pope, why is it in the book of Acts 15 at the first council of the church that James presided, not Peter? James says, "Brethren, listen to Peter"? No, "Listen to me". (Acts 15:13) And he does not rule by decree. He says, "It seems good to the Holy Spirit and to us". (Acts 15:28) It was a collective decision by all the apostles, it was not the pope speaking autocratically ex cathedra. Why was James presiding and doing all the talking if Peter was the pope? It"s a fair question.
Why did St. Paul rebuke Peter in the presence of all in the book of Galatians? (Gal. 2:11-14) When is the last time you saw a bishop or a cardinal or a priest standing up in public and face-to-face challenging the pope and telling him off for being a hypocrite or behaving hypocritically? I've seen them kneel down and kiss his ring, but I've never seen any of them tell him off. You don't talk that way to the pope. If Peter was the pope, why did Paul talk to him that way? Fair question? Why did James preside if Peter was the pope?
Even in its earlier centuries the Roman Church didn't believe that. Now of course I would argue that the Roman Catholic Church did not exist as such until the 4th Century, but we"ll put that aside. The question I'm asking is in light of the evidence " biblical, patristic, and historical and practical, how can you possibly believe Peter is "the rock" when the Bible says "the rock" is Christ and we can build on no other foundation?
I was told that in English and, when I was a little boy, I was taught to read Latin. The Bible was the Vulgate, the only one read ritually; it was not studied. However, having learned to read the original Greek and Hebrew languages, I looked at the original meaning in the original languages. I would not call myself a Protestant, but remember Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, Cranmer and every one of the reformers, every one of the leaders of the Protestant Reformation was from the intelligentsia of the Roman Catholic priesthood. Everyone had been a Roman Catholic priest who went back and read the Scriptures in the original languages. I"m not defending Protestantism, I don't identify with it; I"m a Christian, but I"m just asking the question, "Is Peter the rock?"
I lived in Israel for many years and at the base of Mt. Herman there"s a place called "Banyas". In the Bible it was called "Caesarea Philippi" and it is there where Jesus said, "Upon this rock I will build My church". And I was told that He gave the keys and power to Peter. "Whatever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven". (Mt. 16:19)
I'd like to read directly from the Greek language what it says in the New Testament. Jesus spoke Aramaic, but when Matthew wrote it down on the testimony of the apostles who"d been eyewitnesses he wrote it in Greek. Or if it was written in another language it was quickly translated into Greek. We have one historical reference that Matthew might have been in Hebrew or the Hebrew dialect of Aramaic according to Haggis Sippus, but there"s no manuscript ever found. We have the Greek. And it is the translation of the Greek which the Roman Catholic church bases its doctrine that Peter is "the rock". Is that what it says?
Verse 18, and I"ll translate it word by word:
"Kago de" " "Also I" or "And also I"…
…"soi lego" " "to thee" or "to you say"…
…"hoti sy ei Petros" " "thou art Peter" or "you are Peter"…
…"kai" " "and"…
…"epi" " "around" or "on, but in the context it would mean "on", with that I agree…
…"taute te petra" " "on this rock"…
…"oikodomeso… (from where we get the word "oikos" " "house") …mou" " "I will build of Me"…
…"ten ekklesian" " "the church".
It would be built on Christ, not of Peter.
At Banyas " Caesarea Philippi, there"s a cascade with millions and millions of flat chips of stone washed out of the cascade. The Greek word "petros" " "Peter", "little Peters". There is a big boulder on which the temple of the Greek god Pan that had been there at one time had been built and the temple to Caesar Augustus, the deified emperor, had been built that Jesus was referring to where the house would be built. That is called a "petra". "You are one of these little chips of stone; upon this boulder I will build my church of Me."
When asked to explain this, Roman Catholic scholars say, "But Jesus was speaking Aramaic, or a language related to Hebrew. and because Peter was a male He had the use the masculine form 'petros', which is the word for 'a little rock' instead of 'petra' which is the word for 'a boulder"". I went to a pretty good university and a pretty good bible college and I'm told by people who are from Greece that my Greek is not bad so far as my understanding of its meaning. But I know people who are really, really fluent in Greek, they grew up speaking it and they"re experts in reading the Old Testament, the church fathers, and so forth, they are from Greece. I know people like this in Australia particularly, and they confirm what I say is right. And so if there"s any academic or a person with a degree in Greek saying what I say is right, what I say is what I was taught. Gender in Greek does not have to do with sex in any primary sense; it has to do with the way a word is used in the context of the sentence. It is not male and female as in sex, it"s male and female as in the way the word is used in the context.
Let us look 1 Corinthians 10:4…
and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ.
In Greek it says, "de he petra en ho Christos". "Petra". Christ Himself who was a male is referred to in the feminine. The idea that they changed the gender because Peter was a male is ridiculous. That is not how Greek grammar works. I don't believe St. Paul made a mistake, nor did the Holy Spirit when He inspired St. Paul to write Corinthians. "The rock" is Christ and it"s called "petra". What does it say in Matthew 16? "You are "petros" and upon the "petra" I will build My church." You cannot use a little chip of stone the size of your thumb as the foundation for a building; you cannot use a "petros" as the foundation for a building; you can only use a "petra". If you"ve been to Caesarea Philippi you would see it makes no logical sense. If you know Greek you would see it makes no logical sense.
But there's more. In 1 Corinthians 3:11 we read something else.
For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man"s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man"s work. If any man"s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man"s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.
If anyone " if anyone " builds on the foundation of something else " gold, silver, precious stones, etc., it"ll be manifested on the day of the Lord; it will be revealed with fire; it won't stand. The only foundation we can build on is Christ, not Peter. Was St. Paul wrong? For that matter, were the early Roman Catholic popes and councils wrong? Or were the later ones wrong who said that Peter is "the rock" instead of Christ even though the New Testament says the opposite, and even though their early popes said the opposite?
The Roman Catholic Church claims that its doctrines are not only "apostolic", but "patristic" " they come from the church fathers. I do not believe in the doctrinal authority of the church fathers. I do not believe the "apostolic" necessarily equals the "patristic". However, even if I did, of the church fathers the Roman Catholic church looks to as a way to define what the apostles believed, most of the church fathers said that "the rock" was Christ, not Peter. A minority of them said "the rock" was the faith of Peter. Most say "the rock" was Christ, a few said "the rock" was Peter"s faith. None " not even one of their own church fathers " not only one of your church fathers has ever said that "the rock" was Peter,
Given the fact that you cannot use a chip of stone the size of your thumb " a flat chip of stone the size of your thumb " as the foundation for a building, given the fact that the original language says "You are the "chip of stone" and upon "the boulder" I will build My church", given the fact as St. Paul says we can build on no foundation other than Christ Himself, and given the fact of the New Testament says that Christis "the rock" " "petra", "the boulder", and given the fact that none of your own church fathers of the Roman Church believed that "the rock" was Peter, why do you? Why do you believe something which is practically, historically, biblically, patristically unfounded? And in fact, having been to Caesarea Philippi so many times, I have to say asbsurd. Why, in the early centuries, did no one believe it? Popes were fired " sacked by church councils. That is the question.
My mother has the view that many people would have " Irish, Catholic, British, Protestant. I just got back from Ireland a few days ago and I"ve studied Irish history at some length. I was astounded to discover that most of the founders of Irish Republicanism, originally called "The Home Rule Movement" " Isaac Butt, Theobold, Napper Tandy, Charles Parnell, Wolfe-Tone " every one of them was a Protestant. "The Irish patriots like Jonathan Swift, the author of Gulliver's Travels, was a Protestant. It was only later identified with Catholicism in the times of Daniel O'Connor and so forth. But I was more astounded to learn how the "English", quote/unquote, first got involved in Ireland. There was a non-English king, an ethnic Norman. He was not Anglo-Saxon, he was a French Viking. Henry II was threatened with excommunication by Pope Adrian IV if he would not invade Ireland and put an end to the local Celtic church in Ireland, and force them to acquiesce to Rome and the papacy. How did the English first become involved in invading and occupying Ireland? The pope sent them.
The term is "revisionism". I"m no admirer of Voltaire"s values, but he was a talented writer. And he was right about one thing: "History is the lie everybody agrees on". When you read what really happened you get a different picture. But the problem I have in speaking to my very Catholic mother is her Catholic identity is part and parcel of her Irish identity and can't see beyond it. There is a historical prejudice that's emotionally charged. It would be family disloyalty. Jesus said, "He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me". (Mt. 10:37) Do I love my mother? Yes, but I love God first and I want them to know the truth.
When I looked for the truth I found that "the rock" was and is Christ, not Peter, not only according to the New Testament but according to Roman Catholic history itself, That's my second question: Why do you believe Peter is "the rock" when the New Testament and your own church fathers and just the practical circumstances of trying to build a house on a chip of stone all dictate he could not possibly be?
Popes have been warlords. They ordered nations to go to war with each other. They"ve been homosexuals, they"ve had illegitimate children. The banking families of Europe would vie to get their man into the papacy " the Borgia popes, the Medici family. Sometimes there would be two or three people claiming to be pope and the one that had the biggest military backing, usually from France, would declare the others to be antipopes. Well, I'll leave that to others to sort out. The only question I'm asking you is how can Peter be "the rock"?
And even if he was "the rock", where does it say that Peter was empowered to pass that position on to others? If Peter was the first pope, why is it in the book of Acts 15 at the first council of the church that James presided, not Peter? James says, "Brethren, listen to Peter"? No, "Listen to me". (Acts 15:13) And he does not rule by decree. He says, "It seems good to the Holy Spirit and to us". (Acts 15:28) It was a collective decision by all the apostles, it was not the pope speaking autocratically ex cathedra. Why was James presiding and doing all the talking if Peter was the pope? It"s a fair question.
Why did St. Paul rebuke Peter in the presence of all in the book of Galatians? (Gal. 2:11-14) When is the last time you saw a bishop or a cardinal or a priest standing up in public and face-to-face challenging the pope and telling him off for being a hypocrite or behaving hypocritically? I've seen them kneel down and kiss his ring, but I've never seen any of them tell him off. You don't talk that way to the pope. If Peter was the pope, why did Paul talk to him that way? Fair question? Why did James preside if Peter was the pope?
Even in its earlier centuries the Roman Church didn't believe that. Now of course I would argue that the Roman Catholic Church did not exist as such until the 4th Century, but we"ll put that aside. The question I'm asking is in light of the evidence " biblical, patristic, and historical and practical, how can you possibly believe Peter is "the rock" when the Bible says "the rock" is Christ and we can build on no other foundation?
The Eucharist
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But I have yet another question.
In the Gospel of St. John 6 I've heard it quoted, quoted, quoted, and re-quoted as applying to the Eucharist. We read the following, I"m beginning in verse 47…
"Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life.
Notice St. John, quoting Jesus, says that Jesus said if you believe in Jesus you have eternal life. "He who believes in the Son has eternal life, he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God rests upon him." " the Gospel of St. John 3:36 in the Roman Catholic Bible. Jesus said, "If a man believes in Me though he die yet shall He live for he"s passed from death to life" " the Gospel of St. John 5:24according to the Roman Catholic Bible. Belief is the key to eternal life.
"I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.
Jesus is saying that the manna that fell in the wilderness in the book of Exodus is a symbol of Him. It is the type, He is the antitype.
Now I am told that this refers to communion, the Lord's Supper at the Eucharist. The Lord"s Supper " the Eucharist, comes of the Jewish Passover. The Last Supper was a Jewish Passover meal called a "seder". But Jews had to celebrate the Passover in Jerusalem at Passover time; this was not at Passover and it was not in Jerusalem. Whatever applies to the Lord"s Supper does not apply in the direct sense because it's not the Last Supper. It's the wrong time of year, it"s the wrong place. It is, first of all, talking about how the Exodus was a symbol of Jesus " the manna.
"I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh."
He would give His flesh for the life of the world.
Then the Jews…
…that means the Judeans, not all Jews but the religious establishment,,,
…began to argue with one another, saying, "How can this man give us His flesh to eat?"
Those influenced by the Pharisees would have had this argument.
So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me. This is the bread which came down out of heaven; not as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live forever."
Unless you eat His flesh and drink His blood you cannot live.
I'm told this is the Eucharist and it is the key to eternal life. That's what I was taught in Catholic school. The context, however, going all the way back to verse 32 is the Exodus. No fewer than three places Jesus says in the same passage that the key " the key " to eternal life is belief. But I am told the bread and wine was transubstantiated, turned into His literal body and blood and then eaten. How do I account for this? Well, the first problem I had as a Catholic looking at this was this: Just reading on…
These things…
…in verse 59…
…He said in the synagogue as He taught in Capernaum"…
…not at the Last Supper in Jerusalem when the Lord"s Supper communion was instituted.
Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this said, "This is a difficult statement; who can listen to it?" But Jesus, conscious that His disciples grumbled at this, said to them, "Does this cause you to stumble? What then if you see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before? "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing…
How can eating His flesh be the key to eternal life if "the flesh profits nothing"? "Eating the flesh" meant believing His words. I will prove it.
We have to read this as a literary unit, as a "gospel". In John 1 of this same gospel St. John writes that "the Word became flesh" (Jn. 1:14) " the Greek word "sarx". "Logos" became "sarx". Jesus is the Word of God incarnate.
Look at the New Testament, first of all in the book of Revelation 10:10. This Same St. John, the same apostle who wrote this in the Apocalypse, says…
I took the little book out of the angel"s hand and ate it…
Belief equals eating the Word of God; you make it part of yourself. He was the Word incarnate, it becomes incarnate within us, it becomes part of us. He ate the Word.
Let"s look at the book of the Hebrew prophet Ezekiel 3…
Then He said to me, "Son of man…
…just as Jesus is called "Son of Man"…
…eat what you find; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel." So I opened my mouth, and He fed me this scroll.
So he ate the Word of God.
The Hebrew prophet Jeremiah said the following in 15:16…
Your words were found and I ate them…
The Word becomes flesh. You "eat" the Word by believing it. "He who believes has eternal life". Jesus says in John 6, the flesh profits nothing. How could it possibly be the key to eternal life? You have three problems; that's what I discovered as a Catholic.
The first problem was on one hand I was being told that the sacrament of the Eucharist was the key to eternal life, but the catechism told me salvation comes by the sacraments of baptism and penance " that"s how sin is taken away. It contradicts itself. Which sacrament saves? Now in fact by reading the Bible I came to realize no sacrament saves " Jesus saves. It's not an ex opere operato ritual called a "sacrament". The sacraments are emblems; it"s believing in Him through faith and repentance. That is the first problem. How can the Eucharist be the key to eternal life if your own catechism says it"s other sacraments?
The second problem: Once more, in the first church council of the book of Acts of the Apostles chapter 15, the apostles, including Peter,outlawed the consumption of blood as a pagan demonic practice. Cannibalism was outlawed as pagan and demonic. Christians were told not to do it. If it is literal blood, you can"t drink it. The apostles were told by the Holy Spirit to forbid its consumption. "The flesh profits nothing". That"s the second problem.
The third problem is, again, Jesus was a Jew. This had to be celebrated at Passover in Jerusalem. What He would have said, the Hebrew prayer, would have been, "Za guphe sha ani ashbar b"ad"chem zot asu l"zichroni; ha"cos ha"zot he ha"brit ha"had asch zot asu l"zichroni." "This is my body I"ve broken for you, this cup is the cup of the new covenant of my blood poured out for you, do it in remembrance of Me." (Lk. 22:17-20) The apostles and Jesus were Jewish; they understood it would have been a memorial if they understood what it meant at all. Obviously the Sanhedrin and the people they influenced did not. It"s a memorial. "Do this in remembrance of Me". Consumption of blood was a pagan practice, not a Jewish one.
That is my question. If your own catechism says salvation comes by baptism and penance, how can it come by the Eucharist? If the flesh profits nothing, how can it be talking about literal flesh, given the fact that the apostles condemned its literal consumption? The doctrine of transubstantiation was formulated in its present form in the Middle Ages by Thomas Aquinas based on Aristotle"s "philosophy of accidents" which was debunked by modern science, chemistry, and physics. I won't go into that now, but that is my question. If the flesh profits nothing, if Jesus said the key is belief " eating His flesh is believing the Word, if the consumption of blood was outlawed, how can it be what I was told as a Catholic and what you were told? It can't possibly be if you"re not allowed to consume blood and the flesh profits nothing. Please answer my question. I've yet to find a priest who can, maybe you can.
In the Gospel of St. John 6 I've heard it quoted, quoted, quoted, and re-quoted as applying to the Eucharist. We read the following, I"m beginning in verse 47…
"Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life.
Notice St. John, quoting Jesus, says that Jesus said if you believe in Jesus you have eternal life. "He who believes in the Son has eternal life, he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God rests upon him." " the Gospel of St. John 3:36 in the Roman Catholic Bible. Jesus said, "If a man believes in Me though he die yet shall He live for he"s passed from death to life" " the Gospel of St. John 5:24according to the Roman Catholic Bible. Belief is the key to eternal life.
"I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.
Jesus is saying that the manna that fell in the wilderness in the book of Exodus is a symbol of Him. It is the type, He is the antitype.
Now I am told that this refers to communion, the Lord's Supper at the Eucharist. The Lord"s Supper " the Eucharist, comes of the Jewish Passover. The Last Supper was a Jewish Passover meal called a "seder". But Jews had to celebrate the Passover in Jerusalem at Passover time; this was not at Passover and it was not in Jerusalem. Whatever applies to the Lord"s Supper does not apply in the direct sense because it's not the Last Supper. It's the wrong time of year, it"s the wrong place. It is, first of all, talking about how the Exodus was a symbol of Jesus " the manna.
"I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh."
He would give His flesh for the life of the world.
Then the Jews…
…that means the Judeans, not all Jews but the religious establishment,,,
…began to argue with one another, saying, "How can this man give us His flesh to eat?"
Those influenced by the Pharisees would have had this argument.
So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me. This is the bread which came down out of heaven; not as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live forever."
Unless you eat His flesh and drink His blood you cannot live.
I'm told this is the Eucharist and it is the key to eternal life. That's what I was taught in Catholic school. The context, however, going all the way back to verse 32 is the Exodus. No fewer than three places Jesus says in the same passage that the key " the key " to eternal life is belief. But I am told the bread and wine was transubstantiated, turned into His literal body and blood and then eaten. How do I account for this? Well, the first problem I had as a Catholic looking at this was this: Just reading on…
These things…
…in verse 59…
…He said in the synagogue as He taught in Capernaum"…
…not at the Last Supper in Jerusalem when the Lord"s Supper communion was instituted.
Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this said, "This is a difficult statement; who can listen to it?" But Jesus, conscious that His disciples grumbled at this, said to them, "Does this cause you to stumble? What then if you see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before? "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing…
How can eating His flesh be the key to eternal life if "the flesh profits nothing"? "Eating the flesh" meant believing His words. I will prove it.
We have to read this as a literary unit, as a "gospel". In John 1 of this same gospel St. John writes that "the Word became flesh" (Jn. 1:14) " the Greek word "sarx". "Logos" became "sarx". Jesus is the Word of God incarnate.
Look at the New Testament, first of all in the book of Revelation 10:10. This Same St. John, the same apostle who wrote this in the Apocalypse, says…
I took the little book out of the angel"s hand and ate it…
Belief equals eating the Word of God; you make it part of yourself. He was the Word incarnate, it becomes incarnate within us, it becomes part of us. He ate the Word.
Let"s look at the book of the Hebrew prophet Ezekiel 3…
Then He said to me, "Son of man…
…just as Jesus is called "Son of Man"…
…eat what you find; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel." So I opened my mouth, and He fed me this scroll.
So he ate the Word of God.
The Hebrew prophet Jeremiah said the following in 15:16…
Your words were found and I ate them…
The Word becomes flesh. You "eat" the Word by believing it. "He who believes has eternal life". Jesus says in John 6, the flesh profits nothing. How could it possibly be the key to eternal life? You have three problems; that's what I discovered as a Catholic.
The first problem was on one hand I was being told that the sacrament of the Eucharist was the key to eternal life, but the catechism told me salvation comes by the sacraments of baptism and penance " that"s how sin is taken away. It contradicts itself. Which sacrament saves? Now in fact by reading the Bible I came to realize no sacrament saves " Jesus saves. It's not an ex opere operato ritual called a "sacrament". The sacraments are emblems; it"s believing in Him through faith and repentance. That is the first problem. How can the Eucharist be the key to eternal life if your own catechism says it"s other sacraments?
The second problem: Once more, in the first church council of the book of Acts of the Apostles chapter 15, the apostles, including Peter,outlawed the consumption of blood as a pagan demonic practice. Cannibalism was outlawed as pagan and demonic. Christians were told not to do it. If it is literal blood, you can"t drink it. The apostles were told by the Holy Spirit to forbid its consumption. "The flesh profits nothing". That"s the second problem.
The third problem is, again, Jesus was a Jew. This had to be celebrated at Passover in Jerusalem. What He would have said, the Hebrew prayer, would have been, "Za guphe sha ani ashbar b"ad"chem zot asu l"zichroni; ha"cos ha"zot he ha"brit ha"had asch zot asu l"zichroni." "This is my body I"ve broken for you, this cup is the cup of the new covenant of my blood poured out for you, do it in remembrance of Me." (Lk. 22:17-20) The apostles and Jesus were Jewish; they understood it would have been a memorial if they understood what it meant at all. Obviously the Sanhedrin and the people they influenced did not. It"s a memorial. "Do this in remembrance of Me". Consumption of blood was a pagan practice, not a Jewish one.
That is my question. If your own catechism says salvation comes by baptism and penance, how can it come by the Eucharist? If the flesh profits nothing, how can it be talking about literal flesh, given the fact that the apostles condemned its literal consumption? The doctrine of transubstantiation was formulated in its present form in the Middle Ages by Thomas Aquinas based on Aristotle"s "philosophy of accidents" which was debunked by modern science, chemistry, and physics. I won't go into that now, but that is my question. If the flesh profits nothing, if Jesus said the key is belief " eating His flesh is believing the Word, if the consumption of blood was outlawed, how can it be what I was told as a Catholic and what you were told? It can't possibly be if you"re not allowed to consume blood and the flesh profits nothing. Please answer my question. I've yet to find a priest who can, maybe you can.
How Can You Reject Jesus?
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The first question I would like to ask you is this: There are two reasons most Jewish people I know " neighbors, friends, family " two reasons most I know reject any idea of Jesus being the Jewish Messiah. Those reasons are always "anti-Semitism" and "Why, if He was the Messiah, did He not bring in worldwide peace?" Therefore He could not be the Messiah. Let's begin with the most sensitive of issues, anti-Semitism.
I had an uncle who was in a German camp. He was a prisoner of war. The Nazis were going to kill Him. He was rescued by the Russians at the last moment as my wife's father was rescued by the Russians at the last moment as he was against the wall about to be shot. The Germans were trying to kill as many Jews as they could before they evacuated, before the retreat in the face of the oncoming invasion. My wife is the daughter of Holocaust survivors. Most of her family were murdered. And, of course, they were murdered in the name of Jesus Christ. The remaining orthodox church, the Roman Catholic Church and most of the Lutheran church in Germany collaborated with the Nazis. Hitler quoted Luther at length. It was not just Catholics, it was Protestants. How can I believe that the person in whose name one Inquisition after another, one pogrom after another, and ultimately the Holocaust should be even considered as a possible candidate to be the Jewish Messiah, when in His name nothing but genocidal extermination and persecution has come to Israel and the Jews? That"s the question I asked myself, but this is the question I would like to ask you.
If you were to read the Tanak, "Yirmayah Ha"nabiy" " Jeremiah the Prophet was arrested and thrown into a cistern. (Jer. 38:6) He pointed people to the Law, the Torah. He warned them of impending doom and judgment and God's anger with them because of idolatry and immorality. And like most of the other prophets he was persecuted. But he was not persecuted in the name of Ba"al; he was not persecuted in the name of Molech. Most of the Hebrew prophets who were persecuted or murdered by their own people were murdered in the name of Yahweh and Moses. They were accused of speaking against the Torah and Moses when they said that God's judgment was going to come upon Jerusalem.
I recall several years ago when an Orthodox Jew wearing a yarmulke drew a pistol in north Tel Aviv and fired bullets directly into the back of the Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. He did this in the name of Judaism; he did this in the name of the Torah; he did this in the name of Yahweh; he did this in the name of Moses " "Moshe Rabbeinu". An Orthodox Jew assassinated Yitzhak Rabin, gunned him down, murdered his own prime minister in the name of Moses and Judaism. Can I reject Moses and Judaism because somebody assassinated Yitzhak Rabin in his name? Can I reject Moses and Judaism because the prophets were persecuted and killed in their name?
Simon bar Kokhba came and was extolled as a hero. He was proclaimed to be the Messiah by Rabbi Akiva in the name of Moses and the Prophets. The Israeli general and archeologist, the first chief of staff of the Israeli military Ya"alon said something different. He described bar Kokhba as something of a brute tyrant who once kicked a 90-year-old rabbi in the head and killed him; a warlord, someone who"d been power-hungry. Some saw him that way, but Rabbi Akiva said he was the Messiah. And in the name of Moses and Judaism, Rabbi Akiva promised the Jewish people he was the Messiah and would bring them deliverance. At the battle of Betar, the worst holocaust in proportionate terms that has ever happened to Israel took place, (something in proportionate terms as bad as the Holocaust of the 1930"s and 40"s) only it happened in their own land. Because Rabbi Akiva proclaimed bar Kokhba to be the Messiah in the name of Moses and Judaism, can I reject Moses and Judaism? No, Rabbi Akiva did not bring peace to Israel and establish worldwide peace through his Messiah bar Kochba. Bar Kochba did not establish worldwide peace and bring peace to Israel even though in the name of Moses and Judaism they said he would.
If you"ve studied Judaism you know about Shabbetai. Most rabbis in major areas of Europe and North Africa, most in major areas and many others in a variety of areas, said he was the Messiah, but he was not a Messiah. In the end he led the people into what can best be described as something debaucherous and grossly disappointing. Yet it was in the name of Moses and the Prophets that the rabbis proclaimed Shabbetai Zevi to be the Messiah. Can I reject Moses and Judaism because the rabbis misled the Jewish people into following Shabbetai Zevi in the name of Moses and Judaism?
Two generations later the rabbis did it again and they said Jacob Frank was the Messiah on a wide scale. But Jacob Frank was not the Messiah, yet in the name of Moses and Judaism the rabbis said he was. And some very bad things happened to the Jewish people. There"ve been many people who the rabbis have said is the Messiah right up to the present age, and they always proclaimed them to be the Messiah in the name of Moses and Judaism. Murder and atrocity was committed in the name of Moses and Judaism. Genocidal persecution of the Jews resulted as a direct result of Rabbi Akiva"s action perpetrated in the name of Moses and Judaism.
On what basis can I reject Moses and Judaism because of what was done in the name of Moses? I cannot reject Moses and Judaism because of what was done in the name of Moses. I have to accept or reject Moses on the basis of what Moses said and did, not on the basis of what others said and did in his name. The issue is not what was done in the name of Moses, the issue is Moses. So then my question to you is, "On what basis can I reject Yeshua " Rabbi Yeshua bar Jozef m"Netseret, whom the Gentiles call 'Jesus of Nazareth' " on what basis can I dismiss Him and reject Him?" On the basis of what was done in His name to the Jewish people and to others? The issue is not what was done and said in His name by others, the issue is what did He say and do? The issue is not what Jesus is said to have said, the issue is not what others did generations and centuries after His public ministry in Israel, the issue is not what others said and did in His name. The issue is not that, the issue is He Himself.
I considered Moses apart from what was done in his name. Now you don't think of it, but goys " Gentiles will say much the same thing about you that you think about them. They have these myths of conspiracy theories and Jewish bankers and Jewish merchants and Jews trying to take over the medical profession and the academic institutions, making Jews the scapegoats for most of man"s faults and problems when in fact we all know there are both good Jews and bad Jews the same as there"s good Gentiles and bad Gentiles. But it"s easy just to say, "Oh, the Jews!", and it"s just as easy to say, "Oh, the Christians!" No real Jew would commit murder in the name of Judaism; no real Jew would persecute their own prophets in the name of Judaism; no real Christian would commit murder in the name of Christianity. no real Christians would murder God's own chosen people, the Jews, in the name of a Jewish faith. Christianity is a Jewish faith.
How can you reject Jesus on the basis of what was done in His name unless you reject Moses on the same grounds? I don't reject Moses for those reasons, it wouldn't be fair to Moses and it wouldn't be fair to myself. The issue is was Moses right? I hope you won"t reject Jesus on those grounds. It wouldn't be fair to Him and it wouldn't be fair to you. The issue is, "Was Yeshua right?" Not the Gentile "Jesus", not the Catholic or Protestant "Jesus", but the Jewish Jesus: Was He right?
By the 2nd Century the Jewish historian Max Dimont tells us that 25% of the Jews in Jerusalem believed he was the Messiah. The only reason Gentiles believe in Him is because Jews believed it first. The only reason there"s a New Testament is that Jews wrote it. Both those calling themselves Jews and those calling themselves Christians are the products of revisionism, a rewritten distortion of history. There is nothing Gentile about Jesus or His message except that He loves Gentiles and wanted to save them and wanted them to believe in the Jewish God and the Jewish way of salvation. That is all. "la"or goyim" " "a light to the Gentiles". (Is. 42:6).
That's my first question, my dear Jewish friend, how can you reject Jesus because of what was done in His name when the same things were done in the name of Moses and Judaism?
I had an uncle who was in a German camp. He was a prisoner of war. The Nazis were going to kill Him. He was rescued by the Russians at the last moment as my wife's father was rescued by the Russians at the last moment as he was against the wall about to be shot. The Germans were trying to kill as many Jews as they could before they evacuated, before the retreat in the face of the oncoming invasion. My wife is the daughter of Holocaust survivors. Most of her family were murdered. And, of course, they were murdered in the name of Jesus Christ. The remaining orthodox church, the Roman Catholic Church and most of the Lutheran church in Germany collaborated with the Nazis. Hitler quoted Luther at length. It was not just Catholics, it was Protestants. How can I believe that the person in whose name one Inquisition after another, one pogrom after another, and ultimately the Holocaust should be even considered as a possible candidate to be the Jewish Messiah, when in His name nothing but genocidal extermination and persecution has come to Israel and the Jews? That"s the question I asked myself, but this is the question I would like to ask you.
If you were to read the Tanak, "Yirmayah Ha"nabiy" " Jeremiah the Prophet was arrested and thrown into a cistern. (Jer. 38:6) He pointed people to the Law, the Torah. He warned them of impending doom and judgment and God's anger with them because of idolatry and immorality. And like most of the other prophets he was persecuted. But he was not persecuted in the name of Ba"al; he was not persecuted in the name of Molech. Most of the Hebrew prophets who were persecuted or murdered by their own people were murdered in the name of Yahweh and Moses. They were accused of speaking against the Torah and Moses when they said that God's judgment was going to come upon Jerusalem.
I recall several years ago when an Orthodox Jew wearing a yarmulke drew a pistol in north Tel Aviv and fired bullets directly into the back of the Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. He did this in the name of Judaism; he did this in the name of the Torah; he did this in the name of Yahweh; he did this in the name of Moses " "Moshe Rabbeinu". An Orthodox Jew assassinated Yitzhak Rabin, gunned him down, murdered his own prime minister in the name of Moses and Judaism. Can I reject Moses and Judaism because somebody assassinated Yitzhak Rabin in his name? Can I reject Moses and Judaism because the prophets were persecuted and killed in their name?
Simon bar Kokhba came and was extolled as a hero. He was proclaimed to be the Messiah by Rabbi Akiva in the name of Moses and the Prophets. The Israeli general and archeologist, the first chief of staff of the Israeli military Ya"alon said something different. He described bar Kokhba as something of a brute tyrant who once kicked a 90-year-old rabbi in the head and killed him; a warlord, someone who"d been power-hungry. Some saw him that way, but Rabbi Akiva said he was the Messiah. And in the name of Moses and Judaism, Rabbi Akiva promised the Jewish people he was the Messiah and would bring them deliverance. At the battle of Betar, the worst holocaust in proportionate terms that has ever happened to Israel took place, (something in proportionate terms as bad as the Holocaust of the 1930"s and 40"s) only it happened in their own land. Because Rabbi Akiva proclaimed bar Kokhba to be the Messiah in the name of Moses and Judaism, can I reject Moses and Judaism? No, Rabbi Akiva did not bring peace to Israel and establish worldwide peace through his Messiah bar Kochba. Bar Kochba did not establish worldwide peace and bring peace to Israel even though in the name of Moses and Judaism they said he would.
If you"ve studied Judaism you know about Shabbetai. Most rabbis in major areas of Europe and North Africa, most in major areas and many others in a variety of areas, said he was the Messiah, but he was not a Messiah. In the end he led the people into what can best be described as something debaucherous and grossly disappointing. Yet it was in the name of Moses and the Prophets that the rabbis proclaimed Shabbetai Zevi to be the Messiah. Can I reject Moses and Judaism because the rabbis misled the Jewish people into following Shabbetai Zevi in the name of Moses and Judaism?
Two generations later the rabbis did it again and they said Jacob Frank was the Messiah on a wide scale. But Jacob Frank was not the Messiah, yet in the name of Moses and Judaism the rabbis said he was. And some very bad things happened to the Jewish people. There"ve been many people who the rabbis have said is the Messiah right up to the present age, and they always proclaimed them to be the Messiah in the name of Moses and Judaism. Murder and atrocity was committed in the name of Moses and Judaism. Genocidal persecution of the Jews resulted as a direct result of Rabbi Akiva"s action perpetrated in the name of Moses and Judaism.
On what basis can I reject Moses and Judaism because of what was done in the name of Moses? I cannot reject Moses and Judaism because of what was done in the name of Moses. I have to accept or reject Moses on the basis of what Moses said and did, not on the basis of what others said and did in his name. The issue is not what was done in the name of Moses, the issue is Moses. So then my question to you is, "On what basis can I reject Yeshua " Rabbi Yeshua bar Jozef m"Netseret, whom the Gentiles call 'Jesus of Nazareth' " on what basis can I dismiss Him and reject Him?" On the basis of what was done in His name to the Jewish people and to others? The issue is not what was done and said in His name by others, the issue is what did He say and do? The issue is not what Jesus is said to have said, the issue is not what others did generations and centuries after His public ministry in Israel, the issue is not what others said and did in His name. The issue is not that, the issue is He Himself.
I considered Moses apart from what was done in his name. Now you don't think of it, but goys " Gentiles will say much the same thing about you that you think about them. They have these myths of conspiracy theories and Jewish bankers and Jewish merchants and Jews trying to take over the medical profession and the academic institutions, making Jews the scapegoats for most of man"s faults and problems when in fact we all know there are both good Jews and bad Jews the same as there"s good Gentiles and bad Gentiles. But it"s easy just to say, "Oh, the Jews!", and it"s just as easy to say, "Oh, the Christians!" No real Jew would commit murder in the name of Judaism; no real Jew would persecute their own prophets in the name of Judaism; no real Christian would commit murder in the name of Christianity. no real Christians would murder God's own chosen people, the Jews, in the name of a Jewish faith. Christianity is a Jewish faith.
How can you reject Jesus on the basis of what was done in His name unless you reject Moses on the same grounds? I don't reject Moses for those reasons, it wouldn't be fair to Moses and it wouldn't be fair to myself. The issue is was Moses right? I hope you won"t reject Jesus on those grounds. It wouldn't be fair to Him and it wouldn't be fair to you. The issue is, "Was Yeshua right?" Not the Gentile "Jesus", not the Catholic or Protestant "Jesus", but the Jewish Jesus: Was He right?
By the 2nd Century the Jewish historian Max Dimont tells us that 25% of the Jews in Jerusalem believed he was the Messiah. The only reason Gentiles believe in Him is because Jews believed it first. The only reason there"s a New Testament is that Jews wrote it. Both those calling themselves Jews and those calling themselves Christians are the products of revisionism, a rewritten distortion of history. There is nothing Gentile about Jesus or His message except that He loves Gentiles and wanted to save them and wanted them to believe in the Jewish God and the Jewish way of salvation. That is all. "la"or goyim" " "a light to the Gentiles". (Is. 42:6).
That's my first question, my dear Jewish friend, how can you reject Jesus because of what was done in His name when the same things were done in the name of Moses and Judaism?
How Can Jesus Be an Angel?
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And so I look at the Scriptures in the original languages. That is one of my questions. Having read The New World Translation and the diaglot, I had problems with what the original Greek manuscript said and the way certain things were translated. But let me begin with my first question.
I"m reading from the epistle to the Hebrews in chapter 1. Beginning in verse 5…
For to which of the angels did He ever say, "You are My Son, Today I have begotten You"? And again, "I will be a Father to Him And He shall be a Son to Me"? And when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says, "And let all the angels of God worship Him." And of the angels He says, "Who makes His angels winds, And His ministers a flame of fire." But of the Son He says, "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, And the righteous scepter is the scepter of His kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You With the oil of gladness above Your companions." And, "You, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, And the heavens are the works of Your hands; They will perish, but You remain; And they all will become old like a garment, And like a mantle You will roll them up; Like a garment they will also be changed. But You are the same, And Your years will not come to an end." But to which of the angels has He ever said, "Sit at My right hand, Until I make Your enemies A footstool for Your feet"? Are they not all ministering spirits, sent out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation?
I agree with the Jehovah's Witnesses that there are angels. But the Jehovah's Witnesses told me something that I researched: They said that Jesus was an angel. They identified Him with the angel Michael the Archangel. The idea that Jesus was an angel was something that began with someone called Arius of Alexandria in the early centuries of Christendom. And the Jehovah's Witnesses had this view that He was an angel, not God. They will say He is "a god".
Now there's a problem. "En arche kai ho logos". "In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God". (Jn 1:1) My Jehovah's Witness friends told me that in The New World Translation it says "a god"; the Word was "a god". But there is no indefinite article in the Greek language.
In the book of Isaiah Jehovah says, "I am God and there is no God other than Me". (Is. 45:5) If there"s no God other than Jehovah, and there is no indefinite article " "a god" " in the Greek language (and in that text it"s not there), how can Jesus only be "a god" if there"s only one God? That is the question. I"ve never been able to find somebody who could answer.
When I simply ask the question they say the word "trinity" is not in the Bible. But you know, my Jehovah's Witness friends would use words like "theocratic rule" and "millennial kingdom". Now I believe in a millennial kingdom, but the word "millennial kingdom" and "millennium" are not in the Bible. The doctrine of the millennium is in the Bible but the word isn"t. I don't understand why it is acceptable to use words not in the Bible for some things but not for others. Do I reject the millennial reign of Christ or a millennial rule because there's no word "millennium"? No, I don't. The question is not, "Is the word "millennium" in there?", the question is, "Is the doctrine, the teaching in there?" Well, it is. I agree with the Jehovah's Witnesses, there is a millennium.
Now I have an advantage a lot of people don"t have. The name of God they call "Jehovah", and they insist that is His personal name. But speaking Hebrew I was kind of startled how few Jehovah's Witnesses knew what it meant. In Hebrew it does not say "Jehovah", it says "Yehowah". Some people pronounce it "Yahweh". "Jehovah" is another word based on "Yehowah", but they didn't know where it came from. So I told them where it came from.
There was a hymn written by someone who was not a Jehovah"s Witness, Guide Me Now, O Great Jehovah. But the term came from Diaspora Jews in Europe. Jews considered the name of Yahweh ineffable " inutterable, for fear of taking it in vain. So they either referred to God as "the Name" " "Hashem" or they referred to God as "the Lord". When an Orthodox Jew reads the Old Testament, when it says "Yahweh" he says "Lord" " "Adonai". So what they did was they took the accents and syllables of "Adonai" " "Lord", and combined it with the word "Yehowah". "Yehowah Adonai Yehowah" " "Jehovah". That"s how they got it.
I met many Jehovah's Witnesses who would insist on believing these things " some of them true things " but they didn't know where they came from or what they meant. Well, I have no problem saying "Jehovah", but His name is "Yahweh". "Jehovah" is a made-up word combining "Yahweh" with "Adonai". However, to say that Jesus was only "a god" when there"s only one God, this brings a question. I was told He was an angel. My question is this: In verse 8 of Hebrews 1 it says…
… "Your throne, O God, is forever…
…and it quotes from Psalm 45:6-7…
Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; A scepter of uprightness is the scepter of Your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You With the oil of joy above Your fellows.
The Old Testament was written in Hebrew, and the word here for "God" is "God" " "Elohim". But the Lord has "anointed" somebody. That word "anointed" is where we get the word "Messiah" " "Mashiach" in Hebrew, translated to Greek, "Christo" " "Christ". And so the epistle of the Hebrews tells us that Psalm 45 is talking about the Anointed One, the Messiah " Christ. And I agree with it. It"s a good translation into Greek from Hebrew. And I just read you a good translation from Greek into English. This is my question: if Christ it's called God and there is only one God, and if Hebrews 1 makes it clear He was not just an angel but if Hebrews 1 by comparison says, "To which one of the angels did God ever say "Your throne, O God, is forever"", how can you say Jesus is simply an angel?
Hebrews 1 says, "Let the angels of God worship Jesus" in verse 6. Why would they worship Him if he was not God? The Greek word is "proskynesatosan", from the word "proskuto" " "worship". It"s not "obeisance", it is translated from the Hebrew "hishtachvaya" and there"s an accusative particle: They worship Him. Please answer me that question. How can He be an angel when Hebrews 1 says He's not and the angels worship Him? How can He only be "a god" when there's only one God? "I"m the Lord, your God, you"ll have no gods before Me". (Dt. 5:6-7)
Questions are always asked of me. I don't mind when people answer my questions with a question as long as they eventually give me the answer. But so far I haven't gotten one from a Jehovah's Witness and maybe you'll be the one who is able to give me the answer, Some of the questions they ask me is this: "Well, how could Jesus say His Father is greater than Him if He's God?" Now I"m happy to answer that question as long as you can answer mine.
In Philippians 2:8-11 we read about something that theologians would call "kinosis". In Philippians 2 we read how it can happen.
Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation…
…not "work for"…
… work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.
God becomes a man in the person of Jesus and therefore as a man He is less than His Father.
For instance, there"s an electrical company called "Robert Jones and Son". The father is a master electrician, his son began as his apprentice. They were both called "Robert Jones" " Robert Jones, Sr. and Robert Jones, Jr. They were both human beings. They were both males. They were both one in nature, but the senior was greater in position than the junior. They were co-equal in nature, they were both humans, they were both electricians, they were both men, but one was greater than the other in position. Based on Jesus becoming a man, being equal with God, but not saying it"s something we couldn't grasp, I have no problem saying His Father was greater than Him.
That is my answer to your question, the question that Jehovah's Witnesses always ask me. But please tell me your answer to my question: How can He be an angel if the angels worshipped Him? How can He be "a god" if there"s only one God and when the text "Your throne, O God, is forever" says He"s not an angel? Well, when I continue to ask for an answer, I"m usually told, "Well then who was Jesus praying to if He was God?" I"ll answer that question providing you and can answer my question.
In Hebrew the confession of faith is what Jesus said when they asked Him the greatest commandment. He said, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is oneness". (Mk. 12:29) "Sh"ma Yisra"el Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad". (Dt. 6:4) There is no Hebrew word for "water", only "waters" " "mayim"; there is no Hebrew word for "sky", only "skies" " "shamayim"; there is no Hebrew word for "God", only "Gods" " "Elohim", it is plural. You have an abbreviated form called "El", but it is simply a conjunctive or something used in in place of "Elohim" where it"s used in connection with other words. "Elohim" is plural. "Sh"ma Yisra"el Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad". "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our GODS is oneness". That's what it says. Does this say there is more than one God? No, He is "oneness" but the word is "echad", it"s a plural oneness. It is the same oneness when Adam and Eve become one flesh. (Gen. 2:24), you shall become "echad"; the two become one. And a third person is procreated, there is one in three, there is three in one. We are made in His image and likeness. Yes, there is one God but there is more than one person.
You're confused? When Stephen was martyred he saw Jesus at the right of the Father. (I don't pretend to be able to understand this any more than the Bible reveals it, but I understand it well enough to know it is true because that's what it says.) His Father is God and He is God. They are two different people yet one God. What makes me with my finite mind think I can understand God's own nature this side of eternity? The Scripture says one day we will know as we are fully known (1 Cor. 13:12), but right now I know well enough to know I have enough in the Bible to tell me that it is true. Who was He praying to? He was praying to His Father. His Father was God, yes, and how could He be God? Because He was. How could Robert Jones, Sr. and Robert Jones Jr. both be Robert Jones? One is greater in nature, greater in position? No, greater in position but not in nature. They"re co-equal in nature, different in position.
When I"m looking at a pregnant lady, an expectant mother, am I Iooking at one person or two people? They are metabolically integrated. I"m looking at both one person and two people. When a marriage is being consummated God says they become one flesh. In God's eyes am I looking at one person or two people? Well, biblically I"m looking at two people but I"m also looking at one person. The Bible says your wife's body is your own and so forth, (1 Cor. 7:4) and the husband"s body is the wife"s. We"re made in His image and likeness " it teaches something about Him; we"ll understand it when we see Him face to face, right now we see through a glass dimly (1 Cor. 13:12) but we know it is true.
That is my answer to your question, now I would like to hear your answer to my question. If the angel's worship Him and if it says, "To which of the angels did He say, "Let the others worship Him", if it says, "Your throne, O God is forever" and there"s only one God, if there"s no indefinite article in the Greek " the word was "a god" is not in any Greek manuscript and would make no sense in the Greek language " can you please explain to me how Jesus is not God and only an angel?
The Trinity, things like this, I'll be happy to talk to you about further " I'll be happy to answer your questions, but please answer mine. That"s my first question for my Jehovah's Witness friends. Please answer this question and we"ll talk further.
I"m reading from the epistle to the Hebrews in chapter 1. Beginning in verse 5…
For to which of the angels did He ever say, "You are My Son, Today I have begotten You"? And again, "I will be a Father to Him And He shall be a Son to Me"? And when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says, "And let all the angels of God worship Him." And of the angels He says, "Who makes His angels winds, And His ministers a flame of fire." But of the Son He says, "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, And the righteous scepter is the scepter of His kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You With the oil of gladness above Your companions." And, "You, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, And the heavens are the works of Your hands; They will perish, but You remain; And they all will become old like a garment, And like a mantle You will roll them up; Like a garment they will also be changed. But You are the same, And Your years will not come to an end." But to which of the angels has He ever said, "Sit at My right hand, Until I make Your enemies A footstool for Your feet"? Are they not all ministering spirits, sent out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation?
I agree with the Jehovah's Witnesses that there are angels. But the Jehovah's Witnesses told me something that I researched: They said that Jesus was an angel. They identified Him with the angel Michael the Archangel. The idea that Jesus was an angel was something that began with someone called Arius of Alexandria in the early centuries of Christendom. And the Jehovah's Witnesses had this view that He was an angel, not God. They will say He is "a god".
Now there's a problem. "En arche kai ho logos". "In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God". (Jn 1:1) My Jehovah's Witness friends told me that in The New World Translation it says "a god"; the Word was "a god". But there is no indefinite article in the Greek language.
In the book of Isaiah Jehovah says, "I am God and there is no God other than Me". (Is. 45:5) If there"s no God other than Jehovah, and there is no indefinite article " "a god" " in the Greek language (and in that text it"s not there), how can Jesus only be "a god" if there"s only one God? That is the question. I"ve never been able to find somebody who could answer.
When I simply ask the question they say the word "trinity" is not in the Bible. But you know, my Jehovah's Witness friends would use words like "theocratic rule" and "millennial kingdom". Now I believe in a millennial kingdom, but the word "millennial kingdom" and "millennium" are not in the Bible. The doctrine of the millennium is in the Bible but the word isn"t. I don't understand why it is acceptable to use words not in the Bible for some things but not for others. Do I reject the millennial reign of Christ or a millennial rule because there's no word "millennium"? No, I don't. The question is not, "Is the word "millennium" in there?", the question is, "Is the doctrine, the teaching in there?" Well, it is. I agree with the Jehovah's Witnesses, there is a millennium.
Now I have an advantage a lot of people don"t have. The name of God they call "Jehovah", and they insist that is His personal name. But speaking Hebrew I was kind of startled how few Jehovah's Witnesses knew what it meant. In Hebrew it does not say "Jehovah", it says "Yehowah". Some people pronounce it "Yahweh". "Jehovah" is another word based on "Yehowah", but they didn't know where it came from. So I told them where it came from.
There was a hymn written by someone who was not a Jehovah"s Witness, Guide Me Now, O Great Jehovah. But the term came from Diaspora Jews in Europe. Jews considered the name of Yahweh ineffable " inutterable, for fear of taking it in vain. So they either referred to God as "the Name" " "Hashem" or they referred to God as "the Lord". When an Orthodox Jew reads the Old Testament, when it says "Yahweh" he says "Lord" " "Adonai". So what they did was they took the accents and syllables of "Adonai" " "Lord", and combined it with the word "Yehowah". "Yehowah Adonai Yehowah" " "Jehovah". That"s how they got it.
I met many Jehovah's Witnesses who would insist on believing these things " some of them true things " but they didn't know where they came from or what they meant. Well, I have no problem saying "Jehovah", but His name is "Yahweh". "Jehovah" is a made-up word combining "Yahweh" with "Adonai". However, to say that Jesus was only "a god" when there"s only one God, this brings a question. I was told He was an angel. My question is this: In verse 8 of Hebrews 1 it says…
… "Your throne, O God, is forever…
…and it quotes from Psalm 45:6-7…
Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; A scepter of uprightness is the scepter of Your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You With the oil of joy above Your fellows.
The Old Testament was written in Hebrew, and the word here for "God" is "God" " "Elohim". But the Lord has "anointed" somebody. That word "anointed" is where we get the word "Messiah" " "Mashiach" in Hebrew, translated to Greek, "Christo" " "Christ". And so the epistle of the Hebrews tells us that Psalm 45 is talking about the Anointed One, the Messiah " Christ. And I agree with it. It"s a good translation into Greek from Hebrew. And I just read you a good translation from Greek into English. This is my question: if Christ it's called God and there is only one God, and if Hebrews 1 makes it clear He was not just an angel but if Hebrews 1 by comparison says, "To which one of the angels did God ever say "Your throne, O God, is forever"", how can you say Jesus is simply an angel?
Hebrews 1 says, "Let the angels of God worship Jesus" in verse 6. Why would they worship Him if he was not God? The Greek word is "proskynesatosan", from the word "proskuto" " "worship". It"s not "obeisance", it is translated from the Hebrew "hishtachvaya" and there"s an accusative particle: They worship Him. Please answer me that question. How can He be an angel when Hebrews 1 says He's not and the angels worship Him? How can He only be "a god" when there's only one God? "I"m the Lord, your God, you"ll have no gods before Me". (Dt. 5:6-7)
Questions are always asked of me. I don't mind when people answer my questions with a question as long as they eventually give me the answer. But so far I haven't gotten one from a Jehovah's Witness and maybe you'll be the one who is able to give me the answer, Some of the questions they ask me is this: "Well, how could Jesus say His Father is greater than Him if He's God?" Now I"m happy to answer that question as long as you can answer mine.
In Philippians 2:8-11 we read about something that theologians would call "kinosis". In Philippians 2 we read how it can happen.
Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation…
…not "work for"…
… work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.
God becomes a man in the person of Jesus and therefore as a man He is less than His Father.
For instance, there"s an electrical company called "Robert Jones and Son". The father is a master electrician, his son began as his apprentice. They were both called "Robert Jones" " Robert Jones, Sr. and Robert Jones, Jr. They were both human beings. They were both males. They were both one in nature, but the senior was greater in position than the junior. They were co-equal in nature, they were both humans, they were both electricians, they were both men, but one was greater than the other in position. Based on Jesus becoming a man, being equal with God, but not saying it"s something we couldn't grasp, I have no problem saying His Father was greater than Him.
That is my answer to your question, the question that Jehovah's Witnesses always ask me. But please tell me your answer to my question: How can He be an angel if the angels worshipped Him? How can He be "a god" if there"s only one God and when the text "Your throne, O God, is forever" says He"s not an angel? Well, when I continue to ask for an answer, I"m usually told, "Well then who was Jesus praying to if He was God?" I"ll answer that question providing you and can answer my question.
In Hebrew the confession of faith is what Jesus said when they asked Him the greatest commandment. He said, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is oneness". (Mk. 12:29) "Sh"ma Yisra"el Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad". (Dt. 6:4) There is no Hebrew word for "water", only "waters" " "mayim"; there is no Hebrew word for "sky", only "skies" " "shamayim"; there is no Hebrew word for "God", only "Gods" " "Elohim", it is plural. You have an abbreviated form called "El", but it is simply a conjunctive or something used in in place of "Elohim" where it"s used in connection with other words. "Elohim" is plural. "Sh"ma Yisra"el Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad". "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our GODS is oneness". That's what it says. Does this say there is more than one God? No, He is "oneness" but the word is "echad", it"s a plural oneness. It is the same oneness when Adam and Eve become one flesh. (Gen. 2:24), you shall become "echad"; the two become one. And a third person is procreated, there is one in three, there is three in one. We are made in His image and likeness. Yes, there is one God but there is more than one person.
You're confused? When Stephen was martyred he saw Jesus at the right of the Father. (I don't pretend to be able to understand this any more than the Bible reveals it, but I understand it well enough to know it is true because that's what it says.) His Father is God and He is God. They are two different people yet one God. What makes me with my finite mind think I can understand God's own nature this side of eternity? The Scripture says one day we will know as we are fully known (1 Cor. 13:12), but right now I know well enough to know I have enough in the Bible to tell me that it is true. Who was He praying to? He was praying to His Father. His Father was God, yes, and how could He be God? Because He was. How could Robert Jones, Sr. and Robert Jones Jr. both be Robert Jones? One is greater in nature, greater in position? No, greater in position but not in nature. They"re co-equal in nature, different in position.
When I"m looking at a pregnant lady, an expectant mother, am I Iooking at one person or two people? They are metabolically integrated. I"m looking at both one person and two people. When a marriage is being consummated God says they become one flesh. In God's eyes am I looking at one person or two people? Well, biblically I"m looking at two people but I"m also looking at one person. The Bible says your wife's body is your own and so forth, (1 Cor. 7:4) and the husband"s body is the wife"s. We"re made in His image and likeness " it teaches something about Him; we"ll understand it when we see Him face to face, right now we see through a glass dimly (1 Cor. 13:12) but we know it is true.
That is my answer to your question, now I would like to hear your answer to my question. If the angel's worship Him and if it says, "To which of the angels did He say, "Let the others worship Him", if it says, "Your throne, O God is forever" and there"s only one God, if there"s no indefinite article in the Greek " the word was "a god" is not in any Greek manuscript and would make no sense in the Greek language " can you please explain to me how Jesus is not God and only an angel?
The Trinity, things like this, I'll be happy to talk to you about further " I'll be happy to answer your questions, but please answer mine. That"s my first question for my Jehovah's Witness friends. Please answer this question and we"ll talk further.
False Prophets?
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My third question concerns prophecy. I"d like to read something from the book of Deuteronomy 18:20 €¦
"But the prophet who speaks a word presumptuously in My name which I have not commanded him to speak, or which he speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die." You may say in your heart, "How will we know the word which the Lord has not spoken?" When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not come about or come true, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him.
(Actually, "you shall not pay attention to him".) People who claim to speak for Jehovah and predict things in His name that don"t happen are false prophets.
I have a number of issues, back issues, going back to the 1950"s from the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society in Brooklyn, New York not 5 miles from where I was born, their headquarters Bethel. Published right there, I"ve passed that building many times with the big clock on it on the other side of the Manhattan Bridge. And I read in these back issues of Awake magazine and Watchtowers and it said all kinds of things: "The politicians who said World War I would bring in worldwide peace €“ it would be the war to end all wars €“ were false prophets, they shall die." Now of course those politicians didn't claim to be speaking for Jehovah directly, but The Watchtower says that they are still false prophets because they predicted things that didn't happen. If politicians who predict things that didn't happen are false prophets even though they didn't represent themselves as speaking for Jehovah, how much more is somebody who claims to be speaking for Him a false prophet.
And so the Awake magazines and the Watchtower magazines that I"ll happily send you a photocopy of it you write us or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. document.getElementById('cloak9fbb78d6ddb226671409a2f6eda55b5a').innerHTML = ''; var prefix = 'ma' + 'il' + 'to'; var path = 'hr' + 'ef' + '='; var addy9fbb78d6ddb226671409a2f6eda55b5a = 'MorielCarol' + '@'; addy9fbb78d6ddb226671409a2f6eda55b5a = addy9fbb78d6ddb226671409a2f6eda55b5a + 'yahoo' + '.' + 'com'; var addy_text9fbb78d6ddb226671409a2f6eda55b5a = 'contact us';document.getElementById('cloak9fbb78d6ddb226671409a2f6eda55b5a').innerHTML += ''+addy_text9fbb78d6ddb226671409a2f6eda55b5a+''; , says that various people in other religions, many of them calling themselves Christian, have done the same thing, predicted things that didn't happen and those who follow them are following false prophets and are in rebellion against Jehovah. So The Watchtower Society says if somebody predicts something that doesn"t happen, get away from them or you"re in rebellion against Jehovah; especially if they claim to be Christian or speaking in His name. And they have a whole list of incidents where it"s happened.
I agree with them. They are absolutely right. People who predict things in the name of Jehovah that don"t happen are false prophets. Jehovah commands and demands that we get away from and don't come anywhere near them and if we don't get away from such people we are in rebellion against Jehovah. That is what The Watchtower Society teaches, that is what the book of Deuteronomy 18 commands, and they are right.
This is my question: I have a copy right in my hand at the moment of something called The Millennial Dawn published by the Watchtowerpublishing company originally in 1889 but re-published since. It"s Volume 2, The Time Is At Hand. It goes back to Charles Taze Russell. It says the following €“ I"m reading from page 101 in the chapter called Times of the Gentiles.
"Be not surprised then when in subsequent chapters we present proofs that the setting up of the kingdom of God has already begun. And that is pointed out in the prophecy as due to begin, the exercise of power in A.D. 1878, and that the battle of the great day of God Almighty, Revelation 16:14, which will end in A.D. 1914 with the complete overthrow of the present rulership, is already commenced."
On the previous page 100 €¦
"So in this day of Jehovah, the day of trouble, our Lord takes His great power hitherto dormant and reigns, and this is that will cause trouble throughout the world and will not so recognize it for the time being. But by the end of 1914 they will recognize it. The present government of the world is going to be overthrown completely, and the kingdom established, the battle of the great day of the Lord. It will end in 1914, the battle of Armageddon."
Today Jehovah's Witnesses will tell you, "Oh, well Christ turned His attention to the world in 1914". But in 1889 they said He turned His attention to the world in 1878. I have it in your own literature. What you are now saying happened in 1914, your founder Mr. Russell said happened in 1878 €“ that"s when God turned His attention. And he prophesied, speaking in the name of Jehovah, claiming to be Jehovah"s spokesman, claiming that organization €“ your organization €“ is Jehovah"s organization, and said directly that the battle of Armageddon would end by the end of 1914 and the kingdom of this world would be overthrown and the millennium would have come.
Well, World War I was ugly and brutal, but it was not the battle of Armageddon. It didn't even take place in the Middle East and World War II was much worse. And some of that did take place in the Middle East. My question is if Jehovah forbids us to follow people who predict things in His name that don"t happen, if The Watchtower forbids us based on the command of Jehovah to follow people who predict things in His name that don't happen, if Awake magazine forbids us to follow people who predict things in the name of Jehovah that don"t happen, why are you doing it? It"s a fair question. If Jehovah says don"t do it, if your own organization says don't do it, if you"ve printed multiple issues of Watchtower and Awake magazine that I have that say don"t do it, why are you doing it?
I can prove Charles Taze Russell, Judge Rutherford, Nathan Knorr, one of your leaders after another did the very thing others are condemned for, that they have made you trust and believe in things that have not happened, they themselves saying you shouldn't pay attention to people who do such things. Well, they"d have to include themselves. "An unjust balance as an abomination to the Lord" it says in Proverbs. (Pr. 11:1) Please explain to me why you"re not in rebellion against Jehovah by doing something you admit Jehovah says don"t do?
I"ve had some Jehovah's Witnesses try to tell me, "Well, we have more light now". Neither Deuteronomy 18 nor Awake magazine nor The Watchtower made allowances for mistakes. The other false prophets and other religions could say the same thing! "We made a mistake, we have more light now." But if they had the light of Jehovah to begin with they wouldn't have made a mistake.
Please tell me why you want me to rebel against Jehovah by joining your organization and follow people that your organization says should not be followed. That's a fair question. Please answer it, then we"ll talk further about other things.
If you want this copy of what they published €“ of what you published, I"ll happily send it to you. I"ll show you things that your organization predicted for 1968, for 1974, 1975, for 1937.
There"s a house near the beach in San Diego, CA, a big, beautiful salubrious mansion called "Beth Sarim" in Hebrew €“ "house of the princes". It was built by Judge Rutherford for Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to live in when they would be resurrected. The Jehovah's Witnesses said, "We have to have a house for them to live in", so they built them one in San Diego under Judge Rutherford. Beautiful house. For many, many years the Jehovah's Witness organization still owned it. It was built in the 1920"s ahead of the 1930"s when He was supposed to come by a specified date. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob should have been living in it. But of course, when Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob did not show up, Judge Rutherford moved into it himself and lived in it the rest of his life.
Something is wrong here, dear friends. That"s the "Beth Sarim"? I thought that was built for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They said they were going to be resurrected, they were going to live in it. When they didn't, Rutherford moved in himself? How can you justify this? Why are you following people who do something your own religion teaches against, your own organization denounces? Please explain it to me. I think it's a fair question.
I really want to know the truth. If your organization is the truth, I want to know it, I want to join it, I want to be committed to it. If it"s really the one with the truth, I want to be committed to it. But explain to me why I should join an organization founded and led by people who predict things that don't happen when Jehovah says to get away from them and when your own organization says don"t follow them. Please answer that question. Why should I join it and follow such people? And while you"re at it, why have you joined it and why are youfollowing them when Jehovah said don"t do it, when they themselves said don"t follow people who do what we do? I"ll prove it to you in your own literature. All you"ve got to do is write me.
"But the prophet who speaks a word presumptuously in My name which I have not commanded him to speak, or which he speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die." You may say in your heart, "How will we know the word which the Lord has not spoken?" When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not come about or come true, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him.
(Actually, "you shall not pay attention to him".) People who claim to speak for Jehovah and predict things in His name that don"t happen are false prophets.
I have a number of issues, back issues, going back to the 1950"s from the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society in Brooklyn, New York not 5 miles from where I was born, their headquarters Bethel. Published right there, I"ve passed that building many times with the big clock on it on the other side of the Manhattan Bridge. And I read in these back issues of Awake magazine and Watchtowers and it said all kinds of things: "The politicians who said World War I would bring in worldwide peace €“ it would be the war to end all wars €“ were false prophets, they shall die." Now of course those politicians didn't claim to be speaking for Jehovah directly, but The Watchtower says that they are still false prophets because they predicted things that didn't happen. If politicians who predict things that didn't happen are false prophets even though they didn't represent themselves as speaking for Jehovah, how much more is somebody who claims to be speaking for Him a false prophet.
And so the Awake magazines and the Watchtower magazines that I"ll happily send you a photocopy of it you write us or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. document.getElementById('cloak9fbb78d6ddb226671409a2f6eda55b5a').innerHTML = ''; var prefix = 'ma' + 'il' + 'to'; var path = 'hr' + 'ef' + '='; var addy9fbb78d6ddb226671409a2f6eda55b5a = 'MorielCarol' + '@'; addy9fbb78d6ddb226671409a2f6eda55b5a = addy9fbb78d6ddb226671409a2f6eda55b5a + 'yahoo' + '.' + 'com'; var addy_text9fbb78d6ddb226671409a2f6eda55b5a = 'contact us';document.getElementById('cloak9fbb78d6ddb226671409a2f6eda55b5a').innerHTML += ''+addy_text9fbb78d6ddb226671409a2f6eda55b5a+''; , says that various people in other religions, many of them calling themselves Christian, have done the same thing, predicted things that didn't happen and those who follow them are following false prophets and are in rebellion against Jehovah. So The Watchtower Society says if somebody predicts something that doesn"t happen, get away from them or you"re in rebellion against Jehovah; especially if they claim to be Christian or speaking in His name. And they have a whole list of incidents where it"s happened.
I agree with them. They are absolutely right. People who predict things in the name of Jehovah that don"t happen are false prophets. Jehovah commands and demands that we get away from and don't come anywhere near them and if we don't get away from such people we are in rebellion against Jehovah. That is what The Watchtower Society teaches, that is what the book of Deuteronomy 18 commands, and they are right.
This is my question: I have a copy right in my hand at the moment of something called The Millennial Dawn published by the Watchtowerpublishing company originally in 1889 but re-published since. It"s Volume 2, The Time Is At Hand. It goes back to Charles Taze Russell. It says the following €“ I"m reading from page 101 in the chapter called Times of the Gentiles.
"Be not surprised then when in subsequent chapters we present proofs that the setting up of the kingdom of God has already begun. And that is pointed out in the prophecy as due to begin, the exercise of power in A.D. 1878, and that the battle of the great day of God Almighty, Revelation 16:14, which will end in A.D. 1914 with the complete overthrow of the present rulership, is already commenced."
On the previous page 100 €¦
"So in this day of Jehovah, the day of trouble, our Lord takes His great power hitherto dormant and reigns, and this is that will cause trouble throughout the world and will not so recognize it for the time being. But by the end of 1914 they will recognize it. The present government of the world is going to be overthrown completely, and the kingdom established, the battle of the great day of the Lord. It will end in 1914, the battle of Armageddon."
Today Jehovah's Witnesses will tell you, "Oh, well Christ turned His attention to the world in 1914". But in 1889 they said He turned His attention to the world in 1878. I have it in your own literature. What you are now saying happened in 1914, your founder Mr. Russell said happened in 1878 €“ that"s when God turned His attention. And he prophesied, speaking in the name of Jehovah, claiming to be Jehovah"s spokesman, claiming that organization €“ your organization €“ is Jehovah"s organization, and said directly that the battle of Armageddon would end by the end of 1914 and the kingdom of this world would be overthrown and the millennium would have come.
Well, World War I was ugly and brutal, but it was not the battle of Armageddon. It didn't even take place in the Middle East and World War II was much worse. And some of that did take place in the Middle East. My question is if Jehovah forbids us to follow people who predict things in His name that don"t happen, if The Watchtower forbids us based on the command of Jehovah to follow people who predict things in His name that don't happen, if Awake magazine forbids us to follow people who predict things in the name of Jehovah that don"t happen, why are you doing it? It"s a fair question. If Jehovah says don"t do it, if your own organization says don't do it, if you"ve printed multiple issues of Watchtower and Awake magazine that I have that say don"t do it, why are you doing it?
I can prove Charles Taze Russell, Judge Rutherford, Nathan Knorr, one of your leaders after another did the very thing others are condemned for, that they have made you trust and believe in things that have not happened, they themselves saying you shouldn't pay attention to people who do such things. Well, they"d have to include themselves. "An unjust balance as an abomination to the Lord" it says in Proverbs. (Pr. 11:1) Please explain to me why you"re not in rebellion against Jehovah by doing something you admit Jehovah says don"t do?
I"ve had some Jehovah's Witnesses try to tell me, "Well, we have more light now". Neither Deuteronomy 18 nor Awake magazine nor The Watchtower made allowances for mistakes. The other false prophets and other religions could say the same thing! "We made a mistake, we have more light now." But if they had the light of Jehovah to begin with they wouldn't have made a mistake.
Please tell me why you want me to rebel against Jehovah by joining your organization and follow people that your organization says should not be followed. That's a fair question. Please answer it, then we"ll talk further about other things.
If you want this copy of what they published €“ of what you published, I"ll happily send it to you. I"ll show you things that your organization predicted for 1968, for 1974, 1975, for 1937.
There"s a house near the beach in San Diego, CA, a big, beautiful salubrious mansion called "Beth Sarim" in Hebrew €“ "house of the princes". It was built by Judge Rutherford for Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to live in when they would be resurrected. The Jehovah's Witnesses said, "We have to have a house for them to live in", so they built them one in San Diego under Judge Rutherford. Beautiful house. For many, many years the Jehovah's Witness organization still owned it. It was built in the 1920"s ahead of the 1930"s when He was supposed to come by a specified date. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob should have been living in it. But of course, when Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob did not show up, Judge Rutherford moved into it himself and lived in it the rest of his life.
Something is wrong here, dear friends. That"s the "Beth Sarim"? I thought that was built for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They said they were going to be resurrected, they were going to live in it. When they didn't, Rutherford moved in himself? How can you justify this? Why are you following people who do something your own religion teaches against, your own organization denounces? Please explain it to me. I think it's a fair question.
I really want to know the truth. If your organization is the truth, I want to know it, I want to join it, I want to be committed to it. If it"s really the one with the truth, I want to be committed to it. But explain to me why I should join an organization founded and led by people who predict things that don't happen when Jehovah says to get away from them and when your own organization says don"t follow them. Please answer that question. Why should I join it and follow such people? And while you"re at it, why have you joined it and why are youfollowing them when Jehovah said don"t do it, when they themselves said don"t follow people who do what we do? I"ll prove it to you in your own literature. All you"ve got to do is write me.
Educated Muslim
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I have a third question for my Islamic friends, particularly the educated ones, those that have done degrees in law, medicine, dentistry, engineering, science, mathematics in the West. Some have gone to Oxbridge, some have gone to Ivy League universities in America, some have gone to the Sorbonne in Paris, there are educated Muslims in the West, some of them born in the West, some came to study in the West, but there are educated Muslims. We have to remember that when the Western world was in the Dark Ages under medieval Roman Catholicism Islam had its Golden Age. So I appeal to the educated, thinking Muslim, please consider this question carefully.
Islam likes to claim that a 5th Century forgery of the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas €“ there"s two of them, but the later one, the 5th Century €“ was the true gospel and the ones that are the orthodox in Christianity €“ Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John €“ are false ones. Even liberal higher critics, higher critical scholars who simply study the Scriptures as history and literature do not accept any 1st Century authenticity to that later Thomas gospel. But we also have higher critical scholars in Islam. They are called "Orientalists".
Now Orientalists are not allowed to teach or to publish in Muslim countries, generally speaking. There might be some exception I"m not aware of, but certainly their lives would be threatened by the Muslim brotherhood or something like this. In Saudi Arabia they would bemore than arrested. These are academic theologians; they are critical scholars; they study the Quran, the Hadith as history and literature with an academic eye, looking for things like source criticism, form criticism, the same tools higher critical scholars have applied to the Judeo-Christian Scriptures. They"re Orientalists. They simply ask questions. They"re not studying the Quran as doctrine per se or as revelation, they"re simply looking at it as literature the way critical scholars look at the Bible, really, as literature.
I know I study the Bible as both doctrine and as literature and history. The Orientalists raise some questions. I"m not talking about Christians phrasing questions or about Jews raising questions, I'm talking about educated, westernized Muslim scholars €“ professors, people with doctorates in Islam €“ usually from Cairo, Egypt who are now to be found at Oxford, Cambridge, the Sorbonne, Princeton in America, and so forth, and prominent universities, prominent professors, academically credible scholars, the Orientalists €“ your scholars. They ask questions simply about the historicity and literary origin and development of the Quran and Hadith. One question would be, "How can the Quran say that every night when the sun becomes tired it descends into a muddy pit and rises again the next day?"
Remember, during its Golden Age, Islam were the astronomers of the era. Ptolemian astronomy dominated the world and it was largely dominated by Islam all the way until the time of Galileo and Copernicus and Kepler. Certainly if Allah is God, and Allah created the universe, and Allah created the sun, and if Allah told the angel Gabriel to give the Quran to Mohammed, Allah would've known the sun does not set into a muddy pit every night when it gets tired, This looks like an ancient Near Eastern fable, a superstition, but it"s a question that should be asked. It"s the question that should be answered but that is a question that I will leave to Muslims to answer. My question rather concerns the relationship between the Quran and the Katub, the Bible.
The name of the mother of Jesus was not "Mary" but "Miryam", and the sister of Moses" name was also "Miryam". They were both named "Miryam". But they live 1,300 years apart, 13 centuries separated, Miryam the sister of Moses from Miryam the mother of Isa €“ Yeshua. And so your scholars, the Orientalists, these academic theologians who study the Quran in Arabic who are at the most prominent universities in the Western world because the Islamic world will not allow them to publish what they teach, ask the question, "If 1,300 years separated Miryam the sister of Moses from Miryam the mother of Jesus €“ Isa, Yeshua €“ why does the Quran say they are the same woman?" Isn"t that absurd? I'm not trying to offend you, but isn't it ludicrous? How can the Quran correct the mistakes in the Bible if they"re thirteen centuries apart? We have other archeological evidence showing that Moses long predates Jesus. Nobody questions it. No Muslim scholar in the world would question it today. The Wahab wouldn't question, yet the Quran says it's true.
According to the book of Esther in the Hebrew Scriptures, Haman was a senior court minister in the ancient Persian court in Susa. He was an Agagite, a descendent of Amalek according to the Hebrew Scriptures accepted by Jews and Christians. The Babylonian captivity of the Jews was followed by the Persian conquest of Babylon. We"re talking about five centuries before Christ. Yet we are told in the Quran that Haman was a minister in the court of Pharaoh. There were no pharaohs in the 5th Century before Christ as such. The period of Pharaoh was long over. In the Scriptures Pharaoh goes back to the time of Moses, not forward to the time of Esther and Mordecai.
These are fundamental inconsistencies out of harmony not only with the Jewish and Christian Scriptures but out of harmony with established, recognized history, supported by the archaeological record, things that Muslims today do not believe themselves. Yet the Quran teaches them. Who dares to raise these questions? Is it me, a Christian? No, I'm simply looking at what the Orientalists say, your own scholars. How can an educated person, how can a dentist, how can a civil engineer, how can a physician, how can a barrister, how can a chartered accountant, how could a computer engineer, how can a mathematician, how can an educated, thinking person who went to a university like Princeton or Cambridge or the Sorbonne believe the sun sets every night when it gets tired into a muddy pit?
I don't believe all Muslims are ignorant fundamentalists. I saw a film on television, a documentary, where there were people in Pakistan €“ rural Pakistan €“ whose wives were sick and they would not allow their wives to be treated by a physician unless the physician was a female. And in some cases the women would die for wont of medical care because they would not allow a male physician to treat or examine their wives. Now of course, in the West, educated Muslims would balk at such things as primitive. I'm not speaking about primitive Muslims on the frontier on the Punjab, I"m speaking about Muslims who live in Birmingham, or who live in Nottingham, or who live in Manchester, or London, or Los Angeles who went to a prominent university who are engaged in a prestigious profession. How can you reasonably believe that Mary the mother of Jesus and Miryam the sister of Moses are the same woman when they are over 1,000 years apart? The Orientalists don"t believe it.
It"s no wonder their publications are banned throughout the Islamic world. You"re not allowed to ask those questions in the Islamic world. If you want to ask academic questions about Islam, you have to come to the free world. I have heard Muslims like Achmed Didot try to pull apart the Jewish Christian Bible based on higher critical arguments used by liberal Christian scholars. I was supposed to debate Mr. Didot in Johannesburg in the town hall, but he had a stroke and I went to his house and I shared my faith with him unsuccessfully. He tried to share his faith with me, also unsuccessfully, but I've heard his arguments. He draws on Christian liberal higher critics. All I am saying is apply the same standard. Take academic approaches to literary criticism to form criticism, the source criticism, to historical analysis and apply those same tools that Didot applies to the Bible, to the Quran and you will find something that any thinking Muslim would say lacks credibility. You are an educated Muslim. How can you believe this?
Islam likes to claim that a 5th Century forgery of the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas €“ there"s two of them, but the later one, the 5th Century €“ was the true gospel and the ones that are the orthodox in Christianity €“ Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John €“ are false ones. Even liberal higher critics, higher critical scholars who simply study the Scriptures as history and literature do not accept any 1st Century authenticity to that later Thomas gospel. But we also have higher critical scholars in Islam. They are called "Orientalists".
Now Orientalists are not allowed to teach or to publish in Muslim countries, generally speaking. There might be some exception I"m not aware of, but certainly their lives would be threatened by the Muslim brotherhood or something like this. In Saudi Arabia they would bemore than arrested. These are academic theologians; they are critical scholars; they study the Quran, the Hadith as history and literature with an academic eye, looking for things like source criticism, form criticism, the same tools higher critical scholars have applied to the Judeo-Christian Scriptures. They"re Orientalists. They simply ask questions. They"re not studying the Quran as doctrine per se or as revelation, they"re simply looking at it as literature the way critical scholars look at the Bible, really, as literature.
I know I study the Bible as both doctrine and as literature and history. The Orientalists raise some questions. I"m not talking about Christians phrasing questions or about Jews raising questions, I'm talking about educated, westernized Muslim scholars €“ professors, people with doctorates in Islam €“ usually from Cairo, Egypt who are now to be found at Oxford, Cambridge, the Sorbonne, Princeton in America, and so forth, and prominent universities, prominent professors, academically credible scholars, the Orientalists €“ your scholars. They ask questions simply about the historicity and literary origin and development of the Quran and Hadith. One question would be, "How can the Quran say that every night when the sun becomes tired it descends into a muddy pit and rises again the next day?"
Remember, during its Golden Age, Islam were the astronomers of the era. Ptolemian astronomy dominated the world and it was largely dominated by Islam all the way until the time of Galileo and Copernicus and Kepler. Certainly if Allah is God, and Allah created the universe, and Allah created the sun, and if Allah told the angel Gabriel to give the Quran to Mohammed, Allah would've known the sun does not set into a muddy pit every night when it gets tired, This looks like an ancient Near Eastern fable, a superstition, but it"s a question that should be asked. It"s the question that should be answered but that is a question that I will leave to Muslims to answer. My question rather concerns the relationship between the Quran and the Katub, the Bible.
The name of the mother of Jesus was not "Mary" but "Miryam", and the sister of Moses" name was also "Miryam". They were both named "Miryam". But they live 1,300 years apart, 13 centuries separated, Miryam the sister of Moses from Miryam the mother of Isa €“ Yeshua. And so your scholars, the Orientalists, these academic theologians who study the Quran in Arabic who are at the most prominent universities in the Western world because the Islamic world will not allow them to publish what they teach, ask the question, "If 1,300 years separated Miryam the sister of Moses from Miryam the mother of Jesus €“ Isa, Yeshua €“ why does the Quran say they are the same woman?" Isn"t that absurd? I'm not trying to offend you, but isn't it ludicrous? How can the Quran correct the mistakes in the Bible if they"re thirteen centuries apart? We have other archeological evidence showing that Moses long predates Jesus. Nobody questions it. No Muslim scholar in the world would question it today. The Wahab wouldn't question, yet the Quran says it's true.
According to the book of Esther in the Hebrew Scriptures, Haman was a senior court minister in the ancient Persian court in Susa. He was an Agagite, a descendent of Amalek according to the Hebrew Scriptures accepted by Jews and Christians. The Babylonian captivity of the Jews was followed by the Persian conquest of Babylon. We"re talking about five centuries before Christ. Yet we are told in the Quran that Haman was a minister in the court of Pharaoh. There were no pharaohs in the 5th Century before Christ as such. The period of Pharaoh was long over. In the Scriptures Pharaoh goes back to the time of Moses, not forward to the time of Esther and Mordecai.
These are fundamental inconsistencies out of harmony not only with the Jewish and Christian Scriptures but out of harmony with established, recognized history, supported by the archaeological record, things that Muslims today do not believe themselves. Yet the Quran teaches them. Who dares to raise these questions? Is it me, a Christian? No, I'm simply looking at what the Orientalists say, your own scholars. How can an educated person, how can a dentist, how can a civil engineer, how can a physician, how can a barrister, how can a chartered accountant, how could a computer engineer, how can a mathematician, how can an educated, thinking person who went to a university like Princeton or Cambridge or the Sorbonne believe the sun sets every night when it gets tired into a muddy pit?
I don't believe all Muslims are ignorant fundamentalists. I saw a film on television, a documentary, where there were people in Pakistan €“ rural Pakistan €“ whose wives were sick and they would not allow their wives to be treated by a physician unless the physician was a female. And in some cases the women would die for wont of medical care because they would not allow a male physician to treat or examine their wives. Now of course, in the West, educated Muslims would balk at such things as primitive. I'm not speaking about primitive Muslims on the frontier on the Punjab, I"m speaking about Muslims who live in Birmingham, or who live in Nottingham, or who live in Manchester, or London, or Los Angeles who went to a prominent university who are engaged in a prestigious profession. How can you reasonably believe that Mary the mother of Jesus and Miryam the sister of Moses are the same woman when they are over 1,000 years apart? The Orientalists don"t believe it.
It"s no wonder their publications are banned throughout the Islamic world. You"re not allowed to ask those questions in the Islamic world. If you want to ask academic questions about Islam, you have to come to the free world. I have heard Muslims like Achmed Didot try to pull apart the Jewish Christian Bible based on higher critical arguments used by liberal Christian scholars. I was supposed to debate Mr. Didot in Johannesburg in the town hall, but he had a stroke and I went to his house and I shared my faith with him unsuccessfully. He tried to share his faith with me, also unsuccessfully, but I've heard his arguments. He draws on Christian liberal higher critics. All I am saying is apply the same standard. Take academic approaches to literary criticism to form criticism, the source criticism, to historical analysis and apply those same tools that Didot applies to the Bible, to the Quran and you will find something that any thinking Muslim would say lacks credibility. You are an educated Muslim. How can you believe this?
Where is the Ummah?
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My next question concerns the teaching of the Quran on "Ummah" – unity among Muslims, that you are one nation and one people. Now Christianity does not require Christians to be one nation and one people, Christianity acknowledges multiple nations. Jesus said, "Think not I came to bring unity but a sword". (Mt. 10:34) Paul the apostle writes. "There must be divisions among you to prove which is true". (1 Cor. 11:19) Tragedy that it is, Northern Ireland can still be allotted for in the Christian belief system. The killing and prejudice cannot be, but the fact that there"s a schism within the belief system can be. The Quran is different. While Jesus prayed that the true believers would be one, He said he came to bring division. There"ll be factions among you to prove what is true, teaches the New Testament, but Ummah says that Muslims are one.
Now in the Katub, in the book of Genesis, we are told that Esau"s sword will always be against his brother and that Ishmael's seed will always be divided. Islam teaches that the Arab nations are descendents, of course, of them. Christians and Jews believe the Messiah, the Savior, would come through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Islam takes the Old Testament prophecies that Christians believe to be about Jesus and applies them to Mohammed. Having said that, I have to ask which is right: Is Esau"s sword against his brother? Is Ishmael"s seed divided? Or are Muslims "Ummah"? Are they one nation and one people?
One of the most popular films ever made by the motion picture industry was based on a book about the legendary T. E. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia, a British military officer who attempted to unite the warring Arab tribes against the Turks. He tried to unite them from fighting each other to a combined force to attack the Turks who were aligned with Germany. The Turks, who were themselves Muslims, mistreated the Bedouins and virtually enslaved those people who were today called, or call themselves, "Palestinian Arabs". Lawrence of Arabia tried to unite these people, but they would not stay united. Islam was always looking for a Mahdi figure to unite Islam, but the Mahdi was defeated by the British ultimately despite the Battle of Khartoum and the death of General Gordon. Abdul Gamal Nasser tried to make Ummah, a pan-Arab unity militarily backed by the Soviet Union, but it did not work or did not last.
Many people have tried to bring Ummah. Mohammed was no sooner dead when the Sunni and Shi"a began to fight each other, ultimately in the Battle of Karbala, over who should take his place, Ali or his theocrats. Then there was a third sect, "Khariji". They said Allah would reveal who was to be the successor of Mohammed on the battlefield. They began to slaughter each other. This hatred and killing went on until the 20th Century in the war between Iran and Iraq. 1.5 million Muslims were killed by other Muslims in a war between Sunni and Shi"a going back to the Battle of Karbala. (We"re going back here to the 8th Century.)
Why has it never worked? Why is there no Ummah? Why is it that the only way it appears to a Westerner that Muslims can be united is if they have a common enemy? Because it seems unless they have a common enemy they will kill each other.
The invasion of Kuwait – raping, burning, pillaging. The Americans and British liberate Kuwait and the Kuwaitis begin pogroms against the Palestinians, murdering, raping, pillaging.
When Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Arabs tried on the Jordanians what they today are doing with the Israelis – Palestinian nationalism – in September of 1970, King Hussein of Jordan systematically exterminated between 15-18,000 Palestinian Arabs in 12 days.
This is Muslims doing it to Muslims. They kill far more of each other than the Americans, the British, the West, or the Israelis ever killed. The West or the Israelis have never done to Muslims what they have done to each other. 1.5 million killed in the war between Iran and Iraq alone? The wars between Yemen and North and South – it goes on – the Polisario conflict in Morocco. I've heard the followers of Arafat saying, "First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people. First we"ll kill the Jews, then we"ll kill the Christians." Right now they're killing each other. Again, they did the same thing in Lebanon. Without a common enemy they kill each other.
If Allah is God, and if the Quran is true, why is it that Ummah has never been able to deliver what it promised?
Now again, Christendom can allow for schism and division; however, whenever two Christianized nations had a war, one was not a democracy. In the Western Judeo-Christian world, as opposed to the Muslim world, no two democracies have ever had a war. I have heard fundamentalist Islamic imams in Iran sing of the virtues of the English Puritans because of their piety, but they overlook the fact that those same English Puritans, for all their mistakes they may have had, established parliamentary democracy. Not a single Muslim country in the world is a democracy. Not really. Turkey comes the closest but it isn"t.
Not a single Muslim country will give Christians and Jews the rights they demand in Britain or America, but that is not my point or my question. My question is this: Since no two Westernized Christian Judeo-Christian democracies have ever had a war, but most Jihads – and they"ve called them "Jihads" – have been Muslims killing other Muslims, which religion should I believe? Should I believe a religion that has given rise to democratic institutions where no two democracies based on Judeo-Christian principles have ever had a war, or a religion where because of the religion there"s been nothing but war? There is no Ummah.
Historically there has been no Ummah, there never has been Ummah. The book of Genesis seems right. Esau"s sword remains against his brother, Ishmael"s seed remains divided. The Quran and Hadith has clearly been wrong. My question, my dear Muslim friends, and I"m only asking the question, if I have a Judeo-Christian worldview that has given rise to democratic freedom that does not exist in the Islamic world, why should I believe in Islam that cannot deliver the goods?
You only need to drive across the causeway from Malaysia to Singapore; you only need to cross the border at Elath into Jordan or Tabot into Egypt; you only need to take a ferry across the Bosporus or from Algeciras, Spain to the north coast of Morocco. The moment you as an educated Muslim go from the Judeo-Christian world to the Muslim world you see a big change. You know the air smells different. I just don"t mean the dirt or the grime or the congestion, I mean the freedom, the tolerance. Why have the sciences not bloomed in the Islamic world since its Golden Age when it was dominated by a philosophical Islam controlled by the Turks, not by a fundamentalist Islam controlled by the Saudi Wahab or the Iranian Shi"a imams? It just doesn't work. Why every morning in Terminal 3 at Heathrow are there so many Muslims bending over backwards to get into Britain? Why are they arriving in Italy and France every day of the week illegally? Why are they doing anything they can to get into to the United States via Mexico or whoever? Why don't they want to stay in the Islamic world? Some would say because they are missionaries for Islam, sent to convert it. These are not imams, most of them, these are economic refugees and you and I both know it; they"re intellectuals coming for intellectual freedom not available; they"re escaping war and conflict between Muslims like they do from Somalia.
Again, my question is since you have no Ummah, since your religion has been unable to deliver what it promised, why should I turn my back on a religion that has and accept one that hasn't? Why should I reject something that has worked in favor of something that has not? Let"s be honest – if it worked, you wouldn't be here.
Now in the Katub, in the book of Genesis, we are told that Esau"s sword will always be against his brother and that Ishmael's seed will always be divided. Islam teaches that the Arab nations are descendents, of course, of them. Christians and Jews believe the Messiah, the Savior, would come through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Islam takes the Old Testament prophecies that Christians believe to be about Jesus and applies them to Mohammed. Having said that, I have to ask which is right: Is Esau"s sword against his brother? Is Ishmael"s seed divided? Or are Muslims "Ummah"? Are they one nation and one people?
One of the most popular films ever made by the motion picture industry was based on a book about the legendary T. E. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia, a British military officer who attempted to unite the warring Arab tribes against the Turks. He tried to unite them from fighting each other to a combined force to attack the Turks who were aligned with Germany. The Turks, who were themselves Muslims, mistreated the Bedouins and virtually enslaved those people who were today called, or call themselves, "Palestinian Arabs". Lawrence of Arabia tried to unite these people, but they would not stay united. Islam was always looking for a Mahdi figure to unite Islam, but the Mahdi was defeated by the British ultimately despite the Battle of Khartoum and the death of General Gordon. Abdul Gamal Nasser tried to make Ummah, a pan-Arab unity militarily backed by the Soviet Union, but it did not work or did not last.
Many people have tried to bring Ummah. Mohammed was no sooner dead when the Sunni and Shi"a began to fight each other, ultimately in the Battle of Karbala, over who should take his place, Ali or his theocrats. Then there was a third sect, "Khariji". They said Allah would reveal who was to be the successor of Mohammed on the battlefield. They began to slaughter each other. This hatred and killing went on until the 20th Century in the war between Iran and Iraq. 1.5 million Muslims were killed by other Muslims in a war between Sunni and Shi"a going back to the Battle of Karbala. (We"re going back here to the 8th Century.)
Why has it never worked? Why is there no Ummah? Why is it that the only way it appears to a Westerner that Muslims can be united is if they have a common enemy? Because it seems unless they have a common enemy they will kill each other.
The invasion of Kuwait – raping, burning, pillaging. The Americans and British liberate Kuwait and the Kuwaitis begin pogroms against the Palestinians, murdering, raping, pillaging.
When Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Arabs tried on the Jordanians what they today are doing with the Israelis – Palestinian nationalism – in September of 1970, King Hussein of Jordan systematically exterminated between 15-18,000 Palestinian Arabs in 12 days.
This is Muslims doing it to Muslims. They kill far more of each other than the Americans, the British, the West, or the Israelis ever killed. The West or the Israelis have never done to Muslims what they have done to each other. 1.5 million killed in the war between Iran and Iraq alone? The wars between Yemen and North and South – it goes on – the Polisario conflict in Morocco. I've heard the followers of Arafat saying, "First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people. First we"ll kill the Jews, then we"ll kill the Christians." Right now they're killing each other. Again, they did the same thing in Lebanon. Without a common enemy they kill each other.
If Allah is God, and if the Quran is true, why is it that Ummah has never been able to deliver what it promised?
Now again, Christendom can allow for schism and division; however, whenever two Christianized nations had a war, one was not a democracy. In the Western Judeo-Christian world, as opposed to the Muslim world, no two democracies have ever had a war. I have heard fundamentalist Islamic imams in Iran sing of the virtues of the English Puritans because of their piety, but they overlook the fact that those same English Puritans, for all their mistakes they may have had, established parliamentary democracy. Not a single Muslim country in the world is a democracy. Not really. Turkey comes the closest but it isn"t.
Not a single Muslim country will give Christians and Jews the rights they demand in Britain or America, but that is not my point or my question. My question is this: Since no two Westernized Christian Judeo-Christian democracies have ever had a war, but most Jihads – and they"ve called them "Jihads" – have been Muslims killing other Muslims, which religion should I believe? Should I believe a religion that has given rise to democratic institutions where no two democracies based on Judeo-Christian principles have ever had a war, or a religion where because of the religion there"s been nothing but war? There is no Ummah.
Historically there has been no Ummah, there never has been Ummah. The book of Genesis seems right. Esau"s sword remains against his brother, Ishmael"s seed remains divided. The Quran and Hadith has clearly been wrong. My question, my dear Muslim friends, and I"m only asking the question, if I have a Judeo-Christian worldview that has given rise to democratic freedom that does not exist in the Islamic world, why should I believe in Islam that cannot deliver the goods?
You only need to drive across the causeway from Malaysia to Singapore; you only need to cross the border at Elath into Jordan or Tabot into Egypt; you only need to take a ferry across the Bosporus or from Algeciras, Spain to the north coast of Morocco. The moment you as an educated Muslim go from the Judeo-Christian world to the Muslim world you see a big change. You know the air smells different. I just don"t mean the dirt or the grime or the congestion, I mean the freedom, the tolerance. Why have the sciences not bloomed in the Islamic world since its Golden Age when it was dominated by a philosophical Islam controlled by the Turks, not by a fundamentalist Islam controlled by the Saudi Wahab or the Iranian Shi"a imams? It just doesn't work. Why every morning in Terminal 3 at Heathrow are there so many Muslims bending over backwards to get into Britain? Why are they arriving in Italy and France every day of the week illegally? Why are they doing anything they can to get into to the United States via Mexico or whoever? Why don't they want to stay in the Islamic world? Some would say because they are missionaries for Islam, sent to convert it. These are not imams, most of them, these are economic refugees and you and I both know it; they"re intellectuals coming for intellectual freedom not available; they"re escaping war and conflict between Muslims like they do from Somalia.
Again, my question is since you have no Ummah, since your religion has been unable to deliver what it promised, why should I turn my back on a religion that has and accept one that hasn't? Why should I reject something that has worked in favor of something that has not? Let"s be honest – if it worked, you wouldn't be here.
Moriel Ministries United Kingdom
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When it comes to books devoted to eschatology in general and the Rapture specifically, they often either read like a formal academic argument written solely for the benefit of scholars or employ the use of fiction to avoid directly handling the underlying biblical text. As with Jacob's previous books and exhaustive list of sermons covering nearly every area of theology, Harpazo presents the doctrine of the Rapture and Resurrection in the strictest biblical sense possible, leveraging the handling of Scripture in the same manner as passed along to us by Christ through the Apostles and Early Church of the 1st century.
Often the typical format of such books is to spend more time explaining and refuting all the positions the author does not subscribe to rather than focus exclusively on what they believe and have derived from Scripture. Harpazo may be unique in the complete absence of charts and seemingly endless trips to sidebars to constantly compare alternate interpretations the author does not subscribe to in the first place. Jacob was asked to continue to employ in an expanded book format the same exegesis of Scripture which is present in all of his teachings regardless of whether or not they are eschatological. After all, "The Apocalypse" means "unveiling", and that "lifting of the curtain", so to speak, as we approach the ever nearer Return of Christ is the Holy Spirit's revelation of Scripture as already given, not a new opinion by man..
The Gospels are clear that immediately in the wake of His Resurrection, Christ not only imparted the Holy Spirit to His disciples, but directly instructed them in how He was the fulfillment of the whole of Scripture. (Lk. 24:27, 44-45) In other words, the interpretation of all of God's Word, every Book of the Old Testament included, was re-cast as Christological, having not just a literal, primary meaning for the times any Scripture was originally given, but an added meaning for either Christ's First Coming, Second Coming, or both. Like every doctrine and theology, the Rapture and Resurrection are illustrated through many scriptural people, places and events throughout the whole of God's Word and not simply limited to a single biblical reference.
Using the Early Church hermeneutics of typology to illustrate and illuminate doctrine, Jacob shows how there are many raptures and rescues in Scripture which combine to teach what is going to ultimately take place in the Parousia—the Second Coming of Christ. Likewise, there is a wealth of similar events and patterns throughout Scripture which teach us what to expect from related issues such as the Two Witnesses, the role of the 144,000 and Israel yet to come, the pattern of judgments in Revelation and how they actually replay Old Testament and historical parallels, and a wealth of other such End Times teachings already established in the canon of Scripture.
Jesus Himself established this hermeneutic by categorically teaching that the Last Days would be realized in the character of the days of Noah as well as Lot. The Apostles in their writings not only confirmed these specific examples but built upon them. The question for believers in the Last Days is not whether or not some kind of "new" revelation or word from God has been revealed, but how what has already been given is, in these final hours, being unveiled to believers by the Holy Spirit. What Daniel was told to seal until the end, John was told would be ultimately unsealed.
Some of the chapter titles in Harpazo will sound familiar to those already acquainted with Jacob's teachings, but he has never tied everything together overall to this degree before. This book is not about creating another End Times chart, but making a good faith effort to draw together in one place what the whole counsel of God's Word is teaching not just for a single event or prophetic fulfillment, but the overall doctrinal basis by which believers are supposed to act and behave as they are putting His Word into practice. Whereas many limit their teaching on the Rapture to just the drama of the physical event itself, one of the remarkable differences presented in Harpazo is the believer's place in the Rapture and Resurrection and their active role in preparation for it. Recognition of the nearness of His Return invokes a responsibility to live accordingly.
Those expecting an academic treatment of eschatology or hoping for a formal rebuttal of alternative positions will not find such in Harpazo. But those placing a priority on what God's Word is saying more than the word and opinions of man will derive tangible benefits from the book regardless of which "ism" or eschatology currently held. Jacob presents us with a thorough proactive exegesis of Scripture by concentrating on what Scripture affirms rather than a reactive rebuttal of the beliefs of man, which all too often actually fall outside biblical boundaries.
Electronic version is now available as anEbookand is available at Amazon for $9.99.
Often the typical format of such books is to spend more time explaining and refuting all the positions the author does not subscribe to rather than focus exclusively on what they believe and have derived from Scripture. Harpazo may be unique in the complete absence of charts and seemingly endless trips to sidebars to constantly compare alternate interpretations the author does not subscribe to in the first place. Jacob was asked to continue to employ in an expanded book format the same exegesis of Scripture which is present in all of his teachings regardless of whether or not they are eschatological. After all, "The Apocalypse" means "unveiling", and that "lifting of the curtain", so to speak, as we approach the ever nearer Return of Christ is the Holy Spirit's revelation of Scripture as already given, not a new opinion by man..
The Gospels are clear that immediately in the wake of His Resurrection, Christ not only imparted the Holy Spirit to His disciples, but directly instructed them in how He was the fulfillment of the whole of Scripture. (Lk. 24:27, 44-45) In other words, the interpretation of all of God's Word, every Book of the Old Testament included, was re-cast as Christological, having not just a literal, primary meaning for the times any Scripture was originally given, but an added meaning for either Christ's First Coming, Second Coming, or both. Like every doctrine and theology, the Rapture and Resurrection are illustrated through many scriptural people, places and events throughout the whole of God's Word and not simply limited to a single biblical reference.
Using the Early Church hermeneutics of typology to illustrate and illuminate doctrine, Jacob shows how there are many raptures and rescues in Scripture which combine to teach what is going to ultimately take place in the Parousia—the Second Coming of Christ. Likewise, there is a wealth of similar events and patterns throughout Scripture which teach us what to expect from related issues such as the Two Witnesses, the role of the 144,000 and Israel yet to come, the pattern of judgments in Revelation and how they actually replay Old Testament and historical parallels, and a wealth of other such End Times teachings already established in the canon of Scripture.
Jesus Himself established this hermeneutic by categorically teaching that the Last Days would be realized in the character of the days of Noah as well as Lot. The Apostles in their writings not only confirmed these specific examples but built upon them. The question for believers in the Last Days is not whether or not some kind of "new" revelation or word from God has been revealed, but how what has already been given is, in these final hours, being unveiled to believers by the Holy Spirit. What Daniel was told to seal until the end, John was told would be ultimately unsealed.
Some of the chapter titles in Harpazo will sound familiar to those already acquainted with Jacob's teachings, but he has never tied everything together overall to this degree before. This book is not about creating another End Times chart, but making a good faith effort to draw together in one place what the whole counsel of God's Word is teaching not just for a single event or prophetic fulfillment, but the overall doctrinal basis by which believers are supposed to act and behave as they are putting His Word into practice. Whereas many limit their teaching on the Rapture to just the drama of the physical event itself, one of the remarkable differences presented in Harpazo is the believer's place in the Rapture and Resurrection and their active role in preparation for it. Recognition of the nearness of His Return invokes a responsibility to live accordingly.
Those expecting an academic treatment of eschatology or hoping for a formal rebuttal of alternative positions will not find such in Harpazo. But those placing a priority on what God's Word is saying more than the word and opinions of man will derive tangible benefits from the book regardless of which "ism" or eschatology currently held. Jacob presents us with a thorough proactive exegesis of Scripture by concentrating on what Scripture affirms rather than a reactive rebuttal of the beliefs of man, which all too often actually fall outside biblical boundaries.
Electronic version is now available as anEbookand is available at Amazon for $9.99.
Catholic
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Hello, my dear friends. I"m speaking, of course, to our Catholic friends, and I mean friends. I have many Catholic friends and, on my mother"s side of the family, Catholic relatives, including my mother. My mother is of Irish-Catholic background. In her family there are members of the Roman Catholic clergy in Ireland and in America and in Canada. I've always had a love of the Catholic people, and I spent 11 years of my youth in Catholic schools through my mother's insistence. But like many other young people at that time I began to question the established religious values of the time and began to do my own seeking and my own searching.
Now I should tell you my own family is a mixture of Roman Catholic and Jewish, and partially for that reason I'm able to speak and read the Hebrew language, and I've also learned Greek. I looked at other faiths – Judaism, Protestantism, Roman Catholicism – most of all I studied the Scriptures with an emphasis on studying them in the original languages. I don't say I'm the greatest scholar or theologian in the world, but I do know what I believe and why I believe it.
I have a book here, Rome Has Spoken, written by two academic Roman Catholic nuns Maureen Fiedler and Linda Rabben – they"re the editors. They are both Ph.D.'s, both Roman Catholic nuns, both quite scholarly women. The book is published by Crossroad Publishing Company and it"s a very, very interesting book, a compilation of Vatican- and papal-issued statements from different times in history.
I"d like to ask you some questions as a Roman Catholic, questions of the sort I once asked myself, questions that other people like me have asked. But before I do that I"d like to read you some quotes from Roman Catholic documents – official Vatican documents – that areimprimatur and nihil obstat, official Roman Catholic documents.
In the year 420, Boniface I, Bishop of Rome: "Instead of what is lawful for what has been decided by the apostolic see to be reconsidered, the Second Council of Constantinople in 553, the current pope vigilist was found guilty of heresy and formally excommunicated from the body of the faithful. And at the Third Council of Constantinople in 681, Pope Honorius had confirmed the impious opinions of the heretic Sergius and anathematizee the pope from the church." According to Roman Catholic history, Roman Catholic documents, popes have been kicked out of office and excommunicated by councils of the church. It was not the belief, according to the Roman Catholic Church, that the pope at that time was somehow infallible in what he was proclaiming.
Of course now they claim, since 1870, when he speaks ex-cathedra he is, but I've never heard in modern history of a Pope being fired – sacked by the church. But things began to change by the medieval church, and again I'm only reading from Roman Catholic history that the creedom of 1140, where matters of faith are concerned, a General Counsel – a kind of magisterium – is greater than a pope. For though the Roman pope has sometimes erred, this does not mean that the Roman Church has. In other words, popes can say things that are erroneous and the church doesn"t have to support them.
By 1200 A.D. Pope Innocent III: "Every cleric must obey the pope, even if he commands what is evil; for no one may judge the pope." In the year 1200 the papacy decreed you have to obey the pope even if he tells you to do something which is evil and that no one may judge it, although the earlier councils of the church fired popes. A religion that came to teach you have to follow a man even when he's telling you to do something evil.
In the year 1302, Pope Boniface VIII, "Unam Sanctam": "We declare, affirm, and define as a truth necessary for salvation that every human being is subject to the Roman Pontiff." In the year 1302 it was decreed by Pope Boniface VIII that to have salvation – that is escape hell and go to heaven – you have to be subject to the pope.
Let"s move to the modern era.
1854, Pope Pius IX, "Ineffablis Deus": "If anyone shall dare to think otherwise the most Blessed Virgin was from the first moment of her conception preserved immune from all stain of original sin. if anyone dares to think otherwise that has been defined here by us, let him know that he certainly has abandoned the divine and Catholic church." The church is proclaimed as divine and if you don't believe that Mary was sinless you"ve abandoned it. That was in 1854. Why was it not taught earlier? The term "theoticos" –"mother of God" is not in the Bible or in the Greek text anywhere, it"s not in the Vulgate. Pius IX was the same pope who issued a papal encyclical in which democracy was condemned – "Quanta Cura".
In the first Vatican Council in the year 1870, "Pastor Aeternus": "We teach and define that the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra, that is when in the exercise of his offices pastor and teacher of all Christians, he defines by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority a doctrine of faith and morals which is to be held by the whole Church. It is by reason of the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, possessed of that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer wished His church to be endowed in defining doctrines of faith and morals." Since 1870 there"s been an official doctrine that the pope, when he speaks ex cathedra from the chair of Peter cannot make a mistake; a human being who cannot make a mistake even though earlier church councils said that popes can make mistakes even in matters of doctrine and some were excommunicated for it.
Quite a book. A book not containing Protestant documents, a book compiled by Roman Catholics containing Roman Catholic documents.
Again, Boniface VIII, "Unum Sanctum", 1302: "We declare, affirm, and define as a truth necessary for salvation that every human being is subject to the Roman Pontiff." If you"re not a Catholic you can"t go to heaven they said.
There was a Pope Leo XIII, "Satis Cognitum", 1896: "Let such as these take counsel with themselves and realize that they can in no wise be counted among the children of God unless they take Christ Jesus as their brother and at the same time the church, that is the church of Rome, as their mother." Jesus as your brother and the Roman Catholic Church as your mother. And if that is not the case, you"re not a child of God. John 1 says to all who believed Him, who believed in His name, to all who received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God. (Jn. 1:12)
1948. the Holy Office, "Cum Comperum" reminded Catholics of canonical prohibitions against unauthorized prohibition and so-called ecumenical meetings with non-Catholic Christians and in shared worship. They were warned against it in 1948, now all of the sudden it"s to be pursued in order to get people to become Catholic. That tells me something. At one time they were afraid of Catholics being lured away from the church by associating with other Christians; now they think the time is ripe to lure other Christians into the Roman Church.
The Second Vatican Council in 1964, Dogmatic Constitution of the Church: "Those who through no fault of their own do not know the gospel of Christ or His church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart and moved by grace tray in their actions to do His will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience, these too may attain eternal salvation." Which directly, of course, contradicts the earlier pronouncement Unum Sanctum.
Contradiction upon contradiction; things have devolved and changed. Yet the constitutional motto of the Roman Church is "Semper Idem" – "always the same". Well, it"s not; it"s changed, changed, and changed. What the Roman Catholic Church is today it became at the Council of Trent, basically, in the aftermath of the Reformation. We can document it from their own documents. Some Catholic scholars admit it. Yet in a way it is Semper Idem. Once they make another doctrine they can"t change it. There are two kinds of doctrines in the Roman Church:proxima fide and de fide You can change a proxima fide doctrine like making the mass from Latin into English, but a de fide doctrine – transubstantiation, purgatory, indulgence – they couldn't change that stuff.
And so looking at these contradictions, coming from a Catholic background on my mother"s side of the family, I have to ask some questions of my Catholic friends – sincere questions. Again, I"m not attacking you, it would be attacking my own family, indeed my own mother. I'm not attacking you, I'm simply trying to arrive at the truth. I'm only asking you questions that I once asked myself.
Now I should tell you my own family is a mixture of Roman Catholic and Jewish, and partially for that reason I'm able to speak and read the Hebrew language, and I've also learned Greek. I looked at other faiths – Judaism, Protestantism, Roman Catholicism – most of all I studied the Scriptures with an emphasis on studying them in the original languages. I don't say I'm the greatest scholar or theologian in the world, but I do know what I believe and why I believe it.
I have a book here, Rome Has Spoken, written by two academic Roman Catholic nuns Maureen Fiedler and Linda Rabben – they"re the editors. They are both Ph.D.'s, both Roman Catholic nuns, both quite scholarly women. The book is published by Crossroad Publishing Company and it"s a very, very interesting book, a compilation of Vatican- and papal-issued statements from different times in history.
I"d like to ask you some questions as a Roman Catholic, questions of the sort I once asked myself, questions that other people like me have asked. But before I do that I"d like to read you some quotes from Roman Catholic documents – official Vatican documents – that areimprimatur and nihil obstat, official Roman Catholic documents.
In the year 420, Boniface I, Bishop of Rome: "Instead of what is lawful for what has been decided by the apostolic see to be reconsidered, the Second Council of Constantinople in 553, the current pope vigilist was found guilty of heresy and formally excommunicated from the body of the faithful. And at the Third Council of Constantinople in 681, Pope Honorius had confirmed the impious opinions of the heretic Sergius and anathematizee the pope from the church." According to Roman Catholic history, Roman Catholic documents, popes have been kicked out of office and excommunicated by councils of the church. It was not the belief, according to the Roman Catholic Church, that the pope at that time was somehow infallible in what he was proclaiming.
Of course now they claim, since 1870, when he speaks ex-cathedra he is, but I've never heard in modern history of a Pope being fired – sacked by the church. But things began to change by the medieval church, and again I'm only reading from Roman Catholic history that the creedom of 1140, where matters of faith are concerned, a General Counsel – a kind of magisterium – is greater than a pope. For though the Roman pope has sometimes erred, this does not mean that the Roman Church has. In other words, popes can say things that are erroneous and the church doesn"t have to support them.
By 1200 A.D. Pope Innocent III: "Every cleric must obey the pope, even if he commands what is evil; for no one may judge the pope." In the year 1200 the papacy decreed you have to obey the pope even if he tells you to do something which is evil and that no one may judge it, although the earlier councils of the church fired popes. A religion that came to teach you have to follow a man even when he's telling you to do something evil.
In the year 1302, Pope Boniface VIII, "Unam Sanctam": "We declare, affirm, and define as a truth necessary for salvation that every human being is subject to the Roman Pontiff." In the year 1302 it was decreed by Pope Boniface VIII that to have salvation – that is escape hell and go to heaven – you have to be subject to the pope.
Let"s move to the modern era.
1854, Pope Pius IX, "Ineffablis Deus": "If anyone shall dare to think otherwise the most Blessed Virgin was from the first moment of her conception preserved immune from all stain of original sin. if anyone dares to think otherwise that has been defined here by us, let him know that he certainly has abandoned the divine and Catholic church." The church is proclaimed as divine and if you don't believe that Mary was sinless you"ve abandoned it. That was in 1854. Why was it not taught earlier? The term "theoticos" –"mother of God" is not in the Bible or in the Greek text anywhere, it"s not in the Vulgate. Pius IX was the same pope who issued a papal encyclical in which democracy was condemned – "Quanta Cura".
In the first Vatican Council in the year 1870, "Pastor Aeternus": "We teach and define that the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra, that is when in the exercise of his offices pastor and teacher of all Christians, he defines by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority a doctrine of faith and morals which is to be held by the whole Church. It is by reason of the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, possessed of that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer wished His church to be endowed in defining doctrines of faith and morals." Since 1870 there"s been an official doctrine that the pope, when he speaks ex cathedra from the chair of Peter cannot make a mistake; a human being who cannot make a mistake even though earlier church councils said that popes can make mistakes even in matters of doctrine and some were excommunicated for it.
Quite a book. A book not containing Protestant documents, a book compiled by Roman Catholics containing Roman Catholic documents.
Again, Boniface VIII, "Unum Sanctum", 1302: "We declare, affirm, and define as a truth necessary for salvation that every human being is subject to the Roman Pontiff." If you"re not a Catholic you can"t go to heaven they said.
There was a Pope Leo XIII, "Satis Cognitum", 1896: "Let such as these take counsel with themselves and realize that they can in no wise be counted among the children of God unless they take Christ Jesus as their brother and at the same time the church, that is the church of Rome, as their mother." Jesus as your brother and the Roman Catholic Church as your mother. And if that is not the case, you"re not a child of God. John 1 says to all who believed Him, who believed in His name, to all who received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God. (Jn. 1:12)
1948. the Holy Office, "Cum Comperum" reminded Catholics of canonical prohibitions against unauthorized prohibition and so-called ecumenical meetings with non-Catholic Christians and in shared worship. They were warned against it in 1948, now all of the sudden it"s to be pursued in order to get people to become Catholic. That tells me something. At one time they were afraid of Catholics being lured away from the church by associating with other Christians; now they think the time is ripe to lure other Christians into the Roman Church.
The Second Vatican Council in 1964, Dogmatic Constitution of the Church: "Those who through no fault of their own do not know the gospel of Christ or His church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart and moved by grace tray in their actions to do His will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience, these too may attain eternal salvation." Which directly, of course, contradicts the earlier pronouncement Unum Sanctum.
Contradiction upon contradiction; things have devolved and changed. Yet the constitutional motto of the Roman Church is "Semper Idem" – "always the same". Well, it"s not; it"s changed, changed, and changed. What the Roman Catholic Church is today it became at the Council of Trent, basically, in the aftermath of the Reformation. We can document it from their own documents. Some Catholic scholars admit it. Yet in a way it is Semper Idem. Once they make another doctrine they can"t change it. There are two kinds of doctrines in the Roman Church:proxima fide and de fide You can change a proxima fide doctrine like making the mass from Latin into English, but a de fide doctrine – transubstantiation, purgatory, indulgence – they couldn't change that stuff.
And so looking at these contradictions, coming from a Catholic background on my mother"s side of the family, I have to ask some questions of my Catholic friends – sincere questions. Again, I"m not attacking you, it would be attacking my own family, indeed my own mother. I'm not attacking you, I'm simply trying to arrive at the truth. I'm only asking you questions that I once asked myself.
Catholic
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Mezuzot (The Doorposts) Part 1 of 2
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Mezuzot (The Doorposts) Part 1 of 2
by James Jacob Prasch
Reading from Judges chapter 14: "Then Samson went down to Timnah, and saw a woman in Timnah, one of the daughters of the Philistines. So he came back and told his father and mother, 'I saw a woman in Timnah, one of the daughters of the Philistines; now, therefore, give her to me as my wife.' Then his father and his mother said to him, 'Is there no woman among the daughters of your relatives or among your own people, that you would go and take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?' But Samson said to his father, 'Get her for me, for she looks good to me.'"
The sin that so easily besets: Samson had a weakness for unbelieving women. Understand that the issue here was not the woman's race; females are not circumcised, except in certain Islamic tribes of Central Africa. However, the issue was her belief. At that time, a Jew marrying a non-Jew would have been equivalent to a believer today marrying a non-believer. The issue, in other words, was her belief.
Samson had a predisposition toward being attracted to unbelieving women. By the time we reach chapter 15, we see that it has gotten him into a real mess. Although God worked in the relationship for His purposes in terms of Providence, it got Samson into real trouble. In verse 18 of chapter 15 we read: "Then he (Samson) became very thirsty, and he called out to the LORD and said, 'Thou hast given this great deliverance by the hand of Thy servant, and now shall I die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?'" Samson's relationship with this woman eventually landed him in trouble, first with her father and then with the Philistines; and God rescued him. That was his first recorded bout with an unbelieving woman.
We have other teachings on Samson, one of which is 'The Vow of the Nazirite', which deals with the midrash, including the typology of the hair. It also deals with the wicked woman of Proverbs chapter 5, which speaks of giving one's strength to the adulteress. This was the Pesher meaning, the deeper spiritual meaning; now, however, let us look at the Peshet, the straightforward, clear meaning of the text as we read chapter 16 of the book of Judges:
"Now Samson went to Gaza, and saw a harlot there, and he went in to her." He does it again; he finds another unbelieving woman. 'The sin that so easily besets' - ". . . and he went in to her" - in Hebrew, bow l'ah. As you may know from other messages, one person is inside of another person, and a third person is procreated: we are created in the image of God - Imago Dei - we are theopomorphic men and women. This aspect of God's image in us is the main reason that adultery and fornication are so serious in His sight; these sexual sins cause us to pollute and obscure the image of God in which we were created. On the doorposts of my house in England, there is a small box called a 'mezuzah', which has on it the Hebrew letter 'shem'. Shem is also the first letter of the Hebrew confession of faith. In the Gospels, when they asked Jesus what the greatest commandment is, He said, "Shema Israel Adonai Elohenu Adonai ekhad baruch Ha Shem; "Hear O Israel, the LORD your God is oneness; you shall love the LORD your God with all your soul, all your heart, and all your strength." That word akhad means a plural oneness; the word for the oneness of God is the same word for Adam and Eve becoming one flesh - akhad. Again, this reproduces His image and His likeness.
The small box on my doorposts is called a mezuzah; but what a mezuzah actually was in ancient Hebrew culture was the doorpost itself; so the little box is named after that upon which it rests; a doorpost. In the Book of Exodus when the hyssop was taken and dipped into the blood of the Paschal lamb, they were to put it onto the mezuzot, the doorposts, in the form of a bloody cross. More about that in a moment.
The husband shall cling to his wife, and they shall be akhad. The Hebrew word translated there as 'cling to' is daveq. Clinging to God in Judaism is called devequt. When you see Orthodox Jews with the payoot, the ear-curls, you may observe them making a certain gesture, which to them indicates clinging to God. They are trying to capture something called zumzumim, or 'holy sparks'. In modern Hebrew, daveq is the word for glue, and cellotape in Hebrew is nyr daveq, literally meaning 'glue-ribbon'. In the Bible, however, the idea conveyed by that word is not glue, but rather superglue. What is the difference, then, between glue and superglue? Glue sticks, but superglue bonds. Superglue forms a polymer; you have an exchange of electrons. Once the superglue comes into contact with atmospheric pressure, the change of electrons begins and forms the bond. The polymer bonds; it is not merely sticking now, but actually bonding on a molecular level. There is a co-valency established by polymerization. In this way, Samson clings to this unbelieving woman.
Let us go on: "When it was told to the Gazaites, saying, 'Samson has come here,' they surrounded the place and lay all night in wait for him at the gate of the city. And they kept silent all night, saying, 'Let us wait until the morning light, and then we will kill him.' Now Samson lay until midnight, and at midnight he arose and took hold of the mezuzot - the doorposts - of the city gate, and the posts, and pulled them up along with the bars. Then he put them on his shoulder and carried them up to the top of the mountain which is opposite Hebron." The bars here are made of iron - in Hebrew barzel. Samson's burden, like the Cross, is made of wood and iron.
This is not the first time he got himself into a mess because of his weakness: Paul calls this 'the sin that so easily besets'. Thanks to the advertising industry, which has reduced human sexuality to a means of selling anything from spring fashion to toothpaste, I do not know anybody under the age of 87 who is not vexed by sexual temptation. The world and Satan have combined in the advertising industry to make everything from MTV to magazine adverts degrade human sexuality to an animalistic level.
In Samson's situation, however, we simply know what his weakness was. For you and me, it may or may not be something sexual, but everyone has a weak spot. Not only do you have one, and I have one, but also the enemy knows what they are. Although I knew better, when I was in University my life was based on cocaine, sex, dope, rock'n'roll, and classical music. Although I professed to be a Marxist, I realized that because cocaine costs money, I needed a good education in order to get a good job with which I could subsidize my decadence. What a hypocrite! If you had asked me as a young believer what I thought would be the weakness that would hold me back, what would be the enemy's main weapon against me, I would have said it would be cocaine and cannabis. Yet in hindsight, I cannot think of anything that the Lord has given me a more total deliverance from than substance abuse. I cannot even stay in the same room with someone who smokes a cigarette, let alone a joint. I have been to parties at which people were taking this stuff, getting stoned, and not only have I had no temptation, I have even been able to witness to these people and tell them how God gave me power over the addictions and delivered me from them, giving me something better. Substance abuse is something over which God has given me complete victory, although that was the thing that I thought would drag me down. I have no issue with it, although other people do struggle with it. That is not my weakness; my weakness is this:
In England we have a lot of traffic. So one day I will be on my way to a church to speak to a hundred people, and there's a lorry driver up ahead with an 18- or 22-wheeler with a European license plate, tying up traffic for miles. When I finally manage to overtake him, now that I'm forty minutes late, I see him with a mobile phone in one hand and a cigarette in another, and I want to shoot him. My indignation may itself be righteous, but wanting to put the man in his grave is certainly not.
My weakness is explosive anger: there is a big difference between holy anger and being wholly angry. When Moses took the tablets with the Decalogue - the Ten Commandments - and threw them down from the mountain because Israel had made and worshiped golden calves, he told them they had broken the Law of God; that was holy anger. When I want to shoot the lorry driver, however, that is not holy anger. Being right in what you say does not automatically translate to having a righteous indignation or holy anger. We speak of this further on the 'Sons of Zadok' tape. That is my personal weakness.
Let me give you an example of another weakness: I know people who are saved Christians to whom alcohol is not a beverage, but a drug. Enjoying a glass of wine with dinner or a beer with lunch is not possible for them. These believers should never go near alcohol in any form, because that is their personal weakness.
Insurance companies may not know anything about medical science, but they certainly do know about money. Therefore they know about statistics. When you fill out an insurance form, you will notice that one of the first questions they ask is whether or not you smoke. The instant a person quits smoking cigarettes, they automatically go into a lower-risk category. Conversely, the moment you pick up a cigarette and begin smoking you enter a higher-risk category statistically. It is said that for every minute someone smokes, a minute is subtracted from his lifespan. Every cigarette, in other words, is a nail in your coffin. Yet I know saved Christians for whom cigarettes are a weakness. They may go for a day - maybe two days - without one, yet they consistently return to the habit. Some Christians scoff at the idea that this should be an issue, yet when you walk outside of a church and an unsaved person happens to see you light up a cigarette, there goes your testimony. "Yeah, Jesus changed my life. Gotta match?"
"Thou shalt not covet" - How, then, can Christians gamble? I honestly do not know. There are things today that are facilitated by technology. Sin by proxy, as it were, as if that makes it less sinful. For example, there are Christians who would never actually go out and have an affair, betraying their spouses, yet I assure you that tonight there are thousands of born-again Christians in chat rooms committing adultery by cyber-proxy. They will do things over the Internet that they would never actually go out and perform, thinking that this somehow makes it better. But God has said that if you so much as lust for someone else's wife or husband you have already done it. There are thousands of Christians involved in ungodly chat lines. I know one Christian in particular who got herself into very serious trouble in this way.
'The sin that so easily besets'; maybe it is sexual for you, or maybe it is not. Maybe it is substance abuse, maybe not. Maybe it is violence or temperament, maybe it isn't. Whatever it may be, however, every Christian has one thing that they continue falling into. The godliest people I have ever met had a weakness that became conspicuous. In looking to Scripture, we find that the patriarchs had basic defects in character even into their old age. We see God trying to work these defects - these 'sins that so easily beset', as Paul calls them - out of their lives, even until their deaths. In the Greek, when Paul spoke of this besetting sin, he did not speak in the past tense. He said, "I am the chief of all sinners" - present tense, even as a believer.
Samson's besetting sin was his lust for unbelieving women; earlier we saw in Judges 15 that this sin lands him in trouble, but God delivers him from it. Now in chapter 16, however, we find him doing it again: the more you give in to that sin, the deeper you get caught in it, and the more dangerous it becomes. This time, he's up to his eyeballs in quicksand; he is surrounded by his enemies who have laid a trap for him.
The devil is not interested in carnal pleasure; not even in the fleeting pleasures associated with sin. If you read 'The Screwtape Letters', you will find that C.S. Lewis was quite correct: he recounted an old demon's advice to a young demon regarding how to tempt a Christian to sin, warning him to be careful of pleasure because it was something that had been created by their Enemy, God. The older demon points out that if they corrupt pleasure in order to use it in luring their victim, they should do so cautiously. You see, to the devil the fleeting pleasures of sin are only the bait he must use. Satan does not wish anyone to have any pleasure whatsoever - he only wants people to go to Hell. On this side of eternity, the human mind can comprehend neither the love of God in its totality nor the depravity of Satan in its totality.
To return once more to Samson's plight in Judges 16, again we note that he is surrounded. What does he do? In other words, what should you and I do when we find ourselves in a mess because we have fallen into doing the same stupid thing once again? Samson's enemies were waiting to ambush him when? Not at midnight, but at dawn. Samson was comfortably in bed; but he jumped up at midnight. If he had waited until dawn, his enemies would have had him.
To apply this to our own lives: the very instant you realize that you have fallen once again into the same mess and are in trouble, this time even worse than before, you must not wait to put it right. Put it right immediately! To hesitate is to make yourself a sitting target; your enemies are waiting to get you and to get me - demons are real. Samson immediately put his situation right, though he had to jump out of bed to do it. The moment you allow yourself to be comfortable in the sin, you have set yourself up.
So we see that Samson jumped up; however, he was still surrounded. How did he get himself out of the trap? And how do we get ourselves out when we are thick enough in the head to get ourselves into it to begin with? Samson grabbed hold of the mezuzot; the Cross of Jesus Christ, the wood and the iron. There are a million ways into that mess, but there is only one way out of it. Samson put the Cross on his shoulder and carried it with him as he went. Put it right immediately - pick up the Cross at once.
You hear a fiery preacher, but let me tell you about this fiery preacher: Once when I was a young believer - before I was married, before I entered the ministry or went to seminary, even before I was in Israel (I was still in New York) - I met a woman on the East Side of Manhattan who was a bit older than I and rather good-looking. I responded to her advances in the wrong way: instead of witnessing to her, I reacted to her flirtatious invitations. Before I knew it, I was in a taxi with her; not long after that, I found myself in a bath with her; and finally, I was in her bed with her. I was so very close to taking the situation to its natural conclusion, continuing to act in the way I had before I knew Jesus. Yet at the last minute I asked myself what on earth I was doing, and began to wonder how I would get myself out of the situation. My flesh wanted its way, but I began to pray, saying, "Lord Jesus, look what I've done! I am stupid, but Lord, please get me out of this somehow." Well, I don't know what I said, but it must have gotten right up her nose. While I don't remember exactly what I said, I'll never forget what she said: she began running around the room screaming at me to get out, get out, get out! My old creation wanted the sin, but my new creation only wanted to get out of there. To delay is to make yourself a target. There is only one way out: crucify the flesh.
God was gracious to me as He was to Samson: Samson lifted the mezuzot - iron and wood - and to the mountain he went. What happens next? Let us read on to find out: "After this it came about that he loved a woman in the Valley of Sorek whose name was Delilah." Sure enough, Samson does it again! He goes out and finds another one! We do not know how many times Samson actually did this, but we know it was at least as many times as the Bible records. The first time we're told about, he got himself in up to his neck; the second time, up to his eyeballs; what will he do this time?
Your besetting sin may or may not be sexual, as Samson's was; but never doubt - you have one, and I have one. You know what yours is, and so does God, and not least of all, so does the enemy. That one thing, that stupid, idiotic, moronic thing you just keep going back to. What will Samson do now?
"And the lords of the Philistines came up to her and said to her, 'Entice him, and see where his great strength lies, that we may overpower him, that we might bind him to afflict him. Then we will each give you eleven hundred pieces of silver.'" Unsaved people care about one thing: Money. Unbelievers will do almost anything if the price is right. Here we see that Delilah is being offered money to entice Samson. Things have now changed: the enemy changes strategy. Up until now, their attempts on Samson were opportunistic; now they are seeking to set him up and trap him. As it says in Ecclesiastes, because the consequences of an iniquity are not instant, people are deceived into thinking they will get away with it. The Bible tells us something remarkable about sin: it personifies sin, saying that it can deceive us. Not only can Satan deceive us, not only can other people deceive us if we fail to be discerning, not only can we deceive ourselves, but sin itself can deceive us. That besetting sin can deceive you into thinking that you can continue pulling it off.
The strategy of Samson's enemies changes now, because they have realized they will not get him through happenstance. When you do something wrong and get yourself into trouble by doing it, that's good, relatively speaking. Once we begin pulling it off and not reaping the consequences of our sins, that's when we're in real trouble - only we don't know it.
This can be very much likened to the first time a person picks up a cigarette and tries to smoke it: he will cough violently because his body is trying to tell him something; the repercussions of inhaling the nicotine and tar are instant. After he has become metabolically acclimated to it, the coughing stops and he is led to believe he is all right, when the diametric opposite is the actual truth. He has in reality become a statistical candidate for respiratory disease, cardiovascular disease, and all kinds of cancer. Cigarettes contain carcinogens; yet it becomes easy to think there's no problem or danger once the coughing stops. The smoker was better off coughing; at least then he knew it was no good.
Continuing with verse 6: "So Delilah said to Samson, 'Please tell me where your great strength lies, and how you may be bound to afflict you.' And Samson said to her, 'If they bind me with seven fresh cords that have not been dried, then I shall become weak and be like any other man.' Then the lords of the Philistines brought up to Delilah seven fresh cords that had not been dried, and she bound him with them. Now she had men who were lying in wait in another room, and she said, 'The Philistines are upon you, Samson!' But he snapped the cords as a string of yarn snaps when it is touched by fire. So his strength was not discovered. Then Delilah said to Samson, 'Behold, you have deceived me, and told me lies! Now please tell me how you may be bound!'"
Samson is playing with fire; he's in bed with an $1100.00/night hooker, the pimp's in the next room with a loaded gun, and he's playing bedroom games. In the same way we often get flirtatious with the sin we think we can keep on getting away with; it becomes a game to us. Russian Roulette is also a game: you drop the bullet into the barrel and you spin it; only the person you're playing against knows which cylinder the bullet is in. Click, click, click - but sooner or later, probably sooner than later - bang.
Verse 11: "So he said to her, 'If they bind me tightly with new ropes that have not been used, then I shall be weak and be like any other man.' So Delilah took new ropes and bound him with them, and said to him, 'The Philistines are upon you, Samson!' Men were lying in wait in the inner room, but he snapped the ropes from his arms like a thread." Notice that the strategy only changes very slightly the second time. "So Delilah said to Samson, 'Up to now you have deceived me and told me lies;'"- Here she is, trying to get Samson killed, yet reproaching him for his immorality. This is like the Pope saying it is immoral to bomb Iraq, while he is the head of the pedophile religion that protects its sexually perverted clergy who destroy the lives of children. He wants to tell others how to be moral, while his own church is a cesspool of depravity. "'. . . tell me how you may be bound.' And he said to her, 'If you weave the seven locks of my hair in a loom and fasten it with a pin, I shall be weak and be like any other man.'" Do you notice what is happening here? Step by step Samson is getting lured into the trap; now he lets Delilah know that the secret has to do with his hair. The stakes are raised; in our lives, when we successfully get away with the sin a few times, we get confident and careless, and we raise the stakes just as he did. It's like going to a casino or a racetrack; the house always has the odds, or they wouldn't be in business.
Understand what is happening here: why is he beginning to tell this unbelieving woman intimate things about his relationship with God? She isn't the girl next door, she's a femme fatale, and a shichah to boot. Couldn't he find a nice Jewish girl? He begins sharing with her intimate things that should not be shared outside of holy wedlock. Why? Because of deveq; bound. You cannot sleep with someone and avoid being covered with superglue.
I used to live across the street from the United Nations in New York City during my younger days as a believer. I was cohabitating there with an attractive Italian girl, who was a great cook as well as being great at a few other things. The relationship was based on two things, the first of which was Fettuccine Alfredo; the second I will leave to your imagination. When I began following Jesus, the leader of Jews for Jesus at that time told me that I either had to get married or get out; so I told her to get out. I then took the rest of my drugs, as some of you know, and threw them out the window, where they landed twenty stories down on First Avenue. As I often point out, it is a good thing the Polish Ambassador had diplomatic immunity, or he'd still be in the birdcage singin' the blues. I led the woman to the Lord: I can now go to a church almost anywhere in the world, and the women in these churches are sisters in faith, nothing more nor less. Yet if I saw that Italian woman, there would always in this life be something there that should not be there. If you talk to people who have endured the agony of a divorce, they will tell you that it does irreparable damage.
Reading from Judges chapter 14: "Then Samson went down to Timnah, and saw a woman in Timnah, one of the daughters of the Philistines. So he came back and told his father and mother, 'I saw a woman in Timnah, one of the daughters of the Philistines; now, therefore, give her to me as my wife.' Then his father and his mother said to him, 'Is there no woman among the daughters of your relatives or among your own people, that you would go and take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?' But Samson said to his father, 'Get her for me, for she looks good to me.'"
The sin that so easily besets: Samson had a weakness for unbelieving women. Understand that the issue here was not the woman's race; females are not circumcised, except in certain Islamic tribes of Central Africa. However, the issue was her belief. At that time, a Jew marrying a non-Jew would have been equivalent to a believer today marrying a non-believer. The issue, in other words, was her belief.
Samson had a predisposition toward being attracted to unbelieving women. By the time we reach chapter 15, we see that it has gotten him into a real mess. Although God worked in the relationship for His purposes in terms of Providence, it got Samson into real trouble. In verse 18 of chapter 15 we read: "Then he (Samson) became very thirsty, and he called out to the LORD and said, 'Thou hast given this great deliverance by the hand of Thy servant, and now shall I die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?'" Samson's relationship with this woman eventually landed him in trouble, first with her father and then with the Philistines; and God rescued him. That was his first recorded bout with an unbelieving woman.
We have other teachings on Samson, one of which is 'The Vow of the Nazirite', which deals with the midrash, including the typology of the hair. It also deals with the wicked woman of Proverbs chapter 5, which speaks of giving one's strength to the adulteress. This was the Pesher meaning, the deeper spiritual meaning; now, however, let us look at the Peshet, the straightforward, clear meaning of the text as we read chapter 16 of the book of Judges:
"Now Samson went to Gaza, and saw a harlot there, and he went in to her." He does it again; he finds another unbelieving woman. 'The sin that so easily besets' - ". . . and he went in to her" - in Hebrew, bow l'ah. As you may know from other messages, one person is inside of another person, and a third person is procreated: we are created in the image of God - Imago Dei - we are theopomorphic men and women. This aspect of God's image in us is the main reason that adultery and fornication are so serious in His sight; these sexual sins cause us to pollute and obscure the image of God in which we were created. On the doorposts of my house in England, there is a small box called a 'mezuzah', which has on it the Hebrew letter 'shem'. Shem is also the first letter of the Hebrew confession of faith. In the Gospels, when they asked Jesus what the greatest commandment is, He said, "Shema Israel Adonai Elohenu Adonai ekhad baruch Ha Shem; "Hear O Israel, the LORD your God is oneness; you shall love the LORD your God with all your soul, all your heart, and all your strength." That word akhad means a plural oneness; the word for the oneness of God is the same word for Adam and Eve becoming one flesh - akhad. Again, this reproduces His image and His likeness.
The small box on my doorposts is called a mezuzah; but what a mezuzah actually was in ancient Hebrew culture was the doorpost itself; so the little box is named after that upon which it rests; a doorpost. In the Book of Exodus when the hyssop was taken and dipped into the blood of the Paschal lamb, they were to put it onto the mezuzot, the doorposts, in the form of a bloody cross. More about that in a moment.
The husband shall cling to his wife, and they shall be akhad. The Hebrew word translated there as 'cling to' is daveq. Clinging to God in Judaism is called devequt. When you see Orthodox Jews with the payoot, the ear-curls, you may observe them making a certain gesture, which to them indicates clinging to God. They are trying to capture something called zumzumim, or 'holy sparks'. In modern Hebrew, daveq is the word for glue, and cellotape in Hebrew is nyr daveq, literally meaning 'glue-ribbon'. In the Bible, however, the idea conveyed by that word is not glue, but rather superglue. What is the difference, then, between glue and superglue? Glue sticks, but superglue bonds. Superglue forms a polymer; you have an exchange of electrons. Once the superglue comes into contact with atmospheric pressure, the change of electrons begins and forms the bond. The polymer bonds; it is not merely sticking now, but actually bonding on a molecular level. There is a co-valency established by polymerization. In this way, Samson clings to this unbelieving woman.
Let us go on: "When it was told to the Gazaites, saying, 'Samson has come here,' they surrounded the place and lay all night in wait for him at the gate of the city. And they kept silent all night, saying, 'Let us wait until the morning light, and then we will kill him.' Now Samson lay until midnight, and at midnight he arose and took hold of the mezuzot - the doorposts - of the city gate, and the posts, and pulled them up along with the bars. Then he put them on his shoulder and carried them up to the top of the mountain which is opposite Hebron." The bars here are made of iron - in Hebrew barzel. Samson's burden, like the Cross, is made of wood and iron.
This is not the first time he got himself into a mess because of his weakness: Paul calls this 'the sin that so easily besets'. Thanks to the advertising industry, which has reduced human sexuality to a means of selling anything from spring fashion to toothpaste, I do not know anybody under the age of 87 who is not vexed by sexual temptation. The world and Satan have combined in the advertising industry to make everything from MTV to magazine adverts degrade human sexuality to an animalistic level.
In Samson's situation, however, we simply know what his weakness was. For you and me, it may or may not be something sexual, but everyone has a weak spot. Not only do you have one, and I have one, but also the enemy knows what they are. Although I knew better, when I was in University my life was based on cocaine, sex, dope, rock'n'roll, and classical music. Although I professed to be a Marxist, I realized that because cocaine costs money, I needed a good education in order to get a good job with which I could subsidize my decadence. What a hypocrite! If you had asked me as a young believer what I thought would be the weakness that would hold me back, what would be the enemy's main weapon against me, I would have said it would be cocaine and cannabis. Yet in hindsight, I cannot think of anything that the Lord has given me a more total deliverance from than substance abuse. I cannot even stay in the same room with someone who smokes a cigarette, let alone a joint. I have been to parties at which people were taking this stuff, getting stoned, and not only have I had no temptation, I have even been able to witness to these people and tell them how God gave me power over the addictions and delivered me from them, giving me something better. Substance abuse is something over which God has given me complete victory, although that was the thing that I thought would drag me down. I have no issue with it, although other people do struggle with it. That is not my weakness; my weakness is this:
In England we have a lot of traffic. So one day I will be on my way to a church to speak to a hundred people, and there's a lorry driver up ahead with an 18- or 22-wheeler with a European license plate, tying up traffic for miles. When I finally manage to overtake him, now that I'm forty minutes late, I see him with a mobile phone in one hand and a cigarette in another, and I want to shoot him. My indignation may itself be righteous, but wanting to put the man in his grave is certainly not.
My weakness is explosive anger: there is a big difference between holy anger and being wholly angry. When Moses took the tablets with the Decalogue - the Ten Commandments - and threw them down from the mountain because Israel had made and worshiped golden calves, he told them they had broken the Law of God; that was holy anger. When I want to shoot the lorry driver, however, that is not holy anger. Being right in what you say does not automatically translate to having a righteous indignation or holy anger. We speak of this further on the 'Sons of Zadok' tape. That is my personal weakness.
Let me give you an example of another weakness: I know people who are saved Christians to whom alcohol is not a beverage, but a drug. Enjoying a glass of wine with dinner or a beer with lunch is not possible for them. These believers should never go near alcohol in any form, because that is their personal weakness.
Insurance companies may not know anything about medical science, but they certainly do know about money. Therefore they know about statistics. When you fill out an insurance form, you will notice that one of the first questions they ask is whether or not you smoke. The instant a person quits smoking cigarettes, they automatically go into a lower-risk category. Conversely, the moment you pick up a cigarette and begin smoking you enter a higher-risk category statistically. It is said that for every minute someone smokes, a minute is subtracted from his lifespan. Every cigarette, in other words, is a nail in your coffin. Yet I know saved Christians for whom cigarettes are a weakness. They may go for a day - maybe two days - without one, yet they consistently return to the habit. Some Christians scoff at the idea that this should be an issue, yet when you walk outside of a church and an unsaved person happens to see you light up a cigarette, there goes your testimony. "Yeah, Jesus changed my life. Gotta match?"
"Thou shalt not covet" - How, then, can Christians gamble? I honestly do not know. There are things today that are facilitated by technology. Sin by proxy, as it were, as if that makes it less sinful. For example, there are Christians who would never actually go out and have an affair, betraying their spouses, yet I assure you that tonight there are thousands of born-again Christians in chat rooms committing adultery by cyber-proxy. They will do things over the Internet that they would never actually go out and perform, thinking that this somehow makes it better. But God has said that if you so much as lust for someone else's wife or husband you have already done it. There are thousands of Christians involved in ungodly chat lines. I know one Christian in particular who got herself into very serious trouble in this way.
'The sin that so easily besets'; maybe it is sexual for you, or maybe it is not. Maybe it is substance abuse, maybe not. Maybe it is violence or temperament, maybe it isn't. Whatever it may be, however, every Christian has one thing that they continue falling into. The godliest people I have ever met had a weakness that became conspicuous. In looking to Scripture, we find that the patriarchs had basic defects in character even into their old age. We see God trying to work these defects - these 'sins that so easily beset', as Paul calls them - out of their lives, even until their deaths. In the Greek, when Paul spoke of this besetting sin, he did not speak in the past tense. He said, "I am the chief of all sinners" - present tense, even as a believer.
Samson's besetting sin was his lust for unbelieving women; earlier we saw in Judges 15 that this sin lands him in trouble, but God delivers him from it. Now in chapter 16, however, we find him doing it again: the more you give in to that sin, the deeper you get caught in it, and the more dangerous it becomes. This time, he's up to his eyeballs in quicksand; he is surrounded by his enemies who have laid a trap for him.
The devil is not interested in carnal pleasure; not even in the fleeting pleasures associated with sin. If you read 'The Screwtape Letters', you will find that C.S. Lewis was quite correct: he recounted an old demon's advice to a young demon regarding how to tempt a Christian to sin, warning him to be careful of pleasure because it was something that had been created by their Enemy, God. The older demon points out that if they corrupt pleasure in order to use it in luring their victim, they should do so cautiously. You see, to the devil the fleeting pleasures of sin are only the bait he must use. Satan does not wish anyone to have any pleasure whatsoever - he only wants people to go to Hell. On this side of eternity, the human mind can comprehend neither the love of God in its totality nor the depravity of Satan in its totality.
To return once more to Samson's plight in Judges 16, again we note that he is surrounded. What does he do? In other words, what should you and I do when we find ourselves in a mess because we have fallen into doing the same stupid thing once again? Samson's enemies were waiting to ambush him when? Not at midnight, but at dawn. Samson was comfortably in bed; but he jumped up at midnight. If he had waited until dawn, his enemies would have had him.
To apply this to our own lives: the very instant you realize that you have fallen once again into the same mess and are in trouble, this time even worse than before, you must not wait to put it right. Put it right immediately! To hesitate is to make yourself a sitting target; your enemies are waiting to get you and to get me - demons are real. Samson immediately put his situation right, though he had to jump out of bed to do it. The moment you allow yourself to be comfortable in the sin, you have set yourself up.
So we see that Samson jumped up; however, he was still surrounded. How did he get himself out of the trap? And how do we get ourselves out when we are thick enough in the head to get ourselves into it to begin with? Samson grabbed hold of the mezuzot; the Cross of Jesus Christ, the wood and the iron. There are a million ways into that mess, but there is only one way out of it. Samson put the Cross on his shoulder and carried it with him as he went. Put it right immediately - pick up the Cross at once.
You hear a fiery preacher, but let me tell you about this fiery preacher: Once when I was a young believer - before I was married, before I entered the ministry or went to seminary, even before I was in Israel (I was still in New York) - I met a woman on the East Side of Manhattan who was a bit older than I and rather good-looking. I responded to her advances in the wrong way: instead of witnessing to her, I reacted to her flirtatious invitations. Before I knew it, I was in a taxi with her; not long after that, I found myself in a bath with her; and finally, I was in her bed with her. I was so very close to taking the situation to its natural conclusion, continuing to act in the way I had before I knew Jesus. Yet at the last minute I asked myself what on earth I was doing, and began to wonder how I would get myself out of the situation. My flesh wanted its way, but I began to pray, saying, "Lord Jesus, look what I've done! I am stupid, but Lord, please get me out of this somehow." Well, I don't know what I said, but it must have gotten right up her nose. While I don't remember exactly what I said, I'll never forget what she said: she began running around the room screaming at me to get out, get out, get out! My old creation wanted the sin, but my new creation only wanted to get out of there. To delay is to make yourself a target. There is only one way out: crucify the flesh.
God was gracious to me as He was to Samson: Samson lifted the mezuzot - iron and wood - and to the mountain he went. What happens next? Let us read on to find out: "After this it came about that he loved a woman in the Valley of Sorek whose name was Delilah." Sure enough, Samson does it again! He goes out and finds another one! We do not know how many times Samson actually did this, but we know it was at least as many times as the Bible records. The first time we're told about, he got himself in up to his neck; the second time, up to his eyeballs; what will he do this time?
Your besetting sin may or may not be sexual, as Samson's was; but never doubt - you have one, and I have one. You know what yours is, and so does God, and not least of all, so does the enemy. That one thing, that stupid, idiotic, moronic thing you just keep going back to. What will Samson do now?
"And the lords of the Philistines came up to her and said to her, 'Entice him, and see where his great strength lies, that we may overpower him, that we might bind him to afflict him. Then we will each give you eleven hundred pieces of silver.'" Unsaved people care about one thing: Money. Unbelievers will do almost anything if the price is right. Here we see that Delilah is being offered money to entice Samson. Things have now changed: the enemy changes strategy. Up until now, their attempts on Samson were opportunistic; now they are seeking to set him up and trap him. As it says in Ecclesiastes, because the consequences of an iniquity are not instant, people are deceived into thinking they will get away with it. The Bible tells us something remarkable about sin: it personifies sin, saying that it can deceive us. Not only can Satan deceive us, not only can other people deceive us if we fail to be discerning, not only can we deceive ourselves, but sin itself can deceive us. That besetting sin can deceive you into thinking that you can continue pulling it off.
The strategy of Samson's enemies changes now, because they have realized they will not get him through happenstance. When you do something wrong and get yourself into trouble by doing it, that's good, relatively speaking. Once we begin pulling it off and not reaping the consequences of our sins, that's when we're in real trouble - only we don't know it.
This can be very much likened to the first time a person picks up a cigarette and tries to smoke it: he will cough violently because his body is trying to tell him something; the repercussions of inhaling the nicotine and tar are instant. After he has become metabolically acclimated to it, the coughing stops and he is led to believe he is all right, when the diametric opposite is the actual truth. He has in reality become a statistical candidate for respiratory disease, cardiovascular disease, and all kinds of cancer. Cigarettes contain carcinogens; yet it becomes easy to think there's no problem or danger once the coughing stops. The smoker was better off coughing; at least then he knew it was no good.
Continuing with verse 6: "So Delilah said to Samson, 'Please tell me where your great strength lies, and how you may be bound to afflict you.' And Samson said to her, 'If they bind me with seven fresh cords that have not been dried, then I shall become weak and be like any other man.' Then the lords of the Philistines brought up to Delilah seven fresh cords that had not been dried, and she bound him with them. Now she had men who were lying in wait in another room, and she said, 'The Philistines are upon you, Samson!' But he snapped the cords as a string of yarn snaps when it is touched by fire. So his strength was not discovered. Then Delilah said to Samson, 'Behold, you have deceived me, and told me lies! Now please tell me how you may be bound!'"
Samson is playing with fire; he's in bed with an $1100.00/night hooker, the pimp's in the next room with a loaded gun, and he's playing bedroom games. In the same way we often get flirtatious with the sin we think we can keep on getting away with; it becomes a game to us. Russian Roulette is also a game: you drop the bullet into the barrel and you spin it; only the person you're playing against knows which cylinder the bullet is in. Click, click, click - but sooner or later, probably sooner than later - bang.
Verse 11: "So he said to her, 'If they bind me tightly with new ropes that have not been used, then I shall be weak and be like any other man.' So Delilah took new ropes and bound him with them, and said to him, 'The Philistines are upon you, Samson!' Men were lying in wait in the inner room, but he snapped the ropes from his arms like a thread." Notice that the strategy only changes very slightly the second time. "So Delilah said to Samson, 'Up to now you have deceived me and told me lies;'"- Here she is, trying to get Samson killed, yet reproaching him for his immorality. This is like the Pope saying it is immoral to bomb Iraq, while he is the head of the pedophile religion that protects its sexually perverted clergy who destroy the lives of children. He wants to tell others how to be moral, while his own church is a cesspool of depravity. "'. . . tell me how you may be bound.' And he said to her, 'If you weave the seven locks of my hair in a loom and fasten it with a pin, I shall be weak and be like any other man.'" Do you notice what is happening here? Step by step Samson is getting lured into the trap; now he lets Delilah know that the secret has to do with his hair. The stakes are raised; in our lives, when we successfully get away with the sin a few times, we get confident and careless, and we raise the stakes just as he did. It's like going to a casino or a racetrack; the house always has the odds, or they wouldn't be in business.
Understand what is happening here: why is he beginning to tell this unbelieving woman intimate things about his relationship with God? She isn't the girl next door, she's a femme fatale, and a shichah to boot. Couldn't he find a nice Jewish girl? He begins sharing with her intimate things that should not be shared outside of holy wedlock. Why? Because of deveq; bound. You cannot sleep with someone and avoid being covered with superglue.
I used to live across the street from the United Nations in New York City during my younger days as a believer. I was cohabitating there with an attractive Italian girl, who was a great cook as well as being great at a few other things. The relationship was based on two things, the first of which was Fettuccine Alfredo; the second I will leave to your imagination. When I began following Jesus, the leader of Jews for Jesus at that time told me that I either had to get married or get out; so I told her to get out. I then took the rest of my drugs, as some of you know, and threw them out the window, where they landed twenty stories down on First Avenue. As I often point out, it is a good thing the Polish Ambassador had diplomatic immunity, or he'd still be in the birdcage singin' the blues. I led the woman to the Lord: I can now go to a church almost anywhere in the world, and the women in these churches are sisters in faith, nothing more nor less. Yet if I saw that Italian woman, there would always in this life be something there that should not be there. If you talk to people who have endured the agony of a divorce, they will tell you that it does irreparable damage.
Moriel Ministries USA
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HARPAZO: The Intra-Seal Rapture of the Church
When it comes to books devoted to eschatology in general and the Rapture specifically, they often either read like a formal academic argument written solely for the benefit of scholars or employ the use of fiction to avoid directly handling the underlying biblical text. As with Jacob's previous books and exhaustive list of sermons covering nearly every area of theology, Harpazo presents the doctrine of the Rapture and Resurrection in the strictest biblical sense possible, leveraging the handling of Scripture in the same manner as passed along to us by Christ through the Apostles and Early Church of the 1st century.
Often the typical format of such books is to spend more time explaining and refuting all the positions the author does not subscribe to rather than focus exclusively on what they believe and have derived from Scripture. Harpazo may be unique in the complete absence of charts and seemingly endless trips to sidebars to constantly compare alternate interpretations the author does not subscribe to in the first place. Jacob was asked to continue to employ in an expanded book format the same exegesis of Scripture which is present in all of his teachings regardless of whether or not they are eschatological. After all, "The Apocalypse" means "unveiling", and that "lifting of the curtain", so to speak, as we approach the ever nearer Return of Christ is the Holy Spirit's revelation of Scripture as already given, not a new opinion by man..
The Gospels are clear that immediately in the wake of His Resurrection, Christ not only imparted the Holy Spirit to His disciples, but directly instructed them in how He was the fulfillment of the whole of Scripture. (Lk. 24:27, 44-45) In other words, the interpretation of all of God's Word, every Book of the Old Testament included, was re-cast as Christological, having not just a literal, primary meaning for the times any Scripture was originally given, but an added meaning for either Christ's First Coming, Second Coming, or both. Like every doctrine and theology, the Rapture and Resurrection are illustrated through many scriptural people, places and events throughout the whole of God's Word and not simply limited to a single biblical reference.
Using the Early Church hermeneutics of typology to illustrate and illuminate doctrine, Jacob shows how there are many raptures and rescues in Scripture which combine to teach what is going to ultimately take place in the Parousia—the Second Coming of Christ. Likewise, there is a wealth of similar events and patterns throughout Scripture which teach us what to expect from related issues such as the Two Witnesses, the role of the 144,000 and Israel yet to come, the pattern of judgments in Revelation and how they actually replay Old Testament and historical parallels, and a wealth of other such End Times teachings already established in the canon of Scripture.
Jesus Himself established this hermeneutic by categorically teaching that the Last Days would be realized in the character of the days of Noah as well as Lot. The Apostles in their writings not only confirmed these specific examples but built upon them. The question for believers in the Last Days is not whether or not some kind of "new" revelation or word from God has been revealed, but how what has already been given is, in these final hours, being unveiled to believers by the Holy Spirit. What Daniel was told to seal until the end, John was told would be ultimately unsealed.
Some of the chapter titles in Harpazo will sound familiar to those already acquainted with Jacob's teachings, but he has never tied everything together overall to this degree before. This book is not about creating another End Times chart, but making a good faith effort to draw together in one place what the whole counsel of God's Word is teaching not just for a single event or prophetic fulfillment, but the overall doctrinal basis by which believers are supposed to act and behave as they are putting His Word into practice. Whereas many limit their teaching on the Rapture to just the drama of the physical event itself, one of the remarkable differences presented in Harpazo is the believer's place in the Rapture and Resurrection and their active role in preparation for it. Recognition of the nearness of His Return invokes a responsibility to live accordingly.
Those expecting an academic treatment of eschatology or hoping for a formal rebuttal of alternative positions will not find such in Harpazo. But those placing a priority on what God's Word is saying more than the word and opinions of man will derive tangible benefits from the book regardless of which "ism" or eschatology currently held. Jacob presents us with a thorough proactive exegesis of Scripture by concentrating on what Scripture affirms rather than a reactive rebuttal of the beliefs of man, which all too often actually fall outside biblical boundaries.
Please click here to order Harpazo: Th Intra-Seal Rapture of the Church.
Electronic version is now available as anEbookand is available at Amazon for $9.99.
When it comes to books devoted to eschatology in general and the Rapture specifically, they often either read like a formal academic argument written solely for the benefit of scholars or employ the use of fiction to avoid directly handling the underlying biblical text. As with Jacob's previous books and exhaustive list of sermons covering nearly every area of theology, Harpazo presents the doctrine of the Rapture and Resurrection in the strictest biblical sense possible, leveraging the handling of Scripture in the same manner as passed along to us by Christ through the Apostles and Early Church of the 1st century.
Often the typical format of such books is to spend more time explaining and refuting all the positions the author does not subscribe to rather than focus exclusively on what they believe and have derived from Scripture. Harpazo may be unique in the complete absence of charts and seemingly endless trips to sidebars to constantly compare alternate interpretations the author does not subscribe to in the first place. Jacob was asked to continue to employ in an expanded book format the same exegesis of Scripture which is present in all of his teachings regardless of whether or not they are eschatological. After all, "The Apocalypse" means "unveiling", and that "lifting of the curtain", so to speak, as we approach the ever nearer Return of Christ is the Holy Spirit's revelation of Scripture as already given, not a new opinion by man..
The Gospels are clear that immediately in the wake of His Resurrection, Christ not only imparted the Holy Spirit to His disciples, but directly instructed them in how He was the fulfillment of the whole of Scripture. (Lk. 24:27, 44-45) In other words, the interpretation of all of God's Word, every Book of the Old Testament included, was re-cast as Christological, having not just a literal, primary meaning for the times any Scripture was originally given, but an added meaning for either Christ's First Coming, Second Coming, or both. Like every doctrine and theology, the Rapture and Resurrection are illustrated through many scriptural people, places and events throughout the whole of God's Word and not simply limited to a single biblical reference.
Using the Early Church hermeneutics of typology to illustrate and illuminate doctrine, Jacob shows how there are many raptures and rescues in Scripture which combine to teach what is going to ultimately take place in the Parousia—the Second Coming of Christ. Likewise, there is a wealth of similar events and patterns throughout Scripture which teach us what to expect from related issues such as the Two Witnesses, the role of the 144,000 and Israel yet to come, the pattern of judgments in Revelation and how they actually replay Old Testament and historical parallels, and a wealth of other such End Times teachings already established in the canon of Scripture.
Jesus Himself established this hermeneutic by categorically teaching that the Last Days would be realized in the character of the days of Noah as well as Lot. The Apostles in their writings not only confirmed these specific examples but built upon them. The question for believers in the Last Days is not whether or not some kind of "new" revelation or word from God has been revealed, but how what has already been given is, in these final hours, being unveiled to believers by the Holy Spirit. What Daniel was told to seal until the end, John was told would be ultimately unsealed.
Some of the chapter titles in Harpazo will sound familiar to those already acquainted with Jacob's teachings, but he has never tied everything together overall to this degree before. This book is not about creating another End Times chart, but making a good faith effort to draw together in one place what the whole counsel of God's Word is teaching not just for a single event or prophetic fulfillment, but the overall doctrinal basis by which believers are supposed to act and behave as they are putting His Word into practice. Whereas many limit their teaching on the Rapture to just the drama of the physical event itself, one of the remarkable differences presented in Harpazo is the believer's place in the Rapture and Resurrection and their active role in preparation for it. Recognition of the nearness of His Return invokes a responsibility to live accordingly.
Those expecting an academic treatment of eschatology or hoping for a formal rebuttal of alternative positions will not find such in Harpazo. But those placing a priority on what God's Word is saying more than the word and opinions of man will derive tangible benefits from the book regardless of which "ism" or eschatology currently held. Jacob presents us with a thorough proactive exegesis of Scripture by concentrating on what Scripture affirms rather than a reactive rebuttal of the beliefs of man, which all too often actually fall outside biblical boundaries.
Please click here to order Harpazo: Th Intra-Seal Rapture of the Church.
Electronic version is now available as anEbookand is available at Amazon for $9.99.
Mezuzot (The Doorposts) Part 2 of 2
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Mezuzot (The Doorposts) Part 2 of 2
You see, glue rinses off; but superglue does not rinse off with a detergent or a solvent. It scrapes off; the polymer binds with the cornified epithelium of the epidermis. In other words, when it does come off, some of you comes off with it, leaving a mark that should never have been there. In a marriage, that kind of bonding is one of the things God uses to preserve a marriage; it is good in that situation. Outside of matrimony, however, it is not a good thing. Did God forgive the sin? Yes. At the Resurrection or when Jesus comes will it still matter? No. But does it leave a mark now? Absolutely. There is a mutual vulnerability with this kind of bonding, which is what led Samson to become emotionally and to a degree spiritually susceptible to Delilah.
Let us continue: Samson foolishly lets Delilah know that the source of his strength has something to do with his hair; he begins sharing the things of the Lord with someone who does not even believe in the Lord. "So while he slept, Delilah took the seven locks of his hair and she wove them into the web, and she fastened it with a pin. And she said to him the third time, 'The Philistines are upon you, Samson!' But he awoke from his sleep and pulled out the pin of the loom and the web." He thinks he has gotten away with it once more, not knowing how close he is to the abyss of his self-appointed doom.
Verse 15: "And she said to him," - check this out - "'How can you say, "I love you"?'"
"You don't love me! If you loved me you'd let me kill you. You don't really love me, otherwise you'd let me get you knocked off so I can get paid!" What a jerk Samson had to be! There is no question he acted like a moron. This guy is a real jerk. And I'm a real jerk. And you're a jerk. 'The sin that so easily besets'.
Understand something here: this took place under the Old Covenant. It was not then as it is now, where the Holy Spirit is for all who believe. Under the Old Covenant, only certain people at certain times for certain reasons had the Holy Spirit: high priests, prophets, kings, patriarchs, and judges. Samson may well have been the only person on the face of the earth at that time who had the Holy Spirit. He was someone who had been supernaturally conceived as a type of Jesus: the angel appeared to his parents to tell them he would be born, and he carried the thing he would die on, just as Christ did. So Samson is a type of Christ, as all of these Old Testament figures are in some way. This was a man who was called by God before his conception; this was a man whom God empowered. He had God's hand upon him for the glory of God's name and for the deliverance of God's people - this was the judge of Israel! Called by God, empowered by God, anointed by God, and used mightily by God. But he continually returned to that same stupid sin.
In the same way, you could be witnessing and leading people to Jesus, laying hands on people and seeing them be healed - God could have His hand on you, you could be filled with the Holy Spirit, and God could really be using you; yet you could still so easily fall back into that same old thing. That's Samson, that's me, and that's you - it's all of us. Do not ask me why God continues to put up with someone like Jacob Prasch - I don't know. Fortunately, I am not God; because if I was God, Jacob Prasch would be in big trouble. Thank God that He is He and I am me; because if I was He, me wouldn't be here.
What Samson says next to Delilah shows the power of sin to deceive, and the vulnerability that takes place in that kind of bonding that should be reserved only for wedlock. Let us look at verse 16: "It came about when she pressed him daily with her words and urged him, that his soul was annoyed to death." Why does he put up with this kind of nagging? That would drive any man crazy - the book of Proverbs tells us that living with a contentious woman is like trying to sleep next to a dripping faucet. Samson could have had any wife he wanted, with his position as the Judge of Israel. But he had bonded with Delilah, "so he told her all that was in his heart, and said to her, 'A razor has never come on my head, for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother's womb. If I am shaved, then my strength will leave me and I will become weak like any other man.' When Delilah saw that he had told her all that was in his heart, she sent and called for the Philistines, saying, 'Come up once more, for he has told me all that is in his heart.' And the lords of the Philistines came to her, and brought the money in their hands." So Samson bought the whole bill of goods; he told her the truth, "and she made him sleep on her knees and called for a man to shave off the seven locks of his hair. Then she began to afflict him, and his strength left him." Notice that Delilah began to afflict him before the Philistines did.
People are not initially judged for their sin; judgment for our sin is not the first thing that happens. Rather, what initially takes place is that we are judged by our sin. The sin itself turns against you; after that come the consequences for it.
"His strength left him. And she said, 'The Philistines are upon you, Samson!' And he awoke from his sleep and said, 'I will go out as at other times and shake myself free.' But he did not know that the Lord had departed from him." His strength was gone, his God evicted, yet Samson did not know it. We grieve the Holy Spirit with our sin; He does not stay where He is not wanted. He will not leave us, but we are certainly good at evicting Him from our lives. A question many people ask me is at what point the Holy Spirit leaves an unrepentant backslider: that is just the point - you do not know, and you cannot know. 'Is Saul among the prophets?' - Saul didn't know when the Lord departed from him, and neither did Samson. But we do know what follows; let's read it in verse 21: "Then the Philistines seized him and gouged out his eyes, and they brought him to Gaza and bound him with bronze chains. He was a grinder in the prison." What happens when God's Spirit leaves? You lose your sight and you lose your might. You become spiritually blind, and you no longer have the strength to pick up your cross; now you no longer have a way out, because you have gone too far for too long.
God's Spirit left Samson; he lost his sight and he lost his might. That is what happened to him, and if we are not careful, that is exactly what can happen to us also. None of us is immune.
Let us continue, however, in verse 22: "However, the hair of his head began to grow again after it had been shaved off." Romans 11:29: "The gifts and calling of God go forth without repentance." God does not take away what He has given; but although we may lose our hair very quickly, it only grows back slowly. You may lose it overnight, but getting it back is not so easy. Only slowly does a backslider who has gone this far for this long recover; they are blind, without strength, and have made shipwrecks of their lives.
Verse 23: "Now the lords of the Philistines assembled to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon, their god." Dagon was the fish-god of the ancient Philistines. The miter of the Roman Catholic bishops has its origin in Dagon-worship. "And they said, 'Our god has given our enemy, Samson, into our hands!'" In the mentality of the ancient Near East, the battles between armies were simply an extension of the battles between spiritual forces. We see this clearly in Daniel and in Revelation, and we have other messages that explain this. Therefore, in the minds of the Philistines, Samson's capture did not merely mean that they were stronger than he, but that their god was stronger than his God. But God will always vindicate His name - He will not give His glory to another.
Verse 24: "When the people saw him, they praised their god, for they said, 'our god has given our enemy into our hands, even the destroyer of our country, who has slain many of us.'" So often, God blesses His people even when they are unfaithful for His own name's sake; we often fail to understand that. "It so happened that when they were in high spirits they said, 'Call Samson for us, that he may amuse us.'" Backsliders will always wind up in a state of humiliation - as Isaiah 31 says, 'woe to those who go down to Egypt, for the safety of Pharaoh will turn to your disgrace and humiliation.'
Continuing in Judges 16:25, "So they called for Samson from the prison, and he entertained them. And they made him stand between the pillars." The word here for 'pillars' indicates the pillars of the city. They made a mistake: he could not go to the Cross, but they brought the Cross to him and didn't know it. "Samson said to the boy that was holding him, 'Let me feel the pillars on which the house rests, that I might lean against them.' Now the house was filled with men and women, and the lords of the Philistines were there. About 3000 men and women were looking on while Samson amused them. Then Samson called to the Lord and said, 'Oh, Lord God, please remember me and strengthen me just this one time, that I may at once be avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes.' And Samson grabbed the two middle pillars on which the house rested, braced himself against them, one with his right hand and one with his left" - he stretched out his hands - "and Samson said, 'Let me die with the Philistines,' and he bent with all his might, so that the house fell upon the lords and all who were within it. So the dead whom he killed in his death were more than those whom he had killed in his life." Once again, Samson is here a picture of Christ: he goes from a place of defeat by stretching out his hands to a place of unprecedented victory, when his enemy thought he had been completely defeated. Instead it was the chess gambit; you got my rook, but now your king is in check.
Verse 31: "Then his brothers and all his father's household came down, took him and brought him up and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaole in the tomb of his father Manoah. Thus he judged Israel twenty years." Samson should have judged Israel sixty years; instead, it was only twenty. Do I believe in unconditional once-saved-always-saved? No. Calvinism is a perversion of Christianity. Neither do I believe, however, that God saves people in order to lose them. One does not need to understand the New Testament teaching about He who is able to keep you in terms of the Calvinistic misinterpretation and corruption of that truth; the gifts and calling of God go forth without repentance, as quoted earlier.
To understand this, we must go to the New Testament equivalent of this story: we always interpret the Old Testament in light of the New Testament revelation of Jesus - I Corinthians 5: "It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and immorality of such a kind that does not exist even among the Gentiles" - that is, the pagans - "that someone has his father's wife." The Greek scholars usually reckon that this was the man's stepmother. Be that as it may, there is an incestuous relationship going on, where a believer was sleeping with his father's wife. A believer! Paul says, remember, 'among you'. Paul called this so grotesque and ugly, so morally repugnant, that even the heathens would not do it. Even the pagans had more morals than to do such a thing. Paul goes on to rebuke them: "Yet you have become arrogant, and have not mourned, in order that the one who had done this deed might be removed from your midst." Notice that the politically correct, compromised, half-backslidden contemporary church today says that the one who is arrogant is he or she who will stand against immorality. God says, on the contrary, that the one who will not stand against it is the arrogant one.
Ray MacCauley divorced a Christian woman in order to marry another woman who had been married to another man; yet if anyone speaks against it, that person is rebuked for daring to stand up for God's standard of righteousness. If anyone calls you arrogant for this type of action against immorality in the church, you may tell them from God's Word that it is rather they who are arrogant for refusing to speak against the immorality themselves. God calls it arrogant not to stand against obvious evil.
Paul goes on to say this in verse three: "For I on my part, though absent in body, yet present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this as though I were present. In the name of our Lord Jesus when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit, with the power of the Lord Jesus I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, that his soul might be saved in the Day of the Lord Jesus." This is not something anyone may do arbitrarily; it is similar to binding and loosing: both concepts come across more clearly in the Greek text, where the verb tense is present continuous active; you can only bind on earth what is being bound in Heaven, and you can only loose on earth what is being loosed in Heaven. (This actually has nothing to do with territorial spirits and the like.) In the same way, the Lord was leading Paul to hand this person over to Satan in the text of I Corinthians 5 that we read above.
Notice here that Paul was not Reformed; he was not a Calvinist. He did not say here, as a Calvinist would, that since this person was backslidden and sleeping with his father's wife that was in itself proof that he had never been saved to begin with. Neither, however, does Paul say anything to support a belief in unconditional eternal security (once-saved-always-saved). He never implies or leaves room to imply that this man still had the assurance of salvation while living in this backslidden state. Rather, he states directly that this man was in danger of going to Hell.
But once again, the Lord does not save people only to lose them. What Paul does say is this: If this man is going to sow to the flesh to this degree for this long, this habitually, and will not repent, the enemy will have him. We will let the enemy have him, that he might be driven in the end to fear God and repent, though he forfeits his life. I have heard many parents talk about how good and godly their children were until they went away to University; then a boy began living with his girlfriend, or a girl began living with her boyfriend, and they won't repent. (My children are at that age now, and I am praying that God keeps them from sin.) But then one day these wayward children come home and knock on the door. They say, "Mom, Dad, I'm HIV-positive. Will you pray with me?" or, "I've been diagnosed with Kaposi's Sarcoma, and they tell me I will soon be dead; please pray with me." Terrible! Horrible! But better that than burning in Hell.
I prayed for the salvation of my children from their mother's womb; I actually prayed that my children - whom I love just as indescribably as you love your children - would die in their mother's womb rather than spend eternity apart from Yeshua their Messiah.
The life is destroyed, but the soul is saved. Samson should have had many more years, many more decades of fruitful service. Sin can kill. Please do not misunderstand me - I do not suggest that all illness is the result of some personal sin; it is only the result of sin in the sense that illness is a result of mankind's fallen state. Yet as Psalm 32 and the epistle of James tell us, sin can cause illness. In fact, by defiling the Lord's table with unconfessed sin we can eat and drink judgment to ourselves and die prematurely, as Paul tells us in I Corinthians 11. It does say here 'fall asleep' rather than 'die' with reference to these believers who sin against the Lord's table, so we know that this does not mean they will go to Hell for it; believers fall asleep, unbelievers die. Similarly, even the New Testament says that if we neglect needy parents we reduce our own longevity. Sin can indeed kill; we see it in I Corinthians 5 and we see it in Samson's life. God forbid this should happen to any of us or to our children, but once more, better that it does than that we burn in Hell. God does not save in order to lose.
Samson could have had a nice godly wife, and many more years and decades of judging Israel. All of the blessings that God had in store for Samson he forfeited. He lost his calling, his sight, his might, his blessing, and even his earthly life; what a tragedy! Yet, as Hebrews 11 assures us, in the end his soul was saved. Samson was defeated by the sin that so easily besets; but even then, God's mercy stood.
The most difficult, painful book of the Bible is without doubt, in my view, the book of Lamentations, written by Jeremiah. It recounts the consequences of stubborn, continual, unrepented sin and rebellion against God by a nation, its capital, its people, and its children. Yet right smack dead-center in the most painful, depressing book of the Bible, we read this: "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning - great is Thy faithfulness" - see Lamentations 3:22-26. You may be right in the middle of your worst trial, but the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.
Maybe even as a Christian, you do not love Jesus Christ as you should; but you cannot stop Him from loving you.
Certainly what happened to Samson was a tragedy, and what happened to this unnamed man in I Corinthians 5 was a tragedy, and what happens all too often today is a tragedy; it should never happen, yet it can and it does, because of that sin that so easily besets. If you are in that sin now, do not get comfortable in it - get out now, before it turns against you, for you can be sure that it will. There are a million ways into that quagmire; there are countless ways into that debacle; but there is only one way out: the Cross of Jesus Christ.
Let us continue: Samson foolishly lets Delilah know that the source of his strength has something to do with his hair; he begins sharing the things of the Lord with someone who does not even believe in the Lord. "So while he slept, Delilah took the seven locks of his hair and she wove them into the web, and she fastened it with a pin. And she said to him the third time, 'The Philistines are upon you, Samson!' But he awoke from his sleep and pulled out the pin of the loom and the web." He thinks he has gotten away with it once more, not knowing how close he is to the abyss of his self-appointed doom.
Verse 15: "And she said to him," - check this out - "'How can you say, "I love you"?'"
"You don't love me! If you loved me you'd let me kill you. You don't really love me, otherwise you'd let me get you knocked off so I can get paid!" What a jerk Samson had to be! There is no question he acted like a moron. This guy is a real jerk. And I'm a real jerk. And you're a jerk. 'The sin that so easily besets'.
Understand something here: this took place under the Old Covenant. It was not then as it is now, where the Holy Spirit is for all who believe. Under the Old Covenant, only certain people at certain times for certain reasons had the Holy Spirit: high priests, prophets, kings, patriarchs, and judges. Samson may well have been the only person on the face of the earth at that time who had the Holy Spirit. He was someone who had been supernaturally conceived as a type of Jesus: the angel appeared to his parents to tell them he would be born, and he carried the thing he would die on, just as Christ did. So Samson is a type of Christ, as all of these Old Testament figures are in some way. This was a man who was called by God before his conception; this was a man whom God empowered. He had God's hand upon him for the glory of God's name and for the deliverance of God's people - this was the judge of Israel! Called by God, empowered by God, anointed by God, and used mightily by God. But he continually returned to that same stupid sin.
In the same way, you could be witnessing and leading people to Jesus, laying hands on people and seeing them be healed - God could have His hand on you, you could be filled with the Holy Spirit, and God could really be using you; yet you could still so easily fall back into that same old thing. That's Samson, that's me, and that's you - it's all of us. Do not ask me why God continues to put up with someone like Jacob Prasch - I don't know. Fortunately, I am not God; because if I was God, Jacob Prasch would be in big trouble. Thank God that He is He and I am me; because if I was He, me wouldn't be here.
What Samson says next to Delilah shows the power of sin to deceive, and the vulnerability that takes place in that kind of bonding that should be reserved only for wedlock. Let us look at verse 16: "It came about when she pressed him daily with her words and urged him, that his soul was annoyed to death." Why does he put up with this kind of nagging? That would drive any man crazy - the book of Proverbs tells us that living with a contentious woman is like trying to sleep next to a dripping faucet. Samson could have had any wife he wanted, with his position as the Judge of Israel. But he had bonded with Delilah, "so he told her all that was in his heart, and said to her, 'A razor has never come on my head, for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother's womb. If I am shaved, then my strength will leave me and I will become weak like any other man.' When Delilah saw that he had told her all that was in his heart, she sent and called for the Philistines, saying, 'Come up once more, for he has told me all that is in his heart.' And the lords of the Philistines came to her, and brought the money in their hands." So Samson bought the whole bill of goods; he told her the truth, "and she made him sleep on her knees and called for a man to shave off the seven locks of his hair. Then she began to afflict him, and his strength left him." Notice that Delilah began to afflict him before the Philistines did.
People are not initially judged for their sin; judgment for our sin is not the first thing that happens. Rather, what initially takes place is that we are judged by our sin. The sin itself turns against you; after that come the consequences for it.
"His strength left him. And she said, 'The Philistines are upon you, Samson!' And he awoke from his sleep and said, 'I will go out as at other times and shake myself free.' But he did not know that the Lord had departed from him." His strength was gone, his God evicted, yet Samson did not know it. We grieve the Holy Spirit with our sin; He does not stay where He is not wanted. He will not leave us, but we are certainly good at evicting Him from our lives. A question many people ask me is at what point the Holy Spirit leaves an unrepentant backslider: that is just the point - you do not know, and you cannot know. 'Is Saul among the prophets?' - Saul didn't know when the Lord departed from him, and neither did Samson. But we do know what follows; let's read it in verse 21: "Then the Philistines seized him and gouged out his eyes, and they brought him to Gaza and bound him with bronze chains. He was a grinder in the prison." What happens when God's Spirit leaves? You lose your sight and you lose your might. You become spiritually blind, and you no longer have the strength to pick up your cross; now you no longer have a way out, because you have gone too far for too long.
God's Spirit left Samson; he lost his sight and he lost his might. That is what happened to him, and if we are not careful, that is exactly what can happen to us also. None of us is immune.
Let us continue, however, in verse 22: "However, the hair of his head began to grow again after it had been shaved off." Romans 11:29: "The gifts and calling of God go forth without repentance." God does not take away what He has given; but although we may lose our hair very quickly, it only grows back slowly. You may lose it overnight, but getting it back is not so easy. Only slowly does a backslider who has gone this far for this long recover; they are blind, without strength, and have made shipwrecks of their lives.
Verse 23: "Now the lords of the Philistines assembled to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon, their god." Dagon was the fish-god of the ancient Philistines. The miter of the Roman Catholic bishops has its origin in Dagon-worship. "And they said, 'Our god has given our enemy, Samson, into our hands!'" In the mentality of the ancient Near East, the battles between armies were simply an extension of the battles between spiritual forces. We see this clearly in Daniel and in Revelation, and we have other messages that explain this. Therefore, in the minds of the Philistines, Samson's capture did not merely mean that they were stronger than he, but that their god was stronger than his God. But God will always vindicate His name - He will not give His glory to another.
Verse 24: "When the people saw him, they praised their god, for they said, 'our god has given our enemy into our hands, even the destroyer of our country, who has slain many of us.'" So often, God blesses His people even when they are unfaithful for His own name's sake; we often fail to understand that. "It so happened that when they were in high spirits they said, 'Call Samson for us, that he may amuse us.'" Backsliders will always wind up in a state of humiliation - as Isaiah 31 says, 'woe to those who go down to Egypt, for the safety of Pharaoh will turn to your disgrace and humiliation.'
Continuing in Judges 16:25, "So they called for Samson from the prison, and he entertained them. And they made him stand between the pillars." The word here for 'pillars' indicates the pillars of the city. They made a mistake: he could not go to the Cross, but they brought the Cross to him and didn't know it. "Samson said to the boy that was holding him, 'Let me feel the pillars on which the house rests, that I might lean against them.' Now the house was filled with men and women, and the lords of the Philistines were there. About 3000 men and women were looking on while Samson amused them. Then Samson called to the Lord and said, 'Oh, Lord God, please remember me and strengthen me just this one time, that I may at once be avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes.' And Samson grabbed the two middle pillars on which the house rested, braced himself against them, one with his right hand and one with his left" - he stretched out his hands - "and Samson said, 'Let me die with the Philistines,' and he bent with all his might, so that the house fell upon the lords and all who were within it. So the dead whom he killed in his death were more than those whom he had killed in his life." Once again, Samson is here a picture of Christ: he goes from a place of defeat by stretching out his hands to a place of unprecedented victory, when his enemy thought he had been completely defeated. Instead it was the chess gambit; you got my rook, but now your king is in check.
Verse 31: "Then his brothers and all his father's household came down, took him and brought him up and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaole in the tomb of his father Manoah. Thus he judged Israel twenty years." Samson should have judged Israel sixty years; instead, it was only twenty. Do I believe in unconditional once-saved-always-saved? No. Calvinism is a perversion of Christianity. Neither do I believe, however, that God saves people in order to lose them. One does not need to understand the New Testament teaching about He who is able to keep you in terms of the Calvinistic misinterpretation and corruption of that truth; the gifts and calling of God go forth without repentance, as quoted earlier.
To understand this, we must go to the New Testament equivalent of this story: we always interpret the Old Testament in light of the New Testament revelation of Jesus - I Corinthians 5: "It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and immorality of such a kind that does not exist even among the Gentiles" - that is, the pagans - "that someone has his father's wife." The Greek scholars usually reckon that this was the man's stepmother. Be that as it may, there is an incestuous relationship going on, where a believer was sleeping with his father's wife. A believer! Paul says, remember, 'among you'. Paul called this so grotesque and ugly, so morally repugnant, that even the heathens would not do it. Even the pagans had more morals than to do such a thing. Paul goes on to rebuke them: "Yet you have become arrogant, and have not mourned, in order that the one who had done this deed might be removed from your midst." Notice that the politically correct, compromised, half-backslidden contemporary church today says that the one who is arrogant is he or she who will stand against immorality. God says, on the contrary, that the one who will not stand against it is the arrogant one.
Ray MacCauley divorced a Christian woman in order to marry another woman who had been married to another man; yet if anyone speaks against it, that person is rebuked for daring to stand up for God's standard of righteousness. If anyone calls you arrogant for this type of action against immorality in the church, you may tell them from God's Word that it is rather they who are arrogant for refusing to speak against the immorality themselves. God calls it arrogant not to stand against obvious evil.
Paul goes on to say this in verse three: "For I on my part, though absent in body, yet present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this as though I were present. In the name of our Lord Jesus when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit, with the power of the Lord Jesus I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, that his soul might be saved in the Day of the Lord Jesus." This is not something anyone may do arbitrarily; it is similar to binding and loosing: both concepts come across more clearly in the Greek text, where the verb tense is present continuous active; you can only bind on earth what is being bound in Heaven, and you can only loose on earth what is being loosed in Heaven. (This actually has nothing to do with territorial spirits and the like.) In the same way, the Lord was leading Paul to hand this person over to Satan in the text of I Corinthians 5 that we read above.
Notice here that Paul was not Reformed; he was not a Calvinist. He did not say here, as a Calvinist would, that since this person was backslidden and sleeping with his father's wife that was in itself proof that he had never been saved to begin with. Neither, however, does Paul say anything to support a belief in unconditional eternal security (once-saved-always-saved). He never implies or leaves room to imply that this man still had the assurance of salvation while living in this backslidden state. Rather, he states directly that this man was in danger of going to Hell.
But once again, the Lord does not save people only to lose them. What Paul does say is this: If this man is going to sow to the flesh to this degree for this long, this habitually, and will not repent, the enemy will have him. We will let the enemy have him, that he might be driven in the end to fear God and repent, though he forfeits his life. I have heard many parents talk about how good and godly their children were until they went away to University; then a boy began living with his girlfriend, or a girl began living with her boyfriend, and they won't repent. (My children are at that age now, and I am praying that God keeps them from sin.) But then one day these wayward children come home and knock on the door. They say, "Mom, Dad, I'm HIV-positive. Will you pray with me?" or, "I've been diagnosed with Kaposi's Sarcoma, and they tell me I will soon be dead; please pray with me." Terrible! Horrible! But better that than burning in Hell.
I prayed for the salvation of my children from their mother's womb; I actually prayed that my children - whom I love just as indescribably as you love your children - would die in their mother's womb rather than spend eternity apart from Yeshua their Messiah.
The life is destroyed, but the soul is saved. Samson should have had many more years, many more decades of fruitful service. Sin can kill. Please do not misunderstand me - I do not suggest that all illness is the result of some personal sin; it is only the result of sin in the sense that illness is a result of mankind's fallen state. Yet as Psalm 32 and the epistle of James tell us, sin can cause illness. In fact, by defiling the Lord's table with unconfessed sin we can eat and drink judgment to ourselves and die prematurely, as Paul tells us in I Corinthians 11. It does say here 'fall asleep' rather than 'die' with reference to these believers who sin against the Lord's table, so we know that this does not mean they will go to Hell for it; believers fall asleep, unbelievers die. Similarly, even the New Testament says that if we neglect needy parents we reduce our own longevity. Sin can indeed kill; we see it in I Corinthians 5 and we see it in Samson's life. God forbid this should happen to any of us or to our children, but once more, better that it does than that we burn in Hell. God does not save in order to lose.
Samson could have had a nice godly wife, and many more years and decades of judging Israel. All of the blessings that God had in store for Samson he forfeited. He lost his calling, his sight, his might, his blessing, and even his earthly life; what a tragedy! Yet, as Hebrews 11 assures us, in the end his soul was saved. Samson was defeated by the sin that so easily besets; but even then, God's mercy stood.
The most difficult, painful book of the Bible is without doubt, in my view, the book of Lamentations, written by Jeremiah. It recounts the consequences of stubborn, continual, unrepented sin and rebellion against God by a nation, its capital, its people, and its children. Yet right smack dead-center in the most painful, depressing book of the Bible, we read this: "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning - great is Thy faithfulness" - see Lamentations 3:22-26. You may be right in the middle of your worst trial, but the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.
Maybe even as a Christian, you do not love Jesus Christ as you should; but you cannot stop Him from loving you.
Certainly what happened to Samson was a tragedy, and what happened to this unnamed man in I Corinthians 5 was a tragedy, and what happens all too often today is a tragedy; it should never happen, yet it can and it does, because of that sin that so easily besets. If you are in that sin now, do not get comfortable in it - get out now, before it turns against you, for you can be sure that it will. There are a million ways into that quagmire; there are countless ways into that debacle; but there is only one way out: the Cross of Jesus Christ.
Chink in the Armor
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by James Jacob Prasch
Phase 1, God stops correcting. If you can't see through this, all the scandals with PTL and the rest of it--if you can't see through it God will give you over to it. He'll stop correcting.
Phase 1, God stops correcting. If you can't see through this, all the scandals with PTL and the rest of it--if you can't see through it God will give you over to it. He'll stop correcting.
A Prophet Like Unto Moses
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It does not matter if people predict something in the Name of the Lord because they are inspired by a demon, or if they do it by the futility of their own mind. Either way, a false prophet is a false prophet.
And you may say in your heart, "How shall we know the word which the Lord has not spoken?" When a prophet speaks in the Name of the Lord, if the thing does not come about or come true, that is the thing, which the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him.(Dt 18:21-22)
Then Jeremiah the prophet said to Hananiah the prophet, "Listen now, Hananiah, the Lord has not sent you, and you have made this people trust in a lie. Therefore thus says theLord, "Behold, I am about to remove you from the face of the earth €¦"" (Jer 28:15-16)Hananiah predicted things that did not happen.
Then the Lord said to me, "The prophets are prophesying falsehood in my Name. I have neither sent them nor commanded them nor spoken to them; they are prophesying to you a false vision, divination, futility and the deception of their own minds." (Jer 14:14)
These false prophets were deceived by what was in their own mind.
There were a lot of false prophets running around in Jeremiah's day, but even after their prophecies were proven to be false, people continued to follow them:
The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule on their own authority; and my people love it so! But what will you do at the end of it? (Jer 5:31)
It does not say they are not His people, nor that they are not prophets, but He does say that they prophesy falsely and the people love it so.
Now, when Jesus warned about false prophets in the Last Days, many people think He was talking about the Jehovah Witnesses, the Mormons, the Hare Krishnas, etc. There is no doubt in my mind that the proliferation of these cults is of some prophetic significance, and they are certainly false prophets. But those are not the false prophets Jesus was warning about. He said:
For false christs and false prophets will be raised, and they will give signs and wonders in order to lead astray, if possible even the elect. (Mark 13:22)
And you may say in your heart, "How shall we know the word which the Lord has not spoken?" When a prophet speaks in the Name of the Lord, if the thing does not come about or come true, that is the thing, which the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him.(Dt 18:21-22)
Then Jeremiah the prophet said to Hananiah the prophet, "Listen now, Hananiah, the Lord has not sent you, and you have made this people trust in a lie. Therefore thus says theLord, "Behold, I am about to remove you from the face of the earth €¦"" (Jer 28:15-16)Hananiah predicted things that did not happen.
Then the Lord said to me, "The prophets are prophesying falsehood in my Name. I have neither sent them nor commanded them nor spoken to them; they are prophesying to you a false vision, divination, futility and the deception of their own minds." (Jer 14:14)
These false prophets were deceived by what was in their own mind.
There were a lot of false prophets running around in Jeremiah's day, but even after their prophecies were proven to be false, people continued to follow them:
The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule on their own authority; and my people love it so! But what will you do at the end of it? (Jer 5:31)
It does not say they are not His people, nor that they are not prophets, but He does say that they prophesy falsely and the people love it so.
Now, when Jesus warned about false prophets in the Last Days, many people think He was talking about the Jehovah Witnesses, the Mormons, the Hare Krishnas, etc. There is no doubt in my mind that the proliferation of these cults is of some prophetic significance, and they are certainly false prophets. But those are not the false prophets Jesus was warning about. He said:
For false christs and false prophets will be raised, and they will give signs and wonders in order to lead astray, if possible even the elect. (Mark 13:22)
Abraham's Journey
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by James Jacob Prasch
So Abram went forth as the Lord had spoken to him; and Lot went with him. Now Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. Abram took Sarai €¦
€¦which means "my princess" in Hebrew €¦
€¦his wife and Lot his nephew, and all their possessions which they had accumulated, and the persons which they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan; thus they came to the land of Canaan.
Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his nephew, and all their possessions which they had accumulated, and the persons which they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan; thus they came to the land of Canaan. Abram passed through the land as far as the site of Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. Now the Canaanite was then in the land. The Lord appeared to Abram and said, "To your descendants I will give this land." So he built an altar there to the Lord who had appeared to him. Then he proceeded from there to the mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord. Abram journeyed on, continuing toward the Negev.
Now there was a famine in the land; so Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land. It came about when he came near to Egypt, that he said to Sarai his wife, "See now, I know that you are a beautiful woman; and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, "This is his wife"; and they will kill me, but they will let you live. Please say that you are my sister €¦
€¦and in fact she was his half-sister €¦
€¦so that it may go well with me because of you, and that I may live on account of you." It came about when Abram came into Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. Pharaoh"s officials saw her and praised her to Pharaoh; and the woman was taken into Pharaoh"s house. Therefore he treated Abram well for her sake; and gave him sheep and oxen and donkeys and male and female servants and female donkeys and camels. But the Lord struck Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram"s wife. Then Pharaoh called Abram and said, "What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? Why did you say, "She is my sister," so that I took her for my wife? Now then, here is your wife, take her and go." Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him; and they escorted him away, with his wife and all that belonged to him.
So Abram went up from Egypt to the Negev, he and his wife and all that belonged to him, and Lot with him. Now Abram was very rich in livestock, in silver and in gold. He went on his journeys from the Negev as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai, to the place of the altar which he had made there formerly; and there Abram called on the name of the Lord. Now Lot, who went with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents. And the land could not sustain them while dwelling together, for their possessions were so great that they were not able to remain together. And there was strife between the herdsmen of Abram"s livestock and the herdsmen of Lot"s livestock. Now the Canaanite and the Perizzite were dwelling then in the land.
So Abram said to Lot, "Please let there be no strife between you and me, nor between my herdsmen and your herdsmen, for we are brothers. Is not the whole land before you? Please separate from me; if to the left, then I will go to the right; or if to the right, then I will go to the left." Lot lifted up his eyes and saw all the valley of the Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere—this was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah—like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt as you go to Zoar. So Lot chose for himself all the valley of the Jordan, and Lot journeyed eastward. Thus they separated from each other.
So Abram went forth as the Lord had spoken to him; and Lot went with him. Now Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. Abram took Sarai €¦
€¦which means "my princess" in Hebrew €¦
€¦his wife and Lot his nephew, and all their possessions which they had accumulated, and the persons which they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan; thus they came to the land of Canaan.
Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his nephew, and all their possessions which they had accumulated, and the persons which they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan; thus they came to the land of Canaan. Abram passed through the land as far as the site of Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. Now the Canaanite was then in the land. The Lord appeared to Abram and said, "To your descendants I will give this land." So he built an altar there to the Lord who had appeared to him. Then he proceeded from there to the mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord. Abram journeyed on, continuing toward the Negev.
Now there was a famine in the land; so Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land. It came about when he came near to Egypt, that he said to Sarai his wife, "See now, I know that you are a beautiful woman; and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, "This is his wife"; and they will kill me, but they will let you live. Please say that you are my sister €¦
€¦and in fact she was his half-sister €¦
€¦so that it may go well with me because of you, and that I may live on account of you." It came about when Abram came into Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. Pharaoh"s officials saw her and praised her to Pharaoh; and the woman was taken into Pharaoh"s house. Therefore he treated Abram well for her sake; and gave him sheep and oxen and donkeys and male and female servants and female donkeys and camels. But the Lord struck Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram"s wife. Then Pharaoh called Abram and said, "What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? Why did you say, "She is my sister," so that I took her for my wife? Now then, here is your wife, take her and go." Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him; and they escorted him away, with his wife and all that belonged to him.
So Abram went up from Egypt to the Negev, he and his wife and all that belonged to him, and Lot with him. Now Abram was very rich in livestock, in silver and in gold. He went on his journeys from the Negev as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai, to the place of the altar which he had made there formerly; and there Abram called on the name of the Lord. Now Lot, who went with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents. And the land could not sustain them while dwelling together, for their possessions were so great that they were not able to remain together. And there was strife between the herdsmen of Abram"s livestock and the herdsmen of Lot"s livestock. Now the Canaanite and the Perizzite were dwelling then in the land.
So Abram said to Lot, "Please let there be no strife between you and me, nor between my herdsmen and your herdsmen, for we are brothers. Is not the whole land before you? Please separate from me; if to the left, then I will go to the right; or if to the right, then I will go to the left." Lot lifted up his eyes and saw all the valley of the Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere—this was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah—like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt as you go to Zoar. So Lot chose for himself all the valley of the Jordan, and Lot journeyed eastward. Thus they separated from each other.
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The Anointing
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Acts 2 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance.
Now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven. And when tthis sound occurred, the crowd came together, and were bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language. They were amazed and astonished, saying, "Why, are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we each hear them in our own language to which we were born? Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya around Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—we hear them in our own tongues speaking of the mighty deeds of God." And they all continued in amazement and great perplexity, saying to one another, "What does this mean?" But others were mocking and saying, "They are full of sweet wine."
But Peter, taking his stand with the eleven, raised his voice and declared to them: "Men of Judea and all you who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and give heed to my words. For these men are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only the third hour of the day; but this is what was spoken of through the prophet Joel:
"AND IT SHALL BE IN THE LAST DAYS," GOD SAYS, "THAT I WILL POUR FORTH OF MY SPIRIT ON ALL MANKIND; AND YOUR SONS AND YOUR DAUGHTERS SHALL PROPHESY, AND YOUR YOUNG MEN SHALL SEE VISIONS, AND YOUR OLD MEN SHALL DREAM DREAMS; EVEN ON MY BONDSLAVES, BOTH MEN AND WOMEN, I WILL IN THOSE DAYS POUR FORTH OF MY SPIRIT AND THEY SHALL PROPHESY. AND I WILL GRANT WONDERS IN THE SKY ABOVE AND SIGNS ON THE EARTH BELOW, BLOOD, AND FIRE, AND VAPOR OF SMOKE. THE SUN WILL BE TURNED INTO DARKNESS AND THE MOON INTO BLOOD, BEFORE THE GREAT AND GLORIOUS DAY OF THE LORD SHALL COME. AND IT SHALL BE THAT EVERYONE WHO CALLS ON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE SAVED."
"Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know— this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death. But God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power. For David says of Him,
"I SAW THE LORD ALWAYS IN MY PRESENCE; FOR HE IS AT MY RIGHT HAND, SO THAT I WILL NOT BE SHAKEN. THEREFORE MY HEART WAS GLAD AND MY TONGUE EXULTED; MOREOVER MY FLESH ALSO WILL LIVE IN HOPE; BECAUSE YOU WILL NOT ABANDON MY SOUL TO HADES, NOR ALLOW YOUR HOLY ONE TO UNDERGO DECAY. YOU HAVE MADE KNOWN TO ME THE WAYS OF LIFE; YOU WILL MAKE ME FULL OF GLADNESS WITH YOUR PRESENCE."
"Brethren, I may confidently say to you regarding the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. And so, because he was a prophet and knew that GOD HAD SWORN TO HIM WITH AN OATH TO SEAT ONE OF HIS DESCENDANTS ON HIS THRONE, he looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that HE WAS NEITHER ABANDONED TO HADES, NOR DID HIS FLESH SUFFER DECAY. This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses. Therefore having been exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured forth this which you both see and hear. For it was not David who ascended into heaven, but he himself says:
"THE LORD SAID TO MY LORD, "SIT AT MY RIGHT HAND, UNTIL I MAKE YOUR ENEMIES A FOOTSTOOL FOR YOUR FEET.""
"Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ—this Jesus whom you crucified."
Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Brethren, what shall we do?" Peter said to them, "Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself." And with many other words he solemnly testified and kept on exhorting them, saying, "Be saved from this perverse generation!" So then, those who had received his word were baptized; and that day there were added about three thousand souls. They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles" teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles. And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common; and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need. Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved. Small & Waiting, Betrayed & AfraidAnd on the Day of Pentecost it is the book of Ruth that is read in the synagogues, the story of a Jewish man taking a Gentile bride. It is the Jewish Feast of Weeks—"Hag Shavu"ot," from Leviticus 23. This is the second of the pilgrim feasts when Jews would come from all over the world to celebrate this feast, and when the book of Ruth is read in the synagogues.
This particular Day of Pentecost, however, was one like no other. There was a very small church comprised of a very miniscule percentage of the population of the Jews who lived in the land of Israel at that time. Possibly no more than five hundred committed followers of Jesus existed, and we can only be sure that one hundred twenty of those were really solid in their commitment. As the lines get smaller and smaller, the circles concentrically begin shrinking: we have the apostles, the seventy, the one hundred twenty, and then five hundred or so—a very small church. But the church on the Day of Pentecost was the church that was waiting for something to happen. It was waiting for an anointing. (The the Hebrew word "mishchah," the Greek word "chrisma"). It was a church that was not anointed. More than that, this was a church that had been betrayed. It had been betrayed not simply by enemies who pretended to be friends, it was betrayed by men among their own number. Describing Judas in the Old Testament, Jesus speaking through the Old Testament prophet says, "My friend lifts his heal against Me." (Ps. 41:9; Jn. 13:18) Judas was called the friend of the Lord.
There are two kind of people who are going to be very close to Jesus: people who really love Him, and people who are backslidden. That is what was happening at the Last Supper. The apostle who Jesus loved was reclining on His chest on one side, but on the others side was Judas. Jesus will always leave the ninety-nine to go after the one.
Backsliders and very holy Christians both have something in common. Backsliders are under the continuous conviction of the Holy Spirit to repent, to return to Him. Jesus does not abandon backsliders, they abandon Him. He gives Judas the place of honor, and by giving Him the sop at the Last Supper, He gives Him the sign of acceptance, beseeching Him to repent. Backsliders are under the continuous conviction of the Spirit. But very holy Christians have the same kind of problem. They are also very close to Jesus, but the closer someone gets to the Light, the more they see the dirt and the little specks that all the people do not see. Very holy Christians usually do not have a very high opinion of themselves because they are too close to Jesus to be that deceived.
The early church was betrayed by one of its own, by one of its own who was one of its leaders, hand-chosen by the Lord Himself.
The second thing that is characteristic of this church is that it is such a small percentage of the Jewish society and it is quivering and it is terrified. Its leaders are afraid. Jesus died for them—He gave them a promise, but its leaders were afraid. The church was afraid. It was very small. Other people were caught up in their own religion, but the church was not only not anointed, it was betrayed, it was very small and it was afraid. And its leaders were afraid. There is no question that this church was a church that had no power, had no anointing and that was sold down the river, but all of the sudden, something dramatic happened. The Outpouring of the Spirit We have to understand the Jewish background of "Hag Shavu"ot" to understand this. He begins talking about "I will pour out." Different liquids represent the Holy Spirit from different aspects. The "new wine" is the joy of the Spirit in worship. Oil—"shemen" in Hebrew, is the anointing of the Spirit. But the idea of rain water—fresh, clean rain water being poured out is "chay mayim:" "living water." In John 4 Jesus says, I will give you the living water (Jn. 4:10-14), but in John 7:39 He says what the living water is:"this He spoke of the Holy Spirit." Different liquids teach about the Holy Spirit from different aspects.
So this outpouring draws on the language of rain to teach about an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The whole idea comes from a lot of places in the Old Testament, one of which is Isaiah 44:3...
"For I will pour out water on the thirsty land
And streams on the dry ground;
I will pour out My Spirit on your offspring
And My blessing on your descendants;
The outpourings of water have to do with outpourings of the Holy Spirit.
In Israel we have the early and latter rains. These correspond to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at the beginning of the Church and at the end. When this happens the result is that the Spring rains prepare the Spring harvest and the Autumn rains prepare the Autumn harvest. This has a spiritual equivalent.
The rabbis tell us that the Torah—the Law—was given to Moses on this same feast, the Feast of Weeks or the Feast of Pentecost. Only when the Holy Spirit was given on this anniversary of Moses giving the Law, something happened: when the Law was given on Mount Sinai, 3,000 fell; but when the Holy Spirit was given 3,000 were saved. Grace is greater than the curse of the Law; one undoes the other. The society was under a curse, but this outpouring of the Holy Spirit had the power to break that curse and to give a harvest. Who Gets Anointed?But look who gets anointed. Is it the Church who gets anointed? No, it is not. It is not the Church who gets anointed. Look at Acts 2:32. Who gets anointed?
"This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses. Therefore having been exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured forth this which you both see and hear. For it was not David who ascended into heaven, but he himself says:
"THE LORD SAID TO MY LORD,
"SIT AT MY RIGHT HAND,
UNTIL I MAKE YOUR ENEMIES A FOOTSTOOL FOR YOUR FEET."" (Act2:35)
"Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ—this Jesus whom you crucified."
Jesus was anointed, not the Church.
What Peter was drawing on here was Psalm 133. To understand Pentecost, we have to read Psalm 133.
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity!
(Now notice this...)
It is like the precious oil upon the head,
Coming down upon the beard,
Even Aaron"s beard,
Coming down upon the edge of his robes. (Ps. 133:1-2)
Aaron is the High Priest. Hebrews tells us that Aaron the High Priest is a symbol of Jesus. In the epistle to the Hebrews, He is our High Priest. The oil is poured on Aaron"s head by Moses, and it goes off of his head, over his body, down his shoulders, down his arms, all over his torso, and down to his feet. To get the oil on the hands, on the feet, on the shoulders, on the torso, we have to be under the head. One reason the Body of Christ is not anointed today is because it is not under the headship of Christ, it is under the headship of man.
We can have a very able hand, a very good foot, but it is useless unless it is attached to the body. And the body is useless unless it is under the head. The anointing is poured on the Lord Jesus. If the Body of Christ is not under His headship, it is not going to be anointed. Unity of the Spirit But then there is something else. What happens after the Church is anointed? They were all together, of one mind, of one accord. What does Psalm 133 say?
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity! (Ps. 133:1)
It is talking about the unity of the Spirit. If there is not a unity of the Spirit, there is no anointing. Another reason there is no anointing in the Body of Christ today is because there is not a unity of the Spirit; there is a unity of man. The Holy Spirit in Hebrew is "Ruach Qodesh"—the Spirit of Holiness. There can be no unity of the Spirit where there is an absence of holiness.
I firmly believe in the gifts of the Spirit, always have, and practice them myself. But it is one of my most frequent complaints (because I believe it is the complaint of God Himself) that the level of carnality and worldliness among Pentecostals and Charismatics is much higher than it is among Baptists or Plymouth Brethren or fundamentalists. Of all the churches in the Bible, it was not the legalistic or nomianistic Galatians, or the confused Thessalonicans that had to be reminded of the Holy Spirit, it was the charismatic Corinthians. That is equally true for today. There is no unity of the Spirit if there is an absence of holiness.
The first commandment is, "I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt not make other gods (or have strange gods) before Me." (Ex. 20:3) And the second commandment in the original Hebrew is this: "You shall not make a graven
image of anything in heaven above or earth beneath...you shall not bow down to them or serve them." ( Ex. 20:4-5) In the north of England there are many people who are born-again Christians who are saved out of Roman Catholic backgrounds. They come out of that church seeing the truth of the Gospel, seeing that what they were taught and brought up to believe is not what Jesus taught. When someone bows down before a statue and lights candles and prays to the dead it is referred to in Hebrew terms as a "familiar spirit." It is an act of idolatry and superstition. It is an utterly abhorrent sin.
To tell someone in the name of Christian unity that they can continue to practice this sin is no different than telling a homosexual who gets saved he can stay homosexual, or an alcoholic who gets saved to keep drinking, but that is exactly what is happening. There is no anointing because to be anointed is to be under the headship of Christ, not the headship of men who are teaching things contrary to Christ.
Secondly, the body must be unified. But the Holy Spirit—the unity of the Spirit—is the Spirit of holiness. When there is open immorality, open idolatry being practiced in the name of Christian unity, there is a problem.
I read the book by the Right Honorable George Carey. (What is "right" and what is "honorable" are issues I will not go into. It is not my place.) Nonetheless, the book is called The Meaning of Orders, a call by this person who claims to be a born-again Christian to reunite with the church of Rome. Those who are a saved Roman Catholic know very well that they are said to have left the one, true church. Unless one goes to confession and returns to mother Rome, they are going to hell. We can accept the other quote/unquote "Protestants" because they do not know any better. So on one hand, this church is telling them they are going to hell because they left it, but leaders in their churches, in their denominations, are uniting with these people, going into idolatry. Why is there no anointing? The Spirit of Truth But He is not only the Spirit of holiness, He is the Spirit of truth.
There are two kinds of division. One kind of division is not of God; the other kind of division is very much of God. The kind of division that is not of God is that division which divides Bible-believing Christians from each other; the kind of division that is of God is the kind that separates Bible-believing Christians from ones who do not believe it. Or worse still, who say they believe it, but their lives show differently. He is the Spirit of truth; He is not the Spirit of error. No one can build the unity of the Spirit based on error.
When we see people saying we are saved by the sacraments, we should pray to the dead, we are going to atone for our own sins in Purgatory—when that is being taught and we see born-again Christian leaders saying that it is OK to believe that and we should be one with these people, that is the spirit of error; it is not the Spirit of truth. Paul says there will be factions among you to prove which is true. (1 Co. 11:19) There are factions that are of God. Jesus said, "Do not think that I came to bring unity, I came to bring the sword, to bring division." (Lk. 12:51)
I see the same thing in Ireland that I see in Israel. When a Jew gets saved it is said, "You betrayed your people" because Christianity is so associated in the Jewish mind with anti-Semitism and the pogroms and the inquisitions and the holocaust. "You betrayed your people. You have become one of those people who murdered your ancestors." In Ireland it is the same. When a Roman Catholic gets saved it is seen that way. "You have become a Protestant. You have become part of the people who perpetrated the Potato Famine, and the war crimes of Cromwell, and the genocidal war crimes of the Puritans—the people who divided our land." They are seen as a traitor to their people.
It is very difficult for a Jewish person who gets saved to explain to his family the difference between a "Bible-believing" Christian and what his family think Christians are. And it is very difficult for a Roman Catholic, in Ireland particularly, to explain the difference to his family between a "Bible-believing" Christian and what they think a "Bible-believing" Christian is, which to them is a Protestant. I know a case in Belfast where a Roman Catholic girl got saved. She came to an Assemblies of God church—a Pentecostal church, and the priest told her if she did not return to "the holy mother the church", he would have the IRA deal with her.
He is the Spirit of truth; He is not the Spirit of error. No one can base a unity of the Spirit on error.
I am not talking about secondary doctrinal issues that exist among all of us. I am talking about the essential issues: how are we saved, the authority of God's Word, the definition of sin. If it is not under the Head, there is no anointing going on the Body. And if the Body is not united in the Spirit, it is not going to be anointed.It is the Same TodayLook at the church today. What do we have? The same thing as on the Day of Pentecost. On the average Sunday in England, 1.2% of the people go to church. Most of those are Roman Catholics who believe it is a mortal sin to miss mass. It seems like "Mother and Son Day," "Memorial Sunday," Christmas and Easter drag the overall statistics up to about 8% a month in England, but it is only 1.2% of the people who go to church on a given Sunday, and most of them are not saved. We are a very, very small minority, the same as the first Christians.
Secondly, we have very, very little power. Very little real power.
Thirdly, we too have been betrayed, and we have been betrayed by those we count among our leaders.
I used to be a Baptist—a Baptist who believed in the gifts of the Spirit, but I was a Baptist. I had to leave the Baptist church even though my own church stood with me because of the leadership of the Baptist Union who entered the Ecumenical Movement to be united with the Roman Catholic church and with liberal Protestant churches. I oppose this. I know many, many people in the Baptist church who knew it was wrong, but they were afraid to rock the boat. They were afraid to say anything about it.
There is an organization called "The Church"s Ministry to the Jews." It is evangelical Anglican. When they learned there was going to be an evangelical Archbishop of Canterbury, they were elated. They thought, "That is it; we won! Hallelujah! Thank You, Lord, for such a faithful, faithful leader!" He became the Archbishop of Canterbury. He went on the radio with a chief rabbi, denounced giving the Gospel to the Jews, withdrew his patronage of the church"s ministry to the Jews, and totally went against the cause of giving the Gospel to the people of Jesus. Paul said the Gospel to the Jew first and they will be judged first if they do not accept it (Ro. 1:16), but "No," says the Archbishop. Even a liberal would not have gone that far. This is the same one who wrote this book telling us we should go back under Rome.
About 2,000 evangelical Anglican clergymen signed a petition asking him to stop the worship of foreign gods in Anglican churches like Canterbury Cathedral, where they have Tibetan monks (Lamaist monks who believe the Dalai Lama is the incarnation of God), African witch doctors, Brahman priests from Hinduism, Muslim Imams, Orthodox rabbis and the rest of it, all getting together with the Anglican and Roman Catholic clergy in Canterbury Cathedral. "No," says this born-again Christian leader, "I respect all religions." In 1 Corinthians 10 and Deuteronomy, other gods are "demons" (Greek—"daimonoi," Hebrew—"shedim"). "No," say our leaders, "we respect all religions."
Why is there no revival? Why is there no anointing? That is some idea of unity. Think about what is happening.
In England one out of every three males have a police record—a criminal conviction—before the age of 30. One out of three! In the inner cities it is one out of two, and in certain Council Estates it is more than three out of four. One-third of all children are born out of wedlock. In certain places like Liverpool it is two out of three and it is socially accepted. The crime rate is going through the roof. There are over two million auto break-ins every year in England. But it is growing at the rate of 32% a year! That is what is happening out there. This society is going to the wall. But the reason this society is going to the wall is because the people who God has called to prevent it from going to the wall are not anointed. Why are they not anointed? Because they have been betrayed, because they are afraid, and because they are not united. At least not united in Jesus. Man's Ways Many people have concocted all kinds of ways to deal with this problem. Nobody in their right mind will look out that window and think everything is alright. Wigan has the best rugby team in the world. Nothing wrong with rugby, it is a good game. But every Sunday that stadium, for the game, will be filled with people every time. Nothing wrong with rugby, it is a good game, but it is only a game. It is not going to matter a million years from now. Those children in that Council Estate, one of whom out of three are going to wind up in jail, they are going to matter a million years from now.
If we were to have a heavy metal concert with a rock band that openly admits to Satan worship, they would sell out. If we were to have strip club, the place would be filled. But when we have a church that is not preaching the truth, yet claims to be the Church, it is no worse and no better than a strip club or a heavy metal concert or whatever. There are different ways that people have tried to get this anointing they say we all need.
The Charismatic Movement is twenty-five years old in England. Look out there; is there any anointing? Where is the revival? I got saved in a revival. I saw what a revival is. I saw tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of hippies saved. We were out there getting stoned out of our minds, getting venereal disease, and radically changed by the power of Jesus overnight. I saw revival. I saw what it is like when there is a revival.
When Wesley had a revival in the north of England, the society was radically changed. The crime rate nose-dived, immorality plummeted, social injustice plummeted. Building societies to get housing for the working classes, the school system, literacy for the working classes, things like the Guardian newspaper and the trade unions to defend the rights of the disenfranchised, prison reform, hospital reform, slavery abolished in the British Empire, child labor abolished in the British Empire (children 4 years old were digging in coal mines in Wales and in Newcastle)—those things were changed directly because lives were changed by the power of Jesus. That is a revival.
To see a revival today, go to Korea. To see a revival today, go to Kenya. To see a revival today, go to Brazil. To see a revival today, go to Indonesia. To see a corpse, come to the western world. Look at the characteristics. Anointed for Burial Teaching in the Bible in the original Greek: "didaskein" (which is like a Bible study), something called "homilia" (which is like a sermon), and something called something called"kerygma," which is preaching of the Gospel, mainly to the unsaved. This is Peter"s kerygma, and he begins talking about Jesus from two aspects: the suffering Jesus who was crucified and the conquering Jesus who had dominion.
This comes directly from Judaism: "HaMashiach ben Jozef" and "HaMashiach ben David:" the Messiah who is the son of Joseph and the Messiah who is the son of David. First Jesus comes as a suffering servant like Joseph, but then He comes as a conquering king at His return like David. In His First Coming He comes as a suffering servant; when He comes back to set up the Millennial Kingdom He is a conquering king like David. The point is this: before Jesus was anointed for dominion, Jesus was anointed for burial.
For it was fitting for Him .for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings. (Heb. 2:10)
Jesus did not need to suffer. He did not have a fallen nature for God to deal with. But He underwent a process theologians call "kenosis," and He identified with us even though He had no sin. For our sakes He put Himself into a position where God had to perfect Him by suffering as an example to us and to win the victory for us on the cross. Before the Lord Jesus was anointed for dominion, He was anointed for burial. Before the Church can be anointed for dominion, it has to be anointed for burial. It is very easy to see why all of these well-intended (but I must say unscriptural) formulas for anointing have not worked.
The Charismatic Movement is twenty-five years old in England. Can we say the schools are any better? Is there any less crime? Is there any less homosexuality? Any less divorce? Any less racism or hatred or social injustice? Are more people coming to church? Are more lives being changed? Is there any less sexual abuse of little children? No, there is more. After twenty-five years, what do we have to show for it? Nothing €“ absolutely nothing. I remember people saying with well intentions that this Charismatic Renewal was the key. This Charismatic Renewal had a unity, but it was not the unity of the Spirit. "It is OK whatever your church is, whatever your church believes. If you want to be a Roman Catholic, you want to pray to the dead, you go ahead." No anointing.
Then there is the name-it-and-claim-it people: "Faith-Prosperity," that is the key. Go to America; the only key they have now is the key that locks them up in jail (the ones who have been caught already €“ the others are still wanted men). These people have made "born-again" a household joke coast-to-coast, and these same people (and same kinds of people) are coming into this country even at this minute, even at this very hour. Faith-Prosperity proponents say that is the key to getting the anointing. "Just believe it, brother. Reach out and claim it by faith." Well, if we want to know about faith, the best way to begin is by reading the faith chapter, Hebrews 11.
and others experienced mockings and scourgings, yes, also chains and imprisonment.
("Believe God for that Cadillac ®, brother. Just believe God you are going to prosper, your business will prosper. Believe God you are going to grow, your church will grow.")
They were stoned, they were sawn in two...
(Why? Because of their faith.)
...they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword...
(Why? Because of their faith.)
...they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute...
(Destitute! Impoverished! Their faith did not make them rich, their faith made them poor! They were not hoping in this world, they were hoping in what is going to come. I am not saying we should trust God for poverty, but we should trust God whether we have riches or poverty.)
...afflicted, ill-treated...
(They experienced sickness.)
...(men of whom the world was not worthy)...
(Living in mansions in Beverly Hills? No.)
...wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground. And all these, having gained approval... (How?)
...through their faith... (Heb. 11:36-39)
These so-called people who say their so-called Faith-Prosperity Movement is the key to the anointing, they are not teaching faith in Jesus, they are teaching faith in "faith." This is faith. Anointed for dominion? Yes, but anointed for burial first. Man-Made Ideas I have seen so many failed businesses up and down England and all over America coast-to-coast. Christian businessmen who, wanting to pull through, understandably were seduced by these people telling them, "Just write a check for 500 and God will bless it and multiply it back", and they did it. Now, if God tells you to write a check for 500 or 5,000, you do it, but you let God tell you, not some conniver.
The Charismatic Movement promised something, but it could not deliver. Why? It is not scriptural so it could not produce an anointing.
The Faith-Prosperity Movement promises something it cannot deliver. No one has to believe me, all they have to do is talk to one of the thousands of Christians who lost their businesses or their homes or their jobs. Why? Because it is not scriptural — no anointing.
About the most ridiculous and pathetic of all these man-made ideas for anointing (well, actually there are two) is the Restoration Movement. To restore something it has to be something that existed to begin with. It began with Arthur Wallace in the late 60s. He wrote and said a lot of good things, although a lot of wrong and very unscriptural things, but it began in the 60s. The movement has been blossoming for about 16 years. Where is the revival? They cannot deliver any revival because they are trying to restore things that never existed.
The first is not apostolic authority, but their version of apostolic authority. Their version of apostolic authority is not the version of apostolic authority in the New Testament. What they call apostolic authority is something known as "heavy shepherding." It never existed in the New Testament, so they are trying to restore something that never existed. The second thing they are trying to restore is Kingdom Now theology, the idea that we are going to conquer the whole world for Jesus, set up His kingdom, then He is going to come back. This view says it depends on us. It does not depend on the return of Christ as such, it does not depend on God's prophetic plan of which Israel and the Jews play a pivotal role — it does not depend on that, it depends on us and our movement.
Many people propagate this: Roger Forster, Terry Virgo, Gerald Coates. In America it is the likes of Kevin Connor and Rick Godwin. There are people who are trying to come to England now with this stuff from the States. It is what they are teaching. That movement has been around 16 years. Where is the revival? No Such Place as Hell? I firmly believe in Bible-believing Christians standing together and proclaiming Jesus. The March for Jesus seems to be a good idea to me in and of itself. But what do we do when the people who organize the March for Jesus say, "Jesus did not die to save people from going to hell, there is no such place"? Someone can march all they want, but if they do not think that the lost are going to perish, do not expect God to bring a revival through their marching. That is what Graham Kendrick believes. The man is an excellent hymn writer, but that is exactly what he believes: there is no such place as hell. That is what Roger Forster believes. And they are leading all people in these marches with this philosophy, thinking they are going to bring revival.
The apostles said, "Save yourself from this wretched generation." (Acts 2:40) They knew about the Lake of Fire that burns forever and ever, as it were. The preaching of Wesley, the preaching of Spurgeon, of anybody whoever God every anointed to bring revival talk about the holiness of God and the judgment of those who reject the Gospel. Today, what do we have? The leaders are saying there is no such place.
I had a tremendous respect at one time for John Stott. When liberalism was at its real apex theologically, he stood up for the Gospel and the authority of Scripture. I respected him personally, but not doctrinally — I never thought much of his sermons or his books, but I respected him. Now he is telling his people there is no such place as hell. It is Not Scriptural These are the leaders. How is there going to be a revival? Do these people really think — really think — that they are ever going to stop what is happening to this society? Do they really think with leaders like this we are going to stop society from going to the wall and seeing revival with man-made ideas, a false unity? Of charismania? Of Kingdom Now theology and Restorationism? Of Ecumenism, sometimes going into open idolatry? They think they are going to bring a revival?
The Kingdom Now movement has been here sixteen years. I just watched a video recently of what happened in the Docklands Arena. I watched it again. We all know what happened with Mr. Wimber and his Kansas City Prophets. They came and they said revival is coming in October of 1990. He said, "We are the Joel"s army". And then the other Kansas City Prophet came out and he said, "We are going for 100% accuracy — none of God's Words will fall." So what he is saying is he is speaking God's Words and it is going to be 100% accurate. "I do not care what anybody says, you are going to go out of here seeing a visitation and a revival." That was 2-1/2 years ago. In the last 2-1/2 years since the visitation and the revival, which was predicted by them to commence in October of 1990, more mosques have been built in England than churches. That is the truth.
I am not knocking or throwing rocks at anybody or anybody"s intentions or motives. I believe that people who get caught up in this nonsense are sincere people. I believe they are people who really are concerned with what is happening to this country and who really want to see Jesus lifted up and to see souls saved. I believe the people who are getting caught up in all these movements really have good intentions. But the devil knows they have good intentions; therefore he puts them on a road, a road to nowhere.
Once again, the Charismatic Movement has been here over twenty-five years. It made a promise it cannot deliver. Why? Because it is not scriptural.
The name-it-and-claim-it Faith-Prosperity people, if we really look at what they believe, if you we at the doctrines of Kenneth Copeland and Kenneth Hagin, it is their own doctrines, their own books. They quote E. W. Kenyon, "Jesus did not win the victory for us on the cross, He did it when He descended into hell." That is what they believe. The cross is not central to their theology. But look how popular it is among people who want to have their ears tickled. But what happens? It cannot deliver. Their businesses go bankrupt anyway. They made a promise they cannot deliver. Why? It is not scriptural.
The Restoration Movement, the Kingdom Now Movement, they make a promise they cannot deliver. It should have happened in October of 1990, but it did not happen. They go around marching, making these proclamations: "Now is the time for us to march upon the land," they are saying. "We are building a kingdom of power, not of words." Well I have heard their words, where is the power? They have not got any.
We have had these people coming (again I am not slinging mud, I am just stating facts) like Rick Godwin and David Shearman. They come and they are giving these seminars such as "Training for Raining." We hear what they are saying: "Thank You, Lord God, that Your kingdom is advancing forcefully, that Your kingdom is advancing mightily." Whose kingdom? Satan"s? One-third of the kids in this country are going to wind up in jail! 1.2% of the population goes to church on Sunday, most of them are not even Christians! More mosques are being built all over! Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism, New Age is being taught in schools, even the Church of England schools. They are teaching children to use condoms in sex education in schools. Whose kingdom is advancing forcefully?
These people may be perfectly honorable in their motives and their intentions — I am not attacking them. What I am attacking is their doctrines. I do not question these people"s sincerity or their integrity; it is not for me to judge, but what is for me to do is to say that what they are teaching is scriptural or not. (A) I look in the Bible and I see that it is not scriptural, and (B) I look out there and I see one thing: they all promise something they cannot deliver. What is the Answer? Peter says what happens on Pentecost is a shadow of what will happen at the end of the world. He did not say "this is that," in Greek it is "this is like that." (Acts 2:16) There were no signs of blood and fire and vapor as it is stated in the text from Joel 2, those things did not happen on Pentecost. It says "this is like that." Somehow what happened then is a shadow of what happens at the end. What happened then teaches us what happens at the end. At the end, once again, we have a body that is been betrayed, we have a body that is afraid, that is miniscule, whose leaders are terrified, and that is not anointed.
The central theology of the Kingdom Now people, the Manifest Sons of God, or the Joel"s Army teaching is all the same. What these people do is engage in something called "Gnosticism." Instead of dealing with what the text says exegetically, they read things into it which it does not say, claiming some kind of revelation. But they say something about Joel"s army which is not what it says in Joel. God's Word through Joel Joel is someone who prophesied very little for his own day, in fact almost not at all. He prophesied almost exclusively for the end of the world. But we know he either prophesied right at the beginning of the start of the Babylonian Captivity or right before it, and he is talking about the armies of Babylon. And look what it says €¦
Blow a trumpet in Zion,
And sound an alarm on My holy mountain!
Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble,
For the day of the LORD is coming;
Surely it is near,
(Now that is an eschatological statement €“ it is about the end of the world.)
A day of darkness and gloom,
A day of clouds and thick darkness.
As the dawn is spread over the mountains,
So there is a great and mighty people;
There has never been anything like it,
Nor will there be again...
(He is talking in his own time, about Nebuchadnezzar"s army of Babylon. That is what he"s talking about for his own time, but he is saying this teaches about the end of the world.)
A fire consumes before them
And behind them a flame burns.
The land is like the garden of Eden before them
But a desolate wilderness behind them,
And nothing at all escapes them. (Joel 2:1-3)
The Kingdom Now people say that this is them, their movement. And it describes this army. But look what happens with this army €¦
"Yet even now," declares the LORD,
"Return to Me with all your heart,
And with fasting, weeping and mourning;
And rend your heart and not your garments."
Now return to the LORD your God,
For He is gracious and compassionate,
Slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness
And relenting of evil.
Who knows whether He will not turn and relent... (Joel 2:12-14a)
In other words, Joel says if the people repent, God will call this terrible army back. And what happens to this army?
"But I will remove the northern army far from you,
And I will drive it into a parched and desolate land,
And its vanguard into the eastern sea,
And its rear guard into the western sea.
And its stench will arise and its foul smell will come up,
For it has done great things." (Joel 2:20)
God is going to judge and destroy Joel"s army, but that is who John Wimber says he is! John Wimber actually says, "We are the locusts."
"Then I will make up to you for the years
That the swarming locust has eaten,
The creeping locust, the stripping locust and the gnawing locust,
My great army which I sent among you. (Joel 2:25)
He called it His army, but it is His army in the sense of Nebuchadnezzar, the army of Babylon. It is an evil army. The way God judges His people is by bringing other evil people against them to make them repent. He has always dealt with Israel that way. That is the context. It is an evil army that God is going to destroy, but the entire Kingdom Now philosophy is based on the fact that we are this army, or at least they are, those in their movement. Recalling Judgment But what happens in the midst of all this prediction of doom and gloom?
"It will come about after this
That I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind;
And your sons and daughters will prophesy,
Your old men will dream dreams,
Your young men will see visions.
Even on the male and female servants
I will pour out My Spirit in those days. (Joel 2:28-29)
If there is a repentance, God pours out His Spirit and calls His judgment back. That is the key to the anointing. That is the key to get what the Kingdom Now people promise but cannot possibly deliver. That is the key to get what the Ecumenical people promise but cannot possibly deliver. That is the key to get what the Faith-Prosperity people promise but cannot possibly deliver. That is the key to get what the Charismatic people promise but cannot possibly deliver.
Joel"s army? The church is not Joel"s army; Joel"s army is what is judging the church. If we repent, God will recall that judgment and pour out His Spirit. That is the key.
That is what happened in the early church, and that is what is happening today. We have been betrayed, we are small and quivering, our leaders are afraid, and we are not anointed. It is all going to the wall. There is one hope: We repent or we perish. God bless you, and thank you.
God bless, € € €
James Jacob Prasch
Now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven. And when tthis sound occurred, the crowd came together, and were bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language. They were amazed and astonished, saying, "Why, are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we each hear them in our own language to which we were born? Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya around Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—we hear them in our own tongues speaking of the mighty deeds of God." And they all continued in amazement and great perplexity, saying to one another, "What does this mean?" But others were mocking and saying, "They are full of sweet wine."
But Peter, taking his stand with the eleven, raised his voice and declared to them: "Men of Judea and all you who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and give heed to my words. For these men are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only the third hour of the day; but this is what was spoken of through the prophet Joel:
"AND IT SHALL BE IN THE LAST DAYS," GOD SAYS, "THAT I WILL POUR FORTH OF MY SPIRIT ON ALL MANKIND; AND YOUR SONS AND YOUR DAUGHTERS SHALL PROPHESY, AND YOUR YOUNG MEN SHALL SEE VISIONS, AND YOUR OLD MEN SHALL DREAM DREAMS; EVEN ON MY BONDSLAVES, BOTH MEN AND WOMEN, I WILL IN THOSE DAYS POUR FORTH OF MY SPIRIT AND THEY SHALL PROPHESY. AND I WILL GRANT WONDERS IN THE SKY ABOVE AND SIGNS ON THE EARTH BELOW, BLOOD, AND FIRE, AND VAPOR OF SMOKE. THE SUN WILL BE TURNED INTO DARKNESS AND THE MOON INTO BLOOD, BEFORE THE GREAT AND GLORIOUS DAY OF THE LORD SHALL COME. AND IT SHALL BE THAT EVERYONE WHO CALLS ON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE SAVED."
"Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know— this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death. But God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power. For David says of Him,
"I SAW THE LORD ALWAYS IN MY PRESENCE; FOR HE IS AT MY RIGHT HAND, SO THAT I WILL NOT BE SHAKEN. THEREFORE MY HEART WAS GLAD AND MY TONGUE EXULTED; MOREOVER MY FLESH ALSO WILL LIVE IN HOPE; BECAUSE YOU WILL NOT ABANDON MY SOUL TO HADES, NOR ALLOW YOUR HOLY ONE TO UNDERGO DECAY. YOU HAVE MADE KNOWN TO ME THE WAYS OF LIFE; YOU WILL MAKE ME FULL OF GLADNESS WITH YOUR PRESENCE."
"Brethren, I may confidently say to you regarding the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. And so, because he was a prophet and knew that GOD HAD SWORN TO HIM WITH AN OATH TO SEAT ONE OF HIS DESCENDANTS ON HIS THRONE, he looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that HE WAS NEITHER ABANDONED TO HADES, NOR DID HIS FLESH SUFFER DECAY. This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses. Therefore having been exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured forth this which you both see and hear. For it was not David who ascended into heaven, but he himself says:
"THE LORD SAID TO MY LORD, "SIT AT MY RIGHT HAND, UNTIL I MAKE YOUR ENEMIES A FOOTSTOOL FOR YOUR FEET.""
"Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ—this Jesus whom you crucified."
Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Brethren, what shall we do?" Peter said to them, "Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself." And with many other words he solemnly testified and kept on exhorting them, saying, "Be saved from this perverse generation!" So then, those who had received his word were baptized; and that day there were added about three thousand souls. They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles" teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles. And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common; and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need. Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved. Small & Waiting, Betrayed & AfraidAnd on the Day of Pentecost it is the book of Ruth that is read in the synagogues, the story of a Jewish man taking a Gentile bride. It is the Jewish Feast of Weeks—"Hag Shavu"ot," from Leviticus 23. This is the second of the pilgrim feasts when Jews would come from all over the world to celebrate this feast, and when the book of Ruth is read in the synagogues.
This particular Day of Pentecost, however, was one like no other. There was a very small church comprised of a very miniscule percentage of the population of the Jews who lived in the land of Israel at that time. Possibly no more than five hundred committed followers of Jesus existed, and we can only be sure that one hundred twenty of those were really solid in their commitment. As the lines get smaller and smaller, the circles concentrically begin shrinking: we have the apostles, the seventy, the one hundred twenty, and then five hundred or so—a very small church. But the church on the Day of Pentecost was the church that was waiting for something to happen. It was waiting for an anointing. (The the Hebrew word "mishchah," the Greek word "chrisma"). It was a church that was not anointed. More than that, this was a church that had been betrayed. It had been betrayed not simply by enemies who pretended to be friends, it was betrayed by men among their own number. Describing Judas in the Old Testament, Jesus speaking through the Old Testament prophet says, "My friend lifts his heal against Me." (Ps. 41:9; Jn. 13:18) Judas was called the friend of the Lord.
There are two kind of people who are going to be very close to Jesus: people who really love Him, and people who are backslidden. That is what was happening at the Last Supper. The apostle who Jesus loved was reclining on His chest on one side, but on the others side was Judas. Jesus will always leave the ninety-nine to go after the one.
Backsliders and very holy Christians both have something in common. Backsliders are under the continuous conviction of the Holy Spirit to repent, to return to Him. Jesus does not abandon backsliders, they abandon Him. He gives Judas the place of honor, and by giving Him the sop at the Last Supper, He gives Him the sign of acceptance, beseeching Him to repent. Backsliders are under the continuous conviction of the Spirit. But very holy Christians have the same kind of problem. They are also very close to Jesus, but the closer someone gets to the Light, the more they see the dirt and the little specks that all the people do not see. Very holy Christians usually do not have a very high opinion of themselves because they are too close to Jesus to be that deceived.
The early church was betrayed by one of its own, by one of its own who was one of its leaders, hand-chosen by the Lord Himself.
The second thing that is characteristic of this church is that it is such a small percentage of the Jewish society and it is quivering and it is terrified. Its leaders are afraid. Jesus died for them—He gave them a promise, but its leaders were afraid. The church was afraid. It was very small. Other people were caught up in their own religion, but the church was not only not anointed, it was betrayed, it was very small and it was afraid. And its leaders were afraid. There is no question that this church was a church that had no power, had no anointing and that was sold down the river, but all of the sudden, something dramatic happened. The Outpouring of the Spirit We have to understand the Jewish background of "Hag Shavu"ot" to understand this. He begins talking about "I will pour out." Different liquids represent the Holy Spirit from different aspects. The "new wine" is the joy of the Spirit in worship. Oil—"shemen" in Hebrew, is the anointing of the Spirit. But the idea of rain water—fresh, clean rain water being poured out is "chay mayim:" "living water." In John 4 Jesus says, I will give you the living water (Jn. 4:10-14), but in John 7:39 He says what the living water is:"this He spoke of the Holy Spirit." Different liquids teach about the Holy Spirit from different aspects.
So this outpouring draws on the language of rain to teach about an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The whole idea comes from a lot of places in the Old Testament, one of which is Isaiah 44:3...
"For I will pour out water on the thirsty land
And streams on the dry ground;
I will pour out My Spirit on your offspring
And My blessing on your descendants;
The outpourings of water have to do with outpourings of the Holy Spirit.
In Israel we have the early and latter rains. These correspond to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at the beginning of the Church and at the end. When this happens the result is that the Spring rains prepare the Spring harvest and the Autumn rains prepare the Autumn harvest. This has a spiritual equivalent.
The rabbis tell us that the Torah—the Law—was given to Moses on this same feast, the Feast of Weeks or the Feast of Pentecost. Only when the Holy Spirit was given on this anniversary of Moses giving the Law, something happened: when the Law was given on Mount Sinai, 3,000 fell; but when the Holy Spirit was given 3,000 were saved. Grace is greater than the curse of the Law; one undoes the other. The society was under a curse, but this outpouring of the Holy Spirit had the power to break that curse and to give a harvest. Who Gets Anointed?But look who gets anointed. Is it the Church who gets anointed? No, it is not. It is not the Church who gets anointed. Look at Acts 2:32. Who gets anointed?
"This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses. Therefore having been exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured forth this which you both see and hear. For it was not David who ascended into heaven, but he himself says:
"THE LORD SAID TO MY LORD,
"SIT AT MY RIGHT HAND,
UNTIL I MAKE YOUR ENEMIES A FOOTSTOOL FOR YOUR FEET."" (Act2:35)
"Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ—this Jesus whom you crucified."
Jesus was anointed, not the Church.
What Peter was drawing on here was Psalm 133. To understand Pentecost, we have to read Psalm 133.
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity!
(Now notice this...)
It is like the precious oil upon the head,
Coming down upon the beard,
Even Aaron"s beard,
Coming down upon the edge of his robes. (Ps. 133:1-2)
Aaron is the High Priest. Hebrews tells us that Aaron the High Priest is a symbol of Jesus. In the epistle to the Hebrews, He is our High Priest. The oil is poured on Aaron"s head by Moses, and it goes off of his head, over his body, down his shoulders, down his arms, all over his torso, and down to his feet. To get the oil on the hands, on the feet, on the shoulders, on the torso, we have to be under the head. One reason the Body of Christ is not anointed today is because it is not under the headship of Christ, it is under the headship of man.
We can have a very able hand, a very good foot, but it is useless unless it is attached to the body. And the body is useless unless it is under the head. The anointing is poured on the Lord Jesus. If the Body of Christ is not under His headship, it is not going to be anointed. Unity of the Spirit But then there is something else. What happens after the Church is anointed? They were all together, of one mind, of one accord. What does Psalm 133 say?
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity! (Ps. 133:1)
It is talking about the unity of the Spirit. If there is not a unity of the Spirit, there is no anointing. Another reason there is no anointing in the Body of Christ today is because there is not a unity of the Spirit; there is a unity of man. The Holy Spirit in Hebrew is "Ruach Qodesh"—the Spirit of Holiness. There can be no unity of the Spirit where there is an absence of holiness.
I firmly believe in the gifts of the Spirit, always have, and practice them myself. But it is one of my most frequent complaints (because I believe it is the complaint of God Himself) that the level of carnality and worldliness among Pentecostals and Charismatics is much higher than it is among Baptists or Plymouth Brethren or fundamentalists. Of all the churches in the Bible, it was not the legalistic or nomianistic Galatians, or the confused Thessalonicans that had to be reminded of the Holy Spirit, it was the charismatic Corinthians. That is equally true for today. There is no unity of the Spirit if there is an absence of holiness.
The first commandment is, "I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt not make other gods (or have strange gods) before Me." (Ex. 20:3) And the second commandment in the original Hebrew is this: "You shall not make a graven
image of anything in heaven above or earth beneath...you shall not bow down to them or serve them." ( Ex. 20:4-5) In the north of England there are many people who are born-again Christians who are saved out of Roman Catholic backgrounds. They come out of that church seeing the truth of the Gospel, seeing that what they were taught and brought up to believe is not what Jesus taught. When someone bows down before a statue and lights candles and prays to the dead it is referred to in Hebrew terms as a "familiar spirit." It is an act of idolatry and superstition. It is an utterly abhorrent sin.
To tell someone in the name of Christian unity that they can continue to practice this sin is no different than telling a homosexual who gets saved he can stay homosexual, or an alcoholic who gets saved to keep drinking, but that is exactly what is happening. There is no anointing because to be anointed is to be under the headship of Christ, not the headship of men who are teaching things contrary to Christ.
Secondly, the body must be unified. But the Holy Spirit—the unity of the Spirit—is the Spirit of holiness. When there is open immorality, open idolatry being practiced in the name of Christian unity, there is a problem.
I read the book by the Right Honorable George Carey. (What is "right" and what is "honorable" are issues I will not go into. It is not my place.) Nonetheless, the book is called The Meaning of Orders, a call by this person who claims to be a born-again Christian to reunite with the church of Rome. Those who are a saved Roman Catholic know very well that they are said to have left the one, true church. Unless one goes to confession and returns to mother Rome, they are going to hell. We can accept the other quote/unquote "Protestants" because they do not know any better. So on one hand, this church is telling them they are going to hell because they left it, but leaders in their churches, in their denominations, are uniting with these people, going into idolatry. Why is there no anointing? The Spirit of Truth But He is not only the Spirit of holiness, He is the Spirit of truth.
There are two kinds of division. One kind of division is not of God; the other kind of division is very much of God. The kind of division that is not of God is that division which divides Bible-believing Christians from each other; the kind of division that is of God is the kind that separates Bible-believing Christians from ones who do not believe it. Or worse still, who say they believe it, but their lives show differently. He is the Spirit of truth; He is not the Spirit of error. No one can build the unity of the Spirit based on error.
When we see people saying we are saved by the sacraments, we should pray to the dead, we are going to atone for our own sins in Purgatory—when that is being taught and we see born-again Christian leaders saying that it is OK to believe that and we should be one with these people, that is the spirit of error; it is not the Spirit of truth. Paul says there will be factions among you to prove which is true. (1 Co. 11:19) There are factions that are of God. Jesus said, "Do not think that I came to bring unity, I came to bring the sword, to bring division." (Lk. 12:51)
I see the same thing in Ireland that I see in Israel. When a Jew gets saved it is said, "You betrayed your people" because Christianity is so associated in the Jewish mind with anti-Semitism and the pogroms and the inquisitions and the holocaust. "You betrayed your people. You have become one of those people who murdered your ancestors." In Ireland it is the same. When a Roman Catholic gets saved it is seen that way. "You have become a Protestant. You have become part of the people who perpetrated the Potato Famine, and the war crimes of Cromwell, and the genocidal war crimes of the Puritans—the people who divided our land." They are seen as a traitor to their people.
It is very difficult for a Jewish person who gets saved to explain to his family the difference between a "Bible-believing" Christian and what his family think Christians are. And it is very difficult for a Roman Catholic, in Ireland particularly, to explain the difference to his family between a "Bible-believing" Christian and what they think a "Bible-believing" Christian is, which to them is a Protestant. I know a case in Belfast where a Roman Catholic girl got saved. She came to an Assemblies of God church—a Pentecostal church, and the priest told her if she did not return to "the holy mother the church", he would have the IRA deal with her.
He is the Spirit of truth; He is not the Spirit of error. No one can base a unity of the Spirit on error.
I am not talking about secondary doctrinal issues that exist among all of us. I am talking about the essential issues: how are we saved, the authority of God's Word, the definition of sin. If it is not under the Head, there is no anointing going on the Body. And if the Body is not united in the Spirit, it is not going to be anointed.It is the Same TodayLook at the church today. What do we have? The same thing as on the Day of Pentecost. On the average Sunday in England, 1.2% of the people go to church. Most of those are Roman Catholics who believe it is a mortal sin to miss mass. It seems like "Mother and Son Day," "Memorial Sunday," Christmas and Easter drag the overall statistics up to about 8% a month in England, but it is only 1.2% of the people who go to church on a given Sunday, and most of them are not saved. We are a very, very small minority, the same as the first Christians.
Secondly, we have very, very little power. Very little real power.
Thirdly, we too have been betrayed, and we have been betrayed by those we count among our leaders.
I used to be a Baptist—a Baptist who believed in the gifts of the Spirit, but I was a Baptist. I had to leave the Baptist church even though my own church stood with me because of the leadership of the Baptist Union who entered the Ecumenical Movement to be united with the Roman Catholic church and with liberal Protestant churches. I oppose this. I know many, many people in the Baptist church who knew it was wrong, but they were afraid to rock the boat. They were afraid to say anything about it.
There is an organization called "The Church"s Ministry to the Jews." It is evangelical Anglican. When they learned there was going to be an evangelical Archbishop of Canterbury, they were elated. They thought, "That is it; we won! Hallelujah! Thank You, Lord, for such a faithful, faithful leader!" He became the Archbishop of Canterbury. He went on the radio with a chief rabbi, denounced giving the Gospel to the Jews, withdrew his patronage of the church"s ministry to the Jews, and totally went against the cause of giving the Gospel to the people of Jesus. Paul said the Gospel to the Jew first and they will be judged first if they do not accept it (Ro. 1:16), but "No," says the Archbishop. Even a liberal would not have gone that far. This is the same one who wrote this book telling us we should go back under Rome.
About 2,000 evangelical Anglican clergymen signed a petition asking him to stop the worship of foreign gods in Anglican churches like Canterbury Cathedral, where they have Tibetan monks (Lamaist monks who believe the Dalai Lama is the incarnation of God), African witch doctors, Brahman priests from Hinduism, Muslim Imams, Orthodox rabbis and the rest of it, all getting together with the Anglican and Roman Catholic clergy in Canterbury Cathedral. "No," says this born-again Christian leader, "I respect all religions." In 1 Corinthians 10 and Deuteronomy, other gods are "demons" (Greek—"daimonoi," Hebrew—"shedim"). "No," say our leaders, "we respect all religions."
Why is there no revival? Why is there no anointing? That is some idea of unity. Think about what is happening.
In England one out of every three males have a police record—a criminal conviction—before the age of 30. One out of three! In the inner cities it is one out of two, and in certain Council Estates it is more than three out of four. One-third of all children are born out of wedlock. In certain places like Liverpool it is two out of three and it is socially accepted. The crime rate is going through the roof. There are over two million auto break-ins every year in England. But it is growing at the rate of 32% a year! That is what is happening out there. This society is going to the wall. But the reason this society is going to the wall is because the people who God has called to prevent it from going to the wall are not anointed. Why are they not anointed? Because they have been betrayed, because they are afraid, and because they are not united. At least not united in Jesus. Man's Ways Many people have concocted all kinds of ways to deal with this problem. Nobody in their right mind will look out that window and think everything is alright. Wigan has the best rugby team in the world. Nothing wrong with rugby, it is a good game. But every Sunday that stadium, for the game, will be filled with people every time. Nothing wrong with rugby, it is a good game, but it is only a game. It is not going to matter a million years from now. Those children in that Council Estate, one of whom out of three are going to wind up in jail, they are going to matter a million years from now.
If we were to have a heavy metal concert with a rock band that openly admits to Satan worship, they would sell out. If we were to have strip club, the place would be filled. But when we have a church that is not preaching the truth, yet claims to be the Church, it is no worse and no better than a strip club or a heavy metal concert or whatever. There are different ways that people have tried to get this anointing they say we all need.
The Charismatic Movement is twenty-five years old in England. Look out there; is there any anointing? Where is the revival? I got saved in a revival. I saw what a revival is. I saw tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of hippies saved. We were out there getting stoned out of our minds, getting venereal disease, and radically changed by the power of Jesus overnight. I saw revival. I saw what it is like when there is a revival.
When Wesley had a revival in the north of England, the society was radically changed. The crime rate nose-dived, immorality plummeted, social injustice plummeted. Building societies to get housing for the working classes, the school system, literacy for the working classes, things like the Guardian newspaper and the trade unions to defend the rights of the disenfranchised, prison reform, hospital reform, slavery abolished in the British Empire, child labor abolished in the British Empire (children 4 years old were digging in coal mines in Wales and in Newcastle)—those things were changed directly because lives were changed by the power of Jesus. That is a revival.
To see a revival today, go to Korea. To see a revival today, go to Kenya. To see a revival today, go to Brazil. To see a revival today, go to Indonesia. To see a corpse, come to the western world. Look at the characteristics. Anointed for Burial Teaching in the Bible in the original Greek: "didaskein" (which is like a Bible study), something called "homilia" (which is like a sermon), and something called something called"kerygma," which is preaching of the Gospel, mainly to the unsaved. This is Peter"s kerygma, and he begins talking about Jesus from two aspects: the suffering Jesus who was crucified and the conquering Jesus who had dominion.
This comes directly from Judaism: "HaMashiach ben Jozef" and "HaMashiach ben David:" the Messiah who is the son of Joseph and the Messiah who is the son of David. First Jesus comes as a suffering servant like Joseph, but then He comes as a conquering king at His return like David. In His First Coming He comes as a suffering servant; when He comes back to set up the Millennial Kingdom He is a conquering king like David. The point is this: before Jesus was anointed for dominion, Jesus was anointed for burial.
For it was fitting for Him .for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings. (Heb. 2:10)
Jesus did not need to suffer. He did not have a fallen nature for God to deal with. But He underwent a process theologians call "kenosis," and He identified with us even though He had no sin. For our sakes He put Himself into a position where God had to perfect Him by suffering as an example to us and to win the victory for us on the cross. Before the Lord Jesus was anointed for dominion, He was anointed for burial. Before the Church can be anointed for dominion, it has to be anointed for burial. It is very easy to see why all of these well-intended (but I must say unscriptural) formulas for anointing have not worked.
The Charismatic Movement is twenty-five years old in England. Can we say the schools are any better? Is there any less crime? Is there any less homosexuality? Any less divorce? Any less racism or hatred or social injustice? Are more people coming to church? Are more lives being changed? Is there any less sexual abuse of little children? No, there is more. After twenty-five years, what do we have to show for it? Nothing €“ absolutely nothing. I remember people saying with well intentions that this Charismatic Renewal was the key. This Charismatic Renewal had a unity, but it was not the unity of the Spirit. "It is OK whatever your church is, whatever your church believes. If you want to be a Roman Catholic, you want to pray to the dead, you go ahead." No anointing.
Then there is the name-it-and-claim-it people: "Faith-Prosperity," that is the key. Go to America; the only key they have now is the key that locks them up in jail (the ones who have been caught already €“ the others are still wanted men). These people have made "born-again" a household joke coast-to-coast, and these same people (and same kinds of people) are coming into this country even at this minute, even at this very hour. Faith-Prosperity proponents say that is the key to getting the anointing. "Just believe it, brother. Reach out and claim it by faith." Well, if we want to know about faith, the best way to begin is by reading the faith chapter, Hebrews 11.
and others experienced mockings and scourgings, yes, also chains and imprisonment.
("Believe God for that Cadillac ®, brother. Just believe God you are going to prosper, your business will prosper. Believe God you are going to grow, your church will grow.")
They were stoned, they were sawn in two...
(Why? Because of their faith.)
...they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword...
(Why? Because of their faith.)
...they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute...
(Destitute! Impoverished! Their faith did not make them rich, their faith made them poor! They were not hoping in this world, they were hoping in what is going to come. I am not saying we should trust God for poverty, but we should trust God whether we have riches or poverty.)
...afflicted, ill-treated...
(They experienced sickness.)
...(men of whom the world was not worthy)...
(Living in mansions in Beverly Hills? No.)
...wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground. And all these, having gained approval... (How?)
...through their faith... (Heb. 11:36-39)
These so-called people who say their so-called Faith-Prosperity Movement is the key to the anointing, they are not teaching faith in Jesus, they are teaching faith in "faith." This is faith. Anointed for dominion? Yes, but anointed for burial first. Man-Made Ideas I have seen so many failed businesses up and down England and all over America coast-to-coast. Christian businessmen who, wanting to pull through, understandably were seduced by these people telling them, "Just write a check for 500 and God will bless it and multiply it back", and they did it. Now, if God tells you to write a check for 500 or 5,000, you do it, but you let God tell you, not some conniver.
The Charismatic Movement promised something, but it could not deliver. Why? It is not scriptural so it could not produce an anointing.
The Faith-Prosperity Movement promises something it cannot deliver. No one has to believe me, all they have to do is talk to one of the thousands of Christians who lost their businesses or their homes or their jobs. Why? Because it is not scriptural — no anointing.
About the most ridiculous and pathetic of all these man-made ideas for anointing (well, actually there are two) is the Restoration Movement. To restore something it has to be something that existed to begin with. It began with Arthur Wallace in the late 60s. He wrote and said a lot of good things, although a lot of wrong and very unscriptural things, but it began in the 60s. The movement has been blossoming for about 16 years. Where is the revival? They cannot deliver any revival because they are trying to restore things that never existed.
The first is not apostolic authority, but their version of apostolic authority. Their version of apostolic authority is not the version of apostolic authority in the New Testament. What they call apostolic authority is something known as "heavy shepherding." It never existed in the New Testament, so they are trying to restore something that never existed. The second thing they are trying to restore is Kingdom Now theology, the idea that we are going to conquer the whole world for Jesus, set up His kingdom, then He is going to come back. This view says it depends on us. It does not depend on the return of Christ as such, it does not depend on God's prophetic plan of which Israel and the Jews play a pivotal role — it does not depend on that, it depends on us and our movement.
Many people propagate this: Roger Forster, Terry Virgo, Gerald Coates. In America it is the likes of Kevin Connor and Rick Godwin. There are people who are trying to come to England now with this stuff from the States. It is what they are teaching. That movement has been around 16 years. Where is the revival? No Such Place as Hell? I firmly believe in Bible-believing Christians standing together and proclaiming Jesus. The March for Jesus seems to be a good idea to me in and of itself. But what do we do when the people who organize the March for Jesus say, "Jesus did not die to save people from going to hell, there is no such place"? Someone can march all they want, but if they do not think that the lost are going to perish, do not expect God to bring a revival through their marching. That is what Graham Kendrick believes. The man is an excellent hymn writer, but that is exactly what he believes: there is no such place as hell. That is what Roger Forster believes. And they are leading all people in these marches with this philosophy, thinking they are going to bring revival.
The apostles said, "Save yourself from this wretched generation." (Acts 2:40) They knew about the Lake of Fire that burns forever and ever, as it were. The preaching of Wesley, the preaching of Spurgeon, of anybody whoever God every anointed to bring revival talk about the holiness of God and the judgment of those who reject the Gospel. Today, what do we have? The leaders are saying there is no such place.
I had a tremendous respect at one time for John Stott. When liberalism was at its real apex theologically, he stood up for the Gospel and the authority of Scripture. I respected him personally, but not doctrinally — I never thought much of his sermons or his books, but I respected him. Now he is telling his people there is no such place as hell. It is Not Scriptural These are the leaders. How is there going to be a revival? Do these people really think — really think — that they are ever going to stop what is happening to this society? Do they really think with leaders like this we are going to stop society from going to the wall and seeing revival with man-made ideas, a false unity? Of charismania? Of Kingdom Now theology and Restorationism? Of Ecumenism, sometimes going into open idolatry? They think they are going to bring a revival?
The Kingdom Now movement has been here sixteen years. I just watched a video recently of what happened in the Docklands Arena. I watched it again. We all know what happened with Mr. Wimber and his Kansas City Prophets. They came and they said revival is coming in October of 1990. He said, "We are the Joel"s army". And then the other Kansas City Prophet came out and he said, "We are going for 100% accuracy — none of God's Words will fall." So what he is saying is he is speaking God's Words and it is going to be 100% accurate. "I do not care what anybody says, you are going to go out of here seeing a visitation and a revival." That was 2-1/2 years ago. In the last 2-1/2 years since the visitation and the revival, which was predicted by them to commence in October of 1990, more mosques have been built in England than churches. That is the truth.
I am not knocking or throwing rocks at anybody or anybody"s intentions or motives. I believe that people who get caught up in this nonsense are sincere people. I believe they are people who really are concerned with what is happening to this country and who really want to see Jesus lifted up and to see souls saved. I believe the people who are getting caught up in all these movements really have good intentions. But the devil knows they have good intentions; therefore he puts them on a road, a road to nowhere.
Once again, the Charismatic Movement has been here over twenty-five years. It made a promise it cannot deliver. Why? Because it is not scriptural.
The name-it-and-claim-it Faith-Prosperity people, if we really look at what they believe, if you we at the doctrines of Kenneth Copeland and Kenneth Hagin, it is their own doctrines, their own books. They quote E. W. Kenyon, "Jesus did not win the victory for us on the cross, He did it when He descended into hell." That is what they believe. The cross is not central to their theology. But look how popular it is among people who want to have their ears tickled. But what happens? It cannot deliver. Their businesses go bankrupt anyway. They made a promise they cannot deliver. Why? It is not scriptural.
The Restoration Movement, the Kingdom Now Movement, they make a promise they cannot deliver. It should have happened in October of 1990, but it did not happen. They go around marching, making these proclamations: "Now is the time for us to march upon the land," they are saying. "We are building a kingdom of power, not of words." Well I have heard their words, where is the power? They have not got any.
We have had these people coming (again I am not slinging mud, I am just stating facts) like Rick Godwin and David Shearman. They come and they are giving these seminars such as "Training for Raining." We hear what they are saying: "Thank You, Lord God, that Your kingdom is advancing forcefully, that Your kingdom is advancing mightily." Whose kingdom? Satan"s? One-third of the kids in this country are going to wind up in jail! 1.2% of the population goes to church on Sunday, most of them are not even Christians! More mosques are being built all over! Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism, New Age is being taught in schools, even the Church of England schools. They are teaching children to use condoms in sex education in schools. Whose kingdom is advancing forcefully?
These people may be perfectly honorable in their motives and their intentions — I am not attacking them. What I am attacking is their doctrines. I do not question these people"s sincerity or their integrity; it is not for me to judge, but what is for me to do is to say that what they are teaching is scriptural or not. (A) I look in the Bible and I see that it is not scriptural, and (B) I look out there and I see one thing: they all promise something they cannot deliver. What is the Answer? Peter says what happens on Pentecost is a shadow of what will happen at the end of the world. He did not say "this is that," in Greek it is "this is like that." (Acts 2:16) There were no signs of blood and fire and vapor as it is stated in the text from Joel 2, those things did not happen on Pentecost. It says "this is like that." Somehow what happened then is a shadow of what happens at the end. What happened then teaches us what happens at the end. At the end, once again, we have a body that is been betrayed, we have a body that is afraid, that is miniscule, whose leaders are terrified, and that is not anointed.
The central theology of the Kingdom Now people, the Manifest Sons of God, or the Joel"s Army teaching is all the same. What these people do is engage in something called "Gnosticism." Instead of dealing with what the text says exegetically, they read things into it which it does not say, claiming some kind of revelation. But they say something about Joel"s army which is not what it says in Joel. God's Word through Joel Joel is someone who prophesied very little for his own day, in fact almost not at all. He prophesied almost exclusively for the end of the world. But we know he either prophesied right at the beginning of the start of the Babylonian Captivity or right before it, and he is talking about the armies of Babylon. And look what it says €¦
Blow a trumpet in Zion,
And sound an alarm on My holy mountain!
Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble,
For the day of the LORD is coming;
Surely it is near,
(Now that is an eschatological statement €“ it is about the end of the world.)
A day of darkness and gloom,
A day of clouds and thick darkness.
As the dawn is spread over the mountains,
So there is a great and mighty people;
There has never been anything like it,
Nor will there be again...
(He is talking in his own time, about Nebuchadnezzar"s army of Babylon. That is what he"s talking about for his own time, but he is saying this teaches about the end of the world.)
A fire consumes before them
And behind them a flame burns.
The land is like the garden of Eden before them
But a desolate wilderness behind them,
And nothing at all escapes them. (Joel 2:1-3)
The Kingdom Now people say that this is them, their movement. And it describes this army. But look what happens with this army €¦
"Yet even now," declares the LORD,
"Return to Me with all your heart,
And with fasting, weeping and mourning;
And rend your heart and not your garments."
Now return to the LORD your God,
For He is gracious and compassionate,
Slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness
And relenting of evil.
Who knows whether He will not turn and relent... (Joel 2:12-14a)
In other words, Joel says if the people repent, God will call this terrible army back. And what happens to this army?
"But I will remove the northern army far from you,
And I will drive it into a parched and desolate land,
And its vanguard into the eastern sea,
And its rear guard into the western sea.
And its stench will arise and its foul smell will come up,
For it has done great things." (Joel 2:20)
God is going to judge and destroy Joel"s army, but that is who John Wimber says he is! John Wimber actually says, "We are the locusts."
"Then I will make up to you for the years
That the swarming locust has eaten,
The creeping locust, the stripping locust and the gnawing locust,
My great army which I sent among you. (Joel 2:25)
He called it His army, but it is His army in the sense of Nebuchadnezzar, the army of Babylon. It is an evil army. The way God judges His people is by bringing other evil people against them to make them repent. He has always dealt with Israel that way. That is the context. It is an evil army that God is going to destroy, but the entire Kingdom Now philosophy is based on the fact that we are this army, or at least they are, those in their movement. Recalling Judgment But what happens in the midst of all this prediction of doom and gloom?
"It will come about after this
That I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind;
And your sons and daughters will prophesy,
Your old men will dream dreams,
Your young men will see visions.
Even on the male and female servants
I will pour out My Spirit in those days. (Joel 2:28-29)
If there is a repentance, God pours out His Spirit and calls His judgment back. That is the key to the anointing. That is the key to get what the Kingdom Now people promise but cannot possibly deliver. That is the key to get what the Ecumenical people promise but cannot possibly deliver. That is the key to get what the Faith-Prosperity people promise but cannot possibly deliver. That is the key to get what the Charismatic people promise but cannot possibly deliver.
Joel"s army? The church is not Joel"s army; Joel"s army is what is judging the church. If we repent, God will recall that judgment and pour out His Spirit. That is the key.
That is what happened in the early church, and that is what is happening today. We have been betrayed, we are small and quivering, our leaders are afraid, and we are not anointed. It is all going to the wall. There is one hope: We repent or we perish. God bless you, and thank you.
God bless, € € €
James Jacob Prasch
Binding and Loosing
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By James Jacob Prasch
If you picked up a fork, how much soup do you think you would be able to eat with it? Not too much. You could try, but it wouldn't work. Put down the fork, and pick up a spoon – use the right utensil – and you will be able to eat the soup.
Today, we have an emphasis on Spiritual Warfare. The Lord has given us a lot of weapons and strategies, a lot of battle tactics and utensils to achieve the things we are called to do. Today you will find people using the wrong weapons to deal with the subjects of the flesh, the devil and the world. You would think after a few minutes of eating the soup with a fork, people would have the sense to realize that something is wrong – this is not working, I must have something wrong.
In many areas the church is trying to use biblical teaching about binding and loosing as an instrument to deal with something it was not designed to deal with. They are using the wrong instrument, something that could never possibly achieve what they are thinking or hoping it can. There is a biblical teaching about binding and loosing, and it is the appropriate teaching, weapon and strategy for what it was designed to deal with. But principalities? Powers in the heavenlies? Sin? Wickedness in high places and in the world? It was not designed to deal with those things! We have been trying to eat soup with a fork!
If you picked up a fork, how much soup do you think you would be able to eat with it? Not too much. You could try, but it wouldn't work. Put down the fork, and pick up a spoon – use the right utensil – and you will be able to eat the soup.
Today, we have an emphasis on Spiritual Warfare. The Lord has given us a lot of weapons and strategies, a lot of battle tactics and utensils to achieve the things we are called to do. Today you will find people using the wrong weapons to deal with the subjects of the flesh, the devil and the world. You would think after a few minutes of eating the soup with a fork, people would have the sense to realize that something is wrong – this is not working, I must have something wrong.
In many areas the church is trying to use biblical teaching about binding and loosing as an instrument to deal with something it was not designed to deal with. They are using the wrong instrument, something that could never possibly achieve what they are thinking or hoping it can. There is a biblical teaching about binding and loosing, and it is the appropriate teaching, weapon and strategy for what it was designed to deal with. But principalities? Powers in the heavenlies? Sin? Wickedness in high places and in the world? It was not designed to deal with those things! We have been trying to eat soup with a fork!
The Boiling Pot
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by James Jacob Prasch
"How the oppressor has ceased, And how fury has ceased!The LORD has broken the staff of the wicked,The scepter of rulers
"How the oppressor has ceased, And how fury has ceased!The LORD has broken the staff of the wicked,The scepter of rulers
The Book of Jonah
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by James Jacob Prasch
Before we turn to the book of Jonah, turn very briefly please to the book of Acts chapter 2:24 and 27.
"And God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power."
In verse 27 we have a quote from the book of Isaiah and the Psalms,
Because thou wilt not abandon my soul to Hades, nor allow Thy holy one to undergo decay.
It was impossible for death to hold Jesus in its power: it was a theological, spiritual and logical impossibility.
We are told in the book of Hebrews that Abraham was willing to sacrifice his only son €“ as a type of Christ €“ because even then he knew that God could raise his son up from the dead to fulfill his purpose. (Heb 11:17) It is an example of how God puts somebody in a "death situation", with the assurance that his resurrection power is going to be found in it.
With these things in view turn with me to the book of the prophet Jonah.
The word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai saying, "Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before Me." But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. So he went down to Joppa, found a ship which was going to Tarshish, paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.
The Lord hurled a great wind on the sea and there was a great storm on the sea so that the ship was about to break up. Then the sailors became afraid and every man cried to his god, and they threw the cargo which was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone below into the hold of the ship, lain down and fallen sound asleep. So the captain approached him and said, "How is it that you are sleeping? Get up, call on your god. Perhaps your god will be concerned about us so that we will not perish." Each man said to his mate, "Come, let us cast lots so we may learn on whose account this calamity has struck us." So they cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah.
(Now in Proverbs 16:33 it says: the lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.)
Then they said to him, "Tell us, now! On whose account has this calamity struck us? What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?" He said to them, "I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land."
Then the men became extremely frightened and they said to him, "How could you do this?" For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them. So they said to him, "What should we do to you that the sea may become calm for us?" for the sea was becoming increasingly stormy. He said to them, "Pick me up and throw me into the sea. Then the sea will become calm for you, for I know that on account of me this great storm has come upon you." However, the men rowed desperately to return to land but they could not, for the sea was becoming even stormier against them. Then they called on the Lord and said, "We earnestly pray, O Lord, do not let us perish on account of this man"s life and do not put innocent blood on us; for You, O Lord, have done as You have pleased."
So they picked up Jonah, threw him into the sea, and the sea stopped its raging. Then the men feared the Lord greatly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows. And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights.
We're not told it was a whale. The Jews translate this literally as in modem Hebrew leviathan. Whales are not usually indigenous to the Mediterranean, we don't know what kind of fish it was, we just assume it was a whale. (Strictly speaking, of course, a whale is a mammal not a fish €“ it has no gills).
Before we turn to the book of Jonah, turn very briefly please to the book of Acts chapter 2:24 and 27.
"And God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power."
In verse 27 we have a quote from the book of Isaiah and the Psalms,
Because thou wilt not abandon my soul to Hades, nor allow Thy holy one to undergo decay.
It was impossible for death to hold Jesus in its power: it was a theological, spiritual and logical impossibility.
We are told in the book of Hebrews that Abraham was willing to sacrifice his only son €“ as a type of Christ €“ because even then he knew that God could raise his son up from the dead to fulfill his purpose. (Heb 11:17) It is an example of how God puts somebody in a "death situation", with the assurance that his resurrection power is going to be found in it.
With these things in view turn with me to the book of the prophet Jonah.
The word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai saying, "Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before Me." But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. So he went down to Joppa, found a ship which was going to Tarshish, paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.
The Lord hurled a great wind on the sea and there was a great storm on the sea so that the ship was about to break up. Then the sailors became afraid and every man cried to his god, and they threw the cargo which was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone below into the hold of the ship, lain down and fallen sound asleep. So the captain approached him and said, "How is it that you are sleeping? Get up, call on your god. Perhaps your god will be concerned about us so that we will not perish." Each man said to his mate, "Come, let us cast lots so we may learn on whose account this calamity has struck us." So they cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah.
(Now in Proverbs 16:33 it says: the lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.)
Then they said to him, "Tell us, now! On whose account has this calamity struck us? What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?" He said to them, "I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land."
Then the men became extremely frightened and they said to him, "How could you do this?" For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them. So they said to him, "What should we do to you that the sea may become calm for us?" for the sea was becoming increasingly stormy. He said to them, "Pick me up and throw me into the sea. Then the sea will become calm for you, for I know that on account of me this great storm has come upon you." However, the men rowed desperately to return to land but they could not, for the sea was becoming even stormier against them. Then they called on the Lord and said, "We earnestly pray, O Lord, do not let us perish on account of this man"s life and do not put innocent blood on us; for You, O Lord, have done as You have pleased."
So they picked up Jonah, threw him into the sea, and the sea stopped its raging. Then the men feared the Lord greatly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows. And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights.
We're not told it was a whale. The Jews translate this literally as in modem Hebrew leviathan. Whales are not usually indigenous to the Mediterranean, we don't know what kind of fish it was, we just assume it was a whale. (Strictly speaking, of course, a whale is a mammal not a fish €“ it has no gills).
The Book of Ruth
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by James Jacob Prasch
The Church lost sight of their Jewish roots. Then what happened? Paganism invaded Christendom €“ the emergence of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, perverting the original Christianity of the New Testament, which was a Jewish Hebraic faith. They went back to their old gods once they lost sight of their Jewish roots!
The Church lost sight of their Jewish roots. Then what happened? Paganism invaded Christendom €“ the emergence of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, perverting the original Christianity of the New Testament, which was a Jewish Hebraic faith. They went back to their old gods once they lost sight of their Jewish roots!
The Burning Bush - Hineni
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by James Jacob Prasch
Introduction"Now it came about in those days, when Moses had grown up, that he went out to his brethren and looked on their hard labors; and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his brethren. So he looked this way and that, and when he saw there was no one around, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. He went out the next day, and behold, two Hebrews were fighting with each other; and he said to the offender, "Why are you striking your companion?" But he said, "Who made you a prince or a judge over us? Are you intending to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?" Then Moses was afraid and said, "Surely the matter has become known."
"When Pharaoh heard of this matter, he tried to kill Moses. But Moses fled from the presence of Pharaoh and settled in the land of Midian, and he sat down by a well. Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters; and they came to draw water and filled the troughs to water their father's flock. Then the shepherds came and drove them away, but Moses stood up and helped them and watered their flock. When they came to Reuel their father, he said, "Why have you come back so soon today?" So they said, "An Egyptian delivered us from the hand of the shepherds, and what is more, he even drew the water for us and watered the flock." "He said to his daughters, "Where is he then? Why is it that you have left the man behind? Invite him to have something to eat." Moses was willing to dwell with the man, and he gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses. Then she gave birth to a son, and he named him Gershom, for he said, "I have been a sojourner in a foreign land."
"Now it came about in the course of those many days that the king of Egypt died. And the sons of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry for help because of their bondage rose up to God. So God heard their groaning; and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God saw the sons of Israel, and God took notice of them."
"Now Moses was pasturing the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian; and he led the flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. The angel of the LORD appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed. So Moses said, "I must turn aside now and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up." When the LORD saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, "Moses, Moses!" And he said, "Here I am." Then He said, "Do not come near here; remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground." He said also, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." Then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.
"The LORD said, "I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, and have given heed to their cry because of their taskmasters, for I am aware of their sufferings. So I have come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite. Now, behold, the cry of the sons of Israel has come to Me; furthermore, I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians are oppressing them. Therefore, come now, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt."
"But Moses said to God, "Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?" And He said, "Certainly I will be with you, and this shall be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God at this mountain." Then Moses said to God, "Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, "'The God of your fathers has sent me to you.'" Now they may say to me, "'What is His name?' What shall I say to them?"" God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM," and He said, "Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, "'I AM has sent me to you.'" Exodus 2:11-3:14
Moses as a Type of ChristSo we have this famous story of Moses and the burning bush. The first thing we have to understand is that Moses typifies Christ. According to Deuteronomy 18:18 the Messiah would be a prophet like Moses. Remember, it"s trying to show this. A wicked king was determined to destroy all the Jewish children. Moses was protected through the faith of his parents in Egypt for a season and then he comes out of Egypt and goes to the promised land. So Jesus faced the same prospect. A wicked king was going to destroy all the Jewish male children and Jesus was protected in Egypt for a season through the faith of his parents and then he comes out of Egypt and returns to the promised land. It"s showing Moses as a type of Christ.
But in Hebrew you have a word play: "Moshe" – "to draw out"-- and he lives up to his name. He was drawn out of water and so you see the same word in the Hebrew text. He drew out the water for us and always his name is being played out in the text of Exodus. These things don"t come across well or they don"t come across at all virtually in the translations. Now remember, just like Jesus, the first time he comes to save his Jewish brothers, they reject him. They accept him the second time when their anguish and their suffering has become excruciating and they"re desperate, and so it is with the Jews; the Jews don"t accept Jesus at His first coming, they"ll accept Him at His second coming. Initially they looked upon Moses as an Egyptian, the same as they would look upon Joseph as an Egyptian.
Remember, Joseph"s brothers didn't recognize him at the first coming either, they recognized him at the second and wept bitterly. And so it is with the Jews – they look upon Moses not the first time but the second. The way they saw him was as an Egyptian, while Jews think of Jesus as a Gentile. They think of Him as a Gentile. Moses -- he"s an Egyptian -- that"s how people see him. Similarly, with Jesus, give him blonde hair and blue eyes. They thought Moses was an Egyptian. They thought that Joseph was an Egyptian, a Gentile; well Jews think that Jesus was virtually a Gentile. Now this is not true, they objectively know He"s a Jew, but subjectively they relate to Him as a Gentile. This conditioning was to look upon Him as a non-Jew. It"s the same with Moses, same with Joseph. He looked like an Egyptian, he talked like an Egyptian – you know he was an Egyptian prince – He"s an Egyptian; he"s not one of us.
It"s showing Moses here as a type of Christ. But also with what we see with Moses is what you see with Jesus. He tries to save his own people and they reject him but the Gentiles accept him. Remember? When he tries to stand up for his own people they reject him. So he goes to Midian and to the Midianites and when he stands up for them, they accept him. Then his own people turn to him. And so it is with Jesus. At first they reject Him, the Gentiles accept Him, and then His own people turn to Him. It"s showing Moses as a picture of the Messiah.An Old Testament Manifestation of ChristAnother feature is "The Angel of the Lord", the definite article. Not an angel but the Angel as we talk about on the Vow of the Nazarite tape and as we talk about on the Judges 1 & 2 tape. The Angel of the Lord with the definite article, Ha Malak Adonai, is a Christophony, an Old Testament manifestation of the Messiah. It"s not an angel because it is God Himself. The text says that God spoke to Moses from the bush but "the Angel""spoke as God from the bush to Moses. In Judaism the Angel of the Lord is called the Metatrone, the one who dwells at the center of the throne. Now the Metatrone is here – the Angel of the Lord is here – He"s talking to Moses and He"s identified as being God.
The Hebrew word for angel, like the Greek word "angelos," means "messenger". So the Metatrone, the Angel of the Lord, is God's messenger yet He is God Himself. The idea of God becoming a man is unfathomable in popular Jewish thinking, however Jacob wrestled with the Metatrone, the Angel of the Lord, an embodiment of God. Adam heard God walking in the garden. The incarnation of Jesus, while important, was not in the absolute sense a precedent. God had come in incarnate form before. He walked in the garden with Adam but He was also the Angel of the Lord. Hence we see this is a Christological passage. It talks about the Messiah, God's messenger who would come and dwell with His people. Even the idea of the bush not being destroyed even though it burned. Remember in Isaiah Jesus was incorruptible: "He will not suffer His Holy Ones flesh to see decay." His corpse did not rot in the earth.
Moses is a good picture of anybody who really wants to serve God. In fact, he"s one of the best pictures. The first thing we see about Moses is this: Moses as a prince of Egypt, grandson of Pharaoh, was educated in the wisdom of Egypt before he was educated in the wisdom of God. He had the best education anyone in the world could have had, but when he encountered the God of his fathers he realized what Egypt had amounted to nothing. Somebody can be totally uneducated and once they meet the true and living God, among other repercussions, they will become smarter. Moses was trained in the wisdom of Pharaoh before he was trained in the wisdom of God. Now the Egyptians deified Pharaoh. Pharaoh was a divine being to them. Egypt in the Bible taught in 1 Corinthians is a metaphor for the world and whenever you see a man worshipped as God other than Jesus Himself it typifies the Antichrist who is coming. Pharaoh was worshipped and deified as God. Moses could have been in that family but we are told in Hebrews that he chose the reproach of Christ instead of the pleasures of this world. He was a prince of Egypt, he had the best Egypt had to offer in terms of position, power and education, but he chose the reproach of Christ. Moses already knew about the Messiah, and it was the Angel of the Lord he would meet.
So, he tries to help one of his own people and his own people reject him and he has to flee for his life. He flees to the wilderness and winds up where the law would eventually be given – Mt. Horeb.
So here we have Moses, in figure like Christ. He takes a Gentile bride, the church. He comes to save his own people and he is rejected. He goes into the wilderness and is accepted by the Gentiles, by the non-Jews who think he is an Egyptian. It is an amazing thing that not only Jews look upon Jesus as a non-Jew, but even a lot of so-called Christians look upon Jesus as a non-Jew.Into the WildernessThis pattern of being forced into the wilderness as a result of rejection is a recurrent characteristic of those whom God calls. We think of King David. The prophet Samuel anoints him and instead of him assuming the throne he has to leave town in a hurry to the cave of Adullam and then out into the wilderness.
Then there is Rabbi Saul of Tarsus. A Pharisee of the Pharisees from the Rabbinic school of Hillel, disciple of Rabbi Gamaliel, and grandson of Rabbi Hillel. Whereas Moses had the finest education Egypt had to offer, Paul was educated in the best Yeshiva. He was an educated Roman citizen and a Rabbinic well-versed in Greek philosophy, fluent in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Latin, and had been an enemy of the Gospel. But he spent years in the wilderness just like David and Moses.
As Moses fasted 40 days and 40 nights, Jesus fasted 40 days and 40 nights; Jonah gave Nineveh 40 days to repent; it rained 40 days and 40 nights when Noah was in the ark; and the children of Israel sojourned 40 years in the wilderness. It is always 40.
As a new believer, I had a naive idea. I said "Lord I"m educated in science and Lord I make a few thousand a week. And Lord now I"m going to give it all to you." I wind up in Israel thinking I"m going to be an evangelist to the Jews in Israel in the Last Days. I had a miserable, rotten job filling prescriptions because it was the only thing I knew how to do. I thought when I got saved my days of selling drugs was over. I"m trying to explain to old ladies in Yiddish how many to take because they didn't know Hebrew but I didn't know either at the time, not well. I"m out in the middle of nowhere. So I looked out the window and there was sand. Why was there sand? Because I was in the desert. Literally, there were Bedouins with camels. I left New York to live in a wilderness? I gave up a high paid position for this? This is what You brought me here for? The wilderness, this? I thought You brought me here to use me! "Oh no, that comes later. I didn't bring you here to use you in Israel, I brought you here to use Israel in you!"
Rejection. I discovered that much like the Jews in New York, a lot of the Jews in Israel didn't want to hear about Jesus either. Only in New York sometimes they would throw rocks. In Israel some of them weren"t beyond throwing hand grenades, at least the Yeshiva boys. We got stoned on the promenade in Haifa. We were actually chased by mobs with rocks. I used to give out tracts for Jews for Jesus in New York and old ladies used to spit on me, and sometimes the JDL, (Jewish Defense League) would come and harass me.
I was on a kibbutz trying to improve my Hebrew and I began teaching evangelistic Bible studies to small groups of Israelis. A lot of people didn't get saved. What did You bring me here for? I used to be able to write checks and send money away to missions and evangelism. Now I"m broke all the time. I was the prince of Egypt, now I"m nothing. I thought You said You were gonna use me. Nope. Rejection. Wilderness. Moses didn't know why this happened to him. Alright, You"re the God of my fathers and I tried to stand up for my people and I tried to do what was right and I tried to use my position, my power, my education for You, Lord and I just wound up rejected and exiled to the desert. Something was happening in that wilderness that he didn't understand at the time. How was he able to lead the children of Israel 40 years through that same wilderness? He was able to lead the children of Israel, a nation of 1.5 million adults plus Egyptian stragglers plus children through that wilderness for 40 years because he had spent 40 years in it himself. Wilderness is a place of death, scorpions, cobras, and vultures swarming overhead. No water -- unless you find an oasis. One here, one there. How do you survive in the wilderness? Well, that"s what you must learn, Moses.
After I taught you how to survive in the wilderness, then I can use you to lead a whole nation through the wilderness.
You see, we"ve come out of the domain of Pharaoh when we got saved, we"ve come out of Egypt but we have yet to enter the promised land that flows with milk and honey. We"ve come out of the world but as 1 Corinthians 10 says we haven"t entered heaven. We are sojourning in the wilderness.
The reason Moses was able to do it was because he spent so many years in that wilderness. There are things that no university, no seminary, no Bible College can ever teach you. The finest theological institutions in the world can teach you about the Bible but its only in the wilderness where you can be taught what the Bible is about. To know about the Bible is good, an academic knowledge of Scripture is helpful, it"s practical. I"m not demeaning learning Greek and Hebrew, literary criticism and Biblical history and archeology. It is good to know about the Bible but it"s not good enough. It is important but it"s not what is most important. Learning about the Bible is necessary but what comes first is learning what the Bible is about. That, no man can teach you. That is something only God can teach you. How can you lead people through wilderness? Let the leaders be tested! How does this person handle this appointment? Crisis in health? Marital struggles? Problems in ministry? Financial setback? How does this person handle those things? Once this person has handled those things in the strength and wisdom of the Lord then and only then is that person equipped to be God's vehicle to encourage others through that same wilderness. Only then does God say "go" to Pharaoh.After You've Been Through the WildernessOnly once we"ve been through the wilderness will an academic education be of any practical value. I"ve seen people with the silly notion that they"re going to go to university or Bible college then they"re going to go into the ministry. It doesn"t work that way. It doesn"t even work that way in secular profession. Take a defense contractor in the States like Boeing or Macdonald Douglas. They"ll try and recruit people with Masters Degrees or Doctorate Degrees from the best engineering schools. They"ll go to Imperial College in London or they"ll go to MIT or something like that. They"ll get the best people. And then they"ll say; "Now we"re going to train you to be an engineer!" "But I graduated MIT!" "No, you work for us five years because it will take five years before we get any real use out of you!"
You graduate with a degree in Medicine in the States; you become an intern and then a resident. In Britain you become an assistant Registrar and then a Registrar. "But I"ve already been to medical college!" "No, no, no, no."
You finished Law School, now you have to do your articles and go clerk. Do Paralegal work. Then you become an assistant Solicitor, then you become a Junior Solicitor. Five years from now you can call yourself a Lawyer. "But I have a degree!"
It doesn"t work that way in Engineering, it doesn"t work that way in Medicine, it doesn"t work that way in Law; much less does it work that way in Ministry. Only after you"ve been through the wilderness will the education do you any good. Now go to Pharaoh. Now you"re qualified.
You can become very disoriented in the desert; everything looks the same. Because of dehydration you become prone to see things like mirages. You don"t know where you"re going! You can see which way the sun rises and the sun sets and that will give you some bearing but the best way to navigate through the wilderness is at night. The Bedouins use the stars. It"s quite a skill to learn how to survive in the wilderness but to see a whole nation survive in the wilderness. Never despise the day of small things. When God calls you, and everyone of us has a ministry, the first thing to expect is rejection because we can only be the Lord"s ministers in the character of Christ. The first thing Christ experienced was rejection.
"Who hath believed our report, to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed, he grew up before him like a tender shoot out of dry ground, he had no form or comeliness that we should look upon him, we esteemed him not."
That"s what Isaiah said about the Messiah in Isaiah 53:1-2. Before God can use you, you have to experience rejection.
God prepares people for the extraordinary in the ordinary. Only after you are no longer in the wilderness -- only in retrospect -- do you see what God was doing in that wilderness. When Moses was in the wilderness he didn't know that his own people who rejected him were going to be brought to a place of desperation where they would accept him. His mission field wasn"t ready yet.Similar ExamplesThe same can be seen in the life of David after Samuel anointed him to be king. "Well, David you"re gonna be king. Saul is pursuing you, he"s going to kill you." Rejection -- the outcasts of Israel joined themselves to David. Everyone who was in debt; every loser; every nobody. But we read later on about David"s mighty men -- the commanders of his army; the generals of the Israeli armed forces. Who were these generals in the Israeli armed forces? Who were the commanders of the army of the Lord?
Who are David"s mighty men? The same losers! The same outcasts! The same down and out people who joined him at the cave of Adullam. God took these losers and made them into David"s mighty men. God took these nobodies and made them into the commanders of the armies of the Lord in the wilderness. First they learned how to outfox Saul, then they learned how to outfox the Philistines. Then they conquered the Philistines. Where did they learn it? David taught them.
David"s a type of Christ, the Son of David, Ben David Yeshua. The Lord himself, the Son of David will teach you things in the wilderness you"re never going to learn anywhere else -- how to outsmart the enemy. But it wasn"t pleasant out there. Just think of Moses -- "I was a prince of Egypt, I had all this money, power, position, privilege, I"m an educated man and I"m out in the wilderness. "God, you said you called me, I was drawn out of the water for this?""
Rabbi Saul of Tarsus: "I"m going to be an apostle to the Gentiles, I have to sneak out of town in a basket at the wall?" Something happened to Paul though in Arabia. Paul was actually able to write about the last supper in 1 Corinthians 7 in a way that"s almost mysterious. He said, "I received from the Lord that which I also delivered unto you". He wasn"t at the last supper. How did he receive it from the Lord if he wasn"t there? Where did he get it? He got it out in the wilderness! He got it out in the desert. It may have been in the desert where he was caught up into the third heaven in 2 Corinthians whether in body or in spirit he didn't know but he saw things that he couldn"t tell you about because they were too unspeakable, too amazing, too incredible. So it is with Rabbi Saul of Tarsus. So it was with King David; so it was with Moses. So it is with anybody who really wants to serve the Lord.The Purpose of the WildernessBut after a long time, almost out of the blue, something happens to Moses in that wilderness. At some point, David came in from the cold. He returned from the wilderness he"s in, at some point Paul came back from Arabia. At some point God is going to call you back in from the wilderness, after he"s taught you everything you need to know to be prepared for what lies ahead. In this fallen world there is no other place and no other way to learn it and those things are essential.
When God has you in the wilderness, not only is He preparing you for your mission, he"s preparing your mission for you. Things are going to be tough but now we begin to understand what God is really doing. And out of nowhere God speaks to him from a burning bush and says, "Here is the sign. When you lead these people out, you"re going to come right to the same mountain. This is where I"m going to give you the covenant, the Law, the Torah."
In other words, in the ministry you can never lead someone to a place where you haven"t already been yourself. After you"ve been there, after you know what it"s like to encounter the living God then He can use you to bring somebody else there. But unless you"ve been there yourself, you"re not bringing anybody else.
Moses was eighty years old when he encountered God in the burning bush. One of the lies of the world is the idea of retirement. The only thing retirement should mean for a Christian, if their health permits, is now you are able to serve God full-time instead of part-time. The world says your prime is when you are middle-aged. But God says your prime is when you are old-aged. It"s just the opposite of what the world says. Somehow the church has allowed the world to put its perverse model on us. God however, doesn"t see it that way. God sees all the other stuff as preparation for old age. He doesn"t see it the way the world does.
Unfortunately, the church listens to the mentality of the world, more than it does the mentality of the Lord. Your secular career in business is over now. You no longer have to hustle to make a living and put the kids through University because that"s done. The testosterone and estrogen levels have depleted. The lusts of the flesh are not going to wax as heavily against you. The world says youth, middle age. God says, no youth/middle age, that"s preparation for old age. The Hebrew word for "elder" means somebody who"s older. Do not allow the world"s idea to come into your thinking as a Christian. The Apostle John wrote the book of Revelation when he was in his 90s, an incredible age in his time in history.The Result of the WildernessThe man or the woman who God brings into the wilderness will be entirely different than the man or the woman who God brings out. The one who goes in know their strengths, the one who comes out knows their weakness. Then they know God's strength! His strength is always magnified in our weakness. The man or woman who God brings into the wilderness is one person, the man or the woman who God brings out although itss the same person are completely different in character, in perspective, in demeanor.
When he goes in, he knows all about his abilities, when he goes in he"s confident. When he goes out he has no confidence in himself. Then God can use his background. Once we learn not to trust our education, our cleverness, our background, our position, once we learn not to trust those things, once we learn our insufficiency, then God will use those things. Our strength has to be in Him. The person who goes into the wilderness knows their strength, the one who comes out only knows their weakness that they may experience God's strength.
And so it happens, the pattern gets clearer. You want God to use you? The first thing to anticipate is rejection. You will be rejected by your own brothers, your own sisters, and your own people. That"s the rejection that hurts. Jesus was rejected by His fellow Hebrews, Moses was rejected by his fellow Hebrews and Joseph was rejected by his fellow Hebrews. Joseph, Moses, Jesus, Paul, you, me get rejected by their own people. All that education, all that experience, all that money, power, position, prestige goes into the wilderness with you where it means nothing. It means absolutely nothing until God speaks from the burning bush. And speak He will. "How can I go?" Because, I"m sending you! "Who are you?" I am who I am! You see when Moses was a prince of Egypt Moses knew who he was. What he needed to find out was who God is.
You never find out who God is until you meet Him in the wilderness. Anybody can be spiritual when things are good. Something will happen to you in the wilderness. You won"t know what it is; in the beginning it will intrigue you. Let me get a closer look at this. For then you"ll quickly realize you"re standing on holy ground. It is on holy ground where God wants to use you to bring others to Him. Bring them to the holy ground. "Lord that"s why you brought me out here?" Yeah! "But they rejected me." They weren"t ready and you weren"t either. Now they"re ready and so are you. "But how can I do it, I can"t talk there, I can"t do this." Oh yes you can, you could always do it; if you couldn"t have done it you wouldn"t have been here, I wouldn"t have wasted my time bringing you to the wilderness if you didn't have the capacity to do it. Then, you thought you had the capacity to do it, now you realize you only have the capacity to do it in My strength. Go do it, go do it. From the burning bush he hears the voice of Jesus and he responds with "Hineni," (Here I am, what would you have me to do?)
There is not one of us that God doesn"t have a calling in our life for some ministry. I don"t know what it is. It may be something to do with leadership; it may be in a mission field or evangelism. If God has really called you to something, step one will be rejection; step two will be a wilderness; step three will be a burning bush.
And I promise you, that man or that woman who comes out of that wilderness is going to be very, very different than the one who first went in.
(1) It is usually believed that the Tetragrammaton Yahweh, YHWH is He who was, He who is and He who is to come, I am who I am. And in Simcha Torah and in John Chapter 8, they picked up stones to stone Jesus because He said "before Abraham was in Greek Ego Ami, I am!" Jesus identifying Himself as God.
Introduction"Now it came about in those days, when Moses had grown up, that he went out to his brethren and looked on their hard labors; and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his brethren. So he looked this way and that, and when he saw there was no one around, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. He went out the next day, and behold, two Hebrews were fighting with each other; and he said to the offender, "Why are you striking your companion?" But he said, "Who made you a prince or a judge over us? Are you intending to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?" Then Moses was afraid and said, "Surely the matter has become known."
"When Pharaoh heard of this matter, he tried to kill Moses. But Moses fled from the presence of Pharaoh and settled in the land of Midian, and he sat down by a well. Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters; and they came to draw water and filled the troughs to water their father's flock. Then the shepherds came and drove them away, but Moses stood up and helped them and watered their flock. When they came to Reuel their father, he said, "Why have you come back so soon today?" So they said, "An Egyptian delivered us from the hand of the shepherds, and what is more, he even drew the water for us and watered the flock." "He said to his daughters, "Where is he then? Why is it that you have left the man behind? Invite him to have something to eat." Moses was willing to dwell with the man, and he gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses. Then she gave birth to a son, and he named him Gershom, for he said, "I have been a sojourner in a foreign land."
"Now it came about in the course of those many days that the king of Egypt died. And the sons of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry for help because of their bondage rose up to God. So God heard their groaning; and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God saw the sons of Israel, and God took notice of them."
"Now Moses was pasturing the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian; and he led the flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. The angel of the LORD appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed. So Moses said, "I must turn aside now and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up." When the LORD saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, "Moses, Moses!" And he said, "Here I am." Then He said, "Do not come near here; remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground." He said also, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." Then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.
"The LORD said, "I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, and have given heed to their cry because of their taskmasters, for I am aware of their sufferings. So I have come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite. Now, behold, the cry of the sons of Israel has come to Me; furthermore, I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians are oppressing them. Therefore, come now, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt."
"But Moses said to God, "Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?" And He said, "Certainly I will be with you, and this shall be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God at this mountain." Then Moses said to God, "Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, "'The God of your fathers has sent me to you.'" Now they may say to me, "'What is His name?' What shall I say to them?"" God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM," and He said, "Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, "'I AM has sent me to you.'" Exodus 2:11-3:14
Moses as a Type of ChristSo we have this famous story of Moses and the burning bush. The first thing we have to understand is that Moses typifies Christ. According to Deuteronomy 18:18 the Messiah would be a prophet like Moses. Remember, it"s trying to show this. A wicked king was determined to destroy all the Jewish children. Moses was protected through the faith of his parents in Egypt for a season and then he comes out of Egypt and goes to the promised land. So Jesus faced the same prospect. A wicked king was going to destroy all the Jewish male children and Jesus was protected in Egypt for a season through the faith of his parents and then he comes out of Egypt and returns to the promised land. It"s showing Moses as a type of Christ.
But in Hebrew you have a word play: "Moshe" – "to draw out"-- and he lives up to his name. He was drawn out of water and so you see the same word in the Hebrew text. He drew out the water for us and always his name is being played out in the text of Exodus. These things don"t come across well or they don"t come across at all virtually in the translations. Now remember, just like Jesus, the first time he comes to save his Jewish brothers, they reject him. They accept him the second time when their anguish and their suffering has become excruciating and they"re desperate, and so it is with the Jews; the Jews don"t accept Jesus at His first coming, they"ll accept Him at His second coming. Initially they looked upon Moses as an Egyptian, the same as they would look upon Joseph as an Egyptian.
Remember, Joseph"s brothers didn't recognize him at the first coming either, they recognized him at the second and wept bitterly. And so it is with the Jews – they look upon Moses not the first time but the second. The way they saw him was as an Egyptian, while Jews think of Jesus as a Gentile. They think of Him as a Gentile. Moses -- he"s an Egyptian -- that"s how people see him. Similarly, with Jesus, give him blonde hair and blue eyes. They thought Moses was an Egyptian. They thought that Joseph was an Egyptian, a Gentile; well Jews think that Jesus was virtually a Gentile. Now this is not true, they objectively know He"s a Jew, but subjectively they relate to Him as a Gentile. This conditioning was to look upon Him as a non-Jew. It"s the same with Moses, same with Joseph. He looked like an Egyptian, he talked like an Egyptian – you know he was an Egyptian prince – He"s an Egyptian; he"s not one of us.
It"s showing Moses here as a type of Christ. But also with what we see with Moses is what you see with Jesus. He tries to save his own people and they reject him but the Gentiles accept him. Remember? When he tries to stand up for his own people they reject him. So he goes to Midian and to the Midianites and when he stands up for them, they accept him. Then his own people turn to him. And so it is with Jesus. At first they reject Him, the Gentiles accept Him, and then His own people turn to Him. It"s showing Moses as a picture of the Messiah.An Old Testament Manifestation of ChristAnother feature is "The Angel of the Lord", the definite article. Not an angel but the Angel as we talk about on the Vow of the Nazarite tape and as we talk about on the Judges 1 & 2 tape. The Angel of the Lord with the definite article, Ha Malak Adonai, is a Christophony, an Old Testament manifestation of the Messiah. It"s not an angel because it is God Himself. The text says that God spoke to Moses from the bush but "the Angel""spoke as God from the bush to Moses. In Judaism the Angel of the Lord is called the Metatrone, the one who dwells at the center of the throne. Now the Metatrone is here – the Angel of the Lord is here – He"s talking to Moses and He"s identified as being God.
The Hebrew word for angel, like the Greek word "angelos," means "messenger". So the Metatrone, the Angel of the Lord, is God's messenger yet He is God Himself. The idea of God becoming a man is unfathomable in popular Jewish thinking, however Jacob wrestled with the Metatrone, the Angel of the Lord, an embodiment of God. Adam heard God walking in the garden. The incarnation of Jesus, while important, was not in the absolute sense a precedent. God had come in incarnate form before. He walked in the garden with Adam but He was also the Angel of the Lord. Hence we see this is a Christological passage. It talks about the Messiah, God's messenger who would come and dwell with His people. Even the idea of the bush not being destroyed even though it burned. Remember in Isaiah Jesus was incorruptible: "He will not suffer His Holy Ones flesh to see decay." His corpse did not rot in the earth.
Moses is a good picture of anybody who really wants to serve God. In fact, he"s one of the best pictures. The first thing we see about Moses is this: Moses as a prince of Egypt, grandson of Pharaoh, was educated in the wisdom of Egypt before he was educated in the wisdom of God. He had the best education anyone in the world could have had, but when he encountered the God of his fathers he realized what Egypt had amounted to nothing. Somebody can be totally uneducated and once they meet the true and living God, among other repercussions, they will become smarter. Moses was trained in the wisdom of Pharaoh before he was trained in the wisdom of God. Now the Egyptians deified Pharaoh. Pharaoh was a divine being to them. Egypt in the Bible taught in 1 Corinthians is a metaphor for the world and whenever you see a man worshipped as God other than Jesus Himself it typifies the Antichrist who is coming. Pharaoh was worshipped and deified as God. Moses could have been in that family but we are told in Hebrews that he chose the reproach of Christ instead of the pleasures of this world. He was a prince of Egypt, he had the best Egypt had to offer in terms of position, power and education, but he chose the reproach of Christ. Moses already knew about the Messiah, and it was the Angel of the Lord he would meet.
So, he tries to help one of his own people and his own people reject him and he has to flee for his life. He flees to the wilderness and winds up where the law would eventually be given – Mt. Horeb.
So here we have Moses, in figure like Christ. He takes a Gentile bride, the church. He comes to save his own people and he is rejected. He goes into the wilderness and is accepted by the Gentiles, by the non-Jews who think he is an Egyptian. It is an amazing thing that not only Jews look upon Jesus as a non-Jew, but even a lot of so-called Christians look upon Jesus as a non-Jew.Into the WildernessThis pattern of being forced into the wilderness as a result of rejection is a recurrent characteristic of those whom God calls. We think of King David. The prophet Samuel anoints him and instead of him assuming the throne he has to leave town in a hurry to the cave of Adullam and then out into the wilderness.
Then there is Rabbi Saul of Tarsus. A Pharisee of the Pharisees from the Rabbinic school of Hillel, disciple of Rabbi Gamaliel, and grandson of Rabbi Hillel. Whereas Moses had the finest education Egypt had to offer, Paul was educated in the best Yeshiva. He was an educated Roman citizen and a Rabbinic well-versed in Greek philosophy, fluent in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Latin, and had been an enemy of the Gospel. But he spent years in the wilderness just like David and Moses.
As Moses fasted 40 days and 40 nights, Jesus fasted 40 days and 40 nights; Jonah gave Nineveh 40 days to repent; it rained 40 days and 40 nights when Noah was in the ark; and the children of Israel sojourned 40 years in the wilderness. It is always 40.
As a new believer, I had a naive idea. I said "Lord I"m educated in science and Lord I make a few thousand a week. And Lord now I"m going to give it all to you." I wind up in Israel thinking I"m going to be an evangelist to the Jews in Israel in the Last Days. I had a miserable, rotten job filling prescriptions because it was the only thing I knew how to do. I thought when I got saved my days of selling drugs was over. I"m trying to explain to old ladies in Yiddish how many to take because they didn't know Hebrew but I didn't know either at the time, not well. I"m out in the middle of nowhere. So I looked out the window and there was sand. Why was there sand? Because I was in the desert. Literally, there were Bedouins with camels. I left New York to live in a wilderness? I gave up a high paid position for this? This is what You brought me here for? The wilderness, this? I thought You brought me here to use me! "Oh no, that comes later. I didn't bring you here to use you in Israel, I brought you here to use Israel in you!"
Rejection. I discovered that much like the Jews in New York, a lot of the Jews in Israel didn't want to hear about Jesus either. Only in New York sometimes they would throw rocks. In Israel some of them weren"t beyond throwing hand grenades, at least the Yeshiva boys. We got stoned on the promenade in Haifa. We were actually chased by mobs with rocks. I used to give out tracts for Jews for Jesus in New York and old ladies used to spit on me, and sometimes the JDL, (Jewish Defense League) would come and harass me.
I was on a kibbutz trying to improve my Hebrew and I began teaching evangelistic Bible studies to small groups of Israelis. A lot of people didn't get saved. What did You bring me here for? I used to be able to write checks and send money away to missions and evangelism. Now I"m broke all the time. I was the prince of Egypt, now I"m nothing. I thought You said You were gonna use me. Nope. Rejection. Wilderness. Moses didn't know why this happened to him. Alright, You"re the God of my fathers and I tried to stand up for my people and I tried to do what was right and I tried to use my position, my power, my education for You, Lord and I just wound up rejected and exiled to the desert. Something was happening in that wilderness that he didn't understand at the time. How was he able to lead the children of Israel 40 years through that same wilderness? He was able to lead the children of Israel, a nation of 1.5 million adults plus Egyptian stragglers plus children through that wilderness for 40 years because he had spent 40 years in it himself. Wilderness is a place of death, scorpions, cobras, and vultures swarming overhead. No water -- unless you find an oasis. One here, one there. How do you survive in the wilderness? Well, that"s what you must learn, Moses.
After I taught you how to survive in the wilderness, then I can use you to lead a whole nation through the wilderness.
You see, we"ve come out of the domain of Pharaoh when we got saved, we"ve come out of Egypt but we have yet to enter the promised land that flows with milk and honey. We"ve come out of the world but as 1 Corinthians 10 says we haven"t entered heaven. We are sojourning in the wilderness.
The reason Moses was able to do it was because he spent so many years in that wilderness. There are things that no university, no seminary, no Bible College can ever teach you. The finest theological institutions in the world can teach you about the Bible but its only in the wilderness where you can be taught what the Bible is about. To know about the Bible is good, an academic knowledge of Scripture is helpful, it"s practical. I"m not demeaning learning Greek and Hebrew, literary criticism and Biblical history and archeology. It is good to know about the Bible but it"s not good enough. It is important but it"s not what is most important. Learning about the Bible is necessary but what comes first is learning what the Bible is about. That, no man can teach you. That is something only God can teach you. How can you lead people through wilderness? Let the leaders be tested! How does this person handle this appointment? Crisis in health? Marital struggles? Problems in ministry? Financial setback? How does this person handle those things? Once this person has handled those things in the strength and wisdom of the Lord then and only then is that person equipped to be God's vehicle to encourage others through that same wilderness. Only then does God say "go" to Pharaoh.After You've Been Through the WildernessOnly once we"ve been through the wilderness will an academic education be of any practical value. I"ve seen people with the silly notion that they"re going to go to university or Bible college then they"re going to go into the ministry. It doesn"t work that way. It doesn"t even work that way in secular profession. Take a defense contractor in the States like Boeing or Macdonald Douglas. They"ll try and recruit people with Masters Degrees or Doctorate Degrees from the best engineering schools. They"ll go to Imperial College in London or they"ll go to MIT or something like that. They"ll get the best people. And then they"ll say; "Now we"re going to train you to be an engineer!" "But I graduated MIT!" "No, you work for us five years because it will take five years before we get any real use out of you!"
You graduate with a degree in Medicine in the States; you become an intern and then a resident. In Britain you become an assistant Registrar and then a Registrar. "But I"ve already been to medical college!" "No, no, no, no."
You finished Law School, now you have to do your articles and go clerk. Do Paralegal work. Then you become an assistant Solicitor, then you become a Junior Solicitor. Five years from now you can call yourself a Lawyer. "But I have a degree!"
It doesn"t work that way in Engineering, it doesn"t work that way in Medicine, it doesn"t work that way in Law; much less does it work that way in Ministry. Only after you"ve been through the wilderness will the education do you any good. Now go to Pharaoh. Now you"re qualified.
You can become very disoriented in the desert; everything looks the same. Because of dehydration you become prone to see things like mirages. You don"t know where you"re going! You can see which way the sun rises and the sun sets and that will give you some bearing but the best way to navigate through the wilderness is at night. The Bedouins use the stars. It"s quite a skill to learn how to survive in the wilderness but to see a whole nation survive in the wilderness. Never despise the day of small things. When God calls you, and everyone of us has a ministry, the first thing to expect is rejection because we can only be the Lord"s ministers in the character of Christ. The first thing Christ experienced was rejection.
"Who hath believed our report, to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed, he grew up before him like a tender shoot out of dry ground, he had no form or comeliness that we should look upon him, we esteemed him not."
That"s what Isaiah said about the Messiah in Isaiah 53:1-2. Before God can use you, you have to experience rejection.
God prepares people for the extraordinary in the ordinary. Only after you are no longer in the wilderness -- only in retrospect -- do you see what God was doing in that wilderness. When Moses was in the wilderness he didn't know that his own people who rejected him were going to be brought to a place of desperation where they would accept him. His mission field wasn"t ready yet.Similar ExamplesThe same can be seen in the life of David after Samuel anointed him to be king. "Well, David you"re gonna be king. Saul is pursuing you, he"s going to kill you." Rejection -- the outcasts of Israel joined themselves to David. Everyone who was in debt; every loser; every nobody. But we read later on about David"s mighty men -- the commanders of his army; the generals of the Israeli armed forces. Who were these generals in the Israeli armed forces? Who were the commanders of the army of the Lord?
Who are David"s mighty men? The same losers! The same outcasts! The same down and out people who joined him at the cave of Adullam. God took these losers and made them into David"s mighty men. God took these nobodies and made them into the commanders of the armies of the Lord in the wilderness. First they learned how to outfox Saul, then they learned how to outfox the Philistines. Then they conquered the Philistines. Where did they learn it? David taught them.
David"s a type of Christ, the Son of David, Ben David Yeshua. The Lord himself, the Son of David will teach you things in the wilderness you"re never going to learn anywhere else -- how to outsmart the enemy. But it wasn"t pleasant out there. Just think of Moses -- "I was a prince of Egypt, I had all this money, power, position, privilege, I"m an educated man and I"m out in the wilderness. "God, you said you called me, I was drawn out of the water for this?""
Rabbi Saul of Tarsus: "I"m going to be an apostle to the Gentiles, I have to sneak out of town in a basket at the wall?" Something happened to Paul though in Arabia. Paul was actually able to write about the last supper in 1 Corinthians 7 in a way that"s almost mysterious. He said, "I received from the Lord that which I also delivered unto you". He wasn"t at the last supper. How did he receive it from the Lord if he wasn"t there? Where did he get it? He got it out in the wilderness! He got it out in the desert. It may have been in the desert where he was caught up into the third heaven in 2 Corinthians whether in body or in spirit he didn't know but he saw things that he couldn"t tell you about because they were too unspeakable, too amazing, too incredible. So it is with Rabbi Saul of Tarsus. So it was with King David; so it was with Moses. So it is with anybody who really wants to serve the Lord.The Purpose of the WildernessBut after a long time, almost out of the blue, something happens to Moses in that wilderness. At some point, David came in from the cold. He returned from the wilderness he"s in, at some point Paul came back from Arabia. At some point God is going to call you back in from the wilderness, after he"s taught you everything you need to know to be prepared for what lies ahead. In this fallen world there is no other place and no other way to learn it and those things are essential.
When God has you in the wilderness, not only is He preparing you for your mission, he"s preparing your mission for you. Things are going to be tough but now we begin to understand what God is really doing. And out of nowhere God speaks to him from a burning bush and says, "Here is the sign. When you lead these people out, you"re going to come right to the same mountain. This is where I"m going to give you the covenant, the Law, the Torah."
In other words, in the ministry you can never lead someone to a place where you haven"t already been yourself. After you"ve been there, after you know what it"s like to encounter the living God then He can use you to bring somebody else there. But unless you"ve been there yourself, you"re not bringing anybody else.
Moses was eighty years old when he encountered God in the burning bush. One of the lies of the world is the idea of retirement. The only thing retirement should mean for a Christian, if their health permits, is now you are able to serve God full-time instead of part-time. The world says your prime is when you are middle-aged. But God says your prime is when you are old-aged. It"s just the opposite of what the world says. Somehow the church has allowed the world to put its perverse model on us. God however, doesn"t see it that way. God sees all the other stuff as preparation for old age. He doesn"t see it the way the world does.
Unfortunately, the church listens to the mentality of the world, more than it does the mentality of the Lord. Your secular career in business is over now. You no longer have to hustle to make a living and put the kids through University because that"s done. The testosterone and estrogen levels have depleted. The lusts of the flesh are not going to wax as heavily against you. The world says youth, middle age. God says, no youth/middle age, that"s preparation for old age. The Hebrew word for "elder" means somebody who"s older. Do not allow the world"s idea to come into your thinking as a Christian. The Apostle John wrote the book of Revelation when he was in his 90s, an incredible age in his time in history.The Result of the WildernessThe man or the woman who God brings into the wilderness will be entirely different than the man or the woman who God brings out. The one who goes in know their strengths, the one who comes out knows their weakness. Then they know God's strength! His strength is always magnified in our weakness. The man or woman who God brings into the wilderness is one person, the man or the woman who God brings out although itss the same person are completely different in character, in perspective, in demeanor.
When he goes in, he knows all about his abilities, when he goes in he"s confident. When he goes out he has no confidence in himself. Then God can use his background. Once we learn not to trust our education, our cleverness, our background, our position, once we learn not to trust those things, once we learn our insufficiency, then God will use those things. Our strength has to be in Him. The person who goes into the wilderness knows their strength, the one who comes out only knows their weakness that they may experience God's strength.
And so it happens, the pattern gets clearer. You want God to use you? The first thing to anticipate is rejection. You will be rejected by your own brothers, your own sisters, and your own people. That"s the rejection that hurts. Jesus was rejected by His fellow Hebrews, Moses was rejected by his fellow Hebrews and Joseph was rejected by his fellow Hebrews. Joseph, Moses, Jesus, Paul, you, me get rejected by their own people. All that education, all that experience, all that money, power, position, prestige goes into the wilderness with you where it means nothing. It means absolutely nothing until God speaks from the burning bush. And speak He will. "How can I go?" Because, I"m sending you! "Who are you?" I am who I am! You see when Moses was a prince of Egypt Moses knew who he was. What he needed to find out was who God is.
You never find out who God is until you meet Him in the wilderness. Anybody can be spiritual when things are good. Something will happen to you in the wilderness. You won"t know what it is; in the beginning it will intrigue you. Let me get a closer look at this. For then you"ll quickly realize you"re standing on holy ground. It is on holy ground where God wants to use you to bring others to Him. Bring them to the holy ground. "Lord that"s why you brought me out here?" Yeah! "But they rejected me." They weren"t ready and you weren"t either. Now they"re ready and so are you. "But how can I do it, I can"t talk there, I can"t do this." Oh yes you can, you could always do it; if you couldn"t have done it you wouldn"t have been here, I wouldn"t have wasted my time bringing you to the wilderness if you didn't have the capacity to do it. Then, you thought you had the capacity to do it, now you realize you only have the capacity to do it in My strength. Go do it, go do it. From the burning bush he hears the voice of Jesus and he responds with "Hineni," (Here I am, what would you have me to do?)
There is not one of us that God doesn"t have a calling in our life for some ministry. I don"t know what it is. It may be something to do with leadership; it may be in a mission field or evangelism. If God has really called you to something, step one will be rejection; step two will be a wilderness; step three will be a burning bush.
And I promise you, that man or that woman who comes out of that wilderness is going to be very, very different than the one who first went in.
(1) It is usually believed that the Tetragrammaton Yahweh, YHWH is He who was, He who is and He who is to come, I am who I am. And in Simcha Torah and in John Chapter 8, they picked up stones to stone Jesus because He said "before Abraham was in Greek Ego Ami, I am!" Jesus identifying Himself as God.
Christian Cults
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By James Jacob PraschIntroductionIn the Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24 and Luke 21, Jesus warned about false teachers, false prophets, false Christs. Now when I was a young Christian it had been my basic assumption this meant Jehovah"s Witnesses, Mormons, things like this. I have no doubt that the proliferation of cults that we have seen in the last century, particularly the last 20 years is, in itself, of prophetic significance; I do not question that. But those are not the false teachers and the false prophets He was mainly warning of. He was warning of those who would come in the Last Days, if possible, to deceive the elect. (Mt. 24:24)
Some, of course, have said that it is not possible for the elect to be deceived. That is a lie in itself. Jesus would not warn about something so much if it was not even a possibility it could happen. However, He warned about ones who would come to deceive Christians. If Mormons and Jehovah"s Witnesses deceive a Christian, it is basically someone who is newly saved who does not know anything. They are not going to get somebody who has been saved three years, four years, or five years, etc.It Begins with MenThere is a theological definition of "cults" and a sociological definition of "cults". The two, at some point, inevitably converge.
Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, "I am of Paul," and "I of Apollos," and "I of Cephas," and "I of Christ." Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? (1 Cor. 1:12-13)
"I of Paul", "I of Cephas", "I of Apollos", "I of Christ". Those who are saying "I of Christ" were the ones saying, "We do not have any leadership or need for leadership. Jesus is our Leader full-stop. We do not recognize any pastoral authority." There were some who were saying that while others were saying, "He"s mine, he"s mine, he"s mine", making a man a guru.
What a cult does is shift the focus onto a man, sometimes even a dead man. There are cults today €“ and I mean Evangelical cults €“ which are more popular now than when their founders were alive.
The Assemblies of God rejected the ideas of people like William Branham when he was around. The ideas of E. W. Kenyon were abhorrent to mainstream Pentecostals. The Manifest Sons/Latter Day Rain deceptions €“ Restorationism, Kingdom Now, and the rest of it €“ these things were popularly rejected by the mainline Pentecostal denominations including the Assemblies of God in the 40"s and 50"s. They were seen as cultic. Now these things once seen as cultic and heretical have become increasingly mainstream and there are people today who are Branhamites.
The leader of the cult could be a dead person. These are not cults like the Jehovah"s Witnesses or Mormon cults, these are cults where people believe the true Gospel. When somebody is saved through one of these groups there is a problem. When a Mormon is saved, no problem: Joseph Smith was a false prophet so we know that the whole Mormon church has gone the way of a lie. When a Jehovah"s Witness gets saved, no problem: Charles Taze Russell was a false prophet so we know the whole Watch Tower Society is finished. But when people are born again through a Christian cult there is a big problem with groups which are theologically "churches" but sociologically "cults".
Eventually these groups which are theologically "churches" but sociologically cutltic become heretical. Eventually these groups get into apostate doctrine. But in the beginning they begin with the true Gospel.
When somebody is born again through one of these groups the leaders or the leader has a tremendous amount of spiritual and psychological influence and even control over people because they really were born again.
I was born again through "The Children of God". For the first five years of my Christian life I was involved with groups like that. Another one was "The Church of Bible Understanding". Another Christian cult is called "The Bible Speaks", sometimes it is called "Greater Grace". What makes these things so dangerous and so bad is they preach the true Gospel. You cannot write them off entirely the way the Jehovah"s Witnesses and Mormons can be written off entirely. There is a big problem. The people who have been in these groups and the people who have been saved through these groups are in bondage. They are in spiritual and psychological bondage to these groups.The First Marks of a Cult Notice the apostles like Paul went against this mentality. Did Paul save you? It is Jesus who saves, it is the Gospel which saves €“ it is not a church. The Roman Catholic Church claims it is the instrument of salvation, that the sacraments administered by their priests is how people are saved ex opere operato. These groups will preach Christ, but somehow the distinction is not made between the Christ and the cult.
Paul has a go at their first characteristic, something that later in Galatians he calls "a deed of the flesh". (Gal. 5:19)
" €¦factions," (Gal. 5:20)
Sometimes translated "partyism", perhaps better translated this way as "factions". The first mark of a cult is what Paul calls "the sin of party spirit". The sin of party spirit is where the group claims a monopoly on biblical truth. With the party spirit and what will engender the party spirit is some form of Gnosticism, from the Greek word "gnosis" meaning "mystical knowledge".
The Gnosticism in the Roman Catholic Church is called the sensus plenior €“ "the fullest sense" of Scripture. Now there is a fuller sense of Scripture, but what they claim is that the pope as an heir of Peter has the infallible insight to define what it is and to determine doctrine on that basis.
In Gnosticism it is not important what the Bible says exegetically, it is important what the leader says about the Bible.
John Wimber"s movement called "The Vineyard Movement" is based on Christian Gnosticism, a heresy in the Early Church. For instance a basic teaching of the Vineyard and theLatter Day Rain Movement and the Kansas City Prophets is Restorationism and what they call "Joel"s Army".
The run on the cities, they rush on the walls,
Great is the army who carries His word.
This is compared to locusts. In its historical setting this was Nebuchadnezzar"s army, an army God used to judged an unrepentant Judah, but it is also a type of the army of the Antichrist in Revelation. The same locusts in Joel are replayed in Revelation. So whatever this army is in the Last Days it is the army of Antichrist and in Joel 2:20 God says, "I will destroy it. The stench will go up to heaven, I will cast it into the western sea". The Vineyard Movement teaches that this is them. Anyone desiring to be part of an army God is going to judge and destroy should join the Vineyard Movement; join the Manifest Sons of God or the Latter Day Rain Movement.
It does not matter to them what the Bible says it is, it only matters what the gnosis says it means. "God has shown me."
Copeland and Hagin both come from Kenyon. Forget about the fact Jesus said on the cross, "It is finished" (Jn. 19:30) and "Father, into Your hands I commit My Spirit" (Lk. 23:46), the Kenyonites say, "God has shown me that Satan got the victory on the cross, not Jesus. Jesus was tortured in hell for three days and three nights as one nature with Satan and then this demon cum Jesus was born again in hell and rose from the dead." It is a different "Jesus" and a different gospel denying the Master who bought them.
The Prosperity preachers? "God has shown me." These things are all cultic.
But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one"s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. (1 Pe. 21:20-21)
And right after this we have the Greek word "parasaxousin" €“ they put truth next to error. They make the interpretations of things like biblical prophecy a matter of their own interpretation. It is not important what the Bible says, it is important what the leader claims it says.Men Establishing ThemselvesWhen these two things ("party spirit" and Gnosticism) come together, look out €“ it is inevitable a third thing is going to come.
Jesus hated the deeds of the Nicolaitans. (Rev. 2:6) Historically we cannot be sure who they were. Some have speculated they were followers of someone named Nicolaus who it is speculated was a son of one of the deacons listed in Acts 6, but nobody knows. Those are stories derived from tradition. What we do know is what "Nicolaitinism" means in Greek. "Nico" €“ "suppression" of "the laity" €“ the people. The set themselves up as overlords.
Then the word of the LORD came to me saying, "Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel €¦
(Now the Hebrew word for "shepherd" and "pastor" is the same.)
€¦ "Thus says the Lord GOD, "Woe, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flock? You eat the fat and clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat sheep without feeding the flock. Those who are sickly you have not strengthened, the diseased you have not healed, the broken you have not bound up, the scattered you have not brought back, nor have you sought for the lost; but with force and with severity you have dominated them. They were scattered for lack of a shepherd, and they became food for every beast of the field and were scattered. (Ez. 34:1-5)
Biblical leadership is by example, not lording it over others. Jesus castigated the Pharisees for this, yet it got into the Early Church.
When "party spirit" is present it is usually attached to something called "Gnosticism". "Oh, but he understands the Bible better than we do."
There was one case where the guy went totally nuts and said things that were utterly heretical, yet he did have a lot of insight into the Bible. Beware of leaders who believe their own publicity. When somebody who is genuinely gifted allows people to put them on a pedestal, look out. "We don"t understand what he"s doing, but he"s closer to God than we are. He has more insight." That may be true, but when that person is observed doing things directly contrary to Scripture, "Choose this day whom you will serve." (Joshua 24:15) But by that point they are usually too far in bondage.
The next thing is Nicolaitanism, the heavy shepherding. "Who are you to question us? Who are you to challenge us? You have a spirit of rebellion."The Personality Type of a Cult LeaderI am sure a forensic psychiatrist would tell you the same thing, but the personality type of a cult leader is virtually identical to the personality type of a dictator. There have been forensic psychological autopsies on many dictators including Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin. When a team did the forensic analysis on the personality of Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin in the 1940"s for the British and American allies, they were united in agreement that neither Hitler nor Stalin would have had the guts to fight in the Battle of Stalingrad or the Battle of the Bulge, and certainly would not have been able to stomach doing themselves what they had others doing in concentration camps.
Cult leaders are like dictators €“ they are personally insecure. A cult leader is a personally insecure person who surround their self with others who are more insecure than they are so that he may control them and, through them, go to the people. A cult leader will very rarely deal with someone without his honchos with him to shout them down. A cult leader will send one of his parakeets who will basically just ape everything the cult leaders tells them. The cult leader is insecure and his agents, his deputies, will always be insecure people who are easily manipulated.
Not everybody is the same, but one thing is for sure: when someone is born again they begin to change spiritually. And as they change spiritually they will change psychologically. God changes people from the inside out. As they grow in Jesus they become secure in Christ and then become secure in who they are in Christ. In a Christian cult this fails to happen, groups which in the beginning are theologically "churches" but sociologically "cults". The people do not become secure in Christ. Their security becomes based on this relationship to the leader. It is only a matter of degrees, but they are all the same.
The only difference between most of the house church movements who are into Restoration theology is a matter of degrees as to how cultic they are. They all go the same way. The only thing different about Jehovah"s Witnesses or David Koresh is they have gone further down the road. Given enough time, although these churches are theologically "churches" and only sociologically "cults", they will get into heretical doctrine. Not just minor error, but some kind of fundamental error. "The Children of God" did that, "The Church of Bible Understanding" did that, and given enough time such will engage in doctrinal error. But that is only the beginning.
These people are insecure so they will fear people who know things they do not.
We should not make a god out of education by any means. Apollos and Paul were formally educated, Peter and John were not. Yet the apostolic authority possessed by Peter and John was no less than Paul"s. However, as Peter says in his epistle, "These things are complicated; it is better for Paul to explain them". (2 Pe. 3:15-16)
Once somebody"s background €“ their intellect €“ has been crucified, once a believer learns to trust Christ and not their intellect, their intellect becomes a very good servant. "Intellect" is a good servant but a dangerous master; but "ignorance" is a deadly master. "Intellect" is a good servant but a bad master; "ignorance" is not only a bad servant and an even more deadly master.
These people will be found to automatically demean anything like a seminary or a Bible college, somebody who reads Greek €“ they will fear such people. They will have to demean them and put them down within their group and get others to laugh at them because they know they have encountered someone who knows something they do not. They know because someone can read the original Greek or Hebrew or been to seminary are a threat to them. It is much the same with dictators: they fear people who know something they do not so they have to demean it. "You don"t need this!" And they will point out things that are in and of themselves true: "Look at how the universities are filled with Ph.D."s who know Greek and Hebrew who themselves are on their way to hell; they"re not even saved!" They will play that angle up, but they will not look at the other side of the coin. They will only emphasize things which suit their purpose to control people.
When dealing with the leader of a cult one is dealing with a personally insecure person who can only control people by making them insecure.Beyond Doctrinal ErrorUltimately they will come to this doctrinal error themselves, but inevitably at some point one of two things, if not both, will occur, the first being financial misconduct as described in Ezekiel 34. "You butcher the sheep to eat well yourself, but look how they live".
One example in America owned five airplanes and took holidays in the Bahamas with his second wife while the people were living in rat-infested slums in high-crime neighborhoods. Some lived in the worst neighborhoods in New York City cleaning carpets 14 hours a day giving all the money to the cult while saying it was supposedly for the children in Haiti. Well maybe some of it was, but it was also for five airplanes that only he and his wife flew.
Financial misconduct is the first. Almost inevitably that disparity will be found to exist. They give themselves a lifestyle they probably could not get in the secular world because they would not be clever enough, much like most of the Pentecostal ministers today. 90% of the Pentecostal ministers would not have the lifestyle they have if they were not Pentecostal ministers. They would not be good enough to make it in a secular business trade or profession.
The second eventually found with these people in most cases is sexual misconduct €“ immorality. It may go on secretly for some time before it is uncovered.
In the short-term of a cult, these are the warning signs to get out. There will be the sin of "party spirit" in some way related to Gnosticism. They will claim some slant on doctrine which others do not see and followers have to be initiated into it. Eventually it will be discovered that if people do not get out then, they will find financial impropriety and exploitation. Very often they will twist the Bible"s teaching on topics like tithing to do this. And there will be immorality, usually of a sexual nature, sometimes even of a deviant sexual nature.How This Comes AboutBefore Satan paganized the church in the 4th Century, we know from the New Testament his first trick was to Judaize it. This is not the same as "Jewish-ize" because the church isJewish theologically. Israel is the natural root. (Rom. 11) We should understand the Scriptures from a Judeo-Christian perspective, not a Hellenistic one. The Lord revealed His given Word through His people, a nation with a given culture, and we have to understand that. It is necessary to theologically understand biblical Judaism to understand biblical Christianity. Jesus fulfills the Law. Satan"s first seduction was to put people back under the Law instead of the Law pointing to Christ.
This has nothing to do with observances. As a family who are Israeli Jews whose children were born in Galilee, we keep the Passover for reasons of culture and testimony to unsaved Jews. There"s a Mezuzah on the door, we even speak Hebrew at home. We have Hanukkah, we have Purim, we have all the Jewish feasts. We go to a church on Sunday but a Messianic fellowship on Saturday €“ Shabbat. This is not about people who are culturally Jewish keeping their own culture to witness to Jews in their own culture, that is not wrong. Neither is witnessing to Jews by people adopting that culture for testimonial reasons as Paul said in 1 Corinthians 9. The issue is when someone either says it is necessary for salvation or for sanctification. "Well, you might be saved by grace, but €¦"
When it is asserted that it is necessary for salvation that is "legalism". When asserting it is necessary for sanctification, where one is saved by Jesus but they also have to do "this", "this", and "this", that is known as "nomianism" from the Greek word "nomos".
Today there are two kinds of groups to be aware of who are trying to live under two covenants. One is the extreme axis of the Messianic Movement. This does not encompass the good Messianic Bible teachers such as Arnold Fruchtenbaum or people who help Christians understand the Jewish background of the New Testament. This does not involve those who worship in a Jewish cultural framework in order to evangelize Jews. The issue is with those who try to make people keep the Law in a compulsory way.
David Kriss is a dangerous, dangerous man located in Melbourne. But he is not the only Messianic extremist. In England they had Philip Sharp who wound up in jail. He abandoned his Israeli wife and children and had the people crown him King Messiah in a meeting. He"s a "Messianic Jewish Rabbi". Some of these guys are nuts. There is some kind of Halachic community in Queensland I would not go near with a barge pole.
Again, this does not include the likes of Arnold Fruchtenbaum or Art Katz. This is not about the good guys but the nuts. But it is not only Messianic Jews who are doing this, out to rebuild the wall of partition. There is another group of people who are trying to live under two covenants: Seventh-day Adventists. Most of the followers of David Koresh were Seventh-day Adventists.
Once people get into one serious, fundamental doctrinal error like trying to live under two covenants, they become automatically prone to a more serious one. Once people accommodate one fundamental doctrinal error they automatically predispose themselves to something more serious and even more dangerous. It is only a matter of degrees.
It is hard to believe what went on when reading about Koresh, but there have been Evangelical cults that could get people to do things that are unbelievable. When the tragedy with Koresh occurred, 129 pages of Internet material were downloaded and read very carefully. David Koresh followed this pattern to a "T". Remember, Seventh-day Adventists claim to be born again or at least saved, but there is a lot of false doctrine: the "party spirit", the Nicolaitinism, and all the rest €“ going under the Law. He would hold 13 hour Bible studies always about the book of Revelation and always about himself. He would become violently angry, throwing chairs and things if people did not pay attention or fell asleep during the Bible studies. These Bible studies were all designed to brainwash people for a coming apocalyptic cataclysm of some description in which they were led to believe by insinuation, by nuance €“ never directly stated €“ that their salvation would come about through their relationship with him in this coming fate.
They were so brainwashed that when they shot it out with the FBI they believed that was this coming event in Revelation. But it did not begin that way. What will make people do this? He had to become the sole authority figure. He had these people believing that he was semi-divine. Talk about a Gnostic! Only his semen was divinely imbued, so only heshould procreate children. He did not want husbands to be respected by their wives and children, so he got into this whole humiliation thing. He wanted people to only recognizehis authority. He would have an attractive woman stand up in a meeting and make her lift up her dress then point to the men, "Who"s been aroused by this?" And then he would begin castigating them publicly for lust. They guy was a nut.
He had a boudoir upstairs while the men slept in military style barracks and only the women would go up, whichever one he summoned. Except these were not always adult women €“ there were children as young as 11. Many of those people who were killed were undoubtedly people he sired. So he had to berate these men so their wives would not look upon them as a spiritual authority.
Then he would humiliate women. He would do that differently. He made these Seventh-day Adventist style dietary rules which he would modify periodically. So if they went out and bought the wrong kind of chicken or something he would scream at the top of his lungs then post a list. Whichever names of the women were found on the list would be queued up, stripped, and beaten with a paddle. They would queue up every day if their names was on the list. Then they would have to come out undressed in front of their children and he would say, "Do you see what happens to bad mommies?"
How did he get them to do this? Once someone can get people to give them their 11 year-old daughter it is a natural next step that they will die for that person. How did it begin? One serious false doctrine. Once someone gets into one serious false doctrine they become predisposed to another one.
When reading something like Kingdom of the Cults and some of the stuff Joseph Smith did (another sex pervert), perverted sex is a big thing among cults.
The true Mormons are the fundamentalist ones. They are the ones who truly follow Brigham Young and Joseph Smith. Moriel USA was doing an outreach to Mormons at Manti, Utah and I met one with eight wives. How did these guys get these women to go along with this? It was not hard to understand because guess how old they were when they married them? These guys are pedophiles €“ that is how they do it.When the Saved Do the Same ThingsBut there is something even more frightening than David Koresh or the Mormons. What about born again Christians €“ saved Christians, who did the same thing?
It was on the front page of the New York Post in 1978. A cult which broke away from the Lutheran church in Minnesota, Evangelical Lutherans, were putting children into a metal chair, tying them down and giving them electric shocks for not paying attention in Sunday School and the parents would stand there watching the teachers electrocute the kids.
There was another one in California that would beat people to drive the demons out of them. The people would allow themselves to be beaten.
There was a young girl in England, a law student, who came to a few of our Bible studies who was originally from Gibraltar. She spoke Spanish. She graduated and became involved with a cult called Raima. Because she spoke Spanish they sent her to Chicago to the Spanish-speaking ghettos. Her friends told me they were really concerned about this group. They had good reason to be concerned. These were saved Christians, but the same pattern of Gnosticism, heavy shepherding, Nicolaitinism, and all the money went to the group. Because she was bilingual and well-educated she had more freedom than other women in the group. She was allowed to come out to meet me and my wife.
In this group the leaders were telling people who were clean to by faith marry people who were HIV-positive and just trust the Lord. They were marrying people with AIDS. They were contracting AIDS. Babies were born HIV-positive. People were dying.
Their leaders arranged marriages and they actually signed their own death certificates with their marriage certificates and they died. These were born again.
I took her to meet my wife, I talked to her, I phoned her parents in England. I took her to a rescue mission and said, "Lock her up, don"t let her out of here. I"ll be back tomorrow." I gave them $50 or whatever and got an airline ticket back to England. I took her to O"Hare Airport after calling her parents and told her, "If I catch you on this side of the Atlantic again, lady, that"s 12-1/2 extra wide €“ guess what I"m going to do with it?"
They were telling people to marry people who were HIV! How do they get this kind of control? It did not happen overnight, it began with "party spirit" connected to Gnosticism connected to Nicolaitanism.Taking It a Step FurtherOnce it is forgotten that Jesus is our wisdom (1 Cor. 1:30) they begin looking to a man for the wisdom. When believers stop being a Berean, when they stop testing things, they forfeit to that person a kind of control over their life that God never wanted anybody to have except Himself. (Even He never forces Himself that way or manipulates.)
It gets to the point where even if they say and do things not biblical, people will not question. Even if the say and do things which are immoral, people will not question. They lose their capacity to think rationally. Again, it only becomes a matter of degrees between the so-called "Christian" cults and the ones which are obviously pseudo-Christian.
While in Utah last year the Mormons all had these t-shirts which read, "Brigham Young said it, I believe it, that settles it". Now whenever a Jehovah"s Witness is cornered they change the subject; that is what they are trained to do. A Mormon will revert to their testimony, the subjective proclamation, "I have a burden in my bosom and I testify to you that the Church of Latter-Day Saints is true". That is supposed to settle every issue. No matter how many logical arguments you confront them with which they cannot answer, their testimony is supposed to be the ultimate explanation. It is completely subjective.
The Mormons came into Utah while we were there and I said, "I like your shirt" and they said, "Hallelujah" or whatever, to which I said, "So you believe there are Quakers living on the moon? You said if Brigham Young said it, you believe it. This man believes there are Quakers on the moon because Brigham Young said it!" Here it is, straight from the Mormon church"s Journal of Discourses where Brigham Young and Joseph Smith said there were Quakers living on the moon to be a thousand years old. And Brigham Young said they"re on the sun, too.
I saw a black guy and said, "You know what? The New Testament says the first non-Jew to accept Christ was a black African from Ethiopia. The first person not from any Jewish background whom Jesus saved was a black man. But do you know what the Mormon Church says, what Brigham Young said about you? You are a descendant of fallen angels, you are ugly, mischievous, and a depraved nigger. Who do you want to follow: Jesus who loves you or a Mormon who says you are ugly, mischievous, depraved, the descendant of fallen angels, and who calls you racist names? Here, Brigham Young said it! You will believe it according to your shirt! This man is ugly, mischievous, and depraved because God made him black!" And how did the Mormon reply? "I testify to you I have a burning in my bosom! I know the Church of Latter-Day Saints is true!" And what did I say to him? "I have a burning in my bosom and I testify to you I know there"s Quakers a-livin" on the moon!"
Logic goes out the window. The plain teaching of Scripture goes out the same window. Subjectivism steps in.A Sobering Thought The end of all things is near; therefore, be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer. (1 Pe. 4:7)
Remember the video of Rodney Howard-Browne and Copeland where they advise, "Just get drunk, don"t pray"?
Therefore, prepare your minds for action €¦
€¦be drunk in spirit?
€¦keep sober in spirit €¦ (1 Pe. 1:13)
Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. (1 Pe. 5:8)
I was once riding in a 4 x 4 near Victoria Falls along the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe on my way to a speaking engagement at a church. We were going through the bush €“ lion country, and could see a giraffe. The person driving said, "It"s getting dark now, at this time of night lions go after that kind of giraffe." So I am looking out for lions and all of the sudden there goes the wheel. "Be sober in spirit. The lion is trying to get you." If I ever wanted some whiskey it was then. This was no Tarzan movie. This was the real bush in real Africa with real lions, it was getting dark, and I was scared. Admittedly I could only say two things: "Lord Jesus" and "Jack Daniels". But the last thing I needed to be was in an inebriated state where I would not be vigilant.
Three times Peter says, "Be sober". Paul warns, "But you, be sober". (2 Ti. 4:5) In fact this same Peter whom they quote in Toronto meetings they were drunk on the day of Pentecost says these men are not drunk. (Acts 2:15) They heard the mighty deeds of God, not drunken hysterics. So they are shown that the Bible says to be sober repeatedly and not drunk in the Spirit as Rodney Howard-Browne is teaching.
The pastor of Faithland in Melbourne was not into Toronto but had five friends who were €“ five Pentecostal ministers. Some of their churches I have spoken at in times past and they are all into Rodney Howard-Browne. I showed them the videos of Howard-Browne and Copeland in Toronto and they could not defend what was on it. They knew it was heretical, they knew it was carnal and even demonic, but they still insisted they were going to Toronto to see Howard-Browne. Why? They were not "blind", they were willfullyblind. These were the leaders, misleading whole congregations! Jesus Christ will hold them accountable as shepherds as it says in 1 Peter 5 for misleading the flock.
The fruit of the Spirit is egkrateia in Greek €“ "self-control". (Gal. 5:22-23) So this is shown to them along with what it says in Peter: "Be sober", "Be sober", "Be sober". But look at their answer. Did they answer biblically? No. Did they answer logically? No. Did they answer cultically? Yes. "I was blessed! I know it was right because of what happened to me!" What does a Mormon say? "I got a burnin" in my bosom and I know it"s true!" It is not logical. Logic goes out the same window with the Bible. It is only a matter of degrees.
There is not much difference any more between the Assemblies of God and the Mormons, they have gone the same way, just further down the same road. Now there are some good, individual Assembly of God churches; I think they need to come out, in my opinion. They are going down the same road. It is just a matter that one is further down the road than the other.Further Down the Same RoadThe psychological bondage which happens has a demonic character. When the people leave they are automatically ostracized by the other people still in the cult. It is like Catholicism. You left the one true church so it is a mortal sin, go to hell, go directly to hell, do not pass "Go", do not collect $200. That is it €“ the unpardonable sin. The other people will turn against those leaving because those leaving are free while those remaining are in bondage. But are they free? No they are not, not right away.
A person can be taken out of the cult but they are so confused and have been so hurt and manipulated it takes a longer time to take the cult out of the person. It is like that rock songHotel California €“ "you can check out any time you want but you can never leave". The person can be taken out of the cult but to take the cult out of them is not so easy. They remain in psychological and spiritual bondage to it, particularly if they were saved in it. And they cannot be accommodated in other churches because other churches cannot understand what they went through. There is a secret fear that they have, "What if they were right?" This battle takes place within and sometimes it goes on for years.
Sometimes people have had nervous breakdowns and become mentally ill because of it. Some have turned to alcoholism and drugs. Some have committed suicide. Marriages have broken up because of it.
Another common phenomena is they have been so hurt and so burned they can never trust another church or another leader again. The solution to a bad church then becomes no church. The solution to bad leadership becomes no leadership. Actually the right solution to wrong leadership is right leadership, and the solution to bad church is good church. But they cannot accept that. Others do not understand what they have been through. No one understands what is going on inside of them. They can come to a church but they do not fit in until something happens. It takes time for that to happen, but it eventually happens.
This is a big problem and it is getting bigger. And before Jesus comes back it will be bigger still.
First formulated by a social psychologist named Leon Festinger, he was interested in the social psychology of religion and he identified the phenomena called "cognitive dissonance". I do not know if he was a Christian or not, but even secular sociology and psychology can see the phenomena. Cognitive dissonance states when people become cemented to a sect with this heavy control by the leadership, and the leaders make predictive prophecies which fail to happen, instead of the people using their noggin and coming out, they will become even more committed to the sect.
One of the things to do when the Jehovah"s Witnesses come to the door is to show them back copies of The Watchtower where their leaders have predicted things which have failed to happen. You can show them from The Watchtower and Awake magazines where it quotes Deuteronomy 18, "Those predicting things in God's name that don"t happen are false prophets". (Dt. 18:22) They can be shown this from their own literature quoting the Bible. But when logic goes out the window, the Bible goes out the window. They cannot see it.
What can be done with the fact that men like Gerald Coates predicted an earthquake in New Zealand that never happened? In the Elim cult all forty-four churches were taking survival course lessons or something like that.
What do you do with the fact that Rick Joyner has made major predictions in his book The Harvest which failed to happen? He said Communism was going to be triumphant and five months later the Iron Curtain came down.
What do you do with the Kansas City Prophets, men like Paul Cain and Mike Bickle who said the greatest revival in Britain"s history would come to Great Britain in October of 1990 and fan out to Germany? In the last 10 years more mosques have been built in England than churches.
What about men who are proven false prophets such as Benny Hinn prophesying falsely in New Zealand, or Rodney Howard-Browne seen on TV in Australia with Phil Pringle predicting revival that did not come? What do you do with these men who make predictions that do not happen? Deuteronomy 18 says to get away from them, do not be afraid of them, and have nothing to do with them. In a cult, though, it does not matter.
Is there any difference between what the Jehovah"s Witnesses or the Mormons do and the people who will still listen to Benny Hinn or Rodney Howard-Browne? No, there is no difference. They have only gone further down the same road. This is known as "cognitive dissonance". Even secular psychology can identify it. Even the world sees it for what it is. They become even more committed to it.
They will always make an excuse to defend it or set another date or something like this. Then when that does not happen they will get that wrong, the same as the Jehovah"s Witnesses.
These guys have been predicting revival for years. No revival comes so they predict another one. If Toronto does not come we will get the Alpha. If the Alpha does not work we will get the Pensacola. When Pensecola does not work we will get Pepsi-Cola ®. When that doesn"t work we will try Seven-Up ®. It does not matter. There will always be the next fad. People will swallow anything. Why? Because they have become incorporated into a cult. It is cultic. It is following men.
"Yeah, but the Word of God says I shouldn"t listen to you anymore." It does not matter to them because they are in bondage and it is terrible. Saved Christians are dead, Families and marriages have been destroyed by these kinds of people.
Not only that but these people are frauds and Charlatans themselves! They are highly insecure and usually do not know a fraction of what they want you to think they know. They fear anybody who does know more than they do. That is why they will demean any kind of education or learning. They are as bad at one extreme as those who lift it up and make a god of it on the other.
It is like what Arnold Fruchtenbaum says, "I don"t care if you are Plymouth Brethren, I don"t care if you are Open Brethren, I don"t care; but don"t be ignorant brethren."In the Same Manner as the SanhedrinIf somebody was saved through this and it was the only thing they ever knew, it is understandable how this could happen to them. But what happens when people get into this who are not saved through it? That is even worse in terms of being even more pathetic.
Suppose you have been in one of these groups. It will follow the same pattern shown here. The way the leader operates, the fear of knowledge €“ anyone who knows what he does not, using others to be his messengers, he has some special insight into the Bible where if someone does not see it they are into rebellion because they do not submit to his authority, others turn against you to put you under condemnation or put a curse on you. (They will always tell you about the people who left the group and died; they will not tell you about the ones who stayed and died.) They are very selective about how they handle things. These people operate just like the Sanhedrin.
Jesus said to the Sanhedrin, "Why do you arrest Me and bring Me in here for a kangaroo trial? Why didn't you come after Me in the Temple where everyone could see it?" These guys will never openly debate in front of a video camera or in an auditorium in front of the open public; it always has to be in front of their cronies.
Michael Brown, the deceiver of Pensacola, a so-called theologian and great Hebrew scholar, when I talked with him discovered he could not even speak a word of Hebrew. He came to Israel some years earlier saying that the national forest fires which destroyed 22% of Israel"s forests was the emblem of God's Holy Spirit being poured out on Israel. He had people waiting up all night for the second Pentecost. He was supposed to debate me about Pensecola. The date was made at a church near New York mid-week so people could come from any church without missing their own church, a neutral venue. He finds out I have the Joe Chambers videos where Kilpatrick is caught lying about the vibrating girl and right away he cancels the debate, demanding it be held at a Pensecola place on a Sunday night. Why? Because cult leaders will only fight you on their own turf.
It will always be like the Sanhedrin putting Jesus on trial. They will never stand openly. It has to be only where they control people. They will never go into a fair fight; they do not have the ability or the guts. These are insecure people. That is how they operate. It is like being afraid of a tiger with no teeth. These people are frauds.RecoverySometimes it takes months, sometimes it has even taken people years to take that person out of that central role in their life and put Christ in that role instead. These people are in unspeakable bondage. And unless you have been in that bondage you do not understand where they are coming from. You will not even be able to grasp what their problem is. Why can they not fit in?
Not only that, but they will even say a lot of true things. "The church is lukewarm." "The cult was more zealous." "You are Laodicea." Well, that is true. That is the danger. They are not just telling "lie" lies, they are telling Satan"s lies €“ perversions of truth. But look at the results, look at the damage; it can be found every time.
They begin sociologically as "cults", theologically "churches", but give them a few years €“ not more than ten. Then you will find heresy, you will find financial corruption, you will find immorality. But maybe at the end of it you will find Jesus.
If you are in bondage to one of these groups the Bible says €¦
"Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty". (2 Corinthians 3:17)
By virtue of the fact you are in bondage tells you that is not God's Spirit.. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty". If you are in bondage that tells you it is not of God's Spirit €“ it is a different spirit: a "party spirit", a deed of the flesh, a sin, the opposite of the fruit of the Spirit. The deeds of the flesh are the opposite of the fruit of the Spirit. You are in bondage.
It might take a couple of months and sometimes it has even taken people a couple of years, but the sum of the matter is this: you keep your eyes on Jesus and one verse will become a reality like you have never known.
"So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. (Jn. 8:36)
God bless.
Some, of course, have said that it is not possible for the elect to be deceived. That is a lie in itself. Jesus would not warn about something so much if it was not even a possibility it could happen. However, He warned about ones who would come to deceive Christians. If Mormons and Jehovah"s Witnesses deceive a Christian, it is basically someone who is newly saved who does not know anything. They are not going to get somebody who has been saved three years, four years, or five years, etc.It Begins with MenThere is a theological definition of "cults" and a sociological definition of "cults". The two, at some point, inevitably converge.
Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, "I am of Paul," and "I of Apollos," and "I of Cephas," and "I of Christ." Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? (1 Cor. 1:12-13)
"I of Paul", "I of Cephas", "I of Apollos", "I of Christ". Those who are saying "I of Christ" were the ones saying, "We do not have any leadership or need for leadership. Jesus is our Leader full-stop. We do not recognize any pastoral authority." There were some who were saying that while others were saying, "He"s mine, he"s mine, he"s mine", making a man a guru.
What a cult does is shift the focus onto a man, sometimes even a dead man. There are cults today €“ and I mean Evangelical cults €“ which are more popular now than when their founders were alive.
The Assemblies of God rejected the ideas of people like William Branham when he was around. The ideas of E. W. Kenyon were abhorrent to mainstream Pentecostals. The Manifest Sons/Latter Day Rain deceptions €“ Restorationism, Kingdom Now, and the rest of it €“ these things were popularly rejected by the mainline Pentecostal denominations including the Assemblies of God in the 40"s and 50"s. They were seen as cultic. Now these things once seen as cultic and heretical have become increasingly mainstream and there are people today who are Branhamites.
The leader of the cult could be a dead person. These are not cults like the Jehovah"s Witnesses or Mormon cults, these are cults where people believe the true Gospel. When somebody is saved through one of these groups there is a problem. When a Mormon is saved, no problem: Joseph Smith was a false prophet so we know that the whole Mormon church has gone the way of a lie. When a Jehovah"s Witness gets saved, no problem: Charles Taze Russell was a false prophet so we know the whole Watch Tower Society is finished. But when people are born again through a Christian cult there is a big problem with groups which are theologically "churches" but sociologically "cults".
Eventually these groups which are theologically "churches" but sociologically cutltic become heretical. Eventually these groups get into apostate doctrine. But in the beginning they begin with the true Gospel.
When somebody is born again through one of these groups the leaders or the leader has a tremendous amount of spiritual and psychological influence and even control over people because they really were born again.
I was born again through "The Children of God". For the first five years of my Christian life I was involved with groups like that. Another one was "The Church of Bible Understanding". Another Christian cult is called "The Bible Speaks", sometimes it is called "Greater Grace". What makes these things so dangerous and so bad is they preach the true Gospel. You cannot write them off entirely the way the Jehovah"s Witnesses and Mormons can be written off entirely. There is a big problem. The people who have been in these groups and the people who have been saved through these groups are in bondage. They are in spiritual and psychological bondage to these groups.The First Marks of a Cult Notice the apostles like Paul went against this mentality. Did Paul save you? It is Jesus who saves, it is the Gospel which saves €“ it is not a church. The Roman Catholic Church claims it is the instrument of salvation, that the sacraments administered by their priests is how people are saved ex opere operato. These groups will preach Christ, but somehow the distinction is not made between the Christ and the cult.
Paul has a go at their first characteristic, something that later in Galatians he calls "a deed of the flesh". (Gal. 5:19)
" €¦factions," (Gal. 5:20)
Sometimes translated "partyism", perhaps better translated this way as "factions". The first mark of a cult is what Paul calls "the sin of party spirit". The sin of party spirit is where the group claims a monopoly on biblical truth. With the party spirit and what will engender the party spirit is some form of Gnosticism, from the Greek word "gnosis" meaning "mystical knowledge".
The Gnosticism in the Roman Catholic Church is called the sensus plenior €“ "the fullest sense" of Scripture. Now there is a fuller sense of Scripture, but what they claim is that the pope as an heir of Peter has the infallible insight to define what it is and to determine doctrine on that basis.
In Gnosticism it is not important what the Bible says exegetically, it is important what the leader says about the Bible.
John Wimber"s movement called "The Vineyard Movement" is based on Christian Gnosticism, a heresy in the Early Church. For instance a basic teaching of the Vineyard and theLatter Day Rain Movement and the Kansas City Prophets is Restorationism and what they call "Joel"s Army".
The run on the cities, they rush on the walls,
Great is the army who carries His word.
This is compared to locusts. In its historical setting this was Nebuchadnezzar"s army, an army God used to judged an unrepentant Judah, but it is also a type of the army of the Antichrist in Revelation. The same locusts in Joel are replayed in Revelation. So whatever this army is in the Last Days it is the army of Antichrist and in Joel 2:20 God says, "I will destroy it. The stench will go up to heaven, I will cast it into the western sea". The Vineyard Movement teaches that this is them. Anyone desiring to be part of an army God is going to judge and destroy should join the Vineyard Movement; join the Manifest Sons of God or the Latter Day Rain Movement.
It does not matter to them what the Bible says it is, it only matters what the gnosis says it means. "God has shown me."
Copeland and Hagin both come from Kenyon. Forget about the fact Jesus said on the cross, "It is finished" (Jn. 19:30) and "Father, into Your hands I commit My Spirit" (Lk. 23:46), the Kenyonites say, "God has shown me that Satan got the victory on the cross, not Jesus. Jesus was tortured in hell for three days and three nights as one nature with Satan and then this demon cum Jesus was born again in hell and rose from the dead." It is a different "Jesus" and a different gospel denying the Master who bought them.
The Prosperity preachers? "God has shown me." These things are all cultic.
But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one"s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. (1 Pe. 21:20-21)
And right after this we have the Greek word "parasaxousin" €“ they put truth next to error. They make the interpretations of things like biblical prophecy a matter of their own interpretation. It is not important what the Bible says, it is important what the leader claims it says.Men Establishing ThemselvesWhen these two things ("party spirit" and Gnosticism) come together, look out €“ it is inevitable a third thing is going to come.
Jesus hated the deeds of the Nicolaitans. (Rev. 2:6) Historically we cannot be sure who they were. Some have speculated they were followers of someone named Nicolaus who it is speculated was a son of one of the deacons listed in Acts 6, but nobody knows. Those are stories derived from tradition. What we do know is what "Nicolaitinism" means in Greek. "Nico" €“ "suppression" of "the laity" €“ the people. The set themselves up as overlords.
Then the word of the LORD came to me saying, "Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel €¦
(Now the Hebrew word for "shepherd" and "pastor" is the same.)
€¦ "Thus says the Lord GOD, "Woe, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flock? You eat the fat and clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat sheep without feeding the flock. Those who are sickly you have not strengthened, the diseased you have not healed, the broken you have not bound up, the scattered you have not brought back, nor have you sought for the lost; but with force and with severity you have dominated them. They were scattered for lack of a shepherd, and they became food for every beast of the field and were scattered. (Ez. 34:1-5)
Biblical leadership is by example, not lording it over others. Jesus castigated the Pharisees for this, yet it got into the Early Church.
When "party spirit" is present it is usually attached to something called "Gnosticism". "Oh, but he understands the Bible better than we do."
There was one case where the guy went totally nuts and said things that were utterly heretical, yet he did have a lot of insight into the Bible. Beware of leaders who believe their own publicity. When somebody who is genuinely gifted allows people to put them on a pedestal, look out. "We don"t understand what he"s doing, but he"s closer to God than we are. He has more insight." That may be true, but when that person is observed doing things directly contrary to Scripture, "Choose this day whom you will serve." (Joshua 24:15) But by that point they are usually too far in bondage.
The next thing is Nicolaitanism, the heavy shepherding. "Who are you to question us? Who are you to challenge us? You have a spirit of rebellion."The Personality Type of a Cult LeaderI am sure a forensic psychiatrist would tell you the same thing, but the personality type of a cult leader is virtually identical to the personality type of a dictator. There have been forensic psychological autopsies on many dictators including Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin. When a team did the forensic analysis on the personality of Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin in the 1940"s for the British and American allies, they were united in agreement that neither Hitler nor Stalin would have had the guts to fight in the Battle of Stalingrad or the Battle of the Bulge, and certainly would not have been able to stomach doing themselves what they had others doing in concentration camps.
Cult leaders are like dictators €“ they are personally insecure. A cult leader is a personally insecure person who surround their self with others who are more insecure than they are so that he may control them and, through them, go to the people. A cult leader will very rarely deal with someone without his honchos with him to shout them down. A cult leader will send one of his parakeets who will basically just ape everything the cult leaders tells them. The cult leader is insecure and his agents, his deputies, will always be insecure people who are easily manipulated.
Not everybody is the same, but one thing is for sure: when someone is born again they begin to change spiritually. And as they change spiritually they will change psychologically. God changes people from the inside out. As they grow in Jesus they become secure in Christ and then become secure in who they are in Christ. In a Christian cult this fails to happen, groups which in the beginning are theologically "churches" but sociologically "cults". The people do not become secure in Christ. Their security becomes based on this relationship to the leader. It is only a matter of degrees, but they are all the same.
The only difference between most of the house church movements who are into Restoration theology is a matter of degrees as to how cultic they are. They all go the same way. The only thing different about Jehovah"s Witnesses or David Koresh is they have gone further down the road. Given enough time, although these churches are theologically "churches" and only sociologically "cults", they will get into heretical doctrine. Not just minor error, but some kind of fundamental error. "The Children of God" did that, "The Church of Bible Understanding" did that, and given enough time such will engage in doctrinal error. But that is only the beginning.
These people are insecure so they will fear people who know things they do not.
We should not make a god out of education by any means. Apollos and Paul were formally educated, Peter and John were not. Yet the apostolic authority possessed by Peter and John was no less than Paul"s. However, as Peter says in his epistle, "These things are complicated; it is better for Paul to explain them". (2 Pe. 3:15-16)
Once somebody"s background €“ their intellect €“ has been crucified, once a believer learns to trust Christ and not their intellect, their intellect becomes a very good servant. "Intellect" is a good servant but a dangerous master; but "ignorance" is a deadly master. "Intellect" is a good servant but a bad master; "ignorance" is not only a bad servant and an even more deadly master.
These people will be found to automatically demean anything like a seminary or a Bible college, somebody who reads Greek €“ they will fear such people. They will have to demean them and put them down within their group and get others to laugh at them because they know they have encountered someone who knows something they do not. They know because someone can read the original Greek or Hebrew or been to seminary are a threat to them. It is much the same with dictators: they fear people who know something they do not so they have to demean it. "You don"t need this!" And they will point out things that are in and of themselves true: "Look at how the universities are filled with Ph.D."s who know Greek and Hebrew who themselves are on their way to hell; they"re not even saved!" They will play that angle up, but they will not look at the other side of the coin. They will only emphasize things which suit their purpose to control people.
When dealing with the leader of a cult one is dealing with a personally insecure person who can only control people by making them insecure.Beyond Doctrinal ErrorUltimately they will come to this doctrinal error themselves, but inevitably at some point one of two things, if not both, will occur, the first being financial misconduct as described in Ezekiel 34. "You butcher the sheep to eat well yourself, but look how they live".
One example in America owned five airplanes and took holidays in the Bahamas with his second wife while the people were living in rat-infested slums in high-crime neighborhoods. Some lived in the worst neighborhoods in New York City cleaning carpets 14 hours a day giving all the money to the cult while saying it was supposedly for the children in Haiti. Well maybe some of it was, but it was also for five airplanes that only he and his wife flew.
Financial misconduct is the first. Almost inevitably that disparity will be found to exist. They give themselves a lifestyle they probably could not get in the secular world because they would not be clever enough, much like most of the Pentecostal ministers today. 90% of the Pentecostal ministers would not have the lifestyle they have if they were not Pentecostal ministers. They would not be good enough to make it in a secular business trade or profession.
The second eventually found with these people in most cases is sexual misconduct €“ immorality. It may go on secretly for some time before it is uncovered.
In the short-term of a cult, these are the warning signs to get out. There will be the sin of "party spirit" in some way related to Gnosticism. They will claim some slant on doctrine which others do not see and followers have to be initiated into it. Eventually it will be discovered that if people do not get out then, they will find financial impropriety and exploitation. Very often they will twist the Bible"s teaching on topics like tithing to do this. And there will be immorality, usually of a sexual nature, sometimes even of a deviant sexual nature.How This Comes AboutBefore Satan paganized the church in the 4th Century, we know from the New Testament his first trick was to Judaize it. This is not the same as "Jewish-ize" because the church isJewish theologically. Israel is the natural root. (Rom. 11) We should understand the Scriptures from a Judeo-Christian perspective, not a Hellenistic one. The Lord revealed His given Word through His people, a nation with a given culture, and we have to understand that. It is necessary to theologically understand biblical Judaism to understand biblical Christianity. Jesus fulfills the Law. Satan"s first seduction was to put people back under the Law instead of the Law pointing to Christ.
This has nothing to do with observances. As a family who are Israeli Jews whose children were born in Galilee, we keep the Passover for reasons of culture and testimony to unsaved Jews. There"s a Mezuzah on the door, we even speak Hebrew at home. We have Hanukkah, we have Purim, we have all the Jewish feasts. We go to a church on Sunday but a Messianic fellowship on Saturday €“ Shabbat. This is not about people who are culturally Jewish keeping their own culture to witness to Jews in their own culture, that is not wrong. Neither is witnessing to Jews by people adopting that culture for testimonial reasons as Paul said in 1 Corinthians 9. The issue is when someone either says it is necessary for salvation or for sanctification. "Well, you might be saved by grace, but €¦"
When it is asserted that it is necessary for salvation that is "legalism". When asserting it is necessary for sanctification, where one is saved by Jesus but they also have to do "this", "this", and "this", that is known as "nomianism" from the Greek word "nomos".
Today there are two kinds of groups to be aware of who are trying to live under two covenants. One is the extreme axis of the Messianic Movement. This does not encompass the good Messianic Bible teachers such as Arnold Fruchtenbaum or people who help Christians understand the Jewish background of the New Testament. This does not involve those who worship in a Jewish cultural framework in order to evangelize Jews. The issue is with those who try to make people keep the Law in a compulsory way.
David Kriss is a dangerous, dangerous man located in Melbourne. But he is not the only Messianic extremist. In England they had Philip Sharp who wound up in jail. He abandoned his Israeli wife and children and had the people crown him King Messiah in a meeting. He"s a "Messianic Jewish Rabbi". Some of these guys are nuts. There is some kind of Halachic community in Queensland I would not go near with a barge pole.
Again, this does not include the likes of Arnold Fruchtenbaum or Art Katz. This is not about the good guys but the nuts. But it is not only Messianic Jews who are doing this, out to rebuild the wall of partition. There is another group of people who are trying to live under two covenants: Seventh-day Adventists. Most of the followers of David Koresh were Seventh-day Adventists.
Once people get into one serious, fundamental doctrinal error like trying to live under two covenants, they become automatically prone to a more serious one. Once people accommodate one fundamental doctrinal error they automatically predispose themselves to something more serious and even more dangerous. It is only a matter of degrees.
It is hard to believe what went on when reading about Koresh, but there have been Evangelical cults that could get people to do things that are unbelievable. When the tragedy with Koresh occurred, 129 pages of Internet material were downloaded and read very carefully. David Koresh followed this pattern to a "T". Remember, Seventh-day Adventists claim to be born again or at least saved, but there is a lot of false doctrine: the "party spirit", the Nicolaitinism, and all the rest €“ going under the Law. He would hold 13 hour Bible studies always about the book of Revelation and always about himself. He would become violently angry, throwing chairs and things if people did not pay attention or fell asleep during the Bible studies. These Bible studies were all designed to brainwash people for a coming apocalyptic cataclysm of some description in which they were led to believe by insinuation, by nuance €“ never directly stated €“ that their salvation would come about through their relationship with him in this coming fate.
They were so brainwashed that when they shot it out with the FBI they believed that was this coming event in Revelation. But it did not begin that way. What will make people do this? He had to become the sole authority figure. He had these people believing that he was semi-divine. Talk about a Gnostic! Only his semen was divinely imbued, so only heshould procreate children. He did not want husbands to be respected by their wives and children, so he got into this whole humiliation thing. He wanted people to only recognizehis authority. He would have an attractive woman stand up in a meeting and make her lift up her dress then point to the men, "Who"s been aroused by this?" And then he would begin castigating them publicly for lust. They guy was a nut.
He had a boudoir upstairs while the men slept in military style barracks and only the women would go up, whichever one he summoned. Except these were not always adult women €“ there were children as young as 11. Many of those people who were killed were undoubtedly people he sired. So he had to berate these men so their wives would not look upon them as a spiritual authority.
Then he would humiliate women. He would do that differently. He made these Seventh-day Adventist style dietary rules which he would modify periodically. So if they went out and bought the wrong kind of chicken or something he would scream at the top of his lungs then post a list. Whichever names of the women were found on the list would be queued up, stripped, and beaten with a paddle. They would queue up every day if their names was on the list. Then they would have to come out undressed in front of their children and he would say, "Do you see what happens to bad mommies?"
How did he get them to do this? Once someone can get people to give them their 11 year-old daughter it is a natural next step that they will die for that person. How did it begin? One serious false doctrine. Once someone gets into one serious false doctrine they become predisposed to another one.
When reading something like Kingdom of the Cults and some of the stuff Joseph Smith did (another sex pervert), perverted sex is a big thing among cults.
The true Mormons are the fundamentalist ones. They are the ones who truly follow Brigham Young and Joseph Smith. Moriel USA was doing an outreach to Mormons at Manti, Utah and I met one with eight wives. How did these guys get these women to go along with this? It was not hard to understand because guess how old they were when they married them? These guys are pedophiles €“ that is how they do it.When the Saved Do the Same ThingsBut there is something even more frightening than David Koresh or the Mormons. What about born again Christians €“ saved Christians, who did the same thing?
It was on the front page of the New York Post in 1978. A cult which broke away from the Lutheran church in Minnesota, Evangelical Lutherans, were putting children into a metal chair, tying them down and giving them electric shocks for not paying attention in Sunday School and the parents would stand there watching the teachers electrocute the kids.
There was another one in California that would beat people to drive the demons out of them. The people would allow themselves to be beaten.
There was a young girl in England, a law student, who came to a few of our Bible studies who was originally from Gibraltar. She spoke Spanish. She graduated and became involved with a cult called Raima. Because she spoke Spanish they sent her to Chicago to the Spanish-speaking ghettos. Her friends told me they were really concerned about this group. They had good reason to be concerned. These were saved Christians, but the same pattern of Gnosticism, heavy shepherding, Nicolaitinism, and all the money went to the group. Because she was bilingual and well-educated she had more freedom than other women in the group. She was allowed to come out to meet me and my wife.
In this group the leaders were telling people who were clean to by faith marry people who were HIV-positive and just trust the Lord. They were marrying people with AIDS. They were contracting AIDS. Babies were born HIV-positive. People were dying.
Their leaders arranged marriages and they actually signed their own death certificates with their marriage certificates and they died. These were born again.
I took her to meet my wife, I talked to her, I phoned her parents in England. I took her to a rescue mission and said, "Lock her up, don"t let her out of here. I"ll be back tomorrow." I gave them $50 or whatever and got an airline ticket back to England. I took her to O"Hare Airport after calling her parents and told her, "If I catch you on this side of the Atlantic again, lady, that"s 12-1/2 extra wide €“ guess what I"m going to do with it?"
They were telling people to marry people who were HIV! How do they get this kind of control? It did not happen overnight, it began with "party spirit" connected to Gnosticism connected to Nicolaitanism.Taking It a Step FurtherOnce it is forgotten that Jesus is our wisdom (1 Cor. 1:30) they begin looking to a man for the wisdom. When believers stop being a Berean, when they stop testing things, they forfeit to that person a kind of control over their life that God never wanted anybody to have except Himself. (Even He never forces Himself that way or manipulates.)
It gets to the point where even if they say and do things not biblical, people will not question. Even if the say and do things which are immoral, people will not question. They lose their capacity to think rationally. Again, it only becomes a matter of degrees between the so-called "Christian" cults and the ones which are obviously pseudo-Christian.
While in Utah last year the Mormons all had these t-shirts which read, "Brigham Young said it, I believe it, that settles it". Now whenever a Jehovah"s Witness is cornered they change the subject; that is what they are trained to do. A Mormon will revert to their testimony, the subjective proclamation, "I have a burden in my bosom and I testify to you that the Church of Latter-Day Saints is true". That is supposed to settle every issue. No matter how many logical arguments you confront them with which they cannot answer, their testimony is supposed to be the ultimate explanation. It is completely subjective.
The Mormons came into Utah while we were there and I said, "I like your shirt" and they said, "Hallelujah" or whatever, to which I said, "So you believe there are Quakers living on the moon? You said if Brigham Young said it, you believe it. This man believes there are Quakers on the moon because Brigham Young said it!" Here it is, straight from the Mormon church"s Journal of Discourses where Brigham Young and Joseph Smith said there were Quakers living on the moon to be a thousand years old. And Brigham Young said they"re on the sun, too.
I saw a black guy and said, "You know what? The New Testament says the first non-Jew to accept Christ was a black African from Ethiopia. The first person not from any Jewish background whom Jesus saved was a black man. But do you know what the Mormon Church says, what Brigham Young said about you? You are a descendant of fallen angels, you are ugly, mischievous, and a depraved nigger. Who do you want to follow: Jesus who loves you or a Mormon who says you are ugly, mischievous, depraved, the descendant of fallen angels, and who calls you racist names? Here, Brigham Young said it! You will believe it according to your shirt! This man is ugly, mischievous, and depraved because God made him black!" And how did the Mormon reply? "I testify to you I have a burning in my bosom! I know the Church of Latter-Day Saints is true!" And what did I say to him? "I have a burning in my bosom and I testify to you I know there"s Quakers a-livin" on the moon!"
Logic goes out the window. The plain teaching of Scripture goes out the same window. Subjectivism steps in.A Sobering Thought The end of all things is near; therefore, be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer. (1 Pe. 4:7)
Remember the video of Rodney Howard-Browne and Copeland where they advise, "Just get drunk, don"t pray"?
Therefore, prepare your minds for action €¦
€¦be drunk in spirit?
€¦keep sober in spirit €¦ (1 Pe. 1:13)
Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. (1 Pe. 5:8)
I was once riding in a 4 x 4 near Victoria Falls along the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe on my way to a speaking engagement at a church. We were going through the bush €“ lion country, and could see a giraffe. The person driving said, "It"s getting dark now, at this time of night lions go after that kind of giraffe." So I am looking out for lions and all of the sudden there goes the wheel. "Be sober in spirit. The lion is trying to get you." If I ever wanted some whiskey it was then. This was no Tarzan movie. This was the real bush in real Africa with real lions, it was getting dark, and I was scared. Admittedly I could only say two things: "Lord Jesus" and "Jack Daniels". But the last thing I needed to be was in an inebriated state where I would not be vigilant.
Three times Peter says, "Be sober". Paul warns, "But you, be sober". (2 Ti. 4:5) In fact this same Peter whom they quote in Toronto meetings they were drunk on the day of Pentecost says these men are not drunk. (Acts 2:15) They heard the mighty deeds of God, not drunken hysterics. So they are shown that the Bible says to be sober repeatedly and not drunk in the Spirit as Rodney Howard-Browne is teaching.
The pastor of Faithland in Melbourne was not into Toronto but had five friends who were €“ five Pentecostal ministers. Some of their churches I have spoken at in times past and they are all into Rodney Howard-Browne. I showed them the videos of Howard-Browne and Copeland in Toronto and they could not defend what was on it. They knew it was heretical, they knew it was carnal and even demonic, but they still insisted they were going to Toronto to see Howard-Browne. Why? They were not "blind", they were willfullyblind. These were the leaders, misleading whole congregations! Jesus Christ will hold them accountable as shepherds as it says in 1 Peter 5 for misleading the flock.
The fruit of the Spirit is egkrateia in Greek €“ "self-control". (Gal. 5:22-23) So this is shown to them along with what it says in Peter: "Be sober", "Be sober", "Be sober". But look at their answer. Did they answer biblically? No. Did they answer logically? No. Did they answer cultically? Yes. "I was blessed! I know it was right because of what happened to me!" What does a Mormon say? "I got a burnin" in my bosom and I know it"s true!" It is not logical. Logic goes out the same window with the Bible. It is only a matter of degrees.
There is not much difference any more between the Assemblies of God and the Mormons, they have gone the same way, just further down the same road. Now there are some good, individual Assembly of God churches; I think they need to come out, in my opinion. They are going down the same road. It is just a matter that one is further down the road than the other.Further Down the Same RoadThe psychological bondage which happens has a demonic character. When the people leave they are automatically ostracized by the other people still in the cult. It is like Catholicism. You left the one true church so it is a mortal sin, go to hell, go directly to hell, do not pass "Go", do not collect $200. That is it €“ the unpardonable sin. The other people will turn against those leaving because those leaving are free while those remaining are in bondage. But are they free? No they are not, not right away.
A person can be taken out of the cult but they are so confused and have been so hurt and manipulated it takes a longer time to take the cult out of the person. It is like that rock songHotel California €“ "you can check out any time you want but you can never leave". The person can be taken out of the cult but to take the cult out of them is not so easy. They remain in psychological and spiritual bondage to it, particularly if they were saved in it. And they cannot be accommodated in other churches because other churches cannot understand what they went through. There is a secret fear that they have, "What if they were right?" This battle takes place within and sometimes it goes on for years.
Sometimes people have had nervous breakdowns and become mentally ill because of it. Some have turned to alcoholism and drugs. Some have committed suicide. Marriages have broken up because of it.
Another common phenomena is they have been so hurt and so burned they can never trust another church or another leader again. The solution to a bad church then becomes no church. The solution to bad leadership becomes no leadership. Actually the right solution to wrong leadership is right leadership, and the solution to bad church is good church. But they cannot accept that. Others do not understand what they have been through. No one understands what is going on inside of them. They can come to a church but they do not fit in until something happens. It takes time for that to happen, but it eventually happens.
This is a big problem and it is getting bigger. And before Jesus comes back it will be bigger still.
First formulated by a social psychologist named Leon Festinger, he was interested in the social psychology of religion and he identified the phenomena called "cognitive dissonance". I do not know if he was a Christian or not, but even secular sociology and psychology can see the phenomena. Cognitive dissonance states when people become cemented to a sect with this heavy control by the leadership, and the leaders make predictive prophecies which fail to happen, instead of the people using their noggin and coming out, they will become even more committed to the sect.
One of the things to do when the Jehovah"s Witnesses come to the door is to show them back copies of The Watchtower where their leaders have predicted things which have failed to happen. You can show them from The Watchtower and Awake magazines where it quotes Deuteronomy 18, "Those predicting things in God's name that don"t happen are false prophets". (Dt. 18:22) They can be shown this from their own literature quoting the Bible. But when logic goes out the window, the Bible goes out the window. They cannot see it.
What can be done with the fact that men like Gerald Coates predicted an earthquake in New Zealand that never happened? In the Elim cult all forty-four churches were taking survival course lessons or something like that.
What do you do with the fact that Rick Joyner has made major predictions in his book The Harvest which failed to happen? He said Communism was going to be triumphant and five months later the Iron Curtain came down.
What do you do with the Kansas City Prophets, men like Paul Cain and Mike Bickle who said the greatest revival in Britain"s history would come to Great Britain in October of 1990 and fan out to Germany? In the last 10 years more mosques have been built in England than churches.
What about men who are proven false prophets such as Benny Hinn prophesying falsely in New Zealand, or Rodney Howard-Browne seen on TV in Australia with Phil Pringle predicting revival that did not come? What do you do with these men who make predictions that do not happen? Deuteronomy 18 says to get away from them, do not be afraid of them, and have nothing to do with them. In a cult, though, it does not matter.
Is there any difference between what the Jehovah"s Witnesses or the Mormons do and the people who will still listen to Benny Hinn or Rodney Howard-Browne? No, there is no difference. They have only gone further down the same road. This is known as "cognitive dissonance". Even secular psychology can identify it. Even the world sees it for what it is. They become even more committed to it.
They will always make an excuse to defend it or set another date or something like this. Then when that does not happen they will get that wrong, the same as the Jehovah"s Witnesses.
These guys have been predicting revival for years. No revival comes so they predict another one. If Toronto does not come we will get the Alpha. If the Alpha does not work we will get the Pensacola. When Pensecola does not work we will get Pepsi-Cola ®. When that doesn"t work we will try Seven-Up ®. It does not matter. There will always be the next fad. People will swallow anything. Why? Because they have become incorporated into a cult. It is cultic. It is following men.
"Yeah, but the Word of God says I shouldn"t listen to you anymore." It does not matter to them because they are in bondage and it is terrible. Saved Christians are dead, Families and marriages have been destroyed by these kinds of people.
Not only that but these people are frauds and Charlatans themselves! They are highly insecure and usually do not know a fraction of what they want you to think they know. They fear anybody who does know more than they do. That is why they will demean any kind of education or learning. They are as bad at one extreme as those who lift it up and make a god of it on the other.
It is like what Arnold Fruchtenbaum says, "I don"t care if you are Plymouth Brethren, I don"t care if you are Open Brethren, I don"t care; but don"t be ignorant brethren."In the Same Manner as the SanhedrinIf somebody was saved through this and it was the only thing they ever knew, it is understandable how this could happen to them. But what happens when people get into this who are not saved through it? That is even worse in terms of being even more pathetic.
Suppose you have been in one of these groups. It will follow the same pattern shown here. The way the leader operates, the fear of knowledge €“ anyone who knows what he does not, using others to be his messengers, he has some special insight into the Bible where if someone does not see it they are into rebellion because they do not submit to his authority, others turn against you to put you under condemnation or put a curse on you. (They will always tell you about the people who left the group and died; they will not tell you about the ones who stayed and died.) They are very selective about how they handle things. These people operate just like the Sanhedrin.
Jesus said to the Sanhedrin, "Why do you arrest Me and bring Me in here for a kangaroo trial? Why didn't you come after Me in the Temple where everyone could see it?" These guys will never openly debate in front of a video camera or in an auditorium in front of the open public; it always has to be in front of their cronies.
Michael Brown, the deceiver of Pensacola, a so-called theologian and great Hebrew scholar, when I talked with him discovered he could not even speak a word of Hebrew. He came to Israel some years earlier saying that the national forest fires which destroyed 22% of Israel"s forests was the emblem of God's Holy Spirit being poured out on Israel. He had people waiting up all night for the second Pentecost. He was supposed to debate me about Pensecola. The date was made at a church near New York mid-week so people could come from any church without missing their own church, a neutral venue. He finds out I have the Joe Chambers videos where Kilpatrick is caught lying about the vibrating girl and right away he cancels the debate, demanding it be held at a Pensecola place on a Sunday night. Why? Because cult leaders will only fight you on their own turf.
It will always be like the Sanhedrin putting Jesus on trial. They will never stand openly. It has to be only where they control people. They will never go into a fair fight; they do not have the ability or the guts. These are insecure people. That is how they operate. It is like being afraid of a tiger with no teeth. These people are frauds.RecoverySometimes it takes months, sometimes it has even taken people years to take that person out of that central role in their life and put Christ in that role instead. These people are in unspeakable bondage. And unless you have been in that bondage you do not understand where they are coming from. You will not even be able to grasp what their problem is. Why can they not fit in?
Not only that, but they will even say a lot of true things. "The church is lukewarm." "The cult was more zealous." "You are Laodicea." Well, that is true. That is the danger. They are not just telling "lie" lies, they are telling Satan"s lies €“ perversions of truth. But look at the results, look at the damage; it can be found every time.
They begin sociologically as "cults", theologically "churches", but give them a few years €“ not more than ten. Then you will find heresy, you will find financial corruption, you will find immorality. But maybe at the end of it you will find Jesus.
If you are in bondage to one of these groups the Bible says €¦
"Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty". (2 Corinthians 3:17)
By virtue of the fact you are in bondage tells you that is not God's Spirit.. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty". If you are in bondage that tells you it is not of God's Spirit €“ it is a different spirit: a "party spirit", a deed of the flesh, a sin, the opposite of the fruit of the Spirit. The deeds of the flesh are the opposite of the fruit of the Spirit. You are in bondage.
It might take a couple of months and sometimes it has even taken people a couple of years, but the sum of the matter is this: you keep your eyes on Jesus and one verse will become a reality like you have never known.
"So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. (Jn. 8:36)
God bless.
Sermons in Czech
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Sermons in Spanish
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Title
Scripture
Description
Cinco Preguntas a los Catolicos
Una Grieta en la Armadura
1 Chronicles 18-19
What happens when good leaders become involved with bad ones?
La Jornada de Abraham
Genesis 12
Every person's life can be plotted as being along some point of Abraham's journey from Mesopotamia to the Promised Land, a metaphor for our spiritual walk in this life.
El Libro de Jonas
Jonah
There is no Hebrew prophet whose life does not foreshadow or typify the Messiah who would come after them, to bring in the Redemption which they prophesied.
Ester
Esther
Dealing with the typology of the book of Esther as an application for God's preparation for ministry in the Christian life.
Sermons in Vietnamese
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Title
Scripture
Description
A Prophet Like Unto Moses
Deuteronomy 18:18
The Scriptural similarities which point to Moses as a type of the Messiah to come.
Abraham's Journey
Genesis 12
Every person's life can be plotted as being along some point of Abraham's journey from Mesopotamia to the Promised Land, a metaphor for our spiritual walk in this life
The Crucified Body
Luke 9:23
Jesus in the Garden
Genesis 3
This message is a midrashic interpretation comparing the events of the Garden of Eden found on Genesis 3 with the actions of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Typology of the Grain Offering
Leviticus 2
Most Christians have an idea that the blood sacrifices of these animals were symbols of Jesus; however, most Christians do not think about the grain offering.
Christmas is Coming
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by James Jacob Prasch
IntroductionThe word for "Christmas" in Hebrew is "Hag Ha nolod" – literally "The Festival of the Birth". It says in Romans 14:4 not to judge anyone for what religious festivals they celebrate, and along similar lines, it says in Colossians 2:16-18 not to let anyone judge you; it is a matter of culture and context that is strictly between you and the Lord. I could care less whether someone celebrates Christmas; it doesn't matter to me. What I do care about is the theology of Christmas, or the Nativity. When He was born, who knows? That He was born, we all know.
My family, being Israeli, celebrates Hanukah. It is Hanukah now. In John 10 Jesus celebrated Hanukah – the Feast of Dedication. This is very important in understanding the advent of Antichrist among other things through Antiochus Epiphanes and the Maccabees. We have a Hanukah party to which we invite unsaved Jewish people, which my family is doing this week while I am in America. Again, at our house we don't have Christmas, we have the Nativity. We go to our church, and we go to the carol service; that's all. We may do things for missions and for needy families, but nothing more than that. Christmas is strictly a church thing for us; we have Hanukah as our celebration.Christmas and the Last DaysWhat does Christmas, the Nativity, have to do with the Last Days? This may surprise you, but the answer is everything.
You may have heard me say before that we will never understand the Second Coming of Christ until we understand His First Coming. What happened in His First Coming is replayed, recapitulated, in His Second Coming. When Jesus was born, the Roman emperor was Caesar Augustus – formerly Octavius. He was the first Roman emperor to be deified in his lifetime. Thus there was a Roman emperor presiding over the Roman Empire and being worshiped as a god when Jesus arrived the first time. This emperor took a census, ascribing numbers to people – not actually putting numbers on them, but ascribing one to every person in the known world. There were actually two censuses taken by Augustus, both for this purpose: that he might gain financial control of the world. When Jesus comes back, the same thing will happen: we will have a resurrected Roman Empire headed by someone who is virtually deified. This demi-god will number people's heads in order to economically control the world. What happened at Jesus' First Coming will happen again at His Second. Christmas is not just a past event; it is a future event, a prophetic event.
The book of Joel, the book of Revelation, and the Olivet Discourse tell us about signs in the sky and the cosmos heralding the return of Christ. Of course, as we know, there were signs in the sky and the cosmos heralding the birth of Christ. The Jews were in their own land, but under the thumb of this Roman emperor. How did he get there? By seduction – the Roman general, Pompeii, seduced the Jews and entered the Holy of Holies in the Temple. Whenever you see somebody other than the High Priest on the Day of Atonement entering the Holy of Holies, it is a picture in some way of the Antichrist. What happened with Pompeii in Rome will happen again. These events that we see happening in Europe and in the Middle East are setting the stage.
Jochanan ha Matbiel – John the Baptist – came in the spirit and power of Elijah. He was born just before Jesus and appeared just before Him. The prophet Malachi predicted that in some way, Elijah will come again; Jesus confirmed this.
There were many false prophets in Israel when Jesus came the first time, and many will be here when He comes back. The general backslidden state of the faith that should have believed in Him then is no different in many ways from the backslidden state of the faith that should believe in Him now.
Jesus' First Coming teaches about His Second. Christmas is neither here nor there; the Nativity, however, is very important. If we do not understand how He came the first time, we will not understand His return. There are differences, of course, but one is a picture of the other.
I have spent a lot of my time for the past 20 years as an evangelist to the Jews thinking about one question: How could it be, with 2,000 years of history preparing for the Messiah to come, being in a covenant relationship with God and having the Scripture, that so few Jews were ready for Jesus to come the first time? Paul tells us that the devil blinded their eyes. (Rom. 11:25) There were 2,000 years of preparation for Jesus to come, Israel had a covenantal relationship with God, and they had the Scriptures. Yet in spite of all this, only a remnant was ready for Him to come. The same thing will be true when He comes back, only it will not only be Israel, but also the so-called church.
What kinds of Christians are going to be ready for Jesus to come again in the Last Days? If you want to know the answer to this, look at the kinds of Jews who were ready for Him to come the first time. If you want to know what kinds of Christians are not going to be ready for Him to come back, take a good look at the kinds of Jews that were not ready for Him to come the first time. His First Coming teaches about His Second; we will never understand His Second Coming until we understand His First. Obviously He will not come as a baby the second time, being born of an earthly mother. There are differences between the two comings, but essentially one prefigures the other.Those Who Were Not ReadyBefore we look at what kinds of Jews were ready for Jesus to come the first time, let's look at Jews who were not ready. When we see what kinds of Jews were not ready, we will know what kinds of Christians will not be ready. A is to B as B is to C.
Turn with me, please, to Matthew's Nativity narrative in Matthew 2:1:
"Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, 'Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.' When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. So they said to him, 'In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet: "But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are not the least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you shall come a Ruler Who will shepherd My people Israel."'
What we see here is that some of the people who were ready for Jesus to come the first time were people whom you would not have expected to be ready. These Magi, or wise men, were from Persia. They were the chaplains of the ancient Medes and Persians. Somehow in ancient Persia there was a religion that has been changed over the centuries, called Zoroastrianism. It was monotheistic; they believed that there was one God and that man was responsible for his own sin. They believed there was a battle between the sons of light and the sons of darkness; they held similar beliefs, in other words, to those of the Essenes and the Christians.
During the Babylonian Captivity, when Persia overtook Babylon in fulfillment of Daniel's prophecies, some of the Persian kings came to believe in the Jewish God, having already been predisposed to monotheism. There was a lingering Jewish influence in that place. We read about Esther, for example, and Darius the Mede, as well as the prophecy of King Cyrus by Isaiah the prophet over 200 years before Cyrus' birth. We read in Ezra and Nehemiah what happened there. All the way through the Hasmonean period to the time of Jesus, the Persians favored the Jews. In fact, until the Shaw of Iran fell, the Persians – Iran – favored Israel. I have no doubt in my mind that the Prince of Persia, the principality against which Daniel prayed and fasted for three weeks (Dan. 10:13; 20), is still there today in the form of Shia Islam, that Islamic fundamentalism in Iran. People in modern Christian circles like to call demons like this one "territorial spirits", which is not a good translation or interpretation. The Greek word is "arche", the Hebrew word "shedim"; a better translation for these words is "principalities", meaning demonic powers over nations. We have many crazy people today doing "binding and loosing", among other nonsense, but there is no doubt about the fact that there are principalities over nations. The book of Daniel reveals that, and in Gerasenes the demons going into the swine begged Jesus not to send them out of the region. (Lk. 8:31-33) There are territorial spirits, if you want to use that term, although it is not a particularly good interpretation. They do exist. In Belfast, you see murals of ancient Celtic war gods on the walls, both in the neighborhoods where Protestants are recruited and in those where Catholics are recruited.
You see, those wise men understood how to interpret the signs of the time. Sadly, there are born-again Christians who cannot see the significance of contemporary events in the Middle East. They are blind to it, as if the book of Zechariah was not in the Bible. They cannot see what is happening in the EEC – they don't understand the globalization of the world economy, the destruction of the environment, or any of these other signs, as wise men do.
So the Magi came to see the Messiah, non-Jews, people you would not have expected, because they saw the Star in the East. Here we see that they come to Jerusalem, where Herod heard them and was troubled – and all Jerusalem with him. This was the city where David said that the Messiah would come. This was where the Temple was; the focus of their identity and their Messianic hope, yet almost nobody who lived there wanted Him to come.
You will find many churches with the same attitude; drive up the road, look at the churches you pass, and ask yourself how many of them really want Jesus to come back. All Jerusalem was troubled; oh, they had the rituals, the liturgies, the festivities and the holidays, but when it looked like He was showing up, they were all troubled. Especially troubled were the national and religious leaders. Think about this.
It gets even more frightening, however – these guys knew the Scriptures. Herod wanted to know where the Messiah would be born, and they told him what Micah 5:2 said, that He would be born in Bethlehem. They had head knowledge of the Scriptures, but not heart knowledge. When He showed up, it was the last thing in the world that they either expected or wanted. Do you think it will be any different when He returns?The Trap of Satan: BackslidingAlmost every lie of Satan perpetrated in the church today is designed with one purpose: to get God's people to hope in this life and this world. By definition, that is what backsliding is. Kingdom-Now theology, Dominionism, Triumphalism, Calvinistic Reconstructionism – what are they all trying to do? Set up the kingdom now; trust in this life. Faith-prosperity, the money preachers – teaching the sin of covetousness and calling it faith, the worship of Mammon and calling it the worship of God – what is it about? Trusting in this life.
Gerald Coates and Rick Joyner say that the Rapture is a lie of the devil, a fantasy and a myth. They mock it, comparing it to Star Trek's "Beam me up, Scotty". What is their purpose? It is to cause the church to forget about the Rapture and trust in this life. What do you think the ecumenical movement is about? Building the brotherhood of man – once again, trust in this life. All Jerusalem was troubled when He came the first time, and Jerusalem will be troubled again when He returns – and I don't just mean Jerusalem, Israel.
Their national and religious leaders, who knew the Scriptures, did not want Him to come. For 2,000 years God had been preparing them for His coming; the whole reason for their very existence as a nation and a people was His coming. Yet very few wanted Him to; and it will be no different when He returns.Those Who Were ReadyBut what kind of Jews were ready for Him to come? Let's look: turn with me please to the gospel of Luke chapter one.
In Luke 1:46-55 we have the Magnificat, which if you read it in Greek would be a literary replay of the song of Deborah, found in Judges 5 from the Septuagint. The angel Gabriel – whose name means "mighty one of God" – came and told Mary that she was the greatest woman who ever lived. "Blessed are you among women - God Almighty is going to be physically incarnated inside of you." Her name was not Mary, but Miriam, the same as Moses' sister. The Hebrew root of "Miriam" is "bitterness". She did not have blonde hair or blue eyes, but rather dark, Semitic features. She has also never been to Medjugorje, Guadalupe, Fatima, or Lourdes. Her name is Miriam, and she was probably no more than mid-teens in age when Gabriel gave her this momentous announcement.
What does the greatest woman who ever lived say in response to being told that that is who she is? Verse 46 and 47:
"'My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.'"
The greatest woman who ever lived called God her Savior, stating that she needed to be saved from her sins. If the greatest woman who ever lived needs a Savior, where does that put me? None is righteous, no not one. (Rom. 3:10) All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (Rom. 3:23) The word "Theotokos", "Mother of God", is not in the Greek New Testament. She is told that she would be the mother of the Messiah, who would save His people from their sin, and she responds by saying "I rejoice in God my Savior". God Almighty is going to be incarnated inside of her, and all she can say is that she needs to be saved!
If the greatest woman who ever lived states that she needs a Savior, I believe her. I do not believe that she would lie, and even if she did, God certainly would not put that lie in His Word. So, whom should I believe? Mary herself or the lie of the Immaculate Conception which claims that she was conceived without sin? What has happened is that you have the pseudo-Christianization of Minerva, Diana of Ephesus, etc., and the application of these to Mary in fulfillment of the prophecies of Ezekiel and Jeremiah. The Madonna with the baby was originally derived from Tammuz-worship, which Ezekiel contended with. Jeremiah warned of the worship of the Queen of Heaven.
Miriam said she needed a Savior. God would become a Man, take my sin and put it on His Son, the Messiah, and take His righteousness and put it on me. Why should God become a man to take my place?
When I was a young Christian I used the clich © "Jesus is my personal Savior". However, I did not really understand all of what that meant. I thought it meant that He was my personal Savior because I personally accepted Him; but that is only half of what it means. What "personal Savior" means in its totality is that if I was the only person who ever sinned, He would have had to be born of Miriam and gone to that cross and risen from the dead just for me. For me alone; why should God die for me, a cocaine addict? Why should God become a man and die for me? Why should He rise from the dead to give me eternal life? Maybe for Miriam we can understand it more; yet she stated her need of a Savior.
The religious people did not think they needed a Savior; they had rituals and celebrations. The devil gets more people into hell with religion than he does with all the dope, all the immorality and gambling and alcohol abuse put together. Arguably, the two most influential people on human civilization have both been Jews: Karl Marx and Jesus Christ. There is a great difference between them; they are, in fact, on opposite ends of the spectrum except on one point: religion is the biggest fraud ever perpetrated on humanity. The Gospel is not religion, it is relationship!
"I need a Savior"; that is what Mary said. She was a teenage girl who was not concerned with Brittany Spears' videos on MTV or with her own personal vanity. Her response was to state her need of a Savior. That is the kind of Jew who was ready for Him to come the first time.
I really like Miriam; I love Miriam, and esteem her. I think Miriam is sensational, is fabulous, is terrific, and I cannot wait to meet her. But I want nothing to do with the blonde bimbo that Mary has become due to the so-called Church.Zecharias & ElizabethMiriam has some family: in Luke 1:5 & 6 we read about them:
"There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the division of Abijah. His wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless."
Now, remember that the Sanhedrin, the clergy, were corrupt – it was a racket. It was Hinn, Copeland, and Hagin; that is what it was like when Jesus came the first time. Yet despite the popular corruption and hypocrisy of the clergy, there were individuals within it who were righteous.
I know individual pastors in the Assemblies of God who are heartbroken over what has happened to that denomination. In England, I know Anglican vicars who are heartbroken over what has happened to the Church of England. I know Baptists who are heartbroken. As bad as it is, and as bad as it is going to get, there will be people like Zacharias who are righteous, devout, and godly. No matter how corrupt the system and its clergy become, they will not go along with it. There may not be many of them, but they will be there. That is the kind of Jew who was ready for Jesus to come the first time, and that is the kind of Christian who will be ready for Him to come again.SimeonLet's look still further: in Luke chapter 2:24 we read that Mary brought a pair of turtledoves as her sacrifice; she brought a poor person's offering. There is a liar from America named John Avanzini who came to England and said that Jesus' family was rich, not poor. One of our people asked him publicly at the meeting why, if that was the case, Mary brought a poor person's offering; his response was to have the ushers usher her out. She asked the wrong question.
Luke 2:25:
"And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and this man was just and devout, waiting for the Consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him."
The Sanhedrin did not want Jesus to come; all Jerusalem was troubled, but Simeon was longing for Jesus to come. In fact, it was his only reason for staying alive – verse 26:
"And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ."
Under the old Covenant, the Holy Spirit was only for certain people at certain times – high priests, kings, prophets, and certain other individuals. Only they had the Holy Spirit in some sense; not until after Pentecost was He for all who believed. The gifts of the Spirit then operated only in a primordial sense in and through those who had them. Verse 27:
"So he came by the Spirit into the temple. And when the parents brought in the Child Jesus, to do for Him according to the custom of the law"
(They got me when I was a baby, but they sure wouldn't get me now. This, of course, means circumcision. When my son was circumcised at eight days old, I had to hold him and say the Hebrew prayers when the rabbi came in. The rabbi took a cotton ball, dipped it in some wine, and squeezed it into the baby's mouth. I asked what the wine was for, and was told it was to deaden the pain. I said, "If that kid could see that knife, he'd ask for some Jack Daniels.") But to return to the point, verse 28:
"he took Him up in his arms and blessed God and said, 'Lord, You are letting Your servant depart in peace, according to Your Word; for my eyes have seen Your salvation which You have prepared before the face of all peoples, a light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel."
This man, Simeon, was filled with the Holy Spirit and had been promised that he would not die until he had seen the Messiah. He was old, his hair and teeth and eyesight were going, he couldn't get a date, but he knew he would not die until Jesus had come. He had what we call in New Testament terms the gift of faith.
The New Testament does tell us that we all have a measure of faith. We're saved by grace through faith, (Eph. 2:8) without faith it is impossible to please God, (Heb. 11:6) and anything not done in faith is sin (Rom. 14:23), Scripture tells us. Separate from this, however, is the gift of faith, which not all of us have. It is the capacity to trust God absolutely for things that are not specifically written in Scripture, which the Holy Spirit has revealed to you. Most people with this gift are intercessors. Hebrew and Greek both make a distinction between prayer and intercession. People who have this gift can truly intercede in prayer, believing and knowing – not wishfully thinking, or trusting in the futility of their own minds – but holding on to a promise they know by faith that God has truly given them. Although he probably would have denied it himself, I would say that George Műller in England had that gift of faith; he took in many, many street kids and would need astronomical sums of money by the next day, then pray and miraculously receive it in time.
Just think of this old man, longing for the Consolation of Israel, filled with the Holy Spirit. He only wanted Jesus to come – that was all he cared about, and it was the only reason he had to get out of his bed in the morning.
Not only was there a little old man, there was also a little old lady. In verse 36 of Luke 2 it says this:
"Now there was one, Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher."
(Forget British Israelism and Armstrongism; these people kept their tribal identities into the second and even third centuries.)
"She was of a great age, and had lived with a husband seven years from her virginity; and this woman was a widow of about eighty-four years, who did not depart from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day. And coming in at that instant she gave thanks to the Lord, and spoke of Him to all those who looked for redemption in Jerusalem."
For years and years and years all this little old lady did was pray, fast, and serve God in His house. Then she just couldn't stop telling people about Jesus – all those who were looking for the redemption of Israel. The world finds young women attractive; God is different. Read the book of Proverbs – God finds older women attractive, in the spiritual sense. Here was this little old lady, whose whole life was spent in prayer and service to God, and finally in telling people about Jesus. That was the kind of Jew who was ready for Jesus to come the first time; and that is exactly the kind of Christian who will be ready for Him to return.Faithful Shepherds: Then and NowBut then, back in Luke 2: 8, there were some shepherds:
"Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. Then the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.'"
Followed of course in verse 14 in the Latin Vulgate by, "Gloria in Excelsis Deo" – "Glory to God in the highest".
The Hebrew word for "shepherd" and "pastor" is the same word; the same applies in Greek. These are shepherds who watch their flock – not hirelings. There is a great spiritual darkness coming at the end of the age; you have heard me point it out a number of times:"Watchman, watchman, how far is the night?" (Is. 21:11) "Is He coming in the second watch of the night or the third?" (Mk. 13:35) "He is coming like a thief in the night." (1 Th. 5:2) "Work while you have the light, for night will come when no man can work." (Jn. 9:4)But there will be those faithful shepherds who watch over their flock no matter how dark it gets.
I once did a conference with Chuck Missler at which I saw an English-born pastor from Zimbabwe, where terrible things are happening. He was in England for a few days and when asked how he was he replied by expressing his thanks for the prayers said on his behalf. He told us how bad things were in Zimbabwe and that most of the white people as well as the educated blacks had left or were leaving. I asked if I would be seeing him around and he replied that I would not because he was returning to Zimbabwe the next day. "My sheep are there," he said. Here is a white man who gives his whole life to take care of black people who are dying of AIDS; they are his sheep. I know a good Christian doctor who could make a good living in America who is down there with him. They aren't leaving; why? It's a dark place and it's getting darker, but they are shepherds. That is the kind of Jew who was ready for Jesus to come the first time, and that is the kind of Christian who will be ready for Him to return.In SummaryWho is not going to be ready? "Herod mourned, and all Jerusalem with him." The Sanhedrin were troubled. The theologians were pulling their hair out. They won't be ready – people like that rarely are. But the individual clergy like Zacharias and his dear wife, or Joseph the foster father of Jesus – a man who was just, or a teenage girl who said, "I need a Savior", or the shepherds who watched their flocks, or a little old lady whose whole life was spent in prayer and serving God and telling others about Jesus, or an old man who longed for Him to come and was filled with the Spirit of God – they are a different story. They were the kinds of Jews, who were ready for Him to come the first time, and I promise you, they will be the kinds of Christians who are ready for Him to come the second time.
My prayer for all of you, for your families, for myself and for my family, when I look at these Jews who were ready for His first coming, is that by the grace of the God of Israel we will be among the faithful who will be ready the second time. My dear brethren in Jesus, make no mistake about it: Christmas is coming.
My favorite Christmas carol is Hark the Herald Angels Sing for this reason: the music was composed by Felix Mendelssohn, a Jew, and the words were written by Charles Wesley, a Gentile Christian. It is one of the greatest Jew-Gentile collaborations I know of. Would you join me in singing it?
Hark, the herald angels sing,
Glory to the newborn King!
Peace on earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled!
Joyful all ye nations, rise,
Join the triumph of the skies,
With th'angelic hosts proclaim,
Christ is born in Bethlehem!
Hark, the herald angels sing,
Glory to the newborn King!.
IntroductionThe word for "Christmas" in Hebrew is "Hag Ha nolod" – literally "The Festival of the Birth". It says in Romans 14:4 not to judge anyone for what religious festivals they celebrate, and along similar lines, it says in Colossians 2:16-18 not to let anyone judge you; it is a matter of culture and context that is strictly between you and the Lord. I could care less whether someone celebrates Christmas; it doesn't matter to me. What I do care about is the theology of Christmas, or the Nativity. When He was born, who knows? That He was born, we all know.
My family, being Israeli, celebrates Hanukah. It is Hanukah now. In John 10 Jesus celebrated Hanukah – the Feast of Dedication. This is very important in understanding the advent of Antichrist among other things through Antiochus Epiphanes and the Maccabees. We have a Hanukah party to which we invite unsaved Jewish people, which my family is doing this week while I am in America. Again, at our house we don't have Christmas, we have the Nativity. We go to our church, and we go to the carol service; that's all. We may do things for missions and for needy families, but nothing more than that. Christmas is strictly a church thing for us; we have Hanukah as our celebration.Christmas and the Last DaysWhat does Christmas, the Nativity, have to do with the Last Days? This may surprise you, but the answer is everything.
You may have heard me say before that we will never understand the Second Coming of Christ until we understand His First Coming. What happened in His First Coming is replayed, recapitulated, in His Second Coming. When Jesus was born, the Roman emperor was Caesar Augustus – formerly Octavius. He was the first Roman emperor to be deified in his lifetime. Thus there was a Roman emperor presiding over the Roman Empire and being worshiped as a god when Jesus arrived the first time. This emperor took a census, ascribing numbers to people – not actually putting numbers on them, but ascribing one to every person in the known world. There were actually two censuses taken by Augustus, both for this purpose: that he might gain financial control of the world. When Jesus comes back, the same thing will happen: we will have a resurrected Roman Empire headed by someone who is virtually deified. This demi-god will number people's heads in order to economically control the world. What happened at Jesus' First Coming will happen again at His Second. Christmas is not just a past event; it is a future event, a prophetic event.
The book of Joel, the book of Revelation, and the Olivet Discourse tell us about signs in the sky and the cosmos heralding the return of Christ. Of course, as we know, there were signs in the sky and the cosmos heralding the birth of Christ. The Jews were in their own land, but under the thumb of this Roman emperor. How did he get there? By seduction – the Roman general, Pompeii, seduced the Jews and entered the Holy of Holies in the Temple. Whenever you see somebody other than the High Priest on the Day of Atonement entering the Holy of Holies, it is a picture in some way of the Antichrist. What happened with Pompeii in Rome will happen again. These events that we see happening in Europe and in the Middle East are setting the stage.
Jochanan ha Matbiel – John the Baptist – came in the spirit and power of Elijah. He was born just before Jesus and appeared just before Him. The prophet Malachi predicted that in some way, Elijah will come again; Jesus confirmed this.
There were many false prophets in Israel when Jesus came the first time, and many will be here when He comes back. The general backslidden state of the faith that should have believed in Him then is no different in many ways from the backslidden state of the faith that should believe in Him now.
Jesus' First Coming teaches about His Second. Christmas is neither here nor there; the Nativity, however, is very important. If we do not understand how He came the first time, we will not understand His return. There are differences, of course, but one is a picture of the other.
I have spent a lot of my time for the past 20 years as an evangelist to the Jews thinking about one question: How could it be, with 2,000 years of history preparing for the Messiah to come, being in a covenant relationship with God and having the Scripture, that so few Jews were ready for Jesus to come the first time? Paul tells us that the devil blinded their eyes. (Rom. 11:25) There were 2,000 years of preparation for Jesus to come, Israel had a covenantal relationship with God, and they had the Scriptures. Yet in spite of all this, only a remnant was ready for Him to come. The same thing will be true when He comes back, only it will not only be Israel, but also the so-called church.
What kinds of Christians are going to be ready for Jesus to come again in the Last Days? If you want to know the answer to this, look at the kinds of Jews who were ready for Him to come the first time. If you want to know what kinds of Christians are not going to be ready for Him to come back, take a good look at the kinds of Jews that were not ready for Him to come the first time. His First Coming teaches about His Second; we will never understand His Second Coming until we understand His First. Obviously He will not come as a baby the second time, being born of an earthly mother. There are differences between the two comings, but essentially one prefigures the other.Those Who Were Not ReadyBefore we look at what kinds of Jews were ready for Jesus to come the first time, let's look at Jews who were not ready. When we see what kinds of Jews were not ready, we will know what kinds of Christians will not be ready. A is to B as B is to C.
Turn with me, please, to Matthew's Nativity narrative in Matthew 2:1:
"Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, 'Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.' When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. So they said to him, 'In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet: "But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are not the least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you shall come a Ruler Who will shepherd My people Israel."'
What we see here is that some of the people who were ready for Jesus to come the first time were people whom you would not have expected to be ready. These Magi, or wise men, were from Persia. They were the chaplains of the ancient Medes and Persians. Somehow in ancient Persia there was a religion that has been changed over the centuries, called Zoroastrianism. It was monotheistic; they believed that there was one God and that man was responsible for his own sin. They believed there was a battle between the sons of light and the sons of darkness; they held similar beliefs, in other words, to those of the Essenes and the Christians.
During the Babylonian Captivity, when Persia overtook Babylon in fulfillment of Daniel's prophecies, some of the Persian kings came to believe in the Jewish God, having already been predisposed to monotheism. There was a lingering Jewish influence in that place. We read about Esther, for example, and Darius the Mede, as well as the prophecy of King Cyrus by Isaiah the prophet over 200 years before Cyrus' birth. We read in Ezra and Nehemiah what happened there. All the way through the Hasmonean period to the time of Jesus, the Persians favored the Jews. In fact, until the Shaw of Iran fell, the Persians – Iran – favored Israel. I have no doubt in my mind that the Prince of Persia, the principality against which Daniel prayed and fasted for three weeks (Dan. 10:13; 20), is still there today in the form of Shia Islam, that Islamic fundamentalism in Iran. People in modern Christian circles like to call demons like this one "territorial spirits", which is not a good translation or interpretation. The Greek word is "arche", the Hebrew word "shedim"; a better translation for these words is "principalities", meaning demonic powers over nations. We have many crazy people today doing "binding and loosing", among other nonsense, but there is no doubt about the fact that there are principalities over nations. The book of Daniel reveals that, and in Gerasenes the demons going into the swine begged Jesus not to send them out of the region. (Lk. 8:31-33) There are territorial spirits, if you want to use that term, although it is not a particularly good interpretation. They do exist. In Belfast, you see murals of ancient Celtic war gods on the walls, both in the neighborhoods where Protestants are recruited and in those where Catholics are recruited.
You see, those wise men understood how to interpret the signs of the time. Sadly, there are born-again Christians who cannot see the significance of contemporary events in the Middle East. They are blind to it, as if the book of Zechariah was not in the Bible. They cannot see what is happening in the EEC – they don't understand the globalization of the world economy, the destruction of the environment, or any of these other signs, as wise men do.
So the Magi came to see the Messiah, non-Jews, people you would not have expected, because they saw the Star in the East. Here we see that they come to Jerusalem, where Herod heard them and was troubled – and all Jerusalem with him. This was the city where David said that the Messiah would come. This was where the Temple was; the focus of their identity and their Messianic hope, yet almost nobody who lived there wanted Him to come.
You will find many churches with the same attitude; drive up the road, look at the churches you pass, and ask yourself how many of them really want Jesus to come back. All Jerusalem was troubled; oh, they had the rituals, the liturgies, the festivities and the holidays, but when it looked like He was showing up, they were all troubled. Especially troubled were the national and religious leaders. Think about this.
It gets even more frightening, however – these guys knew the Scriptures. Herod wanted to know where the Messiah would be born, and they told him what Micah 5:2 said, that He would be born in Bethlehem. They had head knowledge of the Scriptures, but not heart knowledge. When He showed up, it was the last thing in the world that they either expected or wanted. Do you think it will be any different when He returns?The Trap of Satan: BackslidingAlmost every lie of Satan perpetrated in the church today is designed with one purpose: to get God's people to hope in this life and this world. By definition, that is what backsliding is. Kingdom-Now theology, Dominionism, Triumphalism, Calvinistic Reconstructionism – what are they all trying to do? Set up the kingdom now; trust in this life. Faith-prosperity, the money preachers – teaching the sin of covetousness and calling it faith, the worship of Mammon and calling it the worship of God – what is it about? Trusting in this life.
Gerald Coates and Rick Joyner say that the Rapture is a lie of the devil, a fantasy and a myth. They mock it, comparing it to Star Trek's "Beam me up, Scotty". What is their purpose? It is to cause the church to forget about the Rapture and trust in this life. What do you think the ecumenical movement is about? Building the brotherhood of man – once again, trust in this life. All Jerusalem was troubled when He came the first time, and Jerusalem will be troubled again when He returns – and I don't just mean Jerusalem, Israel.
Their national and religious leaders, who knew the Scriptures, did not want Him to come. For 2,000 years God had been preparing them for His coming; the whole reason for their very existence as a nation and a people was His coming. Yet very few wanted Him to; and it will be no different when He returns.Those Who Were ReadyBut what kind of Jews were ready for Him to come? Let's look: turn with me please to the gospel of Luke chapter one.
In Luke 1:46-55 we have the Magnificat, which if you read it in Greek would be a literary replay of the song of Deborah, found in Judges 5 from the Septuagint. The angel Gabriel – whose name means "mighty one of God" – came and told Mary that she was the greatest woman who ever lived. "Blessed are you among women - God Almighty is going to be physically incarnated inside of you." Her name was not Mary, but Miriam, the same as Moses' sister. The Hebrew root of "Miriam" is "bitterness". She did not have blonde hair or blue eyes, but rather dark, Semitic features. She has also never been to Medjugorje, Guadalupe, Fatima, or Lourdes. Her name is Miriam, and she was probably no more than mid-teens in age when Gabriel gave her this momentous announcement.
What does the greatest woman who ever lived say in response to being told that that is who she is? Verse 46 and 47:
"'My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.'"
The greatest woman who ever lived called God her Savior, stating that she needed to be saved from her sins. If the greatest woman who ever lived needs a Savior, where does that put me? None is righteous, no not one. (Rom. 3:10) All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (Rom. 3:23) The word "Theotokos", "Mother of God", is not in the Greek New Testament. She is told that she would be the mother of the Messiah, who would save His people from their sin, and she responds by saying "I rejoice in God my Savior". God Almighty is going to be incarnated inside of her, and all she can say is that she needs to be saved!
If the greatest woman who ever lived states that she needs a Savior, I believe her. I do not believe that she would lie, and even if she did, God certainly would not put that lie in His Word. So, whom should I believe? Mary herself or the lie of the Immaculate Conception which claims that she was conceived without sin? What has happened is that you have the pseudo-Christianization of Minerva, Diana of Ephesus, etc., and the application of these to Mary in fulfillment of the prophecies of Ezekiel and Jeremiah. The Madonna with the baby was originally derived from Tammuz-worship, which Ezekiel contended with. Jeremiah warned of the worship of the Queen of Heaven.
Miriam said she needed a Savior. God would become a Man, take my sin and put it on His Son, the Messiah, and take His righteousness and put it on me. Why should God become a man to take my place?
When I was a young Christian I used the clich © "Jesus is my personal Savior". However, I did not really understand all of what that meant. I thought it meant that He was my personal Savior because I personally accepted Him; but that is only half of what it means. What "personal Savior" means in its totality is that if I was the only person who ever sinned, He would have had to be born of Miriam and gone to that cross and risen from the dead just for me. For me alone; why should God die for me, a cocaine addict? Why should God become a man and die for me? Why should He rise from the dead to give me eternal life? Maybe for Miriam we can understand it more; yet she stated her need of a Savior.
The religious people did not think they needed a Savior; they had rituals and celebrations. The devil gets more people into hell with religion than he does with all the dope, all the immorality and gambling and alcohol abuse put together. Arguably, the two most influential people on human civilization have both been Jews: Karl Marx and Jesus Christ. There is a great difference between them; they are, in fact, on opposite ends of the spectrum except on one point: religion is the biggest fraud ever perpetrated on humanity. The Gospel is not religion, it is relationship!
"I need a Savior"; that is what Mary said. She was a teenage girl who was not concerned with Brittany Spears' videos on MTV or with her own personal vanity. Her response was to state her need of a Savior. That is the kind of Jew who was ready for Him to come the first time.
I really like Miriam; I love Miriam, and esteem her. I think Miriam is sensational, is fabulous, is terrific, and I cannot wait to meet her. But I want nothing to do with the blonde bimbo that Mary has become due to the so-called Church.Zecharias & ElizabethMiriam has some family: in Luke 1:5 & 6 we read about them:
"There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the division of Abijah. His wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless."
Now, remember that the Sanhedrin, the clergy, were corrupt – it was a racket. It was Hinn, Copeland, and Hagin; that is what it was like when Jesus came the first time. Yet despite the popular corruption and hypocrisy of the clergy, there were individuals within it who were righteous.
I know individual pastors in the Assemblies of God who are heartbroken over what has happened to that denomination. In England, I know Anglican vicars who are heartbroken over what has happened to the Church of England. I know Baptists who are heartbroken. As bad as it is, and as bad as it is going to get, there will be people like Zacharias who are righteous, devout, and godly. No matter how corrupt the system and its clergy become, they will not go along with it. There may not be many of them, but they will be there. That is the kind of Jew who was ready for Jesus to come the first time, and that is the kind of Christian who will be ready for Him to come again.SimeonLet's look still further: in Luke chapter 2:24 we read that Mary brought a pair of turtledoves as her sacrifice; she brought a poor person's offering. There is a liar from America named John Avanzini who came to England and said that Jesus' family was rich, not poor. One of our people asked him publicly at the meeting why, if that was the case, Mary brought a poor person's offering; his response was to have the ushers usher her out. She asked the wrong question.
Luke 2:25:
"And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and this man was just and devout, waiting for the Consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him."
The Sanhedrin did not want Jesus to come; all Jerusalem was troubled, but Simeon was longing for Jesus to come. In fact, it was his only reason for staying alive – verse 26:
"And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ."
Under the old Covenant, the Holy Spirit was only for certain people at certain times – high priests, kings, prophets, and certain other individuals. Only they had the Holy Spirit in some sense; not until after Pentecost was He for all who believed. The gifts of the Spirit then operated only in a primordial sense in and through those who had them. Verse 27:
"So he came by the Spirit into the temple. And when the parents brought in the Child Jesus, to do for Him according to the custom of the law"
(They got me when I was a baby, but they sure wouldn't get me now. This, of course, means circumcision. When my son was circumcised at eight days old, I had to hold him and say the Hebrew prayers when the rabbi came in. The rabbi took a cotton ball, dipped it in some wine, and squeezed it into the baby's mouth. I asked what the wine was for, and was told it was to deaden the pain. I said, "If that kid could see that knife, he'd ask for some Jack Daniels.") But to return to the point, verse 28:
"he took Him up in his arms and blessed God and said, 'Lord, You are letting Your servant depart in peace, according to Your Word; for my eyes have seen Your salvation which You have prepared before the face of all peoples, a light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel."
This man, Simeon, was filled with the Holy Spirit and had been promised that he would not die until he had seen the Messiah. He was old, his hair and teeth and eyesight were going, he couldn't get a date, but he knew he would not die until Jesus had come. He had what we call in New Testament terms the gift of faith.
The New Testament does tell us that we all have a measure of faith. We're saved by grace through faith, (Eph. 2:8) without faith it is impossible to please God, (Heb. 11:6) and anything not done in faith is sin (Rom. 14:23), Scripture tells us. Separate from this, however, is the gift of faith, which not all of us have. It is the capacity to trust God absolutely for things that are not specifically written in Scripture, which the Holy Spirit has revealed to you. Most people with this gift are intercessors. Hebrew and Greek both make a distinction between prayer and intercession. People who have this gift can truly intercede in prayer, believing and knowing – not wishfully thinking, or trusting in the futility of their own minds – but holding on to a promise they know by faith that God has truly given them. Although he probably would have denied it himself, I would say that George Műller in England had that gift of faith; he took in many, many street kids and would need astronomical sums of money by the next day, then pray and miraculously receive it in time.
Just think of this old man, longing for the Consolation of Israel, filled with the Holy Spirit. He only wanted Jesus to come – that was all he cared about, and it was the only reason he had to get out of his bed in the morning.
Not only was there a little old man, there was also a little old lady. In verse 36 of Luke 2 it says this:
"Now there was one, Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher."
(Forget British Israelism and Armstrongism; these people kept their tribal identities into the second and even third centuries.)
"She was of a great age, and had lived with a husband seven years from her virginity; and this woman was a widow of about eighty-four years, who did not depart from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day. And coming in at that instant she gave thanks to the Lord, and spoke of Him to all those who looked for redemption in Jerusalem."
For years and years and years all this little old lady did was pray, fast, and serve God in His house. Then she just couldn't stop telling people about Jesus – all those who were looking for the redemption of Israel. The world finds young women attractive; God is different. Read the book of Proverbs – God finds older women attractive, in the spiritual sense. Here was this little old lady, whose whole life was spent in prayer and service to God, and finally in telling people about Jesus. That was the kind of Jew who was ready for Jesus to come the first time; and that is exactly the kind of Christian who will be ready for Him to return.Faithful Shepherds: Then and NowBut then, back in Luke 2: 8, there were some shepherds:
"Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. Then the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.'"
Followed of course in verse 14 in the Latin Vulgate by, "Gloria in Excelsis Deo" – "Glory to God in the highest".
The Hebrew word for "shepherd" and "pastor" is the same word; the same applies in Greek. These are shepherds who watch their flock – not hirelings. There is a great spiritual darkness coming at the end of the age; you have heard me point it out a number of times:"Watchman, watchman, how far is the night?" (Is. 21:11) "Is He coming in the second watch of the night or the third?" (Mk. 13:35) "He is coming like a thief in the night." (1 Th. 5:2) "Work while you have the light, for night will come when no man can work." (Jn. 9:4)But there will be those faithful shepherds who watch over their flock no matter how dark it gets.
I once did a conference with Chuck Missler at which I saw an English-born pastor from Zimbabwe, where terrible things are happening. He was in England for a few days and when asked how he was he replied by expressing his thanks for the prayers said on his behalf. He told us how bad things were in Zimbabwe and that most of the white people as well as the educated blacks had left or were leaving. I asked if I would be seeing him around and he replied that I would not because he was returning to Zimbabwe the next day. "My sheep are there," he said. Here is a white man who gives his whole life to take care of black people who are dying of AIDS; they are his sheep. I know a good Christian doctor who could make a good living in America who is down there with him. They aren't leaving; why? It's a dark place and it's getting darker, but they are shepherds. That is the kind of Jew who was ready for Jesus to come the first time, and that is the kind of Christian who will be ready for Him to return.In SummaryWho is not going to be ready? "Herod mourned, and all Jerusalem with him." The Sanhedrin were troubled. The theologians were pulling their hair out. They won't be ready – people like that rarely are. But the individual clergy like Zacharias and his dear wife, or Joseph the foster father of Jesus – a man who was just, or a teenage girl who said, "I need a Savior", or the shepherds who watched their flocks, or a little old lady whose whole life was spent in prayer and serving God and telling others about Jesus, or an old man who longed for Him to come and was filled with the Spirit of God – they are a different story. They were the kinds of Jews, who were ready for Him to come the first time, and I promise you, they will be the kinds of Christians who are ready for Him to come the second time.
My prayer for all of you, for your families, for myself and for my family, when I look at these Jews who were ready for His first coming, is that by the grace of the God of Israel we will be among the faithful who will be ready the second time. My dear brethren in Jesus, make no mistake about it: Christmas is coming.
My favorite Christmas carol is Hark the Herald Angels Sing for this reason: the music was composed by Felix Mendelssohn, a Jew, and the words were written by Charles Wesley, a Gentile Christian. It is one of the greatest Jew-Gentile collaborations I know of. Would you join me in singing it?
Hark, the herald angels sing,
Glory to the newborn King!
Peace on earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled!
Joyful all ye nations, rise,
Join the triumph of the skies,
With th'angelic hosts proclaim,
Christ is born in Bethlehem!
Hark, the herald angels sing,
Glory to the newborn King!.
The Day of the Lord
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By James Jacob Prasch
The Return of Elijah's MinistryWe"re looking at the "Day of the Lord". Now, in Hebrew the day of the Lord is not called "the Day of the Lord", it"s actually called the "Day of Yahweh". From the fall of man, until that time, it is "the time of Satan". Jesus said directly that Satan is the god of this world. This will intensity in the Last Days. Certain things happen. What happens is this: God is the God of history. He exercises lordship over history. But with the manifestation of Antichrist, we"re told in the book of Daniel he will think to change the laws and the times. (Daniel 7:25) And they will be given into his hand for two "times, a time, and a half time". Revelation and Daniel both break the last seven years of history into two halves of two "times, a time, and a half time" – 3-1/2 lunar years, 1,260 days by the lunar calendar, thereabouts.
There are a number of things that teach about this "times, time, and a half time", one of which foreshadows it – prefigures it – is what happened in the days of Eliyahuw Hanawbe, Elijah the prophet. Remember, it was 3-1/2 years when it did not rain. During that time he was in conflict with Ahab and Jezebel. Understand the pattern – this is Jewish midrash. Naboth"s vineyard was coveted. Jezebel turns the king Ahab against Elijah because Elijah tries to defend Naboth"s vineyard. The wicked woman turns the king against Elijah.
Jesus uses Jezebel as a metaphor for the spirit of false religion in the book of Revelation. "You tolerate the woman Jezebel who beguiles My servants, who seduces My servants."
John the Baptist – "Yochannan Hamadvil" – and Elijah – "Eliyah Hanawbe" – have the same spirit. They"re not the same person, but they have the same spirit, same anointing, same commissioning, same calling, same character. John the Baptist comes before the First Coming of Christ in the spirit of Elijah. And again, the wicked woman Herodias turns Herod against "Elijah". It"s the same pattern.
We have to understand that will happen in the Last Days. The vineyard – that is, Israel – will be coveted. In fact, the church will be coveted. Christendom will be coveted. At this time during this period, the ministry of Elijah will again come into play in some way. The false religious system of the world personified in Jezebel will turn the political system against God's people, bringing it into conflict with Elijah. What happened with Elijah happens with John, and it happens again in the Last Days. There is nothing going to happen that has not already partially happened. Now, the Last Days will be singularly unique, but there are things in the past that foreshadow it. If you want to know what"s going to happen, look at what did happen. Prophecy is pattern. Having said this, let"s understand what "the Day of the Lord" is.The Day of the LordWe"re going to look at the "Day of the Lord" as it concerns both Israel and the church. 2 Corinthians 1:14.
Just as you did partially acknowledge us, that on the day of our Lord Jesus you will boast of us as we will boast of you.
This is not the "Day of Yahweh", but the "Day of the Lord Jesus". The New Testament explains in greater depth and in greater detail something the Old Testament Hebrews only understood in parts. We know that the "Day of the Lord" is inaugurated with the return of Christ.
Matthew 24:22, look at what is says carefully. In the Olivet discourse, Jesus says this:
And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect, those days will be cut short.
That word there is "koloboo". "Koloboo" in Greek is how they translate the Aramaic. It is a word for "amputate". Had it not been cut short – had it not been amputated – nobody would survive. You think of gangrene in a limb or an extremity. No orthopedic surgeon takes any delight in amputating someone"s limb. But if you have medistatic bone cancer, osteocarcinoma, or if you have a form of gangrene, and it"s a question of letting the body die or amputating the limb, he will amputate the limb in order to save the body. That"s the way it is. It will take a radical intervention by the Lord Jesus in the form of an amputation to preserve human existence. There"s going to be an amputation.
Once that amputation takes place, once the faithful are removed, God pours out His wrath on the kingdom of Antichrist. He pours out His wrath on the kingdom of Antichrist. We must draw a distinction between "tribulation" and "wrath"; they"re different words in Greek. God's people – the faithful church – will never experience the wrath of the Lord. But the cohorts of Antichrist will experience the wrath of the Lord. The "Day of the Lord" takes place when the church is removed. The faithful bride, the faithful church is literally amputated, taken out of here. When that happens then God pours out His wrath. This is the "Day of Yahweh", the "Day of the Lord".
We"re told in the Hebrew Scriptures – one of the passages – "be ye not anxious for the day of the Lord". (Amos 5:18-20) We shouldn"t want it to come. We should want Jesus to come, but the "Day of the Lord" is something completely different.The Babylonian CaptivityLet"s begin looking, please, for the book of Joel, the Hebrew prophet Joel. Joel was the first prophet who prophesied for the Babylonian captivity. And like all of Israel"s prophets, Joel prophesied for at least three time frames. He prophesied for his own time and the events leading up to the Babylonian captivity, he prophesied for the First Coming of Jesus, and he prophesied for the Second Coming of Jesus, sometimes all in the same breath, certainly in the same passage. When we read Joel, or prophets like him, we have to always be aware what was for his own time, what was for the First Coming of Christ, and what"s for the return of Christ. Or what is for a combination – both, when things happen again. What happened with the Babylonian captivity teaches about what will happen in the Last Days.
Now, you remember Nebuchadnezzar built the image, didn't he, to be worshiped. Nebuchadnezzar desecrated the Jewish temple. The image – if you read the dimensions in Aramaic – it comes to six-hundred and sixty-six with the steps and so forth in the book of Daniel. Nebuchadnezzar entered the "Beautiful Land". And in the last days of Judah before the captivity, the people were being misled by their leaders. There were only a few people like Jeremiah and Barach telling the truth. The people on a popular level chose to follow the false prophets who were telling them things like, "Victory"s coming." "Blessing is coming."
"Prosperity is coming." They were being given this one message by all these prophets. People like Jeremiah were giving the opposite message. The people on a popular level chose to follow the false prophets and negate the voice of the true ones. The Last Days will be the same way. Most of Christendom will follow the false prophets and reject the people telling the truth. Israel will reject the true voices God has sent to it: Messianic Jews, Jewish believers who preach the Gospel. They would rather follow the deceptions of the rabbis. What happened then will happen again.It Happened AgainNow, it also happened in 70 A.D. The same, exact pattern that happened in the last days of Judah with the Babylonian captivity happened in 70 A.D. In the Olivet discourse, Jesus begins talking about 70 A.D. before He talks about anything else. "Not one stone will be thrown down upon another". Pay attention.
The mystery religions of Babylon that began with the Tower of Babel, with Nimrod – those mystery religions that began in Babylon – made their way through Asia Minor, particularly the city of Pergamum, "where Satan"s throne is", and from there into the Greco-Roman world. Today those same mystery religions are preserved in things like Free Masonery, Roman Catholicism, the Greek Orthodox Church, and so forth, but the root of those things is in Babylon. The early Christians identified Rome with Babylon because they knew that Rome had become the new home of those mystery religions. That"s why in his epistle, Peter writing from Rome says, "She who is in Babylon greets you."
The Babylonians destroyed the first temple on Tishah be"Av, roughly the 9th of August. They surrounded the city as Jeremiah predicted. The Romans destroyed the second temple in 70 A.D. the exact, same day: Tishah be"Av. The first temple and second temple were destroyed the same day. But it was only the early Christians who understood this is the same as Babylon. The Jewish believers escaped. They remembered what Jesus said, "When you see it surrounded, flee to the mountains."A Type of RaptureAfter the apostle James had been martyred, a cousin of Jesus names Simeon was the pastor – the senior pastor – of the church in Jerusalem. The Romans inexplicably withdrew the siege very temporarily and the Jewish believers escaped to a place called "Pellah". Not "Petra", but "Pellah". They thought that was going to be the Rapture. And in fact it was a type of the Rapture, but they escaped. The way that those believers escaped before all hell came upon Jerusalem is exactly what will happen in the end.
If you want to know what the "Day of the Lord" will be like, read Josephus" "The Wars of the Jews". What happened inside Jerusalem after the believers escaped is what will happen to the whole planet. It"s a microcosm of what will happen to the whole planet. Starvation became so terrible, women began fighting over afterbirth. They were waiting for women to deliver babies so they"d have something to eat. That is what happened in Jerusalem. More than that, the partisans – their own people, the sikim, the Zealots – were more cruel and barbaric than the Romans were. It was something inside the city as well as outside. The "Day of the Lord" is prefigured by what happened in Jerusalem in 70 A.D. after the church was removed.
Now there are many other things in the Bible that teach about the "Day of the Lord", what this period will be like, but for our purposes think of what happened in 70 A.D. Only those who followed Jesus made it out of there; the others were left and something terrible happened. And it will happen again.
Now, in 70 A.D. when the Romans destroyed the temple, they set up Pagan incense on the temple mount where the Holy of Holies had been and began worshiping the incense, worshiping their gods where the Holy of Holies had been. After the believers escaped, they understood this to be the "shiqqutzim meshomem" – the "Abomination of Desolations." Once again, what happened then is a microcosm, a shadow, a picture of what will happen at the end.
Now, I"ll go through this again for the sake of new believers. Joel prophesied about the Babylonian captivity. What happened at the time Joel prophesied – predicted – is a picture of what will happen in the Last Days. But it also fulfilled partially in 70 A.D. What happened in 70 A.D. as Jesus warned in the Olivet discourse in Matthew 24, that is a picture of what the "Day of the Lord" will be like. Only it will not just be something local in Jerusalem, it will be the entire planet; an entire planet of people going through that kind of a situation. Can you imagine an entire planet of people waiting to fight over a maternal afterbirth to have something to eat? Can you imagine? If you read Josephus, it is shocking. It is horrific.
Now, Jeremiah laments this. The book of Lamentations is called "Eichah" in Hebrew, and it"s read on Tishah be"Av. It"s read the day the temples were destroyed. Ritually in the synagogues to this day, the rabbis read the book of Lamentations – "Eichah" – where Jeremiah laments the destruction that took place. Only Jeremiah was also rescued, wasn"t he? He got out of there with his followers. Before this happens, the faithful people always have a ticket out. Our task in this conference is to make sure you have a ticket.The InsectsWith this in view, turn with me to the book of Joel, chapter 1. "Yo"el Hanawbe".
The word of the LORD that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel.
Verse 4.
What the cutting locust left, the swarming locust has eaten;
What the swarming locust has left, the hopping locust has eaten;
And what the hopping locust has left, the destroying locust has eaten.
Joel uses insects the way that Daniel uses monsters. These insects are pictures of political entities – invading political entities. Daniel generally uses beasts, Joel uses insects, the book of Revelation uses both. Notice there are four swarms of locusts, four different swarms of locusts. The Babylonian captivity of the Jews took place in four invasions. Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians invaded four times, and each time there was a greater and greater deportation of Jews.
This idea of a systematic deportation is exactly what happened in the Holocaust of the 1930"s and 40"s. They built a wall around the Jewish ghettos – the "shtettles" – and they would deport a certain amount the first time, a certain amount the second time, a certain amount the third time, and then the rest the fourth time. That"s exactly what happened with the concentration camps in the 1930"s and 40"s, very much in the character of Nebuchadnezzar; the same demonic spirit.Deception in the Last DaysNow, you"ve got these four swarms of locusts. Look what follows it in verse 5. What does Joel say?
Awake, you drunkards, and weep;
And wail, all you drinkers of wine,
Because of the sweet wine
For it"s been cut off from your mouth.
Understand the deception being perpetrated against the body of Christ today. I"m going to speak very directly.
This is a Calvary Chapel. In the earlier years of Calvary Chapel, Chuck Smith kicked somebody out of Calvary Chapel essentially. His name was John Wimber. He was part of Calvary Chapel and Chuck Smith booted him out, gave him the boot – in effect. Because he began teaching things that were based on experience instead of on Scripture: Experiential Theology. Wimber went into mysticism, he went into Gnosticism, he went into New Age philosophy putting it into Christian terms. And he would later align himself with people from Kansas City who said they were prophets. One of these people, Mike Bickle, said the rapture of Elijah was a judgment. Telling people "rapture" of God is a "judgment"? "Elijah was too negative", so God had to remove him in judgment.
Another one of his prophets was Bob Jones. That was his name. A man found to be in serious sexual immorality (this was publicly known – I"m not throwing mud), but another was Paul Cain. Paul Cain, John Wimber, Mike Bickle – they came to England and they had a big, huge conference in London in August of 1990. And they told the people from England and from other places that the "Latter Day Rain" was going to happen, the "Manifest Sons" would be revealed, there"d be a great outpouring of God's Spirit. And this revival would come and begin in England and then spread to Germany and then into continental Europe.
Well, it so happens I live in England (most of the time), and I can tell you that since the "great revival" prophesied for October of 1990 – that"s when they said it would happen – five times more mosques than churches have been built in England. For every church that"s been built, five mosques have been built since 1990. The Methodists close one church a week, the Church of England closes two to three churches a week, one mosque a week opens in England. They prophesied falsely, they predicted things that didn't happen, and they made these predictions in the name of the Lord. It was then revealed about two years ago that Paul Cain is an alcoholic and a homosexual. But you had all of these Charismatics (and I am a Charismatic – I certainly am not a Cessastionist) following people who were making these predictions, who were alcoholics, who were homosexuals, and were telling people things they wanted to hear.
The people cheered them. They believed this was the "Latter Day Rain", the "Manifest Sons". And then they went on to say they were "the locusts who were going to devour". We"ll come to that in a moment. Look at the next verse, 5.
Awake, ye drunkards, and weep.
The same churches who follow the Kansas City crowd followed people from Toronto, Canada and later Pensacola, Florida. And there was a South African gentlemen (who doesn"t like me) named Rodney Howard-Browne. (He actually denounced me in front of about 8,000 people in Melbourne, Australia because I put out a video showing what he was doing.) And he actually goes around singing a song – I"m not kidding you, this is the song – "Drinking at Joel"s Place". He sings a song, "Drinking at Joel"s Place", telling people to get drunk in the Holy Ghost and to fall in hysterics.
Now, that is what they are saying about the book of Joel. Look what Joel says about the book of Joel. They say they"re drunk, Joel says sober up. They say to laugh, Joel said to weep. No revival has ever begun with people laughing. Every revival has begun with people weeping in repentance.Can There Be Revival?Can there be a great, End Times revival? The Bible speaks more – much more – of a great, End Times falling away, of a great, End Times apostasy than it does a revival. Now, there is to be a second outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Israel and the Jews during this time. That is true. But it will come during the time of "Jacob"s Trouble". During "HaTekufa ha Tsorat Yakov", the darkest hour of their history that takes place at this period. It will not be a happy time.
If revival comes – pay attention – it will be like the revival before the Babylonian captivity. What was the revival before the Babylonian captivity? It was the revival of King Josiah. The sin had become so treacherous, particularly the genocidal sacrifice of Jewish children to demons like Molech under King Manasseh. King Manasseh sacrificed and killed all these kids. So even though a repentance did come, even though a revival did come, God said the axe won"t fall in your lifetime because you"ve been faithful, but the axe still must fall; things have gone too far. Pay attention.
I don"t say revival can"t come. I don"t say the "Day of the Lord" cannot be, in theory, be delayed. But the axe must fall. Why? Look at it. 40 million babies aborted in the United States in non-therapeutic abortions since "Roe vs. Wade". 40 million! Had they not done that, the Social Security system would not be in trouble. That same generation responsible for "Rove v. Wade" is now going to reap the whirlwind...euthanasia will be the next battle. The demands on the public health care systems, on Social Security, "We can"t let these people go on living into their 90"s and into their 80"s with improved medicine – we have to let them die." Otherwise the system – mark my words – it will go from "voluntary" euthanasia to "involuntary" euthanasia. That fetus had no choice about being aborted, neither will that generation that aborted them. They will reap what the sowed. It is inevitable that the judgment of God must come on the western world. It must fall on the Protestant democracies.
If revival comes, the most you can do is delay the inevitable. Things have gone too far. "If my people, who are called by My name will turn and pray, I"ll heal their land" – that is true; but it can only be true in the way it was in the days of Josiah. Things have just gone too far. Too far. This is not to say we shouldn"t pray for revival – we should – but understand when it comes it will only delay the inevitable. A chance for more people to be saved. God will increase and return His grace ultimately back to His ancient people Israel.Sober UpSo for this to come about, Joel is saying, "Sober up." Today, major denominations are telling people, "No, get drunk". The word is "sobreizo" in Greek. We"re told to practice self-control. The fruit of the Spirit is "egkrateia" – "self control" – they are saying be out of control. If someone is not in control of themselves, the Holy Spirit is not in control of them.
I went to Toronto, Canada on business and I visited that lunatic asylum with the cross on the roof to see what was going on. The first thing that I noticed was that everyone was talking about experience, nobody was talking about Jesus. And they kept saying, "I couldn"t control it! I couldn"t control it!" Well, the fact that you couldn"t control it proves it"s not God. The fruit of the Spirit is self-control.
Just think of somebody that used to be an alcoholic who becomes a Christian. An alcoholic, let"s say. I was a cocaine addict when I was a teenager, but let"s say somebody"s an alcoholic. The Lord delivered me from cocaine – actually He did – but for somebody else, the Lord delivers them from alcohol addiction. If that person goes into a pub or a bar and begins drinking again, is the Holy Spirit in control of them? No. A beer to them is what cocaine is to me: death. If the Holy Spirit was in control of them, they"d be in control of themselves. When people sin, the Holy Spirit"s not in control of them, are they? When we sin, the Holy Spirit"s not in control of us at that instance. We"re grieving the Holy Spirit. "I know it"s God, I just couldn"t control..." The fact that they couldn"t control it proves it"s not God we"re told twice in the New Testament. The fruit of the Holy Spirit is "egkrateia". Now, notice that they"re saying the diametric opposite of what Scripture says.Blow A TrumpetChapter 2:1 of Joel.
Blow a trumpet in Zion,
Sound an alarm on God's holy mountain!
Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble,
For the day of the Lord is coming near;
A day of darkness and gloom,
A day of clouds and thick darkness.
Like blackness there is spread upon the mountains,
A great and powerful people;
Their like has never been seen before,
Nor will be again after them
To all the years of all generations.
Fire devours before them
A flame burns after them.
The land is like the garden of Eden before them
But after them a desolate wilderness,
Nothing escapes them.
Their appearance is like the appearance of horses;
And like war horses, they run.
As with rumbling of chariots
They leap on top of the mountains,
Like the crackling of a flame of fire devouring the stubble,
Like a powerful army drawn up for battle.
Before them people are in anguish;
All faces grow pale.
Like warriors they charge,
Like soldiers they scale the wall;
They each march each his way,
They do not swerve from their paths.
They do not jostle one other,
Each marches in his path;
They burst through the weapons,
They are not halted.
They leap upon the city,
They run on the walls;
They climb up into houses,
They enter through the windows like a thief.
The earth quakes before them,
The heavens tremble,
The sun and the moon are darkened
The stars withdraw their shining.
The same as the Olivet discourse.
The Lord utters His voice before His army;
For His camp is exceedingly great,
He who executes His word is powerful.
For the day of the Lord is great and very awesome,
Who can endure it?
"Yet even now," declares the Lord,
"Return to Me with all your heart,
And with fasting, weeping and mourning;
Rend not your garments but your hearts."
Return to the Lord,
He"s gracious and merciful,
Slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love
And He relents.
But they wouldn"t blow the trumpet in Zion. This corresponds in figure to the Hebrew Feast of Trumpets. Today, the rabbis gave the Feast of Trumpets a completely different meaning than the Scripture does. "When the people in the city hear the shofar, will they not tremble?" It"s a convocation and a warning. It"s the Jews being regathered to Israel for the Great Tribulation. The Jews are not going back to Israel for a picnic or a blessing; they"re going back to be deceived by the Antichrist, to make a covenant with death, and to go into a holocaust in which two-thirds of them will be wiped out.
My children were born in Galilee. My own children are Israeli Jews born in Galilee. I firmly believe in the prophetic purposes of God for Israel and the Jews, I believe in Israel"s right to exist as a nation. I"m appalled at the pressure America and other governments put on it to acquiesce to Islamic barbarism. Nonetheless, I"m still left with the fact that there is no peace without the Prince of Peace. There is no blessing without the atonement of the Messiah.
When you see Jews getting on planes and ships going to Israel, they may as well be getting on a train going to Auschwitz or Buchenwald. There are organizations claiming to be "Christian embassies", claiming to be "wings of eagles" who say, "Just get the Jews back to Israel and God will save them." Two-thirds of them are going to be wiped out. Yes, all Israel will be saved, those who look upon Him who they pierced will be saved, but the others are going to be killed. The Jewish people need Jesus the Messiah. Do not support any organization or ministry that does not give the Jews the Gospel.
Now, one of the reason our ministry supports Brad Antolovich – Calvary Chapel Jerusalem – is because, oh they"re bringing Jews back from Ukraine and Russia, and they"re helping Jews with humanitarian aid, but they"re giving the Jews what they need the most: the Good News of Yeshua the Messiah. There are good ministries and there are bad ones. Unfortunately, a lot of the money goes to the bad ones.Changing the MeaningThe rabbis changed the meaning of Trumpets. You know what they call it now? "Rosh Hashanah." "Happy New Year". Now, biblically they should be saying, "Oy v"voy", "Woe upon woe!" When the trumpet is sounded, let the people tremble. But instead of saying, "Oy v"voy", "Woe upon woe!", the rabbis are telling Jewish people to say, "Happy New Year!" But they"re not saved; they don"t know their Messiah, Yeshua.
What do you do when the church, when its leaders instead of telling people to sober up are telling them to get drunk? Or instead of telling them to fall down and weep, they"re telling them to fall down and laugh. Israel"s blind, the church is blind. So much of Israel is blind. Only a small remnant, albeit a growing remnant of Jews, no the truth that Jesus is the Messiah. The proportions are not much different. In a Calvary Chapel you general don"t see the same degree of error you see in most other churches and denominations today, but they"re all going with this kind of stuff, one fad after another. Pensacola, Pepsi-Cola, Purpose Driven, anything as long as it"s not biblical, they"re going to do it.
Pay attention. Jesus said directly, "When you see these things happening, lift up your head, your redemptions draws near." The book of Revelation is the only book of the Bible with a special blessing promised for reading it. There"s a blessing for reading all of it, but there"s an actual, literal blessing – Jesus promises a blessing for reading it. So who are people listening to? Events are happening in the Middle East today, but the Scripture warned us. Things are happening in Europe. The re-confederation of Europe in non-democratic Europe is exactly what Daniel said and is happening today. "When you see these things happening, lift up your head, your redemption"s draws near." We see the "Day of the Lord" drawing near, so who are people listening to? I"ll tell you who they"re listening to: They"re listening to a man in California named Rick Warren who said don"t study Bible prophecy, it"s a diversion. Jesus says when you see this stuff happening, you better get into this book and understand what"s going on. "Oh no, don"t do that", says Rick Warren. Who cares what Jesus Christ said? Why do we need Him when we have the Purpose Driven? I can prove it; he said it, as well as at least a dozen other things co-equally as crazy and as dangerous. You see the deception?Increasing DeceptionThere are three kinds of people in God's economy as the "Day of the Lord" draws near: There"s the Jews, the Gentile nations, and the church composed of both Jew and Gentile. There"s the Jew, the Gentiles, and the church.
Satan has the Jews deceived; they don"t recognize their Messiah, except for a faithful remnant. Satan has the nations deceived. That leaves the church. He"s trying to deceive you and me.
When they asked the Lord Jesus at the Olivet discourse, "What will be the sign of Your coming at the end of the age?", He spoke of wars one time, rumors and wars one time, famines one time, earthquakes one time, pestilence one time – one time, one time, one time – persecution one time, but He warned of deception perpetrated against the Elect four times. In fact, the first words out of His mouth – "Lord, what will be the sign of Your coming at the end of the age?" – "See to it that no one leads you astray." The first words out of His mouth. He warned about deception perpetrated against you and me, your family and my family, your church and my church – He warned about that four times more than any other sign of the end.
If you asked me when I was a young believer back in the early 70"s, or even if you asked me 15 years ago, or even 10 years ago, why I though it was the Last Days, I would tell you, "Israel, the European Union, destruction of the environment, globalization of the world economy" – I would have told you all that stuff. Now in fact, I"m even more convinced that stuff is prophetically significant now than I was 10 years ago; I"m even more convinced that stuff is prophetically significant now than I"ve ever been. But it"s no longer the clearest signs. The clearest signs of the return of Jesus and the approach of the "Day of the Lord" is deception perpetrated against the Elect: The numbers and caliber of the people who are believing it and buying into it and subscribing into it.
How can anybody in their right mind think they can be out of control when the Bible says be in control? How can anybody in their right mind say don"t study prophecy, when Jesus said we should? Deception. He"s got the Jews, he"s getting the church. "Blow a trumpet". No, it is not "Happy New Year", it is "Oy v"voy".The Locust ArmiesNow these armies of Babylon, represented by locusts, appear again in the book of Revelation. In other words, what happened with Nebuchadnezzar is a shadow of what will transpire eschatologically in the future, the Apocalypse. You understand? What happened with the Babylonian captivity will happen again. Turn to Revelation 9, please.
And the fifth angel blew his trumpet...
(Now, remember the trumpets.)
...and I saw a star fallen from heaven to earth and he was given the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit. He opened the shaft of the bottomless pit and from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace. And the sun and air were darkened with smoke from the shaft.
What does it say in Joel? The sun will be darkened, a star will fall from heaven.
Then from the smoke came locusts on the earth. And they were given power like the power of scorpions on the earth.
Well, here"s the locusts, they"re coming again. Look what they did the last time. So what does the church do? What should we do? We should blow this and warn people Jesus is coming. "No, don"t do that," says Rick Warren. "That"s a diversion." What are they doing? Can you believe it? These locusts are the demon cohorts of Antichrist. These locusts, who had a literal fulfillment in the Babylonian army, are a picture of the demon cohorts of Antichrist in Revelation 9.
I have been – not to churches – to stadiums. Stadiums – not with hundreds, not with thousands, but with tens of thousands of born again Christians, supposedly – and you know what they were singing?
"We run on the city, we run on the walls,
Great is the army who carries his word."
They think they"re thinking about themselves. They think they"re singing about them. They think, "Daddy"s locusts". These are the great army. Yes, it"s called Yahweh"s army, it"s His army of judgment to bring His own people to repentance like the Babylonians were. They"re actually singing about the demon cohorts of Antichrist and they think they"re singing about themselves.The Absence of Doctrine"Blow a trumpet in Zion, Zion. Here we come. Latter Day Rain, Manifest Sons, the Manchild, Kingdom Now." This whole global peace plan, you know what it is? Kingdom Now theology. Over-realized eschatology, post-millenialism. Hyper-Charismatics don"t have any doctrine; they go by experience, feelings, mysticism. They don"t have any doctrine.
So where do they get their doctrine? They go to hyper-Calvinists called "Reconstructionists", the followers of Rushdoony, David Chilton, Greg Bonson, Gary North. Reconstructionists, people who believe that the church has to take over the institutions of government and finance and establish the kingdom of God before Jesus comes. So you have a hyper-Calvinist kook and a hyper-Charismatic kook, where does this Charismatic get his eschatology? Where does a "kook" get his doctrine? Well, quite obviously and quite logically, he gets it from another kook.
• "Kook" + "Kook" = "Kingdom Now".
• "Kook" + "Kook" = "Manifest Sons".
• "Kook" + "Kook" = "Manchild".
• "Kook" + "Kook" = "Global Peace Plan".
There is a global peace plan, but you know what bothers me most about Rick Warren"s "Five Point Global Peace Plan"? It"s not God's. It"s about education, it"s about social welfare, it"s about all those things, but it doesn"t talk about the Gospel. It doesn"t even talk about salvation.
They are being set up for this. They actually sing this. They"re singing about Antichrist"s army and they think it"s about them! Pay attention. David Hocking and myself were talking about this in Germany. Remember when Jesus warned, "When you pray, do not heap up empty phrases like the heathen do"? In Hinduism it"s a mantra. Over and over and over and over. The whole "Mary" thing in Catholic countries is so strong you can"t tell them, "Look, Mary says she needs a Savior" because they"ve said too many rosaries. Like Goebbels, Hitler"s propaganda minister said, "If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it"s the truth."
They get into the mantra. So we have what some people call the "7-11 choruses": 7 words, repeated 11 times. Where do these people get their theology? They get it from mindlessly singing choruses as if they were a mantra. The people in these churches who went to this lunacy – you see, there"s no exposition of the Word, they just sing and sing the same thing over and over, but it doesn"t dawn on them much of what they"re singing is not even Scriptural. They become inundated by it like a mantra. It is the same as Hinduism .The Eastern InvasionThis is the third time – third time – eastern religion has permeated – invaded – the western church. Jeremiah warns of it in chapter 5: "My people are filled with influences from the east."
The first time it happened was with the post-Nicean fathers, particularly in Alexandria; that was the first time eastern religion invaded western Christendom, with the Gnostics.
The second time was when the Crusades brought the influences of Hinduism and Sufi Islam into Europe. The second time was the Crusades. The whole thing with little girls dressed like brides for the community and counting their prayers on beads, that was all copied from Muslims and Hindus. The flagellation things in the monasteries and convents, that was all copied from Shi"a Muslims. That was the second time.
This is the third time eastern religion has invaded the western church.
2004, the National Pastor"s Conference in San Diego, the keynote speaker – I"m only telling you what was on the agenda – 11:30 to 1, Rick Warren. After a coffee break, you know what the next session was? Yoga. It"s on the Internet. (At least it was.) The National Pastor"s Conference! These are Evangelical pastors! Yoga! They don"t have a clue what"s happening.
That day should not overtake us like a thief. He"s coming like a thief in the night, but it shouldn"t overtake us like a thief. It"s going to shock people, it"s going to surprise them, but it should not shock or surprise us. Let"s look. What should we be doing?The Proper ContextTurn with me again to the book of Joel 2.
Blow the trumpet in Zion,
...verse 15...
Call a solemn assembly,
Gather the people, consecrate the congregation,
Assemble the elders,
Gather the children, even nursing infants,
Let the bridegroom leave his room
And the bride her chambers.
There"s a reason for that. Remember Jesus warned they"ll be marrying and given in marriage?
Let them gather between the vestibule and the altar,
Let the priests, the Lord"s ministers weep
And say, "Spare Your people, O Lord."
Make not Your heritage a reproach,
A byword among the nations.
Spare Your people, O Lord.
A "text", out of context, in isolation from its co-text, is always a "pretext". Satan is great at taking Scriptures out of context. Look what he did with Jesus. He tried it with Jesus. That whole argument between Satan and Jesus in Matthew 4 was from the book of Deuteronomy. Satan would pull a verse out of context, Jesus would answer him in context. Whatever Jesus answered was from Deuteronomy because everything Satan raises from Deuteronomy – he was great at taking certain verses out of context. It"s simple: A text, out of context, in isolation from its co-text, is always a pretext.
So they"ll point out in Peter"s charigma in the Book of Acts 2 that he quotes from Joel 2:28.
Afterwards it shall come to pass I"ll pour out my Spirit on your flesh, and your sons and daughters will prophesy.
That"s true. But first of all, in its context, it"s mainly focused on Israel and the Jews. Secondly, it doesn"t precede calamity, it follows it. They"re buying into a big lie. Buying into a big lie. It doesn"t matter what you say.Does It Matter To You?Last week I was in Hawaii and the Lord put in my way the biggest con-artist, false prophet, money preacher in the world. Eyeball to eyeball, I with him. Eyeball to eyeball, I told him he was a false prophet, that I can prove he"s made these predictions in the name of the Lord that didn't happen, that he needs to repent and get out of the ministry. It doesn"t matter what I told him. No, it doesn"t mean I shouldn"t have told him. Ezekiel says tell them anyway, even if they won"t listen. It"s like serving an indictment, but they won"t listen. It just doesn"t matter to them. The question is, does it matter to you? Do you want a ticket out of here? The "Day of the Lord" is coming.
There is a message. The message is not, "Get drunk", the message is not to lose self-control, the message is not, "Happy New Year". The message is you pick up your Bible; this is the message. What does it say in Amos? "Set the trumpet to thy mouth."
Blow a trumpet in Zion.
Sound an alarm in my holy mountain,
The day of the Lord draws near.
You see CNN today? You watch Fox News today? The "Day of the Lord" draws near. But when the biggest preachers in the world are giving the flock the opposite message, what chance will the sheep have from these wolves when their own shepherds give them over?
No, there is a message. The message is the "Day of the Lord" indeed draws near.
Blow the trumpet in Zion,
Consecrate a fast, call an assembly, a solemn assembly,
Gather all the people, consecrate the congregation,
Assemble the elders,
Gather the children, even the nursing infants.
Remember what Jesus said about the nursing mothers.
Let the bridegroom leave his room
Let the bride her chamber.
Blow the trumpet in Zion,
Sound an alarm in God's mountain!
The day of the Lord draws near
Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord weep
And let them say, "Spare thy people, O Lord."
God bless.
The Return of Elijah's MinistryWe"re looking at the "Day of the Lord". Now, in Hebrew the day of the Lord is not called "the Day of the Lord", it"s actually called the "Day of Yahweh". From the fall of man, until that time, it is "the time of Satan". Jesus said directly that Satan is the god of this world. This will intensity in the Last Days. Certain things happen. What happens is this: God is the God of history. He exercises lordship over history. But with the manifestation of Antichrist, we"re told in the book of Daniel he will think to change the laws and the times. (Daniel 7:25) And they will be given into his hand for two "times, a time, and a half time". Revelation and Daniel both break the last seven years of history into two halves of two "times, a time, and a half time" – 3-1/2 lunar years, 1,260 days by the lunar calendar, thereabouts.
There are a number of things that teach about this "times, time, and a half time", one of which foreshadows it – prefigures it – is what happened in the days of Eliyahuw Hanawbe, Elijah the prophet. Remember, it was 3-1/2 years when it did not rain. During that time he was in conflict with Ahab and Jezebel. Understand the pattern – this is Jewish midrash. Naboth"s vineyard was coveted. Jezebel turns the king Ahab against Elijah because Elijah tries to defend Naboth"s vineyard. The wicked woman turns the king against Elijah.
Jesus uses Jezebel as a metaphor for the spirit of false religion in the book of Revelation. "You tolerate the woman Jezebel who beguiles My servants, who seduces My servants."
John the Baptist – "Yochannan Hamadvil" – and Elijah – "Eliyah Hanawbe" – have the same spirit. They"re not the same person, but they have the same spirit, same anointing, same commissioning, same calling, same character. John the Baptist comes before the First Coming of Christ in the spirit of Elijah. And again, the wicked woman Herodias turns Herod against "Elijah". It"s the same pattern.
We have to understand that will happen in the Last Days. The vineyard – that is, Israel – will be coveted. In fact, the church will be coveted. Christendom will be coveted. At this time during this period, the ministry of Elijah will again come into play in some way. The false religious system of the world personified in Jezebel will turn the political system against God's people, bringing it into conflict with Elijah. What happened with Elijah happens with John, and it happens again in the Last Days. There is nothing going to happen that has not already partially happened. Now, the Last Days will be singularly unique, but there are things in the past that foreshadow it. If you want to know what"s going to happen, look at what did happen. Prophecy is pattern. Having said this, let"s understand what "the Day of the Lord" is.The Day of the LordWe"re going to look at the "Day of the Lord" as it concerns both Israel and the church. 2 Corinthians 1:14.
Just as you did partially acknowledge us, that on the day of our Lord Jesus you will boast of us as we will boast of you.
This is not the "Day of Yahweh", but the "Day of the Lord Jesus". The New Testament explains in greater depth and in greater detail something the Old Testament Hebrews only understood in parts. We know that the "Day of the Lord" is inaugurated with the return of Christ.
Matthew 24:22, look at what is says carefully. In the Olivet discourse, Jesus says this:
And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect, those days will be cut short.
That word there is "koloboo". "Koloboo" in Greek is how they translate the Aramaic. It is a word for "amputate". Had it not been cut short – had it not been amputated – nobody would survive. You think of gangrene in a limb or an extremity. No orthopedic surgeon takes any delight in amputating someone"s limb. But if you have medistatic bone cancer, osteocarcinoma, or if you have a form of gangrene, and it"s a question of letting the body die or amputating the limb, he will amputate the limb in order to save the body. That"s the way it is. It will take a radical intervention by the Lord Jesus in the form of an amputation to preserve human existence. There"s going to be an amputation.
Once that amputation takes place, once the faithful are removed, God pours out His wrath on the kingdom of Antichrist. He pours out His wrath on the kingdom of Antichrist. We must draw a distinction between "tribulation" and "wrath"; they"re different words in Greek. God's people – the faithful church – will never experience the wrath of the Lord. But the cohorts of Antichrist will experience the wrath of the Lord. The "Day of the Lord" takes place when the church is removed. The faithful bride, the faithful church is literally amputated, taken out of here. When that happens then God pours out His wrath. This is the "Day of Yahweh", the "Day of the Lord".
We"re told in the Hebrew Scriptures – one of the passages – "be ye not anxious for the day of the Lord". (Amos 5:18-20) We shouldn"t want it to come. We should want Jesus to come, but the "Day of the Lord" is something completely different.The Babylonian CaptivityLet"s begin looking, please, for the book of Joel, the Hebrew prophet Joel. Joel was the first prophet who prophesied for the Babylonian captivity. And like all of Israel"s prophets, Joel prophesied for at least three time frames. He prophesied for his own time and the events leading up to the Babylonian captivity, he prophesied for the First Coming of Jesus, and he prophesied for the Second Coming of Jesus, sometimes all in the same breath, certainly in the same passage. When we read Joel, or prophets like him, we have to always be aware what was for his own time, what was for the First Coming of Christ, and what"s for the return of Christ. Or what is for a combination – both, when things happen again. What happened with the Babylonian captivity teaches about what will happen in the Last Days.
Now, you remember Nebuchadnezzar built the image, didn't he, to be worshiped. Nebuchadnezzar desecrated the Jewish temple. The image – if you read the dimensions in Aramaic – it comes to six-hundred and sixty-six with the steps and so forth in the book of Daniel. Nebuchadnezzar entered the "Beautiful Land". And in the last days of Judah before the captivity, the people were being misled by their leaders. There were only a few people like Jeremiah and Barach telling the truth. The people on a popular level chose to follow the false prophets who were telling them things like, "Victory"s coming." "Blessing is coming."
"Prosperity is coming." They were being given this one message by all these prophets. People like Jeremiah were giving the opposite message. The people on a popular level chose to follow the false prophets and negate the voice of the true ones. The Last Days will be the same way. Most of Christendom will follow the false prophets and reject the people telling the truth. Israel will reject the true voices God has sent to it: Messianic Jews, Jewish believers who preach the Gospel. They would rather follow the deceptions of the rabbis. What happened then will happen again.It Happened AgainNow, it also happened in 70 A.D. The same, exact pattern that happened in the last days of Judah with the Babylonian captivity happened in 70 A.D. In the Olivet discourse, Jesus begins talking about 70 A.D. before He talks about anything else. "Not one stone will be thrown down upon another". Pay attention.
The mystery religions of Babylon that began with the Tower of Babel, with Nimrod – those mystery religions that began in Babylon – made their way through Asia Minor, particularly the city of Pergamum, "where Satan"s throne is", and from there into the Greco-Roman world. Today those same mystery religions are preserved in things like Free Masonery, Roman Catholicism, the Greek Orthodox Church, and so forth, but the root of those things is in Babylon. The early Christians identified Rome with Babylon because they knew that Rome had become the new home of those mystery religions. That"s why in his epistle, Peter writing from Rome says, "She who is in Babylon greets you."
The Babylonians destroyed the first temple on Tishah be"Av, roughly the 9th of August. They surrounded the city as Jeremiah predicted. The Romans destroyed the second temple in 70 A.D. the exact, same day: Tishah be"Av. The first temple and second temple were destroyed the same day. But it was only the early Christians who understood this is the same as Babylon. The Jewish believers escaped. They remembered what Jesus said, "When you see it surrounded, flee to the mountains."A Type of RaptureAfter the apostle James had been martyred, a cousin of Jesus names Simeon was the pastor – the senior pastor – of the church in Jerusalem. The Romans inexplicably withdrew the siege very temporarily and the Jewish believers escaped to a place called "Pellah". Not "Petra", but "Pellah". They thought that was going to be the Rapture. And in fact it was a type of the Rapture, but they escaped. The way that those believers escaped before all hell came upon Jerusalem is exactly what will happen in the end.
If you want to know what the "Day of the Lord" will be like, read Josephus" "The Wars of the Jews". What happened inside Jerusalem after the believers escaped is what will happen to the whole planet. It"s a microcosm of what will happen to the whole planet. Starvation became so terrible, women began fighting over afterbirth. They were waiting for women to deliver babies so they"d have something to eat. That is what happened in Jerusalem. More than that, the partisans – their own people, the sikim, the Zealots – were more cruel and barbaric than the Romans were. It was something inside the city as well as outside. The "Day of the Lord" is prefigured by what happened in Jerusalem in 70 A.D. after the church was removed.
Now there are many other things in the Bible that teach about the "Day of the Lord", what this period will be like, but for our purposes think of what happened in 70 A.D. Only those who followed Jesus made it out of there; the others were left and something terrible happened. And it will happen again.
Now, in 70 A.D. when the Romans destroyed the temple, they set up Pagan incense on the temple mount where the Holy of Holies had been and began worshiping the incense, worshiping their gods where the Holy of Holies had been. After the believers escaped, they understood this to be the "shiqqutzim meshomem" – the "Abomination of Desolations." Once again, what happened then is a microcosm, a shadow, a picture of what will happen at the end.
Now, I"ll go through this again for the sake of new believers. Joel prophesied about the Babylonian captivity. What happened at the time Joel prophesied – predicted – is a picture of what will happen in the Last Days. But it also fulfilled partially in 70 A.D. What happened in 70 A.D. as Jesus warned in the Olivet discourse in Matthew 24, that is a picture of what the "Day of the Lord" will be like. Only it will not just be something local in Jerusalem, it will be the entire planet; an entire planet of people going through that kind of a situation. Can you imagine an entire planet of people waiting to fight over a maternal afterbirth to have something to eat? Can you imagine? If you read Josephus, it is shocking. It is horrific.
Now, Jeremiah laments this. The book of Lamentations is called "Eichah" in Hebrew, and it"s read on Tishah be"Av. It"s read the day the temples were destroyed. Ritually in the synagogues to this day, the rabbis read the book of Lamentations – "Eichah" – where Jeremiah laments the destruction that took place. Only Jeremiah was also rescued, wasn"t he? He got out of there with his followers. Before this happens, the faithful people always have a ticket out. Our task in this conference is to make sure you have a ticket.The InsectsWith this in view, turn with me to the book of Joel, chapter 1. "Yo"el Hanawbe".
The word of the LORD that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel.
Verse 4.
What the cutting locust left, the swarming locust has eaten;
What the swarming locust has left, the hopping locust has eaten;
And what the hopping locust has left, the destroying locust has eaten.
Joel uses insects the way that Daniel uses monsters. These insects are pictures of political entities – invading political entities. Daniel generally uses beasts, Joel uses insects, the book of Revelation uses both. Notice there are four swarms of locusts, four different swarms of locusts. The Babylonian captivity of the Jews took place in four invasions. Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians invaded four times, and each time there was a greater and greater deportation of Jews.
This idea of a systematic deportation is exactly what happened in the Holocaust of the 1930"s and 40"s. They built a wall around the Jewish ghettos – the "shtettles" – and they would deport a certain amount the first time, a certain amount the second time, a certain amount the third time, and then the rest the fourth time. That"s exactly what happened with the concentration camps in the 1930"s and 40"s, very much in the character of Nebuchadnezzar; the same demonic spirit.Deception in the Last DaysNow, you"ve got these four swarms of locusts. Look what follows it in verse 5. What does Joel say?
Awake, you drunkards, and weep;
And wail, all you drinkers of wine,
Because of the sweet wine
For it"s been cut off from your mouth.
Understand the deception being perpetrated against the body of Christ today. I"m going to speak very directly.
This is a Calvary Chapel. In the earlier years of Calvary Chapel, Chuck Smith kicked somebody out of Calvary Chapel essentially. His name was John Wimber. He was part of Calvary Chapel and Chuck Smith booted him out, gave him the boot – in effect. Because he began teaching things that were based on experience instead of on Scripture: Experiential Theology. Wimber went into mysticism, he went into Gnosticism, he went into New Age philosophy putting it into Christian terms. And he would later align himself with people from Kansas City who said they were prophets. One of these people, Mike Bickle, said the rapture of Elijah was a judgment. Telling people "rapture" of God is a "judgment"? "Elijah was too negative", so God had to remove him in judgment.
Another one of his prophets was Bob Jones. That was his name. A man found to be in serious sexual immorality (this was publicly known – I"m not throwing mud), but another was Paul Cain. Paul Cain, John Wimber, Mike Bickle – they came to England and they had a big, huge conference in London in August of 1990. And they told the people from England and from other places that the "Latter Day Rain" was going to happen, the "Manifest Sons" would be revealed, there"d be a great outpouring of God's Spirit. And this revival would come and begin in England and then spread to Germany and then into continental Europe.
Well, it so happens I live in England (most of the time), and I can tell you that since the "great revival" prophesied for October of 1990 – that"s when they said it would happen – five times more mosques than churches have been built in England. For every church that"s been built, five mosques have been built since 1990. The Methodists close one church a week, the Church of England closes two to three churches a week, one mosque a week opens in England. They prophesied falsely, they predicted things that didn't happen, and they made these predictions in the name of the Lord. It was then revealed about two years ago that Paul Cain is an alcoholic and a homosexual. But you had all of these Charismatics (and I am a Charismatic – I certainly am not a Cessastionist) following people who were making these predictions, who were alcoholics, who were homosexuals, and were telling people things they wanted to hear.
The people cheered them. They believed this was the "Latter Day Rain", the "Manifest Sons". And then they went on to say they were "the locusts who were going to devour". We"ll come to that in a moment. Look at the next verse, 5.
Awake, ye drunkards, and weep.
The same churches who follow the Kansas City crowd followed people from Toronto, Canada and later Pensacola, Florida. And there was a South African gentlemen (who doesn"t like me) named Rodney Howard-Browne. (He actually denounced me in front of about 8,000 people in Melbourne, Australia because I put out a video showing what he was doing.) And he actually goes around singing a song – I"m not kidding you, this is the song – "Drinking at Joel"s Place". He sings a song, "Drinking at Joel"s Place", telling people to get drunk in the Holy Ghost and to fall in hysterics.
Now, that is what they are saying about the book of Joel. Look what Joel says about the book of Joel. They say they"re drunk, Joel says sober up. They say to laugh, Joel said to weep. No revival has ever begun with people laughing. Every revival has begun with people weeping in repentance.Can There Be Revival?Can there be a great, End Times revival? The Bible speaks more – much more – of a great, End Times falling away, of a great, End Times apostasy than it does a revival. Now, there is to be a second outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Israel and the Jews during this time. That is true. But it will come during the time of "Jacob"s Trouble". During "HaTekufa ha Tsorat Yakov", the darkest hour of their history that takes place at this period. It will not be a happy time.
If revival comes – pay attention – it will be like the revival before the Babylonian captivity. What was the revival before the Babylonian captivity? It was the revival of King Josiah. The sin had become so treacherous, particularly the genocidal sacrifice of Jewish children to demons like Molech under King Manasseh. King Manasseh sacrificed and killed all these kids. So even though a repentance did come, even though a revival did come, God said the axe won"t fall in your lifetime because you"ve been faithful, but the axe still must fall; things have gone too far. Pay attention.
I don"t say revival can"t come. I don"t say the "Day of the Lord" cannot be, in theory, be delayed. But the axe must fall. Why? Look at it. 40 million babies aborted in the United States in non-therapeutic abortions since "Roe vs. Wade". 40 million! Had they not done that, the Social Security system would not be in trouble. That same generation responsible for "Rove v. Wade" is now going to reap the whirlwind...euthanasia will be the next battle. The demands on the public health care systems, on Social Security, "We can"t let these people go on living into their 90"s and into their 80"s with improved medicine – we have to let them die." Otherwise the system – mark my words – it will go from "voluntary" euthanasia to "involuntary" euthanasia. That fetus had no choice about being aborted, neither will that generation that aborted them. They will reap what the sowed. It is inevitable that the judgment of God must come on the western world. It must fall on the Protestant democracies.
If revival comes, the most you can do is delay the inevitable. Things have gone too far. "If my people, who are called by My name will turn and pray, I"ll heal their land" – that is true; but it can only be true in the way it was in the days of Josiah. Things have just gone too far. Too far. This is not to say we shouldn"t pray for revival – we should – but understand when it comes it will only delay the inevitable. A chance for more people to be saved. God will increase and return His grace ultimately back to His ancient people Israel.Sober UpSo for this to come about, Joel is saying, "Sober up." Today, major denominations are telling people, "No, get drunk". The word is "sobreizo" in Greek. We"re told to practice self-control. The fruit of the Spirit is "egkrateia" – "self control" – they are saying be out of control. If someone is not in control of themselves, the Holy Spirit is not in control of them.
I went to Toronto, Canada on business and I visited that lunatic asylum with the cross on the roof to see what was going on. The first thing that I noticed was that everyone was talking about experience, nobody was talking about Jesus. And they kept saying, "I couldn"t control it! I couldn"t control it!" Well, the fact that you couldn"t control it proves it"s not God. The fruit of the Spirit is self-control.
Just think of somebody that used to be an alcoholic who becomes a Christian. An alcoholic, let"s say. I was a cocaine addict when I was a teenager, but let"s say somebody"s an alcoholic. The Lord delivered me from cocaine – actually He did – but for somebody else, the Lord delivers them from alcohol addiction. If that person goes into a pub or a bar and begins drinking again, is the Holy Spirit in control of them? No. A beer to them is what cocaine is to me: death. If the Holy Spirit was in control of them, they"d be in control of themselves. When people sin, the Holy Spirit"s not in control of them, are they? When we sin, the Holy Spirit"s not in control of us at that instance. We"re grieving the Holy Spirit. "I know it"s God, I just couldn"t control..." The fact that they couldn"t control it proves it"s not God we"re told twice in the New Testament. The fruit of the Holy Spirit is "egkrateia". Now, notice that they"re saying the diametric opposite of what Scripture says.Blow A TrumpetChapter 2:1 of Joel.
Blow a trumpet in Zion,
Sound an alarm on God's holy mountain!
Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble,
For the day of the Lord is coming near;
A day of darkness and gloom,
A day of clouds and thick darkness.
Like blackness there is spread upon the mountains,
A great and powerful people;
Their like has never been seen before,
Nor will be again after them
To all the years of all generations.
Fire devours before them
A flame burns after them.
The land is like the garden of Eden before them
But after them a desolate wilderness,
Nothing escapes them.
Their appearance is like the appearance of horses;
And like war horses, they run.
As with rumbling of chariots
They leap on top of the mountains,
Like the crackling of a flame of fire devouring the stubble,
Like a powerful army drawn up for battle.
Before them people are in anguish;
All faces grow pale.
Like warriors they charge,
Like soldiers they scale the wall;
They each march each his way,
They do not swerve from their paths.
They do not jostle one other,
Each marches in his path;
They burst through the weapons,
They are not halted.
They leap upon the city,
They run on the walls;
They climb up into houses,
They enter through the windows like a thief.
The earth quakes before them,
The heavens tremble,
The sun and the moon are darkened
The stars withdraw their shining.
The same as the Olivet discourse.
The Lord utters His voice before His army;
For His camp is exceedingly great,
He who executes His word is powerful.
For the day of the Lord is great and very awesome,
Who can endure it?
"Yet even now," declares the Lord,
"Return to Me with all your heart,
And with fasting, weeping and mourning;
Rend not your garments but your hearts."
Return to the Lord,
He"s gracious and merciful,
Slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love
And He relents.
But they wouldn"t blow the trumpet in Zion. This corresponds in figure to the Hebrew Feast of Trumpets. Today, the rabbis gave the Feast of Trumpets a completely different meaning than the Scripture does. "When the people in the city hear the shofar, will they not tremble?" It"s a convocation and a warning. It"s the Jews being regathered to Israel for the Great Tribulation. The Jews are not going back to Israel for a picnic or a blessing; they"re going back to be deceived by the Antichrist, to make a covenant with death, and to go into a holocaust in which two-thirds of them will be wiped out.
My children were born in Galilee. My own children are Israeli Jews born in Galilee. I firmly believe in the prophetic purposes of God for Israel and the Jews, I believe in Israel"s right to exist as a nation. I"m appalled at the pressure America and other governments put on it to acquiesce to Islamic barbarism. Nonetheless, I"m still left with the fact that there is no peace without the Prince of Peace. There is no blessing without the atonement of the Messiah.
When you see Jews getting on planes and ships going to Israel, they may as well be getting on a train going to Auschwitz or Buchenwald. There are organizations claiming to be "Christian embassies", claiming to be "wings of eagles" who say, "Just get the Jews back to Israel and God will save them." Two-thirds of them are going to be wiped out. Yes, all Israel will be saved, those who look upon Him who they pierced will be saved, but the others are going to be killed. The Jewish people need Jesus the Messiah. Do not support any organization or ministry that does not give the Jews the Gospel.
Now, one of the reason our ministry supports Brad Antolovich – Calvary Chapel Jerusalem – is because, oh they"re bringing Jews back from Ukraine and Russia, and they"re helping Jews with humanitarian aid, but they"re giving the Jews what they need the most: the Good News of Yeshua the Messiah. There are good ministries and there are bad ones. Unfortunately, a lot of the money goes to the bad ones.Changing the MeaningThe rabbis changed the meaning of Trumpets. You know what they call it now? "Rosh Hashanah." "Happy New Year". Now, biblically they should be saying, "Oy v"voy", "Woe upon woe!" When the trumpet is sounded, let the people tremble. But instead of saying, "Oy v"voy", "Woe upon woe!", the rabbis are telling Jewish people to say, "Happy New Year!" But they"re not saved; they don"t know their Messiah, Yeshua.
What do you do when the church, when its leaders instead of telling people to sober up are telling them to get drunk? Or instead of telling them to fall down and weep, they"re telling them to fall down and laugh. Israel"s blind, the church is blind. So much of Israel is blind. Only a small remnant, albeit a growing remnant of Jews, no the truth that Jesus is the Messiah. The proportions are not much different. In a Calvary Chapel you general don"t see the same degree of error you see in most other churches and denominations today, but they"re all going with this kind of stuff, one fad after another. Pensacola, Pepsi-Cola, Purpose Driven, anything as long as it"s not biblical, they"re going to do it.
Pay attention. Jesus said directly, "When you see these things happening, lift up your head, your redemptions draws near." The book of Revelation is the only book of the Bible with a special blessing promised for reading it. There"s a blessing for reading all of it, but there"s an actual, literal blessing – Jesus promises a blessing for reading it. So who are people listening to? Events are happening in the Middle East today, but the Scripture warned us. Things are happening in Europe. The re-confederation of Europe in non-democratic Europe is exactly what Daniel said and is happening today. "When you see these things happening, lift up your head, your redemption"s draws near." We see the "Day of the Lord" drawing near, so who are people listening to? I"ll tell you who they"re listening to: They"re listening to a man in California named Rick Warren who said don"t study Bible prophecy, it"s a diversion. Jesus says when you see this stuff happening, you better get into this book and understand what"s going on. "Oh no, don"t do that", says Rick Warren. Who cares what Jesus Christ said? Why do we need Him when we have the Purpose Driven? I can prove it; he said it, as well as at least a dozen other things co-equally as crazy and as dangerous. You see the deception?Increasing DeceptionThere are three kinds of people in God's economy as the "Day of the Lord" draws near: There"s the Jews, the Gentile nations, and the church composed of both Jew and Gentile. There"s the Jew, the Gentiles, and the church.
Satan has the Jews deceived; they don"t recognize their Messiah, except for a faithful remnant. Satan has the nations deceived. That leaves the church. He"s trying to deceive you and me.
When they asked the Lord Jesus at the Olivet discourse, "What will be the sign of Your coming at the end of the age?", He spoke of wars one time, rumors and wars one time, famines one time, earthquakes one time, pestilence one time – one time, one time, one time – persecution one time, but He warned of deception perpetrated against the Elect four times. In fact, the first words out of His mouth – "Lord, what will be the sign of Your coming at the end of the age?" – "See to it that no one leads you astray." The first words out of His mouth. He warned about deception perpetrated against you and me, your family and my family, your church and my church – He warned about that four times more than any other sign of the end.
If you asked me when I was a young believer back in the early 70"s, or even if you asked me 15 years ago, or even 10 years ago, why I though it was the Last Days, I would tell you, "Israel, the European Union, destruction of the environment, globalization of the world economy" – I would have told you all that stuff. Now in fact, I"m even more convinced that stuff is prophetically significant now than I was 10 years ago; I"m even more convinced that stuff is prophetically significant now than I"ve ever been. But it"s no longer the clearest signs. The clearest signs of the return of Jesus and the approach of the "Day of the Lord" is deception perpetrated against the Elect: The numbers and caliber of the people who are believing it and buying into it and subscribing into it.
How can anybody in their right mind think they can be out of control when the Bible says be in control? How can anybody in their right mind say don"t study prophecy, when Jesus said we should? Deception. He"s got the Jews, he"s getting the church. "Blow a trumpet". No, it is not "Happy New Year", it is "Oy v"voy".The Locust ArmiesNow these armies of Babylon, represented by locusts, appear again in the book of Revelation. In other words, what happened with Nebuchadnezzar is a shadow of what will transpire eschatologically in the future, the Apocalypse. You understand? What happened with the Babylonian captivity will happen again. Turn to Revelation 9, please.
And the fifth angel blew his trumpet...
(Now, remember the trumpets.)
...and I saw a star fallen from heaven to earth and he was given the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit. He opened the shaft of the bottomless pit and from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace. And the sun and air were darkened with smoke from the shaft.
What does it say in Joel? The sun will be darkened, a star will fall from heaven.
Then from the smoke came locusts on the earth. And they were given power like the power of scorpions on the earth.
Well, here"s the locusts, they"re coming again. Look what they did the last time. So what does the church do? What should we do? We should blow this and warn people Jesus is coming. "No, don"t do that," says Rick Warren. "That"s a diversion." What are they doing? Can you believe it? These locusts are the demon cohorts of Antichrist. These locusts, who had a literal fulfillment in the Babylonian army, are a picture of the demon cohorts of Antichrist in Revelation 9.
I have been – not to churches – to stadiums. Stadiums – not with hundreds, not with thousands, but with tens of thousands of born again Christians, supposedly – and you know what they were singing?
"We run on the city, we run on the walls,
Great is the army who carries his word."
They think they"re thinking about themselves. They think they"re singing about them. They think, "Daddy"s locusts". These are the great army. Yes, it"s called Yahweh"s army, it"s His army of judgment to bring His own people to repentance like the Babylonians were. They"re actually singing about the demon cohorts of Antichrist and they think they"re singing about themselves.The Absence of Doctrine"Blow a trumpet in Zion, Zion. Here we come. Latter Day Rain, Manifest Sons, the Manchild, Kingdom Now." This whole global peace plan, you know what it is? Kingdom Now theology. Over-realized eschatology, post-millenialism. Hyper-Charismatics don"t have any doctrine; they go by experience, feelings, mysticism. They don"t have any doctrine.
So where do they get their doctrine? They go to hyper-Calvinists called "Reconstructionists", the followers of Rushdoony, David Chilton, Greg Bonson, Gary North. Reconstructionists, people who believe that the church has to take over the institutions of government and finance and establish the kingdom of God before Jesus comes. So you have a hyper-Calvinist kook and a hyper-Charismatic kook, where does this Charismatic get his eschatology? Where does a "kook" get his doctrine? Well, quite obviously and quite logically, he gets it from another kook.
• "Kook" + "Kook" = "Kingdom Now".
• "Kook" + "Kook" = "Manifest Sons".
• "Kook" + "Kook" = "Manchild".
• "Kook" + "Kook" = "Global Peace Plan".
There is a global peace plan, but you know what bothers me most about Rick Warren"s "Five Point Global Peace Plan"? It"s not God's. It"s about education, it"s about social welfare, it"s about all those things, but it doesn"t talk about the Gospel. It doesn"t even talk about salvation.
They are being set up for this. They actually sing this. They"re singing about Antichrist"s army and they think it"s about them! Pay attention. David Hocking and myself were talking about this in Germany. Remember when Jesus warned, "When you pray, do not heap up empty phrases like the heathen do"? In Hinduism it"s a mantra. Over and over and over and over. The whole "Mary" thing in Catholic countries is so strong you can"t tell them, "Look, Mary says she needs a Savior" because they"ve said too many rosaries. Like Goebbels, Hitler"s propaganda minister said, "If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it"s the truth."
They get into the mantra. So we have what some people call the "7-11 choruses": 7 words, repeated 11 times. Where do these people get their theology? They get it from mindlessly singing choruses as if they were a mantra. The people in these churches who went to this lunacy – you see, there"s no exposition of the Word, they just sing and sing the same thing over and over, but it doesn"t dawn on them much of what they"re singing is not even Scriptural. They become inundated by it like a mantra. It is the same as Hinduism .The Eastern InvasionThis is the third time – third time – eastern religion has permeated – invaded – the western church. Jeremiah warns of it in chapter 5: "My people are filled with influences from the east."
The first time it happened was with the post-Nicean fathers, particularly in Alexandria; that was the first time eastern religion invaded western Christendom, with the Gnostics.
The second time was when the Crusades brought the influences of Hinduism and Sufi Islam into Europe. The second time was the Crusades. The whole thing with little girls dressed like brides for the community and counting their prayers on beads, that was all copied from Muslims and Hindus. The flagellation things in the monasteries and convents, that was all copied from Shi"a Muslims. That was the second time.
This is the third time eastern religion has invaded the western church.
2004, the National Pastor"s Conference in San Diego, the keynote speaker – I"m only telling you what was on the agenda – 11:30 to 1, Rick Warren. After a coffee break, you know what the next session was? Yoga. It"s on the Internet. (At least it was.) The National Pastor"s Conference! These are Evangelical pastors! Yoga! They don"t have a clue what"s happening.
That day should not overtake us like a thief. He"s coming like a thief in the night, but it shouldn"t overtake us like a thief. It"s going to shock people, it"s going to surprise them, but it should not shock or surprise us. Let"s look. What should we be doing?The Proper ContextTurn with me again to the book of Joel 2.
Blow the trumpet in Zion,
...verse 15...
Call a solemn assembly,
Gather the people, consecrate the congregation,
Assemble the elders,
Gather the children, even nursing infants,
Let the bridegroom leave his room
And the bride her chambers.
There"s a reason for that. Remember Jesus warned they"ll be marrying and given in marriage?
Let them gather between the vestibule and the altar,
Let the priests, the Lord"s ministers weep
And say, "Spare Your people, O Lord."
Make not Your heritage a reproach,
A byword among the nations.
Spare Your people, O Lord.
A "text", out of context, in isolation from its co-text, is always a "pretext". Satan is great at taking Scriptures out of context. Look what he did with Jesus. He tried it with Jesus. That whole argument between Satan and Jesus in Matthew 4 was from the book of Deuteronomy. Satan would pull a verse out of context, Jesus would answer him in context. Whatever Jesus answered was from Deuteronomy because everything Satan raises from Deuteronomy – he was great at taking certain verses out of context. It"s simple: A text, out of context, in isolation from its co-text, is always a pretext.
So they"ll point out in Peter"s charigma in the Book of Acts 2 that he quotes from Joel 2:28.
Afterwards it shall come to pass I"ll pour out my Spirit on your flesh, and your sons and daughters will prophesy.
That"s true. But first of all, in its context, it"s mainly focused on Israel and the Jews. Secondly, it doesn"t precede calamity, it follows it. They"re buying into a big lie. Buying into a big lie. It doesn"t matter what you say.Does It Matter To You?Last week I was in Hawaii and the Lord put in my way the biggest con-artist, false prophet, money preacher in the world. Eyeball to eyeball, I with him. Eyeball to eyeball, I told him he was a false prophet, that I can prove he"s made these predictions in the name of the Lord that didn't happen, that he needs to repent and get out of the ministry. It doesn"t matter what I told him. No, it doesn"t mean I shouldn"t have told him. Ezekiel says tell them anyway, even if they won"t listen. It"s like serving an indictment, but they won"t listen. It just doesn"t matter to them. The question is, does it matter to you? Do you want a ticket out of here? The "Day of the Lord" is coming.
There is a message. The message is not, "Get drunk", the message is not to lose self-control, the message is not, "Happy New Year". The message is you pick up your Bible; this is the message. What does it say in Amos? "Set the trumpet to thy mouth."
Blow a trumpet in Zion.
Sound an alarm in my holy mountain,
The day of the Lord draws near.
You see CNN today? You watch Fox News today? The "Day of the Lord" draws near. But when the biggest preachers in the world are giving the flock the opposite message, what chance will the sheep have from these wolves when their own shepherds give them over?
No, there is a message. The message is the "Day of the Lord" indeed draws near.
Blow the trumpet in Zion,
Consecrate a fast, call an assembly, a solemn assembly,
Gather all the people, consecrate the congregation,
Assemble the elders,
Gather the children, even the nursing infants.
Remember what Jesus said about the nursing mothers.
Let the bridegroom leave his room
Let the bride her chamber.
Blow the trumpet in Zion,
Sound an alarm in God's mountain!
The day of the Lord draws near
Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord weep
And let them say, "Spare thy people, O Lord."
God bless.
The Death of Reason
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For God has not given us a spirit of timidity but of power and love and discipline. (2 Timothy 1:7)
In this verse we see it is not of the Holy Spirit to be cowardly. The context of the passage suggests a willingness to suffer for the sake of proclaiming Christ (as Paul did), for upholding sound teaching and having no sense of ignominy in this proclamation and upholding (verses 8-14). If God's Spirit is infusing our spirits with the true character of Christ it will be evident in a power to proclaim Christ and uphold right doctrine, and in a love that furnishes us a desire to do it.
Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or of me His prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity, but now has been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, for which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle and a teacher. For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day. Retain the standard of sound words which you have heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. Guard, through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you. (2 Tmothy 1:8-14)
In this text, Paul directly and strongly relates this to the Last Days and the Return of Christ (verse 12). This contrasts with many situations in these Last Days where cowardice in the church results in a lack of love so that evangelism is either abandoned (e.g. Ebenezer Fund) or where the gospel presentation is diluted (e.g. Nicky Gumbel's Alpha Courses), and where the upholding of truth is compromised. Contrary to the will of God expressed for us in the text and as demonstrated in the apostolic example of Paul, many Christians today find a sense of ignominy in proclaiming Jesus as the only Way of salvation in an age of interfaith and ecumenism.
The third element of the new spirit God gives us is discipline, or "sound mind". The Greek term here is "sophronismou". This term means "sound judgment" resulting in the capacity to control one's behavior accordingly. The "soph" prefix of this term carries the meaning of wisdom in Greek. (When linked to the Greek word for human love it forms our English word "philosophy"). It is almost the same as the Greek word sophoi, meaning "wise ones", those with an informed ability to reason logically. Sophoi is also a Greek translation of the Hebrew "wise ones" or chakamim—those possessing the divine wisdom mentioned repeatedly in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes that governs their actions. It is not however the same Greek term for "self-control" (ekreitei) as in the Fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5, (although by definition it relates to it) but sophronismou is rather a spiritual nature resulting in the mental ability to think and act logically and reasonably with wisdom in accordance with God's Word.
Where it is lacking, real power and real love are also in deficient supply, but cowardice is not. Bearing in mind the eschatological (end times) emphasis Paul injects, let us examine, in light of this passage, the erosion of this "sound judgment" which, on the basis of God's Word, should be reflected in sound action.
In this verse we see it is not of the Holy Spirit to be cowardly. The context of the passage suggests a willingness to suffer for the sake of proclaiming Christ (as Paul did), for upholding sound teaching and having no sense of ignominy in this proclamation and upholding (verses 8-14). If God's Spirit is infusing our spirits with the true character of Christ it will be evident in a power to proclaim Christ and uphold right doctrine, and in a love that furnishes us a desire to do it.
Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or of me His prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity, but now has been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, for which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle and a teacher. For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day. Retain the standard of sound words which you have heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. Guard, through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you. (2 Tmothy 1:8-14)
In this text, Paul directly and strongly relates this to the Last Days and the Return of Christ (verse 12). This contrasts with many situations in these Last Days where cowardice in the church results in a lack of love so that evangelism is either abandoned (e.g. Ebenezer Fund) or where the gospel presentation is diluted (e.g. Nicky Gumbel's Alpha Courses), and where the upholding of truth is compromised. Contrary to the will of God expressed for us in the text and as demonstrated in the apostolic example of Paul, many Christians today find a sense of ignominy in proclaiming Jesus as the only Way of salvation in an age of interfaith and ecumenism.
The third element of the new spirit God gives us is discipline, or "sound mind". The Greek term here is "sophronismou". This term means "sound judgment" resulting in the capacity to control one's behavior accordingly. The "soph" prefix of this term carries the meaning of wisdom in Greek. (When linked to the Greek word for human love it forms our English word "philosophy"). It is almost the same as the Greek word sophoi, meaning "wise ones", those with an informed ability to reason logically. Sophoi is also a Greek translation of the Hebrew "wise ones" or chakamim—those possessing the divine wisdom mentioned repeatedly in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes that governs their actions. It is not however the same Greek term for "self-control" (ekreitei) as in the Fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5, (although by definition it relates to it) but sophronismou is rather a spiritual nature resulting in the mental ability to think and act logically and reasonably with wisdom in accordance with God's Word.
Where it is lacking, real power and real love are also in deficient supply, but cowardice is not. Bearing in mind the eschatological (end times) emphasis Paul injects, let us examine, in light of this passage, the erosion of this "sound judgment" which, on the basis of God's Word, should be reflected in sound action.
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Egypt, Babylon and the Palm of God
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By James Jacob Prasch
No, my friends; we will have our lives as our booty. "If you will indeed stay in this land, then I will build you up," says God. "Don't be afraid of the king of Babylon, for I am with you to save you and to deliver you from his hand." That is His promise.
No, my friends; we will have our lives as our booty. "If you will indeed stay in this land, then I will build you up," says God. "Don't be afraid of the king of Babylon, for I am with you to save you and to deliver you from his hand." That is His promise.
Elijah: A Man Who Could Make It Rain
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The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain; and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the sky poured rain, and the earth produced its fruit. (James 5:16-18)
Elijah was a man with a nature like ours. Elijah was a man who could make it rain. The Holy Spirit, through this text, is trying to tell us that, if he can do it, we can do it. We can make it rain. But what does that mean?Rain is a Type of the Holy Spirit Poured OutIn biblical typology, different liquids typify the Holy Spirit in different aspects:
New wine is a liquid which represents the Holy Spirit in the aspect of worship. Another liquid is oil, which speaks of the anointing of the Holy Spirit. But the living water, in Scripture, is always the Holy Spirit outpoured. The rain, outpoured, goes into the water table and becomes living water.
Jesus explained it this way:
"He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, 'From his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.'" But this He spoke of the Spirit whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified (John 7:38-39).
Jesus said directly that living water is the Holy Spirit outpoured.
For I will pour out water on your offspring, and My blessing on your descendants (Isa 44:3).
Once again, it says that God will pour out the water – that is rain – on the dry ground. And He says that this means He will pour out His Spirit. Rain is a figure.Rain in One City, But No Rain on the Other City And furthermore, I withheld the rain from you while there were still three months until harvest. Then I would send rain on one city and on another city I would not send rain; one part would be rained on, while the part not rained on would dry up. (Amos 4:7).
Why is it, for instance, that an evangelist like Reinhard Bonnke can preach in Africa and see thousands and thousands of people saved at a single meeting, but if he goes to Germany or England or Australia, nothing much happens? The answer is here in Amos 4:7. God would send rain on one city, but on another city he would send no rain. And the city without rain would have no harvest.
There is a sovereign work of grace in the outpouring of His Spirit. It is raining in Brazil, Korea, Indonesia, Philippines, and much of Africa. But in the Western Protestant countries which have had the Bible for 500 years, there is now a drought. God is turning His grace from the rich countries to the poor ones. White, Protestant Christianity is in numerical, moral, financial, theological and spiritual decline all over the world.
The church is growing in the Roman Catholic countries, the black countries, the olive-skinned countries and the yellow-skinned countries. The Anglican Church has declined massively in England, yet most of the African Anglican Bishops are outspoken evangelicals (Bishop Desmond Tutu being the notable exception). African Anglicans are terribly persecuted by Moslems in Nigeria. Throughout Asia the Anglican Church is very much alive. But in Britain, the Church of England is a dead church. The old time fire that happened in the Sunshine Revival in Australia, the Azusa Street Revival in California and the Sunderland Revivals in England with Smith Wigglesworth – that is what is happening now in places like Ecuador, Chile, the Philippines, Indonesia and Kenya. God will send rain on one city, while the city not rained upon will dry up.
Today we have people teaching formulas for Church Growth. That is nonsense. It doesn't work. There is a missing ingredient – the sovereign grace of God; His Spirit being outpoured.
His Word does not return void. (Is. 55:11) Some people will be saved, one here and one there, but, if you're talking about a massive harvest, no rain means no gain! But Elijah was a man who could make it rain and he was a man with a nature like ours. In other words, if he can do it, we can do it.For the Sake of the Fathers and for His Name's SakeI am convinced that God wants to give the Western Protestant democracies one more chance to repent before Jesus comes. God wants to give the Western countries another chance – not for our sake, but for His Name's sake. Not because we deserve it; we don't deserve it – our churches are, by and large, backslidden – but for the sake of our fathers.
As it says in Romans 11, God wants to give the Jews one more chance at the end of the world before Jesus comes. Why? Because when God looks at Israel, He doesn't just see Israel's sin and her ongoing rejection of her Messiah. When God looks at Israel, He still sees Jeremiah in prison. He still sees Isaiah being sawed in half by King Manasseh. He still sees Zachariah being martyred in the Temple. He still sees John the Baptist having his head chopped off. And he says "for the sake of their fathers, I want to give this nation one more chance."
Great Britain is the same. When God looks at Great Britain, He doesn't just see Britain as it is today, a so-called Christian country where Hindu gods are worshipped in Canterbury Cathedral whilst bishops deny the resurrection and the virgin birth. When God looks at Britain today, He sees all of it – past, present and future. He still sees John Bunyan chained to the wall of the Bedford County Jail for twelve years and writing The Pilgrim's Progress; He still sees John Wesley being stoned by mobs who were stirred up by the Church of England for preaching the Gospel; He still sees Tyndale being burned alive at a stake by the Church of Rome so we could have the Bible in English; He still sees Charles Haddon Spurgeon; He still sees Ridley and Latimer and Hooper, martyrs of England. And God says "For the sake of their fathers, and for my Name's sake, I want to give this nation one more chance."
This is equally true of the United States. He still sees Jonathan Edwards and D L Moody and Harry Ironside. He sees the faithful Christians. He doesn't just see what we have today with the Prosperity Preachers – the Mammon worshippers and the heretics.
God wants to give these Western Protestant nations one more chance to repent. But for them to have that chance, it has to rain.
First of all, we have to face up to the fact that we are in a drought. And, until this drought ends, all the programs in the world will not bring about repentance and revival in the church. It takes rain. No rain, no grain. No rain, no harvest. Elijah was a man like us who could make it rain. And today, God is looking for men and women like us, who can make it rain.
Now Elijah the Tishite, who was of the settlers of Glead, said to Ahab "As the LORD, the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, surely there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word." And the word of the LORD came to him, saying "Go away from here and turn eastward, and hide yourself by the brook Cherith which is east of the Jordan. And it shall be that you shall drink of the brook and I have commanded the ravens to provide for you there."
So he did according to the word of the LORD, for he went and lived by the brook Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. And the ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening, and he would drink from the brook. And it happened after a while, that the brook dried up, because there was no rain in the land. Then the word of the LORD came to him saying "Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and stay there; behold, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you." So he arose and went to Zarephath and he came to the gate of the city; behold a widow was there gathering sticks; and he called to her and get me a little water in a jar, that I may drink".
And as she was going to get it, he called to her and said "Please bring me a piece of bread in your hand." But she said "As the LORD your God lives, I have no bread, only a handful of flour in the bowl and a little oil in the jar; and behold, I am gathering a few sticks that I may go in and prepare for me and my son, that we may eat it and die."
Then Elijah said to her "Do not fear; go, do as you have said, but make me a little bread cake from it first, and bring it out to me, and afterward you may make one for yourself and for your son. For thus says the LORD God of Israel 'The bowl of flour shall not be exhausted, nor shall the jar of oil be empty until the day that the LORD sends rain on the face of the earth.'"
So she went and did according to the word of Elijah, and she and he and her household ate for many days. The bowl of flour was not exhausted, nor did the jar of oil become empty; according to the word of the LORD which He spoke through Elijah. Now it came about, after these things, that the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became sick; and his sickness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. So she said to Elijah "What have I to do with you, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my iniquity to remembrance and put my son to death!"
And he said to her "Give me your son." Then he took him from her bosom and carried him up to the upper room where he was living, and laid him on his own bed. And he called to the LORD and said "O LORD my God, hast Thou also brought calamity to the widow with whom I am staying, by causing her son to die?" Then he stretched himself upon the child three times, and called to the LORD and said "O LORD my God, I pray Thee, let this child's life return to him." And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah, and the life of the child returned to him and he revived. And Elijah took the child, and brought him down from the upper room into the house and gave him to his mother, and Elijah said "See your son is alive." Then the woman said to Elijah "Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the LORD in your mouth is truth."
Now it came about, after many days, that the word of the LORD came to Elijah in the third year, saying "To, show yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain on the face of the earth." So Elijah went to show himself to Ahab. Now the famine was severe in Samaria. (1 Kings 17:1- 18:2) And it came about, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said to him "Is this you, you troubler of Israel?" (1 Kings 18:17)
Then Elijah said to them "Seize the prophets of Baal; do not let one of them escape." So they seized them; and Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon, and slew them there. Now Elijah said to Ahab "Go up, eat and drink; for there is the sound of the roar of a heavy shower." So Ahab went up to eat and drink. But Elijah went up to the top of Carmel; and he crouched down on the earth and put his face between his knees. And he said to his servant "Go up now, look toward the sea" So he went up and looked and said "There is nothing" And he said "Go back" seven times. And it came about at the seventh time that he said "Behold, a cloud as small as a man's hand is coming up from the sea." And he said "Go up, say to Ahab 'Prepare your chariot and go down, so that the heavy shower does not stop you'". So it came about in a little while, that the sky grew black with clouds and wind, and there was a heavy shower. And Ahab rode and went to Jezreel. Then the hand of the LORD was on Elijah, and he girded up his loins and outran Ahab to Jezreel. (1 Kings 18:40-46)
And it rained and it rained and it rained.Some Background InformationThe three and a half years in which it did not rain is a type of the three and a half years referred to in Daniel and Revelation, when the Spirit will not be outpoured at the end of the world. It is a type of what happens eschatologicallly, when the spirit of Elijah comes back into operation in some way, as predicted by the prophet Malachi. Similarly, the way that Elijah rescued the Gentile woman and her son teaches something about the way that God is going to use the spirit of Elijah, somehow, to take care of the Gentile church at the end of the world.
Elijah, Elisha and John the Baptist all had the same spirit. The Lord told Moses that He would "take of the Spirit who is upon you, and will put Him upon" the elders of the people (Num. 11:17).
When events happen in the same geographical location it usually means that there is some spiritual and theological connection between them. Elijah's ministry ended on the plain of Jericho where Elisha received his mantle (meaning his authority), and John the Baptist's ministry occurred at the same place. The wicked woman, Jezebel, is a type of the woman Jezebel in the Book of Revelation – the spirit of false religion – who turned the king, the political power, into someone she could manipulate. On behalf of Ahab, she obtained Naboth's vineyard, which Ahab coveted. (1 Ki. 21) In scripture the vineyard speaks of Israel and, by extension or incorporation, the Church. The wicked woman tried to get the vineyard for the king. This brought her into conflict with Elijah and she persuaded the king to try to destroy Elijah. This is exactly the picture in the story of Herodias (Matt 14:3- 12) – the wicked woman turned the king against Elijah (John the Baptist).
Wicked women in the Bible all point in some way to the character of the wicked woman in the Book of Revelation where the conflict with Elijah is going to be replayed in the Last Days.Why Did the Rain Stop?The first thing in our study of how God takes a man like Elijah and turns him into someone who can make it rain is to learn why the rain stopped. The rain stopped because of the sin of God's people. The Holy Spirit is not being outpoured on the Western Protestant world because of its sin, which is identical to the sin of Israel in the days of Elijah.
Abortion replays the sacrifice of children to demons that we see within Israel and Judah in the Old Testament. The worship of other gods – the priests of Baal were not foreigners, they were Jews. Today it is the same. Across the Western Protestant world there is a dramatic increase of the worship of other gods – Islam, New Age, Hinduism. New Age is permeating many of the Evangelical and Pentecostal churches today. People are mixing Christianity with Paganism – that is where Roman Catholicism came from, and that is what is happening today in many Pentecostal churches.
Materialism - the Church is lukewarm, materialistic, filled with crazy doctrines. It has a version of "faith" that is not biblical – the worship of Mammon in Christian masquerade; covetousness disguised as Christianity.
That is why the rain stopped. The first and foremost responsibility for the decline of Western civilization does not lie with secular society, it lies with us. It was the sin of God's people that stopped the rain. the problems proliferating throughout our society – drugs, abortion, divorce, violence, crime – all testify to the failure of the church. God's people compromised and eventual Israel ended up with the priests of Baal. That is what happened in Elijah's day, and that is what is going on today. It is not raining in our countries, because of the sin of God's people.CherithThe first thing God told Elijah to do, was to go to the brook Cherith, which is east of the Jordan (1 Kings 17:3), and there the ravens would feed him.
Cherith was on the other side of the Jordan. When God told Elijah to leave his land and go to Cherith, he told him to leave behind his national identity, his cultural identity and his home comforts. On top of that, Elijah was to be fed by ravens. Ravens were not kosher – they were an "unclean" bird. God was going to provide for him in ways he would never have expected.
The drought is so critical in the Western world today, that people who would make it rain will have to be willing to go to Cherith.
Sometimes that will mean churches leaving traditional denominations that have compromised. Sometimes it will mean Christians leaving churches that have compromised, or that have gone into error and refuse to repent. And it will certainly mean trusting God to meet your needs in ways and in places you might not expect, even through things we consider to be almost unholy, like the ravens. Elijah had to be willing to put God first and his land second. So often today, the problem is that people are putting their land first – their culture, their identity, their denominations and their loyalties to those denominations – before obedience to the Word of God.
But the people who will make it rain will be the people who are not afraid to go to Cherith and trust God.ZarephathIt is darkest before the dawn. Things will become much worse before they get better. The brook of Cherith will eventually dry up.
In verse 9 we see that Elijah has to go to a place called Zarephath. The word "Zarephath" comes from the Hebrew root meaning "to burn or to purify by fire". For God to take somebody with a nature like ours and turn them into somebody who can make it rain, He needs to purify them by fire.
There is going to be a very difficult period – not just trial and testing, not just drought, nor even persecution – but all those things together. It will get to the point where the people you try to help will think you have betrayed them, as with the widow at Zarephath. But no matter how bad things get, no matter how dark it becomes, no matter how critical the drought, I can promise you two things: there will be flour in the dish and oil in the jar for those who are willing to be purified. Things are going to get bad before the breakthrough comes. But there is going to be flour in the dish and oil in the jar. You will have the Word of God and you will have the anointing of the Spirit, no matter what happens. You will have your grain and your oil when the others die from famine.
So she said to Elijah…
"What have I to do with you, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my iniquity to remembrance, and to put my son to death!" (1 Kings 17:18)
Her son died. And she blamed Elijah. The very people you try to help will see the hardship and they will blame you. Things have been so bad for so long that the things we love most will have to die before they can be resurrected.
Much of the church in the Western world will have to die before it can be resurrected. New wine cannot go into old wine skins. (Mk. 2:22) That was one of the problems with the Charismatic Movement – they tried to store the new wine in the old wine skins. In order to renew a church you have to replace the wine skin. The things that we have loved the most will have to die before they can be resurrected.Troublers of Israel "Is this you, you troubler of Israel?" (1 Kings 18:17).
Is this you, you troubler of the church? Is this you, you troubler of the Baptist Union? Is this you, you troubler of the Assemblies of God?You who are standing up against ecumenism and Kingdom Now and Faith-Prosperity and Name-It-and-Claim-It. You who are standing up against false miracles and bogus healings. You who are standing up against ministers making themselves rich by exploiting pensioners with lies. You troublers of Israel!That is what they said to Elijah and, if you want to make it rain, that is what they are going to say to you.
Next they go to Mount Carmel. Here the conflict occurs with Jezebel – the conflict with the spirit of false religion, with Roman Catholicism, ecumenism, Free Masonary, Islam, homosexuality, abortion and New Age. There is going to be a conflict, and those who win that conflict will be those who have been purified at Zarephath.
So much of what we call "charismatic worship" today – with the noise, the ranting and raving, and the hype – looks more like the priests of Baal on Mount Carmel than like Elijah. Notice that the priests of Baal really thought it would work, they thought they would get a response.
Our brethren today, caught up in ecumenism, Kingdom Now theology, Restorationism – all unbiblical, false and dangerous doctrines, all associated with hype and with prophecies that don't happen – actually believe these things. But the conflict will come and the people will see who the true prophets are.The Rain CloudIt begins small. It doesn't seem like anything is going to happen at first. Where is it?
With the priests of Baal it was all loud boasting and arrogance and cheering and hype. But God doesn't work that way. It begins small. Like a little hand coming out of the sea. It always begins small. But it gets bigger and soon the whole sky is filled with rain clouds. Lightning strikes and God's Spirit falls. And it rains and rains and rains.
There is no easy way to stop the decline of Christianity in the Western world. It has gone too far for too long. We have been sold down the river by our leaders. All the programs and hype and gimmicks in the world will not bring a harvest of souls. That takes rain. But the rain has stopped. Why? Partly because of the sin of society, but mostly because of the sin of the Church. And until there is repentance in the Church, there is not going to be a repentance in the world.
Why has the rain stopped? It is not primarily the fault of pornographers or pimps or prostitutes or drug dealers or homosexuals or abortionists. It is primarily my fault, because I know the truth and I have the message that can make the difference. It is our fault, because the church in the West is Laodicea (s), because we are trusting in this life and this world more than we are trusting in Jesus. It is not raining because of my sin and your sin.Those Who Make It RainThose who make it rain will be those who are not afraid to go to Cherith – people who are not bound by tradition or institutions.
They won't try to put new wine into old wine skins. They will do what God tells them and trust God to provide for them in ways they don't expect.
They will be people who are not afraid to be purified, people who will go to Zarephath, people who are willing to see things that they love die, knowing that these things will be resurrected in purity. It will be difficult. But no matter how difficult it gets, I promise you that there will be oil in the jar and flour in the dish.
And those people who are purified will go to Carmel and stand in front of Jezebel – in front of false religion and Free Masonry and homosexuality and Roman Catholicism and Islam. They will stand in front of the prophets of Baal – those who dare to call themselves ministers of the Gospel, but who compromise with false teaching.
There will be a conflict. And those troublers of Israel are going to win.
Elijah was a man with a nature like ours. Elijah was a man who could make it rain. The Holy Spirit, through this text, is trying to tell us that, if he can do it, we can do it. We can make it rain. But what does that mean?Rain is a Type of the Holy Spirit Poured OutIn biblical typology, different liquids typify the Holy Spirit in different aspects:
New wine is a liquid which represents the Holy Spirit in the aspect of worship. Another liquid is oil, which speaks of the anointing of the Holy Spirit. But the living water, in Scripture, is always the Holy Spirit outpoured. The rain, outpoured, goes into the water table and becomes living water.
Jesus explained it this way:
"He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, 'From his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.'" But this He spoke of the Spirit whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified (John 7:38-39).
Jesus said directly that living water is the Holy Spirit outpoured.
For I will pour out water on your offspring, and My blessing on your descendants (Isa 44:3).
Once again, it says that God will pour out the water – that is rain – on the dry ground. And He says that this means He will pour out His Spirit. Rain is a figure.Rain in One City, But No Rain on the Other City And furthermore, I withheld the rain from you while there were still three months until harvest. Then I would send rain on one city and on another city I would not send rain; one part would be rained on, while the part not rained on would dry up. (Amos 4:7).
Why is it, for instance, that an evangelist like Reinhard Bonnke can preach in Africa and see thousands and thousands of people saved at a single meeting, but if he goes to Germany or England or Australia, nothing much happens? The answer is here in Amos 4:7. God would send rain on one city, but on another city he would send no rain. And the city without rain would have no harvest.
There is a sovereign work of grace in the outpouring of His Spirit. It is raining in Brazil, Korea, Indonesia, Philippines, and much of Africa. But in the Western Protestant countries which have had the Bible for 500 years, there is now a drought. God is turning His grace from the rich countries to the poor ones. White, Protestant Christianity is in numerical, moral, financial, theological and spiritual decline all over the world.
The church is growing in the Roman Catholic countries, the black countries, the olive-skinned countries and the yellow-skinned countries. The Anglican Church has declined massively in England, yet most of the African Anglican Bishops are outspoken evangelicals (Bishop Desmond Tutu being the notable exception). African Anglicans are terribly persecuted by Moslems in Nigeria. Throughout Asia the Anglican Church is very much alive. But in Britain, the Church of England is a dead church. The old time fire that happened in the Sunshine Revival in Australia, the Azusa Street Revival in California and the Sunderland Revivals in England with Smith Wigglesworth – that is what is happening now in places like Ecuador, Chile, the Philippines, Indonesia and Kenya. God will send rain on one city, while the city not rained upon will dry up.
Today we have people teaching formulas for Church Growth. That is nonsense. It doesn't work. There is a missing ingredient – the sovereign grace of God; His Spirit being outpoured.
His Word does not return void. (Is. 55:11) Some people will be saved, one here and one there, but, if you're talking about a massive harvest, no rain means no gain! But Elijah was a man who could make it rain and he was a man with a nature like ours. In other words, if he can do it, we can do it.For the Sake of the Fathers and for His Name's SakeI am convinced that God wants to give the Western Protestant democracies one more chance to repent before Jesus comes. God wants to give the Western countries another chance – not for our sake, but for His Name's sake. Not because we deserve it; we don't deserve it – our churches are, by and large, backslidden – but for the sake of our fathers.
As it says in Romans 11, God wants to give the Jews one more chance at the end of the world before Jesus comes. Why? Because when God looks at Israel, He doesn't just see Israel's sin and her ongoing rejection of her Messiah. When God looks at Israel, He still sees Jeremiah in prison. He still sees Isaiah being sawed in half by King Manasseh. He still sees Zachariah being martyred in the Temple. He still sees John the Baptist having his head chopped off. And he says "for the sake of their fathers, I want to give this nation one more chance."
Great Britain is the same. When God looks at Great Britain, He doesn't just see Britain as it is today, a so-called Christian country where Hindu gods are worshipped in Canterbury Cathedral whilst bishops deny the resurrection and the virgin birth. When God looks at Britain today, He sees all of it – past, present and future. He still sees John Bunyan chained to the wall of the Bedford County Jail for twelve years and writing The Pilgrim's Progress; He still sees John Wesley being stoned by mobs who were stirred up by the Church of England for preaching the Gospel; He still sees Tyndale being burned alive at a stake by the Church of Rome so we could have the Bible in English; He still sees Charles Haddon Spurgeon; He still sees Ridley and Latimer and Hooper, martyrs of England. And God says "For the sake of their fathers, and for my Name's sake, I want to give this nation one more chance."
This is equally true of the United States. He still sees Jonathan Edwards and D L Moody and Harry Ironside. He sees the faithful Christians. He doesn't just see what we have today with the Prosperity Preachers – the Mammon worshippers and the heretics.
God wants to give these Western Protestant nations one more chance to repent. But for them to have that chance, it has to rain.
First of all, we have to face up to the fact that we are in a drought. And, until this drought ends, all the programs in the world will not bring about repentance and revival in the church. It takes rain. No rain, no grain. No rain, no harvest. Elijah was a man like us who could make it rain. And today, God is looking for men and women like us, who can make it rain.
Now Elijah the Tishite, who was of the settlers of Glead, said to Ahab "As the LORD, the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, surely there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word." And the word of the LORD came to him, saying "Go away from here and turn eastward, and hide yourself by the brook Cherith which is east of the Jordan. And it shall be that you shall drink of the brook and I have commanded the ravens to provide for you there."
So he did according to the word of the LORD, for he went and lived by the brook Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. And the ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening, and he would drink from the brook. And it happened after a while, that the brook dried up, because there was no rain in the land. Then the word of the LORD came to him saying "Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and stay there; behold, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you." So he arose and went to Zarephath and he came to the gate of the city; behold a widow was there gathering sticks; and he called to her and get me a little water in a jar, that I may drink".
And as she was going to get it, he called to her and said "Please bring me a piece of bread in your hand." But she said "As the LORD your God lives, I have no bread, only a handful of flour in the bowl and a little oil in the jar; and behold, I am gathering a few sticks that I may go in and prepare for me and my son, that we may eat it and die."
Then Elijah said to her "Do not fear; go, do as you have said, but make me a little bread cake from it first, and bring it out to me, and afterward you may make one for yourself and for your son. For thus says the LORD God of Israel 'The bowl of flour shall not be exhausted, nor shall the jar of oil be empty until the day that the LORD sends rain on the face of the earth.'"
So she went and did according to the word of Elijah, and she and he and her household ate for many days. The bowl of flour was not exhausted, nor did the jar of oil become empty; according to the word of the LORD which He spoke through Elijah. Now it came about, after these things, that the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became sick; and his sickness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. So she said to Elijah "What have I to do with you, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my iniquity to remembrance and put my son to death!"
And he said to her "Give me your son." Then he took him from her bosom and carried him up to the upper room where he was living, and laid him on his own bed. And he called to the LORD and said "O LORD my God, hast Thou also brought calamity to the widow with whom I am staying, by causing her son to die?" Then he stretched himself upon the child three times, and called to the LORD and said "O LORD my God, I pray Thee, let this child's life return to him." And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah, and the life of the child returned to him and he revived. And Elijah took the child, and brought him down from the upper room into the house and gave him to his mother, and Elijah said "See your son is alive." Then the woman said to Elijah "Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the LORD in your mouth is truth."
Now it came about, after many days, that the word of the LORD came to Elijah in the third year, saying "To, show yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain on the face of the earth." So Elijah went to show himself to Ahab. Now the famine was severe in Samaria. (1 Kings 17:1- 18:2) And it came about, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said to him "Is this you, you troubler of Israel?" (1 Kings 18:17)
Then Elijah said to them "Seize the prophets of Baal; do not let one of them escape." So they seized them; and Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon, and slew them there. Now Elijah said to Ahab "Go up, eat and drink; for there is the sound of the roar of a heavy shower." So Ahab went up to eat and drink. But Elijah went up to the top of Carmel; and he crouched down on the earth and put his face between his knees. And he said to his servant "Go up now, look toward the sea" So he went up and looked and said "There is nothing" And he said "Go back" seven times. And it came about at the seventh time that he said "Behold, a cloud as small as a man's hand is coming up from the sea." And he said "Go up, say to Ahab 'Prepare your chariot and go down, so that the heavy shower does not stop you'". So it came about in a little while, that the sky grew black with clouds and wind, and there was a heavy shower. And Ahab rode and went to Jezreel. Then the hand of the LORD was on Elijah, and he girded up his loins and outran Ahab to Jezreel. (1 Kings 18:40-46)
And it rained and it rained and it rained.Some Background InformationThe three and a half years in which it did not rain is a type of the three and a half years referred to in Daniel and Revelation, when the Spirit will not be outpoured at the end of the world. It is a type of what happens eschatologicallly, when the spirit of Elijah comes back into operation in some way, as predicted by the prophet Malachi. Similarly, the way that Elijah rescued the Gentile woman and her son teaches something about the way that God is going to use the spirit of Elijah, somehow, to take care of the Gentile church at the end of the world.
Elijah, Elisha and John the Baptist all had the same spirit. The Lord told Moses that He would "take of the Spirit who is upon you, and will put Him upon" the elders of the people (Num. 11:17).
When events happen in the same geographical location it usually means that there is some spiritual and theological connection between them. Elijah's ministry ended on the plain of Jericho where Elisha received his mantle (meaning his authority), and John the Baptist's ministry occurred at the same place. The wicked woman, Jezebel, is a type of the woman Jezebel in the Book of Revelation – the spirit of false religion – who turned the king, the political power, into someone she could manipulate. On behalf of Ahab, she obtained Naboth's vineyard, which Ahab coveted. (1 Ki. 21) In scripture the vineyard speaks of Israel and, by extension or incorporation, the Church. The wicked woman tried to get the vineyard for the king. This brought her into conflict with Elijah and she persuaded the king to try to destroy Elijah. This is exactly the picture in the story of Herodias (Matt 14:3- 12) – the wicked woman turned the king against Elijah (John the Baptist).
Wicked women in the Bible all point in some way to the character of the wicked woman in the Book of Revelation where the conflict with Elijah is going to be replayed in the Last Days.Why Did the Rain Stop?The first thing in our study of how God takes a man like Elijah and turns him into someone who can make it rain is to learn why the rain stopped. The rain stopped because of the sin of God's people. The Holy Spirit is not being outpoured on the Western Protestant world because of its sin, which is identical to the sin of Israel in the days of Elijah.
Abortion replays the sacrifice of children to demons that we see within Israel and Judah in the Old Testament. The worship of other gods – the priests of Baal were not foreigners, they were Jews. Today it is the same. Across the Western Protestant world there is a dramatic increase of the worship of other gods – Islam, New Age, Hinduism. New Age is permeating many of the Evangelical and Pentecostal churches today. People are mixing Christianity with Paganism – that is where Roman Catholicism came from, and that is what is happening today in many Pentecostal churches.
Materialism - the Church is lukewarm, materialistic, filled with crazy doctrines. It has a version of "faith" that is not biblical – the worship of Mammon in Christian masquerade; covetousness disguised as Christianity.
That is why the rain stopped. The first and foremost responsibility for the decline of Western civilization does not lie with secular society, it lies with us. It was the sin of God's people that stopped the rain. the problems proliferating throughout our society – drugs, abortion, divorce, violence, crime – all testify to the failure of the church. God's people compromised and eventual Israel ended up with the priests of Baal. That is what happened in Elijah's day, and that is what is going on today. It is not raining in our countries, because of the sin of God's people.CherithThe first thing God told Elijah to do, was to go to the brook Cherith, which is east of the Jordan (1 Kings 17:3), and there the ravens would feed him.
Cherith was on the other side of the Jordan. When God told Elijah to leave his land and go to Cherith, he told him to leave behind his national identity, his cultural identity and his home comforts. On top of that, Elijah was to be fed by ravens. Ravens were not kosher – they were an "unclean" bird. God was going to provide for him in ways he would never have expected.
The drought is so critical in the Western world today, that people who would make it rain will have to be willing to go to Cherith.
Sometimes that will mean churches leaving traditional denominations that have compromised. Sometimes it will mean Christians leaving churches that have compromised, or that have gone into error and refuse to repent. And it will certainly mean trusting God to meet your needs in ways and in places you might not expect, even through things we consider to be almost unholy, like the ravens. Elijah had to be willing to put God first and his land second. So often today, the problem is that people are putting their land first – their culture, their identity, their denominations and their loyalties to those denominations – before obedience to the Word of God.
But the people who will make it rain will be the people who are not afraid to go to Cherith and trust God.ZarephathIt is darkest before the dawn. Things will become much worse before they get better. The brook of Cherith will eventually dry up.
In verse 9 we see that Elijah has to go to a place called Zarephath. The word "Zarephath" comes from the Hebrew root meaning "to burn or to purify by fire". For God to take somebody with a nature like ours and turn them into somebody who can make it rain, He needs to purify them by fire.
There is going to be a very difficult period – not just trial and testing, not just drought, nor even persecution – but all those things together. It will get to the point where the people you try to help will think you have betrayed them, as with the widow at Zarephath. But no matter how bad things get, no matter how dark it becomes, no matter how critical the drought, I can promise you two things: there will be flour in the dish and oil in the jar for those who are willing to be purified. Things are going to get bad before the breakthrough comes. But there is going to be flour in the dish and oil in the jar. You will have the Word of God and you will have the anointing of the Spirit, no matter what happens. You will have your grain and your oil when the others die from famine.
So she said to Elijah…
"What have I to do with you, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my iniquity to remembrance, and to put my son to death!" (1 Kings 17:18)
Her son died. And she blamed Elijah. The very people you try to help will see the hardship and they will blame you. Things have been so bad for so long that the things we love most will have to die before they can be resurrected.
Much of the church in the Western world will have to die before it can be resurrected. New wine cannot go into old wine skins. (Mk. 2:22) That was one of the problems with the Charismatic Movement – they tried to store the new wine in the old wine skins. In order to renew a church you have to replace the wine skin. The things that we have loved the most will have to die before they can be resurrected.Troublers of Israel "Is this you, you troubler of Israel?" (1 Kings 18:17).
Is this you, you troubler of the church? Is this you, you troubler of the Baptist Union? Is this you, you troubler of the Assemblies of God?You who are standing up against ecumenism and Kingdom Now and Faith-Prosperity and Name-It-and-Claim-It. You who are standing up against false miracles and bogus healings. You who are standing up against ministers making themselves rich by exploiting pensioners with lies. You troublers of Israel!That is what they said to Elijah and, if you want to make it rain, that is what they are going to say to you.
Next they go to Mount Carmel. Here the conflict occurs with Jezebel – the conflict with the spirit of false religion, with Roman Catholicism, ecumenism, Free Masonary, Islam, homosexuality, abortion and New Age. There is going to be a conflict, and those who win that conflict will be those who have been purified at Zarephath.
So much of what we call "charismatic worship" today – with the noise, the ranting and raving, and the hype – looks more like the priests of Baal on Mount Carmel than like Elijah. Notice that the priests of Baal really thought it would work, they thought they would get a response.
Our brethren today, caught up in ecumenism, Kingdom Now theology, Restorationism – all unbiblical, false and dangerous doctrines, all associated with hype and with prophecies that don't happen – actually believe these things. But the conflict will come and the people will see who the true prophets are.The Rain CloudIt begins small. It doesn't seem like anything is going to happen at first. Where is it?
With the priests of Baal it was all loud boasting and arrogance and cheering and hype. But God doesn't work that way. It begins small. Like a little hand coming out of the sea. It always begins small. But it gets bigger and soon the whole sky is filled with rain clouds. Lightning strikes and God's Spirit falls. And it rains and rains and rains.
There is no easy way to stop the decline of Christianity in the Western world. It has gone too far for too long. We have been sold down the river by our leaders. All the programs and hype and gimmicks in the world will not bring a harvest of souls. That takes rain. But the rain has stopped. Why? Partly because of the sin of society, but mostly because of the sin of the Church. And until there is repentance in the Church, there is not going to be a repentance in the world.
Why has the rain stopped? It is not primarily the fault of pornographers or pimps or prostitutes or drug dealers or homosexuals or abortionists. It is primarily my fault, because I know the truth and I have the message that can make the difference. It is our fault, because the church in the West is Laodicea (s), because we are trusting in this life and this world more than we are trusting in Jesus. It is not raining because of my sin and your sin.Those Who Make It RainThose who make it rain will be those who are not afraid to go to Cherith – people who are not bound by tradition or institutions.
They won't try to put new wine into old wine skins. They will do what God tells them and trust God to provide for them in ways they don't expect.
They will be people who are not afraid to be purified, people who will go to Zarephath, people who are willing to see things that they love die, knowing that these things will be resurrected in purity. It will be difficult. But no matter how difficult it gets, I promise you that there will be oil in the jar and flour in the dish.
And those people who are purified will go to Carmel and stand in front of Jezebel – in front of false religion and Free Masonry and homosexuality and Roman Catholicism and Islam. They will stand in front of the prophets of Baal – those who dare to call themselves ministers of the Gospel, but who compromise with false teaching.
There will be a conflict. And those troublers of Israel are going to win.
Ezekiel - Chaters 8 & 9
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By James Jacob Prasch
"Yet greater abominations that these will you see in My house" saith the Lord; George Carey marching in a procession to Mary with the Cardinal. "Yet greater abominations than these will you see in My house."
"Yet greater abominations that these will you see in My house" saith the Lord; George Carey marching in a procession to Mary with the Cardinal. "Yet greater abominations than these will you see in My house."
Ezekiel's Scroll
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by James Jacob Prasch
Ezekiel prophesied at a time when God's judgment of Israel was not merely impending, but had already begun; the Captivity was underway.
Ezekiel prophesied at a time when God's judgment of Israel was not merely impending, but had already begun; the Captivity was underway.
Future History of the Church Part 1 of 3
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By James Jacob PraschIntroductionEveryone wants to know the future. For this reason, people will go to fortunetellers, the occult, and all kinds of other sources to try to discover it. Jesus, however, told us the future.
Before I was a believer, I used to go to a witch who read my tarot cards; she was quite skilled at it, and one day she saw in the cards that I was going to become a follower of Jesus. When she saw it, she began saying "Don't come back and burn me when this happens; it's going to happen, but don't come back and burn me". She was quite accurate. The occult can often be very accurate in its predictions of the future. However, Deuteronomy 18 says that "quite accurate" is not good enough; a true prophet must be exactly right every time. I see many people today who claim to be prophets and build prophetic ministries around themselves, yet they make outlandish predictions that fail to happen. When this occurs, people defend the false prophet by saying that he is "usually right". That may be so, but the witch in New Jersey who used to read my tarot cards was also usually right.
Deuteronomy 18 is very clear: if you speak a word in the name of the Lord, it had better happen or you are a false prophet. (Deut. 18:20-23) This is dangerous; people are better off keeping these "prophecies" in their mouths rather than speaking them when they're not of God. We should never suppress the Holy Spirit, but if a word is truly from the Holy Spirit it will surely happen.
There was an occasion where I witnessed a true prophet: About 40 people were in a room in Mount Carmel, Israel with this man who came from the Soviet Union (as it was called then). There were no diplomatic relations or direct air flights between Israel and the Soviet Union in those days; he had to fly via Europe. He flew into Tel Aviv where someone picked him up at Ben Gurion Airport and brought him up to Galilee. He began speaking in English, making prophesies and predictions. When I heard what he was saying, I decided that either this man was a true prophet or not only was he a false prophet, but he was also out of his mind. This gentleman wrote a book and in it he told of taking the Lord's Supper in Red Square. He said that the Lord told them to throw the communion cup into the Moscow River after which they stood in Red Square and predicted that God would do to the Soviet Empire what He did to Egypt because their government was persecuting the church and refusing to allow Jews to immigrate to Israel; they proclaimed "'Let My people go', and 'Let My Gospel be preached', or God will destroy your empire. We proclaim a curse on your land – God is going to curse your land." Immediately after that Chernobyl happened and they had the worst harvest of all the bad harvests they'd had. These Christians also said, "God is going to destroy the Soviet war machine"; right after that, the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan and the Warsaw Pact collapsed. Next these believers turned around to face the Tomb of Lenin in which Lenin was kept permanently embalmed and on display and they said, "This is the spirit of death; God is going to destroy the spirit of Lenin-worship." There were about eleven factories in the Soviet Union that manufactured nothing but statues and busts of Lenin; every one of them closed and on the evening news we saw all these busts and statues with their heads cut off. The believers then turned around to the Kremlin and said, "God is going to destroy your empire; the Soviet Union will collapse, and no one will be able to believe how fast God will judge it. 'Let My people go, and let My Gospel be preached'!"
To say these things in 1984 or 1985 would have been unfathomable, totally unthinkable. You would either have to really be hearing from God or crazy. These were outrageous things to say, but they all happened. I have never met that brother since, and I never even read his book, but I know what he said and I saw it happen right in front of me.
After that I came to Britain to go to Bible College and I saw some people from Kansas City and California calling themselves the Kansas City Prophets and the Vineyard. They came before tens of thousands of people and predicted a great revival and a great Latter-Day Rain was going to come to the United Kingdom in October of 1990. In the years since the "great revival" more mosques have been built in England than churches.Infiltration of the ChurchDeuteronomy 18 says that a false prophet is a "neve sheqer"; we don't stone them to death any more, but the sin is no less serious. Jeremiah 5 and 28 make it very clear what false prophets are and Jesus said they would come during the Last Days. One of the biggest mistakes born-again Christians make is this: when we read the Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24 and Luke 21 where Jesus repeats Himself four times regarding false teachers and false prophets in the Last Days, most of us automatically say, "That's the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Moonies, the Mormons, the Hare Krishnas, Christian Science, etc." While there is no doubt that these people are false prophets and false teachers, and also no doubt that the proliferation of these cults over the past 100 years is in itself a sign of the Last Days and certainly emblematic of the time we live in, if you read the context of Matthew 24, Luke 21, Acts 20, and Matthew 7, those were not the false prophets and false teachers that Jesus and the Apostles were warning about. The ones they warned about are the ones that deceive the elect.
The unsaved are already deceived by the devil; he is out to deceive two kinds of people: the nation of Israel and the Bible-believing church. The nation of Israel is under a spiritual darkness. We see their signs in many places, including Jerusalem, Stamford Hill in London and Crown Heights in Brooklyn, saying "We want the Mashiach now!" Jesus gave a double prediction in John's Gospel that the Jews would believe another who came in His name, though they did not believe Him. (Jn. 5:43) This was fulfilled in the early church's time bySimon bar Kochba but it is certainly also a symbol of the Antichrist who will deceive the Jewish people into thinking that he is their Messiah. The Jews are being set up for this.
So we see that the devil has the world deceived and the Jews deceived; who is he out to deceive now? You and me. Read Matthew 7, Acts 20, Matthew 24, and Luke 21. The false teachers and false prophets that we are warned about in these passages are the ones who get into the church to deceive the elect.
I am very concerned about cults such as the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnesses, because if born-again Christians were as zealous for the truth as the cults are for their lies, a lot more people would be getting saved rather than joining these cults. The fact that they are so zealous for a lie while the Bible-believing church sits around is in character with the church of Laodicea. It shows what has become of the church in the West. Nonetheless, very few Christians get sucked into the Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses. If you see a Christian who does, he is either a brand-new believer whom they sheep-napped, or he is a very weak, awkward believer to begin with. Those are not the false prophets with whom we must be primarily concerned, though we are responsible to warn the unsaved about them. The ones we have to worry about are the ones coming into the church. Spiritual deception increases in the Last Days.Biblical Interpretation from the Jewish PerspectiveThere is a Biblical principle understood from a Jewish perspective called "Qol veh Homer", which in English means "light to heavy". It is the first of the Migdoth of Rabbi Hillel, who was Rabbi Gamaliel's grandfather. Rabbi Gamaliel was tutor to the Apostle Paul when Paul became a rabbi. Rabbi Hillel had seven Migdoth, or principles, of interpreting Scripture. The New Testament uses these repeatedly. Ool veh Homer, or light to heavy, is again the first of these. One example of it is in Hebrews 10:25:
". . . not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching."
Something that is true in a light situation becomes especially true in a heavy situation. In this passage we are dealing specifically with the subject of fellowship: fellowship is always important, but in the Last Days it becomes especially important. If we cannot stand together, we'll never be able to stand alone when persecution comes.
Another example of "light to heavy" concerning the Last Days is false prophets and teachers. They've always been around – that's the "light"; but in the Last Days, they multiply – that's the "heavy". Things that are always true become especially true in the Last Days, and things that are always dangerous to the church become even more so during the Last Days.
Jewish people in the time of Jesus did not interpret Scripture the way we do. Jesus was a rabbi who taught the same way other rabbis did; He used Midrash. He also used something called the mashla and the nimshal format. The mashal is a description of something from everyday life, from nature, and the nimshal is the spiritual meaning in back of it. The book of Proverbs is called in Hebrew "Mishla", the book of mashlas. For example, Proverbs 11:22: "As a ring of gold in a swine's snout," – that is the mashla – "so is a lovely woman who lacks discretion." – that is the nimshla. A parable is simply an elongated mashla.
Our Western concepts of allegory and typology are basically Western repackaging. We need to understand the way Jews thought about the Bible because in Daniel 12:9 it says this:
"Seal these things up until the time of the end."
When you see people who write books about Revelation and claim to have it all figured out, be careful. We're told directly in Daniel that these things are sealed. There is no new truth, and no new revelation; however, in the Last Days the Holy Spirit will give understanding to God's people regarding the deeper things of Scripture. We will have no new doctrine, no new truth, and no new revelation, but we will have a deeper and clearer understanding of what is already in Scripture. What liberals do is try to interpret the Bible out of its Sitz im leben, its cultural context. Evangelicals do the same thing because we use Greek methods of hermeneutics and exegesis to try to understand a Jewish book. There is a lot more that could be said about this subject, but concerning the Last Days I'll simply give you the most important aspect.How Biblical Prophecy Really WorksWestern Protestant exegesis interprets prophecy in one of four different ways: Preterism, Historicism, Polemicism, or Futurism.
Liberals love Preterism; they say, "There is no God, and even if there was He wouldn't know the future, and even if He did He certainly wouldn't tell Isaiah." Therefore, in their minds when Isaiah predicts events concerning King Cyrus 200 years before their occurrence, (Is. 44:28; 45:1) it proves automatically – prima fasci – that Isaiah actually wrote it after the fact, or rather that the book of Isaiah was not written by Isaiah but by someone after the Captivity. Their basis for this is that Isaiah could not possibly have known about King Cyrus 200 years ahead of time. This is an ex-Vaticina interpolation, if you like theological terms. Liberals cannot believe in a supernatural knowledge of the future, so they embrace Preterism.
The second, Historicism, is what Kingdom-Now people prefer. The Reformers were also greatly inclined toward this view.
Historicism says, "The eschatological prophecies of the New Testament were completely fulfilled in the Early Church." The Early Church identified Rome with Babylon; when Peter closes his first epistle he says, "She who is in Babylon greets you." (1 Pe. 5:13) False religion begins in Babylon with Nimrod, finds its way through Asia Minor (particularly the city of Pergamum), and from there, into Greco-Roman civilization. From there it comes into things such as Roman Catholicism, Freemasonry, etc.; however, the root of it all is in Babylon, the false religious system of the world in confederation with the corrupt political system.
The Babylonians destroyed the first Temple on Tisha ba'v, roughly the 9th of August on the Hebrew calendar. Under what were nearly identical military circumstances, Rome destroyed the second Temple on the same date, Tisha ba'v. Therefore the early Christians began identifying Rome with Babylon; it is the same false religion.
The example I generally use to explain this is Scotland Yard. Scotland Yard is the name of an alleyway between two buildings running from Whitehall to Victoria Embankment in London; it was the original headquarters of the metropolitan police. Now, unlike in the days of Sherlock Holmes, the metropolitan police are located a half-mile away on Victoria St. However, their headquarters is still called Scotland Yard although it is no longer located on that little street off of Whitehall. In other words, the name of the institution has taken the name of its original location. With Babylon it is the same idea. Therefore, in the book of Revelation, when the early church saw the woman on seven hills, representing the Capitolina, since the woman is a city, it would have been Rome to them. (Rev. 17:9)
Therefore, when Rome burned under Nero, it fulfilled the prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah that predicted the fall of Babylon. This is the way the early Christians thought. When Mount Vesuvius exploded. Volcanic ash accumulated in the ionosphere and the upper stratosphere, thus preventing solar and lunar radiation from giving their light over much of the Roman Empire. This actually does happen; I believe the last time it happened was in Iceland during the 1960's. Next, in roughly 70 A.D., the Temple is destroyed and the Romans set up pagan images and worshiped them on the Temple Mount; the Christians of the day believed that was the Abomination of Desolations – ha shikutz ha meshomen. Thus these things have been fulfilled; that view is called Historicism.
The Protestant Reformers loved Historicism, because they said that it was the Roman Empire, Imperial Rome, which stopped the medieval papacy from blossoming. After Constantine moved his capitol to Constantinople and the Visigoths moved in, then Rome blossomed. When Scripture says that "He who restrains them will be taken out of the way", (2 Th. 2:6) they interpreted that as Imperial Rome restraining Papal Rome and then being taken out of the way. This is why the Kingdom-Now proponents say that the "Last Days" only refers to the events leading up to 70 A.D., usually denying any future meaning to the book of Revelation and so on.
The third way of interpreting prophecy is Polemicism. Polemicism says: "The book of Revelation is only given to encourage Christians during times of persecution. It reminds them of the glory to come and the judgment of their persecutors, and is thus designed to encourage them." This is a true point: Revelation opens by stating that there is a blessing on anyone who reads it, and apocalyptic literature will certainly always encourage a persecuted church. That is part of its purpose, but not in entirety.
The fourth method of interpreting prophecy is Futurism, which states that these things are going to happen in the Last Days.Which Method is Right?To a Western Gentile mind using Protestant hermeneutics which are Hellenistic in orientation for reasons I cannot go into here, one of these four methods is the true one. The question is concerning which one you support: are you a Preterist, a Historicist, a Polemicist, or a Futurist? A Jew in the 1st Century, however, would have been all foursimultaneously, as Jesus was Himself.
In Matthew 24:15-33 Jesus says that when you see the Abomination of Desolations spoken of by the prophet Daniel, then you will know the End is near. The problem is that the Abomination of Desolations spoken of by Jesus in Matthew 24 and in Luke 21, the Olivet Discourse, had already happened before He mentioned it. Jesus celebrated Hanukah in John 10, the Feast of Dedication.
He knew all about Antiochus Epiphanes setting up the image in the Temple, the pigs being slaughtered in the Temple, and the Temple being re-consecrated by the Maccabees. The Abomination of Desolations prophesied by Daniel had already happened during the intertestamental period, but Jesus took that event and prophesied that it would happen again. Jesus used Preterism: He took a past event and spoke about it in the future tense.
Then there is Historicism: Once again, look at the Abomination of Desolations as prophesied by Jesus in the Olivet Discourse. When you read Josephus and discover how the Romans destroyed the Temple and set up pagan ensigns on the Temple Mount and worshiped them, you see that it was an Abomination of Desolations. Then, in the 2nd Century, the Emperor Hadrian built a city called the Aerolinas Capitolina, putting a temple of Jupiter on the Temple Mount. Yet another Abomination of Desolations. Julian the Apostate, the nephew of Constantine who tried to re-paganize the Roman Empire, tried to rebuild the Temple, and all these mysterious fires broke out on the Temple Mount; anotherAbomination of Desolations. Today on the Temple Mount, we have the Mosque of Omar, the Dome of the Rock. On the outside of it, around its periphery, is inscribed a quotation from a surah in the Koran, which is translated: "God has no son". That is still another Abomination of Desolations.
Yet there is still an Abomination of Desolations to come. All of these preceding ones typify the one that is coming. The point is this: Western ideas of prophecy involve prediction and fulfillment. The Hebrew idea of prophecy is a pattern that is recapitulated; multiple fulfillments with one ultimate fulfillment – that is how Jewish prophecy was understood. Each of the multiple fulfillments is a type of and teaches something about the ultimate one.
Let me continue with another example: When Matthew writes his Nativity narrative he says of Jesus,"Out of Egypt I have called My Son," (Matt. 2:15) quoting from Hosea chapter 11:1. The problem with this is that when you read Hosea chapter 11, you find that Hosea was talking about the Exodus, when the children of Israel came out of Egypt under the leadership of Moses. Yet Matthew takes this, seemingly out of all context, and applies it to Jesus. However, the problem is not that Matthew took it out of context, but that the Western church has taken a Jewish book and constructed its own rules of context. Matthew thought midrashically; he thought of prophecy as pattern. Let me explain:MidrashIt begins with Abraham. God judged Pharaoh, and Abraham came out of Egypt along with his descendants in Genesis; Abraham is the archetype, the father of all who believe. Then, in Exodus, God again judges Pharaoh – the wicked king gets judged – and once again Abraham's descendants come out of Egypt. Thus the pattern begins; what happened to Israel replayed what happened first to Abraham. Just as Abraham received money from Pharaoh, so the Israelites plundered the Egyptians in Exodus.
Next, Jesus comes out of Egypt, after once again the wicked king – Herod this time – is judged. Midrashically, Israel alludes to Jesus. When you see things in Scripture such as "Israel My glory, Israel My first-born son", (Ex. 29:43) it is a midrashic allusion to the Messiah as even the rabbis know. Therefore Jesus, the embodiment of Israel, also comes out of Egypt.
Just as the church is the Body of Christ, so is Israel in some sense. Then, in 1 Corinthians 10, we come out of Egypt ourselves! Egypt is a figure of this world; Pharaoh is a figure of the devil, who is the god of this world. And just as Moses goes onto the mountain and makes a covenant with blood on behalf of the people, so does Jesus. Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt, through the water, and into the Promised Land. Jesus leads us out of the world, through baptism, and into Heaven. One is a type of the other; we all have an Exodus experience.
But the ultimate meaning is the resurrection and rapture of the church: the same judgments that take place in the book of Exodus are replayed in the book of Revelation. In the same way that Pharaoh's magicians were able to counterfeit the miracles of Moses and Aaron, the Antichrist and his False Prophet will be able to counterfeit the miracles of Jesus and His witnesses. Why is the song of Miriam ("I will sing unto the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously – the horse and the rider are thrown into the sea!") – sung in Revelation? (Ex. 15:1; Rev. 15:3) The book of Exodus shows us that the destruction of Pharaoh was a typology of the destruction of the devil. Why did the Israelites bring Joseph's bones with them out of Egypt at the front of the procession? As the scriptures tell us in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, "the dead in Christ will rise first", and we will shall come out together.
Once again, the Hebrew idea of prophecy is that of a pattern being recapitulated. It is not a prediction, but a pattern with an ultimate fulfillment. That is the Hebrew concept of eschatological prophecy. In order to really begin to understand what the Bible teaches about the Last Days, we have to stop thinking with a Western, Gentile, Hellenistic mind and begin thinking of the Scriptures in the way the Early Church did. Remember that in Revelation 2 and 3, the church of Ephesus had a lamp stand that the other churches did not have;
"Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path," (Ps. 119:105)
The virgins needed oil in their lamps in order to see in the night (Mt. 25:1-13) – we'll come back to that.
In the Last Days, understanding and faithfulness become very important. Remember that the wise virgins of Matthew 25 had the oil in their lamps so that they could see in the night, representing the illumination of the Holy Spirit in our understanding of Scripture. Laodicea needed salve with which to anoint the people's eyes, so that they could see. (Rev. 3:18) Understanding of Scripture is going to be very closely associated to faithfulness in the Last Days. It says in Daniel that none of the wicked will understand. (Dan. 12:10) Now, it is very easy for God to take somebody who has a pure heart and an empty head and give that person wisdom. However, it is much more difficult for Him to take somebody with a big head and a big intellect and give him a pure heart. Spirit and Truth; God wants us to have both. Simple people are much more likely to get saved than are sophisticated people; but after they do get saved, those simple people are not supposed to stay that way.God's TimeframeNow, with these things in view, let us look at Matthew chapter 10, beginning in verse 1:
"And when He had called His twelve disciples to Him, He gave them power over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease. Now the names of the twelve apostles are these: first, Simon who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James the son of Alphaeus, and Lebbaeus, whose surname was Thaddaeus; Simon the Cananite, and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed Him."
Do you know what "Judas Iscariot" really means? "Jude the Suburbanite". Continuing in verse 5:
"These twelve Jesus sent out and commanded them, saying: 'Do not go into the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter a city of the Samaritans. But rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as you go, preach, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven is at hand'. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give. Provide neither gold nor silver nor copper in your money belts, nor bag for your journey, nor two tunics, nor sandals, nor staffs; for a worker is worthy of his food. Now whatever city or town you enter, inquire who in it is worthy, and stay there till you go out. And when you go into a household, greet it. If the household is worthy, let your peace come upon it. But if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. And whoever will not receive you nor hear your words, when you depart from that house or city, shake off the dust from your feet. Assuredly, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Day of Judgment than for that city!
"'Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to councils and scourge you in their synagogues. You will be brought before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. But when they deliver you up, do not worry about how or what you should speak. For it will be given to you in that hour what you should speak; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you. Now brother will deliver up brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. And you will be hated by all for My name's sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved. When they persecute you in this city, flee to another. For assuredly, I say to you, you will not have gone through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes. A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master.'"
When Jesus sent out the apostles in pairs, were they brought before governors and kings for His name's sake? No. Did the Holy Spirit give them utterance when they were on trial in Matthew 10? No. Did brother deliver up brother and parents deliver up their children? No. Were they hated by all nations for His name's sake when He sent them out in pairs? No. None of it happened. Jesus had been training them, and before that they had been trained by John the Baptist; now He sends them out for their first dry run, saying 'Here is what is going to happen', but none of it did. What happened is that in verse 16 Jesus totally changed time frames.
We have today the Restorationists, who claim they are going to conquer the whole world for Jesus Christ and set up His kingdom before He comes back. They say these prophecies were fulfilled in the Early Church, that we are going to be the "Church Triumphant", etc. etc.; this is total rubbish. The Kingdom is now, but not yet. There are two terms: One is "inaugural eschatology" and the other is "over-realized eschatology".
Inaugural eschatology means that the Kingdom has broken in, Satan's powers are being thrown back, he can't possibly win, but the ultimate victory does not come until Christ returns. Look at Daniel chapter 7:21:
"I was watching; and the same horn was making war against the saints, and prevailing against them, until the Ancient of Days came, and a judgment was made in favor of the saints of the Most High, and the time came for the saints to possess the kingdom."
That replays the
story of the Maccabees, so the Restorationists would say that this was fulfilled with the Maccabees or with the Early Church, but that we are the Kingdom Now. That is over-realized eschatology, and it is totally wrong. There will be a falling away, there will be a persecution, and there will be an Antichrist. The church will be victorious, but that ultimate victory depends on the return of Jesus.The Issue of the CrossThe other thing is that Matthew 10 says we will be brought before governors and kings, persecuted for the sake of the name of Jesus Christ, and that a servant is not above his master.
I have a friend who was involved in Christian Science for 20 years before he was saved. E. W. Kenyon admitted that Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, influenced him. The whole line of thinking begun by Kenyon – "My body is lying to me", etc. – was begun by Christian Science, which also does not believe in the medical profession. The things you hear being taught by Kenneth Copeland and Kenneth Hagin were all learned from Kenyon, who admittedly got it from Christian Scientist doctrine.
Every false cult and every distortion of the Gospel of Christ will deny the Cross of Jesus in some way, without exception. The Jehovah's Witnesses don't even like to call it a "cross"; they call it a "torture stick", and they say that salvation is obtained through their organization and each individual's commitment to it.
It is the same with Roman Catholicism: Jesus said from the Cross, "It is finished". Roman Catholicism, however, says that the Mass is the same sacrifice as Calvary, that it happens over and over and over again. Roman Catholicism is a fundamental denial of the Cross of Jesus; it is a false religion. There may be true believers in it, but if they are true believers they need to come out of it. You cannot believe or participate in those doctrines and be in the will of God.
Then you have the teaching of the faith-prosperity preachers that teach Jesus died spiritually. Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Hagin, E.W. Kenyon, and all who follow them say that Jesus got the victory not on the cross but by going to hell and becoming a satanic being of one nature with Satan. That is what they teach, and it is a fundamental denial of the cross. So what happens as a result?
"A servant is not above his master." (Mt. 10:24) Because the cross of Jesus is made unimportant to His ministry, living the crucified life becomes unimportant for us also. Instead we are told, "God wants you rich, you'll never get sick, God wants you to have this and that and the other", etc. The cross becomes factored out of the equation.
Again, every distortion of Christianity in the world will reject the cross of Jesus in some way. Paul, conversely, says, "I glory in it (the Cross)". Like the old hymn says – "I will cling to the old rugged cross, and one day exchange it for a crown." We get the crown on that day, not this. Kingdom Now denies this and says we get the crown now. The Bible says the Kingdom is now but not yet; the proponents of Kingdom Now say it is all now.Switching from the Present to the FutureNonetheless, let us return to the basic problem: In Matthew 10 Jesus sends the apostles out, warns that these things will happen, but then they do not come to pass. Look at Matthew 24; Jesus begins by talking about the Temple in verses one through four.
Jesus speaks about the prophecies of Daniel 9, that the Messiah would have to come and die before the second Temple was destroyed. However, He then speaks of events which happen in the lifetimes of some of the apostles and the destruction of the Temple. Jesus does here once again what He did in Matthew 10 – He changes the timeframe in the middle of a conversation.
Matthew 24 is the same way – He begins talking about 70 AD, but then He changes timeframe and talks about the end of the world.
The same thing happens in Acts chapter 2, when the Holy Spirit is outpoured and Peter explains it. Peter quotes from Joel chapter 2 in Acts 2:15:
"'For these are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:
'AND IT SHALL COME TO PASS IN THE LAST DAYS, SAYS GOD,
THAT I WILL POUR OUT OF MY SPIRIT ON ALL FLESH;
YOUR SONS AND YOUR DAUGHTERS SHALL PROPHESY,
YOUR YOUNG MEN SHALL SEE VISIONS,
YOUR OLD MEN SHALL DREAM DREAMS.
AND ON MY MENSERVANTS AND ON MY MAIDSERVANTS
I WILL POUR OUT MY SPIRIT IN THOSE DAYS;
AND THEY SHALL PROPHESY.'"
Were there any prophecies made on the day of Pentecost? No. Verse 19:
"I WILL SHOW WONDERS IN HEAVEN ABOVE AND SIGNS IN THE EARTH BENEATH:
BLOOD AND FIRE AND VAPOR OF SMOKE.
THE SUN SHALL BE TURNED INTO DARKNESS,
AND THE MOON INTO BLOOD,
BEFORE THE COMING OF THE GREAT AND AWESOME DAY OF THE LORD.'"
Was there any great sign in heaven or on earth, any blood, fire, or vapor of smoke on the day of Pentecost? No. Did the sun then turn to darkness or the moon to blood? No. Remember that the sun is a type of Jesus, who is the Son. As it says in Isaiah,
"Arise and shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the risen LORD is brighter than the sun". (Is. 60:1)
All four gospels tell us that the resurrection of Jesus happened at sunrise. The rising of the sun is a metaphor for the rising of the Son. The moon, on the other hand, has no light of its own; it only reflects the light of the sun, just as the church has no light of its own but reflects the light of Jesus. I am not denying that these astral phenomena will happen; I am simply saying that if and when they happen, they will simply be a reflection of something deeper. The light of Jesus will no longer be reflected by the church onto the earth and the church will have blood on it – will be persecuted. I don't say that the literal astral events will not occur, only that we must understand the meaning of the metaphors. Verse 21:
"'AND IT SHALL COME TO PASS THAT WHOEVER CALLS ON THE NAME OF THE LORD SHALL BE SAVED.'"
This is called Peter's "charigma", and in Greek it literally states, "This is like that".
So in Matthew 10, Jesus sends the apostles out in pairs, telling them that some things will happen that don't happen to them. In Matthew 24, He tells the church about something that will happen, which does not happen to them fully, but only partially. Then, in Acts 2, Peter describes what is happening, but none of it actually happens.
But let us take another look at Matthew 10: To whom do these things happen? Jesus sends out the apostles in pairs, telling them they will be brought before governors and kings, they will be persecuted, the Holy Spirit will give them utterance, and they will be betrayed by their families, but to persevere to the end and they will be saved. That didn't happen to the apostles in Matthew 10; but to whom did it happen? Every one of those things happened to Jesus. What happened to Him in His last days will happen also to the church in ourlast days. Betrayed, brought before governors and kings, people selling each other down the river and stabbing one another in the back, but the ones who persevere will be saved; it will happen to us as it happened to Him.It Begins to Be ReplayedBut then there is something else: in the early chapters of Acts, these things do happen to the apostles. For example, let us look at Acts 4:18-23:
"So they called them and commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered and said to them, 'Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.' So when they had further threatened them, they let them go, finding no way of punishing them, because of the people, since they all glorified God for what had been done. For the man was over forty years old on whom this miracle of healing had been performed. And being let go, they went to their own companions and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them."
So we see the apostles brought before governors and kings, scourged in the synagogue, given utterance by the Holy Spirit, which no one can refute. Then they go on to quote Psalm 2, in Acts 4:25-26:
"'WHY DID THE NATIONS RAGE,
AND THE PEOPLE PLOT VAIN THINGS?
THE KINGS OF THE EARTH TOOK THEIR STAND,
AND THE RULERS WERE GATHERED TOGETHER
AGAINST THE LORD AND AGAINST HIS CHRIST."
The Bible frequently represents the tribulation of the church at the hands of the world in the End times by a raging sea.
Psalm 2 happened to Jesus; the Gentiles took counsel against the Lord and against His anointed; now, in Acts, they begin doing it to the church also. Yet then the pattern increases. Let's look at Acts 5:19-25:
"But at night an angel of the Lord opened the prison doors and brought them out, and said, 'Go, stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this life.' And when they heard that, they entered the temple early in the morning and taught. But the high priest and those with him came and called the council together, with all the elders of the children of Israel, and sent to the prison to have them brought. But when the officers came and did not find them in the prison, they returned and reported, saying, 'Indeed we found the prison shut securely, and the guards standing outside before the doors; but when we opened them, we found no one inside!' now when the high priest, the captain of the temple, and the chief priests heard these things, they wondered what the outcome would be. So one came and told them, saying, 'Look, the men whom you put in prison are standing in the temple and teaching the people!'"
It is fairly obvious what we have here. Let's look at Matthew 27:65:
"Pilate said to them, 'You have a guard; go your way, make it as secure as you know how.' So they went and made the tomb secure, sealing the stone and setting the guard."
Down to Matthew 28:11-14, after the resurrection of Jesus:
"Now while they were going, behold, some of the guard came into the city and reported to the chief priests all the things that had happened. When they had assembled with the elders and consulted together, they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers, saying, 'Tell them, "His disciples came at night and stole Him away while we slept." And if this comes to the governor's ears, we will appease him and make you secure.'"
So we see that just as an angel made the way for Jesus to come out of the tomb, so an angel also led the apostles out of prison. Next, the chief priests feared the people in Acts 5:26, just as it says in Luke 22:22.
Once again, in Matthew 10 we see Jesus sending out the apostles in pairs and telling them what will happen; it doesn't happen to them at that time, but it does happen to Jesus, andthen it begins to happen to the apostles and the Early Church. So we know that what happens to Jesus and what happens to the Early Church will be replayed again and will happen also to us. How do we know that? Again, let's look at Matthew 10:17:
"'But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to councils and scourge you in their synagogues. You will be brought before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. But when they deliver you up, do not worry about how or what you should speak. For it will be given to you in that hour what you should speak; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you. Now brother will deliver up brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against their parents and cause them to be put to death. And you will be hated by all for My name's sake.'"
This does not happen in Matthew 10, but let's look at Luke 21:12:
"'But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons. You will be brought before kings and rulers for My name's sake."
Notice that He says "before all these things"; the church will be persecuted before the end comes. Continuing in verse 13:
"But it will turn out for you as an occasion for testimony. Therefore settle it in your hearts not to meditate beforehand on what you will answer; for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries will not be able to contradict or resist. You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. And you will be hated by all for My name's sake. But not a hair of your head shall be lost. By your patience possess your souls."
The timeframe then changes again to 70 A.D. What Matthew 10 predicts did not happen then; it did happen to Jesus and to the apostles and to the Early Church, and it is going to happen again to the church in the Last Days. He uses the same words, and I read it from Luke intentionally to show that it is not only Matthew's attempt to construct that idea, but the Holy Spirit put the same thing in Luke.
Then, however, it becomes very conspicuous. We must realize that when we read Acts we are not merely reading the history of the 1st Century church, but also the history of the last century church.First Christ, Then PaulIn John 9:4-6, the rabbis make false charges against Jesus to the Roman authorities. In John 19:4-6, however, Pontius Pilate wants no part in judging Jesus. This is the beginning. The ministry of Paul and his last days replayed what happened to Jesus in His last days. False charges were made by the rabbis against Paul to the Roman authorities, but the Roman governor wanted no part of judging Paul either as we see in Acts 18:12-18. What happened to Jesus also happened to Paul.
In Mark 14:12-15, prior to His arrest, Jesus met with His disciples at Passover in an upper room to break bread. In Acts 20:6-8 Paul met with his disciples in an upper room to break bread before he was arrested.
In John 10:15 and in Mark 10:32-34 Jesus predicted His death to His followers, accepting it as God's will for His life. In Acts 20:24-25 we see Paul doing the very same things.
In John 18:11 Jesus' disciples attempted to convince Him to avoid this death, not to go to Judea in order to spare His life. In Acts 21:11-13, Paul's disciples also try to persuade him not to go to Jerusalem in order to save his neck.
Matthew 7:15, 24:11, Mark 13:6, and Luke 21:8 contain warnings from Jesus about wolves that would come to devour the sheep once He left, and He did this at the end of His three-year relationship with them. Acts 20:29-30 shows Paul at the end of three years warning his disciples about false prophets who would come in among them.
Mark 15:12-15, John 19:15, Luke 23:21, and Matt. 27:21-23 record that the multitudes cried out for the death of Jesus, having been incited by the rabbis. In Acts 21:36 and 22:22we find the multitude demanding Paul's death after having been incited by the rabbis.
Matthew 26:59-61 shows the rabbis trying to obtain false testimony against Jesus; He was falsely accused of teaching against the Torah and the Temple. Acts 21:28 records the same thing happening to Paul – the rabbis falsely accused him of teaching against the Torah and the Temple.
In Luke 23:8 we see how Jesus aroused curiosity, then intrigue, with the civil Roman government; in Acts 22:30 we find that Paul, too, aroused curiosity and then intrigue with the civil Roman government. We will see this happening in the Last Days as well: governments will become infatuated with Christians just as they were in the Early Church, wondering what makes us different.
In John 19 and Matthew 27 the Roman government tried to release Jesus, but then turned the entire affair over to the rabbinic authorities once they were unable to free Him, knowing He was innocent. In Acts 22:30 and 18:15 it happened to Paul.
Matthew 27:24 reveals that the Roman authorities were forced to re-intervene in the case of Jesus in order to prevent rioting; Acts 23:10, 21:34-36 records that the Roman government also had to intervene in Paul's case to prevent rioting.
The Roman governor in Matthew 26:4 came from Caesarea to Jerusalem to judge Jesus when the rabbis formed their conspiracy to kill Him; the Roman proconsul came from Caesarea to Jerusalem to judge Paul under the same circumstances, in Acts 23:12, 21.
Jesus was delivered by His Jewish brothers into the hands of Gentiles and the governor in fulfillment of a specific prophecy as seen in Luke 23:1, Matthew 27:2, Luke 18:32. In Acts 10:18 Paul underwent the same ordeal, again in fulfillment of a specific prophecy.
John 18:22 tells of Jesus being struck for the way He spoke to the high priest; Acts 23:2 tells of Paul also being struck for the same reason.
In Matthew 23:27 Jesus called the religious hypocrites "whitewashed tombs", alluding to the whitewashing of sepulchers for the Pesach. In Acts 23:3 Paul calls the priest a "whitewashed wall".
Jesus used the Resurrection to counter-manipulate the Pharisees and Sadducees against each other when they had come together against Him, in Luke 20:26-40. In Acts 23:9, Paul uses the same strategy.
If you've ever heard the joke that says if you have two Jews you have three opinions, that comes from something known as "pilpul". Pilpul is a manner of Rabbinic argumentation which allows you to quote various rabbinic authorities who have commented on other rabbis in order to justify any opinion or condemn any position you choose. It is argument for the sake of argument, and Jesus would not engage in it. At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, when it says the people were amazed because Jesus taught as one with authority and not like the scribes or Pharisees, what it means is that He would not engage in pilpul; He simply said, "This is it", and would not get into all the theological haggling and nit-picking of the rabbis of His day or the liberals of today.
There was one exception to this: Jesus used pilpul in order to get the Pharisees and Sadducees to fight with one another; Paul did likewise, refusing to engage in pilpul except with the aim of causing infighting among the Sadducees and Pharisees.
Once again: Matthew 10 did not happen at the time Jesus spoke those words, but it did happen to Him, then to the apostles, and then to Paul in very conspicuous detail – there is much more to it than I have listed here. Then, in Matthew 24 and Luke 21 we see that it is going to happen to us as well. What happened to Jesus happened to the Early Church, and both of those things together teach about what is going to happen to us. Jewish prophecy is a pattern recapitulated; multiple fulfillments, with each fulfillment teaching something about the ultimate fulfillment. If you want to know how we will end up, look at how Jesus ended up; if you want to know what will happen to the church in the last century, look at what happened to the church in the 1st Century.The Typology of the Hebrew CalendarAgain, when you read the book of Acts, you are reading not only past history, but future history as well. The early church experienced a mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit, corresponding to the spring rains. The Hebrew term "maim haim", or "living water", is a term for the Holy Spirit. Outpourings of rain are representative of outpourings of the Holy Spirit. There is a spring rain and a latter or autumn rain; there was a mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Early Church, and there will be again on the church of the Last Days. That is one of the reasons you see such an abundance of the gifts of the Spirit in the Early Church and why they return during the Last Days; it has to do with the seasons of rain. This is also why you see Jewish people getting saved in large numbers again – the harvest.
Jesus fulfilled the Spring Feasts of Israel during His first coming. He fulfilled Passover as the Passover lamb that was slain, He fulfilled Firstfruits as the firstfruit of the Resurrection, and He fulfilled Pentecost when He gave the Holy Spirit. Those are the spring holidays, when the spring rains come and prepare the harvest. The long, hot summer corresponds to the age of the Gentile church, but then Jesus fulfills the autumn holidays upon His return. The rainy season begins again in the autumn, and another harvest comes. Acts 2 quotes Joel 2, saying directly that what was seen in the Early Church will be replayed in the Last Days.
This is one of the most powerful arguments against the error of Cessationism. The Cessationist error that the gifts of the Spirit ended with the apostles, never to be seen again, is just as false on one extreme as Charismania is on the other extreme. The truth is the via media. These things are seen in the Early Church, and then you have an outpouring on the church in the Last Days and these things are seen once again.
The outpouring of the Holy Spirit was accompanied by signs and wonders. Acts 2:16-21 predicts that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the Last Days will also be accompanied by signs and wonders. Unfortunately, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the resulting signs and wonders was followed by false doctrine, experiential theology, carnality, and misuse of spiritual gifts – read 1 Corinthians. What happens today? The gifts of the Spirit are followed by experiential theology, carnality, immorality, people substituting the gifts for the Giver, crazy doctrines; the very same thing they had in the Early Church.
The relevance of the law of Moses became a divisive issue among the early Jewish believers as seen in Acts 15 and Galatians 5. Once again, among Messianic Jews, this is happening. Tens of thousands of Jews have been saved during the past 15 years, and we now have the same kinds of issues that were around in the Early Church coming around to us again.The Move of the GospelThe known world during the time of the Early Church was the Roman Empire, the Mediterranean Basin, and so on – not much beyond that. Yet we are told in Acts 17:6 that the Gospel turned the world upside down in that time. Matthew 24:14 states that in the Last Days God will shake the earth one more time; the Gospel will go to the ends of the earth and in the Last Days God will shake the earth once more.
We have seen whole Buddhist nations like Korea turn to Christ within one generation. In the largest Muslim nation on earth, Indonesia, two to three million Muslims give their lives to Christ every year, turning their backs on Mohammed. As the Gospel and Christianity decline in the Western world, they explode in the developing world. As the Gospel declines in Protestant countries, it explodes in the Roman Catholic nations. And as the Gentiles turn away from the truth and the grace given to them, the Jews are returning to it.
In the early church, we see in Acts 1: 8, God used the Jews to bring the Gospel to the Gentiles. We see in Revelation 7 possibly, Romans 11 certainly, "What will their restoration be but life from the dead?" – that there can be no mistake about it; God is going to bless the church through the Jewish people. He is going to use Jewish people to evangelize Gentiles as well. Just as God used Jews to bring the Gospel to the Gentiles in the 1st Century, so He is using Gentiles to bring the Gospel back to the Jews in the end. When that happens, God will use these Jewish believers to bless the church.The Resurgence of Anti-Semitism Acts 19:33, 34 shows that in the time of the early church there was growing anti-Semitism. In the Last Days, we will again see growing anti-Semitism. The two kinds of people that the Bible calls God's chosen are Jews and born-again Christians; it all goes back to Genesis chapter 3, where God addresses the serpent to say that He will put enmity between it and the woman, between its seed and hers. Anti-Semitism and persecution of the church is like a coin, heads and tails: you can distinguish between them, but you cannot separate them.
Who do Moslems hate the most? Jews and born-again Christians. Under the Communists, behind the Iron Curtain, who was persecuted most? Jews and born-again Christians. Who did the Roman Catholic Church persecute the most over the centuries with its Crusades and its Inquisitions and pogroms? Jews and born-again Christians. Who did the Russian Orthodox Church persecute the most? Jews and born-again Christians.
It all goes back to the Early Church: after the Roman government turned against the church it went after the Jews. That's what happened in 70 A.D. and again in 120-132 A.D. withBar-Kochba's rebellion, and that is exactly what is going to happen again in the Last Days with the Antichrist. He will come after us first, and then he'll go after the Jews. Anti-Semitism will increase, and through certain Restorationists,\ it is even coming into the church.
Martin Luther, as an early example, was a man of God if there ever was one; but how he could end up the way he did is a shocking tragedy: he said that peasants should be stabbed in the back, that Jews should be herded into corrals and forced to confess Christ at the point of a knife, and that the German people were to blame for not murdering them to prove they were Christians. This is what is re-entering the church now.
Corrupt political leaders who have tried to exterminate the Jews have always attempted to justify it theologically by quoting people such as Chrysostom and Luther. Today we have the same situation; just read some of the books being published in our time, such as Whose Promised Land? or Blood Brother – very biased against Israel. People are trying to find Christian preachers who will justify their hatred of Israel and their denial of God's end-times purpose for the Jews, and they are succeeding. Yet God's plan for world redemption will ultimately depend on the redemption of Israel; His plan for the salvation of the world is prophetically bound up with His plan for Israel's salvation. Israel is God's timepiece. This does not mean that the Jews are higher, better, or anything else, but it is true nonetheless.The Resurgence of Rome Daniel 7:19,20, Revelation 17:9 – Rome ruled the world in the time of the Early Church. I have no doubt in my mind that the fourth beast of Daniel has to be some kind of a re-confederation of the Roman Empire; we have not heard the last of Rome. The council of Europe was founded by the Treaty of Rome. We must remember this: the emperor was head of the Pantheon of Rome; you could have any god you wanted, as long as you also bowed the knee to the Emperor of Rome. The Hebrew word for "to worship" and "to bow down" is the same word – "hasta kovot". When you see Roman Catholics genuflecting before a statue of Mary, that is an act of idolatry.
All gods came into the Pantheon which was headed by the Emperor, who allowed the people to worship any god they wanted as long as they acknowledged him as the spiritual guide of all religions and the political head. He was called Pontificus Maximus, the Pontiff. After Constantine removed his capitol to Constantinople, the Pope became the Pontiff. It amounted to the same thing – someone had a pagan god of gift-giving, so the Pontiff decided he would be called Saint Nicholas; someone else had a pagan god of love, and he was dubbed Saint Valentine. Artemis, Minerva, and all these other goddesses became Mary. Essentially, it remained the same false religion. This is what will happen again in the Last Days.
The Romans had religio licita and religio illicita; a licensed religion was fine so long as it acknowledged the Pontiff as the guide. Unlicensed religions were those that refused to bow the knee to the emperor and there was only one religion which ultimately fits into this category: ours. The Pontiff condemned it. Pope John Paul II has met with the Dalai Lama, a man worshiped as God by Tibetan Buddhists; he has met with Zoroastrian priests, witch doctors, Moslem imams, orthodox rabbis, and the Archbishop of Canterbury. He says that he respects all religions, and receives the Dalai Lama as a "great spiritual leader" – a man worshiped as God! That is antichrist. He only asked that all these people acknowledge him as the Pontiff.
However, there was one religion that the Pontiff, John Paul II, did not approve of. In Bolivia about six years ago and again in Santo Domingo less than one year ago, the Pope called born-again Christians "rapacious wolves". Religio licita and religio illicita; every religion is all right except ours. That is what the Pontiff did two thousand years ago, and that is what he still does today.
Looking at the Greek word for Antichrist, we find that it does not simply mean "against Christ", but "in place of Christ". The Pope's title is Vicarius Christus, the Vicar of Christ; translated into Greek, the "Vicar of Christ" is "Antichrist".
That is what was happening in the Early Church, and that is what is happening today. Pope John Paul II has said openly that he wants to see one Europe with one church. He knows very well that with a confederated Europe they have only one thing in common: Roman Catholicism. The Church of England is dropping dead, going back under Rome. George Carey, Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote a book called The Meeting of Waters, urging the Anglican church to go back under the papacy. Across Europe, the only thing those people of different languages, different cultures, and different anthropological heritages have to unite them is Roman Catholicism, and the Pope knows that. He wants one Europe with one church; in other words, to go back to what exi
Before I was a believer, I used to go to a witch who read my tarot cards; she was quite skilled at it, and one day she saw in the cards that I was going to become a follower of Jesus. When she saw it, she began saying "Don't come back and burn me when this happens; it's going to happen, but don't come back and burn me". She was quite accurate. The occult can often be very accurate in its predictions of the future. However, Deuteronomy 18 says that "quite accurate" is not good enough; a true prophet must be exactly right every time. I see many people today who claim to be prophets and build prophetic ministries around themselves, yet they make outlandish predictions that fail to happen. When this occurs, people defend the false prophet by saying that he is "usually right". That may be so, but the witch in New Jersey who used to read my tarot cards was also usually right.
Deuteronomy 18 is very clear: if you speak a word in the name of the Lord, it had better happen or you are a false prophet. (Deut. 18:20-23) This is dangerous; people are better off keeping these "prophecies" in their mouths rather than speaking them when they're not of God. We should never suppress the Holy Spirit, but if a word is truly from the Holy Spirit it will surely happen.
There was an occasion where I witnessed a true prophet: About 40 people were in a room in Mount Carmel, Israel with this man who came from the Soviet Union (as it was called then). There were no diplomatic relations or direct air flights between Israel and the Soviet Union in those days; he had to fly via Europe. He flew into Tel Aviv where someone picked him up at Ben Gurion Airport and brought him up to Galilee. He began speaking in English, making prophesies and predictions. When I heard what he was saying, I decided that either this man was a true prophet or not only was he a false prophet, but he was also out of his mind. This gentleman wrote a book and in it he told of taking the Lord's Supper in Red Square. He said that the Lord told them to throw the communion cup into the Moscow River after which they stood in Red Square and predicted that God would do to the Soviet Empire what He did to Egypt because their government was persecuting the church and refusing to allow Jews to immigrate to Israel; they proclaimed "'Let My people go', and 'Let My Gospel be preached', or God will destroy your empire. We proclaim a curse on your land – God is going to curse your land." Immediately after that Chernobyl happened and they had the worst harvest of all the bad harvests they'd had. These Christians also said, "God is going to destroy the Soviet war machine"; right after that, the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan and the Warsaw Pact collapsed. Next these believers turned around to face the Tomb of Lenin in which Lenin was kept permanently embalmed and on display and they said, "This is the spirit of death; God is going to destroy the spirit of Lenin-worship." There were about eleven factories in the Soviet Union that manufactured nothing but statues and busts of Lenin; every one of them closed and on the evening news we saw all these busts and statues with their heads cut off. The believers then turned around to the Kremlin and said, "God is going to destroy your empire; the Soviet Union will collapse, and no one will be able to believe how fast God will judge it. 'Let My people go, and let My Gospel be preached'!"
To say these things in 1984 or 1985 would have been unfathomable, totally unthinkable. You would either have to really be hearing from God or crazy. These were outrageous things to say, but they all happened. I have never met that brother since, and I never even read his book, but I know what he said and I saw it happen right in front of me.
After that I came to Britain to go to Bible College and I saw some people from Kansas City and California calling themselves the Kansas City Prophets and the Vineyard. They came before tens of thousands of people and predicted a great revival and a great Latter-Day Rain was going to come to the United Kingdom in October of 1990. In the years since the "great revival" more mosques have been built in England than churches.Infiltration of the ChurchDeuteronomy 18 says that a false prophet is a "neve sheqer"; we don't stone them to death any more, but the sin is no less serious. Jeremiah 5 and 28 make it very clear what false prophets are and Jesus said they would come during the Last Days. One of the biggest mistakes born-again Christians make is this: when we read the Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24 and Luke 21 where Jesus repeats Himself four times regarding false teachers and false prophets in the Last Days, most of us automatically say, "That's the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Moonies, the Mormons, the Hare Krishnas, Christian Science, etc." While there is no doubt that these people are false prophets and false teachers, and also no doubt that the proliferation of these cults over the past 100 years is in itself a sign of the Last Days and certainly emblematic of the time we live in, if you read the context of Matthew 24, Luke 21, Acts 20, and Matthew 7, those were not the false prophets and false teachers that Jesus and the Apostles were warning about. The ones they warned about are the ones that deceive the elect.
The unsaved are already deceived by the devil; he is out to deceive two kinds of people: the nation of Israel and the Bible-believing church. The nation of Israel is under a spiritual darkness. We see their signs in many places, including Jerusalem, Stamford Hill in London and Crown Heights in Brooklyn, saying "We want the Mashiach now!" Jesus gave a double prediction in John's Gospel that the Jews would believe another who came in His name, though they did not believe Him. (Jn. 5:43) This was fulfilled in the early church's time bySimon bar Kochba but it is certainly also a symbol of the Antichrist who will deceive the Jewish people into thinking that he is their Messiah. The Jews are being set up for this.
So we see that the devil has the world deceived and the Jews deceived; who is he out to deceive now? You and me. Read Matthew 7, Acts 20, Matthew 24, and Luke 21. The false teachers and false prophets that we are warned about in these passages are the ones who get into the church to deceive the elect.
I am very concerned about cults such as the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnesses, because if born-again Christians were as zealous for the truth as the cults are for their lies, a lot more people would be getting saved rather than joining these cults. The fact that they are so zealous for a lie while the Bible-believing church sits around is in character with the church of Laodicea. It shows what has become of the church in the West. Nonetheless, very few Christians get sucked into the Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses. If you see a Christian who does, he is either a brand-new believer whom they sheep-napped, or he is a very weak, awkward believer to begin with. Those are not the false prophets with whom we must be primarily concerned, though we are responsible to warn the unsaved about them. The ones we have to worry about are the ones coming into the church. Spiritual deception increases in the Last Days.Biblical Interpretation from the Jewish PerspectiveThere is a Biblical principle understood from a Jewish perspective called "Qol veh Homer", which in English means "light to heavy". It is the first of the Migdoth of Rabbi Hillel, who was Rabbi Gamaliel's grandfather. Rabbi Gamaliel was tutor to the Apostle Paul when Paul became a rabbi. Rabbi Hillel had seven Migdoth, or principles, of interpreting Scripture. The New Testament uses these repeatedly. Ool veh Homer, or light to heavy, is again the first of these. One example of it is in Hebrews 10:25:
". . . not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching."
Something that is true in a light situation becomes especially true in a heavy situation. In this passage we are dealing specifically with the subject of fellowship: fellowship is always important, but in the Last Days it becomes especially important. If we cannot stand together, we'll never be able to stand alone when persecution comes.
Another example of "light to heavy" concerning the Last Days is false prophets and teachers. They've always been around – that's the "light"; but in the Last Days, they multiply – that's the "heavy". Things that are always true become especially true in the Last Days, and things that are always dangerous to the church become even more so during the Last Days.
Jewish people in the time of Jesus did not interpret Scripture the way we do. Jesus was a rabbi who taught the same way other rabbis did; He used Midrash. He also used something called the mashla and the nimshal format. The mashal is a description of something from everyday life, from nature, and the nimshal is the spiritual meaning in back of it. The book of Proverbs is called in Hebrew "Mishla", the book of mashlas. For example, Proverbs 11:22: "As a ring of gold in a swine's snout," – that is the mashla – "so is a lovely woman who lacks discretion." – that is the nimshla. A parable is simply an elongated mashla.
Our Western concepts of allegory and typology are basically Western repackaging. We need to understand the way Jews thought about the Bible because in Daniel 12:9 it says this:
"Seal these things up until the time of the end."
When you see people who write books about Revelation and claim to have it all figured out, be careful. We're told directly in Daniel that these things are sealed. There is no new truth, and no new revelation; however, in the Last Days the Holy Spirit will give understanding to God's people regarding the deeper things of Scripture. We will have no new doctrine, no new truth, and no new revelation, but we will have a deeper and clearer understanding of what is already in Scripture. What liberals do is try to interpret the Bible out of its Sitz im leben, its cultural context. Evangelicals do the same thing because we use Greek methods of hermeneutics and exegesis to try to understand a Jewish book. There is a lot more that could be said about this subject, but concerning the Last Days I'll simply give you the most important aspect.How Biblical Prophecy Really WorksWestern Protestant exegesis interprets prophecy in one of four different ways: Preterism, Historicism, Polemicism, or Futurism.
Liberals love Preterism; they say, "There is no God, and even if there was He wouldn't know the future, and even if He did He certainly wouldn't tell Isaiah." Therefore, in their minds when Isaiah predicts events concerning King Cyrus 200 years before their occurrence, (Is. 44:28; 45:1) it proves automatically – prima fasci – that Isaiah actually wrote it after the fact, or rather that the book of Isaiah was not written by Isaiah but by someone after the Captivity. Their basis for this is that Isaiah could not possibly have known about King Cyrus 200 years ahead of time. This is an ex-Vaticina interpolation, if you like theological terms. Liberals cannot believe in a supernatural knowledge of the future, so they embrace Preterism.
The second, Historicism, is what Kingdom-Now people prefer. The Reformers were also greatly inclined toward this view.
Historicism says, "The eschatological prophecies of the New Testament were completely fulfilled in the Early Church." The Early Church identified Rome with Babylon; when Peter closes his first epistle he says, "She who is in Babylon greets you." (1 Pe. 5:13) False religion begins in Babylon with Nimrod, finds its way through Asia Minor (particularly the city of Pergamum), and from there, into Greco-Roman civilization. From there it comes into things such as Roman Catholicism, Freemasonry, etc.; however, the root of it all is in Babylon, the false religious system of the world in confederation with the corrupt political system.
The Babylonians destroyed the first Temple on Tisha ba'v, roughly the 9th of August on the Hebrew calendar. Under what were nearly identical military circumstances, Rome destroyed the second Temple on the same date, Tisha ba'v. Therefore the early Christians began identifying Rome with Babylon; it is the same false religion.
The example I generally use to explain this is Scotland Yard. Scotland Yard is the name of an alleyway between two buildings running from Whitehall to Victoria Embankment in London; it was the original headquarters of the metropolitan police. Now, unlike in the days of Sherlock Holmes, the metropolitan police are located a half-mile away on Victoria St. However, their headquarters is still called Scotland Yard although it is no longer located on that little street off of Whitehall. In other words, the name of the institution has taken the name of its original location. With Babylon it is the same idea. Therefore, in the book of Revelation, when the early church saw the woman on seven hills, representing the Capitolina, since the woman is a city, it would have been Rome to them. (Rev. 17:9)
Therefore, when Rome burned under Nero, it fulfilled the prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah that predicted the fall of Babylon. This is the way the early Christians thought. When Mount Vesuvius exploded. Volcanic ash accumulated in the ionosphere and the upper stratosphere, thus preventing solar and lunar radiation from giving their light over much of the Roman Empire. This actually does happen; I believe the last time it happened was in Iceland during the 1960's. Next, in roughly 70 A.D., the Temple is destroyed and the Romans set up pagan images and worshiped them on the Temple Mount; the Christians of the day believed that was the Abomination of Desolations – ha shikutz ha meshomen. Thus these things have been fulfilled; that view is called Historicism.
The Protestant Reformers loved Historicism, because they said that it was the Roman Empire, Imperial Rome, which stopped the medieval papacy from blossoming. After Constantine moved his capitol to Constantinople and the Visigoths moved in, then Rome blossomed. When Scripture says that "He who restrains them will be taken out of the way", (2 Th. 2:6) they interpreted that as Imperial Rome restraining Papal Rome and then being taken out of the way. This is why the Kingdom-Now proponents say that the "Last Days" only refers to the events leading up to 70 A.D., usually denying any future meaning to the book of Revelation and so on.
The third way of interpreting prophecy is Polemicism. Polemicism says: "The book of Revelation is only given to encourage Christians during times of persecution. It reminds them of the glory to come and the judgment of their persecutors, and is thus designed to encourage them." This is a true point: Revelation opens by stating that there is a blessing on anyone who reads it, and apocalyptic literature will certainly always encourage a persecuted church. That is part of its purpose, but not in entirety.
The fourth method of interpreting prophecy is Futurism, which states that these things are going to happen in the Last Days.Which Method is Right?To a Western Gentile mind using Protestant hermeneutics which are Hellenistic in orientation for reasons I cannot go into here, one of these four methods is the true one. The question is concerning which one you support: are you a Preterist, a Historicist, a Polemicist, or a Futurist? A Jew in the 1st Century, however, would have been all foursimultaneously, as Jesus was Himself.
In Matthew 24:15-33 Jesus says that when you see the Abomination of Desolations spoken of by the prophet Daniel, then you will know the End is near. The problem is that the Abomination of Desolations spoken of by Jesus in Matthew 24 and in Luke 21, the Olivet Discourse, had already happened before He mentioned it. Jesus celebrated Hanukah in John 10, the Feast of Dedication.
He knew all about Antiochus Epiphanes setting up the image in the Temple, the pigs being slaughtered in the Temple, and the Temple being re-consecrated by the Maccabees. The Abomination of Desolations prophesied by Daniel had already happened during the intertestamental period, but Jesus took that event and prophesied that it would happen again. Jesus used Preterism: He took a past event and spoke about it in the future tense.
Then there is Historicism: Once again, look at the Abomination of Desolations as prophesied by Jesus in the Olivet Discourse. When you read Josephus and discover how the Romans destroyed the Temple and set up pagan ensigns on the Temple Mount and worshiped them, you see that it was an Abomination of Desolations. Then, in the 2nd Century, the Emperor Hadrian built a city called the Aerolinas Capitolina, putting a temple of Jupiter on the Temple Mount. Yet another Abomination of Desolations. Julian the Apostate, the nephew of Constantine who tried to re-paganize the Roman Empire, tried to rebuild the Temple, and all these mysterious fires broke out on the Temple Mount; anotherAbomination of Desolations. Today on the Temple Mount, we have the Mosque of Omar, the Dome of the Rock. On the outside of it, around its periphery, is inscribed a quotation from a surah in the Koran, which is translated: "God has no son". That is still another Abomination of Desolations.
Yet there is still an Abomination of Desolations to come. All of these preceding ones typify the one that is coming. The point is this: Western ideas of prophecy involve prediction and fulfillment. The Hebrew idea of prophecy is a pattern that is recapitulated; multiple fulfillments with one ultimate fulfillment – that is how Jewish prophecy was understood. Each of the multiple fulfillments is a type of and teaches something about the ultimate one.
Let me continue with another example: When Matthew writes his Nativity narrative he says of Jesus,"Out of Egypt I have called My Son," (Matt. 2:15) quoting from Hosea chapter 11:1. The problem with this is that when you read Hosea chapter 11, you find that Hosea was talking about the Exodus, when the children of Israel came out of Egypt under the leadership of Moses. Yet Matthew takes this, seemingly out of all context, and applies it to Jesus. However, the problem is not that Matthew took it out of context, but that the Western church has taken a Jewish book and constructed its own rules of context. Matthew thought midrashically; he thought of prophecy as pattern. Let me explain:MidrashIt begins with Abraham. God judged Pharaoh, and Abraham came out of Egypt along with his descendants in Genesis; Abraham is the archetype, the father of all who believe. Then, in Exodus, God again judges Pharaoh – the wicked king gets judged – and once again Abraham's descendants come out of Egypt. Thus the pattern begins; what happened to Israel replayed what happened first to Abraham. Just as Abraham received money from Pharaoh, so the Israelites plundered the Egyptians in Exodus.
Next, Jesus comes out of Egypt, after once again the wicked king – Herod this time – is judged. Midrashically, Israel alludes to Jesus. When you see things in Scripture such as "Israel My glory, Israel My first-born son", (Ex. 29:43) it is a midrashic allusion to the Messiah as even the rabbis know. Therefore Jesus, the embodiment of Israel, also comes out of Egypt.
Just as the church is the Body of Christ, so is Israel in some sense. Then, in 1 Corinthians 10, we come out of Egypt ourselves! Egypt is a figure of this world; Pharaoh is a figure of the devil, who is the god of this world. And just as Moses goes onto the mountain and makes a covenant with blood on behalf of the people, so does Jesus. Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt, through the water, and into the Promised Land. Jesus leads us out of the world, through baptism, and into Heaven. One is a type of the other; we all have an Exodus experience.
But the ultimate meaning is the resurrection and rapture of the church: the same judgments that take place in the book of Exodus are replayed in the book of Revelation. In the same way that Pharaoh's magicians were able to counterfeit the miracles of Moses and Aaron, the Antichrist and his False Prophet will be able to counterfeit the miracles of Jesus and His witnesses. Why is the song of Miriam ("I will sing unto the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously – the horse and the rider are thrown into the sea!") – sung in Revelation? (Ex. 15:1; Rev. 15:3) The book of Exodus shows us that the destruction of Pharaoh was a typology of the destruction of the devil. Why did the Israelites bring Joseph's bones with them out of Egypt at the front of the procession? As the scriptures tell us in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, "the dead in Christ will rise first", and we will shall come out together.
Once again, the Hebrew idea of prophecy is that of a pattern being recapitulated. It is not a prediction, but a pattern with an ultimate fulfillment. That is the Hebrew concept of eschatological prophecy. In order to really begin to understand what the Bible teaches about the Last Days, we have to stop thinking with a Western, Gentile, Hellenistic mind and begin thinking of the Scriptures in the way the Early Church did. Remember that in Revelation 2 and 3, the church of Ephesus had a lamp stand that the other churches did not have;
"Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path," (Ps. 119:105)
The virgins needed oil in their lamps in order to see in the night (Mt. 25:1-13) – we'll come back to that.
In the Last Days, understanding and faithfulness become very important. Remember that the wise virgins of Matthew 25 had the oil in their lamps so that they could see in the night, representing the illumination of the Holy Spirit in our understanding of Scripture. Laodicea needed salve with which to anoint the people's eyes, so that they could see. (Rev. 3:18) Understanding of Scripture is going to be very closely associated to faithfulness in the Last Days. It says in Daniel that none of the wicked will understand. (Dan. 12:10) Now, it is very easy for God to take somebody who has a pure heart and an empty head and give that person wisdom. However, it is much more difficult for Him to take somebody with a big head and a big intellect and give him a pure heart. Spirit and Truth; God wants us to have both. Simple people are much more likely to get saved than are sophisticated people; but after they do get saved, those simple people are not supposed to stay that way.God's TimeframeNow, with these things in view, let us look at Matthew chapter 10, beginning in verse 1:
"And when He had called His twelve disciples to Him, He gave them power over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease. Now the names of the twelve apostles are these: first, Simon who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James the son of Alphaeus, and Lebbaeus, whose surname was Thaddaeus; Simon the Cananite, and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed Him."
Do you know what "Judas Iscariot" really means? "Jude the Suburbanite". Continuing in verse 5:
"These twelve Jesus sent out and commanded them, saying: 'Do not go into the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter a city of the Samaritans. But rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as you go, preach, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven is at hand'. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give. Provide neither gold nor silver nor copper in your money belts, nor bag for your journey, nor two tunics, nor sandals, nor staffs; for a worker is worthy of his food. Now whatever city or town you enter, inquire who in it is worthy, and stay there till you go out. And when you go into a household, greet it. If the household is worthy, let your peace come upon it. But if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. And whoever will not receive you nor hear your words, when you depart from that house or city, shake off the dust from your feet. Assuredly, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Day of Judgment than for that city!
"'Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to councils and scourge you in their synagogues. You will be brought before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. But when they deliver you up, do not worry about how or what you should speak. For it will be given to you in that hour what you should speak; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you. Now brother will deliver up brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. And you will be hated by all for My name's sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved. When they persecute you in this city, flee to another. For assuredly, I say to you, you will not have gone through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes. A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master.'"
When Jesus sent out the apostles in pairs, were they brought before governors and kings for His name's sake? No. Did the Holy Spirit give them utterance when they were on trial in Matthew 10? No. Did brother deliver up brother and parents deliver up their children? No. Were they hated by all nations for His name's sake when He sent them out in pairs? No. None of it happened. Jesus had been training them, and before that they had been trained by John the Baptist; now He sends them out for their first dry run, saying 'Here is what is going to happen', but none of it did. What happened is that in verse 16 Jesus totally changed time frames.
We have today the Restorationists, who claim they are going to conquer the whole world for Jesus Christ and set up His kingdom before He comes back. They say these prophecies were fulfilled in the Early Church, that we are going to be the "Church Triumphant", etc. etc.; this is total rubbish. The Kingdom is now, but not yet. There are two terms: One is "inaugural eschatology" and the other is "over-realized eschatology".
Inaugural eschatology means that the Kingdom has broken in, Satan's powers are being thrown back, he can't possibly win, but the ultimate victory does not come until Christ returns. Look at Daniel chapter 7:21:
"I was watching; and the same horn was making war against the saints, and prevailing against them, until the Ancient of Days came, and a judgment was made in favor of the saints of the Most High, and the time came for the saints to possess the kingdom."
That replays the
story of the Maccabees, so the Restorationists would say that this was fulfilled with the Maccabees or with the Early Church, but that we are the Kingdom Now. That is over-realized eschatology, and it is totally wrong. There will be a falling away, there will be a persecution, and there will be an Antichrist. The church will be victorious, but that ultimate victory depends on the return of Jesus.The Issue of the CrossThe other thing is that Matthew 10 says we will be brought before governors and kings, persecuted for the sake of the name of Jesus Christ, and that a servant is not above his master.
I have a friend who was involved in Christian Science for 20 years before he was saved. E. W. Kenyon admitted that Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, influenced him. The whole line of thinking begun by Kenyon – "My body is lying to me", etc. – was begun by Christian Science, which also does not believe in the medical profession. The things you hear being taught by Kenneth Copeland and Kenneth Hagin were all learned from Kenyon, who admittedly got it from Christian Scientist doctrine.
Every false cult and every distortion of the Gospel of Christ will deny the Cross of Jesus in some way, without exception. The Jehovah's Witnesses don't even like to call it a "cross"; they call it a "torture stick", and they say that salvation is obtained through their organization and each individual's commitment to it.
It is the same with Roman Catholicism: Jesus said from the Cross, "It is finished". Roman Catholicism, however, says that the Mass is the same sacrifice as Calvary, that it happens over and over and over again. Roman Catholicism is a fundamental denial of the Cross of Jesus; it is a false religion. There may be true believers in it, but if they are true believers they need to come out of it. You cannot believe or participate in those doctrines and be in the will of God.
Then you have the teaching of the faith-prosperity preachers that teach Jesus died spiritually. Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Hagin, E.W. Kenyon, and all who follow them say that Jesus got the victory not on the cross but by going to hell and becoming a satanic being of one nature with Satan. That is what they teach, and it is a fundamental denial of the cross. So what happens as a result?
"A servant is not above his master." (Mt. 10:24) Because the cross of Jesus is made unimportant to His ministry, living the crucified life becomes unimportant for us also. Instead we are told, "God wants you rich, you'll never get sick, God wants you to have this and that and the other", etc. The cross becomes factored out of the equation.
Again, every distortion of Christianity in the world will reject the cross of Jesus in some way. Paul, conversely, says, "I glory in it (the Cross)". Like the old hymn says – "I will cling to the old rugged cross, and one day exchange it for a crown." We get the crown on that day, not this. Kingdom Now denies this and says we get the crown now. The Bible says the Kingdom is now but not yet; the proponents of Kingdom Now say it is all now.Switching from the Present to the FutureNonetheless, let us return to the basic problem: In Matthew 10 Jesus sends the apostles out, warns that these things will happen, but then they do not come to pass. Look at Matthew 24; Jesus begins by talking about the Temple in verses one through four.
Jesus speaks about the prophecies of Daniel 9, that the Messiah would have to come and die before the second Temple was destroyed. However, He then speaks of events which happen in the lifetimes of some of the apostles and the destruction of the Temple. Jesus does here once again what He did in Matthew 10 – He changes the timeframe in the middle of a conversation.
Matthew 24 is the same way – He begins talking about 70 AD, but then He changes timeframe and talks about the end of the world.
The same thing happens in Acts chapter 2, when the Holy Spirit is outpoured and Peter explains it. Peter quotes from Joel chapter 2 in Acts 2:15:
"'For these are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:
'AND IT SHALL COME TO PASS IN THE LAST DAYS, SAYS GOD,
THAT I WILL POUR OUT OF MY SPIRIT ON ALL FLESH;
YOUR SONS AND YOUR DAUGHTERS SHALL PROPHESY,
YOUR YOUNG MEN SHALL SEE VISIONS,
YOUR OLD MEN SHALL DREAM DREAMS.
AND ON MY MENSERVANTS AND ON MY MAIDSERVANTS
I WILL POUR OUT MY SPIRIT IN THOSE DAYS;
AND THEY SHALL PROPHESY.'"
Were there any prophecies made on the day of Pentecost? No. Verse 19:
"I WILL SHOW WONDERS IN HEAVEN ABOVE AND SIGNS IN THE EARTH BENEATH:
BLOOD AND FIRE AND VAPOR OF SMOKE.
THE SUN SHALL BE TURNED INTO DARKNESS,
AND THE MOON INTO BLOOD,
BEFORE THE COMING OF THE GREAT AND AWESOME DAY OF THE LORD.'"
Was there any great sign in heaven or on earth, any blood, fire, or vapor of smoke on the day of Pentecost? No. Did the sun then turn to darkness or the moon to blood? No. Remember that the sun is a type of Jesus, who is the Son. As it says in Isaiah,
"Arise and shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the risen LORD is brighter than the sun". (Is. 60:1)
All four gospels tell us that the resurrection of Jesus happened at sunrise. The rising of the sun is a metaphor for the rising of the Son. The moon, on the other hand, has no light of its own; it only reflects the light of the sun, just as the church has no light of its own but reflects the light of Jesus. I am not denying that these astral phenomena will happen; I am simply saying that if and when they happen, they will simply be a reflection of something deeper. The light of Jesus will no longer be reflected by the church onto the earth and the church will have blood on it – will be persecuted. I don't say that the literal astral events will not occur, only that we must understand the meaning of the metaphors. Verse 21:
"'AND IT SHALL COME TO PASS THAT WHOEVER CALLS ON THE NAME OF THE LORD SHALL BE SAVED.'"
This is called Peter's "charigma", and in Greek it literally states, "This is like that".
So in Matthew 10, Jesus sends the apostles out in pairs, telling them that some things will happen that don't happen to them. In Matthew 24, He tells the church about something that will happen, which does not happen to them fully, but only partially. Then, in Acts 2, Peter describes what is happening, but none of it actually happens.
But let us take another look at Matthew 10: To whom do these things happen? Jesus sends out the apostles in pairs, telling them they will be brought before governors and kings, they will be persecuted, the Holy Spirit will give them utterance, and they will be betrayed by their families, but to persevere to the end and they will be saved. That didn't happen to the apostles in Matthew 10; but to whom did it happen? Every one of those things happened to Jesus. What happened to Him in His last days will happen also to the church in ourlast days. Betrayed, brought before governors and kings, people selling each other down the river and stabbing one another in the back, but the ones who persevere will be saved; it will happen to us as it happened to Him.It Begins to Be ReplayedBut then there is something else: in the early chapters of Acts, these things do happen to the apostles. For example, let us look at Acts 4:18-23:
"So they called them and commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered and said to them, 'Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.' So when they had further threatened them, they let them go, finding no way of punishing them, because of the people, since they all glorified God for what had been done. For the man was over forty years old on whom this miracle of healing had been performed. And being let go, they went to their own companions and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them."
So we see the apostles brought before governors and kings, scourged in the synagogue, given utterance by the Holy Spirit, which no one can refute. Then they go on to quote Psalm 2, in Acts 4:25-26:
"'WHY DID THE NATIONS RAGE,
AND THE PEOPLE PLOT VAIN THINGS?
THE KINGS OF THE EARTH TOOK THEIR STAND,
AND THE RULERS WERE GATHERED TOGETHER
AGAINST THE LORD AND AGAINST HIS CHRIST."
The Bible frequently represents the tribulation of the church at the hands of the world in the End times by a raging sea.
Psalm 2 happened to Jesus; the Gentiles took counsel against the Lord and against His anointed; now, in Acts, they begin doing it to the church also. Yet then the pattern increases. Let's look at Acts 5:19-25:
"But at night an angel of the Lord opened the prison doors and brought them out, and said, 'Go, stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this life.' And when they heard that, they entered the temple early in the morning and taught. But the high priest and those with him came and called the council together, with all the elders of the children of Israel, and sent to the prison to have them brought. But when the officers came and did not find them in the prison, they returned and reported, saying, 'Indeed we found the prison shut securely, and the guards standing outside before the doors; but when we opened them, we found no one inside!' now when the high priest, the captain of the temple, and the chief priests heard these things, they wondered what the outcome would be. So one came and told them, saying, 'Look, the men whom you put in prison are standing in the temple and teaching the people!'"
It is fairly obvious what we have here. Let's look at Matthew 27:65:
"Pilate said to them, 'You have a guard; go your way, make it as secure as you know how.' So they went and made the tomb secure, sealing the stone and setting the guard."
Down to Matthew 28:11-14, after the resurrection of Jesus:
"Now while they were going, behold, some of the guard came into the city and reported to the chief priests all the things that had happened. When they had assembled with the elders and consulted together, they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers, saying, 'Tell them, "His disciples came at night and stole Him away while we slept." And if this comes to the governor's ears, we will appease him and make you secure.'"
So we see that just as an angel made the way for Jesus to come out of the tomb, so an angel also led the apostles out of prison. Next, the chief priests feared the people in Acts 5:26, just as it says in Luke 22:22.
Once again, in Matthew 10 we see Jesus sending out the apostles in pairs and telling them what will happen; it doesn't happen to them at that time, but it does happen to Jesus, andthen it begins to happen to the apostles and the Early Church. So we know that what happens to Jesus and what happens to the Early Church will be replayed again and will happen also to us. How do we know that? Again, let's look at Matthew 10:17:
"'But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to councils and scourge you in their synagogues. You will be brought before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. But when they deliver you up, do not worry about how or what you should speak. For it will be given to you in that hour what you should speak; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you. Now brother will deliver up brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against their parents and cause them to be put to death. And you will be hated by all for My name's sake.'"
This does not happen in Matthew 10, but let's look at Luke 21:12:
"'But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons. You will be brought before kings and rulers for My name's sake."
Notice that He says "before all these things"; the church will be persecuted before the end comes. Continuing in verse 13:
"But it will turn out for you as an occasion for testimony. Therefore settle it in your hearts not to meditate beforehand on what you will answer; for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries will not be able to contradict or resist. You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. And you will be hated by all for My name's sake. But not a hair of your head shall be lost. By your patience possess your souls."
The timeframe then changes again to 70 A.D. What Matthew 10 predicts did not happen then; it did happen to Jesus and to the apostles and to the Early Church, and it is going to happen again to the church in the Last Days. He uses the same words, and I read it from Luke intentionally to show that it is not only Matthew's attempt to construct that idea, but the Holy Spirit put the same thing in Luke.
Then, however, it becomes very conspicuous. We must realize that when we read Acts we are not merely reading the history of the 1st Century church, but also the history of the last century church.First Christ, Then PaulIn John 9:4-6, the rabbis make false charges against Jesus to the Roman authorities. In John 19:4-6, however, Pontius Pilate wants no part in judging Jesus. This is the beginning. The ministry of Paul and his last days replayed what happened to Jesus in His last days. False charges were made by the rabbis against Paul to the Roman authorities, but the Roman governor wanted no part of judging Paul either as we see in Acts 18:12-18. What happened to Jesus also happened to Paul.
In Mark 14:12-15, prior to His arrest, Jesus met with His disciples at Passover in an upper room to break bread. In Acts 20:6-8 Paul met with his disciples in an upper room to break bread before he was arrested.
In John 10:15 and in Mark 10:32-34 Jesus predicted His death to His followers, accepting it as God's will for His life. In Acts 20:24-25 we see Paul doing the very same things.
In John 18:11 Jesus' disciples attempted to convince Him to avoid this death, not to go to Judea in order to spare His life. In Acts 21:11-13, Paul's disciples also try to persuade him not to go to Jerusalem in order to save his neck.
Matthew 7:15, 24:11, Mark 13:6, and Luke 21:8 contain warnings from Jesus about wolves that would come to devour the sheep once He left, and He did this at the end of His three-year relationship with them. Acts 20:29-30 shows Paul at the end of three years warning his disciples about false prophets who would come in among them.
Mark 15:12-15, John 19:15, Luke 23:21, and Matt. 27:21-23 record that the multitudes cried out for the death of Jesus, having been incited by the rabbis. In Acts 21:36 and 22:22we find the multitude demanding Paul's death after having been incited by the rabbis.
Matthew 26:59-61 shows the rabbis trying to obtain false testimony against Jesus; He was falsely accused of teaching against the Torah and the Temple. Acts 21:28 records the same thing happening to Paul – the rabbis falsely accused him of teaching against the Torah and the Temple.
In Luke 23:8 we see how Jesus aroused curiosity, then intrigue, with the civil Roman government; in Acts 22:30 we find that Paul, too, aroused curiosity and then intrigue with the civil Roman government. We will see this happening in the Last Days as well: governments will become infatuated with Christians just as they were in the Early Church, wondering what makes us different.
In John 19 and Matthew 27 the Roman government tried to release Jesus, but then turned the entire affair over to the rabbinic authorities once they were unable to free Him, knowing He was innocent. In Acts 22:30 and 18:15 it happened to Paul.
Matthew 27:24 reveals that the Roman authorities were forced to re-intervene in the case of Jesus in order to prevent rioting; Acts 23:10, 21:34-36 records that the Roman government also had to intervene in Paul's case to prevent rioting.
The Roman governor in Matthew 26:4 came from Caesarea to Jerusalem to judge Jesus when the rabbis formed their conspiracy to kill Him; the Roman proconsul came from Caesarea to Jerusalem to judge Paul under the same circumstances, in Acts 23:12, 21.
Jesus was delivered by His Jewish brothers into the hands of Gentiles and the governor in fulfillment of a specific prophecy as seen in Luke 23:1, Matthew 27:2, Luke 18:32. In Acts 10:18 Paul underwent the same ordeal, again in fulfillment of a specific prophecy.
John 18:22 tells of Jesus being struck for the way He spoke to the high priest; Acts 23:2 tells of Paul also being struck for the same reason.
In Matthew 23:27 Jesus called the religious hypocrites "whitewashed tombs", alluding to the whitewashing of sepulchers for the Pesach. In Acts 23:3 Paul calls the priest a "whitewashed wall".
Jesus used the Resurrection to counter-manipulate the Pharisees and Sadducees against each other when they had come together against Him, in Luke 20:26-40. In Acts 23:9, Paul uses the same strategy.
If you've ever heard the joke that says if you have two Jews you have three opinions, that comes from something known as "pilpul". Pilpul is a manner of Rabbinic argumentation which allows you to quote various rabbinic authorities who have commented on other rabbis in order to justify any opinion or condemn any position you choose. It is argument for the sake of argument, and Jesus would not engage in it. At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, when it says the people were amazed because Jesus taught as one with authority and not like the scribes or Pharisees, what it means is that He would not engage in pilpul; He simply said, "This is it", and would not get into all the theological haggling and nit-picking of the rabbis of His day or the liberals of today.
There was one exception to this: Jesus used pilpul in order to get the Pharisees and Sadducees to fight with one another; Paul did likewise, refusing to engage in pilpul except with the aim of causing infighting among the Sadducees and Pharisees.
Once again: Matthew 10 did not happen at the time Jesus spoke those words, but it did happen to Him, then to the apostles, and then to Paul in very conspicuous detail – there is much more to it than I have listed here. Then, in Matthew 24 and Luke 21 we see that it is going to happen to us as well. What happened to Jesus happened to the Early Church, and both of those things together teach about what is going to happen to us. Jewish prophecy is a pattern recapitulated; multiple fulfillments, with each fulfillment teaching something about the ultimate fulfillment. If you want to know how we will end up, look at how Jesus ended up; if you want to know what will happen to the church in the last century, look at what happened to the church in the 1st Century.The Typology of the Hebrew CalendarAgain, when you read the book of Acts, you are reading not only past history, but future history as well. The early church experienced a mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit, corresponding to the spring rains. The Hebrew term "maim haim", or "living water", is a term for the Holy Spirit. Outpourings of rain are representative of outpourings of the Holy Spirit. There is a spring rain and a latter or autumn rain; there was a mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Early Church, and there will be again on the church of the Last Days. That is one of the reasons you see such an abundance of the gifts of the Spirit in the Early Church and why they return during the Last Days; it has to do with the seasons of rain. This is also why you see Jewish people getting saved in large numbers again – the harvest.
Jesus fulfilled the Spring Feasts of Israel during His first coming. He fulfilled Passover as the Passover lamb that was slain, He fulfilled Firstfruits as the firstfruit of the Resurrection, and He fulfilled Pentecost when He gave the Holy Spirit. Those are the spring holidays, when the spring rains come and prepare the harvest. The long, hot summer corresponds to the age of the Gentile church, but then Jesus fulfills the autumn holidays upon His return. The rainy season begins again in the autumn, and another harvest comes. Acts 2 quotes Joel 2, saying directly that what was seen in the Early Church will be replayed in the Last Days.
This is one of the most powerful arguments against the error of Cessationism. The Cessationist error that the gifts of the Spirit ended with the apostles, never to be seen again, is just as false on one extreme as Charismania is on the other extreme. The truth is the via media. These things are seen in the Early Church, and then you have an outpouring on the church in the Last Days and these things are seen once again.
The outpouring of the Holy Spirit was accompanied by signs and wonders. Acts 2:16-21 predicts that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the Last Days will also be accompanied by signs and wonders. Unfortunately, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the resulting signs and wonders was followed by false doctrine, experiential theology, carnality, and misuse of spiritual gifts – read 1 Corinthians. What happens today? The gifts of the Spirit are followed by experiential theology, carnality, immorality, people substituting the gifts for the Giver, crazy doctrines; the very same thing they had in the Early Church.
The relevance of the law of Moses became a divisive issue among the early Jewish believers as seen in Acts 15 and Galatians 5. Once again, among Messianic Jews, this is happening. Tens of thousands of Jews have been saved during the past 15 years, and we now have the same kinds of issues that were around in the Early Church coming around to us again.The Move of the GospelThe known world during the time of the Early Church was the Roman Empire, the Mediterranean Basin, and so on – not much beyond that. Yet we are told in Acts 17:6 that the Gospel turned the world upside down in that time. Matthew 24:14 states that in the Last Days God will shake the earth one more time; the Gospel will go to the ends of the earth and in the Last Days God will shake the earth once more.
We have seen whole Buddhist nations like Korea turn to Christ within one generation. In the largest Muslim nation on earth, Indonesia, two to three million Muslims give their lives to Christ every year, turning their backs on Mohammed. As the Gospel and Christianity decline in the Western world, they explode in the developing world. As the Gospel declines in Protestant countries, it explodes in the Roman Catholic nations. And as the Gentiles turn away from the truth and the grace given to them, the Jews are returning to it.
In the early church, we see in Acts 1: 8, God used the Jews to bring the Gospel to the Gentiles. We see in Revelation 7 possibly, Romans 11 certainly, "What will their restoration be but life from the dead?" – that there can be no mistake about it; God is going to bless the church through the Jewish people. He is going to use Jewish people to evangelize Gentiles as well. Just as God used Jews to bring the Gospel to the Gentiles in the 1st Century, so He is using Gentiles to bring the Gospel back to the Jews in the end. When that happens, God will use these Jewish believers to bless the church.The Resurgence of Anti-Semitism Acts 19:33, 34 shows that in the time of the early church there was growing anti-Semitism. In the Last Days, we will again see growing anti-Semitism. The two kinds of people that the Bible calls God's chosen are Jews and born-again Christians; it all goes back to Genesis chapter 3, where God addresses the serpent to say that He will put enmity between it and the woman, between its seed and hers. Anti-Semitism and persecution of the church is like a coin, heads and tails: you can distinguish between them, but you cannot separate them.
Who do Moslems hate the most? Jews and born-again Christians. Under the Communists, behind the Iron Curtain, who was persecuted most? Jews and born-again Christians. Who did the Roman Catholic Church persecute the most over the centuries with its Crusades and its Inquisitions and pogroms? Jews and born-again Christians. Who did the Russian Orthodox Church persecute the most? Jews and born-again Christians.
It all goes back to the Early Church: after the Roman government turned against the church it went after the Jews. That's what happened in 70 A.D. and again in 120-132 A.D. withBar-Kochba's rebellion, and that is exactly what is going to happen again in the Last Days with the Antichrist. He will come after us first, and then he'll go after the Jews. Anti-Semitism will increase, and through certain Restorationists,\ it is even coming into the church.
Martin Luther, as an early example, was a man of God if there ever was one; but how he could end up the way he did is a shocking tragedy: he said that peasants should be stabbed in the back, that Jews should be herded into corrals and forced to confess Christ at the point of a knife, and that the German people were to blame for not murdering them to prove they were Christians. This is what is re-entering the church now.
Corrupt political leaders who have tried to exterminate the Jews have always attempted to justify it theologically by quoting people such as Chrysostom and Luther. Today we have the same situation; just read some of the books being published in our time, such as Whose Promised Land? or Blood Brother – very biased against Israel. People are trying to find Christian preachers who will justify their hatred of Israel and their denial of God's end-times purpose for the Jews, and they are succeeding. Yet God's plan for world redemption will ultimately depend on the redemption of Israel; His plan for the salvation of the world is prophetically bound up with His plan for Israel's salvation. Israel is God's timepiece. This does not mean that the Jews are higher, better, or anything else, but it is true nonetheless.The Resurgence of Rome Daniel 7:19,20, Revelation 17:9 – Rome ruled the world in the time of the Early Church. I have no doubt in my mind that the fourth beast of Daniel has to be some kind of a re-confederation of the Roman Empire; we have not heard the last of Rome. The council of Europe was founded by the Treaty of Rome. We must remember this: the emperor was head of the Pantheon of Rome; you could have any god you wanted, as long as you also bowed the knee to the Emperor of Rome. The Hebrew word for "to worship" and "to bow down" is the same word – "hasta kovot". When you see Roman Catholics genuflecting before a statue of Mary, that is an act of idolatry.
All gods came into the Pantheon which was headed by the Emperor, who allowed the people to worship any god they wanted as long as they acknowledged him as the spiritual guide of all religions and the political head. He was called Pontificus Maximus, the Pontiff. After Constantine removed his capitol to Constantinople, the Pope became the Pontiff. It amounted to the same thing – someone had a pagan god of gift-giving, so the Pontiff decided he would be called Saint Nicholas; someone else had a pagan god of love, and he was dubbed Saint Valentine. Artemis, Minerva, and all these other goddesses became Mary. Essentially, it remained the same false religion. This is what will happen again in the Last Days.
The Romans had religio licita and religio illicita; a licensed religion was fine so long as it acknowledged the Pontiff as the guide. Unlicensed religions were those that refused to bow the knee to the emperor and there was only one religion which ultimately fits into this category: ours. The Pontiff condemned it. Pope John Paul II has met with the Dalai Lama, a man worshiped as God by Tibetan Buddhists; he has met with Zoroastrian priests, witch doctors, Moslem imams, orthodox rabbis, and the Archbishop of Canterbury. He says that he respects all religions, and receives the Dalai Lama as a "great spiritual leader" – a man worshiped as God! That is antichrist. He only asked that all these people acknowledge him as the Pontiff.
However, there was one religion that the Pontiff, John Paul II, did not approve of. In Bolivia about six years ago and again in Santo Domingo less than one year ago, the Pope called born-again Christians "rapacious wolves". Religio licita and religio illicita; every religion is all right except ours. That is what the Pontiff did two thousand years ago, and that is what he still does today.
Looking at the Greek word for Antichrist, we find that it does not simply mean "against Christ", but "in place of Christ". The Pope's title is Vicarius Christus, the Vicar of Christ; translated into Greek, the "Vicar of Christ" is "Antichrist".
That is what was happening in the Early Church, and that is what is happening today. Pope John Paul II has said openly that he wants to see one Europe with one church. He knows very well that with a confederated Europe they have only one thing in common: Roman Catholicism. The Church of England is dropping dead, going back under Rome. George Carey, Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote a book called The Meeting of Waters, urging the Anglican church to go back under the papacy. Across Europe, the only thing those people of different languages, different cultures, and different anthropological heritages have to unite them is Roman Catholicism, and the Pope knows that. He wants one Europe with one church; in other words, to go back to what exi
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Is the Drum Beat of Rock Music Demonic?
A Scriptural, musical, and historical response to the assertions of Larry De Bruyen by James Jacob Prasch
Is the Drum Beat of Rock Music Demonic? Part 1
Is the Drum Beat of Rock Music Demonic? Part 2
Is the Drum Beat of Rock Music Demonic? Part 3
Is the Drum Beat of Rock Music Demonic? Part 4
Is the Drum Beat of Rock Music Demonic? Part 5
Is the Drum Beat of Rock Music Demonic? Part 6 Azimuth Radio is a free and non profit making internet based radio station which exists to bring contemporary Christian music and Bible teaching to as wide an audience as possible.
Jacob is broadcast daily at 10 PM UK Time "In The Days" is a web resource dedicated to publishing news events in the light of biblical prophecy. Readmore. The Barnabas Fund exists to assist persecuted Christian minorities by prayer and practical support. Read more. Resources for Evangelism
Please click herefor Gospel tracts in several languages.
A Scriptural, musical, and historical response to the assertions of Larry De Bruyen by James Jacob Prasch
Is the Drum Beat of Rock Music Demonic? Part 1
Is the Drum Beat of Rock Music Demonic? Part 2
Is the Drum Beat of Rock Music Demonic? Part 3
Is the Drum Beat of Rock Music Demonic? Part 4
Is the Drum Beat of Rock Music Demonic? Part 5
Is the Drum Beat of Rock Music Demonic? Part 6 Azimuth Radio is a free and non profit making internet based radio station which exists to bring contemporary Christian music and Bible teaching to as wide an audience as possible.
Jacob is broadcast daily at 10 PM UK Time "In The Days" is a web resource dedicated to publishing news events in the light of biblical prophecy. Readmore. The Barnabas Fund exists to assist persecuted Christian minorities by prayer and practical support. Read more. Resources for Evangelism
Please click herefor Gospel tracts in several languages.
Issue of Scripture
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In Christianity, the Word of God comes from only one source - the Holy Bible. The Word of God has a strict code of morals and basic life for humans to follow, just as the Hindu Gods in the Hindu scriptures do. However, the Hindus rely on many written sources for their faith: the Vedas, the Puranas, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the Bhagavad-Gita, and the Manu Smirti. Issue of LifeAnother area of difference between the two religions is the treatment of animals. Hinduism frowns upon the killing or abusing of animals, while Christianity sees such treatment as appropriate, at times. In Hinduism on the other hand, an animal could be the soul of one of your deceased family members of friends. The biblical God allows animal sacrifices, or at least, never seems to condemn it. For example, there is the story of the prophet Elijah and his servant Elisha: "He returned from following him, took the yoke of oxen, and slaughtered them; using the equipment from the oxen, he boiled their flesh, and gave it to the people, and they ate." (I Kings 19:21).
Several extremely popular gods, such as Ganesha and Hanuman, have animal features and gods such as Shiva and Vishnu are regularly portrayed in the company of their animal companions." As well, they believe that all pre-human beings, such as animals, will eventually become humans themselves, as we are all reborn, according to Hindus. Yet it must be said that when there have been recent conflicts in India, the Hindu"s have not hesitated to kill Muslims, Sikhs and Christians when it pleased them!!
Several extremely popular gods, such as Ganesha and Hanuman, have animal features and gods such as Shiva and Vishnu are regularly portrayed in the company of their animal companions." As well, they believe that all pre-human beings, such as animals, will eventually become humans themselves, as we are all reborn, according to Hindus. Yet it must be said that when there have been recent conflicts in India, the Hindu"s have not hesitated to kill Muslims, Sikhs and Christians when it pleased them!!
Future History of the Church Part 2 of 3
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Rome Then and NowWhat happened during the Reformation was relatively mild in comparison to the tremendous revival taking place now in Roman Catholic countries, specifically in South America: In Santiago, Chile, 20,000 people leave the Roman Catholic church every week to become Pentecostals. In Guatemala, 10% of the population left the Roman Catholic church within ten years' time and became Pentecostals. In the Philippines it is the same; in the United States, the number of converted Roman Catholics is incredible. In Ireland, more Roman Catholics are now getting saved than Protestants. In Italy there are over 1,000 Assemblies of God churches, none of them small and practically all of them new. While the Assemblies of God denomination is failing in countries that had the Reformation, it is prospering in Catholic countries. We will observe that the Mary issue will be incendiary; "Great is Diana of Ephesus" – see Acts 19:23-34.
The Roman emperors were worshiped and God's people were killed for refusing to participate in it. 2 Thessalonians 2 and Revelation 13 speak of the same thing. The emperor worship of Rome prefigures worship of the Antichrist. The kissing of the Pope's ring and other similar practices are derived from emperor worship. Once again, in the Last Days the Antichrist, the emperor will demand to be worshiped in some way. Those who will not do so will be persecuted for their refusal.
Scripture notes in Acts 5:37, the nativity narratives, etc., that the Roman emperors took a census. When you really understand the way census was used in the Bible, you will understand why David's taking the census in Israel (1 Chr. 21) was even worse than his sin of adultery with Bathsheba. The Roman emperors used census to number people's heads and thus gain financial control of the world; this is what the Antichrist will also do. It happened in the time of the Early Church and it will happen again in the end. The worst emperors slaughtered the church and then turned against the Jews. It began with Nero in 62 A.D., and in 68-70 A.D. the tide turned against the Jews. In the 2nd Century emperors such as Diocletian, Marcus Aurelius, and Septimus Severitus were against the church, but then with Hadrian they went against the Jews from 120-132 A.D.
The early believers had an imminent eschatology; they believed that Jesus was coming back during their lifetime. We, too, will begin to see that happening. The general tide of world events politically at that time fulfilled specific eschatological prophecies. The events surrounding the destruction of the Temple, the burning of Rome, etc. – those things fulfilled prophecy. But once again, Jewish prophecy is pattern, and those same prophecies will again be fulfilled in the future. What I am basically saying is this: When you read the book of Acts, you're not only reading the history of the early church, you're also reading the history of the latter church. What happens to Jesus happens to the Apostles, happens to Paul, and happens to the early Christians; all of these things together teach what will happen to us. What happens to Jesus in His last days happens again to His Body in the Last Days.
What happened in the Early Church will happen in the latter church. The Book of Acts happens again. Forty-eight percent of the Gospel of John deals with the last week of Jesus' life; the Passion narrative. All four gospels devote at least one-third of their time to what happened in the last days of Jesus' earthly life. If it is read the right way, the New Testament does the same with us, speaking a great deal about what will happen in the Last Days. Jesus was betrayed, crucified, and raised victorious. We, too, will be betrayed, crucified, and raised victorious.Deception Then and NowIt is important to realize that the kinds of deceptions perpetrated by Satan against the Early Church are the kinds of deceptions he will use against the church in the Last Days. The same heresies, false doctrines, and deceptions that the devil introduced into Christianity in its early centuries make a comeback in the Last Days.
In the Early Church people with a low Christology – people who did not believe that Jesus was God – were called "Arians". Today we call them Jehovah's Witnesses; the two are essentially the same.
In the Early Church they called the Sabbatarians and dietary legalists and Nomianists "Judaizers" (see Galatians). Today we call them Seventh-Day Adventists.
In the Early Church people who were hyper-Dispensationalist – who took Dispensationalism to a bizarre extreme and made a radical, tremendous separation between the Testaments – were called "Marcionites". Today they are the Exclusive or Closed Brethren.
In the Early Church, the people who said that the Father was Jesus, the Son was Jesus, and the Spirit was Jesus were called "Sabellians" or "Patripassionists". Today we call them Jesus-Only Pentecostals, or United Pentecostals. There is nothing new under the sun.
Undoubtedly, however, of all these lies and the many others, the two most damaging were the Montanists and the Gnostics, who were related to each other. The Montanists had over-realized eschatology; they believed that the kingdom was now. They made many crazy predictions and prophecies that revival was coming to their capital or that Jesus was coming there Himself in Phrygia or modern-day Turkey. They had all manner of wild predictions, but the way they sucked people into it was by putting a heavy emphasis on signs and wonders. "The Apostles had these things, the Bible teaches them, so we should have them" was their philosophy. Irenaeus, the pre-Nicean church father, wrote against these people while yet defending what was right about them. He did say that signs and wonders and the gifts of the Spirit are Biblical; but this particular group was using them to get people to believe other bizarre things. The same is true today.
In the Early Church people like Tertullian, the church father – people you would never have expected to get caught up in crazy errors – did. Today, too, I find people I never would have expected being caught up in the same kinds of Kingdom Now ideas of Triumphalism, Restorationism, and Dominionism. It works the same way, with the emphasis laid on signs and wonders, etc.
These people in the Early Church made insane predictions that didn't happen and led to total anarchy. At any turning point in church history, this same Kingdom Now theology has surfaced. The Montanists began to surface when the Roman Empire went into decline.
During the Renaissance, which was a very important turning point in the history of Europe, believers in Montanist doctrines were called the followers of Joachim of Fiore. This man, leader of Kingdom Now theology at that time, has such a similar philosophy to that of the Vineyard movement today that he could have written for their magazine. We see in them the same ideas, for example: there are supposedly three ages, the Age of the Father, the Age of the Son, and the Age of the Spirit; the Age of the Father being Old Testament Israel, the Age of the Son being the church age, and the Age of the Spirit being the latter-day rain, identified with their own movement. They believed they belonged to a new religious order that was going to take over all other religious orders. This is the same belief found today in John Wimber's Vineyard Movement.
During the Reformation, there were the Prophets of Zwickau. Now, if you're Brethren, Pentecostal, or Baptist, don't ever consider yourself a Protestant. If you had been around during the Reformation, the Protestants would have called you an "Anabaptist" and they would have killed you as fast as the Catholics would. Zwingli said, "So you want to be baptized again?" and cut a hole in the ice in Zurich in which they drowned the believers there who believed in believers' baptism. The followers of Luther, Calvin and Zwingli killed Anabaptists. If you're Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian, or Reformed, then you're a Protestant; but anything non-conformist is not Protestant.
The Anabaptists were in most ways much closer to the Scripture than the Reformers were. The Protestants ran around pretending they had rediscovered the Gospel, when in fact there were people who had never lost it. Long before Luther, Calvin, or Zwingli, there were people on the Continent such as John S. Huss and the Bohemian Brethren, or in England the followers of John Wycliffe, or the Waldensians who were around for centuries – all of whom were Bible-believing Christians. There were always people who understood the basic truth and knew the church at large had gotten away from it.
However, in the time of the Reformation something happened. Feudalism ended, and capitalism began. The decline of the Holy Roman Empire – which was neither holy nor Roman – was occurring, and that Empire was being replaced with the nation-state; people began saying "I am English", "I am German", "I am Scottish", etc. Therefore, the Pope no longer had the political leverage to exterminate Christians and suppress the preaching of the Gospel in the way that he had throughout the Dark Ages.
Additionally, Gutenberg invented the printing press. You no longer had the Vulgate, which was the Latin edition of the Bible that monks copied; instead you had people like Luther putting the Bible into German and Tyndale into English and so on, and Bibles could be mass-produced because of Gutenberg's invention. So the Bible went out, literacy increased, and the Pope lost his ability to stop the spread of the Gospel politically. That is why the Reformation happened. The only thing people like Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli did was get away with something that other people before them had always said, only the political and social circumstances were not ripe for them to live to tell about it. The idea that the Reformers rediscovered the Gospel is a perversion of history.
There were some Anabaptists whose capital was Muenster in Germany, near Holland. They followed these "prophets" called the Prophets of Zwickau, who made a lot of crazy predictions, prophecies, and practices, with excessive abuses of the gifts of the Spirit etc., which led to total anarchy. Today we have the same thing, only instead of the Prophets of Zwickau we have the Kansas City Prophets. After Paul Cain publicly made false predictions with John Wimber in England, the same people who witnessed these false prophecies will get on buses again to go hear a repeat performance by this man, who prophesied falsely in the name of the Lord. The Anglican bishop David Pitchers wrote a book called Some Said it Thundered, telling all Evangelical Anglicans to follow this guy. They did, and Paul Cain has since that time gone to Saddam Hussein, a man who has murdered God only knows how many tens of thousands of his own people, and apologized, repenting on behalf of the born-again Christians in the United States and Great Britain for "what we did to him".Proper Use of Midrash Kingdom Now theology has always surfaced at pivotal points in history – there is nothing new under the sun. Related to it is something really crazy: Gnosticism.
Alexandria was where the Judeo-Christian world met the Orient. It was where Zoroastrian priests, Jewish rabbis, Buddhist monks, and Christians converged with the exchange of ideas. At the onset of the Christian era, the Hellenistic ideas of someone named Philo had already begun to come into Judaism. This was picked up by some of the people in Alexandria who were Christians, especially Origen – possibly Clement of Alexandria, but certainly Origen. Let me explain.
Midrashically, in the Jewish way of handling Scripture, you use symbolism, typology, and allegory to illustrate and illuminate doctrine, without ever basing doctrine on it. Take the Passover as an example with the symbolism of the Last Supper. When you understand the Jewish Passover and the Last Supper as a Passover, the symbolism of the Jewish ritual in the Passover seder will help you understand the Lord's Supper on a much deeper level than you otherwise could. The purpose of allegory, typology and symbolism is to illuminatedoctrine on a deeper level, never to be the basis of doctrine in itself.
Very briefly: A Jewish Christian reading John's Gospel in the 1st Century would have read John 1, 2, and 3 and he would have said that it was, of course, a midrash on Genesis 1, 2, and 3. He would have said that John 1, 2, and 3 narrated the New Creation, while Genesis narrated the Creation; therefore Genesis 1, 2, and 3 and John 1, 2, and 3 are a midrashic parallel.God walks the Creation in Genesis, and God walks on the earth in the New Creation in John. The Spirit moves on the water and brings forth the Creation in Genesis, and the Spirit moves on the water and brings forth the New Creation in John. God comes to separate the light from the darkness in the Creation in Genesis, and He does so again in the New Creation in John. In the Creation in Genesis you have the small light and the great light; in the New Creation you have Johanan Hamadvil -- John the Baptist (the small light), and Yeshua ha Mashiach, Jesus the Messiah (the great light).Midrashically, the fig tree is a metaphor for the Tree of Life that is in the Garden of Eden. The Tree of Life is in the garden, and the fig tree is in John. So midrashically, when Jesus sees Nathaniel "under the fig tree", in Jewish metaphor Jesus was not merely saying to Nathaniel, "I saw you under a literal fig tree", although he did; He was saying midrashically, "I saw you from the creation; from the foundation of the world I foreknew you." That illustrates the truth; the Bible directly states elsewhere that there are "those whom He foreknew from the creation of the world". (Rom. 8:29) I am not a Calvinist, but there is a truth in it. The midrash illustrates that truth, but it is not the basis of it.
In the same way, "This is the cup of the new covenant in My blood", as Jesus said at the Last Supper, (1 Co. 11:25) shows that the Passover meal illustrates the doctrine of atonement while not being the basis for it. That is the way in which Jewish hermeneutics uses allegory. It's totally wrong to reject allegory in the way the Reformers did because the deeper things of the Scriptures will never be understood if we do that. On the other hand, however, it is just as wrong and even dangerous to base doctrine on it.GnosticismWhat the Gnostics did was this: They claimed a subjective mystical insight into the types and allegories in Scripture, then reinterpreted the plain meaning of the Bible in light of this "gnosis", which is the Greek word for spiritual revelation. They claimed to have special knowledge, and if you didn't see it, they would say you were under spiritual deception or in rebellion.
Roman Catholicism is based on Gnosticism. The Pope erroneously claims to be the successor of Peter; to have your hermeneutics right, you must first have your ecclesiology right. In other words, only the Pope, the Magisterium of the Church, can interpret the Bible. Therefore, although the plain meaning of Luke 1:47 is that Mary says she needs a Savior, Catholicism replies, "Yes, but you don't have the gnosis; the Pope has it because he's the heir of Peter, and he says that Mary does not need a Savior because she was conceived without sin."
Hasidic Judaism is the same way. Their rabbis are called "rebbes" and they're the descendants of someone called Bal Shem Tov, the Besch in Judaism, a Jewish Gnostic who was into things like astral projection. The Hasidic Jews contend with each other about whose rebbe is the real descendant of Besch; who really has the spirit of the Besch. It's a form of reincarnation that comes from Hinduism. Therefore, for Hasidic Jews there are two ways to God: The Torah and the rebbe, the righteous one. The rebbe goes to God through Torah; you go to God through the rebbe. What the Torah says is not important; what the rebbe says about it is important.
Similarly, with Catholicism it is not what the New Testament says that is important, but rather what the Pope says about it that matters. With Sufi Moslems, it's the suf; with Shi'a Moslems, it's the imam, and what the imam says about the Koran. With Zoroastrians, it's their priesthood. With Hindus, it's the Brahman priests, the highest order of the caste system, or the guru. He goes to Vishnu and Krishna, you go through him. With Shamanism it's the shaman. To Tibetan Buddhists the essential figure is the Dalai Lama. All of these groups follow Gnosticism.
The essential issue in these forms of Gnosticism therefore becomes, "Who is your guru, who is your pope, who is your imam, who is your rebbe, who is your suf, who is your lama or your priest or your shaman?'" In Restorationism, the corresponding question is, "Who is your apostle, who is your prophet?"Modern-Day GnosticsJoel chapter 2 is the basis for the Manchild/Manifest Sons of God doctrines of Restorationism. Let's take a look at John Wimber's exposition of Joel chapter 2. Remember that Jewish prophecy is pattern, and therefore somehow this passage is about the Last Days. However, in its historical context it is speaking of Nebuchadnezzar's invasion. Joel 2 says this:
"Blow the trumpet in Zion,
Sound an alarm…
…There is a great and mighty people…
There has never been anything like it,
Nor will there ever be again
To the years of many generations.
A fire consumes before them,
And a flame after them.
The land is like the Garden of Eden before them,
And desolate wilderness after them.
Nothing escapes them."
That is what John Wimber, Paul Cain, David Pitchers, Gerald Coates, and the people in the house churches who follow them have said that the church triumphant is going to be. But let's look more closely
"Their appearance is like the appearance of horses;
Like warhorses they run…
…They rush on the city,
They run on the walls."
It goes on from there to describe this army as locusts. The Restorationists say that the church triumphant will be this army of devouring locusts, that they will conquer all. But now let's look at verse 20:
"I will remove the northern army far from you,
And will drive it into a parched and desolate land,
Its vanguard in the Eastern Sea
And its rearguard into the Western Sea.
And its stench will arise, and its foul smell will come up,
For it has done great things."
God is going to destroy and judge this army because it is evil the way He judged and destroyed Nebuchadnezzar's army. That is the context exegetically, grammatically, historically, or any other way you would like to look at it. But John Wimber came along claiming a gnosis saying, "No, that's not what it means – it's the church triumphant"; if you don't see this, he will simply say that you are under spiritual deception. If you disagree, you'll be accused of having the spirit of Antichrist.
Another man who is guilty of this kind of thing is Andrew Shearman, though he is more eisegetical than actually Gnostic. He will take a text which says that the Gospel is preached until John, but then with the Kingdom, men enter it violently; he will twist that text. (Mt. 11:12) What "violently" means here in its original Greek context is "pressed into". It can be compared to this hypothetical situation: If you were taking a boat across the Irish Sea from Hollyhead in Wales to Dublin, and you put on a life jacket and got into a lifeboat, the other passengers would think you were crazy. On these ferryboats there are pubs, discotheques, casinos, etc. The people are thereby amusing themselves, while you sit in the lifeboat with your life jacket on, trying to encourage people to put on life jackets and join you because it will add to the comfort and pleasure of their trip. They would say you were nuts; but as soon as the warning whistle goes off and these people know the boat is sinking and they're doomed, they'll be pressing into the lifeboats and trying to get life jackets on in order to save their necks.
The Law and the Prophets are taught until John; in Galatians the Law is called our teacher because it teaches us that we are condemned and in need of salvation. (Gal. 3:24) This is what the text means, but Mr. Shearman says, "No, this is the church triumphant. We're the mighty men who are going to do the conquering." This is nonsensical and doesn't come close to what the text means. There is no way anyone can read that text in its original context and come up with such a stupid conclusion, yet this is what the man teaches, and ifyou don't see it you're "under spiritual deception". Again, it's not what the Bible says that's important, but rather what the person with the gnosis claims.Two Forms of GnosticismThis is what the Gnostics do today, and it is exactly what they did in the Early Church as well. In the time of the Early Church there were two forms of Gnosticism: the totally pagan form and the form that got into the church under the leadership of people such as Basil and Valentinus. The same applies today; there are two forms of Gnosticism. The utterly pagan form is the New Age movement; Gnosticism is really what the New Age movement is. It may have occult packaging and so on, but the core of it is Gnostic. The kind of Gnosticism getting into the church today is Restorationism. All of the visualization techniques among many other popular things Restorationists embrace – such as Joyce Huggett'sbooks – are New Age ideas, totally alien to the Bible.
Using breathing exercises for prayer, as she describes, comes from yoga. She states also that the exercises of Ignatius of Loyolashould be used as a model for Christian prayer. Ignatius Loyola was the founder of the Jesuits, a religious order designed to stop the spread of the Gospel in the Counter-Reformation. He was a man whose order is responsible for the death, torture, and murder of probably a half-million Christians. Yet his shamanistic exercises are being upheld in today's church as a model for Christian prayer! These are New Age ideas creeping into the church. These were also the kinds of deception faced by the Early Church; the same ones have come back.
It doesn't matter whether you call it "Arianism" or Jehovah's Witnesses; it is the same thing. Charles Taze Russell and Judge Rutherford, the founders of the Jehovah's Witness movement, claimed a gnosis. If you don't agree with them, you're under deception. Roman Catholicism = Gnosticism. Shia Islam = Gnosticism. Sufi Islam = Gnosticism. Zoroastrianism = Gnosticism. Hinduism = Gnosticism. Shamanism = Gnosticism. The house churches = Gnosticism.
Just look at the damage that heavy shepherding and similar practices have caused people. This Restorationism is a natural bedfellow for all kinds of other errors, one of which is heavy shepherding. We deal with this more in depth in a separate teaching; I am simply saying here that it was a deception in the Early Church, and it is again becoming a deception now. A person who claims the gnosis is naturally going to become a heavy shepherd; what else could he be? Jesus, however, said that One is your Teacher, Who is in heaven (Mt. 23:8-10).
God will do a new thing. If a couple has four children and they decide to have a fifth (God help them), God will do a new thing, but they will get the fifth child in the same way in which they got the first four. When God does a new thing, it will always be in character with the way He has always done things. What Gnostics will say is that everything can be abrogated because God is going to do a new thing in the Last Days; that is true, but it will never be out of character with the way He has always done things.
There is a lot wrong with abortion, but one of the things that bothers me most is the waiting list of couples who are trying to adopt a baby. This list is three miles long, while other people are killing children. There is no such thing as an unwanted baby. People will adopt handicapped children or just about any child if they want one badly enough; yet other people are killing them.
If a couple really loves each other, and they want to share their love with a baby, the mother never says, "I just can't face labor. I can't face morning sickness or contractions; therefore I am not going to have the baby. It's too miserable." The only thing she's thinking of is pushing the baby in a pram, taking him to the park on the swings, and going to the zoo to show him the zebras and the monkeys. Morning sickness and labor are not what occupy her mind; that's just what has to be gone through in order to get the child.
I'm glad I am not a female. I watched one of my children being born, and kept my eye on the monitor that measures the intensity and frequency of contractions. Every time the thing started moving I told my wife, "This is the last one, this is it! I wouldn't lie to you, baby," but I was lying. Forget those rugby players at Wiggin; women are the strongest creatures in the world! If one of those rugby players had a baby he'd be out for the season.Increasing TremorsBirth pangs and earth tremors – but particularly birth pangs – are the most common things Scripture uses to describe what is going to happen to the church before Jesus comes. Think of the nature of birth pangs: Contractions become more frequent and more severe, while letting up for a while in between. They are at their worst right before the baby is born. The same applies to the Last Days; the pressure grows worse and worse, and though it might let up for a while, it returns and continues in that pattern until the birth occurs. That's what Revelation is about; certainly that's what Jeremiah talks about. Jeremiah refers frequently to birth pangs; he is a prophet who prophesied for his own time, for the first coming of Jesus, and for the Last Days, sometimes almost in the same breath. Whenever you see something in Scripture about birth pangs, the Holy Spirit is trying to reveal something about what will happen to the church in the Last Days.
1 Thessalonians 5 is another example.
"When they are saying 'peace and safety', then destruction will come upon them like birth pangs upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape."
Read Jeremiah; whenever you see the idea of birth pangs, it is eschatologically significant. In addition, whatever you have in the science of obstetrics has its parallel in the science of seismology. Earth tremors behave in much the same way as birth pangs; before there is a major shift of plates causing a big earthquake, a number of smaller tremors precede it. They tend to become more frequent and more intense before the final quake actually occurs. In America and Japan they spend astronomical sums of money trying to discern patterns in tremors in order to predict earthquakes. But they do know that tremors operate under much the same principle as birth pangs. Tremors, too, teach something about what will happen in the Last Days.
The tremors increase, the birth pangs increase, and then the baby comes. Once the baby arrives, and the obstetrician or midwife hands the baby to the mother, all the pain, misery, and mess of labor and delivery is quickly forgotten. The only important thing is the baby, who is well worth it. A woman could be in labor for four weeks, but as soon as she has her baby it's all forgotten.
It will be the same way when Jesus comes; as soon as He appears, all pain and misery is forgotten. We should think about Jesus coming; we don't have to consider the tribulation that goes before it, just as a mother anticipates her child's birth rather than dreading labor pains. Yet we must realize that tribulation is going to happen in the Last Days; just as a mother realizes there is no getting around the birth process.Examples Past and PresentWhat happened with the Maccabees and Antiochus Epiphanes happens again to Israel and the church in the Last Days in some way. The book of Daniel also happens again. What happened in the days of the Maccabees was this: a lot of Jews compromised with the Seleucids, allowing Hellenism and "Avodat Zara", in Hebrew, or foreign worship, to begin taking place in the city of God and ultimately in the house of God. Things wouldn't have gotten that far if so many Jews hadn't been willing to compromise. The way the Maccabees stood up against it and others began joining them teaches something about what is going to happen when the Antichrist manifests. Antiochus Epiphanes did not simply come one day, slaughter a pig in the Temple, and set up an image of Zeus and of himself to be worshiped. Nor is that the way the future abomination of desolations will come. Things build up toward that point; the Jews compromised and compromised until one day things had gone so far they could no longer put a stop to it.
The same thing is happening now. The Church of England is a church where someone who will not agree to sprinkle babies for infant baptism cannot be ordained a minister, but someone who is prepared to deny the Resurrection of Jesus Christ can be consecrated a bishop, with two-thirds of the other bishops defending him – including Evangelicals. Canterbury Cathedral is a site of interfaith worship. The Greek word "demonoi", Hebrew word "shiddim" – other gods are demons, as Scripture directly states in Deuteronomy and in 1 Corinthians. (Dt. 32:17; 1 Co. 10:20) Hindu worship takes place in Canterbury Cathedral; 2,000 Anglican bishops signed a petition to stop it, but the Evangelical Archbishop stated that he "respects all religions". That is an abomination of desolations in the house of God. People give up and give up and give up, continuing to compromise until it is too late.
In the same way, don't expect to see the Antichrist being worshiped in the church overnight. It doesn't happen that way, it happens the way it did in the time of the Maccabees, with God's people compromising repeatedly until things have gone too far to be stopped. Daniel 11:33-35 says this:
"Those who have understanding among the people will rise up and give understanding to the many. But they will be persecuted . . ."
(We discuss this on the Christmas/ Hanukah tape.) What happened with the Maccabees happens again in the Last Days. The book of Daniel is replayed; Jesus said directly that when we see the abomination of desolations being set up, we could know that our redemption draws near. (Lk. 21:28) What happened with the Maccabees as Daniel predicted it has to happen again; Jesus said so directly. When you read Daniel, read Maccabees in the Apocrypha and see what happens. When you do, you will be reading about one of the main things that is going to happen to the church again. There will be an abomination of desolations.The Physical Reflects the Deeper SpiritualThere are different words in Greek for "church" or "temple": oikos, naos, hieron; in Hebrew it's ha hekal, beth mishkatn, beth migdash. In no less than seven places, the New Testament says that the church is the temple. When Jesus died, and the Temple veil was torn from the ceiling to the ground, a physically visible event did happen in the Temple. However, what was important was not that the Temple veil was torn; what mattered was what it meant: that sinful man was no longer separated from holy God because Jesus paid the price for our sins. (We deal with this on the Typology of the Temple tape.) The old-time Brethren emphasized the typology of the Temple and in many fundamental respects, because of their emphasis on typology, the old-time Brethren were probably closer than the Gentile church has ever been to beginning to interpret the Bible as a Jewish book the way the Early Church did. Maybe they didn't go far enough; maybe a lot of things, but they were closer than the Gentile church otherwise ever got to reading this Jewish book as a Jewish book.
Nonetheless, when Jesus died and the Temple veil was torn, the physical event reflected a deeper spiritual one. If the Temple is rebuilt – and I don't say it won't be; there are many supposedly secret excavations going on in Jerusalem that everybody knows about – and if this image is set up in it, it will only be a reflection of a deeper spiritual reality. Make no mistake: the Antichrist will be worshiped in the so-called church and it will happen in the same way it happened with the Maccabees. Repeated compromise on the part of God's people until it's too late.
Look at the Church of England today as a modern example. They deal with this issue of women priests, yet the New Testament is clear that every Christian is a priest. If you are not a priest, you are not a Christian. The issue is not even Biblical, yet over the ordination of female priests people are standing up to walk out. Did you see anyone stand up to walk out when a bishop denied the Resurrection and Virgin Birth of Jesus, or when homosexuality was approved? Did you see anybody stand up to walk out over demons being worshiped in Canterbury Cathedral? No. People will only walk out over something not Scriptural. And where do they walk out to? Rome. That's almost like someone going to Brighton for a holiday and saying, "This place is a dump; I'm going to Blackpool".Restraining EvilLook at 2 Thessalonians 2:
"We request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, that you may not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed by a spirit, a message, or a letter as it were from us, to the effect that the Day of the Lord has come. Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasia, the falling-away, comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the Temple of God, displaying himself as God."
We see in Isaiah and Ezekiel that Satan wants to be worshiped as God like the king of Babylon, etc.
"Do you not remember, when I was with you I was telling you these things? And you do not know what restrains him now, so that in his time he may be revealed; for the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way."
There are three things that restrain evil: One is human government, which God ordains for that purpose. The New Testament tells Christians to pray for the authorities. The early Christians even prayed for the emperors because they knew that if the emperor was not being influenced by God's Spirit, he would be influenced by another spirit. I don't like politicians much, but I certainly pray for them, because I know that if I am not praying for them, they will come under other influences and will make it bad for us. When the Antichrist comes, human government will be given into his hand.
To understand how this happened in the Early Church, we must look at emperors such as Caligula, who persecuted the church. Another example is the medieval papacy, when the government was given into its hands. What makes the Great Tribulation unique is this: God is the God of history. But somehow, Scripture says that the Antichrist will seek to change the times.(Dan. 7:25) For a brief period of three and a half years, equating to the ministry of Jesus, the lordship of history will be given into the hands of Satan within certain parameters. Christians often make the mistake of saying that the last seven years of history will be the Great Tribulation. The Bible calls it the seventieth week of Daniel and "ha Tekufot ha Tsurot Yacov", "the time of Jacob's Trouble". Only the second half of that time can be proven to be the Great Tribulation. There will be tribulation before it, but the second half is much worse. If you want to say that the church will not go through the Great Tribulation, that's one thing; but that's not to say the church won't enter the last seven years. Neither is it to say that they won't be taken out sometime after the beginning of those seven years.
If you or I should die, God forbid, on the road tonight – Jesus came for us. We should always live our lives as if He could come for us at any moment, because He can. Whether He returns tonight or a million years from now has no effect on our walk with Him, because in any case He can come for us at any moment. But the Resurrection and the Rapture cannot happen until the identity of the Antichrist is revealed to the faithful: "Until the man of lawlessness is revealed".
So the first thing that restrains evil, human government is given into Antichrist's hands. The second thing that restrains evil is the church preaching the Gospel.
Understand about the metaphor of the night:Jesus said, "Work while you have the light, for night will come when no man can work." (Jn. 9:4) He's coming "like a thief in the night" (1 Th. 5:2) Is He coming "in the second watch of the night, or the third"? (Mt. 24:42-44) "Watchman, watchman, how far is the night?" (Is. 21:11) The ten virgins needed oil in their lamps in order to see in the night. (Mt. 25:1) The Apostles were arrested at night, and so was Jesus. (Lk. 22:54) That means something.In the Song of Solomon, the bridegroom comes for the bride during the night. (Song 3:1-5)
The parable of the wise and foolish virgins, in Matthew 25, was told at Passover, at the same time the Song of Solomon was being read in the synagogues. In the Song of Solomon, it is evident by the gender of the Hebrew text whether it is the bride, the bridegroom, or the hosts of heaven singing the choruses. The story hinges on the two dreams of the bride in chapters three and five. In chapter three, she is ready for the bridegroom to come; in chapter five, she is not. When Jesus returns, it is either the church's best dream, or it's her worst nightmare. In Judaism, Nisan, the month of Passover, is the month of redemption. This is when the Song of Solomon is read in the synagogue, and that is what Jesus was preaching from at Passover in Matthew 25. The parable of the wise and foolish virgins replays what was being read in the synagogues that very week.
The night is the most frequent Biblical metaphor for the Great Tribulation. When Jesus was betrayed, it was night. Remember: His last days are like our last days. This night is coming. The Holy Spirit, we are told in John 14, convicts the world concerning sin. Somehow, He restrains evil and He unites the church and empowers us to preach the Gospel. God's Spirit "will not forever strive with man". (Gen. 6:3) Jesus said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." (Heb.13:5) God's Spirit will never leave the hearts of His people. He will not be taken from us, but He will be taken from the world. In the book of Revelation (without being a Dispensationalist), God goes back to behaving the way He did in the Old Testament. Grace, as it were, comes to an end.
There is a difference between the Spirit indwelling and the Spirit outpoured. The Spirit indwelt the disciples in John 20:22; Jesus breathed on them – pneuma in Greek – and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit". The Holy Spirit then indwelt them, but He was not outpoured on the church until the Day of Pentecost, thus empowering them to preach the Gospel. He also brought conviction on the world as John 14 said He would. That will end. In other words, God's Spirit will be the reserve of His people. God will never take His Spirit from us, but His Spirit will no longer convict the world and will no longer empower the church to minister the Truth to the world in the way He does now. Grace comes to an end and His mercy is reserved for those who are His, though He does turn His redemptive attention towards Israel and the Jews during this period through the Great Tribulation. However, that is not to say that the church will be removed at the beginning of it. Too many people equate the taking of the Church in the Rapture with the taking of the Holy Spirit; that is not true – the Spirit indwells and the Spirit is outpoured. There is a gap.
Between the Ascension and the Day of Pentecost there was a gap. The Spirit indwelt God's people during that time, but He was not yet poured out and was not convicting the world. The converse happens in the Last Days. Jesus ascended into heaven and sent the Holy Spirit to be outpoured; in the time of the end, the Holy Spirit leaves, is no longer outpoured, and sends Jesus. God does not take His Spirit from us, but He is taken from the world. This period is the Great Tribulation; Satan is no longer restrained, and the church is rescued out of it – we do not go through the worst part of it. It says in Job,
"In six tribulations He will keep us, in seven He will deliver us". (Job 5:19)
I am quite convinced that the removal of the church takes place between the sixth and seventh seals in the book of Revelation.
There are a number of things in the Bible that teach about this period of time. The first is the period of time between Jesus breathing on the Apostles and the Day of Pentecost. Christ had risen, the victory was won, and His Spirit indwelt His people. But the church was not yet empowered to deal with the world, nor was the Holy Spirit restraining the world's evil or bringing conviction on the world. That happens again in the end. His Spirit will be only with us.
We have to understand the Church of Smyrna, as seen in Revelation 2. "Smyrna" comes from the Greek word "myrrh", which was used in anointing bodies for burial. The way the Roman government acted in declaring every religion legal – religio licita – except ours will happen again in the end. The government in league with the Antichrist will declare every other religion religio licita, but come against us. The church of Smyrna is another thing that teaches about the experiences of the Last Days church.Spiritual SeductionThe third thing is more complicated. We must understand Elijah; whether this means a man or something else in this context is an issue I cannot deal with now – we have a separate teaching on it. But it says in James that Elijah stopped the rain for three and a half years. That rain represents the outpouring of the Holy Spirit when it stops during the second half of the three and a half years. 1,260 days by the Jewish lunar calendar; two times, time and a half time. Elijah fed the Gentile woman during that period.
Now, look at what happens in the story as told in I Kings: Jezebel. (On the Antichrist tapes we develop this at length.) There are good girls, and there are bad girls. Whenever you see a "good girl" in the Bible, it teaches us something about God's woman, Israel or the church in some way. Shulamite in the Song of Solomon, Eve, Rachel, Rebekah, Sarah, Mary, Deborah, Jael, Esther – the good women in the Bible all teach something about the Bride of Christ in some aspect. The bad women in the Bible, on the other hand, teach something about the spirit of false religion, the bride of Satan. She is personified by Jezebel in Revelation. Certainly Queen Athaliah in the book of Kings is another example; her behavior is very much like that of Nero's mother. The way that Nero's mother influenced him negatively, becoming part of the cause of his turning against the church is the same way in which Queen Athaliah influenced her son in the book of Kings. All of the wicked women in the Bible teach something about that ultimate one; the spirit of false religion.
Let's look at Proverbs, please, and we'll read it midrashically: Now, I don't suggest that the teaching of Proverbs is not about a literal prostitute; it is. But in Midrash you have a difference between peshat and pesher. Peshat is the literal whoredom and idolatry and spiritual seduction is the pesher. This is, of course, about literal prostitution, adultery and immorality. But the character of this woman, or these women, describes the spirit of false religion. Very briefly, let's look at Proverbs 31. In verses 10-31 we find a description of Solomon's ideal woman. She goes to a field, like a mission field (v. 16). She gives food to her household, she considers a field and buys it, and she's a delight to her husband. In v. 18, she senses that her gain is good and her lamp does not go out at night. Is that familiar? That is the good girl. Now let's look at some of the bad girls.
Who said bad girls are more fun? They're not more fun, they're deadly. Let's look at Proverbs 5:
"My son, give attention to my wisdom"
– remember, people without God's wisdom are going to be deceived by false religions –
"that you may observe discretion, and your lips may reserve knowledge. For the lips of an adulteress drip honey, and smoother than oil is her speech"
– oil is what you use to anoint people with. The devil is very good at counterfeiting anointing; how does he do it? With smoothness and suavity. The hype artists from America are smooth talkers. They're substituting anointing with hype, and people don't know the difference.
"But in the end, she is bitter as wormwood."
Take as an example a poor drunken sailor on payday. On his way back from the pub after last call, he sees a prostitute and goes with her, only to find out two weeks later he has contracted AIDS. That's the kind of metaphor the Scripture is using here.
"In the end, she is as bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword"
– look at that! The devil can counterfeit God's truth. Remember, in the Old Testament the devil is called "Star of the Morning" (Is. 14:12); Jesus is called the "Bright and Morning Star". (Rev. 2:28) (We go into this on the Antichrist tapes.)
"Her feet go down to death, her steps lay hold of Sheol; she does not ponder the path of life, her ways are unstable. Now then, my son, listen to me: do not depart from the word of my mouth. Keep your way far from her; don't go near the door of her house, lest you give your vigor to others and your years to the cruel one, lest strangers be filled with your strength and your hard-earned goods go to the house of an alien."
Who gave his strength to a wicked woman? Samson. Delilah is a type of the wicked woman; she seduces God's man into giving up his strength. The way that she brought Samson to destruction, but how God revived him in victory teaches something about the end. Sometimes you'll have a guy who really loves Jesus, who is sincere in his faith and his walk with God, but he's a sucker for some nasty woman. That can happen to people; however, it can also happen to the church: spiritual seduction.
We have to understand the relationship between idolatry and adultery. Israel's husband was to be Yahweh; the Hebrew word for "husband"' is "ba"al", the same word as "master". The abomination of desolations is called shikutz ha meshomen in Aramaic. Shikutz comes from the Hebrew word "shihetz", meaning "slimy reptile", or "detestable thing". Satan has two modes of attack in Revelation: the serpent and the dragon. The dragon is the persecutor, the serpent the seducer. The way that the serpent beguiled Eve in the Garden of Eden is the same way in which Satan tries to deceive the church.
Women are generally much more vulnerable to spiritual seduction than men are because they are more sensitive and God can speak to them more easily than He can to men, and anything that God intends for good Satan will twist and use for evil. God instructed that women have their heads covered; not literally covered, but because Eve was vulnerable to spiritual seduction, a woman needs to be under male headship in a protective sense. In that culture it meant wearing a headscarf, but the principle is true in every culture. I know a woman who always wears a head covering yet has the biggest mouth I've ever heard. If her husband dares open his mouth, he gets a smack. That woman's head is not covered.Adultery = IdolatryThe word shikutz occurs many times in the Bible; unfortunately we usually translate it "your detestable things": "O daughter of Zion, you have played the harlot. You have profaned My sanctuary with your detestable things." That word is shekitzim; it has to do with Satan as a deceiver, but is almost always applied to Baal-worship. Baal, again, is the Hebrew word for "husband". The abomination of desolations will express Satan's desire to be God as we see with the king of Babylon in the Old Testament. He will attempt to take God's woman through spiritual seduction. That's what the abomination of desolations means: Satan using spiritual deception to try to take God's woman. Adultery and idolatry go together. Idolatry equals spiritual adultery. That is why when Israel goes into the sin of idolatry God says, "O daughter of Zion, you've played the harlot, you've gone after other lovers, etc." The language of marital infidelity is used to describe idolatry.
Proverbs 7:
"My son, keep my words and treasure my commandments within you. Keep my commandments and live, and my teaching as the apple of your eye. Bind them on your fingers, write them on the tablets of your heart, say to Wisdom, 'You are my sister', and call understanding your intimate friend'"
Remember, in the Last Days, understanding and faithfulness become closely associated. Why? Because those who don't have it will be vulnerable to deception.
"That they may keep you from an adulteress, from the foreigner who flatters with her words. For at the window of my house, I looked through my lattice and saw among the na ¯ve, and discerned among the youths, a young man lacking sense passing through the streets near her corner. And he takes the way to her house in the twilight."
When? In the twilight, the evening. Remember, qol veh homer. Things that are always true become especially true in the Last Days. Spiritual seduction has always been around, but it intensifies before Jesus comes.
"And behold, a woman comes to meet him, dressed as a harlot and cunning of heart. She is boisterous and rebellious; her feet do not remain at home. She is now in the streets, now on the squares, and lurks by every corner. She seizes him and kisses him, and with a brazen face she says to him, 'I was due to offer peace offerings today that I have paid my vows. Therefore I have come out to meet you, to seek your presence earnestly, and I have found you. I have spread my couch with coverings, with colored linens of Egypt'"
What is Egypt a figure of? The world.
"'I have sprinkled my bed with myrrh'"
It's a deathbed, though it smells nice. A corpse can be made to look pretty good, but it is no less dead with cosmetics.
"'Come, let us drink our fill of love till morning; let us delight ourselves with caresses.'"
Now let's read verses 19 and 20:
"'For the man is not at home; he has gone on a long journey, he has taken a bag of money with him and at full moon he will come.'"
And she goes on to deceive the guy. You see, she knows that the man is not at home; she knows that Jesus has gone on a long journey, and that at "full moon" He will come. What, again, is full moon? The time at which the moon is reflecting the maximum amount of light from the sun. The Bible will have to be understood at some point, that despite the darkness there will be a ray of sun. But for those who do not have oil in their lamps, it will then be too late to go out and buy it. We must get the oil now.
The Roman emperors were worshiped and God's people were killed for refusing to participate in it. 2 Thessalonians 2 and Revelation 13 speak of the same thing. The emperor worship of Rome prefigures worship of the Antichrist. The kissing of the Pope's ring and other similar practices are derived from emperor worship. Once again, in the Last Days the Antichrist, the emperor will demand to be worshiped in some way. Those who will not do so will be persecuted for their refusal.
Scripture notes in Acts 5:37, the nativity narratives, etc., that the Roman emperors took a census. When you really understand the way census was used in the Bible, you will understand why David's taking the census in Israel (1 Chr. 21) was even worse than his sin of adultery with Bathsheba. The Roman emperors used census to number people's heads and thus gain financial control of the world; this is what the Antichrist will also do. It happened in the time of the Early Church and it will happen again in the end. The worst emperors slaughtered the church and then turned against the Jews. It began with Nero in 62 A.D., and in 68-70 A.D. the tide turned against the Jews. In the 2nd Century emperors such as Diocletian, Marcus Aurelius, and Septimus Severitus were against the church, but then with Hadrian they went against the Jews from 120-132 A.D.
The early believers had an imminent eschatology; they believed that Jesus was coming back during their lifetime. We, too, will begin to see that happening. The general tide of world events politically at that time fulfilled specific eschatological prophecies. The events surrounding the destruction of the Temple, the burning of Rome, etc. – those things fulfilled prophecy. But once again, Jewish prophecy is pattern, and those same prophecies will again be fulfilled in the future. What I am basically saying is this: When you read the book of Acts, you're not only reading the history of the early church, you're also reading the history of the latter church. What happens to Jesus happens to the Apostles, happens to Paul, and happens to the early Christians; all of these things together teach what will happen to us. What happens to Jesus in His last days happens again to His Body in the Last Days.
What happened in the Early Church will happen in the latter church. The Book of Acts happens again. Forty-eight percent of the Gospel of John deals with the last week of Jesus' life; the Passion narrative. All four gospels devote at least one-third of their time to what happened in the last days of Jesus' earthly life. If it is read the right way, the New Testament does the same with us, speaking a great deal about what will happen in the Last Days. Jesus was betrayed, crucified, and raised victorious. We, too, will be betrayed, crucified, and raised victorious.Deception Then and NowIt is important to realize that the kinds of deceptions perpetrated by Satan against the Early Church are the kinds of deceptions he will use against the church in the Last Days. The same heresies, false doctrines, and deceptions that the devil introduced into Christianity in its early centuries make a comeback in the Last Days.
In the Early Church people with a low Christology – people who did not believe that Jesus was God – were called "Arians". Today we call them Jehovah's Witnesses; the two are essentially the same.
In the Early Church they called the Sabbatarians and dietary legalists and Nomianists "Judaizers" (see Galatians). Today we call them Seventh-Day Adventists.
In the Early Church people who were hyper-Dispensationalist – who took Dispensationalism to a bizarre extreme and made a radical, tremendous separation between the Testaments – were called "Marcionites". Today they are the Exclusive or Closed Brethren.
In the Early Church, the people who said that the Father was Jesus, the Son was Jesus, and the Spirit was Jesus were called "Sabellians" or "Patripassionists". Today we call them Jesus-Only Pentecostals, or United Pentecostals. There is nothing new under the sun.
Undoubtedly, however, of all these lies and the many others, the two most damaging were the Montanists and the Gnostics, who were related to each other. The Montanists had over-realized eschatology; they believed that the kingdom was now. They made many crazy predictions and prophecies that revival was coming to their capital or that Jesus was coming there Himself in Phrygia or modern-day Turkey. They had all manner of wild predictions, but the way they sucked people into it was by putting a heavy emphasis on signs and wonders. "The Apostles had these things, the Bible teaches them, so we should have them" was their philosophy. Irenaeus, the pre-Nicean church father, wrote against these people while yet defending what was right about them. He did say that signs and wonders and the gifts of the Spirit are Biblical; but this particular group was using them to get people to believe other bizarre things. The same is true today.
In the Early Church people like Tertullian, the church father – people you would never have expected to get caught up in crazy errors – did. Today, too, I find people I never would have expected being caught up in the same kinds of Kingdom Now ideas of Triumphalism, Restorationism, and Dominionism. It works the same way, with the emphasis laid on signs and wonders, etc.
These people in the Early Church made insane predictions that didn't happen and led to total anarchy. At any turning point in church history, this same Kingdom Now theology has surfaced. The Montanists began to surface when the Roman Empire went into decline.
During the Renaissance, which was a very important turning point in the history of Europe, believers in Montanist doctrines were called the followers of Joachim of Fiore. This man, leader of Kingdom Now theology at that time, has such a similar philosophy to that of the Vineyard movement today that he could have written for their magazine. We see in them the same ideas, for example: there are supposedly three ages, the Age of the Father, the Age of the Son, and the Age of the Spirit; the Age of the Father being Old Testament Israel, the Age of the Son being the church age, and the Age of the Spirit being the latter-day rain, identified with their own movement. They believed they belonged to a new religious order that was going to take over all other religious orders. This is the same belief found today in John Wimber's Vineyard Movement.
During the Reformation, there were the Prophets of Zwickau. Now, if you're Brethren, Pentecostal, or Baptist, don't ever consider yourself a Protestant. If you had been around during the Reformation, the Protestants would have called you an "Anabaptist" and they would have killed you as fast as the Catholics would. Zwingli said, "So you want to be baptized again?" and cut a hole in the ice in Zurich in which they drowned the believers there who believed in believers' baptism. The followers of Luther, Calvin and Zwingli killed Anabaptists. If you're Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian, or Reformed, then you're a Protestant; but anything non-conformist is not Protestant.
The Anabaptists were in most ways much closer to the Scripture than the Reformers were. The Protestants ran around pretending they had rediscovered the Gospel, when in fact there were people who had never lost it. Long before Luther, Calvin, or Zwingli, there were people on the Continent such as John S. Huss and the Bohemian Brethren, or in England the followers of John Wycliffe, or the Waldensians who were around for centuries – all of whom were Bible-believing Christians. There were always people who understood the basic truth and knew the church at large had gotten away from it.
However, in the time of the Reformation something happened. Feudalism ended, and capitalism began. The decline of the Holy Roman Empire – which was neither holy nor Roman – was occurring, and that Empire was being replaced with the nation-state; people began saying "I am English", "I am German", "I am Scottish", etc. Therefore, the Pope no longer had the political leverage to exterminate Christians and suppress the preaching of the Gospel in the way that he had throughout the Dark Ages.
Additionally, Gutenberg invented the printing press. You no longer had the Vulgate, which was the Latin edition of the Bible that monks copied; instead you had people like Luther putting the Bible into German and Tyndale into English and so on, and Bibles could be mass-produced because of Gutenberg's invention. So the Bible went out, literacy increased, and the Pope lost his ability to stop the spread of the Gospel politically. That is why the Reformation happened. The only thing people like Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli did was get away with something that other people before them had always said, only the political and social circumstances were not ripe for them to live to tell about it. The idea that the Reformers rediscovered the Gospel is a perversion of history.
There were some Anabaptists whose capital was Muenster in Germany, near Holland. They followed these "prophets" called the Prophets of Zwickau, who made a lot of crazy predictions, prophecies, and practices, with excessive abuses of the gifts of the Spirit etc., which led to total anarchy. Today we have the same thing, only instead of the Prophets of Zwickau we have the Kansas City Prophets. After Paul Cain publicly made false predictions with John Wimber in England, the same people who witnessed these false prophecies will get on buses again to go hear a repeat performance by this man, who prophesied falsely in the name of the Lord. The Anglican bishop David Pitchers wrote a book called Some Said it Thundered, telling all Evangelical Anglicans to follow this guy. They did, and Paul Cain has since that time gone to Saddam Hussein, a man who has murdered God only knows how many tens of thousands of his own people, and apologized, repenting on behalf of the born-again Christians in the United States and Great Britain for "what we did to him".Proper Use of Midrash Kingdom Now theology has always surfaced at pivotal points in history – there is nothing new under the sun. Related to it is something really crazy: Gnosticism.
Alexandria was where the Judeo-Christian world met the Orient. It was where Zoroastrian priests, Jewish rabbis, Buddhist monks, and Christians converged with the exchange of ideas. At the onset of the Christian era, the Hellenistic ideas of someone named Philo had already begun to come into Judaism. This was picked up by some of the people in Alexandria who were Christians, especially Origen – possibly Clement of Alexandria, but certainly Origen. Let me explain.
Midrashically, in the Jewish way of handling Scripture, you use symbolism, typology, and allegory to illustrate and illuminate doctrine, without ever basing doctrine on it. Take the Passover as an example with the symbolism of the Last Supper. When you understand the Jewish Passover and the Last Supper as a Passover, the symbolism of the Jewish ritual in the Passover seder will help you understand the Lord's Supper on a much deeper level than you otherwise could. The purpose of allegory, typology and symbolism is to illuminatedoctrine on a deeper level, never to be the basis of doctrine in itself.
Very briefly: A Jewish Christian reading John's Gospel in the 1st Century would have read John 1, 2, and 3 and he would have said that it was, of course, a midrash on Genesis 1, 2, and 3. He would have said that John 1, 2, and 3 narrated the New Creation, while Genesis narrated the Creation; therefore Genesis 1, 2, and 3 and John 1, 2, and 3 are a midrashic parallel.God walks the Creation in Genesis, and God walks on the earth in the New Creation in John. The Spirit moves on the water and brings forth the Creation in Genesis, and the Spirit moves on the water and brings forth the New Creation in John. God comes to separate the light from the darkness in the Creation in Genesis, and He does so again in the New Creation in John. In the Creation in Genesis you have the small light and the great light; in the New Creation you have Johanan Hamadvil -- John the Baptist (the small light), and Yeshua ha Mashiach, Jesus the Messiah (the great light).Midrashically, the fig tree is a metaphor for the Tree of Life that is in the Garden of Eden. The Tree of Life is in the garden, and the fig tree is in John. So midrashically, when Jesus sees Nathaniel "under the fig tree", in Jewish metaphor Jesus was not merely saying to Nathaniel, "I saw you under a literal fig tree", although he did; He was saying midrashically, "I saw you from the creation; from the foundation of the world I foreknew you." That illustrates the truth; the Bible directly states elsewhere that there are "those whom He foreknew from the creation of the world". (Rom. 8:29) I am not a Calvinist, but there is a truth in it. The midrash illustrates that truth, but it is not the basis of it.
In the same way, "This is the cup of the new covenant in My blood", as Jesus said at the Last Supper, (1 Co. 11:25) shows that the Passover meal illustrates the doctrine of atonement while not being the basis for it. That is the way in which Jewish hermeneutics uses allegory. It's totally wrong to reject allegory in the way the Reformers did because the deeper things of the Scriptures will never be understood if we do that. On the other hand, however, it is just as wrong and even dangerous to base doctrine on it.GnosticismWhat the Gnostics did was this: They claimed a subjective mystical insight into the types and allegories in Scripture, then reinterpreted the plain meaning of the Bible in light of this "gnosis", which is the Greek word for spiritual revelation. They claimed to have special knowledge, and if you didn't see it, they would say you were under spiritual deception or in rebellion.
Roman Catholicism is based on Gnosticism. The Pope erroneously claims to be the successor of Peter; to have your hermeneutics right, you must first have your ecclesiology right. In other words, only the Pope, the Magisterium of the Church, can interpret the Bible. Therefore, although the plain meaning of Luke 1:47 is that Mary says she needs a Savior, Catholicism replies, "Yes, but you don't have the gnosis; the Pope has it because he's the heir of Peter, and he says that Mary does not need a Savior because she was conceived without sin."
Hasidic Judaism is the same way. Their rabbis are called "rebbes" and they're the descendants of someone called Bal Shem Tov, the Besch in Judaism, a Jewish Gnostic who was into things like astral projection. The Hasidic Jews contend with each other about whose rebbe is the real descendant of Besch; who really has the spirit of the Besch. It's a form of reincarnation that comes from Hinduism. Therefore, for Hasidic Jews there are two ways to God: The Torah and the rebbe, the righteous one. The rebbe goes to God through Torah; you go to God through the rebbe. What the Torah says is not important; what the rebbe says about it is important.
Similarly, with Catholicism it is not what the New Testament says that is important, but rather what the Pope says about it that matters. With Sufi Moslems, it's the suf; with Shi'a Moslems, it's the imam, and what the imam says about the Koran. With Zoroastrians, it's their priesthood. With Hindus, it's the Brahman priests, the highest order of the caste system, or the guru. He goes to Vishnu and Krishna, you go through him. With Shamanism it's the shaman. To Tibetan Buddhists the essential figure is the Dalai Lama. All of these groups follow Gnosticism.
The essential issue in these forms of Gnosticism therefore becomes, "Who is your guru, who is your pope, who is your imam, who is your rebbe, who is your suf, who is your lama or your priest or your shaman?'" In Restorationism, the corresponding question is, "Who is your apostle, who is your prophet?"Modern-Day GnosticsJoel chapter 2 is the basis for the Manchild/Manifest Sons of God doctrines of Restorationism. Let's take a look at John Wimber's exposition of Joel chapter 2. Remember that Jewish prophecy is pattern, and therefore somehow this passage is about the Last Days. However, in its historical context it is speaking of Nebuchadnezzar's invasion. Joel 2 says this:
"Blow the trumpet in Zion,
Sound an alarm…
…There is a great and mighty people…
There has never been anything like it,
Nor will there ever be again
To the years of many generations.
A fire consumes before them,
And a flame after them.
The land is like the Garden of Eden before them,
And desolate wilderness after them.
Nothing escapes them."
That is what John Wimber, Paul Cain, David Pitchers, Gerald Coates, and the people in the house churches who follow them have said that the church triumphant is going to be. But let's look more closely
"Their appearance is like the appearance of horses;
Like warhorses they run…
…They rush on the city,
They run on the walls."
It goes on from there to describe this army as locusts. The Restorationists say that the church triumphant will be this army of devouring locusts, that they will conquer all. But now let's look at verse 20:
"I will remove the northern army far from you,
And will drive it into a parched and desolate land,
Its vanguard in the Eastern Sea
And its rearguard into the Western Sea.
And its stench will arise, and its foul smell will come up,
For it has done great things."
God is going to destroy and judge this army because it is evil the way He judged and destroyed Nebuchadnezzar's army. That is the context exegetically, grammatically, historically, or any other way you would like to look at it. But John Wimber came along claiming a gnosis saying, "No, that's not what it means – it's the church triumphant"; if you don't see this, he will simply say that you are under spiritual deception. If you disagree, you'll be accused of having the spirit of Antichrist.
Another man who is guilty of this kind of thing is Andrew Shearman, though he is more eisegetical than actually Gnostic. He will take a text which says that the Gospel is preached until John, but then with the Kingdom, men enter it violently; he will twist that text. (Mt. 11:12) What "violently" means here in its original Greek context is "pressed into". It can be compared to this hypothetical situation: If you were taking a boat across the Irish Sea from Hollyhead in Wales to Dublin, and you put on a life jacket and got into a lifeboat, the other passengers would think you were crazy. On these ferryboats there are pubs, discotheques, casinos, etc. The people are thereby amusing themselves, while you sit in the lifeboat with your life jacket on, trying to encourage people to put on life jackets and join you because it will add to the comfort and pleasure of their trip. They would say you were nuts; but as soon as the warning whistle goes off and these people know the boat is sinking and they're doomed, they'll be pressing into the lifeboats and trying to get life jackets on in order to save their necks.
The Law and the Prophets are taught until John; in Galatians the Law is called our teacher because it teaches us that we are condemned and in need of salvation. (Gal. 3:24) This is what the text means, but Mr. Shearman says, "No, this is the church triumphant. We're the mighty men who are going to do the conquering." This is nonsensical and doesn't come close to what the text means. There is no way anyone can read that text in its original context and come up with such a stupid conclusion, yet this is what the man teaches, and ifyou don't see it you're "under spiritual deception". Again, it's not what the Bible says that's important, but rather what the person with the gnosis claims.Two Forms of GnosticismThis is what the Gnostics do today, and it is exactly what they did in the Early Church as well. In the time of the Early Church there were two forms of Gnosticism: the totally pagan form and the form that got into the church under the leadership of people such as Basil and Valentinus. The same applies today; there are two forms of Gnosticism. The utterly pagan form is the New Age movement; Gnosticism is really what the New Age movement is. It may have occult packaging and so on, but the core of it is Gnostic. The kind of Gnosticism getting into the church today is Restorationism. All of the visualization techniques among many other popular things Restorationists embrace – such as Joyce Huggett'sbooks – are New Age ideas, totally alien to the Bible.
Using breathing exercises for prayer, as she describes, comes from yoga. She states also that the exercises of Ignatius of Loyolashould be used as a model for Christian prayer. Ignatius Loyola was the founder of the Jesuits, a religious order designed to stop the spread of the Gospel in the Counter-Reformation. He was a man whose order is responsible for the death, torture, and murder of probably a half-million Christians. Yet his shamanistic exercises are being upheld in today's church as a model for Christian prayer! These are New Age ideas creeping into the church. These were also the kinds of deception faced by the Early Church; the same ones have come back.
It doesn't matter whether you call it "Arianism" or Jehovah's Witnesses; it is the same thing. Charles Taze Russell and Judge Rutherford, the founders of the Jehovah's Witness movement, claimed a gnosis. If you don't agree with them, you're under deception. Roman Catholicism = Gnosticism. Shia Islam = Gnosticism. Sufi Islam = Gnosticism. Zoroastrianism = Gnosticism. Hinduism = Gnosticism. Shamanism = Gnosticism. The house churches = Gnosticism.
Just look at the damage that heavy shepherding and similar practices have caused people. This Restorationism is a natural bedfellow for all kinds of other errors, one of which is heavy shepherding. We deal with this more in depth in a separate teaching; I am simply saying here that it was a deception in the Early Church, and it is again becoming a deception now. A person who claims the gnosis is naturally going to become a heavy shepherd; what else could he be? Jesus, however, said that One is your Teacher, Who is in heaven (Mt. 23:8-10).
God will do a new thing. If a couple has four children and they decide to have a fifth (God help them), God will do a new thing, but they will get the fifth child in the same way in which they got the first four. When God does a new thing, it will always be in character with the way He has always done things. What Gnostics will say is that everything can be abrogated because God is going to do a new thing in the Last Days; that is true, but it will never be out of character with the way He has always done things.
There is a lot wrong with abortion, but one of the things that bothers me most is the waiting list of couples who are trying to adopt a baby. This list is three miles long, while other people are killing children. There is no such thing as an unwanted baby. People will adopt handicapped children or just about any child if they want one badly enough; yet other people are killing them.
If a couple really loves each other, and they want to share their love with a baby, the mother never says, "I just can't face labor. I can't face morning sickness or contractions; therefore I am not going to have the baby. It's too miserable." The only thing she's thinking of is pushing the baby in a pram, taking him to the park on the swings, and going to the zoo to show him the zebras and the monkeys. Morning sickness and labor are not what occupy her mind; that's just what has to be gone through in order to get the child.
I'm glad I am not a female. I watched one of my children being born, and kept my eye on the monitor that measures the intensity and frequency of contractions. Every time the thing started moving I told my wife, "This is the last one, this is it! I wouldn't lie to you, baby," but I was lying. Forget those rugby players at Wiggin; women are the strongest creatures in the world! If one of those rugby players had a baby he'd be out for the season.Increasing TremorsBirth pangs and earth tremors – but particularly birth pangs – are the most common things Scripture uses to describe what is going to happen to the church before Jesus comes. Think of the nature of birth pangs: Contractions become more frequent and more severe, while letting up for a while in between. They are at their worst right before the baby is born. The same applies to the Last Days; the pressure grows worse and worse, and though it might let up for a while, it returns and continues in that pattern until the birth occurs. That's what Revelation is about; certainly that's what Jeremiah talks about. Jeremiah refers frequently to birth pangs; he is a prophet who prophesied for his own time, for the first coming of Jesus, and for the Last Days, sometimes almost in the same breath. Whenever you see something in Scripture about birth pangs, the Holy Spirit is trying to reveal something about what will happen to the church in the Last Days.
1 Thessalonians 5 is another example.
"When they are saying 'peace and safety', then destruction will come upon them like birth pangs upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape."
Read Jeremiah; whenever you see the idea of birth pangs, it is eschatologically significant. In addition, whatever you have in the science of obstetrics has its parallel in the science of seismology. Earth tremors behave in much the same way as birth pangs; before there is a major shift of plates causing a big earthquake, a number of smaller tremors precede it. They tend to become more frequent and more intense before the final quake actually occurs. In America and Japan they spend astronomical sums of money trying to discern patterns in tremors in order to predict earthquakes. But they do know that tremors operate under much the same principle as birth pangs. Tremors, too, teach something about what will happen in the Last Days.
The tremors increase, the birth pangs increase, and then the baby comes. Once the baby arrives, and the obstetrician or midwife hands the baby to the mother, all the pain, misery, and mess of labor and delivery is quickly forgotten. The only important thing is the baby, who is well worth it. A woman could be in labor for four weeks, but as soon as she has her baby it's all forgotten.
It will be the same way when Jesus comes; as soon as He appears, all pain and misery is forgotten. We should think about Jesus coming; we don't have to consider the tribulation that goes before it, just as a mother anticipates her child's birth rather than dreading labor pains. Yet we must realize that tribulation is going to happen in the Last Days; just as a mother realizes there is no getting around the birth process.Examples Past and PresentWhat happened with the Maccabees and Antiochus Epiphanes happens again to Israel and the church in the Last Days in some way. The book of Daniel also happens again. What happened in the days of the Maccabees was this: a lot of Jews compromised with the Seleucids, allowing Hellenism and "Avodat Zara", in Hebrew, or foreign worship, to begin taking place in the city of God and ultimately in the house of God. Things wouldn't have gotten that far if so many Jews hadn't been willing to compromise. The way the Maccabees stood up against it and others began joining them teaches something about what is going to happen when the Antichrist manifests. Antiochus Epiphanes did not simply come one day, slaughter a pig in the Temple, and set up an image of Zeus and of himself to be worshiped. Nor is that the way the future abomination of desolations will come. Things build up toward that point; the Jews compromised and compromised until one day things had gone so far they could no longer put a stop to it.
The same thing is happening now. The Church of England is a church where someone who will not agree to sprinkle babies for infant baptism cannot be ordained a minister, but someone who is prepared to deny the Resurrection of Jesus Christ can be consecrated a bishop, with two-thirds of the other bishops defending him – including Evangelicals. Canterbury Cathedral is a site of interfaith worship. The Greek word "demonoi", Hebrew word "shiddim" – other gods are demons, as Scripture directly states in Deuteronomy and in 1 Corinthians. (Dt. 32:17; 1 Co. 10:20) Hindu worship takes place in Canterbury Cathedral; 2,000 Anglican bishops signed a petition to stop it, but the Evangelical Archbishop stated that he "respects all religions". That is an abomination of desolations in the house of God. People give up and give up and give up, continuing to compromise until it is too late.
In the same way, don't expect to see the Antichrist being worshiped in the church overnight. It doesn't happen that way, it happens the way it did in the time of the Maccabees, with God's people compromising repeatedly until things have gone too far to be stopped. Daniel 11:33-35 says this:
"Those who have understanding among the people will rise up and give understanding to the many. But they will be persecuted . . ."
(We discuss this on the Christmas/ Hanukah tape.) What happened with the Maccabees happens again in the Last Days. The book of Daniel is replayed; Jesus said directly that when we see the abomination of desolations being set up, we could know that our redemption draws near. (Lk. 21:28) What happened with the Maccabees as Daniel predicted it has to happen again; Jesus said so directly. When you read Daniel, read Maccabees in the Apocrypha and see what happens. When you do, you will be reading about one of the main things that is going to happen to the church again. There will be an abomination of desolations.The Physical Reflects the Deeper SpiritualThere are different words in Greek for "church" or "temple": oikos, naos, hieron; in Hebrew it's ha hekal, beth mishkatn, beth migdash. In no less than seven places, the New Testament says that the church is the temple. When Jesus died, and the Temple veil was torn from the ceiling to the ground, a physically visible event did happen in the Temple. However, what was important was not that the Temple veil was torn; what mattered was what it meant: that sinful man was no longer separated from holy God because Jesus paid the price for our sins. (We deal with this on the Typology of the Temple tape.) The old-time Brethren emphasized the typology of the Temple and in many fundamental respects, because of their emphasis on typology, the old-time Brethren were probably closer than the Gentile church has ever been to beginning to interpret the Bible as a Jewish book the way the Early Church did. Maybe they didn't go far enough; maybe a lot of things, but they were closer than the Gentile church otherwise ever got to reading this Jewish book as a Jewish book.
Nonetheless, when Jesus died and the Temple veil was torn, the physical event reflected a deeper spiritual one. If the Temple is rebuilt – and I don't say it won't be; there are many supposedly secret excavations going on in Jerusalem that everybody knows about – and if this image is set up in it, it will only be a reflection of a deeper spiritual reality. Make no mistake: the Antichrist will be worshiped in the so-called church and it will happen in the same way it happened with the Maccabees. Repeated compromise on the part of God's people until it's too late.
Look at the Church of England today as a modern example. They deal with this issue of women priests, yet the New Testament is clear that every Christian is a priest. If you are not a priest, you are not a Christian. The issue is not even Biblical, yet over the ordination of female priests people are standing up to walk out. Did you see anyone stand up to walk out when a bishop denied the Resurrection and Virgin Birth of Jesus, or when homosexuality was approved? Did you see anybody stand up to walk out over demons being worshiped in Canterbury Cathedral? No. People will only walk out over something not Scriptural. And where do they walk out to? Rome. That's almost like someone going to Brighton for a holiday and saying, "This place is a dump; I'm going to Blackpool".Restraining EvilLook at 2 Thessalonians 2:
"We request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, that you may not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed by a spirit, a message, or a letter as it were from us, to the effect that the Day of the Lord has come. Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasia, the falling-away, comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the Temple of God, displaying himself as God."
We see in Isaiah and Ezekiel that Satan wants to be worshiped as God like the king of Babylon, etc.
"Do you not remember, when I was with you I was telling you these things? And you do not know what restrains him now, so that in his time he may be revealed; for the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way."
There are three things that restrain evil: One is human government, which God ordains for that purpose. The New Testament tells Christians to pray for the authorities. The early Christians even prayed for the emperors because they knew that if the emperor was not being influenced by God's Spirit, he would be influenced by another spirit. I don't like politicians much, but I certainly pray for them, because I know that if I am not praying for them, they will come under other influences and will make it bad for us. When the Antichrist comes, human government will be given into his hand.
To understand how this happened in the Early Church, we must look at emperors such as Caligula, who persecuted the church. Another example is the medieval papacy, when the government was given into its hands. What makes the Great Tribulation unique is this: God is the God of history. But somehow, Scripture says that the Antichrist will seek to change the times.(Dan. 7:25) For a brief period of three and a half years, equating to the ministry of Jesus, the lordship of history will be given into the hands of Satan within certain parameters. Christians often make the mistake of saying that the last seven years of history will be the Great Tribulation. The Bible calls it the seventieth week of Daniel and "ha Tekufot ha Tsurot Yacov", "the time of Jacob's Trouble". Only the second half of that time can be proven to be the Great Tribulation. There will be tribulation before it, but the second half is much worse. If you want to say that the church will not go through the Great Tribulation, that's one thing; but that's not to say the church won't enter the last seven years. Neither is it to say that they won't be taken out sometime after the beginning of those seven years.
If you or I should die, God forbid, on the road tonight – Jesus came for us. We should always live our lives as if He could come for us at any moment, because He can. Whether He returns tonight or a million years from now has no effect on our walk with Him, because in any case He can come for us at any moment. But the Resurrection and the Rapture cannot happen until the identity of the Antichrist is revealed to the faithful: "Until the man of lawlessness is revealed".
So the first thing that restrains evil, human government is given into Antichrist's hands. The second thing that restrains evil is the church preaching the Gospel.
Understand about the metaphor of the night:Jesus said, "Work while you have the light, for night will come when no man can work." (Jn. 9:4) He's coming "like a thief in the night" (1 Th. 5:2) Is He coming "in the second watch of the night, or the third"? (Mt. 24:42-44) "Watchman, watchman, how far is the night?" (Is. 21:11) The ten virgins needed oil in their lamps in order to see in the night. (Mt. 25:1) The Apostles were arrested at night, and so was Jesus. (Lk. 22:54) That means something.In the Song of Solomon, the bridegroom comes for the bride during the night. (Song 3:1-5)
The parable of the wise and foolish virgins, in Matthew 25, was told at Passover, at the same time the Song of Solomon was being read in the synagogues. In the Song of Solomon, it is evident by the gender of the Hebrew text whether it is the bride, the bridegroom, or the hosts of heaven singing the choruses. The story hinges on the two dreams of the bride in chapters three and five. In chapter three, she is ready for the bridegroom to come; in chapter five, she is not. When Jesus returns, it is either the church's best dream, or it's her worst nightmare. In Judaism, Nisan, the month of Passover, is the month of redemption. This is when the Song of Solomon is read in the synagogue, and that is what Jesus was preaching from at Passover in Matthew 25. The parable of the wise and foolish virgins replays what was being read in the synagogues that very week.
The night is the most frequent Biblical metaphor for the Great Tribulation. When Jesus was betrayed, it was night. Remember: His last days are like our last days. This night is coming. The Holy Spirit, we are told in John 14, convicts the world concerning sin. Somehow, He restrains evil and He unites the church and empowers us to preach the Gospel. God's Spirit "will not forever strive with man". (Gen. 6:3) Jesus said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." (Heb.13:5) God's Spirit will never leave the hearts of His people. He will not be taken from us, but He will be taken from the world. In the book of Revelation (without being a Dispensationalist), God goes back to behaving the way He did in the Old Testament. Grace, as it were, comes to an end.
There is a difference between the Spirit indwelling and the Spirit outpoured. The Spirit indwelt the disciples in John 20:22; Jesus breathed on them – pneuma in Greek – and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit". The Holy Spirit then indwelt them, but He was not outpoured on the church until the Day of Pentecost, thus empowering them to preach the Gospel. He also brought conviction on the world as John 14 said He would. That will end. In other words, God's Spirit will be the reserve of His people. God will never take His Spirit from us, but His Spirit will no longer convict the world and will no longer empower the church to minister the Truth to the world in the way He does now. Grace comes to an end and His mercy is reserved for those who are His, though He does turn His redemptive attention towards Israel and the Jews during this period through the Great Tribulation. However, that is not to say that the church will be removed at the beginning of it. Too many people equate the taking of the Church in the Rapture with the taking of the Holy Spirit; that is not true – the Spirit indwells and the Spirit is outpoured. There is a gap.
Between the Ascension and the Day of Pentecost there was a gap. The Spirit indwelt God's people during that time, but He was not yet poured out and was not convicting the world. The converse happens in the Last Days. Jesus ascended into heaven and sent the Holy Spirit to be outpoured; in the time of the end, the Holy Spirit leaves, is no longer outpoured, and sends Jesus. God does not take His Spirit from us, but He is taken from the world. This period is the Great Tribulation; Satan is no longer restrained, and the church is rescued out of it – we do not go through the worst part of it. It says in Job,
"In six tribulations He will keep us, in seven He will deliver us". (Job 5:19)
I am quite convinced that the removal of the church takes place between the sixth and seventh seals in the book of Revelation.
There are a number of things in the Bible that teach about this period of time. The first is the period of time between Jesus breathing on the Apostles and the Day of Pentecost. Christ had risen, the victory was won, and His Spirit indwelt His people. But the church was not yet empowered to deal with the world, nor was the Holy Spirit restraining the world's evil or bringing conviction on the world. That happens again in the end. His Spirit will be only with us.
We have to understand the Church of Smyrna, as seen in Revelation 2. "Smyrna" comes from the Greek word "myrrh", which was used in anointing bodies for burial. The way the Roman government acted in declaring every religion legal – religio licita – except ours will happen again in the end. The government in league with the Antichrist will declare every other religion religio licita, but come against us. The church of Smyrna is another thing that teaches about the experiences of the Last Days church.Spiritual SeductionThe third thing is more complicated. We must understand Elijah; whether this means a man or something else in this context is an issue I cannot deal with now – we have a separate teaching on it. But it says in James that Elijah stopped the rain for three and a half years. That rain represents the outpouring of the Holy Spirit when it stops during the second half of the three and a half years. 1,260 days by the Jewish lunar calendar; two times, time and a half time. Elijah fed the Gentile woman during that period.
Now, look at what happens in the story as told in I Kings: Jezebel. (On the Antichrist tapes we develop this at length.) There are good girls, and there are bad girls. Whenever you see a "good girl" in the Bible, it teaches us something about God's woman, Israel or the church in some way. Shulamite in the Song of Solomon, Eve, Rachel, Rebekah, Sarah, Mary, Deborah, Jael, Esther – the good women in the Bible all teach something about the Bride of Christ in some aspect. The bad women in the Bible, on the other hand, teach something about the spirit of false religion, the bride of Satan. She is personified by Jezebel in Revelation. Certainly Queen Athaliah in the book of Kings is another example; her behavior is very much like that of Nero's mother. The way that Nero's mother influenced him negatively, becoming part of the cause of his turning against the church is the same way in which Queen Athaliah influenced her son in the book of Kings. All of the wicked women in the Bible teach something about that ultimate one; the spirit of false religion.
Let's look at Proverbs, please, and we'll read it midrashically: Now, I don't suggest that the teaching of Proverbs is not about a literal prostitute; it is. But in Midrash you have a difference between peshat and pesher. Peshat is the literal whoredom and idolatry and spiritual seduction is the pesher. This is, of course, about literal prostitution, adultery and immorality. But the character of this woman, or these women, describes the spirit of false religion. Very briefly, let's look at Proverbs 31. In verses 10-31 we find a description of Solomon's ideal woman. She goes to a field, like a mission field (v. 16). She gives food to her household, she considers a field and buys it, and she's a delight to her husband. In v. 18, she senses that her gain is good and her lamp does not go out at night. Is that familiar? That is the good girl. Now let's look at some of the bad girls.
Who said bad girls are more fun? They're not more fun, they're deadly. Let's look at Proverbs 5:
"My son, give attention to my wisdom"
– remember, people without God's wisdom are going to be deceived by false religions –
"that you may observe discretion, and your lips may reserve knowledge. For the lips of an adulteress drip honey, and smoother than oil is her speech"
– oil is what you use to anoint people with. The devil is very good at counterfeiting anointing; how does he do it? With smoothness and suavity. The hype artists from America are smooth talkers. They're substituting anointing with hype, and people don't know the difference.
"But in the end, she is bitter as wormwood."
Take as an example a poor drunken sailor on payday. On his way back from the pub after last call, he sees a prostitute and goes with her, only to find out two weeks later he has contracted AIDS. That's the kind of metaphor the Scripture is using here.
"In the end, she is as bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword"
– look at that! The devil can counterfeit God's truth. Remember, in the Old Testament the devil is called "Star of the Morning" (Is. 14:12); Jesus is called the "Bright and Morning Star". (Rev. 2:28) (We go into this on the Antichrist tapes.)
"Her feet go down to death, her steps lay hold of Sheol; she does not ponder the path of life, her ways are unstable. Now then, my son, listen to me: do not depart from the word of my mouth. Keep your way far from her; don't go near the door of her house, lest you give your vigor to others and your years to the cruel one, lest strangers be filled with your strength and your hard-earned goods go to the house of an alien."
Who gave his strength to a wicked woman? Samson. Delilah is a type of the wicked woman; she seduces God's man into giving up his strength. The way that she brought Samson to destruction, but how God revived him in victory teaches something about the end. Sometimes you'll have a guy who really loves Jesus, who is sincere in his faith and his walk with God, but he's a sucker for some nasty woman. That can happen to people; however, it can also happen to the church: spiritual seduction.
We have to understand the relationship between idolatry and adultery. Israel's husband was to be Yahweh; the Hebrew word for "husband"' is "ba"al", the same word as "master". The abomination of desolations is called shikutz ha meshomen in Aramaic. Shikutz comes from the Hebrew word "shihetz", meaning "slimy reptile", or "detestable thing". Satan has two modes of attack in Revelation: the serpent and the dragon. The dragon is the persecutor, the serpent the seducer. The way that the serpent beguiled Eve in the Garden of Eden is the same way in which Satan tries to deceive the church.
Women are generally much more vulnerable to spiritual seduction than men are because they are more sensitive and God can speak to them more easily than He can to men, and anything that God intends for good Satan will twist and use for evil. God instructed that women have their heads covered; not literally covered, but because Eve was vulnerable to spiritual seduction, a woman needs to be under male headship in a protective sense. In that culture it meant wearing a headscarf, but the principle is true in every culture. I know a woman who always wears a head covering yet has the biggest mouth I've ever heard. If her husband dares open his mouth, he gets a smack. That woman's head is not covered.Adultery = IdolatryThe word shikutz occurs many times in the Bible; unfortunately we usually translate it "your detestable things": "O daughter of Zion, you have played the harlot. You have profaned My sanctuary with your detestable things." That word is shekitzim; it has to do with Satan as a deceiver, but is almost always applied to Baal-worship. Baal, again, is the Hebrew word for "husband". The abomination of desolations will express Satan's desire to be God as we see with the king of Babylon in the Old Testament. He will attempt to take God's woman through spiritual seduction. That's what the abomination of desolations means: Satan using spiritual deception to try to take God's woman. Adultery and idolatry go together. Idolatry equals spiritual adultery. That is why when Israel goes into the sin of idolatry God says, "O daughter of Zion, you've played the harlot, you've gone after other lovers, etc." The language of marital infidelity is used to describe idolatry.
Proverbs 7:
"My son, keep my words and treasure my commandments within you. Keep my commandments and live, and my teaching as the apple of your eye. Bind them on your fingers, write them on the tablets of your heart, say to Wisdom, 'You are my sister', and call understanding your intimate friend'"
Remember, in the Last Days, understanding and faithfulness become closely associated. Why? Because those who don't have it will be vulnerable to deception.
"That they may keep you from an adulteress, from the foreigner who flatters with her words. For at the window of my house, I looked through my lattice and saw among the na ¯ve, and discerned among the youths, a young man lacking sense passing through the streets near her corner. And he takes the way to her house in the twilight."
When? In the twilight, the evening. Remember, qol veh homer. Things that are always true become especially true in the Last Days. Spiritual seduction has always been around, but it intensifies before Jesus comes.
"And behold, a woman comes to meet him, dressed as a harlot and cunning of heart. She is boisterous and rebellious; her feet do not remain at home. She is now in the streets, now on the squares, and lurks by every corner. She seizes him and kisses him, and with a brazen face she says to him, 'I was due to offer peace offerings today that I have paid my vows. Therefore I have come out to meet you, to seek your presence earnestly, and I have found you. I have spread my couch with coverings, with colored linens of Egypt'"
What is Egypt a figure of? The world.
"'I have sprinkled my bed with myrrh'"
It's a deathbed, though it smells nice. A corpse can be made to look pretty good, but it is no less dead with cosmetics.
"'Come, let us drink our fill of love till morning; let us delight ourselves with caresses.'"
Now let's read verses 19 and 20:
"'For the man is not at home; he has gone on a long journey, he has taken a bag of money with him and at full moon he will come.'"
And she goes on to deceive the guy. You see, she knows that the man is not at home; she knows that Jesus has gone on a long journey, and that at "full moon" He will come. What, again, is full moon? The time at which the moon is reflecting the maximum amount of light from the sun. The Bible will have to be understood at some point, that despite the darkness there will be a ray of sun. But for those who do not have oil in their lamps, it will then be too late to go out and buy it. We must get the oil now.
Future History of the Church Part 3 of 3
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There is much more that I could say about this, but let me put it to you this way: we must understand Elijah.
King Ahab covets the vineyard €“ the Antichrist enters the beautiful land in Nahum €“ but he can't get the vineyard too easily. So Queen Jezebel tries to get possession of the vineyard for him. This brings her into conflict with Eliahu HaNawbe, Elijah the Prophet. In the Last Days the Antichrist wants the vineyard and goes to the false religious system to get it. This somehow results in a conflict with Elijah. Elijah, Elisha, Samuel, and John the Baptist are all connected. Midrashically there are ways to connect things that the church doesn't think of because they're reading a Jewish book with a Greek mindset. Whenever you see things happening in the same geographical location in the Bible, there is a midrashic connection between those events. Where does the ministry of John the Baptist take place? On the plain of Jericho. This is the same location in which the ministry of Elijah ends and the ministry of Elisha begins. Samuel was the last of the judges, but the first of the prophets. John the Baptist was the last figure of the Old Testament but the first figure of the New Testament; when the Apostles looked for someone to replace Judas they didn't search out someone who was with Jesus from the beginning, but rather someone who was with them from John's ministry. (Acts 1:21-22) John was the pivotal figure; he was transitional. The New Testament era begins with John, not with Jesus.
John the Baptist and Samuel have similar circumstances surrounding their births. Wherever you see people born under similar supernatural circumstances there is a midrashic connection. Elijah, Elisha, and John had the same spirit. So the wicked woman turns the king against Elijah; the same happens with Herodias and King Herod: the wicked woman turns the king against John the Baptist. It is a pattern; the same things happen again and again. What happened in both these cases is somehow what happens when Elijah comes again in the end. There is a lot more that could be said about this, but it is very complicated.
Let's look at the book of Amos 8:11:
"'Days are coming', declares the Lord, 'when I will send a famine on the land. Not a famine for bread or a thirst for water, but rather a famine for the hearing of the Word of God.'"
Remember that the physical reflects the spiritual: when the Temple veil was torn, the physical event reflected a spiritual one. Jesus said there would be famines in the Last Days, (Math 24:7) but the physical famines are only reflections of a spiritual one. There had been no prophet in Israel for over 400 years when John the Baptist came in the spirit of Elijah to feed God's people during the famine, preparing for the Messiah to come.
There is going to be a famine in the end; but somehow, God's people in the spirit of Elijah are going to be fed and prepared for the Messiah to come. The way Elijah stopped the rain is the same way that the Holy Spirit will be absent from the world when the outpouring stops. Yet Elijah fed the Gentile woman supernaturally; she is a type of the church as are many Gentile women in the Bible such as the Queen of Sheba. Remember that Jesus said the Queen of Sheba came to hear the wisdom of Solomon. (Math 12:42)
God's people are fed during the famine. On the Jewish calendar you have outpourings of rain and harvests. A Jew reading Revelation 10 and 11 would have called it a midrash on Joshua. You've got the same numerical pattern in both: in Revelation, the seven seals with the seventh seal having seven trumpets, a numerical subset. Those trumpets correspond to the Feast of Trumpets which corresponds with the last Trumpet and the trumpet blown on Yom Kippur €“ all of these things fit together, though I cannot go into it now. Anyway, you have seven with the seventh having a subset of seven. Then there is silence in heaven for half an hour. (For me that may be the most confusing verse in the Bible €“ how can a human measurement of time be applied to eternity? I don't understand that verse.) Next there come these two witnesses who are spoken of in Zechariah. The last Trumpet is blown, and the text says "This kingdom has become the kingdom of our God and of His Messiah."
Now, let's look at what happened at the capture of Jericho. They marched around the city seven times, once a day for seven days, but on the seventh day they had to march around it seven times. There you have the same numerical pattern present in Revelation. The two spies in Joshua were sent to Jericho to rescue the Gentile woman, Rahab, before the judgment came. They prefigure the ministry of the two witnesses in Revelation. Revelation midrashically replays the text of Joshua, though you won't find that in any commentary that I know of, because people with Greek minds wrote them all.
Moses fed the children of Israel to prepare them for the Exodus from Egypt. Joseph fed the whole world during the famine, but Moses fed all Israel to prepare them to leave Egypt. This, again, is a type of the Resurrection/Rapture. There was darkness on the first Passover, and only the Jews had lights on in their houses in order to eat the Passover. When Jesus faced His last days, He fed His disciples and prepared them for what was coming. In Acts 20, before Paul leaves for his last days, he goes to an upper room, breaks bread, and feeds the disciples. It says in Acts 20 that there were many lamps in the room; the eye is the lamp of the body. If the eye is sound, as Scripture says, the body will also be sound. (Math 6:22) In Zephaniah 1 there is an allusion to the Jewish Passover Bedichat Chametz, during which each person's house is searched by its inhabitants for leaven. Here in Zephaniah it says,
"I will search Jerusalem with many lamps, purging leaven".
Leaven is a figure of sin in the Bible (1 Cor 5:6-8). Jews had to get all leaven out of the house before they could eat the Passover, just as we are supposed to get rid of the leaven in our lives before we come to the Lord's Table. Once again, the old-time Brethren have a much more Jewish understanding of the Lord's Supper than other Christians do.
"I will search Jerusalem with lamps," (Zeph 1:12).
There will be a purging of the leaven from Zion through right teaching in the Last Days before Jesus comes.
"The eye is the lamp of the body," (Math 6:22).
Think of the armor in Ephesians 6, quoted from Isaiah. It says in Nahum and in Isaiah 52,
"How lovely on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news".
Ephesians 6 admonishes us to
"Put on the shoes of the preparation of the Gospel of peace".
The church is a body; its feet are its evangelists. But the eye is the lamp of the body; this refers to teachers, who see and give the light. Somehow, the ministry of Elijah is going to put the oil into the lamps of the teachers in the Last Days. Jesus fed the Apostles, who then took the bread when He fed the 5,000 and fed the people in groups of 50. 50 is the number of the Holy Spirit, of Pentecost. Elijah, through Obadiah, also fed the sons of the prophets in groups of 50. The food comes from one source, but then is broken down and given to several groups. I don't fully understand this, but that is the pattern, and somehow it will happen like that.
Elijah is going to feed the other teachers in the Last Days €“ whoever Elijah is, or however you understand it. Whether "Elijah" is a man, a movement, two people, or something else is something I won't go into. I will only teach something once I have understood it definitively and the Holy Spirit hasn't shown me fully what this means or how it works. James says, "Let few of you be teachers"; (James 3:1) God will hold me more accountable than He will those of you who are not teachers. Therefore I will not teach anything doctrinally until I am sure that God has shown it to me.
The Maccabees, in Daniel 11, are similar to Elijah in this way:
"Those who have understanding among the people will give insight to the many."
In Proverbs we saw that the wicked woman had truth that was like a two-edged sword, and she was smoother than oil. This is the nature of seduction. If people lack God's wisdom, they're going to be vulnerable; since we have something that is sharper than a two-edged sword, so will they. We will have the oil of anointing and they will have something even smoother. Not better, but it will be a counterfeit. With diamonds, if you don't have a professional eye, you cannot tell a counterfeit from a genuine stone. Some false diamonds, made of polished glass and worthless, can look so real that only a jeweler can tell it is false. There are some false diamonds that are such good reproductions that even the experts have a hard time spotting them initially and have to do all kinds of cauterization tests. In the same way, if Christians today are sucked in by things that are obviously erroneous €“ if they are fooled by a guy like Rick Godwin, who claims that Matthew 24 is not about the Last Days €“ what will they do when convincing lies confront them? If you can't stand on the dry land, how will you persevere in the thicket of the Jordan? (Jer 12:5) Again, if people are fooled by name-it-and-claim-it nonsense, what will they do when the real deception comes?
There will be a schism within the church in the Last Days, with a number of things that will divide it. One factor will be the churches that compromise and the ones that do not. Another thing dividing the church will be the role and calling of God upon Israel. A third thing will be the authority of Scripture and the way in which it is interpreted. Those are three of the issues that are going to divide; there may well be others. What happens with Elijah teaches about this tribulation.
King Ahab covets the vineyard €“ the Antichrist enters the beautiful land in Nahum €“ but he can't get the vineyard too easily. So Queen Jezebel tries to get possession of the vineyard for him. This brings her into conflict with Eliahu HaNawbe, Elijah the Prophet. In the Last Days the Antichrist wants the vineyard and goes to the false religious system to get it. This somehow results in a conflict with Elijah. Elijah, Elisha, Samuel, and John the Baptist are all connected. Midrashically there are ways to connect things that the church doesn't think of because they're reading a Jewish book with a Greek mindset. Whenever you see things happening in the same geographical location in the Bible, there is a midrashic connection between those events. Where does the ministry of John the Baptist take place? On the plain of Jericho. This is the same location in which the ministry of Elijah ends and the ministry of Elisha begins. Samuel was the last of the judges, but the first of the prophets. John the Baptist was the last figure of the Old Testament but the first figure of the New Testament; when the Apostles looked for someone to replace Judas they didn't search out someone who was with Jesus from the beginning, but rather someone who was with them from John's ministry. (Acts 1:21-22) John was the pivotal figure; he was transitional. The New Testament era begins with John, not with Jesus.
John the Baptist and Samuel have similar circumstances surrounding their births. Wherever you see people born under similar supernatural circumstances there is a midrashic connection. Elijah, Elisha, and John had the same spirit. So the wicked woman turns the king against Elijah; the same happens with Herodias and King Herod: the wicked woman turns the king against John the Baptist. It is a pattern; the same things happen again and again. What happened in both these cases is somehow what happens when Elijah comes again in the end. There is a lot more that could be said about this, but it is very complicated.
Let's look at the book of Amos 8:11:
"'Days are coming', declares the Lord, 'when I will send a famine on the land. Not a famine for bread or a thirst for water, but rather a famine for the hearing of the Word of God.'"
Remember that the physical reflects the spiritual: when the Temple veil was torn, the physical event reflected a spiritual one. Jesus said there would be famines in the Last Days, (Math 24:7) but the physical famines are only reflections of a spiritual one. There had been no prophet in Israel for over 400 years when John the Baptist came in the spirit of Elijah to feed God's people during the famine, preparing for the Messiah to come.
There is going to be a famine in the end; but somehow, God's people in the spirit of Elijah are going to be fed and prepared for the Messiah to come. The way Elijah stopped the rain is the same way that the Holy Spirit will be absent from the world when the outpouring stops. Yet Elijah fed the Gentile woman supernaturally; she is a type of the church as are many Gentile women in the Bible such as the Queen of Sheba. Remember that Jesus said the Queen of Sheba came to hear the wisdom of Solomon. (Math 12:42)
God's people are fed during the famine. On the Jewish calendar you have outpourings of rain and harvests. A Jew reading Revelation 10 and 11 would have called it a midrash on Joshua. You've got the same numerical pattern in both: in Revelation, the seven seals with the seventh seal having seven trumpets, a numerical subset. Those trumpets correspond to the Feast of Trumpets which corresponds with the last Trumpet and the trumpet blown on Yom Kippur €“ all of these things fit together, though I cannot go into it now. Anyway, you have seven with the seventh having a subset of seven. Then there is silence in heaven for half an hour. (For me that may be the most confusing verse in the Bible €“ how can a human measurement of time be applied to eternity? I don't understand that verse.) Next there come these two witnesses who are spoken of in Zechariah. The last Trumpet is blown, and the text says "This kingdom has become the kingdom of our God and of His Messiah."
Now, let's look at what happened at the capture of Jericho. They marched around the city seven times, once a day for seven days, but on the seventh day they had to march around it seven times. There you have the same numerical pattern present in Revelation. The two spies in Joshua were sent to Jericho to rescue the Gentile woman, Rahab, before the judgment came. They prefigure the ministry of the two witnesses in Revelation. Revelation midrashically replays the text of Joshua, though you won't find that in any commentary that I know of, because people with Greek minds wrote them all.
Moses fed the children of Israel to prepare them for the Exodus from Egypt. Joseph fed the whole world during the famine, but Moses fed all Israel to prepare them to leave Egypt. This, again, is a type of the Resurrection/Rapture. There was darkness on the first Passover, and only the Jews had lights on in their houses in order to eat the Passover. When Jesus faced His last days, He fed His disciples and prepared them for what was coming. In Acts 20, before Paul leaves for his last days, he goes to an upper room, breaks bread, and feeds the disciples. It says in Acts 20 that there were many lamps in the room; the eye is the lamp of the body. If the eye is sound, as Scripture says, the body will also be sound. (Math 6:22) In Zephaniah 1 there is an allusion to the Jewish Passover Bedichat Chametz, during which each person's house is searched by its inhabitants for leaven. Here in Zephaniah it says,
"I will search Jerusalem with many lamps, purging leaven".
Leaven is a figure of sin in the Bible (1 Cor 5:6-8). Jews had to get all leaven out of the house before they could eat the Passover, just as we are supposed to get rid of the leaven in our lives before we come to the Lord's Table. Once again, the old-time Brethren have a much more Jewish understanding of the Lord's Supper than other Christians do.
"I will search Jerusalem with lamps," (Zeph 1:12).
There will be a purging of the leaven from Zion through right teaching in the Last Days before Jesus comes.
"The eye is the lamp of the body," (Math 6:22).
Think of the armor in Ephesians 6, quoted from Isaiah. It says in Nahum and in Isaiah 52,
"How lovely on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news".
Ephesians 6 admonishes us to
"Put on the shoes of the preparation of the Gospel of peace".
The church is a body; its feet are its evangelists. But the eye is the lamp of the body; this refers to teachers, who see and give the light. Somehow, the ministry of Elijah is going to put the oil into the lamps of the teachers in the Last Days. Jesus fed the Apostles, who then took the bread when He fed the 5,000 and fed the people in groups of 50. 50 is the number of the Holy Spirit, of Pentecost. Elijah, through Obadiah, also fed the sons of the prophets in groups of 50. The food comes from one source, but then is broken down and given to several groups. I don't fully understand this, but that is the pattern, and somehow it will happen like that.
Elijah is going to feed the other teachers in the Last Days €“ whoever Elijah is, or however you understand it. Whether "Elijah" is a man, a movement, two people, or something else is something I won't go into. I will only teach something once I have understood it definitively and the Holy Spirit hasn't shown me fully what this means or how it works. James says, "Let few of you be teachers"; (James 3:1) God will hold me more accountable than He will those of you who are not teachers. Therefore I will not teach anything doctrinally until I am sure that God has shown it to me.
The Maccabees, in Daniel 11, are similar to Elijah in this way:
"Those who have understanding among the people will give insight to the many."
In Proverbs we saw that the wicked woman had truth that was like a two-edged sword, and she was smoother than oil. This is the nature of seduction. If people lack God's wisdom, they're going to be vulnerable; since we have something that is sharper than a two-edged sword, so will they. We will have the oil of anointing and they will have something even smoother. Not better, but it will be a counterfeit. With diamonds, if you don't have a professional eye, you cannot tell a counterfeit from a genuine stone. Some false diamonds, made of polished glass and worthless, can look so real that only a jeweler can tell it is false. There are some false diamonds that are such good reproductions that even the experts have a hard time spotting them initially and have to do all kinds of cauterization tests. In the same way, if Christians today are sucked in by things that are obviously erroneous €“ if they are fooled by a guy like Rick Godwin, who claims that Matthew 24 is not about the Last Days €“ what will they do when convincing lies confront them? If you can't stand on the dry land, how will you persevere in the thicket of the Jordan? (Jer 12:5) Again, if people are fooled by name-it-and-claim-it nonsense, what will they do when the real deception comes?
There will be a schism within the church in the Last Days, with a number of things that will divide it. One factor will be the churches that compromise and the ones that do not. Another thing dividing the church will be the role and calling of God upon Israel. A third thing will be the authority of Scripture and the way in which it is interpreted. Those are three of the issues that are going to divide; there may well be others. What happens with Elijah teaches about this tribulation.
The Gates of Jerusalem
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by James Jacob Prasch IntroductionLet"s look at the book of Nehemiah chapter 3...
Then Eliashib the high priest arose with his brothers the priests and built the Sheep Gate; they consecrated it and hung its doors. They consecrated the wall to the Tower of the Hundred and the Tower of Hananel. Next to him the men of Jericho built, and next to them Zaccur the son of Imri built. Now the sons of Hassenaah built the Fish Gate;
Nehemiah comes and he sees the devastation, a terrible devastation. And he goes to the king after weeping over the city, and he asks the king for a mandate to rebuild what"s been left in ruins. But there"s a spiritual meaning to what"s been left in ruins when he rebuilds the gates.
Now ultimately these gates are what you would see in the book of Revelation, the twelve gates. (Rev. 21:12) At different times in history there were different numbers of gates, but they"ve all basically been the same. To some extent they broadly resemble – or vaguely resemble – the pattern of the gates you have in the Old City of Jerusalem today, except that the city then was much, much smaller. The Sheep & the Fish GatesThe first two gates we read are the Sheep Gate and, next to it,the Tower of Hananel (which means "God's mercy") and the Tower of the Me"ah, which means "one hundred". That is the gate to which they brought the sheep into Jerusalem to be sacrificed in the temple. However, Hananel means "God's mercy", or something to do with the mercy of God. "Me"ah" is the Hebrew word for "one hundred". Remember when Jesussaid if a shepherd loses a sheep, he"ll leave the ninety-nine and go after the one? (Lk. 15:3-7) It"s like a dozen eggs: if one egg is missing, you don"t have a dozen. Or if one sheep is missing, you don"t have a proper flock. A proper flock had to be one hundred.
Sometimes, some of us go astray. Sometimes, some of us fallaway. Sometimes, young believers backslide. Sometimes, in times of crisis, we feel wrongly that the Lord has abandoned us, and we wander off. But the Good Shepherd comes after us. He doesn"t want to lose any.
The Sheep Gate. "My sheep will hear My voice," He says. (Jn. 10:27) But next to the Sheep Gate is the Fish Gate. "I will make you fishers of men". (Mt. 4:19) When you and I are born again, we get "caught". Now, remember when the apostles fished and they kept one hundred fifty-three, but they threw the other ones back? There"s good fish and bad fish. Some people will go back to the world.
But then it continues, and it talks about the different people according to their families and tribes, rebuilding the gates.
Now the sons of Hassenaah built the Fish Gate; they laid its beams and hung its doors with its bolts and bars. Next to them Meremoth the son of Uriah...
..."Uriah" means "my light is God"...
...the son of Hakkoz made repairs. And next to him Meshullam the son of Berechiah the son of Meshezabel made repairs. And next to him Zadok the son of Baana also made repairs. Moreover, next to him the Tekoites made repairs, but their nobles did not support the work of their masters.
"The nobles did not support the work of their masters". When people set out to rebuild what"s devastated, when people set out to repair the gates of God, when people set out to restore what used to be, one problem you"ll have is don"t trust the nobles. So often you"ll find – now there are exceptions – but the people who you"d think would be the most ready and certainly the most capable of contributing the most, the people who"ve been saved the longest, the people who would seem to know the Bible the best, sometimes the people who are the most educated or are the most affluent in a fellowship will be the ones who are most reluctant to get on with beginning again.
Most of the times God has worked, it has been usually – in fact, almost always – through poor people, through the working classes. Big revivals in South America: it"s the barrios, it"s the slums. John Wesley"s revivals in this country: it was the coal miners; they were like the lowest of the working class. At the time it was a terrible job. They had little kids, four years old dying of black lung disease. When the coal miners would get saved, their faces were black, just totally black with soot. And they came out of the mines and they would hear George Whitfield and John Wesley preach and they would begin crying because of their sins, and there were like white streams that go down the faces of these people. If you said somebody was a coal miner it was almost like saying they were a drug dealer or a prostitute or something like this. It was a profession that they associated with being a cutthroat because they paid so little the people probably couldn"t make a living doing it, despite the harsh conditions. It was absolutely unspeakable social injustice. And that"s where the Gospel prospered.
I"m not against middle class people or educated middle class people, but the middle class people God will use in rebuilding a devastated church will be middle class people who become servants of the poor and of the working classes. Usually it will be working class people who God will raise up to become upwardly mobile, who"ll get the thing going. Don"t trust the nobles. Don"t think the people who you"d expect to help you rebuild the gates are going to take to the work too quickly. People like that tend to like their comfort too much, they tend to like their position, they don"t like the boat rocked too much, they"d rather make due with what they have. Because if they try to rebuild something, it"s going to cost them something. It"ll cost them something. They don"t need the trouble or the aggravation. The nobles don"t support the work of the masters. They should; some of them do. But generally it"s the salt of the earth people that are going to get things done. It always was, it always will be.
Now if you"re a middle class person, don"t take it personally. I"m a middle class person; I"m only speaking the truth, I"m not trying to insult anyone"s class. I"m simply saying if it"s going to happen, it"s going to be because of the salt of the earth. If revival comes to Britain or to any of these societies, it will come from the council estates before it does the middle class suburbs. It"ll happen among single-parent families, it"ll happen to people who"ve been in prison, it"ll happen to people who"ve been unemployed – that"s where these things tend to come from, as it did in the days of Jesus. Who was it? Harlots, tax gatherers, thieves, political dissidents like the Zealots – those people came to Jesus. Who rejected Him? The religious people. It"s no different now.
As we look at the gates of Jerusalem in the Old City of Jerusalem today, God is showing us a lesson in history. As you walk through the Old City of Jerusalem, you"re looking at not one thousand, not two thousand, not three thousand, but more than three thousand years of history from the time of the Jebusites onward. And those walls and those gates tell a story, a story of revival and backsliding. Renewal and decline. And the same is true for the church. Even the walls of Jerusalem and its gates are a reflection of the history of the Jewish people, but also of what"s happened through the centuries with the church. The Old & Ephraim GatesVerse 6 of chapter 3...
Joiada the son of Paseah and Meshullam the son of Besodeiah repaired the Old Gate; they laid its beams and hung its doors with its bolts and its bars. Next to them Melatiah the Gibeonite and Jadon the Meronothite, the men of Gibeon and of Mizpah, also made repairs for the official seat of the governor of the province beyond the River.
So the next gate is the Old Gate. But we also know that next to the Old Gate there was another gate called the Gate of Ephraim. "Ephraim" means "fruitfulness" or "doubly fruitful". And it was at the beginning of a long valley, a depression called "the valley of the cheese makers" or the Tyropean Valley. Now this valley runs through the present center of the Old City of Jerusalem. You see it here next to the Cardo. And you can see parts of where it was, the wall running parallel to it, excavated.
A Christian will progress; there"ll be a choice: two more gates, the Old Gate and the gate of Ephraim. We might be called like a sheep, we might be caught like a fish. When somebody"s first saved, the first few days it"s absolutely amazing. The scales have fallen off their eyes. Now they see the truth. But after two or three days they begin to come to their senses, or so they think. Is this real? Is this what I really want to commit myself to? Is this really the way I want to live my life? Is it going to be like this, that I"m not going to be able to go out and gamble and get drunk and take drugs and sleep with women and fool around with other men and cheat on my wife and to stop smoking? Is this really for real? Then the social pressures begin. Your old friends, your old desires, and within a couple of days you"re confronted with a choice.
Think of Matthew 13, the sower and the seed. Three out of four seeds don"t end up so well. The way I look at it, based on that (I"m not teaching this as a doctrine, I"m just saying as an observation) if one out of every four people I lead to Christ stays faithful to Him long term, I"m not complaining. If three out of four fall away I"m very sorry, but I guess that"s par for the course, in other words. I can tell you this: the people that I"ve seen stay the most faithful to Christ are the ones who"ve paid the highest price for it, people who had to count the cost ahead of time.
You see this in a lot of places. You see it, certainly, in Israel among the Jews. The social cost is much higher than it is for non-Jews most of the time. Among Muslims its even higher. People like that will count the cost more carefully before they get saved. In Ireland it"s Catholic people. If you"re seen as becoming a Protestant, you"re betraying your family and all this kind of stuff – the cost is higher. When people get saved in prisons, prison can be quite dangerous. You become a Christian, people will try to kill you, try to push you sometimes to the limit to see how far they can make you go before you react violently the way you used to. It"s not easy. Talk to people who"ve been in prison ministry. I talked to Noel Proctor. I mean, he was the chaplain in "Strangeways" in Manchester. It"s very difficult. There"s a much higher cost involved with those kinds of people. People who get saved under those conditions will tend to be less likely to backslide. Less likely. I don"t see it doesn"t happen, I"m simply saying you"ll find less of it because they"ve counted the cost more carefully to begin with.
Other people – most of us – we find ourselves in this situation: So you"ve come through the Sheep Gate, you came through the Fish Gate, but now there"s two gates in front of you. Which one are you going to go through, the gate of fruitfulness or the Old Gate, the gate of back to your old ways, your old friends, your old interests – which gate are you going to walk through? And again, this Old Gate lies at the precipice of a decline, of a valley. A long valley. A deep valley. The Tyropean Valley.
Valleys in the Bible represent times of trial. What does it say in Matthew 13: but when opposition comes because of the Word they fall away. (Mt. 13:20-21) In the beginning they seem to grow really quick, but no depth. After somebody gets saved, they go through their first trials, sometimes prolonged periods of trial. We go through a valley. Something for Everybody Next to him Uzziel...
..."my strength is God"...
... next to him Uzziel the son of Harhaiah of the goldsmiths made repairs. And next to him Hananiah, one of the perfumers, made repairs, and they restored Jerusalem as far as the Broad Wall. Next to them Rephaiah the son of Hur, the official of half the district of Jerusalem, made repairs. Next to them Jedaiah the son of Harumaph made repairs opposite his house. And next to him Hattush the son of Hashabneiah made repairs. Malchijah..."
..."my king is Yahweh"...
...the son of Harim and Hasshub the son of Pahath-moab repaired another section and the Tower of Furnaces. Next to him Shallum the son of Hallohesh, the official of half the district of Jerusalem, made repairs, he and his daughters.
Notice there were things for men to do, there were things for women to do. There were things for people to do from all backgrounds, all trades, all professions, all walks of life. Everybody is involved. The Valley & the Refuse Gates Hanun and the inhabitants of Zanoah repaired the Valley Gate. They built it and hung its doors with its bolts and its bars, and a thousand cubits of the wall to the Refuse Gate.
The next gate you come to is the Valley Gate, but that leads us to another gate called the Refuse Gate. Outside of the Refuse Gate was the garbage pit of Jerusalem, where the Tyropean Valley met another valley called the Valley of Hinnom. In this Valley of Hinnom it is where backslidden Judah sacrificed their children to Molech. (2 Ki. 23:10) But outside this gate where these two valleys came together – actually there was a third valley on this side called the Kidron, the three of them came together – you"d have the garbage pit which burned day and night. That garbage pit was called "Gehennom" – "Gehenna".
When you travel with me around Jerusalem, when I show the people on the pilgrimages and the study tours, I tell them where I take them when I take them where this is, and I say, "Welcome to hell; I hope this is as close you ever get to going there." This is literally hell outside of the Refuse Gate where these three valleys came together.
You see, we go through the Sheep Gate, we go through the Fish Gate. If we decide to hold onto our crosses and keep following the Lord Jesus, we go through the gate of Ephraim; we choose fruitfulness. The old nature comes up and how does God deal with it? We go to the Valley Gate. God uses the valley, He uses difficulty, He uses times of trial to deal with our old nature. But when we come to the end of the valley, we get to the Refuse Gate. Trials are difficult when you"re going through them, but when they"re over, you see how much garbage God has thrown out of our lives. That"s what He wants to do.
Philippians 1:6, "...He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion in the day of Christ Jesus".
God wants to throw garbage out of our lives. And although we don"t like it – and understandably we don"t like it – one of the ways God removes the rubbish from our lives is by bringing us into times of trial. He brings us through the Valley Gate. What does it say in James? Count it as all blessing, my brethren, when you go through these trials. (Ja. 1:2)
Now as a young believer I made a big mistake; I misunderstood that verse. So I used to pray for trials. I wish God answered all of my prayers as quickly, as instantly, and as thoroughly as He answered those prayers. If you pray for trials, the likelihood is you"re going to get them. I don"t know if you pray for a Mercedes – you might not get that – but if you pray for trials, you can almost bank on it. The Fountain GateVerse 14...
Malchijah the son of Rechab, the official of the district of Beth-haccherem repaired the Refuse Gate. He built it and hung its doors with its bolts and its bars. Shallum the son of Col-hozeh, the official of the district of Mizpah, repaired the Fountain Gate. He built it, covered it and hung its doors with its bolts and its bars, and the wallof the Pool of Shelah...
...that"s the Pool of Siloach where Jesus would later heal the blind man; open the eyes of the blind man...
...at the king"s garden as far as the steps that descend from the city of David.
Now this Pool of Shelah, the Pool of Siloach, is where king Hezekiah"s tunnel, where we enter it now and go through Hezekiah"s tunnel where the water was brought into the Old City. Let"s look at the next gate.
As you proceed, not far away you come to the next gate: the Fountain Gate, where the Pool of Siloach was, where the water began to flow.
Now you"ve heard me say various times -- John 7:39, Isaiah 44:3 – this freshly clean water that came from the Pool of Siloach entered the city through Hezekiah"s tunnel, this water was called "chay mayim" – "living water". Which in Isaiah and John is always a type or figure of the Holy Spirit.
Let"s understand this in light of the present situation. In our sense of desperation over what is happening to our nation and the other protestant democracies and the state of the church, with Islam and New Age taking over – the church failing. Christianity is failing in this country. Christ is not failing, but the church is not winning. Ultimately the church is victorious because of Christ and His return, but right now we"re losing. We"re losing the battle to homosexuals, to New Age, to ecumenism, to everything. However, for the people wanting to see something happening, they want to see the Living Water flow, they want to see the fountain, they want to find it, but they"re not willing to do what"s necessary to make it flow. They don"t want to go back to the basics. The only way you"re going to get to the Fountain Gate is by going back to the basics.
Do you know, so many of the biggest churches of this country don"t even preach the Gospel? They don"t even talk about the blood of Jesus, or the cross, or repentance – that"s not what they talk about. They talk about power and victory and all that stuff -- the "Kingdom Now" stuff – without realizing that the only way you"re going to get the power or the victory is because of what Jesus did on the cross and when He rose from the dead. They"ve got everything wrong.
So they don"t want to go back and look at the choice we have to make. The choice we make is do you want the Old Gate. If you can really define "backsliding" in its simplest terms, you"d say it means "hoping in this world". Backsliding is hoping in this world. When somebody"s backslidden, it means they"re trusting in this world.
Now think of it. What do you do when you have a guy like Andrew Shearman saying, "I repent that I ever said that this world is not my home; this world is my home. Heaven"s not my destiny, it"s only a benefit." It"s what he"s teaching. That guy"s at the Old Gate; that"s the gate he wants.
Nobody wants to realize we have to go through a long valley, that there"s a lot of garbage in our lives. There"s certainly a lot of garbage in my life. But even more importantly, there"s a lot of garbage in the church that has to be gotten rid of. We all want the Living Water to flow, but it"s not going to flow until God gets the garbage out that"s clogging up the drains and clogging up the pipes and clogging up the water system. There"s too much rubbish. Too much rubbish and sewage that"s clogging it up, and the Living Water can"t flow. So people go out, and they turn on a garden hose, and pretend it"s raining. Again, it"s just so crazy.
One thing after another. Kansas City"s going to do it, Toronto"s going to do it – we"ve talked about this stuff enough – but no revival comes.
You know, most people in Toronto never even heard of the "Toronto Blessing", except that they saw it on the news or something? It"s had no impact; it"s not even a big thing in Canada. I was in Canada in October and most people don"t even know what it is, don"t even care what it is. They haven"t got a clue. It"s only over here and in Australia and New Zealand and the continent that it"s big; in America and Canada where it comes from, it"s nothing. Very few people are into it. Very few churches are interested in it. When I went to that place, everybody in the Toronto Airport Vineyard church, which has now been thrown out of the Vineyard, was from some place other than Toronto. In fact, they were from some place other than Canada. It"s having no revivals; that"s nuts.
Living Water doesn"t flow that way. It flows when you get rid of the refuse, when the Lord has a free hand to do the things He needs to do in our lives and in the church to get rid of the garbage. When they get rid of the hype, and the "Kingdom Now", and the replacementism, and the ecumenism, and the prosperity/money preachers, then maybe the water will begin to flow because the plumbing system won"t be clogged up any more with dreck. The Water GateBut the next gate is what we find at the other terminal of Hezekiah"s tunnel. The next gate we come to is the Water Gate. You have an underground tunnel that flows from the Fountain Gate to the Water Gate that was built by Hezekiah. It"s still there. We walk through it, we show you where it is. You can walk through it if you like. If you"re not claustrophobic, it"s interesting.
God doesn"t want us to just have a fountain; He wants us to have a pool. He wants us to be immersed in His Spirit. A Spirit-filled life. A Spirit-filled church. There might be a certain amount of water, but not enough to do what God wants.
People who are Cessasionists – churches which say the gifts of the Spirit ended with the Apostles – people like that, they have the Holy Spirit in some measure, but they"re unwilling to open to the fullness of the Spirit, including the gifts. Now I never seek the gifts above the Giver, I seek the Giver. But Cessasionism is as wrong on one extreme as the excesses of Toronto are on the other. There"s a balance. Who"s going to burn their money because money can be counterfeited? Nobody. Nobody should throw the baby out with the bath water, should they? Unfortunately, some people do.
But after the Water Gate, the journey continues and they make repairs. It"s a progression. We go from the Refuse Gate down to the Fountain Gate. After the Fountain Gate we come to the Water Gate. The Horse GateThe next gate that they come to after verse 26 is the Ophel. We point out where the Ophel is in Jerusalem.
The temple servants living in Ophel made repairs as far as the front of the Water Gate toward the east and the projecting tower. After them the Tekoites repaired another section in front of the great projecting tower and as far as the wall of Ophel. Above the Horse Gate...
Now we"re going on the east side of Jerusalem, which is the closest to what you see today to the archeology of the original Old City. This wall would have been on the same location – or approximately the same location – as the present eastern wall facing the Mount of Olives, separated from it by the Kidron Valley. The Mount of Olives is here. Not far away then, as you turn east, is the Horse Gate.
Horses in biblical times were not used for transport. In the ancient Near East, donkeys and camels were animals for transport. Sheep were used for meat and wool, cattle were used for meat, for hides, and for milk. A horse hand only one purpose, only one function: the horse was the animal of war. It was used for pulling chariots and for mounted soldiers for cavalry. That"s all.
You see, until we have a Spirit-filled church and a Spirit-filled life, we"re not really ready for war.
The church in this country is no longer in a spiritual state to take on New Age. It"s not in a spiritual state to take on Islam. We couldn"t win. Islam claims to have a moral agenda from Allah to restore with Shariah – Islamic law – a standard of morality that Christianity can no longer deliver. They claim that. If you read Salaam and these other Muslims who I consider militants – certainly Ahmed Deedat – they"ll tell you things like this. You wouldn"t have this crime in Britain if you had an Islamic state, you wouldn"t have this thing of single-parent families in an Islamic state, you wouldn"t have any of this. You wouldn"t have homosexuality in an Islamic state, you wouldn"t have any of this. Homosexuals? We kill them. Thieves? We chop off their hands. Rape? We castrate. Feminists? We flog them.
Shariah Islam can restore what this country doesn"t have morally any more. The church in this country can no longer deliver a standard of moral righteousness. At one time it could -- at one time it did – but it can"t any more.
The silliest, most absurd thing you see happening in the western countries is with the Kingdom Now, the Restorationists, they"re saying, "Victory! Victory! Harvest! Harvest! Power! Power!" and the opposite is happening. The opposite! Just look at the stuff, the "Nine O"clock Service", that"s what the world sees. An evangelical archbishop saying we don"t have all the truth, we should look to the ones who aren"t even saved to get the rest of it? This is what"s happening, and these guys are yelling "Victory!" and rolling on the floor laughing? What, are they nuts? It"s absolutely absurd.
No, until you have a Spirit-filled church, you"re not ready to go to war. You can"t go through the Horse Gate until you go through the Water Gate, but you"re not going to get any water until God gets rid of the refuse. And He"s not going to get rid of the refuse until we realize that He has to get rid of it. We"re not even calling it refuse. The desire to trust in this world is refuse.
You"ve got a leading preacher, Andrew Shearman, saying this world is his home? They don"t even call it garbage. They don"t even recognize that"s what it is. No way, forget about it. The East GateWell what"s the next gate? Verse 29...
After them Zadok the son of Immer carried out repairs in front of his house. And after him Shemaiah the son of Shecaniah, the keeper of the East Gate, carried out repairs.
The East Gate we call, sometimes, the Golden Gate. The East Gate is the gate that Jesus came through on Palm Sunday. The evangelical, Christian archeologist Dr. Jim Fleming is one of the people who discovered the Herodian stones under the present East Gate. What that means is we can be quite certain that the present East Gate is where the East Gate that Jesus came through was located. But it also is opposite a certain point on the Mount of Olives, where the High Priest had to stand with the red heifer on Yom Kippur and look through the East Gate into the Holy of Holies across the Kidron. That would tend to verify the theory of Dr. Asher Kaufman of the Department of Antiquities of Hebrew University that would put the location of the original temple not on the exact site of the Mosque of Omar – the Dome of the Rock which you"ve seen pictures of – but about seventy meters north of it. In other words, in order to rebuild the temple, you would not have to tear down the mosque.
Wouldn"t it be something if the Antichrist just had an ecumenical center up on the temple mount? Jews and Arabs worshiping together up on the temple mount?
You see that Jerusalem is the center of controversy of all the nations. And somehow the Antichrist will have to bring a false peace. One way – I"m not making a prophecy, I"m simply saying – one way it could happen, one way you could get Jews to negotiate over Jerusalem – even Orthodox Jews – was if you got the Muslims to agree to them to rebuild the temple up on the temple mount. OK, let us rebuild our temple, then we"ll allow you to have east Jerusalem. You have yours, we"ll have ours, we"ll all live together.
It"s interesting that the Israeli government asked the papacy, before Rabin was killed, they asked the Pope to play a role in Jerusalem being, somehow, a united city of all faiths. Jerusalem is holy to three false religions:
• Nominal Christianity – You"ll see in Jerusalem, when you go to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, you"ll see the people kissing stones and praying to icons and idols of all sorts, open idolatry and superstition.
• Rabbinic Judaism – The false Judaism of the rabbis which denies its own Messiah, Yeshua.
• Islam – On the Dome of the Rock, on the outside of the periphery is a quotation from the Sorat in the Quran, "God has no son".
We"re told in John"s epistle, that which denies the Father-Son relationship, and denies Jesus is the Messiah is antichrist. Already the Antichrist is setting himself up to be worshiped.
I"m not saying the temple has to be rebuilt, I"m simply saying it looks like it"s going to be. Of course, the Abomination of Desolations I"m worried about is what"s already happening in the church: inter-faith worship, ecumenism. The church is the temple of God in seven places in the New Testament. There are different Greek words, as I"ve said before: "oikos", "naos", "heiron". But in seven places we"re told the church is the temple or the tabernacle now. And when you see inter-faith worship with Hindus and Sikhs and Muslims and with Rome in so-called Christian churches, you"re already seeing the Abomination being set up in the temple. This is rebuilt in the image of the Antichrist, when set up it will only be a reflection of what"s already become a spiritual reality. And so it is.
The East Gate always has to do with the coming of the Messiah. We have a prophecy in the book of Ezekiel that the East Gate would be shut up after the Messiah entered. We had a sultan of the Turks when the Turks occupied Israel, who knew the tradition of the Jews that said the Messiah would have to come through the East Gate. And so what he did was, he ordered it sealed up so the Messiah would not be able to come through it, and he sealed up the East Gate. We read about this in Ezekiel 44:1.
Then He brought me back by the way of the outer gate of the sanctuary, which faces the east; and it was shut. The Lord said to me, "This gate shall be shut; it shall not be opened, and no one shall enter by it, for the Lord God of Israel has entered by it; therefore it shall be shut.
Now Jesus entered the East Gate on Palm Sunday. And this gate, right now as you see, is sealed up. So after the Messiah went through this gate, it would be sealed up. And it is. It was literally fulfilled. You can look at the gate. I show you the gate. But it also says that God would enter through it. Jesus was God; He entered through the gate and this prophecy of Ezekiel 44:1-2 is literally fulfilled: The coming of Jesus. The Gate of JudgmentBut then there"s one more gate. We call this gate in Hebrew, "the Gate of Judgment".
When Jesus comes back, there will be a judgment. There"s two judgments: those for the saved and those for the unsaved. There"s two judgment seats of Christ: the "thronos" and the "bema". The unsaved appear before the "thronos", the Judge of the condemnation, and the saved are judged before the "bema", the magnitude of their reward.Rebuilding the Gates TodayWe live in a time in most of the western countries where the gates are devastated, and where the Lord is calling for people who will mourn over the state like Nehemiah did and begin to rebuild. There were men and there were women. People from all backgrounds, all professions, working together as families. Different groups had different jobs. Different ones had different territory. And so it"s going to be. We"re not all going to have the same ministry, we"re not all going to have the same territory, but we"re all going to have the same objective: to rebuild that which was devastated.
Nehemiah went to something that used to exist and no longer did; it was broken down. He didn't try to rebuild the Fountain Gate first, or the Water Gate first, or the Horse Gate first.
Forget about it. I wish we were in a good enough state we could take on Islam. We"re not. But that doesn"t mean we shouldn"t witness to Muslims. We should witness to Muslims. It doesn"t mean we shouldn"t witness to New Agers, we should. Should we pray for their salvation?
Absolutely. But what it means is the church is not in the condition in this nation to throw back those powers the way the church is in the condition to throw it back in the Far East.
We have to begin rebuilding in order. Go back to the basics: The Fish Gate, the Sheep Gate. "My sheep will hear My voice". (Jn. 10:27) The Lamb of God that was slain for us. The Gospel is simply not emphasized or preached in so many churches any more. The hymns are about anything and everything other than the blood of the Lamb. In the Vineyard hymn book – in one Vineyard hymn book I read – they had like 80-something hymns; only 2 of them mentioned the cross or the blood. That"s crazy.
We have to rebuild the basic gates: The Sheep Gate, the Fish Gate. "I"ll make you fishers of men". (Mt. 4:19) OK, I thank God for this group, and the Warsaw group, and the Bangor group, and the one forming down in Rotherham, and the one down in Hastings – I thank God for these groups. We call it in Hebrew, "the shelter of refuge". We show you the "Jewish Quarter", the "Shelter of Refuge" or "refuge for the oppressed". We need places like this for people who are churchless because of Toronto and the rest of it. But we just can"t be clubs for Christians who"ve been abused. We just can"t be a refugee camp for people that have come out of churches because of false doctrine, and because they were being financially fleeced all the time. That"s not good enough. We just can"t be a place where you want to come to because your church is ecumenical or Toronto-ized or whatever. That"s a beginning, but we have to begin preaching the Gospel and going fishing. These other churches are giving people hype, we"ve got to give them the truth.Getting God's Plan for EvangelismOne the things we have to begin doing is to pray that we get God's plan for evangelism. I thank God there"s tracts on the back. Take some tracts and give them out. I think that some of these meetings are going to have to begin to become evangelistic and prayer meetings praying for people to get saved. Let"s go back to the basic things: The Gospel, going fishing.
We can"t cast our nets until Jesus tells us where to do it. If we just go out with our own idea for an evangelistic program, it will be another Jim Challenge. We can"t go. He has to get in our boat and tell us where to cast the nets. But everybody can use a fishing rod. There"s nobody who can"t witness day-to-day and there"s nobody who can"t ask the Lord for His plan: "Jesus, please get in our boat and You show us where to cast our nets." We"ve got to get God's plan for evangelism. Go back to the basics: The Old Gate, the Gate of Ephraim, the Valley Gate.Reversing the Current StateThis nation would not be in the state it"s in, New Zealand would not be in the state it"s in, Australia would not be in the state it"s in, Great Britain would not be in the state it"s in, except for one reason: these nations and societies are in the state they"re in because the church is in the state it"s in. We"re supposed to be the "salt" and "light" (Mt. 5:13-16) Until we repent, there"s not going to be any repentance in society.
There"s a lot of garbage – rubbish – stuff that"s clogging up the water works. The plumbing is jammed. Nobody wants to crawl down into a pit and clean it out: Dyno-Rod. But that"s what has to be done. We"ve got to realize this. There"s a lot of junk that"s in the church and in our lives that Jesus has to get rid of before the water can really flow again.
There"s no easy way out of this mess. I"m tired of people trying things, even things that seem honest and biblical like the "Minus to Plus" of Reinhard Bonnke. There was nothing wrong with it on paper, but it didn't work. There"s no easy way out of this mess. Certainly the Jim Challenge is no easy way out. Toronto is no easy way out. The walls have to be rebuilt, the gates have to be repaired, there"s a lot of work to do. We"ve got to clean out all the rubbish that"s stopping up the drains and clogging up the water works; then the water can flow again. But the nobles aren"t going to support the work. It"s mainly going to be ordinary people. Always was, always will be.
But if we follow God's plan instead of man"s, that rubbish is going to go. And then the water will begin to flow. When the water begins to flow, it will fill the pool: A Spirit-filled church.
Satan doesn"t like Charismatic churches, but he"s not afraid of them. Satan doesn"t like Fundamentalist churches, but he"s not afraid of them. But when you have Spirit and truth, a church that"s based on the Word of God but open to the fullness of the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit, working in unison, that"s the kind of church he does not want to see. And he will do anything and everything he can to prevent a church like that from coming. He"ll get the fundamentalists to shut off the gifts of the Spirit, to resist the Spirit, suppress the Spirit. He"ll use crazy charismatics to discredit the gifts of the Spirit so to give them a reason to do it. And then he"ll take the charismatics and make them loony, and keep them away from the Bible, saying stupid things. I heard the case of a Pentecostal minister last week. He said, picking up the Bible, "This book has failed us; we need more of the Spirit." Yeah? What spirit?
Now the garbage goes, then the water flows. Then we go to war. Then we mount up for battle. Then we hitch the horses to the chariots. Then we can take on the forces of darkness.Signs of the TimeThe East Gate – the coming of Jesus. I said it a couple of times and I"ll say it one more time: If you asked me ten years ago why I thought Jesus was coming, I would have told you what Barry Smith says. Because of events in the Middle East, because of the reunification of Europe, the globalization of the world economy, the one-world money system and all this, I would have said that stuff. I still agree; he"s right. Hal Lindsay is right, Barry Smith is right, I agree with that stuff more now than I did ten years ago. But it"s not the main reason I believe Jesus is coming. The main reason I believe Jesus is coming is because of the level of deception in the church.
The main leader, the evangelical archbishop of Canterbury, an charismatic, evangelical, born again, Bible-believing Christian stands up in Wimbley in London and tells the leaders of the evangelical churches and denominations in this country that we don"t have all the truth that those that aren"t even born again do. They have truth, too and we need their help? That"s crazy!
A preacher stands up in the biggest Assemblies of God church in this country – it"s a student church; that"s why it"s so big, a lot of students go to it, they come and go – and he says this world is our home, I repent of ever having sworn this world is not my home any more.
Jesus is coming; the East Gate. But when He comes, there"ll be a judgment: The final gate.
Those gates were devastated in the days of Nehemiah and those gates are devastated today.
Nehemiah and those who joined him realized there was no easy way out of it. They realized what had to be done, they rolled up their sleeves, and they got to it, men and women alike. They all had their own jobs, their own past, their own areas of work, but they realized it had to be done. There was no easy way. It"s exactly the same today.
Those are the gates. The Baptist Union is not going to rebuild those gates; they"ve compromised with Rome. The Assemblies of God is not going to rebuild those gates. The Church of England is not going to rebuild those gates. 30 years of "Charismatic Renewal" – where"s the renewal? There is none. Those gates are not going to be rebuilt by the clergy or the leaders. The nobles will never support the work of their masters. Those gates are going to be built by the same kinds of people who always rebuilt them: People just like you. That"s who"s going to rebuild those gates.
We have a lot of work, and the hardest job – the hardest task – is prayer.
Then Eliashib the high priest arose with his brothers the priests and built the Sheep Gate; they consecrated it and hung its doors. They consecrated the wall to the Tower of the Hundred and the Tower of Hananel. Next to him the men of Jericho built, and next to them Zaccur the son of Imri built. Now the sons of Hassenaah built the Fish Gate;
Nehemiah comes and he sees the devastation, a terrible devastation. And he goes to the king after weeping over the city, and he asks the king for a mandate to rebuild what"s been left in ruins. But there"s a spiritual meaning to what"s been left in ruins when he rebuilds the gates.
Now ultimately these gates are what you would see in the book of Revelation, the twelve gates. (Rev. 21:12) At different times in history there were different numbers of gates, but they"ve all basically been the same. To some extent they broadly resemble – or vaguely resemble – the pattern of the gates you have in the Old City of Jerusalem today, except that the city then was much, much smaller. The Sheep & the Fish GatesThe first two gates we read are the Sheep Gate and, next to it,the Tower of Hananel (which means "God's mercy") and the Tower of the Me"ah, which means "one hundred". That is the gate to which they brought the sheep into Jerusalem to be sacrificed in the temple. However, Hananel means "God's mercy", or something to do with the mercy of God. "Me"ah" is the Hebrew word for "one hundred". Remember when Jesussaid if a shepherd loses a sheep, he"ll leave the ninety-nine and go after the one? (Lk. 15:3-7) It"s like a dozen eggs: if one egg is missing, you don"t have a dozen. Or if one sheep is missing, you don"t have a proper flock. A proper flock had to be one hundred.
Sometimes, some of us go astray. Sometimes, some of us fallaway. Sometimes, young believers backslide. Sometimes, in times of crisis, we feel wrongly that the Lord has abandoned us, and we wander off. But the Good Shepherd comes after us. He doesn"t want to lose any.
The Sheep Gate. "My sheep will hear My voice," He says. (Jn. 10:27) But next to the Sheep Gate is the Fish Gate. "I will make you fishers of men". (Mt. 4:19) When you and I are born again, we get "caught". Now, remember when the apostles fished and they kept one hundred fifty-three, but they threw the other ones back? There"s good fish and bad fish. Some people will go back to the world.
But then it continues, and it talks about the different people according to their families and tribes, rebuilding the gates.
Now the sons of Hassenaah built the Fish Gate; they laid its beams and hung its doors with its bolts and bars. Next to them Meremoth the son of Uriah...
..."Uriah" means "my light is God"...
...the son of Hakkoz made repairs. And next to him Meshullam the son of Berechiah the son of Meshezabel made repairs. And next to him Zadok the son of Baana also made repairs. Moreover, next to him the Tekoites made repairs, but their nobles did not support the work of their masters.
"The nobles did not support the work of their masters". When people set out to rebuild what"s devastated, when people set out to repair the gates of God, when people set out to restore what used to be, one problem you"ll have is don"t trust the nobles. So often you"ll find – now there are exceptions – but the people who you"d think would be the most ready and certainly the most capable of contributing the most, the people who"ve been saved the longest, the people who would seem to know the Bible the best, sometimes the people who are the most educated or are the most affluent in a fellowship will be the ones who are most reluctant to get on with beginning again.
Most of the times God has worked, it has been usually – in fact, almost always – through poor people, through the working classes. Big revivals in South America: it"s the barrios, it"s the slums. John Wesley"s revivals in this country: it was the coal miners; they were like the lowest of the working class. At the time it was a terrible job. They had little kids, four years old dying of black lung disease. When the coal miners would get saved, their faces were black, just totally black with soot. And they came out of the mines and they would hear George Whitfield and John Wesley preach and they would begin crying because of their sins, and there were like white streams that go down the faces of these people. If you said somebody was a coal miner it was almost like saying they were a drug dealer or a prostitute or something like this. It was a profession that they associated with being a cutthroat because they paid so little the people probably couldn"t make a living doing it, despite the harsh conditions. It was absolutely unspeakable social injustice. And that"s where the Gospel prospered.
I"m not against middle class people or educated middle class people, but the middle class people God will use in rebuilding a devastated church will be middle class people who become servants of the poor and of the working classes. Usually it will be working class people who God will raise up to become upwardly mobile, who"ll get the thing going. Don"t trust the nobles. Don"t think the people who you"d expect to help you rebuild the gates are going to take to the work too quickly. People like that tend to like their comfort too much, they tend to like their position, they don"t like the boat rocked too much, they"d rather make due with what they have. Because if they try to rebuild something, it"s going to cost them something. It"ll cost them something. They don"t need the trouble or the aggravation. The nobles don"t support the work of the masters. They should; some of them do. But generally it"s the salt of the earth people that are going to get things done. It always was, it always will be.
Now if you"re a middle class person, don"t take it personally. I"m a middle class person; I"m only speaking the truth, I"m not trying to insult anyone"s class. I"m simply saying if it"s going to happen, it"s going to be because of the salt of the earth. If revival comes to Britain or to any of these societies, it will come from the council estates before it does the middle class suburbs. It"ll happen among single-parent families, it"ll happen to people who"ve been in prison, it"ll happen to people who"ve been unemployed – that"s where these things tend to come from, as it did in the days of Jesus. Who was it? Harlots, tax gatherers, thieves, political dissidents like the Zealots – those people came to Jesus. Who rejected Him? The religious people. It"s no different now.
As we look at the gates of Jerusalem in the Old City of Jerusalem today, God is showing us a lesson in history. As you walk through the Old City of Jerusalem, you"re looking at not one thousand, not two thousand, not three thousand, but more than three thousand years of history from the time of the Jebusites onward. And those walls and those gates tell a story, a story of revival and backsliding. Renewal and decline. And the same is true for the church. Even the walls of Jerusalem and its gates are a reflection of the history of the Jewish people, but also of what"s happened through the centuries with the church. The Old & Ephraim GatesVerse 6 of chapter 3...
Joiada the son of Paseah and Meshullam the son of Besodeiah repaired the Old Gate; they laid its beams and hung its doors with its bolts and its bars. Next to them Melatiah the Gibeonite and Jadon the Meronothite, the men of Gibeon and of Mizpah, also made repairs for the official seat of the governor of the province beyond the River.
So the next gate is the Old Gate. But we also know that next to the Old Gate there was another gate called the Gate of Ephraim. "Ephraim" means "fruitfulness" or "doubly fruitful". And it was at the beginning of a long valley, a depression called "the valley of the cheese makers" or the Tyropean Valley. Now this valley runs through the present center of the Old City of Jerusalem. You see it here next to the Cardo. And you can see parts of where it was, the wall running parallel to it, excavated.
A Christian will progress; there"ll be a choice: two more gates, the Old Gate and the gate of Ephraim. We might be called like a sheep, we might be caught like a fish. When somebody"s first saved, the first few days it"s absolutely amazing. The scales have fallen off their eyes. Now they see the truth. But after two or three days they begin to come to their senses, or so they think. Is this real? Is this what I really want to commit myself to? Is this really the way I want to live my life? Is it going to be like this, that I"m not going to be able to go out and gamble and get drunk and take drugs and sleep with women and fool around with other men and cheat on my wife and to stop smoking? Is this really for real? Then the social pressures begin. Your old friends, your old desires, and within a couple of days you"re confronted with a choice.
Think of Matthew 13, the sower and the seed. Three out of four seeds don"t end up so well. The way I look at it, based on that (I"m not teaching this as a doctrine, I"m just saying as an observation) if one out of every four people I lead to Christ stays faithful to Him long term, I"m not complaining. If three out of four fall away I"m very sorry, but I guess that"s par for the course, in other words. I can tell you this: the people that I"ve seen stay the most faithful to Christ are the ones who"ve paid the highest price for it, people who had to count the cost ahead of time.
You see this in a lot of places. You see it, certainly, in Israel among the Jews. The social cost is much higher than it is for non-Jews most of the time. Among Muslims its even higher. People like that will count the cost more carefully before they get saved. In Ireland it"s Catholic people. If you"re seen as becoming a Protestant, you"re betraying your family and all this kind of stuff – the cost is higher. When people get saved in prisons, prison can be quite dangerous. You become a Christian, people will try to kill you, try to push you sometimes to the limit to see how far they can make you go before you react violently the way you used to. It"s not easy. Talk to people who"ve been in prison ministry. I talked to Noel Proctor. I mean, he was the chaplain in "Strangeways" in Manchester. It"s very difficult. There"s a much higher cost involved with those kinds of people. People who get saved under those conditions will tend to be less likely to backslide. Less likely. I don"t see it doesn"t happen, I"m simply saying you"ll find less of it because they"ve counted the cost more carefully to begin with.
Other people – most of us – we find ourselves in this situation: So you"ve come through the Sheep Gate, you came through the Fish Gate, but now there"s two gates in front of you. Which one are you going to go through, the gate of fruitfulness or the Old Gate, the gate of back to your old ways, your old friends, your old interests – which gate are you going to walk through? And again, this Old Gate lies at the precipice of a decline, of a valley. A long valley. A deep valley. The Tyropean Valley.
Valleys in the Bible represent times of trial. What does it say in Matthew 13: but when opposition comes because of the Word they fall away. (Mt. 13:20-21) In the beginning they seem to grow really quick, but no depth. After somebody gets saved, they go through their first trials, sometimes prolonged periods of trial. We go through a valley. Something for Everybody Next to him Uzziel...
..."my strength is God"...
... next to him Uzziel the son of Harhaiah of the goldsmiths made repairs. And next to him Hananiah, one of the perfumers, made repairs, and they restored Jerusalem as far as the Broad Wall. Next to them Rephaiah the son of Hur, the official of half the district of Jerusalem, made repairs. Next to them Jedaiah the son of Harumaph made repairs opposite his house. And next to him Hattush the son of Hashabneiah made repairs. Malchijah..."
..."my king is Yahweh"...
...the son of Harim and Hasshub the son of Pahath-moab repaired another section and the Tower of Furnaces. Next to him Shallum the son of Hallohesh, the official of half the district of Jerusalem, made repairs, he and his daughters.
Notice there were things for men to do, there were things for women to do. There were things for people to do from all backgrounds, all trades, all professions, all walks of life. Everybody is involved. The Valley & the Refuse Gates Hanun and the inhabitants of Zanoah repaired the Valley Gate. They built it and hung its doors with its bolts and its bars, and a thousand cubits of the wall to the Refuse Gate.
The next gate you come to is the Valley Gate, but that leads us to another gate called the Refuse Gate. Outside of the Refuse Gate was the garbage pit of Jerusalem, where the Tyropean Valley met another valley called the Valley of Hinnom. In this Valley of Hinnom it is where backslidden Judah sacrificed their children to Molech. (2 Ki. 23:10) But outside this gate where these two valleys came together – actually there was a third valley on this side called the Kidron, the three of them came together – you"d have the garbage pit which burned day and night. That garbage pit was called "Gehennom" – "Gehenna".
When you travel with me around Jerusalem, when I show the people on the pilgrimages and the study tours, I tell them where I take them when I take them where this is, and I say, "Welcome to hell; I hope this is as close you ever get to going there." This is literally hell outside of the Refuse Gate where these three valleys came together.
You see, we go through the Sheep Gate, we go through the Fish Gate. If we decide to hold onto our crosses and keep following the Lord Jesus, we go through the gate of Ephraim; we choose fruitfulness. The old nature comes up and how does God deal with it? We go to the Valley Gate. God uses the valley, He uses difficulty, He uses times of trial to deal with our old nature. But when we come to the end of the valley, we get to the Refuse Gate. Trials are difficult when you"re going through them, but when they"re over, you see how much garbage God has thrown out of our lives. That"s what He wants to do.
Philippians 1:6, "...He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion in the day of Christ Jesus".
God wants to throw garbage out of our lives. And although we don"t like it – and understandably we don"t like it – one of the ways God removes the rubbish from our lives is by bringing us into times of trial. He brings us through the Valley Gate. What does it say in James? Count it as all blessing, my brethren, when you go through these trials. (Ja. 1:2)
Now as a young believer I made a big mistake; I misunderstood that verse. So I used to pray for trials. I wish God answered all of my prayers as quickly, as instantly, and as thoroughly as He answered those prayers. If you pray for trials, the likelihood is you"re going to get them. I don"t know if you pray for a Mercedes – you might not get that – but if you pray for trials, you can almost bank on it. The Fountain GateVerse 14...
Malchijah the son of Rechab, the official of the district of Beth-haccherem repaired the Refuse Gate. He built it and hung its doors with its bolts and its bars. Shallum the son of Col-hozeh, the official of the district of Mizpah, repaired the Fountain Gate. He built it, covered it and hung its doors with its bolts and its bars, and the wallof the Pool of Shelah...
...that"s the Pool of Siloach where Jesus would later heal the blind man; open the eyes of the blind man...
...at the king"s garden as far as the steps that descend from the city of David.
Now this Pool of Shelah, the Pool of Siloach, is where king Hezekiah"s tunnel, where we enter it now and go through Hezekiah"s tunnel where the water was brought into the Old City. Let"s look at the next gate.
As you proceed, not far away you come to the next gate: the Fountain Gate, where the Pool of Siloach was, where the water began to flow.
Now you"ve heard me say various times -- John 7:39, Isaiah 44:3 – this freshly clean water that came from the Pool of Siloach entered the city through Hezekiah"s tunnel, this water was called "chay mayim" – "living water". Which in Isaiah and John is always a type or figure of the Holy Spirit.
Let"s understand this in light of the present situation. In our sense of desperation over what is happening to our nation and the other protestant democracies and the state of the church, with Islam and New Age taking over – the church failing. Christianity is failing in this country. Christ is not failing, but the church is not winning. Ultimately the church is victorious because of Christ and His return, but right now we"re losing. We"re losing the battle to homosexuals, to New Age, to ecumenism, to everything. However, for the people wanting to see something happening, they want to see the Living Water flow, they want to see the fountain, they want to find it, but they"re not willing to do what"s necessary to make it flow. They don"t want to go back to the basics. The only way you"re going to get to the Fountain Gate is by going back to the basics.
Do you know, so many of the biggest churches of this country don"t even preach the Gospel? They don"t even talk about the blood of Jesus, or the cross, or repentance – that"s not what they talk about. They talk about power and victory and all that stuff -- the "Kingdom Now" stuff – without realizing that the only way you"re going to get the power or the victory is because of what Jesus did on the cross and when He rose from the dead. They"ve got everything wrong.
So they don"t want to go back and look at the choice we have to make. The choice we make is do you want the Old Gate. If you can really define "backsliding" in its simplest terms, you"d say it means "hoping in this world". Backsliding is hoping in this world. When somebody"s backslidden, it means they"re trusting in this world.
Now think of it. What do you do when you have a guy like Andrew Shearman saying, "I repent that I ever said that this world is not my home; this world is my home. Heaven"s not my destiny, it"s only a benefit." It"s what he"s teaching. That guy"s at the Old Gate; that"s the gate he wants.
Nobody wants to realize we have to go through a long valley, that there"s a lot of garbage in our lives. There"s certainly a lot of garbage in my life. But even more importantly, there"s a lot of garbage in the church that has to be gotten rid of. We all want the Living Water to flow, but it"s not going to flow until God gets the garbage out that"s clogging up the drains and clogging up the pipes and clogging up the water system. There"s too much rubbish. Too much rubbish and sewage that"s clogging it up, and the Living Water can"t flow. So people go out, and they turn on a garden hose, and pretend it"s raining. Again, it"s just so crazy.
One thing after another. Kansas City"s going to do it, Toronto"s going to do it – we"ve talked about this stuff enough – but no revival comes.
You know, most people in Toronto never even heard of the "Toronto Blessing", except that they saw it on the news or something? It"s had no impact; it"s not even a big thing in Canada. I was in Canada in October and most people don"t even know what it is, don"t even care what it is. They haven"t got a clue. It"s only over here and in Australia and New Zealand and the continent that it"s big; in America and Canada where it comes from, it"s nothing. Very few people are into it. Very few churches are interested in it. When I went to that place, everybody in the Toronto Airport Vineyard church, which has now been thrown out of the Vineyard, was from some place other than Toronto. In fact, they were from some place other than Canada. It"s having no revivals; that"s nuts.
Living Water doesn"t flow that way. It flows when you get rid of the refuse, when the Lord has a free hand to do the things He needs to do in our lives and in the church to get rid of the garbage. When they get rid of the hype, and the "Kingdom Now", and the replacementism, and the ecumenism, and the prosperity/money preachers, then maybe the water will begin to flow because the plumbing system won"t be clogged up any more with dreck. The Water GateBut the next gate is what we find at the other terminal of Hezekiah"s tunnel. The next gate we come to is the Water Gate. You have an underground tunnel that flows from the Fountain Gate to the Water Gate that was built by Hezekiah. It"s still there. We walk through it, we show you where it is. You can walk through it if you like. If you"re not claustrophobic, it"s interesting.
God doesn"t want us to just have a fountain; He wants us to have a pool. He wants us to be immersed in His Spirit. A Spirit-filled life. A Spirit-filled church. There might be a certain amount of water, but not enough to do what God wants.
People who are Cessasionists – churches which say the gifts of the Spirit ended with the Apostles – people like that, they have the Holy Spirit in some measure, but they"re unwilling to open to the fullness of the Spirit, including the gifts. Now I never seek the gifts above the Giver, I seek the Giver. But Cessasionism is as wrong on one extreme as the excesses of Toronto are on the other. There"s a balance. Who"s going to burn their money because money can be counterfeited? Nobody. Nobody should throw the baby out with the bath water, should they? Unfortunately, some people do.
But after the Water Gate, the journey continues and they make repairs. It"s a progression. We go from the Refuse Gate down to the Fountain Gate. After the Fountain Gate we come to the Water Gate. The Horse GateThe next gate that they come to after verse 26 is the Ophel. We point out where the Ophel is in Jerusalem.
The temple servants living in Ophel made repairs as far as the front of the Water Gate toward the east and the projecting tower. After them the Tekoites repaired another section in front of the great projecting tower and as far as the wall of Ophel. Above the Horse Gate...
Now we"re going on the east side of Jerusalem, which is the closest to what you see today to the archeology of the original Old City. This wall would have been on the same location – or approximately the same location – as the present eastern wall facing the Mount of Olives, separated from it by the Kidron Valley. The Mount of Olives is here. Not far away then, as you turn east, is the Horse Gate.
Horses in biblical times were not used for transport. In the ancient Near East, donkeys and camels were animals for transport. Sheep were used for meat and wool, cattle were used for meat, for hides, and for milk. A horse hand only one purpose, only one function: the horse was the animal of war. It was used for pulling chariots and for mounted soldiers for cavalry. That"s all.
You see, until we have a Spirit-filled church and a Spirit-filled life, we"re not really ready for war.
The church in this country is no longer in a spiritual state to take on New Age. It"s not in a spiritual state to take on Islam. We couldn"t win. Islam claims to have a moral agenda from Allah to restore with Shariah – Islamic law – a standard of morality that Christianity can no longer deliver. They claim that. If you read Salaam and these other Muslims who I consider militants – certainly Ahmed Deedat – they"ll tell you things like this. You wouldn"t have this crime in Britain if you had an Islamic state, you wouldn"t have this thing of single-parent families in an Islamic state, you wouldn"t have any of this. You wouldn"t have homosexuality in an Islamic state, you wouldn"t have any of this. Homosexuals? We kill them. Thieves? We chop off their hands. Rape? We castrate. Feminists? We flog them.
Shariah Islam can restore what this country doesn"t have morally any more. The church in this country can no longer deliver a standard of moral righteousness. At one time it could -- at one time it did – but it can"t any more.
The silliest, most absurd thing you see happening in the western countries is with the Kingdom Now, the Restorationists, they"re saying, "Victory! Victory! Harvest! Harvest! Power! Power!" and the opposite is happening. The opposite! Just look at the stuff, the "Nine O"clock Service", that"s what the world sees. An evangelical archbishop saying we don"t have all the truth, we should look to the ones who aren"t even saved to get the rest of it? This is what"s happening, and these guys are yelling "Victory!" and rolling on the floor laughing? What, are they nuts? It"s absolutely absurd.
No, until you have a Spirit-filled church, you"re not ready to go to war. You can"t go through the Horse Gate until you go through the Water Gate, but you"re not going to get any water until God gets rid of the refuse. And He"s not going to get rid of the refuse until we realize that He has to get rid of it. We"re not even calling it refuse. The desire to trust in this world is refuse.
You"ve got a leading preacher, Andrew Shearman, saying this world is his home? They don"t even call it garbage. They don"t even recognize that"s what it is. No way, forget about it. The East GateWell what"s the next gate? Verse 29...
After them Zadok the son of Immer carried out repairs in front of his house. And after him Shemaiah the son of Shecaniah, the keeper of the East Gate, carried out repairs.
The East Gate we call, sometimes, the Golden Gate. The East Gate is the gate that Jesus came through on Palm Sunday. The evangelical, Christian archeologist Dr. Jim Fleming is one of the people who discovered the Herodian stones under the present East Gate. What that means is we can be quite certain that the present East Gate is where the East Gate that Jesus came through was located. But it also is opposite a certain point on the Mount of Olives, where the High Priest had to stand with the red heifer on Yom Kippur and look through the East Gate into the Holy of Holies across the Kidron. That would tend to verify the theory of Dr. Asher Kaufman of the Department of Antiquities of Hebrew University that would put the location of the original temple not on the exact site of the Mosque of Omar – the Dome of the Rock which you"ve seen pictures of – but about seventy meters north of it. In other words, in order to rebuild the temple, you would not have to tear down the mosque.
Wouldn"t it be something if the Antichrist just had an ecumenical center up on the temple mount? Jews and Arabs worshiping together up on the temple mount?
You see that Jerusalem is the center of controversy of all the nations. And somehow the Antichrist will have to bring a false peace. One way – I"m not making a prophecy, I"m simply saying – one way it could happen, one way you could get Jews to negotiate over Jerusalem – even Orthodox Jews – was if you got the Muslims to agree to them to rebuild the temple up on the temple mount. OK, let us rebuild our temple, then we"ll allow you to have east Jerusalem. You have yours, we"ll have ours, we"ll all live together.
It"s interesting that the Israeli government asked the papacy, before Rabin was killed, they asked the Pope to play a role in Jerusalem being, somehow, a united city of all faiths. Jerusalem is holy to three false religions:
• Nominal Christianity – You"ll see in Jerusalem, when you go to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, you"ll see the people kissing stones and praying to icons and idols of all sorts, open idolatry and superstition.
• Rabbinic Judaism – The false Judaism of the rabbis which denies its own Messiah, Yeshua.
• Islam – On the Dome of the Rock, on the outside of the periphery is a quotation from the Sorat in the Quran, "God has no son".
We"re told in John"s epistle, that which denies the Father-Son relationship, and denies Jesus is the Messiah is antichrist. Already the Antichrist is setting himself up to be worshiped.
I"m not saying the temple has to be rebuilt, I"m simply saying it looks like it"s going to be. Of course, the Abomination of Desolations I"m worried about is what"s already happening in the church: inter-faith worship, ecumenism. The church is the temple of God in seven places in the New Testament. There are different Greek words, as I"ve said before: "oikos", "naos", "heiron". But in seven places we"re told the church is the temple or the tabernacle now. And when you see inter-faith worship with Hindus and Sikhs and Muslims and with Rome in so-called Christian churches, you"re already seeing the Abomination being set up in the temple. This is rebuilt in the image of the Antichrist, when set up it will only be a reflection of what"s already become a spiritual reality. And so it is.
The East Gate always has to do with the coming of the Messiah. We have a prophecy in the book of Ezekiel that the East Gate would be shut up after the Messiah entered. We had a sultan of the Turks when the Turks occupied Israel, who knew the tradition of the Jews that said the Messiah would have to come through the East Gate. And so what he did was, he ordered it sealed up so the Messiah would not be able to come through it, and he sealed up the East Gate. We read about this in Ezekiel 44:1.
Then He brought me back by the way of the outer gate of the sanctuary, which faces the east; and it was shut. The Lord said to me, "This gate shall be shut; it shall not be opened, and no one shall enter by it, for the Lord God of Israel has entered by it; therefore it shall be shut.
Now Jesus entered the East Gate on Palm Sunday. And this gate, right now as you see, is sealed up. So after the Messiah went through this gate, it would be sealed up. And it is. It was literally fulfilled. You can look at the gate. I show you the gate. But it also says that God would enter through it. Jesus was God; He entered through the gate and this prophecy of Ezekiel 44:1-2 is literally fulfilled: The coming of Jesus. The Gate of JudgmentBut then there"s one more gate. We call this gate in Hebrew, "the Gate of Judgment".
When Jesus comes back, there will be a judgment. There"s two judgments: those for the saved and those for the unsaved. There"s two judgment seats of Christ: the "thronos" and the "bema". The unsaved appear before the "thronos", the Judge of the condemnation, and the saved are judged before the "bema", the magnitude of their reward.Rebuilding the Gates TodayWe live in a time in most of the western countries where the gates are devastated, and where the Lord is calling for people who will mourn over the state like Nehemiah did and begin to rebuild. There were men and there were women. People from all backgrounds, all professions, working together as families. Different groups had different jobs. Different ones had different territory. And so it"s going to be. We"re not all going to have the same ministry, we"re not all going to have the same territory, but we"re all going to have the same objective: to rebuild that which was devastated.
Nehemiah went to something that used to exist and no longer did; it was broken down. He didn't try to rebuild the Fountain Gate first, or the Water Gate first, or the Horse Gate first.
Forget about it. I wish we were in a good enough state we could take on Islam. We"re not. But that doesn"t mean we shouldn"t witness to Muslims. We should witness to Muslims. It doesn"t mean we shouldn"t witness to New Agers, we should. Should we pray for their salvation?
Absolutely. But what it means is the church is not in the condition in this nation to throw back those powers the way the church is in the condition to throw it back in the Far East.
We have to begin rebuilding in order. Go back to the basics: The Fish Gate, the Sheep Gate. "My sheep will hear My voice". (Jn. 10:27) The Lamb of God that was slain for us. The Gospel is simply not emphasized or preached in so many churches any more. The hymns are about anything and everything other than the blood of the Lamb. In the Vineyard hymn book – in one Vineyard hymn book I read – they had like 80-something hymns; only 2 of them mentioned the cross or the blood. That"s crazy.
We have to rebuild the basic gates: The Sheep Gate, the Fish Gate. "I"ll make you fishers of men". (Mt. 4:19) OK, I thank God for this group, and the Warsaw group, and the Bangor group, and the one forming down in Rotherham, and the one down in Hastings – I thank God for these groups. We call it in Hebrew, "the shelter of refuge". We show you the "Jewish Quarter", the "Shelter of Refuge" or "refuge for the oppressed". We need places like this for people who are churchless because of Toronto and the rest of it. But we just can"t be clubs for Christians who"ve been abused. We just can"t be a refugee camp for people that have come out of churches because of false doctrine, and because they were being financially fleeced all the time. That"s not good enough. We just can"t be a place where you want to come to because your church is ecumenical or Toronto-ized or whatever. That"s a beginning, but we have to begin preaching the Gospel and going fishing. These other churches are giving people hype, we"ve got to give them the truth.Getting God's Plan for EvangelismOne the things we have to begin doing is to pray that we get God's plan for evangelism. I thank God there"s tracts on the back. Take some tracts and give them out. I think that some of these meetings are going to have to begin to become evangelistic and prayer meetings praying for people to get saved. Let"s go back to the basic things: The Gospel, going fishing.
We can"t cast our nets until Jesus tells us where to do it. If we just go out with our own idea for an evangelistic program, it will be another Jim Challenge. We can"t go. He has to get in our boat and tell us where to cast the nets. But everybody can use a fishing rod. There"s nobody who can"t witness day-to-day and there"s nobody who can"t ask the Lord for His plan: "Jesus, please get in our boat and You show us where to cast our nets." We"ve got to get God's plan for evangelism. Go back to the basics: The Old Gate, the Gate of Ephraim, the Valley Gate.Reversing the Current StateThis nation would not be in the state it"s in, New Zealand would not be in the state it"s in, Australia would not be in the state it"s in, Great Britain would not be in the state it"s in, except for one reason: these nations and societies are in the state they"re in because the church is in the state it"s in. We"re supposed to be the "salt" and "light" (Mt. 5:13-16) Until we repent, there"s not going to be any repentance in society.
There"s a lot of garbage – rubbish – stuff that"s clogging up the water works. The plumbing is jammed. Nobody wants to crawl down into a pit and clean it out: Dyno-Rod. But that"s what has to be done. We"ve got to realize this. There"s a lot of junk that"s in the church and in our lives that Jesus has to get rid of before the water can really flow again.
There"s no easy way out of this mess. I"m tired of people trying things, even things that seem honest and biblical like the "Minus to Plus" of Reinhard Bonnke. There was nothing wrong with it on paper, but it didn't work. There"s no easy way out of this mess. Certainly the Jim Challenge is no easy way out. Toronto is no easy way out. The walls have to be rebuilt, the gates have to be repaired, there"s a lot of work to do. We"ve got to clean out all the rubbish that"s stopping up the drains and clogging up the water works; then the water can flow again. But the nobles aren"t going to support the work. It"s mainly going to be ordinary people. Always was, always will be.
But if we follow God's plan instead of man"s, that rubbish is going to go. And then the water will begin to flow. When the water begins to flow, it will fill the pool: A Spirit-filled church.
Satan doesn"t like Charismatic churches, but he"s not afraid of them. Satan doesn"t like Fundamentalist churches, but he"s not afraid of them. But when you have Spirit and truth, a church that"s based on the Word of God but open to the fullness of the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit, working in unison, that"s the kind of church he does not want to see. And he will do anything and everything he can to prevent a church like that from coming. He"ll get the fundamentalists to shut off the gifts of the Spirit, to resist the Spirit, suppress the Spirit. He"ll use crazy charismatics to discredit the gifts of the Spirit so to give them a reason to do it. And then he"ll take the charismatics and make them loony, and keep them away from the Bible, saying stupid things. I heard the case of a Pentecostal minister last week. He said, picking up the Bible, "This book has failed us; we need more of the Spirit." Yeah? What spirit?
Now the garbage goes, then the water flows. Then we go to war. Then we mount up for battle. Then we hitch the horses to the chariots. Then we can take on the forces of darkness.Signs of the TimeThe East Gate – the coming of Jesus. I said it a couple of times and I"ll say it one more time: If you asked me ten years ago why I thought Jesus was coming, I would have told you what Barry Smith says. Because of events in the Middle East, because of the reunification of Europe, the globalization of the world economy, the one-world money system and all this, I would have said that stuff. I still agree; he"s right. Hal Lindsay is right, Barry Smith is right, I agree with that stuff more now than I did ten years ago. But it"s not the main reason I believe Jesus is coming. The main reason I believe Jesus is coming is because of the level of deception in the church.
The main leader, the evangelical archbishop of Canterbury, an charismatic, evangelical, born again, Bible-believing Christian stands up in Wimbley in London and tells the leaders of the evangelical churches and denominations in this country that we don"t have all the truth that those that aren"t even born again do. They have truth, too and we need their help? That"s crazy!
A preacher stands up in the biggest Assemblies of God church in this country – it"s a student church; that"s why it"s so big, a lot of students go to it, they come and go – and he says this world is our home, I repent of ever having sworn this world is not my home any more.
Jesus is coming; the East Gate. But when He comes, there"ll be a judgment: The final gate.
Those gates were devastated in the days of Nehemiah and those gates are devastated today.
Nehemiah and those who joined him realized there was no easy way out of it. They realized what had to be done, they rolled up their sleeves, and they got to it, men and women alike. They all had their own jobs, their own past, their own areas of work, but they realized it had to be done. There was no easy way. It"s exactly the same today.
Those are the gates. The Baptist Union is not going to rebuild those gates; they"ve compromised with Rome. The Assemblies of God is not going to rebuild those gates. The Church of England is not going to rebuild those gates. 30 years of "Charismatic Renewal" – where"s the renewal? There is none. Those gates are not going to be rebuilt by the clergy or the leaders. The nobles will never support the work of their masters. Those gates are going to be built by the same kinds of people who always rebuilt them: People just like you. That"s who"s going to rebuild those gates.
We have a lot of work, and the hardest job – the hardest task – is prayer.
The Great Church Robbery
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I have a friend in England who is a computer software engineer. He is a nice guy with a family, and is an elder in a church near Stonehenge. He runs his own business with an interesting line of work. He is a computer consultant but he is hired by banks, credit card companies and corporations to hack into computer systems. He is actually hired to hack into computer systems to steal highly confidential information, usually of a financial nature, in order to test the strength of their security. He tells me that Chinese triads and Russian mafia are the most dangerous computer thieves. They are not like American gangsters but are usually ex-KGB agents from the old Soviet Union who have masters" degrees and PhD"s, and are multi-lingual. If they do not themselves have degrees in computer science, they will hire such to do the hacking for them. He says this is a growing problem and therefore he has a growing business. He does the same things a thief will do: he hacks in and steals the information.When he gets a contract the people in the company do not know when he is going to do it and he does not tell them when or how he is going to do it. He does it remotely such as going through Hong Kong to hack into a system in England so they cannot trace it to him, the same kind of thing a professional hacker would do. He tries to steal that information before a real thief steals it, on the supposition that if he can do it they can do it. Therefore he is going to find out how to do it before they will. As it were, he comes to rob the thief. This is his livelihood. He is a Christian who has never stolen as much as a paper clip, but he does the same thing a thief does. He is hired to break into secure systems.
Hanukkah Part 1 of 2
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The "historical" aspect of Hanukkah concerns what happened in the time of the Maccabees, about 160 years before Jesus.
hanukkah Part 2 o 2
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In John 9, Jesus does a messianic miracle: He gives sight to a blind person, blind from birth.
As He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?" (John 9:1-2)
"Who sinned, him or his parents?"
There were three pilgrim feasts described in Leviticus 23 when the Jews had to come from all over to Jerusalem to celebrate. The Spring feasts were "Pesach" and "Ha Shavu"ot" (Weeks, Pentecost), and in the Autumn the Feast of Taberhacles, "Ha Sukkot". However, by Jesus" day, Hannukah became a fourth festival when a lot of Jews (although it was not mandatory by the Torah), would have come to Jerusalem for Hanukkah.
Instead of walking all the way down from Galilee just to turn around and go back, and then having to come back again several weeks later for Hanukkah, it is possible that Jesus would have hung out in Jerusalem. It was a long journey then by foot.
So this became the Jewish holiday season, that lasts from Autumn into early Winter. We have a lot of holidays together.
As He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?" (John 9:1-2)
"Who sinned, him or his parents?"
There were three pilgrim feasts described in Leviticus 23 when the Jews had to come from all over to Jerusalem to celebrate. The Spring feasts were "Pesach" and "Ha Shavu"ot" (Weeks, Pentecost), and in the Autumn the Feast of Taberhacles, "Ha Sukkot". However, by Jesus" day, Hannukah became a fourth festival when a lot of Jews (although it was not mandatory by the Torah), would have come to Jerusalem for Hanukkah.
Instead of walking all the way down from Galilee just to turn around and go back, and then having to come back again several weeks later for Hanukkah, it is possible that Jesus would have hung out in Jerusalem. It was a long journey then by foot.
So this became the Jewish holiday season, that lasts from Autumn into early Winter. We have a lot of holidays together.
Five Questions for You
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The following resources were especially developed by Jacob as a result of his own spiritual search and personal research. Nothing here is intended to be mocking or derisive, but provided as legitimate questions needing to be answered by those who embrace these particular faiths. Anyone may contact Moriel directly for further information by sending an email to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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Jew
Shalom! My name is Jacov " Jacob, and someone directed you here because you are Jewish and they were interested in speaking to you about the relationship between Christianity and Judaism. Jehovah's Witness
Hello. This is for my friends who are Jehovah's Witnesses. I"ve met a number of them in America and in Britain and in other countries, and they"ve come to my door several times. And we spent time together, sometimes hours. Catholic
Hello, my dear friends. I"m speaking, of course, to our Catholic friends, and I mean friends. I have many Catholic friends and, on my mother"s side of the family, Catholic relatives, including my mother. Mormon
Hello, friends, my name is Jacob Prasch and I have met a number of Mormons. I have attended the "Miracle of Mormonism" pageant in Manti, Utah where I met mainstream Mormons and I met fundamentalism Mormons. Read more €¦ Read more €¦ Read more €¦ Read more €¦ Muslim
"Marhaba. Ismi Yakub." Hello, my name is Jacob, happy to meet you, I"ve been meeting a lot of Muslims in Britain and America and other countries and I've been talking to them. Hindu
"What I believe now is that Hindus and Christians are the same, we believe in the same god. Hindus are in actual fact Christians and Christians are Hindus €¦" Buddhist There are many things which a dead man can"t do. One very important thing a dead man can"t do is to save a person"s soul. Read more €¦ Read more €¦ Read more €¦ Buddhist in Thai Unless otherwise noted, all materials are copyright © 2014 or earlier by Moriel Ministries. All graphics and other content contained on this site may not be copied without prior permission. Commerical use strictly prohibited. Questions, comments or bad links should be sent to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. document.getElementById('cloak1a731a0b63a331d8332568b42fafdac8').innerHTML = ''; var prefix = 'ma' + 'il' + 'to'; var path = 'hr' + 'ef' + '='; var addy1a731a0b63a331d8332568b42fafdac8 = 'MorielCarol' + '@'; addy1a731a0b63a331d8332568b42fafdac8 = addy1a731a0b63a331d8332568b42fafdac8 + 'gmail' + '.' + 'com'; var addy_text1a731a0b63a331d8332568b42fafdac8 = 'Carol';document.getElementById('cloak1a731a0b63a331d8332568b42fafdac8').innerHTML += ''+addy_text1a731a0b63a331d8332568b42fafdac8+'';
Jew
Shalom! My name is Jacov " Jacob, and someone directed you here because you are Jewish and they were interested in speaking to you about the relationship between Christianity and Judaism. Jehovah's Witness
Hello. This is for my friends who are Jehovah's Witnesses. I"ve met a number of them in America and in Britain and in other countries, and they"ve come to my door several times. And we spent time together, sometimes hours. Catholic
Hello, my dear friends. I"m speaking, of course, to our Catholic friends, and I mean friends. I have many Catholic friends and, on my mother"s side of the family, Catholic relatives, including my mother. Mormon
Hello, friends, my name is Jacob Prasch and I have met a number of Mormons. I have attended the "Miracle of Mormonism" pageant in Manti, Utah where I met mainstream Mormons and I met fundamentalism Mormons. Read more €¦ Read more €¦ Read more €¦ Read more €¦ Muslim
"Marhaba. Ismi Yakub." Hello, my name is Jacob, happy to meet you, I"ve been meeting a lot of Muslims in Britain and America and other countries and I've been talking to them. Hindu
"What I believe now is that Hindus and Christians are the same, we believe in the same god. Hindus are in actual fact Christians and Christians are Hindus €¦" Buddhist There are many things which a dead man can"t do. One very important thing a dead man can"t do is to save a person"s soul. Read more €¦ Read more €¦ Read more €¦ Buddhist in Thai Unless otherwise noted, all materials are copyright © 2014 or earlier by Moriel Ministries. All graphics and other content contained on this site may not be copied without prior permission. Commerical use strictly prohibited. Questions, comments or bad links should be sent to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. document.getElementById('cloak1a731a0b63a331d8332568b42fafdac8').innerHTML = ''; var prefix = 'ma' + 'il' + 'to'; var path = 'hr' + 'ef' + '='; var addy1a731a0b63a331d8332568b42fafdac8 = 'MorielCarol' + '@'; addy1a731a0b63a331d8332568b42fafdac8 = addy1a731a0b63a331d8332568b42fafdac8 + 'gmail' + '.' + 'com'; var addy_text1a731a0b63a331d8332568b42fafdac8 = 'Carol';document.getElementById('cloak1a731a0b63a331d8332568b42fafdac8').innerHTML += ''+addy_text1a731a0b63a331d8332568b42fafdac8+'';
Hope for the Hopeless
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In this message, dear friends, we will be looking at Hebrews chapter 11; most of us are familiar with this passage of Scripture as the "faith chapter". Indeed, we have a teaching on it called Emunah, the Judeo-Christian understanding of faith. Faith is certainly one main aspect of this chapter, but there is another main idea we are given here that will be our focus in this letter: Hope. Hebrews 11 has as much to do with hope as it does with faith.
House of David/House of Saul
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Hear the word of the Lord, you who tremble at His word: Your brothers who hate you, who exclude you for My name's sake, have said, "Let the Lord be glorified, that we may see your joy." But they will be put to shame (Isaiah 66:5).
When your brethren hate you and exclude you for the sake of the Lord's name, your life becomes difficult.
When your brethren hate you and exclude you for the sake of the Lord's name, your life becomes difficult.
The Iron and the Clay
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Many Christians are, of course, asking for a biblical perspective regarding the current events in Iraq. What should a Christian response be? This has become further complicated by the fact that the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is a druid, and the Roman Catholic Cardinal Cormack Mercy O"Connor, who is now under investigation since his admission that he has pandered to homosexual and pedophile priests in five dioceses, have both taken a stand for €œChristian morality". Having failed to stand for Christian morality in their own churches, they are now going to try straightening out the government. Therefore many Christians are asking questions about the war and how it should be viewed biblically. I am here neither to editorialize on behalf of the war, nor to protest against it. I simply want Christians to have a truly biblical perspective on what is really happening.
Jesus in the Talmud
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By James Jacob Prasch
IntroductionOne thing that distresses me, along with every other Jewish mission or evangelist to the Jews, is this: there are so many Christians who love Israel and who have a heart for the Jewish people (which is from the Lord) who confuse loving the people of Israel with loving the government of Israel; or, more seriously, they confuse loving the Jews with loving the religion of the rabbis that is now called Judaism. Let us look at what Jesus said about this religion, bearing in mind that the modern-day Judaism of the synagogues is not in any sense the Jewish religion of Moses and the Torah.
One way to understand modern Judaism is to compare it to Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy. Those churches claim to be Christian, but if one reads the New Testament it is quickly obvious that they are not at all Christian; rather they are built from largely pagan traditions which have little or nothing to do with the original teachings of Jesus and the Apostles. This is a religion that comes in the guise of Christianity, bearing the title “Christian Church", but it is in no way true to what Jesus taught. Similarly, in no sense is the Judaism of today the same religion that was taught by Moses. A Synagogue of Satan "I know your tribulation and your poverty, but you are rich; and the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan." (Rev. 2:9)
The message here hearkens back to Romans 2 and to the book of Jeremiah: "He is not a Jew who is one outwardly, but he is a Jew who is circumcised of heart." Even the Talmud admits that people who are anthropologically or genetically Jews would know their Messiah if they were true Jews, or Jews in heart. Jesus calls this Judaism that rejects its own Messiah “a synagogue of Satan". When you pass a Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Hall, it is a place of Satan; when you pass a mosque, that too is a place of Satan; when you go by a Roman Catholic Church, it is a place of Satan; when you pass a Hindu Temple, that is a place of Satan; and no less is a synagogue also a place of Satan.
There is something in Orthodox synagogues called ha bierkat ha minim; they call it a blessing, but in reality it is a curse. There is also something known in the synagogue liturgy called the shmona asrey: Jesus is called Yeshu instead of Yeshua—they shorten His name to an acronym to mean “May His name be blotted out". They pray that the minim, a collective term for theological dissidents within the Jewish community that included Messianic Jewish believers in Jesus, will be blotted out of the Book of Life. To Jewish Christians, therefore, it is very confusing to see fellow believers who are in Philo-Semitic organizations and the like, lifting up Judaism and shaking hands with rabbis. They watch other Christians stand on platforms and give speeches that make it seem as if Judaism is good and Islam is bad. How would you feel if your brethren in Christ stood up on platforms at the Feast of Tabernacles or some such thing, shaking hands with and making speeches on behalf of people who pray that your name and the names of your children would be blotted out of the Book of Life?The Definition of “Antichrist" "Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist: the one who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father, and whoever confesses the Son has the Father also." (1 Jn. 2:22)
In Scripture we see prophecies of the Antichrist, then John says that there are many antichrists, and then apart from both we see what can be called “the spirit of antichrist". What is “antichrist"? That which denies that Jesus is the Messiah.
The Judaism of the Rabbis is a false Judaism that denies Jesus as the Messiah. In addition, John says that whatever denies the Father-Son relationship is also antichrist. On the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount there is a quote from a Surah in the Quran which declares, "God has no son". Islam denies the Father-Son relationship—it is an antichrist religion. The Judaism of the Rabbis today—not to be confused with the Judaism of Moses and the Prophets—is also an antichrist religion.
There is a terrible history of “Christian" anti-Semitism. This is sadly true; nonetheless, man is fallen. In Israel today, Orthodox Jews are perfectly capable of doing to non-Jews what anti-Semites did and still do today. They do even worse to Jewish Christians, whom they are trying to deport back to Russia. It is true that terrible crimes were perpetrated against the Jews in the name of Jesus Christ, but false religion is false religion no matter what guise it comes in: Islam, Roman Catholicism, Hinduism, Rabbinic Judaism—they are all antichrist.
Maimonides, known as the Rambam (1135-1204), the greatest Rabbi taught:
"Gentiles with whom we are not at war: One must not directly cause their death, but it is forbidden to save them if they are about to die. For example, if one sees a Gentile falling into the sea, it is forbidden to pull him out, for in Leviticus 19:16 it says, 'You shall not stand by the blood of your neighbor', and that Gentile is not considered your neighbor." – Yad ha-chazaka, the Laws of Murder and Protection of Life.
Incidentally, Maimonides, the man who wrote this, was a medical doctor. The same word for “neighbor" is used in Leviticus 19:18 in the famous phrase which says, "Love your neighbor as yourself"; but what this is telling Jews is that since a Gentile is not really a neighbor, they must be left to die.
Maimonides also said:
"One is not permitted to heal Gentiles, even for payment. But if the Jewish doctor is afraid of them, or if there is concern about arousing hostility, then he may heal for payment, but not free of charge." Yad ha-chazaka, Laws of Idolatry chapter 10 verse 2.
Joseph Caro, who compiled the Shulchan Aruch, which is the basic "set table" or codification of Halakha Jewish law, said this:
"A woman in birth is considered like a sick person whose life is in danger, for whom the Sabbath may be violated for any of her needs in giving birth to her child, such as lighting a candle; but one must not assist a non-Jewish woman in giving birth on the Sabbath." Shulchan Aruch, Or Hayim, Law of the Sabbath 330:1, 2.
Hafetz Hayim, (also known as Israel Meir Ha Cohen) 1838-1933, founder of the Avodat Israel, and a 20th-century halakhic authority on Halakha (which is Jewish law) elaborates on the preceding item in his commentary Mishnah Berurah, which means “the clarification of the Mishnah", said:
"One must not assist a Gentile woman in birth, not even for payment; for in the week-days one assists them in birth only to avoid hostility, and the Magen Abraham (the Shield of Abraham, which is a commentary on the Shulchan Aruch) has written that even where there is concern for hostility, one is only permitted to do activities that do not entail a violation of the Sabbath; and I want you to know that the more acceptable (literally, more kosher) Jewish doctors do not observe this at all, for every Sabbath they travel many miles to heal Gentiles and they write a prescription personally or prepare medication; but they have no halakhic Jewish law, upon which to base such actions as treating or writing a prescription for a sick Gentile. For even if one is permitted to violate a Rabbinic prohibition in order to prevent Gentile hostility, one is certainly not permitted to violate a Rabbinic prohibition, and they are considered intentional violators of the Sabbath—God spare them."
In a parallel column the author of the Mishnah Berurah adds:
"The same law also applies to Muslims (literally Ishmaelites) and even to Karites (Jews who do not accept torah b'al pei—the oral law ). Everyone agrees that one may not violate a Rabbinic prohibition of the Sabbath in order to save their life."
Actually and fortunately most Jews and even many moderate orthodox Jews do not believe such hate mongering dogma. But in its ultra-orthodox form that literally believes such dogma, this is a bigoted, racist religion from the pit of Hell. It not only denies the Messiah, it even curses Him. It prays that those faithful Jews who do accept Him as Messiah and are the true faithful remnant of Israel would be blotted out of the Book of Life. God called Rabbinic Judaism an antichrist religion, and Jesus called it a synagogue of Satan. Their own literature shows that it is equally bigoted, racist, and vile as Luther, the Roman Catholic Church, or anyone else who has claimed to be Christian and committed crimes against the Jews; they are no better and no different than the apostate forms of Christianity whose anti-Semitic adherers for centuries persecuted and killed countless innocent Jews. But even in its more moderate expressions, rabbinic Judaism points God's covenant people away their Messianic redeemer whose Messiahship is the reason for the covenant.
All have sinned and all fall short of the glory of God. I do not care what the International Christian Embassy says, what Christian Friends of Israel says, or what J. Rawlings says; they are wrong. The people who publish literature in favor of modern Judaism do not know what they are talking about; they have no idea what Talmudic Judaism really is. It is Messianic Judaism that fulfills the Torah that is the valid Judaism of today and it is Jewish believers in Yeshua who are the righteous Jews because they have the imputed righteousness of Messiah. Once again, Yeshua told us exactly what this counterfeit Talmudic Judaism of the rabbis is: it is “a synagogue of Satan" misleading precious Jewish souls away from the true salvation of their Messiah and into the eternal damnation of Satan.
We must make a distinction between the religion and the people who are trapped in it. I love Roman Catholics, and because I love them, I hate Roman Catholicism. I love Muslims, and because I love them, I hate Islam. I love Jews, and because I love Jews I hate rabbinic Judaism, which is not the Judaism of Moses; and as we shall see, they know it is not the Judaism of Moses.
Sorting Through the Pilpul
What I am going to begin doing now is giving you just an overview of what the Rabbis said about Jesus. If you witness to Jewish people, what the Rabbis have taught them is this: "The Gentiles have taken our Scriptures and twisted them to make it seem like they are speaking of Jesus, but if you read the original context of the Jewish Scriptures you see that it is not talking about Jesus and they have gotten it all wrong." They can also give you some pretty convincing arguments in that regard. What I am going to give you here is ammunition, but this ammunition can only serve one purpose: to undermine that argument. You can show them that it is not a Gentile or Christian distortion of the Scriptures, for these are not totally alien ideas from Jewish thought that no rabbi would believe; in fact, the rabbis confirm the Christian interpretation of these Scriptures. That is all you can do; it will not mean that they will believe, because they can always show you some other Halakha, or some other Midrash, or some other Talmud, or some other rabbinic commentary saying that it does not have to mean what you say. This is known as pilpul, which is the way that rabbis devised to argue the Halakha, which comes from the Hebrew word lalechetmeaning “to walk", or the way you live your life.
When the Bible says at the end of the Sermon on the Mount that the people were astounded because Jesus taught “as one having authority, and not as their scribes", (Mt. 7:29) what that meant was that Jesus would not engage in what is called “pilpul". He simply said, “This is what God says," and would not engage in legalistic nit-picking and searching for loopholes because it was an endless road to nowhere. He referred to this kind of teaching as “leaven" and warned people to “beware of the leaven of the Pharisees". (Mt. 16:6)
Jesus did use Midrash, the Jewish way of interpreting the Scriptures, but in moral legislation and the like He would not engage in pilpul—with one exception. Paul also refused to engage in pilpul, with the same exception: when they used it to provoke the Pharisees and Sadducees into fighting with one another. Jesus knew, for example, that the Pharisees believed in the Resurrection while the Sadducees did not; therefore He would say, “"I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob"; is He the God of the living or of the dead?", knowing that this would start them arguing. It is almost as if He was poking fun at them, to show them how ridiculous it all was. In any case, this was the only instance where Jesus would engage in pilpul, with the object of turning the Sadducees and Pharisees against each other.
Again, they will always be able to find some rabbinic commentary that says a text does not necessarily have to mean what you say it does; the only thing you will be able to do is show that they cannot sweep our views out the window. The New Testament was written by Jews, Jesus was a Jew, the Apostles were Jews, the first Christians were Jews, and the last Christians will be Jews. The only reason that non-Jews believe in Jesus, in His Gospel and in the New Testament, is that Jews wrote the New Testament and taught them that Jesus was the Messiah. No one can deny that historical fact, although some Jews will try to claim that Christianity is a Gentile fabrication. Events Recorded in Rabbinic LiteratureThere is a place in the Rabbinic writings called Yoma 39 b, where the rabbis taught that in the forty years prior to the destruction of the Temple, the following happened: on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, they would hang a scarlet cord—probably associated in some way with Isaiah 1:18—before the Holy of Holies when the High Priest entered to make the sacrifice. They believed that this scarlet cord would turn white if the sin of the people was forgiven; if they were not forgiven, the cord would remain red. Daniel 9, as we will see, said that the Messiah had to come and die before the Second Temple was destroyed. Jesus echoed this in the Olivet Discourse (Mt. 24, Lk. 21). The rabbis taught:
"During the last forty years before the destruction of the Temple – which happened circa 70 AD, the scarlet thread did not become white, nor did the Western lamp in the Temple shine; and the doors of the Holy of Holies would fling themselves open of their own accord. For the forty years before the destruction of the Temple, the scarlet thread never turned white, but remained red."
The Second Temple was destroyed in 70 AD; forty years before 70 AD would have been circa 30 AD. In other words, from the time of Jesus until the destruction of the Temple, according to Judaism, the people's sin was never forgiven. They are trying to justify themselves by works, but Isaiah 64:6 tells us that our righteous deeds are as filthy rags The literal Hebrew term for “filthy rags" in this passage is actually a comparison to a blood soiled menstrual cloth. Scripture uses very coarse language to describe human righteousness and religion. Messiah"s righteousness is not human, it is a divine righteousness imputed through faith in the Jewish Messiah Yeshua.
"During the last forty years before the destruction of the Temple, the lot for the Lord did not come up in the right hand, nor did the crimson-colored strap become white; nor did the Western-most light shine, and the doors to the Hekal, the Temple, would open by themselves, until Rabbi Jochanan ben Zakkai rebuked them, saying, 'Hekal, Hekal, why wilt thou be the alarmer thyself? I know about thee, that thou wilt be destroyed, for Zachariah Ben Ido has already prophesied concerning thee, "Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour the cedars."'"
What this is saying is that Rabbi Jochanan ben Zakkai is supposed to have asked the doors why they were predicting their own destruction
.
In the Menahot, it says:
"By the morning, the oil in the lamps had burnt out. The priests came in and cleaned out the lamps, removing the old wicks and putting in new wicks, and pouring oil into them, ready for the kindling in the evening. The Western lamp, however, although it had no more oil than the other lamps, miraculously continued to burn the entire day long, so that when the lamps were to be kindled in the evening, they were kindled from this one. The western lamp itself was then extinguished, cleaned out, a fresh wick put in, oil poured in, and then relit. Thus the lamp provided the fire for lighting the other lamps, and yet was the last to be cleaned out. This miracle has testified to the Divine Presence in Israel."
According to these entries, during the forty years prior to the destruction of the second Temple in 70 AD, the Western lamp which was the lamp that lit the other lamps—in other words, Jesus, the true Light of the world—went out, which is an indication that the shekinah cloud had left. Also, the doors to the Holy of Holies would fling themselves open. Furthermore, the scarlet thread that was tied to the door of the Temple never became white, indicating that the sins of Israel were not forgiven. This took place from the time of the crucifixion of Jesus to the time of the destruction of the Temple; Yoma 39 b. A Tale of Two RabbisIn order to help facilitate understanding of what happened in the Jewish religion, I'm going to tell you a Tale of Two Rabbis. Once upon a time, there was a very famous rabbi whose name was Rabbi Hillel. There were two main kinds of Pharisee: one was the School of Hillel—this rabbi, and the other was the School of Shamai. These were academies where rabbis were educated. They had certain differences in their emphasis, but they were the two main schools of Pharisaic thought.
The School of Hillel had a number of very famous graduates. Hillel was the grandfather of another very famous rabbi who was his successor, Rabbi Gemaliel. Rabbi Gemaliel is mentioned in the Talmud, which says regarding him that when he died, righteousness perished from the earth. The New Testament tells us in Acts 5 that Gemaliel said that if Jesus was not the Messiah, Christianity would disappear; and if it did not disappear, the Jews who opposed it would be working against God.
Rabbi Gemaliel, from the School of Hillel, was associated with something called the Midot of Hillel, which St. Paul used in his teaching methods. Gemaliel had a number of famous students, one of whom was Onkelos, who did a famous translation of the Targum into Aramaic. He also had two other very famous students, one or the other of whom every Jew who came after them would follow, causing the Jewish religion to have a schism. The first of these students was Rabbi Jochanan ben Zakkai, whom I quoted earlier. When the Temple was destroyed, Rabbi Jochanan ben Zakkai said (in paraphrase), "We have a big problem: we cannot practice the Jewish faith that Moses gave anymore." To this day, on every Orthodox Jewish synagogue you will find the term Ichabod—'the glory has departed, the Shekinah has gone". They know very well that without a Temple they cannot practice the faith of their fathers. On the Passover, the Pesach, instead of taking the Passover seder with lamb, they take it with chicken because they have no priesthood and no Temple.
Rabbi Jochanan ben Zakkai had a council at Yavneh, near modern Tel Aviv, at which the rabbis decided the following: instead of the Levites and priests, the rabbis would be the new spiritual authorities, ergo the new leaders of Israel. Also, instead of the Temple being central, the synagogues would become central (synagogues having begun developing after the Babylonian Captivity). Thus another religion began to evolve from that point, based in tradition.
There was a classmate of Rabbi Jochanan ben Zakkai, whose name was Rabbi Shaul of Tarsus, better known to some as St. Paul the Apostle. He was likewise a disciple of Gemaliel; but he said that the Law was fulfilled by the Messiah. Jesus paid the price for our sins, and thus the curse of the Law and the consequences for breaking it were laid on Him. Every Jew is under one law or another. Think of an unsaved Jewish person as a kind of backslider—he is in a covenant relationship with God. He may not keep that covenant—he may be an atheist, but he is still under the curse of the Law. If you want to know what happened to the Jews, read Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28; their entire history is therein foretold. The Jews are under a national curse because they reject Jesus; they are under the curse of the Law.
By the time the Temple was destroyed, Daniel's prediction that the Messiah would come and die beforehand was fulfilled. Every Jew then had one of two choices: he either accepted Jesus as Messiah, or he began to practice a Judaism that was not scriptural. The entire future of the Jewish faith to this day is based on these two classmates: Rabbi Jochanan ben Zakkai and Rabbi Shaul of Tarsus.
At the end of his life, the Talmud tells us, Rabbi Jochanan ben Zakkai was weeping. His disciples came to him and said, "O Mighty Hammer, why are you weeping? Why is your soul in distress?" And Rabbi Jochanan ben Zakkai said, "I am about to meet Ha Shem – God – blessed be His name, and before me are two roads: one leading to Paradise (Heaven) and the other leading to Gehenna (Hell); and I do not know to which road He will sentence me." The founder of Rabbinic Judaism admitted that he had absolutely no assurance of salvation. He said that he did not know whether God would sentence him to Hell for what he did, and at the end of his life he was terrified to die. It is the same for all the Jews who follow him.
However, there is then Rabbi Shaul of Tarsus, who said at the end of his life, "Trouble me no further, for on my body I bear the marks of Christ, and I know there is laid up for me a crown of glory and of righteousness." (2 Ti. 4:7-8) He had the assurance of his salvation, and so does every Jew who follows him.
That is what happened in the Jewish faith and what is going on to this very day.What They Knew About the MessiahAs early as the Talmudic era, the sages knew that the Messiah should have come already. They cried:
"All the predestined dates for the Redemption have passed, and the matter now depends only on repentance and good deeds." – Sanhedrin 97 beht.
They were faced with major prophecies that were well past their dates for fulfillment; Jesus was the only person who claimed to be the Messiah who could actually in His time prove Davidic descent. This is not only recorded in the New Testament, but also in Sanhedrin 43 aleph:
"With Yeshu (Jesus), it was different: He was connected with the government. This is an ambiguous phrase, which has actually misled some people to believe that it actually refers to royal lineage."
God spent 1,000 years promising Abraham and David that the Messiah would descend from them; therefore, when He allowed all of the genealogies to be destroyed with the Second Temple, it was obvious that the Messiah had to have come. So we read:
"And the Sanhedrin wept: 'Oy vevoy, woe to us! For the Temple is destroyed, and the Messiah has not come.'"
We will come back to this one.
"The scepter shall not depart from Judah,
Nor the ruler's staff from between his feet,
Until Shiloh comes,
And to Him shall be the obedience of the people." (Gen. 49:10)
Shiloh is one of the places in which the Ark of the Covenant dwelt, but it became an appellative for the Messiah in Judaism. Every tribe of Israel had its own tribal staff—a scepter with the tribe's name inscribed upon it; this represented judicial power. The removal of the scepter, therefore, occurred when Herod the Great—a non-Jew, became king and the Sanhedrin had its power limited; these things both happened during Jesus' lifetime. The name “Shiloh" is the name of the Messiah, according to the Talmud, Sanhedrin 98 b.
According to the prophecy of Genesis 49:10, the Messiah had to have come prior to the removal of the scepter from Judah. Therefore, either the Messiah has already been and gone or God lied. God cannot lie; so whoever the Messiah was, according to the Talmud He had to have already come at that point. Again, the Talmud mentions how 40 years before the destruction of the Temple the Sanhedrin was moved from the hall of the hewn stones to a place outside; you may read this in 41a and in the Avodat Zerah 8b. Whoever the Messiah is, He had to come and die prior to 70AD/CE.How They Replaced What They KnewAfter five centuries of accumulated oral teaching was passed down, Rabbi Yehudah ha Nassi (meaning “Judah the President") and his disciples wrote down selected material from the oral law, calling it Mishnah; this was not done until 230 AD, The Talmud, in other words, was not even written down at all until 230 AD! What the rabbis teach is this: the Talmud—what they call the Torah b'pei was given to Moses on Mount Sinai, although he did not write it down. However, in Joshua 8:35, among other places, we read, "There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded which Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel." So the Torah says that Moses wrote it all down, but the rabbis deny this and claim that the oral law was given without being written down until a later date. They go so far as to say that the opinion of one rabbi is more important than the opinions of a thousand prophets, because the prophets were only messengers and secretaries, while the rabbis had to interpret the messages and divulge their meaning.
Each generation continued to raise new questions, so there were experts, one of whom was Rabbi Yohochanan, of the same college as Tiberias. He compiled these new rabbinic decisions in about 330 AD. When this was done, he called it the Gimmorah, taken from the Hebrew word that means “to finish" or “completion".
The Mishnah and the Gimmorah were put together and named the Jerusalem Talmud; this was the first Talmud. Through the centuries, however, there has been much tampering with the Talmud, and there are all kinds of critical arguments as to what the original actually said in some cases.
During the Dark Ages from about 900 to 1500 AD, other things began to develop. Few Jews could understand the Hebrew or Aramaic text, so commentaries and codifications were written on the Talmud. These codifications were condensed into systematic codes of law, and from here we have things called the Torim, the Riff , the Schulhan Aruch, Ha kitzor Ha Schulhan Aruch, the Mishnah Torah, etc. Rambam was the main rabbi at this time; preceding him was Rashi in France. They moved continually further away from the Word of God and began developing along the same lines as Roman Catholicism.
Around 1000 AD there was a rebirth of Aristotelianism in the Muslim world. Thomas Aquinas totally redefined Roman Catholicism in Aristotelian terms when he wrote Summa Theologica, in which he said that the opinion of the “church" was more important than the opinion of the Bible, just as the Rabbis declared the opinion of a rabbi more important than that of all the Prophets. Reacting against Aquinas, who was a terrible heretic, were people like the Reformers, who came from the Humanists.
However, what Aquinas did for Roman Catholicism, Rambam did for Judaism. He wrote a book called A Guide for the Perplexed, followed by something called Mishnah Torah, in which he Aristotelianized Judaism with totally Hellenistic ideas that were alien to anything originally believed by Jews.
Some other Talmudic writers were the following: Rabbi Shlomo Itzachi, Rabbi Saida Gaon (“the Genius"), Ramban, Rabbi Moshe de Nachman (also known as Nachmanides), Rabbi David Kimchi, Ibn Ezra, Rabbi Levi Ben Gershom, etc.
At this point, the Kabbalah began to come on the scene. Kabbalah is mystical Judaism, the chief work of Zohar. It began in Poland.
To these they added other sacred books such as the Pirque Rabbati, the Yalkuth and various haggadic 13th-century writings. Then there was the Yohar on Moses, which is held by Hasidic Jews today because it uses Gnosticism and spiritualization, which is their approach to Judaism.
In any event, what does God say about all this?
“Because this people draw near with their words
And honor Me with their lip service,
But they remove their hearts far from Me,
And their reverence for Me consists of tradition learned by rote, (Isaiah 29:13)
The Timing of the Coming of the MessiahAll of the prophets prophesied only about the Messiah; the entire Old Testament is about the Messiah, according to the Talmud in Sanhedrin 99a, d.
"The world was not created but only for the Messiah" – Sanhedrin 98b.
In John 1 it says that the world was created through Jesus and by Him. Rabbi Yosef said that the Messiah would come when this gate (Rome) shall fall and be built again, and the land Israel would be overrun by enemies, in Sanhedrin 96-99. The stone cut without hands in Daniel 2:44-45 is the Messiah, according to the Pirque Eliezar chapter 11.
There was a famous rabbi named Rabbi Leopold Cohen who was greatly troubled by Daniel 9, which said that the Messiah had to come and die before the destruction of the Second Temple. He wanted to find out what this meant; so he read in the Talmud that the world would last for 6,000 years, “for a thousand years is like yesterday in Your sight when it passes by"; they link this, according to Rabbi Katina, with Psalm 90:4. From this they derive that the world would be 2,000 years in a state of chaos, 2,000 years under the Law of Moses, and 2000 years under the Messiah, when the Shabbat—the Millennium, will be 1,000 years of peace. Then will come the war of Gog and Magog, and the Messiah will renew the world after 7,000 years, according to Sanhedrin 96b and 99a, and Yalkut volume II p. 129d.
This is exactly what the book of Revelation teaches. The Messiah will arrive to destroy the nations and to rule the earth for a thousand years of peace when people are conducting themselves in the following manner: those who fear sin will be abhorred, truth shall fail, children will rebel against their parents, general lawlessness will abound, Sadducaicism would universally prevail (the Sadducees denied the Resurrection, like the Bishop of Durham)—in other words, when people who claim to be believers in God deny the Resurrection on a popular level: When Anglican Arch Bishop of York David Jenkins denied the Resurrection of Jesus, two thirds of the Anglican bishops defended him; but the ancient Rabbis long before David Jenkins said that Sadducaicism would prevail universally. The study of God's Law would decrease, there would be a general increase in universal poverty and despair, apostasy would increase, and there would be a growing disregard for Scripture. This comes from Sanhedrin 96b, 99a or, if you wish, read Paul's epistle to Timothy.
Rabbi Cohen had a big problem when he went to the Talmud and saw this. He realized that the Messiah had to have come around 32 or 33 AD. The Talmud said two things in this regard: one was as stated above, and the other was that there is a curse on anybody who reads Daniel 9. He asked his instructors why, looked into the Talmud, and found that it said the reason for the curse was that the time of the Messiah's coming was foretold in Daniel 9. He could not believe that God would put something in His Word and not want people to understand what it meant; therefore, Rabbi Leopold Cohen became a Baptist minister.
I mention this in passing, though it is a subject that could be treated at much greater depth: in the Talmud it is noted that the word dor in Hebrew, meaning “generations", is spelled correctly before Adam fell in Genesis 2:4, but afterward the Hebrew letter vov—which is also a “6", since in Hebrew the letters also stand for numbers—is missing, because Adam lost six things. The letter vov is then replaced in Ruth 4:18, because she was the grandmother of King David, whose son would be the Messiah. The Messiah would restore the six things lost by Adam. Bresheit Rabbah 12, p. 24b (of the Warsaw Edition).
To this day, the Rabbis read the Book of Ruth at Pentecost, the birthday of the Church. Ruth is the story of a Jewish man who takes a Gentile bride, and from their union the lineage of David begins from which the Messiah would ultimately come. Do you see how they knew? They knew that somehow the Messiah would, through this Gentile woman, restore what Adam had lost.The Adjustments They Try To MakeJews will go to all kinds of lengths to tell you that Zechariah 12:10-12 does not necessarily refer to the Messiah. Zechariah 12:10-12 says, "And they will look upon Him whom they have pierced, and mourn for Him as one mourns for an only son"; they will try to deny that this must mean they will look on the Messiah whom they had pierced. However, in Sukkah 52a it says directly:
"They will look upon Me – the Messiah – whom they have pierced".
The Talmud confirms rather than denies that this is speaking about the Messiah whom they had pierced.
The Messiah will arrive with the clouds of Heaven, according to Daniel 7:13, but humble and mounted on a donkey according to Zechariah 9:9. One Talmudist proposes that if Israel deserves it, the Messiah will come with the clouds of Heaven, but if Israel is not deserving, He will come poor and riding on an ass. (Sanhedrin 96b – 99a.) To this day, this is how the Rabbis will get around it: they will claim that the Messiah did come in the days of Jesus, but Israel was not worthy and therefore he did not reveal himself. Thus this becomes the big catch-all by which they are able to explain anything away.
In Deuteronomy 18 Scripture says that if you predict something that fails to happen in the name of the Lord, you are a false prophet. I show that to the Jehovah's Witnesses right before showing them false prophecies made in their own literature. The same with the Vineyard people and John Wimber's false prophecies; it cannot be denied, so they find they cannot handle it. Rabbi Menahem Schnerson, the last Lubavitch rebbe, said that Messiah was going to come at Rosh ha Shanah (September) of 1991. The day after this deadline, I called up the Chabad Center in London and asked to speak to someone who spoke Hebrew. When he came on the line, I asked in Hebrew, "Well?" He knew what I meant. Then I went down to Stamford Hill with some of my friends from CMJ who have a Messianic testimony, bringing our tracts. We confronted the Jews there with the fact that Moshe Rabbenu says that if people predict things in the name of Ha Shem that don't happen, they are false prophets who must be taken out and stoned; we then asked them if they keep the Torah. The point of this was to show them that if they remain under the Law, they must take their Rabbi Schnerson out and stone him as a false prophet; their only other choice is to accept Yeshua as their Messiah who fulfilled the Law. They didn't like that much.
I love the Talmud because it illustrates so clearly the old joke, "If you have two Jews, you have three opinions". Forget three opinions—if you have two Jews, you have thirty-three opinions! Israel would have no more Messiah because he had come in the days of King Hezekiah, according to Rabbi Hillel; not the original Hillel, but another one. (Sanhedrin 96b, 99a.) In the same passage, Sanhedrin 96b – 99a, his grandson, Rabbi Yosef, said "May God forgive my grandfather, Rabbi Hillel."
Some Talmudists, however, thought that the Messiah would come on two separate occasions, which would account for the two conflicting descriptions of his arrival—again,HaMashiach ben Yosef and HaMashiach ben David. It is stated that the two dates given in Daniel 12:11-12 were to date the two arrivals at 45-year intervals. (The Midrash on Ruth 2:14, p. 43b of the Warsaw Edition; also The Lost Talmud on Daniel 9, 24-27.) The ancient Talmudists knew a lot of things.Outright ChangesOne thing that will inevitably happen to you when you talk to Jewish people is, again, that they will tell you Zechariah 12:10-12 is not about the Messiah. An answer to give them is that Sukkah 52a says it is. They will also try to tell you that Isaiah 52 and 53 are not about the Messiah. I showed those very passages to a Jewish girl on a kibbutz in Israel once, and she immediately said, "This is about Jesus." No one had to tell her anything or manipulate her thinking, she simply used common sense. (Her name was Sally Brown, and I hope she gets saved.) Anyway, the Talmudists knew that Isaiah was predicting the Messiah's appearance in Isaiah 52:14:
"His – the Messiah's – appearance was marred more than that of any man, and His form more than the sons of men" Sanhedrin 97b, Yalkut volume II p. 53c and also Shemoth R, 15-19.
The Talmud repeatedly quotes Isaiah 53 as a prediction of the Messiah's appearance on earth.
There are two main Targums in Judaism: the Targum Onkelos (which I mentioned earlier) and Targum Jonathon. After the Babylonian Captivity, most Jews knew Aramaic rather than Hebrew, so they translated the Scriptures into Aramaic. However, these were not simply translations, but also interpretations. It says:
"Who has believed our report, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For He grew up before Him like a tender root out of dry ground; He had no stately form or majesty that we should look on Him, nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him. The Messiah was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows acquainted with grief".
It goes on and on and on, directly pointing to the Messiah in these passages.
"Each of us has turned to his own way, but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall upon the Messiah"; "Although He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth, the LORD was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief if He would render Himself as a corban – a guilt offering – He would see His offspring, He would prolong His days, and the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand, and as a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied. By His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify many and will bear their iniquities" and so on. "He Himself bore the sin of many, and interceded for the transgressors" – Sanhedrin 98b, also the Midrash on Samuel, the Lemburg (SP?) Edition, p. 45a, and the Targum of the Kingdom of the Messiah.
They knew very well that this was about the Messiah; the Targum Jonathon says so specifically. The Original Rabbinic CommentariesJewish people will often accuse Christians of twisting Scriptures to make them about Jesus when they actually are not about Him; what most Rabbis will say is that these passages are about Israel and the vicarious suffering of Israel. There are a number of problems with that: one is that the same Isaiah repeatedly castigates Israel for its sin, whereas he describes this Suffering Servant as having no sin. Therefore their idea is simply incompatible with the context. There are four Servant Songs in Isaiah, and the fourth one, found in Isaiah 52-53, is different from the others. In one sense, the rabbis are right: much the same as the Church is the Body of Christ, Jesus is the embodiment of Israel. For example, when you see verses that say things like "Israel My glory, Israel My Firstborn", they are midrashically alluding to Jesus. But only in a very abstract sense are these passages about Israel; their primary meaning, according to the Rabbinic literature, is pointing to the Messiah. When they tell you this is not about the Messiah, ask them to explain the Targum Jonathan, or the Midrash on Samuel, which say it is.
Jewish people will also accuse Christians of inventing a New Covenant that does not exist, claiming that the only covenant is the Torah. Jeremiah 31:31 says that God will make a new covenant, but when you tell them this they will try to tell you that you have misunderstood the text. At this point, you can point to the Midrash on Psalm 7, p. 5a of the Warsaw Edition:
"God will speak through the Messiah to make a new covenant."
Psalm 2 says, "Thou art My Son; do homage to the Son, lest He become angry and you perish in the way." The Rabbis say that God has no Son; but they have a big problem. Here is where I tell you how to drive an Orthodox Rabbi into early retirement in Florida: Psalm 2 is put together with Psalm 110 and 2 Samuel 16:1, and then connected with the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53. These things can be read in the Midrash on 2 Samuel 16:1, paragraph 19 of the Lemburg Edition, p. 45; also the Midrash on Psalm 7, p. 5a of the Warsaw Edition; and Yalkut (SP?) Volume II p. 90a. (These things can be obtained at a Yeshiva or a religious Jewish library.)
It goes on to say, then, when it has connected Psalm 110 with 2 Samuel 16:1 and Isaiah 53:
"Against God and His Messiah: "If I find the Son of the King, I shall lay hold of Him and crucify Him with a cruel death."
The Talmud actually says that the Messiah would be crucified; “Litzlov oto" is exactly what it says—“crucify". This is one thing they cannot answer; it shocks them.
Once again, in Genesis 49:10 Jacob predicted that the scepter would not depart from Judah nor the ruler's staff from between his feet until Shiloh comes; the Babylonian Talmud states that when this occurred, the sages said, “Woe to us, for the scepter has been taken from Judah, and the Messiah has not appeared!" Rabbi Ruchman adds that the members of the Sanhedrin covered their heads with ashes, their bodies with sackcloth, and wept when they heard these words. The Jerusalem Talmud dates this occasion at a little more than forty years before the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD; so they are saying that from around 30 AD the Messiah was pierced. (The Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin Volume 24, and the Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin chapter 4 Volume 37.)
"The sins of those who are hidden with thee will cause thee to be put under an iron yoke, and they will do with thee as with the calf. I take it upon me that no Israeli should perish; am I not flesh and blood?" – the Midrash on Jeremiah 31:8, the same as Isaiah 53. "All limits of time as regards the arrival of the Messiah are past." – Sanhedrin 96-99.
The Talmud states clearly that the Messiah had to have come already.
In the Talmud it is noted that God has made various numbers significant in His plan: they noted that there were ten names for idols and prophets, ten trials of Abraham, ten generations from Adam to Noah, and ten generations from Noah to Abraham—the Avotah chapter 36. They developed from this a dating system. This Mosaic dating system of Israel is given in Leviticus 26:13-16, and they messianically applied it in the Talmud. Moses dated the Messiah's exit in AD 33. (Midrash Bresheit, Rabbah on Genesis, p. 24b of the Warsaw Edition.) Their own dating system says that the Messiah had to exit in 33 AD.The Talmud Confirms the Historicity of ChristThe Talmud states that the Temple's destruction in 70 AD was predicted by Daniel 9:24-27. When you get into arguing with rabbis about the weeks of Daniel and what they mean (I do not have the space to explain it now), the easiest thing to say is that Daniel 9 says that the Messiah had to come and die before the Second Temple was destroyed. "No, it doesn't", they will tell you, but Yalkut Volume II p. 79d says it does, and so does Nazir 32b. The Talmud states that the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD was predicted by Daniel 9:24-27, when the coming of the Messiah to be cut off was predicted to precede this destruction. So the Messiah was predicted to arrive and to be killed before 70 AD, according to the Talmud, and the Rabbis knew this.
The Talmud confirms that the stone cut without hands in Daniel 2:44-45 is, again, the Messiah. "A stone to strike and a rock to stumble over, and a snare and a trap for Jerusalem". In Isaiah 8:14 God also predicted that the leaders of Israel would reject the Messiah: "Thou hast become my Yeshua; the stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone"—Psalm 118:21-22, which is the Hallel Rabbah that they sang to Jesus on Palm Sunday.
Moses Maimonides—Rambam, the greatest rabbi, confirmed that Yeshua the Messiah's appearance in AD 30 was Israel's greatest stumbling block. In Kings and Wars chapter 11, the uncensored edition, (the rabbis have for obvious reasons put out a censored edition) it says:
"There has never been a greater stumbling block than this problem of Yeshua (Jesus) in 30 AD. For three and one-half years, the Shekinah—God's dwelling, His presence—dwelt on the Mount of Olives, waiting to see whether Israel would repent, and calling on them to "Seek ye the Lord while He may be found—call on Him while He is near", but all was in vain. After three and a half years, the Shekinah returned from the Mount of Olives. – Rabbis' Lamentation.
There is something called the Avodat Zerah; it is one thing when Christians say they believe that Jesus did miracles, rose from the dead, and ascended from the Mount of Olives, but what about when people who were not only non-Christians but actually anti-Christian believe all these things?
You can read Roman historians such as Suetonius and Tacitus, and it is fascinating to read of how Jesus was understood by pagan Rome—even they did not deny the things that He did. It was said to be common knowledge throughout the Roman Empire that Jesus rose from the dead. The Avodat Zerah, however, says that Jesus did miracles as no other rabbi, that his disciples not only healed the sick but even raised the dead in His name, that after He was crucified He rose from the dead, and that He ascended into heaven from the Mount of Olives. All of that is actually in the Talmud. Even His enemies acknowledged the truth of what He did. This was written by rabbis who were trying to prevent other Jews from believing in Him, but they had to deal with the historicity of His miracles, of His disciples doing miracles, and not only of His crucifixion but also of His resurrection and ascension into heaven—the Talmud admits He did it!
When you confront an Orthodox rabbi with these things, he will not want to deal with it. However, if you press him, he will tell you that Jesus knew Kabbalah--this was invented centuries later, but they say it anyway—Jesus knew Kabbalistic, mystical secrets and had the ineffable name of Ha Shem (the Tetragrammaton) under His tongue and under His foot and so on, and this is how He performed these miracles. That is what they will tell you if pressed. The Talmud Says It Is About the MessiahThe rabbis will try to tell you that Psalm 22 does not really say, "They have pierced My hands and My feet". All of Psalm 22 was fulfilled in Matthew 27, but in Hebrew there is a difference in the letter aleph, and they shorten a vov to make it a yud; in this way they will try to change, "They have pierced My hands and My feet" into "I am like a lion's paw". This might be legitimately true, except that someone must have changed something at some point because the Talmud states the following:
"At the time of the Messiah's creation, the Holy One – blessed be He – will tell him in detail what will befall him according to the 'There are souls that have been put away with thee under My throne, and it is their sins which will bend thee down under a yoke of iron and make thee like a calf whose eyes grow dim with suffering.'"
In other words, according to the Talmud, the Messiah would know before He was born that He was coming to die for His people.
"And during the seven-year period preceding the coming of the Son of David, iron beams will be brought and loaded upon his neck until the Messiah's body is bent low. It was of the ordeal of the Son of David, who wept, saying 'My strength is dried up like a potsherd', Ps. 22:16."
In Yalkuth Shimoni they connect “many dogs have encompassed me" (using a midrashic principle called "binyan ab m'shna ketubim") with the Book of Esther, commenting on which, Rabbi Nehemiah said:
"They pierced my hands and feet".Hence, the Pisgah Rabbatai 36:1,2 states directly that Psalm 22 is about the Messiah coming to die.
There are technical linguistic explanations for the translation of “like a lion" such as a textual reading adjustment called "im crea". Then, in the Yalkut Shimone, we find this:
"'Many dogs have encompassed me'" – they connected this somehow with the book of Esther and the king Ahasuerus – "'but the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me; ka a'ri'".
In English, “they have pierced my hands and my feet" Rabbi Nehemiah quotes it this way, and the reading of “pierced" was accepted by ancient rabbis. In addition, the Peshitat Abitai says directly that Psalm 22 is talking about the Messiah suffering and dying.
Again, Isaiah 52 and 53 from the Targum Jonathon: "Behold, My servant the Messiah shall prosper; He shall be exalted, and great and very powerful". It states directly and repeatedly that this is about the Messiah.
Daniel 9, Megillah 3 aleph of the Targum of the Prophets, was composed by Jonathon ben Uzziel under the guidance of Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, according to tradition:
"And a voice from heaven came forth and said, 'Who is this who has revealed My secrets?' and he further sought to reveal by Targum the inner meaning of the Hegiographa (the portion of Scripture which includes Daniel), but a bat kol went forth from Heaven and said, 'Enough!' 'Why, why should we not read Daniel 9?' 'Because the date of the Messiah is foretold in it.'"
And again, Sukkah 52 a regarding the Messiah being pierced:
"What is the cause of the mourning in Zechariah 12:12? It is well according to him who explains that the cause is the slaying of the Messiah, the Son of Joseph, since that well agrees with the Scriptures: 'And they look upon Him, because they have thrust Him through, and shall mourn for Him as one mourns for an only son.'"
We could continue almost indefinitely like this; there is not a single Messianic prophecy that I would use in witnessing to Jewish people that I could not prove not to be a Christian invention applying it to Jesus. The Talmud agrees, for instance, that Micah 5:2 is about the Messiah, who in some way had to be pre-existent: "O you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, are by no means least in the clans of Judah, for from you going forth from eternity will be one whose existence is from eternity." From the Targum of Micah 5:1 from Targum Jonathon says this:
"And you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, you who are too small to be numbered among the thousands of the house of Judah, from you shall come forth from Me the Messiah to exercise dominion over Israel – He whose name was mentioned from before the days of creation."
In this way when one meets with the protest that Christians have read something into Micah 5:2 that it does not really say, one may respond that Christians have not read anything into it that Jews did not read into it long before Christianity was established.
From Genesis 3:1-15:
"And it shall be that when the sons of the woman study the Torah diligently and obey its injunctions, they will direct themselves to smite you on the head and slay you".
Right from the beginning, they believed that the Messiah had to be slain. Comments on Genesis 23:5 from the Midrash Rabbah show that Rabbi Tanhumah said:
"In the name of Rabbi Shmuel Kozit, she hinted that the seed would arise from another source – the Messiah".
The Midrash deals with Eve's naming of Seth, which is connected with the idea of the Messiah being bruised upon the heel and then bruising the head of the serpent.The Ancient Rabbis Understood What Christians Understand You will only ever do one thing with all of this information: that is, undermine their arguments that these things are Gentile fabrications resulting from Gentile Christians twisting the Jewish Scriptures. One can show very clearly that these things were understood by ancient rabbis in the same way in which they are understood by Christians. But there is something called “ecclentics" or convictions. "No one comes unless the Father draws him". If you bring a Jehovah's Witness to my door, I can win every argument, but it does not mean they will get saved. The same can be said of a Mormon or again of a rabbi.
These things are very important. Paul said that we should be "instant in season and out of season, to refute every argument". I certainly do not deny the importance of this kind of teaching, but without prayer and without holy lives that will provoke the Jews to jealousy, it is useless.
We have a long way to go, but God is doing something. We will see God work among the Jewish people in the Last Days in the same way in which He worked in the time of the early church with not only thousands being saved, but even tens of thousands. We will see whole synagogues split over the issue of Yeshua being the Messiah. But do you know what? We will also see whole churches split over the same kind of issue/
IntroductionOne thing that distresses me, along with every other Jewish mission or evangelist to the Jews, is this: there are so many Christians who love Israel and who have a heart for the Jewish people (which is from the Lord) who confuse loving the people of Israel with loving the government of Israel; or, more seriously, they confuse loving the Jews with loving the religion of the rabbis that is now called Judaism. Let us look at what Jesus said about this religion, bearing in mind that the modern-day Judaism of the synagogues is not in any sense the Jewish religion of Moses and the Torah.
One way to understand modern Judaism is to compare it to Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy. Those churches claim to be Christian, but if one reads the New Testament it is quickly obvious that they are not at all Christian; rather they are built from largely pagan traditions which have little or nothing to do with the original teachings of Jesus and the Apostles. This is a religion that comes in the guise of Christianity, bearing the title “Christian Church", but it is in no way true to what Jesus taught. Similarly, in no sense is the Judaism of today the same religion that was taught by Moses. A Synagogue of Satan "I know your tribulation and your poverty, but you are rich; and the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan." (Rev. 2:9)
The message here hearkens back to Romans 2 and to the book of Jeremiah: "He is not a Jew who is one outwardly, but he is a Jew who is circumcised of heart." Even the Talmud admits that people who are anthropologically or genetically Jews would know their Messiah if they were true Jews, or Jews in heart. Jesus calls this Judaism that rejects its own Messiah “a synagogue of Satan". When you pass a Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Hall, it is a place of Satan; when you pass a mosque, that too is a place of Satan; when you go by a Roman Catholic Church, it is a place of Satan; when you pass a Hindu Temple, that is a place of Satan; and no less is a synagogue also a place of Satan.
There is something in Orthodox synagogues called ha bierkat ha minim; they call it a blessing, but in reality it is a curse. There is also something known in the synagogue liturgy called the shmona asrey: Jesus is called Yeshu instead of Yeshua—they shorten His name to an acronym to mean “May His name be blotted out". They pray that the minim, a collective term for theological dissidents within the Jewish community that included Messianic Jewish believers in Jesus, will be blotted out of the Book of Life. To Jewish Christians, therefore, it is very confusing to see fellow believers who are in Philo-Semitic organizations and the like, lifting up Judaism and shaking hands with rabbis. They watch other Christians stand on platforms and give speeches that make it seem as if Judaism is good and Islam is bad. How would you feel if your brethren in Christ stood up on platforms at the Feast of Tabernacles or some such thing, shaking hands with and making speeches on behalf of people who pray that your name and the names of your children would be blotted out of the Book of Life?The Definition of “Antichrist" "Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist: the one who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father, and whoever confesses the Son has the Father also." (1 Jn. 2:22)
In Scripture we see prophecies of the Antichrist, then John says that there are many antichrists, and then apart from both we see what can be called “the spirit of antichrist". What is “antichrist"? That which denies that Jesus is the Messiah.
The Judaism of the Rabbis is a false Judaism that denies Jesus as the Messiah. In addition, John says that whatever denies the Father-Son relationship is also antichrist. On the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount there is a quote from a Surah in the Quran which declares, "God has no son". Islam denies the Father-Son relationship—it is an antichrist religion. The Judaism of the Rabbis today—not to be confused with the Judaism of Moses and the Prophets—is also an antichrist religion.
There is a terrible history of “Christian" anti-Semitism. This is sadly true; nonetheless, man is fallen. In Israel today, Orthodox Jews are perfectly capable of doing to non-Jews what anti-Semites did and still do today. They do even worse to Jewish Christians, whom they are trying to deport back to Russia. It is true that terrible crimes were perpetrated against the Jews in the name of Jesus Christ, but false religion is false religion no matter what guise it comes in: Islam, Roman Catholicism, Hinduism, Rabbinic Judaism—they are all antichrist.
Maimonides, known as the Rambam (1135-1204), the greatest Rabbi taught:
"Gentiles with whom we are not at war: One must not directly cause their death, but it is forbidden to save them if they are about to die. For example, if one sees a Gentile falling into the sea, it is forbidden to pull him out, for in Leviticus 19:16 it says, 'You shall not stand by the blood of your neighbor', and that Gentile is not considered your neighbor." – Yad ha-chazaka, the Laws of Murder and Protection of Life.
Incidentally, Maimonides, the man who wrote this, was a medical doctor. The same word for “neighbor" is used in Leviticus 19:18 in the famous phrase which says, "Love your neighbor as yourself"; but what this is telling Jews is that since a Gentile is not really a neighbor, they must be left to die.
Maimonides also said:
"One is not permitted to heal Gentiles, even for payment. But if the Jewish doctor is afraid of them, or if there is concern about arousing hostility, then he may heal for payment, but not free of charge." Yad ha-chazaka, Laws of Idolatry chapter 10 verse 2.
Joseph Caro, who compiled the Shulchan Aruch, which is the basic "set table" or codification of Halakha Jewish law, said this:
"A woman in birth is considered like a sick person whose life is in danger, for whom the Sabbath may be violated for any of her needs in giving birth to her child, such as lighting a candle; but one must not assist a non-Jewish woman in giving birth on the Sabbath." Shulchan Aruch, Or Hayim, Law of the Sabbath 330:1, 2.
Hafetz Hayim, (also known as Israel Meir Ha Cohen) 1838-1933, founder of the Avodat Israel, and a 20th-century halakhic authority on Halakha (which is Jewish law) elaborates on the preceding item in his commentary Mishnah Berurah, which means “the clarification of the Mishnah", said:
"One must not assist a Gentile woman in birth, not even for payment; for in the week-days one assists them in birth only to avoid hostility, and the Magen Abraham (the Shield of Abraham, which is a commentary on the Shulchan Aruch) has written that even where there is concern for hostility, one is only permitted to do activities that do not entail a violation of the Sabbath; and I want you to know that the more acceptable (literally, more kosher) Jewish doctors do not observe this at all, for every Sabbath they travel many miles to heal Gentiles and they write a prescription personally or prepare medication; but they have no halakhic Jewish law, upon which to base such actions as treating or writing a prescription for a sick Gentile. For even if one is permitted to violate a Rabbinic prohibition in order to prevent Gentile hostility, one is certainly not permitted to violate a Rabbinic prohibition, and they are considered intentional violators of the Sabbath—God spare them."
In a parallel column the author of the Mishnah Berurah adds:
"The same law also applies to Muslims (literally Ishmaelites) and even to Karites (Jews who do not accept torah b'al pei—the oral law ). Everyone agrees that one may not violate a Rabbinic prohibition of the Sabbath in order to save their life."
Actually and fortunately most Jews and even many moderate orthodox Jews do not believe such hate mongering dogma. But in its ultra-orthodox form that literally believes such dogma, this is a bigoted, racist religion from the pit of Hell. It not only denies the Messiah, it even curses Him. It prays that those faithful Jews who do accept Him as Messiah and are the true faithful remnant of Israel would be blotted out of the Book of Life. God called Rabbinic Judaism an antichrist religion, and Jesus called it a synagogue of Satan. Their own literature shows that it is equally bigoted, racist, and vile as Luther, the Roman Catholic Church, or anyone else who has claimed to be Christian and committed crimes against the Jews; they are no better and no different than the apostate forms of Christianity whose anti-Semitic adherers for centuries persecuted and killed countless innocent Jews. But even in its more moderate expressions, rabbinic Judaism points God's covenant people away their Messianic redeemer whose Messiahship is the reason for the covenant.
All have sinned and all fall short of the glory of God. I do not care what the International Christian Embassy says, what Christian Friends of Israel says, or what J. Rawlings says; they are wrong. The people who publish literature in favor of modern Judaism do not know what they are talking about; they have no idea what Talmudic Judaism really is. It is Messianic Judaism that fulfills the Torah that is the valid Judaism of today and it is Jewish believers in Yeshua who are the righteous Jews because they have the imputed righteousness of Messiah. Once again, Yeshua told us exactly what this counterfeit Talmudic Judaism of the rabbis is: it is “a synagogue of Satan" misleading precious Jewish souls away from the true salvation of their Messiah and into the eternal damnation of Satan.
We must make a distinction between the religion and the people who are trapped in it. I love Roman Catholics, and because I love them, I hate Roman Catholicism. I love Muslims, and because I love them, I hate Islam. I love Jews, and because I love Jews I hate rabbinic Judaism, which is not the Judaism of Moses; and as we shall see, they know it is not the Judaism of Moses.
Sorting Through the Pilpul
What I am going to begin doing now is giving you just an overview of what the Rabbis said about Jesus. If you witness to Jewish people, what the Rabbis have taught them is this: "The Gentiles have taken our Scriptures and twisted them to make it seem like they are speaking of Jesus, but if you read the original context of the Jewish Scriptures you see that it is not talking about Jesus and they have gotten it all wrong." They can also give you some pretty convincing arguments in that regard. What I am going to give you here is ammunition, but this ammunition can only serve one purpose: to undermine that argument. You can show them that it is not a Gentile or Christian distortion of the Scriptures, for these are not totally alien ideas from Jewish thought that no rabbi would believe; in fact, the rabbis confirm the Christian interpretation of these Scriptures. That is all you can do; it will not mean that they will believe, because they can always show you some other Halakha, or some other Midrash, or some other Talmud, or some other rabbinic commentary saying that it does not have to mean what you say. This is known as pilpul, which is the way that rabbis devised to argue the Halakha, which comes from the Hebrew word lalechetmeaning “to walk", or the way you live your life.
When the Bible says at the end of the Sermon on the Mount that the people were astounded because Jesus taught “as one having authority, and not as their scribes", (Mt. 7:29) what that meant was that Jesus would not engage in what is called “pilpul". He simply said, “This is what God says," and would not engage in legalistic nit-picking and searching for loopholes because it was an endless road to nowhere. He referred to this kind of teaching as “leaven" and warned people to “beware of the leaven of the Pharisees". (Mt. 16:6)
Jesus did use Midrash, the Jewish way of interpreting the Scriptures, but in moral legislation and the like He would not engage in pilpul—with one exception. Paul also refused to engage in pilpul, with the same exception: when they used it to provoke the Pharisees and Sadducees into fighting with one another. Jesus knew, for example, that the Pharisees believed in the Resurrection while the Sadducees did not; therefore He would say, “"I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob"; is He the God of the living or of the dead?", knowing that this would start them arguing. It is almost as if He was poking fun at them, to show them how ridiculous it all was. In any case, this was the only instance where Jesus would engage in pilpul, with the object of turning the Sadducees and Pharisees against each other.
Again, they will always be able to find some rabbinic commentary that says a text does not necessarily have to mean what you say it does; the only thing you will be able to do is show that they cannot sweep our views out the window. The New Testament was written by Jews, Jesus was a Jew, the Apostles were Jews, the first Christians were Jews, and the last Christians will be Jews. The only reason that non-Jews believe in Jesus, in His Gospel and in the New Testament, is that Jews wrote the New Testament and taught them that Jesus was the Messiah. No one can deny that historical fact, although some Jews will try to claim that Christianity is a Gentile fabrication. Events Recorded in Rabbinic LiteratureThere is a place in the Rabbinic writings called Yoma 39 b, where the rabbis taught that in the forty years prior to the destruction of the Temple, the following happened: on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, they would hang a scarlet cord—probably associated in some way with Isaiah 1:18—before the Holy of Holies when the High Priest entered to make the sacrifice. They believed that this scarlet cord would turn white if the sin of the people was forgiven; if they were not forgiven, the cord would remain red. Daniel 9, as we will see, said that the Messiah had to come and die before the Second Temple was destroyed. Jesus echoed this in the Olivet Discourse (Mt. 24, Lk. 21). The rabbis taught:
"During the last forty years before the destruction of the Temple – which happened circa 70 AD, the scarlet thread did not become white, nor did the Western lamp in the Temple shine; and the doors of the Holy of Holies would fling themselves open of their own accord. For the forty years before the destruction of the Temple, the scarlet thread never turned white, but remained red."
The Second Temple was destroyed in 70 AD; forty years before 70 AD would have been circa 30 AD. In other words, from the time of Jesus until the destruction of the Temple, according to Judaism, the people's sin was never forgiven. They are trying to justify themselves by works, but Isaiah 64:6 tells us that our righteous deeds are as filthy rags The literal Hebrew term for “filthy rags" in this passage is actually a comparison to a blood soiled menstrual cloth. Scripture uses very coarse language to describe human righteousness and religion. Messiah"s righteousness is not human, it is a divine righteousness imputed through faith in the Jewish Messiah Yeshua.
"During the last forty years before the destruction of the Temple, the lot for the Lord did not come up in the right hand, nor did the crimson-colored strap become white; nor did the Western-most light shine, and the doors to the Hekal, the Temple, would open by themselves, until Rabbi Jochanan ben Zakkai rebuked them, saying, 'Hekal, Hekal, why wilt thou be the alarmer thyself? I know about thee, that thou wilt be destroyed, for Zachariah Ben Ido has already prophesied concerning thee, "Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour the cedars."'"
What this is saying is that Rabbi Jochanan ben Zakkai is supposed to have asked the doors why they were predicting their own destruction
.
In the Menahot, it says:
"By the morning, the oil in the lamps had burnt out. The priests came in and cleaned out the lamps, removing the old wicks and putting in new wicks, and pouring oil into them, ready for the kindling in the evening. The Western lamp, however, although it had no more oil than the other lamps, miraculously continued to burn the entire day long, so that when the lamps were to be kindled in the evening, they were kindled from this one. The western lamp itself was then extinguished, cleaned out, a fresh wick put in, oil poured in, and then relit. Thus the lamp provided the fire for lighting the other lamps, and yet was the last to be cleaned out. This miracle has testified to the Divine Presence in Israel."
According to these entries, during the forty years prior to the destruction of the second Temple in 70 AD, the Western lamp which was the lamp that lit the other lamps—in other words, Jesus, the true Light of the world—went out, which is an indication that the shekinah cloud had left. Also, the doors to the Holy of Holies would fling themselves open. Furthermore, the scarlet thread that was tied to the door of the Temple never became white, indicating that the sins of Israel were not forgiven. This took place from the time of the crucifixion of Jesus to the time of the destruction of the Temple; Yoma 39 b. A Tale of Two RabbisIn order to help facilitate understanding of what happened in the Jewish religion, I'm going to tell you a Tale of Two Rabbis. Once upon a time, there was a very famous rabbi whose name was Rabbi Hillel. There were two main kinds of Pharisee: one was the School of Hillel—this rabbi, and the other was the School of Shamai. These were academies where rabbis were educated. They had certain differences in their emphasis, but they were the two main schools of Pharisaic thought.
The School of Hillel had a number of very famous graduates. Hillel was the grandfather of another very famous rabbi who was his successor, Rabbi Gemaliel. Rabbi Gemaliel is mentioned in the Talmud, which says regarding him that when he died, righteousness perished from the earth. The New Testament tells us in Acts 5 that Gemaliel said that if Jesus was not the Messiah, Christianity would disappear; and if it did not disappear, the Jews who opposed it would be working against God.
Rabbi Gemaliel, from the School of Hillel, was associated with something called the Midot of Hillel, which St. Paul used in his teaching methods. Gemaliel had a number of famous students, one of whom was Onkelos, who did a famous translation of the Targum into Aramaic. He also had two other very famous students, one or the other of whom every Jew who came after them would follow, causing the Jewish religion to have a schism. The first of these students was Rabbi Jochanan ben Zakkai, whom I quoted earlier. When the Temple was destroyed, Rabbi Jochanan ben Zakkai said (in paraphrase), "We have a big problem: we cannot practice the Jewish faith that Moses gave anymore." To this day, on every Orthodox Jewish synagogue you will find the term Ichabod—'the glory has departed, the Shekinah has gone". They know very well that without a Temple they cannot practice the faith of their fathers. On the Passover, the Pesach, instead of taking the Passover seder with lamb, they take it with chicken because they have no priesthood and no Temple.
Rabbi Jochanan ben Zakkai had a council at Yavneh, near modern Tel Aviv, at which the rabbis decided the following: instead of the Levites and priests, the rabbis would be the new spiritual authorities, ergo the new leaders of Israel. Also, instead of the Temple being central, the synagogues would become central (synagogues having begun developing after the Babylonian Captivity). Thus another religion began to evolve from that point, based in tradition.
There was a classmate of Rabbi Jochanan ben Zakkai, whose name was Rabbi Shaul of Tarsus, better known to some as St. Paul the Apostle. He was likewise a disciple of Gemaliel; but he said that the Law was fulfilled by the Messiah. Jesus paid the price for our sins, and thus the curse of the Law and the consequences for breaking it were laid on Him. Every Jew is under one law or another. Think of an unsaved Jewish person as a kind of backslider—he is in a covenant relationship with God. He may not keep that covenant—he may be an atheist, but he is still under the curse of the Law. If you want to know what happened to the Jews, read Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28; their entire history is therein foretold. The Jews are under a national curse because they reject Jesus; they are under the curse of the Law.
By the time the Temple was destroyed, Daniel's prediction that the Messiah would come and die beforehand was fulfilled. Every Jew then had one of two choices: he either accepted Jesus as Messiah, or he began to practice a Judaism that was not scriptural. The entire future of the Jewish faith to this day is based on these two classmates: Rabbi Jochanan ben Zakkai and Rabbi Shaul of Tarsus.
At the end of his life, the Talmud tells us, Rabbi Jochanan ben Zakkai was weeping. His disciples came to him and said, "O Mighty Hammer, why are you weeping? Why is your soul in distress?" And Rabbi Jochanan ben Zakkai said, "I am about to meet Ha Shem – God – blessed be His name, and before me are two roads: one leading to Paradise (Heaven) and the other leading to Gehenna (Hell); and I do not know to which road He will sentence me." The founder of Rabbinic Judaism admitted that he had absolutely no assurance of salvation. He said that he did not know whether God would sentence him to Hell for what he did, and at the end of his life he was terrified to die. It is the same for all the Jews who follow him.
However, there is then Rabbi Shaul of Tarsus, who said at the end of his life, "Trouble me no further, for on my body I bear the marks of Christ, and I know there is laid up for me a crown of glory and of righteousness." (2 Ti. 4:7-8) He had the assurance of his salvation, and so does every Jew who follows him.
That is what happened in the Jewish faith and what is going on to this very day.What They Knew About the MessiahAs early as the Talmudic era, the sages knew that the Messiah should have come already. They cried:
"All the predestined dates for the Redemption have passed, and the matter now depends only on repentance and good deeds." – Sanhedrin 97 beht.
They were faced with major prophecies that were well past their dates for fulfillment; Jesus was the only person who claimed to be the Messiah who could actually in His time prove Davidic descent. This is not only recorded in the New Testament, but also in Sanhedrin 43 aleph:
"With Yeshu (Jesus), it was different: He was connected with the government. This is an ambiguous phrase, which has actually misled some people to believe that it actually refers to royal lineage."
God spent 1,000 years promising Abraham and David that the Messiah would descend from them; therefore, when He allowed all of the genealogies to be destroyed with the Second Temple, it was obvious that the Messiah had to have come. So we read:
"And the Sanhedrin wept: 'Oy vevoy, woe to us! For the Temple is destroyed, and the Messiah has not come.'"
We will come back to this one.
"The scepter shall not depart from Judah,
Nor the ruler's staff from between his feet,
Until Shiloh comes,
And to Him shall be the obedience of the people." (Gen. 49:10)
Shiloh is one of the places in which the Ark of the Covenant dwelt, but it became an appellative for the Messiah in Judaism. Every tribe of Israel had its own tribal staff—a scepter with the tribe's name inscribed upon it; this represented judicial power. The removal of the scepter, therefore, occurred when Herod the Great—a non-Jew, became king and the Sanhedrin had its power limited; these things both happened during Jesus' lifetime. The name “Shiloh" is the name of the Messiah, according to the Talmud, Sanhedrin 98 b.
According to the prophecy of Genesis 49:10, the Messiah had to have come prior to the removal of the scepter from Judah. Therefore, either the Messiah has already been and gone or God lied. God cannot lie; so whoever the Messiah was, according to the Talmud He had to have already come at that point. Again, the Talmud mentions how 40 years before the destruction of the Temple the Sanhedrin was moved from the hall of the hewn stones to a place outside; you may read this in 41a and in the Avodat Zerah 8b. Whoever the Messiah is, He had to come and die prior to 70AD/CE.How They Replaced What They KnewAfter five centuries of accumulated oral teaching was passed down, Rabbi Yehudah ha Nassi (meaning “Judah the President") and his disciples wrote down selected material from the oral law, calling it Mishnah; this was not done until 230 AD, The Talmud, in other words, was not even written down at all until 230 AD! What the rabbis teach is this: the Talmud—what they call the Torah b'pei was given to Moses on Mount Sinai, although he did not write it down. However, in Joshua 8:35, among other places, we read, "There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded which Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel." So the Torah says that Moses wrote it all down, but the rabbis deny this and claim that the oral law was given without being written down until a later date. They go so far as to say that the opinion of one rabbi is more important than the opinions of a thousand prophets, because the prophets were only messengers and secretaries, while the rabbis had to interpret the messages and divulge their meaning.
Each generation continued to raise new questions, so there were experts, one of whom was Rabbi Yohochanan, of the same college as Tiberias. He compiled these new rabbinic decisions in about 330 AD. When this was done, he called it the Gimmorah, taken from the Hebrew word that means “to finish" or “completion".
The Mishnah and the Gimmorah were put together and named the Jerusalem Talmud; this was the first Talmud. Through the centuries, however, there has been much tampering with the Talmud, and there are all kinds of critical arguments as to what the original actually said in some cases.
During the Dark Ages from about 900 to 1500 AD, other things began to develop. Few Jews could understand the Hebrew or Aramaic text, so commentaries and codifications were written on the Talmud. These codifications were condensed into systematic codes of law, and from here we have things called the Torim, the Riff , the Schulhan Aruch, Ha kitzor Ha Schulhan Aruch, the Mishnah Torah, etc. Rambam was the main rabbi at this time; preceding him was Rashi in France. They moved continually further away from the Word of God and began developing along the same lines as Roman Catholicism.
Around 1000 AD there was a rebirth of Aristotelianism in the Muslim world. Thomas Aquinas totally redefined Roman Catholicism in Aristotelian terms when he wrote Summa Theologica, in which he said that the opinion of the “church" was more important than the opinion of the Bible, just as the Rabbis declared the opinion of a rabbi more important than that of all the Prophets. Reacting against Aquinas, who was a terrible heretic, were people like the Reformers, who came from the Humanists.
However, what Aquinas did for Roman Catholicism, Rambam did for Judaism. He wrote a book called A Guide for the Perplexed, followed by something called Mishnah Torah, in which he Aristotelianized Judaism with totally Hellenistic ideas that were alien to anything originally believed by Jews.
Some other Talmudic writers were the following: Rabbi Shlomo Itzachi, Rabbi Saida Gaon (“the Genius"), Ramban, Rabbi Moshe de Nachman (also known as Nachmanides), Rabbi David Kimchi, Ibn Ezra, Rabbi Levi Ben Gershom, etc.
At this point, the Kabbalah began to come on the scene. Kabbalah is mystical Judaism, the chief work of Zohar. It began in Poland.
To these they added other sacred books such as the Pirque Rabbati, the Yalkuth and various haggadic 13th-century writings. Then there was the Yohar on Moses, which is held by Hasidic Jews today because it uses Gnosticism and spiritualization, which is their approach to Judaism.
In any event, what does God say about all this?
“Because this people draw near with their words
And honor Me with their lip service,
But they remove their hearts far from Me,
And their reverence for Me consists of tradition learned by rote, (Isaiah 29:13)
The Timing of the Coming of the MessiahAll of the prophets prophesied only about the Messiah; the entire Old Testament is about the Messiah, according to the Talmud in Sanhedrin 99a, d.
"The world was not created but only for the Messiah" – Sanhedrin 98b.
In John 1 it says that the world was created through Jesus and by Him. Rabbi Yosef said that the Messiah would come when this gate (Rome) shall fall and be built again, and the land Israel would be overrun by enemies, in Sanhedrin 96-99. The stone cut without hands in Daniel 2:44-45 is the Messiah, according to the Pirque Eliezar chapter 11.
There was a famous rabbi named Rabbi Leopold Cohen who was greatly troubled by Daniel 9, which said that the Messiah had to come and die before the destruction of the Second Temple. He wanted to find out what this meant; so he read in the Talmud that the world would last for 6,000 years, “for a thousand years is like yesterday in Your sight when it passes by"; they link this, according to Rabbi Katina, with Psalm 90:4. From this they derive that the world would be 2,000 years in a state of chaos, 2,000 years under the Law of Moses, and 2000 years under the Messiah, when the Shabbat—the Millennium, will be 1,000 years of peace. Then will come the war of Gog and Magog, and the Messiah will renew the world after 7,000 years, according to Sanhedrin 96b and 99a, and Yalkut volume II p. 129d.
This is exactly what the book of Revelation teaches. The Messiah will arrive to destroy the nations and to rule the earth for a thousand years of peace when people are conducting themselves in the following manner: those who fear sin will be abhorred, truth shall fail, children will rebel against their parents, general lawlessness will abound, Sadducaicism would universally prevail (the Sadducees denied the Resurrection, like the Bishop of Durham)—in other words, when people who claim to be believers in God deny the Resurrection on a popular level: When Anglican Arch Bishop of York David Jenkins denied the Resurrection of Jesus, two thirds of the Anglican bishops defended him; but the ancient Rabbis long before David Jenkins said that Sadducaicism would prevail universally. The study of God's Law would decrease, there would be a general increase in universal poverty and despair, apostasy would increase, and there would be a growing disregard for Scripture. This comes from Sanhedrin 96b, 99a or, if you wish, read Paul's epistle to Timothy.
Rabbi Cohen had a big problem when he went to the Talmud and saw this. He realized that the Messiah had to have come around 32 or 33 AD. The Talmud said two things in this regard: one was as stated above, and the other was that there is a curse on anybody who reads Daniel 9. He asked his instructors why, looked into the Talmud, and found that it said the reason for the curse was that the time of the Messiah's coming was foretold in Daniel 9. He could not believe that God would put something in His Word and not want people to understand what it meant; therefore, Rabbi Leopold Cohen became a Baptist minister.
I mention this in passing, though it is a subject that could be treated at much greater depth: in the Talmud it is noted that the word dor in Hebrew, meaning “generations", is spelled correctly before Adam fell in Genesis 2:4, but afterward the Hebrew letter vov—which is also a “6", since in Hebrew the letters also stand for numbers—is missing, because Adam lost six things. The letter vov is then replaced in Ruth 4:18, because she was the grandmother of King David, whose son would be the Messiah. The Messiah would restore the six things lost by Adam. Bresheit Rabbah 12, p. 24b (of the Warsaw Edition).
To this day, the Rabbis read the Book of Ruth at Pentecost, the birthday of the Church. Ruth is the story of a Jewish man who takes a Gentile bride, and from their union the lineage of David begins from which the Messiah would ultimately come. Do you see how they knew? They knew that somehow the Messiah would, through this Gentile woman, restore what Adam had lost.The Adjustments They Try To MakeJews will go to all kinds of lengths to tell you that Zechariah 12:10-12 does not necessarily refer to the Messiah. Zechariah 12:10-12 says, "And they will look upon Him whom they have pierced, and mourn for Him as one mourns for an only son"; they will try to deny that this must mean they will look on the Messiah whom they had pierced. However, in Sukkah 52a it says directly:
"They will look upon Me – the Messiah – whom they have pierced".
The Talmud confirms rather than denies that this is speaking about the Messiah whom they had pierced.
The Messiah will arrive with the clouds of Heaven, according to Daniel 7:13, but humble and mounted on a donkey according to Zechariah 9:9. One Talmudist proposes that if Israel deserves it, the Messiah will come with the clouds of Heaven, but if Israel is not deserving, He will come poor and riding on an ass. (Sanhedrin 96b – 99a.) To this day, this is how the Rabbis will get around it: they will claim that the Messiah did come in the days of Jesus, but Israel was not worthy and therefore he did not reveal himself. Thus this becomes the big catch-all by which they are able to explain anything away.
In Deuteronomy 18 Scripture says that if you predict something that fails to happen in the name of the Lord, you are a false prophet. I show that to the Jehovah's Witnesses right before showing them false prophecies made in their own literature. The same with the Vineyard people and John Wimber's false prophecies; it cannot be denied, so they find they cannot handle it. Rabbi Menahem Schnerson, the last Lubavitch rebbe, said that Messiah was going to come at Rosh ha Shanah (September) of 1991. The day after this deadline, I called up the Chabad Center in London and asked to speak to someone who spoke Hebrew. When he came on the line, I asked in Hebrew, "Well?" He knew what I meant. Then I went down to Stamford Hill with some of my friends from CMJ who have a Messianic testimony, bringing our tracts. We confronted the Jews there with the fact that Moshe Rabbenu says that if people predict things in the name of Ha Shem that don't happen, they are false prophets who must be taken out and stoned; we then asked them if they keep the Torah. The point of this was to show them that if they remain under the Law, they must take their Rabbi Schnerson out and stone him as a false prophet; their only other choice is to accept Yeshua as their Messiah who fulfilled the Law. They didn't like that much.
I love the Talmud because it illustrates so clearly the old joke, "If you have two Jews, you have three opinions". Forget three opinions—if you have two Jews, you have thirty-three opinions! Israel would have no more Messiah because he had come in the days of King Hezekiah, according to Rabbi Hillel; not the original Hillel, but another one. (Sanhedrin 96b, 99a.) In the same passage, Sanhedrin 96b – 99a, his grandson, Rabbi Yosef, said "May God forgive my grandfather, Rabbi Hillel."
Some Talmudists, however, thought that the Messiah would come on two separate occasions, which would account for the two conflicting descriptions of his arrival—again,HaMashiach ben Yosef and HaMashiach ben David. It is stated that the two dates given in Daniel 12:11-12 were to date the two arrivals at 45-year intervals. (The Midrash on Ruth 2:14, p. 43b of the Warsaw Edition; also The Lost Talmud on Daniel 9, 24-27.) The ancient Talmudists knew a lot of things.Outright ChangesOne thing that will inevitably happen to you when you talk to Jewish people is, again, that they will tell you Zechariah 12:10-12 is not about the Messiah. An answer to give them is that Sukkah 52a says it is. They will also try to tell you that Isaiah 52 and 53 are not about the Messiah. I showed those very passages to a Jewish girl on a kibbutz in Israel once, and she immediately said, "This is about Jesus." No one had to tell her anything or manipulate her thinking, she simply used common sense. (Her name was Sally Brown, and I hope she gets saved.) Anyway, the Talmudists knew that Isaiah was predicting the Messiah's appearance in Isaiah 52:14:
"His – the Messiah's – appearance was marred more than that of any man, and His form more than the sons of men" Sanhedrin 97b, Yalkut volume II p. 53c and also Shemoth R, 15-19.
The Talmud repeatedly quotes Isaiah 53 as a prediction of the Messiah's appearance on earth.
There are two main Targums in Judaism: the Targum Onkelos (which I mentioned earlier) and Targum Jonathon. After the Babylonian Captivity, most Jews knew Aramaic rather than Hebrew, so they translated the Scriptures into Aramaic. However, these were not simply translations, but also interpretations. It says:
"Who has believed our report, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For He grew up before Him like a tender root out of dry ground; He had no stately form or majesty that we should look on Him, nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him. The Messiah was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows acquainted with grief".
It goes on and on and on, directly pointing to the Messiah in these passages.
"Each of us has turned to his own way, but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall upon the Messiah"; "Although He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth, the LORD was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief if He would render Himself as a corban – a guilt offering – He would see His offspring, He would prolong His days, and the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand, and as a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied. By His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify many and will bear their iniquities" and so on. "He Himself bore the sin of many, and interceded for the transgressors" – Sanhedrin 98b, also the Midrash on Samuel, the Lemburg (SP?) Edition, p. 45a, and the Targum of the Kingdom of the Messiah.
They knew very well that this was about the Messiah; the Targum Jonathon says so specifically. The Original Rabbinic CommentariesJewish people will often accuse Christians of twisting Scriptures to make them about Jesus when they actually are not about Him; what most Rabbis will say is that these passages are about Israel and the vicarious suffering of Israel. There are a number of problems with that: one is that the same Isaiah repeatedly castigates Israel for its sin, whereas he describes this Suffering Servant as having no sin. Therefore their idea is simply incompatible with the context. There are four Servant Songs in Isaiah, and the fourth one, found in Isaiah 52-53, is different from the others. In one sense, the rabbis are right: much the same as the Church is the Body of Christ, Jesus is the embodiment of Israel. For example, when you see verses that say things like "Israel My glory, Israel My Firstborn", they are midrashically alluding to Jesus. But only in a very abstract sense are these passages about Israel; their primary meaning, according to the Rabbinic literature, is pointing to the Messiah. When they tell you this is not about the Messiah, ask them to explain the Targum Jonathan, or the Midrash on Samuel, which say it is.
Jewish people will also accuse Christians of inventing a New Covenant that does not exist, claiming that the only covenant is the Torah. Jeremiah 31:31 says that God will make a new covenant, but when you tell them this they will try to tell you that you have misunderstood the text. At this point, you can point to the Midrash on Psalm 7, p. 5a of the Warsaw Edition:
"God will speak through the Messiah to make a new covenant."
Psalm 2 says, "Thou art My Son; do homage to the Son, lest He become angry and you perish in the way." The Rabbis say that God has no Son; but they have a big problem. Here is where I tell you how to drive an Orthodox Rabbi into early retirement in Florida: Psalm 2 is put together with Psalm 110 and 2 Samuel 16:1, and then connected with the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53. These things can be read in the Midrash on 2 Samuel 16:1, paragraph 19 of the Lemburg Edition, p. 45; also the Midrash on Psalm 7, p. 5a of the Warsaw Edition; and Yalkut (SP?) Volume II p. 90a. (These things can be obtained at a Yeshiva or a religious Jewish library.)
It goes on to say, then, when it has connected Psalm 110 with 2 Samuel 16:1 and Isaiah 53:
"Against God and His Messiah: "If I find the Son of the King, I shall lay hold of Him and crucify Him with a cruel death."
The Talmud actually says that the Messiah would be crucified; “Litzlov oto" is exactly what it says—“crucify". This is one thing they cannot answer; it shocks them.
Once again, in Genesis 49:10 Jacob predicted that the scepter would not depart from Judah nor the ruler's staff from between his feet until Shiloh comes; the Babylonian Talmud states that when this occurred, the sages said, “Woe to us, for the scepter has been taken from Judah, and the Messiah has not appeared!" Rabbi Ruchman adds that the members of the Sanhedrin covered their heads with ashes, their bodies with sackcloth, and wept when they heard these words. The Jerusalem Talmud dates this occasion at a little more than forty years before the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD; so they are saying that from around 30 AD the Messiah was pierced. (The Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin Volume 24, and the Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin chapter 4 Volume 37.)
"The sins of those who are hidden with thee will cause thee to be put under an iron yoke, and they will do with thee as with the calf. I take it upon me that no Israeli should perish; am I not flesh and blood?" – the Midrash on Jeremiah 31:8, the same as Isaiah 53. "All limits of time as regards the arrival of the Messiah are past." – Sanhedrin 96-99.
The Talmud states clearly that the Messiah had to have come already.
In the Talmud it is noted that God has made various numbers significant in His plan: they noted that there were ten names for idols and prophets, ten trials of Abraham, ten generations from Adam to Noah, and ten generations from Noah to Abraham—the Avotah chapter 36. They developed from this a dating system. This Mosaic dating system of Israel is given in Leviticus 26:13-16, and they messianically applied it in the Talmud. Moses dated the Messiah's exit in AD 33. (Midrash Bresheit, Rabbah on Genesis, p. 24b of the Warsaw Edition.) Their own dating system says that the Messiah had to exit in 33 AD.The Talmud Confirms the Historicity of ChristThe Talmud states that the Temple's destruction in 70 AD was predicted by Daniel 9:24-27. When you get into arguing with rabbis about the weeks of Daniel and what they mean (I do not have the space to explain it now), the easiest thing to say is that Daniel 9 says that the Messiah had to come and die before the Second Temple was destroyed. "No, it doesn't", they will tell you, but Yalkut Volume II p. 79d says it does, and so does Nazir 32b. The Talmud states that the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD was predicted by Daniel 9:24-27, when the coming of the Messiah to be cut off was predicted to precede this destruction. So the Messiah was predicted to arrive and to be killed before 70 AD, according to the Talmud, and the Rabbis knew this.
The Talmud confirms that the stone cut without hands in Daniel 2:44-45 is, again, the Messiah. "A stone to strike and a rock to stumble over, and a snare and a trap for Jerusalem". In Isaiah 8:14 God also predicted that the leaders of Israel would reject the Messiah: "Thou hast become my Yeshua; the stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone"—Psalm 118:21-22, which is the Hallel Rabbah that they sang to Jesus on Palm Sunday.
Moses Maimonides—Rambam, the greatest rabbi, confirmed that Yeshua the Messiah's appearance in AD 30 was Israel's greatest stumbling block. In Kings and Wars chapter 11, the uncensored edition, (the rabbis have for obvious reasons put out a censored edition) it says:
"There has never been a greater stumbling block than this problem of Yeshua (Jesus) in 30 AD. For three and one-half years, the Shekinah—God's dwelling, His presence—dwelt on the Mount of Olives, waiting to see whether Israel would repent, and calling on them to "Seek ye the Lord while He may be found—call on Him while He is near", but all was in vain. After three and a half years, the Shekinah returned from the Mount of Olives. – Rabbis' Lamentation.
There is something called the Avodat Zerah; it is one thing when Christians say they believe that Jesus did miracles, rose from the dead, and ascended from the Mount of Olives, but what about when people who were not only non-Christians but actually anti-Christian believe all these things?
You can read Roman historians such as Suetonius and Tacitus, and it is fascinating to read of how Jesus was understood by pagan Rome—even they did not deny the things that He did. It was said to be common knowledge throughout the Roman Empire that Jesus rose from the dead. The Avodat Zerah, however, says that Jesus did miracles as no other rabbi, that his disciples not only healed the sick but even raised the dead in His name, that after He was crucified He rose from the dead, and that He ascended into heaven from the Mount of Olives. All of that is actually in the Talmud. Even His enemies acknowledged the truth of what He did. This was written by rabbis who were trying to prevent other Jews from believing in Him, but they had to deal with the historicity of His miracles, of His disciples doing miracles, and not only of His crucifixion but also of His resurrection and ascension into heaven—the Talmud admits He did it!
When you confront an Orthodox rabbi with these things, he will not want to deal with it. However, if you press him, he will tell you that Jesus knew Kabbalah--this was invented centuries later, but they say it anyway—Jesus knew Kabbalistic, mystical secrets and had the ineffable name of Ha Shem (the Tetragrammaton) under His tongue and under His foot and so on, and this is how He performed these miracles. That is what they will tell you if pressed. The Talmud Says It Is About the MessiahThe rabbis will try to tell you that Psalm 22 does not really say, "They have pierced My hands and My feet". All of Psalm 22 was fulfilled in Matthew 27, but in Hebrew there is a difference in the letter aleph, and they shorten a vov to make it a yud; in this way they will try to change, "They have pierced My hands and My feet" into "I am like a lion's paw". This might be legitimately true, except that someone must have changed something at some point because the Talmud states the following:
"At the time of the Messiah's creation, the Holy One – blessed be He – will tell him in detail what will befall him according to the 'There are souls that have been put away with thee under My throne, and it is their sins which will bend thee down under a yoke of iron and make thee like a calf whose eyes grow dim with suffering.'"
In other words, according to the Talmud, the Messiah would know before He was born that He was coming to die for His people.
"And during the seven-year period preceding the coming of the Son of David, iron beams will be brought and loaded upon his neck until the Messiah's body is bent low. It was of the ordeal of the Son of David, who wept, saying 'My strength is dried up like a potsherd', Ps. 22:16."
In Yalkuth Shimoni they connect “many dogs have encompassed me" (using a midrashic principle called "binyan ab m'shna ketubim") with the Book of Esther, commenting on which, Rabbi Nehemiah said:
"They pierced my hands and feet".Hence, the Pisgah Rabbatai 36:1,2 states directly that Psalm 22 is about the Messiah coming to die.
There are technical linguistic explanations for the translation of “like a lion" such as a textual reading adjustment called "im crea". Then, in the Yalkut Shimone, we find this:
"'Many dogs have encompassed me'" – they connected this somehow with the book of Esther and the king Ahasuerus – "'but the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me; ka a'ri'".
In English, “they have pierced my hands and my feet" Rabbi Nehemiah quotes it this way, and the reading of “pierced" was accepted by ancient rabbis. In addition, the Peshitat Abitai says directly that Psalm 22 is talking about the Messiah suffering and dying.
Again, Isaiah 52 and 53 from the Targum Jonathon: "Behold, My servant the Messiah shall prosper; He shall be exalted, and great and very powerful". It states directly and repeatedly that this is about the Messiah.
Daniel 9, Megillah 3 aleph of the Targum of the Prophets, was composed by Jonathon ben Uzziel under the guidance of Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, according to tradition:
"And a voice from heaven came forth and said, 'Who is this who has revealed My secrets?' and he further sought to reveal by Targum the inner meaning of the Hegiographa (the portion of Scripture which includes Daniel), but a bat kol went forth from Heaven and said, 'Enough!' 'Why, why should we not read Daniel 9?' 'Because the date of the Messiah is foretold in it.'"
And again, Sukkah 52 a regarding the Messiah being pierced:
"What is the cause of the mourning in Zechariah 12:12? It is well according to him who explains that the cause is the slaying of the Messiah, the Son of Joseph, since that well agrees with the Scriptures: 'And they look upon Him, because they have thrust Him through, and shall mourn for Him as one mourns for an only son.'"
We could continue almost indefinitely like this; there is not a single Messianic prophecy that I would use in witnessing to Jewish people that I could not prove not to be a Christian invention applying it to Jesus. The Talmud agrees, for instance, that Micah 5:2 is about the Messiah, who in some way had to be pre-existent: "O you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, are by no means least in the clans of Judah, for from you going forth from eternity will be one whose existence is from eternity." From the Targum of Micah 5:1 from Targum Jonathon says this:
"And you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, you who are too small to be numbered among the thousands of the house of Judah, from you shall come forth from Me the Messiah to exercise dominion over Israel – He whose name was mentioned from before the days of creation."
In this way when one meets with the protest that Christians have read something into Micah 5:2 that it does not really say, one may respond that Christians have not read anything into it that Jews did not read into it long before Christianity was established.
From Genesis 3:1-15:
"And it shall be that when the sons of the woman study the Torah diligently and obey its injunctions, they will direct themselves to smite you on the head and slay you".
Right from the beginning, they believed that the Messiah had to be slain. Comments on Genesis 23:5 from the Midrash Rabbah show that Rabbi Tanhumah said:
"In the name of Rabbi Shmuel Kozit, she hinted that the seed would arise from another source – the Messiah".
The Midrash deals with Eve's naming of Seth, which is connected with the idea of the Messiah being bruised upon the heel and then bruising the head of the serpent.The Ancient Rabbis Understood What Christians Understand You will only ever do one thing with all of this information: that is, undermine their arguments that these things are Gentile fabrications resulting from Gentile Christians twisting the Jewish Scriptures. One can show very clearly that these things were understood by ancient rabbis in the same way in which they are understood by Christians. But there is something called “ecclentics" or convictions. "No one comes unless the Father draws him". If you bring a Jehovah's Witness to my door, I can win every argument, but it does not mean they will get saved. The same can be said of a Mormon or again of a rabbi.
These things are very important. Paul said that we should be "instant in season and out of season, to refute every argument". I certainly do not deny the importance of this kind of teaching, but without prayer and without holy lives that will provoke the Jews to jealousy, it is useless.
We have a long way to go, but God is doing something. We will see God work among the Jewish people in the Last Days in the same way in which He worked in the time of the early church with not only thousands being saved, but even tens of thousands. We will see whole synagogues split over the issue of Yeshua being the Messiah. But do you know what? We will also see whole churches split over the same kind of issue/
The Legacy of Jacob Part 1 of 2
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by James Jacob Prasch
Jacob (Ya"aqob) is my father"s grandfather"s name. I often joke that Ya"aqob means “swindler," but actually it does not. It could be translated “supplanter," but it really has to do with “heel." Jacob grabbed his brother"s heel. The story of Jacob has a dual format all the way through. There is a personal story of Jacob which teaches very important things for us as believers—how God perfects us. Something for every believer is taught in the story, life and experience of Jacob. On the other side we are going to look at how Jacob personifies Israel and the Jewish people. In Scriptures whenever it specifies “Israel" or “Jacob," it does so for a reason. “Israel" has the language of incorporation; Gentiles could be grafted into Israel. “Israel" has already wrestled with God and is broken, “Jacob" has not. The Jewish people, because they are not broken, are personified by “Jacob." The Great Tribulation is called “the time of Jacob"s trouble" and has a meaning for Israel and the Jews. We will begin by looking at the first aspect of Jacob, how Jacob teaches about you, how Jacob teaches about me; how Jacob behaves is the how we tend to behave, and the way God deals with Jacob to perfect him teaches an awful lot about the way God is going to perfect us. Jacob often did not have a very easy life, even up to the end of his life. Similar to Abraham, and certainly to a degree to Isaac, even to his very old age God was working out some very basic things in his life and in his character. Forget this idea, “I"m old, I"m retired, I"ve had it" we have not “had it" until we go home. God is working out things in our life until we get there. My personal, favorite verse in the Bible is Philippians 1:6:
For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.
But the way He is going to do it is the way He did it with Jacob.“Fallen" vs. “Natural"The God of Abraham is very much the God of promise, the God of Isaac is the God who gives the son of promise, but the God of Jacob is the God who perfects the son of promise. All those who are in the Messiah Yeshua are sons of promise. Jacob represents the natural man; not simply the fallen man, but the natural man—there is a difference. When Adam was created he had no imperfections, but he was not perfected. Imperfection comes because of the Fall. After we become born-again, God gets rid of the fallen man by faith. The fallen man or fallen woman is crucified by faith at the cross of Jesus and they are born-again—they become a new creation. However, God deals with the natural man after we are born-again. “Pick up your cross daily and follow Me" (Lk. 9:23). The fallen man is one thing, the natural man is another. It is so easy for us as Christians to be motivated by good intentions. I know people who have gone to mission fields with good intentions. They saw pagan peoples perishing because they were without the Gospel, they saw people in sub-human poverty, and being teachers or medical doctors they wanted to introduce the Gospel to people who were suffering in the developing world. Their motives were right. Praise God for good motives. Before they were saved they just wanted to build a career and make money just like anyone else, but then they put that on the altar and said they wanted to go to a mission field. These are good motives. We, as believers, have a natural tendency to be motivated by good motives. However, in God's economy new motives and good motives are simply the first step—we have to be motivated to missions by the Holy Spirit. Jacob was somebody who attempted to achieve the purposes and blessings of God in his own sense. His motives were right, but he wound up with a “the ends justify the means" mentality.
I have seen so many big missions organizations and church organizations that began with the right motives, but they eventually adopted “the ends justify the means" mentality, and the natural man took over. I have been at meetings where big Christian businessmen want to finance missions, I have been at meetings with missions boards, I have been at meetings with executives of denominations, all of which had two minutes of perfunctory prayer and then began negotiating the same as secular businessmen would in the world. Their motives are right, but in their way of thinking the end—the target, always justifies the way they act. That is the natural man; that is Jacob. Jacob is in them, Jacob is in me. It is easy for me to criticize these big wheels on missions boards, except that if I were a big wheel on a missions board, I might not be any better. It is so easy for the natural man to take over. When we are born-again, God deals with the fallen man or the fallen woman, but then He begins to deal with the natural man or the natural woman.Jacob"s TroublesLook at all the trouble Jacob had. Every trial he went through was designed by God to deal with his natural man. And the kinds of trials that we go through will be trials that God has designed to deal with our natural man or natural woman. What we like to say is, “This is a financial attack of the enemy." There are three kinds of trouble. There is the kind of trouble that does come directly from the enemy. Paul says, “Satan hindered us" (1 Th. 2:18). Then there is the kind of trouble that God is prepared to save us from that we otherwise bring upon ourselves. We have enough trouble in this world, yet we stray from God's will and we bring upon ourselves trouble God does not want us to have. But then there is the kind that God does want us to have. Even in Isaiah Satan is called God's servant. But even though it may be an attack of the enemy, “All things work together for good" (Rom. 8:28). Just think of persecution. Persecution cleans up lukewarmness and fear within the Church—it gets rid of nominal believers. It is a thing from the enemy—I do not pray to God for persecution. I have seen persecution in Israel and it is not nice. We lived in Israel in the 80"s when the Likud was in power with the religious party, and the religious party was doing terrible things. There was burning of Messianic synagogues. I have seen what persecution is somewhat like, although it is not nearly as bad as what persecution in Muslim countries is like. Of course it is the enemy, but God has a purpose. God had a purpose in Israel. When I first immigrated to Israel in the 70s, believers were afraid to evangelize publicly. But after their meeting places began to get burned down in Jerusalem, Tiberias, Ashdod and elsewhere, they said, “What is the difference? Why should we be afraid?" The trials we have as believers are designed by God to deal with the natural man.A Life ReplayedSo much of Jacob"s life replays that of his father and his grandfather. Jacob came looking for a bride from among his own people, and he preferred Rachel. But only after he learned to love Leah as much as he loved Rachel did he get Rachel. In the beginning Leah has all the children, but in the end Rachel has all the children. All the great men of the Bible prefigure the Messiah in some way. In the beginning the Gentile Church is the most fruitful, but then in the end Rachel"s the most fruitful—the Jews. The Jewish people as a nation begin with Jacob: the twelve sons of Jacob—the tribes and patriarchs of Israel. He replays the experiences, and even some of the trials, of his father and grandfather. When we go through trials in our lives as believers, we do not think about it, but other believers before us—in a spiritual sense, our fathers and grandfathers—have gone through those same kinds of trials. The Church itself has to learn the same lessons over and over. Just look at the history of the Church. It begins to compromise, it goes away from the Bible, it backslides, God raises something new, it is good for a time and it goes through the same process again. It is just like the kings in Chronicles. The history of the Church undergoes the same kind of phenomena as in Judges, Kings and Chronicles for Israel. The history of the Church tells the same thing. Jacob replays the experiences of his father and grandfather. Jacob represents the natural man.
…and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons,
“MY SON, DO NOT REGARD LIGHTLY THE
DISCIPLINE OF THE LORD,
NOR FAINT WHEN YOU ARE REPROVED BY HIM;
FOR THOSE WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE
DISCIPLINES,
AND HE SCOURGES EVERY SON WHOM HE
RECEIVES."
(He obviously did not believe the lies of prosperity theology.
It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. (Hebrews 12:5-11)When we go through trials it is pretty miserable, but in retrospect when we come out of them we see that it was God's hand. We might say we could not go through that again, but we are glad we went through it the first time, even though while we were going through it we did not want it. Jacob is a perfect illustration of that process. Isaac typifies the new creation the most—he is put on the altar; Jacob is the son of the new creation, as it were.The Character of Jacob & EsauLet us look at what happens for this natural man, and what happens for this fallen man, as the story of Jacob continues.
The LORD said to her,
“Two nations are in your womb; And two peoples will be separated from your body; And one people shall be stronger than the other; And the older shall serve the younger."
When her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her womb. Now the first came forth red, all over like a hairy garment; and they named him Esau. Afterward his brother came forth with his hand holding on to Esau"s heel, so his name was called Jacob; and Isaac was sixty years old when she gave birth to them. (Genesis 25:23-26a)The character of the Jews as a nation and the character of the Arabs as a nation replay the characters of Jacob and Esau. Esau despised his birthright (Gen. 25:34). To this day, because of the rise of Islam, the Arab peoples despise their birthright. On the other hand there is no doubt that Arabs have been mistreated by Jews. It is not nearly as bad as what Arabs do to each other, but there have been injustices. The character of the Jewish people and the Arabs in these two brothers is personified in that of the patriarchs. Right from the beginning he is grabbing his brother"s heel. Let us look further at when it came time to give the blessing. Some people postulate that when the hands of Isaac were put on these sons they may have been 70 years old or so. In this story his mother puts him up to something.
But his mother said to him, “Your curse be on me, my son; only obey my voice, and go, get them for me." So he went and got them, and brought them to his mother; and his mother made savory food such as his father loved. Then Rebekah took the best garments of Esau her elder son, which were with her in the house, and put them on Jacob her younger son. And she put the skins of the young goats on his hands and on the smooth part of his neck. She also gave the savory food and the bread, which she had made, to her son Jacob. Then he came to his father and said, “My father." And he said, “Here I am. Who are you, my son?" Jacob said to his father, “I am Esau your firstborn; I have done as you told me. Get up, please, sit and eat of my game, that you may bless me." Isaac said to his son, “How is it that you have it so quickly, my son?" And he said, “Because the LORD your God caused it to happen to me." Then Isaac said to Jacob, “Please come close, that I may feel you, my son, whether you are really my son Esau or not." So Jacob came close to Isaac his father, and he felt him and said, “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau." He did not recognize him, because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau"s hands; so he blessed him. (Genesis 27:13-23)
On one hand Esau was getting what he deserved because he despised his birthright; on the other hand look at Jacob. The promise of God was there from the moment of conception that the younger shall be preeminent over the older—not “better" or not “greater," but the salvific purposes of God would go through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. (Islam, of course, teaches it goes through Ibrahim, Ishmael and Esau.) Jacob tries to achieve the purposes of God by his human conniving, and that is so much like the Jewish people. They know, somehow, they have the Torah and the covenant purpose, but it is always in their way of thinking. Notice that it was his mother who put him up to this. We get our fallen nature from the womb, but we also get it from the environment which reinforces it. If parents have an anger problem it is going to be reflected in their children. We get our nature from conception, but it is reinforced by our childhood environment. So many times I see that as a parent I pass on my negative traits by my example; I tell my children one thing but I do another. We are all like that to a degree, some of us worse than others. A child gets it from his parents and it is reinforced in the home environment. When we get saved, God begins to deal with that stuff, and He deals with it along the same lines as He did in Jacob.Achieving God's PurposesAgain, I would point out that God blessed Esau as well. I do not suggest God loves Jews more than Arabs. I am just talking about the election of God as His instrument of salvation—that is all.
“I can do nothing on My own initiative. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. (John 5:30)
Jesus said He did nothing on His own initiative. Jesus could have fed the five thousand because He was God, Jesus could have walked on the water because He was God, He could have healed people because He was God, and there are Christians who make the mistake of thinking He did those things because He was God, but He did not—He did them by the power of the Holy Spirit. He took up the form of a servant, not considering equality with God as something to be grasped (Philip. 2:6). He emptied Himself of the privilege of His deity and never used His divine power. If Jesus used His divine power He would have acted in the flesh. His motives would have been right, but His actions would not have been initiated by the Holy Spirit. In Luke 5:17, “the power (dunamis) of the Lord was present for Him to perform healing." Why is that if we pray for someone to get out of a wheelchair (if we have the gift of healing), only some will while some will not? We can always pray for sick people, anoint them with oil and ask God to heal them, but if we are going to say, “In the name of Jesus, get out of that wheelchair," the same dunamis—“power" that was there for Jesus in Luke 5:17 had better be there for us. The Father, by the power of the Spirit, must be initiating it; otherwise we are acting in the flesh. We can pray for the person, but when we command them to get up and get out of the wheelchair in that situation, we are acting in the flesh. We will invent all kinds of excuses to put condemnation on people: “You have no faith," “You have sin in your life." It may be true, but more often than not it is a Christian acting in the flesh and putting condemnation on people. Jesus did not use His divine power. He could have, but He did not. “I do nothing by My own initiative," He said. Israel as a mission field is a good example. There are believers coming from all over the world who love Israel, love the Jewish people, and have a sense of romance and attraction to it because they like the idea of prophecy being fulfilled, so they go there with high expectations. But I would gather that the majority of these people last six months to a year. Some of them go there Philo-Semites and come back Anti-Semites. That society will really test your love of the Jews. The arrogance of the people can really get to you. There are reasons for that sociologically: the Israelis are not more arrogant than anyone else, they were born with socialist values which consider good manners to be bourgeois. Jews were always members of the diasporic upper-middle class and the professional business classes, and they wanted to be the people of the land. So the Israelis who founded the kibbutzes and similar socialistic things tried to be the opposite of the Jews in the Diaspora. They threw good manners out the window and helped form the social mold, and that accounts for why they are so arrogant (although when you get beneath that arrogance you can find a very warm people). If you hang out there for a few years then you will begin to see, but if you just go there for a year, what you see is going to revolt you. I do not mean just Gentiles, I mean even other Jews go there and can"t stand it. When we try to achieve the purposes of God—even if it is His purpose, even if it is His calling—in our own human strength, it is not going to work. God gave us human strength, but as we will see, our human strength cannot come into play until God deals with something in our life called the “natural man."
“I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. (John 15:5)
It is only by abiding in Jesus that we can achieve the true purposes of God, but the natural man is like Jacob: he always wants to achieve it on his own intellect, his own enthusiasm and his own ideas. Praise God for good motives, but that is not good enough. Only by abiding in Him can you do it. Not only that, but very often Christians cannot tell the difference between the natural man and what God is initiating. They do not understand the difference between what the Holy Spirit is leading them to do, and what they think is good. Think of the times in the Book of Acts where it says they were out witnessing and evangelizing and the Spirit of Jesus forbade them to preach there (Acts 16:7). If someone tries to go to a mission field God did not send them to, they are not going to get anywhere, and Israel is a beautiful example. So many people come back. I know people who were missionaries to head hunters in New Guinea for 15-16 years, but who left Israel as broken people. I know a Jewish lady—a Holocaust survivor who survived with one little brother and sister, who gets saved in Switzerland and spends 20 or more years as a missionary to the Bantu tribe in Angola. She was probably the only person who ever spoke Yiddish and Swahili (or whatever they spoke there). She was a beautiful believer who said she would rather go back to the jungle to these bushmen in Africa than her own people in Israel because they were so hard. Praise God things are changing in Israel—God is plainly doing something. But if someone goes to a mission field to which God has not called them, no matter what it is, they will not survive. We have to abide in Him. We can much try, like Jacob did, to do it in our own strength.The Typology of Precious Stones and Metals Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man"s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man"s work. If any man"s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man"s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire. (1 Corinthians 3:12-15)
We have organizations in Israel, as an example, which have right motives, and in some way are even doing right things, but it is according to their ideas and not God's. So they will sign an agreement with the Israeli government and say they will not evangelize Russian Jews, they will not give them New Testaments, they are just going to bring them to Israel. (They did that and got into a big fight with Jews for Jesus and others.) One boat had ten Jews on it; another had none, so they began carrying tourists. Although they received millions in contributions to do this, God did not bless it because it was man"s idea. These are good people who loved the Lord and had good intentions, but why did God not bless it? They were people trying to do things in the strength of their own ideas. Sooner or later it is going to be tested with fire (1 Co. 3:13), and only the things God has ordained will survive that fire. Many of the things we do in our lives as believers we do with the right motives, and maybe even to a degree God will use it, but He is not going to bless it and prosper it, nor will He reward us for it. It talks about these materials which will be burned up. Somehow the fall of man and the Gospel of Jesus are parenthetical. God foreknows what happens, but we are not born to be born-again; we are born to go to heaven to be God's children—His friends. We are His creation to love Him, to serve Him, to worship Him, to share in His blessings. The Fall is somehow parenthetical. The premise of the Gospel is to restore, in a sense, the things lost because of the Fall.
The gold of that land is good; the bdellium and the onyx stone are there. (Genesis 2:12)
This is before the Fall—gold and precious stones. In 1 Corinthians 3:12 we have silver. Jesus was betrayed for silver; Joseph was betrayed for silver; “For iron I will give you silver" (Is. 60:17). Silver always represents the price of salvation in some way. In the typology of the Temple, the further one went from the Holy of Holies, the value of the minerals proportionately decreased. Silver was in the middle. It began with bronze, then silver, but in the Holy of Holies it was gold. The closer one approached God, the more valuable the minerals. They did not have platinum in those days (they probably did not know about it—metallurgy did not even know how to produce it) so gold was the most precious thing they knew about in the times of the Bible. Look at what happens after salvation.
The foundation stones of the city wall were adorned with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation stone was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, chalcedony; the fourth, emerald; the fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, topaz; the tenth, chrysoprase; the eleventh, jacinth; the twelfth, amethyst. And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; each one of the gates was a single pearl. And the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass. (Revelation 21:19-21)
The streets of the city are pure gold. Before the Fall we have precious stones in settings of gold; after the redemption process is complete we have precious stones in settings of gold. There is no silver, as silver is of temporal value. Silver will oxidize, gold will not. But silver is at least of some temporal value; the wood and straw are of no value. In the High Priest"s garments there was the breastplate like righteousness and the shoulder pads with precious stones corresponding to the tribes of Israel, which in turn correspond to those precious stones in Revelation. The High Priest had to carry the burden of Israel on his heart and shoulders. He could not take the ephod off. When we pray for somebody we intercede for them—we carry the burden on our heart and shoulders. We do not take it off. The High Priest, we are told in Hebrews, is the Lord Jesus who carries the burden for Israel on His heart and shoulders—He does not take it off. But those are precious stones in a setting of gold. Peter says the same thing: “Your faith refined by fire" (1 Pe. 1:7).
How are diamonds formed? Pressure and fire. How is God going to make you and me something that is a precious stone in a setting of gold—godly? Pressure and fire.
Who wants pressure? Who wants fire? Not me! But once we get that beautiful diamond, we are sure glad we went through it. When we get to heaven we are not going to regret a single trial that God was in because we are going to be a precious stone in a setting of gold; the other stuff will be burned up. Unsaved people, of course, do not even figure into the equation. The fruit of the Spirit in Galatians is God's nature, and in the Greek it gives the idea that the fruit is first of all love. The fruit of the Spirit is first love—all the other fruits proceed from the love. We usually say the fruit of the Spirit is joy, peace, patience, kindness and all that other stuff (Gal. 5:22-23), but no, the fruit is love; the other things are a result of the love, perfecting the love of Christ in us.Not the Sin, but the SinnerThe way God gets rid of sin is first by getting rid of the sinner. God does not take away your anger problem, or my anger problem, or your resentment problem, or my resentment problem, He takes away you; He takes away me. The Lord Jesus never said while on the cross, “I am dying for your sins," full stop. He said, “I am dying for your sins so you better get up here with Me." That is the way it is. God does not get rid of the sin; He gets rid of the sinner. The problem is that the natural man is a sinner. The devil does not have to get us to lose our temper, or to lust after someone other than our wife or husband, or to get us to do whatever—all he has to do is to get us into the natural man or the natural woman, then we are going to sin anyway. The rest is easy. Once he gets us to do that, we are a pushover. God has to get rid of the natural man. I have seen this. When Christians get into serving God in the natural man like Jacob did, what happens? They actually sin and lie. I can show you actual letters proving that leaders of major Christian denominations in this country have lied about things they can be sued in court for. The natural man is, naturally, fallen. The devil is not out to get us to sin—that is not his target because we are going to sin anyway. He is going to get us to walk in the flesh instead of the Spirit, and the first way he will try to do that is to get us to be a Christian in our own sense. In the New Testament we have somebody very much like Jacob, and his name is Peter. When that guy came for Jesus, Peter pulled out his sword and chopped his ear off! Peter pulled out his sword: “Where is He? Let me at him!" just like Jacob. But when the real test came? “Before the cock crows twice, you will deny me thrice" (Mk. 14:29-31).
It is a sure bet that a crisis God is going to allow is a crisis in which we face it as the natural man or the natural woman and we are going to fail miserably. Not until what God did in the life of Peter do we see Peter standing up in boldness at the day of Pentecost. Not long before that, just a few weeks earlier, it was, “I do not know the man" and following at a distance. But at Pentecost with the Holy Spirit, there he was, not afraid of those crowds. Something happened. It was the same person, the same natural ability, but the natural ability had gone to the cross. Jacob is like that.Natural Ability & God's CallingIt is a good thing to be a teacher; it is a good thing to be a medical doctor. There are countries which will never allow in missionaries but will allow in teachers or medical doctors. That is how to get the Gospel into certain countries. It is good to be a musician, but it is one thing to be a good musician who plays “Christian music" it is another thing to lead worship under the anointing of the Holy Spirit. It is one thing to be a good medical doctor, but it is another thing to be anointed by the Holy Spirit as a medical missionary. The natural man and the natural woman have to go to the cross—not just the sinner, not just the drug dealer, not just the fornicator, the whole person has to go to the cross, and then God in the power of the resurrection can use their human ability, their vocation, their background. Jacob had all these things. He was a shrewd, slick person. He was so shrewd and so slick that it kept backfiring on him, which is just what the Jews are like. Jewish people somehow know that they have been forced to be clever and shrewd; that is why they keep winding up in pogroms and inquisitions—it backfires on them, and it will backfire on us. When we rely on the natural person and think, “I"m a good businessman" or whatever abilities we have (which God gave us), God is not going to use them until they have gone to the cross. The natural man has to go. There are four stages in Jacob"s life. Genesis 25-27 is Jacob as he was. It is encouraging when we see the way he was and some of the things he did and yet God loved him and chose him anyway. It gives me a great deal of assurance and solace. Genesis 28-31 is the testing and breaking of Jacob, but then comes the real crisis point in Genesis 32-36, the “Jabbok Experience" the dislocation of his natural life. And finally in Genesis 37-50 comes the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Yet even then at the end of his life and as an old man, Jacob said, “My life has been difficult" (Gen. 47:9). Not too many of the great men of the Bible died happy, but they were mostly all happy to die! When we have it too good in this world, we all must have a cross. Why? If we do not, we begin to trust in this world and begin to get comfortable in it. The cross is for our own good to keep us out of trouble. We are very good at getting ourselves into trouble because we are new creations living in a natural man. Again, Jacob had the promise of God but was always trying to get it in his own strength. He was clever. He was good at scheming and out-manipulating other people who were themselves clever and good at scheming. The blessings were provided to him in the promise of God, but he felt he had to get them in his own strength. It says in Timothy that there are good works He foreordained for us, and the calling is from eternity (2 Ti. 1:9). We are not simply born-again to go to heaven—that is ultimately true, but we are born-again to do something now. At some point in life God will show us what that is—our gifts, our ministry, etc. But the natural propensity of our human nature is going to be to get it according to our human abilities. “I"m a good businessman," “I"m a good teacher," “I"m a good speaker," “I"m a good organizer," “I"m a good musician" the natural propensity is going to be to try to get it according to our own natural devices. That is what goes to the cross.Jacob"s LadderWhat happened to Jacob at Bethel? “Bethel" means “the house of God" and it is also where his father had a turning point experience in his walk with God (Gen. 12:8; 13:3-4). Turning point experiences in our walk with God will always happen at Bethel. If we are not in church in fellowship, at least a place of Christians and meetings, we are not going to reach that turning point with God. We have a very big problem now. All over this country, because of the things like the “Toronto Experience" and the “Lakeland Fiasco," because of financial manipulation and exploitation of Christians, because of false doctrines, there are Christians who have no church, so they are meeting at home. These people in home groups are beginning to meet with other people in home groups in schools and things like that. The point is, the church may not impress us, the church may disappoint us. In fact the church will disappoint us because the church is made up of people just like us. Jacob was bored in church (at Bethel)—he fell asleep (Gen. 28:10-17). But what did he see?
He had a dream, and behold, a ladder was set on the earth with its top reaching to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. (Genesis 28:12)
What do we see in the Gospel of John? Jesus was talking to Nathaniel.
And He said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man." (John 1:51)
This is describing “Jacob"s Ladder." We may not think much of church, but when God lowers the ladder from heaven, that is where its base arrives: it comes to the Body of Christ. That is where the ladder comes to and He climbs down. When we find people who are out of fellowship when they have a viable option to be in fellowship, they have a problem. Today, in this country, we have a crisis. We have received many letters and messages from people being thrown out of their churches because of things like Toronto. We once had a man walk into our office from Lister Hill Baptist Church in Leeds who was very much into Toronto, very much into women leadership, very much into ecumenism, and he was thrown out because he objected to the following: a trans-sexual transvestite had himself castrated, wears women"s clothes and women"s hairstyles, comes to church and breaks the bread in holy communion at an Evangelical, charismatic, Toronto Blessing Baptist church. The people in this church accept “her" as a sister in faith, and her “ministry" is breaking the bread for holy communion even though the DNA in every cell of his body says he is not a “sister" in faith. He is a backslidden brother, if he was a believer to begin with, and he needs to repent. They threw this guy out because he said this is an abomination. People say to me, “What is going to be worse than what took place in Toronto or Lakeland?" Most of us have seen these videos of Rodney Howard-Browne, Kenneth Copeland, Todd Bentley and company, and are absolutely appalled. What is going to be worse? It is going to come to immorality. What we see in Lister Hill Baptist is only a harbinger of what is going to come. The Word of God gives us patterns, and these things are going to come to immorality. So we have people with nowhere to go. Every day we get requests from people, “Where can I go? What can I do?" Jacob does not realize it while he is there, so God shows it to him in a dream.
So Jacob rose early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on its top.
(It was an anointed place.)
He called the name of that place Bethel…
(“The house of God")
…however, previously the name of the city had been Luz. Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will keep me on this journey that I take, and will give me food to eat and garments to wear,
(He was not asking for much, just his needs.)
and I return to my father"s house in safety, then the LORD will be my God. “This stone, which I have set up as a pillar, will be God's house, and of all that You give me I will surely give a tenth to You." (Genesis 28:18-22)
The church is an anointed place. One of the problems of the natural man is he thinks he does not need the fellowship of other believers—that he does not have to come to the house of God. I was at a Full Gospel Businessman"s meeting and there were those standing up and saying, “God has shown me to get away from this" and “I"m fulfilled in the Lord so I don"t need this." That is not God. It is an anointed place. If we want Jesus to come down from heaven and meet with us on that ladder, He is going to do it in the house of God; that is the place He has ordained. That was a turning point, a pivotal place for Abraham as well as Jacob, and it is going to be for us as well. But the natural man thinks he can stand alone. No, the Bible says, “Iron sharpens iron" (Pr. 27:17).
God is sovereign. He did not come to save you, He came to save all of us. Jesus is not coming for you, He is coming for His Bride. You have to be part of it. The natural man thinks he can stand alone, but he cannot. He thinks He can meet with God on his own terms, but he cannot. It is in the house of God that the ladder is going to come down. Again, I feel very sorry for those people whose only choice seems to be between Kenneth Hagin"s church up the street or the ecumenical one around the corner or the Toronto one beneath the bed, but God has a solution for that problem. I do not know what it is yet, but Jesus still wants to come down that ladder and meet with us, and it is going to happen in the house of God.The Character of a “Shrewdy"God knew what Jacob was like. Look how Jacob “made a vow" (Gen. 28:20). “If you give me this, I"ll give you that." Jews love to negotiate. How are we going to negotiate with God? God lays down the terms of the covenant. God knew Jacob wanted to make a deal. God knew that Jacob was going to try to attain these blessings and purposes and callings of God in his own strength. Did God try to rebuke him and say, “Jacob, don"t do that"? No. I could speak until I was blue in the face and try to tell you, “Don"t do that" because I can stand in front of the mirror and tell myself until I am blue in the face, “Don"t do that." But I am going to do it anyway and so are you. The only question is how long it is going to take for God to work out that breaking in our life? There is nothing we can do to get where God wants us to be any faster, but there is a whole lot we can do to slow it down. Remember the children of Israel going to the Promised Land out of Egypt? This was a small distance. Even by foot one could make it in a couple of weeks and it took them forty years! The second generation entered the Promised Land, not the first. The old creation has to die in this world; only the new creation can go to heaven. There is nothing we can do to make it faster, but there is a whole lot we can do to slow it down, and Jacob could sure slow it down. Jacob gets stuck with Laban for fourteen years. In Genesis 28:20 it is, “You do this and I"ll do that." Jacob left his wealth to come to poverty for a period and, like Isaac, to Laban"s family. And this all gives the background to the woman at the well, of course, in Genesis 29.
He said, “Behold, it is still high day…
(When he comes to the woman at the well.)
…it is not time for the livestock to be gathered. Water the sheep, and go, pasture them." But they said, “We cannot, until all the flocks are gathered, and they roll the stone from the mouth of the well; then we water the sheep." (Genesis 29:7-8)
What kind of water is in the well? Living water—“mayim hayim" (Jn. 4:10). According to John 7:39 what is living water? The Holy Spirit. Rolling away the stone is a picture of what? Resurrection. The Holy Spirit cannot come until Jesus has been resurrected, then the sheep can be gathered. God is working out His purposes all along. Jacob is a “shrewdy"; he is clever. How does God deal with shrewd and clever people? He teams them up with somebody who is more devious and ruthless than they are. Did God ever put you in a relationship with another believer who was more calculating than you are? I am not going to make any jokes about my wife, but the person we marry is the person God is going to use to deal with our flesh. God does not have us in a church just to be a blessing and enjoy the good things of God, he has us in a church to have conflicts with other believers who are going to rub us the wrong way on purpose. Do you think you are shrewd? Do you think you are slick? I was so slick that, just like Jacob, I wound up with years lost to Laban. I travelled all around the world first class, I had friends at the top of the pop music industry, I had tons of money, and I wound up working in a pharmacy in Haifa, Israel in a stetl—an ultra-orthodox ghetto, for years. There I was, on one side of the wall filling prescriptions, and on the other side of the wall were those belonging to the anti-mission organizations. I was spying on them for years. I thought that one of these days these guys are going to find me giving out tracts and that is going to be the end of my job, the end of everything. God always protected me; God always blinded them. When I saw them coming I would hit the road—just pack up my tracts and run. It was terrible to be counting pills. I hated it, it was boring, it was stupid. Not only that, but after I got saved I thought my days of selling drugs were over. Boy, did I have another think coming! God can redeem anything, but it went on for years. But if you use Hebrew every day you learn it a lot better than if you do not have to use it. When I used to eat in New York I was afraid of the Orthodox Jews. I would not run away but I would be nervous when I saw them coming. Working in their neighborhood, and living in their neighborhood, and dealing with them every day, I learned so much about their culture and about the way they are and the secret things in their life. They do not believe in birth control, but their women take the pill. They take a lot of valium because they are neurotic. I learned so much that God brought out of that terrible experience, but that was my place of God's dealing with me. I do not know what your place is going to be, but God will put you together with a “Laban." Jacob was a good con-man—he grabbed his brother"s heel. Laban conned him, gave him the wrong girl. Then Jacob conned Laban with the cattle. He is always striving in the flesh—“I"ll get him."
In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 1:6-7)
What is more precious than gold? The diamonds that are in it. Jacob"s wages kept changing, he got the wrong girl and he wound up being there something on the order of twenty years instead of the initial seven to which he agreed. But then something else happens with Jacob at the climax, which is the second phase: God's breaking. Then comes the dark night of the soul. Even the mystical Christians of the Middle Ages knew about it.Breaking Before BlessingAfter twenty years, Jacob did not learn as much as he should have. And after more than twenty years as a Christian, I have not learned as much as I should have. There is a lot more of “Jacob" in some of us than others. But I will tell you that the more intelligent you are, the more educated you are, the more clever you are, the better your business abilities, the more you have going for you humanly speaking, the more difficult God's breaking is going to be in your life. Think of the little boy who brought Jesus his picnic lunch (Jn. 6:9). The little boy from Galilee takes his picnic lunch and gives it to Jesus, who takes it, blesses it, breaks it, then uses it to feed others. Do we want God to use our natural abilities—whatever we have? “Lord, bless me!" He will bless you. “Lord, use me!" He will use you. But before He can use you, and after He blesses you, there is a hidden ingredient: God does not bless who He does not break, and He does not use who He does not break. This little kid did not have much; it was easy for him to have it broken. “Lord, I have a Ph.D.!" “I spent thirty years building this business!" We can see how hard that person is going to break. They are going to be a “Jacob." The more someone has going for them the harder God's breaking is going to be in their life. God's values are the opposite of the world"s. First of all, it is harder for humanly-advantaged people to be saved than disadvantaged. The simpler one is, the poorer one is, the easier it is to be saved because there is less ground for pride. Secondly, after one gets saved, the less they have going for them the easier it is for God to mold them because the human person is not going to be as strong. Thirdly, the more one has going for them, the more accountable they are. God gave them more natural ability so He expects more out of them. He expects more out of them so they are going to go through worse trials than other people before He can use them. His values are always the opposite. The world says, “I want money, privilege, advantage," but when God gives those things it is going to be harder to get saved—not by His choice, but according to our fallen nature. God's breaking is going to be more difficult, but not only that, those He breaks are going to be more accountable. Look at Paul; he was educated, Peter was not. God used Paul more than He used Peter, but look at how the breaking in Paul"s life was worse than Peter"s. The more someone has going for them, the more God's breaking is going to be and the more He will hold them accountable. It is always the opposite of human values. There is a lot more of “Jacob" in some of us than others. Yet, in spite of his transgressing and scheming, God loved him. There were certain events in Jacob"s life that no matter what he did, he would see God revealing Himself in a personal way, saying, “Jacob, I love you, I chose you, I called you and I have brought you this far, I am going to take you the rest of the way." The grace of God is marvelous, is it not? No matter how many times we blow it, no matter how many times we fall and goof up, there are going to be times in the life of believers when God is going to reveal Himself to them personally and say, “I love you anyway; I chose you anyway; I called you anyway—I have a place I am taking you and you are going to get there whether you like it or not."
For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. (Philippians 1:6)
Do not backslide; hang in there—He will get you there. But now we get to the dark night of the soul.Two CampsThere will come a point in our life as a born-again Christian where if we continue with Jesus we are going to go through a kind of trial different than any other kind of trial we have gone through before or will go through after. We have two kinds of trials in the Bible: “valley" and “wilderness." A “valley" is a single trial, a “wilderness" is a prolonged period of testing, frequently associated with the number forty in the Bible. This is a valley that is longer than other valleys and a wilderness that is more deadly than other wildernesses. It is a desert among deserts. To Jacob it happened at Peniel, the brook of Jabbok. And what Jacob did is what we would expect Jacob to do.
Early in the morning Laban arose, and kissed his sons and his daughters and blessed them. Then Laban departed and returned to his place. (Genesis 31:55)
Jacob thinks that is the end of his trial. He goes through this for fourteen years. There is the colloquialism, “It is darkest before the dawn." That is true. The colloquialism that is false is, “There is light at the end of the tunnel." There is no light at the end of the tunnel. At the end of the tunnel there is the worst darkness of all, then comes the light. After fourteen years of this stuff (seven of them spent for the other girl)—years spent trying to out-manipulate each other, Jacob thinks, “Finally, it"s over! Now I can revert to what God promised me at Bethel, what God promised by parents when I was born! I can go get that blessing now. God has worked these things out in my life after these years of putting up with Laban, of putting up with somebody else like me."
Notice that the people who revolt us the most humanly are the people who are the most like us. The people we see with our own negative traits and characteristics will be the people we have the most friction with. The people who irk us the most are the people most like us, especially if they are even more like us than we are.
Now as Jacob went on his way, the angels of God met him. Jacob said when he saw them, “This is God's camp." So he named that place Mahanaim.
(Meaning “two camps")
Then Jacob sent messengers before him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the country of Edom. He also commanded them saying, “Thus you shall say to my lord Esau…
He knew that this guy did not like him, and he knew why he did not like him, and he even knew he ruined this guy in some way.
“Thus says your servant Jacob, "I have sojourned with Laban, and stayed until now; I have oxen and donkeys and flocks and male and female servants; and I have sent to tell my lord, that I may find favor in your sight."" (Genesis 32:1-5)
It is like saying, “I have a car dealership! Go over and pick one! You want an El Dorado? You want a Mercedes? I"ll give you the keys! My brother, I love you! Please take it and leave! Drive out of here!" Why is it called “Mahanaim" “two camps"? I grew up in New Jersey right across the river from New York City, and in our neighborhood was a close friend of my parents who owned a chain of liquor stores called “Harry"s" but his real name was Haime. People thought it was “Harry" but friends like my parents called him “Haime," and he was what we called a “good" Jew because even Gentiles liked him. One of his sons was Arthur who managed this chain of liquor stores. What most people did not know is that Arthur was also a dentist. Everybody thought Arthur was a businessman like his father, which he was, but they did not know he was also a dentist. “There might be a depression, there might be prohibition, but people always have toothaches." He wanted a backup. He was clever that way. Jewish people are clever that way, having a survival mentality as a result of their history, and they go through it that way. So Jacob puts it into two camps. “If my shoe store goes down the tubes, I can always sell roses." He is always shrewd, always trying to figure out how to survive. My wife is like that. My wife"s parents were Holocaust survivors and then they were Refuseniks under Ceausescu. For my wife, in the way she was brought up, it was not so important to clean the house, cook, or sew—you could always get a shiksa to do that. With her it was different: How many languages do you speak? How educated are you? How clever are you in business? Do you have a profession that will always be needed if you have to run? Everything was survival-oriented. If “this" fails you will still have everything; it is just the mentality. Jacob puts them into two camps; he is always scheming.
I have oxen and donkeys and flocks and male and female servants; and I have sent to tell my lord, that I may find favor in your sight.""" The messengers returned to Jacob, saying, “We came to your brother Esau, and furthermore he is coming to meet you, and four hundred men are with him." Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed; and he divided the people who were with him, and the flocks and the herds and the camels, into two companies; for he said, “If Esau comes to the one company and attacks it, then the company which is left will escape." Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O LORD, who said to me, "Return to your country and to your relatives, and I will prosper you," I am unworthy of all the lovingkindness…
(“I know I"m no good—I repent! Please get me out of this!" When we are in trouble, boy, do we get religious.)
…and of all the faithfulness which You have shown to Your servant; for with my staff only I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two companies. Deliver me, I pray, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau; for I fear him, that he will come and attack me and the mothers with the children.
(He is afraid for his family now.)
“For You said, "I will surely prosper you and make your descendants as the sand of the sea, which is too great to be numbered."" (Genesis 32:1-12)
He begins to doubt the promises of God so he has to remind God.The Dark Night of the SoulWhen we are in the dark night of the soul, we begin to doubt the promises God gave us and we begin scheming and praying and doing everything we can because now we know it is coming. And then what happens? Jacob schemes further after he prays.
He commanded the one in front, saying, “When my brother Esau meets you and asks you, saying, "To whom do you belong, and where are you going, and to whom do these animals in front of you belong?" then you shall say, "These belong to your servant Jacob; it is a present sent to my lord Esau. And behold, he also is behind us."" (Genesis 32:17-18)
He tries to buy him off. “You got the cash, I"ve got the absolution!" (That is what they say in Ireland: “High money, High Mass; low money, Low Mass; no money, Purgatory.")
Now he arose that same night and took his two wives and his two maids and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream. And he sent across whatever he had. Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When he saw that he had not prevailed against him, he touched the socket of his thigh; so the socket of Jacob"s thigh was dislocated while he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the dawn is breaking." But he said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me." So he said to him, “What is your name?" And he said, “Jacob." He said, “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel; for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed." Then Jacob asked him and said, “Please tell me your name." But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?" And he blessed him there. So Jacob named the place Peniel, for he said, “I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been preserved."
(“No man can see God and live" (Ex. 33:20). That is why, you see, Jesus had to become a man.)
Now the sun rose upon him just as he crossed over Penuel, and he was limping on his thigh. Therefore, to this day the sons of Israel do not eat the sinew of the hip which is on the socket of the thigh, because he touched the socket of Jacob"s thigh in the sinew of the hip. (Genesis 32:22-32)
We see how “Jacob" always has to do with the sons of Israel, specifically the Jews. He is blessed alone. When the dark night of the soul happens in our life we will be left alone. Other Christians will not be able to relate to our trial; not even our family can help us. It is a lonely experience. There is nobody there but us and the Lord, and we think he is against us. We wrestle with God: “Why are You doing this? Why did You bother to save me? Why did You choose me? Why did You give me these promises if You are not going to keep them and destroy me?" All of his scheming would not work anymore—he was in trouble. This angel is called “the angel of the Lord" with a definite article in Hebrew. The Talmud calls Him in Greek the “Metatrone" “the angel who dwells at the center of the throne." It is a “Christophany," an Old Testament manifestation of Jesus. He wrestles with Jesus to the end of the night, the dark night of his soul, and he prevails. How does he prevail? By losing the fight.Winning by LosingThis is the only way we are going to get God's blessing and prevail. God's values are always present within us and we think we have to pin them down and make them say, “Uncle!" God says, “No, you have to lose. I"ll make you say, "Uncle!" and then you"ll win the fight." Jacob"s femur—the thigh bone, is dislocated. The femur is the strongest bone in the human body. I am told that you can rest a Volkswagen on the femur of an adult male and it will not break. Before I was saved I was a coke dealer. I used to smuggle hash in Africa and dope in South America. I used to go to parties with rock stars. I knew how to manipulate them; I knew how the game was played. I knew how to make money. I used to embezzle money with a computer. I went through a dark night of the soul. For me it was two years and one month. It was terrible. It was not trials, it was not breaking, it was death of the natural man. After that, Jacob walked with a limp. After we have a dark night of the soul, we will walk with a limp. Remember, the femur is the place of greatest human strength. We walk with a limp. What will happen when we come to the Jabbok experience in our walk as a Christian? God will touch your place of greatest human strength. Our personality, our intellect, our good looks—whatever it is, that is what He is going to hit: our place of greatest strength. We are going to walk with a limp and we will never be the same again. How long will it last? Until the end of the night. No one who is really serious about attaining the blessings and purposes of God for their lives will not go through this at some point. How long the night is, how bad that breaking will be is relative to the individual. After it happens they will never be the same, but after it happens, then God blesses us. After it happens, then God uses our human abilities. Why? Because we do not rely on them anymore; we walk with a limp. We no longer trust our own sense, we do not trust the natural man, we have learned the hard way what happens when we do that. Then we get that blessing.A New NameJacob prevails and he gets a new name. What does it say in Revelation? “You have a new name" (Rev.2:17). It is interesting that after this, when Jacob behaved in his old nature after Peniel, Genesis calls him “Jacob," but when he behaves like the new creation it calls him “Israel." It is the same with us. When we behave like the old natural man or wom
Jacob (Ya"aqob) is my father"s grandfather"s name. I often joke that Ya"aqob means “swindler," but actually it does not. It could be translated “supplanter," but it really has to do with “heel." Jacob grabbed his brother"s heel. The story of Jacob has a dual format all the way through. There is a personal story of Jacob which teaches very important things for us as believers—how God perfects us. Something for every believer is taught in the story, life and experience of Jacob. On the other side we are going to look at how Jacob personifies Israel and the Jewish people. In Scriptures whenever it specifies “Israel" or “Jacob," it does so for a reason. “Israel" has the language of incorporation; Gentiles could be grafted into Israel. “Israel" has already wrestled with God and is broken, “Jacob" has not. The Jewish people, because they are not broken, are personified by “Jacob." The Great Tribulation is called “the time of Jacob"s trouble" and has a meaning for Israel and the Jews. We will begin by looking at the first aspect of Jacob, how Jacob teaches about you, how Jacob teaches about me; how Jacob behaves is the how we tend to behave, and the way God deals with Jacob to perfect him teaches an awful lot about the way God is going to perfect us. Jacob often did not have a very easy life, even up to the end of his life. Similar to Abraham, and certainly to a degree to Isaac, even to his very old age God was working out some very basic things in his life and in his character. Forget this idea, “I"m old, I"m retired, I"ve had it" we have not “had it" until we go home. God is working out things in our life until we get there. My personal, favorite verse in the Bible is Philippians 1:6:
For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.
But the way He is going to do it is the way He did it with Jacob.“Fallen" vs. “Natural"The God of Abraham is very much the God of promise, the God of Isaac is the God who gives the son of promise, but the God of Jacob is the God who perfects the son of promise. All those who are in the Messiah Yeshua are sons of promise. Jacob represents the natural man; not simply the fallen man, but the natural man—there is a difference. When Adam was created he had no imperfections, but he was not perfected. Imperfection comes because of the Fall. After we become born-again, God gets rid of the fallen man by faith. The fallen man or fallen woman is crucified by faith at the cross of Jesus and they are born-again—they become a new creation. However, God deals with the natural man after we are born-again. “Pick up your cross daily and follow Me" (Lk. 9:23). The fallen man is one thing, the natural man is another. It is so easy for us as Christians to be motivated by good intentions. I know people who have gone to mission fields with good intentions. They saw pagan peoples perishing because they were without the Gospel, they saw people in sub-human poverty, and being teachers or medical doctors they wanted to introduce the Gospel to people who were suffering in the developing world. Their motives were right. Praise God for good motives. Before they were saved they just wanted to build a career and make money just like anyone else, but then they put that on the altar and said they wanted to go to a mission field. These are good motives. We, as believers, have a natural tendency to be motivated by good motives. However, in God's economy new motives and good motives are simply the first step—we have to be motivated to missions by the Holy Spirit. Jacob was somebody who attempted to achieve the purposes and blessings of God in his own sense. His motives were right, but he wound up with a “the ends justify the means" mentality.
I have seen so many big missions organizations and church organizations that began with the right motives, but they eventually adopted “the ends justify the means" mentality, and the natural man took over. I have been at meetings where big Christian businessmen want to finance missions, I have been at meetings with missions boards, I have been at meetings with executives of denominations, all of which had two minutes of perfunctory prayer and then began negotiating the same as secular businessmen would in the world. Their motives are right, but in their way of thinking the end—the target, always justifies the way they act. That is the natural man; that is Jacob. Jacob is in them, Jacob is in me. It is easy for me to criticize these big wheels on missions boards, except that if I were a big wheel on a missions board, I might not be any better. It is so easy for the natural man to take over. When we are born-again, God deals with the fallen man or the fallen woman, but then He begins to deal with the natural man or the natural woman.Jacob"s TroublesLook at all the trouble Jacob had. Every trial he went through was designed by God to deal with his natural man. And the kinds of trials that we go through will be trials that God has designed to deal with our natural man or natural woman. What we like to say is, “This is a financial attack of the enemy." There are three kinds of trouble. There is the kind of trouble that does come directly from the enemy. Paul says, “Satan hindered us" (1 Th. 2:18). Then there is the kind of trouble that God is prepared to save us from that we otherwise bring upon ourselves. We have enough trouble in this world, yet we stray from God's will and we bring upon ourselves trouble God does not want us to have. But then there is the kind that God does want us to have. Even in Isaiah Satan is called God's servant. But even though it may be an attack of the enemy, “All things work together for good" (Rom. 8:28). Just think of persecution. Persecution cleans up lukewarmness and fear within the Church—it gets rid of nominal believers. It is a thing from the enemy—I do not pray to God for persecution. I have seen persecution in Israel and it is not nice. We lived in Israel in the 80"s when the Likud was in power with the religious party, and the religious party was doing terrible things. There was burning of Messianic synagogues. I have seen what persecution is somewhat like, although it is not nearly as bad as what persecution in Muslim countries is like. Of course it is the enemy, but God has a purpose. God had a purpose in Israel. When I first immigrated to Israel in the 70s, believers were afraid to evangelize publicly. But after their meeting places began to get burned down in Jerusalem, Tiberias, Ashdod and elsewhere, they said, “What is the difference? Why should we be afraid?" The trials we have as believers are designed by God to deal with the natural man.A Life ReplayedSo much of Jacob"s life replays that of his father and his grandfather. Jacob came looking for a bride from among his own people, and he preferred Rachel. But only after he learned to love Leah as much as he loved Rachel did he get Rachel. In the beginning Leah has all the children, but in the end Rachel has all the children. All the great men of the Bible prefigure the Messiah in some way. In the beginning the Gentile Church is the most fruitful, but then in the end Rachel"s the most fruitful—the Jews. The Jewish people as a nation begin with Jacob: the twelve sons of Jacob—the tribes and patriarchs of Israel. He replays the experiences, and even some of the trials, of his father and grandfather. When we go through trials in our lives as believers, we do not think about it, but other believers before us—in a spiritual sense, our fathers and grandfathers—have gone through those same kinds of trials. The Church itself has to learn the same lessons over and over. Just look at the history of the Church. It begins to compromise, it goes away from the Bible, it backslides, God raises something new, it is good for a time and it goes through the same process again. It is just like the kings in Chronicles. The history of the Church undergoes the same kind of phenomena as in Judges, Kings and Chronicles for Israel. The history of the Church tells the same thing. Jacob replays the experiences of his father and grandfather. Jacob represents the natural man.
…and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons,
“MY SON, DO NOT REGARD LIGHTLY THE
DISCIPLINE OF THE LORD,
NOR FAINT WHEN YOU ARE REPROVED BY HIM;
FOR THOSE WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE
DISCIPLINES,
AND HE SCOURGES EVERY SON WHOM HE
RECEIVES."
(He obviously did not believe the lies of prosperity theology.
It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. (Hebrews 12:5-11)When we go through trials it is pretty miserable, but in retrospect when we come out of them we see that it was God's hand. We might say we could not go through that again, but we are glad we went through it the first time, even though while we were going through it we did not want it. Jacob is a perfect illustration of that process. Isaac typifies the new creation the most—he is put on the altar; Jacob is the son of the new creation, as it were.The Character of Jacob & EsauLet us look at what happens for this natural man, and what happens for this fallen man, as the story of Jacob continues.
The LORD said to her,
“Two nations are in your womb; And two peoples will be separated from your body; And one people shall be stronger than the other; And the older shall serve the younger."
When her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her womb. Now the first came forth red, all over like a hairy garment; and they named him Esau. Afterward his brother came forth with his hand holding on to Esau"s heel, so his name was called Jacob; and Isaac was sixty years old when she gave birth to them. (Genesis 25:23-26a)The character of the Jews as a nation and the character of the Arabs as a nation replay the characters of Jacob and Esau. Esau despised his birthright (Gen. 25:34). To this day, because of the rise of Islam, the Arab peoples despise their birthright. On the other hand there is no doubt that Arabs have been mistreated by Jews. It is not nearly as bad as what Arabs do to each other, but there have been injustices. The character of the Jewish people and the Arabs in these two brothers is personified in that of the patriarchs. Right from the beginning he is grabbing his brother"s heel. Let us look further at when it came time to give the blessing. Some people postulate that when the hands of Isaac were put on these sons they may have been 70 years old or so. In this story his mother puts him up to something.
But his mother said to him, “Your curse be on me, my son; only obey my voice, and go, get them for me." So he went and got them, and brought them to his mother; and his mother made savory food such as his father loved. Then Rebekah took the best garments of Esau her elder son, which were with her in the house, and put them on Jacob her younger son. And she put the skins of the young goats on his hands and on the smooth part of his neck. She also gave the savory food and the bread, which she had made, to her son Jacob. Then he came to his father and said, “My father." And he said, “Here I am. Who are you, my son?" Jacob said to his father, “I am Esau your firstborn; I have done as you told me. Get up, please, sit and eat of my game, that you may bless me." Isaac said to his son, “How is it that you have it so quickly, my son?" And he said, “Because the LORD your God caused it to happen to me." Then Isaac said to Jacob, “Please come close, that I may feel you, my son, whether you are really my son Esau or not." So Jacob came close to Isaac his father, and he felt him and said, “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau." He did not recognize him, because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau"s hands; so he blessed him. (Genesis 27:13-23)
On one hand Esau was getting what he deserved because he despised his birthright; on the other hand look at Jacob. The promise of God was there from the moment of conception that the younger shall be preeminent over the older—not “better" or not “greater," but the salvific purposes of God would go through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. (Islam, of course, teaches it goes through Ibrahim, Ishmael and Esau.) Jacob tries to achieve the purposes of God by his human conniving, and that is so much like the Jewish people. They know, somehow, they have the Torah and the covenant purpose, but it is always in their way of thinking. Notice that it was his mother who put him up to this. We get our fallen nature from the womb, but we also get it from the environment which reinforces it. If parents have an anger problem it is going to be reflected in their children. We get our nature from conception, but it is reinforced by our childhood environment. So many times I see that as a parent I pass on my negative traits by my example; I tell my children one thing but I do another. We are all like that to a degree, some of us worse than others. A child gets it from his parents and it is reinforced in the home environment. When we get saved, God begins to deal with that stuff, and He deals with it along the same lines as He did in Jacob.Achieving God's PurposesAgain, I would point out that God blessed Esau as well. I do not suggest God loves Jews more than Arabs. I am just talking about the election of God as His instrument of salvation—that is all.
“I can do nothing on My own initiative. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. (John 5:30)
Jesus said He did nothing on His own initiative. Jesus could have fed the five thousand because He was God, Jesus could have walked on the water because He was God, He could have healed people because He was God, and there are Christians who make the mistake of thinking He did those things because He was God, but He did not—He did them by the power of the Holy Spirit. He took up the form of a servant, not considering equality with God as something to be grasped (Philip. 2:6). He emptied Himself of the privilege of His deity and never used His divine power. If Jesus used His divine power He would have acted in the flesh. His motives would have been right, but His actions would not have been initiated by the Holy Spirit. In Luke 5:17, “the power (dunamis) of the Lord was present for Him to perform healing." Why is that if we pray for someone to get out of a wheelchair (if we have the gift of healing), only some will while some will not? We can always pray for sick people, anoint them with oil and ask God to heal them, but if we are going to say, “In the name of Jesus, get out of that wheelchair," the same dunamis—“power" that was there for Jesus in Luke 5:17 had better be there for us. The Father, by the power of the Spirit, must be initiating it; otherwise we are acting in the flesh. We can pray for the person, but when we command them to get up and get out of the wheelchair in that situation, we are acting in the flesh. We will invent all kinds of excuses to put condemnation on people: “You have no faith," “You have sin in your life." It may be true, but more often than not it is a Christian acting in the flesh and putting condemnation on people. Jesus did not use His divine power. He could have, but He did not. “I do nothing by My own initiative," He said. Israel as a mission field is a good example. There are believers coming from all over the world who love Israel, love the Jewish people, and have a sense of romance and attraction to it because they like the idea of prophecy being fulfilled, so they go there with high expectations. But I would gather that the majority of these people last six months to a year. Some of them go there Philo-Semites and come back Anti-Semites. That society will really test your love of the Jews. The arrogance of the people can really get to you. There are reasons for that sociologically: the Israelis are not more arrogant than anyone else, they were born with socialist values which consider good manners to be bourgeois. Jews were always members of the diasporic upper-middle class and the professional business classes, and they wanted to be the people of the land. So the Israelis who founded the kibbutzes and similar socialistic things tried to be the opposite of the Jews in the Diaspora. They threw good manners out the window and helped form the social mold, and that accounts for why they are so arrogant (although when you get beneath that arrogance you can find a very warm people). If you hang out there for a few years then you will begin to see, but if you just go there for a year, what you see is going to revolt you. I do not mean just Gentiles, I mean even other Jews go there and can"t stand it. When we try to achieve the purposes of God—even if it is His purpose, even if it is His calling—in our own human strength, it is not going to work. God gave us human strength, but as we will see, our human strength cannot come into play until God deals with something in our life called the “natural man."
“I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. (John 15:5)
It is only by abiding in Jesus that we can achieve the true purposes of God, but the natural man is like Jacob: he always wants to achieve it on his own intellect, his own enthusiasm and his own ideas. Praise God for good motives, but that is not good enough. Only by abiding in Him can you do it. Not only that, but very often Christians cannot tell the difference between the natural man and what God is initiating. They do not understand the difference between what the Holy Spirit is leading them to do, and what they think is good. Think of the times in the Book of Acts where it says they were out witnessing and evangelizing and the Spirit of Jesus forbade them to preach there (Acts 16:7). If someone tries to go to a mission field God did not send them to, they are not going to get anywhere, and Israel is a beautiful example. So many people come back. I know people who were missionaries to head hunters in New Guinea for 15-16 years, but who left Israel as broken people. I know a Jewish lady—a Holocaust survivor who survived with one little brother and sister, who gets saved in Switzerland and spends 20 or more years as a missionary to the Bantu tribe in Angola. She was probably the only person who ever spoke Yiddish and Swahili (or whatever they spoke there). She was a beautiful believer who said she would rather go back to the jungle to these bushmen in Africa than her own people in Israel because they were so hard. Praise God things are changing in Israel—God is plainly doing something. But if someone goes to a mission field to which God has not called them, no matter what it is, they will not survive. We have to abide in Him. We can much try, like Jacob did, to do it in our own strength.The Typology of Precious Stones and Metals Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man"s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man"s work. If any man"s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man"s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire. (1 Corinthians 3:12-15)
We have organizations in Israel, as an example, which have right motives, and in some way are even doing right things, but it is according to their ideas and not God's. So they will sign an agreement with the Israeli government and say they will not evangelize Russian Jews, they will not give them New Testaments, they are just going to bring them to Israel. (They did that and got into a big fight with Jews for Jesus and others.) One boat had ten Jews on it; another had none, so they began carrying tourists. Although they received millions in contributions to do this, God did not bless it because it was man"s idea. These are good people who loved the Lord and had good intentions, but why did God not bless it? They were people trying to do things in the strength of their own ideas. Sooner or later it is going to be tested with fire (1 Co. 3:13), and only the things God has ordained will survive that fire. Many of the things we do in our lives as believers we do with the right motives, and maybe even to a degree God will use it, but He is not going to bless it and prosper it, nor will He reward us for it. It talks about these materials which will be burned up. Somehow the fall of man and the Gospel of Jesus are parenthetical. God foreknows what happens, but we are not born to be born-again; we are born to go to heaven to be God's children—His friends. We are His creation to love Him, to serve Him, to worship Him, to share in His blessings. The Fall is somehow parenthetical. The premise of the Gospel is to restore, in a sense, the things lost because of the Fall.
The gold of that land is good; the bdellium and the onyx stone are there. (Genesis 2:12)
This is before the Fall—gold and precious stones. In 1 Corinthians 3:12 we have silver. Jesus was betrayed for silver; Joseph was betrayed for silver; “For iron I will give you silver" (Is. 60:17). Silver always represents the price of salvation in some way. In the typology of the Temple, the further one went from the Holy of Holies, the value of the minerals proportionately decreased. Silver was in the middle. It began with bronze, then silver, but in the Holy of Holies it was gold. The closer one approached God, the more valuable the minerals. They did not have platinum in those days (they probably did not know about it—metallurgy did not even know how to produce it) so gold was the most precious thing they knew about in the times of the Bible. Look at what happens after salvation.
The foundation stones of the city wall were adorned with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation stone was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, chalcedony; the fourth, emerald; the fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, topaz; the tenth, chrysoprase; the eleventh, jacinth; the twelfth, amethyst. And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; each one of the gates was a single pearl. And the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass. (Revelation 21:19-21)
The streets of the city are pure gold. Before the Fall we have precious stones in settings of gold; after the redemption process is complete we have precious stones in settings of gold. There is no silver, as silver is of temporal value. Silver will oxidize, gold will not. But silver is at least of some temporal value; the wood and straw are of no value. In the High Priest"s garments there was the breastplate like righteousness and the shoulder pads with precious stones corresponding to the tribes of Israel, which in turn correspond to those precious stones in Revelation. The High Priest had to carry the burden of Israel on his heart and shoulders. He could not take the ephod off. When we pray for somebody we intercede for them—we carry the burden on our heart and shoulders. We do not take it off. The High Priest, we are told in Hebrews, is the Lord Jesus who carries the burden for Israel on His heart and shoulders—He does not take it off. But those are precious stones in a setting of gold. Peter says the same thing: “Your faith refined by fire" (1 Pe. 1:7).
How are diamonds formed? Pressure and fire. How is God going to make you and me something that is a precious stone in a setting of gold—godly? Pressure and fire.
Who wants pressure? Who wants fire? Not me! But once we get that beautiful diamond, we are sure glad we went through it. When we get to heaven we are not going to regret a single trial that God was in because we are going to be a precious stone in a setting of gold; the other stuff will be burned up. Unsaved people, of course, do not even figure into the equation. The fruit of the Spirit in Galatians is God's nature, and in the Greek it gives the idea that the fruit is first of all love. The fruit of the Spirit is first love—all the other fruits proceed from the love. We usually say the fruit of the Spirit is joy, peace, patience, kindness and all that other stuff (Gal. 5:22-23), but no, the fruit is love; the other things are a result of the love, perfecting the love of Christ in us.Not the Sin, but the SinnerThe way God gets rid of sin is first by getting rid of the sinner. God does not take away your anger problem, or my anger problem, or your resentment problem, or my resentment problem, He takes away you; He takes away me. The Lord Jesus never said while on the cross, “I am dying for your sins," full stop. He said, “I am dying for your sins so you better get up here with Me." That is the way it is. God does not get rid of the sin; He gets rid of the sinner. The problem is that the natural man is a sinner. The devil does not have to get us to lose our temper, or to lust after someone other than our wife or husband, or to get us to do whatever—all he has to do is to get us into the natural man or the natural woman, then we are going to sin anyway. The rest is easy. Once he gets us to do that, we are a pushover. God has to get rid of the natural man. I have seen this. When Christians get into serving God in the natural man like Jacob did, what happens? They actually sin and lie. I can show you actual letters proving that leaders of major Christian denominations in this country have lied about things they can be sued in court for. The natural man is, naturally, fallen. The devil is not out to get us to sin—that is not his target because we are going to sin anyway. He is going to get us to walk in the flesh instead of the Spirit, and the first way he will try to do that is to get us to be a Christian in our own sense. In the New Testament we have somebody very much like Jacob, and his name is Peter. When that guy came for Jesus, Peter pulled out his sword and chopped his ear off! Peter pulled out his sword: “Where is He? Let me at him!" just like Jacob. But when the real test came? “Before the cock crows twice, you will deny me thrice" (Mk. 14:29-31).
It is a sure bet that a crisis God is going to allow is a crisis in which we face it as the natural man or the natural woman and we are going to fail miserably. Not until what God did in the life of Peter do we see Peter standing up in boldness at the day of Pentecost. Not long before that, just a few weeks earlier, it was, “I do not know the man" and following at a distance. But at Pentecost with the Holy Spirit, there he was, not afraid of those crowds. Something happened. It was the same person, the same natural ability, but the natural ability had gone to the cross. Jacob is like that.Natural Ability & God's CallingIt is a good thing to be a teacher; it is a good thing to be a medical doctor. There are countries which will never allow in missionaries but will allow in teachers or medical doctors. That is how to get the Gospel into certain countries. It is good to be a musician, but it is one thing to be a good musician who plays “Christian music" it is another thing to lead worship under the anointing of the Holy Spirit. It is one thing to be a good medical doctor, but it is another thing to be anointed by the Holy Spirit as a medical missionary. The natural man and the natural woman have to go to the cross—not just the sinner, not just the drug dealer, not just the fornicator, the whole person has to go to the cross, and then God in the power of the resurrection can use their human ability, their vocation, their background. Jacob had all these things. He was a shrewd, slick person. He was so shrewd and so slick that it kept backfiring on him, which is just what the Jews are like. Jewish people somehow know that they have been forced to be clever and shrewd; that is why they keep winding up in pogroms and inquisitions—it backfires on them, and it will backfire on us. When we rely on the natural person and think, “I"m a good businessman" or whatever abilities we have (which God gave us), God is not going to use them until they have gone to the cross. The natural man has to go. There are four stages in Jacob"s life. Genesis 25-27 is Jacob as he was. It is encouraging when we see the way he was and some of the things he did and yet God loved him and chose him anyway. It gives me a great deal of assurance and solace. Genesis 28-31 is the testing and breaking of Jacob, but then comes the real crisis point in Genesis 32-36, the “Jabbok Experience" the dislocation of his natural life. And finally in Genesis 37-50 comes the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Yet even then at the end of his life and as an old man, Jacob said, “My life has been difficult" (Gen. 47:9). Not too many of the great men of the Bible died happy, but they were mostly all happy to die! When we have it too good in this world, we all must have a cross. Why? If we do not, we begin to trust in this world and begin to get comfortable in it. The cross is for our own good to keep us out of trouble. We are very good at getting ourselves into trouble because we are new creations living in a natural man. Again, Jacob had the promise of God but was always trying to get it in his own strength. He was clever. He was good at scheming and out-manipulating other people who were themselves clever and good at scheming. The blessings were provided to him in the promise of God, but he felt he had to get them in his own strength. It says in Timothy that there are good works He foreordained for us, and the calling is from eternity (2 Ti. 1:9). We are not simply born-again to go to heaven—that is ultimately true, but we are born-again to do something now. At some point in life God will show us what that is—our gifts, our ministry, etc. But the natural propensity of our human nature is going to be to get it according to our human abilities. “I"m a good businessman," “I"m a good teacher," “I"m a good speaker," “I"m a good organizer," “I"m a good musician" the natural propensity is going to be to try to get it according to our own natural devices. That is what goes to the cross.Jacob"s LadderWhat happened to Jacob at Bethel? “Bethel" means “the house of God" and it is also where his father had a turning point experience in his walk with God (Gen. 12:8; 13:3-4). Turning point experiences in our walk with God will always happen at Bethel. If we are not in church in fellowship, at least a place of Christians and meetings, we are not going to reach that turning point with God. We have a very big problem now. All over this country, because of the things like the “Toronto Experience" and the “Lakeland Fiasco," because of financial manipulation and exploitation of Christians, because of false doctrines, there are Christians who have no church, so they are meeting at home. These people in home groups are beginning to meet with other people in home groups in schools and things like that. The point is, the church may not impress us, the church may disappoint us. In fact the church will disappoint us because the church is made up of people just like us. Jacob was bored in church (at Bethel)—he fell asleep (Gen. 28:10-17). But what did he see?
He had a dream, and behold, a ladder was set on the earth with its top reaching to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. (Genesis 28:12)
What do we see in the Gospel of John? Jesus was talking to Nathaniel.
And He said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man." (John 1:51)
This is describing “Jacob"s Ladder." We may not think much of church, but when God lowers the ladder from heaven, that is where its base arrives: it comes to the Body of Christ. That is where the ladder comes to and He climbs down. When we find people who are out of fellowship when they have a viable option to be in fellowship, they have a problem. Today, in this country, we have a crisis. We have received many letters and messages from people being thrown out of their churches because of things like Toronto. We once had a man walk into our office from Lister Hill Baptist Church in Leeds who was very much into Toronto, very much into women leadership, very much into ecumenism, and he was thrown out because he objected to the following: a trans-sexual transvestite had himself castrated, wears women"s clothes and women"s hairstyles, comes to church and breaks the bread in holy communion at an Evangelical, charismatic, Toronto Blessing Baptist church. The people in this church accept “her" as a sister in faith, and her “ministry" is breaking the bread for holy communion even though the DNA in every cell of his body says he is not a “sister" in faith. He is a backslidden brother, if he was a believer to begin with, and he needs to repent. They threw this guy out because he said this is an abomination. People say to me, “What is going to be worse than what took place in Toronto or Lakeland?" Most of us have seen these videos of Rodney Howard-Browne, Kenneth Copeland, Todd Bentley and company, and are absolutely appalled. What is going to be worse? It is going to come to immorality. What we see in Lister Hill Baptist is only a harbinger of what is going to come. The Word of God gives us patterns, and these things are going to come to immorality. So we have people with nowhere to go. Every day we get requests from people, “Where can I go? What can I do?" Jacob does not realize it while he is there, so God shows it to him in a dream.
So Jacob rose early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on its top.
(It was an anointed place.)
He called the name of that place Bethel…
(“The house of God")
…however, previously the name of the city had been Luz. Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will keep me on this journey that I take, and will give me food to eat and garments to wear,
(He was not asking for much, just his needs.)
and I return to my father"s house in safety, then the LORD will be my God. “This stone, which I have set up as a pillar, will be God's house, and of all that You give me I will surely give a tenth to You." (Genesis 28:18-22)
The church is an anointed place. One of the problems of the natural man is he thinks he does not need the fellowship of other believers—that he does not have to come to the house of God. I was at a Full Gospel Businessman"s meeting and there were those standing up and saying, “God has shown me to get away from this" and “I"m fulfilled in the Lord so I don"t need this." That is not God. It is an anointed place. If we want Jesus to come down from heaven and meet with us on that ladder, He is going to do it in the house of God; that is the place He has ordained. That was a turning point, a pivotal place for Abraham as well as Jacob, and it is going to be for us as well. But the natural man thinks he can stand alone. No, the Bible says, “Iron sharpens iron" (Pr. 27:17).
God is sovereign. He did not come to save you, He came to save all of us. Jesus is not coming for you, He is coming for His Bride. You have to be part of it. The natural man thinks he can stand alone, but he cannot. He thinks He can meet with God on his own terms, but he cannot. It is in the house of God that the ladder is going to come down. Again, I feel very sorry for those people whose only choice seems to be between Kenneth Hagin"s church up the street or the ecumenical one around the corner or the Toronto one beneath the bed, but God has a solution for that problem. I do not know what it is yet, but Jesus still wants to come down that ladder and meet with us, and it is going to happen in the house of God.The Character of a “Shrewdy"God knew what Jacob was like. Look how Jacob “made a vow" (Gen. 28:20). “If you give me this, I"ll give you that." Jews love to negotiate. How are we going to negotiate with God? God lays down the terms of the covenant. God knew Jacob wanted to make a deal. God knew that Jacob was going to try to attain these blessings and purposes and callings of God in his own strength. Did God try to rebuke him and say, “Jacob, don"t do that"? No. I could speak until I was blue in the face and try to tell you, “Don"t do that" because I can stand in front of the mirror and tell myself until I am blue in the face, “Don"t do that." But I am going to do it anyway and so are you. The only question is how long it is going to take for God to work out that breaking in our life? There is nothing we can do to get where God wants us to be any faster, but there is a whole lot we can do to slow it down. Remember the children of Israel going to the Promised Land out of Egypt? This was a small distance. Even by foot one could make it in a couple of weeks and it took them forty years! The second generation entered the Promised Land, not the first. The old creation has to die in this world; only the new creation can go to heaven. There is nothing we can do to make it faster, but there is a whole lot we can do to slow it down, and Jacob could sure slow it down. Jacob gets stuck with Laban for fourteen years. In Genesis 28:20 it is, “You do this and I"ll do that." Jacob left his wealth to come to poverty for a period and, like Isaac, to Laban"s family. And this all gives the background to the woman at the well, of course, in Genesis 29.
He said, “Behold, it is still high day…
(When he comes to the woman at the well.)
…it is not time for the livestock to be gathered. Water the sheep, and go, pasture them." But they said, “We cannot, until all the flocks are gathered, and they roll the stone from the mouth of the well; then we water the sheep." (Genesis 29:7-8)
What kind of water is in the well? Living water—“mayim hayim" (Jn. 4:10). According to John 7:39 what is living water? The Holy Spirit. Rolling away the stone is a picture of what? Resurrection. The Holy Spirit cannot come until Jesus has been resurrected, then the sheep can be gathered. God is working out His purposes all along. Jacob is a “shrewdy"; he is clever. How does God deal with shrewd and clever people? He teams them up with somebody who is more devious and ruthless than they are. Did God ever put you in a relationship with another believer who was more calculating than you are? I am not going to make any jokes about my wife, but the person we marry is the person God is going to use to deal with our flesh. God does not have us in a church just to be a blessing and enjoy the good things of God, he has us in a church to have conflicts with other believers who are going to rub us the wrong way on purpose. Do you think you are shrewd? Do you think you are slick? I was so slick that, just like Jacob, I wound up with years lost to Laban. I travelled all around the world first class, I had friends at the top of the pop music industry, I had tons of money, and I wound up working in a pharmacy in Haifa, Israel in a stetl—an ultra-orthodox ghetto, for years. There I was, on one side of the wall filling prescriptions, and on the other side of the wall were those belonging to the anti-mission organizations. I was spying on them for years. I thought that one of these days these guys are going to find me giving out tracts and that is going to be the end of my job, the end of everything. God always protected me; God always blinded them. When I saw them coming I would hit the road—just pack up my tracts and run. It was terrible to be counting pills. I hated it, it was boring, it was stupid. Not only that, but after I got saved I thought my days of selling drugs were over. Boy, did I have another think coming! God can redeem anything, but it went on for years. But if you use Hebrew every day you learn it a lot better than if you do not have to use it. When I used to eat in New York I was afraid of the Orthodox Jews. I would not run away but I would be nervous when I saw them coming. Working in their neighborhood, and living in their neighborhood, and dealing with them every day, I learned so much about their culture and about the way they are and the secret things in their life. They do not believe in birth control, but their women take the pill. They take a lot of valium because they are neurotic. I learned so much that God brought out of that terrible experience, but that was my place of God's dealing with me. I do not know what your place is going to be, but God will put you together with a “Laban." Jacob was a good con-man—he grabbed his brother"s heel. Laban conned him, gave him the wrong girl. Then Jacob conned Laban with the cattle. He is always striving in the flesh—“I"ll get him."
In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 1:6-7)
What is more precious than gold? The diamonds that are in it. Jacob"s wages kept changing, he got the wrong girl and he wound up being there something on the order of twenty years instead of the initial seven to which he agreed. But then something else happens with Jacob at the climax, which is the second phase: God's breaking. Then comes the dark night of the soul. Even the mystical Christians of the Middle Ages knew about it.Breaking Before BlessingAfter twenty years, Jacob did not learn as much as he should have. And after more than twenty years as a Christian, I have not learned as much as I should have. There is a lot more of “Jacob" in some of us than others. But I will tell you that the more intelligent you are, the more educated you are, the more clever you are, the better your business abilities, the more you have going for you humanly speaking, the more difficult God's breaking is going to be in your life. Think of the little boy who brought Jesus his picnic lunch (Jn. 6:9). The little boy from Galilee takes his picnic lunch and gives it to Jesus, who takes it, blesses it, breaks it, then uses it to feed others. Do we want God to use our natural abilities—whatever we have? “Lord, bless me!" He will bless you. “Lord, use me!" He will use you. But before He can use you, and after He blesses you, there is a hidden ingredient: God does not bless who He does not break, and He does not use who He does not break. This little kid did not have much; it was easy for him to have it broken. “Lord, I have a Ph.D.!" “I spent thirty years building this business!" We can see how hard that person is going to break. They are going to be a “Jacob." The more someone has going for them the harder God's breaking is going to be in their life. God's values are the opposite of the world"s. First of all, it is harder for humanly-advantaged people to be saved than disadvantaged. The simpler one is, the poorer one is, the easier it is to be saved because there is less ground for pride. Secondly, after one gets saved, the less they have going for them the easier it is for God to mold them because the human person is not going to be as strong. Thirdly, the more one has going for them, the more accountable they are. God gave them more natural ability so He expects more out of them. He expects more out of them so they are going to go through worse trials than other people before He can use them. His values are always the opposite. The world says, “I want money, privilege, advantage," but when God gives those things it is going to be harder to get saved—not by His choice, but according to our fallen nature. God's breaking is going to be more difficult, but not only that, those He breaks are going to be more accountable. Look at Paul; he was educated, Peter was not. God used Paul more than He used Peter, but look at how the breaking in Paul"s life was worse than Peter"s. The more someone has going for them, the more God's breaking is going to be and the more He will hold them accountable. It is always the opposite of human values. There is a lot more of “Jacob" in some of us than others. Yet, in spite of his transgressing and scheming, God loved him. There were certain events in Jacob"s life that no matter what he did, he would see God revealing Himself in a personal way, saying, “Jacob, I love you, I chose you, I called you and I have brought you this far, I am going to take you the rest of the way." The grace of God is marvelous, is it not? No matter how many times we blow it, no matter how many times we fall and goof up, there are going to be times in the life of believers when God is going to reveal Himself to them personally and say, “I love you anyway; I chose you anyway; I called you anyway—I have a place I am taking you and you are going to get there whether you like it or not."
For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. (Philippians 1:6)
Do not backslide; hang in there—He will get you there. But now we get to the dark night of the soul.Two CampsThere will come a point in our life as a born-again Christian where if we continue with Jesus we are going to go through a kind of trial different than any other kind of trial we have gone through before or will go through after. We have two kinds of trials in the Bible: “valley" and “wilderness." A “valley" is a single trial, a “wilderness" is a prolonged period of testing, frequently associated with the number forty in the Bible. This is a valley that is longer than other valleys and a wilderness that is more deadly than other wildernesses. It is a desert among deserts. To Jacob it happened at Peniel, the brook of Jabbok. And what Jacob did is what we would expect Jacob to do.
Early in the morning Laban arose, and kissed his sons and his daughters and blessed them. Then Laban departed and returned to his place. (Genesis 31:55)
Jacob thinks that is the end of his trial. He goes through this for fourteen years. There is the colloquialism, “It is darkest before the dawn." That is true. The colloquialism that is false is, “There is light at the end of the tunnel." There is no light at the end of the tunnel. At the end of the tunnel there is the worst darkness of all, then comes the light. After fourteen years of this stuff (seven of them spent for the other girl)—years spent trying to out-manipulate each other, Jacob thinks, “Finally, it"s over! Now I can revert to what God promised me at Bethel, what God promised by parents when I was born! I can go get that blessing now. God has worked these things out in my life after these years of putting up with Laban, of putting up with somebody else like me."
Notice that the people who revolt us the most humanly are the people who are the most like us. The people we see with our own negative traits and characteristics will be the people we have the most friction with. The people who irk us the most are the people most like us, especially if they are even more like us than we are.
Now as Jacob went on his way, the angels of God met him. Jacob said when he saw them, “This is God's camp." So he named that place Mahanaim.
(Meaning “two camps")
Then Jacob sent messengers before him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the country of Edom. He also commanded them saying, “Thus you shall say to my lord Esau…
He knew that this guy did not like him, and he knew why he did not like him, and he even knew he ruined this guy in some way.
“Thus says your servant Jacob, "I have sojourned with Laban, and stayed until now; I have oxen and donkeys and flocks and male and female servants; and I have sent to tell my lord, that I may find favor in your sight."" (Genesis 32:1-5)
It is like saying, “I have a car dealership! Go over and pick one! You want an El Dorado? You want a Mercedes? I"ll give you the keys! My brother, I love you! Please take it and leave! Drive out of here!" Why is it called “Mahanaim" “two camps"? I grew up in New Jersey right across the river from New York City, and in our neighborhood was a close friend of my parents who owned a chain of liquor stores called “Harry"s" but his real name was Haime. People thought it was “Harry" but friends like my parents called him “Haime," and he was what we called a “good" Jew because even Gentiles liked him. One of his sons was Arthur who managed this chain of liquor stores. What most people did not know is that Arthur was also a dentist. Everybody thought Arthur was a businessman like his father, which he was, but they did not know he was also a dentist. “There might be a depression, there might be prohibition, but people always have toothaches." He wanted a backup. He was clever that way. Jewish people are clever that way, having a survival mentality as a result of their history, and they go through it that way. So Jacob puts it into two camps. “If my shoe store goes down the tubes, I can always sell roses." He is always shrewd, always trying to figure out how to survive. My wife is like that. My wife"s parents were Holocaust survivors and then they were Refuseniks under Ceausescu. For my wife, in the way she was brought up, it was not so important to clean the house, cook, or sew—you could always get a shiksa to do that. With her it was different: How many languages do you speak? How educated are you? How clever are you in business? Do you have a profession that will always be needed if you have to run? Everything was survival-oriented. If “this" fails you will still have everything; it is just the mentality. Jacob puts them into two camps; he is always scheming.
I have oxen and donkeys and flocks and male and female servants; and I have sent to tell my lord, that I may find favor in your sight.""" The messengers returned to Jacob, saying, “We came to your brother Esau, and furthermore he is coming to meet you, and four hundred men are with him." Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed; and he divided the people who were with him, and the flocks and the herds and the camels, into two companies; for he said, “If Esau comes to the one company and attacks it, then the company which is left will escape." Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O LORD, who said to me, "Return to your country and to your relatives, and I will prosper you," I am unworthy of all the lovingkindness…
(“I know I"m no good—I repent! Please get me out of this!" When we are in trouble, boy, do we get religious.)
…and of all the faithfulness which You have shown to Your servant; for with my staff only I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two companies. Deliver me, I pray, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau; for I fear him, that he will come and attack me and the mothers with the children.
(He is afraid for his family now.)
“For You said, "I will surely prosper you and make your descendants as the sand of the sea, which is too great to be numbered."" (Genesis 32:1-12)
He begins to doubt the promises of God so he has to remind God.The Dark Night of the SoulWhen we are in the dark night of the soul, we begin to doubt the promises God gave us and we begin scheming and praying and doing everything we can because now we know it is coming. And then what happens? Jacob schemes further after he prays.
He commanded the one in front, saying, “When my brother Esau meets you and asks you, saying, "To whom do you belong, and where are you going, and to whom do these animals in front of you belong?" then you shall say, "These belong to your servant Jacob; it is a present sent to my lord Esau. And behold, he also is behind us."" (Genesis 32:17-18)
He tries to buy him off. “You got the cash, I"ve got the absolution!" (That is what they say in Ireland: “High money, High Mass; low money, Low Mass; no money, Purgatory.")
Now he arose that same night and took his two wives and his two maids and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream. And he sent across whatever he had. Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When he saw that he had not prevailed against him, he touched the socket of his thigh; so the socket of Jacob"s thigh was dislocated while he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the dawn is breaking." But he said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me." So he said to him, “What is your name?" And he said, “Jacob." He said, “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel; for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed." Then Jacob asked him and said, “Please tell me your name." But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?" And he blessed him there. So Jacob named the place Peniel, for he said, “I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been preserved."
(“No man can see God and live" (Ex. 33:20). That is why, you see, Jesus had to become a man.)
Now the sun rose upon him just as he crossed over Penuel, and he was limping on his thigh. Therefore, to this day the sons of Israel do not eat the sinew of the hip which is on the socket of the thigh, because he touched the socket of Jacob"s thigh in the sinew of the hip. (Genesis 32:22-32)
We see how “Jacob" always has to do with the sons of Israel, specifically the Jews. He is blessed alone. When the dark night of the soul happens in our life we will be left alone. Other Christians will not be able to relate to our trial; not even our family can help us. It is a lonely experience. There is nobody there but us and the Lord, and we think he is against us. We wrestle with God: “Why are You doing this? Why did You bother to save me? Why did You choose me? Why did You give me these promises if You are not going to keep them and destroy me?" All of his scheming would not work anymore—he was in trouble. This angel is called “the angel of the Lord" with a definite article in Hebrew. The Talmud calls Him in Greek the “Metatrone" “the angel who dwells at the center of the throne." It is a “Christophany," an Old Testament manifestation of Jesus. He wrestles with Jesus to the end of the night, the dark night of his soul, and he prevails. How does he prevail? By losing the fight.Winning by LosingThis is the only way we are going to get God's blessing and prevail. God's values are always present within us and we think we have to pin them down and make them say, “Uncle!" God says, “No, you have to lose. I"ll make you say, "Uncle!" and then you"ll win the fight." Jacob"s femur—the thigh bone, is dislocated. The femur is the strongest bone in the human body. I am told that you can rest a Volkswagen on the femur of an adult male and it will not break. Before I was saved I was a coke dealer. I used to smuggle hash in Africa and dope in South America. I used to go to parties with rock stars. I knew how to manipulate them; I knew how the game was played. I knew how to make money. I used to embezzle money with a computer. I went through a dark night of the soul. For me it was two years and one month. It was terrible. It was not trials, it was not breaking, it was death of the natural man. After that, Jacob walked with a limp. After we have a dark night of the soul, we will walk with a limp. Remember, the femur is the place of greatest human strength. We walk with a limp. What will happen when we come to the Jabbok experience in our walk as a Christian? God will touch your place of greatest human strength. Our personality, our intellect, our good looks—whatever it is, that is what He is going to hit: our place of greatest strength. We are going to walk with a limp and we will never be the same again. How long will it last? Until the end of the night. No one who is really serious about attaining the blessings and purposes of God for their lives will not go through this at some point. How long the night is, how bad that breaking will be is relative to the individual. After it happens they will never be the same, but after it happens, then God blesses us. After it happens, then God uses our human abilities. Why? Because we do not rely on them anymore; we walk with a limp. We no longer trust our own sense, we do not trust the natural man, we have learned the hard way what happens when we do that. Then we get that blessing.A New NameJacob prevails and he gets a new name. What does it say in Revelation? “You have a new name" (Rev.2:17). It is interesting that after this, when Jacob behaved in his old nature after Peniel, Genesis calls him “Jacob," but when he behaves like the new creation it calls him “Israel." It is the same with us. When we behave like the old natural man or wom
The Living & the Dead
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Then the Lord said to Moses, €œSpeak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them: "No one shall defile himself for a dead person among his people, except for his relatives who are nearest to him,
(We call this in Hebrew, €œha krovim".)
€¦his mother and his father and his son and his daughter and his brother, also for his virgin sister, who is near to him because she has had no husband; for her he may defile himself. He shall not defile himself as a relative by marriage among his people, and so profane himself. (Leviticus 21:1-4)
The theme of Leviticus 21 is, "The Priests of the Lord and the Corpses, the Living and the Dead". This is Levitical typology at its best. Carl Bach, the German theologian, said in Latin, €œNovum Testamentum Envetera Latet"—"the New is in the Old concealed, and the Old is in the New revealed". This became almost a maxim among theologians. (Of course, the Plymouth Brethren had been saying the same thing for 30 years before Carl Bach did, only they did not say it in Latin, so it was not academically accepted.) Paul says we €œestablished the Torah", that this is fulfilled in Christ. It points to Jesus; it is fulfilled in Him. The question is, what does it mean for us?
The priests could not handle a corpse. They could not touch a dead body, what we call in Hebrew a €œgupha" literally €œa corpse". A living body in Hebrew is called a €œguph". One would say in reference to the Body of Christ, €œha guph ha Moshiach". But a dead body is called €œgupha". The cohen (the priest) could not touch one. If a priest of the Lord came into contact with a dead body, he would be ritually defiled. He would be ritually unclean and unfit for service in the house of the Lord. He could not bring sacrifices to the temple, nor intercede on behalf of others. He could minister neither in God's house nor among God's people if he had come into contact with a corpse.
Midrash
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The Way The New Testament Writers Handled The Old Testament
by James Jacob Prasch
Midrash is the method of hermeneutics (Biblical interpretation) used by the ancient rabbis in the time of Jesus and Paul. Midrash incorporates a grammatical-historical exegesis, vaguely similar to the western models of Biblical interpretation that the Reformers borrowed from 16th century Humanism, but it sees this as simply a first step.
In its handling of various Biblical literary genre — such as narrative, wisdom literature, Hebrew poetry and apocalyptic — it seeks cognate relationships between different scriptural texts in order to interpret them in light of each other. The approach is more topical than linear.
The clearest set of guidelines in Midrash are the Seven Midroth attributed to Rabbi Hillel, the founder of the Pharisaic School of Hillel, where St. Paul was educated as a rabbi by Rabbi Gamaliel, the grandson of Hillel.
Midrash makes heavy use of allegory and typology to illustrate and illuminate doctrine, but never as a basis for doctrine. It sees multiple meanings in Bible texts found in strata, but this is very different in certain fundamental respects from the Gnostic and Alexandrian uses of figurative interpretation associated with Philo and Origen, reflecting more of Hebraic, rather than Hellenistic philosophical world-view and view of theology.
Midrash interprets prophecy as a cyclical pattern of historical recapitulation (prophecies having multiple fulfillment), with an ultimate fulfillment associated with the eschaton, which is the final focal point of the redemptive process. A classical work of Midrash in Judaism is the Midrash Rabba on Genesis (Berashith). Another is Lamentations Rabba.
Midrash follows certain formats. One is the Mashal/Nimshal format seen in Proverbs or the parables, where physical things are representative of things spiritual. Figurative midrashic exposition in the New Testament is viewed, for instance, in Jude"s epistle or Galatians 4:24-34. It is Midrash which accounts for the manner in which the New Testament handles the Old Testament.
Another format is the parashiyot; sections opening with a petihah in which a base verse is followed by commentary. In addition to exegetical midrash, there are homiletic midrashim, arranged in topically argued pisaqaot. These frequently follow a yelammedenu rabbenu format used by Jesus in the gospels. Both of these kinds of midrashim are haggadic. There are also wide bodies of midrashic literature which are halakik, but these are of less importance to New Testament scholarship.
Unless someone has been educated in Judaism, Hebrew, or theology, it is easier to demonstrate midrash than to explain it. Moriel provides various tapes and videos where midrashic exegesis is practically applied and demonstrated in interpreting Scripture. One example would be €œThe Woman at the Well," a midrashic interpretation of John chapter four, used to expound the Scriptures relating to the subject of Roman Catholicism.
If you look at the way the New Testament quotes the Old Testament, it is clear that the apostles did not use western Protestant methods of exegesis or interpretation. Jesus was a rabbi. Paul was a rabbi. They interpreted the Bible in the way other rabbis did-according to a method called Midrash.
Something went wrong in the early Church; it got away from its Jewish roots. And as more Gentiles became Christians, something that Paul (in Romans 11) warned should not happen, happened. People lost sight of the root.
Whenever you have a change in world-view, you"re going to have a change in theology. A positive way to handle that change is called recontextualising; a negative way is called redefining. Recontextualising the gospel when Wycliffe Bible translators translated Isaiah 1:18, Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow, for tribal people in equatorial Africa — a place where the people had never seen snow — they translated it as they shall be white as coconut. That is recontextualising — taking the same truth and putting it into the context of somebody else"s language or culture or world-view. That is perfectly valid; it does no harm to the message, in contrast to redefinition.
Instead of re-explaining what the Bible means, redefinition changes what the Bible means. That is wrong. And that is what happened in the Early Church. After Constantine the Great turned Christianity into the religion of the state, people began redefining the gospel in increasingly radical ways. Some of the Early Church Fathers believed that what was best in Greek theosophy, for example the monotheistic ideas of Plato and Socrates, helped to prepare the Greek world for the coming of Jesus, in the same way that the Torah (the Old Testament) prepared the Jewish world. Up to a point, that is a fair statement.
There is a Greek (Hellenistic) way of thinking and there is a Hebrew (Hebraic) way of thinking. Paul used both. When Paul spoke to the Jews he used the Hebrew way of thinking, but in Athens when he was preaching the gospel to the Areopagites (Acts 17:22-31), he used the Greek way of thinking. Jews seek a sign, Greeks seek wisdom. There is validity in both, if they are used biblically.
A problem arose when people began to Hellenise a Jewish faith. Instead of recontextualising the gospel for Greeks, they began redefining it in Greek terms. This happened especially in Alexandria in the time of Origen, but it became a major problem after Constantine. With the introduction of the teachings of Augustine of Hippo, and the people who influenced him — Cyprian of Carthage, Ambrose, and others.
The Greeks knew many things from Plato and Socrates that were true such as the fact that man is made in God's image and likeness. Anybody — even people with no Judeo-Christian background and no access to the Bible — can know by natural reason there is one true God and that man is sinful (Romans 1:18-20).
We can agree with the things in Greek theosophy up to the point they agree with the Bible. But when people begin reinterpreting and redefining the gospel in the light of a Greek world-view, we have a problem. The Greeks believed in Dualism. They thought that everything of the flesh was bad and everything of the spirit was good. A Greek reading the words, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1), could agree with them. But he could not agree with the statement, The Word became flesh (John 1:14). The Greeks believed that something physical was bad, simply because it was physical. The Bible teaches that the spiritual and the physical were meant to work in harmony with each other. There was not to be any contradiction or any conflict between the two. The flesh is fallen, that is true, but there is nothing wrong with the physical elements themselves.
When Augustine came along he did not recontextualise but, rather, redefined Christianity as a Greek, Platonic religion. Augustine said things like, €œThe only good thing about marriage is having children who will be celibate." The Manichaeans, who said that the first sin was having marital relations, introduced these ideas into the Greek world. That is why, to this day, Roman Catholicism cannot handle sexuality, and why it has so many restrictions and hang-ups, and why Roman Catholics are even hung about marital sex.
People began reinterpreting the Bible, not using the Jewish method of midrash, but using Greek methods. Typology and allegory Midrash uses typology and allegory — symbols — in order to illustrate and illumine doctrine. For instance, Jesus is €œthe Passover Lamb." The symbolism of the Jewish Passover perfectly illustrates the doctrine of atonement, but we never base the doctrine of atonement on the symbolism. The symbolism illustrates the doctrine, which is itself stated plainly elsewhere in Scripture. In the Gnostic world of Greek thinking, the opposite happens. Gnostics claim to have received a subjective, mystical insight — called a gnosis — into the symbols. They then reinterpret the plain meaning of the text in light of the gnosis. For Gnostics, symbolism is the basis for their doctrine, contrary to the ancient Jewish methods.
These methods first started to creep into the Church through people who were influenced by Philo. His teachings progressively entered into Roman Catholicism, to the point where Augustine would say, €œIf God used violence to convert Paul, the Church can use violence to convert people," which led to the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition and so on. Instead of recontextualising, they were redefining Scripture. They were reading a Jewish book as if it were a Greek book. That was a mistake.
It started with Origen in the East and Augustine in the West, and steadily worsened over the centuries. It became much worse in the Middle Ages with something called Scholasticism. Aristotle"s ideas were absorbed into Islam, then the Crusades brought those ideas back to Europe, and into medieval Roman Catholicism. Moses Maimonides rewrote Judaism as an Aristotelian religion, then Thomas Aquinas rewrote Christianity as an Aristotelian religion.
The Reformers came along and tried to correct what had gone wrong in medieval Roman Catholicism. Unfortunately, although the Reformers were dynamic personalities, they were not dynamic thinkers. The Reformation was born out of something called Humanism. (Note: the first Humanists were not secular, they were Christians.) The best of the Humanists were men like Thomas A Kempis, John Colet, and Jacques Lef ¨vre. But the greatest of them all was Erasmus of Rotterdam. Luther, Calvin, Zwingli and most of the other Reformers got their ideas from Erasmus. Erasmus and the other Humanists attempted to study and teach the Bible in its plain literal meaning, in order to undo the medieval abuses of Roman Catholicism. They placed the emphasis on reading the Bible as literature and as history, and gave us the system of grammatical-historical exegesis that has been used in the Protestant churches ever since.
The problem with the Reformers is that they only went so far. They made rules governing the application of their grammatical-historical system in order to refute medieval Roman Catholicism, and many of those rules are still taught in theological seminaries today. One such rule is this: There are many applications of a Scripture but only one interpretation. That is total rubbish! The Talmud tells us there are multiple interpretations. Who did Jesus agree with? The Reformers? Or the other rabbis?
Jesus said, A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah (Matthew 12:39). What was €œthe sign of the prophet Jonah?" In one place Jesus says it was this, that €œas Jonah was three days and nights in the stomach of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (Matthew 12:40). But, at the same time, He says that it was the fact that the men of Ninevah repented at the preaching of Jonah (Luke 11:32). The Gentiles would repent when the Jews did not, that is also the sign of the prophet Jonah. He gave two equally CO-valid interpretations of what that sign is. So, where Protestant hermeneutics say that there is only one interpretation, all the rest is application, it is out of step with Jesus.
Another rule of Reformed Hermeneutics says that, if the plain wording of Scripture makes sense, seek no other sense. Take it at its face value, full stop. That is also total rubbish!
A First or Second Century Jewish Christian reading John"s Gospel, chapters one, two and three, would have said it was the new Creation narrative — the story of the new Creation. He would have seen that God walked the earth in Genesis, and now God walked the earth again in the new Creation in John. He would have seen that the Spirit moved on the water and brought forth the Creation in Genesis, and now the Spirit moved on the water and brought forth the new Creation in John. He would have seen that there was the small light and the great light in the Creation in Genesis, and now there was the small light — John the Baptist — and the great light — Jesus — in the new Creation in John. The fig tree, midrashically, in Jewish metaphor, represents the Tree of Life that we see in the garden in Genesis, in Ezekiel 47, and in the Book of Revelation. So when Jesus told Nathaniel, €œI saw you while you were still under the fig tree" (John 1:48), He was not simply saying to Nathaniel that He saw him under a literal fig tree (although He did), He was telling him that He had seen him from the garden, from the Creation, from the foundation of the world.
By reading the Bible as literature and history, as the Humanists did, you only see part of it. The Humanists were reacting to medieval Scholasticism and the Gnosticism that much of Roman Catholicism is based upon. Nonetheless, their approach prevents people from seeing much of the depth of Scripture. Using the grammatical-historical method, the Reformers were able to discover truths such as Justification by Faith and the Authority of Scripture. But that is all they could see; they could not go beyond it. Martin Luther considered Romans to be the main book of the Bible. He totally rejected the Book of Revelation. Yet the Book of Revelation is the book for the Last Days. Luther admitted that you cannot understand it with a Protestant mind.
What is wrong? Is the Book of Revelation wrong? Or is the Protestant mind wrong? Be very careful. Daniel (Daniel 12:4) and John (Revelation 10:4) were told to €œseal these things up" until the time of the end. In the fullness of God's time, the interpretation of these books will be manifested to the faithful. When you see people writing out diagrams and charts, saying that they have got the whole eschatological program and all of Revelation figured out, be very cautious. It is sealed up until the appropriate time. God will unveil it in His way and in His time. And that will be done step by step. The first step is going back to reading the Bible as a Jewish book, instead of as a Greek one.
The Epistles are commentary on other Scripture; they tell you what other Scripture means on a very practical level. It is fine to read the Epistles as literature and history, using grammatical-historical methods. But there are different kinds of literature in the Bible, different literary genre that God put in there for different reasons. Psalms (Hebrew poetry), Revelation (apocalyptic literature), the Gospels (narrative), and Proverbs (wisdom literature).
You do not read a letter in the same way as you read poetry. You do not read The Narnia Chronicles (C.S. Lewis) in the same way as you would read a letter from Aunt Harriet back in England. If you read the Epistles, you will see that the apostles did not interpret the other books of the Bible by the grammatical-historical method. The book of Hebrews is a commentary on the symbolism of the Levitical priesthood and the Temple. Look at Galatians 4:24 onwards, the story of the two women — it is a midrash on the purpose of the Law. Look at the epistle of Jude, it is midrashic literature. The apostles did not handle the Scriptures according to Protestant grammatical-historical methods.
There are different kinds of prophecy in the Bible. The two kinds that are important in understanding the Last Days are Messianic prophecies and, connected to those, eschatological prophecies. When we come to consider biblical prophecy, this is very important. Because the Western mind, with its basis in Sixteenth Century Humanism, says that prophecy consists of a prediction and a fulfillment. To the ancient Jewish mind, it was not a question of something being predicted, then being fulfilled. Rather, to the ancient Jewish mind, prophecy was a pattern which is recapitulated; a prophecy having multiple fulfillments. And each fulfillment, each cycle, teaches something about the ultimate fulfillment. For example: In a famine, Abraham went into Egypt (Genesis 12:10-20). God judged Pharaoh. Abraham and his descendants came out of Egypt, taking the wealth of Egypt with them, and went into the Promised Land. Abraham"s descendants replayed the same experience. In a famine they went into Egypt (Genesis 42). God judged Pharaoh again, a wicked king. Abraham"s descendants came out of Egypt, taking the wealth of Egypt with them (Exodus 12:36), and they went into the Promised Land.
What happened to Abraham happened to his descendants. Then the same thing happened with Jesus. When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. €œGet up," he said, €œtake the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him." So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: €œOut of Egypt I called my son" (Matthew 2:16).
Matthew says that when Jesus came out of Egypt, after the wicked King Herod died, that fulfilled the prophecy of Hosea. "When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son" (Hosea 11:1-2). Very plainly, Hosea chapter 11 is talking about the Exodus, about what happened with Moses. In its grammatical-historical context, it is talking about the Exodus, not about the Messiah. But Matthew appears to take the passage out of all reasonable context and twist it into talking about Jesus. We have to ask, is Matthew wrong? or is there something wrong with our Protestant way of interpreting the Bible?
There is nothing wrong with Matthew, and there is nothing wrong with the New Testament. But there is something wrong with our Protestant mentality. The Jewish idea of prophecy is not prediction, but pattern. Abraham came out of Egypt, when Pharaoh was judged; his descendant"s came out of Egypt when the wicked king was judged; then another wicked king was judged and the Messiah came out of Egypt. There are multiple fulfillment"s of prophecy. Midrashically, €œIsrael" alludes to Yeshua (Jesus) the Messiah. When you see verses like: "Israel my glory and Israel my first born," they are midrashic allusions to the Messiah.
Then, in 1 Corinthians 10, something else happens: We come out of Egypt, which Paul tells us is a symbol of the world. Pharaoh, who was deified by the Egyptians and worshipped as God, is a symbol of the devil, the god of this world. Just as Moses made a covenant with blood and sprinkled it on the people, so did Jesus. Moses fasted forty days, and so did Jesus. Jesus is the prophet like Moses, predicted in Deuteronomy 18:18. Just as Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt, through the water, into the Promised Land, so Jesus leads us out of the world, through baptism, into heaven. It is a pattern.
Then the horse and its rider are thrown into the sea (Exodus 15:1). We sing the song of Moses — the horse and rider thrown into the sea — in Revelation 15:3. Why? Because it is a pattern. The ultimate meaning of "coming out of Egypt" is the resurrection and rapture of the Church. The judgments that happen in Exodus are replayed in Revelation. And just as Pharaoh"s magicians were able to counterfeit the miracles of Moses and Aaron, so the antichrist and False Prophet will counterfeit the miracles of Jesus and His witnesses. They brought Joseph"s bones with them when they came out of Egypt (Exodus 13:19). Why? Because the dead in Christ will rise first. It is a pattern.
The ancient Jewish mind that produced the New Testament looks at prophecy, not as prediction, but as pattern. To understand what is going to happen in the future, you look at what did happen in the past. There are multiple fulfillments, and each successive fulfillment teaches something about the ultimate one.
You will never understand the Book of Revelation with the kind of limited approach to biblical interpretation that is taught in Protestant seminaries. Midrash is like a quadratic equation or a very complex second order differential equation, a thirteen or fourteen step equation. Some people take the first step of grammatical-historical exegesis and think the equation is solved. There is nothing wrong with what they do, but there is plenty wrong with what they don"t do. The equation is not solved. There is nothing wrong with grammatical-historical exegesis. It is a necessary first step, it is a necessary preliminary, and it is okay for reading the Epistles. But that is all.
It takes the wisdom of the ancients to really understand these things — Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast... (Revelation 13:18) — not the wisdom of the 16th century, but the wisdom of the first century.
Midrash is the method of hermeneutics (Biblical interpretation) used by the ancient rabbis in the time of Jesus and Paul. Midrash incorporates a grammatical-historical exegesis, vaguely similar to the western models of Biblical interpretation that the Reformers borrowed from 16th century Humanism, but it sees this as simply a first step.
In its handling of various Biblical literary genre — such as narrative, wisdom literature, Hebrew poetry and apocalyptic — it seeks cognate relationships between different scriptural texts in order to interpret them in light of each other. The approach is more topical than linear.
The clearest set of guidelines in Midrash are the Seven Midroth attributed to Rabbi Hillel, the founder of the Pharisaic School of Hillel, where St. Paul was educated as a rabbi by Rabbi Gamaliel, the grandson of Hillel.
Midrash makes heavy use of allegory and typology to illustrate and illuminate doctrine, but never as a basis for doctrine. It sees multiple meanings in Bible texts found in strata, but this is very different in certain fundamental respects from the Gnostic and Alexandrian uses of figurative interpretation associated with Philo and Origen, reflecting more of Hebraic, rather than Hellenistic philosophical world-view and view of theology.
Midrash interprets prophecy as a cyclical pattern of historical recapitulation (prophecies having multiple fulfillment), with an ultimate fulfillment associated with the eschaton, which is the final focal point of the redemptive process. A classical work of Midrash in Judaism is the Midrash Rabba on Genesis (Berashith). Another is Lamentations Rabba.
Midrash follows certain formats. One is the Mashal/Nimshal format seen in Proverbs or the parables, where physical things are representative of things spiritual. Figurative midrashic exposition in the New Testament is viewed, for instance, in Jude"s epistle or Galatians 4:24-34. It is Midrash which accounts for the manner in which the New Testament handles the Old Testament.
Another format is the parashiyot; sections opening with a petihah in which a base verse is followed by commentary. In addition to exegetical midrash, there are homiletic midrashim, arranged in topically argued pisaqaot. These frequently follow a yelammedenu rabbenu format used by Jesus in the gospels. Both of these kinds of midrashim are haggadic. There are also wide bodies of midrashic literature which are halakik, but these are of less importance to New Testament scholarship.
Unless someone has been educated in Judaism, Hebrew, or theology, it is easier to demonstrate midrash than to explain it. Moriel provides various tapes and videos where midrashic exegesis is practically applied and demonstrated in interpreting Scripture. One example would be €œThe Woman at the Well," a midrashic interpretation of John chapter four, used to expound the Scriptures relating to the subject of Roman Catholicism.
If you look at the way the New Testament quotes the Old Testament, it is clear that the apostles did not use western Protestant methods of exegesis or interpretation. Jesus was a rabbi. Paul was a rabbi. They interpreted the Bible in the way other rabbis did-according to a method called Midrash.
Something went wrong in the early Church; it got away from its Jewish roots. And as more Gentiles became Christians, something that Paul (in Romans 11) warned should not happen, happened. People lost sight of the root.
Whenever you have a change in world-view, you"re going to have a change in theology. A positive way to handle that change is called recontextualising; a negative way is called redefining. Recontextualising the gospel when Wycliffe Bible translators translated Isaiah 1:18, Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow, for tribal people in equatorial Africa — a place where the people had never seen snow — they translated it as they shall be white as coconut. That is recontextualising — taking the same truth and putting it into the context of somebody else"s language or culture or world-view. That is perfectly valid; it does no harm to the message, in contrast to redefinition.
Instead of re-explaining what the Bible means, redefinition changes what the Bible means. That is wrong. And that is what happened in the Early Church. After Constantine the Great turned Christianity into the religion of the state, people began redefining the gospel in increasingly radical ways. Some of the Early Church Fathers believed that what was best in Greek theosophy, for example the monotheistic ideas of Plato and Socrates, helped to prepare the Greek world for the coming of Jesus, in the same way that the Torah (the Old Testament) prepared the Jewish world. Up to a point, that is a fair statement.
There is a Greek (Hellenistic) way of thinking and there is a Hebrew (Hebraic) way of thinking. Paul used both. When Paul spoke to the Jews he used the Hebrew way of thinking, but in Athens when he was preaching the gospel to the Areopagites (Acts 17:22-31), he used the Greek way of thinking. Jews seek a sign, Greeks seek wisdom. There is validity in both, if they are used biblically.
A problem arose when people began to Hellenise a Jewish faith. Instead of recontextualising the gospel for Greeks, they began redefining it in Greek terms. This happened especially in Alexandria in the time of Origen, but it became a major problem after Constantine. With the introduction of the teachings of Augustine of Hippo, and the people who influenced him — Cyprian of Carthage, Ambrose, and others.
The Greeks knew many things from Plato and Socrates that were true such as the fact that man is made in God's image and likeness. Anybody — even people with no Judeo-Christian background and no access to the Bible — can know by natural reason there is one true God and that man is sinful (Romans 1:18-20).
We can agree with the things in Greek theosophy up to the point they agree with the Bible. But when people begin reinterpreting and redefining the gospel in the light of a Greek world-view, we have a problem. The Greeks believed in Dualism. They thought that everything of the flesh was bad and everything of the spirit was good. A Greek reading the words, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1), could agree with them. But he could not agree with the statement, The Word became flesh (John 1:14). The Greeks believed that something physical was bad, simply because it was physical. The Bible teaches that the spiritual and the physical were meant to work in harmony with each other. There was not to be any contradiction or any conflict between the two. The flesh is fallen, that is true, but there is nothing wrong with the physical elements themselves.
When Augustine came along he did not recontextualise but, rather, redefined Christianity as a Greek, Platonic religion. Augustine said things like, €œThe only good thing about marriage is having children who will be celibate." The Manichaeans, who said that the first sin was having marital relations, introduced these ideas into the Greek world. That is why, to this day, Roman Catholicism cannot handle sexuality, and why it has so many restrictions and hang-ups, and why Roman Catholics are even hung about marital sex.
People began reinterpreting the Bible, not using the Jewish method of midrash, but using Greek methods. Typology and allegory Midrash uses typology and allegory — symbols — in order to illustrate and illumine doctrine. For instance, Jesus is €œthe Passover Lamb." The symbolism of the Jewish Passover perfectly illustrates the doctrine of atonement, but we never base the doctrine of atonement on the symbolism. The symbolism illustrates the doctrine, which is itself stated plainly elsewhere in Scripture. In the Gnostic world of Greek thinking, the opposite happens. Gnostics claim to have received a subjective, mystical insight — called a gnosis — into the symbols. They then reinterpret the plain meaning of the text in light of the gnosis. For Gnostics, symbolism is the basis for their doctrine, contrary to the ancient Jewish methods.
These methods first started to creep into the Church through people who were influenced by Philo. His teachings progressively entered into Roman Catholicism, to the point where Augustine would say, €œIf God used violence to convert Paul, the Church can use violence to convert people," which led to the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition and so on. Instead of recontextualising, they were redefining Scripture. They were reading a Jewish book as if it were a Greek book. That was a mistake.
It started with Origen in the East and Augustine in the West, and steadily worsened over the centuries. It became much worse in the Middle Ages with something called Scholasticism. Aristotle"s ideas were absorbed into Islam, then the Crusades brought those ideas back to Europe, and into medieval Roman Catholicism. Moses Maimonides rewrote Judaism as an Aristotelian religion, then Thomas Aquinas rewrote Christianity as an Aristotelian religion.
The Reformers came along and tried to correct what had gone wrong in medieval Roman Catholicism. Unfortunately, although the Reformers were dynamic personalities, they were not dynamic thinkers. The Reformation was born out of something called Humanism. (Note: the first Humanists were not secular, they were Christians.) The best of the Humanists were men like Thomas A Kempis, John Colet, and Jacques Lef ¨vre. But the greatest of them all was Erasmus of Rotterdam. Luther, Calvin, Zwingli and most of the other Reformers got their ideas from Erasmus. Erasmus and the other Humanists attempted to study and teach the Bible in its plain literal meaning, in order to undo the medieval abuses of Roman Catholicism. They placed the emphasis on reading the Bible as literature and as history, and gave us the system of grammatical-historical exegesis that has been used in the Protestant churches ever since.
The problem with the Reformers is that they only went so far. They made rules governing the application of their grammatical-historical system in order to refute medieval Roman Catholicism, and many of those rules are still taught in theological seminaries today. One such rule is this: There are many applications of a Scripture but only one interpretation. That is total rubbish! The Talmud tells us there are multiple interpretations. Who did Jesus agree with? The Reformers? Or the other rabbis?
Jesus said, A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah (Matthew 12:39). What was €œthe sign of the prophet Jonah?" In one place Jesus says it was this, that €œas Jonah was three days and nights in the stomach of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (Matthew 12:40). But, at the same time, He says that it was the fact that the men of Ninevah repented at the preaching of Jonah (Luke 11:32). The Gentiles would repent when the Jews did not, that is also the sign of the prophet Jonah. He gave two equally CO-valid interpretations of what that sign is. So, where Protestant hermeneutics say that there is only one interpretation, all the rest is application, it is out of step with Jesus.
Another rule of Reformed Hermeneutics says that, if the plain wording of Scripture makes sense, seek no other sense. Take it at its face value, full stop. That is also total rubbish!
A First or Second Century Jewish Christian reading John"s Gospel, chapters one, two and three, would have said it was the new Creation narrative — the story of the new Creation. He would have seen that God walked the earth in Genesis, and now God walked the earth again in the new Creation in John. He would have seen that the Spirit moved on the water and brought forth the Creation in Genesis, and now the Spirit moved on the water and brought forth the new Creation in John. He would have seen that there was the small light and the great light in the Creation in Genesis, and now there was the small light — John the Baptist — and the great light — Jesus — in the new Creation in John. The fig tree, midrashically, in Jewish metaphor, represents the Tree of Life that we see in the garden in Genesis, in Ezekiel 47, and in the Book of Revelation. So when Jesus told Nathaniel, €œI saw you while you were still under the fig tree" (John 1:48), He was not simply saying to Nathaniel that He saw him under a literal fig tree (although He did), He was telling him that He had seen him from the garden, from the Creation, from the foundation of the world.
By reading the Bible as literature and history, as the Humanists did, you only see part of it. The Humanists were reacting to medieval Scholasticism and the Gnosticism that much of Roman Catholicism is based upon. Nonetheless, their approach prevents people from seeing much of the depth of Scripture. Using the grammatical-historical method, the Reformers were able to discover truths such as Justification by Faith and the Authority of Scripture. But that is all they could see; they could not go beyond it. Martin Luther considered Romans to be the main book of the Bible. He totally rejected the Book of Revelation. Yet the Book of Revelation is the book for the Last Days. Luther admitted that you cannot understand it with a Protestant mind.
What is wrong? Is the Book of Revelation wrong? Or is the Protestant mind wrong? Be very careful. Daniel (Daniel 12:4) and John (Revelation 10:4) were told to €œseal these things up" until the time of the end. In the fullness of God's time, the interpretation of these books will be manifested to the faithful. When you see people writing out diagrams and charts, saying that they have got the whole eschatological program and all of Revelation figured out, be very cautious. It is sealed up until the appropriate time. God will unveil it in His way and in His time. And that will be done step by step. The first step is going back to reading the Bible as a Jewish book, instead of as a Greek one.
The Epistles are commentary on other Scripture; they tell you what other Scripture means on a very practical level. It is fine to read the Epistles as literature and history, using grammatical-historical methods. But there are different kinds of literature in the Bible, different literary genre that God put in there for different reasons. Psalms (Hebrew poetry), Revelation (apocalyptic literature), the Gospels (narrative), and Proverbs (wisdom literature).
You do not read a letter in the same way as you read poetry. You do not read The Narnia Chronicles (C.S. Lewis) in the same way as you would read a letter from Aunt Harriet back in England. If you read the Epistles, you will see that the apostles did not interpret the other books of the Bible by the grammatical-historical method. The book of Hebrews is a commentary on the symbolism of the Levitical priesthood and the Temple. Look at Galatians 4:24 onwards, the story of the two women — it is a midrash on the purpose of the Law. Look at the epistle of Jude, it is midrashic literature. The apostles did not handle the Scriptures according to Protestant grammatical-historical methods.
There are different kinds of prophecy in the Bible. The two kinds that are important in understanding the Last Days are Messianic prophecies and, connected to those, eschatological prophecies. When we come to consider biblical prophecy, this is very important. Because the Western mind, with its basis in Sixteenth Century Humanism, says that prophecy consists of a prediction and a fulfillment. To the ancient Jewish mind, it was not a question of something being predicted, then being fulfilled. Rather, to the ancient Jewish mind, prophecy was a pattern which is recapitulated; a prophecy having multiple fulfillments. And each fulfillment, each cycle, teaches something about the ultimate fulfillment. For example: In a famine, Abraham went into Egypt (Genesis 12:10-20). God judged Pharaoh. Abraham and his descendants came out of Egypt, taking the wealth of Egypt with them, and went into the Promised Land. Abraham"s descendants replayed the same experience. In a famine they went into Egypt (Genesis 42). God judged Pharaoh again, a wicked king. Abraham"s descendants came out of Egypt, taking the wealth of Egypt with them (Exodus 12:36), and they went into the Promised Land.
What happened to Abraham happened to his descendants. Then the same thing happened with Jesus. When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. €œGet up," he said, €œtake the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him." So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: €œOut of Egypt I called my son" (Matthew 2:16).
Matthew says that when Jesus came out of Egypt, after the wicked King Herod died, that fulfilled the prophecy of Hosea. "When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son" (Hosea 11:1-2). Very plainly, Hosea chapter 11 is talking about the Exodus, about what happened with Moses. In its grammatical-historical context, it is talking about the Exodus, not about the Messiah. But Matthew appears to take the passage out of all reasonable context and twist it into talking about Jesus. We have to ask, is Matthew wrong? or is there something wrong with our Protestant way of interpreting the Bible?
There is nothing wrong with Matthew, and there is nothing wrong with the New Testament. But there is something wrong with our Protestant mentality. The Jewish idea of prophecy is not prediction, but pattern. Abraham came out of Egypt, when Pharaoh was judged; his descendant"s came out of Egypt when the wicked king was judged; then another wicked king was judged and the Messiah came out of Egypt. There are multiple fulfillment"s of prophecy. Midrashically, €œIsrael" alludes to Yeshua (Jesus) the Messiah. When you see verses like: "Israel my glory and Israel my first born," they are midrashic allusions to the Messiah.
Then, in 1 Corinthians 10, something else happens: We come out of Egypt, which Paul tells us is a symbol of the world. Pharaoh, who was deified by the Egyptians and worshipped as God, is a symbol of the devil, the god of this world. Just as Moses made a covenant with blood and sprinkled it on the people, so did Jesus. Moses fasted forty days, and so did Jesus. Jesus is the prophet like Moses, predicted in Deuteronomy 18:18. Just as Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt, through the water, into the Promised Land, so Jesus leads us out of the world, through baptism, into heaven. It is a pattern.
Then the horse and its rider are thrown into the sea (Exodus 15:1). We sing the song of Moses — the horse and rider thrown into the sea — in Revelation 15:3. Why? Because it is a pattern. The ultimate meaning of "coming out of Egypt" is the resurrection and rapture of the Church. The judgments that happen in Exodus are replayed in Revelation. And just as Pharaoh"s magicians were able to counterfeit the miracles of Moses and Aaron, so the antichrist and False Prophet will counterfeit the miracles of Jesus and His witnesses. They brought Joseph"s bones with them when they came out of Egypt (Exodus 13:19). Why? Because the dead in Christ will rise first. It is a pattern.
The ancient Jewish mind that produced the New Testament looks at prophecy, not as prediction, but as pattern. To understand what is going to happen in the future, you look at what did happen in the past. There are multiple fulfillments, and each successive fulfillment teaches something about the ultimate one.
You will never understand the Book of Revelation with the kind of limited approach to biblical interpretation that is taught in Protestant seminaries. Midrash is like a quadratic equation or a very complex second order differential equation, a thirteen or fourteen step equation. Some people take the first step of grammatical-historical exegesis and think the equation is solved. There is nothing wrong with what they do, but there is plenty wrong with what they don"t do. The equation is not solved. There is nothing wrong with grammatical-historical exegesis. It is a necessary first step, it is a necessary preliminary, and it is okay for reading the Epistles. But that is all.
It takes the wisdom of the ancients to really understand these things — Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast... (Revelation 13:18) — not the wisdom of the 16th century, but the wisdom of the first century.
Why Should I Have to Atone for My Own Sin?
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Let us begin, please, with my first question. In the first epistle of St. John 1 :7 we read that the blood of Christ cleanses from all sin. The blood of Christ "cleanses" " Greek "katharizo" " takes away all our sins. All sin. We are told in the New Testament we are saved by grace through faith. (Rom. 5:2; Eph. 2:8) The Greek word for "repentance" is "metanoeo" which came in the Middle Ages to be understood as "to do penance", but the Greek word means "to repent". The blood of Christ cleanses from all sin when we repent and accept Him. That is what the New Testament teaches. My first question to my Catholic friends is this: If the blood of Christ cleanses from all sin, can you explain why the Roman Catholic catechism imparted by the Roman Church " nihilo obstat from the Vatican " why it says you can atonement in purgatory for you own? Indeed, you must. And why the temporal consequence of sin can in part be negated by indulgences?
That, we all know " the indulgences" were the way the construction of St. Peter"s, the Vatican, was financed. The Dominicans said when a coin into the box rings, a soul in purgatory springs. You can have sex with Mary, the mother of Christ and be forgiven if you have the right price. That's what they said. Catholic scholars have admitted this. (The Dominicans, of course, the perpetrators of the Inquisition.) Again, I"m not attacking, I"m only stating facts that Catholic historians admit.
If the blood of Christ cleanses from all sin, why is it that you have to atonement in purgatory for your own? The New Testament says perfect love casts out all fear. (1 Jn. 4:18) All fear. Why should someone die in fear of going to purgatory? In fact the Roman Catholic Church says in the catechism that if you say you're going to heaven and you know you're going you"ve committed the sin of presumption. Now the New Testament says we can have a confidence we"re going to heaven (1 Jn. 4:17) if His blood has cleansed you from all sin, if you"ve truly repented and accepted Him. Please tell me, my dear friend, and again I'm only asking the question of you I once asked of myself, if His blood cleanses from all sin, why do you have to atone for your own in purgatory? And why can you go out and do something or buy something or get something that will give you an indulgence to reduce your sentence? Where is any such thing found or taught in the New Testament? Where did Jesus or the apostles teach it?
In the Middle Ages the Roman Catholic Church added the Apocrypha, the intratestamental literature to the canon of Scripture because there is one verse in the book of Macabees that says it's good to pray for the dead, which they took to mean getting people out of purgatory. However, the Early Church never held the Apocrypha to be part of the canon of Scripture " even the Roman Church didn't. Secondly, it was a Jewish book written in the Greek language to Jewish people. We"re told the Old Testament saints were in the bosom of Abraham waiting for the Messiah to come. In the context in which it was written that plainly meant praying that the Messiah would come so the Old Testament saints could go to heaven. It doesn"t mention purgatory. The term "purgatory" is found no place, even in the Apocrypha or in the church fathers as such. Not the Early Church fathers and not in the New Testament at all.
His blood cleanses from all sin. Boldly we can approach the eternal throne the Scripture says. (Heb. 4:16) If we can boldly come before the throne of grace, how is that the sin of presumption? Is the New Testament wrong? If His blood cleanses from all sin, why should I believe in a religion, as I once did, that says I have to atone for my own?
St. Paul points out in his epistle to the Galatians if an angel of God comes with another gospel, don't believe it. (Gal. 1:8) If even an angel like Gabriel or Michael, an archangel, came and appeared to you and told you there was another gospel, another way of salvation, another good news of salvation by some other means other than Jesus paying the price for your sin on the cross, don't believe it. His blood cleanses from all sin. But I'm expected to believe it if I were Roman Catholic.
That is my question. If His blood cleanses from all sin, why should I be part of a religion that says I have to atone for my own in purgatory, when according to the New Testament there"s no such place. It"s never mentioned or named.
That, we all know " the indulgences" were the way the construction of St. Peter"s, the Vatican, was financed. The Dominicans said when a coin into the box rings, a soul in purgatory springs. You can have sex with Mary, the mother of Christ and be forgiven if you have the right price. That's what they said. Catholic scholars have admitted this. (The Dominicans, of course, the perpetrators of the Inquisition.) Again, I"m not attacking, I"m only stating facts that Catholic historians admit.
If the blood of Christ cleanses from all sin, why is it that you have to atonement in purgatory for your own? The New Testament says perfect love casts out all fear. (1 Jn. 4:18) All fear. Why should someone die in fear of going to purgatory? In fact the Roman Catholic Church says in the catechism that if you say you're going to heaven and you know you're going you"ve committed the sin of presumption. Now the New Testament says we can have a confidence we"re going to heaven (1 Jn. 4:17) if His blood has cleansed you from all sin, if you"ve truly repented and accepted Him. Please tell me, my dear friend, and again I'm only asking the question of you I once asked of myself, if His blood cleanses from all sin, why do you have to atone for your own in purgatory? And why can you go out and do something or buy something or get something that will give you an indulgence to reduce your sentence? Where is any such thing found or taught in the New Testament? Where did Jesus or the apostles teach it?
In the Middle Ages the Roman Catholic Church added the Apocrypha, the intratestamental literature to the canon of Scripture because there is one verse in the book of Macabees that says it's good to pray for the dead, which they took to mean getting people out of purgatory. However, the Early Church never held the Apocrypha to be part of the canon of Scripture " even the Roman Church didn't. Secondly, it was a Jewish book written in the Greek language to Jewish people. We"re told the Old Testament saints were in the bosom of Abraham waiting for the Messiah to come. In the context in which it was written that plainly meant praying that the Messiah would come so the Old Testament saints could go to heaven. It doesn"t mention purgatory. The term "purgatory" is found no place, even in the Apocrypha or in the church fathers as such. Not the Early Church fathers and not in the New Testament at all.
His blood cleanses from all sin. Boldly we can approach the eternal throne the Scripture says. (Heb. 4:16) If we can boldly come before the throne of grace, how is that the sin of presumption? Is the New Testament wrong? If His blood cleanses from all sin, why should I believe in a religion, as I once did, that says I have to atone for my own?
St. Paul points out in his epistle to the Galatians if an angel of God comes with another gospel, don't believe it. (Gal. 1:8) If even an angel like Gabriel or Michael, an archangel, came and appeared to you and told you there was another gospel, another way of salvation, another good news of salvation by some other means other than Jesus paying the price for your sin on the cross, don't believe it. His blood cleanses from all sin. But I'm expected to believe it if I were Roman Catholic.
That is my question. If His blood cleanses from all sin, why should I be part of a religion that says I have to atone for my own in purgatory, when according to the New Testament there"s no such place. It"s never mentioned or named.
Midrash: Jesus in the Garden
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by James Jacob Prasch
Some of you may not be familiar with Moriel Ministries, so I will take a few minutes to explain one of the things that we do. We try to help Christians to understand the Bible in its original context of the first-century Church, which was established by the Lord through Jewish Christians. We try to read the Bible the same way the early Jewish church would have read it. There have been others who have tried to do that through the centuries, with varying degrees of success - most notably the Plymouth Brethren. We believe it to be important in the Last Days to understand how to interpret the Bible in the way the first-century Church did.
(For those who already know this, I apologize. However, there may be readers who are new to our teaching or who are new in the faith, and for their sakes all of this bears repeating.)
When a Jewish Christian in the first century read the first four chapters of John's Gospel, he would have said that it parallels the Book of Genesis. He would have said that the story of the New Creation in John's Gospel is a midrash on, or an inquiry into, the Creation. The New Creation in John corresponds to the Creation in Genesis; Genesis tells us that God walked the earth, and Adam heard Him in the Garden of Eden. This speaks of Jesus: it is a Christophany, which is the theological term for an Old Testament manifestation of Jesus. John tells us in his first chapter that His Word became flesh, and once again God walked the earth.
The Creation account in Genesis speaks of the Small Light and the Great Light, referring to the moon and the sun. In John, we again find the Small Light - John the Baptist, whose Hebrew name is Yochanon Ha Matbil - and the Great Light - Jesus the Messiah, whose Hebrew name is Yeshua Ha Mochiach.
In Genesis, God's Spirit moved on the water and brought forth the Creation. In John chapter four we hear of those who are born of water and of the Spirit; again, the Spirit moved on the water, this time to bring forth the New Creation. On the third day of Creation in Genesis, God does a miracle with water. In John 2:1, we read that the wedding at Cana is on the third day, and once more God does a miracle on the third day with water, this time in the New Creation. God began His first plan for man with the marital union of Adam and Eve; Jesus began His public ministry at a wedding in Cana, and God's second plan for man also commences with a marital union. The New Creation in John is full of parallels with the Creation in Genesis; one is a midrash of the other.
There are many things in Scripture that are like this. The Tree of Life in Judaism, which in Hebrew is called the es hayyim, is represented by a fig tree. We see it in Ezekiel 47 and in the Book of Revelation, but we see it first in the Creation in Genesis. In John chapter one, when Nathaniel asks Jesus how He knows so much about him, Jesus answers, "Because I saw you under the fig tree." What Jesus was saying to Nathaniel with these words was not simply that he saw him under a literal fig tree, although that was a part of it. What He was really saying in midrash, or Jewish metaphor, is this: "I saw you from the garden, from the Creation, from the foundation of the world."
Genesis and John, Creation and New Creation. Compare the Bible to a loaf of bread straight out of the baker's oven: before it has been sliced, it looks the same on both ends. In the same way, Scripture tells us that the Lord declares the end from the beginning. If we cut this loaf open, we arrive at John's Gospel. Most conservative Evangelicals believe that the same John who wrote the Gospel also wrote the Book of Revelation. In light of this, we see that we have first the Creation, next the New Creation, but then also the Re-Creation. If you look at Genesis in comparison with Revelation, you will see this kind of parallel. Once more in Revelation we see the Tree of Life that we first saw in Genesis. In Genesis 49 we find Jacob's prophecy to the twelve tribes of Israel; lo and behold, in Revelation seven and fourteen we find the twelve tribes once more.
Revelation tells us that "The dragon and the serpent are cast down to you". I don't believe that the dinosaurs are billions of years old, as stated in that interpretation of gap theory. The serpent was once quadrupedal or bipedal; in other words, it walked.
It is interesting to note that every civilization from Mexico to China has stories of dragons. I've been a number of times to the Turanga Zoo in Sydney, Australia, and what a fantastic zoo it is! What would you call a lizard that measures nine or ten feet long by three feet high by two to three feet wide, and that could eat you? We call it a Komodo dragon. The word 'dinosaur' means simply 'great and terrible lizard'; I have seen them alive in our time.
To return to our point, the dragon spoken of in Revelation is Satan the Persecutor; the serpent is Satan the Deceiver. Jesus said in Matthew 23 that Abel was the first martyr: "Your brother's blood cries out", God tells Cain in Genesis. What do we see in Revelation? That the blood of the martyrs under the altar is crying out.
Then in Genesis we are told of Joseph's vision of the woman with the stars. In Revelation, there again: the woman with the stars, in chapter 12. The parallels go on and on and on like that. Again, it is like a loaf of bread; it looks the same from both ends before you cut it. When you do cut it, you see the pattern: Creation, New Creation, and Re-Creation.
With this background in view, turn with me, please, to the Book of Genesis chapter three. In Hebrew we call Genesis Bereshit, meaning 'In the Beginning'. Verse five: "'For God knows,' said the serpent, 'that in the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.' When the woman saw that the tree was good for food and it was a delight to the eyes, and the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate, and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate." We see here the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the boastful pride of life of which we are warned in John's epistle. John, author of Revelation and of the Gospel of John, is also the author of three epistles. We find midrashes on Genesis throughout his work; the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the boastful pride of life is yet another example.
Generically, in God's economy there are only two men: the first Adam and the last Adam. When you were physically born, you were born of Adam. When you are born again, you are born of the last Adam, who is Jesus.
The second Adam, Jesus, had to be like Adam in certain aspects. Adam and Jesus were both created directly by God without procreative agency, and they were both created without sin. The first Adam, however, fell into sin. Before Jesus could go to the cross and take our sin upon Himself, He had to reverse what the first Adam had done. That is why in Mark chapter one, when it describes the temptation of Jesus, the text says that He was with the wild animals the same way Adam was. The picture of Jesus in the character of Adam is here being painted. Satan then comes to Jesus holding out the same three temptations into which Adam and Eve fell: the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the boastful pride of life. What the first Adam fell into, the second Adam did not. Before Jesus could go to the cross, He had to overcome what the first Adam was overcome by. Then and only then could He go to the cross. That is why the text states, "And Satan departed from Him until the appropriate time." At their first encounter, Satan had to try to make Jesus fall into the same sin the first Adam did. At their second, He could and did take our sin. Jesus could not go to the cross on our behalf until He had reversed what the first Adam did; until He overcame where the first Adam failed.
At this point we will take a closer look at the phrase 'to know': the Hebrew word 'to know' is la daot, and the Greek term is gnosco. The serpent was already in the garden when Adam and Eve were told to subdue the Earth; they were always meant to know that evil existed, and to know objectively what it was; but they were not to know it within themselves. They were not to know it experientially, although they were to know it existed. We already know that the Tree of Life was present in the Garden of Eden; the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was also there. Adam and Eve had a choice between those trees: the Tree of Life or the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. They chose to try to be their own gods, to gain knowledge they were not meant to have. They were to know that evil existed, but they were not to know it within themselves. To understand this, we must grasp the different kinds of knowledge, of which we have two Biblical examples.
The first example is found in the high priest on the Day of Atonement: only the high priest could enter the Holy of Holies, and even he only once a year on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Any Hebrew, however, could read the Book of Leviticus and know what was inside the Holy of Holies. He could read descriptions of the furniture, the showbread, the Ark of the Covenant, etc., and in that sense he could know what was in there. Only the high priest, however, could know what it was like to go in there, because he was designated for it. He was sanctified, or set apart, for that purpose: in Hebrew, me kudesh. The Hebrew terms 'to know' and 'to sanctify', as in 'to set apart' - La daot and Le Heet kodesh - frequently go together in the Bible. Anybody could know what was inside the Holy of Holies, but only the person who was sanctified for the purpose was to know what it was like to go into the holy of holies.
The other time that these two terms are used in connection with each other is in holy matrimony. Anybody can get a copy of Gray's Anatomy and look at the female body: one can look at diagrams, charts, and pictures of ovarian tissue, Fallopian tubes, uterine tissue, or any other aspect of female anatomy; it is all in the textbooks. Anybody may know what comprises a woman's body. The Hebrew term, however, for "to wed" means 'to make holy, to sanctify'. During a Jewish wedding you say Me kudesh, or "with this ring, I wed thee", literally "sanctify"; set apart according to the laws of Moses and Israel. The word for 'to marry' and the word for 'to sanctify' is the same. The Hebrew word for 'to consummate a marriage' is 'to know'.
Anybody can know what is inside a woman's body; but only the man sanctified for the purpose is to know what it is like to go in. In the same way, anybody could know what was inside the Holy of Holies, but no one except the high priest could know what it was like to go in there. It is the same with gonosko, the Greek term. Adam and Eve were always meant to know that there was evil, and that there was a devil. They were intended to know that things had to be subdued on the earth, though it was not yet fallen. They were meant to know objectively, but they were not meant to know experientially. They were to know, but they were not to know.
"Then the eyes of both of them opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings." Nakedness in the Bible does not simply mean the nudity on beaches in places such as Maui, Hawaii, or Elat, Israel. The new-agers in such places swim naked and have tattoos of dragons, of flowers, or of any number of other things in places you would not think that people would or should have tattoos; they run around on the beach naked, like the heathens they are. That, however, is not what this is primarily talking about. Adam and Eve were literally naked, yes, but it meant something more than that. Remember the church of Laodicea in Revelation: "You do not know that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked". As Isaiah said, nakedness symbolizes not having the garments of salvation.
Adam and Eve knew that now they needed to be saved, for they had sinned.
In their guilt, therefore, they sewed fig leaves together. Remember what we see in Genesis and in Revelation: a fig tree. In Revelation, the text states that the fig leaves are for the healing of the nations; biblically, therefore, fig leaves are figures or symbols of good works. Adam and Eve sewed fig leaves together, and in the same way, fallen man will always try to justify himself before a sinless God with good works.
Every religion on earth is the diametric opposite of the Gospel. When God - that is, Jesus - found Adam and Eve in the Garden wearing their fig leaves, He rejected the fig leaves and said that there must be blood atonement in order to remove sin. Religion is man trying to reach God with good works; the Gospel is God trying to reach man with blood atonement. Religion is man trying to reach God; the Gospel is God trying to reach man. Again, religion is the diametric opposite to the Gospel, no matter what form it takes. It makes no difference whether it is the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons knocking on doors, an Orthodox Jew trying to keep the mitzvot, a Catholic at the Novena, or a Muslim at the haij. Every religion is based on sewing fig leaves together in a futile attempt to be justified before God. There is, however, absolutely no assurance of salvation in that. On the contrary, the Scriptures tell us directly that "all of our righteous deeds are as filthy rags". Am I saying that Mother Theresa's righteous deeds are filthy rags? No, I am not saying that; God is.
Christians do not do good works in order to get saved; real Christians do good works rather because we have been saved. It is not our righteousness, but the righteousness of Christ in and through us. That is totally different from man-made religion. We do good works because we've been saved, not in an attempt to attain salvation for ourselves. This leads to why Jesus cursed the fig tree: it had leaves, but no fruit; in the same way, Israel had a works righteousness based on legalism, but it did not have the fruit of the Holy Spirit.
We should understand that the leaves are certainly important; in the Middle East, the sun is so hot that without leaves the fruit would be destroyed. On a fig tree in particular, the fruit grows underneath the leaves. When Jesus cursed this tree, however, the text states that it was not yet the season for figs. The warning we must glean from this is that the "Son of Man comes at an hour you do not expect"; we must live in readiness at all times. Again, without leaves the fruit would be destroyed; as James tells us, "Faith without works is dead." There's nothing wrong with the leaves, but the fact is that you cannot eat them. Even the best leaves do not make up for a lack of fruit, although you need the leaves. We are not told that we will know people by their works, but that we will know them by their fruit. It should be noted that works can be evidence of fruit, because the leaves normally appear at about the same time as the fruit; but an abundance of leaves is not a guarantee that you will find fruit.
Adam and Eve sewed fig leaves together, just as today every religion still does. There are many non-evangelical 'churches' that think they are Christian. If you ask them, "How do you get to heaven?", they will tell you that it is accomplished by having enough good deeds to outweigh your bad deeds, or something similar. What do they do to hide their nakedness? They sew fig leaves together. What do they do at the Mass? They sew fig leaves together. What do they do down at the Mosque? They sew fig leaves together. Every religion sews fig leaves together, even though it is useless in gaining salvation. For that, there must be a blood atonement.
So the story continues: "And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the Garden in the cool of the day." The Hebrew word for 'cool' is also the Hebrew word for 'breeze' or 'wind', ruach. The Hebrew word for 'breeze', by turn, is also the Hebrew word for 'spirit': Pneuma in Greek, ruach in Hebrew. So you have here the presence of the Holy Spirit implied in the Hebrew text. "And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord among the trees of the garden. And the Lord called to the man and said to him, 'Where are you?'" We notice here that it speaks of the 'trees of the garden'; concerning the Last Days, Jesus never said we must learn the parable of the fig tree. When you read it in Luke, He actually said, "Learn the parable of the fig tree and the other trees," or, "and all the trees". This is not our subject today, I merely point it out in passing to say that there is much more to the parable of the fig tree than most Christians have a clue about. In fact, the parable of the fig tree and the other trees is found in the Book of Judges chapter nine. But let us continue:
We see now the cast of characters introduced in the Garden; first and foremost, we have God in the person of Jesus, a Christophany. We have Satan in his mode as a deceiver. Then we have naked man. So far, we have three characters: God, Satan, and a naked man. Let us continue with the text: 'And he said, "I heard the sound of the thee in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid myself." And He said, 'Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the Tree of which I commanded you not to eat?'" This sounds perhaps as if God didn't know; God knew, of course, but He was challenging Adam. "And the man said, 'The woman whom Thou gavest to me, she gave me from the Tree and I ate.'" Notice that although God in His omniscience already knew who ate first, He doesn't go to Eve but to Adam. If something, God forbid, goes wrong in my marriage or my family, or in your marriage or your family, gentlemen, it might not be our fault, but as far as God's concerned, it is our problem; the male is God's authority in that relationship.
In the Bible, every time a man lets a woman take spiritual headship, you have a disaster. Abraham and Sarah or Ahab and Jezebel are two examples of this. This goes right back to the Garden of Eden, and as such is one of Satan's oldest tricks. Why is leadership into this error now? We will see that in a moment, but let's continue.
And the man said in verse 12, "'The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me from the Tree and I ate." Then the Lord God said to the woman, 'What is this you have done?' And the woman said, 'The serpent deceived me and I ate.' And the Lord God said to the serpent, 'Because you have done this, cursed are you more than all the cattle and more than every beast of the field. On your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel'" - because of the resurrection. "To the woman, He said, 'I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth. You shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you.' Then God said to Adam, 'Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten from the Tree about which I commanded you . . .'" Notice the curse is on Satan first, women second, and men third. Satan first, women second, and men third; the judgment was given in the order of the sin.
Because of the Fall, men have become insensitive. Also because of the Fall, women have become hypersensitive. When a husband and wife get saved, most of the time it is the wife who gets saved first. This is not always the case, but probably at least 75 percent of the time the wife gets saved first. If the husband does get saved first, 75 percent of the time the wife eventually gets saved also; water takes the shape of its container. If the wife gets saved first, however, it is usually a much harder situation. Christian women often grieve for years over their unbelieving husbands. Why is it easier for women to get saved? It is because they are more sensitive. When a husband and wife pray together for direction, it is usually the wife who hears from the Lord first and clearest; men are reliant on female sensitivity because of the Fall. On the other hand, while it is usually easier for women to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit, it is also easier for women to hear the voice of a counterfeit spirit and thus fall into deception, to be taken in by spiritual seduction. Women are much more vulnerable to spiritual seduction than are men. Therefore, just as men are reliant on female sensitivity, so women are reliant on male protection. The submission in a Christian marriage is to be mutual, but in different ways; it is an equality with different functions, but the buck stops with the man. Women are more vulnerable to spiritual seduction, while men are more vulnerable to not hearing at all. That's just the way it is in our fallen world. There may have been a propensity towards that before man fell, but the Fall brought it to be what it is now.
It happens in a garden. Next, God dispatches an angel and says, "Get out of here. You cannot come in anymore." Here we are introduced to the fourth character, the angel who says 'get out'. In this garden, man falls. In this garden, God pronounces a curse on men and on women. In this garden, the angel says 'do not come in here.' In this garden man is naked before his God.
Yet in this garden, there is also a promise of salvation: "'I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed.'" As most of you know, Eve represents Israel and by extension the church. The church is the bride of Christ, and Israel is God's woman.
Anti-Semitism and persecution of the believing church are heads and tails; two sides of the same coin. We can distinguish between the two, but we cannot separate them. God's plan for the salvation of the world depends on his prophetic agenda for Israel and the Jews and for the believing church. The two kinds of people whom the Bible calls Abraham's children are the Jews and the believing church. The return of Jesus Christ depends on the prophetic plan of God for Israel and the Jews, and for the believing church.
Hence, the Jews and the believing church have the same enemy. Why do you think the Muslims hate Israel and hate America? Is it purely political? No. There is a spiritual reason. At this time in history America is the seat of evangelical Christianity, as Britain was a hundred, two hundred years ago, and as Germany and Switzerland were during the Reformation.
"I'll put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed." Look at pagan Rome: first, they turned against the church under Nero. A few years later, they turned against the Jews under Titus. A few centuries later, under the communists in the Soviet Union, who did the Soviets persecute the most? Jews and born-again Christians! Throughout the centuries of the inquisitions, the pogroms, the massacres - who did the Roman Catholic Church persecute the most? Jews and born-again Christians. What do Arafat's followers say? What don't they show you on CNN? They don't show you that the Islamic Arabs whom they champion are the same people who say every day of the week, "First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people. Jihad! Jihad!" In other words, first we kill the Jews, and then we kill the Christians. I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed.
It all happens in a garden. With this in view, let us look at the midrash:
Turn to John chapter 18 verse one: "When Jesus had spoken these words, He went forth with His disciples over the ravine of Kidron where there was a garden into which He Himself entered and His disciples." Of the four Gospels, the one that identifies Gethsemane as a garden is John. John, again, is always interested in doing a midrash on Genesis. The Kidron is a narrow valley between the Temple Mount on the west and the Mount of Olives or Har Zeitim on the east. Gethsemane comes from the Hebrew word Shemen, or 'oil'. The olive oil - which we call Shemen ziot - used ritually in the Temple came from Gethsemane. They would harvest the olives growing on the Mount of Olives, and bring them to Gethsemane to be pressed. (There are still olive orchards on the Mount of Olives to this day - in fact, the experts tell us that there are trees there that are 2,000 years old and still growing; they would have been present in the days of Jesus - olive trees live extremely long, if they are not interrupted by earthquakes or pollution or other environmental catastrophes.) It is to Gethsemane that Jesus goes, and there something begins to happen. To God, one man without sin is worth more than all the men with sin: that is how one could die for all.
In this garden, God takes our sin on Himself. He takes our sin and puts it on His son, Jesus, in order to take His righteousness and put it on us.
Jesus suffered physically; He was tortured. He suffered emotionally; the Bible speaks of this time as the 'travail of his soul'. But something else happened on the cross: His fellowship was broken with His Father. We must note also that He said, "It is finished. Father, into Your hands I give My Spirit." Satan's liars in the church today deny this fundamental doctrine:
Copeland, Hagen, Joyce Meyer, all these people are teaching error. They teach that Satan got the victory on the cross, that Jesus' Spirit was not commended to the Father, that it was not finished, and that He had to go to Hell. They teach further that He was tortured in Hell for three days and three nights, and that then He had to be born again in Hell. That is the teaching of Copeland and Hagen, which they got from E. W. Kenyon. They have another Jesus; they have another Gospel, as most of you know. Because the cross of Jesus is not central to their view of salvation, neither is the cross of Jesus central to their view of the Christian life. Instead of "pick up your cross and follow Me", their doctrine is "you're a King's kid, name it and claim it, God wants you rich, believe God for another Mercedes, etc". These men are from the devil, and are some of the false prophets that Jesus warned would come in the Last Days. Today they are doing exactly what Jesus said they would do.
Jesus takes our sin on Himself, not in Hell, but in a garden. That is where God begins to put our sin on Jesus.
The full wrath of God was poured out on Jesus while He was on the cross. "Now, Judas also, who was betraying Him, knew the place, for the disciples had often met there" - Jesus often met there with His disciples - "Judas then, having received the Roman cohort and officers from the chief priests and the Pharisees, came there with lanterns and torches and weapons. Jesus, therefore, knowing all the things that were coming upon Him, went forth and said to them, "Whom do you seek?" And they answered Him, "Jesus, the Nazarene."" Jesus' real name was Rabbi Yeshua BarYosef vi Netzeret. They wouldn't have known who Jesus Christ is, but they would have known who Rabbi Yeshua was; He is the One who raises the dead and heals the lepers; He is the one who could walk on water.
"When, therefore, He said to them, "I am He," they drew back and fell to the ground." The Greek text says that they fell back and then they slid forward. Every knee will bow, even those of His enemies.
The phenomenon of being 'slain in the spirit' happens at various times in the Bible, particularly in the New Testament. In Revelation chapter one, John is in the Spirit in the Lord's day, and when the power of Jesus comes on him, he falls as if slain. He fell forward, and was so terrified that God had to send an angel to encourage him. When Jesus cast a demon out of the child whom the demons kept throwing into the fire, they thought he was dead; but when he got up he was completely different. Daniel, too, was terrified.
Notice that in the Bible whenever someone was slain in the Spirit it was a once in a lifetime life-changing event. It doesn't matter what happens when people go down, how different is their life once they get up? But today, who is getting in line? The same ones who were in line to go down last week. They just want to go down for the thrill of it. As with anything else, a wicked and adulterous generation seeks this sign.
Again, in the Bible being slain in the Spirit was a once in a lifetime, life-changing experience. It doesn't matter what happens when somebody goes down, but how changed their life is when they get up. In the Bible, too, whenever it was a blessing from God, the person in question went forward. The only time they ever went backwards was when it was a curse and a judgment: when they came to arrest Christ.
Today you see Rodney Howard Brown and these guys bringing official 'catchers' with them. But they are falling the wrong direction.
People insist that they know this experience is from God; well, it might be indeed, but if it is, He is angry with them. I personally am pretty certain that most of it is hypnotic induction combined with demonic deception. Even if it is of God, however, it is a judgment.
Whom do you seek? Jesus. I am He. In Greek, "I am He," or, ego ami. The Greek equivalent is also found at the end of John chapter 8, where Jesus says, "before Abraham was, I am." Ego ami. The people then tried to stone Him, because He made Himself equal with God.
Let us go back to our cast of characters: In the Garden of Eden is God in the Person of Jesus. In the garden of Gethsemane is God in the Person of Jesus. But then, in the Garden of Eden, Satan as deceiver is present. In the Gospel of John, what happens to Judas just before the disciples accompany Jesus to Gethsemane? The text plainly tells us: Satan entered him. The only two people demon-possessed by Satan personally will be the anti-Christ or false prophet and Judas, the Son of Perdition. John in his epistle describes anti-Christ in the character of Judas. "They went out from among us, but they were not really of us." Whenever you see something about Judas in the Bible, the Holy Spirit is telling you something about the anti-Christ. Both Judas and the Antichrist will be into money; both can deceive the brethren - the disciples were asking, "Lord is it I, Lord is it I?" - they did not know the identity of the traitor until Jesus revealed him. In the same way, people will not know who the real anti-Christ is until Jesus reveals him. If you cannot see through Benny Hinn or Kenneth Copeland or Chuck Colson, what will become of you when the Antichrist comes?
How did Judas con people? He conned people with the Mother Theresa trick: fig leaves. "Could this not have been sold and given to the poor?"- he feigned compassion for the poor in order to ingratiate himself with people, to make them think he was a good guy. In reality, however, he was only using the plight of the poor to seduce, camouflage, and manipulate. Mother Theresa said before she died that she had no assurance of salvation. When she got the Nobel Prize, she made it clear that she did not convert people in India to be Christians, but to be better Hindus and better Muslims. That was her gospel. She cleaned them up, gave them a clean place to die with dignity, and sent them off to Hell in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in a laundry chute.
Some of you may not be familiar with Moriel Ministries, so I will take a few minutes to explain one of the things that we do. We try to help Christians to understand the Bible in its original context of the first-century Church, which was established by the Lord through Jewish Christians. We try to read the Bible the same way the early Jewish church would have read it. There have been others who have tried to do that through the centuries, with varying degrees of success - most notably the Plymouth Brethren. We believe it to be important in the Last Days to understand how to interpret the Bible in the way the first-century Church did.
(For those who already know this, I apologize. However, there may be readers who are new to our teaching or who are new in the faith, and for their sakes all of this bears repeating.)
When a Jewish Christian in the first century read the first four chapters of John's Gospel, he would have said that it parallels the Book of Genesis. He would have said that the story of the New Creation in John's Gospel is a midrash on, or an inquiry into, the Creation. The New Creation in John corresponds to the Creation in Genesis; Genesis tells us that God walked the earth, and Adam heard Him in the Garden of Eden. This speaks of Jesus: it is a Christophany, which is the theological term for an Old Testament manifestation of Jesus. John tells us in his first chapter that His Word became flesh, and once again God walked the earth.
The Creation account in Genesis speaks of the Small Light and the Great Light, referring to the moon and the sun. In John, we again find the Small Light - John the Baptist, whose Hebrew name is Yochanon Ha Matbil - and the Great Light - Jesus the Messiah, whose Hebrew name is Yeshua Ha Mochiach.
In Genesis, God's Spirit moved on the water and brought forth the Creation. In John chapter four we hear of those who are born of water and of the Spirit; again, the Spirit moved on the water, this time to bring forth the New Creation. On the third day of Creation in Genesis, God does a miracle with water. In John 2:1, we read that the wedding at Cana is on the third day, and once more God does a miracle on the third day with water, this time in the New Creation. God began His first plan for man with the marital union of Adam and Eve; Jesus began His public ministry at a wedding in Cana, and God's second plan for man also commences with a marital union. The New Creation in John is full of parallels with the Creation in Genesis; one is a midrash of the other.
There are many things in Scripture that are like this. The Tree of Life in Judaism, which in Hebrew is called the es hayyim, is represented by a fig tree. We see it in Ezekiel 47 and in the Book of Revelation, but we see it first in the Creation in Genesis. In John chapter one, when Nathaniel asks Jesus how He knows so much about him, Jesus answers, "Because I saw you under the fig tree." What Jesus was saying to Nathaniel with these words was not simply that he saw him under a literal fig tree, although that was a part of it. What He was really saying in midrash, or Jewish metaphor, is this: "I saw you from the garden, from the Creation, from the foundation of the world."
Genesis and John, Creation and New Creation. Compare the Bible to a loaf of bread straight out of the baker's oven: before it has been sliced, it looks the same on both ends. In the same way, Scripture tells us that the Lord declares the end from the beginning. If we cut this loaf open, we arrive at John's Gospel. Most conservative Evangelicals believe that the same John who wrote the Gospel also wrote the Book of Revelation. In light of this, we see that we have first the Creation, next the New Creation, but then also the Re-Creation. If you look at Genesis in comparison with Revelation, you will see this kind of parallel. Once more in Revelation we see the Tree of Life that we first saw in Genesis. In Genesis 49 we find Jacob's prophecy to the twelve tribes of Israel; lo and behold, in Revelation seven and fourteen we find the twelve tribes once more.
Revelation tells us that "The dragon and the serpent are cast down to you". I don't believe that the dinosaurs are billions of years old, as stated in that interpretation of gap theory. The serpent was once quadrupedal or bipedal; in other words, it walked.
It is interesting to note that every civilization from Mexico to China has stories of dragons. I've been a number of times to the Turanga Zoo in Sydney, Australia, and what a fantastic zoo it is! What would you call a lizard that measures nine or ten feet long by three feet high by two to three feet wide, and that could eat you? We call it a Komodo dragon. The word 'dinosaur' means simply 'great and terrible lizard'; I have seen them alive in our time.
To return to our point, the dragon spoken of in Revelation is Satan the Persecutor; the serpent is Satan the Deceiver. Jesus said in Matthew 23 that Abel was the first martyr: "Your brother's blood cries out", God tells Cain in Genesis. What do we see in Revelation? That the blood of the martyrs under the altar is crying out.
Then in Genesis we are told of Joseph's vision of the woman with the stars. In Revelation, there again: the woman with the stars, in chapter 12. The parallels go on and on and on like that. Again, it is like a loaf of bread; it looks the same from both ends before you cut it. When you do cut it, you see the pattern: Creation, New Creation, and Re-Creation.
With this background in view, turn with me, please, to the Book of Genesis chapter three. In Hebrew we call Genesis Bereshit, meaning 'In the Beginning'. Verse five: "'For God knows,' said the serpent, 'that in the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.' When the woman saw that the tree was good for food and it was a delight to the eyes, and the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate, and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate." We see here the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the boastful pride of life of which we are warned in John's epistle. John, author of Revelation and of the Gospel of John, is also the author of three epistles. We find midrashes on Genesis throughout his work; the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the boastful pride of life is yet another example.
Generically, in God's economy there are only two men: the first Adam and the last Adam. When you were physically born, you were born of Adam. When you are born again, you are born of the last Adam, who is Jesus.
The second Adam, Jesus, had to be like Adam in certain aspects. Adam and Jesus were both created directly by God without procreative agency, and they were both created without sin. The first Adam, however, fell into sin. Before Jesus could go to the cross and take our sin upon Himself, He had to reverse what the first Adam had done. That is why in Mark chapter one, when it describes the temptation of Jesus, the text says that He was with the wild animals the same way Adam was. The picture of Jesus in the character of Adam is here being painted. Satan then comes to Jesus holding out the same three temptations into which Adam and Eve fell: the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the boastful pride of life. What the first Adam fell into, the second Adam did not. Before Jesus could go to the cross, He had to overcome what the first Adam was overcome by. Then and only then could He go to the cross. That is why the text states, "And Satan departed from Him until the appropriate time." At their first encounter, Satan had to try to make Jesus fall into the same sin the first Adam did. At their second, He could and did take our sin. Jesus could not go to the cross on our behalf until He had reversed what the first Adam did; until He overcame where the first Adam failed.
At this point we will take a closer look at the phrase 'to know': the Hebrew word 'to know' is la daot, and the Greek term is gnosco. The serpent was already in the garden when Adam and Eve were told to subdue the Earth; they were always meant to know that evil existed, and to know objectively what it was; but they were not to know it within themselves. They were not to know it experientially, although they were to know it existed. We already know that the Tree of Life was present in the Garden of Eden; the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was also there. Adam and Eve had a choice between those trees: the Tree of Life or the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. They chose to try to be their own gods, to gain knowledge they were not meant to have. They were to know that evil existed, but they were not to know it within themselves. To understand this, we must grasp the different kinds of knowledge, of which we have two Biblical examples.
The first example is found in the high priest on the Day of Atonement: only the high priest could enter the Holy of Holies, and even he only once a year on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Any Hebrew, however, could read the Book of Leviticus and know what was inside the Holy of Holies. He could read descriptions of the furniture, the showbread, the Ark of the Covenant, etc., and in that sense he could know what was in there. Only the high priest, however, could know what it was like to go in there, because he was designated for it. He was sanctified, or set apart, for that purpose: in Hebrew, me kudesh. The Hebrew terms 'to know' and 'to sanctify', as in 'to set apart' - La daot and Le Heet kodesh - frequently go together in the Bible. Anybody could know what was inside the Holy of Holies, but only the person who was sanctified for the purpose was to know what it was like to go into the holy of holies.
The other time that these two terms are used in connection with each other is in holy matrimony. Anybody can get a copy of Gray's Anatomy and look at the female body: one can look at diagrams, charts, and pictures of ovarian tissue, Fallopian tubes, uterine tissue, or any other aspect of female anatomy; it is all in the textbooks. Anybody may know what comprises a woman's body. The Hebrew term, however, for "to wed" means 'to make holy, to sanctify'. During a Jewish wedding you say Me kudesh, or "with this ring, I wed thee", literally "sanctify"; set apart according to the laws of Moses and Israel. The word for 'to marry' and the word for 'to sanctify' is the same. The Hebrew word for 'to consummate a marriage' is 'to know'.
Anybody can know what is inside a woman's body; but only the man sanctified for the purpose is to know what it is like to go in. In the same way, anybody could know what was inside the Holy of Holies, but no one except the high priest could know what it was like to go in there. It is the same with gonosko, the Greek term. Adam and Eve were always meant to know that there was evil, and that there was a devil. They were intended to know that things had to be subdued on the earth, though it was not yet fallen. They were meant to know objectively, but they were not meant to know experientially. They were to know, but they were not to know.
"Then the eyes of both of them opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings." Nakedness in the Bible does not simply mean the nudity on beaches in places such as Maui, Hawaii, or Elat, Israel. The new-agers in such places swim naked and have tattoos of dragons, of flowers, or of any number of other things in places you would not think that people would or should have tattoos; they run around on the beach naked, like the heathens they are. That, however, is not what this is primarily talking about. Adam and Eve were literally naked, yes, but it meant something more than that. Remember the church of Laodicea in Revelation: "You do not know that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked". As Isaiah said, nakedness symbolizes not having the garments of salvation.
Adam and Eve knew that now they needed to be saved, for they had sinned.
In their guilt, therefore, they sewed fig leaves together. Remember what we see in Genesis and in Revelation: a fig tree. In Revelation, the text states that the fig leaves are for the healing of the nations; biblically, therefore, fig leaves are figures or symbols of good works. Adam and Eve sewed fig leaves together, and in the same way, fallen man will always try to justify himself before a sinless God with good works.
Every religion on earth is the diametric opposite of the Gospel. When God - that is, Jesus - found Adam and Eve in the Garden wearing their fig leaves, He rejected the fig leaves and said that there must be blood atonement in order to remove sin. Religion is man trying to reach God with good works; the Gospel is God trying to reach man with blood atonement. Religion is man trying to reach God; the Gospel is God trying to reach man. Again, religion is the diametric opposite to the Gospel, no matter what form it takes. It makes no difference whether it is the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons knocking on doors, an Orthodox Jew trying to keep the mitzvot, a Catholic at the Novena, or a Muslim at the haij. Every religion is based on sewing fig leaves together in a futile attempt to be justified before God. There is, however, absolutely no assurance of salvation in that. On the contrary, the Scriptures tell us directly that "all of our righteous deeds are as filthy rags". Am I saying that Mother Theresa's righteous deeds are filthy rags? No, I am not saying that; God is.
Christians do not do good works in order to get saved; real Christians do good works rather because we have been saved. It is not our righteousness, but the righteousness of Christ in and through us. That is totally different from man-made religion. We do good works because we've been saved, not in an attempt to attain salvation for ourselves. This leads to why Jesus cursed the fig tree: it had leaves, but no fruit; in the same way, Israel had a works righteousness based on legalism, but it did not have the fruit of the Holy Spirit.
We should understand that the leaves are certainly important; in the Middle East, the sun is so hot that without leaves the fruit would be destroyed. On a fig tree in particular, the fruit grows underneath the leaves. When Jesus cursed this tree, however, the text states that it was not yet the season for figs. The warning we must glean from this is that the "Son of Man comes at an hour you do not expect"; we must live in readiness at all times. Again, without leaves the fruit would be destroyed; as James tells us, "Faith without works is dead." There's nothing wrong with the leaves, but the fact is that you cannot eat them. Even the best leaves do not make up for a lack of fruit, although you need the leaves. We are not told that we will know people by their works, but that we will know them by their fruit. It should be noted that works can be evidence of fruit, because the leaves normally appear at about the same time as the fruit; but an abundance of leaves is not a guarantee that you will find fruit.
Adam and Eve sewed fig leaves together, just as today every religion still does. There are many non-evangelical 'churches' that think they are Christian. If you ask them, "How do you get to heaven?", they will tell you that it is accomplished by having enough good deeds to outweigh your bad deeds, or something similar. What do they do to hide their nakedness? They sew fig leaves together. What do they do at the Mass? They sew fig leaves together. What do they do down at the Mosque? They sew fig leaves together. Every religion sews fig leaves together, even though it is useless in gaining salvation. For that, there must be a blood atonement.
So the story continues: "And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the Garden in the cool of the day." The Hebrew word for 'cool' is also the Hebrew word for 'breeze' or 'wind', ruach. The Hebrew word for 'breeze', by turn, is also the Hebrew word for 'spirit': Pneuma in Greek, ruach in Hebrew. So you have here the presence of the Holy Spirit implied in the Hebrew text. "And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord among the trees of the garden. And the Lord called to the man and said to him, 'Where are you?'" We notice here that it speaks of the 'trees of the garden'; concerning the Last Days, Jesus never said we must learn the parable of the fig tree. When you read it in Luke, He actually said, "Learn the parable of the fig tree and the other trees," or, "and all the trees". This is not our subject today, I merely point it out in passing to say that there is much more to the parable of the fig tree than most Christians have a clue about. In fact, the parable of the fig tree and the other trees is found in the Book of Judges chapter nine. But let us continue:
We see now the cast of characters introduced in the Garden; first and foremost, we have God in the person of Jesus, a Christophany. We have Satan in his mode as a deceiver. Then we have naked man. So far, we have three characters: God, Satan, and a naked man. Let us continue with the text: 'And he said, "I heard the sound of the thee in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid myself." And He said, 'Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the Tree of which I commanded you not to eat?'" This sounds perhaps as if God didn't know; God knew, of course, but He was challenging Adam. "And the man said, 'The woman whom Thou gavest to me, she gave me from the Tree and I ate.'" Notice that although God in His omniscience already knew who ate first, He doesn't go to Eve but to Adam. If something, God forbid, goes wrong in my marriage or my family, or in your marriage or your family, gentlemen, it might not be our fault, but as far as God's concerned, it is our problem; the male is God's authority in that relationship.
In the Bible, every time a man lets a woman take spiritual headship, you have a disaster. Abraham and Sarah or Ahab and Jezebel are two examples of this. This goes right back to the Garden of Eden, and as such is one of Satan's oldest tricks. Why is leadership into this error now? We will see that in a moment, but let's continue.
And the man said in verse 12, "'The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me from the Tree and I ate." Then the Lord God said to the woman, 'What is this you have done?' And the woman said, 'The serpent deceived me and I ate.' And the Lord God said to the serpent, 'Because you have done this, cursed are you more than all the cattle and more than every beast of the field. On your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel'" - because of the resurrection. "To the woman, He said, 'I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth. You shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you.' Then God said to Adam, 'Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten from the Tree about which I commanded you . . .'" Notice the curse is on Satan first, women second, and men third. Satan first, women second, and men third; the judgment was given in the order of the sin.
Because of the Fall, men have become insensitive. Also because of the Fall, women have become hypersensitive. When a husband and wife get saved, most of the time it is the wife who gets saved first. This is not always the case, but probably at least 75 percent of the time the wife gets saved first. If the husband does get saved first, 75 percent of the time the wife eventually gets saved also; water takes the shape of its container. If the wife gets saved first, however, it is usually a much harder situation. Christian women often grieve for years over their unbelieving husbands. Why is it easier for women to get saved? It is because they are more sensitive. When a husband and wife pray together for direction, it is usually the wife who hears from the Lord first and clearest; men are reliant on female sensitivity because of the Fall. On the other hand, while it is usually easier for women to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit, it is also easier for women to hear the voice of a counterfeit spirit and thus fall into deception, to be taken in by spiritual seduction. Women are much more vulnerable to spiritual seduction than are men. Therefore, just as men are reliant on female sensitivity, so women are reliant on male protection. The submission in a Christian marriage is to be mutual, but in different ways; it is an equality with different functions, but the buck stops with the man. Women are more vulnerable to spiritual seduction, while men are more vulnerable to not hearing at all. That's just the way it is in our fallen world. There may have been a propensity towards that before man fell, but the Fall brought it to be what it is now.
It happens in a garden. Next, God dispatches an angel and says, "Get out of here. You cannot come in anymore." Here we are introduced to the fourth character, the angel who says 'get out'. In this garden, man falls. In this garden, God pronounces a curse on men and on women. In this garden, the angel says 'do not come in here.' In this garden man is naked before his God.
Yet in this garden, there is also a promise of salvation: "'I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed.'" As most of you know, Eve represents Israel and by extension the church. The church is the bride of Christ, and Israel is God's woman.
Anti-Semitism and persecution of the believing church are heads and tails; two sides of the same coin. We can distinguish between the two, but we cannot separate them. God's plan for the salvation of the world depends on his prophetic agenda for Israel and the Jews and for the believing church. The two kinds of people whom the Bible calls Abraham's children are the Jews and the believing church. The return of Jesus Christ depends on the prophetic plan of God for Israel and the Jews, and for the believing church.
Hence, the Jews and the believing church have the same enemy. Why do you think the Muslims hate Israel and hate America? Is it purely political? No. There is a spiritual reason. At this time in history America is the seat of evangelical Christianity, as Britain was a hundred, two hundred years ago, and as Germany and Switzerland were during the Reformation.
"I'll put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed." Look at pagan Rome: first, they turned against the church under Nero. A few years later, they turned against the Jews under Titus. A few centuries later, under the communists in the Soviet Union, who did the Soviets persecute the most? Jews and born-again Christians! Throughout the centuries of the inquisitions, the pogroms, the massacres - who did the Roman Catholic Church persecute the most? Jews and born-again Christians. What do Arafat's followers say? What don't they show you on CNN? They don't show you that the Islamic Arabs whom they champion are the same people who say every day of the week, "First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people. Jihad! Jihad!" In other words, first we kill the Jews, and then we kill the Christians. I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed.
It all happens in a garden. With this in view, let us look at the midrash:
Turn to John chapter 18 verse one: "When Jesus had spoken these words, He went forth with His disciples over the ravine of Kidron where there was a garden into which He Himself entered and His disciples." Of the four Gospels, the one that identifies Gethsemane as a garden is John. John, again, is always interested in doing a midrash on Genesis. The Kidron is a narrow valley between the Temple Mount on the west and the Mount of Olives or Har Zeitim on the east. Gethsemane comes from the Hebrew word Shemen, or 'oil'. The olive oil - which we call Shemen ziot - used ritually in the Temple came from Gethsemane. They would harvest the olives growing on the Mount of Olives, and bring them to Gethsemane to be pressed. (There are still olive orchards on the Mount of Olives to this day - in fact, the experts tell us that there are trees there that are 2,000 years old and still growing; they would have been present in the days of Jesus - olive trees live extremely long, if they are not interrupted by earthquakes or pollution or other environmental catastrophes.) It is to Gethsemane that Jesus goes, and there something begins to happen. To God, one man without sin is worth more than all the men with sin: that is how one could die for all.
In this garden, God takes our sin on Himself. He takes our sin and puts it on His son, Jesus, in order to take His righteousness and put it on us.
Jesus suffered physically; He was tortured. He suffered emotionally; the Bible speaks of this time as the 'travail of his soul'. But something else happened on the cross: His fellowship was broken with His Father. We must note also that He said, "It is finished. Father, into Your hands I give My Spirit." Satan's liars in the church today deny this fundamental doctrine:
Copeland, Hagen, Joyce Meyer, all these people are teaching error. They teach that Satan got the victory on the cross, that Jesus' Spirit was not commended to the Father, that it was not finished, and that He had to go to Hell. They teach further that He was tortured in Hell for three days and three nights, and that then He had to be born again in Hell. That is the teaching of Copeland and Hagen, which they got from E. W. Kenyon. They have another Jesus; they have another Gospel, as most of you know. Because the cross of Jesus is not central to their view of salvation, neither is the cross of Jesus central to their view of the Christian life. Instead of "pick up your cross and follow Me", their doctrine is "you're a King's kid, name it and claim it, God wants you rich, believe God for another Mercedes, etc". These men are from the devil, and are some of the false prophets that Jesus warned would come in the Last Days. Today they are doing exactly what Jesus said they would do.
Jesus takes our sin on Himself, not in Hell, but in a garden. That is where God begins to put our sin on Jesus.
The full wrath of God was poured out on Jesus while He was on the cross. "Now, Judas also, who was betraying Him, knew the place, for the disciples had often met there" - Jesus often met there with His disciples - "Judas then, having received the Roman cohort and officers from the chief priests and the Pharisees, came there with lanterns and torches and weapons. Jesus, therefore, knowing all the things that were coming upon Him, went forth and said to them, "Whom do you seek?" And they answered Him, "Jesus, the Nazarene."" Jesus' real name was Rabbi Yeshua BarYosef vi Netzeret. They wouldn't have known who Jesus Christ is, but they would have known who Rabbi Yeshua was; He is the One who raises the dead and heals the lepers; He is the one who could walk on water.
"When, therefore, He said to them, "I am He," they drew back and fell to the ground." The Greek text says that they fell back and then they slid forward. Every knee will bow, even those of His enemies.
The phenomenon of being 'slain in the spirit' happens at various times in the Bible, particularly in the New Testament. In Revelation chapter one, John is in the Spirit in the Lord's day, and when the power of Jesus comes on him, he falls as if slain. He fell forward, and was so terrified that God had to send an angel to encourage him. When Jesus cast a demon out of the child whom the demons kept throwing into the fire, they thought he was dead; but when he got up he was completely different. Daniel, too, was terrified.
Notice that in the Bible whenever someone was slain in the Spirit it was a once in a lifetime life-changing event. It doesn't matter what happens when people go down, how different is their life once they get up? But today, who is getting in line? The same ones who were in line to go down last week. They just want to go down for the thrill of it. As with anything else, a wicked and adulterous generation seeks this sign.
Again, in the Bible being slain in the Spirit was a once in a lifetime, life-changing experience. It doesn't matter what happens when somebody goes down, but how changed their life is when they get up. In the Bible, too, whenever it was a blessing from God, the person in question went forward. The only time they ever went backwards was when it was a curse and a judgment: when they came to arrest Christ.
Today you see Rodney Howard Brown and these guys bringing official 'catchers' with them. But they are falling the wrong direction.
People insist that they know this experience is from God; well, it might be indeed, but if it is, He is angry with them. I personally am pretty certain that most of it is hypnotic induction combined with demonic deception. Even if it is of God, however, it is a judgment.
Whom do you seek? Jesus. I am He. In Greek, "I am He," or, ego ami. The Greek equivalent is also found at the end of John chapter 8, where Jesus says, "before Abraham was, I am." Ego ami. The people then tried to stone Him, because He made Himself equal with God.
Let us go back to our cast of characters: In the Garden of Eden is God in the Person of Jesus. In the garden of Gethsemane is God in the Person of Jesus. But then, in the Garden of Eden, Satan as deceiver is present. In the Gospel of John, what happens to Judas just before the disciples accompany Jesus to Gethsemane? The text plainly tells us: Satan entered him. The only two people demon-possessed by Satan personally will be the anti-Christ or false prophet and Judas, the Son of Perdition. John in his epistle describes anti-Christ in the character of Judas. "They went out from among us, but they were not really of us." Whenever you see something about Judas in the Bible, the Holy Spirit is telling you something about the anti-Christ. Both Judas and the Antichrist will be into money; both can deceive the brethren - the disciples were asking, "Lord is it I, Lord is it I?" - they did not know the identity of the traitor until Jesus revealed him. In the same way, people will not know who the real anti-Christ is until Jesus reveals him. If you cannot see through Benny Hinn or Kenneth Copeland or Chuck Colson, what will become of you when the Antichrist comes?
How did Judas con people? He conned people with the Mother Theresa trick: fig leaves. "Could this not have been sold and given to the poor?"- he feigned compassion for the poor in order to ingratiate himself with people, to make them think he was a good guy. In reality, however, he was only using the plight of the poor to seduce, camouflage, and manipulate. Mother Theresa said before she died that she had no assurance of salvation. When she got the Nobel Prize, she made it clear that she did not convert people in India to be Christians, but to be better Hindus and better Muslims. That was her gospel. She cleaned them up, gave them a clean place to die with dignity, and sent them off to Hell in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in a laundry chute.
The New Galatians
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by James Jacob Prasch
Jeremiah 31:31 & the Epistle to the Galatians - You Foolish Galatians, Who Betwitched You? A Crisis in Messianic Judaism?
A Time Will Come When I Will Make A New Covenant With The House Of Israel And The House Of Judah, Not Like The Covenant I Made With Their Fathers (Jeremiah 31:31).
We see the stage being set with current Middle East events for the prophetic fulfilment of Zecheriah 12 & 13 , for the Great Tribulation ("The Time of Jacob's Trouble" in Jeremiah 30), the dawn of The Anti Christ, and the Return of Jesus. At the same time we see the fulfilment of the prophetic predictions of Paul in Romans 11, with the increases in Jews being saved and a rediscovery by many Evangelicals of the Hebrew origins of The Christian Faith.
Concerning this rediscovery, Non Jewish Christians are warned by God's Word in Romans 11 not to boast against Israel, the natural branches, just as Jewish believers are warned not to berate non Jews who believe (Ruth 2: 15, Acts 15:13-19). In The Messiah we are 'One New Man' where cultural differences between the natural Jewish and in-grafted non-Jewish branches, like the socio-economic differences between bond servant and free, or the biological and emotional differences between male and female, constitute no spiritual difference; we all have one salvation, One Saviour, one promise, one bible, One Spirit, and one eternal destiny (Galatians 3:28). So now bond servants are free in The Lord and the free are now The Lord's bond servants. The wife in Christ is now co-heir with the husband (1 Peter 3:7), and believing Gentiles are co heirs with Israel (Ephesians 2:11-14).
As we always note, according to Jeremiah 31:31 , The New Covenant was made with Israel and The Jews, not the church. The church is the spiritual continuation of Israel of the faithful remnant of Israel into which believing non Jews are in-grafted , but not the replacement of literal Israel. Believing non Jews are grafted in while unbelieving Jews rejecting Yeshua as their Messiah have been cut off from their own Olive Tree, but are grafted in again by receiving Him (Romans 11: 17-24). Our readers know these things.
But as we see the prophecies of Zecheriah, Jeremiah, The Olivet Discourse, Daniel and Revelation and the eschatological (end times) prophetic material in the Epistles , coming into fulfilment, we see a confusion and a deception of which God is not author.
In The past we have published article warning against the errors of replacement theology, and of Calvinistic covenant theology (which denigrates The New Covenant by falsely teaching that God only made one covenant with Adam and one with Abraham, and further states that Israel is now the church). We have warned about Post Millenialism (if Satan is bound, when did the 1,000 years begin and more importantly who keeps letting him go?) which when mixed with the charismania of latter day reign/Joel's Army- Manifest Sons hyper Pentecostalism yields the deceptions of The Vinyard Movement and the over realised eschatology of Kingdom Now Theology. Coming from this we have warned of the Christian anti Semitism of The Identity Movement , and the Christian anti Zionism of Rick Godwin, Bryn Joners, and the pro Arafat Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem who preached against Israel recently in the late David Watson's St. Michael Le Belfry in York (now predictably a swamp of Alpha course ecumenical deception, Toronto lunacy etc.). We have warned against the de-Jewishisation of Jesus by the Elim Movement in its 'Jesus Christ had no Jewish blood' article by George Canty published in Elim's tabloid (like St. Michael Bat in Le Belfry, Elim from bogus gold teeth to promotions of apostate money preachers remains a quagmire of deception, still trying to revive the failed Toronto Experience at its conference featuring John Arnott). Again our readers, and other biblically knowledgeable and discerning Christians know these things.
On the other extreme, we have joined David Brickner, Tuvya Zaretsky & Jews For Jesus, and John Ross &Christian Witness to Israel, and Dr Arnold Fruchtenbaum and Ariel, and others involved in seeing Jewish souls saved in warning agauinst ministries to the Jews that with hold Christ. We appreciate Arnold Fruchtembaum's recent letter stating that the actions of Ebenezer Fund are not biblical or of God, and as scandal yet again haunts The International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem, its new leader, Malcom Hedding produced a tape teaching that Jesus never came to die but that Israel would simply be Born Again without Him going to the cross. Jesus on the contrary Himself said concerning His death and resurrection "For This Purpose I Have Come" (in order to fulfil Isaiah 53, Daniel 9 etc. to make salvation possible), and Romans 6 makes it clear that regeneration unto salvation is impossible without His death. Malcom Hedding , (like the ICEJ founder Jan Willem Van der Hoven) is a complete and unmitigated heretic. As Jeremiah 31:31 states, The New Covenant was made with Israel, and dual covenant beliefs claiming Jews can be saved apart from The New Covenant are a lie of Satan. Those not bringing Israel The New Covenant have a mere social and political gospel which from the view point of scripture is no gospel at all. The New DilemmaNow however, we have a new threat to the purposes of God for Israel and The Jews. Replacementists, anti zionists, and anti semites and the Identity Movement inspired Ruckmanites (Aho , Dillen, Howard & Buester) have a new weapon against Jewish believers retaining their God given identity as Jews - and ironically, that weapon is provided by a combination certain Jewish believers and judaised Gentiles from the extreme axis of the messianic movement.
The nomianism (soft legalism) of hyper messianic extremists we have warned against in articles such as 'Satan's Seduction Of The Hebrew Roots Movement", and "Why I Do Not Accept The Jerusalem School of Synoptic Research". The latter was written as a compliment to Andrew Gould's article addressing the precarious and unsubstantiated claims of Messrs Bivin and Blizzard of the gospels bering originally in Hebrew, which were supported by the late Rabbinic scholar David Flusser and Roman Catholic writer Joseph Francovic) . No manuscript evidence exists for these speculations, the linguistic arguments are convoluted and faulty, and the one historic reference from the time of Hegisippus in the post apostolic/early patristic era of Matthew's gospel being originally in Hebrew, if true, could simply have been the Hebrew dialect of Aramaic.
There is a misguided element in the Gentile church , who understandably disgusted with what they see as the distorted Christianity of the contemporary church in the age of ecumenism, Toronto, money preachers and higher criticism - in reaction desire to return to the source of the Christian faith, which is biblically and historically a primordial Jewish faith. Unfortunately, they arrive at the abrupt conclusion that anything Messianic must be right, when in fact there is as much lunacy of every description in the various strands of the Messianic Movement as there are in any other component of The Body of Christ.
One popular expression we have witnessed of this is the use of David Stern's 'Jewish New Testament' and his 'Complete Jewish Bible' (as if there were any other kind). While at one time we did recommend Mr Stern's book "Restoring The Jewishness of The Gospel", Mr Stern's book 'Messianic Manifesto' calling for a "Messianic Sanhedrin to issue chalakik (legal rabinic Jewish)decisions for Jewish believers is too ludicrous a proposition to deserve serious comment. While fine as a reference book , Mr Stern's Jewish New Testament is one of the worst paraphrases from the original Greek I have ever seen. His mistranslation of Ephesians 5 is so absurd that the Jehovahas Witnesses wouldn't go that far in their highly distorted so called 'New World Translation'. Yet too many sincere, yet na ¯ve Christians assume "Oh , if it is the Jewish New Testament it must be the uncorrupted original one", not knowing the translation is badly corrupted.
There are similar reactions among many Southern Baptist and other groups, who in reaction to the avalanche of error in the church revert to Reformed theology, complete with its errors of cessationism and hyper Calvinism, (and sometimes replacementism) because they see it as the diametric opposite of ecumenism and charismania. Thus instead of correcting an error with truth, one error is redressed by another one of the opposite extreme. This same warped and unbiblical reasoning happens when people react against the errors of supercessionism (Replacement theology) with hyper Messianic extremism.
In the last few years, hyper Messianic extremism has reached new heights of erroneous belief with the deity of Yeshua even being rejected in some cases. From crazy conferences lifting up 'Jewishness' instead of 'Jesus-ness' is misplaced and displaces the proper emphasis scripture says we are to have. Jewish believers do not conferences , (usually run by biblically ignorant kooks), telling them how to be Jewish. Jews know how to be Jewish just as Mexicans know how to be Mexican or Koreans know how to be Korean. They need discipleship and biblical exposition telling them how to be followers of their Messiah Yeshua, the same as any other believer.
No one argues with voluntary Jewish observances. They are optional as a matter of personal choice and culture (Roman 14: 4-5, Colossians 2:16-18). Their can be an advantage in observance of Jewish customs a an evangelistic strategy in reaching Jews (1 Corinthians 9: 20) and no place are people called to abandon their culture upon becoming believers in Jesus, but on the contrary are told not to forfeit their identity (1 Corinthians 7:18). Moreover, Jewish ritual fulfilled in Christ is used repeatedly in The New Testament as an illustration of doctrine (1 Corinthians 5:7-8, Hebrews 9: 1-22) and in accordance with biblical and apostolic tradition these observances remain a biblical way to re-enforce and illustrate our understanding of New Testament doctrine. It was the post apostolic and post biblical patristic tradition of the Church Fathers such as the anti semitic John Chrysostom who first opposed such things. The New Testament however never does.
Indeed, as Paul wrote, "all things are lawful, but not all things are helpful". A Jewish berliever eating pork, while lawful, may not be helpful to his or her testimony in reaching Jews being told by rabbis that believing Jews have abandoned being Jewish. Pork or shellfish are now 'kosher' but may hinder to one's testimony, just as taking The Lord's Supper with wine could damage one's testimony in a for instance a Celtic culture where alcohol abuse is so prolific a problem. But when these observances become compulsory (eg. for membership in a Messianic Congregation), or are seen as a means of sanctification in and of themselves one goes back under the law Christ came to free us from. Those finding something inherently wrong in non kosher foods the bible tells us are "weak in faith".
If it is folly to hold conferences telling Jews how to be Jews, it is more ridiculous telling non Jews how to be Jews. Yet, now we see gentiles being brought under the law. There is a messianic group in South Africa urging gentile adult males to undergo ritual Jewish circumcision. Some judaised gentiles such as Israel Hawkes dress like ultra orthodox rabbis , and have begun a highly schismatic belief of cultic proportions believing that it is wrong to call Yeshua Jesus or God anything other than YHWH.
Indeed, what our translations usually call LORD is actually YHWH in the original Hebrew Text, but The New Testament manuscripts translating the spoken Aramaic term Mar, which would have been used by Jesus) employ the term kurios (Lord) repeatedly. If the New Testament has no problem calling YHWH Lord, why should we?
Satan's first efforts to seduce the church were not to paganise it, (that came later with some of the Church Fathers and after Constantine with the papacy), as we see in The New Testament , his first efforts to seduce the Church were to Judaise it.
The Roman Catholic priesthood, Calvinistic Covenant theology, Amillenial Calvinistic Reconstructionism , the Roman Catholic Mass, and The Seventh Day adventists are all examples of a Judaised Christendom. So now are the hyper Messianic Extremists.
This error, a virtual throw back to the Book of Galatians, is being used to fuel the anti messianic rhetoric of the replacementist we have warned against in our article "Watchmen Who Are Not Watchmen" (still available on our web site).
In the past it has been easy to refute replacementists, especially the Ruckmanites. Ruckmanites are people who follow the beliefs of Peter Ruckman, combining debunked Gail Riplinger in support of the extreme KJV Only position with White Supremacist Identity Movement beliefs). Some of these are often willing to lie to achieve their ends in spreading anti Jewish neo nazi propaganda within the church (things about "Jews having different DNA than other people", and 'Jewish conspiracies to take over the Christian church' , and outlandishly "Jews believing only they can interpret the bible, because of having different DNA).
As Rick Godwin and Bryn Jones (both advocates of the Toronto deception) launched a tide of Christian anti zionism among Restorationists extreme charismatics, Ruckmanites like Aho , Buester, Howard and Dillen influenced by the racist and anti Semitic 'Balaam's Ass' web site, where Identity Movement beliefs are repackaged as supposedly "Christian discernment" wage a relentless tirade against Messianic Jews, but the bigoted source of their propaganda and their general biblical ignorance means that they have never been a very serious challenge to God's purposes for the Church in relation to Israel. When biblically and logically refuted , they take bible passages out of context (as Satan did in Matthew 4) and turn them into clich ©s to hide under. When anyone points to New Testament teachings about believing Jews as the natural branches and the practical advantages of being the people of the covenants and having the oracles of God (Romans 3:1), they respond against the existence of Messianic Jews in the same way as Christian feminists arguing for the ordination of women pastors twisting the same verse out of context. That verse is inevitable Galatians 3:28 "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, neither male nor female".
Do men have babies? Did the institution of slavery not exist in the age of the first century church? The temporal differences all remain, the text in its context is talking about spiritual differences disappearing in Christ. To say Jews no longer exist within the Body of Christ is to say that women don't either, or that Paul was wrong in giving instructions to Christian slaves (1 Corinthians 7:21-22) because there weren't any!
The new tide of heresy among hyper messianic extremists encompassing everything from denial of the deity of Yeshua to financial scandal is providing the Israeli Press and anti Messianic Orthodox Jewish Activists in the Jewish community, and radical replacementists and Christian anti semites , (if that is not a contradiction in terms) in the Christian community with new ammunition that is easy to exploit in the discrediting of the doctrinally sound mainstream of Jewish belief, Jewish evangelism, and a biblical understanding of the prophetic purposes of God concerning Israel and the Jews.
A recent article in the November issue of ISRAEL TODAY featured an article about Messianic Jews debating the deity of Yeshua. It is unfortunate this reached the secular media, but it has. A subsequent article in KIVUN, a Hebrew language messianic periodical carried an article by Udi Tzofef quoting various Israeli messianic leaders saying they do not view Yeshua as God in the the same way as traditional Christian theology but as 'The Son of God' and as the Messianic Redeemer. Some espoused what amounts to the ancient heresy of 'Ebionism' held by the Ebionites - calling Jesus a uniquely inspired man but not God Himself. This caused a backlash with 'ISRAEL TODAY' carrying a follow up piece suggesting that those messianic leaders now backtracking are doing so because they are threatened economically with withdrawal of financial support from abroad.
For some time one congregation in Jerusalem has tolerated Ebionites as members and while its leader in Israel uses abusive language such as "the small of the gentiles"(an odour he cannot find awfully fowl given that the wife and mother of his children is one of them) and has made statements about "the whole gentile church going to hell". It is for sure he does not speak that way ion his fundraising trips to churches in the USA. This congregation combines the influences of the late Moishe Ben Meir, (a graduate of Moody Bible Institute who effectively rejected some of the writings of Paul), and influences from the Church of Christ, a sect holding to baptismal regeneration in a form of sacramentalism usually known as "Campbellite".
Among those quoted as rejecting the deity of Yeshua are Uri Markus of the Nehemiah Trust, which helps needy Israeli believers. While the aim of Nehemiah Fund is itself noble, Moriel sadly and regrettably cannot any longer sanction the support of any ministry under the direction of one no longer upholding the fundamental biblical truth of the deity of Yeshua.
Others quoted as rejecting the deity of Yeshua are Joseph Shulam , Hannah Weiss and Dodo Tel Tsur (Mr Shulam was quoted as saying "those believing Jesus is God have lost their search for faith"). Hanna Weiss and Joseph Shulam claim that their views were misconstrued and misreported out of context and that they do not reject the deity of The Lord, but merely do not express it in accordance with the terminology of the Councils or Creeds of The Gentile Church. There is nothing in scripture mandating that one must accept the creeds of the church or define biblical truths in language and terms alien to the New Testament itself and to the original First Century Jewish Church. If Mr Shulam and Hanna Weiss do indeed uphold the deity of Yeshua, but simply reject helenistic explanations of it, Mr Shulam and Hanna Weiss stand vindicated and publications misrepresenting their beliefs should apologetically retract these damaging misquotations and contextual distortions. Others such as Mr Markus unfortunately defended and reiterate their rejection of The Lord's deity. It is clear however that while most Israeli Messianic Jews believe in the deity of Yeshua , there does exist a neo-Ebionite minority who do not.
Even more bizarre has been judaised gentiles such as Joseph B. Good rejecting the trinity. Peter Michas (whose nonsense was dismissed by eminent apologeticist Dr Ron Rhodes ) not only denies the eternal person-hood of Jesus within the Triune Godhead, but has concocted outlandish teachings such as Jesus and the two thieves being nailed to a tree growing out of the ground, and the Garden of Eden not being in Mesopotamia as Genesis says, but in Jerusalem apparently borrowed from a weird caballistic oddity in mystical Judaism.
Predictably, the most extreme elements of the Messianic Movement have been among my fellow Charismatics & Pentecostals. Dan Juster, leader of The Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations (UMJC) sadly endorsed the ecumenical Promise Keepers fad and has himself become the victim of hyper charismatic chicanery of the most cruel kind following the tragic death of his son in a terrible fire. The young boy's remains were kept on artificial life support as Mr Juster was receiving phone calls on his mobile telephone telling him that God was going to raise the boy from the dead. After the life support was shut don he was urged not to bury the corpse. Indeed God will raise his son on the last day and indeed God could have raised him at this death if God so willed, but it was not God's purpose. What Brother Juster mistook to be prophetic words from The Lord was the mere clairvoyance of hyper charismatic false prophets and deceivers who played on the emotional vulnerability of a bereaved family. Once leaders of a movement have no discernment, there is little prospect for the movement attaining the better purposes of God. We have been warning for some time that if Cardinal Jean Marie Lustigere of Paris (an ethnic Jew) becomes a future pope, hyper messianic extremists will rejoice that the individual in that anti christ papal office is "a Jewish believer".ConclusionIt is absolutely amazing to see the same Ebionite heresy with which Satan attempted to destroy the first Messianic Movement in the early centuries of the church making a come back today as God once again turns His grace back towards His ancient people Israel.
It is also amazing to see the same nomianism and legalism with which Satan tried to use hyper messianic extremists in Galatia to subvert the gospel in the First Century Church now resurfacing to subvert it in the Twenty First Century Church. Once the domain of Seventh Day Adventists, this unworkable striving to live under two covenants has now permeated most of the charismatic branch of the Messianic Movement. While representing only a minority of Jewish believers, these highly vocal neo Galatians have appointed themselves spokesmen for all Jewish believers and in peddling their nonsense have forgotten the message of Romans 3: 17-23.
It is furthermore amazing to see Satan raising up the same anti messianic arrogance warned against in Romans 11:18 in the early church appearing again today.
It is additionally amazing to see the vitriolic anti Semitic rhetoric masquerading as Christian doctrine which abounded in the early church in the malicious pulpit propaganda of John Chrysostom (and reiterated through the centuries by popes and Luther alike) now coming from the mouths of Satan's latter day messengers the Ruckmanites.
Last of all, just as Jewish believers like Paul withstood this confusion of the deception of messianic extremism on one hand and Christian anti Semitism and Replacementism on the other in the Early Church, The Lord has once more raised up Jewish believers from Arnold Fruchtenbaum to Stan Telchin to Louis Goldberg - providing a scriptural and balanced response to these twin errors Satan has retrieved from early church history and stirred up again. Of One Thing We May Rest Assure - God Did Not Allow Satan To Succeed Back Then In Ancient Galatia And The Same God Will Not Allow Him To Succeed Now!
Jeremiah 31:31 & the Epistle to the Galatians - You Foolish Galatians, Who Betwitched You? A Crisis in Messianic Judaism?
A Time Will Come When I Will Make A New Covenant With The House Of Israel And The House Of Judah, Not Like The Covenant I Made With Their Fathers (Jeremiah 31:31).
We see the stage being set with current Middle East events for the prophetic fulfilment of Zecheriah 12 & 13 , for the Great Tribulation ("The Time of Jacob's Trouble" in Jeremiah 30), the dawn of The Anti Christ, and the Return of Jesus. At the same time we see the fulfilment of the prophetic predictions of Paul in Romans 11, with the increases in Jews being saved and a rediscovery by many Evangelicals of the Hebrew origins of The Christian Faith.
Concerning this rediscovery, Non Jewish Christians are warned by God's Word in Romans 11 not to boast against Israel, the natural branches, just as Jewish believers are warned not to berate non Jews who believe (Ruth 2: 15, Acts 15:13-19). In The Messiah we are 'One New Man' where cultural differences between the natural Jewish and in-grafted non-Jewish branches, like the socio-economic differences between bond servant and free, or the biological and emotional differences between male and female, constitute no spiritual difference; we all have one salvation, One Saviour, one promise, one bible, One Spirit, and one eternal destiny (Galatians 3:28). So now bond servants are free in The Lord and the free are now The Lord's bond servants. The wife in Christ is now co-heir with the husband (1 Peter 3:7), and believing Gentiles are co heirs with Israel (Ephesians 2:11-14).
As we always note, according to Jeremiah 31:31 , The New Covenant was made with Israel and The Jews, not the church. The church is the spiritual continuation of Israel of the faithful remnant of Israel into which believing non Jews are in-grafted , but not the replacement of literal Israel. Believing non Jews are grafted in while unbelieving Jews rejecting Yeshua as their Messiah have been cut off from their own Olive Tree, but are grafted in again by receiving Him (Romans 11: 17-24). Our readers know these things.
But as we see the prophecies of Zecheriah, Jeremiah, The Olivet Discourse, Daniel and Revelation and the eschatological (end times) prophetic material in the Epistles , coming into fulfilment, we see a confusion and a deception of which God is not author.
In The past we have published article warning against the errors of replacement theology, and of Calvinistic covenant theology (which denigrates The New Covenant by falsely teaching that God only made one covenant with Adam and one with Abraham, and further states that Israel is now the church). We have warned about Post Millenialism (if Satan is bound, when did the 1,000 years begin and more importantly who keeps letting him go?) which when mixed with the charismania of latter day reign/Joel's Army- Manifest Sons hyper Pentecostalism yields the deceptions of The Vinyard Movement and the over realised eschatology of Kingdom Now Theology. Coming from this we have warned of the Christian anti Semitism of The Identity Movement , and the Christian anti Zionism of Rick Godwin, Bryn Joners, and the pro Arafat Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem who preached against Israel recently in the late David Watson's St. Michael Le Belfry in York (now predictably a swamp of Alpha course ecumenical deception, Toronto lunacy etc.). We have warned against the de-Jewishisation of Jesus by the Elim Movement in its 'Jesus Christ had no Jewish blood' article by George Canty published in Elim's tabloid (like St. Michael Bat in Le Belfry, Elim from bogus gold teeth to promotions of apostate money preachers remains a quagmire of deception, still trying to revive the failed Toronto Experience at its conference featuring John Arnott). Again our readers, and other biblically knowledgeable and discerning Christians know these things.
On the other extreme, we have joined David Brickner, Tuvya Zaretsky & Jews For Jesus, and John Ross &Christian Witness to Israel, and Dr Arnold Fruchtenbaum and Ariel, and others involved in seeing Jewish souls saved in warning agauinst ministries to the Jews that with hold Christ. We appreciate Arnold Fruchtembaum's recent letter stating that the actions of Ebenezer Fund are not biblical or of God, and as scandal yet again haunts The International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem, its new leader, Malcom Hedding produced a tape teaching that Jesus never came to die but that Israel would simply be Born Again without Him going to the cross. Jesus on the contrary Himself said concerning His death and resurrection "For This Purpose I Have Come" (in order to fulfil Isaiah 53, Daniel 9 etc. to make salvation possible), and Romans 6 makes it clear that regeneration unto salvation is impossible without His death. Malcom Hedding , (like the ICEJ founder Jan Willem Van der Hoven) is a complete and unmitigated heretic. As Jeremiah 31:31 states, The New Covenant was made with Israel, and dual covenant beliefs claiming Jews can be saved apart from The New Covenant are a lie of Satan. Those not bringing Israel The New Covenant have a mere social and political gospel which from the view point of scripture is no gospel at all. The New DilemmaNow however, we have a new threat to the purposes of God for Israel and The Jews. Replacementists, anti zionists, and anti semites and the Identity Movement inspired Ruckmanites (Aho , Dillen, Howard & Buester) have a new weapon against Jewish believers retaining their God given identity as Jews - and ironically, that weapon is provided by a combination certain Jewish believers and judaised Gentiles from the extreme axis of the messianic movement.
The nomianism (soft legalism) of hyper messianic extremists we have warned against in articles such as 'Satan's Seduction Of The Hebrew Roots Movement", and "Why I Do Not Accept The Jerusalem School of Synoptic Research". The latter was written as a compliment to Andrew Gould's article addressing the precarious and unsubstantiated claims of Messrs Bivin and Blizzard of the gospels bering originally in Hebrew, which were supported by the late Rabbinic scholar David Flusser and Roman Catholic writer Joseph Francovic) . No manuscript evidence exists for these speculations, the linguistic arguments are convoluted and faulty, and the one historic reference from the time of Hegisippus in the post apostolic/early patristic era of Matthew's gospel being originally in Hebrew, if true, could simply have been the Hebrew dialect of Aramaic.
There is a misguided element in the Gentile church , who understandably disgusted with what they see as the distorted Christianity of the contemporary church in the age of ecumenism, Toronto, money preachers and higher criticism - in reaction desire to return to the source of the Christian faith, which is biblically and historically a primordial Jewish faith. Unfortunately, they arrive at the abrupt conclusion that anything Messianic must be right, when in fact there is as much lunacy of every description in the various strands of the Messianic Movement as there are in any other component of The Body of Christ.
One popular expression we have witnessed of this is the use of David Stern's 'Jewish New Testament' and his 'Complete Jewish Bible' (as if there were any other kind). While at one time we did recommend Mr Stern's book "Restoring The Jewishness of The Gospel", Mr Stern's book 'Messianic Manifesto' calling for a "Messianic Sanhedrin to issue chalakik (legal rabinic Jewish)decisions for Jewish believers is too ludicrous a proposition to deserve serious comment. While fine as a reference book , Mr Stern's Jewish New Testament is one of the worst paraphrases from the original Greek I have ever seen. His mistranslation of Ephesians 5 is so absurd that the Jehovahas Witnesses wouldn't go that far in their highly distorted so called 'New World Translation'. Yet too many sincere, yet na ¯ve Christians assume "Oh , if it is the Jewish New Testament it must be the uncorrupted original one", not knowing the translation is badly corrupted.
There are similar reactions among many Southern Baptist and other groups, who in reaction to the avalanche of error in the church revert to Reformed theology, complete with its errors of cessationism and hyper Calvinism, (and sometimes replacementism) because they see it as the diametric opposite of ecumenism and charismania. Thus instead of correcting an error with truth, one error is redressed by another one of the opposite extreme. This same warped and unbiblical reasoning happens when people react against the errors of supercessionism (Replacement theology) with hyper Messianic extremism.
In the last few years, hyper Messianic extremism has reached new heights of erroneous belief with the deity of Yeshua even being rejected in some cases. From crazy conferences lifting up 'Jewishness' instead of 'Jesus-ness' is misplaced and displaces the proper emphasis scripture says we are to have. Jewish believers do not conferences , (usually run by biblically ignorant kooks), telling them how to be Jewish. Jews know how to be Jewish just as Mexicans know how to be Mexican or Koreans know how to be Korean. They need discipleship and biblical exposition telling them how to be followers of their Messiah Yeshua, the same as any other believer.
No one argues with voluntary Jewish observances. They are optional as a matter of personal choice and culture (Roman 14: 4-5, Colossians 2:16-18). Their can be an advantage in observance of Jewish customs a an evangelistic strategy in reaching Jews (1 Corinthians 9: 20) and no place are people called to abandon their culture upon becoming believers in Jesus, but on the contrary are told not to forfeit their identity (1 Corinthians 7:18). Moreover, Jewish ritual fulfilled in Christ is used repeatedly in The New Testament as an illustration of doctrine (1 Corinthians 5:7-8, Hebrews 9: 1-22) and in accordance with biblical and apostolic tradition these observances remain a biblical way to re-enforce and illustrate our understanding of New Testament doctrine. It was the post apostolic and post biblical patristic tradition of the Church Fathers such as the anti semitic John Chrysostom who first opposed such things. The New Testament however never does.
Indeed, as Paul wrote, "all things are lawful, but not all things are helpful". A Jewish berliever eating pork, while lawful, may not be helpful to his or her testimony in reaching Jews being told by rabbis that believing Jews have abandoned being Jewish. Pork or shellfish are now 'kosher' but may hinder to one's testimony, just as taking The Lord's Supper with wine could damage one's testimony in a for instance a Celtic culture where alcohol abuse is so prolific a problem. But when these observances become compulsory (eg. for membership in a Messianic Congregation), or are seen as a means of sanctification in and of themselves one goes back under the law Christ came to free us from. Those finding something inherently wrong in non kosher foods the bible tells us are "weak in faith".
If it is folly to hold conferences telling Jews how to be Jews, it is more ridiculous telling non Jews how to be Jews. Yet, now we see gentiles being brought under the law. There is a messianic group in South Africa urging gentile adult males to undergo ritual Jewish circumcision. Some judaised gentiles such as Israel Hawkes dress like ultra orthodox rabbis , and have begun a highly schismatic belief of cultic proportions believing that it is wrong to call Yeshua Jesus or God anything other than YHWH.
Indeed, what our translations usually call LORD is actually YHWH in the original Hebrew Text, but The New Testament manuscripts translating the spoken Aramaic term Mar, which would have been used by Jesus) employ the term kurios (Lord) repeatedly. If the New Testament has no problem calling YHWH Lord, why should we?
Satan's first efforts to seduce the church were not to paganise it, (that came later with some of the Church Fathers and after Constantine with the papacy), as we see in The New Testament , his first efforts to seduce the Church were to Judaise it.
The Roman Catholic priesthood, Calvinistic Covenant theology, Amillenial Calvinistic Reconstructionism , the Roman Catholic Mass, and The Seventh Day adventists are all examples of a Judaised Christendom. So now are the hyper Messianic Extremists.
This error, a virtual throw back to the Book of Galatians, is being used to fuel the anti messianic rhetoric of the replacementist we have warned against in our article "Watchmen Who Are Not Watchmen" (still available on our web site).
In the past it has been easy to refute replacementists, especially the Ruckmanites. Ruckmanites are people who follow the beliefs of Peter Ruckman, combining debunked Gail Riplinger in support of the extreme KJV Only position with White Supremacist Identity Movement beliefs). Some of these are often willing to lie to achieve their ends in spreading anti Jewish neo nazi propaganda within the church (things about "Jews having different DNA than other people", and 'Jewish conspiracies to take over the Christian church' , and outlandishly "Jews believing only they can interpret the bible, because of having different DNA).
As Rick Godwin and Bryn Jones (both advocates of the Toronto deception) launched a tide of Christian anti zionism among Restorationists extreme charismatics, Ruckmanites like Aho , Buester, Howard and Dillen influenced by the racist and anti Semitic 'Balaam's Ass' web site, where Identity Movement beliefs are repackaged as supposedly "Christian discernment" wage a relentless tirade against Messianic Jews, but the bigoted source of their propaganda and their general biblical ignorance means that they have never been a very serious challenge to God's purposes for the Church in relation to Israel. When biblically and logically refuted , they take bible passages out of context (as Satan did in Matthew 4) and turn them into clich ©s to hide under. When anyone points to New Testament teachings about believing Jews as the natural branches and the practical advantages of being the people of the covenants and having the oracles of God (Romans 3:1), they respond against the existence of Messianic Jews in the same way as Christian feminists arguing for the ordination of women pastors twisting the same verse out of context. That verse is inevitable Galatians 3:28 "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, neither male nor female".
Do men have babies? Did the institution of slavery not exist in the age of the first century church? The temporal differences all remain, the text in its context is talking about spiritual differences disappearing in Christ. To say Jews no longer exist within the Body of Christ is to say that women don't either, or that Paul was wrong in giving instructions to Christian slaves (1 Corinthians 7:21-22) because there weren't any!
The new tide of heresy among hyper messianic extremists encompassing everything from denial of the deity of Yeshua to financial scandal is providing the Israeli Press and anti Messianic Orthodox Jewish Activists in the Jewish community, and radical replacementists and Christian anti semites , (if that is not a contradiction in terms) in the Christian community with new ammunition that is easy to exploit in the discrediting of the doctrinally sound mainstream of Jewish belief, Jewish evangelism, and a biblical understanding of the prophetic purposes of God concerning Israel and the Jews.
A recent article in the November issue of ISRAEL TODAY featured an article about Messianic Jews debating the deity of Yeshua. It is unfortunate this reached the secular media, but it has. A subsequent article in KIVUN, a Hebrew language messianic periodical carried an article by Udi Tzofef quoting various Israeli messianic leaders saying they do not view Yeshua as God in the the same way as traditional Christian theology but as 'The Son of God' and as the Messianic Redeemer. Some espoused what amounts to the ancient heresy of 'Ebionism' held by the Ebionites - calling Jesus a uniquely inspired man but not God Himself. This caused a backlash with 'ISRAEL TODAY' carrying a follow up piece suggesting that those messianic leaders now backtracking are doing so because they are threatened economically with withdrawal of financial support from abroad.
For some time one congregation in Jerusalem has tolerated Ebionites as members and while its leader in Israel uses abusive language such as "the small of the gentiles"(an odour he cannot find awfully fowl given that the wife and mother of his children is one of them) and has made statements about "the whole gentile church going to hell". It is for sure he does not speak that way ion his fundraising trips to churches in the USA. This congregation combines the influences of the late Moishe Ben Meir, (a graduate of Moody Bible Institute who effectively rejected some of the writings of Paul), and influences from the Church of Christ, a sect holding to baptismal regeneration in a form of sacramentalism usually known as "Campbellite".
Among those quoted as rejecting the deity of Yeshua are Uri Markus of the Nehemiah Trust, which helps needy Israeli believers. While the aim of Nehemiah Fund is itself noble, Moriel sadly and regrettably cannot any longer sanction the support of any ministry under the direction of one no longer upholding the fundamental biblical truth of the deity of Yeshua.
Others quoted as rejecting the deity of Yeshua are Joseph Shulam , Hannah Weiss and Dodo Tel Tsur (Mr Shulam was quoted as saying "those believing Jesus is God have lost their search for faith"). Hanna Weiss and Joseph Shulam claim that their views were misconstrued and misreported out of context and that they do not reject the deity of The Lord, but merely do not express it in accordance with the terminology of the Councils or Creeds of The Gentile Church. There is nothing in scripture mandating that one must accept the creeds of the church or define biblical truths in language and terms alien to the New Testament itself and to the original First Century Jewish Church. If Mr Shulam and Hanna Weiss do indeed uphold the deity of Yeshua, but simply reject helenistic explanations of it, Mr Shulam and Hanna Weiss stand vindicated and publications misrepresenting their beliefs should apologetically retract these damaging misquotations and contextual distortions. Others such as Mr Markus unfortunately defended and reiterate their rejection of The Lord's deity. It is clear however that while most Israeli Messianic Jews believe in the deity of Yeshua , there does exist a neo-Ebionite minority who do not.
Even more bizarre has been judaised gentiles such as Joseph B. Good rejecting the trinity. Peter Michas (whose nonsense was dismissed by eminent apologeticist Dr Ron Rhodes ) not only denies the eternal person-hood of Jesus within the Triune Godhead, but has concocted outlandish teachings such as Jesus and the two thieves being nailed to a tree growing out of the ground, and the Garden of Eden not being in Mesopotamia as Genesis says, but in Jerusalem apparently borrowed from a weird caballistic oddity in mystical Judaism.
Predictably, the most extreme elements of the Messianic Movement have been among my fellow Charismatics & Pentecostals. Dan Juster, leader of The Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations (UMJC) sadly endorsed the ecumenical Promise Keepers fad and has himself become the victim of hyper charismatic chicanery of the most cruel kind following the tragic death of his son in a terrible fire. The young boy's remains were kept on artificial life support as Mr Juster was receiving phone calls on his mobile telephone telling him that God was going to raise the boy from the dead. After the life support was shut don he was urged not to bury the corpse. Indeed God will raise his son on the last day and indeed God could have raised him at this death if God so willed, but it was not God's purpose. What Brother Juster mistook to be prophetic words from The Lord was the mere clairvoyance of hyper charismatic false prophets and deceivers who played on the emotional vulnerability of a bereaved family. Once leaders of a movement have no discernment, there is little prospect for the movement attaining the better purposes of God. We have been warning for some time that if Cardinal Jean Marie Lustigere of Paris (an ethnic Jew) becomes a future pope, hyper messianic extremists will rejoice that the individual in that anti christ papal office is "a Jewish believer".ConclusionIt is absolutely amazing to see the same Ebionite heresy with which Satan attempted to destroy the first Messianic Movement in the early centuries of the church making a come back today as God once again turns His grace back towards His ancient people Israel.
It is also amazing to see the same nomianism and legalism with which Satan tried to use hyper messianic extremists in Galatia to subvert the gospel in the First Century Church now resurfacing to subvert it in the Twenty First Century Church. Once the domain of Seventh Day Adventists, this unworkable striving to live under two covenants has now permeated most of the charismatic branch of the Messianic Movement. While representing only a minority of Jewish believers, these highly vocal neo Galatians have appointed themselves spokesmen for all Jewish believers and in peddling their nonsense have forgotten the message of Romans 3: 17-23.
It is furthermore amazing to see Satan raising up the same anti messianic arrogance warned against in Romans 11:18 in the early church appearing again today.
It is additionally amazing to see the vitriolic anti Semitic rhetoric masquerading as Christian doctrine which abounded in the early church in the malicious pulpit propaganda of John Chrysostom (and reiterated through the centuries by popes and Luther alike) now coming from the mouths of Satan's latter day messengers the Ruckmanites.
Last of all, just as Jewish believers like Paul withstood this confusion of the deception of messianic extremism on one hand and Christian anti Semitism and Replacementism on the other in the Early Church, The Lord has once more raised up Jewish believers from Arnold Fruchtenbaum to Stan Telchin to Louis Goldberg - providing a scriptural and balanced response to these twin errors Satan has retrieved from early church history and stirred up again. Of One Thing We May Rest Assure - God Did Not Allow Satan To Succeed Back Then In Ancient Galatia And The Same God Will Not Allow Him To Succeed Now!
Not Even Minyan
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There are a number of acutely interesting features to the Epistle to the Romans, one of which is that Paul wrote it and not Peter. So the question automatically rises, if Peter was the first “bishop" in Rome (as is erroneously claimed), why did Paul write the Epistle? And we know that in Greco-Roman society, Rome was an empire but also a city where bisexuality and homosexuality were prevalent. It was socially acceptable and normative behavior right up through the nobility and the aristocracy in the Senate; even most of the Roman emperors were bisexual. This is the environment in which Paul is writing. Paul wrote against the backdrop of Roman philosophers, particularly Seneca who wrote De Clementia, and also Cicero who wrote The Republic.
Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. (Romans 1:22-23)
The people of Rome were very concerned about the fact that Rome had gone from being a republic to an imperial dictatorship. Paul was writing about the moral debauchery of the society. The people who were concerned with the political and philosophical issues of the day were concerned about the political state, the social state, the economic state and the strategic state of Rome. Paul was trying to say, “Wait a minute—it is the spiritual and moral state that matters most." Once the spiritual and moral state begins to disintegrate, it is easy to understand why there is the kind of mess that people with secular philosophies are trying to correct. Through their writings, Seneca and Cicero could not correct what happened to that society.Today it is the same. There is no political solution no matter who wins an election. Unless there is a moral repentance and a spiritual regeneration, it does not matter who wins the election; society is not going to get any better. Irrespective of what politician wins, it is not going to matter.I was just in California where most of its citizens voted for Proposition 8 to outlaw homosexual adoption and things like that. A Republican judge who was nominated by Ronald Reagan and appointed by George Bush struck down Proposition 8 even though most people voted for it. Yet there are Christians who naively think one political party is going to be better than the other, when in fact both are co-equally godless. Nations get the leaders they deserve. Unless there is moral repentance and a return to the things of God, it does not matter what political philosophy or ideology people follow. This is what Paul is addressing in terms of the situation in which people found themselves.Gentile God-fearers separated from the Pagans. They believed in the Jewish God, but of course they were converting to Christianity. There was also a Jewish community, a number of whose members had also become Christians and believers in Jesus. Paul begins to write about this situation saying, “Look at the idolatry of this society." When a society is idolatrous it is naturally going to be morally debauched.
Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. (Romans 1:22-23)
The people of Rome were very concerned about the fact that Rome had gone from being a republic to an imperial dictatorship. Paul was writing about the moral debauchery of the society. The people who were concerned with the political and philosophical issues of the day were concerned about the political state, the social state, the economic state and the strategic state of Rome. Paul was trying to say, “Wait a minute—it is the spiritual and moral state that matters most." Once the spiritual and moral state begins to disintegrate, it is easy to understand why there is the kind of mess that people with secular philosophies are trying to correct. Through their writings, Seneca and Cicero could not correct what happened to that society.Today it is the same. There is no political solution no matter who wins an election. Unless there is a moral repentance and a spiritual regeneration, it does not matter who wins the election; society is not going to get any better. Irrespective of what politician wins, it is not going to matter.I was just in California where most of its citizens voted for Proposition 8 to outlaw homosexual adoption and things like that. A Republican judge who was nominated by Ronald Reagan and appointed by George Bush struck down Proposition 8 even though most people voted for it. Yet there are Christians who naively think one political party is going to be better than the other, when in fact both are co-equally godless. Nations get the leaders they deserve. Unless there is moral repentance and a return to the things of God, it does not matter what political philosophy or ideology people follow. This is what Paul is addressing in terms of the situation in which people found themselves.Gentile God-fearers separated from the Pagans. They believed in the Jewish God, but of course they were converting to Christianity. There was also a Jewish community, a number of whose members had also become Christians and believers in Jesus. Paul begins to write about this situation saying, “Look at the idolatry of this society." When a society is idolatrous it is naturally going to be morally debauched.
Once Christian Marriage Means Nothing Part 1 of 2
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by James Jacob Prasch
'I say unto you whoever divorces his wife except for unchastity makes her commit adultery and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery' - Jesus Christ (Matthew 5: 32).
From around the world in recent months, Moriel has experienced something of a minor flood of emails, post, and calls about the divorce, and often remarriage of various high profile preachers. This has not simply included the divorces and remarriages themselves, but also other prominent preachers going along with it almost pretending that nothing has happened - as if the biblical permanency and sanctity of holy wedlock no longer mattered in the Body of Christ any more than it does in secular post Judeo-Christian society.
We have in our teaching tapes often pointed out that as the first kind of fellowship God ordained (apart from Adam's communion with Him) was marriage. It is in God's blue print for the human race and the foundation of society.
Once the foundation cracks, society cracks. Thus we see a direct proportional relationship between children from broken homes and single parent families and juvenile delinquency.
More fundamentally still, marriage represented the essence of Imago Dei; that man was made in the image and likeness of his Triune Creator. In the same way that the make up of our being is tripartite: having a body, a soul, and a spirit, so the marital union was to reflect this. The Hebrew term for the eternal oneness of God, Achad in the Shma, (the Hebrew confession of faith which Jesus called the greatest commandment) 'The Lord your God is One' is better translated 'Oneness' designating a plural oneness. As we are made in His image and because He loves, he designs us to want to love and to be loved, because He is creative, making us in His image. Because His own divine unity within The Godhead is permanent, He designed marriage accordingly as something He joined together that 'No Man Should Put Asunder'.
Thus the Hebrew term for marital sex in the scriptures is generally 'niknas ba', literally "to go into her" where a bond is designed to be formed as a permanent seal between two souls together via an act of physical oneness. Thus, in marital intimacy, one person is inside of another person and a third person is procreated. We have one in three, and three in one. This somehow, albeit mysteriously, reflects something of the Trinity in whose image we are created. While designed by The Creator to be erotically pleasurable, there is a spiritual dimension to marital romance transcending physical and emotional gratification, passionate intimacy, and the procreation of children. It is a bonding agent; a cement intended to last as long as temporal life does.
Yet even this falls well short of a scriptural understanding of marriage. The union was to be physical, psychological (as in emotional and intellectual), and because it is based on a mutual vow made to God, spiritual. The horizontal relationship with its physical, psychological, emotional, social, and legal links was to be predicated on a shared vertical relationship with God sealed with a solemn vow to Him as the basis of marriage. Sadly, blind as they are to the messiahship of Yeshua, Orthodox Jews have some grasp of these concepts, mystically believing the Shekinah hovers over the marriage bed and that Israel's covenant relationship with God has a counterpart in the Ketubah, a kind of ceremonial marriage contract carrying weight in halakik Jewish religious law. As with so much of the talmudic Judaism invented by the rabbis to replace the biblical Judaism of the Torah - fulfilled in The Messiah - otherwise valid truths are reinterpreted in light of kabbalistic mysticism, but the basic concept itself has a fair amount of biblical merit.
Once we contemplate how marriage, sexual intimacy and procreation mirror things divine and constitute the foundations of God's idea of society, the manner in which divorce and remarriage undermine His designs becomes obvious.
The biblical theology of marriage however, while certainly inclusive of romance and sexuality (for this we would recommend Dr. Arnold Fruchtenbaum's commentary on The Song of Songs), in actual fact goes well beyond it.
Thus even the erroneous talmudic Judaism of the rabbis realizes that Holy Matrimony is the reflected image of the divine relationship with Israel:
Hosea 2:7 - where the word for husband is ish meaning 'her personal "man"'.
Jeremiah 3:20 - where the word is rea, meaning 'her "intimate friend"'.
Jeremiah 31:32 - where the word is baal, literally 'the one who possesses her'; as in a husband and a wife sexually 'possess' each others body as in 1 Corinthians 7:4, so our bodies - the Greek word Soma - are for the Lord in 1 Corinthians 6:13).
These three terms indicate primary aspects of what Israel's relationship with God was to be akin to what a marital relationship was to be like. The term used in the Hebrew nuptial ritual for 'to wed' is mekudeshet, meaning the husband 'Sanctifies' his wife in God's sight making the union holy by a divine 'setting apart'. This is essentially the same term used for the consecration of The High Priest to make atonement, and theologically is a very serious and heavy term - never to be used lightly.
The difference was that in those days it was the unfaithful bride (Israel) who departed from her husband, the husband refused to depart. Today, Christian husbands and even preachers are often the ones doing the departing.
Even after a bill of divorce became necessary due to the unrepentant znut or harlotry which was the metaphor for idol worship (Jeremiah 3:8) and God said Lo Ammi ('not my people' - Hosea 1:9 ), He immediately claims that despite her infidelity He would reclaim her after dealing with her sin (Hosea 2:1-7). God proclaims that there is no bill of divorce, and that no man can put the relationship asunder (Isaiah:50:1-2). Despite the false doctrines of replacement theology, the so called 'christian' anti-Zionism of Rick Godwin and The Restorationists and the anti-Semitic lies of the Identity Movement who influence the likes of W.B. Howard and W. Beuster, The Lord promises and predicts He would again turn His grace back to Israel according to His eschatological calendar (Isaiah 66:20-24, Romans 11:25-27, Isaiah 59:20, Revelation 7:4-8).
It is therefore perhaps no coincidence that promoters of Godwin's ministry (which teaches God has put his relation-ship with Israel asunder) such as Ray Bevin in South Wales and Ray Macaulley in South Africa, are the very ones whose own marriages get put asunder. Macaulley has just split with his wife against the background of the cricket bribe scandal involving leading members of his church. A public scandal has rocked Bevin's Welsh church after he divorced his wife to marry another woman and front page newspaper articles are virtually labeling his church a cult on the testimony of those who have left it feeling like victims of exploitation. Bevin's church said they have no fixed policy on divorce and remarriage. While Bevin may not have a policy on divorce, God however does - He Hates It, and those not hating it do not take heed of their spirit and they are treacherous (Malachi 2:16).
Similarly, it is of very little surprise that in The UK, the Elim denomination is advertising a conference of Macaulley where he is to be joined by Elim's elder statesman George Canty, who teaches that "Jesus Christ Had No Jewish Blood". These same principles of God's divine marriage with Israel apply to and are replayed and expanded in Christ's relationship with His bride - the believing church (Revelation 21:2). Concerning Mr. Canty's Elim Movement, we actually have a copy of a letter from Elim's recently retired honcho Wynn Lewis to a Pentecostal leader in Texas in which, while not trying to defend the act, Lewis attempts to downplay the seriousness of an Elim minister sent to prison for having sex with a minor in an Elim Church because the girl was 15. This conference Elim is pushing in Birmingham is of all things called 'Fire'. The cast of characters speaking at that thing may indeed be leading people into the fire, but not the fire of The Holy Spirit. We do see a connection between the false belief that God permanently divorced Israel, and those holding such views getting divorced and remarried.
So too, sexual oneness has its parallel in oneness with Christ, and that our bodies too are not as such our own but are owned (1 Corinthians 6: 16-20). Once more, Christian marriage reflects Christ's marriage to the church (Ephesians 5:23-25). The romance and the longing of the ancient Hebrew betrothal in anticipation of the nuptial portrays the Church waiting for the return of Jesus (Matthew 25: 1-13, Song of Songs 3:1-5, 7:1 - 8: 14).
Thus, the New Testament plainly outlaws divorce unless one has an unbelieving spouse who abandons the believer, or a partner is involved in unrepentant adultery (Matthew 5:32, 1 Corinthians 7:15). Fifteen years ago, the only cases where a Christian was divorced is if it happened before they were saved Christians, an unbelieving spouse abandoned them or was involved in an adulterous affair, or there was a spouse backslidden into adultery who would not repent and became as a non-believer (1 Corinthians 5:13, Matthew 18: 17).
Today it is different. We now have leading preachers with broken marriages who therefore have no right whatsoever to even be in the ministry (1 Timothy 3:4-5, Titus 1:6). Among others, Richard Roberts, the hyper charismatic son of money preacher Oral Roberts is divorced as a supposed Christian and remarried, yet still has a TV following on the heretical TBN. Hal Lindsay, author of 'Late Great Planet Earth' is similarly on the TBN, while he is presently on his third marriage (which is why Moriel will not carry his books). Likewise, Peter Ruckman, godfather of the King James Only Movement, is also divorced and remarried three times.
Again, when one comprehends how Satan is trying to dismantle society and prevent the image and likeness of God being reflected on the earth, one immediately sees the strategy underlying promiscuity, homosexuality, same sex marriages with legal rights to artificially inseminate and/or adopt, and of course a 50% divorce rate. The church of Jesus Christ however is called by Him to be the obvious alternative to this. Instead Anglicans, Methodists, Reformed churches and The Lord knows who else are ordaining homosexuals (something neither Islam nor Mormonism would even do; cults and Islam have higher moral standards than the most visible Protestant churches). Homosexual and Lesbian clergy met in an Anglican Cathedrals in London and the homosexual dean of the Anglican Cathedral in Cape Town appearing on TV dressed in Anglican vestments actually sporting a devil's tail promoting homosexuality, while other Anglicans caught up in deception, gimmicks, and hype artistry claim there is revival.
But divorce is as much a component of Satan's assault on the family as is homosexuality. So instead of the Evangelical Christian Church maintaining a witness and testimony for Christ and being salt and light in society with stable committed marriages, divorce among Christians now abounds and the salt is good for nothing but to be trampled on the ground.
Thanks not only to them, but to those who will stand by them and join with them in so called ministry instead of disassociating from them in the prayerful hope they will repent, the only victory becomes Satan's.
The gospel believing church should be an example to a divorce ridden society of the permanency of Holy Matrimony, and our preachers should be examples of this to the true church. Instead, we have the opposite happening and it is accepted often in the name of love and unity. Such love however is not biblically the love of Jesus, neither is it the Unity of The Spirit! Christ plainly calls such divorce and remarriage nothing less than immoral adultery (Matthew 5:32). It should not even be found among saved Christians. No matter what our marital struggles, divorce is not an option for us.
We have had multiple complaints about Johannas Facius and The Ebenezer Fund bringing Peter Horrobin onto its board with Eliahu Ben Hayim. They are to be joined by Lance Lambert and Derek Prince at a July marathon in Bournemouth, England supposedly to 'Bless Israel'. We will wait to see how Steve Lightle, also at the conference, will explain why he has been away from the ministry so long, but it is the devil who wishes to sabotage the prophetic purposes of God for Israel and The Jews, and Satan will achieve this with two things: False Doctrine and Immorality.
Mr. Horrobin is the director of an institution with extreme doctrinal positions on deliverance and demonology founded in collusion with New Zealand's ecumenical Toronto advocate Bill Subritsky. We are moderately charismatic and Pentecostal ourselves in the biblical sense of those terms, but the beliefs and practices of Horrobin are void of biblical foundation, going well beyond the bounds of anything the Word of God teaches about dealing with demons.
More seriously however, Mr. Horrobin abandoned his dear wife, divorced her, and married a younger woman. While there was no evidence of any adultery at all, Mr. Horrobin reportedly accused her of 'spiritual adultery', which also has absolutely no biblical basis whatsoever (apart from the limited context of ancient Israel's idolatry and worldliness in the church in James 4:4, which even here has nothing to do with Christians getting divorced and remarried). The only adultery according to the New Testament would be Mr. Horrobin's, and if he is going to cast a demon out of somebody, perhaps he should begin with himself.
I am indeed disgusted and ashamed that such divorce and remarriage takes place within what is suppose to be The Body of Christ. I am additionally appalled that it has infiltrated into what is suppose to be God's End Times purposes for The Jews. But most of all I am in agreement with those who writing to us who are totally bemused by respected figures like Lance Lambert and Derek Prince joining forces with it in direct rejection of the clear teaching of the Jesus Christ to whom they will one day give account.
God hates divorce, and a true Christian will always not only love what God loves, but because they love The Lord, will also hate what God hates, including so called preachers dumping their wives like a sack of rubbish and taking off with another one. Paul writes that we should not associate with such immoral so called brothers (1 Corinthians 5:9). Jesus' teaching is that divorce and remarriage are adultery, and those not abiding in his teaching are not even to be greeted. For if we do as much as greet them we participate in their evil deeds (2 John: 9-11).
Not only do Johannas Facius, Derek Prince, and Lance Lambert greet such a one, but Ebenezer promotes him to their board and they all join on a platform in co-ministry with him. This is not guilt by association, but guilt by cooperation. The word of God, not Moriel, says that they participate in his evil deeds.
Moreover, this says to the followers of Derek Prince and Lance Lambert "See, divorce and remarriage must be alright because Peter Horrobin did it and Lance Lambert and Derek Prince co-minister with him". God however says, that by participating with him, Derek Prince, Johannas Facius, and Lance Lambert have participated in his sin, and as these men purport to be teachers, they will be judged even more strictly than others for doing so, as they willfully chose to allow themselves to be used by Satan to mislead others by giving credibility to a man who did something so terrible (James 3:1).
Compromising with something God calls wrong by ignoring it and acting as if it did not happen is known in scripture as "Winking The Eye" at sin, (Proverbs 10:10) and the bible says: "they cause trouble, they bring sorrow and they become babbling fools who eventually will come to ruination".
Winking the eye is always ultimately self destructive, but it is sometimes difficult to know where to draw the line between guilt by association and guilt by cooperation, yet the bible is clear that once immorality or heresy are involved, association becomes cooperation. This is particularly true where platforms or TV slots are shared so that approval of one's ministry becomes automatically implied.
The list of recognized Christian leaders divorcing is incredible. Dr. Charles Stanley, Pastor of First Baptist Church of Atlanta, and one of the few doctrinally sound voices on TV has just been divorced by his wife and Christian singer Amy Grant has recently divorced. Those divorcing and re-marrying, even multiple times is also a very sad testimony to the world and an indictment of the church that 'winks the eye' at it.
'I say unto you whoever divorces his wife except for unchastity makes her commit adultery and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery' - Jesus Christ (Matthew 5: 32).
From around the world in recent months, Moriel has experienced something of a minor flood of emails, post, and calls about the divorce, and often remarriage of various high profile preachers. This has not simply included the divorces and remarriages themselves, but also other prominent preachers going along with it almost pretending that nothing has happened - as if the biblical permanency and sanctity of holy wedlock no longer mattered in the Body of Christ any more than it does in secular post Judeo-Christian society.
We have in our teaching tapes often pointed out that as the first kind of fellowship God ordained (apart from Adam's communion with Him) was marriage. It is in God's blue print for the human race and the foundation of society.
Once the foundation cracks, society cracks. Thus we see a direct proportional relationship between children from broken homes and single parent families and juvenile delinquency.
More fundamentally still, marriage represented the essence of Imago Dei; that man was made in the image and likeness of his Triune Creator. In the same way that the make up of our being is tripartite: having a body, a soul, and a spirit, so the marital union was to reflect this. The Hebrew term for the eternal oneness of God, Achad in the Shma, (the Hebrew confession of faith which Jesus called the greatest commandment) 'The Lord your God is One' is better translated 'Oneness' designating a plural oneness. As we are made in His image and because He loves, he designs us to want to love and to be loved, because He is creative, making us in His image. Because His own divine unity within The Godhead is permanent, He designed marriage accordingly as something He joined together that 'No Man Should Put Asunder'.
Thus the Hebrew term for marital sex in the scriptures is generally 'niknas ba', literally "to go into her" where a bond is designed to be formed as a permanent seal between two souls together via an act of physical oneness. Thus, in marital intimacy, one person is inside of another person and a third person is procreated. We have one in three, and three in one. This somehow, albeit mysteriously, reflects something of the Trinity in whose image we are created. While designed by The Creator to be erotically pleasurable, there is a spiritual dimension to marital romance transcending physical and emotional gratification, passionate intimacy, and the procreation of children. It is a bonding agent; a cement intended to last as long as temporal life does.
Yet even this falls well short of a scriptural understanding of marriage. The union was to be physical, psychological (as in emotional and intellectual), and because it is based on a mutual vow made to God, spiritual. The horizontal relationship with its physical, psychological, emotional, social, and legal links was to be predicated on a shared vertical relationship with God sealed with a solemn vow to Him as the basis of marriage. Sadly, blind as they are to the messiahship of Yeshua, Orthodox Jews have some grasp of these concepts, mystically believing the Shekinah hovers over the marriage bed and that Israel's covenant relationship with God has a counterpart in the Ketubah, a kind of ceremonial marriage contract carrying weight in halakik Jewish religious law. As with so much of the talmudic Judaism invented by the rabbis to replace the biblical Judaism of the Torah - fulfilled in The Messiah - otherwise valid truths are reinterpreted in light of kabbalistic mysticism, but the basic concept itself has a fair amount of biblical merit.
Once we contemplate how marriage, sexual intimacy and procreation mirror things divine and constitute the foundations of God's idea of society, the manner in which divorce and remarriage undermine His designs becomes obvious.
The biblical theology of marriage however, while certainly inclusive of romance and sexuality (for this we would recommend Dr. Arnold Fruchtenbaum's commentary on The Song of Songs), in actual fact goes well beyond it.
Thus even the erroneous talmudic Judaism of the rabbis realizes that Holy Matrimony is the reflected image of the divine relationship with Israel:
Hosea 2:7 - where the word for husband is ish meaning 'her personal "man"'.
Jeremiah 3:20 - where the word is rea, meaning 'her "intimate friend"'.
Jeremiah 31:32 - where the word is baal, literally 'the one who possesses her'; as in a husband and a wife sexually 'possess' each others body as in 1 Corinthians 7:4, so our bodies - the Greek word Soma - are for the Lord in 1 Corinthians 6:13).
These three terms indicate primary aspects of what Israel's relationship with God was to be akin to what a marital relationship was to be like. The term used in the Hebrew nuptial ritual for 'to wed' is mekudeshet, meaning the husband 'Sanctifies' his wife in God's sight making the union holy by a divine 'setting apart'. This is essentially the same term used for the consecration of The High Priest to make atonement, and theologically is a very serious and heavy term - never to be used lightly.
The difference was that in those days it was the unfaithful bride (Israel) who departed from her husband, the husband refused to depart. Today, Christian husbands and even preachers are often the ones doing the departing.
Even after a bill of divorce became necessary due to the unrepentant znut or harlotry which was the metaphor for idol worship (Jeremiah 3:8) and God said Lo Ammi ('not my people' - Hosea 1:9 ), He immediately claims that despite her infidelity He would reclaim her after dealing with her sin (Hosea 2:1-7). God proclaims that there is no bill of divorce, and that no man can put the relationship asunder (Isaiah:50:1-2). Despite the false doctrines of replacement theology, the so called 'christian' anti-Zionism of Rick Godwin and The Restorationists and the anti-Semitic lies of the Identity Movement who influence the likes of W.B. Howard and W. Beuster, The Lord promises and predicts He would again turn His grace back to Israel according to His eschatological calendar (Isaiah 66:20-24, Romans 11:25-27, Isaiah 59:20, Revelation 7:4-8).
It is therefore perhaps no coincidence that promoters of Godwin's ministry (which teaches God has put his relation-ship with Israel asunder) such as Ray Bevin in South Wales and Ray Macaulley in South Africa, are the very ones whose own marriages get put asunder. Macaulley has just split with his wife against the background of the cricket bribe scandal involving leading members of his church. A public scandal has rocked Bevin's Welsh church after he divorced his wife to marry another woman and front page newspaper articles are virtually labeling his church a cult on the testimony of those who have left it feeling like victims of exploitation. Bevin's church said they have no fixed policy on divorce and remarriage. While Bevin may not have a policy on divorce, God however does - He Hates It, and those not hating it do not take heed of their spirit and they are treacherous (Malachi 2:16).
Similarly, it is of very little surprise that in The UK, the Elim denomination is advertising a conference of Macaulley where he is to be joined by Elim's elder statesman George Canty, who teaches that "Jesus Christ Had No Jewish Blood". These same principles of God's divine marriage with Israel apply to and are replayed and expanded in Christ's relationship with His bride - the believing church (Revelation 21:2). Concerning Mr. Canty's Elim Movement, we actually have a copy of a letter from Elim's recently retired honcho Wynn Lewis to a Pentecostal leader in Texas in which, while not trying to defend the act, Lewis attempts to downplay the seriousness of an Elim minister sent to prison for having sex with a minor in an Elim Church because the girl was 15. This conference Elim is pushing in Birmingham is of all things called 'Fire'. The cast of characters speaking at that thing may indeed be leading people into the fire, but not the fire of The Holy Spirit. We do see a connection between the false belief that God permanently divorced Israel, and those holding such views getting divorced and remarried.
So too, sexual oneness has its parallel in oneness with Christ, and that our bodies too are not as such our own but are owned (1 Corinthians 6: 16-20). Once more, Christian marriage reflects Christ's marriage to the church (Ephesians 5:23-25). The romance and the longing of the ancient Hebrew betrothal in anticipation of the nuptial portrays the Church waiting for the return of Jesus (Matthew 25: 1-13, Song of Songs 3:1-5, 7:1 - 8: 14).
Thus, the New Testament plainly outlaws divorce unless one has an unbelieving spouse who abandons the believer, or a partner is involved in unrepentant adultery (Matthew 5:32, 1 Corinthians 7:15). Fifteen years ago, the only cases where a Christian was divorced is if it happened before they were saved Christians, an unbelieving spouse abandoned them or was involved in an adulterous affair, or there was a spouse backslidden into adultery who would not repent and became as a non-believer (1 Corinthians 5:13, Matthew 18: 17).
Today it is different. We now have leading preachers with broken marriages who therefore have no right whatsoever to even be in the ministry (1 Timothy 3:4-5, Titus 1:6). Among others, Richard Roberts, the hyper charismatic son of money preacher Oral Roberts is divorced as a supposed Christian and remarried, yet still has a TV following on the heretical TBN. Hal Lindsay, author of 'Late Great Planet Earth' is similarly on the TBN, while he is presently on his third marriage (which is why Moriel will not carry his books). Likewise, Peter Ruckman, godfather of the King James Only Movement, is also divorced and remarried three times.
Again, when one comprehends how Satan is trying to dismantle society and prevent the image and likeness of God being reflected on the earth, one immediately sees the strategy underlying promiscuity, homosexuality, same sex marriages with legal rights to artificially inseminate and/or adopt, and of course a 50% divorce rate. The church of Jesus Christ however is called by Him to be the obvious alternative to this. Instead Anglicans, Methodists, Reformed churches and The Lord knows who else are ordaining homosexuals (something neither Islam nor Mormonism would even do; cults and Islam have higher moral standards than the most visible Protestant churches). Homosexual and Lesbian clergy met in an Anglican Cathedrals in London and the homosexual dean of the Anglican Cathedral in Cape Town appearing on TV dressed in Anglican vestments actually sporting a devil's tail promoting homosexuality, while other Anglicans caught up in deception, gimmicks, and hype artistry claim there is revival.
But divorce is as much a component of Satan's assault on the family as is homosexuality. So instead of the Evangelical Christian Church maintaining a witness and testimony for Christ and being salt and light in society with stable committed marriages, divorce among Christians now abounds and the salt is good for nothing but to be trampled on the ground.
Thanks not only to them, but to those who will stand by them and join with them in so called ministry instead of disassociating from them in the prayerful hope they will repent, the only victory becomes Satan's.
The gospel believing church should be an example to a divorce ridden society of the permanency of Holy Matrimony, and our preachers should be examples of this to the true church. Instead, we have the opposite happening and it is accepted often in the name of love and unity. Such love however is not biblically the love of Jesus, neither is it the Unity of The Spirit! Christ plainly calls such divorce and remarriage nothing less than immoral adultery (Matthew 5:32). It should not even be found among saved Christians. No matter what our marital struggles, divorce is not an option for us.
We have had multiple complaints about Johannas Facius and The Ebenezer Fund bringing Peter Horrobin onto its board with Eliahu Ben Hayim. They are to be joined by Lance Lambert and Derek Prince at a July marathon in Bournemouth, England supposedly to 'Bless Israel'. We will wait to see how Steve Lightle, also at the conference, will explain why he has been away from the ministry so long, but it is the devil who wishes to sabotage the prophetic purposes of God for Israel and The Jews, and Satan will achieve this with two things: False Doctrine and Immorality.
Mr. Horrobin is the director of an institution with extreme doctrinal positions on deliverance and demonology founded in collusion with New Zealand's ecumenical Toronto advocate Bill Subritsky. We are moderately charismatic and Pentecostal ourselves in the biblical sense of those terms, but the beliefs and practices of Horrobin are void of biblical foundation, going well beyond the bounds of anything the Word of God teaches about dealing with demons.
More seriously however, Mr. Horrobin abandoned his dear wife, divorced her, and married a younger woman. While there was no evidence of any adultery at all, Mr. Horrobin reportedly accused her of 'spiritual adultery', which also has absolutely no biblical basis whatsoever (apart from the limited context of ancient Israel's idolatry and worldliness in the church in James 4:4, which even here has nothing to do with Christians getting divorced and remarried). The only adultery according to the New Testament would be Mr. Horrobin's, and if he is going to cast a demon out of somebody, perhaps he should begin with himself.
I am indeed disgusted and ashamed that such divorce and remarriage takes place within what is suppose to be The Body of Christ. I am additionally appalled that it has infiltrated into what is suppose to be God's End Times purposes for The Jews. But most of all I am in agreement with those who writing to us who are totally bemused by respected figures like Lance Lambert and Derek Prince joining forces with it in direct rejection of the clear teaching of the Jesus Christ to whom they will one day give account.
God hates divorce, and a true Christian will always not only love what God loves, but because they love The Lord, will also hate what God hates, including so called preachers dumping their wives like a sack of rubbish and taking off with another one. Paul writes that we should not associate with such immoral so called brothers (1 Corinthians 5:9). Jesus' teaching is that divorce and remarriage are adultery, and those not abiding in his teaching are not even to be greeted. For if we do as much as greet them we participate in their evil deeds (2 John: 9-11).
Not only do Johannas Facius, Derek Prince, and Lance Lambert greet such a one, but Ebenezer promotes him to their board and they all join on a platform in co-ministry with him. This is not guilt by association, but guilt by cooperation. The word of God, not Moriel, says that they participate in his evil deeds.
Moreover, this says to the followers of Derek Prince and Lance Lambert "See, divorce and remarriage must be alright because Peter Horrobin did it and Lance Lambert and Derek Prince co-minister with him". God however says, that by participating with him, Derek Prince, Johannas Facius, and Lance Lambert have participated in his sin, and as these men purport to be teachers, they will be judged even more strictly than others for doing so, as they willfully chose to allow themselves to be used by Satan to mislead others by giving credibility to a man who did something so terrible (James 3:1).
Compromising with something God calls wrong by ignoring it and acting as if it did not happen is known in scripture as "Winking The Eye" at sin, (Proverbs 10:10) and the bible says: "they cause trouble, they bring sorrow and they become babbling fools who eventually will come to ruination".
Winking the eye is always ultimately self destructive, but it is sometimes difficult to know where to draw the line between guilt by association and guilt by cooperation, yet the bible is clear that once immorality or heresy are involved, association becomes cooperation. This is particularly true where platforms or TV slots are shared so that approval of one's ministry becomes automatically implied.
The list of recognized Christian leaders divorcing is incredible. Dr. Charles Stanley, Pastor of First Baptist Church of Atlanta, and one of the few doctrinally sound voices on TV has just been divorced by his wife and Christian singer Amy Grant has recently divorced. Those divorcing and re-marrying, even multiple times is also a very sad testimony to the world and an indictment of the church that 'winks the eye' at it.
Once Saved, Always Saved
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Moreover, we have something called €œcorporate solidarity" in Scripture. Corporate solidarity is where a person represents a nation or a larger group of people. Esau and Jacob respectively represent what becomes the Israelite and Arab nations. As time goes on, Esau is reconciled to Jacob. In Genesis God has prophetic purposes for the Arab people the same as He does the Jews. His election here has to do with His calling for service; it has nothing to do with salvation in the primary sense that these people are trying to make it.
This is the same in the Book of Obadiah. The name of the patriarch becomes a metaphor, or a general term, for the nations descended from him. So before going any further we have to realize that these people are taking something talking about nations and applying it to individuals when that is mainly not even what the text is talking about. It can apply to individuals in some degree, as the text goes on to describe about Pharaoh, but when the New Testament interprets the Old Testament, we have to go back to read the Old Testament"s context.
This is the same in the Book of Obadiah. The name of the patriarch becomes a metaphor, or a general term, for the nations descended from him. So before going any further we have to realize that these people are taking something talking about nations and applying it to individuals when that is mainly not even what the text is talking about. It can apply to individuals in some degree, as the text goes on to describe about Pharaoh, but when the New Testament interprets the Old Testament, we have to go back to read the Old Testament"s context.
One Messiah: Two Comings
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by James Jacob Prasch
And gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, "Which," He said, "You heard of from me; for John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now."
And so when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, "Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?"
He said to them, "It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority; but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth'" (Acts 1:4-8).Restorationism"Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom?" We hear much talk today about a movement called the Restorationist Movement.
The term "restoring the kingdom" is only used in one place in the New Testament, not in connection with the Church Triumphant, but with Israel.
The Restoration Movement is committed to restoring three things which never existed to begin with.
The first thing they are trying to restore is a version of eschatology, which is over realized It is called Dominionism or Triumphalism: the erroneous view that the church will conquer the world for Jesus, before He returns to set up His Kingdom.
The church will ultimately be victorious, but that victory depends on the return of Christ.
And the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet (Roman 16:20).
Daniel speaks specifically and plainly of the persecution that is to occur in the Last Days.
I kept looking, and that horn [ speaking of the Antichrist ] was waging war with the saints and overpowering them until the Ancient of Days came, and judgment was passed in favor of the saints of the Highest One, and the time arrived when the saints took possession of the kingdom (Daniel 7:21).
Kingdom Now theology falsely states that the saints will take possession of the kingdom before the return of Christ, but the Bible clearly teaches that they will take possession of the kingdom after the return of Christ.
These kinds of erroneous beliefs have emerged at various times in church history, usually at turning points in world history.
During the decline of the Roman Empire it was called Montanism. It exhibited much the same kind of chaos we see today with the modern Restoration Movement, including the emphasis on "signs and wonders" that drew people into it without any understanding of the biblical theology.
Predictions, and prophecies that failed to happen, followed.
During the Renaissance it was the Munster Anabaptists, who followed people called the Prophets of Zwickow - a group who did the same kind of things as the Kansas City Prophets do today, make wild and irresponsible predictions that fail to happen. Prophetic authorityThe second thing this movement is trying to restore is a view of prophetic authority which is not biblical. In the biblical version of prophetic authority, a prophet is responsible for what he says.
I actually had somebody from the Vineyard tell me that the New Testament says that we "prophesy in part," so, therefore, John Wimber's followers, and Paul Cain, can be partly right and partly wrong, and still be biblical prophets. That idea is utterly false and terribly dangerous! People like that are deceived.Apostolic authorityThirdly, they are trying to restore a version of apostolic authority, which is not Biblical. Apostolic authority in the New Testament was chiefly doctrinal.
Does apostolic authority, in the sense of the twelve apostles, still exist in the church today? Yes it does. It exists in the writing of the apostles and of Paul.
Apostolic authority was chiefly doctrinal and it exists today in the church, preserved by the Holy Spirit, in the writings of the apostles.
Now there are other kinds of apostles, church-planting missionaries being among them, but as we look into the New Testament, apostolic authority was plural.
The Holy Spirit said, "Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them" (Acts 13:2).
Jesus sent the apostles out in pairs. Biblical authority was always plural.
The model of apostolic authority in the House Church movement and in Restorationism is a pyramid scheme, where the apostle is the head honcho. What they are calling "apostolic authority" amounts to a form of heavy shepherding.
Additionally, apostolic authority in the Bible is always accountable.
Paul and Barnabas were always accountable back to Antioch, which sent them out.
Beyond that, apostolic authority in the Bible involved mutual submission to each other, as in Acts chapter 15. It was never a one-man show.
What they are calling "apostolic authority" today in the Restoration Movement is often only heavy shepherding, based on Gnosticism. These people claim to have a gnosis, or a subjective revelation and, if you do not see it, they claim that you are under deception.True restorationNonetheless, there is a true restoration and that has to do with the restoration of Israel.
Replacementism - the idea that the church has replaced Israel, to the negation of any prophetic or end times purpose for Israel and the Jews - is a totally unbiblical doctrine.
Romans 11 speaks directly of Israel as "the root". The root supports you; you do not support the root. The root is under the ground. Just because you cannot see it, that does not mean that it is not there. If the tree had no root, the tree would die.
If Israel was finished forever, the church would be finished with it. If God has rejected Israel because of their sin and unfaithfulness, He has just as much reason to reject the church, possibly more.
The sins of Israel are easily replayed throughout the history of the church, including the sacrifice of their children to demons, which we see today in the massive number of non-therapeutic abortions carried out even in Western, Christianized democracy.
What Romans 11 teaches is that Gentile Christians who repent and accept Jesus, replace Jews who do not. They are grafted in as branches in place of Jews who reject their own Messiah, but the root remains Israel.
Everything under the ground is Old Testament Israel, but everything above the ground is the New Testament Church. The Church is the spiritual continuity of Old Testament Israel, not its replacement.Restoration of IsraelThe root is still Jewish. The original branches were Jewish. The first Christians were Jews. The writers of the New Testament were Jews, and the final Christians will be Jews.
Jesus spoke of the national dimensions of the restoration of Israel in the Olivet Discourse - Jerusalem will be trampled under foot by the Gentiles until the time of the Gentiles be fulfilled (Luke 21:24).
Jesus used the same words that Paul used in Romans 11:25, except that Jesus was speaking of Israel as a nation.
The time of the Gentiles is dealt with soteriologically in Romans 11, but it is dealt with eschatologically in the Olivet Discourse in Luke 21.
The ultimate meaning of the time of the Gentiles coming to an end is bound up with the prophecies of Daniel. God's final plan for world redemption depends on the salvation of Israel and the fulfillment of His plan, prophetically, for the restoration of Israel.
There is a national aspect of this but, more importantly, a soteriological, as seen in Romans 11:15. For if their rejection be the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?God's planThe New Testament speaks of restoration, not in terms of this silly Triumphalist movement we have today, but in terms of God's plan for the restoration of Israel, through whom He will bless the nations.
The Hebrew word for Gentile and the Hebrew word for nation is the same word, joy. God is going to bless the church through Jewish people in the last days.
The Lord has given us these events in the Middle East as proof of the return of Christ. They are one of the signs Jesus has given.
Today we have many false teachers within the body of Christ who are misleading others, telling Christians that the very signs Jesus gave so the elect would not be unprepared or deceived, are not signs at all.Why Jews reject JesusThere are two main reasons why the Jewish people will reject Jesus as the Messiah. One is the unfortunate history of Christian anti-Semitism, usually carried out by the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church, but with the unfortunate exception of Martin Luther, whose works inspired Adolf Hitler in writing Mein Kampf.
Luther taught that every Jew should be herded into a corral, forced to confess Christ at the point of knife. He said that "we, the German people, are to blame if we do not murder the Jews to prove we are Christians."
The second reason most Jews will reject Jesus as the Messiah is because Jesus did not bring in worldwide peace. He did not subdue the enemies of Israel, or establish the Messianic kingdom in Jerusalem, or bring justice to the nations, or prosperity and tranquillity to the world.
If He is the Messiah, where is the Messianic reign in the character of David?To the end there will be warThe answer is found in Daniel 9. The Messiah would have to come and die before the Second Temple would be destroyed.
It was not the purpose of the Messiah to bring worldwide peace at His first coming. It was His purpose to deal with the source problem - sin. It will be at His Second Coming that He will bring in worldwide peace.
And its end will come with flood and even to the end there will be war and desolation's are determined (Daniel 9:26).
According to Judaism (the midrash Bereshith on page 243 of the Warsaw edition), the Messiah was to exit in 33AD. We read confirmation in the Talmudic literature also, confirming that the Messiah should have come and died before the Second Temple was destroyed.
We read that the Sanhedrin wept and said, "Woe to us! Where is the Messiah? He had to have come by now."Rabbi Leopold CohenRabbi Leopold Cohen, a very senior, ultra-orthodox rabbi, sought to understand the meaning of Daniel chapter 9.
He found two things in the Rabbinic literature of the ancient sages. One is that the Messiah was supposed to have come already. The other is that there is a curse on anybody who reads Daniel chapter 9.
So Rabbi Leopold Cohen did the only honorable thing he could. He became a Baptist minister.Christian anti-Semitism It's relatively easy to deal with the subject of Christian anti-Semitism.
"How can you expect me to believe that Jesus is the Messiah when Christians murdered my grandparents?"
The way you deal with the problem of Christian anti-Semitism is to tell Jewish people about the real Jesus - Jesus the Jew, Rabbi Yeshua Ben Yosef of Nazareth, and remind them that the Jewish people murdered their own prophets in the name of Moses.
It was in the name of Moses that they put Jeremiah in prison, sawed Isaiah in half and killed Zechariah.
Should you reject Moses because of what Jews did in his name?
Should you reject Moses because of the orthodox Jew who recently went into a mosque in Hebron with an automatic weapon and murdered fifty Moslems? Do I blame Moses for that, because people murdered in his name?
Well, then we cannot blame Jesus for what people have done over the centuries in His name.
I have to accept Moses and the Torah on the basis of what Moses said. And I have to accept or reject Jesus and the New Testament on the basis of what He said and did.Fulfilling all the propheciesThe other subject though - Why the Messiah did not bring in worldwide peace - is another issue. For Jesus to be the Messiah, He has to fulfill all the Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament.
There are two kinds of Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament - the "Suffering Servant" prophecies (seen in the Servant Songs of Isaiah and elsewhere, and in some of the psalms of David), and also the "Davidic Messiah" of the conquering triumphal King who will subdue the enemies of God, establish the Kingdom and bring in worldwide peace, reigning from Jerusalem.
If Jesus is not the Messiah of the Jews, neither is He the Christ of the church. They mean the same thing: "Christ" and "Messiah," the "Anointed One."
Jesus has not fulfilled all of the Old Testament prophecies as yet. He has only fulfilled the "Son of David" prophecies in a spiritual sense, not yet in an historical sense. For Jesus to be the Messiah, He must fulfill all the prophecies.
The 'Suffering Servant' Messiah is called HaMashiach Ben Yosef, the Messiah, the Son of Joseph. The 'Conquering King' Messiah is HaMashiach Ben David, the Messiah, the Son of David.Palm SundayWe see this in the Jewish background of Palm Sunday. Passover was one of three pilgrim feasts where the Jews sing something called the "Hallel Rabah" (from Psalms 113 to 118).
The highlight of the Hallel Rabah is: Hosanna, hosanna, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. We bless you from the house of the Lord. Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His loving kindness endures forever. Hosanna, hosanna.
The Jews were meant to sing that on Passover, with their hands waving. They were also meant to sing it at the Feast of Tabernacles, while waving palm branches in their hands.
On Palm Sunday, the Jews began to celebrate Passover (which teaches about the Messiah who was the Lamb who would be slain), as if it were the Feast of Tabernacles, which corresponds, in the typology of the Jewish calendar, to the Millennium.
The Feast of Tabernacles (seen in John 7:2), drawing on the background of Ezekiel 47, is associated in Jewish thought with the Davidic Kingdom.
That is why, when Jesus was transfigured with Moses and Elijah, Peter wanted to build three booths, three tabernacles. Peter was saying, "Here is the Messiah. Now let's set up the Kingdom!"
When Jesus came on Palm Sunday, they wanted somebody who was going to get rid of the Romans, in the same way as the way the Maccabees had gotten rid of the Greeks, and set up the Messianic Kingdom. So they began to celebrate Passover, as if it were the feast of Tabernacles.
In His first coming, Jesus fulfilled the first three (Spring) holidays in the Jewish calendar: Passover, First Fruits (which was the Resurrection), and the Feast of Weeks (which was Pentecost).
In His Second Coming, Jesus will fulfill the last three (Autumn) holidays: the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and finally and ultimately, the Feast of Tabernacles.Fulfilling all the propheciesThe Jews of His day did not want to know about a Suffering Servant Messiah, who was going to come as the Passover Lamb to be slain. They wanted a conquering King, who was going to set up the Millennium.
The suffering servant Messiah is called "the Son of Joseph," HaMashiach Ben Yosef. The conquering king Messiah is called "the Son of David," HaMashiach Ben David.
For Jesus of Nazareth to be the Messiah, He has to fulfill ALL the prophecies.
But Jesus has plainly and clearly not fulfilled all the prophecies. He has only fulfilled the Suffering Servant ones, the Son of Joseph ones.
In other words, it is one Messiah, two comings. In His first coming Jesus came as the Son of Joseph, the suffering servant. In His Second Coming He will return as the Son of David, the conquering King who will set up His Kingdom.False doctrine: Amillennialism and PostmillennialismThe doctrines of Amillennialism and Postmillennialism were the invention of the Roman Catholic Church, following the errors of Constantine and Augustine, at the time when Christendom was made the religion of the state. Amillennialism and Post Millennialism are totally unbiblical.
From the original Jewish perspective of the New Testament, only a Premillennial position is tenable.
If there is no Millennium, Jesus is not the Messiah. And, if He is not the Messiah for the Jews, neither is He the Christ for the church. He must fulfill all the Old Testament prophecies and, so far, He has only fulfilled the Son of Joseph prophecies.Restoring the kingdomWhat the apostles were really asking with the question, "Lord, is it at this time you are restoring the Kingdom?" was: "We know that you are the son of Joseph, but when are you going to be the son of David? When are you going to restore the kingdom the way David did?"
Even John the Baptist could not understand this.
And summoning two of his disciples, John sent them to the Lord, saying, "Are You the Expected One, or do we look for someone else?" (Luke 7:19).
Even the apostles, after the resurrection, on the Mount of Olives at the Ascension, were unable to understand that it is one Messiah, but two comings.
In His first coming, the Lord Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of Joseph. In His second coming, He will be the Messiah, the Son of David, the conquering king who will fully establish the kingdom.
Let us look at Jesus, the son of Joseph.Beloved of his fatherNow Israel loved Joseph more than all of his sons (Genesis 37:3).
Joseph was the beloved son of his father.
And behold, a voice out of the heavens, saying, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 3:17).
The Messiah, the son of Joseph, was the beloved son of His Father.Fellowship and serviceThen he [Jacob] said to him [Joseph], "Go now and see about the welfare of your brothers and the welfare of the flock; and bring word back to me." So he sent him from the valley of Hebron, and he came to Shechem (Genesis 37:14).
Joseph lived in Hebron which, in Hebrew, means "the place of fellowship." Joseph dwelt with His father at the place of fellowship and was sent by his father to seek the welfare of his brothers.
Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bondservant, and being made in the likeness of men (Philippians 2:5-7).
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).
Jesus dwelt with His Father in the place of fellowship and was sent by His Father to seek the welfare of His brothers.His brothers' sinAnd Joseph brought back a bad report about them to his father (Genesis 37:2).
Joseph testified to his father about the sins of his brothers, and his brothers hated him.
"If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you" (John 15:18-19).
Jesus testified about the sins of His brothers and so they hated Him.They hated him still moreThen Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more (Genesis 37:5).
Joseph revealed to his brothers the exalted position he was to receive.
They already hated him for testifying against their sins, but now they absolutely despised him.
And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds in the sky with power and great glory (Matthew 24:30).
And the scribes and chief priests tried to lay hands on him that very hour, and they feared the people; for they understood that he spoke this parable against them (Luke 20:19).
Jesus revealed to His brothers the position of glory that He would receive and so His brothers hated Him.Foretold that he would ruleJoseph told his brothers that "we were binding sheaves in the field, and lo, my sheaf rose up and also stood erect; and behold, your sheaves gathered around and bowed down to my sheaf" (Genesis 37:7).
"You shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power" (Matthew 26:64).
Joseph foretold that one day he would rule. Jesus foretold that one day He would rule.Rejected and condemnedWhen they saw him from a distance and before he came close to them, they plotted against him to put him to death (Genesis 37:18).
"We do not want this man to reign over us" (Luke 19:14).
But they kept on crying out, saying, "Crucify, crucify Him!" (Luke 23:21).
Both were rejected and condemned to die. Out of His mindAnd they said to one another, "Here comes this dreamer!" (Gen. 37:19).
And when His own people heard of this, they went to take custody of Him; for they were saying, "He has lost His senses" (Mark 3:21).
Joseph was accused by his brothers of being a dreamer. They said of Jesus, the Messiah, the son of Joseph, that He had lost His senses.Sold for silverAnd Judah said to his brothers, "What profit is it for us to kill our brother and cover up his blood? Come and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him; for he is our brother, our own flesh."
And his brothers listened to him. Then some Midianite traders passed by, so they pulled him up and lifted Joseph out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver (Genesis 37:26-28).
Judah betrayed Joseph and sold him for twenty pieces of silver.
Then one of the twelve, named Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests, and said, "What are you willing to give me to deliver Him to you?"
And they weighed out for him thirty pieces of silver (Matthew 26:151).
Judah betrayed Joseph for twenty pieces of silver.
Judas (same name as "Judah" in Hebrew) betrayed the son of Joseph, after inflation, for thirty pieces of silver.Servant's heartSo Joseph found favor in his sight, and he became his personal servant; and he made him overseer over his house, and all that he owned he put in his charge (Genesis 39:4).
Everything Joseph did, he did as a servant.
Luke 22:25-27 and Philippians 2:7 tell us that everything Jesus did, He did as a servant.Everything to prosperAnd it came about that from the time he made him overseer in his house,and over all that he owned, the Lord blessed the Egyptian's house on account of Joseph (Genesis 39:5).
The Lord caused all that Joseph did to prosper.
And the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in his hand (Isaiah 53:10).
God shall cause all that the son of Joseph does to prosper.TemptedAnd it came about after these events that his master's wife looked with desire at Joseph, and she said, "Lie with me." But he refused and said to his master's wife, "Behold, with me here, my master does not concern himself with anything in the house, and he has put all that he owns in my charge. There is no one greater in this house than I, and he has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do this great evil, and sin against God?" (Gen. 39:7-9).
Joseph was tempted to the utmost, but he endured and would not sin.
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Then Jesus said to him, "Begone, Satan! For it is written, 'You shall worship the Lord your God,and serve Him only.' " Then the devil left Him. (Matthew 4:1-11).
Joseph was tempted to the utmost and endured. The Messiah, the son of Joseph, was tempted to the utmost, but He endured.Falsely accusedWhen she saw that he had left his garment in her hand, and had fled outside, she called to the men of her household, and said to them, "See, he has brought in a Hebrew to make sport of us; he came in to me to lie with me, and I screamed.
And it came about when he heard that I raised my voice and screamed, that he left his garment beside me and fled, and went outside" (Genesis 39:13-15).
Joseph was falsely accused.
Now, the chief priests and the whole Council kept trying to obtain false testimony against Jesus, in order that they might put Him to death; and they did not find any, even though many false witnesses came forward.
But later on two came forward and said, "This man stated, 'I am able to destroy the temple of God and rebuild it in three days.' "
And the high priest stood up and said to Him, "Do You make no answer? What is this that these men are testifying against You?"
But Jesus kept silent. And the high priest said to Him, "I adjure you by the living God, that You tell us whether You are the Messiah, the Son of God." Jesus said, "You have said it yourself; nevertheless I tell you, hereafter you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven."
Then the high priest tore his robes, saying, "He has blasphemed! What further need do we have of witnesses? Behold, you have now heard the blasphemy." (Matthew 26:59-65).
Joseph was accused falsely and lied about. The Messiah, the son of Joseph, was accused falsely and lied about.Predicted life and deathThen the cupbearer and the baker for the king of Egypt, who were confined in jail, both had a dream the same night, each man with his own dream and each dream with its own interpretation . . Then Joseph said to [the cupbearer], "This is the interpretation of it: the three branches are three days; within three more days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your office; and you will put Pharaoh's cup into his hand according to your former custom when you were his cupbearer . .
Then Joseph answered and said [to the baker], "This is its interpretation: the three baskets are three days; within three more days Pharaoh will lift up your head from you and hang you on a tree; and the birds will eat your flesh off you" (Genesis 40:5-19).
Joseph predicted that one of these criminals would live and that the other one would die.
And one of the criminals who were hanging there was hurling abuse at Him, saying, "Are You not the Christ? Save Yourself and us!"
But the other answered, and rebuking him said, Do you not even fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong."
And he was saying, "Jesus, remember me when You come in your kingdom!" And He said to him, "Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise" (Luke 23:39-43).
Jesus was condemned with two criminals and, as He predicted, one lived and one died.Promised deliveranceThen Joseph said to him, "This is the interpretation of it: the three branches are three days; within three more days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your office; and you will put Pharaoh's cup into his hand according to your former custom when you were his cupbearer (Genesis 40:12-13).
Joseph promised deliverance to a condemned man.
And he was saying, "Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!"
And Jesus said to him, "Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise" (Luke 23:42-43).
Yeshua, the son of Joseph promised deliverance to a condemned man. And that same son of Joseph is promising deliverance to condemned men today if they will repent and ask Him to forgive them, and follow Him.
A way of salvation Joseph was betrayed by his Jewish brothers into the hands of Gentiles, but God took this betrayal and turned it around and made it a way for all of Israel, and all of the world, to be saved.
So too, the Messiah, the son of Joseph, was betrayed by His Jewish brothers into the hands of Gentiles. God took this betrayal and turned it around, making it a way for all Israel, and all the world, to be saved.Forgotten by those he helpedYet the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph, but forgot him (Genesis 40:23).
And Jesus answered and said, "Were there not ten cleansed? But the nine - where are they? Was no one found who turned back to give glory to God, except this foreigner?" (Luke 17:17,18).
Joseph was forgotten by those he helped, and the son of Joseph was forgotten by those He helped. Raised to gloryThen Pharaoh sent and called for Joseph, and they hurriedly brought him out of the dungeon; and when he had shaved himself and changed his clothes, he came to Pharaoh
So Pharaoh said to Joseph, "Since God has informed you of all this, there is no one so discerning and wise as you are.
You shall be over my house, and according to your command all my people shall do homage; only in the throne I will be greater than you" (Genesis 41:14,39-40).
Joseph was taken from a dungeon, a place of death, and he was raised by the king to the place of glory in one day.
I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power towards us who believe.
These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come (Ephesians 1:19-20).
Joseph was raised from a place of condemnation to a place of glory in one day, and the son of Joseph, the Messiah, the Lord Jesus, was raised from a place of condemnation to a place of glory in a single day.Wonderful counselorSo Pharaoh said to Joseph, "Since God has informed you of all this, there is no one so discerning and wise as you are" (Genesis 41:39).
Joseph proved to be a great counselor. In Isaiah 9:6 we read that "And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor."Highly exaltedAnd Pharaoh said to Joseph, "See I have set you over all the land of Egypt" (Genesis 41:41).
Joseph was promoted to glory and honor and given a new name.
Therefore also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name (Phil. 2:9).
Jesus was promoted to glory and honor and given a new name.Took a Gentile brideThen Pharaoh named Joseph Zaphenath-Paneah; and he gave him Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera priest of On, as his wife. And Joseph went forth over the land of Egypt (Genesis 41:45).
After being exalted, Joseph took a Gentile bride.
For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the Body (Ephesians 5:23-32).
Jesus, after exaltation, took a Gentile bride - in figure, the Gentile church.
That is why the book of Ruth - the story of a Jewish man taking a Gentile bride - is read in the synagogues at Pentecost, which we call "the birthday of the church."
And, in both cases, the brides were given to share the glory.About thirty years of ageNow Joseph was thirty years old when he stood before Pharoah, king of Egypt (Genesis 41:46).
Joseph was 30 years old when he began his work.
And when He began His ministry, Jesus Himself was about thirty years of age. (Luke 3:23).
The son of Joseph was 30 years old when He began His work.
"Do whatever He says"
So when all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried out to Pharoah for bread; and Pharoah said to all the Egyptians, "Go to Joseph; whatever he says to you, you shall do" (Genesis 41:55).
His (Jesus') mother said to the servants, "Whatever He says to you, do it" (John 2:5).
Of Joseph it was said "Do whatever he tells you." Of the son of Joseph it was said, "Do whatever He tells you." Every knee shall bowThen Pharaoh took off his signet ring from his hand, and put it on Joseph's hand, and clothed him in garments of fine linen, and put the gold necklace around his neck.
And he had him ride in his second chariot; and they proclaimed before him, "Bow the knee!" And he set him over all the land of Egypt.
Moreover, Pharoah said to Joseph, "Though I am Pharoah, yet without your permission no one shall raise his hand or foot in all the land of Egypt" (Genesis 41:42-44).
When he was exalted, every knee bowed to Joseph and he was given all power and glory.
Therefore also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:9-11).
And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth" (Matthew 28:18).
Every knee shall bow to the Son of Joseph, and He has been given all power and glory.The Bread of LifeSo when all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried out to Pharoah for bread; and Pharoah said to all the Egyptians, "Go to Joseph; whatever he says to you, you shall do."
When the famine was spread over all the face of the earth, then Joseph opened all the storehouses, and sold to the Egyptians; and the famine was severe in the land of Egypt, And the people of all the earth came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph, because the famine was severe in the earth (Genesis 41:55-57).
Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me shall not hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst" (John 6:35).
And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men, by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12).
The whole world had to get their bread from Joseph - there was no other way the people could be saved. And there is no way for us to be saved except through the son of Joseph.Not entrusting Himself to menNow they were seated before him, the firstborn according to his birthright and the youngest according to his youth, and the men looked at one another in astonishment (Gen. 43:33).
Why? Because Joseph knew the past sinful history of his brothers.
But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men, and because He did not need anyone to bear witness concerning man for He Himself knew what was in man (John 2:24,25).
Jesus the Messiah is like Joseph, knowing the past history and sins of his brothers. Not recognized first timeHowever, as we read in Genesis, Joseph's brothers do not recognize him at the first coming. They recognized him at the second.
Joseph could not control himself before all those who stood by him, and he cried, "Have everyone go out from me." So there was no man with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers.
And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharoah heard of it.
Then Joseph said to his brothers, "I am Joseph! Is my father still alive?" But his brothers could not answer him, for they were dismayed at his presence.
Then Joseph said to his brothers, "Please come closer to me." So they came closer. And he said, "I am your brother Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt" (Genesis 45:1-4).
Joseph's brothers did not recognize him at the first coming, but at the second.
And I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so they will look upon Me who they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him, like the bitter weeping over a first born (Zechariah 12:10).
The brothers of the Messiah, the son of Joseph, did not recognize him at his first coming, but they will at the second, realizing the one they betrayed is now the exalted one who was going to save them.
The one who was crucified is the one who is the Redeemer, the King. The son of Joseph is also the son of David.
The Suffering Servant is also the Conquering King
When his brothers repented, he forgave them. And when Jesus' brothers, the Jewish people repent, He forgives them.
In the beginning Joseph used the Egyptian people, the Gentiles, to give bread to his brothers, but a time came when the Gentiles were sent away and he revealed himself to his brothers.
Right now the son of Joseph is using Gentiles, Christians, to send the food, the Bread of Life, to His brothers, but a time will come in the Great Tribulation when the son of Joseph will personally reveal Himself to His brothers.All power to the KingJoseph, after his exaltation, turned around and delivered all into the hands of Pharaoh (Genesis 47:20).
Then comes the end, when He delivers up the kingdom to the God and Father, when He has abolished all rule and authority and power (1 Corinthians 15:24).
Joseph gave all rule and authority and power into the hands of the king.
The Messiah, the son of Joseph, will give all power and rule into the hands of the King. SaviorSo they said, "You have saved our lives! Let us find favor in the sight of my lord, and we will be Pharoah's slaves" (Genesis 47:25).
Joseph was acknowledged to be the people's savior.
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior., Christ Jesus; who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds (Titus 2:11-14).
The Messiah, the son of Joseph, the Lord Jesus Christ, is acknowledged to be the Savior. of all mankind.Not recognizedWhen Joseph was adorned (Genesis 41:42) with the garments of Egyptian royalty, he became totally unrecognizable to his Hebrew brothers (Genesis 42:8).
After the first century, Jesus was taken and made king of the Gentiles. It was forgotten that He came as King of the Jews and He became totally unrecognizable to His Hebrew brothers. One Messiah : Two ComingsJoseph was given a new name upon his exaltation (Genesis 41:45). The Gentiles call Rabbi Yeshua Ben Yosef by a new name - Jesus - a Greek name, not His original one.
One Messiah, two comings.
The Jews did not recognize Joseph at the first coming but at the second. And they will recognize the son of Joseph at the second coming, seeing the one who was betrayed and crucified as the one who has indeed come to bring salvation.
One Messiah, two comings.
Jesus is coming back as the son of David. Every eye will see Him. The Jews will look upon Him whom they have pierced and mourn as one mourns for an only son.
Those who look upon Jesus, whom we have all pierced, and mourn now as one mourns for an only son, will have the same blessing and promise that He gives to His own people.
The Messiah, the son of Joseph, will return as the Messiah, the son of David. And He will restore the kingdom to Israel.
And gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, "Which," He said, "You heard of from me; for John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now."
And so when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, "Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?"
He said to them, "It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority; but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth'" (Acts 1:4-8).Restorationism"Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom?" We hear much talk today about a movement called the Restorationist Movement.
The term "restoring the kingdom" is only used in one place in the New Testament, not in connection with the Church Triumphant, but with Israel.
The Restoration Movement is committed to restoring three things which never existed to begin with.
The first thing they are trying to restore is a version of eschatology, which is over realized It is called Dominionism or Triumphalism: the erroneous view that the church will conquer the world for Jesus, before He returns to set up His Kingdom.
The church will ultimately be victorious, but that victory depends on the return of Christ.
And the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet (Roman 16:20).
Daniel speaks specifically and plainly of the persecution that is to occur in the Last Days.
I kept looking, and that horn [ speaking of the Antichrist ] was waging war with the saints and overpowering them until the Ancient of Days came, and judgment was passed in favor of the saints of the Highest One, and the time arrived when the saints took possession of the kingdom (Daniel 7:21).
Kingdom Now theology falsely states that the saints will take possession of the kingdom before the return of Christ, but the Bible clearly teaches that they will take possession of the kingdom after the return of Christ.
These kinds of erroneous beliefs have emerged at various times in church history, usually at turning points in world history.
During the decline of the Roman Empire it was called Montanism. It exhibited much the same kind of chaos we see today with the modern Restoration Movement, including the emphasis on "signs and wonders" that drew people into it without any understanding of the biblical theology.
Predictions, and prophecies that failed to happen, followed.
During the Renaissance it was the Munster Anabaptists, who followed people called the Prophets of Zwickow - a group who did the same kind of things as the Kansas City Prophets do today, make wild and irresponsible predictions that fail to happen. Prophetic authorityThe second thing this movement is trying to restore is a view of prophetic authority which is not biblical. In the biblical version of prophetic authority, a prophet is responsible for what he says.
I actually had somebody from the Vineyard tell me that the New Testament says that we "prophesy in part," so, therefore, John Wimber's followers, and Paul Cain, can be partly right and partly wrong, and still be biblical prophets. That idea is utterly false and terribly dangerous! People like that are deceived.Apostolic authorityThirdly, they are trying to restore a version of apostolic authority, which is not Biblical. Apostolic authority in the New Testament was chiefly doctrinal.
Does apostolic authority, in the sense of the twelve apostles, still exist in the church today? Yes it does. It exists in the writing of the apostles and of Paul.
Apostolic authority was chiefly doctrinal and it exists today in the church, preserved by the Holy Spirit, in the writings of the apostles.
Now there are other kinds of apostles, church-planting missionaries being among them, but as we look into the New Testament, apostolic authority was plural.
The Holy Spirit said, "Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them" (Acts 13:2).
Jesus sent the apostles out in pairs. Biblical authority was always plural.
The model of apostolic authority in the House Church movement and in Restorationism is a pyramid scheme, where the apostle is the head honcho. What they are calling "apostolic authority" amounts to a form of heavy shepherding.
Additionally, apostolic authority in the Bible is always accountable.
Paul and Barnabas were always accountable back to Antioch, which sent them out.
Beyond that, apostolic authority in the Bible involved mutual submission to each other, as in Acts chapter 15. It was never a one-man show.
What they are calling "apostolic authority" today in the Restoration Movement is often only heavy shepherding, based on Gnosticism. These people claim to have a gnosis, or a subjective revelation and, if you do not see it, they claim that you are under deception.True restorationNonetheless, there is a true restoration and that has to do with the restoration of Israel.
Replacementism - the idea that the church has replaced Israel, to the negation of any prophetic or end times purpose for Israel and the Jews - is a totally unbiblical doctrine.
Romans 11 speaks directly of Israel as "the root". The root supports you; you do not support the root. The root is under the ground. Just because you cannot see it, that does not mean that it is not there. If the tree had no root, the tree would die.
If Israel was finished forever, the church would be finished with it. If God has rejected Israel because of their sin and unfaithfulness, He has just as much reason to reject the church, possibly more.
The sins of Israel are easily replayed throughout the history of the church, including the sacrifice of their children to demons, which we see today in the massive number of non-therapeutic abortions carried out even in Western, Christianized democracy.
What Romans 11 teaches is that Gentile Christians who repent and accept Jesus, replace Jews who do not. They are grafted in as branches in place of Jews who reject their own Messiah, but the root remains Israel.
Everything under the ground is Old Testament Israel, but everything above the ground is the New Testament Church. The Church is the spiritual continuity of Old Testament Israel, not its replacement.Restoration of IsraelThe root is still Jewish. The original branches were Jewish. The first Christians were Jews. The writers of the New Testament were Jews, and the final Christians will be Jews.
Jesus spoke of the national dimensions of the restoration of Israel in the Olivet Discourse - Jerusalem will be trampled under foot by the Gentiles until the time of the Gentiles be fulfilled (Luke 21:24).
Jesus used the same words that Paul used in Romans 11:25, except that Jesus was speaking of Israel as a nation.
The time of the Gentiles is dealt with soteriologically in Romans 11, but it is dealt with eschatologically in the Olivet Discourse in Luke 21.
The ultimate meaning of the time of the Gentiles coming to an end is bound up with the prophecies of Daniel. God's final plan for world redemption depends on the salvation of Israel and the fulfillment of His plan, prophetically, for the restoration of Israel.
There is a national aspect of this but, more importantly, a soteriological, as seen in Romans 11:15. For if their rejection be the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?God's planThe New Testament speaks of restoration, not in terms of this silly Triumphalist movement we have today, but in terms of God's plan for the restoration of Israel, through whom He will bless the nations.
The Hebrew word for Gentile and the Hebrew word for nation is the same word, joy. God is going to bless the church through Jewish people in the last days.
The Lord has given us these events in the Middle East as proof of the return of Christ. They are one of the signs Jesus has given.
Today we have many false teachers within the body of Christ who are misleading others, telling Christians that the very signs Jesus gave so the elect would not be unprepared or deceived, are not signs at all.Why Jews reject JesusThere are two main reasons why the Jewish people will reject Jesus as the Messiah. One is the unfortunate history of Christian anti-Semitism, usually carried out by the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church, but with the unfortunate exception of Martin Luther, whose works inspired Adolf Hitler in writing Mein Kampf.
Luther taught that every Jew should be herded into a corral, forced to confess Christ at the point of knife. He said that "we, the German people, are to blame if we do not murder the Jews to prove we are Christians."
The second reason most Jews will reject Jesus as the Messiah is because Jesus did not bring in worldwide peace. He did not subdue the enemies of Israel, or establish the Messianic kingdom in Jerusalem, or bring justice to the nations, or prosperity and tranquillity to the world.
If He is the Messiah, where is the Messianic reign in the character of David?To the end there will be warThe answer is found in Daniel 9. The Messiah would have to come and die before the Second Temple would be destroyed.
It was not the purpose of the Messiah to bring worldwide peace at His first coming. It was His purpose to deal with the source problem - sin. It will be at His Second Coming that He will bring in worldwide peace.
And its end will come with flood and even to the end there will be war and desolation's are determined (Daniel 9:26).
According to Judaism (the midrash Bereshith on page 243 of the Warsaw edition), the Messiah was to exit in 33AD. We read confirmation in the Talmudic literature also, confirming that the Messiah should have come and died before the Second Temple was destroyed.
We read that the Sanhedrin wept and said, "Woe to us! Where is the Messiah? He had to have come by now."Rabbi Leopold CohenRabbi Leopold Cohen, a very senior, ultra-orthodox rabbi, sought to understand the meaning of Daniel chapter 9.
He found two things in the Rabbinic literature of the ancient sages. One is that the Messiah was supposed to have come already. The other is that there is a curse on anybody who reads Daniel chapter 9.
So Rabbi Leopold Cohen did the only honorable thing he could. He became a Baptist minister.Christian anti-Semitism It's relatively easy to deal with the subject of Christian anti-Semitism.
"How can you expect me to believe that Jesus is the Messiah when Christians murdered my grandparents?"
The way you deal with the problem of Christian anti-Semitism is to tell Jewish people about the real Jesus - Jesus the Jew, Rabbi Yeshua Ben Yosef of Nazareth, and remind them that the Jewish people murdered their own prophets in the name of Moses.
It was in the name of Moses that they put Jeremiah in prison, sawed Isaiah in half and killed Zechariah.
Should you reject Moses because of what Jews did in his name?
Should you reject Moses because of the orthodox Jew who recently went into a mosque in Hebron with an automatic weapon and murdered fifty Moslems? Do I blame Moses for that, because people murdered in his name?
Well, then we cannot blame Jesus for what people have done over the centuries in His name.
I have to accept Moses and the Torah on the basis of what Moses said. And I have to accept or reject Jesus and the New Testament on the basis of what He said and did.Fulfilling all the propheciesThe other subject though - Why the Messiah did not bring in worldwide peace - is another issue. For Jesus to be the Messiah, He has to fulfill all the Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament.
There are two kinds of Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament - the "Suffering Servant" prophecies (seen in the Servant Songs of Isaiah and elsewhere, and in some of the psalms of David), and also the "Davidic Messiah" of the conquering triumphal King who will subdue the enemies of God, establish the Kingdom and bring in worldwide peace, reigning from Jerusalem.
If Jesus is not the Messiah of the Jews, neither is He the Christ of the church. They mean the same thing: "Christ" and "Messiah," the "Anointed One."
Jesus has not fulfilled all of the Old Testament prophecies as yet. He has only fulfilled the "Son of David" prophecies in a spiritual sense, not yet in an historical sense. For Jesus to be the Messiah, He must fulfill all the prophecies.
The 'Suffering Servant' Messiah is called HaMashiach Ben Yosef, the Messiah, the Son of Joseph. The 'Conquering King' Messiah is HaMashiach Ben David, the Messiah, the Son of David.Palm SundayWe see this in the Jewish background of Palm Sunday. Passover was one of three pilgrim feasts where the Jews sing something called the "Hallel Rabah" (from Psalms 113 to 118).
The highlight of the Hallel Rabah is: Hosanna, hosanna, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. We bless you from the house of the Lord. Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His loving kindness endures forever. Hosanna, hosanna.
The Jews were meant to sing that on Passover, with their hands waving. They were also meant to sing it at the Feast of Tabernacles, while waving palm branches in their hands.
On Palm Sunday, the Jews began to celebrate Passover (which teaches about the Messiah who was the Lamb who would be slain), as if it were the Feast of Tabernacles, which corresponds, in the typology of the Jewish calendar, to the Millennium.
The Feast of Tabernacles (seen in John 7:2), drawing on the background of Ezekiel 47, is associated in Jewish thought with the Davidic Kingdom.
That is why, when Jesus was transfigured with Moses and Elijah, Peter wanted to build three booths, three tabernacles. Peter was saying, "Here is the Messiah. Now let's set up the Kingdom!"
When Jesus came on Palm Sunday, they wanted somebody who was going to get rid of the Romans, in the same way as the way the Maccabees had gotten rid of the Greeks, and set up the Messianic Kingdom. So they began to celebrate Passover, as if it were the feast of Tabernacles.
In His first coming, Jesus fulfilled the first three (Spring) holidays in the Jewish calendar: Passover, First Fruits (which was the Resurrection), and the Feast of Weeks (which was Pentecost).
In His Second Coming, Jesus will fulfill the last three (Autumn) holidays: the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and finally and ultimately, the Feast of Tabernacles.Fulfilling all the propheciesThe Jews of His day did not want to know about a Suffering Servant Messiah, who was going to come as the Passover Lamb to be slain. They wanted a conquering King, who was going to set up the Millennium.
The suffering servant Messiah is called "the Son of Joseph," HaMashiach Ben Yosef. The conquering king Messiah is called "the Son of David," HaMashiach Ben David.
For Jesus of Nazareth to be the Messiah, He has to fulfill ALL the prophecies.
But Jesus has plainly and clearly not fulfilled all the prophecies. He has only fulfilled the Suffering Servant ones, the Son of Joseph ones.
In other words, it is one Messiah, two comings. In His first coming Jesus came as the Son of Joseph, the suffering servant. In His Second Coming He will return as the Son of David, the conquering King who will set up His Kingdom.False doctrine: Amillennialism and PostmillennialismThe doctrines of Amillennialism and Postmillennialism were the invention of the Roman Catholic Church, following the errors of Constantine and Augustine, at the time when Christendom was made the religion of the state. Amillennialism and Post Millennialism are totally unbiblical.
From the original Jewish perspective of the New Testament, only a Premillennial position is tenable.
If there is no Millennium, Jesus is not the Messiah. And, if He is not the Messiah for the Jews, neither is He the Christ for the church. He must fulfill all the Old Testament prophecies and, so far, He has only fulfilled the Son of Joseph prophecies.Restoring the kingdomWhat the apostles were really asking with the question, "Lord, is it at this time you are restoring the Kingdom?" was: "We know that you are the son of Joseph, but when are you going to be the son of David? When are you going to restore the kingdom the way David did?"
Even John the Baptist could not understand this.
And summoning two of his disciples, John sent them to the Lord, saying, "Are You the Expected One, or do we look for someone else?" (Luke 7:19).
Even the apostles, after the resurrection, on the Mount of Olives at the Ascension, were unable to understand that it is one Messiah, but two comings.
In His first coming, the Lord Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of Joseph. In His second coming, He will be the Messiah, the Son of David, the conquering king who will fully establish the kingdom.
Let us look at Jesus, the son of Joseph.Beloved of his fatherNow Israel loved Joseph more than all of his sons (Genesis 37:3).
Joseph was the beloved son of his father.
And behold, a voice out of the heavens, saying, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 3:17).
The Messiah, the son of Joseph, was the beloved son of His Father.Fellowship and serviceThen he [Jacob] said to him [Joseph], "Go now and see about the welfare of your brothers and the welfare of the flock; and bring word back to me." So he sent him from the valley of Hebron, and he came to Shechem (Genesis 37:14).
Joseph lived in Hebron which, in Hebrew, means "the place of fellowship." Joseph dwelt with His father at the place of fellowship and was sent by his father to seek the welfare of his brothers.
Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bondservant, and being made in the likeness of men (Philippians 2:5-7).
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).
Jesus dwelt with His Father in the place of fellowship and was sent by His Father to seek the welfare of His brothers.His brothers' sinAnd Joseph brought back a bad report about them to his father (Genesis 37:2).
Joseph testified to his father about the sins of his brothers, and his brothers hated him.
"If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you" (John 15:18-19).
Jesus testified about the sins of His brothers and so they hated Him.They hated him still moreThen Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more (Genesis 37:5).
Joseph revealed to his brothers the exalted position he was to receive.
They already hated him for testifying against their sins, but now they absolutely despised him.
And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds in the sky with power and great glory (Matthew 24:30).
And the scribes and chief priests tried to lay hands on him that very hour, and they feared the people; for they understood that he spoke this parable against them (Luke 20:19).
Jesus revealed to His brothers the position of glory that He would receive and so His brothers hated Him.Foretold that he would ruleJoseph told his brothers that "we were binding sheaves in the field, and lo, my sheaf rose up and also stood erect; and behold, your sheaves gathered around and bowed down to my sheaf" (Genesis 37:7).
"You shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power" (Matthew 26:64).
Joseph foretold that one day he would rule. Jesus foretold that one day He would rule.Rejected and condemnedWhen they saw him from a distance and before he came close to them, they plotted against him to put him to death (Genesis 37:18).
"We do not want this man to reign over us" (Luke 19:14).
But they kept on crying out, saying, "Crucify, crucify Him!" (Luke 23:21).
Both were rejected and condemned to die. Out of His mindAnd they said to one another, "Here comes this dreamer!" (Gen. 37:19).
And when His own people heard of this, they went to take custody of Him; for they were saying, "He has lost His senses" (Mark 3:21).
Joseph was accused by his brothers of being a dreamer. They said of Jesus, the Messiah, the son of Joseph, that He had lost His senses.Sold for silverAnd Judah said to his brothers, "What profit is it for us to kill our brother and cover up his blood? Come and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him; for he is our brother, our own flesh."
And his brothers listened to him. Then some Midianite traders passed by, so they pulled him up and lifted Joseph out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver (Genesis 37:26-28).
Judah betrayed Joseph and sold him for twenty pieces of silver.
Then one of the twelve, named Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests, and said, "What are you willing to give me to deliver Him to you?"
And they weighed out for him thirty pieces of silver (Matthew 26:151).
Judah betrayed Joseph for twenty pieces of silver.
Judas (same name as "Judah" in Hebrew) betrayed the son of Joseph, after inflation, for thirty pieces of silver.Servant's heartSo Joseph found favor in his sight, and he became his personal servant; and he made him overseer over his house, and all that he owned he put in his charge (Genesis 39:4).
Everything Joseph did, he did as a servant.
Luke 22:25-27 and Philippians 2:7 tell us that everything Jesus did, He did as a servant.Everything to prosperAnd it came about that from the time he made him overseer in his house,and over all that he owned, the Lord blessed the Egyptian's house on account of Joseph (Genesis 39:5).
The Lord caused all that Joseph did to prosper.
And the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in his hand (Isaiah 53:10).
God shall cause all that the son of Joseph does to prosper.TemptedAnd it came about after these events that his master's wife looked with desire at Joseph, and she said, "Lie with me." But he refused and said to his master's wife, "Behold, with me here, my master does not concern himself with anything in the house, and he has put all that he owns in my charge. There is no one greater in this house than I, and he has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do this great evil, and sin against God?" (Gen. 39:7-9).
Joseph was tempted to the utmost, but he endured and would not sin.
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Then Jesus said to him, "Begone, Satan! For it is written, 'You shall worship the Lord your God,and serve Him only.' " Then the devil left Him. (Matthew 4:1-11).
Joseph was tempted to the utmost and endured. The Messiah, the son of Joseph, was tempted to the utmost, but He endured.Falsely accusedWhen she saw that he had left his garment in her hand, and had fled outside, she called to the men of her household, and said to them, "See, he has brought in a Hebrew to make sport of us; he came in to me to lie with me, and I screamed.
And it came about when he heard that I raised my voice and screamed, that he left his garment beside me and fled, and went outside" (Genesis 39:13-15).
Joseph was falsely accused.
Now, the chief priests and the whole Council kept trying to obtain false testimony against Jesus, in order that they might put Him to death; and they did not find any, even though many false witnesses came forward.
But later on two came forward and said, "This man stated, 'I am able to destroy the temple of God and rebuild it in three days.' "
And the high priest stood up and said to Him, "Do You make no answer? What is this that these men are testifying against You?"
But Jesus kept silent. And the high priest said to Him, "I adjure you by the living God, that You tell us whether You are the Messiah, the Son of God." Jesus said, "You have said it yourself; nevertheless I tell you, hereafter you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven."
Then the high priest tore his robes, saying, "He has blasphemed! What further need do we have of witnesses? Behold, you have now heard the blasphemy." (Matthew 26:59-65).
Joseph was accused falsely and lied about. The Messiah, the son of Joseph, was accused falsely and lied about.Predicted life and deathThen the cupbearer and the baker for the king of Egypt, who were confined in jail, both had a dream the same night, each man with his own dream and each dream with its own interpretation . . Then Joseph said to [the cupbearer], "This is the interpretation of it: the three branches are three days; within three more days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your office; and you will put Pharaoh's cup into his hand according to your former custom when you were his cupbearer . .
Then Joseph answered and said [to the baker], "This is its interpretation: the three baskets are three days; within three more days Pharaoh will lift up your head from you and hang you on a tree; and the birds will eat your flesh off you" (Genesis 40:5-19).
Joseph predicted that one of these criminals would live and that the other one would die.
And one of the criminals who were hanging there was hurling abuse at Him, saying, "Are You not the Christ? Save Yourself and us!"
But the other answered, and rebuking him said, Do you not even fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong."
And he was saying, "Jesus, remember me when You come in your kingdom!" And He said to him, "Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise" (Luke 23:39-43).
Jesus was condemned with two criminals and, as He predicted, one lived and one died.Promised deliveranceThen Joseph said to him, "This is the interpretation of it: the three branches are three days; within three more days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your office; and you will put Pharaoh's cup into his hand according to your former custom when you were his cupbearer (Genesis 40:12-13).
Joseph promised deliverance to a condemned man.
And he was saying, "Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!"
And Jesus said to him, "Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise" (Luke 23:42-43).
Yeshua, the son of Joseph promised deliverance to a condemned man. And that same son of Joseph is promising deliverance to condemned men today if they will repent and ask Him to forgive them, and follow Him.
A way of salvation Joseph was betrayed by his Jewish brothers into the hands of Gentiles, but God took this betrayal and turned it around and made it a way for all of Israel, and all of the world, to be saved.
So too, the Messiah, the son of Joseph, was betrayed by His Jewish brothers into the hands of Gentiles. God took this betrayal and turned it around, making it a way for all Israel, and all the world, to be saved.Forgotten by those he helpedYet the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph, but forgot him (Genesis 40:23).
And Jesus answered and said, "Were there not ten cleansed? But the nine - where are they? Was no one found who turned back to give glory to God, except this foreigner?" (Luke 17:17,18).
Joseph was forgotten by those he helped, and the son of Joseph was forgotten by those He helped. Raised to gloryThen Pharaoh sent and called for Joseph, and they hurriedly brought him out of the dungeon; and when he had shaved himself and changed his clothes, he came to Pharaoh
So Pharaoh said to Joseph, "Since God has informed you of all this, there is no one so discerning and wise as you are.
You shall be over my house, and according to your command all my people shall do homage; only in the throne I will be greater than you" (Genesis 41:14,39-40).
Joseph was taken from a dungeon, a place of death, and he was raised by the king to the place of glory in one day.
I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power towards us who believe.
These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come (Ephesians 1:19-20).
Joseph was raised from a place of condemnation to a place of glory in one day, and the son of Joseph, the Messiah, the Lord Jesus, was raised from a place of condemnation to a place of glory in a single day.Wonderful counselorSo Pharaoh said to Joseph, "Since God has informed you of all this, there is no one so discerning and wise as you are" (Genesis 41:39).
Joseph proved to be a great counselor. In Isaiah 9:6 we read that "And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor."Highly exaltedAnd Pharaoh said to Joseph, "See I have set you over all the land of Egypt" (Genesis 41:41).
Joseph was promoted to glory and honor and given a new name.
Therefore also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name (Phil. 2:9).
Jesus was promoted to glory and honor and given a new name.Took a Gentile brideThen Pharaoh named Joseph Zaphenath-Paneah; and he gave him Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera priest of On, as his wife. And Joseph went forth over the land of Egypt (Genesis 41:45).
After being exalted, Joseph took a Gentile bride.
For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the Body (Ephesians 5:23-32).
Jesus, after exaltation, took a Gentile bride - in figure, the Gentile church.
That is why the book of Ruth - the story of a Jewish man taking a Gentile bride - is read in the synagogues at Pentecost, which we call "the birthday of the church."
And, in both cases, the brides were given to share the glory.About thirty years of ageNow Joseph was thirty years old when he stood before Pharoah, king of Egypt (Genesis 41:46).
Joseph was 30 years old when he began his work.
And when He began His ministry, Jesus Himself was about thirty years of age. (Luke 3:23).
The son of Joseph was 30 years old when He began His work.
"Do whatever He says"
So when all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried out to Pharoah for bread; and Pharoah said to all the Egyptians, "Go to Joseph; whatever he says to you, you shall do" (Genesis 41:55).
His (Jesus') mother said to the servants, "Whatever He says to you, do it" (John 2:5).
Of Joseph it was said "Do whatever he tells you." Of the son of Joseph it was said, "Do whatever He tells you." Every knee shall bowThen Pharaoh took off his signet ring from his hand, and put it on Joseph's hand, and clothed him in garments of fine linen, and put the gold necklace around his neck.
And he had him ride in his second chariot; and they proclaimed before him, "Bow the knee!" And he set him over all the land of Egypt.
Moreover, Pharoah said to Joseph, "Though I am Pharoah, yet without your permission no one shall raise his hand or foot in all the land of Egypt" (Genesis 41:42-44).
When he was exalted, every knee bowed to Joseph and he was given all power and glory.
Therefore also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:9-11).
And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth" (Matthew 28:18).
Every knee shall bow to the Son of Joseph, and He has been given all power and glory.The Bread of LifeSo when all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried out to Pharoah for bread; and Pharoah said to all the Egyptians, "Go to Joseph; whatever he says to you, you shall do."
When the famine was spread over all the face of the earth, then Joseph opened all the storehouses, and sold to the Egyptians; and the famine was severe in the land of Egypt, And the people of all the earth came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph, because the famine was severe in the earth (Genesis 41:55-57).
Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me shall not hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst" (John 6:35).
And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men, by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12).
The whole world had to get their bread from Joseph - there was no other way the people could be saved. And there is no way for us to be saved except through the son of Joseph.Not entrusting Himself to menNow they were seated before him, the firstborn according to his birthright and the youngest according to his youth, and the men looked at one another in astonishment (Gen. 43:33).
Why? Because Joseph knew the past sinful history of his brothers.
But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men, and because He did not need anyone to bear witness concerning man for He Himself knew what was in man (John 2:24,25).
Jesus the Messiah is like Joseph, knowing the past history and sins of his brothers. Not recognized first timeHowever, as we read in Genesis, Joseph's brothers do not recognize him at the first coming. They recognized him at the second.
Joseph could not control himself before all those who stood by him, and he cried, "Have everyone go out from me." So there was no man with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers.
And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharoah heard of it.
Then Joseph said to his brothers, "I am Joseph! Is my father still alive?" But his brothers could not answer him, for they were dismayed at his presence.
Then Joseph said to his brothers, "Please come closer to me." So they came closer. And he said, "I am your brother Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt" (Genesis 45:1-4).
Joseph's brothers did not recognize him at the first coming, but at the second.
And I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so they will look upon Me who they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him, like the bitter weeping over a first born (Zechariah 12:10).
The brothers of the Messiah, the son of Joseph, did not recognize him at his first coming, but they will at the second, realizing the one they betrayed is now the exalted one who was going to save them.
The one who was crucified is the one who is the Redeemer, the King. The son of Joseph is also the son of David.
The Suffering Servant is also the Conquering King
When his brothers repented, he forgave them. And when Jesus' brothers, the Jewish people repent, He forgives them.
In the beginning Joseph used the Egyptian people, the Gentiles, to give bread to his brothers, but a time came when the Gentiles were sent away and he revealed himself to his brothers.
Right now the son of Joseph is using Gentiles, Christians, to send the food, the Bread of Life, to His brothers, but a time will come in the Great Tribulation when the son of Joseph will personally reveal Himself to His brothers.All power to the KingJoseph, after his exaltation, turned around and delivered all into the hands of Pharaoh (Genesis 47:20).
Then comes the end, when He delivers up the kingdom to the God and Father, when He has abolished all rule and authority and power (1 Corinthians 15:24).
Joseph gave all rule and authority and power into the hands of the king.
The Messiah, the son of Joseph, will give all power and rule into the hands of the King. SaviorSo they said, "You have saved our lives! Let us find favor in the sight of my lord, and we will be Pharoah's slaves" (Genesis 47:25).
Joseph was acknowledged to be the people's savior.
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior., Christ Jesus; who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds (Titus 2:11-14).
The Messiah, the son of Joseph, the Lord Jesus Christ, is acknowledged to be the Savior. of all mankind.Not recognizedWhen Joseph was adorned (Genesis 41:42) with the garments of Egyptian royalty, he became totally unrecognizable to his Hebrew brothers (Genesis 42:8).
After the first century, Jesus was taken and made king of the Gentiles. It was forgotten that He came as King of the Jews and He became totally unrecognizable to His Hebrew brothers. One Messiah : Two ComingsJoseph was given a new name upon his exaltation (Genesis 41:45). The Gentiles call Rabbi Yeshua Ben Yosef by a new name - Jesus - a Greek name, not His original one.
One Messiah, two comings.
The Jews did not recognize Joseph at the first coming but at the second. And they will recognize the son of Joseph at the second coming, seeing the one who was betrayed and crucified as the one who has indeed come to bring salvation.
One Messiah, two comings.
Jesus is coming back as the son of David. Every eye will see Him. The Jews will look upon Him whom they have pierced and mourn as one mourns for an only son.
Those who look upon Jesus, whom we have all pierced, and mourn now as one mourns for an only son, will have the same blessing and promise that He gives to His own people.
The Messiah, the son of Joseph, will return as the Messiah, the son of David. And He will restore the kingdom to Israel.
Pedion Ha Ben
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by James Jacob Prasch
A wild donkey accustomed to the wilderness,That sniffs the wind in her passion.In the time of her heat who can turn her away?All who seek her will not become weary;In her month they will find her. (Jeremiah 2:24)
A wild donkey accustomed to the wilderness,That sniffs the wind in her passion.In the time of her heat who can turn her away?All who seek her will not become weary;In her month they will find her. (Jeremiah 2:24)
Should I Believe Mary or the Vatican?
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But I would like to ask a third question of my Catholic friends.
Without doubt Mary " her real name was "Miryam" " Mary the mother of Jesus was the greatest woman who ever lived. The angel Gabriel. the archangel "Gabriy"el", "the mighty one of God" appeared to her and told her that God Himself would become incarnate inside of her, she would be the mother of the Messiah, the Savior, who would save His people from their sin. This is the greatest woman who ever lived. And the greatest woman who ever lived, who has ever lived, was told she"s going to be the mother of the Savior who would save His people from their sin in the Magnificat in St. Luke"s Gospel. (Lk. 1:46-55) The only thing that the greatest woman who ever lived could say when she was told she was the greatest woman who ever lived " "Blessed are you among women" (Lk. 1:42) " and she was told she"s going to be the mother of the Savior who would save His people from their sin is, "My spirit rejoices in God my Savior". (Lk. 1:47)
If the greatest woman who ever lived tells me that she needs to be saved from sin, that she needs a Savior when she's told she's going to be the mother of the Savior who would save people from sin, who am I to argue with the greatest woman who ever lived? Who am I to argue with St. Luke? When God says, "All have sinned, all fall short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3:23), "None is righteous, no not one", (Rom. 3:10) Well who am I to argue with God? I believe Mary, but we have Ineffablilis Deus, the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.
If all have sinned and all full short of the glory of God, and if Mary said she needs to be saved from sin, who do I believe: Mary or the Vatican? Personally, I believe Mary. I'm convinced Mary was right; I'm convinced that Mary told the truth; I'm convinced all have sinned and all fall short of the glory of God.
The Roman church speculated and then deduced that if that was the case, Jesus would have been born from a sinful vessel. But if Mary had no sin, by the same token that would have to mean that Mary's mother had no sin, and that Mary's grandmother had no sin, and that Mary"s great-grandmother had no sin all the way back to Eve. But we know Eve had sin and we know Mary had sin.
Again, this doctrine was not proclaimed until modern times, until the 20th Century. Do you believe Mary was wrong?
We are told in the New Testament there is one intercessor between God and man, Jesus the righteous. (1 Tim. 2:5) One intercessor, onlyone, Jesus. Man can"t reach God so God had to reach man by becoming one of us. If there is one intercessor, how can I be expected to believe that Mary "co-redeemed" us, "co-saved" us, and she is the "co-mediatrix" if there"s only one Savior? The Hebrew prophets said all along, "Yahweh " God is our Savior; there is no Savior but Me". (Is. 43:11; Hos. 13:4) Only one Savior, only one intercessor.
Either we believe Mary or we believe the Vatican. I believe Mary. My question to you, my dear Catholic friends, is who do you believe?
Without doubt Mary " her real name was "Miryam" " Mary the mother of Jesus was the greatest woman who ever lived. The angel Gabriel. the archangel "Gabriy"el", "the mighty one of God" appeared to her and told her that God Himself would become incarnate inside of her, she would be the mother of the Messiah, the Savior, who would save His people from their sin. This is the greatest woman who ever lived. And the greatest woman who ever lived, who has ever lived, was told she"s going to be the mother of the Savior who would save His people from their sin in the Magnificat in St. Luke"s Gospel. (Lk. 1:46-55) The only thing that the greatest woman who ever lived could say when she was told she was the greatest woman who ever lived " "Blessed are you among women" (Lk. 1:42) " and she was told she"s going to be the mother of the Savior who would save His people from their sin is, "My spirit rejoices in God my Savior". (Lk. 1:47)
If the greatest woman who ever lived tells me that she needs to be saved from sin, that she needs a Savior when she's told she's going to be the mother of the Savior who would save people from sin, who am I to argue with the greatest woman who ever lived? Who am I to argue with St. Luke? When God says, "All have sinned, all fall short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3:23), "None is righteous, no not one", (Rom. 3:10) Well who am I to argue with God? I believe Mary, but we have Ineffablilis Deus, the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.
If all have sinned and all full short of the glory of God, and if Mary said she needs to be saved from sin, who do I believe: Mary or the Vatican? Personally, I believe Mary. I'm convinced Mary was right; I'm convinced that Mary told the truth; I'm convinced all have sinned and all fall short of the glory of God.
The Roman church speculated and then deduced that if that was the case, Jesus would have been born from a sinful vessel. But if Mary had no sin, by the same token that would have to mean that Mary's mother had no sin, and that Mary's grandmother had no sin, and that Mary"s great-grandmother had no sin all the way back to Eve. But we know Eve had sin and we know Mary had sin.
Again, this doctrine was not proclaimed until modern times, until the 20th Century. Do you believe Mary was wrong?
We are told in the New Testament there is one intercessor between God and man, Jesus the righteous. (1 Tim. 2:5) One intercessor, onlyone, Jesus. Man can"t reach God so God had to reach man by becoming one of us. If there is one intercessor, how can I be expected to believe that Mary "co-redeemed" us, "co-saved" us, and she is the "co-mediatrix" if there"s only one Savior? The Hebrew prophets said all along, "Yahweh " God is our Savior; there is no Savior but Me". (Is. 43:11; Hos. 13:4) Only one Savior, only one intercessor.
Either we believe Mary or we believe the Vatican. I believe Mary. My question to you, my dear Catholic friends, is who do you believe?
Issue of Intolerance
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Issue of ToleranceAnother difference between Hinduism and Christianity is the tolerance towards the views of other religions. A Protestant would only be a good Protestant by following the tenants of the denomination he belonged to. Any deviation would be seen as sinful and apostate. So, if I, as a Christian wanted to include some Hindu practices into my religion, I would be functioning outside of God's declared order for me. On the other hand, if I were a Hindu, my Hindu religion would gladly allow me to be a Catholic or Protestant as well. However, despite such differences, there are some similarities. Both religions think that we should take the focus off the self, and on to something higher. Issue of God in Everything (Good and Evil)If God is in everything, then God is in both good and evil. But then there is no absolute morality, no divine law, no divine will discriminating good and evil. In Hinduism, morality is practical; its end is to purify the soul from desires so that it can attain mystical consciousness. Again, the Jews are unique in identifying the source of morality with the object of religion. Everyone has two innate senses: the religious sense to worship, and the moral sense of conscience; but only the Jewish God is the focus of both. Only the God of the Bible is absolutely righteous. A distinctive belief in Hinduism is that they believe that everything possesses a part of God, therefore God persists in both good and evil. Christians believe that God did not create evil, but instead, He created mankind free to choose, and that freedom includes the possibility of doing wrong.
Principles of Persecution
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by James Jacob Prasch
And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write: The first and the last, who was dead, and has come to life, says this: "I know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich), and the blasphemy by those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and you will have tribulation ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life. He, who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who over-comes shall not be hurt by the second death" (Revelation 2:8-11).Fruits of persecutionLet's look briefly at some of the fruits of persecution.
And Saul was in hearty agreement of putting him to death.
And on that day a great persecution arose against the church in Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.
And some devout men buried Stephen, and made loud lamentation over him.
But Saul began ravaging the church, entering house after house; and dragging off men and women, he would put them in prison. Therefore, those who had been scattered went about preaching the word (Acts 8:1-4).
The apostles could not see the greater vision of God and they were still tied to the temple. They could not see God's purpose to take the gospel to the Gentiles.
That is one aspect. But notice that some left and others did not.
We could argue that they forgot the words of Jesus in Matthew 10:23: But whenever they persecute you in this city, flee to the next; for truly I say to you, you shall not finish going through the cities of Israel, until the Son of Man comes.
But what is really important here is that persecution caused an introspective church to become missions-minded.Forgetting evangelismThe church began when large crowds of people were present in Jerusalem for the Feast of Pentecost.
An attitude of: "Let the unsaved come to us and hear the gospel" developed amongst believers. They forgot mission. They forgot global evangelism.
By the time of Acts 10, Peter needed further revelation. He had forgotten the Great Commission: Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.
The church, including the apostles, began misunderstanding and forgetting the teachings of Jesus.
Even Peter needed further clarification about what Jesus meant.
They forgot mission-mindedness. The church had become inward-looking. "The apostles are our pastors. God is blessing us. The church is growing. The Jews come here anyway for the festivals, the pilgrim feasts, so they will hear the gospel when they come here. Why should we go to them? God will send them to us."
They did not understand God's purpose for the Jews to be lights to the Gentiles. I recall when I immigrated to Israel in the late 1970s. I had been trained to do Jewish evangelism by Jews for Jesus in New York.
I was saying to the believers in Israel,"Listen, we can go out and begin witnessing." And they said, "No that's America. You don't do that here. You're going to have problems."
I realised that we were going to have problems, and I understood that this was not America, but if we got Israelis to do evangelism in an Israeli way, it could succeed. But the local believers were simply not witnessing.
And I remember when the Likud came to power with the religious parties and the Baptist house got burned, things began to change.
After that they torched our meeting places at Tiberius and Beersheba. Then local Christians began standing up and saying, "Hey! They're going to burn us anyway. What are we afraid of? We may as well be hung for a pound, as for a penny."
God uses persecution to get the church going. Once a church stops being mission-minded, it will eventually stop being evangelistic. And once it stops being evangelistic, it will eventually stop being evangelical in its doctrine.
Persecution is God's panacea, His way of dealing with the problem. Tertullian said, "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." Persecution gets things going. If they are going to persecute us anyway, we may as well do what we should have been doing all along.False doctrine leads to decline and persecution And to the angel of the church in Pergamum write: The One who has the sharp two-edged sword [That is, the Word of God]says this: "I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is; and you hold fast My name, and did not deny My faith, even in the days of Antipas, My witness, My faithful one, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells.
But I have a few things against you, because you have there some who hold the teaching of Balaam, who kept teaching Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit acts of immorality (Revelation 2:12-14).
But to the church at Pergamum, He had to say: "Thus you also have some who in the same way hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans" (Revelation 2:15). The word Nicolaitian comes from a combination of nico = "suppression" and laity = "of the people."
They set up a clergy class. They put back an Old Testament motif, Judaizing the church. Instead of 'the priesthood of all believers,' they went back to a kind of Le-vitica priesthood. The extremes of this are the Roman Catholic doctrines of holy orders, the Mormon priesthood, etc.
But Nicolaitanism is simply the suppression of the people, 'heavy shepherding' in the sense of Ezekiel 34.
The very fact that leaders become heavy shepherds - as opposed to being good shepherds, imitating Jesus, leading by ex-ample the way Jesus did, and as Peter said they should, instead lording it over the people - proves that they have already gone wrong in their hearts.
Such leaders always end up going into wrong doctrine and leading the whole church with them.
What happened over and over in Old Testament Israel, in Kings, Chronicles? All that was needed was a despotic king. God warned them when they said, "Give us a king" (1 Samuel 8:9-18), that they were making a mistake.
The church has a tendency to degenerate to the point where they accept heavy-handed leaders who do not lead by example, but by Nicolaitanism. Persecution comes in order to clean the bad stuff out. Once persecution ends and we begin to feel comfortable in this world, the bad stuff comes back in. The church becomes identified with the world again, and the world's values and methods begin getting into the church. And we have to go through the whole cleansing process again.When did Christianity really go off the rails?When Constantine made it the religion of the state and it was no longer persecuted. The damage that men like Constantine and Augustine have done is with us to this day, haunting us.First principleThe first principle of persecution is this: When persecution is coming - before the persecution comes - Jesus warns the faithful church, and He warns the unfaithful church.
How do you determine between the faithful and the unfaithful? The ones who have 'ears to hear' are the faithful. The ones, who do not have 'ears to hear,' they hear, but not spiritually.
If there is one characteristic of persecution, it will always separate the faithful from the unfaithful.
Persecution will always create a clear distinction between those who really love Jesus, those who are not hoping in this world, and those who are trying to live with their feet in two kingdoms.
"He who has an ear, let him hear."
The first thing we see about persecution is that the Lord Jesus always warns the faithful church, and He also warns the unfaithful church, but only the faithful church will listen.
"O Israel, your prophets have been like foxes among the ruins.
"You have not gone up into the breaches, nor did you build the wall around the house of Israel to stand in the battle on the day of the Lord.
"They see falsehood and lying divination who are saying, 'The Lord declares,' when the Lord has not sent them; yet they hope for the fulfillment of their word.
"Did you not see a false vision and speak a lying divination when you said, 'The Lord declares,' but it is not I who have spoken?" (Ezekiel 13:4-7).Peace, peace They have misled My people by saying, "Peace!" when there is no peace(Ezekiel 13:10).
This is reiterated three times in Jeremiah and again in the New Testament. The false prophets tell people that there is "peace, peace," when there is no peace and they make predictions that do not happen.
We think of peace as the Greek idea, "an absence of conflict." The Hebrew term for peace has little to do with that. It comes from the Hebrew infinitive,l'shalem, "to pay, to fill, or to fulfil." Peace in Hebrew has to do with being filled, fulfilled, wholeness. L'shalem leads to shalom.
We have peace with God because the Messiah came to l'shalem, to pay the price for our sin. We have wholeness, we have completion, we have shalombecause the Messiah came. He is our peace.
Peace I leave with you; My peace I give you; not as the world gives, do I give to you (John 14:27).
To the world, 'peace' is an absence of conflict. In his dictionary Samuel Johnson said sarcastically, but accurately, that peace is a period of preparation and deception between two wars.
Biblical peace has nothing whatsoever to do with the world's peace.
Jesus did not promise us the world's peace. His peace is not an absence of conflict; it may include that, but not necessarily. You can be in the worst conflict of your life, and have shalom. Or you can be in a serene position with a total absence of conflict, but not have shalom.
"Not as the world gives."
These people saying, "peace, peace," were not simply saying, "no conflict, no trouble, no invasion, no persecution." They were saying that everything is wonderful; everything is going smoothly; could not be better. Everybody is healthy, blessed, and prosperous.
And that is what they are saying today.
"Revival is just around the corner. Great blessing is coming." And, of course, they predict things that do not happen and whitewash over their failed prophecies.Whitewashing over the failed prophecies And when anyone builds a wall, behold, they plaster it over with whitewash; so tell those who plaster it over with whitewash, that it will fall.
So I will tear down the wall which you have plastered over with whitewash and bring it down to the ground, so that its foundation is laid bare; and when it falls, you will be consumed in its midst.
And you will know that I am the Lord (Ezekiel 13:10,14).
Instead of building the church up for the coming invasion, instead of preparing God's people for what is really coming, they are telling them that everything is going to be all right.
Invasion was coming; the Babylonian captivity was imminent. The people were misled by their leaders, who kept telling them, "The house of the Lord, God's people, are victorious; we are triumphant," and all that kind of stuff.
But the opposite was happening.Jesus warns the churchGod was trying to warn, but only those who had 'ears to hear' heard.
Nothing happens in the persecution of the church that did not happen in the persecution of Israel and the Jews. The one teaches about the other.
And they heal the brokeness of the daughter of My people superficially, saying, 'Peace, peace," but there is no peace (Jeremiah 8:11).Prepare for persecutionThe first characteristic of persecution - and how to prepare for it - is that Jesus warns the faithful and the unfaithful, but only the faithful have ears to hear.
I have no doubt in my mind right now that, by the Holy Spirit, Jesus is telling the church to prepare for persecution.
He is telling the faithful and the unfaithful, but only the faithful will hear.
The unfaithful will follow leaders who are saying, "We have shalom; everything is all right; God is moving; we have blessing," oblivious to the reality.
Rodney Howard-Browne tells people that everything is all right and they roll on the floor, laughing, while it is obvious that the country is going to the wall.
The false prophets are saying, "Shalom, shalom." But anyone in their right mind, picking up a newspaper, knows the truth is the opposite.Second principlePersecution is the devil at work, but God has a hand in it. Jesus said to the church at Smyrna, Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, that you may be tested (Revelation 2:10).
Smyrna comes from the Greek word for "myrrh," meaning "death" or "anointing for burial." They anointed Jesus' body for burial with myrrh (John 19:39-40). In the Song of Solomon, the bridegroom goes to the mountain of myrrh [Calvary], to die for His bride (Song of Solomon 4:6).
Persecution comes from Satan. But God not only brings life from death, but good from evil; He turns persecution to His own ends. As Tertullian said of the early church, "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church."
Only people who really love Jesus are willing to die for their faith. Only people who do not love their life in this world are willing to surrender it. God uses this fact to weed out the false and unbelieving, and bring doctrinal and moral purity to His Son's bride.
The problem in persecution is that the first ones to get persecuted are the ones who need it least.
Strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered (Mark 14:27).
It was always the lambs without blemish, like Jesus, who were slaughtered first. The problem with persecution is that it is the Christians who do not need to get persecuted who tend to be the first victims. The others run away.
When it becomes a legal offense to be a Christian only a genuine Christian is going to say, "I am a Christian," knowing that they will lose their life.JeremiahPersecution is the devil at work. But, like a gambit in chess, God turns it to His own purposes.Third principleThe foremost way the New Testament gives us to prepare for persecution is the hope of the resurrection.
The first thing that Jesus said to Smyrna was, "The first and the last, who was dead, and has come to life" (Revelation 2:8).
The resurrection of Jesus and our resurrection are the same event. When we are baptized, we die with Him, but when we are resurrected, we are raised with Him. Closing in His message to Smyrna, Jesus said, "I will give you a crown of life. He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death"(Revelation 2:10-11).
The idea is one of constantly looking to the resurrection.
You see the same thing in 2 Corinthians 4. He talks about being persecuted in verse 9 and carrying about the dying of Jesus. His death is ours in verse 10.
Then, in verse 14, He says, "knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and present us with you." His resurrection is ours. Jesus never said, "I am going to die for your sins." Jesus said, "I am going to die for your sins. Now you get up here and die with me."
Jesus did not say, "I am going to rise from the dead to give you eternal life." He said, "I am going to raise you up with me. You die with me, you live with me." If your hope is in something other than the resurrection, you will never stand in a real persecution.
At the same time that the Lord Jesus is preparing the faithful church for persecution, Satan is trying to deceive the faithful church into thinking it is not going to happen; "We are going to be victorious! Kingdom Now! Shalom, shalom!" and the very opposite is happening.Fourth principleThe poor are the rich because they will receive a martyr's crown.
The poor Christians are the rich ones, and the rich ones are the poor ones; just like the Dylan song in the 1970s said, "When you've got nothing, you've got nothing to lose."
What did Jesus say? "I know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich)" (Revelation 2:9).
Even bad churches mentioned in Rev-elation had good people and good things, and good churches had bad people and bad things. Smyrna is the exception. When we know we are going to be killed for our faith, and anything that we could possibly hold onto is already gone, when we have nothing to live for except the hope of Jesus and being with Him in the resurrection, you will see how unworldly minded we become.
But instead of having a church warning us about the natural propensity of the flesh to cling to a hope in this world, we now have a backslidden, Kingdom Now church teaching us to trust in this world.Blessed are the poorWho do you think are the rich? Do you think it is some Laodicean church in the suburbs of Minneapolis, where the people are listening to prosperity preachers, naming and claiming sports cars and Cadillacs? Or is it the Christians in China meeting in a rice hut, hiding from the police?
Who is rich? I will tell you who is rich! When we get to heaven we are going to find out who has the big mansion. The poor are the rich; it is going to be those Chinese guys.Fifth principle "The blasphemy of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan" (Revelation 2:9).
Here the Lord Jesus is almost certainly alluding to an addition to the synagogue liturgy, a curse, where they pray that the name of Jewish believers in Jesus will be blotted out of the book of life.
There are Christian Zionist organizations that say that we can bless Israel, without giving them the gospel. They want to have good relations with the rabbis and the Israeli government, and they will stand on a platform with these orthodox rabbis in Israel and shake their hands and get their picture taken.
And then that rabbi on Saturday prays that the names of my children will be blotted out of the book of life because they are Jews who believe in Jesus.
In the days of the early church there were two kinds of religions: religulo licita and religulo illicita - legal religions and illegal religions. Judaism was one of the legal religions. Once Jewish believers were ex-communicated from the synagogue, they were no longer part of a licensed religion, and they were therefore vulnerable to persecution. In those days Christianity was simply Messianic Judaism, a messianic sect within the Jewish faith.
The false Jews (Romans 9-11) are those who reject their Messiah. Those Jews who accept Jesus are the "faithful remnant of Israel." The others will be cut off from their own olive tree. They have the name of Jews, they are anthropologically Jews, by covenant they are Jews, but they will be cut off.
For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly; neither is circumcision that which is out-ward in the flesh.
But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit (Romans 9:6).
They may have the birth, the religion, the culture, the circumcision, but they do not have the heart.False brethrenThe principle here connects persecution with false brethren.
When I go past a Jehovah Witnesses Kingdom Hall, I see a synagogue of Satan. When I go past a mosque, I see a synagogue of Satan. When I go past some kind of a liberal church or a Roman Church or a Mormon Church, I see a synagogue of Satan. When I go by a Hindu temple, I see a synagogue of Satan.
Rabbinic Judaism is a false religion. The synagogues of today are deceptions, which lead Jewish people away from the way of salvation into a system that rejects Torah, substitutes Torah with human tradition, and leads them into destruction.
Rabbinic Judaism is as much a false religion as any other false religion. It is as much a false Judaism as the Roman Church or the Mormon Church is a false Christianity.
That which denies the Father and Son is Antichrist. On the Dome of the Rock it says, quoting from the Koran, "God has no son."Islam is AntichristThere is a difference between contempt for an institution and its doctrines, and the people in it.
I love Roman Catholic people. Because I love Roman Catholic people, I hate their church. I love Jehovah Witnesses. Because I love Jehovah Witnesses, I hate their Kingdom Halls. I love Moslems. Because I love Moslems, I hate their mosques.
And I love Jews. Because I love Jews, I hate their false synagogues. I want them to return to thetrue synagogue, the gathering together of God's people who accept their Messiah, Yeshua.Tremble at His wordPersecution does not begin outside of the church, or outside of the community of God's people. It always begins within.
The first persecution of the church took place within Judaism.
We hear a lot about Christian anti-Semitism, and what was done by Christians to Jews. That is very, very true. But unsaved Jews persecuted Christians long before any Christians persecuted Jews. Persecution will not come in the West by the police knocking on your door or by the government passing laws to outlaw the preaching of the gospel. Persecution always begins with those who say they are brethren, but are not - nominal Christians persecuting faithful Christians.
Hear the word of the Lord, you who tremble at His word: "Your brothers who hate you, who exclude you for My name's sake, have said, 'Let the Lord be glorified, that we may see your joy.' But they will be put to shame"(Isaiah 66:5).
The Hebrew rendering could perhaps better be translated, "Your brothers who hate you because of the Word."
These are the ones who do not heed the Word, hating those who do. They exclude you because of what is in the Bible.Blaspheming IslamThe Conference of Christians and Jews in Britain is about to adopt a statement which will respect "all faiths," but not respect people's right to all faiths, and condemn proselytizing, condemn trying to convert, condemn trying to get people to leave one faith and join another.
If you say that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and no one comes to the Father but by Him, you have blasphemed Islam.
The growing financial power of Islam, recycling massive amounts of petro-dol-lars through the City of London, speaks more to politicians and businessmen than the likes of Christians.
Already, we have seen British and American troops in Saudi Arabia, defending Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait fund the construction of mosques all over England, but will not allow one church to be built in Saudi Arabia or Kuwait. They are funding militant Islam.
They are funding the conversion of people, particularly young black people, to Islam all over the world.
The British government cares about arms deals, petrodollars, and oil. They do not care about you and me. They certainly do not care about the gospel.
The precedent, however, is not being set by the political and financial influence of the Islamic world, but by George Carey, withdrawing Anglican patronage from Jewish evangelism and going on the radio with the Chief Rabbi, denouncing Jewish evangelism.
The first stage of persecution is never unsaved people or the governments of the world persecuting Christians. The first stage of persecution, from the time of Stephen to today, has always been false brethren persecuting true believers.Jeremiah Then they said, "Come and let us devise plans against Jeremiah. Surely the law is not going to be lost to the priest, or counsel to the sage, nor the divine word to the prophet! Come on and let us strike him with the tongue, and let us give no heed to any of his words" (Jeremiah 18:18).
The judgment of God was coming on a backslidden nation. Jeremiah was telling the truth, the others were lying.
Jeremiah was telling the truth; he was calling their bluff in public.
He was saying stuff that they did not want people to hear. More importantly, it was stuff that they could not deny.
"Look at the rising immorality and idolatry in our society. The Babylonian Em-pire is rising and breathing down our neck and they are coming after us.
You think that because you are rich and prosperous today, it is going to be like this tomorrow?
Look at these prophets that keep predicting things that do not happen, and prophesying blessing which does not come. Do you really believe things will continue like this? Look at the facts!" In public, Jeremiah was pointing to facts that were irrefutable and the establishment had to stop him from telling the truth. Today it is the same.
They go after Dave Hunt. They go after me. They go after anybody who tries to tell the truth.
They can never deny what you say. They just go after you for saying it.
Everybody knows it is the truth. But people are rolling on the floor and claiming that God is doing a great thing! You know the story. I do not want to go into it again: the Methodists and the church of England voting to allowing homosexuals to be ministers, the financial insolvency of the Assemblies of God in the UK, the service in Sheffield with the women dancing topless in the church, which was broadcast on the BBC News. This stuff is not new. Persecution is not coming; persecution is here. Do not worry about the Freemasons, the parliament, or the EEC. Persecution begins in the church, not outside.
Formal, legal persecution is simply the natural outcome of persecution within the church.
Before Jesus warned about Satan casting you into prison (Revelation 2:10), He warned about those who say they are Jews but are not, but are a synagogue of Satan (Revelation 2:9).Sixth principle The devil is about to cast some of you into prison (Revelation 2:10).
Persecutions, historically, have tended to be local and sporadic. It is not every-body always getting it. Even in China and places like that, it is not always everybody getting it at the same time.
Something happened in Smyrna, however. With some of these emperors, like Diocletian, persecution became universal throughout the Roman Empire. In the last days normal persecution will become compounded by some kind of eventual, universal declaration against the gospel.
The Antichrist is going to condemn Christianity in the same way that the emperors did.
Do not think that in a time of persecution we are all going to get it. That is not the way persecution works. It has never been like that, except under these emperors. It did happen then and it will happen again in the last days.
The outlawing of the gospel became universal, but not everybody was killed. In the days of Queen Mary hundreds of leaders were killed. Others fled. It will be like that.
Some get away, some do not. Some flee, some do not.
The Lord tells some to get out of there; He tells others to stand.
Persecution is not every Christian being wiped out! It will eventually come to that, but not in the near term.
It will be sporadic; here and there; localized. Things will seem to get better for a while and then worse again.Seismology and obstetricsThe two metaphors Scripture most uses to explain how persecution works are borrowed from seismology and obstetrics.
If you believe the tectonic plate theory, geophysical pressures cause an increased friction on the fissure where the plates come together, resulting in tremors.
The tremors become more and more frequent, more and more acute, and some are worse than others are, but they are all indications that the big one is coming.
These build up until finally there is a major shift in the plates, which produces a big earthquake.
The other is the phenomenon of birth pangs.
Contractions become more and more frequent, then they are alleviated for a while, and then more frequent again, then they slow down, then they become more intense.
For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now (Romans 8:20).
It gets worse, then it seems to get better for a while, then it gets worse, but the contractions become more and more frequent until the baby is born.
Think of what labor is like. Is labor having contractions the whole time? No. It comes. It stops. It comes. It stops.
You can have an easy labor or a more difficult labor.
Ultimately the labor of this world will become so terrible that there will be one massive cesarean section, called the Rapture. The Lord will get us out of here.Seventh principle Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and you will have tribulation ten days (Revelation 2:10).
The Lord never allows us to suffer more than we can take.
In the early church there were ten fixed periods of persecution under ten emperors: Nero (AD 54-68), Domitian (81-96), Trajan (98-117), Hadrian (117-138), Marcus Aurelius (161-180), Septimus Severus (193-211), Maximin (235-238), Decius (249-251), Valerian (253-259) and Diocletian (284-305).
The persecution was for a fixed period. The St Bartholomew's Day massacre of the Huguenots in France lasted just one day!
The Great Tribulation, the second half of the seventieth week of Daniel, the time of Jacob's trouble, is fixed at three and a half years. God is the God of history; by Him kings reign.
One of the things that makes the Great Tribulation unique is that, for a limited period of time, within certain parameters, the lordship of history is given into the hands of Satan, to the Antichrist.
Jesus had three and a half years, so the Antichrist demands equal time.
One day. Ten days. Three and a half years. God sets parameters. As in the case of Job (1:12; 2:6), the Lord sets limits. He never allows His people to suffer more than they can handle.
It is easy for me to say, but I can look to someone who has been through it. When Corrie ten Boom was asked about finding the strength to suffer persecution, she said, "When I was a little girl in Holland and we were taking the train into Amsterdam, my father never gave me the ticket till it was time to get on the train." What a saint of God! Before she went to be with the Lord, she called the prosperity preachers 'false prophets.' And she was right!
There is a midrashic parallel between Revelation and Genesis. The blood of Abel, the first martyr, cries out (Genesis 4:10). The blood of the faithful martyrs cries out from under the altar (Revelation 6:9-10).
The sovereign hand of God always regu-lates how far persecution can go. Either He says, "This far and no further," or else, finally and ultimately, there will be the big cesarean section and His people will be removed from the earth. Harvest is past, summer is ended, and we are not saved. Is there no balm in Gilead? (Jeremiah 8:20,22).
This is the cry of those who missed the Rapture, just like Revelation 12. The rest of her offspring went to the wilderness and the dragon goes after them once the man-child is taken out of the way.Pressured I know your tribulation. Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison. and you will have tribulation ten days (Revelation 2:9-10).
The Greek word for tribulation is thlipsis, which actually means, "being pressured, to the point of anguish."
The pressure gets worse and worse, just like the seismological pressure in an earth tremor, just likes the birth contractions. The pressure gets worse and worse and worse, until a definite event occurs.
Do not fear. or run away
Do not fear what you are about to suffer. (Revelation 2:10).
The Greek word for "fear" here is phobeo, which is the source of the English word "phobia."
The full meaning of phobeo is not simply "to fear," but to have a fear that will cause you to run away.
This does not mean that you should not flee from persecution. It means that you should not flee from your faith - which is the thing that is attracting that persecution.
In other words, do not allow fear to make you abandon your faith
Look to the resurrection. Keep your eye on the baby, the end product, on what you are expecting to get out of all this. Then you will be able to handle it.
I have never met a mother who said, "I am never going to have another one." Most women I know, if they are young enough, after they have one child and it gets older, want to have another one. It is not something that they dread. Why? Be-cause it was worth it.
The Bible always uses that kind of language. Do not phobeo. Do not try to run away from the persecution. It will be worth it. Do not allow fear to make you aban-don your faith.
Those who are trusting in this world will phobeo. Under the pressure ofthlipsis they will fear what is going to happen to them. And because they are trusting in this life and in this world they are going to run away from Jesus.
Think about it. I know a lot of Chris-tian girls who are midwives and obstetri-cians. They have delivered hundreds of babies. I have never known one of them to say, "I don't want to get married and have a baby of my own. I don't want to go through that."
They all say they want to have kids just like everyone else. They do notphobeo. They know what is involved. They have seen it. They still want to have a baby of their own.
Who is going to phobeo? The ones who only love themselves, who only love this world and trust in this life are going to phobeo.
Jesus tells the rest of us, "Do not phobeo." If you are not trusting in this life you do not have anything to fear, because your hope is in the resurrection.
In other words, the most the devil can do is to kill you, but he can only kill your body; he cannot touch your soul.Jim ElliottWe see most of the bad people and bad things from America. Unfortunately the good people and the good things from America, like Dave Hunt and David Wilkerson, do not get as much publicity as the con men.
One of the best Christians America has ever produced was Brother Jim Elliot. He said, "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."
Boy, did that brother understand! And his life showed it. He is the kind of guy I want to look up to.Demonstrating your faith Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, that you may be tested. (Revelation 2:10).
Fear not. Do not phobeo. Do not run away from your faith. Why does Satan put them in prison? Why does God allow it?
So "that you may be tested." The Greek word peirazo means "to tempt, to assay, to prove or to examine." It is an acid test. God allows it to happen for His own reasons. The Bible teaches that the "heroes of faith" were tested.They were stoned, they were saw in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated (men of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground.
And all of these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised, because God had provided some-thing better for us, so that apart from us they should not be made perfect (Hebrews 11:37-40).
One of the lies being propagated today by the 'Kingdom Now' preachers - the teaching that the Rapture is "a fantasy and a myth" - is being used by Satan to pre-pare the church for deception. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17).
Our faith should be based on the resurrection and the idea that we shall meet them, that they should not be made perfect apart from us, nor we from them.
Those who are saying, "You don't have to suffer; you're a King's kid; God wants you rich; Jesus suffered and if you're suffering then you have no faith, etc." are talking about a very different faith to that of Hebrews 11.
What they are teaching is faith in faith, not faith in Jesus.
They are not practicing Christianity, they are practicing mammon worship. When Job was going through tribulation he said, As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will take His stand upon the earth. Even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh I shall see God (Job 19:25).
His resurrection is our resurrection. Even with my own eyes I shall see God. I do not care if I die. Maybe I care for now, but ultimately it does not matter. The most the devil could do is kill me, but he cannot even do that.
Go ahead! Pull the trigger! Even with my own eyes I shall see God and I shall watch you burn. You watch my death now and I will watch your death for eternity.The resurrection our hope But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in heavenly places, in Christ Jesus, in order that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:4-7).
In a spiritual sense it is already reality. We are already seated with Christ. Your eternal destiny is assured. You have your ticket. You know where you are going.
The hope is in the resurrection. If that is your hope, the rest is negotiable. If that is not your hope, you do not have ears to hear. That is what Jesus is saying.Seated in heavenly placesJohn was on the isle of Patmos during the persecution of the Roman emporer Domitian.
He saw heaven. He saw the twenty-four elders - the twelve patriarchs of Israel, plus the twelve apostles.
In other words, John saw himself on the throne. He was already seated with Christ. The past, present and future are all the same to God in eternity. The Book of Rev-elation speaks of future events in the past tense.
And I looked, and I heard an eagle flying in midheaven, saying with a loud voice, "Woe, woe, woe, to those who dwell on the earth." (Revelation 8:13).
"Rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them. Woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, knowing that he has only a short time" (Revelation 12:12).
You have to understand what that means midrashically. You are either a heaven dweller or an earth dweller. You are either one of those who are seated with Christ in heavenly places or one of those who dwell on the earth.
'Kingdom Now', 'God wants you rich', 'Name it and Claim it' - those people are earth dwellers. The people who will take the Mark of the Beast have taken it already in the attitude of their heart. It does not matter when they put credit cards or the microchip on your wrist; those people have already accepted the Mark of the Beast, because they are hoping in this world.
Whenever the New Testament talks about the Antichrist, it always begins, "Love not the world."
It is only a procedural matter for those people who love this world to accept the Mark of the Beast.
Some Restorationists and Kingdom Now preachers are already openly teaching that it is all right for people to accept the Mark of the Beast.
Andrew Shearman in Nottingham said, "I repented of having sung, 'This world is not my home.' This world is our home, this world is our home!"
Woe to those who dwell on the earth. The dragon and the serpent are cast down to you.
The dragon is Satan the persecutor. The serpent is Satan the seducer. These people are going to face internal seduction and external persecution simultaneously. Those that dwell on the earth will not stand a chance. It will only be those who dwell in heaven who are going to get out of this.Earthen vessels But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing greatness of the power may be of God and not from ourselves; we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death works in us, but life in you (2 Corinthians 4:7-14).
Again, the principle is one of hoping in the resurrection. Jesus died to give others life, so He calls on us to die with Him Paul says we have the treasure in earthen vessels. You have to understand what He is talking about.
The earth in the Middle East is a reddish clay. If you look carefully in the ruins of a place like Caesarea or Har Meggido in the Jezreel valley, you will find pieces of pottery that are reddish.
In Hebrew, a human being is called a ben adam, literally a "son of Adam," be-cause Adam was made from the earth, adamah. Adamah comes from the Hebrew word for "red," edom.
The red, earthenware vessels are equated with man, who was made from the earth. The destruction of our natural bodies allows the true light inside, the real treasure, to come out and bring light into the darkness, giving life to others. You might not be martyred, but you have to be willing to be martyred. That is what He is saying. We are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake (2 Corinthians 4:11). It is not just being killed - a one-time execution, it is a continual death to self. The fruit of persecution is death to self, in order to bring life to others.The first Christian martyr Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great, and He will divide the booty with the strong; because He poured out Himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet He Himself bore the sin of many(Isaiah 53:12).
Jesus was the first Christian martyr. He was numbered with the transgressors, and executed outside of the camp.
Some of the animals in the Hebrew Levitical sacrificial system had to be taken outside the camp and their carcasses burnt.
For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy place by the high priest as an offering for sin, are burned out-side the camp.
Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people through His own blood, suffered outside the camp.
Hence, let us go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach. For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come (Hebrews 13:11- 14).The sacrifice of praise?Many Christians have the wrong idea. They think that singing is a "sacrifice of praise."
No! It is laying your life down. It is going outside the camp, being a reproach, being counted as a criminal by secular society, even by your so-called brethren - bearing the reproach of Christ.
They hung Him with criminals. Christianity will become a crime. We are already reaching the point where Biblical Christianity is becoming a crime.
I have no doubt that the prophecies of Daniel regarding the fourth beast are being fulfilled in the re-confederation of those countries that were in the Roman Empire. What began as an economic union is becoming a political federation.
By the year 2010, 80% of Britain's laws will no longer be made by Britain's parliament. They will be made behind closed doors by bureaucrats who the British did not vote for and cannot remove.
Homosexual marriages are legally recognized in Hawaii and in Denmark. Homo-sexuals have the right to adopt children, and have artificial insemination in lesbian marriages.
This is not true in England yet, but it is coming. And who will stand against it? Only a true church. What will happen to that true church? They will be labeled as bigots, and regarded as criminals. "Sex discrimination is just as bad as racism."
Christianity will become a crime. You will be outside the camp, numbered with the transgressors. You are going to be regarded as a criminal for your beliefs, the same as Jesus was put outside the camp and labeled a criminal.
He is saying, "Come bear my reproach." Are you willing to become a reproach? Are you willing to become a criminal in the eyes of your unsaved neighbors, even your unsaved family? If you are willing to become a reproach, if you are willing to be labeled a criminal, you have ears to hear.SummaryJesus warns the faithful and the unfaithful, but only the faithful hear.
Persecution is of the devil, but God uses it to correct and purify the church Our means of coping with persecution is our belief in the certainty of the resurrection. Those who are poor are actually rich, because they are the heirs to the martyr's crown, the crown of glory.
Persecution begins, not outside the church, but within. It begins with false brethren.
Persecution tends to be sporadic and local. Not everyone gets it. Ultimately persecution will be universal, but do not think of it as total and absolute eradication.
Fear not, do not phobeo. Those who phobeo will run away from the faith in order to save their neck.
Look at the end result. Look at what will happen when it is over. Look at the man-child. Look at the Rapture.
Think of it in terms of a pregnancy. You really love that kid and you want that baby. How long does labor last? One day at the most? Probably less. [Easy for me to say, I am a male!] Nonetheless, after our daughter Batmiel was born, my wife did not say, "Never again."
She said, "I am going to have another baby; it was worth it."
We will be tested. That testing will show who is who. God already knows; He wants us to know.
When we stand before Him on that day, there will be no excuses, neither will there be any apologies. It will be too late for apologies, too late for excuses. You might not be martyred, but you have to be willing to be martyred.
If you die for Jesus, you die once and that is it. Bang! See you in heaven. If you live for Jesus, you have to die every day. Remember my motto: Not too many of the great men of the Bible died happy, but they were all happy to die!
When persecution comes, some people will stand that you would not expect. Other people will fall away, whom you think would stand.
It is amazing to read the history of the English martyrs in "Foxe's Book of Martyrs," and see those people you thought would have stood, but who ran away; and other people who you thought would have run away, but they stood.
God judges the heart. He knows what is really in us. If there is one thing that is going to bring out what is really in us, it is persecution.
When persecution comes, we are really going to find out who is who. Fire brings out what is inside someone.
And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write: The first and the last, who was dead, and has come to life, says this: "I know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich), and the blasphemy by those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and youwill have tribulation ten days.
Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.
He, who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death" (Revelation 2:8-11).
And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write: The first and the last, who was dead, and has come to life, says this: "I know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich), and the blasphemy by those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and you will have tribulation ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life. He, who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who over-comes shall not be hurt by the second death" (Revelation 2:8-11).Fruits of persecutionLet's look briefly at some of the fruits of persecution.
And Saul was in hearty agreement of putting him to death.
And on that day a great persecution arose against the church in Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.
And some devout men buried Stephen, and made loud lamentation over him.
But Saul began ravaging the church, entering house after house; and dragging off men and women, he would put them in prison. Therefore, those who had been scattered went about preaching the word (Acts 8:1-4).
The apostles could not see the greater vision of God and they were still tied to the temple. They could not see God's purpose to take the gospel to the Gentiles.
That is one aspect. But notice that some left and others did not.
We could argue that they forgot the words of Jesus in Matthew 10:23: But whenever they persecute you in this city, flee to the next; for truly I say to you, you shall not finish going through the cities of Israel, until the Son of Man comes.
But what is really important here is that persecution caused an introspective church to become missions-minded.Forgetting evangelismThe church began when large crowds of people were present in Jerusalem for the Feast of Pentecost.
An attitude of: "Let the unsaved come to us and hear the gospel" developed amongst believers. They forgot mission. They forgot global evangelism.
By the time of Acts 10, Peter needed further revelation. He had forgotten the Great Commission: Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.
The church, including the apostles, began misunderstanding and forgetting the teachings of Jesus.
Even Peter needed further clarification about what Jesus meant.
They forgot mission-mindedness. The church had become inward-looking. "The apostles are our pastors. God is blessing us. The church is growing. The Jews come here anyway for the festivals, the pilgrim feasts, so they will hear the gospel when they come here. Why should we go to them? God will send them to us."
They did not understand God's purpose for the Jews to be lights to the Gentiles. I recall when I immigrated to Israel in the late 1970s. I had been trained to do Jewish evangelism by Jews for Jesus in New York.
I was saying to the believers in Israel,"Listen, we can go out and begin witnessing." And they said, "No that's America. You don't do that here. You're going to have problems."
I realised that we were going to have problems, and I understood that this was not America, but if we got Israelis to do evangelism in an Israeli way, it could succeed. But the local believers were simply not witnessing.
And I remember when the Likud came to power with the religious parties and the Baptist house got burned, things began to change.
After that they torched our meeting places at Tiberius and Beersheba. Then local Christians began standing up and saying, "Hey! They're going to burn us anyway. What are we afraid of? We may as well be hung for a pound, as for a penny."
God uses persecution to get the church going. Once a church stops being mission-minded, it will eventually stop being evangelistic. And once it stops being evangelistic, it will eventually stop being evangelical in its doctrine.
Persecution is God's panacea, His way of dealing with the problem. Tertullian said, "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." Persecution gets things going. If they are going to persecute us anyway, we may as well do what we should have been doing all along.False doctrine leads to decline and persecution And to the angel of the church in Pergamum write: The One who has the sharp two-edged sword [That is, the Word of God]says this: "I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is; and you hold fast My name, and did not deny My faith, even in the days of Antipas, My witness, My faithful one, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells.
But I have a few things against you, because you have there some who hold the teaching of Balaam, who kept teaching Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit acts of immorality (Revelation 2:12-14).
But to the church at Pergamum, He had to say: "Thus you also have some who in the same way hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans" (Revelation 2:15). The word Nicolaitian comes from a combination of nico = "suppression" and laity = "of the people."
They set up a clergy class. They put back an Old Testament motif, Judaizing the church. Instead of 'the priesthood of all believers,' they went back to a kind of Le-vitica priesthood. The extremes of this are the Roman Catholic doctrines of holy orders, the Mormon priesthood, etc.
But Nicolaitanism is simply the suppression of the people, 'heavy shepherding' in the sense of Ezekiel 34.
The very fact that leaders become heavy shepherds - as opposed to being good shepherds, imitating Jesus, leading by ex-ample the way Jesus did, and as Peter said they should, instead lording it over the people - proves that they have already gone wrong in their hearts.
Such leaders always end up going into wrong doctrine and leading the whole church with them.
What happened over and over in Old Testament Israel, in Kings, Chronicles? All that was needed was a despotic king. God warned them when they said, "Give us a king" (1 Samuel 8:9-18), that they were making a mistake.
The church has a tendency to degenerate to the point where they accept heavy-handed leaders who do not lead by example, but by Nicolaitanism. Persecution comes in order to clean the bad stuff out. Once persecution ends and we begin to feel comfortable in this world, the bad stuff comes back in. The church becomes identified with the world again, and the world's values and methods begin getting into the church. And we have to go through the whole cleansing process again.When did Christianity really go off the rails?When Constantine made it the religion of the state and it was no longer persecuted. The damage that men like Constantine and Augustine have done is with us to this day, haunting us.First principleThe first principle of persecution is this: When persecution is coming - before the persecution comes - Jesus warns the faithful church, and He warns the unfaithful church.
How do you determine between the faithful and the unfaithful? The ones who have 'ears to hear' are the faithful. The ones, who do not have 'ears to hear,' they hear, but not spiritually.
If there is one characteristic of persecution, it will always separate the faithful from the unfaithful.
Persecution will always create a clear distinction between those who really love Jesus, those who are not hoping in this world, and those who are trying to live with their feet in two kingdoms.
"He who has an ear, let him hear."
The first thing we see about persecution is that the Lord Jesus always warns the faithful church, and He also warns the unfaithful church, but only the faithful church will listen.
"O Israel, your prophets have been like foxes among the ruins.
"You have not gone up into the breaches, nor did you build the wall around the house of Israel to stand in the battle on the day of the Lord.
"They see falsehood and lying divination who are saying, 'The Lord declares,' when the Lord has not sent them; yet they hope for the fulfillment of their word.
"Did you not see a false vision and speak a lying divination when you said, 'The Lord declares,' but it is not I who have spoken?" (Ezekiel 13:4-7).Peace, peace They have misled My people by saying, "Peace!" when there is no peace(Ezekiel 13:10).
This is reiterated three times in Jeremiah and again in the New Testament. The false prophets tell people that there is "peace, peace," when there is no peace and they make predictions that do not happen.
We think of peace as the Greek idea, "an absence of conflict." The Hebrew term for peace has little to do with that. It comes from the Hebrew infinitive,l'shalem, "to pay, to fill, or to fulfil." Peace in Hebrew has to do with being filled, fulfilled, wholeness. L'shalem leads to shalom.
We have peace with God because the Messiah came to l'shalem, to pay the price for our sin. We have wholeness, we have completion, we have shalombecause the Messiah came. He is our peace.
Peace I leave with you; My peace I give you; not as the world gives, do I give to you (John 14:27).
To the world, 'peace' is an absence of conflict. In his dictionary Samuel Johnson said sarcastically, but accurately, that peace is a period of preparation and deception between two wars.
Biblical peace has nothing whatsoever to do with the world's peace.
Jesus did not promise us the world's peace. His peace is not an absence of conflict; it may include that, but not necessarily. You can be in the worst conflict of your life, and have shalom. Or you can be in a serene position with a total absence of conflict, but not have shalom.
"Not as the world gives."
These people saying, "peace, peace," were not simply saying, "no conflict, no trouble, no invasion, no persecution." They were saying that everything is wonderful; everything is going smoothly; could not be better. Everybody is healthy, blessed, and prosperous.
And that is what they are saying today.
"Revival is just around the corner. Great blessing is coming." And, of course, they predict things that do not happen and whitewash over their failed prophecies.Whitewashing over the failed prophecies And when anyone builds a wall, behold, they plaster it over with whitewash; so tell those who plaster it over with whitewash, that it will fall.
So I will tear down the wall which you have plastered over with whitewash and bring it down to the ground, so that its foundation is laid bare; and when it falls, you will be consumed in its midst.
And you will know that I am the Lord (Ezekiel 13:10,14).
Instead of building the church up for the coming invasion, instead of preparing God's people for what is really coming, they are telling them that everything is going to be all right.
Invasion was coming; the Babylonian captivity was imminent. The people were misled by their leaders, who kept telling them, "The house of the Lord, God's people, are victorious; we are triumphant," and all that kind of stuff.
But the opposite was happening.Jesus warns the churchGod was trying to warn, but only those who had 'ears to hear' heard.
Nothing happens in the persecution of the church that did not happen in the persecution of Israel and the Jews. The one teaches about the other.
And they heal the brokeness of the daughter of My people superficially, saying, 'Peace, peace," but there is no peace (Jeremiah 8:11).Prepare for persecutionThe first characteristic of persecution - and how to prepare for it - is that Jesus warns the faithful and the unfaithful, but only the faithful have ears to hear.
I have no doubt in my mind right now that, by the Holy Spirit, Jesus is telling the church to prepare for persecution.
He is telling the faithful and the unfaithful, but only the faithful will hear.
The unfaithful will follow leaders who are saying, "We have shalom; everything is all right; God is moving; we have blessing," oblivious to the reality.
Rodney Howard-Browne tells people that everything is all right and they roll on the floor, laughing, while it is obvious that the country is going to the wall.
The false prophets are saying, "Shalom, shalom." But anyone in their right mind, picking up a newspaper, knows the truth is the opposite.Second principlePersecution is the devil at work, but God has a hand in it. Jesus said to the church at Smyrna, Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, that you may be tested (Revelation 2:10).
Smyrna comes from the Greek word for "myrrh," meaning "death" or "anointing for burial." They anointed Jesus' body for burial with myrrh (John 19:39-40). In the Song of Solomon, the bridegroom goes to the mountain of myrrh [Calvary], to die for His bride (Song of Solomon 4:6).
Persecution comes from Satan. But God not only brings life from death, but good from evil; He turns persecution to His own ends. As Tertullian said of the early church, "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church."
Only people who really love Jesus are willing to die for their faith. Only people who do not love their life in this world are willing to surrender it. God uses this fact to weed out the false and unbelieving, and bring doctrinal and moral purity to His Son's bride.
The problem in persecution is that the first ones to get persecuted are the ones who need it least.
Strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered (Mark 14:27).
It was always the lambs without blemish, like Jesus, who were slaughtered first. The problem with persecution is that it is the Christians who do not need to get persecuted who tend to be the first victims. The others run away.
When it becomes a legal offense to be a Christian only a genuine Christian is going to say, "I am a Christian," knowing that they will lose their life.JeremiahPersecution is the devil at work. But, like a gambit in chess, God turns it to His own purposes.Third principleThe foremost way the New Testament gives us to prepare for persecution is the hope of the resurrection.
The first thing that Jesus said to Smyrna was, "The first and the last, who was dead, and has come to life" (Revelation 2:8).
The resurrection of Jesus and our resurrection are the same event. When we are baptized, we die with Him, but when we are resurrected, we are raised with Him. Closing in His message to Smyrna, Jesus said, "I will give you a crown of life. He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death"(Revelation 2:10-11).
The idea is one of constantly looking to the resurrection.
You see the same thing in 2 Corinthians 4. He talks about being persecuted in verse 9 and carrying about the dying of Jesus. His death is ours in verse 10.
Then, in verse 14, He says, "knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and present us with you." His resurrection is ours. Jesus never said, "I am going to die for your sins." Jesus said, "I am going to die for your sins. Now you get up here and die with me."
Jesus did not say, "I am going to rise from the dead to give you eternal life." He said, "I am going to raise you up with me. You die with me, you live with me." If your hope is in something other than the resurrection, you will never stand in a real persecution.
At the same time that the Lord Jesus is preparing the faithful church for persecution, Satan is trying to deceive the faithful church into thinking it is not going to happen; "We are going to be victorious! Kingdom Now! Shalom, shalom!" and the very opposite is happening.Fourth principleThe poor are the rich because they will receive a martyr's crown.
The poor Christians are the rich ones, and the rich ones are the poor ones; just like the Dylan song in the 1970s said, "When you've got nothing, you've got nothing to lose."
What did Jesus say? "I know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich)" (Revelation 2:9).
Even bad churches mentioned in Rev-elation had good people and good things, and good churches had bad people and bad things. Smyrna is the exception. When we know we are going to be killed for our faith, and anything that we could possibly hold onto is already gone, when we have nothing to live for except the hope of Jesus and being with Him in the resurrection, you will see how unworldly minded we become.
But instead of having a church warning us about the natural propensity of the flesh to cling to a hope in this world, we now have a backslidden, Kingdom Now church teaching us to trust in this world.Blessed are the poorWho do you think are the rich? Do you think it is some Laodicean church in the suburbs of Minneapolis, where the people are listening to prosperity preachers, naming and claiming sports cars and Cadillacs? Or is it the Christians in China meeting in a rice hut, hiding from the police?
Who is rich? I will tell you who is rich! When we get to heaven we are going to find out who has the big mansion. The poor are the rich; it is going to be those Chinese guys.Fifth principle "The blasphemy of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan" (Revelation 2:9).
Here the Lord Jesus is almost certainly alluding to an addition to the synagogue liturgy, a curse, where they pray that the name of Jewish believers in Jesus will be blotted out of the book of life.
There are Christian Zionist organizations that say that we can bless Israel, without giving them the gospel. They want to have good relations with the rabbis and the Israeli government, and they will stand on a platform with these orthodox rabbis in Israel and shake their hands and get their picture taken.
And then that rabbi on Saturday prays that the names of my children will be blotted out of the book of life because they are Jews who believe in Jesus.
In the days of the early church there were two kinds of religions: religulo licita and religulo illicita - legal religions and illegal religions. Judaism was one of the legal religions. Once Jewish believers were ex-communicated from the synagogue, they were no longer part of a licensed religion, and they were therefore vulnerable to persecution. In those days Christianity was simply Messianic Judaism, a messianic sect within the Jewish faith.
The false Jews (Romans 9-11) are those who reject their Messiah. Those Jews who accept Jesus are the "faithful remnant of Israel." The others will be cut off from their own olive tree. They have the name of Jews, they are anthropologically Jews, by covenant they are Jews, but they will be cut off.
For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly; neither is circumcision that which is out-ward in the flesh.
But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit (Romans 9:6).
They may have the birth, the religion, the culture, the circumcision, but they do not have the heart.False brethrenThe principle here connects persecution with false brethren.
When I go past a Jehovah Witnesses Kingdom Hall, I see a synagogue of Satan. When I go past a mosque, I see a synagogue of Satan. When I go past some kind of a liberal church or a Roman Church or a Mormon Church, I see a synagogue of Satan. When I go by a Hindu temple, I see a synagogue of Satan.
Rabbinic Judaism is a false religion. The synagogues of today are deceptions, which lead Jewish people away from the way of salvation into a system that rejects Torah, substitutes Torah with human tradition, and leads them into destruction.
Rabbinic Judaism is as much a false religion as any other false religion. It is as much a false Judaism as the Roman Church or the Mormon Church is a false Christianity.
That which denies the Father and Son is Antichrist. On the Dome of the Rock it says, quoting from the Koran, "God has no son."Islam is AntichristThere is a difference between contempt for an institution and its doctrines, and the people in it.
I love Roman Catholic people. Because I love Roman Catholic people, I hate their church. I love Jehovah Witnesses. Because I love Jehovah Witnesses, I hate their Kingdom Halls. I love Moslems. Because I love Moslems, I hate their mosques.
And I love Jews. Because I love Jews, I hate their false synagogues. I want them to return to thetrue synagogue, the gathering together of God's people who accept their Messiah, Yeshua.Tremble at His wordPersecution does not begin outside of the church, or outside of the community of God's people. It always begins within.
The first persecution of the church took place within Judaism.
We hear a lot about Christian anti-Semitism, and what was done by Christians to Jews. That is very, very true. But unsaved Jews persecuted Christians long before any Christians persecuted Jews. Persecution will not come in the West by the police knocking on your door or by the government passing laws to outlaw the preaching of the gospel. Persecution always begins with those who say they are brethren, but are not - nominal Christians persecuting faithful Christians.
Hear the word of the Lord, you who tremble at His word: "Your brothers who hate you, who exclude you for My name's sake, have said, 'Let the Lord be glorified, that we may see your joy.' But they will be put to shame"(Isaiah 66:5).
The Hebrew rendering could perhaps better be translated, "Your brothers who hate you because of the Word."
These are the ones who do not heed the Word, hating those who do. They exclude you because of what is in the Bible.Blaspheming IslamThe Conference of Christians and Jews in Britain is about to adopt a statement which will respect "all faiths," but not respect people's right to all faiths, and condemn proselytizing, condemn trying to convert, condemn trying to get people to leave one faith and join another.
If you say that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and no one comes to the Father but by Him, you have blasphemed Islam.
The growing financial power of Islam, recycling massive amounts of petro-dol-lars through the City of London, speaks more to politicians and businessmen than the likes of Christians.
Already, we have seen British and American troops in Saudi Arabia, defending Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait fund the construction of mosques all over England, but will not allow one church to be built in Saudi Arabia or Kuwait. They are funding militant Islam.
They are funding the conversion of people, particularly young black people, to Islam all over the world.
The British government cares about arms deals, petrodollars, and oil. They do not care about you and me. They certainly do not care about the gospel.
The precedent, however, is not being set by the political and financial influence of the Islamic world, but by George Carey, withdrawing Anglican patronage from Jewish evangelism and going on the radio with the Chief Rabbi, denouncing Jewish evangelism.
The first stage of persecution is never unsaved people or the governments of the world persecuting Christians. The first stage of persecution, from the time of Stephen to today, has always been false brethren persecuting true believers.Jeremiah Then they said, "Come and let us devise plans against Jeremiah. Surely the law is not going to be lost to the priest, or counsel to the sage, nor the divine word to the prophet! Come on and let us strike him with the tongue, and let us give no heed to any of his words" (Jeremiah 18:18).
The judgment of God was coming on a backslidden nation. Jeremiah was telling the truth, the others were lying.
Jeremiah was telling the truth; he was calling their bluff in public.
He was saying stuff that they did not want people to hear. More importantly, it was stuff that they could not deny.
"Look at the rising immorality and idolatry in our society. The Babylonian Em-pire is rising and breathing down our neck and they are coming after us.
You think that because you are rich and prosperous today, it is going to be like this tomorrow?
Look at these prophets that keep predicting things that do not happen, and prophesying blessing which does not come. Do you really believe things will continue like this? Look at the facts!" In public, Jeremiah was pointing to facts that were irrefutable and the establishment had to stop him from telling the truth. Today it is the same.
They go after Dave Hunt. They go after me. They go after anybody who tries to tell the truth.
They can never deny what you say. They just go after you for saying it.
Everybody knows it is the truth. But people are rolling on the floor and claiming that God is doing a great thing! You know the story. I do not want to go into it again: the Methodists and the church of England voting to allowing homosexuals to be ministers, the financial insolvency of the Assemblies of God in the UK, the service in Sheffield with the women dancing topless in the church, which was broadcast on the BBC News. This stuff is not new. Persecution is not coming; persecution is here. Do not worry about the Freemasons, the parliament, or the EEC. Persecution begins in the church, not outside.
Formal, legal persecution is simply the natural outcome of persecution within the church.
Before Jesus warned about Satan casting you into prison (Revelation 2:10), He warned about those who say they are Jews but are not, but are a synagogue of Satan (Revelation 2:9).Sixth principle The devil is about to cast some of you into prison (Revelation 2:10).
Persecutions, historically, have tended to be local and sporadic. It is not every-body always getting it. Even in China and places like that, it is not always everybody getting it at the same time.
Something happened in Smyrna, however. With some of these emperors, like Diocletian, persecution became universal throughout the Roman Empire. In the last days normal persecution will become compounded by some kind of eventual, universal declaration against the gospel.
The Antichrist is going to condemn Christianity in the same way that the emperors did.
Do not think that in a time of persecution we are all going to get it. That is not the way persecution works. It has never been like that, except under these emperors. It did happen then and it will happen again in the last days.
The outlawing of the gospel became universal, but not everybody was killed. In the days of Queen Mary hundreds of leaders were killed. Others fled. It will be like that.
Some get away, some do not. Some flee, some do not.
The Lord tells some to get out of there; He tells others to stand.
Persecution is not every Christian being wiped out! It will eventually come to that, but not in the near term.
It will be sporadic; here and there; localized. Things will seem to get better for a while and then worse again.Seismology and obstetricsThe two metaphors Scripture most uses to explain how persecution works are borrowed from seismology and obstetrics.
If you believe the tectonic plate theory, geophysical pressures cause an increased friction on the fissure where the plates come together, resulting in tremors.
The tremors become more and more frequent, more and more acute, and some are worse than others are, but they are all indications that the big one is coming.
These build up until finally there is a major shift in the plates, which produces a big earthquake.
The other is the phenomenon of birth pangs.
Contractions become more and more frequent, then they are alleviated for a while, and then more frequent again, then they slow down, then they become more intense.
For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now (Romans 8:20).
It gets worse, then it seems to get better for a while, then it gets worse, but the contractions become more and more frequent until the baby is born.
Think of what labor is like. Is labor having contractions the whole time? No. It comes. It stops. It comes. It stops.
You can have an easy labor or a more difficult labor.
Ultimately the labor of this world will become so terrible that there will be one massive cesarean section, called the Rapture. The Lord will get us out of here.Seventh principle Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and you will have tribulation ten days (Revelation 2:10).
The Lord never allows us to suffer more than we can take.
In the early church there were ten fixed periods of persecution under ten emperors: Nero (AD 54-68), Domitian (81-96), Trajan (98-117), Hadrian (117-138), Marcus Aurelius (161-180), Septimus Severus (193-211), Maximin (235-238), Decius (249-251), Valerian (253-259) and Diocletian (284-305).
The persecution was for a fixed period. The St Bartholomew's Day massacre of the Huguenots in France lasted just one day!
The Great Tribulation, the second half of the seventieth week of Daniel, the time of Jacob's trouble, is fixed at three and a half years. God is the God of history; by Him kings reign.
One of the things that makes the Great Tribulation unique is that, for a limited period of time, within certain parameters, the lordship of history is given into the hands of Satan, to the Antichrist.
Jesus had three and a half years, so the Antichrist demands equal time.
One day. Ten days. Three and a half years. God sets parameters. As in the case of Job (1:12; 2:6), the Lord sets limits. He never allows His people to suffer more than they can handle.
It is easy for me to say, but I can look to someone who has been through it. When Corrie ten Boom was asked about finding the strength to suffer persecution, she said, "When I was a little girl in Holland and we were taking the train into Amsterdam, my father never gave me the ticket till it was time to get on the train." What a saint of God! Before she went to be with the Lord, she called the prosperity preachers 'false prophets.' And she was right!
There is a midrashic parallel between Revelation and Genesis. The blood of Abel, the first martyr, cries out (Genesis 4:10). The blood of the faithful martyrs cries out from under the altar (Revelation 6:9-10).
The sovereign hand of God always regu-lates how far persecution can go. Either He says, "This far and no further," or else, finally and ultimately, there will be the big cesarean section and His people will be removed from the earth. Harvest is past, summer is ended, and we are not saved. Is there no balm in Gilead? (Jeremiah 8:20,22).
This is the cry of those who missed the Rapture, just like Revelation 12. The rest of her offspring went to the wilderness and the dragon goes after them once the man-child is taken out of the way.Pressured I know your tribulation. Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison. and you will have tribulation ten days (Revelation 2:9-10).
The Greek word for tribulation is thlipsis, which actually means, "being pressured, to the point of anguish."
The pressure gets worse and worse, just like the seismological pressure in an earth tremor, just likes the birth contractions. The pressure gets worse and worse and worse, until a definite event occurs.
Do not fear. or run away
Do not fear what you are about to suffer. (Revelation 2:10).
The Greek word for "fear" here is phobeo, which is the source of the English word "phobia."
The full meaning of phobeo is not simply "to fear," but to have a fear that will cause you to run away.
This does not mean that you should not flee from persecution. It means that you should not flee from your faith - which is the thing that is attracting that persecution.
In other words, do not allow fear to make you abandon your faith
Look to the resurrection. Keep your eye on the baby, the end product, on what you are expecting to get out of all this. Then you will be able to handle it.
I have never met a mother who said, "I am never going to have another one." Most women I know, if they are young enough, after they have one child and it gets older, want to have another one. It is not something that they dread. Why? Be-cause it was worth it.
The Bible always uses that kind of language. Do not phobeo. Do not try to run away from the persecution. It will be worth it. Do not allow fear to make you aban-don your faith.
Those who are trusting in this world will phobeo. Under the pressure ofthlipsis they will fear what is going to happen to them. And because they are trusting in this life and in this world they are going to run away from Jesus.
Think about it. I know a lot of Chris-tian girls who are midwives and obstetri-cians. They have delivered hundreds of babies. I have never known one of them to say, "I don't want to get married and have a baby of my own. I don't want to go through that."
They all say they want to have kids just like everyone else. They do notphobeo. They know what is involved. They have seen it. They still want to have a baby of their own.
Who is going to phobeo? The ones who only love themselves, who only love this world and trust in this life are going to phobeo.
Jesus tells the rest of us, "Do not phobeo." If you are not trusting in this life you do not have anything to fear, because your hope is in the resurrection.
In other words, the most the devil can do is to kill you, but he can only kill your body; he cannot touch your soul.Jim ElliottWe see most of the bad people and bad things from America. Unfortunately the good people and the good things from America, like Dave Hunt and David Wilkerson, do not get as much publicity as the con men.
One of the best Christians America has ever produced was Brother Jim Elliot. He said, "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."
Boy, did that brother understand! And his life showed it. He is the kind of guy I want to look up to.Demonstrating your faith Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, that you may be tested. (Revelation 2:10).
Fear not. Do not phobeo. Do not run away from your faith. Why does Satan put them in prison? Why does God allow it?
So "that you may be tested." The Greek word peirazo means "to tempt, to assay, to prove or to examine." It is an acid test. God allows it to happen for His own reasons. The Bible teaches that the "heroes of faith" were tested.They were stoned, they were saw in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated (men of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground.
And all of these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised, because God had provided some-thing better for us, so that apart from us they should not be made perfect (Hebrews 11:37-40).
One of the lies being propagated today by the 'Kingdom Now' preachers - the teaching that the Rapture is "a fantasy and a myth" - is being used by Satan to pre-pare the church for deception. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17).
Our faith should be based on the resurrection and the idea that we shall meet them, that they should not be made perfect apart from us, nor we from them.
Those who are saying, "You don't have to suffer; you're a King's kid; God wants you rich; Jesus suffered and if you're suffering then you have no faith, etc." are talking about a very different faith to that of Hebrews 11.
What they are teaching is faith in faith, not faith in Jesus.
They are not practicing Christianity, they are practicing mammon worship. When Job was going through tribulation he said, As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will take His stand upon the earth. Even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh I shall see God (Job 19:25).
His resurrection is our resurrection. Even with my own eyes I shall see God. I do not care if I die. Maybe I care for now, but ultimately it does not matter. The most the devil could do is kill me, but he cannot even do that.
Go ahead! Pull the trigger! Even with my own eyes I shall see God and I shall watch you burn. You watch my death now and I will watch your death for eternity.The resurrection our hope But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in heavenly places, in Christ Jesus, in order that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:4-7).
In a spiritual sense it is already reality. We are already seated with Christ. Your eternal destiny is assured. You have your ticket. You know where you are going.
The hope is in the resurrection. If that is your hope, the rest is negotiable. If that is not your hope, you do not have ears to hear. That is what Jesus is saying.Seated in heavenly placesJohn was on the isle of Patmos during the persecution of the Roman emporer Domitian.
He saw heaven. He saw the twenty-four elders - the twelve patriarchs of Israel, plus the twelve apostles.
In other words, John saw himself on the throne. He was already seated with Christ. The past, present and future are all the same to God in eternity. The Book of Rev-elation speaks of future events in the past tense.
And I looked, and I heard an eagle flying in midheaven, saying with a loud voice, "Woe, woe, woe, to those who dwell on the earth." (Revelation 8:13).
"Rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them. Woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, knowing that he has only a short time" (Revelation 12:12).
You have to understand what that means midrashically. You are either a heaven dweller or an earth dweller. You are either one of those who are seated with Christ in heavenly places or one of those who dwell on the earth.
'Kingdom Now', 'God wants you rich', 'Name it and Claim it' - those people are earth dwellers. The people who will take the Mark of the Beast have taken it already in the attitude of their heart. It does not matter when they put credit cards or the microchip on your wrist; those people have already accepted the Mark of the Beast, because they are hoping in this world.
Whenever the New Testament talks about the Antichrist, it always begins, "Love not the world."
It is only a procedural matter for those people who love this world to accept the Mark of the Beast.
Some Restorationists and Kingdom Now preachers are already openly teaching that it is all right for people to accept the Mark of the Beast.
Andrew Shearman in Nottingham said, "I repented of having sung, 'This world is not my home.' This world is our home, this world is our home!"
Woe to those who dwell on the earth. The dragon and the serpent are cast down to you.
The dragon is Satan the persecutor. The serpent is Satan the seducer. These people are going to face internal seduction and external persecution simultaneously. Those that dwell on the earth will not stand a chance. It will only be those who dwell in heaven who are going to get out of this.Earthen vessels But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing greatness of the power may be of God and not from ourselves; we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death works in us, but life in you (2 Corinthians 4:7-14).
Again, the principle is one of hoping in the resurrection. Jesus died to give others life, so He calls on us to die with Him Paul says we have the treasure in earthen vessels. You have to understand what He is talking about.
The earth in the Middle East is a reddish clay. If you look carefully in the ruins of a place like Caesarea or Har Meggido in the Jezreel valley, you will find pieces of pottery that are reddish.
In Hebrew, a human being is called a ben adam, literally a "son of Adam," be-cause Adam was made from the earth, adamah. Adamah comes from the Hebrew word for "red," edom.
The red, earthenware vessels are equated with man, who was made from the earth. The destruction of our natural bodies allows the true light inside, the real treasure, to come out and bring light into the darkness, giving life to others. You might not be martyred, but you have to be willing to be martyred. That is what He is saying. We are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake (2 Corinthians 4:11). It is not just being killed - a one-time execution, it is a continual death to self. The fruit of persecution is death to self, in order to bring life to others.The first Christian martyr Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great, and He will divide the booty with the strong; because He poured out Himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet He Himself bore the sin of many(Isaiah 53:12).
Jesus was the first Christian martyr. He was numbered with the transgressors, and executed outside of the camp.
Some of the animals in the Hebrew Levitical sacrificial system had to be taken outside the camp and their carcasses burnt.
For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy place by the high priest as an offering for sin, are burned out-side the camp.
Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people through His own blood, suffered outside the camp.
Hence, let us go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach. For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come (Hebrews 13:11- 14).The sacrifice of praise?Many Christians have the wrong idea. They think that singing is a "sacrifice of praise."
No! It is laying your life down. It is going outside the camp, being a reproach, being counted as a criminal by secular society, even by your so-called brethren - bearing the reproach of Christ.
They hung Him with criminals. Christianity will become a crime. We are already reaching the point where Biblical Christianity is becoming a crime.
I have no doubt that the prophecies of Daniel regarding the fourth beast are being fulfilled in the re-confederation of those countries that were in the Roman Empire. What began as an economic union is becoming a political federation.
By the year 2010, 80% of Britain's laws will no longer be made by Britain's parliament. They will be made behind closed doors by bureaucrats who the British did not vote for and cannot remove.
Homosexual marriages are legally recognized in Hawaii and in Denmark. Homo-sexuals have the right to adopt children, and have artificial insemination in lesbian marriages.
This is not true in England yet, but it is coming. And who will stand against it? Only a true church. What will happen to that true church? They will be labeled as bigots, and regarded as criminals. "Sex discrimination is just as bad as racism."
Christianity will become a crime. You will be outside the camp, numbered with the transgressors. You are going to be regarded as a criminal for your beliefs, the same as Jesus was put outside the camp and labeled a criminal.
He is saying, "Come bear my reproach." Are you willing to become a reproach? Are you willing to become a criminal in the eyes of your unsaved neighbors, even your unsaved family? If you are willing to become a reproach, if you are willing to be labeled a criminal, you have ears to hear.SummaryJesus warns the faithful and the unfaithful, but only the faithful hear.
Persecution is of the devil, but God uses it to correct and purify the church Our means of coping with persecution is our belief in the certainty of the resurrection. Those who are poor are actually rich, because they are the heirs to the martyr's crown, the crown of glory.
Persecution begins, not outside the church, but within. It begins with false brethren.
Persecution tends to be sporadic and local. Not everyone gets it. Ultimately persecution will be universal, but do not think of it as total and absolute eradication.
Fear not, do not phobeo. Those who phobeo will run away from the faith in order to save their neck.
Look at the end result. Look at what will happen when it is over. Look at the man-child. Look at the Rapture.
Think of it in terms of a pregnancy. You really love that kid and you want that baby. How long does labor last? One day at the most? Probably less. [Easy for me to say, I am a male!] Nonetheless, after our daughter Batmiel was born, my wife did not say, "Never again."
She said, "I am going to have another baby; it was worth it."
We will be tested. That testing will show who is who. God already knows; He wants us to know.
When we stand before Him on that day, there will be no excuses, neither will there be any apologies. It will be too late for apologies, too late for excuses. You might not be martyred, but you have to be willing to be martyred.
If you die for Jesus, you die once and that is it. Bang! See you in heaven. If you live for Jesus, you have to die every day. Remember my motto: Not too many of the great men of the Bible died happy, but they were all happy to die!
When persecution comes, some people will stand that you would not expect. Other people will fall away, whom you think would stand.
It is amazing to read the history of the English martyrs in "Foxe's Book of Martyrs," and see those people you thought would have stood, but who ran away; and other people who you thought would have run away, but they stood.
God judges the heart. He knows what is really in us. If there is one thing that is going to bring out what is really in us, it is persecution.
When persecution comes, we are really going to find out who is who. Fire brings out what is inside someone.
And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write: The first and the last, who was dead, and has come to life, says this: "I know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich), and the blasphemy by those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and youwill have tribulation ten days.
Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.
He, who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death" (Revelation 2:8-11).
Rein of King Asa
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- Category: Blog Items
by James Jacob Prasch
Turn with me please to 2 Chronicles chapter 13, the end of 2 Chronicles 13. We are looking at the subject tonight, €œGod's warning to good men" in the reign of King Asa. The reign of King Asa, God's warning to good men. God's warning to good women. God's warning to all of us, but especially God's warning to good leaders and to good pastors. Remember the kings of Israel were called shepherds by the prophets. God told the prophets of Israel to call their kings shepherds and the Hebrew word for shepherd and the Hebrew word for pastor is the same word. Roeh, roeh, and theres much to be learnt in pastoral ministry in studying the kings of Israel. There"s good shepherds and bad shepherds, there"s good pastors and bad pastors and the typology of the kings of Israel teach us about good and bad pastors but it applies to all of us. God's warning to good men as we see in the reign of King Asa.
What we see here in verse 20 of chapter 13, €œand Jereboam a bad king of the north did not again recover strength in his days of Abijah, now Aviyah, Abijah means my Father is Yahweh, and the Lord struck him and he died but Aviyah, Abijah became powerful and took 14 wives to himself and became the father of 22 sons and 16 daughters. Now the rest of the acts of Abijah and his ways and his words are written in the treaties of the prophet Ego. Now that word treaties, we translate treaties, what does yours say, mine says treaties, what does the King James say? Stories! The Hebrew word is Midrash, enquiring into. Some people try to say €œwell midrash is not in the Bible" its because they dont read Hebrew. Midrash certainly is in the Bible and that"s exactly what the word is. The Midrash!
Asa in chapter 14 succeeds Abijah in Judah. Asa was a good king, his father was not a bad king and his son was a pretty good king but Asa begins as a good king. So Aviyah, Abijah, slept with his fathers. Now the idea of being gathered to the fathers is what we call in Hebrew €œthe Avot" Avot is the plural of Ava, father. We have to understand this.
We have the Hebrew world Sheol, meaning the netherworld, the place where the spirits of the souls and the dead went. Sheol, Sheol! Sheol had two halves, two sections. One section was Geheno, Gehena. Now Gehenna was the area, was named after the area outside of the refuse gate of Jerusalem where they burned the rubbish. It was the tip that burned day and night but it was the place of abomination where Molech worship was practiced. It was where the Kidron Valley and the Tyropean Valley came together and they sacrificed human babies to demons, Molech worship and it was a symbol of hell. Jesus said to the Pharisees €œHow will you escape the judgement of Gehenna?" So Sheol had two halves. One half was the place of Gehenna for those who were wicked and then there was the big chasm between the two that you couldn"t cross and then the other side was the place of the Avot, normally referred to as the €œbosom of Abraham". In Luke 16, you see Lazarus and the rich man. Lazarus was in the bosom of Abraham, he"s in the place of the Avot, he"s gathered to the fathers, the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob the other was in the place of the damned, Genhenna with the chasm in between. Now notice hell is eternal, it"s conscious. Lazarus was able to answer the man being tormented and the rich man was able to see the blessings of Lazarus and the Avot. Of course, we have people today, like Roger Forster teaching that there is no such place as hell, that hell is just a place of annihilation. If you don"t repent of your sins, when you die you won"t exist anymore. That"s what the €œMarch for Jesus" people teach, it"s what Roger Forster teaches. If you don"t repent when you die you won"t exist anymore. This is of course what unsaved people believe anyway. What"s the point of giving them the gospel if they"re going to be annihilated. But that"s not what the Bible teaches.
Lazarus was conscious and the rich man was conscious and they saw what each other were doing.
Now the problem we have is when the New Testament translates this concept, it translates this place Sheol into Hades. Hades, it took the Greek equivalent and just called Sheol - Hades. So far that"s not too bad except that when the King James Bible was translated it mistranslated Hades - Hell. So when it says when Jesus went to hell, they think he went down to hell. This is where Copeland and Hagan get their crazy doctrine. He didn't go to hell, he went to the Avot. He went to Sheol, to Hades, he went to the Old Testament saints who died faithful under the law. Those who were in the bosom of Abraham, waiting for the Messiah to come. Once the Messiah came and died for sin, then they could enter eternal Heaven. But of course all the money preachers, the Copeland, Hagin people and all these crazy people, they twist this idea of the Avot.
€œHe was gathered to his fathers and they buried him and his son Asa became king in his place. The land was undisturbed for ten years during his days and Asa did good and right in the sight of the Lord his God for he removed the foreign altars and high places tore down. The sacred pillars he cut down, the Asherin and commanded Judah to seek the Lord God of their fathers and to observe the law and the commandment, and he also removed the high places and the incense altars from all the cities of Judah and the kingdom was undisturbed under him and he built fortified cities in Judah since the land was undisturbed and there was no-one at war with him during those years because the Lord had given him rest for he said to Judah, Let us build these cities and surround them walls and towers, gates and bars, the land is still ours because we have sought the Lord, we have sought him and he has given us rest on every side. So they built and prospered.
Now notice he directly relates the rest that he had and the prosperity he was getting to the fact that the people were faithful to God. €œNow Asa had an army of three hundred thousand from Judah bearing large shields and spears and two hundred and eighty thousand from Benjamin.
(Judah and Benjamin were the two southern tribes together with some of the Levites, the other ten tribes were the northern ones) And they were bearing shields and wielding bows, all of them were valiant warriors.
All of them were valiant warriors! Pay attention! The people in the north were imitating the way of the pagan gentiles, they were taking on the religious beliefs of the pagans. The people in the south stayed faithful. The people in the south did not have the same wealth or numbers as the people in the north. They had ten tribes, the south only had two plus the Levites. They didn't have the wealth but the Lord was with them, that"s where the temple was and they had the throne of David. David is the Old Testament shadow of Christ, as good shepherd and as king. So they had the Lord. They had the inheritance, the heritage of David. They didn't have the money or the numbers. Now the north also had a big army, much bigger than theirs but they were not all valiant warriors. Only people who are really faithful to God will be valiant in spiritual warfare. OK. To God quality is always more important than quantity. 15 SAS are better than 15,000 girl scouts.
To God quality is always more important than quantity. They may have the numbers, they may have the money. They may have most of the real estate but they are not going to be valiant in war. Let"s look at them. Do you see them leading Muslims to Christ? No, of course not, they are compromising with them. In fact they are imitating them.
Let"s understand what"s happening. Remember the oldest enemy of the gospel in these islands were the druids. The first opponents of the gospel on these islands were the druids. The ancient celtic religion, Stonehenge crowd. Now just the week before last, you had them all going to Stonehenge didnt you, for the solstice, the rebirth of paganism in Britain . Post-Christian neo-pagan Britain are returning to paganism.
You go to Belfast, I"ve got to go to Belfast in a few days, you see the murals on the walls in Belfast, both the Catholic ones and the Protestant ones, the ancient celtic war gods and mythical heroes. Cohowin and Arene. Arene was the old hag who demanded the blood of the youth so she could keep her beauty. These are the images used by the para-military and terrorist organisations when they are killing kids.
The same demonic powers. Some people call them territorial spirits, a better translation is principalities. The rebirth of paganism in Britain. So the oldest enemy of the gospel and in Ireland of course it was Patrick, St. Patrick who confronted the druids. Now the oldest enemy of the gospel in these islands are the druids, but the leader of the Church of England is one. And, he"s a druid who ordains homosexuals and who appoints homosexual bishops. You understand, this is just like Israel .
When you read the Torah, what it emphasizes and they had to keep all the law, they kept the Torah, they kept the commandments. Among those commandments, if you look at Leviticus, there was a lot of the commandments dedicated to avoiding unnatural sexual practice including bestiality, including incest and certainly including homosexual and lesbian relationships, that they"re unnatural and perverted. Now we"re making laws in this country where if you say that, you"re guilty of a hate crime. What an insult to minorities. They"re saying that"s the same as making an ethnically derogatory remark. They"re saying that"s the same as calling a Jew a kyte, a black a nigger or an Asian a Paki. You"re telling me that Jews, that blacks and Asians are the same as homosexuals? Nobody ever went to hell because of the color of their skin, or because of their race. Nobody ever went to hell for being an Asian, or a black or a Jew. There"s nothing wrong with being an Asian, being a black or a Jew. That"s not perverted or unnatural but that"s what they"re trying to tell us. And they"re going to make a law that if we say this, they can arrest us. That if a church teaches this, you"ve just lost your registered charity status. Now you"re taxable. And they will get these laws and if they don"t get these laws, Europe will impose it.
That"s how its going to work. But even more sick, is that the established churches will support it. The Methodists will support it, the Presbyterians will support it, the United Reformed Church will support it, the Church of England will support it. Give it a few years, you"re going to see Pentacostals support it.
It"s the end times. Absolutely right!
So Israel became just like the pagan nations around it. I was speaking at a church at Somerset before I went to New Zealand. I had to take a long way around to get to this church in Somerset, (I had to go like this) to avoid all the new-agers going down to Stonehenge. I had to go 40, 50 miles out of my way to avoid the traffic jams, they were coming from all over the place. But now the leader of the church of the country is one. He"s appointing homosexual bishops. Sad, that"s exactly what happened here. They became pagan and immoral just like the nations that surrounded them. Yet, they tried to keep the name of being Jews. Just like today, they"re trying to keep the name of being Christian. But Jesus said if you love me, keep my commandments.
Notice what the text says, they did not keep his statutes. Now God told them in Deuteronomy €œkeep my statutes that it may be well with you". God does not tell us to keep his statutes for his sake. God is God. He doesn"t need anybody to do anything. He says keep my statutes for your sake. If people kept his statutes, there would be no crime, there would be no social injustice, there would be no HIV infection. If people kept his statutes, it would be well with us. People wouldn"t be dying of aids, if we kept his statutes. But they become like the pagan nations and this is global. You know I go to Africa a lot. Unlike in England , most of the black African Anglicans are born again. In Uganda, in Kenya , most of them are really saved. It"s only Desmond Tutu"s crowd in South Africa , that aren"t and he wants to ordain lesbian priestesses and he hangs out with the witch doctors. Almost every black african anglican is born again, except for his crowd. He"s like here, he"s like the ones you have here. Terrible, terrible, terrible. What do you have, Israel and Judah. To a Kenyan, homosexuality is perverted. Its amazing, when you see people removed from the decadence of the affluent western world, when you see people in the third world who live in a simple culture how come they don"t have any endemic homosexuality? You don"t find it among rural black africans or asians, they don"t have it.
The only place that I"ve ever seen homosexuality in the third world is in asia, where they were turning little kids into homosexual prostitutes to cater for westerners in Thailand, that I saw. The Buddhists were selling little boys and little girls.... It was the only time I ever saw homosexuality in Asia. I"ve never seen it in Africa. Never. It"s only when they get influenced by the corrupt western world. In their own culture, to an African, its perverted. Giraffes wouldn"t do that, what human beings are going to do it! It"s sick to them. They wouldn"t even think of it. They wouldn"t even think of it. Israel and Judah!
That Tutu"s crowd, oh they"re influenced by the west, international, same here, there"s Israel and you have Judah. Let"s look!
He begins getting rid of all this stuff and God blesses him. Verse 9 €œNow Zerah the Ethiopian came out against them with an army of one million men and three hundred chariots and he came to Mareshah."
Now he"s outnumbered Asa a little less than 2:1.
€œSo Asa went out to meet him and they drew up in battle formation in the Valley of Zephathah at Mareshah. Then Asa called to the Lord his God and said Lord there"s no one besides thee to help in the battle"
Notice, €œno-one other than you God" These guys they had more chariots, a bigger army, they"re tougher than we are. €œNobody but you" to help in the battle between the powerful and those that have no strength, so.... €œhelp us O Lord our God for we trust in thee and in thy name have come against this multitude O Lord, thou art our God, let not man prevail against thee"
Notice €œlet not man prevail against us?" - no - €œlet not man prevail against you." When you see these people pushing immoral agendas like homosexuality or paganism and faithful Christians and faithful churches are trying to stand against it - they"re not coming against us. they"re coming against the Lord Himself. They make themselves the enemy of God.
Turn with me please to 2 Chronicles chapter 13, the end of 2 Chronicles 13. We are looking at the subject tonight, €œGod's warning to good men" in the reign of King Asa. The reign of King Asa, God's warning to good men. God's warning to good women. God's warning to all of us, but especially God's warning to good leaders and to good pastors. Remember the kings of Israel were called shepherds by the prophets. God told the prophets of Israel to call their kings shepherds and the Hebrew word for shepherd and the Hebrew word for pastor is the same word. Roeh, roeh, and theres much to be learnt in pastoral ministry in studying the kings of Israel. There"s good shepherds and bad shepherds, there"s good pastors and bad pastors and the typology of the kings of Israel teach us about good and bad pastors but it applies to all of us. God's warning to good men as we see in the reign of King Asa.
What we see here in verse 20 of chapter 13, €œand Jereboam a bad king of the north did not again recover strength in his days of Abijah, now Aviyah, Abijah means my Father is Yahweh, and the Lord struck him and he died but Aviyah, Abijah became powerful and took 14 wives to himself and became the father of 22 sons and 16 daughters. Now the rest of the acts of Abijah and his ways and his words are written in the treaties of the prophet Ego. Now that word treaties, we translate treaties, what does yours say, mine says treaties, what does the King James say? Stories! The Hebrew word is Midrash, enquiring into. Some people try to say €œwell midrash is not in the Bible" its because they dont read Hebrew. Midrash certainly is in the Bible and that"s exactly what the word is. The Midrash!
Asa in chapter 14 succeeds Abijah in Judah. Asa was a good king, his father was not a bad king and his son was a pretty good king but Asa begins as a good king. So Aviyah, Abijah, slept with his fathers. Now the idea of being gathered to the fathers is what we call in Hebrew €œthe Avot" Avot is the plural of Ava, father. We have to understand this.
We have the Hebrew world Sheol, meaning the netherworld, the place where the spirits of the souls and the dead went. Sheol, Sheol! Sheol had two halves, two sections. One section was Geheno, Gehena. Now Gehenna was the area, was named after the area outside of the refuse gate of Jerusalem where they burned the rubbish. It was the tip that burned day and night but it was the place of abomination where Molech worship was practiced. It was where the Kidron Valley and the Tyropean Valley came together and they sacrificed human babies to demons, Molech worship and it was a symbol of hell. Jesus said to the Pharisees €œHow will you escape the judgement of Gehenna?" So Sheol had two halves. One half was the place of Gehenna for those who were wicked and then there was the big chasm between the two that you couldn"t cross and then the other side was the place of the Avot, normally referred to as the €œbosom of Abraham". In Luke 16, you see Lazarus and the rich man. Lazarus was in the bosom of Abraham, he"s in the place of the Avot, he"s gathered to the fathers, the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob the other was in the place of the damned, Genhenna with the chasm in between. Now notice hell is eternal, it"s conscious. Lazarus was able to answer the man being tormented and the rich man was able to see the blessings of Lazarus and the Avot. Of course, we have people today, like Roger Forster teaching that there is no such place as hell, that hell is just a place of annihilation. If you don"t repent of your sins, when you die you won"t exist anymore. That"s what the €œMarch for Jesus" people teach, it"s what Roger Forster teaches. If you don"t repent when you die you won"t exist anymore. This is of course what unsaved people believe anyway. What"s the point of giving them the gospel if they"re going to be annihilated. But that"s not what the Bible teaches.
Lazarus was conscious and the rich man was conscious and they saw what each other were doing.
Now the problem we have is when the New Testament translates this concept, it translates this place Sheol into Hades. Hades, it took the Greek equivalent and just called Sheol - Hades. So far that"s not too bad except that when the King James Bible was translated it mistranslated Hades - Hell. So when it says when Jesus went to hell, they think he went down to hell. This is where Copeland and Hagan get their crazy doctrine. He didn't go to hell, he went to the Avot. He went to Sheol, to Hades, he went to the Old Testament saints who died faithful under the law. Those who were in the bosom of Abraham, waiting for the Messiah to come. Once the Messiah came and died for sin, then they could enter eternal Heaven. But of course all the money preachers, the Copeland, Hagin people and all these crazy people, they twist this idea of the Avot.
€œHe was gathered to his fathers and they buried him and his son Asa became king in his place. The land was undisturbed for ten years during his days and Asa did good and right in the sight of the Lord his God for he removed the foreign altars and high places tore down. The sacred pillars he cut down, the Asherin and commanded Judah to seek the Lord God of their fathers and to observe the law and the commandment, and he also removed the high places and the incense altars from all the cities of Judah and the kingdom was undisturbed under him and he built fortified cities in Judah since the land was undisturbed and there was no-one at war with him during those years because the Lord had given him rest for he said to Judah, Let us build these cities and surround them walls and towers, gates and bars, the land is still ours because we have sought the Lord, we have sought him and he has given us rest on every side. So they built and prospered.
Now notice he directly relates the rest that he had and the prosperity he was getting to the fact that the people were faithful to God. €œNow Asa had an army of three hundred thousand from Judah bearing large shields and spears and two hundred and eighty thousand from Benjamin.
(Judah and Benjamin were the two southern tribes together with some of the Levites, the other ten tribes were the northern ones) And they were bearing shields and wielding bows, all of them were valiant warriors.
All of them were valiant warriors! Pay attention! The people in the north were imitating the way of the pagan gentiles, they were taking on the religious beliefs of the pagans. The people in the south stayed faithful. The people in the south did not have the same wealth or numbers as the people in the north. They had ten tribes, the south only had two plus the Levites. They didn't have the wealth but the Lord was with them, that"s where the temple was and they had the throne of David. David is the Old Testament shadow of Christ, as good shepherd and as king. So they had the Lord. They had the inheritance, the heritage of David. They didn't have the money or the numbers. Now the north also had a big army, much bigger than theirs but they were not all valiant warriors. Only people who are really faithful to God will be valiant in spiritual warfare. OK. To God quality is always more important than quantity. 15 SAS are better than 15,000 girl scouts.
To God quality is always more important than quantity. They may have the numbers, they may have the money. They may have most of the real estate but they are not going to be valiant in war. Let"s look at them. Do you see them leading Muslims to Christ? No, of course not, they are compromising with them. In fact they are imitating them.
Let"s understand what"s happening. Remember the oldest enemy of the gospel in these islands were the druids. The first opponents of the gospel on these islands were the druids. The ancient celtic religion, Stonehenge crowd. Now just the week before last, you had them all going to Stonehenge didnt you, for the solstice, the rebirth of paganism in Britain . Post-Christian neo-pagan Britain are returning to paganism.
You go to Belfast, I"ve got to go to Belfast in a few days, you see the murals on the walls in Belfast, both the Catholic ones and the Protestant ones, the ancient celtic war gods and mythical heroes. Cohowin and Arene. Arene was the old hag who demanded the blood of the youth so she could keep her beauty. These are the images used by the para-military and terrorist organisations when they are killing kids.
The same demonic powers. Some people call them territorial spirits, a better translation is principalities. The rebirth of paganism in Britain. So the oldest enemy of the gospel and in Ireland of course it was Patrick, St. Patrick who confronted the druids. Now the oldest enemy of the gospel in these islands are the druids, but the leader of the Church of England is one. And, he"s a druid who ordains homosexuals and who appoints homosexual bishops. You understand, this is just like Israel .
When you read the Torah, what it emphasizes and they had to keep all the law, they kept the Torah, they kept the commandments. Among those commandments, if you look at Leviticus, there was a lot of the commandments dedicated to avoiding unnatural sexual practice including bestiality, including incest and certainly including homosexual and lesbian relationships, that they"re unnatural and perverted. Now we"re making laws in this country where if you say that, you"re guilty of a hate crime. What an insult to minorities. They"re saying that"s the same as making an ethnically derogatory remark. They"re saying that"s the same as calling a Jew a kyte, a black a nigger or an Asian a Paki. You"re telling me that Jews, that blacks and Asians are the same as homosexuals? Nobody ever went to hell because of the color of their skin, or because of their race. Nobody ever went to hell for being an Asian, or a black or a Jew. There"s nothing wrong with being an Asian, being a black or a Jew. That"s not perverted or unnatural but that"s what they"re trying to tell us. And they"re going to make a law that if we say this, they can arrest us. That if a church teaches this, you"ve just lost your registered charity status. Now you"re taxable. And they will get these laws and if they don"t get these laws, Europe will impose it.
That"s how its going to work. But even more sick, is that the established churches will support it. The Methodists will support it, the Presbyterians will support it, the United Reformed Church will support it, the Church of England will support it. Give it a few years, you"re going to see Pentacostals support it.
It"s the end times. Absolutely right!
So Israel became just like the pagan nations around it. I was speaking at a church at Somerset before I went to New Zealand. I had to take a long way around to get to this church in Somerset, (I had to go like this) to avoid all the new-agers going down to Stonehenge. I had to go 40, 50 miles out of my way to avoid the traffic jams, they were coming from all over the place. But now the leader of the church of the country is one. He"s appointing homosexual bishops. Sad, that"s exactly what happened here. They became pagan and immoral just like the nations that surrounded them. Yet, they tried to keep the name of being Jews. Just like today, they"re trying to keep the name of being Christian. But Jesus said if you love me, keep my commandments.
Notice what the text says, they did not keep his statutes. Now God told them in Deuteronomy €œkeep my statutes that it may be well with you". God does not tell us to keep his statutes for his sake. God is God. He doesn"t need anybody to do anything. He says keep my statutes for your sake. If people kept his statutes, there would be no crime, there would be no social injustice, there would be no HIV infection. If people kept his statutes, it would be well with us. People wouldn"t be dying of aids, if we kept his statutes. But they become like the pagan nations and this is global. You know I go to Africa a lot. Unlike in England , most of the black African Anglicans are born again. In Uganda, in Kenya , most of them are really saved. It"s only Desmond Tutu"s crowd in South Africa , that aren"t and he wants to ordain lesbian priestesses and he hangs out with the witch doctors. Almost every black african anglican is born again, except for his crowd. He"s like here, he"s like the ones you have here. Terrible, terrible, terrible. What do you have, Israel and Judah. To a Kenyan, homosexuality is perverted. Its amazing, when you see people removed from the decadence of the affluent western world, when you see people in the third world who live in a simple culture how come they don"t have any endemic homosexuality? You don"t find it among rural black africans or asians, they don"t have it.
The only place that I"ve ever seen homosexuality in the third world is in asia, where they were turning little kids into homosexual prostitutes to cater for westerners in Thailand, that I saw. The Buddhists were selling little boys and little girls.... It was the only time I ever saw homosexuality in Asia. I"ve never seen it in Africa. Never. It"s only when they get influenced by the corrupt western world. In their own culture, to an African, its perverted. Giraffes wouldn"t do that, what human beings are going to do it! It"s sick to them. They wouldn"t even think of it. They wouldn"t even think of it. Israel and Judah!
That Tutu"s crowd, oh they"re influenced by the west, international, same here, there"s Israel and you have Judah. Let"s look!
He begins getting rid of all this stuff and God blesses him. Verse 9 €œNow Zerah the Ethiopian came out against them with an army of one million men and three hundred chariots and he came to Mareshah."
Now he"s outnumbered Asa a little less than 2:1.
€œSo Asa went out to meet him and they drew up in battle formation in the Valley of Zephathah at Mareshah. Then Asa called to the Lord his God and said Lord there"s no one besides thee to help in the battle"
Notice, €œno-one other than you God" These guys they had more chariots, a bigger army, they"re tougher than we are. €œNobody but you" to help in the battle between the powerful and those that have no strength, so.... €œhelp us O Lord our God for we trust in thee and in thy name have come against this multitude O Lord, thou art our God, let not man prevail against thee"
Notice €œlet not man prevail against us?" - no - €œlet not man prevail against you." When you see these people pushing immoral agendas like homosexuality or paganism and faithful Christians and faithful churches are trying to stand against it - they"re not coming against us. they"re coming against the Lord Himself. They make themselves the enemy of God.
The Scarlet Cord
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by James Jacob Prasch
“Come now, and let us reason together,"
Says the LORD, “Though your sins are as scarlet, They will be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They will be like wool. (Isaiah 1:18)
Every year, on the Day of Atonement before the Temple was destroyed, the High Priest would put on a special white tunic with a red sash wrapped around his waist. He would wear this only once a year. He would take the two scapegoats (called seir la"azazel in Hebrew) and bring them through the streets of Jerusalem, foreshadowing Christ where people would spit on them, kick them, hit them with stones and curse them for their sin. One would be sacrificed; the other would be taken into the wilderness and pushed from a precipice. But before that, the High Priest would take the scarlet sash and cut it in half into two cords; one he would tie between the horns of the seir la"azazel released into the wilderness, the other he would hang before the “Qodesh Qodeshim" the Holy of Holies in the Temple.
The Jews believed that if their sin was forgiven on the Day of Atonement—Yom Kippur—the scarlet cord would turn white. We are told in the Mishnah (Jewish history) that for the forty years before the Temple was destroyed—in other words, from the time Yeshua was rejected as Messiah until the Temple was destroyed in 70 AD, which both Jesus and Daniel predicted—it never turned white. Talmudic Judaism itself admits that the sins of the Jewish people were no longer forgiven on the Day of Atonement once Yeshua was rejected.
We need to understand Old Testament atonement, or Yom Kippur. If the Hebrews had real faith and real repentance, the blood of the scapegoats would cover their sin until the Messiah came and removed them; it was a temporary provision.It Speaks of Salvation“…your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow" speaks of salvation. Consistently throughout Scripture we have the scarlet cord speaking about salvation.
"The priest shall take cedar wood and hyssop and scarlet material and cast it into the midst of the burning heifer. (Numbers 19:6)
Notice that the scarlet cord—the scarlet fabric—is thrown into the fire with hyssop. Hyssop is paschal. When the Passover lamb was sacrificed they would dip hyssop into the towel and take the paschal blood and make the bloody doorposts and lintels in the form of a cross. David, in his Psalm of penitence said, “Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow" (Ps. 51:7). We have the hyssop, the blood, the cedar (which is the wood from which the cross may have been made) and the scarlet cord.
“…then the priest shall give orders to take two live clean birds…
(As there are two goats there are two birds.)
“…and cedar wood and a scarlet string and hyssop for the one who is to be cleansed.…As for the live bird, he shall take it together with the cedar wood and the scarlet string and the hyssop, and shall dip them and the live bird in the blood of the bird that was slain over the running water. (Leviticus 14:4, 6)
The running water is a picture of washing with the blood, but we also have the hyssop and the scarlet.
Judah recognized them, and said, “She is more righteous than I, inasmuch as I did not give her to my son Shelah." And he did not have relations with her again. It came about at the time she was giving birth, that behold, there were twins in her womb. Moreover, it took place while she was giving birth, one put out a hand, and the midwife took and tied a scarlet thread on his hand, saying, “This one came out first."
(This almost certainly had to be an act of providence or divine intervention in itself. Christian and Jewish obstetricians who have looked at this have said that normally this would not happen.)
But it came about as he drew back his hand, that behold, his brother came out. Then she said, “What a breach you have made for yourself!" So he was named Perez. Afterward his brother came out who had the scarlet thread on his hand; and he was named Zerah. (Genesis 38:26-30)
Notice that only the second born has the scarlet thread; only the second born has salvation. But the hand came out first. I am not a Calvinist, nonetheless the Scriptures are clear: “those whom He foreknew" (Rom. 8:29; 11:2). The Lord knows who is going to get saved even before we get saved. No place, however, is this scarlet cord more prominent or important than in the narrative of Rahab the harlot.
…unless, when we come into the land, you tie this cord of scarlet thread in the window through which you let us down, and gather to yourself into the house your father and your mother and your brothers and all your father"s household. (Joshua 2:18)
There is the scarlet cord; only those who have it will be rescued. The rescue narratives of Scripture such as the Exodus, Noah, Lot, the events of AD 70 and in this case Rahab, each of these prefigures the Rapture of the Church. We do not base doctrine on typology or symbolism, but we do use the typology and symbolism to illustrate and illuminate doctrine on a deeper level. It shows us what is going to happen.Scriptures from a Hebraic ViewpointIf a Jewish believer at the end of the first century was reading the Book of Revelation (there would have been no chapter divisions at that time) during the persecution of the Emperor Domitian, they would have read it quite differently than we do with a Western, Hellenistic mind. (Unfortunately, the patristic church fathers Hellenized a Hebraic faith. They took a Jewish Christianity and turned it into a Greek one.) They would have read it midrashically. They would have seen it as a midrash on the Book of Joshua.
In the Book of Joshua is found seven days of marching around Jericho, but on the seventh day there was a subset of seven. Coming out of the seventh seven, they had to do it seven times. So, in Revelation, we have the same pattern with seven seals, but out of the seventh seven there is a subset of seven trumpets.
When they marched around Jericho there had to be total silence (Josh. 6:10). And so, in Revelation 8:1, “there was silence in heaven for about half an hour." How time is applied to eternity is another matter, but there it is. There are the two spies who come into play in Joshua (Josh. 2). They prefigure the two witnesses (Rev. 11).
When the last trumpet—the last shofar, is blown in the Book of Joshua, “This city has been given to us by the Lord" (Josh. 6:16), and so when the last trumpet is blown in Revelation, “This world has become the Kingdom of our God and His Messiah" (Rev. 11:15).
If we want to know the future, look at the past. The Book of Joshua—the rescue of Rahab, is just like the rescue of Lot in that it is not just simply a past event, it is a future one. The rescue of Noah is not just a past event, it is a future event. If we do not know what did happen, we are never going to know what is going to happen. That is how a Jewish believer at the end of the first century would have read the Book of Revelation. We need to read it with the mind of the original first century Christians, not with the mind of the sixteenth-century Reformers or fourth-century “church fathers."Rahab the HarlotRahab is quite a figure who is mentioned with favor three times in the New Testament (Mt. 1:5; Heb. 11:3; James 2:25). Why Rahab? Why is she given such favorable mention? She is the great-great-grandmother of King David. The royal line of David—the Messianic line through whom the Messiah the Savior would come, has Rahab as one of his direct ancestors; a Gentile prostitute. We have to understand that Abraham is a Gentile whom God converted to Judaism. There are two Gentile women in the genealogy of Jesus dating back to the line of David in Ruth and Rahab. Why is this? It is simply because the Messiah would be Savior of both Jew and Gentile.
Salmon was the father of Boaz by Rahab, Boaz was the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse. (Matthew 1:5)
This, of course, picks up where the Book of Ruth ends. The genealogy of Jesus actually begins in the closing verses of the fourth chapter of Ruth. The great-great-grandmother of the Messiah would be Rahab, this Gentile prostitute. She marries into a Jewish family after converting to belief in the true God.
By faith Rahab the harlot did not perish along with those who were disobedient, after she had welcomed the spies in peace. (Hebrews 11:31)
Here in the index of the faithful she is a role model. Why does God make this Gentile prostitute a role model of faith?
In the same way, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? (James 2:25)
The previous verse tells us…
You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. (James 2:24)
Martin Luther began well, but he ended very badly. During the Peasants" Revolt he said the peasants should be murdered. He said every Jew should be cornered into a corral and forced to confess Christ at the point of a knife. “We, the German nation, are to blame if we do not enslave these Jews to prove we are Christians." (This is quoted extensively by Hitler in Mein Kampf.) Not only that, he ended his life a complete heretic. He denied the canonicity of the Book of Revelation and also the canonicity of the Epistle of James. He said it was not part of the New Testament canon because he disagreed with it. He did not understand the difference between “works of the Law" and “works." Because he was reacting against medieval Catholicism—salvation by works, by sacraments, by indulgences, etc., he could not handle what James was saying because he really did not understand it. What James is saying is simply this: Christians do not do good works to get saved, they do good works because they have been saved. We are saved by grace through faith, but what do we mean by “faith"? The problem had to do with the English and Latin languages.Faith & FaithfulnessIn Hebrew, the word for “faith" is “emunah" from which we get the word “amen"; in Hebrew the word for “faithfulness" is “emunah." It is the same word, like from the Book of Lamentations: “Great is Thy faithfulness" (Lam. 3:23) The Hebrew language makes no distinction between “faith" and “faithfulness," and neither, technically, does the Greek—“pistis." There may be a difference in the case endings, but the word for “faith" and the word for “faithfulness" is the same. In other words, if somebody"s faith is genuine, they are going to be faithful.
“He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him." (John 3:36)
A saving faith is not a mere, intellectual faith. Satan has an intellectual faith; Satan knows it is true. If it is a saving faith, there will be faithfulness. The problem is that instead of following the Hebrew or Greek, our translations generally follow the Latin Vulgate of Jerome. “Faith" and “faithfulness" are different in Latin. Hence, in English, we get the wrong perspective. If it is a saving faith, we will be faithful.
The righteous will live by “faith" (Hab. 2:4)? The righteous will live by “faithfulness." We are saved by grace through “faith" (Eph. 2:8)? We are saved by grace through “faithfulness." (Commencing, of course, by the faithfulness of Jesus). Without “faith" it is impossible to please God (Heb. 11:6)? Without “faithfulness" it is impossible to please God. We make a distinction between “faith" and “faithfulness" because of translational complications we should not be making.Lying to Hide the Spies By faith Rahab the harlot did not perish along with those who were disobedient, after she had welcomed the spies in peace. (Hebrews 11:31)
Rahab is commended because she hid these spies. Theologians are divided asking, “Did she lie?" “Was it right for her to lie?" But she is commended for what she did. I do not personally see it as a lie, but that she changed sides during a military conflict. I see it as military disinformation. Others may disagree, but I will relate a true story.
I knew a lovely lady named Loki Nussenbaum, a Jewish lady. She and one brother lived in New York, but she has since gone to the Lord. I knew her in Israel. She became a believer at the age of fourteen and after becoming educated she became a missionary to the Bantu tribe in Angola. She was a remarkable woman who could speak Portuguese, French, Hebrew, Yiddish and German, but she could also speak Bantu, the native language of the bushmen to whom she was a missionary for many years until the communists took over Angola and kicked the missionaries out. Loki was incredible.
Most of her family was murdered by the Nazis, including her father, mother, little sister and little brother. Loki and one brother escaped. They were smuggled by Christians from Belgium to Lausanne, Switzerland, at the age of thirteen, and a year later she became a believer.
There were Christians in Switzerland who told her to look at Romans 13, their interpretation being that since politicians are God's ministers, Adolph Hitler was a minister of God. They added that since lying was a sin, those who had lied to the Gestapo to smuggle her out had sinned. They told her since she now had a Christian testimony, she needed to go back and give herself over to the Gestapo even though they would put her in an oven. They actually told her this! These were people who were too heavenly minded to be of any earthly good. (I guess they did not like James" epistle either.) At the age of fourteen she was very confused and actually contemplated doing it. Thank God someone with some sense got to her before she did so.
Rahab is spoken of very highly. She is a role model for all of us. Let us see why King David"s great-great grandmother is spoken of so highly in the New Testament—this Gentile who married into a Jewish family after coming to believe in the Jewish God and was one of the people who was in the lineage of David and in the pedigree of the Messiah Himself, bringing salvation to all of us.
Then Joshua the son of Nun sent two men as spies secretly from Shittim, saying, “Go, view the land, especially Jericho." So they went and came into the house of a harlot whose name was Rahab, and lodged there.
This was a smart move, really. Who would ever think of looking for a couple of nice Jewish boys in a whorehouse?
It was told the king of Jericho, saying, “Behold, men from the sons of Israel have come here tonight to search out the land." And the king of Jericho sent word to Rahab, saying, “Bring out the men who have come to you, who have entered your house, for they have come to search out all the land." But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them, and she said, “Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they were from. “It came about when it was time to shut the gate at dark…
(Shutting the gate, it is getting dark—these are eschatological nuances.)
…that the men went out; I do not know where the men went. Pursue them quickly, for you will overtake them." But she had brought them up to the roof and hidden them in the stalks of flax which she had laid in order on the roof. So the men pursued them on the road to the Jordan to the fords; and as soon as those who were pursuing them had gone out, they shut the gate. Now before they lay down, she came up to them on the roof, and said to the men, “I know that the LORD has given you the land, and that the terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land have melted away before you. “For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed. When we heard it, our hearts melted and no courage remained in any man any longer because of you; for the LORD your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath. (Joshua 2:1-11)
(This pagan woman came to believe in the true God.)She Knew What She WasWho is going to be saved? If we are here at the time, who is going to be raptured? Only people who know what they are.
Nobody has to tell a prostitute she is a hooker. I was a cocaine addict in my teenage years; no one had to tell me I was strung out and dealing drugs. Nobody has to tell a pimp he is a pimp; people like that know what they are. The most difficult people to get saved, of course, are religious people. Nobody has ever gone to heaven because of religion, but many people—countless people, have gone to hell because of religion.
Rahab knew what she was. All have sinned, all fall short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23). If we do not know we are morally bankrupt and spiritually abject before a holy and perfect God, we cannot be saved. Unless we know that we are no good, we will not know how good He is; unless we know that we cannot save ourselves and desperately need Him to save us, we cannot get saved. Remember, the enemy gets more people into hell with religion than all the immorality, all the covetousness and all the substance abuse put together. She knew what she was.She Knew Joshua Was ComingShe was not like Rick Warren who tells us to avoid end-time prophecy. Fortunately she listened to the Word of God; she did not read the “Purpose Driven Lie." She knew Joshua was coming.
Even unsaved people have a sense that human history is coming to some kind of apocalyptic, catastrophic end. The Late, Great Planet Earth was a superficial book doctrinally, but many people were saved through that book in the 1970s. Why? Because it did what Jesus said by preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom (Mt. 24:14); it used end-time prophecy to present the Gospel. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Mt. 3:2). John the Baptist preached the Gospel of the Kingdom. In Matthew"s Gospel, He spoke three times as much about hell as He did heaven. When we use end-time prophecy, Yeshua says the Gospel of the Kingdom must be preached. It is the same Gospel of salvation, but it is presented in a certain eschatological character; it is prophecy used to engage unsaved people.
Why are they going to fortune tellers, the occult, horoscopes and all this garbage? They want to know the future. Well, we know the future. Use prophecy evangelistically. That is the only way to successfully evangelize a post-Christian, neo-pagan, post-modern world; not the Emergent garbage, not the Purpose Driven garbage, not the Rob Bell garbage—the Word of God. Do what Jesus said—use prophecy to engage unsaved people evangelistically.She Knew God's Divine Plan for IsraelThirdly, Rahab did not pay attention to people like John Piper; she did not adhere to Replacement Theology. She knew God had a divine plan for Israel. She knew that God's prophetic agenda depended on His prophetic agenda for Israel and the Jews.
Israel is a litmus test. If somebody is right about Israel, it does not prove that they are right about other things; there are plenty of crazy people who understand that God has a prophetic purpose for Israel. We have people who lift up “Jewishness" instead of “Jesus-ness" in the Messianic Movement, putting Gentiles under the Law and all kind of craziness. There are people like John Hagee and International Christian Embassy (ICE) saying Jews do not have to be evangelized. If somebody is right about Israel, that does not prove that they are right about other things; it is not that kind of a litmus test. It is not a litmus test for orthodoxy, but it is, however, a litmus test for heterodoxy.
I have never found a single preacher, author, or theologian who is wrong about Israel who is not wrong about other things. If they deny the prophetic significance for Israel and the Jews, we can bet our boots they have other seriously wrong doctrine. Being right about Israel does not prove they are kosher, but being wrong about Israel proves they are not kosher. Do not pay any attention to them as they have nothing to say that is worth listening to that cannot be obtained elsewhere.
It is no wonder John Piper is pushing Rick Warren; he was never any good. How can an endorsement be given to someone who says we must unite with Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists to bring in global peace? How can one promote someone with an antichrist agenda unless they are out to lunch to begin with? No one does something so crazy overnight. It proves something was always wrong. If they are wrong about Israel, they are wrong about other things.The Temporal Work of RedemptionRahab knew the divine plan, she also knew the signs of the times, but she knew something else, that redemption was not only eternal, but temporal. When Jesus died, He did die to save us from hell, and he did die to bring us to heaven, but He also redeemed us to do something in this life and this world. It does not matter what she did or what she was, it does not matter what we did or what we were.
Before I emigrated to Israel, my church in New York had a rescue mission to street people, homeless people, alcoholics, drug addicts and teenaged prostitutes; we would rescue them. I never met a prostitute who was not a professional liar. They lie to their clients to pretend they like them—all they see is green. They lie to their pimps about how much they made (or not), and above all they lie to themselves. One has to be a liar to be a prostitute. So look at what Rahab did. When the authorities came looking for the two Israelite spies, her human skills were redeemed and transformed to be used for God's purpose.
When Bibles were not legal in China, I used to smuggle them in. When Bibles were not legal in Vietnam, I used to smuggle Bibles from Bangkok, Thailand into Vietnam, and before that from Hong Kong into China. Why? Because before I met Jesus I used to smuggle hashish from Toronto into Amsterdam.
It does not matter what we did, it does not matter what we are; it only matters if we have been redeemed. God redeems the whole person. It could be a professional skill in medicine or law, it could be something from the humanities like writing or music—it could be anything, even something sinister like a prostitute or a drug dealer from the East Side of Manhattan. It does not matter what we did; it only matters if we have been redeemed. Whatever it is, the Lord is going to crucify the whole person. He is going to take it to the cross, then He is going to raise it up and use it for His glory.
That is the total meaning of “redemption." Remember that in Matthew 25, the gifts are given in proportion to the talents. That was some talent to have, but God used it. Rahab understood redemption.The Victory is Already Assured “Now therefore, please swear to me by the LORD, since I have dealt kindly with you, that you also will deal kindly with my father"s household, and give me a pledge of truth, and spare my father and my mother and my brothers and my sisters, with all who belong to them, and deliver our lives from death."
(As we see in the Exodus narrative, as we see in the Lot narrative, as we see in the Noah narrative, God is in the business of saving whole families.)
So the men said to her, “Our life for yours if you do not tell this business of ours; and it shall come about when the LORD gives us the land that we will deal kindly and faithfully with you." Then she let them down by a rope through the window, for her house was on the city wall, so that she was living on the wall.
(Sounds like Paul in Damascus, does it not?)
She said to them, “Go to the hill country, so that the pursuers will not happen upon you, and hide yourselves there for three days until the pursuers return. Then afterward you may go on your way." The men said to her, “We shall be free from this oath to you which you have made us swear, unless, when we come into the land, you tie this cord of scarlet thread in the window through which you let us down, and gather to yourself into the house your father and your mother and your brothers and all your father"s household. It shall come about that anyone who goes out of the doors of your house into the street, his blood shall be on his own head, and we shall be free; but anyone who is with you in the house, his blood shall be on our head if a hand is laid on him. But if you tell this business of ours, then we shall be free from the oath which you have made us swear." She said, “According to your words, so be it." So she sent them away, and they departed; and she tied the scarlet cord in the window.
(Notice that twice it is reiterated, “Do not betray us" (Josh. 2:17, 20), and twice it is reiterated, “Tie the scarlet cord" (Josh. 2:18, 21). It becomes emphatic when it is repeated.)
They departed and came to the hill country, and remained there for three days until the pursuers returned. Now the pursuers had sought them all along the road, but had not found them. Then the two men returned and came down from the hill country and crossed over and came to Joshua the son of Nun, and they related to him all that had happened to them. They said to Joshua, “Surely the LORD has given all the land into our hands; moreover, all the inhabitants of the land have melted away before us." (Joshua 2:12-24)
Notice how the war is won even before the battle is fought. In Christ, the victory is already assured; the outcome is fixed in eternity. Even Luther realized that truth before he went off his rocker. He composed, “A Mighty Fortress is Our God" “Christ Jesus is He and He must win the battle." There is no other possibility. Yes, things are tough and they are going to get tougher, dark and getting darker, but do not worry, I read the end of the Book, and in the end, because of Jesus, we win. There is no other possible outcome. The only question is whose side we want to be on. If we turn away from Jericho and turn toward the God of Israel, He will bring us into His family, and bring us into His people, and bring us into the lineage of the Messiah the same as He did with Rahab. We either perish with the kingdom that is fading, or we become a patriarch or matriarch in the Kingdom that is coming.She Desired the Salvation of Her FamilyI suppose that because prostitutes see the dark side of human nature for what it really is, and they see the dark side of themselves for what they really are, they know the depravity and depths to which a person can sink. Perhaps that engenders strong family values. Despite what she was and what she did, she desperately desired the salvation of her family.
After our own relationship with the Lord, there is nothing more important in our lives than the salvation of our loved ones. It is more important than our own biological lives. Rahab desired the salvation of her family, and God desires the salvation of our families. May they repent and believe.She Switched AllegiancesThen she switched allegiances and joined the other side.
Yes, things are getting very unpleasant for Christians in the world, and I speak in places where the Church is persecuted. I was just with the Hmong people in Vietnam. They are impoverished—and I mean really poor. They are persecuted, and for the most part they do not have any Bibles, yet their churches are growing! They have nothing to hope in, nothing to trust in except Jesus. Their only hope for a better life and better world is the coming one. Remember, it was Smyrna who was really rich (Rev.2:9), and it was Laodicea, although materially and financially rich, who was broke (Rev. 3:17). The Hmong people are Smyrna; we are Laodicea.
Rahab desired the salvation of her family and she switched allegiances. Someone who has switched allegiances and become part of the invading army has no problem. It is like Kaddafi, who was deposed as dictator of Libya. Who wanted to fight for him? He couldn"t win. But it is specified, “Do not go out" (Josh. 2:19). Just as it was with Lot, it is an application of, “Forsake not the fellowshipping together, one with another, especially as you see the day approaching" (Heb. 10:25).She Was Told Not to Go Out & Not to BetrayIf we have a Bible-based church that is centered on Christ with decent leadership, we are very fortunate. But there are many Christians in America, Australia, Britain and elsewhere who do not have this. I find more and more people meeting in homes and small groups simply because they can no longer find a biblically-based church where they live. It does not matter if someone meets in a tent out in the middle of a field, they must be in fellowship. If people are out of fellowship with other believers, it is because they are out of fellowship with the Lord. If they are in prison for the faith in Saudi Arabia, that is something different; God will take care of them. But the norm?
He who separates himself seeks his own desire, He quarrels against all sound wisdom. (Proverbs 18:1)
When we see people who are chronically out of fellowship with other believers, they are actually out of fellowship with the Lord. Some claim they do not go because the church is filled with hypocrites. Well then, they ought to fit right in. No matter what they say, they quarrel against all sound wisdom. They are really seeking the desire of their own nature. They say, “I don"t need the church, I have Jesus!" If that was true, they would want to be in fellowship with other believers. They are quarreling against all sound wisdom; they seek their own desire—they lack sense. People who are out of fellowship in the last days put themselves in a situation of tremendous peril. If we cannot stand together, we will never stand alone. “Do not go out!"
When people leave the church (I am not saying a given congregation, but out of fellowship) they are going to backslide if they have not done so already. And twice it is reiterated, “Do not betray." What did Jesus say was going to happen? “Many will fall away and betray one another" (Mt. 24:10). This is happening already, but it is going to happen big time.
Just to begin with, let me tell you who is going to betray us tomorrow: the ones who tune into the idiot box and listen to Benny, Kenny and Joyce today. Those listening to the money preachers and their false promise, “You don"t have to suffer! You"re a King"s Kid! God wants you rich! Blab-it-and-grab-it! Just confess the victory and you won"t suffer!" When opposition and trials come, they are going to be the first ones to fall away, these people who listen to those religious liars who have a lying spirit. These money-preaching televangelists are at the forefront of the false prophets Jesus warned would come to deceive the elect in the last days (Mt. 24:24). Do not pay attention to any of them.She Hangs a Scarlet CordBut there, finally, hanging in the window of the room where Rahab gathered together her family, the scarlet cord is found. And here we are, all together where the scarlet cord is. Our sins are like scarlet, but they shall be white as snow (Is. 1:18)—the blood of the paschal lamb.
In the house where I live in England, near the suburbs of London, there is on the door a “mezuzah" the way the Torah is put on the doorposts of a Jewish family"s house. Then there is a sticker on the garage, “Jehovah"s Witnesses Welcome Here." (I have a great time when they come over, though I have reason to believe I have been put on their black list and they tell their people to avoid me now.) But there is a third thing I still have to get: I want to hang a scarlet cord in the window. I have the sticker, I have the mezuzah, but I must get a scarlet cord. We all need a scarlet cord.
How did Rahab get rescued? Why was she saved? Why did God bless her and use her so much? Why did she become a matriarch and a role model of faith and faithfulness? How did she become memorialized for all time in the Word of God and an ancestor to Jesus the Messiah Himself? How did a Gentile prostitute reach this stature? She was not just a shiksa, but a hooker to boot! It is not how low we have been, but how high we can go in Christ. She knew what she was.ConclusionIf you have never trusted Jesus for your salvation, it is quite simple. Believe me, you are not the only person who has sinned. But even if you were, you are so important to God and He loves you so much that He would have come and been nailed to that cross just for you alone personally. Jesus did not die just for all of us, He died for each of us; that is how important you are to God. The price has already been paid. You are either going to repent and ask Him to forgive you, or you will spend eternity wishing you did.
Rahab knew what she was, that she was no good. In and of myself, I am no good, and I do not know who you are, but take my word for it, the Scriptures say you are no good. Once you realize that, we can get someplace. In other words, if you want to spend eternity in the Lake of Fire, a place prepared for Satan and his angels (Rev. 20:10; 21:8), you do not have to be an upstanding member of society, you do not have to be a priest, a rabbi or a liberal minister, you do not have to be a member of the professional or business community, you do not have to be an outstanding citizen to go to hell, but it helps.
On the other hand, if you want to be saved, you do not have to be a hooker like Rahab, you do not have to be swindler or crook, a cocaine addict like me or a drunk, you do not have to be immoral, you do not have to be a fornicator, you do not have to be debauched or a gambler in order to go to heaven, but it helps because at least you know what you are. All have sinned, all fall short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23). Rahab knew what she was.
Rahab knew Joshua was coming, and, believe me, Joshua is coming! We can call Him “Joshua," we can call Him “Yehoshua," we can call Him “Yeshua," we can call Him “Jesus," but He is coming. She knew that His coming depended on God's plan for Israel. Wise Christians still know that. She knew the signs of the time and we should know the signs of the time as well.
Her redemption was not just eternal, it was temporal. Whatever we are, whatever our background, God wants to turn it around and use it for His purpose and our blessing in the salvation of others. He takes all of us to the cross and crucifies our good points as well as our bad. On the other hand, He saves all of us; He saves our good points and bad and uses it all for His purpose and redemption.
Rahab desired the salvation of her family. Every day and every time we think of it, we need to be praying for the repentance and salvation of our loved ones. There is nothing more important than our own walk with the Lord.
Rahab switched allegiances. We cannot trust in this world and the world that is coming. We cannot trust in this fallen kingdom of Satan and the Kingdom that is coming soon to replace it. We have to make a decision—to which kingdom does our allegiance belong?
“Do not go out!" Stay in fellowship with others who believe the truth. One way to think of a church that holds to the Word of God is a lifeboat on a Titanic that is sinking. Remember, this is not a social club for nice people; it is a rehab center for sinners.
“Do not betray!" Many will fall away and betray one another (Mt. 24:10). Be wary of those who follow false doctrines; they cannot be trusted. They may be Christians, they may say they are born again, they may be nice people, but if they are believing false doctrines, following false teachers, do not trust them.
But above all, get ahold of that scarlet cord and hang it in the window. Though our sins are like scarlet, in the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, they shall be white as snow. God bless.
Seduction of the Hebrew Root Movement Part 1 of 2
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by James Jacob Prasch
Moriel has long urged the Body of Christ to rediscover the Hebrew root of its faith for four reasons.
The first is that the destiny of the church is bound up with God's prophetic plan for the future of Israel and the Jews.
The second is that Christians need to evangelize the Jewish people, in recognition of the fact they remain the eternal people of God by covenant relationship and that the plan of God for the salvation of the nations is bound up with His plan for the salvation of Israel.
The third is that we need to understand the scriptures in their original Judaic con-text. We advocate that Christians familiarize themselves with the works of those who have understood this, from Alfred Edersheim to Arnold Fruchtenbaum. We have also tried to reacquaint the church with the lost art of Jewish hermeneutics in terms of New Testament uses of Midrash, and the illustrative Hebraic models of typology and allegory.
Fourth, the church needs to learn from Israel's history and not repeat the same kind of mistakes as Israel. Israel's history was written for our instruction. The church has replayed the mistakes of Israel and sometimes done worse.Blinding the ChurchSatan seeks to blind the church to the prophetic purposes of God for Israel in order to deceive the church about its own future. The exegesis of biblical prophecy that states that the Olivet Discourse and the Book of Revelation is only about God's rejection and judgment on the apostate nation of Israel and not about the Last Days, is demonic in origin and dangerous to the church.
Satan also knows that the eschatological mysteries surrounding the return of Christ are sealed up, and a key to this unsealing will be understanding a Judaic approach to biblical interpretation. Where Satan is unable to blind Christians to the need to return to its Hebraic root, his alternative strategy is to corrupt that trend.True and false Philo-SemitismThere are various areas in which Satan is attempting these seductions of the trend back towards the Hebrew Root.
The Christian Zionist Movement is not a monolith. There are good factions, ones that do some good but no harm, and others that are simply dead wrong.
Some are "over the top" about Israel and the Jews, often focusing on every-thing except the Messiah of the Jews or His command that we bring His message of salvation to His ancient people. Such Christian Zionist groups are as unbalanced and unscriptural on one extreme as are the replacementists denying the prophetic plan of God for Israel and the Jews on the other.
In order to justify not witnessing to Jewish people, these groups tend to pervert biblical passages such as Romans 10:14 and Isaiah 40:1-9.
They falsely claim that they can fulfill the church's mission to Israel and the Jews with immigration programs, political and social programs, and inter-faith dialogue. This is not to suggest all of those involved in these organizations are intentional deceivers. On the contrary, while some of their leaders are plainly money grabbing heretics, many sincere people are misled into joining and supporting these deceptions.
Neither is it to suggest that all of what they do is wrong. The problem is that in trying to communicate Christian love to Israel to undo the damage done by Christian anti-Semitism, they leave out Christ and the whole purpose of God - they preach a Christless social gospel. The church must both proclaim God's purpose in returning the Jews to their ancient land and the way of salvation. Some ministries indeed do both. Moriel endorses Church's Ministry Among the Jews, Jews For Jesus, the Messianic Testimony, Chosen People Ministries, Ariel, the Lausanne Consultation On Jewish Evangelism, the Danish and Norwegian Missions To Israel, and Christian Witness To Israel, but warn against such deceptions as Bridges For Peace, Wings Of Eagles, the Ebenezer Fund, Christian Action For Israel, and above all the International Christian Embassy. Once examined biblically such agencies are deceptions and not of God.The Messianic Movement, the true and the falseMessianic Judaism also has multiple trends within it, some scriptural, others not. Another aspect of Satan's attempted seduction of the trend back to our He-brew root has been the lunatic fringe of the Messianic Movement.
This is characterized by so called 'rabbis' who are not, an emphasis that lifts up Judaism and Judaica, but rarely the King of the Jews, and seems good for little other than rebuilding the wall of partition that Yeshua died to break down.
To the detriment of seeing Jews saved, this unfortunate axis of Messianic Judaism has discredited Jewish belief in Jesus as being unJewish. Its make-believe rabbis have been debunked as charlatans by the orthodox (as happened in the case of Chuck Snow, an ex-messianic rabbi who renounced Yeshua after his ignorance of Judaism was demonstrated to him by a real rabbi), and in debates between real rabbis and the messianic fake ones.
Yeshua commanded believers not to use the term "rabbi" as a title (Matthew 23). This axis also ignores the fact that for all of the academic and apologetic value in studying it, the Rabbinic Judaism it imitates is a corruption of biblical Judaism that points people away from their own Messiah.
The Lord wants a Messianic Movement capable of pointing the Gentile Church back to a solid, biblical expression of what it is supposed to be, but instead many of the hyper-messianic extremists are into Toronto, Pensacola and the seductions destroying the Gentile Church.
Most Jews are skeptical of anything to do with Yeshua to begin with, and seeing the sick depravity of Toronto and Pensacola does not help.
While Moriel has sympathy for the more balanced and more biblical Hebrew Christian-Messianic Jewish Alliance, we must distance ourselves from the extreme lunatic fringe factions.Women in leadershipWhat is perhaps most absurd is the fact that, contrary to both New Testament Christianity and Orthodox Judaism, the extreme axis of the Messianic Movement has women teaching mixed groups and in positions of senior leadership.
Both faiths allow women to teach other women, but to have women in leadership and teaching roles violates the teaching of the New Testament.
It also discredits the presentation of the gospel and offends the very orthodox Jewish community the messianic extremists supposedly try to imitate in order to reach with the gospel.
Moriel supports a biblical Messianic Judaism which is both Judaic and Christian. However, the issue of women in what observant Jews can only see as rabbinic roles, and, so functioning in these roles in rejection of the plain New Testament instruction, makes one question to what degree such extreme factions of the Messianic Movement can claim to be either Judaic or Christian.
There is hype, trappings, and trimmings but little substance.Second class believersThe other thing that the extreme axis of the Messianic Movement appears good at is making non-Jewish believers feel like Second Class believers on the basis of race - as if Jewish birth, instead of New Birth, was a spiritual qualification.
In actual fact there are totally non-Jewish messianic writers, like Walter Riggins and Dwight Pryor, who are not only quite scholarly and adept in Hebrew rabbinics, but could very easily run rings round 90% of the Messianic Rabbis in terms of what they know about Hebraics and Judaism, not to mention the Word of God.Judeo-Christian scholarship, the true and the falseThe problems of Messianic extremism and non-evangelistic Christian Zionism are not new problems. What is new is Satan's attempted corruption of Jewish hermeneutics and the use of the return to the Hebrew Root trend to undermine the Authority of God's Word.
Liberal scholars are citing Jewish mid-rash to justify dismissal of the historicity and doctrinal authority of Scripture, claiming midrash employed in the New Testament provides an alternative basis for establishing doctrine other than what is literally stated.
In no place does the Bible use allegory, typology, symbolism, or any midrashic material as the basis of doctrine. It is rather a mode of illustration of doctrinal truth.
In the Judaic midrashim we never see a denial of the historical authenticity of biblical accounts.
For decades the liberal theological establishment tried to dismiss the historicity of the Gospels and the authenticity of Apostolic doctrine on the basis that it was a creation of a later Gentile church. With the Dead Sea Scrolls supporting the compatibility of the gospels with First Century Jewish thought, and both conservative and Jewish scholars having demonstrated the familiarity of the gospel writers with the sitz im leben (cultural and life situation) of Second Temple Period Palestinian Judaism, the old liberal presuppositions are discredited. Since the newly demonstrated Jewishness of the gospels wreaks havoc with their old arguments, they must now invent seemingly Jewish (bogus) arguments to continue to argue against the historical and doctrinal truth of the scriptures. The lie is the same, but the method of telling it has changed.The Jerusalem School of Synoptic ResearchA further threat to the authority of scripture coming up through the Hebrew Root Movement is found within the Jerusalem School of Synoptic Research.
This facility has expanded into a broader network of individuals looking for a better grasp of understanding of the scriptures from a Judaic perspective. I would not be prepared to dismiss all of the Jerusalem School as Satanic. I agree with the need for a scholarly investigation into the Hebraic nature of New Testament literature. There are things in the Jerusalem School with which I would agree. There are other aspects of it however that I can only regard as false and dangerous.
Bivin and Blizzard, in essence, argue that Jesus' words, even affecting the meaning of His doctrinal pronouncements, can have a very different meaning from the way they are conventionally understood, because - they maintain - the original gospel documents are in He-brew, and the Greek translations are less than reliable translations in relating the actual meanings.
Indeed there is a credence in uncovering the underlying Hebraic thought pat-terns of the Greek texts, and this has as much to do with linguistics as it does sitz im leben.
However to suggest the reliability of Christian doctrine drawn from the Greek manuscripts must be brought into question is baseless.
No one reading the Greek text can determine linguistically if the manuscripts are translations from orally transmitted accounts of Jesus and His words from Aramaic or from Hebrew; both are similar semitic languages.
No one can tell an Aramism from a Hebraism by reading translations in a third language.
Only odd episodes record Hebrew being employed for vernacular purposes during the Second Temple Period. Most of the Qumran literature (apart from biblical manuscripts) are Aramaic, few are Hebrew and one Nabatean. The existing biblical manuscripts (with the possible exception of Matthew) tend to follow the Septuagint, and nothing akin to the Masoretic Hebrew.
The volume of codexes, manuscripts, and fragments of the gospels are astronomical in number. There are literally thousands, having no parallel in any of the Greek or Latin Classics. Yet not one is in Hebrew.
We do have an argument in Eusebius, which he traced back to the time of Heggisipus, that Matthew was originally Hebrew and there are source critical arguments for a Hebrew Matthew original.
But to suggest that the fundamental doctrinal meaning is therefore misunderstood, is absurd.
We have at least two good Hebrew translations of the New Testament. Neither determines a need to question again traditional Christian understanding of the gospels in a fundamental way based on linguistics.
We also have the Epistles, written to both Hebrew and Greek believers and communities of believers, which are inspired apostolic commentary on the gospels.
Traditional Christian understandings of doctrine in the gospels have never rested on the gospels alone, but how the Apostles understood, interpreted and applied them.
It is ludicrous how much time and effort has been wasted on the conjectures of the Jerusalem School. It is profitable for nothing other than casting unnecessary doubt on the credibility of an orthodox Evangelical understanding of the doctrinal content of the gospels.
The Jerusalem School trumpets the endorsement it receives from Rabbi David Flusser, admittedly a major scholar. Yet they fail to mention that his American counterpart, Rabbi Jacob Neusner dismisses their theory.
They also fail to note that David Flusser has an interest in giving a different meaning to the Words of Jesus. Flusser argues that Paul taught a different Christianity from Jesus, and seeks to establish a discontinuity between Pauline and Early Apostolic Christianity.
Moriel has long urged the Body of Christ to rediscover the Hebrew root of its faith for four reasons.
The first is that the destiny of the church is bound up with God's prophetic plan for the future of Israel and the Jews.
The second is that Christians need to evangelize the Jewish people, in recognition of the fact they remain the eternal people of God by covenant relationship and that the plan of God for the salvation of the nations is bound up with His plan for the salvation of Israel.
The third is that we need to understand the scriptures in their original Judaic con-text. We advocate that Christians familiarize themselves with the works of those who have understood this, from Alfred Edersheim to Arnold Fruchtenbaum. We have also tried to reacquaint the church with the lost art of Jewish hermeneutics in terms of New Testament uses of Midrash, and the illustrative Hebraic models of typology and allegory.
Fourth, the church needs to learn from Israel's history and not repeat the same kind of mistakes as Israel. Israel's history was written for our instruction. The church has replayed the mistakes of Israel and sometimes done worse.Blinding the ChurchSatan seeks to blind the church to the prophetic purposes of God for Israel in order to deceive the church about its own future. The exegesis of biblical prophecy that states that the Olivet Discourse and the Book of Revelation is only about God's rejection and judgment on the apostate nation of Israel and not about the Last Days, is demonic in origin and dangerous to the church.
Satan also knows that the eschatological mysteries surrounding the return of Christ are sealed up, and a key to this unsealing will be understanding a Judaic approach to biblical interpretation. Where Satan is unable to blind Christians to the need to return to its Hebraic root, his alternative strategy is to corrupt that trend.True and false Philo-SemitismThere are various areas in which Satan is attempting these seductions of the trend back towards the Hebrew Root.
The Christian Zionist Movement is not a monolith. There are good factions, ones that do some good but no harm, and others that are simply dead wrong.
Some are "over the top" about Israel and the Jews, often focusing on every-thing except the Messiah of the Jews or His command that we bring His message of salvation to His ancient people. Such Christian Zionist groups are as unbalanced and unscriptural on one extreme as are the replacementists denying the prophetic plan of God for Israel and the Jews on the other.
In order to justify not witnessing to Jewish people, these groups tend to pervert biblical passages such as Romans 10:14 and Isaiah 40:1-9.
They falsely claim that they can fulfill the church's mission to Israel and the Jews with immigration programs, political and social programs, and inter-faith dialogue. This is not to suggest all of those involved in these organizations are intentional deceivers. On the contrary, while some of their leaders are plainly money grabbing heretics, many sincere people are misled into joining and supporting these deceptions.
Neither is it to suggest that all of what they do is wrong. The problem is that in trying to communicate Christian love to Israel to undo the damage done by Christian anti-Semitism, they leave out Christ and the whole purpose of God - they preach a Christless social gospel. The church must both proclaim God's purpose in returning the Jews to their ancient land and the way of salvation. Some ministries indeed do both. Moriel endorses Church's Ministry Among the Jews, Jews For Jesus, the Messianic Testimony, Chosen People Ministries, Ariel, the Lausanne Consultation On Jewish Evangelism, the Danish and Norwegian Missions To Israel, and Christian Witness To Israel, but warn against such deceptions as Bridges For Peace, Wings Of Eagles, the Ebenezer Fund, Christian Action For Israel, and above all the International Christian Embassy. Once examined biblically such agencies are deceptions and not of God.The Messianic Movement, the true and the falseMessianic Judaism also has multiple trends within it, some scriptural, others not. Another aspect of Satan's attempted seduction of the trend back to our He-brew root has been the lunatic fringe of the Messianic Movement.
This is characterized by so called 'rabbis' who are not, an emphasis that lifts up Judaism and Judaica, but rarely the King of the Jews, and seems good for little other than rebuilding the wall of partition that Yeshua died to break down.
To the detriment of seeing Jews saved, this unfortunate axis of Messianic Judaism has discredited Jewish belief in Jesus as being unJewish. Its make-believe rabbis have been debunked as charlatans by the orthodox (as happened in the case of Chuck Snow, an ex-messianic rabbi who renounced Yeshua after his ignorance of Judaism was demonstrated to him by a real rabbi), and in debates between real rabbis and the messianic fake ones.
Yeshua commanded believers not to use the term "rabbi" as a title (Matthew 23). This axis also ignores the fact that for all of the academic and apologetic value in studying it, the Rabbinic Judaism it imitates is a corruption of biblical Judaism that points people away from their own Messiah.
The Lord wants a Messianic Movement capable of pointing the Gentile Church back to a solid, biblical expression of what it is supposed to be, but instead many of the hyper-messianic extremists are into Toronto, Pensacola and the seductions destroying the Gentile Church.
Most Jews are skeptical of anything to do with Yeshua to begin with, and seeing the sick depravity of Toronto and Pensacola does not help.
While Moriel has sympathy for the more balanced and more biblical Hebrew Christian-Messianic Jewish Alliance, we must distance ourselves from the extreme lunatic fringe factions.Women in leadershipWhat is perhaps most absurd is the fact that, contrary to both New Testament Christianity and Orthodox Judaism, the extreme axis of the Messianic Movement has women teaching mixed groups and in positions of senior leadership.
Both faiths allow women to teach other women, but to have women in leadership and teaching roles violates the teaching of the New Testament.
It also discredits the presentation of the gospel and offends the very orthodox Jewish community the messianic extremists supposedly try to imitate in order to reach with the gospel.
Moriel supports a biblical Messianic Judaism which is both Judaic and Christian. However, the issue of women in what observant Jews can only see as rabbinic roles, and, so functioning in these roles in rejection of the plain New Testament instruction, makes one question to what degree such extreme factions of the Messianic Movement can claim to be either Judaic or Christian.
There is hype, trappings, and trimmings but little substance.Second class believersThe other thing that the extreme axis of the Messianic Movement appears good at is making non-Jewish believers feel like Second Class believers on the basis of race - as if Jewish birth, instead of New Birth, was a spiritual qualification.
In actual fact there are totally non-Jewish messianic writers, like Walter Riggins and Dwight Pryor, who are not only quite scholarly and adept in Hebrew rabbinics, but could very easily run rings round 90% of the Messianic Rabbis in terms of what they know about Hebraics and Judaism, not to mention the Word of God.Judeo-Christian scholarship, the true and the falseThe problems of Messianic extremism and non-evangelistic Christian Zionism are not new problems. What is new is Satan's attempted corruption of Jewish hermeneutics and the use of the return to the Hebrew Root trend to undermine the Authority of God's Word.
Liberal scholars are citing Jewish mid-rash to justify dismissal of the historicity and doctrinal authority of Scripture, claiming midrash employed in the New Testament provides an alternative basis for establishing doctrine other than what is literally stated.
In no place does the Bible use allegory, typology, symbolism, or any midrashic material as the basis of doctrine. It is rather a mode of illustration of doctrinal truth.
In the Judaic midrashim we never see a denial of the historical authenticity of biblical accounts.
For decades the liberal theological establishment tried to dismiss the historicity of the Gospels and the authenticity of Apostolic doctrine on the basis that it was a creation of a later Gentile church. With the Dead Sea Scrolls supporting the compatibility of the gospels with First Century Jewish thought, and both conservative and Jewish scholars having demonstrated the familiarity of the gospel writers with the sitz im leben (cultural and life situation) of Second Temple Period Palestinian Judaism, the old liberal presuppositions are discredited. Since the newly demonstrated Jewishness of the gospels wreaks havoc with their old arguments, they must now invent seemingly Jewish (bogus) arguments to continue to argue against the historical and doctrinal truth of the scriptures. The lie is the same, but the method of telling it has changed.The Jerusalem School of Synoptic ResearchA further threat to the authority of scripture coming up through the Hebrew Root Movement is found within the Jerusalem School of Synoptic Research.
This facility has expanded into a broader network of individuals looking for a better grasp of understanding of the scriptures from a Judaic perspective. I would not be prepared to dismiss all of the Jerusalem School as Satanic. I agree with the need for a scholarly investigation into the Hebraic nature of New Testament literature. There are things in the Jerusalem School with which I would agree. There are other aspects of it however that I can only regard as false and dangerous.
Bivin and Blizzard, in essence, argue that Jesus' words, even affecting the meaning of His doctrinal pronouncements, can have a very different meaning from the way they are conventionally understood, because - they maintain - the original gospel documents are in He-brew, and the Greek translations are less than reliable translations in relating the actual meanings.
Indeed there is a credence in uncovering the underlying Hebraic thought pat-terns of the Greek texts, and this has as much to do with linguistics as it does sitz im leben.
However to suggest the reliability of Christian doctrine drawn from the Greek manuscripts must be brought into question is baseless.
No one reading the Greek text can determine linguistically if the manuscripts are translations from orally transmitted accounts of Jesus and His words from Aramaic or from Hebrew; both are similar semitic languages.
No one can tell an Aramism from a Hebraism by reading translations in a third language.
Only odd episodes record Hebrew being employed for vernacular purposes during the Second Temple Period. Most of the Qumran literature (apart from biblical manuscripts) are Aramaic, few are Hebrew and one Nabatean. The existing biblical manuscripts (with the possible exception of Matthew) tend to follow the Septuagint, and nothing akin to the Masoretic Hebrew.
The volume of codexes, manuscripts, and fragments of the gospels are astronomical in number. There are literally thousands, having no parallel in any of the Greek or Latin Classics. Yet not one is in Hebrew.
We do have an argument in Eusebius, which he traced back to the time of Heggisipus, that Matthew was originally Hebrew and there are source critical arguments for a Hebrew Matthew original.
But to suggest that the fundamental doctrinal meaning is therefore misunderstood, is absurd.
We have at least two good Hebrew translations of the New Testament. Neither determines a need to question again traditional Christian understanding of the gospels in a fundamental way based on linguistics.
We also have the Epistles, written to both Hebrew and Greek believers and communities of believers, which are inspired apostolic commentary on the gospels.
Traditional Christian understandings of doctrine in the gospels have never rested on the gospels alone, but how the Apostles understood, interpreted and applied them.
It is ludicrous how much time and effort has been wasted on the conjectures of the Jerusalem School. It is profitable for nothing other than casting unnecessary doubt on the credibility of an orthodox Evangelical understanding of the doctrinal content of the gospels.
The Jerusalem School trumpets the endorsement it receives from Rabbi David Flusser, admittedly a major scholar. Yet they fail to mention that his American counterpart, Rabbi Jacob Neusner dismisses their theory.
They also fail to note that David Flusser has an interest in giving a different meaning to the Words of Jesus. Flusser argues that Paul taught a different Christianity from Jesus, and seeks to establish a discontinuity between Pauline and Early Apostolic Christianity.
Doctrine of Demons?
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But I"d like to ask you yet another question. All over the world we are seeing scandals: Australia, New Zealand. Latin America. the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Europe. One month ago the largest Roman Catholic seminary in Austria, a Catholic country, was closed down. The largest collection of child pornography, most of it of a homosexual nature, ever uncovered anywhere in the history of the world was uncovered in the Roman Catholic seminary near Vienna. 40,000 photos of priests and so forth having sex with little boys and little girls. 40,000, plus the videos of older priests having sex with younger seminarians.
The largest collection of Internet child pornography: St. Joseph's Parish in Newcastle, England. 8,000 hours of child pornography placed on the Internet by Roman Catholic priests, presently in prison.
The cardinal of Sydney, Australia, the cardinal of Boston, Massachusetts, the cardinal of Los Angeles, the cardinal of London, England, and the cardinal of Ireland " to name but a few " and now the cardinal in Austria, all implicated in conspiracy to obstruct justice and protect pedophile priests and nuns at the expense of not protecting the children whose lives they destroy.
Over 4,000 cases in America. In Cincinnati, Ohio the archbishop pleads guilty " nolo contendere; diocese of Santa Fe, New Mexico bankrupt; archdiocese of Portland, Oregon bankrupt; in Texas and Houston, $120 million paid out to altar boys who"d been violated by priests.
What's happened in Ireland is unbelievable; it gets worse and worse.
Thirteen Roman Catholic nuns in Massachusetts raping deaf little girls with foreign objects. Where does it end? How can it be?
There are those who would have liked us to believe, and you to believe, that this is not purely a Roman Catholic phenomena. It is largely a Roman Catholic and Anglo-Catholic phenomena, the Anglo-Catholics being similar to the Roman Catholics ritually and so forth. There is far less of this among Protestants, far less among Jews, far less among Eastern Greek Orthodox, and in the Eastern rite of the Roman church, your own church " the "Latin rite" is the West, the "Greek rite" is the East " far less in your own Eastern rite.
Now why does the Latin rite have so much of this but your Eastern rite has so little? Why does the Eastern rite of the Roman church have no more than the Protestants or the Jews? Well the Latin rite has more than everybody, much more than all the rest put together. And why, with the disclosure of the Criminale Solicitacciones document from the Vatican archives going back to John XXIII, reiterated by Cardinal Ratzinger on behalf of John Paul II? Two years ago they were instructing bishops to protect these criminals, even transferring them internationally so they couldn"t be prosecuted, on the Vatican"s instruction. It"s remarkable.
You"ve perhaps heard of the "rat route", how the Roman Catholic Church protected Nazi war criminals like Eichmann and helped them escape to South America. One was arrested in France only a few years ago; he was hidden for more than 40 years. They used to help Nazis escape justice, now they help priests escape justice.
Now again, I"m only stating a fact. Why is there so much of this in the Roman church and so less in other churches? Why is there so much of it in the Latin rite but so little in your Eastern rite? I'm reading from the epistle of St. Paul to Timothy. In 1 Timothy 4:1…
But the Spirit…
…that is, the Holy Ghost…
But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons…
…doctrines of devils.
by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron, men who forbid marriage…
Why? In the New Testament, why if St. Paul, specifically instructed by the Holy Spirit, say requiring celibacy is a doctrine of devils, does your church practice it? When you outlaw what is natural, people will do things which are unnatural. When God created sex He said it was good in the book of Genesis. That is why even in your own church you find it only in the Latin rite, not in the Greek. That is why you don't find it among rabbis or Protestant ministers in anything like the same proportion. It"s a doctrine of devils.
St. Peter was married, his wife"s name was Deborah. Most of the apostles were married. To forbid it would be a doctrine of devils. What can be more demonic, more Satanic, more evil, than having sex with little children and doing so in the name of Jesus Christ? How can something be so Satanic? Because it comes from a doctrine of demons. How can you as a Roman Catholic believe in a religion that practices what is plainly and clearly called a doctrine of devils, and you see the fruit of it in the newspapers every single day of the year? How can you defend it? How can you defend a doctrine of devils and the devastation it causes to little children?
Jesus said, "Suffer the children unto Me for theirs is the kingdom of heaven". (Mt. 19:14; Mk. 10:14) He said it would be better if a millstone were tied around your neck and cast into the sea than hurt one of these little ones. (Mt. 18:6; Mk. 9:42; Lk. 17:2) He didn't say rape them as your clergy does. Not all of your clergy, no, but your hierarchy protects and covers up for it, and other clergy have admitted on the witness stand they knew what was going on for years and kept their mouth shut to protect their colleagues who did it, instead of the children who suffered it, It is a doctrine of devils.
Why do you believe in something so wicked, something so antagonistic to the nostrils of Christ, something that"s unthinkable in the dimension of evil and occupies? Why do you believe in a church that teaches a doctrine of devils? That's my question: Do you really believe such people are the guardians of your soul?
The largest collection of Internet child pornography: St. Joseph's Parish in Newcastle, England. 8,000 hours of child pornography placed on the Internet by Roman Catholic priests, presently in prison.
The cardinal of Sydney, Australia, the cardinal of Boston, Massachusetts, the cardinal of Los Angeles, the cardinal of London, England, and the cardinal of Ireland " to name but a few " and now the cardinal in Austria, all implicated in conspiracy to obstruct justice and protect pedophile priests and nuns at the expense of not protecting the children whose lives they destroy.
Over 4,000 cases in America. In Cincinnati, Ohio the archbishop pleads guilty " nolo contendere; diocese of Santa Fe, New Mexico bankrupt; archdiocese of Portland, Oregon bankrupt; in Texas and Houston, $120 million paid out to altar boys who"d been violated by priests.
What's happened in Ireland is unbelievable; it gets worse and worse.
Thirteen Roman Catholic nuns in Massachusetts raping deaf little girls with foreign objects. Where does it end? How can it be?
There are those who would have liked us to believe, and you to believe, that this is not purely a Roman Catholic phenomena. It is largely a Roman Catholic and Anglo-Catholic phenomena, the Anglo-Catholics being similar to the Roman Catholics ritually and so forth. There is far less of this among Protestants, far less among Jews, far less among Eastern Greek Orthodox, and in the Eastern rite of the Roman church, your own church " the "Latin rite" is the West, the "Greek rite" is the East " far less in your own Eastern rite.
Now why does the Latin rite have so much of this but your Eastern rite has so little? Why does the Eastern rite of the Roman church have no more than the Protestants or the Jews? Well the Latin rite has more than everybody, much more than all the rest put together. And why, with the disclosure of the Criminale Solicitacciones document from the Vatican archives going back to John XXIII, reiterated by Cardinal Ratzinger on behalf of John Paul II? Two years ago they were instructing bishops to protect these criminals, even transferring them internationally so they couldn"t be prosecuted, on the Vatican"s instruction. It"s remarkable.
You"ve perhaps heard of the "rat route", how the Roman Catholic Church protected Nazi war criminals like Eichmann and helped them escape to South America. One was arrested in France only a few years ago; he was hidden for more than 40 years. They used to help Nazis escape justice, now they help priests escape justice.
Now again, I"m only stating a fact. Why is there so much of this in the Roman church and so less in other churches? Why is there so much of it in the Latin rite but so little in your Eastern rite? I'm reading from the epistle of St. Paul to Timothy. In 1 Timothy 4:1…
But the Spirit…
…that is, the Holy Ghost…
But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons…
…doctrines of devils.
by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron, men who forbid marriage…
Why? In the New Testament, why if St. Paul, specifically instructed by the Holy Spirit, say requiring celibacy is a doctrine of devils, does your church practice it? When you outlaw what is natural, people will do things which are unnatural. When God created sex He said it was good in the book of Genesis. That is why even in your own church you find it only in the Latin rite, not in the Greek. That is why you don't find it among rabbis or Protestant ministers in anything like the same proportion. It"s a doctrine of devils.
St. Peter was married, his wife"s name was Deborah. Most of the apostles were married. To forbid it would be a doctrine of devils. What can be more demonic, more Satanic, more evil, than having sex with little children and doing so in the name of Jesus Christ? How can something be so Satanic? Because it comes from a doctrine of demons. How can you as a Roman Catholic believe in a religion that practices what is plainly and clearly called a doctrine of devils, and you see the fruit of it in the newspapers every single day of the year? How can you defend it? How can you defend a doctrine of devils and the devastation it causes to little children?
Jesus said, "Suffer the children unto Me for theirs is the kingdom of heaven". (Mt. 19:14; Mk. 10:14) He said it would be better if a millstone were tied around your neck and cast into the sea than hurt one of these little ones. (Mt. 18:6; Mk. 9:42; Lk. 17:2) He didn't say rape them as your clergy does. Not all of your clergy, no, but your hierarchy protects and covers up for it, and other clergy have admitted on the witness stand they knew what was going on for years and kept their mouth shut to protect their colleagues who did it, instead of the children who suffered it, It is a doctrine of devils.
Why do you believe in something so wicked, something so antagonistic to the nostrils of Christ, something that"s unthinkable in the dimension of evil and occupies? Why do you believe in a church that teaches a doctrine of devils? That's my question: Do you really believe such people are the guardians of your soul?
The Seventy Weeks of Daniel
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We are in the Last Days when prophetic events are happening, and where prophetic events begin to happen, confusion automatically results. People were ask about the war in Iraq and what is happening in the Middle East and how to understand it biblically in light of biblical prophecy. If we just watch the news we can get really confused as to what is going on, but when we look at these things in the light of the Bible, things become very clear.
As we see prophecy beginning to be fulfilled, and it is being fulfilled faster and faster, confusion emerges. We are in the Last Days; God did put these things in His Word for a reason, and the reason is He wants us to understand these things.
€œSeventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city €¦
(That is Jerusalem.)
€¦to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy place. So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah €¦
( €¦"an anointed one" €¦)
€¦the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress. Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined. And he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering; and on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who makes desolate." (Dan 9:24-27)
We have two princes in this passage. In verse 26 we obviously see the Messiah—Jesus, but there are people who teach (usually extreme Calvinists) that Jesus is also the second prince. Now the second prince is Antichrist. They are confusing Christ with the Antichrist. Let us begin at the beginning.
As we see prophecy beginning to be fulfilled, and it is being fulfilled faster and faster, confusion emerges. We are in the Last Days; God did put these things in His Word for a reason, and the reason is He wants us to understand these things.
€œSeventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city €¦
(That is Jerusalem.)
€¦to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy place. So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah €¦
( €¦"an anointed one" €¦)
€¦the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress. Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined. And he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering; and on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who makes desolate." (Dan 9:24-27)
We have two princes in this passage. In verse 26 we obviously see the Messiah—Jesus, but there are people who teach (usually extreme Calvinists) that Jesus is also the second prince. Now the second prince is Antichrist. They are confusing Christ with the Antichrist. Let us begin at the beginning.
Show Me Part 1 of 2
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by James Jacob Prasch
John 20:19-31: "When, therefore, it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and when the doors were shut where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst. And He said to them, 'Peace be with you,' and when He had said this, He showed Himself, both His hands and His side; and the disciples therefore rejoiced that they saw the Lord.
And Jesus therefore said to them, 'Peace be with you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.' And when He had said this, He breathed on them and He said, 'Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them, and if you retain the sins of any, their sins have been retained.'
But Thomas, one of the Twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. And the other disciples were therefore saying to him, 'We have seen the Lord!', but he said to them, 'Unless I see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.'
And after eight days again, His disciples were inside, and Thomas with them. And Jesus came, the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst and said, 'Peace be with you.' Then He said to Thomas, 'Reach here your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand and put it into My side; and be not unbelieving, but believing.'
[The verse now that the Jehovah's Witnesses do not like --] Thomas answered and said to Him, 'My Lord and my God!'
And Jesus said to him, 'Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they that have not seen, and have believed.'
Many are the signs, therefore, that Jesus also performed in the presence of His disciples which are not written in this book; but these have been written that you might believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that, believing, you might have life in His name."
"Show me! Let me see! Show me!" Thomas was not there. Jesus' body and His resurrection teach about what our bodies will be like in the Resurrection. His resurrection is our resurrection. During the Millennial Reign of Jesus, there will be two kinds of people on the earth: there will be those who are resurrected, or were raptured, and reign with Christ; and then there will be those people who are born during the Millennium. The bodies of the ones who are born during the Millennium will be slightly different -- they'll be like the bodies of antediluvian man; the way people were before the Flood. Just as people lived to be hundreds of years old before the Flood, so they will during the Millennium. People born during the Millennial Reign of Jesus will actually live to be centuries old. When someone dies at the age of 120, Isaiah tells us, it will be like a pediatric fatality; it will be like crib death. People will actually live, as Methuselah did, to be hundreds of years old.
The others, however, will be like Jesus. His body was recognizable, but not at first. He was able to do things such as walk through walls, etc. One of the reasons we see Him eating with the disciples after He rose from the dead is that the Holy Spirit knew that later there would be heretics who would come, denying that the resurrection of Jesus was literal and physical. In the ancient church, they were called Docetists, but today they are the Jehovah's Witnesses. They deny that the resurrection actually happened. That is why, in the New Testament, whenever you see someone being raised from the dead you always see Jesus eating with them, or you see them being instructed to eat. When He raised the little girl from the dead, he instructed her parents to give her something to eat. When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, He eats with him immediately after that in John 12. Spiritual bodies do not need to eat; physical ones do. This testifies that the resurrection was literal.
But Thomas wasn't there; and he says, "Show me. You want me to believe in Jesus, show me. Let me see this body that was crucified, and is now alive." Thomas is what theologians would call a corporate solidarity. Corporate solidarity is the term for when one person represents a larger group of people; when one person is a sort of spiritual picture of a larger group of people. Thomas is a corporate solidarity, and he represents three different kinds of people:
The first group of people which Thomas, the Twin, called Didymus, represents is his fellow Jews. He says, "I will not believe that Jesus rose from the dead until I see the wounds in His hands." Look at the book of Zechariah chapter 12. In it we are told this: when Jesus comes back in the last days of the Great Tribulation, in verse 10 of chapter 12, "I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication. So they will look upon Me whom they have pierced, and mourn for Him as one mourns for an only son, and weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn." In the Great Tribulation at the end, the Jews will be gathered to Israel and to Jerusalem with the deception of the Antichrist, etc, and the nations will gather against Israel. Jesus comes back and saves them, they see the scars left by the nails in His hands, and then they believe.
If you know what's happening in the newspapers and on television concerning the quest for peace in Jerusalem, you have noticed that the issue is the final status of Jerusalem. That is what this chapter tells us would happen when Jesus comes back. "The burden of the word of the Lord concerning Jerusalem . . ." This chapter tells us in verse 2 that Jerusalem will be a heavy stone that causes reeling in all the people round about it, and all who lift it will hurt themselves grievously. The real issue in the Middle East will not be the final status of the Golan Heights or the West Bank or the Gaza Strip; it will be Jerusalem. Jerusalem is where Satan suffered his greatest defeat, and it is also where he will suffer his final defeat. There are tremendous spiritual forces at work in our world today, and the Middle East is increasingly going to be the center of it. Everything we see happening in Camp David and so on is becoming increasingly focused toward Zechariah 12. How will these events in the Middle East turn out? We know. We know what the State Department doesn't know, what the White House doesn't know, and what the United Nations doesn't know. We know that they shall look upon Him whom they have pierced, and the Jews will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only son.
That is the first corporate solidarity. Thomas is Twin, Didymus, with his fellow Jews. He mirrors them. "I won't believe until I see the One who is pierced."
The second corporate solidarity that Thomas is a picture of is the skepticism of all the apostles and disciples. He's the fall guy; he gets the rap. Even in English, we have the colloquialism, 'a doubting Thomas'. That, however, is not exactly fair or accurate, although the label is stuck. This is similar to how we always talk about Peter following at a distance, saying "Oh, how could Peter follow Jesus at a distance?" -- except that, apart from John, the other disciples weren't following at all. He doesn't get fair press, and neither does Thomas.
In Mark chapter 16, when we look at this synoptically, it says this (verse 11): "And when they heard that He was alive and had been seen by her, they refused to believe it." All the apostles were skeptical and doubting, but Thomas becomes the embodiment, the personification of their collective doubt.
Jesus revealed Himself to women first; you will always find this. But anything that God intends for good, the devil will twist to use for evil. Because of the fall of humanity, men have become insensitive and women have become hypersensitive. Women were always more sensitive than men, but because of the fall, the difference has sharply increased. Men are reliant on female sensitivity, and women are reliant on male protection. For instance, when a husband and wife get saved, most of the time it is the wife who gets saved first. When a husband is saved and his wife is not a believer, usually -- not always, but usually -- the wife will become a believer; water takes the shape of its container. However, when the boots are on the other feet and a woman has an unbelieving husband, it is much more difficult. Why is it easier for women to get saved? The reason is they are more sensitive and impressionable, traits that can be either assets or liabilities. It is easier for the Lord to reveal Himself to women, because of their sensitivity. So, too, when a husband and wife pray together in seeking direction from the Lord, usually the wife will hear from the Lord first. Men are reliant on female sensitivity, because since the fall, men have become insensitive.
On the other hand, anything that God intends for good, the devil will use for evil. Because women are more sensitive, they are also more vulnerable to spiritual seduction, to being misled in hearing the voice of a counterfeit spirit and thinking it to be the voice of the Holy Spirit or to being led by their feelings. Male authority in the Bible is not based on bigger muscles; it's based on protection. The serpent beguiled the woman; Satan beguiles and seduces, and women are more vulnerable to his seduction. Thus, just as men are reliant on female sensitivity, women are reliant on male protection. That is why the leadership in a church must be male, and why the husband and father must be the spiritual head of the family.
Jesus revealed Himself to women first; the others doubted. So Thomas represents the skepticism of the other apostles.
The third corporate solidarity that Thomas represents is the one we've all encountered: he personifies human skepticism. How many times have we witnessed to somebody -- a friend, a neighbor, a relative, somebody you met on the street, someone you gave a tract to -- and had them say basically the same thing Thomas said: "Show me. Where is He? I can't see Him. You tell me this Jesus was crucified to take away my sin, He rose from the dead, and is now alive. You say that this crucified body is alive; well, show me. Where is He? I can't see Him. Show me this body; then I'll believe. Why should I believe your Jesus instead of Mohammad, or Buddha, or Hare Krishna? Why should I believe your Book, the Bible, instead of the Bhagavad-Gita, or the Book of Mormon, or the Tibetan Book of the Dead, or the Koran? What makes your Book different? What makes your Jesus different? Why should I believe you? Show me! Let me see! Then I'll believe."
In trying to present the Gospel to modern society, even in the American Bible Belt, we're up against two things: Western rationalism, and Eastern irrationalism. Let's look first at Eastern irrationalism:
The churches in India are growing very quickly; I was in India recently. These Christians are impoverished, but their churches are growing.
Simply stated, Hinduism is not rational. When I was in India, I saw a heap of rubbish -- garbage -- with birds of prey pecking at the vermin crawling around in it. On top of it was a wooden frame -- not a bed, but a wooden frame with some rope on it -- and a baby boy, probably less than two years old, covered with lice and filth, probably HIV positive, lying on top of it and slowly dying of malnutrition. Right up the road, beautifully groomed cows are overfed. The life of a cow is valued more highly than the life of a baby. That is their religion. "That's OK; that's his karma, because of what he did in his last life." It is not rational, but it's their religion. It's not rational for a human being to drink cow urine, but they do it. It is not rational to take water from the Ganges River and, because you believe it to be sacred, give it to an infant who dies of cholera as a result. This is not rational; you cannot tell them that the water is rife with microorganisms and bacteria, because they believe it to be sacred. There is no reason in their religion.
It's no wonder people in India are turning from it towards Christ! As the New Testament says, our faith is rational and reasonable. It says in the book of Isaiah chapter 1 verse 18, "Come, let us reason together, says the Lord." I am not saying that our faith is intellectual; it is not intellectual, but it is intellectually defensible. There is an apologetic for it -- it is rational and plausible, and there is evidence for it. Hinduism is a blind faith. Yet what is very strange to me is that when I get on a plane from India and go home to England or come to the United States, I see people in the West turning from Christianity to gurus, to transcendental meditation, to New Age, to Eastern religion. Look at what those religions have done to India.
There is a church in the American South, which includes people of different racial backgrounds. The pastor has adopted children of other color. A few generations ago in the South, that would not have been socially acceptable. At least where you had a Judeo-Christian ethic, at least where you had a Biblical premise, people understood that bigotry was morally wrong and that social injustice shouldn't exist. In India, however, that's their religion. "That's his karma."
Social injustice is therefore socially acceptable; it is the natural order. There is no sense of it being wrong. At least in the South there was an awareness that it was wrong and needed to be corrected, because people are all made in God's image and likeness, and Jesus died for the sin of others just as much as for ours. Not in India. Yet you see people in the West embracing these Eastern religions. I got the book "Death of a Guru", about a guru who got saved, to George Harrison of the Beatles, who is a Hindu.
He builds temples for the Hare Krishna all over England, and he was so angered by the book that he threw it. I said, "Look, do you think that if you had been born in the slums of Calcutta instead of in the slums of Liverpool you would be living in that castle today? Look at what that religion has done to that country." A few weeks later, he was stabbed in the heart in that castle. Look at what it's done! Eastern irrationalism: it is not rational, but people believe it.
So this is what we're up against: Eastern irrationalism. The Western democracies, American society included, are post-Christian and neo-pagan. People are turning to New Age religion, even in the South. The stuff that began in California, in England and up north, is now in the South as well. I saw Vice-President Gore, who is from Arkansas, on television with Buddhist monks.
"Show me! Why should I believe your Jesus instead of Buddhism? Why should I believe your Bible instead of the Bhagavad-Gita, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, or the Koran? Why should I believe your Jesus instead of Mohammad, instead of Joseph Smith? (The Mormons have a different Jesus entirely, who is not the Jesus of the Bible.) Why should I believe your Jesus instead of the one spoken of by Joseph Smith, the Jesus who is a half-brother of the devil?"
Is the answer to this because Christians are more moral? Friends, there are Protestant denominations ordaining homosexuals; Mormons won't do that. Moslems won't do that. Is it because we have such a wonderful testimony for Jesus that they'll believe us? I wish that were true. When I turn on the idiot box, I see the so-called Christian television -- those con artists twisting the Gospel to con money out of people, perverting the Christian message. Their god is Mammon, not the true God. They are teaching the sin of covetousness and calling it 'faith'. They have faith in 'faith', not faith in Jesus. If I were not by the grace of God saved already and I turned on the television to see those con men, those heretics from hell, who are the false prophets whom Jesus warned would come in the last days -- if that's what I saw, I would not want to become a Christian. I would think that being born-again was a con job. Why should the world believe us? That is what they see.
"Why should I believe? What, these con men? No. Show me, then I'll believe. I've seen the TV." I've seen the so-called Christian President from Arkansas in a so-called evangelical church in Chicago -- and noticed that his position on homosexuality and abortion-on-demand never came up. If Isaiah or Jeremiah had interviewed a king, those are the very issues they would have aimed for.
"Show me! I've heard the talk, I've seen the TV, I've seen what your born-again is, and I don't want to hear any more. Now; show me. Show me why I should believe this instead of the Mormons." There is a reason Mormonism is growing; despite the fact that what they believe is crazy, there is a reason for their growth. I have seen how Islam has grown in England. It is already beginning to grow in America. It begins in the black community -- ironic, considering the fact that Islam is a religion which has never done anything but enslave black people -- and right as we speak, black Christians are being murdered in the Sudan and in Nigeria by Moslems.
"Show me."
In Israel we had our son's Bar Mitzvah in April, and while there we had a Jewish lady speak to us. She had been born in the Ukraine, in a Jewish community with 7,000 people. And of the 7,000, when the Nazis invaded, three survived. Herself, her baby brother, and one other escaped miraculously. The Nazis killed the rest of the Jews; all 7,000, including her parents, her brothers and her sisters. Not only did they kill them, however; they killed them in the name of Jesus Christ. My wife's parents are Holocaust survivors; Jews from Romania. If you were to ask my wife's mother what the Gospel of Jesus Christ is, she will tell you: The Gospel of Jesus Christ is Jewish children being put into an oven in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. It is difficult to explain to them the difference between a saved Christian and what they think of as Christian.
Yet this Jewish woman at my son's Bar Mitzvah became a believer in Jesus. How did she become a believer in Jesus when her whole family was murdered in His name? She told us the story: She met true Christians who were willing to risk their lives to save hers.
When I go to Hong Kong, I go and I pick up Bibles, and pack them very carefully. I don't get my laundry done for weeks -- socks, underwear, and sweaty T-shirts are the best -- and I wrap the Bibles in my laundry. If a Communist customs agent opens my suitcases, he will not want to search too diligently. (Before I was saved, I smuggled hashish.) When I go through to China with the Bibles, those people are hungry. They'll all take a Bible. They will listen to anything you have to say, if they know English. As a matter of fact, in some cases they'll risk their lives to take a Bible. They can be arrested for taking a Bible from a Westerner.
I know people who know a Chinese pastor who spent 34 years in prison under Mao. When the Communists took over China in the late 1940's, there were no more than one million born-again believers known of in China. Going back to the time of Hudson Taylor, who began the first modern missions to China, never more than a million Christians; that's not a lot, for a country with a population the size of China's even then. Of course when the Communists took over, they thought that was the end. All of the missionaries were deported back to America, Australia, and Britain, Bibles were outlawed, and all the indigenous Chinese leaders, such as Watchman Nee, were arrested. Many were killed and people thought that was the end of Christianity in China.
Until the Bamboo Curtain lifted just a little bit; and we found out that now the average Christian's name is not 'Smith' or 'Jones', or even 'Lieberwitz'; it is Ping. Nobody knows how many tens of millions of Christians there are in China, but they know that the churches grew under the Cultural Revolution.
John 20:19-31: "When, therefore, it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and when the doors were shut where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst. And He said to them, 'Peace be with you,' and when He had said this, He showed Himself, both His hands and His side; and the disciples therefore rejoiced that they saw the Lord.
And Jesus therefore said to them, 'Peace be with you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.' And when He had said this, He breathed on them and He said, 'Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them, and if you retain the sins of any, their sins have been retained.'
But Thomas, one of the Twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. And the other disciples were therefore saying to him, 'We have seen the Lord!', but he said to them, 'Unless I see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.'
And after eight days again, His disciples were inside, and Thomas with them. And Jesus came, the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst and said, 'Peace be with you.' Then He said to Thomas, 'Reach here your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand and put it into My side; and be not unbelieving, but believing.'
[The verse now that the Jehovah's Witnesses do not like --] Thomas answered and said to Him, 'My Lord and my God!'
And Jesus said to him, 'Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they that have not seen, and have believed.'
Many are the signs, therefore, that Jesus also performed in the presence of His disciples which are not written in this book; but these have been written that you might believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that, believing, you might have life in His name."
"Show me! Let me see! Show me!" Thomas was not there. Jesus' body and His resurrection teach about what our bodies will be like in the Resurrection. His resurrection is our resurrection. During the Millennial Reign of Jesus, there will be two kinds of people on the earth: there will be those who are resurrected, or were raptured, and reign with Christ; and then there will be those people who are born during the Millennium. The bodies of the ones who are born during the Millennium will be slightly different -- they'll be like the bodies of antediluvian man; the way people were before the Flood. Just as people lived to be hundreds of years old before the Flood, so they will during the Millennium. People born during the Millennial Reign of Jesus will actually live to be centuries old. When someone dies at the age of 120, Isaiah tells us, it will be like a pediatric fatality; it will be like crib death. People will actually live, as Methuselah did, to be hundreds of years old.
The others, however, will be like Jesus. His body was recognizable, but not at first. He was able to do things such as walk through walls, etc. One of the reasons we see Him eating with the disciples after He rose from the dead is that the Holy Spirit knew that later there would be heretics who would come, denying that the resurrection of Jesus was literal and physical. In the ancient church, they were called Docetists, but today they are the Jehovah's Witnesses. They deny that the resurrection actually happened. That is why, in the New Testament, whenever you see someone being raised from the dead you always see Jesus eating with them, or you see them being instructed to eat. When He raised the little girl from the dead, he instructed her parents to give her something to eat. When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, He eats with him immediately after that in John 12. Spiritual bodies do not need to eat; physical ones do. This testifies that the resurrection was literal.
But Thomas wasn't there; and he says, "Show me. You want me to believe in Jesus, show me. Let me see this body that was crucified, and is now alive." Thomas is what theologians would call a corporate solidarity. Corporate solidarity is the term for when one person represents a larger group of people; when one person is a sort of spiritual picture of a larger group of people. Thomas is a corporate solidarity, and he represents three different kinds of people:
The first group of people which Thomas, the Twin, called Didymus, represents is his fellow Jews. He says, "I will not believe that Jesus rose from the dead until I see the wounds in His hands." Look at the book of Zechariah chapter 12. In it we are told this: when Jesus comes back in the last days of the Great Tribulation, in verse 10 of chapter 12, "I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication. So they will look upon Me whom they have pierced, and mourn for Him as one mourns for an only son, and weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn." In the Great Tribulation at the end, the Jews will be gathered to Israel and to Jerusalem with the deception of the Antichrist, etc, and the nations will gather against Israel. Jesus comes back and saves them, they see the scars left by the nails in His hands, and then they believe.
If you know what's happening in the newspapers and on television concerning the quest for peace in Jerusalem, you have noticed that the issue is the final status of Jerusalem. That is what this chapter tells us would happen when Jesus comes back. "The burden of the word of the Lord concerning Jerusalem . . ." This chapter tells us in verse 2 that Jerusalem will be a heavy stone that causes reeling in all the people round about it, and all who lift it will hurt themselves grievously. The real issue in the Middle East will not be the final status of the Golan Heights or the West Bank or the Gaza Strip; it will be Jerusalem. Jerusalem is where Satan suffered his greatest defeat, and it is also where he will suffer his final defeat. There are tremendous spiritual forces at work in our world today, and the Middle East is increasingly going to be the center of it. Everything we see happening in Camp David and so on is becoming increasingly focused toward Zechariah 12. How will these events in the Middle East turn out? We know. We know what the State Department doesn't know, what the White House doesn't know, and what the United Nations doesn't know. We know that they shall look upon Him whom they have pierced, and the Jews will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only son.
That is the first corporate solidarity. Thomas is Twin, Didymus, with his fellow Jews. He mirrors them. "I won't believe until I see the One who is pierced."
The second corporate solidarity that Thomas is a picture of is the skepticism of all the apostles and disciples. He's the fall guy; he gets the rap. Even in English, we have the colloquialism, 'a doubting Thomas'. That, however, is not exactly fair or accurate, although the label is stuck. This is similar to how we always talk about Peter following at a distance, saying "Oh, how could Peter follow Jesus at a distance?" -- except that, apart from John, the other disciples weren't following at all. He doesn't get fair press, and neither does Thomas.
In Mark chapter 16, when we look at this synoptically, it says this (verse 11): "And when they heard that He was alive and had been seen by her, they refused to believe it." All the apostles were skeptical and doubting, but Thomas becomes the embodiment, the personification of their collective doubt.
Jesus revealed Himself to women first; you will always find this. But anything that God intends for good, the devil will twist to use for evil. Because of the fall of humanity, men have become insensitive and women have become hypersensitive. Women were always more sensitive than men, but because of the fall, the difference has sharply increased. Men are reliant on female sensitivity, and women are reliant on male protection. For instance, when a husband and wife get saved, most of the time it is the wife who gets saved first. When a husband is saved and his wife is not a believer, usually -- not always, but usually -- the wife will become a believer; water takes the shape of its container. However, when the boots are on the other feet and a woman has an unbelieving husband, it is much more difficult. Why is it easier for women to get saved? The reason is they are more sensitive and impressionable, traits that can be either assets or liabilities. It is easier for the Lord to reveal Himself to women, because of their sensitivity. So, too, when a husband and wife pray together in seeking direction from the Lord, usually the wife will hear from the Lord first. Men are reliant on female sensitivity, because since the fall, men have become insensitive.
On the other hand, anything that God intends for good, the devil will use for evil. Because women are more sensitive, they are also more vulnerable to spiritual seduction, to being misled in hearing the voice of a counterfeit spirit and thinking it to be the voice of the Holy Spirit or to being led by their feelings. Male authority in the Bible is not based on bigger muscles; it's based on protection. The serpent beguiled the woman; Satan beguiles and seduces, and women are more vulnerable to his seduction. Thus, just as men are reliant on female sensitivity, women are reliant on male protection. That is why the leadership in a church must be male, and why the husband and father must be the spiritual head of the family.
Jesus revealed Himself to women first; the others doubted. So Thomas represents the skepticism of the other apostles.
The third corporate solidarity that Thomas represents is the one we've all encountered: he personifies human skepticism. How many times have we witnessed to somebody -- a friend, a neighbor, a relative, somebody you met on the street, someone you gave a tract to -- and had them say basically the same thing Thomas said: "Show me. Where is He? I can't see Him. You tell me this Jesus was crucified to take away my sin, He rose from the dead, and is now alive. You say that this crucified body is alive; well, show me. Where is He? I can't see Him. Show me this body; then I'll believe. Why should I believe your Jesus instead of Mohammad, or Buddha, or Hare Krishna? Why should I believe your Book, the Bible, instead of the Bhagavad-Gita, or the Book of Mormon, or the Tibetan Book of the Dead, or the Koran? What makes your Book different? What makes your Jesus different? Why should I believe you? Show me! Let me see! Then I'll believe."
In trying to present the Gospel to modern society, even in the American Bible Belt, we're up against two things: Western rationalism, and Eastern irrationalism. Let's look first at Eastern irrationalism:
The churches in India are growing very quickly; I was in India recently. These Christians are impoverished, but their churches are growing.
Simply stated, Hinduism is not rational. When I was in India, I saw a heap of rubbish -- garbage -- with birds of prey pecking at the vermin crawling around in it. On top of it was a wooden frame -- not a bed, but a wooden frame with some rope on it -- and a baby boy, probably less than two years old, covered with lice and filth, probably HIV positive, lying on top of it and slowly dying of malnutrition. Right up the road, beautifully groomed cows are overfed. The life of a cow is valued more highly than the life of a baby. That is their religion. "That's OK; that's his karma, because of what he did in his last life." It is not rational, but it's their religion. It's not rational for a human being to drink cow urine, but they do it. It is not rational to take water from the Ganges River and, because you believe it to be sacred, give it to an infant who dies of cholera as a result. This is not rational; you cannot tell them that the water is rife with microorganisms and bacteria, because they believe it to be sacred. There is no reason in their religion.
It's no wonder people in India are turning from it towards Christ! As the New Testament says, our faith is rational and reasonable. It says in the book of Isaiah chapter 1 verse 18, "Come, let us reason together, says the Lord." I am not saying that our faith is intellectual; it is not intellectual, but it is intellectually defensible. There is an apologetic for it -- it is rational and plausible, and there is evidence for it. Hinduism is a blind faith. Yet what is very strange to me is that when I get on a plane from India and go home to England or come to the United States, I see people in the West turning from Christianity to gurus, to transcendental meditation, to New Age, to Eastern religion. Look at what those religions have done to India.
There is a church in the American South, which includes people of different racial backgrounds. The pastor has adopted children of other color. A few generations ago in the South, that would not have been socially acceptable. At least where you had a Judeo-Christian ethic, at least where you had a Biblical premise, people understood that bigotry was morally wrong and that social injustice shouldn't exist. In India, however, that's their religion. "That's his karma."
Social injustice is therefore socially acceptable; it is the natural order. There is no sense of it being wrong. At least in the South there was an awareness that it was wrong and needed to be corrected, because people are all made in God's image and likeness, and Jesus died for the sin of others just as much as for ours. Not in India. Yet you see people in the West embracing these Eastern religions. I got the book "Death of a Guru", about a guru who got saved, to George Harrison of the Beatles, who is a Hindu.
He builds temples for the Hare Krishna all over England, and he was so angered by the book that he threw it. I said, "Look, do you think that if you had been born in the slums of Calcutta instead of in the slums of Liverpool you would be living in that castle today? Look at what that religion has done to that country." A few weeks later, he was stabbed in the heart in that castle. Look at what it's done! Eastern irrationalism: it is not rational, but people believe it.
So this is what we're up against: Eastern irrationalism. The Western democracies, American society included, are post-Christian and neo-pagan. People are turning to New Age religion, even in the South. The stuff that began in California, in England and up north, is now in the South as well. I saw Vice-President Gore, who is from Arkansas, on television with Buddhist monks.
"Show me! Why should I believe your Jesus instead of Buddhism? Why should I believe your Bible instead of the Bhagavad-Gita, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, or the Koran? Why should I believe your Jesus instead of Mohammad, instead of Joseph Smith? (The Mormons have a different Jesus entirely, who is not the Jesus of the Bible.) Why should I believe your Jesus instead of the one spoken of by Joseph Smith, the Jesus who is a half-brother of the devil?"
Is the answer to this because Christians are more moral? Friends, there are Protestant denominations ordaining homosexuals; Mormons won't do that. Moslems won't do that. Is it because we have such a wonderful testimony for Jesus that they'll believe us? I wish that were true. When I turn on the idiot box, I see the so-called Christian television -- those con artists twisting the Gospel to con money out of people, perverting the Christian message. Their god is Mammon, not the true God. They are teaching the sin of covetousness and calling it 'faith'. They have faith in 'faith', not faith in Jesus. If I were not by the grace of God saved already and I turned on the television to see those con men, those heretics from hell, who are the false prophets whom Jesus warned would come in the last days -- if that's what I saw, I would not want to become a Christian. I would think that being born-again was a con job. Why should the world believe us? That is what they see.
"Why should I believe? What, these con men? No. Show me, then I'll believe. I've seen the TV." I've seen the so-called Christian President from Arkansas in a so-called evangelical church in Chicago -- and noticed that his position on homosexuality and abortion-on-demand never came up. If Isaiah or Jeremiah had interviewed a king, those are the very issues they would have aimed for.
"Show me! I've heard the talk, I've seen the TV, I've seen what your born-again is, and I don't want to hear any more. Now; show me. Show me why I should believe this instead of the Mormons." There is a reason Mormonism is growing; despite the fact that what they believe is crazy, there is a reason for their growth. I have seen how Islam has grown in England. It is already beginning to grow in America. It begins in the black community -- ironic, considering the fact that Islam is a religion which has never done anything but enslave black people -- and right as we speak, black Christians are being murdered in the Sudan and in Nigeria by Moslems.
"Show me."
In Israel we had our son's Bar Mitzvah in April, and while there we had a Jewish lady speak to us. She had been born in the Ukraine, in a Jewish community with 7,000 people. And of the 7,000, when the Nazis invaded, three survived. Herself, her baby brother, and one other escaped miraculously. The Nazis killed the rest of the Jews; all 7,000, including her parents, her brothers and her sisters. Not only did they kill them, however; they killed them in the name of Jesus Christ. My wife's parents are Holocaust survivors; Jews from Romania. If you were to ask my wife's mother what the Gospel of Jesus Christ is, she will tell you: The Gospel of Jesus Christ is Jewish children being put into an oven in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. It is difficult to explain to them the difference between a saved Christian and what they think of as Christian.
Yet this Jewish woman at my son's Bar Mitzvah became a believer in Jesus. How did she become a believer in Jesus when her whole family was murdered in His name? She told us the story: She met true Christians who were willing to risk their lives to save hers.
When I go to Hong Kong, I go and I pick up Bibles, and pack them very carefully. I don't get my laundry done for weeks -- socks, underwear, and sweaty T-shirts are the best -- and I wrap the Bibles in my laundry. If a Communist customs agent opens my suitcases, he will not want to search too diligently. (Before I was saved, I smuggled hashish.) When I go through to China with the Bibles, those people are hungry. They'll all take a Bible. They will listen to anything you have to say, if they know English. As a matter of fact, in some cases they'll risk their lives to take a Bible. They can be arrested for taking a Bible from a Westerner.
I know people who know a Chinese pastor who spent 34 years in prison under Mao. When the Communists took over China in the late 1940's, there were no more than one million born-again believers known of in China. Going back to the time of Hudson Taylor, who began the first modern missions to China, never more than a million Christians; that's not a lot, for a country with a population the size of China's even then. Of course when the Communists took over, they thought that was the end. All of the missionaries were deported back to America, Australia, and Britain, Bibles were outlawed, and all the indigenous Chinese leaders, such as Watchman Nee, were arrested. Many were killed and people thought that was the end of Christianity in China.
Until the Bamboo Curtain lifted just a little bit; and we found out that now the average Christian's name is not 'Smith' or 'Jones', or even 'Lieberwitz'; it is Ping. Nobody knows how many tens of millions of Christians there are in China, but they know that the churches grew under the Cultural Revolution.
The Final Question
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But I have one final question for my Roman Catholic friends. And I assure you I have many friends, I am not speaking antagonistically or with hostility to any Catholic people. I'm only asking you these questions which I"d like you to answer, I invite you to answer. Engage with me, there"s one more I"d like to ask you.
I am told that the doctrine of the mass says Jesus must die and again and again and again sacramentally. The same sacrifice that took place on Calvary happens in the mass: He dies sacramentally. He has to die again, again, and again. Remembering that the Lord"s Supper " communion, the Eucharist as Catholics would define it " comes from the Jewish Passover which is a memorial, you remember something already happened, the Roman Church rather says, "No, it continues to happen sacramentally."
I'm reading from the epistle to the Hebrews 7:27, Christ…
who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself.
Why is there daily mass when it says we don't need a daily Mass? The Old Testament sacrifices that took place daily with the priests in the temple were symbols of what the Messiah would do. Given the fact that He came and did it, we don't need it anymore according to the epistle to the Hebrews.
The epistle to the Hebrews 9:12…
and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He…
…that is, Christ…
…entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.
If it"s "eternal" it means it"s forever and ever without end, without beginning as such " it"s eternal. He did it once and for all for all eternity. Why is there a mass?
Chapter 10 of Hebrews, verse 12…
but He…
…that is, Christ…
… having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God,
One sacrifice for sins for all time. Verse 14…
For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.
If something is perfection, by definition it cannot be improved upon. How can you improve upon perfection?
Given the fact that Rome claims Peter was the first pope, can it be explained why, in his epistle in 1 Peter 3:18, St. Peter says Christ diedonce to bear the sins? Once " perfection " for all eternity! We don"t need a priest to do it again and again like in the Old Testament, the Priest has come. It"s a good question.
A famous priest who was a Catholic theologian, the author of eight books, on a video admitted he didn't have the answer. Understand something: What astounded me coming from a Catholic background on my mother"s side was that Jesus condemned the Pharisees for teaching as precepts of God the inventions of men. (Mt. 15:9; Mk. 7:7)
The last thing Jesus said in the Apocalypse is don"t add to the Bible. (Rev. 22:18-19) In his First epistle to the Corinthians 4:6 St. Paul said, "Learn not to exceed what is written". Moses says don"t add to it, (Dt. 4:2) Jesus said if you do you"ll be condemned to hell. Find me indulgences, purgatory, or the mass in the New Testament. Penance? Whose sins you shall forgive? That was talking about leading people to Christ. Show me one place in the book of Acts where the early Christians went to confession to a priest. Or a better question, show me a priest.
There is no such thing as a priest in the New Testament because we are all called priests by Peter. (1 Pe. 2:5; 2:9) St. Peter said we are all priests with Christ as the High Priest. There is no "priest", the word is "presbyter" where you get the word "Presbyterian". It meant the elders of a congregation. There was no priesthood other than the priesthood of all Christians. Jesus said call no man your father as a religious title. In Matthew 23, St. Matthew quotes Jesus As saying, "Call no man your father". (Mt. 23:9) Jesus forbade us to call the pope a "holy father" or to call the priest "our father". He forbade it as a religious title. "Call no man your father". There"s no priest, He said don"t even call somebody that, One is your Father who is in heaven.
With sincerity I've asked these questions. Who do I believe, Mary or the Vatican? Who do I believe, St. Paul or the Vatican? Who do I believe, St. Peter or the Vatican? Who do I believe, St. Matthew or the Vatican? Who do I believe, Jesus Christ or the Vatican? I had to make a decision, so do you. Whom will you believe?
When I accepted Jesus I came to realize two things. I came to realize that the Christianity I was brought up in by my mother was not the one of the New Testament. I also came to realize that the real Jesus was a Jewish Jesus, He was the Jewish Messiah. Having been educated in Catholic school but sent to the Jewish community center, I was astounded at the blindness of the Jew and the blindness of the Catholic. I once was blind, but by the grace of Jesus, now I see.
You repent of your sin, you put your faith in Him and accept that He died for you, ask Him to come into into your life, and follow Him on the basis of His Word, He will do for you what He's done for many Roman Catholics " He will save you. What Mary was promised you can have.
Please contact us. My name is James Jacob Prasch. Please This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. document.getElementById('cloakcc58a138417ea716128433220d289f48').innerHTML = ''; var prefix = 'ma' + 'il' + 'to'; var path = 'hr' + 'ef' + '='; var addycc58a138417ea716128433220d289f48 = 'MorielCarol' + '@'; addycc58a138417ea716128433220d289f48 = addycc58a138417ea716128433220d289f48 + 'yahoo' + '.' + 'com'; var addy_textcc58a138417ea716128433220d289f48 = 'e-mail me';document.getElementById('cloakcc58a138417ea716128433220d289f48').innerHTML += ''+addy_textcc58a138417ea716128433220d289f48+''; , e-mail us, with your questions. We have people who will be more than happy to talk to you. If you"re a priest or a nun we"d be happy to engage with you. Please contact us. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. document.getElementById('cloak05881ada1afe31d5554dbc2e829c4db4').innerHTML = ''; var prefix = 'ma' + 'il' + 'to'; var path = 'hr' + 'ef' + '='; var addy05881ada1afe31d5554dbc2e829c4db4 = 'MorielCarol' + '@'; addy05881ada1afe31d5554dbc2e829c4db4 = addy05881ada1afe31d5554dbc2e829c4db4 + 'yahoo' + '.' + 'com'; var addy_text05881ada1afe31d5554dbc2e829c4db4 = 'E-mail us';document.getElementById('cloak05881ada1afe31d5554dbc2e829c4db4').innerHTML += ''+addy_text05881ada1afe31d5554dbc2e829c4db4+''; or write us here in Britain:
Moriel P.O. Box 201 Maidenhead SL69FB
God bless you and thank you for listening.
I am told that the doctrine of the mass says Jesus must die and again and again and again sacramentally. The same sacrifice that took place on Calvary happens in the mass: He dies sacramentally. He has to die again, again, and again. Remembering that the Lord"s Supper " communion, the Eucharist as Catholics would define it " comes from the Jewish Passover which is a memorial, you remember something already happened, the Roman Church rather says, "No, it continues to happen sacramentally."
I'm reading from the epistle to the Hebrews 7:27, Christ…
who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself.
Why is there daily mass when it says we don't need a daily Mass? The Old Testament sacrifices that took place daily with the priests in the temple were symbols of what the Messiah would do. Given the fact that He came and did it, we don't need it anymore according to the epistle to the Hebrews.
The epistle to the Hebrews 9:12…
and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He…
…that is, Christ…
…entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.
If it"s "eternal" it means it"s forever and ever without end, without beginning as such " it"s eternal. He did it once and for all for all eternity. Why is there a mass?
Chapter 10 of Hebrews, verse 12…
but He…
…that is, Christ…
… having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God,
One sacrifice for sins for all time. Verse 14…
For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.
If something is perfection, by definition it cannot be improved upon. How can you improve upon perfection?
Given the fact that Rome claims Peter was the first pope, can it be explained why, in his epistle in 1 Peter 3:18, St. Peter says Christ diedonce to bear the sins? Once " perfection " for all eternity! We don"t need a priest to do it again and again like in the Old Testament, the Priest has come. It"s a good question.
A famous priest who was a Catholic theologian, the author of eight books, on a video admitted he didn't have the answer. Understand something: What astounded me coming from a Catholic background on my mother"s side was that Jesus condemned the Pharisees for teaching as precepts of God the inventions of men. (Mt. 15:9; Mk. 7:7)
The last thing Jesus said in the Apocalypse is don"t add to the Bible. (Rev. 22:18-19) In his First epistle to the Corinthians 4:6 St. Paul said, "Learn not to exceed what is written". Moses says don"t add to it, (Dt. 4:2) Jesus said if you do you"ll be condemned to hell. Find me indulgences, purgatory, or the mass in the New Testament. Penance? Whose sins you shall forgive? That was talking about leading people to Christ. Show me one place in the book of Acts where the early Christians went to confession to a priest. Or a better question, show me a priest.
There is no such thing as a priest in the New Testament because we are all called priests by Peter. (1 Pe. 2:5; 2:9) St. Peter said we are all priests with Christ as the High Priest. There is no "priest", the word is "presbyter" where you get the word "Presbyterian". It meant the elders of a congregation. There was no priesthood other than the priesthood of all Christians. Jesus said call no man your father as a religious title. In Matthew 23, St. Matthew quotes Jesus As saying, "Call no man your father". (Mt. 23:9) Jesus forbade us to call the pope a "holy father" or to call the priest "our father". He forbade it as a religious title. "Call no man your father". There"s no priest, He said don"t even call somebody that, One is your Father who is in heaven.
With sincerity I've asked these questions. Who do I believe, Mary or the Vatican? Who do I believe, St. Paul or the Vatican? Who do I believe, St. Peter or the Vatican? Who do I believe, St. Matthew or the Vatican? Who do I believe, Jesus Christ or the Vatican? I had to make a decision, so do you. Whom will you believe?
When I accepted Jesus I came to realize two things. I came to realize that the Christianity I was brought up in by my mother was not the one of the New Testament. I also came to realize that the real Jesus was a Jewish Jesus, He was the Jewish Messiah. Having been educated in Catholic school but sent to the Jewish community center, I was astounded at the blindness of the Jew and the blindness of the Catholic. I once was blind, but by the grace of Jesus, now I see.
You repent of your sin, you put your faith in Him and accept that He died for you, ask Him to come into into your life, and follow Him on the basis of His Word, He will do for you what He's done for many Roman Catholics " He will save you. What Mary was promised you can have.
Please contact us. My name is James Jacob Prasch. Please This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. document.getElementById('cloakcc58a138417ea716128433220d289f48').innerHTML = ''; var prefix = 'ma' + 'il' + 'to'; var path = 'hr' + 'ef' + '='; var addycc58a138417ea716128433220d289f48 = 'MorielCarol' + '@'; addycc58a138417ea716128433220d289f48 = addycc58a138417ea716128433220d289f48 + 'yahoo' + '.' + 'com'; var addy_textcc58a138417ea716128433220d289f48 = 'e-mail me';document.getElementById('cloakcc58a138417ea716128433220d289f48').innerHTML += ''+addy_textcc58a138417ea716128433220d289f48+''; , e-mail us, with your questions. We have people who will be more than happy to talk to you. If you"re a priest or a nun we"d be happy to engage with you. Please contact us. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. document.getElementById('cloak05881ada1afe31d5554dbc2e829c4db4').innerHTML = ''; var prefix = 'ma' + 'il' + 'to'; var path = 'hr' + 'ef' + '='; var addy05881ada1afe31d5554dbc2e829c4db4 = 'MorielCarol' + '@'; addy05881ada1afe31d5554dbc2e829c4db4 = addy05881ada1afe31d5554dbc2e829c4db4 + 'yahoo' + '.' + 'com'; var addy_text05881ada1afe31d5554dbc2e829c4db4 = 'E-mail us';document.getElementById('cloak05881ada1afe31d5554dbc2e829c4db4').innerHTML += ''+addy_text05881ada1afe31d5554dbc2e829c4db4+''; or write us here in Britain:
Moriel P.O. Box 201 Maidenhead SL69FB
God bless you and thank you for listening.
Simchat Torah
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Our subject today is an extended Bible study from John 8. We begin in chapter 7 to get the background and continue into chapter 8.
The gospel of St. John in Hebrew among the first Jewish Christians was called Ha Besora B al' pei Yonathan, the good news according to the mouth, literally, by the lips of John. John and Matthew, Matitiyahu (Matthew"s Hebrew name) are the two most Hebraic, the two most Judaic, the two most Jewish of the gospels. They are written largely for a Jewish readership. Luke has Judaic material that is not in Matthew or John only because the Jewish Christians would have understood things on which Gentiles had to be instructed. Luke is the most Gentile of the gospels, and Luke is concerned with teaching Jewish concepts to non-Jews. So, again, there is certain Jewish material, Judaic material, in Luke not found in Matthew or John, but Matthew and John are the most Jewish of the gospels.
We need to understand John"s theme. We are told at the end of the gospel that it was written so the Jews of the first century would believe. That doesn"t mean it is not for us today, but it does mean we have to understand what it meant for its own time. John"s theme is Jesus is God. It points to the deity of Christ more than any other of the gospels. It points to His deity as the incarnate logos, or what the Jews or the Greeks called logos, what the Hebrews called 'Dvar' or in Aramaic 'Mamra'. (We have other teachings on this.) Nonetheless, if a Jewish Christian at the end of the first century were reading John"s gospel, he would read it quite differently than most of us would. He would say it is the story, or the narrative, of the new creation. He would also say this story is a midrash on Braeshiek, on the book of Genesis. He would say that John 1, 2, and 3, particularly, and then continuing throughout the gospel, is a midrash on the story of creation. The new creation in John is a midrash on the creation in Genesis. Midrash is the way that Jews and rabbis, like Jesus and Paul, interpreted scripture in the first century. It is the midrash, an inquiring into.
In Proverbs 8, we have Jesus in the creation. Then we link Genesis and John with Proverbs 8. That is Jesus next to the Father. He preexisted from eternity. So this Jewish Christian reading John 1, 2, and 3 at the end of the first century would say, €œThis is a midrash on the creation. This entire story of the new creation is a literary parallelism that illuminates the creation story in Genesis." This first century Jew would say, €œGod walks the earth in the creation in Genesis. Now the Word becomes flesh?" God walks the earth in the new creation in John. He would say, €œGod comes to separate the light from the dark in the creation in Genesis." Now, God comes to separate the light from the dark, 'hoshek' in Hebrew, 'phos' in Greek, in John 1. He separates the light from the dark in the creation, and He separates the light from the dark in the new creation. The first century Jewish Christian would say, €œIn the creation in Genesis, you have the small light and the great light. Now in the new creation in John, you have _Yochanan Ha Matbil and Yeshua Hamashiach, John the Baptist, the small light, and Jesus, the great light." He would also say, €œThe Spirit moves on the water and gives forth the creation in Genesis, now born of water and the Spirit. The Spirit moves on the water and gives the new creation in John." He would say, €œOn the third day, God does a creative miracle with water in Genesis, and Jesus begins His public ministry with the miracle on the third day at the wedding of Cana as it says in John 2:1." God begins His first plan for man with a marital union with Adam and Eve. Of course, man falls and loses what God had for him. When Jesus comes to restore that, He begins His public ministry at a wedding.
More than that, in Judaism, the tree of life that we call Atz Hayim that we see in Ezekiel 47 and in Revelation and Genesis, is represented by a fig tree. The subject of the fig tree is a complicated subject, but the fig tree represents the tree of life. So, you have the tree of life in the garden, but in John 1:48, Nathanael asks Jesus, €œHow do you know me?" Jesus answered, €œBefore Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you." Jesus obviously saw him under a literal fig tree, but what Jesus was really saying to Nathanael, in midrash, in Jewish metaphor, was, €œI saw you in the garden, from the creation, from the foundation of the world." I"m not a Calvinist, but God does know us from eternity, and He does know who will be saved.
John is new creation that parallels the book of Genesis. This is a theme that runs throughout the entire gospel as well as pointing to Christ as God becoming man.
In John 7, we have the background of the Feast of Tabernacles which draws on the imagery of the millennium in Ezekiel 47. The meaning of the Hebrew Feast of Tabernacles is the millennial reign of Christ. That is why when Jesus comes back (Zechariah 12) and the Jews look upon Him Whom they pierced when He sets up His millennial kingdom, they begin celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles (Zechariah 14).
The Hebrews had three spring feasts which were Passover, First Fruits, and Pentecost, or Weeks. Jesus fulfills those in His first coming, but in His second coming, He fulfills the autumn feast, the final one, the Feast of Booths, Hag Sukkoth, which is what we see in John 7. In His first coming, He totally fulfills the spring feasts but only partially fulfills the autumn feasts. In His second coming, He will fulfill the autumn feast in its totality.
Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, [Yeshua is His name] Jesus stood and cried out, saying, €œIf any man is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scriptures said, "From his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.""
This again draws on the millennial imagery in Ezekiel 47.
The Latter Day Rain movement and the Manifest Sons of God heresy, of course, pervert this out of all context to arrive at a lot of silly nonsense. I once watched a video of a Pensacola meeting, and they were saying, €œThe river is going to come through the wall at exactly a quarter to 8. Don"t stand here. You all might get swept away." John Kilpatrick"s wife was there. The women of Pensacola (I call them the harlots of Babylon) are all standing there and waiting for the river to come through, and at a quarter to 8 precisely, they all swoon. Now I am a Pentecostal myself, but that is not Biblical Pentecostal. That is absurdity.
The meaning of Ezekiel is, of course, in the millennium. Jesus draws on this background when he says I will give you €œliving water. But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive, for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus [Yeshua] was not yet glorified." €œI will pour out My Spirit" as rain comes from Isaiah 44:3.
Living water, what we call in Hebrew Mayim Hayim, was formed by rain going into the water table. It is a figure of the Holy Ghost. Jesus says this to the woman at the well in John 4 that He will give her living water.
Another characteristic of John"s gospel is this. Jesus is speaking on a midrashic level. He is addressing things in one context, but the people are understanding Him only on a natural level. You must be very careful of this. There is something called Gnosticism when the Bible is spiritualized with mystical interpretations. Midrash never does that. Midrash, Jewish hermeneutics, Jewish interpretation, only uses symbolism to illuminate, to illustrate doctrine. We never base doctrine on it. When people base doctrine on symbols that is very, very dangerous! It is spiritual seduction. On the other hand, to ignore Midrash is also an error. So, living water is a figure of the Holy Spirit in Isaiah 44:3, John 4, and John 7.
Some of the multitude, therefore, when they heard these words were saying, €œThis certainly is the Prophet." Others were saying, €œThis is the Messiah." Others were saying, €œSurely the Messiah is not going to come from Galilee, is He? Has not the Scripture said that the Messiah comes from the offspring of David, and from Bethlehem, the village where David was?" (John 7:40-42)
They did not know where He was born. They only knew Him by His Galilean accent. There was a prejudice against Galileans; in fact, it was later written in Talmudic literature that a Galilean would not be allowed to read the Torah in a synagogue because he could not properly pronounce the difference between the Hebrew letters aleph and ayne. The rabbis did not like the Galilean accent.
So there arose a division in the multitude because of Him. And some of them wanted to seize Him, but no one laid hands on Him. The officers therefore came to the chief priests and Pharisees, they said to them, €œWhy did you not bring Him?" [But] the officers answered, €œNever did a man speak the way this man speaks." The Pharisees therefore answered them, €œYou have not been led astray, have you? [No one of the rulers or Pharisees has believed in Him.] But this multitude which does not know the Law is accursed. "Nicodemus said to them (he who came to Him before, being one of them), €œOur Law does not judge a man, unless it first hears from him and knows what he is doing, does it?" They answered and said to him, €œYou are not also from Galilee, are you? Search, and see that no prophet arises out of Galilee." And everyone went to his home. (John 7:43-53)
Understand the background. This was the last day of the feast that lasted a week. On the last day of the feast was an elaborate ritual called Simchat Beit Ha Shoyiva, a festival of joy, when the Levites would go to the pool of Shiloach, usually called Siloam in English, almost the same word as €œapostle." The Levites would take water in a procession up to the Temple Mount and pour the living water, Mayim Hayim, out on the pavement. It was in reference to this ritual that Jesus said, €œI will give you living water." He was saying that He was the Messianic fulfillment of what the feast meant. He would be the One to give the Holy Spirit just as He told the woman at the well. Nicodemus pops up here in this context. Again, Jesus was speaking on a spiritual level, but the people were thinking on a physical level. When Jesus said to Nicodemus, €œYou must be born again. Are you a ruler of the Jews? You don"t know this?" As a member of the Sanhedrin, Nicodemus knew midrash. He should have known what Jesus meant by new birth. The Jews had multiple concepts of new birth including having the bar mitzvah, becoming a rabbi, and getting married, but ultimately, it was this thing the Messiah would do.
Lazarus is asleep. Jesus was speaking of biological death. They thought He simply meant that Lazarus took a nap. He"s speaking spiritually. The people are thinking physically.
So it is with living water. Jesus is speaking spiritually. The people are thinking physically. This was what was happening in the gospels, and it was one of the reasons the Sanhedrin hated Him. Instead of being servants to the people, they used their supposed knowledge of scripture to make themselves overlords. They used their knowledge to create a political, and certainly financial, power base for themselves. €œThe people do not know the Torah. They are accursed. We know the Torah. Knowledge is power." This very much began to approximate the Gnosticism of the pagans who said, €œWe have the secret knowledge." Jesus did not like that. Ordinary people were called the Am Ha Aretz, the people of the land. This is found in Matthew, for instance. It says the Pharisees knew He spoke the parable about them, but He had to explain it privately to the disciples. The religious establishment knew what He was teaching, but they were going through the roof because He was taking these mysteries, what Solomon called €œthe words of the wise," and their riddles, and taking the interpretation of Proverbs and of what we call Hebrew, mashalim or mishla, parables and giving it to the ordinary people.
He was giving it to fishermen. He was giving it to farmers. He was giving it to tradesmen. He was giving it to slaves. This was the key to their power, and He was giving it to ordinary people whom the religious establishment thought were accursed. The establishment did not like Him. He is speaking spiritually. The people are thinking physically, but then He begins explaining what these spiritual things are. This He spoke of the Spirit.
John"s gospel is the most festal. It has the most to do with Jewish feasts. In John, we clearly see Jesus as the fulfillment of the feasts. He is the fulfillment of Hanukkah, the Jewish Feast of Dedication in John 10. He is the Messianic fulfillment of Passover; the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world. (If you went to Catholic school, you have my sympathy, but perhaps you remember your Latin, Agnus Dei Qui Tolles Pecatamundi.) Here, it is Jesus as the Messianic fulfillment of the Feast of Booths, the Feast of Tabernacles.
The Hebrews had three pilgrim feasts. They had Passover, and they had Pentecost - Hag Shavuot (or Weeks) in the spring, but at this time of year in the autumn, there was another one, the Feast of Booths. By Jesus" day, after the Maccabees, there was a fourth one. The pilgrim feasts were when Jews came from other places to Jerusalem to celebrate. That was Hanukkah. The time between the Feast of Booths and the Feast of Hanukkah could be less than two months, sometimes seven weeks. Considering they had to walk all the way down from Galilee and then back again, often they would do what Jesus did, just stay in Jerusalem with friends or relatives, celebrate both holidays at once, and then go home again. It was the holiday season. One holiday season in the spring ranged from Passover to Pentecost, and a second holiday season in the autumn ranged from Booths all the way to Hanukkah, and these were both harvest seasons. So, after people did the work, then they would have a kind of religious holiday, a kind of vacation in Jerusalem after reaping the fruits of the harvest.
So everyone is in Jerusalem, and they are contending with Jesus because He is teaching the people these things. Notice the attitude of the religious leaders. It is exactly what you see today. €œWho is this man who is teaching the people things we don"t want them to know? Who is this man who is publicly exposing our corruption and hypocrisy? Who is this man who is threatening our power base by teaching them the Word of God? These people are accursed! They don"t know the Torah. We know!" Well, in fact, they did not know. They did not know at all. No prophet comes from Galilee? What about Jonah? He was from Gath Hepher less than two miles from Nazareth. They did not know themselves. They should have known, but they did not. They were more concerned with church politics and preserving their own financial and positional interests. They say, €œThe people are accursed!" They set themselves up. Nicodemus is here. (The Greek prefix €œnico- €œ is also the one used for Nicolaitians which means €œsuppression of the people.")
Nicodemus was a good man in the Sanhedrin, but he tried to change the system from within and failed. Today, in so many of our denominations, some good people are trying to change the system from within but are failing. There are godly men in the church, but other men and denominations are ordaining homosexuals and opening heroin rooms. There are some godly pastors left within the Assemblies of God while the national executive leadership has taken the church from one heresy and deception after another. There are people, like Nicodemus, who are still part of the system trying to call the church back to repentance or to implement God's standard but are frustrated by the corruption of the system.
The state of Judaism, when Jesus came the first time, very closely mirrors the state of the church before His second coming and is one of the things that testify to the deplorable state of the church in the last days, particularly in the West. It is the same thing. €œWho do these people think they are?" They made themselves a clergy class. €œWho are you to question us?" It is the same attitude we see today. Many people over recent years have seen things which they knew were not of God, perhaps deceptions that were heretical or unethical, and they try to go to the pastors of the leadership, but these pastors have, basically, set themselves up as overlords, and instead of dealing with issues Biblically, they made everyone think that they [the pastors] understood the Bible. €œWho are you to question us?" How many people have encountered that attitude in the past five years? We get similar numbers of response in America, England, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa. That is exactly what Jesus was up against, and it is what we are up against today. They set themselves up over you, making believe they know things that they do not.
One person trumpeting pop psychology today is a psychologist in the Assemblies of God. I am not slinging mud. His name is Allen Davies, and he was teaching New Age visualization in his so-called Bible College. He did that. I am just reporting facts, not attacking. He makes himself out to be this Biblically knowledgeable man who is running a Bible college. He wrote an article in Evangel Magazine where he said the demoniac in Gerasenes, that the man"s name was €œlegion". The text, Mark 5:9, says the demon"s name was legion €œfor we are many." I do not expect everyone to be able to read Greek or Hebrew. It is a plus if you can, but I certainly expect a minister with a degree in psychology to be able to read English! Yet, these pastors and ministers set themselves up over the people, not knowing what they want you to think. €œWho are you to question us?" That is what they say. This is not Biblical! €œWho are you to question us?" And if there is someone like Nicodemus speaking up from within the system, they put their feet down. €œWe"ll take your credentials away!" And if you are someone outside the system, like Jesus, they will send a lynch mob after you if they can.
People ask why I am not comparing myself to Jesus, and people ask why I walk back and forth while I preach. It is more difficult to hit a moving target. That is the background. That is the introduction. Now we get into Simchat Torah, John 8, the Jewish background of John 8.
But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. And early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people were coming to Him; and He sat down and began to teach them. And the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery, and having set her in the midst, they said to Him, €œTeacher, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act. Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women; what then do You say?" And they were saying this, testing Him in order that they might have grounds for accusing Him. But Jesus stooped down, and with His finger wrote on the ground. (John 8:1-6)
In the Greek text, when Jesus uses His finger to write, this indicates that action is emphatic.
But when they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up, and said to them, €œHe who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." And again He stooped down, and wrote on the ground. And when they heard it, they began to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones, and He was left alone, and the woman, where she had been, in the midst. And straightening up, Jesus said to her, €œWoman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?" And she said, €œNo one, Lord." And Jesus said, €œNeither do I condemn you; go your way. From now on sin no more." And therefore Jesus spoke to them, saying, €œI am €¦." (John 8:7-12)
Notice that term, €œI am," and how many times it appears. The Greek word would be Ego Ami. (I only know how to read Greek. I do not know how to speak it. Jesus gets closer and closer. There is a progression here in the Greek text. Jesus gets clearer and clearer in the progression through the Greek text to identifying Himself as the I AM. God. He is the God of the book of Exodus. I AM who I AM identified Himself to Moses. He gets clearer and clearer, the way the text says I AM, until He finally identifies Himself as God. Here is the first I AM the light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness but shall have the light of life" (John 8:12).
The Pharisees therefore said to Him, €œYou are bearing witness of Yourself; Your witness is not true." Jesus answered and said to them, €œEven if I bear witness of Myself, My witness is true; for I know where I came from, and where I am going. You people judge according to the flesh; I am not judging anyone. But even if I do judge, My judgment is true, for I am not alone in it, but I and He Who sent Me." [He associates Himself with God.] Even in your law [meaning the Torah] it has been written, that the testimony of two men is true. (John 8:13-17)
I have to point out here that there must have been two witnesses against the woman in order for her to be stoned under the Torah, the Jewish Law. There had to be two witnesses who were not guilty of the same sin. Jesus is dealing in juridical terms here. There must be two witnesses to verify every fact that would bring any kind of indictment, according to the Torah, and Jesus is appealing again to the same juridical principles from the Torah. Jewish Law with rabbinic additions was later called halacha.
€œI and He Who sent Me" in verse 17 is the testimony of two which meant it was true, or correct. In verse 18, Jesus says, €œI am He Who bears witness of Myself, and the Father Who sent Me bears witness of Me." This points to a future event when two liars are brought against Jesus at His trial. This is the same idea and a continual theme throughout the text.
€œAnd so they were saying to Him, "Where is your Father?" Jesus answered, "You know neither Me, nor My Father; if you knew Me, you would know My Father also."" This relates back to John 5 where Jesus told the Hebrews, €œIf you believed Moses, you would believe Me also."
My family is Israeli, and I have been an evangelist to the Jews for over twenty years. I can tell you this. The problem of the Jewish people is not that they reject Christ. Their rejection of their Christ is not their problem. Their rejection of their Messiah is the result of their problem. Their problem is that they reject the Torah.
They do not believe in Moses. If they believed Moses, they would know Jesus is the Messiah. Their problem is that they reject Torah by substituting Torah with Talmud or reading Torah through the prism of Talmud as rabbinic commentary. This is much the same as Roman Catholicism corrupting the New Testament or liberal Protestantism or Greek Orthodox corrupting the New Testament, so the rabbis, after rejecting Jesus, corrupted the Torah. If they knew the Father, they would know the Son. If they believed Moses, they would believe Jesus was the Messiah. That is why I do not witness to Jewish people from the New Testament until I show them from the Old Testament. That is my approach.
Look at verse 18. €œI am He." This is a play on words from the Greek text again. €œThese words He spoke in the treasury" (verse 20). Jesus always hits people where it hurts, and the religious establishment was into what they are into today. You know what is going on? You know what is really in back of all this hype artistry and manipulation? Money. They copy these hype artists and religious con men from American and South African television, and they want to be like these Americans with the big cars and mansions, and of course, their ministries become their tickets to a form of success they could not have in the secular world.
With some sense of embarrassment, I admit to being a Pentecostal preacher. The old time Pentecostals did not have many Greek or Hebrew scholars, but they knew the Word of God. They knew their Bibles. They knew why they believed what they believed. They knew why they were pre-millennial. They could give a coherent argument why they believed the gifts of the Spirit still operated in the church, not based on experience but based on Scripture. They could argue. There were some Pentecostal scholars, academics, in America and Scotland, but they are largely gone. There are exceptions today, but most contemporary Pentecostal ministry has become a dumping ground for people who cannot do anything else. Again, there are exceptions but not many. These men in church leadership roles would not have these cars, this international travel, this income if they were not Pentecostal ministers. They would not be good enough to be dentists, plumbers, skilled tradesmen, or professionals, so they become Pentecostal preachers because there is no standard anymore. Unless they can rightly divide the Word of God according to Timothy and Titus, they have no Biblical right to be in the ministry, most of them. They stand up, take some verses out of context, give a lot of waffle and hype, and they do not even know what they are talking about. They are mindless babblers. It is a disgrace. The Pentecostal ministry has become a dumping ground for people who cannot do anything else. It becomes their ticket to some middle-class success because they could not make it in a secular profession or business. There are exceptions. Faithland is an exception. Oak Park is an exception. The Assemblies of God where I would speak are exceptions, but they are exceptions. The mainstream is not what it was twenty-five years ago when the Assemblies of God and other Pentecostal movements rejected what we see now. They would have nothing to do with William Branham or E. W. Kenyon or A. A. Allen. They rejected the Manifest Sons of God and the Latter Day Rain movements in the 1940s and 1950s. The very things their fathers rejected, they have now accepted. These Assemblies of God no longer exist in the sense of what they once were. It is just another movement with the same name. They are gone. This kind of decline is terrible, and it was that kind of decline that Jesus was up against in the Judaism of His day.
€œHe said therefore again to them, "I go away and you shall seek Me, and shall die in your sin; where I am going [a play on words again], you cannot come." [I AM]. Therefore the Jews were saying, "Surely He will not kill Himself, will He, since He says, "Where I am going, you cannot come"?"" (John 8:21-22)
Notice the repetition of I AM. In the Greek text, the progression is very clear. When it says €œthe Jews," it does not mean people who are Jewish. They were all Jewish, including Jesus. What it meant, and there is a translation problem from the Greek word iaodaoi, was the Judeans, the religious establishment in and around Jerusalem and those whom they influenced and controlled as opposed to the rank and file Jew. It refers to the religious aristocracy and those whom they directly controlled largely based in and around Jerusalem. They are all Jews. So, when the text says €œthey" wanted to stone Jesus, it meant the religious establishment and those they controlled around Jerusalem.
€œAnd He was saying to them, "You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world. I am [I AM] not of this world. I said therefore to you, that you shall die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am He [I AM He], you shall die in your sins"" (John 8:23-24).
This harkens directly back, and He would have been speaking Aramaic from the Targumim. It would have been exactly Exodus 3:14. Now, He is almost calling Himself God. He gets closer and closer with the I AM expressions.
And so they were saying to Him, €œWho are You?" Jesus said to them, €œWhat have I been saying to you from the beginning? I have many things to speak and to judge concerning you, but He Who sent Me is true; and the things which I heard from Him, these I speak to the world." They did not realize that He had been speaking to them about the Father. (John 8:25-27)
Again, he is speaking spiritually. They do not realize it. €œJesus therefore said, "When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me"" (John 8:28). Notice that He did nothing on His own initiative.
This ridiculous idea that we can go around laying hands on every sick person commanding them to be healed is absurd. Jesus only laid hands on people as His Father directed. If the Holy Spirit empowers you in a given situation and you say, €œThat cancer be gone," it will be gone. If the Holy Spirit empowers you to say, €œGet out of that deathbed," that person will get out of the deathbed. However, if you are going around yelling and commanding it, ranting and raving like an idiot, that is all you are behaving like, an idiot. In Corinthians, Paul uses the word €œidiot" (idiota) for those who are spiritually ignorant. You see people going around commanding poor people to be healed, and when they do not get healed, that puts them under condemnation. €œYou don"t have any faith." This is just idiocy. Can you imagine a precious, old saint of God, say a widow on a pension, at the end of her day; she is ill, sick, with nothing left except her faith in Jesus. They have taken all her money. All she has left is her faith in Jesus, and they even want that too because she is not being healed. At best, this is being done out of ignorance, but however you look at it, it is the worst form of psychological cruelty because they are perverting the Christian message to do it.
Jesus only did what He saw His Father doing. He never used His divine power even once. In Matthew 4, when Satan tempted Jesus, Satan was trying to get Jesus to act out of concert with His Father, to use His divine power apart from the Father"s leading. Jesus would not do it. He tried to get Jesus to act in the flesh. Jesus would not do it. The idea that you can go around demanding this and speaking that into being is Gnosticism. It is arrogance. It is motivational psychology. But it is not Christianity!
Jesus said He only did what He saw His Father doing. His only acts were the initiative of the Father. €œ €¦but I speak these things as the Father taught Me. And He Who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him" (John 8:28-29). He walked perfectly in the Spirit as our example. €œAs He spoke these things, many came to believe in Him" (30).
Those who are sincere of heart will always know spiritual authority as opposed to heavy shepherding and Nicolaitanism. They will know real anointing if they are right with God, and they will know the difference automatically. It will not even take much discernment. They will know automatically what is an anointing and what is hype artistry. They will know automatically what is spiritual authority and what is heavy shepherding. €œMany came to believe in Him" (30).
€œJesus therefore was saying to those Jews who had believed in Him, [Now, He is touching the religious establishment.] "If you abide in My Word, then you are truly disciples of mine; [This idea of €œword" goes back to John 1.] and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free""(31-32).
Elsewhere, Jesus is defined as the Truth. This is another problem today. During the laughing, drunken deception a few years ago, one of that group tried to tell Philip Powell that €œGod is bigger than His Word." Philip Powell, who used to be an Assemblies of God executive in this country, had too much integrity to keep his mouth shut when the heresy began taking over. Philip Powell showed this man in Isaiah where it says, €œGod magnifies His Word above His name," and said, €œWho is right? You or the Bible?" He had no response to Philip Powell. Philip was dead right because the Bible is right. €œYou shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." After people have been in psychological bondage to cult groups and then they learn the truth, they are free.
€œThey answered Him, "We are Abraham"s offspring, and have never yet been enslaved to anyone; how is it that You say, "You shall become free"?""(32). Jesus is speaking about slavery to sin. He is speaking spiritually. They are thinking physically, temporally.
€œTruly, truly, €¦." When you see the words, €œtruly, truly" in the gospels, or €œverily, verily," this tells you the original language was not Greek. It tells you the original language was Hebrew, or more likely, the Hebrew dialect, Aramaic. In Semitic languages, like Aramaic, Hebrew, Hamo Semitic, other Chaldean dialects such as Syriac or Acadian, to make something emphatic, or to make it superlative, say it twice. If you want to say, €œIt is very cold," you say, €œcold, cold," or €œvery warm" say, €œwarm, warm." When you say something twice or you see that emphatic repetition, that is driving the point, and it means the rest of the text, everything that follows, hinges on that verse.
€œTruly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin" (34). The Greek text here is present continuous. The Greek language has no present tense as English does. In Greek, John is not John the Baptist. First of all, he was a Pentecostal. In Greek, he is John the Baptizer.
In John 8:34 , it says, €œ €¦everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin." That does not mean that every time we sin, we are slaves to sin. It means we do not practice sin. €œHe who is born of God does not sin." It is present continuous active. Christians may fall into sin, but they do not practice it habitually.
And the slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever. If therefore the son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed. [Now He is getting close to calling Himself God's Son.] I know that you are Abraham"s offspring; [Here He is speaking anthropologically.] yet you seek to kill Me, because My Word has no place in you. I speak the things which I have seen with My Father; therefore you also do the things which you heard from your father. They answered and said to Him, €œAbraham is our father." Jesus said to them, €œIf you are Abraham"s children, do the deeds of Abraham. But as it is, you are seeking to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God; this Abraham did not do. You are doing the deeds of your father." They said to Him, €œWe were not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God." Jesus said to them, €œIf God were you Father, you would love Me; for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on My own initiative, but He sent Me. Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My Word. You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar, and the father of lies." (35-44)
When you see the money preachers lying, they are speaking from their own nature because they are of their father, the devil. People ask how can I speak so strongly about preachers. How could Jesus tell them they were of their father, the devil? I honestly believe that John Avanzini, Kenneth Copeland, and Benny Hinn are of their father, the devil. €œBut because I speak the truth, you do not believe Me" (45). If I were to stand up here and lie to you, put on a show, blow on you, put my coat on you, and con all your money out of you, I would be acceptable to the Sanhedrin. But if I tell you the truth, I stand here condemned.
He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God. The Jews, [that is, the Judeans] answered and said to Him, €œDo we not say rightly that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?" (47-48)
When you point out their heresy and their con artistry, these people say you are demonic. Many people did not go along with the Assemblies of God bringing in Benny Hinn or did not go along with the laughing and drunken thing, and they were told there was something demonic about them. How many of you were told something like that? They will always say something like that and those who speak against it are told they are demonic. We have a video of the lawyer of Pensacola, John Kilpatrick, the liar, lying about the vibrating girl. He lied saying that she was from a good Christian family, and he knew her parents when, in fact, she grew up in a broken home. He lied, and he was caught lying on video. He also predicted, gave this big prophecy, against Hank Hanegraaff who warned that Pensacola was not of God. Kilpatrick said God was going to bring down Hank Hanegraaff in three months. Hank Hanegraaff had a countdown on American radio, and at the end of three months, he pronounced John Kilpatrick a false prophet. While I don"t endorse Hank Hanegraaff now, he was right concerning this situation and at the end of the three months, John Kilpatrick, the leader of Pensacola, fell off a roof, smashed his pelvis, and was brought out in a wheelchair. The only one God brought down was John Kilpatrick, and now the women of Pensacola are coming to Kevin Conner"s place. What do you expect?
€œJesus answered, "I do not have a demon; but I honor My Father, and you dishonor Me. But I do not seek My glory; there is One Who seeks and judges. Truly, truly, [There it is again.] I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he shall never see death" (49-51).
Again, this is present continuous active. This does not mean you will not die. It means death will not be a permanent, ongoing state because of the resurrection.
The Jews [the Judeans] said to Him, €œNow we know that you have a demon. Abraham died, and the prophets also; and You say, "If anyone keeps My word, he shall never taste of death." Surely You are not greater than our father Abraham, who died? The prophets died too; whom do You make Yourself out to be?" Jesus answered, €œIf I glorify Myself, My glory is nothing; it is My Father who glorifies Me, of whom you say, "He is our God"; and you have not come to know Him, but I know Him; and if I say that I do not know Him, I shall be a liar like you €¦." (52-55)
Notice how He talked to these people in front of the congregation where the biggest religious leaders of the day were liars and deceivers. That is what Jesus did. Now I am not like Jesus, but I am supposed to try to be like Him. I want to be like Him in righteousness and in love, but I also want to be like Him in truth.
€¦but I do know Him and keep His word. Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad. The Jews therefore said to Him, €œYou are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?" Jesus said,. [There it is again. It is emphatic in the Greek, in its meaning in the original spoken Aramaic, or in Hebrew, Ani Hu Ani. This is it! This is it!] I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am." Therefore they picked up stones to throw at Him; but Jesus hid Himself, and went out of the temple. (55-59)
This happens in the holiday season between Feast of Tabernacles and Hanukkah. Hanukkah is the Jewish Feast of Miracles and Lights. Right after Tabernacles, the morrow day when this takes place is known as Simchat Torah, the Joy of the Torah, which is the climax of the Feast of Tabernacles. To this day, Orthodox Jews take the Torah scrolls, and they dance with the scrolls, and people throw rice at them like at a wedding because the Jew is married to the Torah. It is usually the members of the Jewish community who have contributed the most to the Jewish causes of the synagogue who are invited to dance with the scrolls. They are called the calim, the bridegrooms. It is the only time during the year that the little boys who have not yet been bar mitzvahed are allowed to pray the blessing in the synagogue. This is Simchat Torah. The Jews read the Law and the prophets the Torah and Ha Torah, annually, an election, an annual liturgical cycle together with the prayer book called the Siddur. The annual cycle begins on Simchat Torah. This very day goes back to Genesis 1:1.
When Jesus gives a new law, it is the idea of a new beginning, a harkening back to the beginning, the creation and the new creation. The theme of new beginning becomes paramount.
Simchat Torah is the Jewish Feast of Light. Two giant menorahs, lamps, with seven candlesticks (like we see in Revelation 1) would be topped up with oil. At Hanukkah, it had nine branches, but the normal one in the temple had seven. They were about three and a half stories high, pure beaten gold, but hollow inside. It was at this time of year that the Sanhedrin would top up the tanks in the lamps with olive oil that came from the Mount of Olives. This was the time of year the lamps were filled, and the wicks were trimmed.
It was against this background that Jesus says, €œI will give living water." In verse 1, He comes down from the Mount of Olives and says, €œI am the light of the world." He took what was being done in the temple and applied it to Himself. These lamps are symbols of the Word of God. Jesus says, €œYou do not believe My Words?" What are these words? €œThy Word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path" (Psalm 119:105). The wise virgins will have oil in their lamps. Faithful Christians will understand the Scriptures when Jesus comes back in the darkness at the end. Jesus is taking the background of Simchat Torah to explore and explain everything that is happening here. To understand what this is and how it works, we have to read about Simchat Torah in Leviticus 23.
This is the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles.
You shall live in booths for seven days; all the native-born in Israel shall live in booths, so that your generations may know that I had the sons of Israel live in booths when I brought them out from the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God. [There it is again.] So Moses declared to the sons of Israel the appointed times of the LORD. (Leviticus 23:42-44)
Notice the parallel between Leviticus and John. John 8 is Leviticus 24 fulfilled in Jesus. We have the end of the Feast of Booths at the end of Leviticus 23, and the beginning of Simchat Torah in chapter 24. The New Testament parallel of Leviticus 23 and 24 is the end of the Feast of Booths in John 7 and then Simchat Torah in John 8 when they go back to Genesis.
€œThen the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, €œCommand the sons of Israel that they bring you clear oil from beaten olives for the light, to make a lamp burn continually" (Leviticus 24:1). The Levites are bringing the olive oil from the Mount of Olives to the temple to trim up the lamps. In John 8:1, Jesus, the light of the world, comes down from the Mount of Olives. He is the light of the world. He is going to explain the Scriptures. The Levites were very sure about the lamp and how to fill it up physically. Jesus was speaking about what it meant spiritually. Outside the veil of testimony in the tent of meeting, Aaron shall keep it in order from evening to morning before the Lord continually; it shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations. He shall keep the lamps in order on the pure gold lamp stand before the LORD continually. (3-4)
In the ancient near East, in order to maximize the amount of sun, or light, inside a room, you have a convex, concave architectural design. The windows were wide outside with decreasing angulation, a funnel effect, coming to the inside, so the sun made spotlights to light a room. The temple was the opposite, like a reverse triangle, so the light of the Torah would shine out over Jerusalem. The lamps represented the Word of God, so they had to burn day and night, so light would always be coming out of the temple. His Word is the lamp, always shining out over His people and over His city.
Then you shall take fine flour and bake twelve cakes with it; two-tenths of an ephah shall be in each cake. And you shall set them in two rows, six to a row, on the pure gold table before the LORD. And you shall put pure frankincense on each row, that it may be a memorial portion for the bread, even an offering by fire to the LORD. (5-7)
There are twelve cakes, one for each of the tribes. The grain comes first. Only after you had the grain did you have the incense. We are told in Revelation that frankincense represents the prayers of the saints. It is our prayer and worship. Notice, the grain must come first. There must be oil in the lamp. The illumination of the Holy Spirit through the Scriptures and the grain must be there. Then and only then can there be worship! There is no doxology without theology. In other words, if the doctrine is not right, there is no acceptable worship. The Father wants to be worshipped in Spirit and in truth. If you do not have the truth, the Spirit is wrong. This takes place at the Jewish Feast of the Bible, the Feast of Booths, followed by the Simchat Torah.
In Nehemiah 8:1, at the Feast of Tabernacles, living water flows. Ezra the scribe stands. The book is opened, and in verse 8, the men with Ezra and the Levites translate the Law for the people. After their capture by Babylon, most of the Jews did not know Hebrew anymore. They knew Aramaic. So, they were given the original meaning of the words of the original language. The priority of the original languages is Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic. This is more important than any translation. God gave His Word through these languages, and the priority of the original languages comes first when scripture is expounded.
Some of the King James only fanatics actually are lifting up a seventeenth century edition of a translation over the original text. Some people in this country are influenced by this identity movement and neo-Nazis like Wendy Howard and Wendy Booster on the Gold Coast. They are into this idea that lifts up translations over the original texts. In Nehemiah 8, they expound the original meaning of the original language.
Notice, in verse 3, it was an all-day Bible study from early morning to midday. The people studied for hours, and then, and only then, did the people stand up with their hands raised and say, €œAmen. Amen." They bowed down and worshipped. First, the living water flows, and the Word of God is preached and expounded. Then, when people understand what God wants them to understand, they worship Him in Spirit and in truth. This is one of the reasons that after thirty years the Charismatic movement has totally failed to bring revival. It is the New Age movement that has changed society, not the Charismatic movement
The New Age movement and the Charismatic movement began at the same time in the late 1960s when the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi came to England to the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Hollywood film stars. This was the same time the Charismatic movement got going. Both movements declared they were going to spiritually transform Western society. After thirty years, which one has done it? Has the Charismatic movement made it more Christian, or has the New Age movement made it more New Age? The New Age movement has. The Charismatic movement has failed shamefully and indefensibly. It has not changed society. It has not changed the church, and one of the reasons it has failed so totally and miserably is that it is experiential theology. It is not Bible based. In a real move of God, the Jews expounded the Scriptures. Then they worshipped. The Charismatic movement said, €œWho needs this? We will just worship."
So you have an Alpha course book? Put a match to it. Jesus never said to make converts. He said to make disciples. Alpha is not Biblical. Alpha, among other things, is nemocentric. It is based on the Holy Spirit. Our faith is based on Christ. It is Christocentric. In John 14 and 16, the Spirit of God points people to Christ, never to Himself. He lifts up Jesus. All this, €œGood morning, Holy Spirit; come Holy Spirit. We worship you," is not Biblical. We worship the Holy Spirit? How? In the context of the Trinity of God, yes, but not one place, not one time is He ever prayed to alone outside of the Trinity. That tells you that is not His Spirit. Old time Pentecostals" emphasis on the Holy Spirit was to point people to Christ. Old time Pentecostals used to sing, €œGive me oil in my lamp. Keep it burning." They loved the Bible. Some people say, €œWe do not need the Bible. We just need experience." That is New Age. That is not Christianity. Today, most of the Pentecostal movement is theologically or philosophically New Age. It is not Christian, and I am a Pentecostal.
After more than thirty years, the Pentecostal movement has failed, and it has failed because there is no worship. What we see today is the worship of worship, the worship of experience. The purpose of Alpha, according to Nicky Gumbel, is the Holy Spirit weekend away to get people the Toronto blessing. None of it is Biblical. Again, Jesus never said to make converts. They say, €œOh, so many people are being saved." Saved into what? The Pharisees made converts, and they became twice as much the sons of hell as they used to be. In England, where Alpha comes from, a poll was taken of over two hundred people who took Alpha. Only four of them could explain the gospel, and it is likely they were saved before they took the Alpha course. If you took Alpha, put a match to it. (We have tapes and a book dealing with Alpha.)
I am only using this to illustrate a point. There is no doxology without theology. There is no right worship and praise without right doctrine. The Charismatic movement is a lot of garbage, but not Charisma, not the gifts, but the movement has failed and failed miserably. People have been saved, but saved into what? A zoo?
In the Bible, first they top up the lamps with the oil. The grain was there, and only after the grain was there was there incense. This is what Jesus was explaining. In Leviticus 24:10, something happens. There is a radical shift in the literary genre. It goes from ritual prescription to a narrative, a story, of a blasphemer with a false father. What happens in John 8? Jesus speaks of blasphemers with a false father. This very text, Leviticus 24, is what the Jews would have read concerning that feast day, but they did not understand what they were reading.
Now the son of an Israelite woman, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the sons of Israel; and the Israelite woman"s son and a man of Israel struggled with each other in the camp. And the son of the Israelite woman blasphemed the Name [YHWH, I AM] and cursed. So they brought him to Moses. (Now his mother"s name was Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan.) And they put him in custody so that the command of the LORD might be made clear to them. Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, €œBring the one who cursed outside the camp, and let all who heard him lay their hands on his head; then let all the congregation stone him. And you shall speak to the sons of Israel, saying, "If anyone curses his God, then he shall bear his sin."" (10-18)
Look at John 8 now in light of what is happening in Simchat Torah. There are similar elements. In Leviticus 23 and in John 8, there are the lamp and olive oil, shemen zayit, and Jesus comes to the Mount of Olives where they get the olive oil. There is a story of a stoning. There was somebody who was anthropologically a Jew but paternally had the wrong father. Jesus says in John 8, €œI know you are Abraham"s children, but he is not your father." Simchat Torah in Leviticus 24 and John 8 are the same day of the Hebrew calendar. (You will not get this from commentaries which are written by people who think Christianity is a Greek, or Hellenistic, religion.)
Look at John 8 in light of the Simchat Torah. The very day they bring the olive oil from the Mount of Olives to put in the lamp, Jesus comes down from the Mount of Olives and says He is the light. A woman is caught in adultery. Generally, the Jews stoned people to death for most crimes. Sometimes certain people were burned or slain with the sword, but the normal capital execution was stoning. Why? What does Paul tell us in 1 Corinthians 3? The Law of Moses was the Law of death engraved on stones. It is a midrashic illustration. The Law shows us we are condemned. Stoning shows we are condemned by the Law. The whole purpose of the Law is to show us that we are fallen. We are condemned, we need a Savior, and we cannot keep the Torah. Through the example of the Jews, we cannot keep God's Law. The Jews exemplify the human dilemma. God has a standard we cannot keep, and it shows we need someone who can fulfill it and keep it for us. We need a Savior. The Jews are an illustration of this €œstoned people," but now with a new beginning, grace will triumph over mercy. In the Greek text, Jesus writing with His finger is emphatic. €œThou shalt not commit adultery" is one of the decalogues, the Ten Commandments.
All Torah is based on the Old Testament. The New Testament is based on the Old Testament. The New Testament is simply the Messianic fulfillment of the Law and the prophets. There is nothing in the New Testament not found in the Old except for the New Covenant, but the doctrine and teaching are there. Again, the New Testament is the Messianic fulfillment of the Law and the prophets. The Law and the prophets, however, are based on the Ten Commandments, the Decalogue. All other Scripture was given by God through human agency written by people inspired by God, except for the Ten Commandments. God wrote those with His own finger. That is scripture that was not the inspired of God because it was simply The Word of God ; God inspired no else to write it. So, by Jesus writing with His finger, He is showing Himself as the I AM. €œI gave the Torah." This is the Simchat Torah, the joy of the Torah? Jesus is showing them what the joy of the Torah is. The Law says we are condemned, but the real joy of the Torah is that He Who gave the Torah is here to save us.
This is similar to the Blue Laws we have in the United States. A Blue Law is not normally enforced. The Jews would not normally stone a woman for adultery. Islam will still do it with Sharia law, but the men usually get away with it, especially if they are connected with the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia, but they will stone women. By the second temple period, the Jews did not normally stone adulterous women, but the law was still o
The gospel of St. John in Hebrew among the first Jewish Christians was called Ha Besora B al' pei Yonathan, the good news according to the mouth, literally, by the lips of John. John and Matthew, Matitiyahu (Matthew"s Hebrew name) are the two most Hebraic, the two most Judaic, the two most Jewish of the gospels. They are written largely for a Jewish readership. Luke has Judaic material that is not in Matthew or John only because the Jewish Christians would have understood things on which Gentiles had to be instructed. Luke is the most Gentile of the gospels, and Luke is concerned with teaching Jewish concepts to non-Jews. So, again, there is certain Jewish material, Judaic material, in Luke not found in Matthew or John, but Matthew and John are the most Jewish of the gospels.
We need to understand John"s theme. We are told at the end of the gospel that it was written so the Jews of the first century would believe. That doesn"t mean it is not for us today, but it does mean we have to understand what it meant for its own time. John"s theme is Jesus is God. It points to the deity of Christ more than any other of the gospels. It points to His deity as the incarnate logos, or what the Jews or the Greeks called logos, what the Hebrews called 'Dvar' or in Aramaic 'Mamra'. (We have other teachings on this.) Nonetheless, if a Jewish Christian at the end of the first century were reading John"s gospel, he would read it quite differently than most of us would. He would say it is the story, or the narrative, of the new creation. He would also say this story is a midrash on Braeshiek, on the book of Genesis. He would say that John 1, 2, and 3, particularly, and then continuing throughout the gospel, is a midrash on the story of creation. The new creation in John is a midrash on the creation in Genesis. Midrash is the way that Jews and rabbis, like Jesus and Paul, interpreted scripture in the first century. It is the midrash, an inquiring into.
In Proverbs 8, we have Jesus in the creation. Then we link Genesis and John with Proverbs 8. That is Jesus next to the Father. He preexisted from eternity. So this Jewish Christian reading John 1, 2, and 3 at the end of the first century would say, €œThis is a midrash on the creation. This entire story of the new creation is a literary parallelism that illuminates the creation story in Genesis." This first century Jew would say, €œGod walks the earth in the creation in Genesis. Now the Word becomes flesh?" God walks the earth in the new creation in John. He would say, €œGod comes to separate the light from the dark in the creation in Genesis." Now, God comes to separate the light from the dark, 'hoshek' in Hebrew, 'phos' in Greek, in John 1. He separates the light from the dark in the creation, and He separates the light from the dark in the new creation. The first century Jewish Christian would say, €œIn the creation in Genesis, you have the small light and the great light. Now in the new creation in John, you have _Yochanan Ha Matbil and Yeshua Hamashiach, John the Baptist, the small light, and Jesus, the great light." He would also say, €œThe Spirit moves on the water and gives forth the creation in Genesis, now born of water and the Spirit. The Spirit moves on the water and gives the new creation in John." He would say, €œOn the third day, God does a creative miracle with water in Genesis, and Jesus begins His public ministry with the miracle on the third day at the wedding of Cana as it says in John 2:1." God begins His first plan for man with a marital union with Adam and Eve. Of course, man falls and loses what God had for him. When Jesus comes to restore that, He begins His public ministry at a wedding.
More than that, in Judaism, the tree of life that we call Atz Hayim that we see in Ezekiel 47 and in Revelation and Genesis, is represented by a fig tree. The subject of the fig tree is a complicated subject, but the fig tree represents the tree of life. So, you have the tree of life in the garden, but in John 1:48, Nathanael asks Jesus, €œHow do you know me?" Jesus answered, €œBefore Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you." Jesus obviously saw him under a literal fig tree, but what Jesus was really saying to Nathanael, in midrash, in Jewish metaphor, was, €œI saw you in the garden, from the creation, from the foundation of the world." I"m not a Calvinist, but God does know us from eternity, and He does know who will be saved.
John is new creation that parallels the book of Genesis. This is a theme that runs throughout the entire gospel as well as pointing to Christ as God becoming man.
In John 7, we have the background of the Feast of Tabernacles which draws on the imagery of the millennium in Ezekiel 47. The meaning of the Hebrew Feast of Tabernacles is the millennial reign of Christ. That is why when Jesus comes back (Zechariah 12) and the Jews look upon Him Whom they pierced when He sets up His millennial kingdom, they begin celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles (Zechariah 14).
The Hebrews had three spring feasts which were Passover, First Fruits, and Pentecost, or Weeks. Jesus fulfills those in His first coming, but in His second coming, He fulfills the autumn feast, the final one, the Feast of Booths, Hag Sukkoth, which is what we see in John 7. In His first coming, He totally fulfills the spring feasts but only partially fulfills the autumn feasts. In His second coming, He will fulfill the autumn feast in its totality.
Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, [Yeshua is His name] Jesus stood and cried out, saying, €œIf any man is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scriptures said, "From his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.""
This again draws on the millennial imagery in Ezekiel 47.
The Latter Day Rain movement and the Manifest Sons of God heresy, of course, pervert this out of all context to arrive at a lot of silly nonsense. I once watched a video of a Pensacola meeting, and they were saying, €œThe river is going to come through the wall at exactly a quarter to 8. Don"t stand here. You all might get swept away." John Kilpatrick"s wife was there. The women of Pensacola (I call them the harlots of Babylon) are all standing there and waiting for the river to come through, and at a quarter to 8 precisely, they all swoon. Now I am a Pentecostal myself, but that is not Biblical Pentecostal. That is absurdity.
The meaning of Ezekiel is, of course, in the millennium. Jesus draws on this background when he says I will give you €œliving water. But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive, for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus [Yeshua] was not yet glorified." €œI will pour out My Spirit" as rain comes from Isaiah 44:3.
Living water, what we call in Hebrew Mayim Hayim, was formed by rain going into the water table. It is a figure of the Holy Ghost. Jesus says this to the woman at the well in John 4 that He will give her living water.
Another characteristic of John"s gospel is this. Jesus is speaking on a midrashic level. He is addressing things in one context, but the people are understanding Him only on a natural level. You must be very careful of this. There is something called Gnosticism when the Bible is spiritualized with mystical interpretations. Midrash never does that. Midrash, Jewish hermeneutics, Jewish interpretation, only uses symbolism to illuminate, to illustrate doctrine. We never base doctrine on it. When people base doctrine on symbols that is very, very dangerous! It is spiritual seduction. On the other hand, to ignore Midrash is also an error. So, living water is a figure of the Holy Spirit in Isaiah 44:3, John 4, and John 7.
Some of the multitude, therefore, when they heard these words were saying, €œThis certainly is the Prophet." Others were saying, €œThis is the Messiah." Others were saying, €œSurely the Messiah is not going to come from Galilee, is He? Has not the Scripture said that the Messiah comes from the offspring of David, and from Bethlehem, the village where David was?" (John 7:40-42)
They did not know where He was born. They only knew Him by His Galilean accent. There was a prejudice against Galileans; in fact, it was later written in Talmudic literature that a Galilean would not be allowed to read the Torah in a synagogue because he could not properly pronounce the difference between the Hebrew letters aleph and ayne. The rabbis did not like the Galilean accent.
So there arose a division in the multitude because of Him. And some of them wanted to seize Him, but no one laid hands on Him. The officers therefore came to the chief priests and Pharisees, they said to them, €œWhy did you not bring Him?" [But] the officers answered, €œNever did a man speak the way this man speaks." The Pharisees therefore answered them, €œYou have not been led astray, have you? [No one of the rulers or Pharisees has believed in Him.] But this multitude which does not know the Law is accursed. "Nicodemus said to them (he who came to Him before, being one of them), €œOur Law does not judge a man, unless it first hears from him and knows what he is doing, does it?" They answered and said to him, €œYou are not also from Galilee, are you? Search, and see that no prophet arises out of Galilee." And everyone went to his home. (John 7:43-53)
Understand the background. This was the last day of the feast that lasted a week. On the last day of the feast was an elaborate ritual called Simchat Beit Ha Shoyiva, a festival of joy, when the Levites would go to the pool of Shiloach, usually called Siloam in English, almost the same word as €œapostle." The Levites would take water in a procession up to the Temple Mount and pour the living water, Mayim Hayim, out on the pavement. It was in reference to this ritual that Jesus said, €œI will give you living water." He was saying that He was the Messianic fulfillment of what the feast meant. He would be the One to give the Holy Spirit just as He told the woman at the well. Nicodemus pops up here in this context. Again, Jesus was speaking on a spiritual level, but the people were thinking on a physical level. When Jesus said to Nicodemus, €œYou must be born again. Are you a ruler of the Jews? You don"t know this?" As a member of the Sanhedrin, Nicodemus knew midrash. He should have known what Jesus meant by new birth. The Jews had multiple concepts of new birth including having the bar mitzvah, becoming a rabbi, and getting married, but ultimately, it was this thing the Messiah would do.
Lazarus is asleep. Jesus was speaking of biological death. They thought He simply meant that Lazarus took a nap. He"s speaking spiritually. The people are thinking physically.
So it is with living water. Jesus is speaking spiritually. The people are thinking physically. This was what was happening in the gospels, and it was one of the reasons the Sanhedrin hated Him. Instead of being servants to the people, they used their supposed knowledge of scripture to make themselves overlords. They used their knowledge to create a political, and certainly financial, power base for themselves. €œThe people do not know the Torah. They are accursed. We know the Torah. Knowledge is power." This very much began to approximate the Gnosticism of the pagans who said, €œWe have the secret knowledge." Jesus did not like that. Ordinary people were called the Am Ha Aretz, the people of the land. This is found in Matthew, for instance. It says the Pharisees knew He spoke the parable about them, but He had to explain it privately to the disciples. The religious establishment knew what He was teaching, but they were going through the roof because He was taking these mysteries, what Solomon called €œthe words of the wise," and their riddles, and taking the interpretation of Proverbs and of what we call Hebrew, mashalim or mishla, parables and giving it to the ordinary people.
He was giving it to fishermen. He was giving it to farmers. He was giving it to tradesmen. He was giving it to slaves. This was the key to their power, and He was giving it to ordinary people whom the religious establishment thought were accursed. The establishment did not like Him. He is speaking spiritually. The people are thinking physically, but then He begins explaining what these spiritual things are. This He spoke of the Spirit.
John"s gospel is the most festal. It has the most to do with Jewish feasts. In John, we clearly see Jesus as the fulfillment of the feasts. He is the fulfillment of Hanukkah, the Jewish Feast of Dedication in John 10. He is the Messianic fulfillment of Passover; the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world. (If you went to Catholic school, you have my sympathy, but perhaps you remember your Latin, Agnus Dei Qui Tolles Pecatamundi.) Here, it is Jesus as the Messianic fulfillment of the Feast of Booths, the Feast of Tabernacles.
The Hebrews had three pilgrim feasts. They had Passover, and they had Pentecost - Hag Shavuot (or Weeks) in the spring, but at this time of year in the autumn, there was another one, the Feast of Booths. By Jesus" day, after the Maccabees, there was a fourth one. The pilgrim feasts were when Jews came from other places to Jerusalem to celebrate. That was Hanukkah. The time between the Feast of Booths and the Feast of Hanukkah could be less than two months, sometimes seven weeks. Considering they had to walk all the way down from Galilee and then back again, often they would do what Jesus did, just stay in Jerusalem with friends or relatives, celebrate both holidays at once, and then go home again. It was the holiday season. One holiday season in the spring ranged from Passover to Pentecost, and a second holiday season in the autumn ranged from Booths all the way to Hanukkah, and these were both harvest seasons. So, after people did the work, then they would have a kind of religious holiday, a kind of vacation in Jerusalem after reaping the fruits of the harvest.
So everyone is in Jerusalem, and they are contending with Jesus because He is teaching the people these things. Notice the attitude of the religious leaders. It is exactly what you see today. €œWho is this man who is teaching the people things we don"t want them to know? Who is this man who is publicly exposing our corruption and hypocrisy? Who is this man who is threatening our power base by teaching them the Word of God? These people are accursed! They don"t know the Torah. We know!" Well, in fact, they did not know. They did not know at all. No prophet comes from Galilee? What about Jonah? He was from Gath Hepher less than two miles from Nazareth. They did not know themselves. They should have known, but they did not. They were more concerned with church politics and preserving their own financial and positional interests. They say, €œThe people are accursed!" They set themselves up. Nicodemus is here. (The Greek prefix €œnico- €œ is also the one used for Nicolaitians which means €œsuppression of the people.")
Nicodemus was a good man in the Sanhedrin, but he tried to change the system from within and failed. Today, in so many of our denominations, some good people are trying to change the system from within but are failing. There are godly men in the church, but other men and denominations are ordaining homosexuals and opening heroin rooms. There are some godly pastors left within the Assemblies of God while the national executive leadership has taken the church from one heresy and deception after another. There are people, like Nicodemus, who are still part of the system trying to call the church back to repentance or to implement God's standard but are frustrated by the corruption of the system.
The state of Judaism, when Jesus came the first time, very closely mirrors the state of the church before His second coming and is one of the things that testify to the deplorable state of the church in the last days, particularly in the West. It is the same thing. €œWho do these people think they are?" They made themselves a clergy class. €œWho are you to question us?" It is the same attitude we see today. Many people over recent years have seen things which they knew were not of God, perhaps deceptions that were heretical or unethical, and they try to go to the pastors of the leadership, but these pastors have, basically, set themselves up as overlords, and instead of dealing with issues Biblically, they made everyone think that they [the pastors] understood the Bible. €œWho are you to question us?" How many people have encountered that attitude in the past five years? We get similar numbers of response in America, England, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa. That is exactly what Jesus was up against, and it is what we are up against today. They set themselves up over you, making believe they know things that they do not.
One person trumpeting pop psychology today is a psychologist in the Assemblies of God. I am not slinging mud. His name is Allen Davies, and he was teaching New Age visualization in his so-called Bible College. He did that. I am just reporting facts, not attacking. He makes himself out to be this Biblically knowledgeable man who is running a Bible college. He wrote an article in Evangel Magazine where he said the demoniac in Gerasenes, that the man"s name was €œlegion". The text, Mark 5:9, says the demon"s name was legion €œfor we are many." I do not expect everyone to be able to read Greek or Hebrew. It is a plus if you can, but I certainly expect a minister with a degree in psychology to be able to read English! Yet, these pastors and ministers set themselves up over the people, not knowing what they want you to think. €œWho are you to question us?" That is what they say. This is not Biblical! €œWho are you to question us?" And if there is someone like Nicodemus speaking up from within the system, they put their feet down. €œWe"ll take your credentials away!" And if you are someone outside the system, like Jesus, they will send a lynch mob after you if they can.
People ask why I am not comparing myself to Jesus, and people ask why I walk back and forth while I preach. It is more difficult to hit a moving target. That is the background. That is the introduction. Now we get into Simchat Torah, John 8, the Jewish background of John 8.
But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. And early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people were coming to Him; and He sat down and began to teach them. And the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery, and having set her in the midst, they said to Him, €œTeacher, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act. Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women; what then do You say?" And they were saying this, testing Him in order that they might have grounds for accusing Him. But Jesus stooped down, and with His finger wrote on the ground. (John 8:1-6)
In the Greek text, when Jesus uses His finger to write, this indicates that action is emphatic.
But when they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up, and said to them, €œHe who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." And again He stooped down, and wrote on the ground. And when they heard it, they began to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones, and He was left alone, and the woman, where she had been, in the midst. And straightening up, Jesus said to her, €œWoman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?" And she said, €œNo one, Lord." And Jesus said, €œNeither do I condemn you; go your way. From now on sin no more." And therefore Jesus spoke to them, saying, €œI am €¦." (John 8:7-12)
Notice that term, €œI am," and how many times it appears. The Greek word would be Ego Ami. (I only know how to read Greek. I do not know how to speak it. Jesus gets closer and closer. There is a progression here in the Greek text. Jesus gets clearer and clearer in the progression through the Greek text to identifying Himself as the I AM. God. He is the God of the book of Exodus. I AM who I AM identified Himself to Moses. He gets clearer and clearer, the way the text says I AM, until He finally identifies Himself as God. Here is the first I AM the light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness but shall have the light of life" (John 8:12).
The Pharisees therefore said to Him, €œYou are bearing witness of Yourself; Your witness is not true." Jesus answered and said to them, €œEven if I bear witness of Myself, My witness is true; for I know where I came from, and where I am going. You people judge according to the flesh; I am not judging anyone. But even if I do judge, My judgment is true, for I am not alone in it, but I and He Who sent Me." [He associates Himself with God.] Even in your law [meaning the Torah] it has been written, that the testimony of two men is true. (John 8:13-17)
I have to point out here that there must have been two witnesses against the woman in order for her to be stoned under the Torah, the Jewish Law. There had to be two witnesses who were not guilty of the same sin. Jesus is dealing in juridical terms here. There must be two witnesses to verify every fact that would bring any kind of indictment, according to the Torah, and Jesus is appealing again to the same juridical principles from the Torah. Jewish Law with rabbinic additions was later called halacha.
€œI and He Who sent Me" in verse 17 is the testimony of two which meant it was true, or correct. In verse 18, Jesus says, €œI am He Who bears witness of Myself, and the Father Who sent Me bears witness of Me." This points to a future event when two liars are brought against Jesus at His trial. This is the same idea and a continual theme throughout the text.
€œAnd so they were saying to Him, "Where is your Father?" Jesus answered, "You know neither Me, nor My Father; if you knew Me, you would know My Father also."" This relates back to John 5 where Jesus told the Hebrews, €œIf you believed Moses, you would believe Me also."
My family is Israeli, and I have been an evangelist to the Jews for over twenty years. I can tell you this. The problem of the Jewish people is not that they reject Christ. Their rejection of their Christ is not their problem. Their rejection of their Messiah is the result of their problem. Their problem is that they reject the Torah.
They do not believe in Moses. If they believed Moses, they would know Jesus is the Messiah. Their problem is that they reject Torah by substituting Torah with Talmud or reading Torah through the prism of Talmud as rabbinic commentary. This is much the same as Roman Catholicism corrupting the New Testament or liberal Protestantism or Greek Orthodox corrupting the New Testament, so the rabbis, after rejecting Jesus, corrupted the Torah. If they knew the Father, they would know the Son. If they believed Moses, they would believe Jesus was the Messiah. That is why I do not witness to Jewish people from the New Testament until I show them from the Old Testament. That is my approach.
Look at verse 18. €œI am He." This is a play on words from the Greek text again. €œThese words He spoke in the treasury" (verse 20). Jesus always hits people where it hurts, and the religious establishment was into what they are into today. You know what is going on? You know what is really in back of all this hype artistry and manipulation? Money. They copy these hype artists and religious con men from American and South African television, and they want to be like these Americans with the big cars and mansions, and of course, their ministries become their tickets to a form of success they could not have in the secular world.
With some sense of embarrassment, I admit to being a Pentecostal preacher. The old time Pentecostals did not have many Greek or Hebrew scholars, but they knew the Word of God. They knew their Bibles. They knew why they believed what they believed. They knew why they were pre-millennial. They could give a coherent argument why they believed the gifts of the Spirit still operated in the church, not based on experience but based on Scripture. They could argue. There were some Pentecostal scholars, academics, in America and Scotland, but they are largely gone. There are exceptions today, but most contemporary Pentecostal ministry has become a dumping ground for people who cannot do anything else. Again, there are exceptions but not many. These men in church leadership roles would not have these cars, this international travel, this income if they were not Pentecostal ministers. They would not be good enough to be dentists, plumbers, skilled tradesmen, or professionals, so they become Pentecostal preachers because there is no standard anymore. Unless they can rightly divide the Word of God according to Timothy and Titus, they have no Biblical right to be in the ministry, most of them. They stand up, take some verses out of context, give a lot of waffle and hype, and they do not even know what they are talking about. They are mindless babblers. It is a disgrace. The Pentecostal ministry has become a dumping ground for people who cannot do anything else. It becomes their ticket to some middle-class success because they could not make it in a secular profession or business. There are exceptions. Faithland is an exception. Oak Park is an exception. The Assemblies of God where I would speak are exceptions, but they are exceptions. The mainstream is not what it was twenty-five years ago when the Assemblies of God and other Pentecostal movements rejected what we see now. They would have nothing to do with William Branham or E. W. Kenyon or A. A. Allen. They rejected the Manifest Sons of God and the Latter Day Rain movements in the 1940s and 1950s. The very things their fathers rejected, they have now accepted. These Assemblies of God no longer exist in the sense of what they once were. It is just another movement with the same name. They are gone. This kind of decline is terrible, and it was that kind of decline that Jesus was up against in the Judaism of His day.
€œHe said therefore again to them, "I go away and you shall seek Me, and shall die in your sin; where I am going [a play on words again], you cannot come." [I AM]. Therefore the Jews were saying, "Surely He will not kill Himself, will He, since He says, "Where I am going, you cannot come"?"" (John 8:21-22)
Notice the repetition of I AM. In the Greek text, the progression is very clear. When it says €œthe Jews," it does not mean people who are Jewish. They were all Jewish, including Jesus. What it meant, and there is a translation problem from the Greek word iaodaoi, was the Judeans, the religious establishment in and around Jerusalem and those whom they influenced and controlled as opposed to the rank and file Jew. It refers to the religious aristocracy and those whom they directly controlled largely based in and around Jerusalem. They are all Jews. So, when the text says €œthey" wanted to stone Jesus, it meant the religious establishment and those they controlled around Jerusalem.
€œAnd He was saying to them, "You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world. I am [I AM] not of this world. I said therefore to you, that you shall die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am He [I AM He], you shall die in your sins"" (John 8:23-24).
This harkens directly back, and He would have been speaking Aramaic from the Targumim. It would have been exactly Exodus 3:14. Now, He is almost calling Himself God. He gets closer and closer with the I AM expressions.
And so they were saying to Him, €œWho are You?" Jesus said to them, €œWhat have I been saying to you from the beginning? I have many things to speak and to judge concerning you, but He Who sent Me is true; and the things which I heard from Him, these I speak to the world." They did not realize that He had been speaking to them about the Father. (John 8:25-27)
Again, he is speaking spiritually. They do not realize it. €œJesus therefore said, "When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me"" (John 8:28). Notice that He did nothing on His own initiative.
This ridiculous idea that we can go around laying hands on every sick person commanding them to be healed is absurd. Jesus only laid hands on people as His Father directed. If the Holy Spirit empowers you in a given situation and you say, €œThat cancer be gone," it will be gone. If the Holy Spirit empowers you to say, €œGet out of that deathbed," that person will get out of the deathbed. However, if you are going around yelling and commanding it, ranting and raving like an idiot, that is all you are behaving like, an idiot. In Corinthians, Paul uses the word €œidiot" (idiota) for those who are spiritually ignorant. You see people going around commanding poor people to be healed, and when they do not get healed, that puts them under condemnation. €œYou don"t have any faith." This is just idiocy. Can you imagine a precious, old saint of God, say a widow on a pension, at the end of her day; she is ill, sick, with nothing left except her faith in Jesus. They have taken all her money. All she has left is her faith in Jesus, and they even want that too because she is not being healed. At best, this is being done out of ignorance, but however you look at it, it is the worst form of psychological cruelty because they are perverting the Christian message to do it.
Jesus only did what He saw His Father doing. He never used His divine power even once. In Matthew 4, when Satan tempted Jesus, Satan was trying to get Jesus to act out of concert with His Father, to use His divine power apart from the Father"s leading. Jesus would not do it. He tried to get Jesus to act in the flesh. Jesus would not do it. The idea that you can go around demanding this and speaking that into being is Gnosticism. It is arrogance. It is motivational psychology. But it is not Christianity!
Jesus said He only did what He saw His Father doing. His only acts were the initiative of the Father. €œ €¦but I speak these things as the Father taught Me. And He Who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him" (John 8:28-29). He walked perfectly in the Spirit as our example. €œAs He spoke these things, many came to believe in Him" (30).
Those who are sincere of heart will always know spiritual authority as opposed to heavy shepherding and Nicolaitanism. They will know real anointing if they are right with God, and they will know the difference automatically. It will not even take much discernment. They will know automatically what is an anointing and what is hype artistry. They will know automatically what is spiritual authority and what is heavy shepherding. €œMany came to believe in Him" (30).
€œJesus therefore was saying to those Jews who had believed in Him, [Now, He is touching the religious establishment.] "If you abide in My Word, then you are truly disciples of mine; [This idea of €œword" goes back to John 1.] and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free""(31-32).
Elsewhere, Jesus is defined as the Truth. This is another problem today. During the laughing, drunken deception a few years ago, one of that group tried to tell Philip Powell that €œGod is bigger than His Word." Philip Powell, who used to be an Assemblies of God executive in this country, had too much integrity to keep his mouth shut when the heresy began taking over. Philip Powell showed this man in Isaiah where it says, €œGod magnifies His Word above His name," and said, €œWho is right? You or the Bible?" He had no response to Philip Powell. Philip was dead right because the Bible is right. €œYou shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." After people have been in psychological bondage to cult groups and then they learn the truth, they are free.
€œThey answered Him, "We are Abraham"s offspring, and have never yet been enslaved to anyone; how is it that You say, "You shall become free"?""(32). Jesus is speaking about slavery to sin. He is speaking spiritually. They are thinking physically, temporally.
€œTruly, truly, €¦." When you see the words, €œtruly, truly" in the gospels, or €œverily, verily," this tells you the original language was not Greek. It tells you the original language was Hebrew, or more likely, the Hebrew dialect, Aramaic. In Semitic languages, like Aramaic, Hebrew, Hamo Semitic, other Chaldean dialects such as Syriac or Acadian, to make something emphatic, or to make it superlative, say it twice. If you want to say, €œIt is very cold," you say, €œcold, cold," or €œvery warm" say, €œwarm, warm." When you say something twice or you see that emphatic repetition, that is driving the point, and it means the rest of the text, everything that follows, hinges on that verse.
€œTruly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin" (34). The Greek text here is present continuous. The Greek language has no present tense as English does. In Greek, John is not John the Baptist. First of all, he was a Pentecostal. In Greek, he is John the Baptizer.
In John 8:34 , it says, €œ €¦everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin." That does not mean that every time we sin, we are slaves to sin. It means we do not practice sin. €œHe who is born of God does not sin." It is present continuous active. Christians may fall into sin, but they do not practice it habitually.
And the slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever. If therefore the son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed. [Now He is getting close to calling Himself God's Son.] I know that you are Abraham"s offspring; [Here He is speaking anthropologically.] yet you seek to kill Me, because My Word has no place in you. I speak the things which I have seen with My Father; therefore you also do the things which you heard from your father. They answered and said to Him, €œAbraham is our father." Jesus said to them, €œIf you are Abraham"s children, do the deeds of Abraham. But as it is, you are seeking to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God; this Abraham did not do. You are doing the deeds of your father." They said to Him, €œWe were not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God." Jesus said to them, €œIf God were you Father, you would love Me; for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on My own initiative, but He sent Me. Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My Word. You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar, and the father of lies." (35-44)
When you see the money preachers lying, they are speaking from their own nature because they are of their father, the devil. People ask how can I speak so strongly about preachers. How could Jesus tell them they were of their father, the devil? I honestly believe that John Avanzini, Kenneth Copeland, and Benny Hinn are of their father, the devil. €œBut because I speak the truth, you do not believe Me" (45). If I were to stand up here and lie to you, put on a show, blow on you, put my coat on you, and con all your money out of you, I would be acceptable to the Sanhedrin. But if I tell you the truth, I stand here condemned.
He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God. The Jews, [that is, the Judeans] answered and said to Him, €œDo we not say rightly that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?" (47-48)
When you point out their heresy and their con artistry, these people say you are demonic. Many people did not go along with the Assemblies of God bringing in Benny Hinn or did not go along with the laughing and drunken thing, and they were told there was something demonic about them. How many of you were told something like that? They will always say something like that and those who speak against it are told they are demonic. We have a video of the lawyer of Pensacola, John Kilpatrick, the liar, lying about the vibrating girl. He lied saying that she was from a good Christian family, and he knew her parents when, in fact, she grew up in a broken home. He lied, and he was caught lying on video. He also predicted, gave this big prophecy, against Hank Hanegraaff who warned that Pensacola was not of God. Kilpatrick said God was going to bring down Hank Hanegraaff in three months. Hank Hanegraaff had a countdown on American radio, and at the end of three months, he pronounced John Kilpatrick a false prophet. While I don"t endorse Hank Hanegraaff now, he was right concerning this situation and at the end of the three months, John Kilpatrick, the leader of Pensacola, fell off a roof, smashed his pelvis, and was brought out in a wheelchair. The only one God brought down was John Kilpatrick, and now the women of Pensacola are coming to Kevin Conner"s place. What do you expect?
€œJesus answered, "I do not have a demon; but I honor My Father, and you dishonor Me. But I do not seek My glory; there is One Who seeks and judges. Truly, truly, [There it is again.] I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he shall never see death" (49-51).
Again, this is present continuous active. This does not mean you will not die. It means death will not be a permanent, ongoing state because of the resurrection.
The Jews [the Judeans] said to Him, €œNow we know that you have a demon. Abraham died, and the prophets also; and You say, "If anyone keeps My word, he shall never taste of death." Surely You are not greater than our father Abraham, who died? The prophets died too; whom do You make Yourself out to be?" Jesus answered, €œIf I glorify Myself, My glory is nothing; it is My Father who glorifies Me, of whom you say, "He is our God"; and you have not come to know Him, but I know Him; and if I say that I do not know Him, I shall be a liar like you €¦." (52-55)
Notice how He talked to these people in front of the congregation where the biggest religious leaders of the day were liars and deceivers. That is what Jesus did. Now I am not like Jesus, but I am supposed to try to be like Him. I want to be like Him in righteousness and in love, but I also want to be like Him in truth.
€¦but I do know Him and keep His word. Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad. The Jews therefore said to Him, €œYou are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?" Jesus said,. [There it is again. It is emphatic in the Greek, in its meaning in the original spoken Aramaic, or in Hebrew, Ani Hu Ani. This is it! This is it!] I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am." Therefore they picked up stones to throw at Him; but Jesus hid Himself, and went out of the temple. (55-59)
This happens in the holiday season between Feast of Tabernacles and Hanukkah. Hanukkah is the Jewish Feast of Miracles and Lights. Right after Tabernacles, the morrow day when this takes place is known as Simchat Torah, the Joy of the Torah, which is the climax of the Feast of Tabernacles. To this day, Orthodox Jews take the Torah scrolls, and they dance with the scrolls, and people throw rice at them like at a wedding because the Jew is married to the Torah. It is usually the members of the Jewish community who have contributed the most to the Jewish causes of the synagogue who are invited to dance with the scrolls. They are called the calim, the bridegrooms. It is the only time during the year that the little boys who have not yet been bar mitzvahed are allowed to pray the blessing in the synagogue. This is Simchat Torah. The Jews read the Law and the prophets the Torah and Ha Torah, annually, an election, an annual liturgical cycle together with the prayer book called the Siddur. The annual cycle begins on Simchat Torah. This very day goes back to Genesis 1:1.
When Jesus gives a new law, it is the idea of a new beginning, a harkening back to the beginning, the creation and the new creation. The theme of new beginning becomes paramount.
Simchat Torah is the Jewish Feast of Light. Two giant menorahs, lamps, with seven candlesticks (like we see in Revelation 1) would be topped up with oil. At Hanukkah, it had nine branches, but the normal one in the temple had seven. They were about three and a half stories high, pure beaten gold, but hollow inside. It was at this time of year that the Sanhedrin would top up the tanks in the lamps with olive oil that came from the Mount of Olives. This was the time of year the lamps were filled, and the wicks were trimmed.
It was against this background that Jesus says, €œI will give living water." In verse 1, He comes down from the Mount of Olives and says, €œI am the light of the world." He took what was being done in the temple and applied it to Himself. These lamps are symbols of the Word of God. Jesus says, €œYou do not believe My Words?" What are these words? €œThy Word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path" (Psalm 119:105). The wise virgins will have oil in their lamps. Faithful Christians will understand the Scriptures when Jesus comes back in the darkness at the end. Jesus is taking the background of Simchat Torah to explore and explain everything that is happening here. To understand what this is and how it works, we have to read about Simchat Torah in Leviticus 23.
This is the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles.
You shall live in booths for seven days; all the native-born in Israel shall live in booths, so that your generations may know that I had the sons of Israel live in booths when I brought them out from the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God. [There it is again.] So Moses declared to the sons of Israel the appointed times of the LORD. (Leviticus 23:42-44)
Notice the parallel between Leviticus and John. John 8 is Leviticus 24 fulfilled in Jesus. We have the end of the Feast of Booths at the end of Leviticus 23, and the beginning of Simchat Torah in chapter 24. The New Testament parallel of Leviticus 23 and 24 is the end of the Feast of Booths in John 7 and then Simchat Torah in John 8 when they go back to Genesis.
€œThen the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, €œCommand the sons of Israel that they bring you clear oil from beaten olives for the light, to make a lamp burn continually" (Leviticus 24:1). The Levites are bringing the olive oil from the Mount of Olives to the temple to trim up the lamps. In John 8:1, Jesus, the light of the world, comes down from the Mount of Olives. He is the light of the world. He is going to explain the Scriptures. The Levites were very sure about the lamp and how to fill it up physically. Jesus was speaking about what it meant spiritually. Outside the veil of testimony in the tent of meeting, Aaron shall keep it in order from evening to morning before the Lord continually; it shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations. He shall keep the lamps in order on the pure gold lamp stand before the LORD continually. (3-4)
In the ancient near East, in order to maximize the amount of sun, or light, inside a room, you have a convex, concave architectural design. The windows were wide outside with decreasing angulation, a funnel effect, coming to the inside, so the sun made spotlights to light a room. The temple was the opposite, like a reverse triangle, so the light of the Torah would shine out over Jerusalem. The lamps represented the Word of God, so they had to burn day and night, so light would always be coming out of the temple. His Word is the lamp, always shining out over His people and over His city.
Then you shall take fine flour and bake twelve cakes with it; two-tenths of an ephah shall be in each cake. And you shall set them in two rows, six to a row, on the pure gold table before the LORD. And you shall put pure frankincense on each row, that it may be a memorial portion for the bread, even an offering by fire to the LORD. (5-7)
There are twelve cakes, one for each of the tribes. The grain comes first. Only after you had the grain did you have the incense. We are told in Revelation that frankincense represents the prayers of the saints. It is our prayer and worship. Notice, the grain must come first. There must be oil in the lamp. The illumination of the Holy Spirit through the Scriptures and the grain must be there. Then and only then can there be worship! There is no doxology without theology. In other words, if the doctrine is not right, there is no acceptable worship. The Father wants to be worshipped in Spirit and in truth. If you do not have the truth, the Spirit is wrong. This takes place at the Jewish Feast of the Bible, the Feast of Booths, followed by the Simchat Torah.
In Nehemiah 8:1, at the Feast of Tabernacles, living water flows. Ezra the scribe stands. The book is opened, and in verse 8, the men with Ezra and the Levites translate the Law for the people. After their capture by Babylon, most of the Jews did not know Hebrew anymore. They knew Aramaic. So, they were given the original meaning of the words of the original language. The priority of the original languages is Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic. This is more important than any translation. God gave His Word through these languages, and the priority of the original languages comes first when scripture is expounded.
Some of the King James only fanatics actually are lifting up a seventeenth century edition of a translation over the original text. Some people in this country are influenced by this identity movement and neo-Nazis like Wendy Howard and Wendy Booster on the Gold Coast. They are into this idea that lifts up translations over the original texts. In Nehemiah 8, they expound the original meaning of the original language.
Notice, in verse 3, it was an all-day Bible study from early morning to midday. The people studied for hours, and then, and only then, did the people stand up with their hands raised and say, €œAmen. Amen." They bowed down and worshipped. First, the living water flows, and the Word of God is preached and expounded. Then, when people understand what God wants them to understand, they worship Him in Spirit and in truth. This is one of the reasons that after thirty years the Charismatic movement has totally failed to bring revival. It is the New Age movement that has changed society, not the Charismatic movement
The New Age movement and the Charismatic movement began at the same time in the late 1960s when the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi came to England to the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Hollywood film stars. This was the same time the Charismatic movement got going. Both movements declared they were going to spiritually transform Western society. After thirty years, which one has done it? Has the Charismatic movement made it more Christian, or has the New Age movement made it more New Age? The New Age movement has. The Charismatic movement has failed shamefully and indefensibly. It has not changed society. It has not changed the church, and one of the reasons it has failed so totally and miserably is that it is experiential theology. It is not Bible based. In a real move of God, the Jews expounded the Scriptures. Then they worshipped. The Charismatic movement said, €œWho needs this? We will just worship."
So you have an Alpha course book? Put a match to it. Jesus never said to make converts. He said to make disciples. Alpha is not Biblical. Alpha, among other things, is nemocentric. It is based on the Holy Spirit. Our faith is based on Christ. It is Christocentric. In John 14 and 16, the Spirit of God points people to Christ, never to Himself. He lifts up Jesus. All this, €œGood morning, Holy Spirit; come Holy Spirit. We worship you," is not Biblical. We worship the Holy Spirit? How? In the context of the Trinity of God, yes, but not one place, not one time is He ever prayed to alone outside of the Trinity. That tells you that is not His Spirit. Old time Pentecostals" emphasis on the Holy Spirit was to point people to Christ. Old time Pentecostals used to sing, €œGive me oil in my lamp. Keep it burning." They loved the Bible. Some people say, €œWe do not need the Bible. We just need experience." That is New Age. That is not Christianity. Today, most of the Pentecostal movement is theologically or philosophically New Age. It is not Christian, and I am a Pentecostal.
After more than thirty years, the Pentecostal movement has failed, and it has failed because there is no worship. What we see today is the worship of worship, the worship of experience. The purpose of Alpha, according to Nicky Gumbel, is the Holy Spirit weekend away to get people the Toronto blessing. None of it is Biblical. Again, Jesus never said to make converts. They say, €œOh, so many people are being saved." Saved into what? The Pharisees made converts, and they became twice as much the sons of hell as they used to be. In England, where Alpha comes from, a poll was taken of over two hundred people who took Alpha. Only four of them could explain the gospel, and it is likely they were saved before they took the Alpha course. If you took Alpha, put a match to it. (We have tapes and a book dealing with Alpha.)
I am only using this to illustrate a point. There is no doxology without theology. There is no right worship and praise without right doctrine. The Charismatic movement is a lot of garbage, but not Charisma, not the gifts, but the movement has failed and failed miserably. People have been saved, but saved into what? A zoo?
In the Bible, first they top up the lamps with the oil. The grain was there, and only after the grain was there was there incense. This is what Jesus was explaining. In Leviticus 24:10, something happens. There is a radical shift in the literary genre. It goes from ritual prescription to a narrative, a story, of a blasphemer with a false father. What happens in John 8? Jesus speaks of blasphemers with a false father. This very text, Leviticus 24, is what the Jews would have read concerning that feast day, but they did not understand what they were reading.
Now the son of an Israelite woman, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the sons of Israel; and the Israelite woman"s son and a man of Israel struggled with each other in the camp. And the son of the Israelite woman blasphemed the Name [YHWH, I AM] and cursed. So they brought him to Moses. (Now his mother"s name was Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan.) And they put him in custody so that the command of the LORD might be made clear to them. Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, €œBring the one who cursed outside the camp, and let all who heard him lay their hands on his head; then let all the congregation stone him. And you shall speak to the sons of Israel, saying, "If anyone curses his God, then he shall bear his sin."" (10-18)
Look at John 8 now in light of what is happening in Simchat Torah. There are similar elements. In Leviticus 23 and in John 8, there are the lamp and olive oil, shemen zayit, and Jesus comes to the Mount of Olives where they get the olive oil. There is a story of a stoning. There was somebody who was anthropologically a Jew but paternally had the wrong father. Jesus says in John 8, €œI know you are Abraham"s children, but he is not your father." Simchat Torah in Leviticus 24 and John 8 are the same day of the Hebrew calendar. (You will not get this from commentaries which are written by people who think Christianity is a Greek, or Hellenistic, religion.)
Look at John 8 in light of the Simchat Torah. The very day they bring the olive oil from the Mount of Olives to put in the lamp, Jesus comes down from the Mount of Olives and says He is the light. A woman is caught in adultery. Generally, the Jews stoned people to death for most crimes. Sometimes certain people were burned or slain with the sword, but the normal capital execution was stoning. Why? What does Paul tell us in 1 Corinthians 3? The Law of Moses was the Law of death engraved on stones. It is a midrashic illustration. The Law shows us we are condemned. Stoning shows we are condemned by the Law. The whole purpose of the Law is to show us that we are fallen. We are condemned, we need a Savior, and we cannot keep the Torah. Through the example of the Jews, we cannot keep God's Law. The Jews exemplify the human dilemma. God has a standard we cannot keep, and it shows we need someone who can fulfill it and keep it for us. We need a Savior. The Jews are an illustration of this €œstoned people," but now with a new beginning, grace will triumph over mercy. In the Greek text, Jesus writing with His finger is emphatic. €œThou shalt not commit adultery" is one of the decalogues, the Ten Commandments.
All Torah is based on the Old Testament. The New Testament is based on the Old Testament. The New Testament is simply the Messianic fulfillment of the Law and the prophets. There is nothing in the New Testament not found in the Old except for the New Covenant, but the doctrine and teaching are there. Again, the New Testament is the Messianic fulfillment of the Law and the prophets. The Law and the prophets, however, are based on the Ten Commandments, the Decalogue. All other Scripture was given by God through human agency written by people inspired by God, except for the Ten Commandments. God wrote those with His own finger. That is scripture that was not the inspired of God because it was simply The Word of God ; God inspired no else to write it. So, by Jesus writing with His finger, He is showing Himself as the I AM. €œI gave the Torah." This is the Simchat Torah, the joy of the Torah? Jesus is showing them what the joy of the Torah is. The Law says we are condemned, but the real joy of the Torah is that He Who gave the Torah is here to save us.
This is similar to the Blue Laws we have in the United States. A Blue Law is not normally enforced. The Jews would not normally stone a woman for adultery. Islam will still do it with Sharia law, but the men usually get away with it, especially if they are connected with the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia, but they will stone women. By the second temple period, the Jews did not normally stone adulterous women, but the law was still o
Issues of Hinduism
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The Character of God (Actual Hindu quote by an Indian student studying in the USA):
"What I believe now is that Hindus and Christians are the same, we believe in the same god. Hindus are in actual fact Christians and Christians are Hindus...as our god is one. I know Christians are not ready to believe that, but it's true that Jesus, Lord Shiva (Hindu God), Lord Krishna (Christ Na)(Hindu God) are re-incarnation of the same god (a.k.a. Vishnu, Mahesh and Brahama (Abraham) - the trinity in Hinduism)."
The first difference between the two religions is in the nature of what is considered divine, and therefore worthy of worship. Christianity has a belief in one God, although that God is seen as a Trinity: the father (God), the son (Jesus) and the Holy Spirit. Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the Deut 6:4 principal. Hinduism on the other hand, is and claims to be polytheistic. Their Gods are Brahma (Creator), Vishnu, a friendly form of Krishna (a preserver God, too), and Shiva, an evil God (a destructor.) While Christianity would never claim God or any part of the trinity to be tyrannical and evil, he (the Christian god) will punish evil. All Paths Lead to God The first difference between Hinduism and Christianity is that Hinduism embraces Christianity as a valid religion whereas the Bible does not. Hinduism is a religion that advocates tolerance. It teaches that all religions are different paths leading to one goal; all religions are a different means to one end. Hinduism is not exclusive and accepts all religions as valid. Christianity, however, teaches that Christ is the only way to God. John 14:6 says, "Jesus answered, 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.'" Philosophically, it is impossible for religions with mutually-exclusive doctrines to be equally valid. Where we find contradiction, we must find error. Either Christ was wrong or He was right when He claimed to be the only path to God. It is simple arithmetic, not spiritual elitism.
A comparison between Christianity and Hinduism reveals ancient practices which appear similar. In all ancient religions, Hinduism included, we find reparation for sins being done through sacrifices to an enraged God. In Hinduism and Judaism, this sacrifice is an animal sacrifice. Both theologies preach a divine commandment of righteousness, and failure to comply requires a penalty. This ancient instinct to make reparation for wrong doings suggests that Romans 2:14-15 is true: "Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law. . .they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them."
The culmination of these sacrifices for sin is found in Christianity. We have all done things we know are wrong. Both Hinduism and Christianity preach a divine commandment of perfect righteousness and that we are held accountable for our actions. The difference is that Christianity preaches the penalty for our sin has already been paid by the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. To become a Christian is to accept the ultimate sacrifice to avoid the ultimate penalty.
"What I believe now is that Hindus and Christians are the same, we believe in the same god. Hindus are in actual fact Christians and Christians are Hindus...as our god is one. I know Christians are not ready to believe that, but it's true that Jesus, Lord Shiva (Hindu God), Lord Krishna (Christ Na)(Hindu God) are re-incarnation of the same god (a.k.a. Vishnu, Mahesh and Brahama (Abraham) - the trinity in Hinduism)."
The first difference between the two religions is in the nature of what is considered divine, and therefore worthy of worship. Christianity has a belief in one God, although that God is seen as a Trinity: the father (God), the son (Jesus) and the Holy Spirit. Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the Deut 6:4 principal. Hinduism on the other hand, is and claims to be polytheistic. Their Gods are Brahma (Creator), Vishnu, a friendly form of Krishna (a preserver God, too), and Shiva, an evil God (a destructor.) While Christianity would never claim God or any part of the trinity to be tyrannical and evil, he (the Christian god) will punish evil. All Paths Lead to God The first difference between Hinduism and Christianity is that Hinduism embraces Christianity as a valid religion whereas the Bible does not. Hinduism is a religion that advocates tolerance. It teaches that all religions are different paths leading to one goal; all religions are a different means to one end. Hinduism is not exclusive and accepts all religions as valid. Christianity, however, teaches that Christ is the only way to God. John 14:6 says, "Jesus answered, 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.'" Philosophically, it is impossible for religions with mutually-exclusive doctrines to be equally valid. Where we find contradiction, we must find error. Either Christ was wrong or He was right when He claimed to be the only path to God. It is simple arithmetic, not spiritual elitism.
A comparison between Christianity and Hinduism reveals ancient practices which appear similar. In all ancient religions, Hinduism included, we find reparation for sins being done through sacrifices to an enraged God. In Hinduism and Judaism, this sacrifice is an animal sacrifice. Both theologies preach a divine commandment of righteousness, and failure to comply requires a penalty. This ancient instinct to make reparation for wrong doings suggests that Romans 2:14-15 is true: "Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law. . .they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them."
The culmination of these sacrifices for sin is found in Christianity. We have all done things we know are wrong. Both Hinduism and Christianity preach a divine commandment of perfect righteousness and that we are held accountable for our actions. The difference is that Christianity preaches the penalty for our sin has already been paid by the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. To become a Christian is to accept the ultimate sacrifice to avoid the ultimate penalty.
Man's Spirit
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But I have another question. I"m told by the Jehovah's Witnesses that there is no immaterial component of man as such. The Greek word "pneuma" and the Greek word "psuchei" are virtually synonymous, they simply mean "breath". Now I know what those words mean. "Psuchei" means "consciousness" " from which we get the word "psychology", and "pneuma" does come from the word for "breath" or "breathes". But when you die you are asleep. The dead know nothing, there is no spiritual component of man as such; no spirit. There is none. That"s what I am told by my friends who are Jehovah's Witnesses, by my acquaintances who I've met over the years who were Jehovah's Witnesses, who"ve come to my door. That's what they"ve told me.
I have a question: In Genesis 1:26 we"re made in God's image and He breathed into them and put a spirit into them. When Jesus died on the cross He said, "Father, into Your hands I commend my spirit".(Lk. 23:46) In the book of Acts when Stephen was martyred he said, "Lord I commend my spirit". (Acts 7:59) Why would Jesus say, "I commend My spirit to You" if it"s only breath? If it is not some kind of eternal consciousness that goes beyond biological life, why commend it? How can you commend your breath? "God take my breath; I"m going to die." That does not exactly make too much sense. How can it only be breath? It must be consciousness. "Father, into Your hands I commend My spirit." If there is not a spiritual component of men and women made in God's image and likeness that go beyond this that is conscious, why did Jesus commend it? Why did Stephen commend it?
I have a question: In Genesis 1:26 we"re made in God's image and He breathed into them and put a spirit into them. When Jesus died on the cross He said, "Father, into Your hands I commend my spirit".(Lk. 23:46) In the book of Acts when Stephen was martyred he said, "Lord I commend my spirit". (Acts 7:59) Why would Jesus say, "I commend My spirit to You" if it"s only breath? If it is not some kind of eternal consciousness that goes beyond biological life, why commend it? How can you commend your breath? "God take my breath; I"m going to die." That does not exactly make too much sense. How can it only be breath? It must be consciousness. "Father, into Your hands I commend My spirit." If there is not a spiritual component of men and women made in God's image and likeness that go beyond this that is conscious, why did Jesus commend it? Why did Stephen commend it?
Slain in the Spirit Part 1 of 2
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We find the term "slain in the Spirit" in the first chapter of the Book of Revelation, where the Apostle John is "in the Spirit on the Lord's Day" and, after the presence of Jesus overtakes him, John "falls as if slain". This is not the first or only time such an experience is recorded in Scripture, but it is the place from where we get the term, and it reveals something about the experience. These phenomena were unusual in the Bible. For something that was rare in Scripture to become a common event in contemporary times must raise questions about the authenticity of what we are seeing today. Instead of God moving, people are being pushed over or manipulated by hypnotic suggestion, after being set up by repetitive mesmerizing music. This is no different from what happens at stage hypnotist shows. (Those who fall down all the time have personality types predisposed to hypnotic induction.) Today's experiences are frequently accompanied by hysterics, animal imitations, drunken behaviour and slurred speech. In John's experience in Revelation, as in Daniel's, it was accompanied by a sense of terror at the holiness of the awesome presence of the Lord. With both John and Daniel (who saw the same prophetic eschatological visions from different aspects), the experience was so frightening that the Lord dispatched an angel to reassure them and tell them not to fear. Whenever this experience happened in scripture, it was a unique, one time event that took place for a specific reason in a specific situation. There is no biblical record of it happening multiple times. An overpowering encounter with the Lord brought a sense of terror, so it was not likely to be something people wanted to happen again. Not that the experience with the Divine itself was bad, but it was very frightening to John and Daniel. They required divine intervention to make it bearable. Today, however, we see people going back again and again to receive "another dose". Such people are not seeking the Lord, but seeking an experience. This counterfeits the authentic biblical phenomena with a cheap thrill, reducing a bonafide encounter with the Lord to the level of popular entertainment. The unbiblical practice of getting back in the prayer line for "going down" on the floor is no different to getting in the queue for another ride on a roller coaster (except in their own imagination). The fact that their experience does not match biblical descriptions of being 'slain in the Spirit' does not seem to register with them. Christians who go back for more and more of these experiences are not going back for something real, but for a psychological (and in some cases possibly a demonic) counterfeit. This is only possible due to an ignorance of both post-hypnotic suggestion and an ignorance of the Book of the Lord - as well as the Lord of the Book. Even though they have had a New Birth experience at some point, they have not been properly discipled and never taught the Word of God, nor managed to acquire discernment. Seeking manifestations of the Holy Spirit instead of seeking the Spirit Himself, and chasing thrills for thrills' sake, while foolishly misinterpreting those as a "blessing", comes dangerously close to "the wicked and adulterous generation seeking a sign" that Jesus warned against and condemned (Luke 11:29).
Sons of Zadok Part 1 of 2
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by James Jacob Prasch
Ezekiel 44:1 - 6: "Then he brought me by way of the outer gate of the sanctuary, which faces the East, and it was shut. And the Lord said to me, 'This gate shall be shut; it shall not be opened, and no one shall enter by it, for the Lord God of Israel has entered by it. Therefore it shall be shut. As for the prince, he shall sit in it as a prince to eat bread before the Lord. He shall enter by way of the portico gate and go out by the same way.
"Then he brought me by way of the north gate to the front of the house, and I looked, and behold, the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord, and I fell on my face. And the Lord said to me, 'Son of man, mark well; see with your eyes, hear with your ears all that I say to you concerning all the statutes of the house of the Lord, and concerning all its laws. And mark well the entrance of the house with all exits of the sanctuary.
"'And you shall say to the rebellious ones, the house of Israel, "Thus says the Lord: 'Enough of all your abominations!'"'"
Continuing with verse 8: "And you have not kept charge of My holy things yourselves, but you have sent foreigners to keep charge of My sanctuary. Thus says the Lord God: 'No foreigner uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh, of all the foreigners among the sons of Israel, shall enter My sanctuary. But the Levites, who went far from Me when Israel went astray, who went astray from Me after their idols, shall bear the punishment for their iniquities. Yet they shall be ministers in My sanctuary, having oversight at the gates of the house, and ministering in the house. They shall slaughter the burnt offering and the sacrifice for the people, and they shall stand before them and minister to them. But because they ministered to them before their idols, and became a stumbling block of iniquity to Israel, therefore I have sworn against them,' declares the Lord, 'that they shall bear the punishment for their iniquity. They shall not come near to Me to serve as priests to Me, nor near to any of My holy things, the things that are most holy to Me; but they shall bear the disgrace of the abominations, which they have committed. Yet I will appoint them to keep charge of the house, of all its servants, and of all that shall be done in it.
"'But the Levitical priests, the sons of Zadok, who kept charge of My sanctuary when the sons of Israel went astray from Me, shall come near to Me to minister to Me, and they shall stand before Me to offer Me the fat and the blood,' declares the Lord God. 'They shall also enter My sanctuary, they shall come near to My table to minister to Me, and keep My charge.
"'And it shall be that when they enter the gates of the inner courts they shall be clothed with linen garments, and wool shall not be on them while they are ministering in the gates of the inner court of the house. Linen turbans shall be on their heads, and linen undergarments shall be on their loins. They shall not gird themselves in anything which makes them sweat. And when they go out into the outer court, into the outer court to the people, they shall put up their garments in which they have been ministering and they shall lay them in the holy chambers. Then they shall put on garments, that they might not transmit holiness to the people with their garments.
"'Also, they shall not shave their heads, yet they shall not let their locks grow long. They shall only trim the hair of their heads. Nor shall any of the priests drink wine when they enter the inner courts. They shall not marry a widow or a divorced woman, but shall take virgins from the offspring of the house of Israel, or a widow who is the widow of a priest. Moreover, they shall teach My people the difference between the holy and the profane, and cause them to discern between the clean and the unclean.
"'If there is a dispute, they shall take their stand to judge. They shall judge it according to My ordinances. They shall also keep My laws and My statutes and all My appointed feasts, and sanctify My Sabbath.'"
Ezekiel's name in Hebrew means 'in the strength of God'. Like all of Israel's prophets, his name indicates something about his character and the nature of his ministry. Also like all of the Hebrew prophets (he was specifically a prophet to Judah), he prophesied for three time frames: he prophesied for his own time, for the first coming of Jesus, and for the Return of Christ. Thirdly, like all of the Hebrew prophets, Ezekiel is a type -- an Old Testament foreshadowing -- of the Messiah. He is the only person in the Bible other than Jesus who is called 'the son of man'.
In the book of Daniel it says that the king saw 'one walking as the son of man', and I have personally always been convinced that that was a Christophany; an Old Testament manifestation of Jesus Christ. Again, the only person called 'the son of man' with the definite article, other than Jesus, is Ezekiel. He is a picture of Jesus eschatologically, specifically in the Millennium. The second half of Ezekiel's book is largely concerned with the millennial reign of Jesus; that is its ultimate meaning.
This week you have perhaps heard about the riots and the shootings going on at the Temple Mount; we are certainly getting closer and closer to the Return of the Lord. Zechariah chapter 12 tells us that Jerusalem will be a stumbling block to the nations round about it; the ultimate issue in the Middle East will not be the Golan Heights, nor the West Bank or the Gaza Strip -- it will be Jerusalem. Jerusalem is where Satan received his biggest defeat, and it is also where he will receive his final defeat; he knows this. Therefore, Jerusalem is a source of contention; there is a spiritual battle going on over that particular piece of turf.
Ezekiel prophesies about this, and he sees the East Gate being shut. Now ultimately, this will take place in the Millennium when Jesus reigns from the City of David and the Shekinah goes through the East Gate. Ultimately, that is its meaning. However, it has a partial historic fulfillment already: Hebrew prophecy is a pattern. The Jews believed due to Zechariah 9:9 that the Messiah would come on a donkey, and they believed that He would enter the East Gate, or what we call in Hebrew shaar HaRachamin, which is literally 'The Gate of Mercy'. It lies on the western slope of the Temple Mount, opposite the Mount of Olives, with the Kidron Valley in the middle. If you have seen the East Gate, it is now cemented up. This happened because there was once a Turkish sultan during the Ottoman Empire, after they had conquered Israel, who knew that the Messiah would have to come through that gate according to Jewish beliefs. So he put an Islamic cemetery in front of the East Gate so that the Messiah could not go through it without being ritually defiled, and he cemented up the gate. He did not know, of course, that he was in part causing the prophecy to be fulfilled concerning the East Gate.
When the second Temple was built, the Hebrew was promised that its glory would exceed that of the first Temple. Its architecture was not as great as that of the first Temple, but even more importantly, it did not have the Ark of the Covenant. Yet they were promised in the days of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Haggai that its glory would exceed that of the first. Indeed it has; its glory exceeded that of the first temple because the Lord God Himself entered the second temple. Yet after the Lord had entered it, the gate would be sealed up. Therefore, Jewish people today who do not believe in Jesus have a problem: if the gate is sealed, the Lord God had to have already entered by it. When did God enter it? Jesus, of course, was the Messiah, and He entered it. But again, the ultimate fulfillment of this will be in the Millennium.
A born-again evangelical Christian archaeologist by the name of Dr. Jim Fleming found Herodian stones beneath the present East Gate; so we know that it is built on the same site as the gate, which Jesus went through.
In Ezekiel's day, something, which had been predicted by Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Joel, was already underway. The northern tribes had already gone into captivity in 720 B.C.; now God's judgment was coming on the south -- on Judah. Isaiah and Joel warned about this, but their message was rejected. Jeremiah warned about it, and was persecuted. People preferred to listen to the false prophets. By Ezekiel's day, it was underway, thus proving that Jeremiah had been right, while the popular false prophets were proven wrong. Yet remarkably, the people still would not repent. The captivity was already underway; Nebuchadnezzar had invaded four times. In fact, Ezekiel himself was prophesying from the captivity. People were saying things like, "It's not so bad", "It's going to get better", "It will be short-lived", when in fact it was going to get worse.
What happens here? It is an amazing thing: false prophets do not repent even when proven wrong, and then people forget that they prophesied falsely, and simply go on listening to the next false prophecy. Meanwhile, the true prophet is proven right, but they still reject him. Now they are rejecting Ezekiel in the same way they rejected Jeremiah before him.
Ezekiel shows a contrast between two kinds of clergy: the sons of Zadok and the ordinary Levites. Not all Levites were Zadokites, but all Zadokites were Levites. Let us begin by understanding about Zadok: the name comes from the Hebrew word Tsodek meaning 'to be right', which is also the Hebrew word for 'to be correct', which is also related to the Hebrew word for 'to be righteous'. The Hebrew word for 'a righteous one' is Tsadek; one who is righteous. The Hebrew word for 'righteousness' is also the Hebrew word for 'charity'. This word is Tsdaka.
As I have previously explained, in Hebrew thought sonship means more than pedigree; it means 'in the character of'. For example, we have two pictures of the Messiah in the Hebrew faith: ha Moshiach ben Yosef and ha Moshiach ben David; Messiah the Son of Joseph, who is a suffering servant, and Messiah the Son of David, who is a conquering king. Jesus came in the character of Joseph at His first coming, but He will return in the character of David to set up His kingdom. In Matthew 16 Jesus rebukes Peter, but before He rebukes him he calls him 'Simon bar Jonah', in Aramaic 'son of' Jonah. Why? In one sense, one of Peter's father's names may have been Jonah, like the prophet. But in Biblical times Jews would name their children after heroes and characters of Israel's more ancient Biblical history, in the aspiration that the child would grow up to emulate the virtues of these figures. Jonah was somebody who argued with God; his first argument with God was at Joppa. What happens at Joppa with Peter in Acts chapter 10? He begins arguing with God. Jonah did not want to go to the Gentiles; neither did Peter. Simon bar Jonah; he is in the character of Jonah. Jesus Son of David is in the character of David; His biological father was not David, though David was one of His ancestors. In the same way, the Zadokites were in the character of Zadok. Zadok was the Old Testament priest who remained loyal to David through the rebellions of Absalom and Sheba. He was a righteous priest who remained loyal. Now, loyalty to David is an Old Testament foreshadowing of loyalty to Christ, the Son of David, the Good Shepherd.
Zadok's sons remained in his character; they were not only biologically descended from him, but they also remained faithful when the rest of the Levitical clergy became corrupt. They stayed faithful for generations, even for centuries. All the way to the time of the Maccabees there were Zadokites, all the way through the Hasmonian period. Finally, then they became corrupt. In Hebrew, Zadokites were called tzadukim. What Ezekiel is doing is comparing the righteous clergy -- who were by far the minority, only descending from one lineage -- with the other Levites, the popular clergy, who were unrighteous. He begins highlighting the differences between the ordinary Levites and the Zadokites. They were all sons of Levi.
In Biblical thought, in the Hebrew language -- which Paul tries to communicate to Greeks in Philippi, as I will show you momentarily -- one cannot be righteous unless one is right. If one is not tzodek, one cannot be a tzadek. In other words, if what you believe is wrong, you have no chance of being righteous. The fact that what you believe is right, however, does not guarantee that you are righteous. One can believe what is right and still be unrighteous; Paul tells us this in I Corinthians 13. It cannot be assumed that because someone's doctrine is right, they are also right. It may be an indication of righteousness, and in fact it is; however, it does not prove righteousness. However, if what someone believes is wrong, that person cannot be righteous.
Philippians 1:9: "And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment." Notice that real love, agape love, is dependent on Biblical knowledge and discernment. If there is no discernment and no knowledge of the Scripture, real love cannot abound. The political correctness of the world has found its way into the church, and it makes love and truth mutually exclusive. In actual fact, however, God says that they are mutually dependent. One cannot really love if one has unbelief. (This is dealt with also in the teaching on Leviticus 2, The Typology of the Grain Offering, with the honey and the leaven.)
Ephesians 6:13: "Therefore take up the full armor of God, that you may be able to resist the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand firm, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness." Notice that truth comes before righteousness. I once saw actual Roman armor at the ruins of the Coliseum in Rome. People were smaller then, but even by modern standards it is fairly heavy. The armor had to be put on in a certain way and in a certain order; Paul goes through that order in which the armor had to be put on. The gird was pulled up above the waist, and held the heavier pieces of armor in place. Unless you put on the gird first, you could not keep the breastplate on. In the same way, unless you have truth, you cannot be righteous; truth comes first, righteousness second. If what you believe is false, you cannot be righteous.
Today we find people talking a lot of garbage, which goes something like this: "Well, I know this man is wrong about his belief in faith-prosperity, but he is still a good brother"; "I know that Pensacola is really not a revival, but the leader is such a loving man". But if he lacks knowledge of God's Word and is undiscerning, he is not a loving man. Love can only abound where there is knowledge and discernment. I once met Bill Hybels briefly. Is he a nice man? Oh, a very nice man. But is he a righteous man? No, he is not, because what he believes is false. Truth comes before righteousness, because unless you know the truth, you won't know what righteousness is. One cannot know the difference between right and wrong unless one first has the truth.
Yet people protest: "Oh, but he's such a good brother", "Oh, but they are such nice people", "Oh, they're so charitable, so caring, so loving, they do so much for the poor". No. Mother Teresa was very charitable; yet several months before she died, she made it clear that she only converted Hindus and Moslems to be better Hindus and Moslems; she sent those people to hell without Christ in the name of being charitable. Love can only abound where there is discernment and knowledge. The Bible tells us that other gods are demons; the gods of Hinduism are demonic. Mother Teresa had no discernment, nor did she have any knowledge of God's Word; therefore true love could not abound. What real good is it to pick people up, clean them off, give them a place to die with dignity -- and there is a lot more to that than most people have heard; we've mainly heard the embellished public relations stories, but when you talk to those in the medical profession who worked with her, you find there was much to be desired in what she did -- and then send them to hell for a Christless eternity? Charity depends upon truth and discernment.
Notice that the first difference Ezekiel points out between the sons of Zadok and the ordinary Levites is this, in chapter 44:8: ". . . they set foreigners to keep charge of My sanctuary." Whenever there was a true move of God, the foreigner was kicked out. The Levite gave place to the secretly hostile alien; the Zadokites would kick the aliens out.
To see how this works out in a true move of God, let's look at Nehemiah 13. This is after the captivity is over; they had learned their lessons the hard way, and had longed to come back. Then, when Satan tried to seduce them, it did not work. Nehemiah 13:1: "And that day they read aloud from the book of Moses in the hearing of the people." Notice that there was a real move of God, with the rededication of the Temple and the city, the walls being rebuilt the emphasis on Scripture; there was revival here. In Nehemiah 8 there were all-day Bible studies; notice that everything was based on Scripture. When there is a real move of God, the Word of God will be central and paramount; everything else will be derived from what is in the Bible. The minute you see people going to experience or subjective revelation and prophecy, you know it is not a real move of God -- or, if it is a real move of God, it has been corrupted. A real move of God will be based 110% on Scripture. True prophecy is always based on the Bible; it is never a replacement for it, though that is what we see happening today. People are replacing what is in Scripture with personal 'words', following people who are obviously false prophets, such as Kim Clement and Rick Joyner.
"In the hearing of the people, it was found written that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever enter the assembly of God, because they did not meet the sons of Israel with bread and water, but hired Balaam against them to curse them. However, our God turned the curse into a blessing. So it came about that when they heard the law, they excluded all foreigners from Israel." Notice that these foreigners who tried to join with Israel had an agenda to take over.
Here with Sanballat and his people, they were enemies pretending to be friends, claiming, "our god is your God, and we're one with you". There was a false basis for unity; they had a hidden agenda.
"Now, prior to this, Eliakim the priest, who was appointed over the chamber of the house of our God, being related to Tobiah" -- now, the word 'related' there is ambiguous. It could mean physically related, but it could also simply mean 'close to' -- "had prepared a large room, where formerly they put the grain offering, the frankincense, the utensils, the tithes of grain, wine and oil prescribed for the Levites, the singers, the gatekeepers; the contributions for the priests." Notice that when they brought this alien in, who had a secret agenda, the grain, the wine, and the oil stopped. The grain -- the Word of God. Real anointing -- the oil. Real worship -- the wine. Where the singers used to be, real worship stopped. Real teaching, the feeding of the grain to the people, stopped. The real anointing stopped. It all stops when you bring the alien in.
The alien's name was Tobiah, which in Hebrew means 'the goodness of Yahweh'. He is a bad man with a good name; many of the most sinister people in the Bible had good names. Absalom, for example, was a very bad man with a good name, as was Abimelech. This alludes to something about the Antichrist, though we will not go into that at this time. So here we have a bad man with a good name who is close to the high priest. He was an alien with a secret agenda, he was really bad, he meant them no good, yet he had a good name; and he got in bed with the clergy. The pope has a good name with Billy Graham; but he is an alien. What did the pope say two weeks ago? The Roman church is the one true church, same old story. Last year in Mexico, what did he say? He told the Catholics to rise up against the Protestants. As a result, there were churches burned and Christians killed in Mexico. The pope is an evil man, "All to You, Mary," is written on his sleeve and is his personal belief. The man is an idolater and a necromancer.
Yet he has a good name; Chuck Colson thinks he's wonderful. "He's the holy Father," says Robert Schuller. The Levite will always give place to the secretly hostile alien, but the righteous clergy will kick him out.
Ecumenism is the first step toward the interfaith movement. They say that the pope is a great Christian leader, and the pope says that the Dalai Lama -- a man, who says that there is no God, yet allows himself to be worshiped -- is a great spiritual leader. This is what Revelation warned about; yet he has a good name. He is allowed into God's house.
Today we have many people like Eliakim; Chuck Colson is one of them. Chuck Colson is a very dangerous man; he is more of a danger to the cause of Christ than any homosexual, any pornographer, or any freemason -- he is much more dangerous. An external enemy can be dealt with, but if a cancer is spreading in the body, look out. Colson's wife is a practicing Catholic who says that Catholics should not be witnessed to. If you are an ex-Catholic, the Catholic Church says that you're on your way to hell for leaving the one true church. And Chuck Colson has sold you out.
What was the second contrasting characteristic in Ezekiel 44? Look at verse 10: " . . . the Levites who went astray from Me when Israel went astray".Isaiah begins by castigating the clergy for leading the people astray. Jeremiah begins in the same way. Earlier in his ministry, Ezekiel begins also by following the examples of his predecessors, Isaiah and Jeremiah. However, in the second half of his book, Ezekiel reverses it. He no longer says that it is the leaders leading the people away; the problem becomes the people leading the leaders astray. In other words, the blame of the leaders here is not that they are misleading the people, but that they are failing to be leaders. Instead, they are letting the people dictate what should be done. A Levite will always give the people what they say they want; the Zadokites, on the other hand, will give the people what God says they need.
Ezekiel 44:1 - 6: "Then he brought me by way of the outer gate of the sanctuary, which faces the East, and it was shut. And the Lord said to me, 'This gate shall be shut; it shall not be opened, and no one shall enter by it, for the Lord God of Israel has entered by it. Therefore it shall be shut. As for the prince, he shall sit in it as a prince to eat bread before the Lord. He shall enter by way of the portico gate and go out by the same way.
"Then he brought me by way of the north gate to the front of the house, and I looked, and behold, the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord, and I fell on my face. And the Lord said to me, 'Son of man, mark well; see with your eyes, hear with your ears all that I say to you concerning all the statutes of the house of the Lord, and concerning all its laws. And mark well the entrance of the house with all exits of the sanctuary.
"'And you shall say to the rebellious ones, the house of Israel, "Thus says the Lord: 'Enough of all your abominations!'"'"
Continuing with verse 8: "And you have not kept charge of My holy things yourselves, but you have sent foreigners to keep charge of My sanctuary. Thus says the Lord God: 'No foreigner uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh, of all the foreigners among the sons of Israel, shall enter My sanctuary. But the Levites, who went far from Me when Israel went astray, who went astray from Me after their idols, shall bear the punishment for their iniquities. Yet they shall be ministers in My sanctuary, having oversight at the gates of the house, and ministering in the house. They shall slaughter the burnt offering and the sacrifice for the people, and they shall stand before them and minister to them. But because they ministered to them before their idols, and became a stumbling block of iniquity to Israel, therefore I have sworn against them,' declares the Lord, 'that they shall bear the punishment for their iniquity. They shall not come near to Me to serve as priests to Me, nor near to any of My holy things, the things that are most holy to Me; but they shall bear the disgrace of the abominations, which they have committed. Yet I will appoint them to keep charge of the house, of all its servants, and of all that shall be done in it.
"'But the Levitical priests, the sons of Zadok, who kept charge of My sanctuary when the sons of Israel went astray from Me, shall come near to Me to minister to Me, and they shall stand before Me to offer Me the fat and the blood,' declares the Lord God. 'They shall also enter My sanctuary, they shall come near to My table to minister to Me, and keep My charge.
"'And it shall be that when they enter the gates of the inner courts they shall be clothed with linen garments, and wool shall not be on them while they are ministering in the gates of the inner court of the house. Linen turbans shall be on their heads, and linen undergarments shall be on their loins. They shall not gird themselves in anything which makes them sweat. And when they go out into the outer court, into the outer court to the people, they shall put up their garments in which they have been ministering and they shall lay them in the holy chambers. Then they shall put on garments, that they might not transmit holiness to the people with their garments.
"'Also, they shall not shave their heads, yet they shall not let their locks grow long. They shall only trim the hair of their heads. Nor shall any of the priests drink wine when they enter the inner courts. They shall not marry a widow or a divorced woman, but shall take virgins from the offspring of the house of Israel, or a widow who is the widow of a priest. Moreover, they shall teach My people the difference between the holy and the profane, and cause them to discern between the clean and the unclean.
"'If there is a dispute, they shall take their stand to judge. They shall judge it according to My ordinances. They shall also keep My laws and My statutes and all My appointed feasts, and sanctify My Sabbath.'"
Ezekiel's name in Hebrew means 'in the strength of God'. Like all of Israel's prophets, his name indicates something about his character and the nature of his ministry. Also like all of the Hebrew prophets (he was specifically a prophet to Judah), he prophesied for three time frames: he prophesied for his own time, for the first coming of Jesus, and for the Return of Christ. Thirdly, like all of the Hebrew prophets, Ezekiel is a type -- an Old Testament foreshadowing -- of the Messiah. He is the only person in the Bible other than Jesus who is called 'the son of man'.
In the book of Daniel it says that the king saw 'one walking as the son of man', and I have personally always been convinced that that was a Christophany; an Old Testament manifestation of Jesus Christ. Again, the only person called 'the son of man' with the definite article, other than Jesus, is Ezekiel. He is a picture of Jesus eschatologically, specifically in the Millennium. The second half of Ezekiel's book is largely concerned with the millennial reign of Jesus; that is its ultimate meaning.
This week you have perhaps heard about the riots and the shootings going on at the Temple Mount; we are certainly getting closer and closer to the Return of the Lord. Zechariah chapter 12 tells us that Jerusalem will be a stumbling block to the nations round about it; the ultimate issue in the Middle East will not be the Golan Heights, nor the West Bank or the Gaza Strip -- it will be Jerusalem. Jerusalem is where Satan received his biggest defeat, and it is also where he will receive his final defeat; he knows this. Therefore, Jerusalem is a source of contention; there is a spiritual battle going on over that particular piece of turf.
Ezekiel prophesies about this, and he sees the East Gate being shut. Now ultimately, this will take place in the Millennium when Jesus reigns from the City of David and the Shekinah goes through the East Gate. Ultimately, that is its meaning. However, it has a partial historic fulfillment already: Hebrew prophecy is a pattern. The Jews believed due to Zechariah 9:9 that the Messiah would come on a donkey, and they believed that He would enter the East Gate, or what we call in Hebrew shaar HaRachamin, which is literally 'The Gate of Mercy'. It lies on the western slope of the Temple Mount, opposite the Mount of Olives, with the Kidron Valley in the middle. If you have seen the East Gate, it is now cemented up. This happened because there was once a Turkish sultan during the Ottoman Empire, after they had conquered Israel, who knew that the Messiah would have to come through that gate according to Jewish beliefs. So he put an Islamic cemetery in front of the East Gate so that the Messiah could not go through it without being ritually defiled, and he cemented up the gate. He did not know, of course, that he was in part causing the prophecy to be fulfilled concerning the East Gate.
When the second Temple was built, the Hebrew was promised that its glory would exceed that of the first Temple. Its architecture was not as great as that of the first Temple, but even more importantly, it did not have the Ark of the Covenant. Yet they were promised in the days of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Haggai that its glory would exceed that of the first. Indeed it has; its glory exceeded that of the first temple because the Lord God Himself entered the second temple. Yet after the Lord had entered it, the gate would be sealed up. Therefore, Jewish people today who do not believe in Jesus have a problem: if the gate is sealed, the Lord God had to have already entered by it. When did God enter it? Jesus, of course, was the Messiah, and He entered it. But again, the ultimate fulfillment of this will be in the Millennium.
A born-again evangelical Christian archaeologist by the name of Dr. Jim Fleming found Herodian stones beneath the present East Gate; so we know that it is built on the same site as the gate, which Jesus went through.
In Ezekiel's day, something, which had been predicted by Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Joel, was already underway. The northern tribes had already gone into captivity in 720 B.C.; now God's judgment was coming on the south -- on Judah. Isaiah and Joel warned about this, but their message was rejected. Jeremiah warned about it, and was persecuted. People preferred to listen to the false prophets. By Ezekiel's day, it was underway, thus proving that Jeremiah had been right, while the popular false prophets were proven wrong. Yet remarkably, the people still would not repent. The captivity was already underway; Nebuchadnezzar had invaded four times. In fact, Ezekiel himself was prophesying from the captivity. People were saying things like, "It's not so bad", "It's going to get better", "It will be short-lived", when in fact it was going to get worse.
What happens here? It is an amazing thing: false prophets do not repent even when proven wrong, and then people forget that they prophesied falsely, and simply go on listening to the next false prophecy. Meanwhile, the true prophet is proven right, but they still reject him. Now they are rejecting Ezekiel in the same way they rejected Jeremiah before him.
Ezekiel shows a contrast between two kinds of clergy: the sons of Zadok and the ordinary Levites. Not all Levites were Zadokites, but all Zadokites were Levites. Let us begin by understanding about Zadok: the name comes from the Hebrew word Tsodek meaning 'to be right', which is also the Hebrew word for 'to be correct', which is also related to the Hebrew word for 'to be righteous'. The Hebrew word for 'a righteous one' is Tsadek; one who is righteous. The Hebrew word for 'righteousness' is also the Hebrew word for 'charity'. This word is Tsdaka.
As I have previously explained, in Hebrew thought sonship means more than pedigree; it means 'in the character of'. For example, we have two pictures of the Messiah in the Hebrew faith: ha Moshiach ben Yosef and ha Moshiach ben David; Messiah the Son of Joseph, who is a suffering servant, and Messiah the Son of David, who is a conquering king. Jesus came in the character of Joseph at His first coming, but He will return in the character of David to set up His kingdom. In Matthew 16 Jesus rebukes Peter, but before He rebukes him he calls him 'Simon bar Jonah', in Aramaic 'son of' Jonah. Why? In one sense, one of Peter's father's names may have been Jonah, like the prophet. But in Biblical times Jews would name their children after heroes and characters of Israel's more ancient Biblical history, in the aspiration that the child would grow up to emulate the virtues of these figures. Jonah was somebody who argued with God; his first argument with God was at Joppa. What happens at Joppa with Peter in Acts chapter 10? He begins arguing with God. Jonah did not want to go to the Gentiles; neither did Peter. Simon bar Jonah; he is in the character of Jonah. Jesus Son of David is in the character of David; His biological father was not David, though David was one of His ancestors. In the same way, the Zadokites were in the character of Zadok. Zadok was the Old Testament priest who remained loyal to David through the rebellions of Absalom and Sheba. He was a righteous priest who remained loyal. Now, loyalty to David is an Old Testament foreshadowing of loyalty to Christ, the Son of David, the Good Shepherd.
Zadok's sons remained in his character; they were not only biologically descended from him, but they also remained faithful when the rest of the Levitical clergy became corrupt. They stayed faithful for generations, even for centuries. All the way to the time of the Maccabees there were Zadokites, all the way through the Hasmonian period. Finally, then they became corrupt. In Hebrew, Zadokites were called tzadukim. What Ezekiel is doing is comparing the righteous clergy -- who were by far the minority, only descending from one lineage -- with the other Levites, the popular clergy, who were unrighteous. He begins highlighting the differences between the ordinary Levites and the Zadokites. They were all sons of Levi.
In Biblical thought, in the Hebrew language -- which Paul tries to communicate to Greeks in Philippi, as I will show you momentarily -- one cannot be righteous unless one is right. If one is not tzodek, one cannot be a tzadek. In other words, if what you believe is wrong, you have no chance of being righteous. The fact that what you believe is right, however, does not guarantee that you are righteous. One can believe what is right and still be unrighteous; Paul tells us this in I Corinthians 13. It cannot be assumed that because someone's doctrine is right, they are also right. It may be an indication of righteousness, and in fact it is; however, it does not prove righteousness. However, if what someone believes is wrong, that person cannot be righteous.
Philippians 1:9: "And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment." Notice that real love, agape love, is dependent on Biblical knowledge and discernment. If there is no discernment and no knowledge of the Scripture, real love cannot abound. The political correctness of the world has found its way into the church, and it makes love and truth mutually exclusive. In actual fact, however, God says that they are mutually dependent. One cannot really love if one has unbelief. (This is dealt with also in the teaching on Leviticus 2, The Typology of the Grain Offering, with the honey and the leaven.)
Ephesians 6:13: "Therefore take up the full armor of God, that you may be able to resist the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand firm, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness." Notice that truth comes before righteousness. I once saw actual Roman armor at the ruins of the Coliseum in Rome. People were smaller then, but even by modern standards it is fairly heavy. The armor had to be put on in a certain way and in a certain order; Paul goes through that order in which the armor had to be put on. The gird was pulled up above the waist, and held the heavier pieces of armor in place. Unless you put on the gird first, you could not keep the breastplate on. In the same way, unless you have truth, you cannot be righteous; truth comes first, righteousness second. If what you believe is false, you cannot be righteous.
Today we find people talking a lot of garbage, which goes something like this: "Well, I know this man is wrong about his belief in faith-prosperity, but he is still a good brother"; "I know that Pensacola is really not a revival, but the leader is such a loving man". But if he lacks knowledge of God's Word and is undiscerning, he is not a loving man. Love can only abound where there is knowledge and discernment. I once met Bill Hybels briefly. Is he a nice man? Oh, a very nice man. But is he a righteous man? No, he is not, because what he believes is false. Truth comes before righteousness, because unless you know the truth, you won't know what righteousness is. One cannot know the difference between right and wrong unless one first has the truth.
Yet people protest: "Oh, but he's such a good brother", "Oh, but they are such nice people", "Oh, they're so charitable, so caring, so loving, they do so much for the poor". No. Mother Teresa was very charitable; yet several months before she died, she made it clear that she only converted Hindus and Moslems to be better Hindus and Moslems; she sent those people to hell without Christ in the name of being charitable. Love can only abound where there is discernment and knowledge. The Bible tells us that other gods are demons; the gods of Hinduism are demonic. Mother Teresa had no discernment, nor did she have any knowledge of God's Word; therefore true love could not abound. What real good is it to pick people up, clean them off, give them a place to die with dignity -- and there is a lot more to that than most people have heard; we've mainly heard the embellished public relations stories, but when you talk to those in the medical profession who worked with her, you find there was much to be desired in what she did -- and then send them to hell for a Christless eternity? Charity depends upon truth and discernment.
Notice that the first difference Ezekiel points out between the sons of Zadok and the ordinary Levites is this, in chapter 44:8: ". . . they set foreigners to keep charge of My sanctuary." Whenever there was a true move of God, the foreigner was kicked out. The Levite gave place to the secretly hostile alien; the Zadokites would kick the aliens out.
To see how this works out in a true move of God, let's look at Nehemiah 13. This is after the captivity is over; they had learned their lessons the hard way, and had longed to come back. Then, when Satan tried to seduce them, it did not work. Nehemiah 13:1: "And that day they read aloud from the book of Moses in the hearing of the people." Notice that there was a real move of God, with the rededication of the Temple and the city, the walls being rebuilt the emphasis on Scripture; there was revival here. In Nehemiah 8 there were all-day Bible studies; notice that everything was based on Scripture. When there is a real move of God, the Word of God will be central and paramount; everything else will be derived from what is in the Bible. The minute you see people going to experience or subjective revelation and prophecy, you know it is not a real move of God -- or, if it is a real move of God, it has been corrupted. A real move of God will be based 110% on Scripture. True prophecy is always based on the Bible; it is never a replacement for it, though that is what we see happening today. People are replacing what is in Scripture with personal 'words', following people who are obviously false prophets, such as Kim Clement and Rick Joyner.
"In the hearing of the people, it was found written that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever enter the assembly of God, because they did not meet the sons of Israel with bread and water, but hired Balaam against them to curse them. However, our God turned the curse into a blessing. So it came about that when they heard the law, they excluded all foreigners from Israel." Notice that these foreigners who tried to join with Israel had an agenda to take over.
Here with Sanballat and his people, they were enemies pretending to be friends, claiming, "our god is your God, and we're one with you". There was a false basis for unity; they had a hidden agenda.
"Now, prior to this, Eliakim the priest, who was appointed over the chamber of the house of our God, being related to Tobiah" -- now, the word 'related' there is ambiguous. It could mean physically related, but it could also simply mean 'close to' -- "had prepared a large room, where formerly they put the grain offering, the frankincense, the utensils, the tithes of grain, wine and oil prescribed for the Levites, the singers, the gatekeepers; the contributions for the priests." Notice that when they brought this alien in, who had a secret agenda, the grain, the wine, and the oil stopped. The grain -- the Word of God. Real anointing -- the oil. Real worship -- the wine. Where the singers used to be, real worship stopped. Real teaching, the feeding of the grain to the people, stopped. The real anointing stopped. It all stops when you bring the alien in.
The alien's name was Tobiah, which in Hebrew means 'the goodness of Yahweh'. He is a bad man with a good name; many of the most sinister people in the Bible had good names. Absalom, for example, was a very bad man with a good name, as was Abimelech. This alludes to something about the Antichrist, though we will not go into that at this time. So here we have a bad man with a good name who is close to the high priest. He was an alien with a secret agenda, he was really bad, he meant them no good, yet he had a good name; and he got in bed with the clergy. The pope has a good name with Billy Graham; but he is an alien. What did the pope say two weeks ago? The Roman church is the one true church, same old story. Last year in Mexico, what did he say? He told the Catholics to rise up against the Protestants. As a result, there were churches burned and Christians killed in Mexico. The pope is an evil man, "All to You, Mary," is written on his sleeve and is his personal belief. The man is an idolater and a necromancer.
Yet he has a good name; Chuck Colson thinks he's wonderful. "He's the holy Father," says Robert Schuller. The Levite will always give place to the secretly hostile alien, but the righteous clergy will kick him out.
Ecumenism is the first step toward the interfaith movement. They say that the pope is a great Christian leader, and the pope says that the Dalai Lama -- a man, who says that there is no God, yet allows himself to be worshiped -- is a great spiritual leader. This is what Revelation warned about; yet he has a good name. He is allowed into God's house.
Today we have many people like Eliakim; Chuck Colson is one of them. Chuck Colson is a very dangerous man; he is more of a danger to the cause of Christ than any homosexual, any pornographer, or any freemason -- he is much more dangerous. An external enemy can be dealt with, but if a cancer is spreading in the body, look out. Colson's wife is a practicing Catholic who says that Catholics should not be witnessed to. If you are an ex-Catholic, the Catholic Church says that you're on your way to hell for leaving the one true church. And Chuck Colson has sold you out.
What was the second contrasting characteristic in Ezekiel 44? Look at verse 10: " . . . the Levites who went astray from Me when Israel went astray".Isaiah begins by castigating the clergy for leading the people astray. Jeremiah begins in the same way. Earlier in his ministry, Ezekiel begins also by following the examples of his predecessors, Isaiah and Jeremiah. However, in the second half of his book, Ezekiel reverses it. He no longer says that it is the leaders leading the people away; the problem becomes the people leading the leaders astray. In other words, the blame of the leaders here is not that they are misleading the people, but that they are failing to be leaders. Instead, they are letting the people dictate what should be done. A Levite will always give the people what they say they want; the Zadokites, on the other hand, will give the people what God says they need.
This Generation
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by James Jacob Prasch
€œTruly I say to you this generation will not pass away until all things take place" (Matthew 24:34)
This verse of the Olivet Discourse has led to so much speculation, misunderstanding, prophetic pronouncement and prediction that failed to happen — €œthis generation." It has been assumed that the generation that died in the wilderness as told in the story of the Exodus was forty years, therefore a biblical generation must be forty years. Hal Lindsey popularized this idea in his best-seller €œThe Late Great Planet Earth," in which he speculated that something apocalyptic had to happen within a forty-year period of time, give or take a few years, from the birth of the nation of Israel.The Spirit of Truth and the Spirit of ErrorThere has been two sources for the misinterpretation of €œthis generation". The first had been with those who propagate the deception of post-millennialism, with its modern-day adjuncts. These include Dominion Theology, Kingdom-Now Theology, and Triumphalism (the bogus notion that the Church is going to conquer the world before Christ comes and set up His Kingdom. Only then will He come for a victorious Church.) This is the diametric opposite of what the Word of God teaches. Jesus does not come for a victorious Church, He comes with a victorious Church which has been raptured. It is the seed of the woman who crushes the head of the serpent, not as Kevin Connor teaches in Australia that it is the woman who crushes the serpent"s head. In Romans, the Lord of Glory will trample Satan under your feet; we don"t trample Satan under our own. It is the return of Jesus that turns the final victory into "The Final Victory".
Post-millennialists forget that the early Apostolic church was almost uniformly pre-millennial before the Council of Nicea. There were heretics like Soirthis who were also pre-millennial but there is no indication that the apostolic Church believed anything other than that there would be a literal millennial reign of the Lord Jesus. Post-millennialism was invented by those who had both political and theological motives. Certainly after Constantine €œChristianised" the Roman Empire and the Church was Platonized by Augustine of Hippo to accommodate the pseudo-Christianisation of the Roman Empire, they needed a new eschatology; a new doctrinal basis to explain the last days. So while Jesus said His kingdom is not of this world, €œChristendom" said €œoh yes it is."
This is the basis and the origin of the foolish thinking of post-millennialism. Indeed the meek shall inherit the earth, but if there is no earth, how shall it be inherited? And as for the idea that the church is going to take it over now, and Satan is bound for a thousand years, one might ask €œwhen did the thousand years begin?" Those who followed Augustine believed not in Y2K but Y1K — the bogus idea that Christ would come back at the end of the first millennium. So in 999 A.D., people began giving their land, money, castles, etc. to the Pope and to the church. But we know in hindsight that Jesus did not show up in 999 A.D. under Pope Sylvester, and nobody got their money back.
The same kind of people, like Gary North in America, began pushing the Y2K idea, with wild, foolish speculation about the return of Christ. There were people such as Brae, in America, and others who tried to tell us the events of the Olivet discourse were totally fulfilled in 70 A.D. with the destruction of Jerusalem. They said that €œthis generation" must have included those who were around when Jesus was alive, who saw the destruction of the Temple. It would have been just about forty years later, and it would seem to fit to them. However, in verse 21 Jesus said that there would be a great tribulation such has not occurred since the foundation of the world, nor never shall be.
There have been other tribulations, both for the Jews and for the church, that have been worse than anything that happened in 70 A.D. when the Romans destroyed the temple, so that interpretation fails the test of history. Additionally, the Olivet discourse is not just Matthew 24 but it"s 24 and 25. Jesus did not separate the sheep from the goats or give people their eternal reward based on what they did with their talents in 70 A.D.
Without a doubt those events that happened in 70 A.D. prefigure and foreshadow what will happen in the last days, so it is important to study them. The church at that time was rescued from Jerusalem under the leadership of Simeon, a cousin of Jesus who became the Pastor of Jerusalem after the Apostle James was martyred. They fled to a place called Pella. This is indeed a type or a foreshadow of the rapture, just like what happened on the day of Pentecost is a foreshadow of what will happen in the last days. But neither Joel"s vision, which we read about in Acts 2, nor what we see in Matthew 24:29 — €œthe sun will be dark and the moon will not give its light" —happened in 70 A.D. They are only partially fulfilled, not totally. And there has never been a unique Great Tribulation before or since 70 A.D. These are still coming events foreshadowed by the events of 70 A.D., with their ultimate fulfilment in the return of Jesus.Understanding the Parable of the Fig Tree and the Other TreesThe other source of misinterpretation of €œthis generation" are Pre-millennialists who realise that it has a future meaning, but use it as a key for date-setting. They rightly believe there is a future fulfilment of the Olivet discourse, there will be an anti-Christ, a great falling away, a return of the Jews to Israel, and a future 1,000-year rule of Christ on Earth.
They look to the parable of the Fig Tree in Matthew 24:32-34 €œ €¦when its branch has already become tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near; so, you too, when you see all these things, recognize that He is near, right at the door. Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place."
Using the same 40-year generation from the Exodus account as their guide, they follow this logic: Israel became a nation in May, 1948. So they count, 1948 to "58 to "68 to "78 to 1988, and arrive at the year of the Lord"s return. There was a man named Edgar Whisenant who actually put out a book entitled €œ88 Reasons Why the Rapture Could Be in 1988." In 1987 on Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, there was a fundamentalist Baptist preacher from America standing in Speakers Corner in London telling the Muslims that he would be gone within 48 hours, but of course he was still there. He made a public fool of himself, and wound up leaving the country in humiliation. The very next year that same man and others like him said €œWe got the year wrong. It was not 1987, it is 1988." These were not hyper-charismatics; they were fundamentalist Baptists. They made fools of themselves speculating about dates for the return of Christ, which they based on their misinterpretation of €œthis generation" and they made a mockery of Bible prophecy, discrediting it in the eyes of the world.
People often assume that the rebirth of Israel is the fig tree budding forth its leaves, but is it? There is no doubt that the re-gathering of the Jews to the nation of Israel is of prophetic significance; the stage is being set for the Great Tribulation — ha tekufot tsorat Yacov — as Jeremiah the prophet called it €œthe time of Jacob"s trouble." There is no doubt Israel will be deceived by the Anti-Christ. There is no doubt they are being re-gathered for what Daniel called the 70 th week. There is no doubt these things are happening. But are these things the primary meaning of the fig tree? Does the image of the fig tree have other meaning? When the Holy Spirit gives us multiple accounts of something, it must be examined carefully, prayerfully, and read in light of comparing all accounts. In this case we have not just Matthew 24 and 25, but also Luke 17, Luke 21, and Mark 13. Jesus did not say €œwhen you see the fig tree full, stop. Period. End of story." He shows us €œLearn the parable of the fig tree and the other trees"-- not just the fig tree.
Now the parable of the fig tree and the other trees comes from the book of Judges chapters 8 and 9. The sons of Gideon, 70 of them, were destroyed by Abimelech. Only Jotham, who knew the parable of the fig tree and the other trees, recognised the deceiver. They said to the bramble, €œcome reign over us." The bramble would because the olive tree wouldn"t, because the vine wouldn"t, because the fig tree wouldn"t. The infidelity of God's people makes a way for the Anti-Christ to come to power in the end. This is the ultimate meaning of the fig tree. Understand the fig tree. In Judaism; the fig tree is a metaphor for the tree of life — the Eytz Hayim — that we see in a millennial context in Ezekiel 47, and in the creation narrative in Genesis, and that we see in the book of Revelation at the end. And the leaves in Revelation are for the healing of the nations. Fig leaves are metaphors for good works in the Bible. Unsaved people will always try to justify themselves with good works.
Every €œreligion" is established on a works-based righteousness. The righteousness of the Gospel is not based on works. Christians do not do good works to get saved, they do good works because they have been saved. There is more to the fig tree than the nation of Israel, but the main aspect of Israel concerning the fig tree is that Jesus cursed the fig tree. Why? Because it had leaves with no fruit. Israel had works, but not the fruit of the Spirit. The leaves normally occur at the same time as the fruit. The sun in the Middle East will burn up the fruit unless the leaves are covering them. Faith without works is dead. But it was not yet the season for figs when Jesus came. The Son of Man comes at an hour you do not expect.But of the Day and the Hour No One Knows €¦You cannot calculate the day of His return on the basis of a generation being forty years, nor estimate that day based on the date of the rebirth of Israel. Neither can you speculate that it only means Jerusalem and count down from the time it is no longer trampled down by the feet of the Gentiles. In 1967 the Jews had control of the Temple Mount, therefore "67 to "77, to "87, to "97 -- therefore by 2007, they speculate, Jesus will be back since Jerusalem is no longer trampled under the feet of the Gentiles. Yet Jesus said until the time of the Gentiles is completed, but Jerusalem is still under the feet of the Gentiles. The Israeli General Moshe Dayan gave unilateral control of the Temple Mount to the Moslems. The Mosque of Omar, with an inscription from the Koran €œGod has no son," is on the Temple Mount as is the Mosque of Al-Aqsa. It is still under the feet of the Gentiles. The time of the Gentiles is closing, but it is not yet over.After Their Kind €¦It is never wise to speculate about dates for the return of Christ. The right understanding of €œthis generation" has complications. We have Hebrew words Dor and Min Dor la Dor — €œfrom generation to generation." Dor is a biological generation; min is €œof a kind" as referred to in the book of Genesis. God made the species according to their kind, hence the impossibility of Darwinism. There is absolutely no evidence that recombinant DNA transmutates across the genus barrier in the natural environment and now that Man is beginning to engage in biogenetic engineering, and the transfer of DNA across the genus barrier we are in danger of creating monsters. Things can very easily get out of control. Anything fallen man can use for evil he will. Can nuclear energy be used for good? Yes, but fallen man will use it for evil. Can biogenetic engineering be used for good? Fallen man will use it for evil. The world is in the power of the wicked one. If they clone species or invent new ones based on combining the DNA of different species, we can no longer be sure that when we look at some of the monsters that appear in the Book of Revelation, that they are only symbols, and not literal as well. God made them according to their kind or €œmin" in the Hebrew text, not hybrids.
There are now rats that have 1% human brain due to biogenetic engineering. Can you imagine rats with human minds? The theoretical possibility cannot be ruled out. Min is €œof a kind," and is the root of the Hebrew term for sex and sexual reproduction — minee. However, generation — dor —is another Hebrew word entirely. The complication happens when we put these Hebrew terms into the Greek language. The word gennao in Greek closely approximates min Jesus is the monogenes —the only begotten. Gennao means €œbegotten." This is also the root of the word €œgenesis." The word used in Matthew 24, however is gennea notgennao.
This is a more complicated term because it is ambiguous. The context and its connectives determine what is meant. It can have two possible meanings. Think of the word €œblue." This cup is blue. That is clear; it is referring to its color. But blue is also a metaphor for being sad in English. There is a form of music invented by Black Americans called €œThe Blues." There is a music which combines jovial upbeat major chords with sad minor chords, or that plays minor chords in a fast rhythmic pattern called Rhythm & Blues. Rhythm & Blues is sort of like Jewish music; it is both happy and sad at the same time, using minor chords in a vivacious way. So what does blue mean? Does blue mean a colour, or is blue a metaphor for being sad? Well, the context tells you, and the other words to which it is connected to tell you what blue means. So it is with gennea. Gennea can almost be a synonym for gennao, meaning of the same kind because of common ancestry.
Being begotten of the same source it can almost be a synonym for gennao, or it could mean that which is in a circle of time, that is a multitude of contemporaries, or it could be a metaphor like blue.
For example, there are airplanes called 747s. They have been built since the 1960s, and some forty years later they are still coming off the assembly lines in Seattle, Washington. The next generation will be the 787, an airplane that you can get on and fly non-stop from Rio de Janeiro to Tokyo, or from London to Melbourne. It is an airplane that can go non-stop from anywhere in the world to anywhere else in the world without landing. That is the next generation. If you can have a 747 that was built in 1968 that was junked twenty years ago, and you can have one built in 1995 that is still in operation, they are still the same generation because they are of the same design. They are €œof the same kind." It is the 787 that is the next generation. In the same sense one can determine the meaning of gennae — by the context. Does it mean €œof a kind?" Or does it mean €œa multitude of contemporaries within a circle of time?" Or does it mean both? The context will clarify the meaning.
In Matthew 24:34, it means €œof a kind" because we are the generation of Jesus. He is the monogenes — the only begotten of the Father, and the church is made up of those who are born again. We are begotten in a spiritual sense; we are begotten from the same source, born again of the Spirit, and we are of the same kind. What Matthew 24 is telling us is that the church will not pass away. Those of this kind, those who have been begotten from Jesus, will not pass away until all these events happen. Now these events will recapitulate, will replay, on a much broader, larger scale than that which happened in 70 A.D. This is what pre-millenialists have always understood, but post-millenialists have never grasped. The judgments on Egypt and events that took place in the book of Exodus are a microcosm of what will happen to the entire planet in the last days. It will replay, but it does not mean the forty-year generation. What it means is those €œof the kind" gennao or begotten — have the same ancestry in the new birth; we come from the same source.Who Has Believed Our Message?This has led to so much confusion, so much misunderstanding, that it has caused Christians — true believers — to be discredited. They wind up looking like €œthe boy who cried wolf." In this tale from Aesop"s Fables, the boy cries wolf too many times when the wolf is not there, so when the wolf actually shows up, nobody pays attention to the boy. Likewise, if Satan can deceive Christians into speculating about nonsense like Y2K, or the rapture in 1988, or that He has to come by 2007 since that is 40 years from Jerusalem being captured in the Six-Day War -- the more Satan can have the church sounding a false alarm. So when it comes time to sound the real alarm, who is going to listen; who is going to believe it?
These things are not necessarily perpetrated by people with wrong motives; the people who do these things are largely sincere Christians wanting to do the right thing. But instead of sounding a distinctive note, they are blowing a cacophony as Paul warns against in Corinthians. It"s something indiscernible; they are sending false signals, so when it comes time to sound the true alarm, the church will have been so discredited nobody will listen. We have reached a point now where the ridiculous has happened. In a media-driven society the world is looking to Hollywood instead of the church. There is a movie called €œEnd of Days" with Arnold Schwarzenegger, and people are getting their eschatology from that movie! €œWell this cannot be the Anti-Christ." €œThat cannot be of prophetic significance; the movie did not happen that way." Don"t think people don"t think this way; there are those who do think this way.
Worse than the world looking to Hollywood, born-again, evangelical Christians embraced an unbiblical, historically-inaccurate film called €œThe Passion of the Christ." This movie was made by a man who is a self-professed Traditional Catholic who states that he based the movie not just on the Gospels, but on the visions of Roman Catholic mystic Anne Catherine Emmerich. In the movie Mel Gibson"s own hand drive the nails into the metacarpus instead of the radius, supportive of the Roman Catholic superstition of stigmata. (In fact palaeo-archaeology tells us that the nails went through the radius.) Mel does not even think it is necessary to believe in Jesus for salvation. Based on the following excerpt from the Monday, February 18, 2004 program with Diane Sawyer, one can only assume that he is not even saved.
DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS) -- €œ... when we talked with Gibson and his actors, we wondered, does his traditionalist view bar the door to Heaven for Jews, Protestants, Muslims?
MEL GIBSON— €œThat"s not the case at all. Absolutely not. It is possible for people who are not even Christian to get into the Kingdom of Heaven. It"s just easier for - and I have to say that because that"s what I believe."
DIANE SAWYER— €œYou have the non-stop ticket?"
MEL GIBSON— €œWell, yeah, I"m saying it"s an easier ride where I am because it"s like -I have to believe that."
In August of 2004, an Australian newspaper asked what impact making the film €œThe Passion" has had on his life. He responded €œI have a hell of a lot more money than I used to have, I don"t have to answer questions like this anymore." He implied he made it for money -- a biblically and historically inaccurate film. And he doesn"t even believe one must trust in Jesus to go to Heaven. The Gospel says €œunless you believe I am He, you will perish in your sins. Unless a man is born again he cannot enter the Kingdom." Yet there are people who claim to be born-again, Evangelical pastors and leaders saying this is still an evangelistic tool. If the Church is going to Hollywood for its Gospel, why shouldn"t unsaved people go to Hollywood for their eschatology?
When the real thing happens, who will believe it? Signs of the times and world events point to the soon coming of Christ. Apostasy and deception in the church point to the soon coming of Christ. It is amazing the speed at which the ecumenical movement, pioneered by agents of Lucifer such as Chuck Colson, have swept born-again Christians into thinking the Roman church is biblical. My mother"s family is Catholic, but you must be born again; salvation is not by sacraments, not by an ex opera operato ritual. Praying to the dead is the sin of necromancy, transubstantiation is cannibalistic and idolatrous. The apostles forbade the consumption of blood, but if saved Christians cannot see through a Chuck Colson, what is going to happen when real deception comes? If saved Christians cannot see through con-artist, money preachers on television preaching mammon worship, calling covetousness a virtue, what is going to happen when real deception comes?
When saved Christians run around with unbiblical ideas of what €œthis generation" means, speculating about dates for the return of Christ, scare-mongering about Y2K, when the real thing happens who is going to listen? They will be like the boy crying wolf.
The Hebrew prophets tell us in the last days one of the things we are called to do is set a trumpet to your mouth; blow a trumpet in Zion. As you read in Joel Chapter 2, €œblow the trumpet in Zion; sound an alarm on my holy mountain." In its Sitz im Leben (in its historical setting) it is a warning about the invasion of Nebuchadnezzar, the armies of Babylon, and the locusts which are illustrations of the Babylonian invasion. In the ninth chapter of the book of Revelation there are the demon cohort armies of Anti-Christ. Yet people in the Vineyard movement and those in churches like Holy Trinity Brompton in London sing, €œThey run on the city, they run on the walls, great is the army who carries His Word." They are singing about the armies of Babylon; they are singing about the demon cohorts of Anti-Christ, and they think they are singing about themselves — the Church Triumphant. It is ridiculous. These are the inventions of men under the inspiration of Satan.For by One Spirit We Were All Baptized into One BodyThis Generation, this generation, this generation. It is true, this generation will not pass away until these things happen. Well these things are happening. You are this generation. What does that mean? Does it mean that you"re guaranteed to be alive when Jesus comes? No -- maybe you will; maybe I will; maybe we won"t; but it is to say that those who are born of God, those who are reborn — the gennao — those €œof that kind," will have to be here when it happens, when He comes, and He is coming. If He was not coming soon, Satan would not be so determined to spread so much confusion, false information, raising up so many false prophets, so many deceivers, so many false teachers, in this generation — indeed, this generation.
Y2K had no more biblical or logical basis than Y1K. Likewise, saying that Jesus must return by 2007 has no more biblical or factual basis than for those who said He must return by 1988. Saved Christians should leave the ignorant folly of such speculation to those cult leaders, such as the Jehovah"s Witnesses, who deserve to make public fools of themselves with their bogus, date-setting nonsense. The only thing we can know for sure at this point is that He is indeed coming soon.
Maranatha — Come Quickly Lord Jesus!
€œTruly I say to you this generation will not pass away until all things take place" (Matthew 24:34)
This verse of the Olivet Discourse has led to so much speculation, misunderstanding, prophetic pronouncement and prediction that failed to happen — €œthis generation." It has been assumed that the generation that died in the wilderness as told in the story of the Exodus was forty years, therefore a biblical generation must be forty years. Hal Lindsey popularized this idea in his best-seller €œThe Late Great Planet Earth," in which he speculated that something apocalyptic had to happen within a forty-year period of time, give or take a few years, from the birth of the nation of Israel.The Spirit of Truth and the Spirit of ErrorThere has been two sources for the misinterpretation of €œthis generation". The first had been with those who propagate the deception of post-millennialism, with its modern-day adjuncts. These include Dominion Theology, Kingdom-Now Theology, and Triumphalism (the bogus notion that the Church is going to conquer the world before Christ comes and set up His Kingdom. Only then will He come for a victorious Church.) This is the diametric opposite of what the Word of God teaches. Jesus does not come for a victorious Church, He comes with a victorious Church which has been raptured. It is the seed of the woman who crushes the head of the serpent, not as Kevin Connor teaches in Australia that it is the woman who crushes the serpent"s head. In Romans, the Lord of Glory will trample Satan under your feet; we don"t trample Satan under our own. It is the return of Jesus that turns the final victory into "The Final Victory".
Post-millennialists forget that the early Apostolic church was almost uniformly pre-millennial before the Council of Nicea. There were heretics like Soirthis who were also pre-millennial but there is no indication that the apostolic Church believed anything other than that there would be a literal millennial reign of the Lord Jesus. Post-millennialism was invented by those who had both political and theological motives. Certainly after Constantine €œChristianised" the Roman Empire and the Church was Platonized by Augustine of Hippo to accommodate the pseudo-Christianisation of the Roman Empire, they needed a new eschatology; a new doctrinal basis to explain the last days. So while Jesus said His kingdom is not of this world, €œChristendom" said €œoh yes it is."
This is the basis and the origin of the foolish thinking of post-millennialism. Indeed the meek shall inherit the earth, but if there is no earth, how shall it be inherited? And as for the idea that the church is going to take it over now, and Satan is bound for a thousand years, one might ask €œwhen did the thousand years begin?" Those who followed Augustine believed not in Y2K but Y1K — the bogus idea that Christ would come back at the end of the first millennium. So in 999 A.D., people began giving their land, money, castles, etc. to the Pope and to the church. But we know in hindsight that Jesus did not show up in 999 A.D. under Pope Sylvester, and nobody got their money back.
The same kind of people, like Gary North in America, began pushing the Y2K idea, with wild, foolish speculation about the return of Christ. There were people such as Brae, in America, and others who tried to tell us the events of the Olivet discourse were totally fulfilled in 70 A.D. with the destruction of Jerusalem. They said that €œthis generation" must have included those who were around when Jesus was alive, who saw the destruction of the Temple. It would have been just about forty years later, and it would seem to fit to them. However, in verse 21 Jesus said that there would be a great tribulation such has not occurred since the foundation of the world, nor never shall be.
There have been other tribulations, both for the Jews and for the church, that have been worse than anything that happened in 70 A.D. when the Romans destroyed the temple, so that interpretation fails the test of history. Additionally, the Olivet discourse is not just Matthew 24 but it"s 24 and 25. Jesus did not separate the sheep from the goats or give people their eternal reward based on what they did with their talents in 70 A.D.
Without a doubt those events that happened in 70 A.D. prefigure and foreshadow what will happen in the last days, so it is important to study them. The church at that time was rescued from Jerusalem under the leadership of Simeon, a cousin of Jesus who became the Pastor of Jerusalem after the Apostle James was martyred. They fled to a place called Pella. This is indeed a type or a foreshadow of the rapture, just like what happened on the day of Pentecost is a foreshadow of what will happen in the last days. But neither Joel"s vision, which we read about in Acts 2, nor what we see in Matthew 24:29 — €œthe sun will be dark and the moon will not give its light" —happened in 70 A.D. They are only partially fulfilled, not totally. And there has never been a unique Great Tribulation before or since 70 A.D. These are still coming events foreshadowed by the events of 70 A.D., with their ultimate fulfilment in the return of Jesus.Understanding the Parable of the Fig Tree and the Other TreesThe other source of misinterpretation of €œthis generation" are Pre-millennialists who realise that it has a future meaning, but use it as a key for date-setting. They rightly believe there is a future fulfilment of the Olivet discourse, there will be an anti-Christ, a great falling away, a return of the Jews to Israel, and a future 1,000-year rule of Christ on Earth.
They look to the parable of the Fig Tree in Matthew 24:32-34 €œ €¦when its branch has already become tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near; so, you too, when you see all these things, recognize that He is near, right at the door. Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place."
Using the same 40-year generation from the Exodus account as their guide, they follow this logic: Israel became a nation in May, 1948. So they count, 1948 to "58 to "68 to "78 to 1988, and arrive at the year of the Lord"s return. There was a man named Edgar Whisenant who actually put out a book entitled €œ88 Reasons Why the Rapture Could Be in 1988." In 1987 on Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, there was a fundamentalist Baptist preacher from America standing in Speakers Corner in London telling the Muslims that he would be gone within 48 hours, but of course he was still there. He made a public fool of himself, and wound up leaving the country in humiliation. The very next year that same man and others like him said €œWe got the year wrong. It was not 1987, it is 1988." These were not hyper-charismatics; they were fundamentalist Baptists. They made fools of themselves speculating about dates for the return of Christ, which they based on their misinterpretation of €œthis generation" and they made a mockery of Bible prophecy, discrediting it in the eyes of the world.
People often assume that the rebirth of Israel is the fig tree budding forth its leaves, but is it? There is no doubt that the re-gathering of the Jews to the nation of Israel is of prophetic significance; the stage is being set for the Great Tribulation — ha tekufot tsorat Yacov — as Jeremiah the prophet called it €œthe time of Jacob"s trouble." There is no doubt Israel will be deceived by the Anti-Christ. There is no doubt they are being re-gathered for what Daniel called the 70 th week. There is no doubt these things are happening. But are these things the primary meaning of the fig tree? Does the image of the fig tree have other meaning? When the Holy Spirit gives us multiple accounts of something, it must be examined carefully, prayerfully, and read in light of comparing all accounts. In this case we have not just Matthew 24 and 25, but also Luke 17, Luke 21, and Mark 13. Jesus did not say €œwhen you see the fig tree full, stop. Period. End of story." He shows us €œLearn the parable of the fig tree and the other trees"-- not just the fig tree.
Now the parable of the fig tree and the other trees comes from the book of Judges chapters 8 and 9. The sons of Gideon, 70 of them, were destroyed by Abimelech. Only Jotham, who knew the parable of the fig tree and the other trees, recognised the deceiver. They said to the bramble, €œcome reign over us." The bramble would because the olive tree wouldn"t, because the vine wouldn"t, because the fig tree wouldn"t. The infidelity of God's people makes a way for the Anti-Christ to come to power in the end. This is the ultimate meaning of the fig tree. Understand the fig tree. In Judaism; the fig tree is a metaphor for the tree of life — the Eytz Hayim — that we see in a millennial context in Ezekiel 47, and in the creation narrative in Genesis, and that we see in the book of Revelation at the end. And the leaves in Revelation are for the healing of the nations. Fig leaves are metaphors for good works in the Bible. Unsaved people will always try to justify themselves with good works.
Every €œreligion" is established on a works-based righteousness. The righteousness of the Gospel is not based on works. Christians do not do good works to get saved, they do good works because they have been saved. There is more to the fig tree than the nation of Israel, but the main aspect of Israel concerning the fig tree is that Jesus cursed the fig tree. Why? Because it had leaves with no fruit. Israel had works, but not the fruit of the Spirit. The leaves normally occur at the same time as the fruit. The sun in the Middle East will burn up the fruit unless the leaves are covering them. Faith without works is dead. But it was not yet the season for figs when Jesus came. The Son of Man comes at an hour you do not expect.But of the Day and the Hour No One Knows €¦You cannot calculate the day of His return on the basis of a generation being forty years, nor estimate that day based on the date of the rebirth of Israel. Neither can you speculate that it only means Jerusalem and count down from the time it is no longer trampled down by the feet of the Gentiles. In 1967 the Jews had control of the Temple Mount, therefore "67 to "77, to "87, to "97 -- therefore by 2007, they speculate, Jesus will be back since Jerusalem is no longer trampled under the feet of the Gentiles. Yet Jesus said until the time of the Gentiles is completed, but Jerusalem is still under the feet of the Gentiles. The Israeli General Moshe Dayan gave unilateral control of the Temple Mount to the Moslems. The Mosque of Omar, with an inscription from the Koran €œGod has no son," is on the Temple Mount as is the Mosque of Al-Aqsa. It is still under the feet of the Gentiles. The time of the Gentiles is closing, but it is not yet over.After Their Kind €¦It is never wise to speculate about dates for the return of Christ. The right understanding of €œthis generation" has complications. We have Hebrew words Dor and Min Dor la Dor — €œfrom generation to generation." Dor is a biological generation; min is €œof a kind" as referred to in the book of Genesis. God made the species according to their kind, hence the impossibility of Darwinism. There is absolutely no evidence that recombinant DNA transmutates across the genus barrier in the natural environment and now that Man is beginning to engage in biogenetic engineering, and the transfer of DNA across the genus barrier we are in danger of creating monsters. Things can very easily get out of control. Anything fallen man can use for evil he will. Can nuclear energy be used for good? Yes, but fallen man will use it for evil. Can biogenetic engineering be used for good? Fallen man will use it for evil. The world is in the power of the wicked one. If they clone species or invent new ones based on combining the DNA of different species, we can no longer be sure that when we look at some of the monsters that appear in the Book of Revelation, that they are only symbols, and not literal as well. God made them according to their kind or €œmin" in the Hebrew text, not hybrids.
There are now rats that have 1% human brain due to biogenetic engineering. Can you imagine rats with human minds? The theoretical possibility cannot be ruled out. Min is €œof a kind," and is the root of the Hebrew term for sex and sexual reproduction — minee. However, generation — dor —is another Hebrew word entirely. The complication happens when we put these Hebrew terms into the Greek language. The word gennao in Greek closely approximates min Jesus is the monogenes —the only begotten. Gennao means €œbegotten." This is also the root of the word €œgenesis." The word used in Matthew 24, however is gennea notgennao.
This is a more complicated term because it is ambiguous. The context and its connectives determine what is meant. It can have two possible meanings. Think of the word €œblue." This cup is blue. That is clear; it is referring to its color. But blue is also a metaphor for being sad in English. There is a form of music invented by Black Americans called €œThe Blues." There is a music which combines jovial upbeat major chords with sad minor chords, or that plays minor chords in a fast rhythmic pattern called Rhythm & Blues. Rhythm & Blues is sort of like Jewish music; it is both happy and sad at the same time, using minor chords in a vivacious way. So what does blue mean? Does blue mean a colour, or is blue a metaphor for being sad? Well, the context tells you, and the other words to which it is connected to tell you what blue means. So it is with gennea. Gennea can almost be a synonym for gennao, meaning of the same kind because of common ancestry.
Being begotten of the same source it can almost be a synonym for gennao, or it could mean that which is in a circle of time, that is a multitude of contemporaries, or it could be a metaphor like blue.
For example, there are airplanes called 747s. They have been built since the 1960s, and some forty years later they are still coming off the assembly lines in Seattle, Washington. The next generation will be the 787, an airplane that you can get on and fly non-stop from Rio de Janeiro to Tokyo, or from London to Melbourne. It is an airplane that can go non-stop from anywhere in the world to anywhere else in the world without landing. That is the next generation. If you can have a 747 that was built in 1968 that was junked twenty years ago, and you can have one built in 1995 that is still in operation, they are still the same generation because they are of the same design. They are €œof the same kind." It is the 787 that is the next generation. In the same sense one can determine the meaning of gennae — by the context. Does it mean €œof a kind?" Or does it mean €œa multitude of contemporaries within a circle of time?" Or does it mean both? The context will clarify the meaning.
In Matthew 24:34, it means €œof a kind" because we are the generation of Jesus. He is the monogenes — the only begotten of the Father, and the church is made up of those who are born again. We are begotten in a spiritual sense; we are begotten from the same source, born again of the Spirit, and we are of the same kind. What Matthew 24 is telling us is that the church will not pass away. Those of this kind, those who have been begotten from Jesus, will not pass away until all these events happen. Now these events will recapitulate, will replay, on a much broader, larger scale than that which happened in 70 A.D. This is what pre-millenialists have always understood, but post-millenialists have never grasped. The judgments on Egypt and events that took place in the book of Exodus are a microcosm of what will happen to the entire planet in the last days. It will replay, but it does not mean the forty-year generation. What it means is those €œof the kind" gennao or begotten — have the same ancestry in the new birth; we come from the same source.Who Has Believed Our Message?This has led to so much confusion, so much misunderstanding, that it has caused Christians — true believers — to be discredited. They wind up looking like €œthe boy who cried wolf." In this tale from Aesop"s Fables, the boy cries wolf too many times when the wolf is not there, so when the wolf actually shows up, nobody pays attention to the boy. Likewise, if Satan can deceive Christians into speculating about nonsense like Y2K, or the rapture in 1988, or that He has to come by 2007 since that is 40 years from Jerusalem being captured in the Six-Day War -- the more Satan can have the church sounding a false alarm. So when it comes time to sound the real alarm, who is going to listen; who is going to believe it?
These things are not necessarily perpetrated by people with wrong motives; the people who do these things are largely sincere Christians wanting to do the right thing. But instead of sounding a distinctive note, they are blowing a cacophony as Paul warns against in Corinthians. It"s something indiscernible; they are sending false signals, so when it comes time to sound the true alarm, the church will have been so discredited nobody will listen. We have reached a point now where the ridiculous has happened. In a media-driven society the world is looking to Hollywood instead of the church. There is a movie called €œEnd of Days" with Arnold Schwarzenegger, and people are getting their eschatology from that movie! €œWell this cannot be the Anti-Christ." €œThat cannot be of prophetic significance; the movie did not happen that way." Don"t think people don"t think this way; there are those who do think this way.
Worse than the world looking to Hollywood, born-again, evangelical Christians embraced an unbiblical, historically-inaccurate film called €œThe Passion of the Christ." This movie was made by a man who is a self-professed Traditional Catholic who states that he based the movie not just on the Gospels, but on the visions of Roman Catholic mystic Anne Catherine Emmerich. In the movie Mel Gibson"s own hand drive the nails into the metacarpus instead of the radius, supportive of the Roman Catholic superstition of stigmata. (In fact palaeo-archaeology tells us that the nails went through the radius.) Mel does not even think it is necessary to believe in Jesus for salvation. Based on the following excerpt from the Monday, February 18, 2004 program with Diane Sawyer, one can only assume that he is not even saved.
DIANE SAWYER (ABC NEWS) -- €œ... when we talked with Gibson and his actors, we wondered, does his traditionalist view bar the door to Heaven for Jews, Protestants, Muslims?
MEL GIBSON— €œThat"s not the case at all. Absolutely not. It is possible for people who are not even Christian to get into the Kingdom of Heaven. It"s just easier for - and I have to say that because that"s what I believe."
DIANE SAWYER— €œYou have the non-stop ticket?"
MEL GIBSON— €œWell, yeah, I"m saying it"s an easier ride where I am because it"s like -I have to believe that."
In August of 2004, an Australian newspaper asked what impact making the film €œThe Passion" has had on his life. He responded €œI have a hell of a lot more money than I used to have, I don"t have to answer questions like this anymore." He implied he made it for money -- a biblically and historically inaccurate film. And he doesn"t even believe one must trust in Jesus to go to Heaven. The Gospel says €œunless you believe I am He, you will perish in your sins. Unless a man is born again he cannot enter the Kingdom." Yet there are people who claim to be born-again, Evangelical pastors and leaders saying this is still an evangelistic tool. If the Church is going to Hollywood for its Gospel, why shouldn"t unsaved people go to Hollywood for their eschatology?
When the real thing happens, who will believe it? Signs of the times and world events point to the soon coming of Christ. Apostasy and deception in the church point to the soon coming of Christ. It is amazing the speed at which the ecumenical movement, pioneered by agents of Lucifer such as Chuck Colson, have swept born-again Christians into thinking the Roman church is biblical. My mother"s family is Catholic, but you must be born again; salvation is not by sacraments, not by an ex opera operato ritual. Praying to the dead is the sin of necromancy, transubstantiation is cannibalistic and idolatrous. The apostles forbade the consumption of blood, but if saved Christians cannot see through a Chuck Colson, what is going to happen when real deception comes? If saved Christians cannot see through con-artist, money preachers on television preaching mammon worship, calling covetousness a virtue, what is going to happen when real deception comes?
When saved Christians run around with unbiblical ideas of what €œthis generation" means, speculating about dates for the return of Christ, scare-mongering about Y2K, when the real thing happens who is going to listen? They will be like the boy crying wolf.
The Hebrew prophets tell us in the last days one of the things we are called to do is set a trumpet to your mouth; blow a trumpet in Zion. As you read in Joel Chapter 2, €œblow the trumpet in Zion; sound an alarm on my holy mountain." In its Sitz im Leben (in its historical setting) it is a warning about the invasion of Nebuchadnezzar, the armies of Babylon, and the locusts which are illustrations of the Babylonian invasion. In the ninth chapter of the book of Revelation there are the demon cohort armies of Anti-Christ. Yet people in the Vineyard movement and those in churches like Holy Trinity Brompton in London sing, €œThey run on the city, they run on the walls, great is the army who carries His Word." They are singing about the armies of Babylon; they are singing about the demon cohorts of Anti-Christ, and they think they are singing about themselves — the Church Triumphant. It is ridiculous. These are the inventions of men under the inspiration of Satan.For by One Spirit We Were All Baptized into One BodyThis Generation, this generation, this generation. It is true, this generation will not pass away until these things happen. Well these things are happening. You are this generation. What does that mean? Does it mean that you"re guaranteed to be alive when Jesus comes? No -- maybe you will; maybe I will; maybe we won"t; but it is to say that those who are born of God, those who are reborn — the gennao — those €œof that kind," will have to be here when it happens, when He comes, and He is coming. If He was not coming soon, Satan would not be so determined to spread so much confusion, false information, raising up so many false prophets, so many deceivers, so many false teachers, in this generation — indeed, this generation.
Y2K had no more biblical or logical basis than Y1K. Likewise, saying that Jesus must return by 2007 has no more biblical or factual basis than for those who said He must return by 1988. Saved Christians should leave the ignorant folly of such speculation to those cult leaders, such as the Jehovah"s Witnesses, who deserve to make public fools of themselves with their bogus, date-setting nonsense. The only thing we can know for sure at this point is that He is indeed coming soon.
Maranatha — Come Quickly Lord Jesus!
Issue of Idol Worship
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How can Hinduism and the Bible agree, when God says do not make any carved images of anything? "Do not make idols or set up an image or a sacred stone for yourselves, and do not place a carved stone in your land to bow down before it. I am the LORD your God.
Exodus 20:4 "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. Leviticus 19:4 "'Do not turn to idols or make gods of cast metal for yourselves. I am the LORD your God. Deuteronomy 4:16 so that you do not become corrupt and make for yourselves an idol, an image of any shape, whether formed like a man or a woman, Deuteronomy 16:22 and do not erect a sacred stone, for these the LORD your God hates.
Deuteronomy 27:15 "Cursed is the man who carves an image or casts an idol--a thing detestable to the LORD, the work of the craftsman's hands--and sets it up in secret." John 4:24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."Issue of Re-IncarnationThe next distinction between Christianity and Hinduism are the beliefs of what happens once we die. While Christians believe in salvation of he soul and Hindu"s in "freedom" of the soul, the Hindu believes this is achieved through rebirth (re-incarnation). While most of us here in the west would say, "you only live once," such a saying would be viewed as odd for a Hindu. If you mess up in this life, the Hindus believe you get another chance. You might be reborn to a lower form of life (a lower caste even), but at least your punishment is not eternal. Christianity is quite different. Only those who are "born again" will inherit eternal life through Jesus Christ. Those who are outside of God's protection in Christ will be subject to an eternal destruction in a lake of fire. This may explain why the Hindu God(s) are more tolerant than the Christian God. If there is reincarnation and if there is no hell, Hindus can afford to be patient and to learn the long, hard way: by experience rather than by faith and revelation. Issue of ScriptureIn Christianity, the Word of God comes from only one source - the Holy Bible. The Word of God has a strict code of morals and basic life for humans to follow, just as the Hindu Gods in the Hindu scriptures do. However, the Hindus rely on many written sources for their faith: the Vedas, the Puranas, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the Bhagavad-Gita, and the Manu Smirti.
Exodus 20:4 "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. Leviticus 19:4 "'Do not turn to idols or make gods of cast metal for yourselves. I am the LORD your God. Deuteronomy 4:16 so that you do not become corrupt and make for yourselves an idol, an image of any shape, whether formed like a man or a woman, Deuteronomy 16:22 and do not erect a sacred stone, for these the LORD your God hates.
Deuteronomy 27:15 "Cursed is the man who carves an image or casts an idol--a thing detestable to the LORD, the work of the craftsman's hands--and sets it up in secret." John 4:24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."Issue of Re-IncarnationThe next distinction between Christianity and Hinduism are the beliefs of what happens once we die. While Christians believe in salvation of he soul and Hindu"s in "freedom" of the soul, the Hindu believes this is achieved through rebirth (re-incarnation). While most of us here in the west would say, "you only live once," such a saying would be viewed as odd for a Hindu. If you mess up in this life, the Hindus believe you get another chance. You might be reborn to a lower form of life (a lower caste even), but at least your punishment is not eternal. Christianity is quite different. Only those who are "born again" will inherit eternal life through Jesus Christ. Those who are outside of God's protection in Christ will be subject to an eternal destruction in a lake of fire. This may explain why the Hindu God(s) are more tolerant than the Christian God. If there is reincarnation and if there is no hell, Hindus can afford to be patient and to learn the long, hard way: by experience rather than by faith and revelation. Issue of ScriptureIn Christianity, the Word of God comes from only one source - the Holy Bible. The Word of God has a strict code of morals and basic life for humans to follow, just as the Hindu Gods in the Hindu scriptures do. However, the Hindus rely on many written sources for their faith: the Vedas, the Puranas, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the Bhagavad-Gita, and the Manu Smirti.
In Summary
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How can you blaspheme an "it"? How can He only be an angel when the angels are called to worship Him and we"re told both in Psalm 45 and in Hebrews 1 He is God and there"s only one God. Please tell me how. How can I be expected to follow people who in the name of Jehovah predict things that have not happened when Jehovah commanded me and you to get away from them, and when your own organization says we shouldn"t follow people that do that? These questions are sincere and they are fair.
If what you believe is right, if your organization is really Jehovah"s organization, if it"s really the truth, I want to know it and I want to be part of it. But it"s false, do you want to be part of it? If what you say is right, I want to be part of it. If it"s false, do you want to be part of it anyway?
I know that if anyone left your organization that they"d be losing their family, their marriage, even their children, but Jesus said, "He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me". (Mt. 10:37) Believe me, Muslims, Orthodox Jews, many people who"ve come to believe in Jesus have had to deal with that.
Now I'm convinced that Jesus was God who became a man, that He went to the cross in my place and paid for my sins on that cross, and that He literally rose from the dead to give me eternal life. I"m convinced that"s true. And I"m convinced what He did for me He wants to do for you, but if I"m wrong I want to be proven wrong. I'll be happy to answer your questions, just write me or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. document.getElementById('cloak3e914f0bada6aebbba9d7becde4732e7').innerHTML = ''; var prefix = 'ma' + 'il' + 'to'; var path = 'hr' + 'ef' + '='; var addy3e914f0bada6aebbba9d7becde4732e7 = 'MorielCarol' + '@'; addy3e914f0bada6aebbba9d7becde4732e7 = addy3e914f0bada6aebbba9d7becde4732e7 + 'yahoo' + '.' + 'com'; var addy_text3e914f0bada6aebbba9d7becde4732e7 = 'e-mail me';document.getElementById('cloak3e914f0bada6aebbba9d7becde4732e7').innerHTML += ''+addy_text3e914f0bada6aebbba9d7becde4732e7+''; , I'll answer your questions or write us here in Britain:
Moriel P.O. Box 201 Maidenhead SL69FB
I"m only asking one thing: Please answer mine. I've given you five sincere, honest questions. I'll be happy to talk to you, so will the person who directed you here. We"ll be happy to talk to you, just answer the questions.
Thank you, dear friends. We hope to hear from you.
If what you believe is right, if your organization is really Jehovah"s organization, if it"s really the truth, I want to know it and I want to be part of it. But it"s false, do you want to be part of it? If what you say is right, I want to be part of it. If it"s false, do you want to be part of it anyway?
I know that if anyone left your organization that they"d be losing their family, their marriage, even their children, but Jesus said, "He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me". (Mt. 10:37) Believe me, Muslims, Orthodox Jews, many people who"ve come to believe in Jesus have had to deal with that.
Now I'm convinced that Jesus was God who became a man, that He went to the cross in my place and paid for my sins on that cross, and that He literally rose from the dead to give me eternal life. I"m convinced that"s true. And I"m convinced what He did for me He wants to do for you, but if I"m wrong I want to be proven wrong. I'll be happy to answer your questions, just write me or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. document.getElementById('cloak3e914f0bada6aebbba9d7becde4732e7').innerHTML = ''; var prefix = 'ma' + 'il' + 'to'; var path = 'hr' + 'ef' + '='; var addy3e914f0bada6aebbba9d7becde4732e7 = 'MorielCarol' + '@'; addy3e914f0bada6aebbba9d7becde4732e7 = addy3e914f0bada6aebbba9d7becde4732e7 + 'yahoo' + '.' + 'com'; var addy_text3e914f0bada6aebbba9d7becde4732e7 = 'e-mail me';document.getElementById('cloak3e914f0bada6aebbba9d7becde4732e7').innerHTML += ''+addy_text3e914f0bada6aebbba9d7becde4732e7+''; , I'll answer your questions or write us here in Britain:
Moriel P.O. Box 201 Maidenhead SL69FB
I"m only asking one thing: Please answer mine. I've given you five sincere, honest questions. I'll be happy to talk to you, so will the person who directed you here. We"ll be happy to talk to you, just answer the questions.
Thank you, dear friends. We hope to hear from you.
The Two Adams
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by James Jacob Prasch
Many places in the Old Testament speak of the resurrection. Job, when he was a dying man,
said, "Even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh I shall see God; whom I my-self shall behold, and whom my eyes shall see." (Job 19:26-27).
And the prophet Daniel said there would be a resurrection, some to judgment and everlasting contempt, and some to glory and blessing (Daniel 12:1-3).Rabbi GamalielPaul the Apostle was a disciple of some one called Rabbi Gamaliel in Jerusalem. This Rabbi Gamaliel is very important in Judaism. The Talmud says he was such a great and holy Rabbi that, when he died, righteousness perished from the earth.
In the book of Acts we read about Rabbi Gamaliel (Acts 5:34-39). This famous Rabbi said that, if Jesus were not the Messiah of the Jews, then the faith of the Christians would perish.
There were many false messiahs and many claiming to be the Messiah. They all came and went. They established movements but they all disappeared. Rabbi Gamaliel told us in the book of Acts that, if Jesus were not the Messiah, Christianity would disappear. But it did not disappear.
This Rabbi Gamaliel was the grandson of another very famous Rabbi called Rabbi Hillel. There were two kinds of Pharisees: those who studied in the yeshiva of Rabbi Gamaliel, in what is known as 'the School of Hillel,' and the other was the 'School of Shammai.' In this school of Hillel, which was being run in Paul's time by Rabbi Gamaliel, there were a number of very famous classmates. One was called Rabbi Onkelos, who did a translation of the Old Testament from Hebrew into Aramaic called theTargum Onkelos.
Then there were two other classmates. One was called Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai. It was he who began Rabbinic Judaism and replaced the temple with the synagogue.The MessiahDaniel the prophet said that the Messiah would have to come and die before the Second Temple would be destroyed. (We read about this in the Talmud.) That temple was destroyed in 70 AD, something Jesus predicted would happen in Matthew 24 and Luke 21.
Whoever the Messiah was, He had to come and die before 70 AD. Not only that but, according to Isaiah, He had to cause the Gentiles to believe in the Jewish God. Not only that but, according to Micah, He had to be born in Bethlehem. The Talmud explains that each of these prophecies is speaking of the Messiah. Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai recognized that they had a problem. The Jewish religion, as Moses gave it to them, could not be practiced any more because there was no more temple. They decided to make another religion, which is called 'Rabbinic Judaism.'
About three hundred years later Constantine did the same thing with Christianity. Instead of the Jewish Christianity that Jesus gave and the apostles taught, they paganised and Hellenised it; they made another religion, replacing the original faith of the gospels. Now there was a 'Christianity' that was no longer biblical, which became organizations like Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, as well as a Judaism which was no longer Biblical.The resurrection of the deadBut Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai had another classmate, Rabbi Shaul of Tarsus, who we call Paul the Apostle. He hated Christians and persecuted them until God appeared to him.
Paul asked, "Who are you?" And He said, "I am Jesus whom you are persecuting" (Acts 9:5).
And, like Daniel, Paul talks about the resurrection: So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body (1 Corinthians 15:42).
Someday our bodies are going to be sown into the earth, but they will come out as something different.
It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power [just like the body of Jesus]; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body .
So also it is written, 'The first man, Adam, became a living soul.' The last Adam became a life giving spirit. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual.
The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven. As is the earthy, so also are those who are earthy; and as is the heavenly, so also are those who are heavenly.
And just as we have born the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.
Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable (1 Corinthians 15:43-50).Two AdamsThere are two Adams. As far as God is concerned there are only two men who have ever existed, Adam and Jesus - the first Adam and the second Adam. Every other human being who has ever lived, or ever will live, is either part of the first Adam, or part of the second Adam.
Adam and the body of Jesus were both created by God, directly and personally. They were both created without sin. They did not have a fallen nature.
The first Adam was tempted and fell. King David later said, "In sin did my mother conceive me" (Psalm 51:5). In the same way as we genetically pass on our physical traits to our offspring, so sin is transmitted. We have a fallen nature. We are all born of the first Adam.
In order to escape the judgment of God, in order not to have to pay the price for our own sins, in order to live forever, we have to be born of the second Adam.MidrashWhat Rabbi Shaul of Tarsus is doing here is called 'midrash.' It is the way Jewish people interpreted the Scripture.
There are seven rules of interpreting the Bible that came from Rabbi Gamaliel. The first rule is called kal de homer. It literally means, "light to heavy." Something that applies in a general situation applies in a specific situation or, if something is true in a light situation, it is true in a heavy situation.
The second rule is called binyan ab m'shne ketubim, building a theological argument from two passages.
Rabbi Shaul of Tarsus is taking those two midroth [rules of interpretation] and using them to interpret Adam.Interpreting Adam Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, "Indeed, has God said, 'You shall not eat from any tree of the garden'?"
And the woman said to the serpent, "From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat from it or touch it, lest you die.'"
And the serpent said to the woman, "You surely shall not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings (Genesis Chapter 3:1-7).
We have to understand what is happening here. The serpent is a seducer and representative of Satan's nature as a spiritual seducer.
The serpent was already in the garden. When God created Adam and Eve, He told them to subdue the earth.
The world had not fallen yet, but Satan was somehow on the loose and had to be subdued. Adam and Eve were to subdue it. So, they were to know that evil existed, but they were not to know it in themselves as part of their own nature.No imperfections, but not yet perfectedIf you had a little baby, a few days old, and the little baby was perfectly healthy, that is good.
There is nothing wrong with the baby, but the baby is not perfected yet. The baby has to grow up. The baby has no imperfections, but it is not perfected yet. That is the way Adam and Eve were, they had nothing wrong with them, but they were not perfected yet. The way they were to be perfected was to eat of the Tree of Life and live forever as God's children and take on God's nature.
Instead, they chose to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and tried to become gods themselves, independent of God, which is what Satan did before the creation. He seduced them into doing what he did. The very things Adam and Eve wanted - dominion, power, life - God was going to give them anyway, but without sin. So the first Adam and the first Eve wasted their opportunity!Symbols of usThis whole thing is a symbol. Remember that Jesus is the second Adam. Adam is the symbol of Jesus and Eve is a symbol of Israel and, by extension, of the church. The serpent will always try to attack Jesus through His woman, the church. The first Adam blew it. How did it happen? The tree was good for food. a delight to the eyes. desirable to make one wise(Genesis 3:6).
Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world (1 John 2:15) She saw it was: good for food - the lust of the flesh, a delight to the eyes - the lust of the eyes,desirable to make one wise, the boastful pride of life.
The first Adam blew it.
As a result all the rest of us have been born with a fallen, Adamic nature - the nature of the flesh.
That is why flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 15:50). It is fallen.
There has to be a second Adam to undo the mistake of the first Adam. And that is what God promised.A second Adam I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. [That seed, the Rabbis tell us, is the Messiah.]; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise Him on the heel (Genesis 3:15)
The Messiah would be bruised on the heel. The serpent would slay Him but He would rise from the dead. But the Messiah would then crush the serpent's head and destroy the serpent.
Be careful of the Kingdom Now people, the Dominionists. They say that the church will be triumphant and will crush the serpent's head. That is not what the Bible says. It is not the woman who destroys the serpent's head. It is the seed of the woman - the Messiah. Kingdom Now theology is another trick of the devil to make us think we can be like God. It is a form of spiritual seduction. There are many sincere Christians involved in it, but it is very dangerous and totally false.Temptation in the WildernessNow, where does Paul get this "second Adam" stuff? He does it with Midrash. And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name (Genesis 2:19).
Here, in Genesis, Adam was alone with all the animals.
And immediately the Spirit impelled Him [Jesus] to go out into the wilderness. And He was in the wilderness forty days being tempted by Satan; and He was with the wild beasts. (Mark 1:12-13).
Midrash builds a theological argument from two texts. Mark chapter 1 repaints the picture in Genesis. The first Adam was alone with the animals. Now the second Adam is alone with the animals.
What happened with the first Adam? The lust of the flesh - good for food, the lust of the eyes - a delight to the eyes, the boastful pride of life -desirable to make one wise.
What did Satan try on Jesus?
"If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread"(Matthew 4:3). In the wilderness of Judah east of Jerusalem, there are round rocks that look just like round loaves of bread. McDonald's might be junk food, but by the time you finish a seven-day fast, it may as well be a gourmet restaurant!
Why? The lust of the flesh. The devil took Him to a very high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory; and he said to Him, "All these things will I give You, if You fall down and worship me"(Matthew 4:8-9).
Why? The lust of the eyes - that avenue through which the riches and beauty of the world inflame us.
Also Satan took Him to the pinnacle of the Temple, and said to Him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, 'He will give His angels charge concerning You'; and 'On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone' " (Matthew 4:6).
Why? The sinful pride of life - the presumption that He could make a public show of His Father's care for Him!God become manThe things Satan did to the first Adam, he tried to do to the second Adam. He tricked the first Adam. As a result, we were all born with a fallen nature. But the second Adam did not give place to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes or the boastful pride of life. Jesus was God become man.
For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; and the government will rest on His shoulders; and His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6).
Jesus could have done any of those miracles, but He only did what He saw His Father doing.
Jesus did not walk on the Sea of Galilee because He was God.
He did not feed the five thousand because He was God. He could have, but He did not. He only did what the Holy Spirit did through Him.
He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant. (Philippians 2:6).
He limited Himself to the same things that limit us.The works of SatanThe first Adam totally blew it, but now the Spirit drove the second Adam into a place where He was alone with the animals. And then along came the serpent.
The first thing Satan tried was the lust of the flesh. That did not work.
Then He tried the lust of the eyes. Then he tried pride. They did not work either. Notice that Jesus never questioned Satan's authority. When Satan said, "All these are given into my hand," Jesus didn't question it. God gave dominion over the earth to man and we gave it to the devil. Jesus never questioned Satan's authority.
The Bible says that the second Adam came that the works of Satan may be destroyed. He is going to take that authority back and return it back to us, to those who accept Him as the Messiah.
Most born-again Christians think that Jesus won the victory on the Cross and in the resurrection. That is true, but, if He did not go into the wilderness, put Himself in the same situation as the first Adam and overcome the temptation that the first Adam fell into, He would not have been qualified to go to the Cross. Jesus had to undo the damage that the first Adam did before He could go to the Cross and pay the price for our sins. One person without sin is worth more to God than all the people with sin. That is why the Passover Lamb had to be a lamb without blemish.
The problem is that, because we are all part of the first Adam, we have Adam's sin. The second Adam did not have that sin. He could pay the price for our sins. When Jesus went to the Cross, He paid the price for my sin.
You are either in the first Adam or the second Adam. You are either part of the fallen race that you were born into, or you are part of the saved race that you are born again into.A new natureNow, we all, Jew and Gentile, are descended from Adam. And Adam blew it. We all suffer from the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life. It is in our fallen nature, which is why we need a new nature.
For this perishable must put on the imperishable (1 Corinthians 15:53).
We need to get rid of the first Adam and put on the second Adam. But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, "Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O grave, where is your sting?" (1 Corinthians 15:54-55).
God actually mocks death. He calls death 'an enemy' and He mocks it, because Jesus, the second Adam, overcame it. The first Adam fell into it but the second Adam overcame it.
So God gives us a choice. Do you want to be part of the first Adam or do you want to be part of the second Adam? Do you want to be part of the Adam that is going to perish or do you want to be a part of the second Adam that is going to live forever in happiness, sharing God's glory, sharing His love and His bounty and His blessing forever? Do you want to live your life in fear of death?
The Bible says clearly, "It is appointed to man once to die and after that, the judgment." And we are all guilty; we are all deserving of eternal damnation.Rabbi Yochanan ben ZakkaiRabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai, the founder of Rabbinic Judaism was called "the mighty hammer" by his disciples. They came to him when he was on his deathbed and asked, "O mighty hammer, why are you weeping?"
He said, "I am about to meet HaShem, blessed be his name. Before me there are two roads: one leading to Gehenna and the other leading to Paradise. I do not know to which of these two roads HaShem will sentence me."
Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai admitted that he had no assurance of salvation. That is recorded in the Talmud. But his classmate, Rabbi Shaul of Tarsus, when he was on his deathbed, said, I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness (2 Tim. 4:7-8).
Every Jew is going to follow one of these two rabbis: one who had nothing but fear of standing before a holy God, and one who knew that the Messiah had paid the price for his sins.
The first Adam or the second? If you are born, you are part of the first Adam. The first Adam will perish and go to judgment. We will give account for all of our sins. But if you are born again you can escape the wrath to come. "Save yourself from this perverse generation."
Do you want to be part of the first Adam or do you want to be part of the second Adam? Do you want to perish or do you want to have eternal life?
That is God's offer.A Father's loveI love our children so much that there is nothing I would not do for them. When my daughter Batmiel had a fever, I stayed up all night monitoring her temperature because she is my daughter.
If, God forbid, something was to happen to our children, and they had some disease, there is nothing we would not do to see my children's lives saved. God created the kind of love you have for your children to teach you how much He loves us, and that there is nothing He would not do to save us.
But we all have a terrible disease that is killing us, that is going to put us into eternal hell. The disease is called 'sin.' God has one remedy. He said, "Man-kind has failed because of Adam, but I am going to raise up a nation called Israel, and through that nation I am going to give my Word and send my Son. He will save mankind and bring them back to me.
Unfortunately, most of us do not want to return. Most of us are following the serpent and prefer living in fear of the grave to living in triumph over it.The price has been paidGod has given us a choice. Before the Messiah, who knew no sin, was nailed by the Romans to the cross - betrayed by the religious leaders of his own people - God knew that would happen. Jesus was prepared to pay the price for your sin and for my sin, for every wrong thing we ever did.
The price has been paid.
It is like someone offering you a three week holiday in Hawaii that would cost ten thousand dollars. And you said, "I can't spend ten thousand dollars." But they say, "It has already been paid; here it is."We rejected His loveThe cure for the disease is already here. Jesus was nailed to the cross for your sins and for mine.
What do we have to do? We have to realize that, like Adam, we are separated from God because of our sin. We have all rebelled against Him. We have rejected His love.
Secondly, we have to ask Him to come into us and make us part of the second Adam. It is called "being born again." He will put a new spirit inside you and make you His child.
For those who accept Him, their old nature, the first Adam, is nailed to the Cross with Jesus. Just as He rose from the dead, you will rise with Him. What God wants you to do is to ask Him to forgive you your sins, and for you to give your life to Him.
Once you do that, God will begin to change you and make you into a new person. He wants you to meet with other believers. He wants you to pray and talk to Him. He wants you to read His Word and live by it. He will show you how to live by it. And He wants you to tell other people about what He has done for you.Making the choiceBut what you have to do now is to make a choice. Do you want to be part of the first Adam or part of the second Adam?
Do you want to live in fear of the grave or to live in triumph over it? Do you want a personal relationship with the Messiah?
If you do, just say this prayer. God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, I know that you love me.
I know that I have not loved You and that I have done many evil things against You and against others.
I do not want to be the way I am, but I am the way I am and I know you love me anyway. Because you love me, you hate what I am and You hate what I do.
Thank You that you sent Your Son, the Messiah Jesus, to pay the price. Please make me born-again. I accept You as the Ruler of my life. Wash me with Your blood and make me Your child. Lord God, I ask You to save me, in the Name of Your Son the Messiah.
It is very simple. You are either in the first Adam or the second.
Many places in the Old Testament speak of the resurrection. Job, when he was a dying man,
said, "Even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh I shall see God; whom I my-self shall behold, and whom my eyes shall see." (Job 19:26-27).
And the prophet Daniel said there would be a resurrection, some to judgment and everlasting contempt, and some to glory and blessing (Daniel 12:1-3).Rabbi GamalielPaul the Apostle was a disciple of some one called Rabbi Gamaliel in Jerusalem. This Rabbi Gamaliel is very important in Judaism. The Talmud says he was such a great and holy Rabbi that, when he died, righteousness perished from the earth.
In the book of Acts we read about Rabbi Gamaliel (Acts 5:34-39). This famous Rabbi said that, if Jesus were not the Messiah of the Jews, then the faith of the Christians would perish.
There were many false messiahs and many claiming to be the Messiah. They all came and went. They established movements but they all disappeared. Rabbi Gamaliel told us in the book of Acts that, if Jesus were not the Messiah, Christianity would disappear. But it did not disappear.
This Rabbi Gamaliel was the grandson of another very famous Rabbi called Rabbi Hillel. There were two kinds of Pharisees: those who studied in the yeshiva of Rabbi Gamaliel, in what is known as 'the School of Hillel,' and the other was the 'School of Shammai.' In this school of Hillel, which was being run in Paul's time by Rabbi Gamaliel, there were a number of very famous classmates. One was called Rabbi Onkelos, who did a translation of the Old Testament from Hebrew into Aramaic called theTargum Onkelos.
Then there were two other classmates. One was called Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai. It was he who began Rabbinic Judaism and replaced the temple with the synagogue.The MessiahDaniel the prophet said that the Messiah would have to come and die before the Second Temple would be destroyed. (We read about this in the Talmud.) That temple was destroyed in 70 AD, something Jesus predicted would happen in Matthew 24 and Luke 21.
Whoever the Messiah was, He had to come and die before 70 AD. Not only that but, according to Isaiah, He had to cause the Gentiles to believe in the Jewish God. Not only that but, according to Micah, He had to be born in Bethlehem. The Talmud explains that each of these prophecies is speaking of the Messiah. Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai recognized that they had a problem. The Jewish religion, as Moses gave it to them, could not be practiced any more because there was no more temple. They decided to make another religion, which is called 'Rabbinic Judaism.'
About three hundred years later Constantine did the same thing with Christianity. Instead of the Jewish Christianity that Jesus gave and the apostles taught, they paganised and Hellenised it; they made another religion, replacing the original faith of the gospels. Now there was a 'Christianity' that was no longer biblical, which became organizations like Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, as well as a Judaism which was no longer Biblical.The resurrection of the deadBut Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai had another classmate, Rabbi Shaul of Tarsus, who we call Paul the Apostle. He hated Christians and persecuted them until God appeared to him.
Paul asked, "Who are you?" And He said, "I am Jesus whom you are persecuting" (Acts 9:5).
And, like Daniel, Paul talks about the resurrection: So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body (1 Corinthians 15:42).
Someday our bodies are going to be sown into the earth, but they will come out as something different.
It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power [just like the body of Jesus]; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body .
So also it is written, 'The first man, Adam, became a living soul.' The last Adam became a life giving spirit. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual.
The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven. As is the earthy, so also are those who are earthy; and as is the heavenly, so also are those who are heavenly.
And just as we have born the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.
Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable (1 Corinthians 15:43-50).Two AdamsThere are two Adams. As far as God is concerned there are only two men who have ever existed, Adam and Jesus - the first Adam and the second Adam. Every other human being who has ever lived, or ever will live, is either part of the first Adam, or part of the second Adam.
Adam and the body of Jesus were both created by God, directly and personally. They were both created without sin. They did not have a fallen nature.
The first Adam was tempted and fell. King David later said, "In sin did my mother conceive me" (Psalm 51:5). In the same way as we genetically pass on our physical traits to our offspring, so sin is transmitted. We have a fallen nature. We are all born of the first Adam.
In order to escape the judgment of God, in order not to have to pay the price for our own sins, in order to live forever, we have to be born of the second Adam.MidrashWhat Rabbi Shaul of Tarsus is doing here is called 'midrash.' It is the way Jewish people interpreted the Scripture.
There are seven rules of interpreting the Bible that came from Rabbi Gamaliel. The first rule is called kal de homer. It literally means, "light to heavy." Something that applies in a general situation applies in a specific situation or, if something is true in a light situation, it is true in a heavy situation.
The second rule is called binyan ab m'shne ketubim, building a theological argument from two passages.
Rabbi Shaul of Tarsus is taking those two midroth [rules of interpretation] and using them to interpret Adam.Interpreting Adam Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, "Indeed, has God said, 'You shall not eat from any tree of the garden'?"
And the woman said to the serpent, "From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat from it or touch it, lest you die.'"
And the serpent said to the woman, "You surely shall not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings (Genesis Chapter 3:1-7).
We have to understand what is happening here. The serpent is a seducer and representative of Satan's nature as a spiritual seducer.
The serpent was already in the garden. When God created Adam and Eve, He told them to subdue the earth.
The world had not fallen yet, but Satan was somehow on the loose and had to be subdued. Adam and Eve were to subdue it. So, they were to know that evil existed, but they were not to know it in themselves as part of their own nature.No imperfections, but not yet perfectedIf you had a little baby, a few days old, and the little baby was perfectly healthy, that is good.
There is nothing wrong with the baby, but the baby is not perfected yet. The baby has to grow up. The baby has no imperfections, but it is not perfected yet. That is the way Adam and Eve were, they had nothing wrong with them, but they were not perfected yet. The way they were to be perfected was to eat of the Tree of Life and live forever as God's children and take on God's nature.
Instead, they chose to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and tried to become gods themselves, independent of God, which is what Satan did before the creation. He seduced them into doing what he did. The very things Adam and Eve wanted - dominion, power, life - God was going to give them anyway, but without sin. So the first Adam and the first Eve wasted their opportunity!Symbols of usThis whole thing is a symbol. Remember that Jesus is the second Adam. Adam is the symbol of Jesus and Eve is a symbol of Israel and, by extension, of the church. The serpent will always try to attack Jesus through His woman, the church. The first Adam blew it. How did it happen? The tree was good for food. a delight to the eyes. desirable to make one wise(Genesis 3:6).
Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world (1 John 2:15) She saw it was: good for food - the lust of the flesh, a delight to the eyes - the lust of the eyes,desirable to make one wise, the boastful pride of life.
The first Adam blew it.
As a result all the rest of us have been born with a fallen, Adamic nature - the nature of the flesh.
That is why flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 15:50). It is fallen.
There has to be a second Adam to undo the mistake of the first Adam. And that is what God promised.A second Adam I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. [That seed, the Rabbis tell us, is the Messiah.]; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise Him on the heel (Genesis 3:15)
The Messiah would be bruised on the heel. The serpent would slay Him but He would rise from the dead. But the Messiah would then crush the serpent's head and destroy the serpent.
Be careful of the Kingdom Now people, the Dominionists. They say that the church will be triumphant and will crush the serpent's head. That is not what the Bible says. It is not the woman who destroys the serpent's head. It is the seed of the woman - the Messiah. Kingdom Now theology is another trick of the devil to make us think we can be like God. It is a form of spiritual seduction. There are many sincere Christians involved in it, but it is very dangerous and totally false.Temptation in the WildernessNow, where does Paul get this "second Adam" stuff? He does it with Midrash. And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name (Genesis 2:19).
Here, in Genesis, Adam was alone with all the animals.
And immediately the Spirit impelled Him [Jesus] to go out into the wilderness. And He was in the wilderness forty days being tempted by Satan; and He was with the wild beasts. (Mark 1:12-13).
Midrash builds a theological argument from two texts. Mark chapter 1 repaints the picture in Genesis. The first Adam was alone with the animals. Now the second Adam is alone with the animals.
What happened with the first Adam? The lust of the flesh - good for food, the lust of the eyes - a delight to the eyes, the boastful pride of life -desirable to make one wise.
What did Satan try on Jesus?
"If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread"(Matthew 4:3). In the wilderness of Judah east of Jerusalem, there are round rocks that look just like round loaves of bread. McDonald's might be junk food, but by the time you finish a seven-day fast, it may as well be a gourmet restaurant!
Why? The lust of the flesh. The devil took Him to a very high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory; and he said to Him, "All these things will I give You, if You fall down and worship me"(Matthew 4:8-9).
Why? The lust of the eyes - that avenue through which the riches and beauty of the world inflame us.
Also Satan took Him to the pinnacle of the Temple, and said to Him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, 'He will give His angels charge concerning You'; and 'On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone' " (Matthew 4:6).
Why? The sinful pride of life - the presumption that He could make a public show of His Father's care for Him!God become manThe things Satan did to the first Adam, he tried to do to the second Adam. He tricked the first Adam. As a result, we were all born with a fallen nature. But the second Adam did not give place to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes or the boastful pride of life. Jesus was God become man.
For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; and the government will rest on His shoulders; and His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6).
Jesus could have done any of those miracles, but He only did what He saw His Father doing.
Jesus did not walk on the Sea of Galilee because He was God.
He did not feed the five thousand because He was God. He could have, but He did not. He only did what the Holy Spirit did through Him.
He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant. (Philippians 2:6).
He limited Himself to the same things that limit us.The works of SatanThe first Adam totally blew it, but now the Spirit drove the second Adam into a place where He was alone with the animals. And then along came the serpent.
The first thing Satan tried was the lust of the flesh. That did not work.
Then He tried the lust of the eyes. Then he tried pride. They did not work either. Notice that Jesus never questioned Satan's authority. When Satan said, "All these are given into my hand," Jesus didn't question it. God gave dominion over the earth to man and we gave it to the devil. Jesus never questioned Satan's authority.
The Bible says that the second Adam came that the works of Satan may be destroyed. He is going to take that authority back and return it back to us, to those who accept Him as the Messiah.
Most born-again Christians think that Jesus won the victory on the Cross and in the resurrection. That is true, but, if He did not go into the wilderness, put Himself in the same situation as the first Adam and overcome the temptation that the first Adam fell into, He would not have been qualified to go to the Cross. Jesus had to undo the damage that the first Adam did before He could go to the Cross and pay the price for our sins. One person without sin is worth more to God than all the people with sin. That is why the Passover Lamb had to be a lamb without blemish.
The problem is that, because we are all part of the first Adam, we have Adam's sin. The second Adam did not have that sin. He could pay the price for our sins. When Jesus went to the Cross, He paid the price for my sin.
You are either in the first Adam or the second Adam. You are either part of the fallen race that you were born into, or you are part of the saved race that you are born again into.A new natureNow, we all, Jew and Gentile, are descended from Adam. And Adam blew it. We all suffer from the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life. It is in our fallen nature, which is why we need a new nature.
For this perishable must put on the imperishable (1 Corinthians 15:53).
We need to get rid of the first Adam and put on the second Adam. But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, "Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O grave, where is your sting?" (1 Corinthians 15:54-55).
God actually mocks death. He calls death 'an enemy' and He mocks it, because Jesus, the second Adam, overcame it. The first Adam fell into it but the second Adam overcame it.
So God gives us a choice. Do you want to be part of the first Adam or do you want to be part of the second Adam? Do you want to be part of the Adam that is going to perish or do you want to be a part of the second Adam that is going to live forever in happiness, sharing God's glory, sharing His love and His bounty and His blessing forever? Do you want to live your life in fear of death?
The Bible says clearly, "It is appointed to man once to die and after that, the judgment." And we are all guilty; we are all deserving of eternal damnation.Rabbi Yochanan ben ZakkaiRabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai, the founder of Rabbinic Judaism was called "the mighty hammer" by his disciples. They came to him when he was on his deathbed and asked, "O mighty hammer, why are you weeping?"
He said, "I am about to meet HaShem, blessed be his name. Before me there are two roads: one leading to Gehenna and the other leading to Paradise. I do not know to which of these two roads HaShem will sentence me."
Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai admitted that he had no assurance of salvation. That is recorded in the Talmud. But his classmate, Rabbi Shaul of Tarsus, when he was on his deathbed, said, I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness (2 Tim. 4:7-8).
Every Jew is going to follow one of these two rabbis: one who had nothing but fear of standing before a holy God, and one who knew that the Messiah had paid the price for his sins.
The first Adam or the second? If you are born, you are part of the first Adam. The first Adam will perish and go to judgment. We will give account for all of our sins. But if you are born again you can escape the wrath to come. "Save yourself from this perverse generation."
Do you want to be part of the first Adam or do you want to be part of the second Adam? Do you want to perish or do you want to have eternal life?
That is God's offer.A Father's loveI love our children so much that there is nothing I would not do for them. When my daughter Batmiel had a fever, I stayed up all night monitoring her temperature because she is my daughter.
If, God forbid, something was to happen to our children, and they had some disease, there is nothing we would not do to see my children's lives saved. God created the kind of love you have for your children to teach you how much He loves us, and that there is nothing He would not do to save us.
But we all have a terrible disease that is killing us, that is going to put us into eternal hell. The disease is called 'sin.' God has one remedy. He said, "Man-kind has failed because of Adam, but I am going to raise up a nation called Israel, and through that nation I am going to give my Word and send my Son. He will save mankind and bring them back to me.
Unfortunately, most of us do not want to return. Most of us are following the serpent and prefer living in fear of the grave to living in triumph over it.The price has been paidGod has given us a choice. Before the Messiah, who knew no sin, was nailed by the Romans to the cross - betrayed by the religious leaders of his own people - God knew that would happen. Jesus was prepared to pay the price for your sin and for my sin, for every wrong thing we ever did.
The price has been paid.
It is like someone offering you a three week holiday in Hawaii that would cost ten thousand dollars. And you said, "I can't spend ten thousand dollars." But they say, "It has already been paid; here it is."We rejected His loveThe cure for the disease is already here. Jesus was nailed to the cross for your sins and for mine.
What do we have to do? We have to realize that, like Adam, we are separated from God because of our sin. We have all rebelled against Him. We have rejected His love.
Secondly, we have to ask Him to come into us and make us part of the second Adam. It is called "being born again." He will put a new spirit inside you and make you His child.
For those who accept Him, their old nature, the first Adam, is nailed to the Cross with Jesus. Just as He rose from the dead, you will rise with Him. What God wants you to do is to ask Him to forgive you your sins, and for you to give your life to Him.
Once you do that, God will begin to change you and make you into a new person. He wants you to meet with other believers. He wants you to pray and talk to Him. He wants you to read His Word and live by it. He will show you how to live by it. And He wants you to tell other people about what He has done for you.Making the choiceBut what you have to do now is to make a choice. Do you want to be part of the first Adam or part of the second Adam?
Do you want to live in fear of the grave or to live in triumph over it? Do you want a personal relationship with the Messiah?
If you do, just say this prayer. God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, I know that you love me.
I know that I have not loved You and that I have done many evil things against You and against others.
I do not want to be the way I am, but I am the way I am and I know you love me anyway. Because you love me, you hate what I am and You hate what I do.
Thank You that you sent Your Son, the Messiah Jesus, to pay the price. Please make me born-again. I accept You as the Ruler of my life. Wash me with Your blood and make me Your child. Lord God, I ask You to save me, in the Name of Your Son the Messiah.
It is very simple. You are either in the first Adam or the second.
Typology of the Dietary laws
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- Category: Blog Items
Bible Study adapted by Logoswalk
by James Jacob Prasch
"Behold, days are coming," declares the Lord God, "When I will send a famine on the land, Not a famine for bread or a thirst for water, But rather for hearing the words of the Lord." Amos 8:11
What will happen in the Last Days has been foreshadowed-taught in advance, if you will-by events that have transpired in history. In particular, what occurred in the last days of Israel before being carried off into captivity and what occurred leading up to the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. are examples of the very final, Last Days.
At those times there were-and will be again-famines. And as we know, during a time of famine, people will eat anything to survive. Rules and prohibitions and preferences are all cast aside when a person gets hungry enough. But it's important to note that the physical famines of these times-and the one still to come-are symbols of the accompanying famine for the Word of God. In the examples of Samaria, Judah, and Israel in 70 A.D., the people were not only literally starving for lack of physical food, but spiritually starving for the lack of teaching of God's Word. Just as a starving person will eat anything to stay alive, a spiritually starving person will grab onto teaching that normally is no good, provides no lasting nutritional value, and never actually satiates the hunger. Biblically speaking, the difference between sound doctrine and false doctrine is expressed as "clean" and "unclean".
[Read through the entire chapter Leviticus 11 once before beginning. We are not following the strict order of verses during this study, skipping between sections. The order is purposely NOT sequential.]
44For I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. And you shall not make yourselves unclean with any of the swarming things that swarm on the earth. 45For I am the Lord who brought you up from the land of Egypt to be your God; thus you shall be holy, for I am holy. 46This is the law regarding the animal and the bird, and every living thing that moves in the waters and everything that swarms on the earth, 47to make a distinction between the unclean and the clean, and between the edible creature and the creature which is not to be eaten.
Q: What does it mean to be "consecrated"?
A: The word "consecrate" in Hebrew is "qadash" and is very often translated "sanctify". It is removing something from its common, earthly environment and moving it into the sphere of the sacred-something made pure and acceptable for the presence and service of God. At its most basic, a common item is "unclean" and a consecrated item is "clean".
Q: Why might it be important that the command is "Consecrate YOURSELVES"?
A: Although God provides the rules and stipulations for people and things to become consecrated or "clean", they are undertaken by choice. We CHOOSE whether or not to be wholly devoted. It doesn't occur in the presence of God but in PREPARATION to come into His presence for worship and service.
Point: Consider some other Scripture concerning the relationship between the Word of God and food.
He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord. Deuteronomy 8:3
"How is it that you do not understand that I did not speak to you concerning bread? But beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees." Then they understood that He did not say to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Matthew 16:11-12
Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst." John 6:35
ApplicationDo you see that these laws which are meant to teach us to "make a distinction between the clean and the unclean, and between the edible creature and the creature which is not to be eaten" are not just limited to physical food, but spiritual? Are you prepared to cast aside political correctness in order to make these kind of distinctions? Do you see the need to prepare yourself-choosing to be consecrated-as a prelude to coming into God's presence? Discuss how the following Scripture is relevant to this discussion:
And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ; Philippians 1:9-10
ObservationAnimals are used throughout Scripture to describe not just spiritual things and conditions, but often to teach us about the qualities and nature of Christ. In the rest of this chapter, the "clean" animals teach something about the Messiah-an obvious example being the lamb; the "unclean" animals represent false teachers/leaders, such as when false teachers are referred to in Scripture as "wolves".
First, let's read and discuss what we CAN eat.
1The Lord spoke again to Moses and to Aaron, saying to them, 2"Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, 'These are the creatures which you may eat from all the animals that are on the earth. 3Whatever divides a hoof, thus making split hoofs, and chews the cud, among the animals, that you may eat.
Q: What are some of the things that were acceptable to eat? How might they typify or teach of the Messiah? Lamb. "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29) The Passover lamb is a symbol of the Messiah. Goat. The Yom Kippur scapegoat was a picture of the Messiah. Beef. Such as oxen, the strong would die for the weak as the innocent would die for the guilty. [Please Note: There are many more examples in Scripture than provided in this brief study and you're highly encouraged to explore Scripture for more. These are minimally given as examples to support the basic lesson.]
9'These you may eat, whatever is in the water: all that have fins and scales, those in the water, in the seas or in the rivers, you may eat.'
Q: What are some of the things that were acceptable to eat? How might they typify or teach of the Messiah?
A. Fish. "And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights." (Jonah 1:17) Jesus Himself pointed out that Jonah's 3 days in the fish was a sign of His authenticity.
Q: Verses 13-19 list unclean birds. What are examples of "clean" birds? How might they typify the Messiah? Chicken. "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling." (Mathew 23:37)
Dove. "John testified saying, 'I have seen the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven, and He remained upon Him.'" (John 1:32) 20'All the [1] winged insects that walk on all fours are detestable to you. 21Yet these you may eat among all the [1] winged insects which walk on all fours: those which have above their feet jointed legs with which to jump on the earth. 22These of them you may eat: the locust in its kinds, and the devastating locust in its kinds, and the cricket in its kinds, and the grasshopper in its kinds.
Q: What are some of the things that were acceptable to eat? How might they typify or teach of the Messiah?
A: Locusts. "Then I will make up to you for the years That the swarming locust has eaten, The creeping locust, the stripping locust and the gnawing locust, My great army which I sent among you." (Joel 2:25) When the people repent, the Lord will restore what the locust has eaten.
Next, let's read what we are NEVER to eat.
4Nevertheless, you are not to eat of these, among those which chew the cud, or among those which divide the hoof: the camel, for though it chews cud, it does not divide the hoof, it is unclean to you. 5Likewise, the [1] shaphan, for though it chews cud, it does not divide the hoof, it is unclean to you; 6the [1] rabbit also, for though it chews cud, it does not divide the hoof, it is unclean to you; 7and the pig, for though it divides the hoof, thus making a split hoof, it does not chew cud, it is unclean to you. 8You shall not eat of their flesh nor touch their carcasses; they are unclean to you.
Q: How might the unclean things typify false beliefs, false teaching? Camel. "You blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!" (Matthew 23:24) These are bad spiritual leaders that focus on the tiniest of imperfections while ignoring the most glaring. Ironically, both the gnat and camel are "unclean", so they can't avoid being "unclean" regardless. Pig. "Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces." (Matthew 7:6) Note: What was the meaning of Jesus casting the demons into the heard of swine at Gerasene and their running off the cliff? (Matthew 8:28-34; Mark 5:1-20; Luke 8:26-39) It's a picture of the judgment, sending them to the place prepared for Satan and his angels. Those who mock the Gospel will go into the lake. Donkey. "You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together."Deuteronomy 22:10) A repeated biblical teaching is to NEVER mix the "clean" with the "unclean" but to keep them separate and pure. Wild donkey. "For they have gone up to Assyria, Like a wild donkey all alone; Ephraim has hired lovers." (Hosea 8:9) It's a picture of those given over to physical lusts. Horse. "Do not be as the horse or as the mule which have no understanding, Whose trappings include bit and bridle to hold them in check, Otherwise they will not come near to you." (Psalm 32:9) Such animals are directionless, representing those that go from one teaching to the next with no authoritative direction or justification. Horse. "A horse is a false hope for victory; Nor does it deliver anyone by its great strength." (Psalm 33:17) There are those that trust only in themselves and/or their possessions. They are a god unto themselves. 10But whatever is in the seas and in the rivers that does not have fins and scales among all the teeming life of the water, and among all the living creatures that are in the water, they are detestable things to you, 11and they shall be [1] abhorrent to you; you may not eat of their flesh, and their carcasses you shall detest. 12Whatever in the water does not have fins and scales is abhorrent to you.
Q: How might the unclean things typify false beliefs, false teaching?
A: Shellfish. They're closed and at the bottom of the sea. Biblically the sea represents the nations. This represents people who are so far into the world that they won't get saved. They're too closed. Note the contrast to Christ's promise "I will make you fishers of men" (Matthew 4:19) wherein men are saved out of the sea-out of the nations-and into the kingdom of God.
13'These, moreover, you shall detest among the birds; they are [1] abhorrent, not to be eaten: the [2] eagle and the vulture and the [3] buzzard, 14and the kite and the falcon in its kind, 15every raven in its kind, 16and the ostrich and the owl and the sea gull and the hawk in its kind, 17and the little owl and the cormorant and the [1] great owl, 18and the white owl and the [1] pelican and the carrion vulture, 19and the stork, the heron in its kinds, and the hoopoe, and the bat.
Q: How might the unclean things typify false beliefs, false teaching? Vulture. "Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather."(Matthew 24:28) False teachers that feed off the flock without providing anything at all in return, happy to pick the bones clean until total consumption ensues. Eagle. "...They fly like an eagle swooping down to devour."(Habakkuk 1:8b) False teachers that are, in reality, predators themselves. Pelican and Owl. "I resemble a pelican of the wilderness; I have become like an owl of the waste places. I lie awake, I have become like a lonely bird on a housetop." (Psalm 102:6-7) Those that actually prefer the absence of activity, the void of all spiritual endeavor, offering nothing but spiritual emptiness and desolation. They love doctrines of "vacuum" 26'Concerning all the animals which divide the hoof but do not make a split hoof, or which do not chew cud, they are unclean to you: whoever touches them becomes unclean. 27'Also whatever walks on its paws, among all the creatures that walk on all fours, are unclean to you; whoever touches their carcasses becomes unclean until evening, 28and the one who picks up their carcasses shall wash his clothes and be unclean until evening; they are unclean to you.
Q: How might the unclean things typify false beliefs, false teaching?
29'Now these are to you the unclean among the swarming things which swarm on the earth: the mole, and the mouse, and the [1] great lizard in its kinds, 30and the gecko, and the [1] crocodile, and the lizard, and the [2] sand reptile, and the chameleon.
Q: How might the unclean things typify false beliefs, false teaching?
42Whatever crawls on its belly, and whatever walks on all fours, whatever has many feet, in respect to every swarming thing that swarms on the earth, you shall not eat them, for they are detestable. 43Do not render [1] yourselves detestable through any of the swarming things that swarm; and you shall not make yourselves unclean with them so that you become unclean.
Q: How might the unclean things typify false beliefs, false teaching?Application34Any of the [1] food which may be eaten, on which water comes, shall become unclean, and any [1] liquid which may be drunk in every vessel shall become unclean. 35Everything, moreover, on which part of their carcass may fall becomes unclean; an oven or a [1] stove shall be smashed; they are unclean and shall continue as unclean to you.
Q: What is this excerpt from v.31-40 expressing in the context of this lesson concerning "clean" and "unclean" teaching and teachers?
A: It's a teaching about people that attempt to live under two covenants, such as the Seventh Day Adventists or cults like the Ebionites that believed Jesus was the Messiah but not God. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 7 neither Jew nor Gentile should give up his identity-that's not the issue-but we are not to succumb to Satan's lie to get people's loyalty devoted to more than one covenant.PointThis is a way of covering all the different variations of mixing the above things-clean or unclean-to create something that might have the appearance of legitimacy. Remember: Mixing is biblically prohibited. Would you drink a glass of water if it only had one drop of poison in it?Overall Application Your words were found and I ate them, And Your words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart; For I have been called by Your name, O Lord God of hosts. Jeremiah 15:16
by James Jacob Prasch
"Behold, days are coming," declares the Lord God, "When I will send a famine on the land, Not a famine for bread or a thirst for water, But rather for hearing the words of the Lord." Amos 8:11
What will happen in the Last Days has been foreshadowed-taught in advance, if you will-by events that have transpired in history. In particular, what occurred in the last days of Israel before being carried off into captivity and what occurred leading up to the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. are examples of the very final, Last Days.
At those times there were-and will be again-famines. And as we know, during a time of famine, people will eat anything to survive. Rules and prohibitions and preferences are all cast aside when a person gets hungry enough. But it's important to note that the physical famines of these times-and the one still to come-are symbols of the accompanying famine for the Word of God. In the examples of Samaria, Judah, and Israel in 70 A.D., the people were not only literally starving for lack of physical food, but spiritually starving for the lack of teaching of God's Word. Just as a starving person will eat anything to stay alive, a spiritually starving person will grab onto teaching that normally is no good, provides no lasting nutritional value, and never actually satiates the hunger. Biblically speaking, the difference between sound doctrine and false doctrine is expressed as "clean" and "unclean".
[Read through the entire chapter Leviticus 11 once before beginning. We are not following the strict order of verses during this study, skipping between sections. The order is purposely NOT sequential.]
44For I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. And you shall not make yourselves unclean with any of the swarming things that swarm on the earth. 45For I am the Lord who brought you up from the land of Egypt to be your God; thus you shall be holy, for I am holy. 46This is the law regarding the animal and the bird, and every living thing that moves in the waters and everything that swarms on the earth, 47to make a distinction between the unclean and the clean, and between the edible creature and the creature which is not to be eaten.
Q: What does it mean to be "consecrated"?
A: The word "consecrate" in Hebrew is "qadash" and is very often translated "sanctify". It is removing something from its common, earthly environment and moving it into the sphere of the sacred-something made pure and acceptable for the presence and service of God. At its most basic, a common item is "unclean" and a consecrated item is "clean".
Q: Why might it be important that the command is "Consecrate YOURSELVES"?
A: Although God provides the rules and stipulations for people and things to become consecrated or "clean", they are undertaken by choice. We CHOOSE whether or not to be wholly devoted. It doesn't occur in the presence of God but in PREPARATION to come into His presence for worship and service.
Point: Consider some other Scripture concerning the relationship between the Word of God and food.
He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord. Deuteronomy 8:3
"How is it that you do not understand that I did not speak to you concerning bread? But beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees." Then they understood that He did not say to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Matthew 16:11-12
Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst." John 6:35
ApplicationDo you see that these laws which are meant to teach us to "make a distinction between the clean and the unclean, and between the edible creature and the creature which is not to be eaten" are not just limited to physical food, but spiritual? Are you prepared to cast aside political correctness in order to make these kind of distinctions? Do you see the need to prepare yourself-choosing to be consecrated-as a prelude to coming into God's presence? Discuss how the following Scripture is relevant to this discussion:
And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ; Philippians 1:9-10
ObservationAnimals are used throughout Scripture to describe not just spiritual things and conditions, but often to teach us about the qualities and nature of Christ. In the rest of this chapter, the "clean" animals teach something about the Messiah-an obvious example being the lamb; the "unclean" animals represent false teachers/leaders, such as when false teachers are referred to in Scripture as "wolves".
First, let's read and discuss what we CAN eat.
1The Lord spoke again to Moses and to Aaron, saying to them, 2"Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, 'These are the creatures which you may eat from all the animals that are on the earth. 3Whatever divides a hoof, thus making split hoofs, and chews the cud, among the animals, that you may eat.
Q: What are some of the things that were acceptable to eat? How might they typify or teach of the Messiah? Lamb. "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29) The Passover lamb is a symbol of the Messiah. Goat. The Yom Kippur scapegoat was a picture of the Messiah. Beef. Such as oxen, the strong would die for the weak as the innocent would die for the guilty. [Please Note: There are many more examples in Scripture than provided in this brief study and you're highly encouraged to explore Scripture for more. These are minimally given as examples to support the basic lesson.]
9'These you may eat, whatever is in the water: all that have fins and scales, those in the water, in the seas or in the rivers, you may eat.'
Q: What are some of the things that were acceptable to eat? How might they typify or teach of the Messiah?
A. Fish. "And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights." (Jonah 1:17) Jesus Himself pointed out that Jonah's 3 days in the fish was a sign of His authenticity.
Q: Verses 13-19 list unclean birds. What are examples of "clean" birds? How might they typify the Messiah? Chicken. "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling." (Mathew 23:37)
Dove. "John testified saying, 'I have seen the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven, and He remained upon Him.'" (John 1:32) 20'All the [1] winged insects that walk on all fours are detestable to you. 21Yet these you may eat among all the [1] winged insects which walk on all fours: those which have above their feet jointed legs with which to jump on the earth. 22These of them you may eat: the locust in its kinds, and the devastating locust in its kinds, and the cricket in its kinds, and the grasshopper in its kinds.
Q: What are some of the things that were acceptable to eat? How might they typify or teach of the Messiah?
A: Locusts. "Then I will make up to you for the years That the swarming locust has eaten, The creeping locust, the stripping locust and the gnawing locust, My great army which I sent among you." (Joel 2:25) When the people repent, the Lord will restore what the locust has eaten.
Next, let's read what we are NEVER to eat.
4Nevertheless, you are not to eat of these, among those which chew the cud, or among those which divide the hoof: the camel, for though it chews cud, it does not divide the hoof, it is unclean to you. 5Likewise, the [1] shaphan, for though it chews cud, it does not divide the hoof, it is unclean to you; 6the [1] rabbit also, for though it chews cud, it does not divide the hoof, it is unclean to you; 7and the pig, for though it divides the hoof, thus making a split hoof, it does not chew cud, it is unclean to you. 8You shall not eat of their flesh nor touch their carcasses; they are unclean to you.
Q: How might the unclean things typify false beliefs, false teaching? Camel. "You blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!" (Matthew 23:24) These are bad spiritual leaders that focus on the tiniest of imperfections while ignoring the most glaring. Ironically, both the gnat and camel are "unclean", so they can't avoid being "unclean" regardless. Pig. "Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces." (Matthew 7:6) Note: What was the meaning of Jesus casting the demons into the heard of swine at Gerasene and their running off the cliff? (Matthew 8:28-34; Mark 5:1-20; Luke 8:26-39) It's a picture of the judgment, sending them to the place prepared for Satan and his angels. Those who mock the Gospel will go into the lake. Donkey. "You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together."Deuteronomy 22:10) A repeated biblical teaching is to NEVER mix the "clean" with the "unclean" but to keep them separate and pure. Wild donkey. "For they have gone up to Assyria, Like a wild donkey all alone; Ephraim has hired lovers." (Hosea 8:9) It's a picture of those given over to physical lusts. Horse. "Do not be as the horse or as the mule which have no understanding, Whose trappings include bit and bridle to hold them in check, Otherwise they will not come near to you." (Psalm 32:9) Such animals are directionless, representing those that go from one teaching to the next with no authoritative direction or justification. Horse. "A horse is a false hope for victory; Nor does it deliver anyone by its great strength." (Psalm 33:17) There are those that trust only in themselves and/or their possessions. They are a god unto themselves. 10But whatever is in the seas and in the rivers that does not have fins and scales among all the teeming life of the water, and among all the living creatures that are in the water, they are detestable things to you, 11and they shall be [1] abhorrent to you; you may not eat of their flesh, and their carcasses you shall detest. 12Whatever in the water does not have fins and scales is abhorrent to you.
Q: How might the unclean things typify false beliefs, false teaching?
A: Shellfish. They're closed and at the bottom of the sea. Biblically the sea represents the nations. This represents people who are so far into the world that they won't get saved. They're too closed. Note the contrast to Christ's promise "I will make you fishers of men" (Matthew 4:19) wherein men are saved out of the sea-out of the nations-and into the kingdom of God.
13'These, moreover, you shall detest among the birds; they are [1] abhorrent, not to be eaten: the [2] eagle and the vulture and the [3] buzzard, 14and the kite and the falcon in its kind, 15every raven in its kind, 16and the ostrich and the owl and the sea gull and the hawk in its kind, 17and the little owl and the cormorant and the [1] great owl, 18and the white owl and the [1] pelican and the carrion vulture, 19and the stork, the heron in its kinds, and the hoopoe, and the bat.
Q: How might the unclean things typify false beliefs, false teaching? Vulture. "Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather."(Matthew 24:28) False teachers that feed off the flock without providing anything at all in return, happy to pick the bones clean until total consumption ensues. Eagle. "...They fly like an eagle swooping down to devour."(Habakkuk 1:8b) False teachers that are, in reality, predators themselves. Pelican and Owl. "I resemble a pelican of the wilderness; I have become like an owl of the waste places. I lie awake, I have become like a lonely bird on a housetop." (Psalm 102:6-7) Those that actually prefer the absence of activity, the void of all spiritual endeavor, offering nothing but spiritual emptiness and desolation. They love doctrines of "vacuum" 26'Concerning all the animals which divide the hoof but do not make a split hoof, or which do not chew cud, they are unclean to you: whoever touches them becomes unclean. 27'Also whatever walks on its paws, among all the creatures that walk on all fours, are unclean to you; whoever touches their carcasses becomes unclean until evening, 28and the one who picks up their carcasses shall wash his clothes and be unclean until evening; they are unclean to you.
Q: How might the unclean things typify false beliefs, false teaching?
29'Now these are to you the unclean among the swarming things which swarm on the earth: the mole, and the mouse, and the [1] great lizard in its kinds, 30and the gecko, and the [1] crocodile, and the lizard, and the [2] sand reptile, and the chameleon.
Q: How might the unclean things typify false beliefs, false teaching?
42Whatever crawls on its belly, and whatever walks on all fours, whatever has many feet, in respect to every swarming thing that swarms on the earth, you shall not eat them, for they are detestable. 43Do not render [1] yourselves detestable through any of the swarming things that swarm; and you shall not make yourselves unclean with them so that you become unclean.
Q: How might the unclean things typify false beliefs, false teaching?Application34Any of the [1] food which may be eaten, on which water comes, shall become unclean, and any [1] liquid which may be drunk in every vessel shall become unclean. 35Everything, moreover, on which part of their carcass may fall becomes unclean; an oven or a [1] stove shall be smashed; they are unclean and shall continue as unclean to you.
Q: What is this excerpt from v.31-40 expressing in the context of this lesson concerning "clean" and "unclean" teaching and teachers?
A: It's a teaching about people that attempt to live under two covenants, such as the Seventh Day Adventists or cults like the Ebionites that believed Jesus was the Messiah but not God. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 7 neither Jew nor Gentile should give up his identity-that's not the issue-but we are not to succumb to Satan's lie to get people's loyalty devoted to more than one covenant.PointThis is a way of covering all the different variations of mixing the above things-clean or unclean-to create something that might have the appearance of legitimacy. Remember: Mixing is biblically prohibited. Would you drink a glass of water if it only had one drop of poison in it?Overall Application Your words were found and I ate them, And Your words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart; For I have been called by Your name, O Lord God of hosts. Jeremiah 15:16
Typology of the Grain Offering Part 1 of 2
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by James Jacob Prasch
Leviticus in Hebrews is V'yekra, or 'And Yahweh Called'. Leviticus 2:1:
"When anyone presents a grain offering as an offering to the Lord, his offering shall be of fine flour. He shall pour oil on it and shall put frankincense upon it. He shall then bring it to Aaron's sons the priests, and shall take from it his handful of its fine flour, and its oil with all of its frankincense. And the priests shall offer it up in smoke as its memorial portion on the altar, an offering by fire of a soothing aroma to the Lord.
"And the remainder of the grain offering belongs to Aaron and his sons, a thing most holy of the offerings to the Lord by fire. When you bring an offering of the grain offering baked in an oven, it shall be unleavened cakes of fine flour mixed with oil, or unleavened wafers spread with oil. And if your offering is a grain offering made on the griddle, it shall be of fine flour, unleavened, mixed with oil. You shall break it into bits and pour oil on it; it is a grain offering. Now, if your offering is a grain offering made in a skillet, it shall be made with fine flour and with oil. And when you bring in the grain offering, which is made of these things to the Lord, it shall be presented to the Lord by way of the priest, and he shall bring it to the altar. The priest shall then take it up from the grain offering its memorial portion, and shall offer it up in smoke on the altar as an offering by fire of a soothing aroma to the Lord. And the remainder of the grain offering belongs to Aaron and his sons, a thing most holy of the offerings to the Lord by fire.
"No grain offering which you bring to the Lord shall be made with leaven, for you shall not offer up in smoke any leaven or any honey as an offering by fire to the Lord. As an offering of firstfruits you shall bring them to the Lord, but they shall not ascend for a soothing aroma on the altar.
"Every grain offering of yours, moreover, you shall season with salt, so that the salt of the covenant of your God shall not be lacking from your grain offering. With all of your offerings, you shall offer salt. Also, if you bring a grain offering of early-ripened things to the Lord, you shall bring fresh heads of roasted grain in the fire, grits of new growth, for the grain offering of your early-ripened things. You shall then put oil on it, and lay incense on it; it is a grain offering. And the priest shall offer up in smoke its memorial portion, a portion of its grits, of its oil, and all of its incense as an offering by fire to the Lord."
Most Christians have some kind of an idea that the animal sacrifices of the Old Testament -- what Jewish people call the Tenakh -- are symbols of Jesus. They might know that the Passover lamb, the lamb without blemish, is a picture of what Jesus would be; that to God, one man without sin is worth more than all the men with sin, and that is how one Man could die for us all. Some people might also know about the Yom Kippur scapegoat on the Day of Atonement; we read about this in the epistle to the Hebrews chapters 9 - 11. The high priest would actually put his hands on two goats, and put the sin in symbol upon their heads. They would then take the goats through the streets, where the people would spit on them, kick them, throw rocks at them, beat them with sticks and curse them for their sin. The goats would then be escorted outside the city, where one would be slaughtered and the other taken to a precipice. It was a symbol of what would happen to Jesus: God would put our sin on Him; He would be paraded through the streets of Jerusalem, taken outside the city and executed. Most Christians have an idea that the blood sacrifices of these animals were symbols of Jesus; however, most Christians do not think about the grain offering.
Paul, whose real name was Rabbi Shaul of Tarsus, tells us that we establish the Torah -- the five books of Moses, which are fulfilled in Jesus. All of these things point to Him. You can understand the Gospel and know how to be saved just in reading the New Testament. But to understand it on a deeper level, to understand the fullness of the Gospel, you must understand it in light of its Old Testament background. We have to understand how Jesus fulfilled the Law.
The grain offering here is what we call in Hebrew 'matzoth' -- unleavened. Perhaps you have seen matzoth; some churches use matzoth for communion. It is striped and it is pierced; the Talmud decrees that the unleavened bread used at Passover has to be so. This corresponds, the rabbis tell us, with the flesh of the Passover lamb. This is exactly what Jesus speaks about in John chapter 6; it is a picture of His body. So the bread was striped, and then pierced, and then broken. "By His stripes we are healed",and "He was pierced for our transgressions", the Hebrew prophet Isaiah tells us. The grain offering is a symbol of the sacrifice of Jesus for our sins.
The grain could be offered in three ways: First, it would be offered on an open fire, on a griddle. Second, it would be offered in a skillet -- a kind of pan with a long handle. The third way would be what we call in Hebrewb'tanur; inside an oven. The grain would be offered on an open fire, in a skillet, and in an oven. We are three-dimensional beings, because we are made in the image and likeness of God; Imago Dei. We have a body, a soul, and a spirit. That is one of the things about our nature that teaches how we are made in the image and likeness of a tri-une God. The threeness in us expresses something about the threeness in our Creator. We are what people would call 'theopomorphic'; in the image and likeness of God.
Given that fact, we can see that when Jesus died for our sin, He had to suffer in body, in soul, and in spirit. Sin contaminates every aspect of our being: it contaminates our flesh, or our body; it contaminates our soul, or our mind, emotions, and intellect; and it contaminates our spirit. Every aspect of our being is fallen because of sin. Therefore, in order to take away our sin, Jesus had to atone for it in body, in soul, and in spirit.
So: the first sacrifice of the grain is that which is offered on the open fire. When the grain was offered on the griddle, everyone could see it being consumed. This corresponds to the physical suffering of the Lord Jesus. There HH He was, enduring a Roman execution, hanging nearly naked in public; everyone could see Him being tortured physically. When they nailed Him to the cross, He was nailed there for my sin. When the Romans flogged Him and put the crown of thorns on His head, it was because He took my sin. Jesus got the nails; I got salvation. The just for the unjust.
There is a big problem in the American Bible belt, and here is what that problem is: cultural Protestantism. In other words, you have people who will go to churches that preach the Gospel and believe the Gospel only because they have grown up in it; they've always done it. Yet they have never come to be saved. This is a big problem, which I have seen all over the world where there are Bible belts: I've seen it in South Africa, in Northern Ireland, and certainly in the American South. The doctrines are there; the beliefs are there; but some of the people may know the Lord, while others may not. When Jesus went to that cross, He went for you. God took your sin and put it on Jesus; He took His righteousness and put it on you. You must accept this personally, or you are not a Christian, no matter how many times you come to church.
He suffered in body; everyone could see the grain being burned up. His torture was unspeakable. I once read an autopsy report done by some Christian pathologists who did post-mortems on cadavers which had been crucified in the Roman style, and it was incredibly horrible. Even with modern technology, we would be hard put to find a more cruel way to kill somebody than the way in which the Romans killed Jesus.
The grain was also offered up, however, in a skillet. When the grain was consumed in the skillet, what was happening was only partially visible. You could see some of what was going on, but you could not see all of it. This grain being burned up in the skillet, as per Leviticus chapter 2, corresponds to the emotional/psychological suffering of Jesus; what the Bible calls 'the travail of His soul'.
When someone is suffering emotionally or psychologically -- if someone is perhaps in depression, or bereaved, or being oppressed in some way -- other people can see some of what is going on with that person, but not all of it. You could only see some of the grain being consumed in the skillet at a distance. In order to see the totality of its being burned up, you would have had to stand directly above it and look down. So it is when someone is suffering emotionally, whether they are in a depression or bereaved or perhaps grieving the lostness of an unsaved loved one, other people can see some of what that person is going through, but only He who looks down from above can see all of it. The Lord knows everything; other people can only appreciate some of it, and perhaps empathize; but God sees it all.
You see, Jesus took our griefs; He suffered psychologically. He was emotionally and mentally tortured.
But then there was a third way in which the grain was consumed: this is again in Hebrew, b'tanur, or 'inside the oven'. This was not visible to anybody.
When Jesus went to the cross, something happened within the tri-unity of the Godhead itself: the Father turned His back on the Son. Now, we must be careful; there is a terrible heresy that originated in the American South, which is propagated by the money preachers on so-called "Christian" television. They call it "Jesus Died Spiritually". It is an absolute blasphemous lie, which says that Satan got the victory at the cross, and that when Jesus died, although He Himself said, "It is finished", and "Father, into Your hands I commend My spirit", it didn't happen. That instead, He became a satanic being of one nature with Satan in hell, where He was then tortured for three days and three nights, until He was born again -- still in hell. This is what the money preachers believe. So, because the cross of Jesus is not central to their view of the Christian life, neither do they view the cross of Jesus as central to salvation. Instead of "Pick up your cross and follow Me, and put your trust in a better world," their beliefs consist of "Name it and claim it, you're a King's kid, God wants you rich", and Kingdom now, etc. This is a terrible heresy; Jesus got the victory on the cross, not the devil. However, something did happen in that oven. Something did happen within the Godhead. The Father turned His back on the Son; God could not look upon sin. We do not fully understand what happened.
We cannot for one second diminish the physical suffering of Jesus; His agony was excruciating. Neither can we diminish His emotional and mental suffering; Scripture speaks plainly of the 'travail of His soul', that is also true. But the deeper suffering of Jesus was what happened within the Trinity; the Father turning His back on the Son. Something happened in that oven. How can God have a crisis in Himself, where the Father turns His back on the Son because the Son took our sin in order to give us His righteousness? Terrible as His physical suffering was, excruciating as his emotional torment was, what happened spiritually was even worse. Jesus was cut off at that moment from His Father, for my sin and for your sin.
He suffered in body, in soul, and in spirit. Thus the grain had to be offered: in the griddle, where everyone could see it; in the skillet, where it could partially be seen and only fully observed from above; and in the oven, where no one could see it.
Now, this grain had to be anointed. It had to have oil poured upon it. The basic Hebrew word for 'oil' is shemen; it speaks of anointing. The word 'Christ' comes from the Greek word christos, and is the Greek way of saying the Hebrew term ha Mashiach, or 'the Anointed One', or the Messiah. Jesus was anointed for burial before He was anointed for dominion. When Paul speaks of the proof for his anointing and his ministry in 2 Corinthians, he does not speak first of the miracles or of the signs of an apostle. He first speaks of having been abandoned, shipwrecked, stoned, etc, etc. The first and foremost proof of a real anointing, an anointing that comes from Christ, is a crucified life. It is a life lived without trust in this world. It is certainly not a Mercedes limousine, nor the kind of material extravagance which we see on the so-called "Christian" television, which the world looks at and mocks. That is not anointing; anointing is a crucified life, lived by someone who does not trust in this life or this world, but who will trust God for the grace to suffer anything that they need to if it is in God's will; someone who does not love their life in this world, even if it should come to death. That is the true proof of anointing.
Jesus was anointed for burial; the oil was poured on the grain. Oil and frankincense; when Jesus was born, the Magi brought gold because He was a King, myrrh because He would die (myrrh, you remember, is what dead bodies were anointed with for burial, as we read in John 19:39), and also frankincense because incense, we are told in Revelation, is the prayers of the saints.
To understand what this means, let us look very briefly at the Song of Solomon chapter four verse six. We call the Song of Solomon in HebrewHashir Hashirim, and it is an allegory. Solomon's romance with Shulammite is a picture of Christ's romance with His bride. We are told this in chapter four verse six:
"Until the cool of the day comes,
When the shadows flee away,
I will go my way to the mountain of myrrh,
To the hill of frankincense."
The bridegroom is anointed for burial to die for the bride, to bring the acceptable sacrifice on the mountain of myrrh, the mountain that we would call Mount Calvary. So He is anointed for burial in order to bring the acceptable sacrifice. You see, you can pray and pray and pray, sing hymn after hymn after hymn, and it does not matter. Unless it is in Christ, unless you are born again, God cannot accept your worship. It is only what is done in Christ that matters. You can go to church all you want, and that is good; but it is not good enough. Only in Christ does it matter. But let us continue.
So the grain was anointed to bring the acceptable worship. It had oil and it had incense; but the grain could have no honey. It could also have no leaven; this is what 'matzoth' means: "unleavened bread". Why could this bread, which is a picture of the body of Jesus, have no leaven? What is leaven? The New Testament tells us repeatedly what leaven is.
In 1 Corinthians 5, Paul tells us the following: "Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the entire lump of dough? Leave behind the old leaven that you might be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For the Messiah our Pesach, Christ our Passover, has been sacrificed."
Leaven, or yeast, contributes nothing whatsoever to the nutritional value of bread. It only puffs it up; "your boasting is not good". The first thing that leaven speaks of is sin, but especially the sin of pride. Pride is the seminal sin; it is the sin that gives rise to other sin. In Isaiah chapter 14 we are told that the first sin was pride. Satan wanted to be God; in eternity, Satan wanted to usurp God's position. Pride was Satan's first sin, according to Isaiah 14. During the temptation of Adam and Eve, man's first sin was pride. Pride is the kind of sin that leads to other sin. When you see someone who has a problem with greed, pride is underneath that greed. When you see a person who has a problem with uncontrolled lust, underneath that lust is pride. When you see a person who has a problem with unrighteous, unholy anger, underneath that anger is pride. Pride is the seminal sin; it gives rise to other sin.
The only thing I have to be proud of is what Jesus did for me on the cross; that is all. That He took my sin and rose from the dead is the only thing I have to be proud of. Jesus, however, was God, and He had no sin. He had everything to be proud of; yet He who had something to be proud of was not proud. I who have nothing to be proud of have to battle with pride every day; so do you. We battle it every day, but Jesus had none. There was no leaven in that matzoth.
But then he spoke further: "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees." False doctrine. When you see heresy and false doctrine (and all you have to do to see false doctrine is to turn on the so-called "Christian" television; it consists of much more false doctrine than true doctrine), this is the leaven of the Pharisees. It puffs up; there is pride. "God showed me, I can do this, we're going to go forth and conquer" -- spiritual pride. Whenever you see false doctrine and heresy, the source of it is always spiritual pride. Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. Jesus had no false doctrine, no heresy. Every word that He taught was one hundred and ten per cent true. There was no leaven in that matzoth. If there had been, he would not have been able to die for our sins.
Once more: to God, one man without sin was worth more than all men with sin. It doesn't matter how good you are; you're not good enough to go to heaven. On the other hand, it does not matter how bad you are; you're not so bad that God does not love you and Jesus cannot take your sin and give you His life. That is the Gospel.
It is difficult when people have grown up hearing it their whole lives; they go to good churches for 20, 30, 40 years and hear this message -- or variations of it -- some of them probably hundreds of times. Yet they have still never been born again; that is a terrible tragedy. My family are Israeli Jews; Jews are more guilty than other people for rejecting the Gospel, because Jesus was Jewish and because the Gospel came to Israel first. It says in Romans that God holds the Jews accountable first. Because salvation is available to them first, the consequences of rejecting it are on them first, we're told in Romans. So, too, people who have heard the Gospel repeatedly are going to be more accountable than people who do not live in places where it is as readily available. I never knew what a born-again Christian was until I was in university; I had never even heard of such a thing. But many people have grown up hearing about it without accepting it. They know the truth; or at least they have the truth available to them. I go to Africa, India, the Middle East; I go to places where the people have never heard the truth. Yet there are people who go to church and hear it Sunday after Sunday after Sunday, but their lives don't change.
There was no leaven -- no pride, no false doctrine -- in that matzoh. One man with no sin could die for all the men with sin.
But then there could be no honey. Why could there be no honey on that grain? What is the problem with honey? We know what leaven is -- the Scriptures tell us. But what is wrong with honey? Why does God say in Leviticus chapter 2 that there could be no honey on the grain when it was sacrificed?
Leviticus in Hebrews is V'yekra, or 'And Yahweh Called'. Leviticus 2:1:
"When anyone presents a grain offering as an offering to the Lord, his offering shall be of fine flour. He shall pour oil on it and shall put frankincense upon it. He shall then bring it to Aaron's sons the priests, and shall take from it his handful of its fine flour, and its oil with all of its frankincense. And the priests shall offer it up in smoke as its memorial portion on the altar, an offering by fire of a soothing aroma to the Lord.
"And the remainder of the grain offering belongs to Aaron and his sons, a thing most holy of the offerings to the Lord by fire. When you bring an offering of the grain offering baked in an oven, it shall be unleavened cakes of fine flour mixed with oil, or unleavened wafers spread with oil. And if your offering is a grain offering made on the griddle, it shall be of fine flour, unleavened, mixed with oil. You shall break it into bits and pour oil on it; it is a grain offering. Now, if your offering is a grain offering made in a skillet, it shall be made with fine flour and with oil. And when you bring in the grain offering, which is made of these things to the Lord, it shall be presented to the Lord by way of the priest, and he shall bring it to the altar. The priest shall then take it up from the grain offering its memorial portion, and shall offer it up in smoke on the altar as an offering by fire of a soothing aroma to the Lord. And the remainder of the grain offering belongs to Aaron and his sons, a thing most holy of the offerings to the Lord by fire.
"No grain offering which you bring to the Lord shall be made with leaven, for you shall not offer up in smoke any leaven or any honey as an offering by fire to the Lord. As an offering of firstfruits you shall bring them to the Lord, but they shall not ascend for a soothing aroma on the altar.
"Every grain offering of yours, moreover, you shall season with salt, so that the salt of the covenant of your God shall not be lacking from your grain offering. With all of your offerings, you shall offer salt. Also, if you bring a grain offering of early-ripened things to the Lord, you shall bring fresh heads of roasted grain in the fire, grits of new growth, for the grain offering of your early-ripened things. You shall then put oil on it, and lay incense on it; it is a grain offering. And the priest shall offer up in smoke its memorial portion, a portion of its grits, of its oil, and all of its incense as an offering by fire to the Lord."
Most Christians have some kind of an idea that the animal sacrifices of the Old Testament -- what Jewish people call the Tenakh -- are symbols of Jesus. They might know that the Passover lamb, the lamb without blemish, is a picture of what Jesus would be; that to God, one man without sin is worth more than all the men with sin, and that is how one Man could die for us all. Some people might also know about the Yom Kippur scapegoat on the Day of Atonement; we read about this in the epistle to the Hebrews chapters 9 - 11. The high priest would actually put his hands on two goats, and put the sin in symbol upon their heads. They would then take the goats through the streets, where the people would spit on them, kick them, throw rocks at them, beat them with sticks and curse them for their sin. The goats would then be escorted outside the city, where one would be slaughtered and the other taken to a precipice. It was a symbol of what would happen to Jesus: God would put our sin on Him; He would be paraded through the streets of Jerusalem, taken outside the city and executed. Most Christians have an idea that the blood sacrifices of these animals were symbols of Jesus; however, most Christians do not think about the grain offering.
Paul, whose real name was Rabbi Shaul of Tarsus, tells us that we establish the Torah -- the five books of Moses, which are fulfilled in Jesus. All of these things point to Him. You can understand the Gospel and know how to be saved just in reading the New Testament. But to understand it on a deeper level, to understand the fullness of the Gospel, you must understand it in light of its Old Testament background. We have to understand how Jesus fulfilled the Law.
The grain offering here is what we call in Hebrew 'matzoth' -- unleavened. Perhaps you have seen matzoth; some churches use matzoth for communion. It is striped and it is pierced; the Talmud decrees that the unleavened bread used at Passover has to be so. This corresponds, the rabbis tell us, with the flesh of the Passover lamb. This is exactly what Jesus speaks about in John chapter 6; it is a picture of His body. So the bread was striped, and then pierced, and then broken. "By His stripes we are healed",and "He was pierced for our transgressions", the Hebrew prophet Isaiah tells us. The grain offering is a symbol of the sacrifice of Jesus for our sins.
The grain could be offered in three ways: First, it would be offered on an open fire, on a griddle. Second, it would be offered in a skillet -- a kind of pan with a long handle. The third way would be what we call in Hebrewb'tanur; inside an oven. The grain would be offered on an open fire, in a skillet, and in an oven. We are three-dimensional beings, because we are made in the image and likeness of God; Imago Dei. We have a body, a soul, and a spirit. That is one of the things about our nature that teaches how we are made in the image and likeness of a tri-une God. The threeness in us expresses something about the threeness in our Creator. We are what people would call 'theopomorphic'; in the image and likeness of God.
Given that fact, we can see that when Jesus died for our sin, He had to suffer in body, in soul, and in spirit. Sin contaminates every aspect of our being: it contaminates our flesh, or our body; it contaminates our soul, or our mind, emotions, and intellect; and it contaminates our spirit. Every aspect of our being is fallen because of sin. Therefore, in order to take away our sin, Jesus had to atone for it in body, in soul, and in spirit.
So: the first sacrifice of the grain is that which is offered on the open fire. When the grain was offered on the griddle, everyone could see it being consumed. This corresponds to the physical suffering of the Lord Jesus. There HH He was, enduring a Roman execution, hanging nearly naked in public; everyone could see Him being tortured physically. When they nailed Him to the cross, He was nailed there for my sin. When the Romans flogged Him and put the crown of thorns on His head, it was because He took my sin. Jesus got the nails; I got salvation. The just for the unjust.
There is a big problem in the American Bible belt, and here is what that problem is: cultural Protestantism. In other words, you have people who will go to churches that preach the Gospel and believe the Gospel only because they have grown up in it; they've always done it. Yet they have never come to be saved. This is a big problem, which I have seen all over the world where there are Bible belts: I've seen it in South Africa, in Northern Ireland, and certainly in the American South. The doctrines are there; the beliefs are there; but some of the people may know the Lord, while others may not. When Jesus went to that cross, He went for you. God took your sin and put it on Jesus; He took His righteousness and put it on you. You must accept this personally, or you are not a Christian, no matter how many times you come to church.
He suffered in body; everyone could see the grain being burned up. His torture was unspeakable. I once read an autopsy report done by some Christian pathologists who did post-mortems on cadavers which had been crucified in the Roman style, and it was incredibly horrible. Even with modern technology, we would be hard put to find a more cruel way to kill somebody than the way in which the Romans killed Jesus.
The grain was also offered up, however, in a skillet. When the grain was consumed in the skillet, what was happening was only partially visible. You could see some of what was going on, but you could not see all of it. This grain being burned up in the skillet, as per Leviticus chapter 2, corresponds to the emotional/psychological suffering of Jesus; what the Bible calls 'the travail of His soul'.
When someone is suffering emotionally or psychologically -- if someone is perhaps in depression, or bereaved, or being oppressed in some way -- other people can see some of what is going on with that person, but not all of it. You could only see some of the grain being consumed in the skillet at a distance. In order to see the totality of its being burned up, you would have had to stand directly above it and look down. So it is when someone is suffering emotionally, whether they are in a depression or bereaved or perhaps grieving the lostness of an unsaved loved one, other people can see some of what that person is going through, but only He who looks down from above can see all of it. The Lord knows everything; other people can only appreciate some of it, and perhaps empathize; but God sees it all.
You see, Jesus took our griefs; He suffered psychologically. He was emotionally and mentally tortured.
But then there was a third way in which the grain was consumed: this is again in Hebrew, b'tanur, or 'inside the oven'. This was not visible to anybody.
When Jesus went to the cross, something happened within the tri-unity of the Godhead itself: the Father turned His back on the Son. Now, we must be careful; there is a terrible heresy that originated in the American South, which is propagated by the money preachers on so-called "Christian" television. They call it "Jesus Died Spiritually". It is an absolute blasphemous lie, which says that Satan got the victory at the cross, and that when Jesus died, although He Himself said, "It is finished", and "Father, into Your hands I commend My spirit", it didn't happen. That instead, He became a satanic being of one nature with Satan in hell, where He was then tortured for three days and three nights, until He was born again -- still in hell. This is what the money preachers believe. So, because the cross of Jesus is not central to their view of the Christian life, neither do they view the cross of Jesus as central to salvation. Instead of "Pick up your cross and follow Me, and put your trust in a better world," their beliefs consist of "Name it and claim it, you're a King's kid, God wants you rich", and Kingdom now, etc. This is a terrible heresy; Jesus got the victory on the cross, not the devil. However, something did happen in that oven. Something did happen within the Godhead. The Father turned His back on the Son; God could not look upon sin. We do not fully understand what happened.
We cannot for one second diminish the physical suffering of Jesus; His agony was excruciating. Neither can we diminish His emotional and mental suffering; Scripture speaks plainly of the 'travail of His soul', that is also true. But the deeper suffering of Jesus was what happened within the Trinity; the Father turning His back on the Son. Something happened in that oven. How can God have a crisis in Himself, where the Father turns His back on the Son because the Son took our sin in order to give us His righteousness? Terrible as His physical suffering was, excruciating as his emotional torment was, what happened spiritually was even worse. Jesus was cut off at that moment from His Father, for my sin and for your sin.
He suffered in body, in soul, and in spirit. Thus the grain had to be offered: in the griddle, where everyone could see it; in the skillet, where it could partially be seen and only fully observed from above; and in the oven, where no one could see it.
Now, this grain had to be anointed. It had to have oil poured upon it. The basic Hebrew word for 'oil' is shemen; it speaks of anointing. The word 'Christ' comes from the Greek word christos, and is the Greek way of saying the Hebrew term ha Mashiach, or 'the Anointed One', or the Messiah. Jesus was anointed for burial before He was anointed for dominion. When Paul speaks of the proof for his anointing and his ministry in 2 Corinthians, he does not speak first of the miracles or of the signs of an apostle. He first speaks of having been abandoned, shipwrecked, stoned, etc, etc. The first and foremost proof of a real anointing, an anointing that comes from Christ, is a crucified life. It is a life lived without trust in this world. It is certainly not a Mercedes limousine, nor the kind of material extravagance which we see on the so-called "Christian" television, which the world looks at and mocks. That is not anointing; anointing is a crucified life, lived by someone who does not trust in this life or this world, but who will trust God for the grace to suffer anything that they need to if it is in God's will; someone who does not love their life in this world, even if it should come to death. That is the true proof of anointing.
Jesus was anointed for burial; the oil was poured on the grain. Oil and frankincense; when Jesus was born, the Magi brought gold because He was a King, myrrh because He would die (myrrh, you remember, is what dead bodies were anointed with for burial, as we read in John 19:39), and also frankincense because incense, we are told in Revelation, is the prayers of the saints.
To understand what this means, let us look very briefly at the Song of Solomon chapter four verse six. We call the Song of Solomon in HebrewHashir Hashirim, and it is an allegory. Solomon's romance with Shulammite is a picture of Christ's romance with His bride. We are told this in chapter four verse six:
"Until the cool of the day comes,
When the shadows flee away,
I will go my way to the mountain of myrrh,
To the hill of frankincense."
The bridegroom is anointed for burial to die for the bride, to bring the acceptable sacrifice on the mountain of myrrh, the mountain that we would call Mount Calvary. So He is anointed for burial in order to bring the acceptable sacrifice. You see, you can pray and pray and pray, sing hymn after hymn after hymn, and it does not matter. Unless it is in Christ, unless you are born again, God cannot accept your worship. It is only what is done in Christ that matters. You can go to church all you want, and that is good; but it is not good enough. Only in Christ does it matter. But let us continue.
So the grain was anointed to bring the acceptable worship. It had oil and it had incense; but the grain could have no honey. It could also have no leaven; this is what 'matzoth' means: "unleavened bread". Why could this bread, which is a picture of the body of Jesus, have no leaven? What is leaven? The New Testament tells us repeatedly what leaven is.
In 1 Corinthians 5, Paul tells us the following: "Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the entire lump of dough? Leave behind the old leaven that you might be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For the Messiah our Pesach, Christ our Passover, has been sacrificed."
Leaven, or yeast, contributes nothing whatsoever to the nutritional value of bread. It only puffs it up; "your boasting is not good". The first thing that leaven speaks of is sin, but especially the sin of pride. Pride is the seminal sin; it is the sin that gives rise to other sin. In Isaiah chapter 14 we are told that the first sin was pride. Satan wanted to be God; in eternity, Satan wanted to usurp God's position. Pride was Satan's first sin, according to Isaiah 14. During the temptation of Adam and Eve, man's first sin was pride. Pride is the kind of sin that leads to other sin. When you see someone who has a problem with greed, pride is underneath that greed. When you see a person who has a problem with uncontrolled lust, underneath that lust is pride. When you see a person who has a problem with unrighteous, unholy anger, underneath that anger is pride. Pride is the seminal sin; it gives rise to other sin.
The only thing I have to be proud of is what Jesus did for me on the cross; that is all. That He took my sin and rose from the dead is the only thing I have to be proud of. Jesus, however, was God, and He had no sin. He had everything to be proud of; yet He who had something to be proud of was not proud. I who have nothing to be proud of have to battle with pride every day; so do you. We battle it every day, but Jesus had none. There was no leaven in that matzoth.
But then he spoke further: "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees." False doctrine. When you see heresy and false doctrine (and all you have to do to see false doctrine is to turn on the so-called "Christian" television; it consists of much more false doctrine than true doctrine), this is the leaven of the Pharisees. It puffs up; there is pride. "God showed me, I can do this, we're going to go forth and conquer" -- spiritual pride. Whenever you see false doctrine and heresy, the source of it is always spiritual pride. Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. Jesus had no false doctrine, no heresy. Every word that He taught was one hundred and ten per cent true. There was no leaven in that matzoth. If there had been, he would not have been able to die for our sins.
Once more: to God, one man without sin was worth more than all men with sin. It doesn't matter how good you are; you're not good enough to go to heaven. On the other hand, it does not matter how bad you are; you're not so bad that God does not love you and Jesus cannot take your sin and give you His life. That is the Gospel.
It is difficult when people have grown up hearing it their whole lives; they go to good churches for 20, 30, 40 years and hear this message -- or variations of it -- some of them probably hundreds of times. Yet they have still never been born again; that is a terrible tragedy. My family are Israeli Jews; Jews are more guilty than other people for rejecting the Gospel, because Jesus was Jewish and because the Gospel came to Israel first. It says in Romans that God holds the Jews accountable first. Because salvation is available to them first, the consequences of rejecting it are on them first, we're told in Romans. So, too, people who have heard the Gospel repeatedly are going to be more accountable than people who do not live in places where it is as readily available. I never knew what a born-again Christian was until I was in university; I had never even heard of such a thing. But many people have grown up hearing about it without accepting it. They know the truth; or at least they have the truth available to them. I go to Africa, India, the Middle East; I go to places where the people have never heard the truth. Yet there are people who go to church and hear it Sunday after Sunday after Sunday, but their lives don't change.
There was no leaven -- no pride, no false doctrine -- in that matzoh. One man with no sin could die for all the men with sin.
But then there could be no honey. Why could there be no honey on that grain? What is the problem with honey? We know what leaven is -- the Scriptures tell us. But what is wrong with honey? Why does God say in Leviticus chapter 2 that there could be no honey on the grain when it was sacrificed?
Typology of the Grain Offering Part 2 of 2
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Look, please, to the book of Proverbs chapter 24:13. We must always interpret Scripture in light of other Scripture. This is what we read: "My son, eat honey, for it is good. Yes, the honey from the comb is sweet to your taste." Honey is sweet. Let us understand the Hebrew thought in the idea of honey: Honey in Hebrew is called devash, because it comes from the Hebrew word for 'bee', devorah. The girl's name 'Deborah' means 'bee' in Hebrew. But the Hebrew word for the Bible, the Word of God, is devar.The Word of God is sweet. Remember in the book of Revelation, or in Ezekiel chapter 3, that the scroll was sweet in the mouth yet bitter in the stomach. The Word of God is sweet to us; it tastes sweet. Yet the Word of God should always be sweet in our mouths, yet bitter in our gut. It can be very interesting and very encouraging; but we are also responsible for it. It is not given simply to increase our knowledge, but to change our lives. It is sweet in the mouth, but bitter in the gut. You see, we only like the honey bits. We don't like the bitter bits.
The Hebrews entered a land of milk and honey, and one day, so shall we. Heaven will be a land of milk and honey; the Promised Land. One is a picture of the other. In heaven, everything will be lovey-dovey. However, in the meantime we have come out of Egypt -- a picture of the world -- and we are sojourning in the wilderness. The desert is a difficult place. The manna fell for Israel, and it tasted like honey; now, the manna falls and it tastes like honey.
But there is a problem with honey. Not with the honey in itself, but in what we do with it. Look at Proverbs 25:16: "Have you found honey? Eat only what you need, lest you have it in excess and vomit it." Too much honey makes us sick. I myself am very moderately Pentecostal/Charismatic, though I am against all of the extremism. But I will tell you one of the things that has gone wrong with the Pentecostal movement, and why after almost 30 years it has brought no revival: too much honey. Everything was based on affection and feeling and being lovey-dovey. They wanted only the sweet in the mouth, not the bitter in the gut. They embraced experiential theology instead of Biblical theology. Their doctrine comes from what they make up as they go along because it feels good to them; it is the same as secular psychology. The feel-good factor: 'if it feels good, it must be right'.
"Eat what you need" -- you need a certain amount of honey. We all need affection; honey speaks of affection. The two kinds of parents who will most seriously damage their children spiritually and emotionally are the ones who are overly strict and the ones who are overly permissive. I had an uncle who was in the American military, and his position was in training soldiers for combat. He was a hero in Korea, and a good soldier; but he could not separate his professional life from his family life. As a result, he was overly strict with his children, and regimented them. This damaged them, and one after another they went wrong. Ultimately they were responsible for their own lives, but their upbringing was overly strict. Do you know that there are fathers who have never hugged their children? The Bible speaks more of a father's love than it does of a mother's love, because God is a father figure. If a child has never seen the love of a father, that lack is going to obscure his or her view of God. There are fathers who never show much-needed affection to their children.
Yet 'eat only what you need'; don't consume too much. "Oh, don't smack little Henry; Henry is a good boy"; until one day, the police knock on the door when little Henry is no longer so little -- nor so good.
Have you found honey? Eat what you need; we do need honey. But too much will make us sick. Be careful of people who are ruled by their emotions, who substitute emotion and feeling for spirituality. It is the teaching of the Word of God that determines what is spiritual; our feelings do not.
Let us look further: Proverbs 25:27: "It is not good to eat much honey; nor is it glory to search out one's own glory." When you see people eating too much honey -- who are ruled by their emotions -- these are people who are into spiritual pride. They are seeking their own glory, believing they are more spiritual than others around them, embracing the attitude of 'holier-than-thou', and for them, feeling and emotion wrongly become the barometer of spirituality. "Oh, we don't judge! We don't criticize!"
My own family is a combination of two backgrounds: Jewish and Catholic. We have Jewish family who are on their way to hell without their Messiah, yet there are Christians who claim to love the Jews while refusing to give them the Gospel. There are actual organizations, which call themselves 'Christian Embassies', composed of people who want to bring the Jews back to Israel; yet they will withhold the Gospel from them in the name of 'love'. What they are actually saying is, "We love you, Jew! Go to hell." No; if you love Jews, tell them about the Messiah.
"Oh, we love our Catholic brethren!" I have a mother who trusts in a statue of Mary for her salvation instead of in the Lord Jesus Christ; my mother is on her way to hell. If we love Catholics, we will tell them the true Gospel. Either the blood of Christ cleanses you from all sin, or you are going to atone in Purgatory for your own; which gospel are you going to believe? Paul said that if an angel of God came preaching another gospel, we are to reject him. There is no Purgatory; we do not atone for our own sin, because the blood of Christ cleanses from all sin. Yet in the name of love, people will claim Catholics as brethren and leave them in bondage to the fear of death. This is not love; perfect love casts out all fear. Jesus took our sin; yet in the name of love, certain Christians will leave people in that bondage. "Oh, but we have to love the Catholics!" Certainly we do; so let us tell them the truth! In Philippians 1:9 we see that love and truth are not mutually exclusive, but rather are mutually dependent. Yet because the Charismatic movement runs on honey instead of on grain, they no longer know this.
"Eat what you need; not too much."
The functions of the soul are the mind, the intellect, and the emotions. Human intellect is a very good servant, but it is a bad master. Human emotion is also a very good servant, but it is a deadly, cruel, lethal master. When you find people who are thinking with their emotions, and substituting feeling for the Word of God, you are looking at people who are into spiritual pride and are on a suicide trip spiritually. They will also take others down with them if allowed to do so.
No, there was no honey on that grain. There was no emotion involved in the crucifixion of Jesus. The Father turned His back on His Son. No; I got the honey -- 'God so loved the world . . .' -- I got the honey. The girls I slept with, the cocaine I scooped up my nose -- Jesus paid the price for that. He got the nails; He was nailed to a tree for what I did, and I got the honey. He did not get any honey; there was no honey on that grain.
There could be no honey, and no leaven. Leviticus 2:12: "An offering of the firstfruits you shall bring to the Lord, but they shall not ascend for a soothing aroma on the altar." Why could the grain of the firstfruit not be used as a grain offering? Understand what the firstfruit meant: it was a Hebrew feast during Passover week, in April. Jesus was crucified at that time; but on the Sunday of that week, the high priest would go into the Kidron Valley, which lies directly between the Temple Mount and the Mount of Olives. Exactly at sunrise, when he saw the first ray of light coming up from in back of the Mount of Olives illuminating the first shoot of grain, that would be called the firstfruit. The high priest would then ceremonially harvest it and bring it into the Temple; that would be the firstfruit. All four Gospels tell us that Jesus rose around dawn; in other words, at the very hour at which the high priest was bringing the firstfruit into the Temple, Jesus was rising from the dead as the Firstfruit of the resurrection. This is what Paul tells us in I Corinthians 15:20: "But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who are asleep." He is the Firstfruit.
So the grain of the firstfruit could not be put on the altar and sacrificed. Why? Because Jesus died once and for all. Once He had died for our sin and risen from the grave, He would never die again. This is why, when Moses struck the rock more than once, he could not enter the Promised Land. It was like crucifying Jesus repeatedly. He died once, and then the Living Water -- the Holy Spirit -- came.
There is a big problem today called ecumenism. Now, for saved Christians to unite with saved Christians is very good. I am all for born-again Baptists getting together with born-again Presbyterians and born-again Pentecostals (if they are not extreme). I am in favor of saved Christians uniting. But when saved Christians begin getting into bed with liberal Protestants, unbelievers; when saved Christians begin getting into bed with the Roman Catholic church; that is something quite different. Let's look at what it says in Hebrews 7:27: "We do not need daily a high priest like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices for his own sin and then for the sins of the people, because this Jesus did once and for all" He died one time. In Hebrews 9:12 we read the same thing: "And not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood He entered the holy place once and for all." And in Hebrews 9:28: "So that Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many". Hebrews 10:10: "By this we will have been sanctified: the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all." Verse 14 of chapter 10: "For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified." One time; if something has been perfected, it cannot be improved upon. Jesus died once and only once.
Therefore, He is the Firstfruit, we are told in Corinthians. He died once, rose from the dead once, never to die again, because His sacrifice was perfect. The Roman Catholic doctrine of the mass denies this, claiming that the mass is the same sacrifice as Calvary, and that Jesus dies again and again and again. The Catholic doctrine of the mass is a fundamental denial of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The Reformers were certainly not perfect men. Luther, Calvin, Zwingli -- they made a lot of mistakes, and they even persecuted Baptists. However, every one of them was a Roman Catholic priest who got saved when he read the Bible. Not only were they from the Roman Catholic clergy, but they were from the intelligentsia of the Roman Catholic clergy. When they went back and read the Scriptures in the original Greek languages, they understood what was wrong. Every one of the Reformers was a Roman Catholic priest who read the Scriptures in the original language and got saved. Those doctrines have not changed: Jesus died once and for all.
The grain had to be salted. Again we come back to this idea of the Word. John chapter 1, "In the beginning was the Word". Jesus is the Word, and the Bible is the Word. His Word is Him; it is salty. Salt was the only preservative they had in the ancient Near East. The Word of God -- the salt -- preserves. The power of Jesus preserves. If a church stops being evangelistic, it will eventually stop being evangelical. If you abandon Christ, you will eventually abandon His Word; and that is where liberal Protestantism has gone. They 'hold a form of religion, but deny the power therein'. They want to keep only the moral teachings of the Bible, forgetting the personal relationship with the Lord. The Word is the Word; once the Word goes, the Word also goes. In other words, once Jesus goes, the Bible goes after.
I live in England. On the outside of the English parliament in Westminster, London, it says pater nostra cuis en coeleas, 'Our Father who art in Heaven', because the British parliament was founded by Puritans who believed the Bible. Inside, it is filled with atheists, freemasons, Moslems, and God knows what else. They certainly don't believe the Bible.
Why is this society falling to bits? Why is there so much crime? Why are there saved Christians, even so-called Christian ministers, getting divorced and remarried? The salt is losing its taste. They are going away from the teachings of the Bible because they have gone away from Jesus. They have gone away from the Word, so they go away from the Word. He is the Word; if you go away from the Bible, you have gone away from Christ. It's that simple.
Salt preserves. Even in the so-called Bible belts, the immorality, crime, and divorce among so-called Christians is staggering; even more so because it is accepted. When I was first saved, you would never have heard of a Christian getting divorced and remarried. If that happened, it either happened before they were saved, or they had an unbelieving partner who left. That was it; otherwise, it never would have happened. But now it means nothing. The biggest names are doing it! It's in the newspapers! Hal Lindsay is on his third divorce and remarriage; Amy Grant is getting divorced, etc. It doesn't mean anything any more, because the salt has lost its flavor.
Let us look even further: The grain came in two ways. You had the whole grain, and then you had the crushed grain, or grits. What is the difference between the whole grain and the crushed grain? It is all the Word of God, but it comes in two forms: When the Word of God is taught under the true anointing of the Holy Spirit, that is crushed grain. It is somebody taking the Word, crushing it up, and giving it to the people in a digestible form; that is good. But the whole grain comes first. No Bible teacher, no Christian book, will ever replace your reading of the Word of God for yourself. There is good crushed grain; there are books such as The Pilgrim's Progress, The Screwtape Letters, books by A. W. Tozer, and many others. There is a lot of good crushed grain; however, the whole grain comes first. No teaching, no teacher, no tape, no video, no book, and no broadcast will ever replace your prayerfully reading and studying the Scriptures for yourself.
The Word is the Word; the Word of the Lord, and the Lord of the Word. He is the Word; He is the grain, which was offered in three ways: He suffered in body, in soul, and in spirit when He took our sins. That grain was consumed on a griddle, in a skillet, and in an oven.
He was anointed for burial before He was anointed for Kingdom dominion. There was no Benny Hinn hairstyle, no Mercedes limousine or mansion; there was a crucified life as proof of the anointing. He brought the acceptable sacrifice to the Lord.
No honey; there was no affection at the cross. The Father turned His back on His Son for my sin. I deserved nothing but hell, yet I received the affection. Jesus took my sin so that I do not have to go to hell.
No leaven; there was no false doctrine, there was no pride, there was no sin; but there was a salt; a salt that preserves. This salty grain would preserve a society, a nation, a denomination, a church, a family, and your life and mine; salt preserves.
The whole grain and the crushed grain; that is what God has for us, and that is what God wants for us. It is here waiting, and in some cases for people, the Gospel has been here their entire lives, yet it has never been accepted. However, it can be accepted even today.
Christians -- watch out for too much honey. Do not withhold affection, but also do not be governed by it.
This is everything. It is wonderful to be in the countries in which we live; yet something is happening in those countries -- America, Britain, etc. The Biblical heritage bequeathed to us by our forefathers is diminishing rapidly. We have what is increasingly becoming no more than a cultural Christianity. People who are not truly saved yet claim to be are talking the talk without walking the walk. I have no solution, but God does. That solution is the grain. We have the problem, God has the solution.
The Hebrews entered a land of milk and honey, and one day, so shall we. Heaven will be a land of milk and honey; the Promised Land. One is a picture of the other. In heaven, everything will be lovey-dovey. However, in the meantime we have come out of Egypt -- a picture of the world -- and we are sojourning in the wilderness. The desert is a difficult place. The manna fell for Israel, and it tasted like honey; now, the manna falls and it tastes like honey.
But there is a problem with honey. Not with the honey in itself, but in what we do with it. Look at Proverbs 25:16: "Have you found honey? Eat only what you need, lest you have it in excess and vomit it." Too much honey makes us sick. I myself am very moderately Pentecostal/Charismatic, though I am against all of the extremism. But I will tell you one of the things that has gone wrong with the Pentecostal movement, and why after almost 30 years it has brought no revival: too much honey. Everything was based on affection and feeling and being lovey-dovey. They wanted only the sweet in the mouth, not the bitter in the gut. They embraced experiential theology instead of Biblical theology. Their doctrine comes from what they make up as they go along because it feels good to them; it is the same as secular psychology. The feel-good factor: 'if it feels good, it must be right'.
"Eat what you need" -- you need a certain amount of honey. We all need affection; honey speaks of affection. The two kinds of parents who will most seriously damage their children spiritually and emotionally are the ones who are overly strict and the ones who are overly permissive. I had an uncle who was in the American military, and his position was in training soldiers for combat. He was a hero in Korea, and a good soldier; but he could not separate his professional life from his family life. As a result, he was overly strict with his children, and regimented them. This damaged them, and one after another they went wrong. Ultimately they were responsible for their own lives, but their upbringing was overly strict. Do you know that there are fathers who have never hugged their children? The Bible speaks more of a father's love than it does of a mother's love, because God is a father figure. If a child has never seen the love of a father, that lack is going to obscure his or her view of God. There are fathers who never show much-needed affection to their children.
Yet 'eat only what you need'; don't consume too much. "Oh, don't smack little Henry; Henry is a good boy"; until one day, the police knock on the door when little Henry is no longer so little -- nor so good.
Have you found honey? Eat what you need; we do need honey. But too much will make us sick. Be careful of people who are ruled by their emotions, who substitute emotion and feeling for spirituality. It is the teaching of the Word of God that determines what is spiritual; our feelings do not.
Let us look further: Proverbs 25:27: "It is not good to eat much honey; nor is it glory to search out one's own glory." When you see people eating too much honey -- who are ruled by their emotions -- these are people who are into spiritual pride. They are seeking their own glory, believing they are more spiritual than others around them, embracing the attitude of 'holier-than-thou', and for them, feeling and emotion wrongly become the barometer of spirituality. "Oh, we don't judge! We don't criticize!"
My own family is a combination of two backgrounds: Jewish and Catholic. We have Jewish family who are on their way to hell without their Messiah, yet there are Christians who claim to love the Jews while refusing to give them the Gospel. There are actual organizations, which call themselves 'Christian Embassies', composed of people who want to bring the Jews back to Israel; yet they will withhold the Gospel from them in the name of 'love'. What they are actually saying is, "We love you, Jew! Go to hell." No; if you love Jews, tell them about the Messiah.
"Oh, we love our Catholic brethren!" I have a mother who trusts in a statue of Mary for her salvation instead of in the Lord Jesus Christ; my mother is on her way to hell. If we love Catholics, we will tell them the true Gospel. Either the blood of Christ cleanses you from all sin, or you are going to atone in Purgatory for your own; which gospel are you going to believe? Paul said that if an angel of God came preaching another gospel, we are to reject him. There is no Purgatory; we do not atone for our own sin, because the blood of Christ cleanses from all sin. Yet in the name of love, people will claim Catholics as brethren and leave them in bondage to the fear of death. This is not love; perfect love casts out all fear. Jesus took our sin; yet in the name of love, certain Christians will leave people in that bondage. "Oh, but we have to love the Catholics!" Certainly we do; so let us tell them the truth! In Philippians 1:9 we see that love and truth are not mutually exclusive, but rather are mutually dependent. Yet because the Charismatic movement runs on honey instead of on grain, they no longer know this.
"Eat what you need; not too much."
The functions of the soul are the mind, the intellect, and the emotions. Human intellect is a very good servant, but it is a bad master. Human emotion is also a very good servant, but it is a deadly, cruel, lethal master. When you find people who are thinking with their emotions, and substituting feeling for the Word of God, you are looking at people who are into spiritual pride and are on a suicide trip spiritually. They will also take others down with them if allowed to do so.
No, there was no honey on that grain. There was no emotion involved in the crucifixion of Jesus. The Father turned His back on His Son. No; I got the honey -- 'God so loved the world . . .' -- I got the honey. The girls I slept with, the cocaine I scooped up my nose -- Jesus paid the price for that. He got the nails; He was nailed to a tree for what I did, and I got the honey. He did not get any honey; there was no honey on that grain.
There could be no honey, and no leaven. Leviticus 2:12: "An offering of the firstfruits you shall bring to the Lord, but they shall not ascend for a soothing aroma on the altar." Why could the grain of the firstfruit not be used as a grain offering? Understand what the firstfruit meant: it was a Hebrew feast during Passover week, in April. Jesus was crucified at that time; but on the Sunday of that week, the high priest would go into the Kidron Valley, which lies directly between the Temple Mount and the Mount of Olives. Exactly at sunrise, when he saw the first ray of light coming up from in back of the Mount of Olives illuminating the first shoot of grain, that would be called the firstfruit. The high priest would then ceremonially harvest it and bring it into the Temple; that would be the firstfruit. All four Gospels tell us that Jesus rose around dawn; in other words, at the very hour at which the high priest was bringing the firstfruit into the Temple, Jesus was rising from the dead as the Firstfruit of the resurrection. This is what Paul tells us in I Corinthians 15:20: "But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who are asleep." He is the Firstfruit.
So the grain of the firstfruit could not be put on the altar and sacrificed. Why? Because Jesus died once and for all. Once He had died for our sin and risen from the grave, He would never die again. This is why, when Moses struck the rock more than once, he could not enter the Promised Land. It was like crucifying Jesus repeatedly. He died once, and then the Living Water -- the Holy Spirit -- came.
There is a big problem today called ecumenism. Now, for saved Christians to unite with saved Christians is very good. I am all for born-again Baptists getting together with born-again Presbyterians and born-again Pentecostals (if they are not extreme). I am in favor of saved Christians uniting. But when saved Christians begin getting into bed with liberal Protestants, unbelievers; when saved Christians begin getting into bed with the Roman Catholic church; that is something quite different. Let's look at what it says in Hebrews 7:27: "We do not need daily a high priest like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices for his own sin and then for the sins of the people, because this Jesus did once and for all" He died one time. In Hebrews 9:12 we read the same thing: "And not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood He entered the holy place once and for all." And in Hebrews 9:28: "So that Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many". Hebrews 10:10: "By this we will have been sanctified: the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all." Verse 14 of chapter 10: "For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified." One time; if something has been perfected, it cannot be improved upon. Jesus died once and only once.
Therefore, He is the Firstfruit, we are told in Corinthians. He died once, rose from the dead once, never to die again, because His sacrifice was perfect. The Roman Catholic doctrine of the mass denies this, claiming that the mass is the same sacrifice as Calvary, and that Jesus dies again and again and again. The Catholic doctrine of the mass is a fundamental denial of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The Reformers were certainly not perfect men. Luther, Calvin, Zwingli -- they made a lot of mistakes, and they even persecuted Baptists. However, every one of them was a Roman Catholic priest who got saved when he read the Bible. Not only were they from the Roman Catholic clergy, but they were from the intelligentsia of the Roman Catholic clergy. When they went back and read the Scriptures in the original Greek languages, they understood what was wrong. Every one of the Reformers was a Roman Catholic priest who read the Scriptures in the original language and got saved. Those doctrines have not changed: Jesus died once and for all.
The grain had to be salted. Again we come back to this idea of the Word. John chapter 1, "In the beginning was the Word". Jesus is the Word, and the Bible is the Word. His Word is Him; it is salty. Salt was the only preservative they had in the ancient Near East. The Word of God -- the salt -- preserves. The power of Jesus preserves. If a church stops being evangelistic, it will eventually stop being evangelical. If you abandon Christ, you will eventually abandon His Word; and that is where liberal Protestantism has gone. They 'hold a form of religion, but deny the power therein'. They want to keep only the moral teachings of the Bible, forgetting the personal relationship with the Lord. The Word is the Word; once the Word goes, the Word also goes. In other words, once Jesus goes, the Bible goes after.
I live in England. On the outside of the English parliament in Westminster, London, it says pater nostra cuis en coeleas, 'Our Father who art in Heaven', because the British parliament was founded by Puritans who believed the Bible. Inside, it is filled with atheists, freemasons, Moslems, and God knows what else. They certainly don't believe the Bible.
Why is this society falling to bits? Why is there so much crime? Why are there saved Christians, even so-called Christian ministers, getting divorced and remarried? The salt is losing its taste. They are going away from the teachings of the Bible because they have gone away from Jesus. They have gone away from the Word, so they go away from the Word. He is the Word; if you go away from the Bible, you have gone away from Christ. It's that simple.
Salt preserves. Even in the so-called Bible belts, the immorality, crime, and divorce among so-called Christians is staggering; even more so because it is accepted. When I was first saved, you would never have heard of a Christian getting divorced and remarried. If that happened, it either happened before they were saved, or they had an unbelieving partner who left. That was it; otherwise, it never would have happened. But now it means nothing. The biggest names are doing it! It's in the newspapers! Hal Lindsay is on his third divorce and remarriage; Amy Grant is getting divorced, etc. It doesn't mean anything any more, because the salt has lost its flavor.
Let us look even further: The grain came in two ways. You had the whole grain, and then you had the crushed grain, or grits. What is the difference between the whole grain and the crushed grain? It is all the Word of God, but it comes in two forms: When the Word of God is taught under the true anointing of the Holy Spirit, that is crushed grain. It is somebody taking the Word, crushing it up, and giving it to the people in a digestible form; that is good. But the whole grain comes first. No Bible teacher, no Christian book, will ever replace your reading of the Word of God for yourself. There is good crushed grain; there are books such as The Pilgrim's Progress, The Screwtape Letters, books by A. W. Tozer, and many others. There is a lot of good crushed grain; however, the whole grain comes first. No teaching, no teacher, no tape, no video, no book, and no broadcast will ever replace your prayerfully reading and studying the Scriptures for yourself.
The Word is the Word; the Word of the Lord, and the Lord of the Word. He is the Word; He is the grain, which was offered in three ways: He suffered in body, in soul, and in spirit when He took our sins. That grain was consumed on a griddle, in a skillet, and in an oven.
He was anointed for burial before He was anointed for Kingdom dominion. There was no Benny Hinn hairstyle, no Mercedes limousine or mansion; there was a crucified life as proof of the anointing. He brought the acceptable sacrifice to the Lord.
No honey; there was no affection at the cross. The Father turned His back on His Son for my sin. I deserved nothing but hell, yet I received the affection. Jesus took my sin so that I do not have to go to hell.
No leaven; there was no false doctrine, there was no pride, there was no sin; but there was a salt; a salt that preserves. This salty grain would preserve a society, a nation, a denomination, a church, a family, and your life and mine; salt preserves.
The whole grain and the crushed grain; that is what God has for us, and that is what God wants for us. It is here waiting, and in some cases for people, the Gospel has been here their entire lives, yet it has never been accepted. However, it can be accepted even today.
Christians -- watch out for too much honey. Do not withhold affection, but also do not be governed by it.
This is everything. It is wonderful to be in the countries in which we live; yet something is happening in those countries -- America, Britain, etc. The Biblical heritage bequeathed to us by our forefathers is diminishing rapidly. We have what is increasingly becoming no more than a cultural Christianity. People who are not truly saved yet claim to be are talking the talk without walking the walk. I have no solution, but God does. That solution is the grain. We have the problem, God has the solution.
Understanding the Mixture
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by James Jacob Prasch
In an age where pop psychology is masquerading as biblical doctrine things can become very confusing. Today we hear so much about things being a mixture of truth and error, or carnal and spiritual, good and bad, or even godly and demonic. To make matters worse, we are too often being given mixed signals. Instead of giving a clear indication of what the signals actually mean so many of our pastors and once respected leaders are now telling us things like "the light is neither red nor green but amber" - leaving us suspended in a limbo not knowing whether to go or to stop. Arriving at a right doctrinal position and discerning things in a biblical manner in times like this has become more and more difficult for many sincere believers genuinely wanting to know the truth so as to do what is right. But in an increasingly complexed maze like this, the first and foremost question is to ask "What does God say about mixture in his word?"
1 Thessalonians 2:3-5 & 2 Peter 2:1Understanding The True Nature Of Spiritual Seduction And How It Operates From God's WordIn 1 Thessalonians, writing under the direct inspiration of The Holy Spirit Paul tells us that the true apostolic exhortation is not of "error, nor impurity, nor deception". Any exhortation containing doctrinal error,
Impurity, or impurity cannot therefore possibly be of God. Paul is also directed by The Holy Spirit to place these three words in a sequence, because they engender each other. Doctrinal error misleads us into impurity which in turn results in deception or guile.
It begins with error (the Greek term being planas) which has to do with wrong doctrine. Biblical doctrine is the teaching of Jesus. Jesus prayed that The Father would sanctify us in truth - God's Word is truth (John 17:17).
The Greek term used for truth here is logos (in Hebrew Dvar) as indeed we know that Jesus Himself is the logos or The Word incarnate (John 1:1). This is why Jesus therefore defines Himself as "The Truth" (John 14:6).
If someone is not standing in biblical truth they are not standing in Christ and are not being sanctified unto God.
We therefore see that in the Last Days those not loving doctrinal truth really do not love Jesus Christ, as one is the barometer of the other. Such unsaved people will be easily taken in by the antichrist (as indeed they are already under the influence of what theologians and philosophers call by the German term the zeitgeist or 'spirit of the age' which is the spirit of anti Christ -1 John 2:15-18). But this text shows us that it also includes some who profess to be Christians that "go out from among us", like the Son of Perdition (linking Judas with The Anti-Christ). This thought becomes frightening and directly refers to what Paul calls the apostasia or 'great falling away' after the anti Christ by those 'Christians' who do not love biblical (2 Thessalonians 2: 9-12), because as this text tells us in not loving truth, they do not really love Jesus but delight in unrighteousness.
We are even told those falling away will actually do so under the judgment of God who will cause them to be deceived for not loving His Word, and therefore not loving His Son. Moreover we are even told how it will happen. The anti Christ will be God's agent of judgment on those not loving biblical truth (Zecheriah 11:12-16- Son of Perdition) and will use bogus signs and wonders to do it (Revelation 13:14, 2 Thessalonians 2:9-11, Matthew 24:24). Like Pharaohs magicians the anti Christ and false prophet will use demonic power to do signs and wonders that mimic The works of God and counterfeit a genuinely biblical usage of The Charismatic Gifts of The Holy Spirit (2 Timothy 3:8). It is for this reason that Jesus warned that it was "wicked and adulterous generation seeking a sign" (Luke 11:29). This too is frightening. As we have for some time pointed out, if people can not see through obvious heretics like Benny Hinn and John Arnott , or see through proven false prophets like Gerald Coates, Paul Cane, and Rick Joyner or cultic churches like Elim following money oriented hype artists like Morris Cerullo there is no way they will evade the coming real deception.
Just as the bible warns us, such Christians when showed that their beliefs and actions are not biblical will often accuse you of being a Pharisee. In fact, such people are too ignorant and willfully blind to realise that the New Testament tells us Pharisees are those 'teaching inventions of men as precepts of God' who lack a biblical foundation for their views and practice (Matthew 15:9), and it is actually they whom God's Word describes as being pharisaical. Indeed, judging biblically for instance, it would be John Smith who is responsible for Elim's Direction Magazine that advertises such unbiblical and unethical travesties such as Morris Cerullo's antics that publicly discredit the church, or David Shearman of The Assemblies of God who joins with Cerullo that are modern days Pharisees. Cerullo was actually found guilty of all four charges of improper fund raising by the UK Advertising Standards Council, yet mainstream British Pentecostalism still stands with him. Whenever challenged about televised bogus healings, or Cerullo's Sin of Simony , such leaders inevitably try to defend continuing to promote or advertise men like Cerullo, even though he was pressed to resign from The Evangelical Alliance by saying "it is not all bad - there is a mixture". But what saith The Lord of such a mixture?
Jesus spoke of false doctrine and wrong practice based on it as "the leaven of the Pharisees" (Matthew 16: 6, Luke 122:1). In biblical typology, leaven represents spiritual pride and the sin resulting from it (1 Corinthians 5:6-8). False doctrine is sin and always involves spiritual pride. When we therefore speak of "A Mixture" we must remember that "a little leaven leavens the whole lump" (1 Corinthians 5::6). Most of what the Pharisees believed was in fact biblically true, but what was false was all it took to mislead the people away from The Lord.
Today it is the same. Much of what hyper Pentecostalism or Charismatic extremism teaches may be true. Cultic movements like Restorationism, Elim or The Church of Christ are largely true in the majority of their professed doctrine. Most of what is found in Alpha courses is probably true. But what is not leavens the whole loaf.
This is not to say that all faithful Christians and all faithful churches will always agree on every point of doctrine, but it is to say that they will all agree on every point of essential doctrine like the authority of scripture, the gospel, the nature of the Triune God-head, and Christian morality. When we see pneumo-centric worship based on The Holy Spirit instead of Christo-centric worship with The Spirit pointing to Jesus (John 14) we know there is leaven (as we in Alpha and in the heretical writings of Benny Hinn) we see leaven. The fruit of The Holy Spirit is self control (Galatians 5:23) when drunken behaviour and animal imitations are advocated as manifestations of The Holy Spirit (as in David Blake's article in Elim's magazine) we know it is an alien spirit and we see leaven. When we see Morris Cerullo pronouncing a little child healed who tragically dies shortly afterwards and we see him marketing his " £24 Holy Ghost Miracle Cloths to Remove debt with Elim's John Smith continuing to advertise him, we see leaven".
Jesus said to make disciples, not converts. The first step of biblical discipleship is baptism, not a "weekend away to get people into the Toronto Experience" as Alpha Director, Nicky Gumbel teaches. The bible teaches that 'the Blood of Christ cleanses from all sin', but Roman Catholicism teaches we must burn in a temporary hell called purgatory to atone for our own sins . This is indeed another gospel we are commanded to reject and those teaching it are accursed of God (Galatians 1:2), yet Alpha tells people to stay in the Roman church. Alpha courses are based on leaven mixed in with real grain. Such 'mixtures' God has plainly damned.
The Hebrew's were forbidden to make a garment of linen and wool because God hates mixture (Deuteronomy 22:11). Thus the "mixture" has its root in "error". The biblical basis of purity is the truth of right doctrine. This is the reason that The New Testament contains twice as much exhortation to right doctrine as it does right conduct. If we do not have right doctrine we cannot have right conduct. In the perverted state of the ecumenical church we see men like George Carey, Pat Robertson, J.I. Packer, Bill Bright of Campus Crusades For Christ,
Dr. Kent of The Church of The Nazarene, and Chuck Colson signing 'Evangelicals and Catholics Together' agreements accepting Romanism as Christian and agreeing not to witness to Catholics (despite Rome having a different gospel, idolatry, and even persecuting evangelicals in Latin America). When pressed they will seek to defend their compromise of biblical truth arguing "well we may not agree with everything in Roman Catholicism - it is a mixture".
An even more pathetic example of this is found in the unfortunate position of theologian Dr. Norman Geisler, (whom Hank Hannegraaff sadly lauded as a great apologetic scholar). While Geisler claims to be an evagelical scholar, his academic background reflects a Thomist orientation, grounded in the Aristotelian influences of Thomas Aquinas from The Roman Catholic Loyola University (named after the founder of the genocidal Jesuit order). Geisler openly proclaims "The Roman Catholic Church is not a False Church with some truth in it, but a True Church with some falsehood in it". Again, Geisler attempts to defend the biblically indefensible - "The Mixture". Along this line Moriel recommends the book 'On The Edge Of Apostacy' by Robert Zins.
The result of the wrong doctrine is wrong conduct. People cease witnessing to Catholics because they are misled into believing they are saved which few are, and the individual Catholics who may have been saved instead of repenting of their idolatry continue to practice the cannabalistic abomination of transubstantiation, the sin of necromancy in praying to the dead, and praying in tongues to Mary. Wrong doctrine brings wrong conduct.
Today, Satan has raised up agents like Paul Crouch of Trinity Broadcasting who teaches that doctrine is not important because it brings division. They of course discount the fact that doctrine is the teaching of Jesus, it is His Word and if we say doctrine is not important - biblically we are saying Jesus is not important. They also forget that the Word of God teaches that doctrine is meant to bring division (1 Corinthians 11:19, Romans 16:17), because The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth, not error and a unity of the Spirit cannot exist where there is heresy (1 John 4:6). Those propagating such deception always do so in the name of love. Their perverse reasoning is that the truth may offend and that is not loving and it could prove divisive.However, God's Word on the contrary teaches that real love cannot abound unless it abounds in doctrinal truth and discernment of what is true and false (Philipians 1: 9). This is how Jesus loved the woman at the well. He lovingly but uncompromisingly and directly told her the truth about her false religion (John 4: 22) just as he did with Syro Phonecian woman (Mark 7:27). Because He loved her He told her up front that her religion was not for human beings but fit only for dogs. So too for instance is Roman Catholicism, and we must be like Jesus and love Roman Catholics enough to tell them so. Indeed, in this same Pauline Epistle dealing with Mixture, The Lord commands us to admonish those who are not biblically disciples (1 Thessalonians 5:14). Although John Arnott taught the diametric opposite, God commands us to 'test all things' holding fast to what is good (1 Thessalonians 5:21). A mixture is never and can never be good. Thus we see that doctrinal error produces a mixture of truth and error which 1 Thessalonians calls 'impurity' and this results in spiritual deception.
This impurity arising from an infiltration of erroneous teaching in the Greek text of 1 Thessalonians s called Akatharsis the opposite of the Greek wordkatharsis from where we derive the English term 'Catharsis'.This term does not mean unclean in the sense not of being 'washed from sin", that would be a completely different Greek word called absolusio (from where we get the term "absolution"). Neither does it mean to "separate the bad and keep the good" . The Septuagint translates this from the Hebrew text meaning 'bring forth the good from the bad' using yet another Greek word ekagageis in Jeremiah 15:19 . The impurity of akatharsis means that there is a mixture where there can be no be washing a separation process as with ekagageis.In Katharsis there is a purified form of something. In akatharsis it is something which is a mixture of the pure and impure.
The mixture is not just something on the surface that can be washed away, it is a homogeneous mixture that must be done away with and utterly replaced.
This is best demonstrated from the original Hebrew and Greek texts of scripture. The Hebrew equivalent of katharsis is Tahore, meaning "pure". As King David prayed in the penitential Psalm 51 "Create In Me A Clean Heart Oh Lord" -
"Lev Tahore Bera Le Elohim". It is something that must be created afresh. Man is fallen. We cannot have our sins simply washed away, something new must be created (John 3:3). In order to become tahore our old sinful self must be crucified with Jesus and buried with Him (Romans 6:3-6). We are told directly that Baptism is not a washing away of what is wrong with us (1 Peter 3:21), it is the burial of us (Colossians 2:12).
Because we are made in the divine image and likeness but have a fallen nature, we are a mixture of good and bad, but God demands purity. The Lord does not waste time trying to purify us by trying to remove what is right about us from what is wrong as in trying to wash away the bad and keep the good. The mixture is too homogeneous - sin affects every aspect of our being. When we go to the water to be baptized we are not going to be washed per se but to be buried. The futility of trying to wash something impure to make it clean was illustrated in Jesus analogy of the Pharisees. They tried to do a katharsis to correct the akatharsis (the actual word is the active verbal form katharizo) by washing the cup, but the inside remained filthy (Matthew 23:25). We can cleanse ourselves as Christians (2 Corinthians 7:1) but only by going back to the cross and co dying with Christ daily, not by trying to separate the good from bad, but by getting rid of the mixture and living as new creations.
Typologically, as we explain on the Tsaraat tape series on 'The Cleansing of the Lepers' that healing of leprosy is a type of salvation, with leprosy figuratively representing sin and its consequences. That is why when Jesus healed lepers the Greek text mainly uses the word katharizo for making pure (by separating the diseased tissue from the healthy) instead of he wordtherapeo for healibng. Only The Lord can purify . It is absurd to try to purify such a mixture by getting rid of the bad and keeping the good. Something clean that has become a bit dirty from our contact with the world can be washed (John 13: 10-14), and when we are saved it a different Greek word completely (eplunan) for washing our robes in the Blood of The Lamb (Revelation 7:14). But we cannot cleanse ourselves. Once there is a mixture there can be no washing or separating ; the precious can only be extracted from the worthless by rejecting the whole thing and allowing God to remake it (eg. Jeremiah 18:4).
Thus when we see pastors trying to argue about compromising over things like Roman Catholicism, liberal Protestantism or not rejecting all of TV money preachers, Toronto, Alpha, Promise Keepers, Pensecola, JIM Challenges etc. because there is 'A Mixture', and we should ' keep the good and reject the bad' - we are seeing men who are biblically ignorant and not qualified to be in church leadership (1 Timothy 3:2 7 Titus 1:9) as they are unable to rightly teach and divide the word of God upholding right doctrine. The ranks of popular Pentecostal leadership are swelled with such ecclesiastical quackery.
We so often see this in the cheap versions of prophetic ministry in the church today where we are told "well sometimes his prophetic predictions are right" in speaking of false prophets. Yet, God's Word clearly gives us a strong and unmistakable caveat against this thinking (Jeremiah 5:30-31). Of Bob Jones of the Kansas City prophets (who was found in immorality), the late John Wimber said "he is like a pipe with two open ends, sometimes the devil speaks through him and sometimes The Lord"! Wimber, who became a hyper charismatic Calvinist after being forced to leave a doctrinally conservative Wesleyan Arminian Pentecostal movement , was the prime architect of charismania in its contemporary Neo-Gnostic/New Age expression. His Reformed ideas of Covenant theology that led him into the deception of dominionism by blending the Calvinistic doctrinal errors of Reconstructionism with the errors of Experiential Theology are a mixture.
Judging scripturally, The Word of God warns us that the very fact that there is such a ' mixture' in things like Alpha courses, Pensecola etc. tells us that they are not of God. The elements of doctrinal error create a mixture yielding only deception as the end product. The root of this mixture is always compromising with a significant doctrinal error. This in turn produces a mixture of truth and error, carnal and spiritual, or even godly and satanic.
Many people who contacted us were distraught when David Pawson refused to take a firm stand one way or another or give the many who were looking to him a clear direction over the Toronto Affair. In his book on the subject, 'Is The Blessing Biblical'? Pawson 'sat on the fence' saying the light was neither red nor green but amber. An amber semaphore remains amber for only a few seconds, it tells us the light is about to change and we must be prepared to go or stop. It does not remain amber for the 6 years since the laughing and barking experience began and by now everyone knows it has brought no revival. The question of how much of it is good and how much of it bad is not an issue. By virtue of the fact a mixture exists the light is red. Someone who has become color blind is hardly in any position to give instruction to others. Concerning such spiritual drunkeness, God's Word again specifically warns us of those who totter when rendering judgment when the deception floods through the gates (Isaiah 28: 7). The reason they do this during the drunken climate is seen in the following verse (Isaiah 28:8) where the 'vomit' speaks of rejected spiritual food. There is an unwillingness to accept uncomfortable biblical truths so as to discern biblically and issue clear and definite judgments on the basis of God's Word. Seeking people looking to a trusted bible teacher are neither told to go or stay. Instead of green or red the light remains amber.
After relating the dynamic of this false exhortation of 'error, impurity, and deception' in 1 Thessalonians 2:3, Paul goes on to explain the motives underlying it in verses 4-6 in comparing his own ministry and that of Silvanus and Timothy. Those who engage in the mixture becomes a deception that Paul in Greek calls dolo meaning guile. Those engaging in this in other words, have an agenda. Paul tells us they practice flattery to please men, but their real motive is simply greed. How amazingly accurate the warnings The Holy Spirit gave us through Paul have proven to be! The common denominator in the deception we see in the church today is inevitably money. As just one example, of the $6.6 million collected for missions in Pensecola according to The Associated Press only 2% went to missions. The rest went to extravagant houses and all manner of profiteering by the leaders. Pensecola mixes truth with error, the impure mixture produces deception but the bottom line seems to be cash. After falsely prophesying that God would bring Hank Hannegraaff down in 3 months, Pensecola Pastor John Kilpatrick himself instead literally was brought down when he fell off a roof smashing his pelvis and winding up in a wheelchair, but business continued. As Paul wrote, under the mixture you find greed.
Such a mixture of truth and error has been Satan's trick from the beginning. He deceived Adam and Eve by mixing truth with error when he subtly distorted what God truly said out of context. In the temptation narrative, he likewise tempted Jesus by twisting scripture out of context. This reflects his nature as disguising himself as an angel of light. This is why Paul warns those that Satan's servants sent by him to deceive the church likewise camoulflage themselves as angels of light (2 Corinthians11:3 & 13-15)and therefore as Peter warns they similarly twist the scriptures out of context unto their own destruction (2 Peter 3:16). Faith-Prosperity, Replacement theology, Ecumenism, and Restorationism are all deceptions Satan perpetrates against the elect through his servants by distorting scriptures from their context. Sometimes as in the case of Bishop David Pytches, Mike Bickel, John Avanzini, and Rodney Howard Brown, the distortions are so ludicrous it is amazing anyone could believe such nonsense. Yet today many so called Christians unfortunately do.
The New Testament describes this mixture of doctrinal truth and error as 'secretly introducing destructive heresies' in 2 Peter 2:1 using the Greek termparasoxousin meaning they place truth next to error. This passage tells us that such men are false teachers and false prophets using the Greek prefixpsuedo meaning pretending to be real ones. Peter tells us that such men even deny the master who bought them, which is exactly what we see.
In the satanic doctrines of Kenneth Hagin and Kenneth Copeland who say that Satan not Jesus got the victory on the cross and after being tormented 3 days and nights in hell as one nature with Satan, Jesus had to be born again in hell. Copeland even teaches that he could have died on the cross instead of Jesus Christ. The process may indeed end up in such blasphemous heresy, but it does begin that way. It rather begins with a mixture.
1 Thessalonians 5:23Understanding The Difference Between Biblical and Secular PsychologyThe source of the mixture problem is chiefly wrong doctrine; again - wrong doctrine begets wrong practice.
However 'mixture' is not simply an academic matter of 'truth and error' but the mixture of flesh (carnal) and spirit (spiritual) that results. Peter for instance uses false prophets and false teachers interchangeably because if one's doctrines are wrong, their prophecies will be wrong (2 Peter 2:1). This is for example why men like David Wilkerson have a good track accurate for predictive accuracy in prophecy - his doctrine is right, while it is also why men like Gerald Coates and Rick Joyner are so hopelessly wrong so often - their doctrine is wrong.
Because their predictive prophecy fails, they are of course not prophets, but mere clairvoyants.
False prophecy is not only a good illustration of how wrong doctrine produces wrong conduct, but it further shows how the mixture of truth and false doctrine becomes transposed into a mixture of carnal and spiritual.
The prophet Jeremiah spoke of this when he wrote how false prophets do not necessarily prophesy by demons, but by their own imagination and the futility of their own mind (Jeremiah 23:16). What they imagine to be from the Holy Spirit communicating to their spirit is simply their own imagination. When the Kansas City prophets were challenged over their false prophecies, true to form, their defenders said: "it was a mixture - partially right, and partially wrong". In fact all clairvoyants are partially right and partially wrong. They do not have The Holy Spirit, but a spirit if divination. They too, 'divine' for money (Micah 3:11). When The Holy Spirit spoke through Israel's prophets however, there was no error, no clairvoyance, no divination, and no mixture.
All charismatic gifts and manifestations lend themselves to being merely psychological. I am convinced that most tongues is not real, but neither demonic. Most are purely psychological (even though I personally believe in the biblical gift of tongues). Likewise most prophecy, words of knowledge around today are purely psychological, this is one reason why they must be judged (1 Corinthians 14:29). People are confusing their own mind with their spirit. In the Toronto phenomena similarly most of the manifestations were simply matters of hypnotic induction combined with demonic deception. The same is certainly true of the overwhelming majority of so called 'deliverance ministry' - it is purely psychological with absolutely no biblical precedent for casting demons out of saved Christians. Deliverance manifestations and Toronto manifestations alike mainly come from the same source - the human soul. It is a matter of hypnotic induction used by Satan to mislead people.
It is a certain personality type and a certain fleshly type of Christian who is predisposed to Pensecola style deceptions. Similarly it is a certain personality type and certain type of Christian who gets involved with deliverance. People get back in line to fall down again or fly back to Pensecola for "another touch", so also we see the same people repeatedly going for 'deliverance', but in neither case does their life normally change. Even a cursory survey of Christians continually involved in being "delivered" demonstrates how many suffer with chronic emotional instability which translates into spiritual instability because they confuse the spirit with the soul. Instead of obtaining 'deliverance', more frequently it would appear that Satan uses deliverance to keep these poor souls in bondage. Indeed, such people are usually sincere and they genuinely desire the holiness and freedom as new creations they are hoping to find in deliverance - it is not that there is nothing spiritual about their actions or that the entire thing is psychological. It is rather simply that there is "a mixture".
This kind of mixture easily lends itself to confusing what is spiritual with what is psychological. The Word of God recognises that we are psychological as well as spiritual and physical beings when it speaks of the 'soul'.
The mental and emotional anguish of Jesus is called "The Travail of His Soul". Continuing in 1 Thessalonians, Paul writes much of the suffering for which he was destined (1 Thessalonians3:4). He also speaks directly of the collective discouragement of his ministry team (1 Thessalonians 3:1) and his personal inability to emotionally endure what was taking place (1 Thessalonians 3:5). Not least of all he relates how more than once Satan "hindered" his plans (1 Thessalonians 2:18). Moreover, such accounts are things The Holy Spirit placed in the cannon of scripture and represent a spiritual perspective of emotional trauma and satanic opposition.
Today however, with the pop psycho-babel dominating so much of the contemporary church scene, Paul would be seen as 'lacking faith', 'being negative', and 'not having the vision' (as one faith - prosperity huckster already accused him of). This of course echoes the heretical attack by Benny Hinn on Job for his suffering.
In reality walking by faith and not by sight has nothing at all to do with pretending adverse circumstances do not exist (as in the lies of the word - faith that 'ones body is lying to them when they experience symptoms of illness'), it rather has to do with trusting The Lord despite the circumstances. The victorious Christian walk is certainly not a matter of not being afflicted, but trusting The Lord in those afflictions to sustain us (2 Corinthians 4: 8-18) and not loosing heart. Neither does walking in faith in victory not mean that we can confess victory and bind Satan from obstructing us. In its context, such nonsense has nothing what-so-ever to do with what 'binding and loosing' actually means in the bible, any more than it means the silly "speaking into the heavens to establish kingdom dominion" sort of rubbish characterizing the ecumenical March for Jesus foolishness. It does mean that The Lord will build a hedge around us and limit what Satan may and may not do to us (he can only kill us if God allows it) and it means that when The Lord does allow Satan a given victory, it is a gambit that God will turn around for His purposes; we read in Romans 8 that "all things worktogether for the better", not that all things work for the better. We are promised Satan looses the war, but not every battle. When God allows Satan to win a battle however, it will only backfire on Satan (as in the crucifixion of Jesus and martyrdom of Stephan).
In all of these things, we are moreover assured that The Lord will sustain us and never allow us more hardship than He is prepared to sustain us through with His grace.
Yet because of pop psychology, these biblical truths are distorted, ignored, or have even been heretically rejected. People are just told to 'confess victory', or 'bind the enemy' not meaning what God's Word means by those terms, but actually meaning what positive thinking and motivational psychology means.
If one were to go to a secular motivational sales seminar for sales executives, a slick looking motivational speaker with a glossy charisma would prance around on a platform with a microphone saying things like "There Are Three Steps". "Step One - realize your vision". "Step Two- forget the indicators or adverse circumstances, give no place to any negative thoughts - just focus on your goals and on your vision". "Step Three - Once you realize your vision and maximize the positive and forget the negative, you will be in a position to get others to invest in your vision".
Thus , this secular psychology gets into the church masquerading as biblical theology. A hype artist preacher will stand up on Sunday and share "his vision", and when questioned he will "Reject that negativity in The Name of Jesus", and tell you "God wants it to be your vision too and you should sow to the vision".
I have seen more churches get into financial trouble and loose people over this kind of psuedo-spiritual idiocy than I can count. One Kingdom Now/ Toronto maniac in the North West of England who came under the influence of anti Israel Restorationist preacher Rick Godwin literally got his church into massive debt on a massive building program not ordained of God, lost most of his flock , then began selling insurance part time to make ends meet and finally left the country. Another Pentecostal Church of the same denomination a short distance away got into a financial scandal over a scheme involving Christian retirement villas.
When of course the building program or whatever other scheme he cooked up turns out not to be God's vision, but purely his own and things do not work out then it becomes a matter of "standing in faith resisting Satan".
When people get fed up with being financially exploited and begin to leave the church, the heavy shepherding takes over and these people are told "they have a spirit of rebellion".
All of this mess comes from the 'Mixture' of secular psychology and the vain philosophies of the world with biblical psychology and Christian doctrine. This same mixture is why we see so many Christians in churches like Toronto Preacher Phil Pringle's City Church in Sydney get involved in things like Amway and in pyramiding schemes. Psychologised Christians are prone to such things because such schemes are based on psycho babel disguising itself as biblical principles. While there are ex-alcoholics who dried out through Alcoholics Anonymous groups and then were saved, we see so many people in 12 Step Programs on their way to hell not believing they need Christ because the mixture of biblical principles and pop psychology in such organizations misleading them into a subjective, universalist 'God as I understand Him' view of The Almighty instead of to The Cross of Jesus.
The theological root of this mixture is of course gnosticism , where a subjective mystical perspective of scripture ignoring the context is substituted for an objective exegetical perspective. Gnostics always use biblical terms but have different definitions for them. The gnosticism of Roman Catholicism is called sensus pleniore. The Roman Church will be quick to point out that they like classical Protestants believe salvation is by grace. By grace however, they do not mean the Hebrew word chesedmeaning 'God's covenant mercy', or the Greek term Charism meaning 'gift', nor the English definition meaning 'undeserved favor'. The actual and sanctifying grace of Rome is not a gift of mercy or unmerited, but an ethereal substance earned by the paganistic sacraments of their spiritually corrupt false religious system. Yet etymologically, they believe in "grace".
New Agers are Gnostics who also believe in "seeing the light" by which they mean realizing the cosmic illumination of the inner self. Many, copying Hinduism, they also believe in being "born again", meaning reincarnation. Sufi Islam, Chassidic Judaism, and Mormonism are all false belief systems who use biblical terms with a different meaning. This is all part of the Gnostic maze, and whenever witnessing to such people we not assume that they mean what we do by the same words, but terms need to be carefully and biblically defined.
This same problem is found in Gnosticized expressions of the charismatic movement such as Vineyard and Restorationism. The biblical terms are there but often with an entirely different meaning from the bible, especially with terms like 'kingdom', 'proclamation', 'apostle', 'binding and loosing', and 'prophetic ministry'.
The Promise Keepers Movement grew out of Vineyard, and distributed tens of thousands of copies of Robert Hick's book 'The Masculin Jouney' as a guide to Christian male discipleship. The book teaches "Jesus Christ was tempted to have sex with other men" and "teenagers loosing their virginity out of marriage and having their first experience with drugs should be seen as a rite of passage, for which they should be congratulated for being human - because we need to find a way to celebrate the experience of sin"Such blasphemy and moral abomination however is eclipsed by the book's emphasis on New Age Phallic symbolism. The entire travesty derives from a mixture of pop psychology with biblical psychology and a mixture of the bible and New Age ideas all facilitated by gnosticism. The biggest problem however is that the Gnostic syndrome is intrinsic in the faith - prosperity/word-faith camp.
"Making your sales potential your goal" becomes "Realizing your vision". "Thinking Big" becomes "Extending your tents" . "Ignoring the negative" becomes "walking by faith not by sight". "Thinking positive" becomes "Faith Confession", or "Rebuking that negativity in The Name of Jesus".. Tragically, the educated clergy are being taught this more and more in lieu of biblical doctrine in their seminaries, and the uneducated clergy , (particularly among so many Pentecostals where there are often no more biblical standards left anyway) , the untrained clergy are too biblically illiterate and intellectually deficient to have the ability to even grasp the difference in the mixture.
As always, wrong doctrine gives rise to wrong conduct. Two lecturers from the Elim International School of Ministry in Auckland, New Zealand wrote us to complain that they were instructed not to teach those being trained for the ministry to teach repentance because Elim believes rather in grace, and repentance is a negative message. The lecturers rightly felt that this underpinned the plight of Elim's leading preacher in New Zealand, Ian Bilby who was exposed as into an adulterous relationship the entire time he was sanctioning Benny Hinn and promoting Toronto claiming that God was moving. This is the same Ian Bilby who nationally propagated the false prophecy of Gerald Coates to prepare for an major earthquake at a fixed April date. The false prophecy was from the soul, not spirit as was Toronto. But it was the "Negative/ Positive" pop Psychology that helped pave the way for Bilby's sin.
The ontogeny of this seduction is well documented. Robert Shuller of the Chrystal Cathedral near Los Angeles was a prot ©g © of the late Dr. Norman Vincent Peele of Marble Collegiate Church in New York City, a Thirty Third degree Free Mason who taught and wrote about "the power of positive thinking'. Shuller became Satan's chief instrument in importing this secular psychology into Evangelical circles. From there it was picked up by the Faith Prosperity deceivers influenced by A..A Allen, E.W. Kenyon, Agnes Sanford, and William Branham.
The money preachers gave claim to a gnosos (a special mystical revelation) saying "The Lord showed me.", with no reference to the fact all they were engaging in was the parasoxousin of their father the devil.
In this same epistle, The Holy Spirit tells us through Paul that the solution to these kinds of problems is not to despise prophetic utterance or to suppress The Holy Spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:19-22). We correct error with truth and not with another error like cessationism (the false view that the Gifts of The Spirit forever ceased with the original apostles). We are rather commanded here to abstain from evil and test things to see if they are from God.
We then need to comprehend the difference between biblical psychology and secular psychology, which is what The Holy Ghost inspired Paul to explain to us next in the following verse (1 Thessalonians 5: 23). Paul prays for our sanctification in 'body' (soma), in soul (psuche), and in spirit (pneuma). In order the equivalent Hebrew terms would be guf, nefish, andruach. The three are distinct. We are three dimensional - tripartite beings because we are Imagio Dei creations made in the image and likeness of a Triune God. Our soul is as distinct from our spirit as our body is from our soul.
In secular psychology however and in eastern religious mysticism (which New Age imitates) we are only two dimensional beings, where the functions of soul and spirit become convoluted because the two are mixed up and seen as one entity. Emotion, intellect, will etc. are mixed with our spiritual function which communes with God.
At worst feeling or at best reason become confused with the communication with God. When this happens, instead of the soul serving our spirit, it serves our flesh. This is why we see so much carnality in hyper Pentecostalism and in Charismatic extremism. Once experiential theology usurps the place of God's Word and we are told discerning biblically is being a Pharisee or grieving The Holy Spirit we are in real trouble because it is God's Word that is the means to distinguish between what is carnal and what is not (Hebrews 4:12). This is why there can be no hope and no future for churches and movements that went into things like Toronto and Pensecola a few years ago. The only way to have a future in this life pleasing to The Lord is to leave such places.
The best handbook of biblical psychology is The Book of Proverbs. Proverbs tells us much more about human behavior and our motives than any secular psychology book, because secular psychology like eastern mysticism wrongly reduces tri-dimensional beings into bi-dimensional beings and therefore cannot properly discern or even recognize the inner most man or woman which is our spirit. Both secular psychology and eastern religion have a view of the human spirit which is metaphysical not biblical.
When for instance a behavioral abnormality is organically rooted (eg. Chemical imbalance, trauma related, side effects of medication, neurological, hormonal etc.) psychiatric medicine can help a person to some degree because it sees mental illness from a bio medical perspective physiologically as a disease, and if there is an organic source to someone's condition, treating the chemical basis of the problem physiologically can result in alleviation of destructive behavioral symptoms.
Once we go into the realm of clinical psychology however, where we are dealing with disturbances rooted in emotional experience, the most secular disciplines can do is treat the effect but never the inner most cause. This demands a regeneration of the spirit (new birth through faith in Jesus). The root cause of man's collective problems is sin and we all have it but secular psychology does not usually recognize sin's existence in any biblical sense, nor would it be able to deal with it even if it did.. Often the symptom is treated not the disease, and not infrequently secular psychology makes people only worse because its two dimensional premise is fundamentally flawed. Therapeutic psychology essentially tries to deal with man's problems from the outside to see an inner change, while biblical psychology says one must first repent of their own sins and accept the atonement of Jesus and His spiritual lordship, and be willing to forgive others - then the outward changes take place from within as a result of salvation (Romans 12:2).
While we become new spiritual creations, becoming new psychological creations is a process of daily co-death of the old flesh serving self, and co-resurrection of the spirit serving renewed soul . This is not all at once but a renewal process where psychological renewal mirrors spiritual renewal ( Ephesians 4:23). This is why in describing the 'sound mind' we are promised as Christians, Paul does not use the word psuche butsophronismon meaning 'in control of one's behavior'. This directly reflects the fruit of the spirit as self control (ekreitei) - the psychological self control reflecting and resulting from the spiritual change taking place. This transforming process begins at salvation but climaxes in completion with the return of Jesus (Philipians1:6).
In biblical psychology, people's abnormal behavior changes to right behavior as a result of the spiritual change that comes from a personal encounter with Jesus (John 5:15). We may not be all self destructively dysfunctional , but unregenerate people are all abnormal because of the fall. In others words, the common insanity is only a matter of degrees; all unbelievers in Jesus by definition are in some way crazy because their will is in bondage to the power of sin where the soul (mind, emotions etc.) serves the flesh (Titus 1:15). It is in Christ alone we find the power of sound mind in the genuine sense because a process begins where we are being transformed and are being given the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16). The only way an unsaved person's souls can be subordinate to their spirit is if they are demon possessed and their spirit is under satanic control. All of this biblical psychology goes directly contrary to the world's two dimensional misunderstanding of the human soul and its relationship to the spirit.
But secular psychology is more than clinical. From the consumer psychologists who advise the advertising industry how to manipulate us to want to purchase things to the 'muscle memory' reflex conditioning psychological warfare experts devise to train soldiers to kill without thinking and blindly accept orders to kill, to the political psychologists who advise media relations specialists on spin doctoring - contemporary western society has been heavily psychologised, and so has its church.
At first the incursion of psychology into the church began as something innocuous with some apparent value. When writers like C.S. Lovett tried to find parallels between what the bible says about things like how Satan tempts us and various elements in human behaviorism. Then certain warning signs went up when Bill Gothard began using scriptural narratives not as examples of right behavior but as a doctrinal formula to establish what right behavior is and his seminars played heavily on psychological factors not well documented from any firm biblical basis that could mislead youth into unbalanced views of authority and an unbalanced aversion towards marriage with potentially dangerous repercussions. His opinions, for instance, that marriage should be best delayed until age 30, have no biblical foundation and seriously conflict with clinical factors that this is the gynecological age when obstetric risk factors for first time pregnancy complications, infertility, congenital defects and ante natal complications begin to statistically increase. His arguments were not grounded in solid biblical exegesis, but in his view of his perspective of youth psychology mixed with the bible. His ministry came under additional fire when he was accused of trying to put his own celibacy on others after a sex scandal involving his brother and staff rocked his organization.
In more recent times, the church has been psychologised in America by James Dobson, who is both ecumenical and a Promise Keepers advocate. Dobson's seminal influence set the stage for many problematic things. From an early point in his prominence, 'the amber light syndrome' featured in Dobson's lectures when he told Christian parents that he was unsure if teenage masturbation was wrong. This set the ball rolling to the point where Promise Keepers again pumped Hick's view that teenage premarital sex as a 'rite of passage' to be celebrated.
While Fuller Seminary had its missiology faculty taken over by the unfortunate pre-eminence ecumenical Morris Cerullo advocate and John Wimber colleague Peter Wagner, its graduate school of psychology was busy pumping out a version of psychology that was a mixture of the biblical and unbiblical. His endorsement of Cerullo is no coincidence. Pop psychology is a natural bed fellow for word - faith and prosperity hype artistry. From here matters went from bad to worse, and worse to worse still. We do not state that Dobson and Gothard never said or wrote anything true or never said or wrote anything scriptural - they did. What we do say is that there was "a mixture", and the mixture is Akatharsis.
A further area of influence of secular psychology in the church is in heavy shepherding churches which begin as theologiclly churches but sociologically cults, then eventually disintegrate into heretical doctrine combined with spiritual and psychological abuse. This is rife in Restorationism and is found today in the view of many in such groups as The Jesus Army (UK), The Church of Bible Understanding (USA), Bible Speaks/Greater Grace (USA& UK) and The London and Boston Church of Christ.
In some of these groups psychology in the form of manipulative peer pressuring, engineering a false guilt, and other techniques are used as a form of conditioning that masquerades itself as 'Christian discipleship', and is used to a blind loyalty to the group and its leader where all forms of exploitation may take place.
One such group called 'Rhema' based in Spain but operating in several countries including Britain and The USA saw its leaders telling people to marry people who were HIV positive and 'just trust The Lord'!
This kind of conditioning again mixes group psychology with valid biblical principles into a potentially deadly mixture well camouflaged as 'discipleship'. Biblical discipleship is a 'unity in diversity' where each member has different spiritual gifts complimenting their natural ability and disposition (Matthew 25:15), where the individual contribution to the body must be developed according to what God has given them.. Psychological conditioning however was really launched by the behavioral engineering of Harvard psychologist B.F. Skinner where people's profile was simply manufactured by environmental means. With this thinking is mixed with biblical discipleship, such a mixture is devastating. The Church of Bible Understanding cult in The USA and Canada virtually turned thousands of teenagers into personality clones of the cult's founder, Canadian Stewart Trail, a gifted (but not academically well trained) bible teacher who went well into apostasy and also set an example where harshness replaced the Fruit of The Spirit and mental cruelty was elevated to the status of virtue. Becoming personally harsh like Trail and imitating the dress and mannerisms of Trail became the cults measure of discipleship and the standard of spirituality. Everyone in the cult was expected to conform.
With the prominence of Ruth Carter Stapleton (The President's sister) in the nineteen seventies, the primal therapy of Dr. Arnold Janov was put into Christian jargon and became 'inner healing', where instead of reckoning the emotionally traumatized old creation dead as the bible teaches, people were 'counseled' to dig up the corpse and relive the experience in a "Christian way". Again, another "mixture".
The biblical model of the human being as three dimensional is illustrated by the Pauline description of as 'Temples of The Holy Spirit', where our body corresponds to the temple's outer court, our souls to the holy place' and our spirit where God's Spirit dwells to the Holy of Holies. When a person is demon possessed the New Testament calls the expulsion or exorcismekballo (where we get the word 'ballistic'), and this term is never once mentioned in connection with a saved believer. Possession involves a demonic indwelling in the spirit. Christians however are indwelt by The Holy Spirit and can only be oppressed, not possessed (unless they backslide). When the New Testament speaks of demonic oppression however, the demonic intrusion is limited to the flesh as in 'soul and/or body (2 Corinthians 12:7). The remedy for oppression when it happens is calledtherapeou (meaning cured).
Yet in deliverance ministry, there is a mixture of the biblical and psychological. What people think to be spiritual is mainly as we have already noted psychological. Benny Hinn, deliverance ministers and a stage hypnotist can all produce the same manifestations because it is all essentially rooted in the soul.
There are two primary schools of secular psychology. The Freudian and the Jungian. The Freudian has its influences in 19th century German rationalism and has a kindred parody in Darwinism. In this thinking, with 90% of our DNA in common with Great Apes, human beings are simply a philo -genetically advanced model with a body and a brain whose mental functions are the mere consequences of electro- biochemical neurological metabolism with homeostatic norms that are chromosomally programmed in response to varied environmental factors. Models were constructed to show behavior in terms of the 'id', 'ego', 'alter ego', 'libido' etc.
Jungian psychology does see a spiritual view of man called the 'collective unconscious' but its view of man's spirit is again two dimensional with man's spiritual aspects being functions of the soul. This is closer to Eastern mystical philosophy.
In Eastern Religion like Hinduism, Bhuddisdm, Oriental Shammanism, and Sufi , Ahmadi and other strains of mystical Islam, the soul and spirit are likewise confused as a mixed entity. This is why pop psychology and eastern religion are natural bedfellows. It is also why the Gnostic Vineyard movement of churches that has influenced Fuller Seminary and The Pop Psychology that has influenced it fit so well together. There is a natural co-valency between the two because both western psychology and eastern mysticism have a bi -dimensional view of man. These two have not only simultaneously entered the charismatic and much of the Pentecostal church and mixed the psychological with the spiritual, but also through Gnostic hermeneutics have created a psuedo-theology for it.
The most crude example of this may be Korean preacher David Yongee Cho. In his book 'The Fourth Dimension', Cho combines the Positive Confession nonsense the TV money preachers borrowed from motivational psychology with eastern Shammanism. People in the west are often impressed by Cho because his church is said to have nearly a million members. As anyone who has visited Seoul, Bangkok, or Singapore will know however, by the standards of Asia where Bhuddist visualization cults flourish, Yongee Cho's church is no big deal numerically.
The human imagination is of course a function of the soul. Contrary to this , but identical to Bhuddism, Cho teaches that our subconscious imagination is our spirit where we picture or "visualize" what we want and speak it into being by faith. This is of course Gnosticism at its worth , with man as God replacing faith in Jesus with faith in faith. Cho admits in his book that Hindus and Bhuddists have known this for centuries but claims that Jesus Christ has now revealed it to him. Whether or not Cho is a Christian is something we are not top be the judge of. What we can say however is that the gross error he is teaching is Bhuddism and not Christianity, and unless he radically repents he will be held accountable for teaching it and leading so many astray (James 3:1).
Following the eastern two dimensional view of man, Cho mixes the soul with the spirit., yet is lauded for it.
We should not try to take what is true in Bhuddism or Eastern Mysticism, and reject the bad. It is a mixture and the entire mixture must be rejected. This mixing of paganism with scripture on the basis of common ground is precisely how the church was plunged into the Dark Ages in the aftermath of Constantine's so called conversion.
Bhuddism, Hinduism and Shammanism are false beliefs people should be saved out of, not saved into - but this is what seems to be happening. The Asian evangelist to the Hindus, Tom Chakko, has warned that Pensecola and Toronto phenomena are Kundalini Yoga coming into the western church, and the video evidence contrasting the two confirms his warnings. Yet Alpha Director Nicky Gumbel sees Alpha as a way to get people into these deceptions. While it doctrinally waxes very shallow, Alpha courses are highly psychology oriented in content.
Man again becomes two dimensional. We simply become the advanced animals Darwinism and Freudian psychology say we are. It is therefore no surprise that Elim's David Blake, with the approval of Elim Superintendent Wynn Lewis defends such animal imitations as a spiritual experience, irregardless of the fact that the one case God caused someone to act this way it was a judgment (Daniel 4:33). It is similarly not surprising that the Joe Chambers videos show human beings on dog leads crawling around on their hands and needs imitating dogs. Indeed I have seen exactly the same kind of manifestations taking place under demonic animation in the jungle in Indonesia. The two dimensional man's spirit is indistinct from his soul. But it is those sanctified three dimensionally will be ready for Jesus to appear (1 Thessalonians 5:23).
The co valancy between the eastern religious view of man as two dimensional and the western psychological view as two dimensional also share the same philosophical roots. In Taoism we have the mixture of 'ying' and the 'yang' in tension with each other creating a theoretical balance. In the western Hegalian dialectics springing from Darwinism that constitutes the philosophical basis of everything from Marxism to liberal higher criticism, we similarly have the 'thesis' and 'antithesis' in tension forming a theoretical balance called the 'synthesis'.
Again, the mixture is seen as normal in both western rationalism and eastern mysticism. But what occurs when this thinking gets into the church? We have already seen the shambles theological higher criticism has caused.
Yet in an article in Elim's Direction magazine, an Elim minister argued that God raises up people in one doctrinal error in order to correct those with the opposite error so that a balance will be created. Upholding such a mixture is of course dialectic philosophy and Taoism, but it is not biblical Christianity. As we have noted, God corrects error with truth, not other error. The mixture itselfis wrong and must be rejected. We do not try to derive anything good from Taoism or Hegalian philosophy, and reject the rest. What may be right is once more too homogeneously mixed with what is certainly wrong to salvage any of it. It is akartharsis, ' impure to God'.
In the new psuedo Christianity where Psycho-babel is repackaged as doctrine, where Neo-Gnostic New Age mysticism is re-packaged as Vineyard spirituality, and where ecumenical surrender to apostate papal hegemony is repackaged as unity- where is the authentic unmixed faith? Instead of liberation from the old creation, 12 step programs with the increasing blessings of the church keep poor souls in bondage to the old alcoholic or compulsive gambler. In place of the old creation being reckoned as co-dead in Christ, these people are perpetually taught to believe they are still "recovering" alcoholics or gambler instead of dead ones - not only 30 years since their last drink or bet, but since being saved. Instead of being told they have sin and need to repent, these people are told they are a 'victim of a disease and to recover'. Again, we have the Mixture; indeed alcoholism may organically be a disease, but it is also a sin. No body ever went to hell for having polio.
A certain amount of biblical truth is mixed with codependency psycho-babel, and the sinner becomes a victim. Then, since they are always "a recovering alcoholic" instead of biblical discipleship based on new creation, it is 12 steps based on the sin of the old creation. In deliverance seduction, the same 'Mixture' convinces people generational curses or indwelling demons from the old creation must still be dealt with - but where does God say so? In all of this 'Mixture',
In an age where pop psychology is masquerading as biblical doctrine things can become very confusing. Today we hear so much about things being a mixture of truth and error, or carnal and spiritual, good and bad, or even godly and demonic. To make matters worse, we are too often being given mixed signals. Instead of giving a clear indication of what the signals actually mean so many of our pastors and once respected leaders are now telling us things like "the light is neither red nor green but amber" - leaving us suspended in a limbo not knowing whether to go or to stop. Arriving at a right doctrinal position and discerning things in a biblical manner in times like this has become more and more difficult for many sincere believers genuinely wanting to know the truth so as to do what is right. But in an increasingly complexed maze like this, the first and foremost question is to ask "What does God say about mixture in his word?"
1 Thessalonians 2:3-5 & 2 Peter 2:1Understanding The True Nature Of Spiritual Seduction And How It Operates From God's WordIn 1 Thessalonians, writing under the direct inspiration of The Holy Spirit Paul tells us that the true apostolic exhortation is not of "error, nor impurity, nor deception". Any exhortation containing doctrinal error,
Impurity, or impurity cannot therefore possibly be of God. Paul is also directed by The Holy Spirit to place these three words in a sequence, because they engender each other. Doctrinal error misleads us into impurity which in turn results in deception or guile.
It begins with error (the Greek term being planas) which has to do with wrong doctrine. Biblical doctrine is the teaching of Jesus. Jesus prayed that The Father would sanctify us in truth - God's Word is truth (John 17:17).
The Greek term used for truth here is logos (in Hebrew Dvar) as indeed we know that Jesus Himself is the logos or The Word incarnate (John 1:1). This is why Jesus therefore defines Himself as "The Truth" (John 14:6).
If someone is not standing in biblical truth they are not standing in Christ and are not being sanctified unto God.
We therefore see that in the Last Days those not loving doctrinal truth really do not love Jesus Christ, as one is the barometer of the other. Such unsaved people will be easily taken in by the antichrist (as indeed they are already under the influence of what theologians and philosophers call by the German term the zeitgeist or 'spirit of the age' which is the spirit of anti Christ -1 John 2:15-18). But this text shows us that it also includes some who profess to be Christians that "go out from among us", like the Son of Perdition (linking Judas with The Anti-Christ). This thought becomes frightening and directly refers to what Paul calls the apostasia or 'great falling away' after the anti Christ by those 'Christians' who do not love biblical (2 Thessalonians 2: 9-12), because as this text tells us in not loving truth, they do not really love Jesus but delight in unrighteousness.
We are even told those falling away will actually do so under the judgment of God who will cause them to be deceived for not loving His Word, and therefore not loving His Son. Moreover we are even told how it will happen. The anti Christ will be God's agent of judgment on those not loving biblical truth (Zecheriah 11:12-16- Son of Perdition) and will use bogus signs and wonders to do it (Revelation 13:14, 2 Thessalonians 2:9-11, Matthew 24:24). Like Pharaohs magicians the anti Christ and false prophet will use demonic power to do signs and wonders that mimic The works of God and counterfeit a genuinely biblical usage of The Charismatic Gifts of The Holy Spirit (2 Timothy 3:8). It is for this reason that Jesus warned that it was "wicked and adulterous generation seeking a sign" (Luke 11:29). This too is frightening. As we have for some time pointed out, if people can not see through obvious heretics like Benny Hinn and John Arnott , or see through proven false prophets like Gerald Coates, Paul Cane, and Rick Joyner or cultic churches like Elim following money oriented hype artists like Morris Cerullo there is no way they will evade the coming real deception.
Just as the bible warns us, such Christians when showed that their beliefs and actions are not biblical will often accuse you of being a Pharisee. In fact, such people are too ignorant and willfully blind to realise that the New Testament tells us Pharisees are those 'teaching inventions of men as precepts of God' who lack a biblical foundation for their views and practice (Matthew 15:9), and it is actually they whom God's Word describes as being pharisaical. Indeed, judging biblically for instance, it would be John Smith who is responsible for Elim's Direction Magazine that advertises such unbiblical and unethical travesties such as Morris Cerullo's antics that publicly discredit the church, or David Shearman of The Assemblies of God who joins with Cerullo that are modern days Pharisees. Cerullo was actually found guilty of all four charges of improper fund raising by the UK Advertising Standards Council, yet mainstream British Pentecostalism still stands with him. Whenever challenged about televised bogus healings, or Cerullo's Sin of Simony , such leaders inevitably try to defend continuing to promote or advertise men like Cerullo, even though he was pressed to resign from The Evangelical Alliance by saying "it is not all bad - there is a mixture". But what saith The Lord of such a mixture?
Jesus spoke of false doctrine and wrong practice based on it as "the leaven of the Pharisees" (Matthew 16: 6, Luke 122:1). In biblical typology, leaven represents spiritual pride and the sin resulting from it (1 Corinthians 5:6-8). False doctrine is sin and always involves spiritual pride. When we therefore speak of "A Mixture" we must remember that "a little leaven leavens the whole lump" (1 Corinthians 5::6). Most of what the Pharisees believed was in fact biblically true, but what was false was all it took to mislead the people away from The Lord.
Today it is the same. Much of what hyper Pentecostalism or Charismatic extremism teaches may be true. Cultic movements like Restorationism, Elim or The Church of Christ are largely true in the majority of their professed doctrine. Most of what is found in Alpha courses is probably true. But what is not leavens the whole loaf.
This is not to say that all faithful Christians and all faithful churches will always agree on every point of doctrine, but it is to say that they will all agree on every point of essential doctrine like the authority of scripture, the gospel, the nature of the Triune God-head, and Christian morality. When we see pneumo-centric worship based on The Holy Spirit instead of Christo-centric worship with The Spirit pointing to Jesus (John 14) we know there is leaven (as we in Alpha and in the heretical writings of Benny Hinn) we see leaven. The fruit of The Holy Spirit is self control (Galatians 5:23) when drunken behaviour and animal imitations are advocated as manifestations of The Holy Spirit (as in David Blake's article in Elim's magazine) we know it is an alien spirit and we see leaven. When we see Morris Cerullo pronouncing a little child healed who tragically dies shortly afterwards and we see him marketing his " £24 Holy Ghost Miracle Cloths to Remove debt with Elim's John Smith continuing to advertise him, we see leaven".
Jesus said to make disciples, not converts. The first step of biblical discipleship is baptism, not a "weekend away to get people into the Toronto Experience" as Alpha Director, Nicky Gumbel teaches. The bible teaches that 'the Blood of Christ cleanses from all sin', but Roman Catholicism teaches we must burn in a temporary hell called purgatory to atone for our own sins . This is indeed another gospel we are commanded to reject and those teaching it are accursed of God (Galatians 1:2), yet Alpha tells people to stay in the Roman church. Alpha courses are based on leaven mixed in with real grain. Such 'mixtures' God has plainly damned.
The Hebrew's were forbidden to make a garment of linen and wool because God hates mixture (Deuteronomy 22:11). Thus the "mixture" has its root in "error". The biblical basis of purity is the truth of right doctrine. This is the reason that The New Testament contains twice as much exhortation to right doctrine as it does right conduct. If we do not have right doctrine we cannot have right conduct. In the perverted state of the ecumenical church we see men like George Carey, Pat Robertson, J.I. Packer, Bill Bright of Campus Crusades For Christ,
Dr. Kent of The Church of The Nazarene, and Chuck Colson signing 'Evangelicals and Catholics Together' agreements accepting Romanism as Christian and agreeing not to witness to Catholics (despite Rome having a different gospel, idolatry, and even persecuting evangelicals in Latin America). When pressed they will seek to defend their compromise of biblical truth arguing "well we may not agree with everything in Roman Catholicism - it is a mixture".
An even more pathetic example of this is found in the unfortunate position of theologian Dr. Norman Geisler, (whom Hank Hannegraaff sadly lauded as a great apologetic scholar). While Geisler claims to be an evagelical scholar, his academic background reflects a Thomist orientation, grounded in the Aristotelian influences of Thomas Aquinas from The Roman Catholic Loyola University (named after the founder of the genocidal Jesuit order). Geisler openly proclaims "The Roman Catholic Church is not a False Church with some truth in it, but a True Church with some falsehood in it". Again, Geisler attempts to defend the biblically indefensible - "The Mixture". Along this line Moriel recommends the book 'On The Edge Of Apostacy' by Robert Zins.
The result of the wrong doctrine is wrong conduct. People cease witnessing to Catholics because they are misled into believing they are saved which few are, and the individual Catholics who may have been saved instead of repenting of their idolatry continue to practice the cannabalistic abomination of transubstantiation, the sin of necromancy in praying to the dead, and praying in tongues to Mary. Wrong doctrine brings wrong conduct.
Today, Satan has raised up agents like Paul Crouch of Trinity Broadcasting who teaches that doctrine is not important because it brings division. They of course discount the fact that doctrine is the teaching of Jesus, it is His Word and if we say doctrine is not important - biblically we are saying Jesus is not important. They also forget that the Word of God teaches that doctrine is meant to bring division (1 Corinthians 11:19, Romans 16:17), because The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth, not error and a unity of the Spirit cannot exist where there is heresy (1 John 4:6). Those propagating such deception always do so in the name of love. Their perverse reasoning is that the truth may offend and that is not loving and it could prove divisive.However, God's Word on the contrary teaches that real love cannot abound unless it abounds in doctrinal truth and discernment of what is true and false (Philipians 1: 9). This is how Jesus loved the woman at the well. He lovingly but uncompromisingly and directly told her the truth about her false religion (John 4: 22) just as he did with Syro Phonecian woman (Mark 7:27). Because He loved her He told her up front that her religion was not for human beings but fit only for dogs. So too for instance is Roman Catholicism, and we must be like Jesus and love Roman Catholics enough to tell them so. Indeed, in this same Pauline Epistle dealing with Mixture, The Lord commands us to admonish those who are not biblically disciples (1 Thessalonians 5:14). Although John Arnott taught the diametric opposite, God commands us to 'test all things' holding fast to what is good (1 Thessalonians 5:21). A mixture is never and can never be good. Thus we see that doctrinal error produces a mixture of truth and error which 1 Thessalonians calls 'impurity' and this results in spiritual deception.
This impurity arising from an infiltration of erroneous teaching in the Greek text of 1 Thessalonians s called Akatharsis the opposite of the Greek wordkatharsis from where we derive the English term 'Catharsis'.This term does not mean unclean in the sense not of being 'washed from sin", that would be a completely different Greek word called absolusio (from where we get the term "absolution"). Neither does it mean to "separate the bad and keep the good" . The Septuagint translates this from the Hebrew text meaning 'bring forth the good from the bad' using yet another Greek word ekagageis in Jeremiah 15:19 . The impurity of akatharsis means that there is a mixture where there can be no be washing a separation process as with ekagageis.In Katharsis there is a purified form of something. In akatharsis it is something which is a mixture of the pure and impure.
The mixture is not just something on the surface that can be washed away, it is a homogeneous mixture that must be done away with and utterly replaced.
This is best demonstrated from the original Hebrew and Greek texts of scripture. The Hebrew equivalent of katharsis is Tahore, meaning "pure". As King David prayed in the penitential Psalm 51 "Create In Me A Clean Heart Oh Lord" -
"Lev Tahore Bera Le Elohim". It is something that must be created afresh. Man is fallen. We cannot have our sins simply washed away, something new must be created (John 3:3). In order to become tahore our old sinful self must be crucified with Jesus and buried with Him (Romans 6:3-6). We are told directly that Baptism is not a washing away of what is wrong with us (1 Peter 3:21), it is the burial of us (Colossians 2:12).
Because we are made in the divine image and likeness but have a fallen nature, we are a mixture of good and bad, but God demands purity. The Lord does not waste time trying to purify us by trying to remove what is right about us from what is wrong as in trying to wash away the bad and keep the good. The mixture is too homogeneous - sin affects every aspect of our being. When we go to the water to be baptized we are not going to be washed per se but to be buried. The futility of trying to wash something impure to make it clean was illustrated in Jesus analogy of the Pharisees. They tried to do a katharsis to correct the akatharsis (the actual word is the active verbal form katharizo) by washing the cup, but the inside remained filthy (Matthew 23:25). We can cleanse ourselves as Christians (2 Corinthians 7:1) but only by going back to the cross and co dying with Christ daily, not by trying to separate the good from bad, but by getting rid of the mixture and living as new creations.
Typologically, as we explain on the Tsaraat tape series on 'The Cleansing of the Lepers' that healing of leprosy is a type of salvation, with leprosy figuratively representing sin and its consequences. That is why when Jesus healed lepers the Greek text mainly uses the word katharizo for making pure (by separating the diseased tissue from the healthy) instead of he wordtherapeo for healibng. Only The Lord can purify . It is absurd to try to purify such a mixture by getting rid of the bad and keeping the good. Something clean that has become a bit dirty from our contact with the world can be washed (John 13: 10-14), and when we are saved it a different Greek word completely (eplunan) for washing our robes in the Blood of The Lamb (Revelation 7:14). But we cannot cleanse ourselves. Once there is a mixture there can be no washing or separating ; the precious can only be extracted from the worthless by rejecting the whole thing and allowing God to remake it (eg. Jeremiah 18:4).
Thus when we see pastors trying to argue about compromising over things like Roman Catholicism, liberal Protestantism or not rejecting all of TV money preachers, Toronto, Alpha, Promise Keepers, Pensecola, JIM Challenges etc. because there is 'A Mixture', and we should ' keep the good and reject the bad' - we are seeing men who are biblically ignorant and not qualified to be in church leadership (1 Timothy 3:2 7 Titus 1:9) as they are unable to rightly teach and divide the word of God upholding right doctrine. The ranks of popular Pentecostal leadership are swelled with such ecclesiastical quackery.
We so often see this in the cheap versions of prophetic ministry in the church today where we are told "well sometimes his prophetic predictions are right" in speaking of false prophets. Yet, God's Word clearly gives us a strong and unmistakable caveat against this thinking (Jeremiah 5:30-31). Of Bob Jones of the Kansas City prophets (who was found in immorality), the late John Wimber said "he is like a pipe with two open ends, sometimes the devil speaks through him and sometimes The Lord"! Wimber, who became a hyper charismatic Calvinist after being forced to leave a doctrinally conservative Wesleyan Arminian Pentecostal movement , was the prime architect of charismania in its contemporary Neo-Gnostic/New Age expression. His Reformed ideas of Covenant theology that led him into the deception of dominionism by blending the Calvinistic doctrinal errors of Reconstructionism with the errors of Experiential Theology are a mixture.
Judging scripturally, The Word of God warns us that the very fact that there is such a ' mixture' in things like Alpha courses, Pensecola etc. tells us that they are not of God. The elements of doctrinal error create a mixture yielding only deception as the end product. The root of this mixture is always compromising with a significant doctrinal error. This in turn produces a mixture of truth and error, carnal and spiritual, or even godly and satanic.
Many people who contacted us were distraught when David Pawson refused to take a firm stand one way or another or give the many who were looking to him a clear direction over the Toronto Affair. In his book on the subject, 'Is The Blessing Biblical'? Pawson 'sat on the fence' saying the light was neither red nor green but amber. An amber semaphore remains amber for only a few seconds, it tells us the light is about to change and we must be prepared to go or stop. It does not remain amber for the 6 years since the laughing and barking experience began and by now everyone knows it has brought no revival. The question of how much of it is good and how much of it bad is not an issue. By virtue of the fact a mixture exists the light is red. Someone who has become color blind is hardly in any position to give instruction to others. Concerning such spiritual drunkeness, God's Word again specifically warns us of those who totter when rendering judgment when the deception floods through the gates (Isaiah 28: 7). The reason they do this during the drunken climate is seen in the following verse (Isaiah 28:8) where the 'vomit' speaks of rejected spiritual food. There is an unwillingness to accept uncomfortable biblical truths so as to discern biblically and issue clear and definite judgments on the basis of God's Word. Seeking people looking to a trusted bible teacher are neither told to go or stay. Instead of green or red the light remains amber.
After relating the dynamic of this false exhortation of 'error, impurity, and deception' in 1 Thessalonians 2:3, Paul goes on to explain the motives underlying it in verses 4-6 in comparing his own ministry and that of Silvanus and Timothy. Those who engage in the mixture becomes a deception that Paul in Greek calls dolo meaning guile. Those engaging in this in other words, have an agenda. Paul tells us they practice flattery to please men, but their real motive is simply greed. How amazingly accurate the warnings The Holy Spirit gave us through Paul have proven to be! The common denominator in the deception we see in the church today is inevitably money. As just one example, of the $6.6 million collected for missions in Pensecola according to The Associated Press only 2% went to missions. The rest went to extravagant houses and all manner of profiteering by the leaders. Pensecola mixes truth with error, the impure mixture produces deception but the bottom line seems to be cash. After falsely prophesying that God would bring Hank Hannegraaff down in 3 months, Pensecola Pastor John Kilpatrick himself instead literally was brought down when he fell off a roof smashing his pelvis and winding up in a wheelchair, but business continued. As Paul wrote, under the mixture you find greed.
Such a mixture of truth and error has been Satan's trick from the beginning. He deceived Adam and Eve by mixing truth with error when he subtly distorted what God truly said out of context. In the temptation narrative, he likewise tempted Jesus by twisting scripture out of context. This reflects his nature as disguising himself as an angel of light. This is why Paul warns those that Satan's servants sent by him to deceive the church likewise camoulflage themselves as angels of light (2 Corinthians11:3 & 13-15)and therefore as Peter warns they similarly twist the scriptures out of context unto their own destruction (2 Peter 3:16). Faith-Prosperity, Replacement theology, Ecumenism, and Restorationism are all deceptions Satan perpetrates against the elect through his servants by distorting scriptures from their context. Sometimes as in the case of Bishop David Pytches, Mike Bickel, John Avanzini, and Rodney Howard Brown, the distortions are so ludicrous it is amazing anyone could believe such nonsense. Yet today many so called Christians unfortunately do.
The New Testament describes this mixture of doctrinal truth and error as 'secretly introducing destructive heresies' in 2 Peter 2:1 using the Greek termparasoxousin meaning they place truth next to error. This passage tells us that such men are false teachers and false prophets using the Greek prefixpsuedo meaning pretending to be real ones. Peter tells us that such men even deny the master who bought them, which is exactly what we see.
In the satanic doctrines of Kenneth Hagin and Kenneth Copeland who say that Satan not Jesus got the victory on the cross and after being tormented 3 days and nights in hell as one nature with Satan, Jesus had to be born again in hell. Copeland even teaches that he could have died on the cross instead of Jesus Christ. The process may indeed end up in such blasphemous heresy, but it does begin that way. It rather begins with a mixture.
1 Thessalonians 5:23Understanding The Difference Between Biblical and Secular PsychologyThe source of the mixture problem is chiefly wrong doctrine; again - wrong doctrine begets wrong practice.
However 'mixture' is not simply an academic matter of 'truth and error' but the mixture of flesh (carnal) and spirit (spiritual) that results. Peter for instance uses false prophets and false teachers interchangeably because if one's doctrines are wrong, their prophecies will be wrong (2 Peter 2:1). This is for example why men like David Wilkerson have a good track accurate for predictive accuracy in prophecy - his doctrine is right, while it is also why men like Gerald Coates and Rick Joyner are so hopelessly wrong so often - their doctrine is wrong.
Because their predictive prophecy fails, they are of course not prophets, but mere clairvoyants.
False prophecy is not only a good illustration of how wrong doctrine produces wrong conduct, but it further shows how the mixture of truth and false doctrine becomes transposed into a mixture of carnal and spiritual.
The prophet Jeremiah spoke of this when he wrote how false prophets do not necessarily prophesy by demons, but by their own imagination and the futility of their own mind (Jeremiah 23:16). What they imagine to be from the Holy Spirit communicating to their spirit is simply their own imagination. When the Kansas City prophets were challenged over their false prophecies, true to form, their defenders said: "it was a mixture - partially right, and partially wrong". In fact all clairvoyants are partially right and partially wrong. They do not have The Holy Spirit, but a spirit if divination. They too, 'divine' for money (Micah 3:11). When The Holy Spirit spoke through Israel's prophets however, there was no error, no clairvoyance, no divination, and no mixture.
All charismatic gifts and manifestations lend themselves to being merely psychological. I am convinced that most tongues is not real, but neither demonic. Most are purely psychological (even though I personally believe in the biblical gift of tongues). Likewise most prophecy, words of knowledge around today are purely psychological, this is one reason why they must be judged (1 Corinthians 14:29). People are confusing their own mind with their spirit. In the Toronto phenomena similarly most of the manifestations were simply matters of hypnotic induction combined with demonic deception. The same is certainly true of the overwhelming majority of so called 'deliverance ministry' - it is purely psychological with absolutely no biblical precedent for casting demons out of saved Christians. Deliverance manifestations and Toronto manifestations alike mainly come from the same source - the human soul. It is a matter of hypnotic induction used by Satan to mislead people.
It is a certain personality type and a certain fleshly type of Christian who is predisposed to Pensecola style deceptions. Similarly it is a certain personality type and certain type of Christian who gets involved with deliverance. People get back in line to fall down again or fly back to Pensecola for "another touch", so also we see the same people repeatedly going for 'deliverance', but in neither case does their life normally change. Even a cursory survey of Christians continually involved in being "delivered" demonstrates how many suffer with chronic emotional instability which translates into spiritual instability because they confuse the spirit with the soul. Instead of obtaining 'deliverance', more frequently it would appear that Satan uses deliverance to keep these poor souls in bondage. Indeed, such people are usually sincere and they genuinely desire the holiness and freedom as new creations they are hoping to find in deliverance - it is not that there is nothing spiritual about their actions or that the entire thing is psychological. It is rather simply that there is "a mixture".
This kind of mixture easily lends itself to confusing what is spiritual with what is psychological. The Word of God recognises that we are psychological as well as spiritual and physical beings when it speaks of the 'soul'.
The mental and emotional anguish of Jesus is called "The Travail of His Soul". Continuing in 1 Thessalonians, Paul writes much of the suffering for which he was destined (1 Thessalonians3:4). He also speaks directly of the collective discouragement of his ministry team (1 Thessalonians 3:1) and his personal inability to emotionally endure what was taking place (1 Thessalonians 3:5). Not least of all he relates how more than once Satan "hindered" his plans (1 Thessalonians 2:18). Moreover, such accounts are things The Holy Spirit placed in the cannon of scripture and represent a spiritual perspective of emotional trauma and satanic opposition.
Today however, with the pop psycho-babel dominating so much of the contemporary church scene, Paul would be seen as 'lacking faith', 'being negative', and 'not having the vision' (as one faith - prosperity huckster already accused him of). This of course echoes the heretical attack by Benny Hinn on Job for his suffering.
In reality walking by faith and not by sight has nothing at all to do with pretending adverse circumstances do not exist (as in the lies of the word - faith that 'ones body is lying to them when they experience symptoms of illness'), it rather has to do with trusting The Lord despite the circumstances. The victorious Christian walk is certainly not a matter of not being afflicted, but trusting The Lord in those afflictions to sustain us (2 Corinthians 4: 8-18) and not loosing heart. Neither does walking in faith in victory not mean that we can confess victory and bind Satan from obstructing us. In its context, such nonsense has nothing what-so-ever to do with what 'binding and loosing' actually means in the bible, any more than it means the silly "speaking into the heavens to establish kingdom dominion" sort of rubbish characterizing the ecumenical March for Jesus foolishness. It does mean that The Lord will build a hedge around us and limit what Satan may and may not do to us (he can only kill us if God allows it) and it means that when The Lord does allow Satan a given victory, it is a gambit that God will turn around for His purposes; we read in Romans 8 that "all things worktogether for the better", not that all things work for the better. We are promised Satan looses the war, but not every battle. When God allows Satan to win a battle however, it will only backfire on Satan (as in the crucifixion of Jesus and martyrdom of Stephan).
In all of these things, we are moreover assured that The Lord will sustain us and never allow us more hardship than He is prepared to sustain us through with His grace.
Yet because of pop psychology, these biblical truths are distorted, ignored, or have even been heretically rejected. People are just told to 'confess victory', or 'bind the enemy' not meaning what God's Word means by those terms, but actually meaning what positive thinking and motivational psychology means.
If one were to go to a secular motivational sales seminar for sales executives, a slick looking motivational speaker with a glossy charisma would prance around on a platform with a microphone saying things like "There Are Three Steps". "Step One - realize your vision". "Step Two- forget the indicators or adverse circumstances, give no place to any negative thoughts - just focus on your goals and on your vision". "Step Three - Once you realize your vision and maximize the positive and forget the negative, you will be in a position to get others to invest in your vision".
Thus , this secular psychology gets into the church masquerading as biblical theology. A hype artist preacher will stand up on Sunday and share "his vision", and when questioned he will "Reject that negativity in The Name of Jesus", and tell you "God wants it to be your vision too and you should sow to the vision".
I have seen more churches get into financial trouble and loose people over this kind of psuedo-spiritual idiocy than I can count. One Kingdom Now/ Toronto maniac in the North West of England who came under the influence of anti Israel Restorationist preacher Rick Godwin literally got his church into massive debt on a massive building program not ordained of God, lost most of his flock , then began selling insurance part time to make ends meet and finally left the country. Another Pentecostal Church of the same denomination a short distance away got into a financial scandal over a scheme involving Christian retirement villas.
When of course the building program or whatever other scheme he cooked up turns out not to be God's vision, but purely his own and things do not work out then it becomes a matter of "standing in faith resisting Satan".
When people get fed up with being financially exploited and begin to leave the church, the heavy shepherding takes over and these people are told "they have a spirit of rebellion".
All of this mess comes from the 'Mixture' of secular psychology and the vain philosophies of the world with biblical psychology and Christian doctrine. This same mixture is why we see so many Christians in churches like Toronto Preacher Phil Pringle's City Church in Sydney get involved in things like Amway and in pyramiding schemes. Psychologised Christians are prone to such things because such schemes are based on psycho babel disguising itself as biblical principles. While there are ex-alcoholics who dried out through Alcoholics Anonymous groups and then were saved, we see so many people in 12 Step Programs on their way to hell not believing they need Christ because the mixture of biblical principles and pop psychology in such organizations misleading them into a subjective, universalist 'God as I understand Him' view of The Almighty instead of to The Cross of Jesus.
The theological root of this mixture is of course gnosticism , where a subjective mystical perspective of scripture ignoring the context is substituted for an objective exegetical perspective. Gnostics always use biblical terms but have different definitions for them. The gnosticism of Roman Catholicism is called sensus pleniore. The Roman Church will be quick to point out that they like classical Protestants believe salvation is by grace. By grace however, they do not mean the Hebrew word chesedmeaning 'God's covenant mercy', or the Greek term Charism meaning 'gift', nor the English definition meaning 'undeserved favor'. The actual and sanctifying grace of Rome is not a gift of mercy or unmerited, but an ethereal substance earned by the paganistic sacraments of their spiritually corrupt false religious system. Yet etymologically, they believe in "grace".
New Agers are Gnostics who also believe in "seeing the light" by which they mean realizing the cosmic illumination of the inner self. Many, copying Hinduism, they also believe in being "born again", meaning reincarnation. Sufi Islam, Chassidic Judaism, and Mormonism are all false belief systems who use biblical terms with a different meaning. This is all part of the Gnostic maze, and whenever witnessing to such people we not assume that they mean what we do by the same words, but terms need to be carefully and biblically defined.
This same problem is found in Gnosticized expressions of the charismatic movement such as Vineyard and Restorationism. The biblical terms are there but often with an entirely different meaning from the bible, especially with terms like 'kingdom', 'proclamation', 'apostle', 'binding and loosing', and 'prophetic ministry'.
The Promise Keepers Movement grew out of Vineyard, and distributed tens of thousands of copies of Robert Hick's book 'The Masculin Jouney' as a guide to Christian male discipleship. The book teaches "Jesus Christ was tempted to have sex with other men" and "teenagers loosing their virginity out of marriage and having their first experience with drugs should be seen as a rite of passage, for which they should be congratulated for being human - because we need to find a way to celebrate the experience of sin"Such blasphemy and moral abomination however is eclipsed by the book's emphasis on New Age Phallic symbolism. The entire travesty derives from a mixture of pop psychology with biblical psychology and a mixture of the bible and New Age ideas all facilitated by gnosticism. The biggest problem however is that the Gnostic syndrome is intrinsic in the faith - prosperity/word-faith camp.
"Making your sales potential your goal" becomes "Realizing your vision". "Thinking Big" becomes "Extending your tents" . "Ignoring the negative" becomes "walking by faith not by sight". "Thinking positive" becomes "Faith Confession", or "Rebuking that negativity in The Name of Jesus".. Tragically, the educated clergy are being taught this more and more in lieu of biblical doctrine in their seminaries, and the uneducated clergy , (particularly among so many Pentecostals where there are often no more biblical standards left anyway) , the untrained clergy are too biblically illiterate and intellectually deficient to have the ability to even grasp the difference in the mixture.
As always, wrong doctrine gives rise to wrong conduct. Two lecturers from the Elim International School of Ministry in Auckland, New Zealand wrote us to complain that they were instructed not to teach those being trained for the ministry to teach repentance because Elim believes rather in grace, and repentance is a negative message. The lecturers rightly felt that this underpinned the plight of Elim's leading preacher in New Zealand, Ian Bilby who was exposed as into an adulterous relationship the entire time he was sanctioning Benny Hinn and promoting Toronto claiming that God was moving. This is the same Ian Bilby who nationally propagated the false prophecy of Gerald Coates to prepare for an major earthquake at a fixed April date. The false prophecy was from the soul, not spirit as was Toronto. But it was the "Negative/ Positive" pop Psychology that helped pave the way for Bilby's sin.
The ontogeny of this seduction is well documented. Robert Shuller of the Chrystal Cathedral near Los Angeles was a prot ©g © of the late Dr. Norman Vincent Peele of Marble Collegiate Church in New York City, a Thirty Third degree Free Mason who taught and wrote about "the power of positive thinking'. Shuller became Satan's chief instrument in importing this secular psychology into Evangelical circles. From there it was picked up by the Faith Prosperity deceivers influenced by A..A Allen, E.W. Kenyon, Agnes Sanford, and William Branham.
The money preachers gave claim to a gnosos (a special mystical revelation) saying "The Lord showed me.", with no reference to the fact all they were engaging in was the parasoxousin of their father the devil.
In this same epistle, The Holy Spirit tells us through Paul that the solution to these kinds of problems is not to despise prophetic utterance or to suppress The Holy Spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:19-22). We correct error with truth and not with another error like cessationism (the false view that the Gifts of The Spirit forever ceased with the original apostles). We are rather commanded here to abstain from evil and test things to see if they are from God.
We then need to comprehend the difference between biblical psychology and secular psychology, which is what The Holy Ghost inspired Paul to explain to us next in the following verse (1 Thessalonians 5: 23). Paul prays for our sanctification in 'body' (soma), in soul (psuche), and in spirit (pneuma). In order the equivalent Hebrew terms would be guf, nefish, andruach. The three are distinct. We are three dimensional - tripartite beings because we are Imagio Dei creations made in the image and likeness of a Triune God. Our soul is as distinct from our spirit as our body is from our soul.
In secular psychology however and in eastern religious mysticism (which New Age imitates) we are only two dimensional beings, where the functions of soul and spirit become convoluted because the two are mixed up and seen as one entity. Emotion, intellect, will etc. are mixed with our spiritual function which communes with God.
At worst feeling or at best reason become confused with the communication with God. When this happens, instead of the soul serving our spirit, it serves our flesh. This is why we see so much carnality in hyper Pentecostalism and in Charismatic extremism. Once experiential theology usurps the place of God's Word and we are told discerning biblically is being a Pharisee or grieving The Holy Spirit we are in real trouble because it is God's Word that is the means to distinguish between what is carnal and what is not (Hebrews 4:12). This is why there can be no hope and no future for churches and movements that went into things like Toronto and Pensecola a few years ago. The only way to have a future in this life pleasing to The Lord is to leave such places.
The best handbook of biblical psychology is The Book of Proverbs. Proverbs tells us much more about human behavior and our motives than any secular psychology book, because secular psychology like eastern mysticism wrongly reduces tri-dimensional beings into bi-dimensional beings and therefore cannot properly discern or even recognize the inner most man or woman which is our spirit. Both secular psychology and eastern religion have a view of the human spirit which is metaphysical not biblical.
When for instance a behavioral abnormality is organically rooted (eg. Chemical imbalance, trauma related, side effects of medication, neurological, hormonal etc.) psychiatric medicine can help a person to some degree because it sees mental illness from a bio medical perspective physiologically as a disease, and if there is an organic source to someone's condition, treating the chemical basis of the problem physiologically can result in alleviation of destructive behavioral symptoms.
Once we go into the realm of clinical psychology however, where we are dealing with disturbances rooted in emotional experience, the most secular disciplines can do is treat the effect but never the inner most cause. This demands a regeneration of the spirit (new birth through faith in Jesus). The root cause of man's collective problems is sin and we all have it but secular psychology does not usually recognize sin's existence in any biblical sense, nor would it be able to deal with it even if it did.. Often the symptom is treated not the disease, and not infrequently secular psychology makes people only worse because its two dimensional premise is fundamentally flawed. Therapeutic psychology essentially tries to deal with man's problems from the outside to see an inner change, while biblical psychology says one must first repent of their own sins and accept the atonement of Jesus and His spiritual lordship, and be willing to forgive others - then the outward changes take place from within as a result of salvation (Romans 12:2).
While we become new spiritual creations, becoming new psychological creations is a process of daily co-death of the old flesh serving self, and co-resurrection of the spirit serving renewed soul . This is not all at once but a renewal process where psychological renewal mirrors spiritual renewal ( Ephesians 4:23). This is why in describing the 'sound mind' we are promised as Christians, Paul does not use the word psuche butsophronismon meaning 'in control of one's behavior'. This directly reflects the fruit of the spirit as self control (ekreitei) - the psychological self control reflecting and resulting from the spiritual change taking place. This transforming process begins at salvation but climaxes in completion with the return of Jesus (Philipians1:6).
In biblical psychology, people's abnormal behavior changes to right behavior as a result of the spiritual change that comes from a personal encounter with Jesus (John 5:15). We may not be all self destructively dysfunctional , but unregenerate people are all abnormal because of the fall. In others words, the common insanity is only a matter of degrees; all unbelievers in Jesus by definition are in some way crazy because their will is in bondage to the power of sin where the soul (mind, emotions etc.) serves the flesh (Titus 1:15). It is in Christ alone we find the power of sound mind in the genuine sense because a process begins where we are being transformed and are being given the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16). The only way an unsaved person's souls can be subordinate to their spirit is if they are demon possessed and their spirit is under satanic control. All of this biblical psychology goes directly contrary to the world's two dimensional misunderstanding of the human soul and its relationship to the spirit.
But secular psychology is more than clinical. From the consumer psychologists who advise the advertising industry how to manipulate us to want to purchase things to the 'muscle memory' reflex conditioning psychological warfare experts devise to train soldiers to kill without thinking and blindly accept orders to kill, to the political psychologists who advise media relations specialists on spin doctoring - contemporary western society has been heavily psychologised, and so has its church.
At first the incursion of psychology into the church began as something innocuous with some apparent value. When writers like C.S. Lovett tried to find parallels between what the bible says about things like how Satan tempts us and various elements in human behaviorism. Then certain warning signs went up when Bill Gothard began using scriptural narratives not as examples of right behavior but as a doctrinal formula to establish what right behavior is and his seminars played heavily on psychological factors not well documented from any firm biblical basis that could mislead youth into unbalanced views of authority and an unbalanced aversion towards marriage with potentially dangerous repercussions. His opinions, for instance, that marriage should be best delayed until age 30, have no biblical foundation and seriously conflict with clinical factors that this is the gynecological age when obstetric risk factors for first time pregnancy complications, infertility, congenital defects and ante natal complications begin to statistically increase. His arguments were not grounded in solid biblical exegesis, but in his view of his perspective of youth psychology mixed with the bible. His ministry came under additional fire when he was accused of trying to put his own celibacy on others after a sex scandal involving his brother and staff rocked his organization.
In more recent times, the church has been psychologised in America by James Dobson, who is both ecumenical and a Promise Keepers advocate. Dobson's seminal influence set the stage for many problematic things. From an early point in his prominence, 'the amber light syndrome' featured in Dobson's lectures when he told Christian parents that he was unsure if teenage masturbation was wrong. This set the ball rolling to the point where Promise Keepers again pumped Hick's view that teenage premarital sex as a 'rite of passage' to be celebrated.
While Fuller Seminary had its missiology faculty taken over by the unfortunate pre-eminence ecumenical Morris Cerullo advocate and John Wimber colleague Peter Wagner, its graduate school of psychology was busy pumping out a version of psychology that was a mixture of the biblical and unbiblical. His endorsement of Cerullo is no coincidence. Pop psychology is a natural bed fellow for word - faith and prosperity hype artistry. From here matters went from bad to worse, and worse to worse still. We do not state that Dobson and Gothard never said or wrote anything true or never said or wrote anything scriptural - they did. What we do say is that there was "a mixture", and the mixture is Akatharsis.
A further area of influence of secular psychology in the church is in heavy shepherding churches which begin as theologiclly churches but sociologically cults, then eventually disintegrate into heretical doctrine combined with spiritual and psychological abuse. This is rife in Restorationism and is found today in the view of many in such groups as The Jesus Army (UK), The Church of Bible Understanding (USA), Bible Speaks/Greater Grace (USA& UK) and The London and Boston Church of Christ.
In some of these groups psychology in the form of manipulative peer pressuring, engineering a false guilt, and other techniques are used as a form of conditioning that masquerades itself as 'Christian discipleship', and is used to a blind loyalty to the group and its leader where all forms of exploitation may take place.
One such group called 'Rhema' based in Spain but operating in several countries including Britain and The USA saw its leaders telling people to marry people who were HIV positive and 'just trust The Lord'!
This kind of conditioning again mixes group psychology with valid biblical principles into a potentially deadly mixture well camouflaged as 'discipleship'. Biblical discipleship is a 'unity in diversity' where each member has different spiritual gifts complimenting their natural ability and disposition (Matthew 25:15), where the individual contribution to the body must be developed according to what God has given them.. Psychological conditioning however was really launched by the behavioral engineering of Harvard psychologist B.F. Skinner where people's profile was simply manufactured by environmental means. With this thinking is mixed with biblical discipleship, such a mixture is devastating. The Church of Bible Understanding cult in The USA and Canada virtually turned thousands of teenagers into personality clones of the cult's founder, Canadian Stewart Trail, a gifted (but not academically well trained) bible teacher who went well into apostasy and also set an example where harshness replaced the Fruit of The Spirit and mental cruelty was elevated to the status of virtue. Becoming personally harsh like Trail and imitating the dress and mannerisms of Trail became the cults measure of discipleship and the standard of spirituality. Everyone in the cult was expected to conform.
With the prominence of Ruth Carter Stapleton (The President's sister) in the nineteen seventies, the primal therapy of Dr. Arnold Janov was put into Christian jargon and became 'inner healing', where instead of reckoning the emotionally traumatized old creation dead as the bible teaches, people were 'counseled' to dig up the corpse and relive the experience in a "Christian way". Again, another "mixture".
The biblical model of the human being as three dimensional is illustrated by the Pauline description of as 'Temples of The Holy Spirit', where our body corresponds to the temple's outer court, our souls to the holy place' and our spirit where God's Spirit dwells to the Holy of Holies. When a person is demon possessed the New Testament calls the expulsion or exorcismekballo (where we get the word 'ballistic'), and this term is never once mentioned in connection with a saved believer. Possession involves a demonic indwelling in the spirit. Christians however are indwelt by The Holy Spirit and can only be oppressed, not possessed (unless they backslide). When the New Testament speaks of demonic oppression however, the demonic intrusion is limited to the flesh as in 'soul and/or body (2 Corinthians 12:7). The remedy for oppression when it happens is calledtherapeou (meaning cured).
Yet in deliverance ministry, there is a mixture of the biblical and psychological. What people think to be spiritual is mainly as we have already noted psychological. Benny Hinn, deliverance ministers and a stage hypnotist can all produce the same manifestations because it is all essentially rooted in the soul.
There are two primary schools of secular psychology. The Freudian and the Jungian. The Freudian has its influences in 19th century German rationalism and has a kindred parody in Darwinism. In this thinking, with 90% of our DNA in common with Great Apes, human beings are simply a philo -genetically advanced model with a body and a brain whose mental functions are the mere consequences of electro- biochemical neurological metabolism with homeostatic norms that are chromosomally programmed in response to varied environmental factors. Models were constructed to show behavior in terms of the 'id', 'ego', 'alter ego', 'libido' etc.
Jungian psychology does see a spiritual view of man called the 'collective unconscious' but its view of man's spirit is again two dimensional with man's spiritual aspects being functions of the soul. This is closer to Eastern mystical philosophy.
In Eastern Religion like Hinduism, Bhuddisdm, Oriental Shammanism, and Sufi , Ahmadi and other strains of mystical Islam, the soul and spirit are likewise confused as a mixed entity. This is why pop psychology and eastern religion are natural bedfellows. It is also why the Gnostic Vineyard movement of churches that has influenced Fuller Seminary and The Pop Psychology that has influenced it fit so well together. There is a natural co-valency between the two because both western psychology and eastern mysticism have a bi -dimensional view of man. These two have not only simultaneously entered the charismatic and much of the Pentecostal church and mixed the psychological with the spiritual, but also through Gnostic hermeneutics have created a psuedo-theology for it.
The most crude example of this may be Korean preacher David Yongee Cho. In his book 'The Fourth Dimension', Cho combines the Positive Confession nonsense the TV money preachers borrowed from motivational psychology with eastern Shammanism. People in the west are often impressed by Cho because his church is said to have nearly a million members. As anyone who has visited Seoul, Bangkok, or Singapore will know however, by the standards of Asia where Bhuddist visualization cults flourish, Yongee Cho's church is no big deal numerically.
The human imagination is of course a function of the soul. Contrary to this , but identical to Bhuddism, Cho teaches that our subconscious imagination is our spirit where we picture or "visualize" what we want and speak it into being by faith. This is of course Gnosticism at its worth , with man as God replacing faith in Jesus with faith in faith. Cho admits in his book that Hindus and Bhuddists have known this for centuries but claims that Jesus Christ has now revealed it to him. Whether or not Cho is a Christian is something we are not top be the judge of. What we can say however is that the gross error he is teaching is Bhuddism and not Christianity, and unless he radically repents he will be held accountable for teaching it and leading so many astray (James 3:1).
Following the eastern two dimensional view of man, Cho mixes the soul with the spirit., yet is lauded for it.
We should not try to take what is true in Bhuddism or Eastern Mysticism, and reject the bad. It is a mixture and the entire mixture must be rejected. This mixing of paganism with scripture on the basis of common ground is precisely how the church was plunged into the Dark Ages in the aftermath of Constantine's so called conversion.
Bhuddism, Hinduism and Shammanism are false beliefs people should be saved out of, not saved into - but this is what seems to be happening. The Asian evangelist to the Hindus, Tom Chakko, has warned that Pensecola and Toronto phenomena are Kundalini Yoga coming into the western church, and the video evidence contrasting the two confirms his warnings. Yet Alpha Director Nicky Gumbel sees Alpha as a way to get people into these deceptions. While it doctrinally waxes very shallow, Alpha courses are highly psychology oriented in content.
Man again becomes two dimensional. We simply become the advanced animals Darwinism and Freudian psychology say we are. It is therefore no surprise that Elim's David Blake, with the approval of Elim Superintendent Wynn Lewis defends such animal imitations as a spiritual experience, irregardless of the fact that the one case God caused someone to act this way it was a judgment (Daniel 4:33). It is similarly not surprising that the Joe Chambers videos show human beings on dog leads crawling around on their hands and needs imitating dogs. Indeed I have seen exactly the same kind of manifestations taking place under demonic animation in the jungle in Indonesia. The two dimensional man's spirit is indistinct from his soul. But it is those sanctified three dimensionally will be ready for Jesus to appear (1 Thessalonians 5:23).
The co valancy between the eastern religious view of man as two dimensional and the western psychological view as two dimensional also share the same philosophical roots. In Taoism we have the mixture of 'ying' and the 'yang' in tension with each other creating a theoretical balance. In the western Hegalian dialectics springing from Darwinism that constitutes the philosophical basis of everything from Marxism to liberal higher criticism, we similarly have the 'thesis' and 'antithesis' in tension forming a theoretical balance called the 'synthesis'.
Again, the mixture is seen as normal in both western rationalism and eastern mysticism. But what occurs when this thinking gets into the church? We have already seen the shambles theological higher criticism has caused.
Yet in an article in Elim's Direction magazine, an Elim minister argued that God raises up people in one doctrinal error in order to correct those with the opposite error so that a balance will be created. Upholding such a mixture is of course dialectic philosophy and Taoism, but it is not biblical Christianity. As we have noted, God corrects error with truth, not other error. The mixture itselfis wrong and must be rejected. We do not try to derive anything good from Taoism or Hegalian philosophy, and reject the rest. What may be right is once more too homogeneously mixed with what is certainly wrong to salvage any of it. It is akartharsis, ' impure to God'.
In the new psuedo Christianity where Psycho-babel is repackaged as doctrine, where Neo-Gnostic New Age mysticism is re-packaged as Vineyard spirituality, and where ecumenical surrender to apostate papal hegemony is repackaged as unity- where is the authentic unmixed faith? Instead of liberation from the old creation, 12 step programs with the increasing blessings of the church keep poor souls in bondage to the old alcoholic or compulsive gambler. In place of the old creation being reckoned as co-dead in Christ, these people are perpetually taught to believe they are still "recovering" alcoholics or gambler instead of dead ones - not only 30 years since their last drink or bet, but since being saved. Instead of being told they have sin and need to repent, these people are told they are a 'victim of a disease and to recover'. Again, we have the Mixture; indeed alcoholism may organically be a disease, but it is also a sin. No body ever went to hell for having polio.
A certain amount of biblical truth is mixed with codependency psycho-babel, and the sinner becomes a victim. Then, since they are always "a recovering alcoholic" instead of biblical discipleship based on new creation, it is 12 steps based on the sin of the old creation. In deliverance seduction, the same 'Mixture' convinces people generational curses or indwelling demons from the old creation must still be dealt with - but where does God say so? In all of this 'Mixture',