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Bookmark http://goodnewsprophecy.com
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August 18, 2008
Question:
Can spiritual existance be proved? DC
Answer:
Not by science. Science can only study the material universe. By its own definition it cannot go beyond materialism's borders. The Bible tells us that God is spirit. Science studies matter; it doesn't even recognize spirit.. Therefore God cannot be studied by science. So when scientists say scientific or evolutionary evidence proves there is no God, they are going where their own analytical rules have forbidden them to go. Science must be able to test and probe its subject for answers. It can only do that in the material world. The spiritual world cannot be probed by any physical means.
Science's ability to test and prove is the reason it has risen to become such a god in this world. It's tests, which seem to prove its prophecies, have mesmerized the populations.
Since the spiritual world cannot be probed, no similar testing process is available to it,. There is no "proof" of its existance no "sign" that can be given. Jesus said it is an evil and unfaithful generation that asks for a sign. The only sign that will be given, said God, will be the sign of Jonah. That sign is the 3-days surrounding Jesus' death and resurrection.
We must come to God by faith.
The separation between what is physical and what is spiritual goes beyond "dimensions". When science talks about dimensions it is speaking of different aspects of materialism. The word "spiritual" is not in the vocabulary of science. Science recognizes no spiritual component in the universe of the Big Bang. Thus a spiritual existance, if there is such a thing (and God says there is) is best seen involving an entirely different universe. These two existances (universes) can be visualized in the concept of body and soul. Plato proposed this dualism long before Christ was born.
While such a dichotomy of existance has been debated ever since, Jesus confirmed it as a reality. Jesus explained that even though the body of each person dies, their soul continues to live. Thus a person's fundamental existance is not locked to the fate of the body. Nor is that fundamental existance even material.
Here again an entirely different universe can be postulated. The fact that the soul continues to live unharmed despite physical death (no matter how violent) implies two realities of extraordinary separation. That the soul is impervious even to hydrogen bombs or supernova's exploded next to it in material existance implies a difference the vastness of which defies comprehension. It suggests we exist in an overlay of two different kinds of universes. Not just an overlay, but two universes fundamentally integrated; tightly bound together by a mysterious force beyond our understanding. The two represent existances extraordinarily different from one another in both character and structure, but bound together by God for a limited time, seemingly as one.
While the soul cannot be killed by any material force, it still faces a life and death crisis at the hands of God. This was Christ's warning. The "end of the world" is not just a physical event, it is also spiritual. "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away", said Jesus (Luke 21:29-31). No person (body or soul) will survive the coming finality unless marked with the cross in the blood of Christ.
God has locked the fate of the soul to Jesus' death and resurrection. This fate brings to light a concept Jesus called the "second death", i.e., spiritual death. Those who choose to follow Christ escape their soul's death and will be "born again". Not only will their soul live, a new body will be given to them and in that combination they will live forever in God's new kingdom. Everyone who declines to follow Jesus will experience the second death the death of their soul. That is why choosing Christ and follwing in His footsteps is so essential to us all.
Even many religious balk at the idea of a spiritual existance. That is because its invisibility here seems to suggest the structureless equivalent of something more diaphanous than wind. That is why so many churches teach the resurrection of a physical body. This is a concrete image that can be grasped by everyone. Yet Paul and the apostles in their writings have been careful to point out that we will be given a different type of body at the resurrection not the kind we wear here now, but a "perfect" body.
No one knows what type of body that is. But scripture said it will be made in the substance of God. We cannot see God in this world because of the exile. However, scripture clearly states that we will be able to see Him in the new kingdom. Since God is spirit, that means the spiritual world will no longer be invisible to us. If our new body is spiritual, our ability to "see" it, indicates that the structure of our existance in God's kingdom will mimic current existance, but in perfection. There will be no flaws. Gravity will no longer bind us in its iron chains.
It is interesting to note that in this material universe a closer inspection of matter reveals no solid structure anywhere, just vibrating charges. Materialism is not what most of us imagine it to be, or "see" it to be. Basically,, there is almost nothing there. If the electrical forces that hold the vibrating charges together ever fail, existance would simply dissolve into nothingness; all the tiny particles that underlie the material world would simply disappear. The material world would become just as invisible as the spiritual world.
Thus spiritual nothingness and material nothingness are very similar. Matter and spirit are just different platforms from, and out of which, God is able to build His creations. Matter reflects the exile; spirit the reconciliation.
The material world's fade into non-existance is going on all around us all the time in the aging process. Everything in our physical universe gets old and dies. That is because this universe reflects not just God's order, but also Satan's rebellion. Order meets disorder and decays into chaos. Everything here is contaminated with a kind of fatal rust called mortality. Not only does it infect our physical bodies, but the planets, galaxies and even the physical universe as well.
The new kingdom of God is eternal and not subject to any of these destructive forces.
Since the academic world looks to science for its "proofs", it has banked its intellect on the material world an existance that is about to pass away forever. It is studying not the future, but the past the extinction. It is studying what God sees as dead. Perhaps that is what the Holy Spirit had in mind when He had Isaiah prophesy, "By all means a people must consult its gods and, on behalf of the living, consult the dead. To obtain a revelation and a testimony, without doubt this is how they will talk, since there is no dawn for them." (Is. 8:18-20)
The fact that this world is slated to pass away has been confirmed by both God and science. The Bible shows it doomed in the reconciliation of God through Christ. Science recognizes its extinction in the processes of solar mechanics. The prophecies of each do not share the same timeline, but that is in the hands of God and not open to revelation as far as either is concerned.
The Book of Exodus indicates that God is holding this material universe together with "great power".
When God said "Let there be light!", He started with something far smaller than a single atom and exploded it, expanding space and filling its emptiness with all that we see around us today galaxies, stars, planets even houses, furniture and physical bodies. Space is the chaotic water that God parted at the beginning so that His people could walk dryshod out of Satan's wllderness into God's new kingdom. The "waters" of space have been split apart in the same way that God separated the waters at the Red Sea in the Israelite's journey out of Egypt.
When our journey is complete, God will turn off His power and the waters will all come crashing back to what they were, dooming our universe and casting it back to the chaotic nothingness of primordial space. At that moment, every soul that God has not rescued will perish.
As it was at the time of Pharaoh, the heart of the king of this world will again be hardened against the people of God. The Madman will set off to attack the last of those God is leading to safety. When the waters come crashing back together, this "pharaoh's" army will be in the act of pursuing the rear-guard of the departing House of Israel, intending to kill them all. Standing at Armageddon, his forces will surround Jerusalem. And there, suddenly, he will meet his end, and the world soon after him.
"And when your son asks you in days to come, "What does this mean?" you will tell him, "By sheer power God brought us out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. (Ex.13:14). Our current universe, the pathway of our journey to God's new kingdom is a reflection of that sheer power in action.
More on the false prophet and academic godlessness.
Answer:
There is no question that the false god of the future will present as something far different than the panopoly of sculpted dieties that have crossed history's stage over past ages. Scholarship is likely to play a key role in this change. Any modern god, even though false, must embrace the deepest academic introspections of world scholarship, reaching up to unveil the heights of the cosmos and down to lay bare the depths of creation, both with equal believability.
The false prophet seems certain to proclaim the kind of God Jesus revealed: a god of "word", but based on philosophy and scholarship rather than spirit. By and large, ours is a faithless generation. That means it will demand pragmatism in its belief. A god that makes academic sense is the only one a cynical public will accept without question.
That acceptance, of course, has already taken place.
Today, the public readily acknowledges truth as emanating from scholarship rather than Jesus Christ or scripture. The academic world clearly offers the kind of "proof's" today's population's demand. This is true even of the religious. Many in the churches have made science a kind of vision modifier, using it to edit Christ's miracles to make them acceptable to their modern ("enlightened") congregations. Accepting those miracles at face value is seen as naive a sure sign of gullibility among a simplistic and backward faithful.
The Book of Revelation says the false prophet will work hand in hand with world government, not just the Madman's, but all governments on earth during his reign. This shows that the overarching issue surrounding the beast is godlessness, not the Madman himself. The Bible shows all sides united at the end in godlessness the Madman and his enemies as well. When the end comes, the earth will be shrouded in darkness. God's offer will have been rescinded and the gate, for most, closed (2 Thes. 3:11-12).
Science does a superb job investigating the physical world and making discoveries about it that are of great interest to mankind. It also participates in the applicaton of those discoveries. It discovers fission and fusion, and it makes the bombs those discoveries theorize. It discovers marvelous cures for disease, but it also participates in the development of profiteering drugs made by corporations whose primary product is their stock price. Science operates at both ends of its discoveries. Science can be used to help mankind. It can also used to harm mankind. It can be used to promote God and it can be used to promote Satan. Like government, it is only a tool and its nature depends entirely on the hand that wields it.
Arts and science, the two horns of scholarship, are today firmly aligned with secular government against religion. A vivid example of this lies in the 1963 U.S. Supreme Court decision that effectively sealed the divorce between Christianity and the United States school system. Not just prayer, but the mere mention of God and Jesus were forbidden in that decision. The reason given was that the Constitution mandated a separation between God and state.
In that decision, and others that followed, the spillover showed the scholastic system and the government to be united in their thinking and in their efforts to expunge every vestige of God from within their respective institutions. Thus we have godless government united with godless scholarship, especially with its visionary horn, "science", scholarship's skillful deducer of materialism's past, present and future.
Ending 1700 years of Christian rule on earth, the tools of government and scholarship have been taken over by godless forces who, sadly, now wield them in support of the Antichrist.
Given their mutual rejection of God over the past century, the alliance between government and science represents a compelling reflection of the beast and false prophet as they are portrayed in scripture. Godless government is the beast with seven heads described in the Book of Revelation. It is clear in John's apocalyptic writing that the 6th head of this beast was Nero, When the mortal wound healed, Adolph Hitler, the 7th appeared. Still in the wings, the 8th head is not far behind. In close support of the beast is its ally, the false prophet, and riding it (managing it) is Babylon, the faithless city (Rev.17:1-7).
Throughout the 20th century, few ministers proclaimed the prophecies of scripture despite the fact that the civilization around them was collapsing under a succession of seiges mandated by the violent who, in their global warmongering had amassed an enormous arsenal of weapons that had the capacity to wipe out all life on earth in a matter of minutes. In that century a vast array of apocalyptic biblical prophecies approached the precipice of reality, some cascading into it, and the rest teetering on coming true at any moment. That condition has not changed.
Yet for decades very few ministers dared address in biblical terms (prophecies) the crises facing civilization unfolding around them. Instead, it was the academic community that broadcast the warnings and sounded the alarms. With the populace looking to scholarship, not God for its understanding, the words of science had quietly supersceded the words of God, and the prophecies with them.
The few ministers who did try to sound scripture's warnings were ridiculed not only by the general populace but by much of the religious community as well. Such ministers were universally brushed off as "quacks" or "kooks". This despite the fact that the 20th century was far and away the most violent in mankind's history in its rage, dragging the entire civilization all the way up to the top step of the apocalyptic gallows. Nor did this violence stop with the calendar. It continues and is now moving into the geographical areas defined by scripture for the button's push.
The public embrace of scientific prophecy and its exclusion of God's biblical counterpart was, and still is an enormous paradox. Science, not God, now gives us the warnings most are willing to listen to. Not warnings with instructions for survival attached, but hopeless warnings that none of us can do anything about. Listening to the scholars, we are helpless to do anything but simply stand and hope...for hope. That is because scholarship has shown prayer (in its estimation) to be worthless. Evolution, science tells us "proves" that God never intervenes in the affairs of man or nature. In fact, they insist, there is no God no intelligence anywhere in the creation's grand design.
By taking away Jesus Christ, the secular world and its false prophet have taken away from their minions all hope, and they have done it in the very worst climate possible at a time when all the governments have abandoned the Rock of Christ, the storms of crisis are beating at the door and the darkening clouds of terror surround us.
"When Jesus spoke to the people again, he said: 'I am the light of the world; anyone who follows me will not be walking in the dark; he will have the light of life'." (John 8:12).
When we look around today we can see how the light of Christ is now beginning to fade. Churches are closing and congregations slipping away.. That fading light is a reflection of the gate that is closing.
Thank God the escape is still here and the closing gate is still open enough for those who have ears to hear and eyes to see to make their way to safety in Jesus Christ.
"The light will be with you only a little longer now. Walk while you have the light, or the dark will overtake you; he who walks in the dark does not know where he is going. While you still have the light, believe in the light and you will become sons of light." (John 12:35-36).
That light is Jesus Christ. He is the gate of the sheepfold, and the bread of life:
"Anyone who eats this bread will live forever..." (John 6:51).
I was wondering if decoding prophecy in the Bible is what God would want for you to do and for me to read? I just recently bought a book by Paul Crouch called "The Shadow of the Apocalypse", (I was told) that I should not be reading this book or following your site. Then... I received a weekly bible email talking about mankind's fall had to do with our disobedience in eating of the Tree of Knowledge and about God being all knowing and man trying to figure out God's secrets, and it made me wonder if it's alright with God for you to try and decode bible prophecy and figure out what will happen in the future? L
Answer:
Thank you for your e-mail and good question.
We all have knowledge. Just to have a brain and think about anything is to have knowledge. Reading the Bible gives us knowledge. We cannot undo the damage Adam and Eve did in Eden (eating from the tree of knowledge). That is why Jesus died on the cross. He paid the penalty for this original sin in full, so that our guilt is removed completely. He died in our place so that we don't have to die so that we can have eternal life with Him in heaven. His death and resurrection guarantee that.
The sin Adam and Eve committed in Eden was rebellion. Knowledge in itself is not evil. But what we do with it can be. We can be kind or we can be hateful. It can bring us closer to God or send us away from Him. God sent Jesus to tell us we must be compassionate and filled with love for our fellow human beings. That is God's way and we must follow it exactly as Jesus explained in the Gospel He preached. And He told us we should do it without fear because He has saved us from eternal death and no one can steal that from us.
You do not have to worry about your faith. You have been born again in Christ, baptised (I hope) in His name and have confessed your sins to Jesus in prayer and resolved to stop sinning. That means you are saved. All you need to do from now on is live a life of love and forgiveness, i.e., just keep following Jesus (2 John 6; 1 John 5:1-4).
"To love is to live according to his commandments: this is the commandment which you have heard since the beginning, to live a life of love." (2 John 6).
"If we cannot be condemned by our own conscience, we need not be afraid in God's presence, and whatever we ask him, we shall receive, because we keep his commandments and live the kind of life that he wants. His commandments are these: that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and that we love one another as he told us to. Whoever keeps his commandments lives in God and God lives in him. We know that he lives in us by the Spirit that he has given us." (1 John 3:21-24).
"Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the dark. But anyone who loves his brother is living in the light and need not be afraid of stumbling..." (1 John 2:9-10).
Jesus said in scripture that it is our duty to go and spread the Good News of the kingdom of God around the world (Luke 9:60; Mark 16:15-16; Mat. 28:18-20). In his attempt to do this, Paul Crouch has built a vast radio network that now reaches every part of the world, even its most remote parts. He preaches about the Bible, i.e, spreads Jesus' Good News just about as well as anyone. There are alot of subjects in the New Testament (the word of Jesus) to preach about. Some are commandments and others concern the end of the world. Both must be preached so that people can be saved.
When I write my internet pages, I write in Bible quotations so that my words stay very close to those of scripture. This is important because I write about the Bible's prophets. They are in scripture and the subjects I write about are the things they have said. In talking about their words and applying them to our times making their words relevant to our world today is my way of helping spread the Good News of the kingdom of Jesus Christ across the world. I never ask those who read my pages to follow me; I always urge everyone to follow Jesus and only Jesus.
Nor do I tell my readers which church to join. Jesus Christ belongs to every church that proclaims His gospel to the world. His word can be followed equally as well in all churches. Church is important because it is a fellowship of believers and membership strengthens faith, but the Holy Spirit has made the choice of church individual for the sake and comfort of God's believers.
Jesus said that we are living in the last days (Jesus inaugurated the last days for the purpose of rescuing the children of God whom Satan took captive). When that rescue has been completed Jesus will return as He promised. On that day this world will be brought to an end and God's new world will appear in its place (Rev. 21:10-14). Those are not my words, they are the Bible's words. And they are true.
Jesus told us no one can predict the day of His return because only God knows that, but He said we can see the signs of the truth of His teaching all around us if we just look (Mt.16:1-3). That is why Christian's everywhere are so interested in understanding those signs because when we see them occur, they confirm our faith. This is really important that our faith be confirmed because it strengthens our commitment to Him making it easier for us to hold on when times are hard and the going gets rough.
Jesus told us to beware of false prophets who try to lead us astray. If we are doing what Jesus said, then no one can lead us astray. The only way someone can lead us astray is to try to get us to do something Jesus forbid, like hating others or worshipping money or killing or even being angry with others. Jesus insisted that we must forgive everyone who trespasses against us. He said if we do that, He will forgive every sin we ever commit as well, even if we don't realize we have committed a sin. This command is even in the Lord's Prayer.
False prophets make love turn cold. They kill compassion. Jesus said that God wants mercy not sacrifice (Mat.12:6-8). The false prophets say just the opposite. They say we must sacrifice, we can't sing or dance or laugh or eat certain foods or be kind to people outside our "group" things like that. Jesus wanted us to know that if we showed the kind of love to others He taught, we would go to heaven no matter what.
The Bible says:
"Does the trumpet sound in the city without the populace becoming alarmed? Does misfortune come to a city if God has not sent it? No more does the Lord God do anything without revealing his plans to his servants the prophets." (Amos 3:6-7).
That prophecy is in scripture; therefore, it is true. Amos is showing here that there is an unfolding Bible prophecy that comes to the people of the world in advance from God (out of scripture), especially when grievous times are close, and it is not against the will of God that people should hear it; just the opposite God wants everyone to hear it. It is meant to save these prophecies are warnings to those who have not yet converted their lives to Jesus.
There are still alot of people who have not yet been saved. Billions, in fact. Many have heard about Jesus but have been too busy to pay any attention to His preaching, thinking that what He says is not relevant to their worldly lives. God has designed His prophecies to shake them and wake them up because their chance for salvation is slipping away.
It is an enormous opportunity and many are about to lose it forever.
Are you aware of this passage in scripture: "Upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." ? -Mt. 16:18. DE
Answer:
Not only does the House of Israel survive intact, we win the war. The battle against the Church will be fierce, but at the last minute, scripture shows it turning in our favor. At the end of the world when the vast hordes of enemy forces have disappeared from the earth that unbelievable expanse of troops all mounted against us numbering as the sands of the sea suddenly all gone; At that moment, though every enemy of God has died, there will still be in Jerusalem both Christians and Jews.
Michael the Archangel will lead the surviving Christians from Babylon down the slopes of the Mount of Olives into Jerusalem where they will be greeted by their Jewish brothers and sisters. These will welcome Michael and his group with the words: "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord."
At that moment, Gabriel will blow his trumpet and Michael will call out the command. Instantly, the Lord will appear. The brilliant light of His Return will verify before the eyes of the entire world the amazing victory God and His House of Israel have achieved over Satan.
When that happens none of the people left alive on earth will have any advantage over those who have died across the ages leading up to that moment (1 Thes. 4:15). Those who have died in Christ will be the first to be raised, and then those who are still alive will be taken up in the clouds together with them, to meet the Lord in the air to be with Him forever, never to be separated from Him again (1 Thes. 4:16-18).
"The Day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then with a roar the sky will vanish, the elements will catch fire and fall apart, the earth and all that it contains will be burnt up.
Since everything is coming to an end like this, you should be living holy and saintly lives while you wait and hope for the Day of God to come, when the sky will dissolve in flames and the elements melt in the heat.
What we are waiting for is what he promised: the new heavens and new earth, the place where righteousness will be at home. So then, my friends, while you are waiting, do your best to live lives without spot or stain so that he will find you at peace". (2 Peter 3:11-14).
This world will disappear. It will be replaced by a new heaven and a new earth where life is eternal. In the spirit, John was lifted up by an angel to see and bear witness to God's new kingdom. His words include these:
"One of the angels came to speak to me, and said, 'Come here and I will show you the bride that the Lamb has married'. In the spirit, he took me to the top of an enormous high mountain, and showed me Jerusalem, the holy city, coming down from God out of heaven.
It had all the radiant glory of God and glittered like some precious jewel of crystal-clear diamond. The walls of it were of a great height, and had twelve gates; at each of the twelve gates there was an angel, and over the gates were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel...The city walls stood on twelve foundation stones, each one of which bore the name of one of the twelve apostles of the Lamb... The wall was built of diamond and the city of pure gold, like polished glass...
...Nothing unclean may come into it: no one who does what is loathsome or false, but only those who are listed in the Lamb's book of life... The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in its place in the city; his servants will worship him, they will see him face to face, and his name will be written on their foreheads." (Rv.21:9-22:15).
...All I have to say is you must be an ignoramus to attack science as something bad. DK
Answer:
Actually I said science had become one with the false prophet.
Before Russia revolted in 1918, it's government was structued in Jesus Christ. After that revolution Russia's government was dedicated to atheism. When government rules under God, it serves Him. When it rules apart from God that is no longer the case. When it attacks God and promotes atheism in His place, it is transformed into the Anti-christ. The same is true of the education system. Under God, education serves good. When it denies God and attacks Him, it becomes the servant of the Anti-christ.
What I have been writing about is a paradigm shift. From God centered goverenment and God-centered education to somthing radically different a government and an educational system both of which reject God.
We know that godless government is the Anti-christ. It is clear in prophecy that the one they call the Madman, will be the world's final Anti-christ ruler. He will be the 8th head of the beast in the Book of Revelation.
The false prophet those same verses say will assist him in his evil reign is believed by many to be false religion, or at least associated with false religion. The false religious authority at the time of the twelve apostles were the panopoly of Greek and Roman gods that occupied the world stage that Christ's followers inhabited. We can still see the crumbling remains of their decaying temples all over the Mediterranean landscape. They were destroyed by the Word of Christ.
Today, the people of the world pay homage to (i.e., worship) a more sophisticated kind of diety. It is not associated with religion, but evokes the same kind of idolization and reverent adoration by the vast majority of people it touches. Following the formula of Christ who brought the word of God, this "god" gives us the word of knowledge now a competing form of word. It's temples stretch from grammar schools to universities. They offer a product hallowed by the nations but blind to Christ.
The populations of the world see this huge academic establishment, the miracles it produces, and the depth of understanding it seems to embody and think, "Who is like knowledge? Who can rival this giant? "
One of the more important engines driving the world's knowledge is science, an exciting prophet of past and future divulging the formula's of existance and the hidden secrets of the universe to a fascinated populace eagerly awaiting its every new revelation. It's words are believed to be virtually infallible.
Western government and its universities once operated under God. Thomas Aquinas embraced this relationship almost a thousand years ago. Today that relationship is over. Sweeping away Christ, the alliance of government and its academic instutions now operate outside of God, in fact, they have begun to assault Him. In the case of science, the attack has recently become open and boldly pursued.
The rest of the academic environment has concurred in this assault in obedience to edicts mandated by their government's articles of separation. As a result, God's name and presence is forbidden, even in the grammar schools. That is why there is a current movement to educate Christian children outside the traditional borders of learning.
Science prophesies that there is no God and offers various "proofs" to back up its declarations. In all of its investigations it has found no evidence of a Creator, just a creation. We are told no one can really know whether there is a Creator or not. In terms of God, it is completely about faith faith in the morality of the Gospel and belief in the One who preached it. The people who follow Jesus prophesy that He exists by their belief. The people who reject God prophesy the opposite. Fence sitters are counted as non-believers.
Once the rejection of God by the world reaches a certain point, all the choices will have been made and then the world will end as Jeremiah announced:
"Thus the laboring of the peoples comes to nothing. The toiling of the nations ends in fire." (Jer.51:58).
At that point the truth will be made known. If there is a God, the scriptures will be verified. Jesus will select His people and give them eternal life as promised. If there is not, the cinders of existance will simple float away to dissolve into non-existance...into no meaning at all, the fate science prophesies.
When that time comes (and scripture shows it is close) we will see whose prophecies were true. The false prophet or Jesus Christ.
Inquiry about Rev. 13:2-8.
"Then I saw a beast emerge from the sea: it had seven heads and ten horns, with a coronet on each of its ten horns, and its heads were marked with blasphemous titles. ·1 saw that the beast was like a leopard, with paws like a bear and a mouth like a lion; the dragon had handed over to it his own power and his throne and his worldwide authority ·I saw that one of its heads seemed to have had a fatal wound but that this deadly injury had healed and, after that, the whole world had marvelled and followed the beast. They prostrated themselves in front of the dragon because he had given the beast his authority; and they prostrated themselves in front of the beast, saying, 'Who can compare with the beast? How could anybody defeat him?' ·For forty-two ' months the beast was allowed to mouth its boasts and blasphemies and to do whatever it wanted; ·and it mouthed its blasphemies against God, against his name, his heavenly Tent and all those who are sheltered there. ·It was allowed to make war against the saints and conquer them, and given power over every race people, language and nation; ·and all people of the world will worship it, that is, everybody whose name has not been written down since the foundation of the world in the book of life of the sacrificial Lamb." (Rev.13:1-8).
With nations divided by politics, geography and oceans what kind of conditions would have to exist for countries everywhere to be obeying one leader? Especially when scripture shows this same leader at war with the nation called Kittim. Isn't Kittim a part of the "whole world"? DV
Answer:
Not only is Kittim a part of the whole world, it is shown in Daniel's prophecy to be a very significant part of the world because the beast is bested by it's forces on the Madman's own soil, forcing him to withdraw and change his plans. (Dan.11:30). Kittim is a very powerful part of the world, indeed.
That means, with regard to the "whole world" the Bible is pointing to a different kind of beast. In other words, one that rules both sides (or, all sides) at the same time. We can certainly see this kind of scenario in Christianity. Many of the churches that insist they worship Jesus are at war with one another. Many of those wars have been exceedingly murderous. We have grown accustomed to this kind of relationship when it comes to a religion that is supposed to be all about peace. Nothing prevents the same situation from occurring among the non-religious political nations.
It means the spiritual power that motivates the Madman motivates his enemies as well. Remember, scripture shows this to be a time of spiritual darkness on earth a time, Jesus said, "when no one can work". While these nations are dealing with one another, they are to a one committed to expunging Christ from the earth.
What was born in Russia in 1918? Godless government. This is an image of the beast is it not? Godless government is a spiritual power. It's return is the mortal wound healed. It's reappearance on earth in the last century ended almost 1700 years of political rule on earth structured in the Christian Church.
Today the political landscape of the world is criss-crossed with godless regimes, most of them structured in a new pagan architecture called "secularism". Obviously all of these secular governments are not committed to communism. Secularism and communism usually war against one another. Yet both are committed to godlessness to the Anti-god.
All the works of God go in pairs by opposites. There is a spirit of godlessness that mirrors the individuals who embrace it. We have shown in these writings that the beast of the last days (the 8th in a series of beasts) is the servant of Satan and preaches a message consistent with his predecessors: godless government. Wherever we see godless government, we see the image of both Satan and his beasts.
Surrounding us today are the philosophies that will give rise to the human characters anticipated by scripture's prophecies. Those godless philosophies are stunningly present right now, and the people are rushing to them in huge numbers all over the world. No governmental border stands in their way.
The New Testament teaches that Jesus delivered a mortal wound to the sixth head of the beast, one that committed this entity and his false prophet into the fires of hell (Rev.19:20-21). At the same time, Michael threw Satan, their boss, into jail in the Abyss (Rev.20:1-3). At the end of Christian preaching, scripture predicts, two more beasts, the 7th and 8th will reappear in concert with Satan's temporary release from the Abyss. A new false prophet will reappear at that time as well.
There is no exit from the fires of hell, so the figures that return have to be newly minted. The only problem with this is that prophecy tells us the 8th head is going to be one of the previous seven. The only one of those seven we know for sure (per scripture) to be in the fires of hell is the 6th head, Nero. Yet popular prophecy (not in scripture) insists the 8th will be a Parthian (Persian?) king who insists he is Nero reincarnated. With seven to choose from, the prophecy remains veiled.
I have written at length recently about the return of godless government to the world (i.e., chronicling the mortal wound healing). It's reappearance in this world was spectacular, structured in and surrounded by momentous events including a huge asteroid crashing to earth, World War I, the visions at Fatima and a gigantic revolution that plunged Russia into political atheism. Godlessness had returned with a bang.
If the spiritual image of the beast is godless government, what is the spiritual image of the false prophet? Is it not the same? In other words, "godless religion"? Look at the first false prophet that God tossed into the flames of hell at the beginning of the faith:
At the time of the sixth beast when the Book of Revelation was written there was a dominant religious philosophy that ruled the hearts and minds of the pagan world. It developed through the Minoans, the Etruscans, the Greeks and finally the Romans. The gods and their temples of worship were much the same throughout these western cultures, only the character names changed as the religion surrounding them evolved. This godless religion reached its pinnacle of world power in the first century A.D.
Then it came across the sword of Christ and was destroyed.
In 391 A.D., Theodosus, emperor of Rome, ordered all pagan temples closed. He issued a proclamation declaring Christianity the only religion of the Roman empire. World paganism was outlawed. It's rites and ceremonies were banned. Some of its temples were converted into Christian churches, while others were simply left to weather into destruction. Theodosus' decree terminated the Olympic Games and the temples associated with them at Mt. Olympus. From that moment on, the only God permitted to be worshipped anywhere in the western world was Jesus Christ.
It seems logical to consider the panopoly of gods (Zeus and his fellow Roman dieties) worshipped by the pagan world in Roman times as the false prophet that the Book of Revelation shows committed to the flames in the earliest centuries of Christianity (Rev.19:19-21). They are no longer worshipped by the world. Nor are Baal or Bel. They are all gone. As scripture says, they have been commited to the flames.
Additional beasts and a new false prophet are rising up to take their place. How could Adoph Hitler escape being titled the seventh head of the beast in Revelation's predictions? He murdered millions of members of God's people, decimating one of the two houses of Israel on earth. Almost everyone who saw him thought he was the Madman, himself.
But he was not.
Standing in the wings is his successor, the eighth. Circulating around him are ten kings. Their single-minded committment to the spirit of godlessness unites all of these beasts with Satan.
The same invisible spirit drives the false prophet. We don't have to look for an eastern religion here. We have one in our own backyard. One with its own set of temples and just as committed to "miracles", arrogance and godlessness as the first.
While the first collection of godless dieties were focused on the worship of artifacts, the new one comes promoting a different kind of worship, an image that mirrors in an opposite way, the Word of Christ. It is the word of knowledge. Driving this word is the modern world's most hallowed god, science. If you gasp reading such a statement, you will have some idea on how much a god science has become in our world.
Science looks beautiful. Like a lamb. But we live in a time when almost everything it does promotes Satan, not God. Instead of pursuing a course toward light, a deepening darkness has come to surround it. Everything it invents or discovers passes through the crucible of war. All the weaponry that exists comes to us through science. This illustrates the nature of the people who direct science and control it for profiteering purposes.
Are warmongering, food manipulation and healthcare profiteeering the noise of the dragon personfied? Perhaps not; but this surely is: science declares there is no God. Most scientists are atheists. In your face and loudly so. They see no God. They try to "prove" creation did not need God either to form or to exist, and they desperately fight every effort by Christians to try to introduce any suggestion of a Creator into the creation story. They are arrogantly anti-christ.
Servant of the first beast, science is backed in its Christ-expunging efforts by the world's secular governments & by their secular courts. Having been won over by science's claim of absolute, even cosmic, authority, the people those courts serve are mesmerized by its miracles, discoveries that have made science the god of modern man. That is why the people of the world flock to it and with little resistance embrace its promotion of atheism.
Science could easily have gone another direction and promoted God. All the things it sees can easily be explained in Jesus. Yet its commitment to the destruction of faith has blackened its image, and its heart.
Jesus mortally wounded godless government with the Sword of His Gospel. But science has labored to bring it back from the dead and to cast doubt on the Word that offers eternal life to the world. To this end, science has worked incredible miracles. Even to bringing fire down from heaven onto the earth while people watched. "I have become death" said Robert Oppenheimer, one of the physicts who built the bomb, as he watched its first explosion (the "unknown light" prophesied by Sister Lucia of Fatima) erupt before his eyes on the desert sands of New Mexico.
Offering a kind of self-christening claim to the title "false prophet", the government and scientists dubbed this site and its nuclear event, "Trinity", an outrageous parody of the Godhead.
Proof that they had grasped starlight and plunged it to earth are the hydrogen bombs exploded soon after in the South Pacific, and which now tip tens of thousands of missles poised for Armageddon's flight, but hidden for now in submarines and silo's all over the world.
Scripture tells us that Satan will breathe life into a statue and cause it to speak (Rev.13:15). Are television, radio and the internet not inventions of science? Can these glass-screened idols not speak? Does the propaganda they broadcast not control the way people think? If science is the false prophet described in scripture, we are not far from its statue in support of godless government that Revelation says must be worshipped in some future day under penalty of death.
Is science false? Every year new textbooks of science must be written to correct the errors in the current texts. This was true a hundred years ago. It was true 50 years ago. It is true today and it will be true next year and every year thereafter for as long as learning continues. The proclamations of science are in orbit around truth, but none touch it. Everything it teaches, though well intentioned, is ultimately false. Science is not a god. It should not be worshipped as one. But it is.
Does science cross all earthly borders, enemies and friends alike? Yes.
Is science a prophet? Of course. It's prophecy is doom. It tells us that everything is going to die. Not just you and I but the planet and the sun, the galaxy and even the universe. It's message is universal death without exception. No matter where it looks, it sees death. It is a prophet of complete despair. This is totally opposite the message of Christ. Jesus is hope. Jesus promises eternal life. Science is without hope. It sees no eternal life. To science we are in a place where death rules without exception (in other words, science sees, as Jesus taught, that this is Satan's world).
Not only does science preach death, not only has it given the world the tools needed to implement that death, it's adherents fight with all their might to smother any mention of God's salvation. They say the escape from death offered by Jesus on the cross is proved false by scientific calculation. That is not true, but they say it anyway, incorporating in their efforts, the courts and all the powers of government to deny in their temples the message of hope preached by Jesus. Not only that, the names "Jesus" and "God" cannot even be mentioned in their institutions. They have made those names objects of ridicule.
That makes science doubly a false prophet because it tries to block the message of God, not just counter it with arguments. Across the entire world, wherever divine creation is mentioned, the populations are listening to science, not to Christ or God. En masse they are siding with their godless governments. Does this sound familiar to statements found in the Book of Revelation?
Are we waiting for something that has, in a great way, already taken place?
A History Channel program shown from time to time on cable television describes the magic tricks preformed by the adherents of the first false prophet (the Zeus group) in their temples at the beginning of the Christian era. Seen by the people as "miracles', these sleights of machine and hand, using tricks of science, astounded and mesmerized the ancient observers. As a result, these gods and their temples dotted the entire landscape of the ancient world. They ruled side by side with the temporal powers, many of the emperors portraying themselves as members, even leaders of these dieties. That whole culture of worship was mortally wounded by the sword of Christ.
But it has returned in a new way and with a new set of very sophisticated temples.
It has returned today in godless government and in the godless philosophy of science which now occupies a seat closest to the temporal throne (the seat that used to be occupied by the Church) mesmerizing the population with its miracles and empowering the political leaders to control the people and wage war successfully. It's temples today are the universities which bow to it's teachings while scorning God.
We can well expect an empire fixated on the modern world, to be driven by science and its "miracles" driven also by science's overt rejection of Christianity, indeed its rejection of any kind of Creator at all. In other words, not two empires, but one empire clutching to a "religion" of knowledge. Filled with temples of knowledge (and gymnasium's if you will) committed to sports and Olympic Games bathed in the glorification of man, and offering a kind of "worship" honoring a religion of godlessness.
For prophecy's that not only correlate the ancient Greek university's (called Gymnasia) with the temples to knowledge that surround us today, and which also tie the two into the last-day visions of Daniel, see "The Last Days of Babylon", Chapter 4, "God Brings Knowledge to Nothing".
On this the Bible has much to say:
'Now about food sacrificed to idols. 'We all have knowledge'; yes, that is so, but knowledge gives self-importance - it is love that makes the building grow. (1 Cor.8:1)
"For Christ did not send me to baptise, but to preach the Good News, and not to preach that in the terms of philosophy in which the crucifixion of Christ cannot be expressed. The language of the cross may be illogical to those who are not on the way to salvation, but those of us who are on the way see it as God's power to save." (1 Cor.1: 17-18)
"As scripture says: I shall destroy the wisdom of the wise and bring to nothing all the learning of the learned. Where are the philosophers now? Where are the scribes? Where are any of our thinkers today? Do you see how God has shown up the foolishness of human wisdom? If it was God's wisdom that human wisdom should not know God, it was because God wanted to save those who have faith through the foolishness of the message that we preach." -1 Cor.1:19-21.,
"And so, while the Jews demand miracles and the Greeks look for wisdom, here are we preaching a crucified Christ; to the Jews an obstacle that they cannnot get over, to the pagans madness, but to those who have been called, whether they are Jews or Greeks, a Christ who is the power and the wisdom of God. For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength." (1 Cor. 1: 22-25).
"Take yourselves for instance, brothers, at the time when you were called: how many of you were wise in the ordinary sense of the word, how many were influential people, or came from noble families? No, it was to shame the wise that God chose what is weak by human reckoning; those whom the world thinks common and contemptible are the ones that God has chosen - those who are nothing at all to show up those who are everything." (1 Cor.1: 26-28).
"The human race has nothing to boast about to God, but you, God has made members of Christ Jesus and by God's doing he has become our wisdom, and our virtue, and our holiness, and our freedom. As scripture says: If anyone wants to boast, let him boast about the Lord." (1 Cor. 1: 29-31).
"Your faith should not depend on human philosophy but on the power of God." -1 Cor.2:5.
"What we teach in our mysteries is the wisdom that God predestined to be for our glory before the ages began. It is a wisdom that none of the masters of this age have ever known...we teach what scripture calls: the things that no eye has seen and no ear has heard, things beyond the mind of man." -1 Cor.2:7-9
"Now, instead of the spirit of the world, we have received the Spirit that comes from God, to teach us to understand the gifts that he has given us. Therefore we teach, not in the way in which philosophy is taught, but in the way that the Spirit teaches us; we teach spiritual things spiritually...it can only be understood by means of the Spirit." -1 Cor.2:12-14.
"Make no mistake about it: if any one of you thinks of himself as wise, in the ordinary sense of the word, then he must learn to be a fool before he really can be wise. Why? Because the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God. As scripture says: 'The Lord knows wise men's thoughts: he knows how useless they are; or again, God is not convinced by the arguments of the wise, so there is nothing to boast about in anything human...." -1 Cor.3:18-22.
And the false prophet?
"This second beast was servant to the first beast, and extended its authority everywhere, making the world and all its people worship the first beast, which had had the fatal wound and had been healed. And it worked great miracles, even to calling down fire from heaven on to the earth while people watched. Through the miracles which it was allowed to do on behalf of the first beast, it was able to win over the people of the world..." (Rev.13:12-14).
How does this false prophet serve the first beast (how does it serve godless government)? By fully backing and promoting godlessness, performing the miracles that captivate the mind of the people, controlling the world's academic institutions, and giving the government the machinery to wage war, conquer space, fix elections, and enable profiteering on a vast scale, through the control of health, wealth, transportation and all the commodities of life.
Science seems certain to be the "power of deception" Paul said God intended to send into the world in the last days to delude the people and make them believe what is untrue:
"But when the Rebel comes, Satan will set to work: there will be all kinds of miracles and a deceptive show of signs and portents, and everything evil that can deceive those who are bound for destruction because they would not grasp the love of the truth which could have saved them.
The reason why God is sending a power to delude them and make them believe what is untrue is to condemn all who refused to believe in the truth and chose wickedness instead." (2 Thes.2:9-12).
The war against faith predicted for the last days is occurring as we watch. The people of the world are lining up against God just as scripture said they would. But Jesus has made the prophecies of science false. He has provided a way to escape the death it predicts. Faith in Christ will give eternal life. For the shortening time this message can still be shouted across the world, those with voices in the Gospel must raise them in His name.
Before the night comes when no one can speak.
In your latest paper entitled 'the Reign of God' you assert that the rebellion Paul alluded to in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 references a revolt against God by the nations. Have you ever considered the impact of the Protestant rebellion? The way I see it this warfare was the dynamic that shattered Church authority. JA
Answer:
Paul's revolt has to do with an attack on the Church, not a disagreement between Christians. The Protestant reform movement enlarged the Church by expanding the Gospel's reach. Secularization has done the opposite.
There were many different elements coming together in the days before the secular revolution of the nations occurred. Among them were the excesses of Church power abuses, the attempt by reformers to address those abuses, an absence of compassion and love within the Christian brotherhood, the rise of intellectual and scientific inquiry, the invention of the printing press, and, especially, the appearance of secular interests among some of the European temporal powers. The documents created in the formation of the United States of America are a central example of this move toward independence from religion in western governmental affairs in the years leading up to the 20th century.
Yet, despite those documents, the United States continued to rule its people within a Christian context.
The event that fused all these elements together, and activated them toward a focused attack on Jesus and His Church was the reappearance on earth of Satan.
His release from the Abyss (Rev. 20:7) was the critical factor leading to both the political reappearance of atheism (the central Anti-god philosophy of Babylon mortally wounded by the sword of Jesus) and the mobilization of the nations for world war (Rev. 20:8-9). These two events occurred almost in unison.
The first world war began in 1914 and the Russian Revolution (politial atheism) in1918.
In 1914 virtually all nations in the western world still ruled their people in Christ. By 1963 the last temporal nation still politically championing Jesus Christ renounced Him. It had taken Satan only 45 years (1918 to 1963) to convince all the nations of the western world to overturn their 1700-year long shared reign on earth with the Christian Church. This political-spiritual alliance which had been in place since the reign of Constantine (the Edict of Milan in 312 A.D.) was shattered irrevocably across the entire earth in what can only be considered, the blink of an eye.
That official renunciation of Jesus by the world's nations is the revolt Paul prophesied.
Not only did it's speed show how fast Satan can act, it left only one nation on earth still championing Jesus. Like a city of David in exile in Babylon that nation sits alongside the Tiber river in Rome offering the perpetual sacrifice that holds back the wrath.
Prophecy is clear on what happens next.
I have read your web page "THE NAME OF GOD" I have to tell you that your wrong about the name "Jesus Christ".First, Christ is not his last name, it's his title, as in "The Christ". Jesus is not his real name, Hebrew does not have a letter J.The name Jesus is a mistranslations, and most likely Jesus came from the name Zeus. I know you mean well but you should do some research. God bless you. p
Answer:
The revelation of the Trinity formulated at the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D. proclaimed to the world that Jesus Christ is God. That is a central tenant of the Church. It will stand though everything else falls.
And as far as "J's" and the Hebrew language are concerned, it is written "Through men speaking strange languages and through the lips of foreigners, I shall talk to the nation, and still they will not listen to me, says the Lord." (1 Cor.14:21).
"Yes, certainly with stammering lips and in a foreign language, he will talk to this nation, he who once told them: Here is rest... But they would not listen." (Is.28:10).
It seems like the Muslims are positioning themselves to take over the earth. What does the Bible say about this? JD
Answer:
The biggest religious news story in the last 1700 years (since the day Christianity climbed out of the Roman catacombs) has been the collapse of Christ's rule of the nations. This collapse began about 90 years ago, spearheaded by the emergence of atheistic government in Russia in 1917. It was culminated in 1963 when the United States, the last major world government still willing to compromise it's secular authority in favor of Christ and the Gospel reversed it's stand and tossed God out of its ruling heirarchy once and for all. Paul predicted this would occur. He called it, in his second letter to the Thessalonians, the "great revolt".
Everything we see today, the rise of atheistic government, 20th century hedonism, runaway sexual license leading to promoted homosexuality, even the rise of the terrorists militant warmongers cloaked in harsh religious garments, has poured out of this revolt.
The reversal of the nations has only just begun. Scripture tells us the rejection will soon turn into open hostility and finally a frontal world assault on God. Accompanying this anger, actually ushered in by it, a time of severity never seen before in human history will descend on this people. The culmination of this revolt will be the appearance of the tyrant scripture terms the "Lawless One", or "beast".
Paul termed the revolt a pivotal sign of the end of the age. It has come in conjunction with the rebuilding of Jerusalem, two profound events that book-end a blizzard of signs that Christ's offer of reconciliation to the nations is about to be withdrawn, a fact that guarantees with certainty that Christ's Return is drawing near. Despite the fact God's window of salvation is rapidly closing, billions of people across the earth still remain unrepentant and unsaved, hovering only moments from doom, unmindful of what is descending on the world from above.
The church is going to be handed over into the power of men. The world is going to be turned over into the power of the East. Omnipresent in the scriptures, these two prophecies pervade almost every book, reechoing again and again a constant theme the world's betrayal of God and its consequences. Rejecting a peaceful master, it is ushering in a harsh one in His place a tyrant.
On earth, nothing will ever be the same again.
For those still left with ears to hear, the only escape is Christ. Despite the lateness of the times, all who put their faith in Him will be saved.
Who is the mother in the 12th chapter of Revelation? Is it Judaism? Is it the Jews? Is it Jerusalem? Is it Sarah, the wedded wife? Is it the Church? Is it the Holy Spirit? Is it Mary, the mother of Jesus? Or is it all those things? BE
Answer:
Revelation 12
"Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman, adorned with the sun, standing on the moon, and with the twelve stars on her head for a crown. She was pregnant, and in labor, crying aloud in the pangs of childbirth. ·Then a second sign appeared in the sky, a huge red dragon which had seven heads and ten horns, and each of the seven heads crowned with a coronet. ·Its tail dragged a third of the stars from the sky and dropped them to the earth and the dragon stopped in front of the woman as she was having the child, so that he could eat it as soon as it was born from its mother. ·The woman brought a male child into the world the son who was to rule all the nations with an iron sceptre, and the child was taken straight up to God and to his throne ·while the woman escaped into the desert where God had made a place of safety ready for her to be looked after in the twelve hundred and sixty days." (Rev.12:1-6).
According to Daniel, this 3-1/2 year period (the 1260 days) is the time of the upraising of the disastrous abomination in the holy place & the abolition of the perpetual sacrifce. (Dan.12:11-12). It will be presaged by the assassination of the holy bishop, the "man in white" (See Fatima prophecy).
The passage (Rev.12:6+) tells us the Church will be taken into the desert to a place of safety during this violent period. It is a vision that relates to the last days to the 3-1/2 years, a time that embraces the most pivotal events in the end-of-the-world sequence.
It begins when Satan is released from his prison in the Abyss (See Rev.20:7-8)
"As soon as the devil found himself thrown down to the earth, he sprang in pursuit of the woman, the mother of the male child, ·but she was given a huge pair of eagle's wings to fly away from the serpent into the desert, to the place where she was to be looked after for a year and twice a year and half a year. So the serpent vomited water from his mouth, like a river, after the woman, to sweep her away in the current, ·but the earth came to her rescue; it opened its mouth and swallowed the river thrown up by the dragon's jaws. ·Then the dragon was enraged with the woman and went away to make war on the rest of her children, that is, all who obey God's commandments and bear witness for Jesus." (Rev.12:13-17).
Our true 'Holy Mother' is wrapped around the Gospel the Holy Spirit and will of the Father the Word which created the universe, and which brings each of us to life the moment we take it into our hearts and are reborn into its nature. Jesus proved this when he said,
"Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?' And stretching out his hand toward his disciples he said, 'Here are my mother and my brothers. Anyone who does the will of my Father in heaven, he is my brother and sister and mother." (Mt. 12:48-50).
This is what being 'born again' (John 3:1-8) is all about. It is our spiritual union with the word of Christ. Born again is what happens to us the moment our soul is fused with the Holy Spirit. We were born into the substance of Babylon when we came out of our earthly mother's womb, and Jesus came to transform us from that worldly material existance into the substance of heaven by imparting His Holy Spirit into us.
The mother is Jerusalem, yes, but a city of another sort the new Jerusalem in heaven, the new creation of Christ and the mother of all Christians. From her flows a river of life, the Holy Spirit. It pours out of the breast of Christ and comes into each person reborn into Jesus. The "mother "in scripture is the mother of that rebirth. That rebirth is the "born again" moment. We leave our first birth into Hagar (life in the flesh a Babylonian existance) and are lifted up to brotherhood with Jesus and into His new city and creation..
We are not citizens of this world any longer. We are pilgrims on a holy journey. We must not love this world or anything that is in this world. Our new world is the city of Jesus Christ, the new creation in the heavens our holy mother. That is the city we have been reborn into, the city that is the mother of Revelation. It is our eternal home and dwelling place.
We are cautioned not to regard our life here as a compromise with this world and its ways. Babylon cannot be made good by replastering. We cannot paint a thin veneer of religion, tastefully, but mildly washed over a worldly life. God wants us to move with great haste down the path He has prescribed, fully absorbed in His commandments. We need to "go overboard" for God. No dual life or compromise with Babylon is acceptable (Rev. 3:15-16). We have to live like Christ, spreading the word of God and doing good. The citizens of this world must regard us as different from themselves.
Then we will live in the mother of Revelation, the city of God, and she in us.
Scripture makes clear that her children are all who obey God's commandments and bear witness for Jesus (Rev.12:17).
Which church is best? DH
Answer:
The prophecies show that the division of Christianity into seven churches is a division of labor, not a matter of rightness or wrongness.
This metaphoric number which encompasses scores of denominations is not a matter of which church is true or not true, it is a division of labor that characterizes the essential nature of Christ's Church on earth: "Where I am there my servant will be also."
"...God will...stretch out his hand over the River, and divide it into seven streams, for men to cross dry-shod, to make a pathway for the remnant of his people..." (Is.11:15).
Christianity is built on the template of Judaism. That is why the format is familiar. In Judaism we see a single temple overseeing the sacrifice and thousands of synagogues supporting it. It is the same in Christianity. There is one seat of Peter, a holy priesthood overseeing from its captivity in Babylon the perpetual sacrifice - the Eucharist - and, beyond that, in place of rabbi's, millions of ministers forming a vast multi-denominational scattering of preaching that stretches to the ends of the earth.
Salvation is offered everywhere from every tributary of this ubiquitous river of preachers and institutions.
"An argument started between them about which of them was the greatest, Jesus knew what thoughts were going through their minds, and he took a little child and set him by his side and then said to them, 'Anyone who welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me; and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. For the least among you all, that is the one who is great." (Luke 9:46-48)
This is true even of the churches. The route to salvation is not the Law (it is not theology). It is faith in Jesus. Period! Exclamation point! All churches preach that faith, but tend to wrap it up in tieir own theology (Law). Yet it is only faith in Jesus that saves faith proved by obedience to the Gospel.
"My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and put it into practice". (Luke 8:21).
The division of labor (this division of churches) has been designed by the Holy Spirit to search throughout every aspect of the creation to find all who are hidden and still held captive by Satan so that they may be rescued, just as their brothers and sisters have been, over the last 2000 years, through faith.
In your book "The Last Days of Babylon", can you tell me in one sentence what is Babyon? AE
Answer:
In the phrase "separation of Church and state", Babylon is state.
The phrase, said to have been coined by Mussolini in the 1920's, has become the catchphrase of the nations in their recent expulsion of Jesus Christ from His ruling seat over western world politics. That expulsion ended a continuous Christian reign on earth of 1700 years and has ushered in in its place, secularized government.
Paul called this remarkable event the "great revolt" (2 Thes.2:3)
It is preparatory to, and actually a part of another scheme, the pursuit as fugitives of the rear guard of the very people Christ has called over those 1700 years to follow Him to His knigdom, a replay of the efforts of pharaoh 4000 years ago in Egypt (Ex.14:28-29). The result will be the same. But this time, the waters that crash down on the world forces now gathering for the assault will be armed in cosmic fire (Jer. 51:58).
The only survivors will be those who have chosen Church over state.
Question:
Luke 14:26, If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.
I'm sure you get asked a lot about this verse. I tried to research it but didn't really trust the information I was getting. There is really a lot of division (understandably so) over this verse of scripture. There are many who say the Greek word used in the verse literally means hate, loath, and despise. Some say it means to love less. I would really like to get your opinion. PL
Answer:
The seeming harshness of the verse is a Hebraism.
Yet Jesus did not mean His words here to be mild. The roughness of the Judean language acts as its own metaphore. His insistance that we break with this world was not a suggestion. It sounds to me as if you have heard the various interpretations of this verse of scripture, so I will give you an answer from another perspective.
Some Christians discover Christ in old age and turn to Him to be saved only moments before death. Most others, however, come to Him much earlier. The vast majority are born, baptised and confirmed into the Church at a young age. Considering most live into their 60's and 70's, or even later, they are called to address this commandment thousands of times during the course of their religious lives.
Almost every one of the 365 days we experience each year brings us face to face with this issue. Spanning a lifetime, thousands of days present this question to us over and over again. We respond in different ways to the multitude of shades in which we are confronted with it. Some days we are strong and ready for it and meet it with great success. Other days, we are blindsided, and that success is in doubt. God does not sit, axe in hand, waiting for that one time we stumble and fail so He can say, "Aha!" so He can condemn us to death. We are told over and over again in scripture that He is slow to anger and quick to forgive, and scripture cannot be rejected.
Built into the framework of Christ is a profound fount of forgiveness. It is opened to us when we are baptised, and it continues to flow into us when we are kind to others, when we give to the poor, the widows, orphans and all who ask, when we turn the other cheek to assault, or show mercy. In the Lord's Prayer, we are strongly instructed that God's forgiveness of our own trespasses is profoundly dependent on our forgiveness of others.
We live and work in Christ under the constant flow of this divine river of grace pouring out of the cross, washing us clean of sin in a perpetual bath of forgiveness necessitated by our sinful nature. It is this and this alone that keeps us in grace post baptism.
As long as we remain in Christ, getting up each time we stumble, asking for forgiveness, and returning to the path of His righteousness, we cannot fail. That is what it means to carry His cross and follow after Him, and not lose faith.
Trying to live Jesus' word in this world brings us into endless conflicts. We are met with them every single day. This world is hostile to Christ a hostility growing deeper now that the nations have chosen to reject Him. That antagonism erects all sorts of roadblocks and obstacles that block our path to success in this world. They change the very meaning of success. This opposition and our response to it, the sacrifices we are called to endure because of our fidelity to the Gospel, is the route of the cross. It comes to us day by day, each confrontation changing our lives by the response we take, moving us farther away from the world and closer to God, or visa versa.
Since the world operates all around us in every way, every hour of every day, we are confronted with this conflict not only from enemies, but from those close to us as well (often without their even being aware of it). We are called to think of Christ at all times and be alert to those occasions when forces other than God's are at play in our lives, confident that our willingness to forgive others and show mercy to all will protect us from our moments of weakness. Jesus has promised that it will.
Thank you for all the info you provide freely online. I was wondering who and what person(s) are responsible for this ministry.. BA
Answer:
Thank you for you appreciation. I apologize for taking so long to get back to you. It is my sincere belief that the persons responsible for this ministry are the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. No denominational organization is behind these efforts.
Many, many people ask me about this.
My ministry is a prophecy ministry. The Lord has written in scripture that God takes no great action on earth without first alerting the people ahead of time (Amos 3:6-7). We live in one of the most extraordinary times in Christian history. On January 1, 2001 the world entered the "third day" of Christ's religion on earth. It was a seminal moment almost completely unseen or even comprehended by the denominational body.
In the prophecies of Moses it is written that in preparation for the visitation of God, the people must wash and clean for two days and on the third day see Him face to face (Ex. 19:9-16). Echo's of this sequence reverberate through scripture (Hos.6:1-3; Is.29:1-2, 5-7; John 2:19). An image of this vision occurred in Jerusalem in the forward years of the first century A.D. when Jesus appeared in the flesh to die on the cross as atonement for mankind's sins (for those who accepted Him as their Savior).
A replay is set for His Second Appearance when God and all the angels of heaven gather in the skies above Jerusalem in preparation for the rescue of Christ's faithful and the Judgment of the planet.
The "washing and cleaning" is repentance and baptism, the focal point of God's "Day of Atonement" on earth in Jesus Christ. It is written of that day that it is "a single day made into two" by the power of God (Joshua 10:12-14). In other words, a single day made into two days of washing and cleaning in Christ. Scripture tells us that a day to God is like a thousand years to man (2 Peter 3:8-9; Ps.90:4). That expanse of time brings us from A.D. 1 to A.D. 2001, the two thousand-year era of Christ's preaching on earth.
The fact that we are living today at the very instant of the transition from preaching to the "Third Day" when Jesus is to return face to face, makes these days the most momentous ever seen since the departure of Jesus before the eyes of His Apostles. He is about to come back. Everything has changed. We can see that just looking at the times we are living in and comparing them to the 2000 years just ended, but what we have witnessed with our own eyes is just the tip of an iceberg compared with the things scripture tells us about the changed times ahead.
I was instructed by the Holy Spirit to write about those changes to call attention to them to help carry out the Lord's command that the people of God be informed that the era of Christ is in the rapid process of being transformed as the light fades into the darkness that Jesus said must come before He returns.
We have entered the day when the Church itself must bear its own share of the cross. It is a time when every Christian must brace themselves in faith and not follow after the masses who choose to leave Christ and embrace the wickedness of a world structured to meet amid great violence, its true Master.
Please send me a more detailed doctrinal statement of what you believe. Thank you. L
Answer:
This is a prophecy site, not a theological (doctrinal) site. We preach no theology except faith in Jesus. Our belief is that everyone, whether they choose to be Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox or otherwise, should welcome the person Jesus into their hearts and turn their lives over to Him to be remade in His image exactly as He commands in accordance with the New Testament. Jesus promised the reward for this conversion is eternal life.
Prophecy is not theology. Instead, it is the closest we can come to proof that our faith is well grounded. Prophecy is a warning to change and a proof of the truth of that warning proof that everything is going to happen in the future exactly in the way it has been predicted to happen.
Prophecy when it is fulfilled is the ultimate witness that the promise of Christ is true that Jesus will come again to reward all who have faith in Him.
The pages on this website study those predictions and detail the ways in which their fulfillments are manifest. Jesus warned His followers that they must not ignore these signs but regard them for what they are, images of the color of the sky at sunrise, proof of the changing of the times.
The world has enjoyed almost 2000 years of Christian rule on earth. That rule has not been without its troubles, but during its entirety, salvation has been openly preached by thousands of different churhes and ministers and God's will has been accomplished in all that preaching. Now the world is in the process of dramatic change. All across the earth, faith in Jesus is in freefall. The morning sky is crimson.
What does this mean? As it is written, "Work while you still have the day, night is coming when no one can work". (Jn.9:4). Is that time now? Are we watching the approach of darkness? The surest source of our understanding is structured in the prophets of scripture.
"Does the trumpet sound in the city without the populace becoming alarmed? Does misfortune come to a city if God has not sent it? No more does the Lord God do anything without revealing his plans to his servants the prophets." (Amos 3:6-7).
That is a promise of God. It means that all our questions have already been answered in one sure source. It is that source that we explore.
Thanks for your very useful web page on the Apocrypha. For a Protestant (?) site it is very fair and balanced. There is, however, one glaring error-
the "Song of the Three Holy Children" and "Susanna" ARE accepted as (deutero)canonical Scripture by the Greek & Roman Catholic churches. HJ
Which is the month of Loos in the Hebrew calendar? I have not read any month named Loos in that calendar. The months of the Hebrew calendar that I know of are: Tishri, Heshvan, Kislev, Tevet, Shevat, Adar, Adar 2, Nisan, Iyar, Sivan, Tammuz, Av and Elul. ACF This is with regards to your article in the website http://www.goodnewspirit.com/herodstemple.htm which states:
"In 70 A.D., just 40 years after Jesus was crucified, the Roman army burned down Herod's Temple in Jerusalem. It was a stunning loss. It happened on the 10th day of Loos in the Hebrew calendar (August 29th in 70 A.D.), the exact same day the Babylonians had burned down Solomon's temple 657 years earlier. Like bookends, the identical dates spoke loudly of divine correlation. The Bible's ancient prophecies agreed. "
Answer:
You raise an interesting question. Loos is the Macedonian name for the 4th month, "Tamuz" in the Hebrew calendar (June/July) according to modern records. Others have it represent the 10th day of the fifth month, "Av" (Jeremiah 52:13), a date that is said to correspond to August 29th. Both Solomon's temple and Herod's temple were burned down on this same day.
Do you believe that the increasing cost of food throughout the world is an indicator of Rev 6:6, and could you elaborate on this verse's specific details regarding oil and wine? Thank you. JF
Answer:
Many would apply it that way since food scarcity is the common interpretation of that passage of scripture. Certainly this passage brings scripture's warnings to mind whenever the ill-wind of famine blows and that is not a bad thing because it verifies scripture. And as I have shown over and over in my writings, scripture says all the works of God go in pairs by opposites. God has made it that way, so double or even multiple interpretations are likely accurate.
My understanding of the "four horsemen of the apocalypse" differs from that of most scholars. My experience studying the prophecies of scripture leads me to an alternative interpretation. I see the passages concerning these four horsemen as a picture of the 2000-year reign of Christ on earth in Satan's world after Satan, himself, has been locked in the Abyss to prevent his adversarial powers from thwarting what God has in mind for the world.
After God's short reign has run its course and all the lost children of God have been rescued, Satan will be released his return verified by world war. That change will come to pass when the people stop believing the message of Christ. That change in world attitude is clearly documented in Paul's Second Letter to the Thessalonians.
The horse in verse 6:6 in the Book of Revelation, in my view, relates to a market economy, the foundation of Babylon's existance. During the course of God's reign on earth (formed by the treaty Christ made with Babylon at the cross) the economics of Babylon will be allowed to procede as long as the nations agree to permit and encourage Christian conversion (the oil and wine).
History has borne this arrangement out. The price of grain is a measure of the "Wall Street's" of the world. The financial barons (the commodities traders) set those prices. Bad governance and greed alters the settings, while populist reaction to starvation (the pitchforks) resets them. There is a two-thousand year track record to prove this arrangement.
In my understanding, the mandate not to touch the oil and wine relates to the activities of the Church. As long as the churches are allowed to preach and the civic governments encourage that preaching, i.e., as long as they keep their hands off the sacramentals of oil and wine, God's moratorium (Christ's Peace Treaty on the cross) will remain in place, keeping the rescue intact. As long as the rescue is not blocked, Christ's treaty will allow the economics of Babylon to continue in place.
Once the sacramentals are attacked, however, the treaty will end and God's offer will be rescinded. This was prefigured in Pharaoh's time (at the Exodus), and it appies to our flight as well. When the attack against the last column of Christians takes place, the fiery waters of the cosmos will crash down on Babylon's army and its evil prince will experience the spears of heaven.
The first horse in this sequence, the white horse, to me, represents Christ. He did not come to bring peace to the earth, but a sword. This goes so much against the grain of most understandings of God that it is easily overlooked. But that is the fact. It is that sword marching across the earth over the last 2000 years that marks western civilization and its impact on world affairs across this span of years. It has split nations and households and fulfilled in its totality Christ's message: "a man's enemies will be those of his own household."
The horses representing plague and hades can also be seen in the historical sequence. Plague and famine throughout these years have been endlessly recurring. Hades represents the final tribulation, the worst of all. Many believe (myself included) that we are now entering into this last phase of the apocalypse.
There can be little doubt that Satan has been released from his prison in the Abyss. World war has consumed the planet for almost a hundred years now. That is the sign according to the Book of Revelation that Satan's release has taken place. Not only has world war (warfare on a scale unimaginable to the ancients) scourged the earth in violent death, but terrifying waves of genocide have left millions more in the flames of hades. So many Christians have been consumed in these genocides that it is as if the rapture itself has been a concomitant of the purges.
As the historical sequence has shown, all these horses overlap. Though one and then another has the spotlight, they all seem to play at the same time in Christ's 2000-year battle against evil for the salvation and rescue of the hidden souls Satan has scattered across the world.
I think it is easier for us now to see the impact of Satan's incarceration.
It's result: Paganism and secularism were forbidden in his absence. All western governments championed Christ. Atheism was outlawed. Not until 1917 in Russia did atheism return openly to the earth a span reaching all the way back to the Roman declarations at the beginning of the Christian era. The battle of good over evil was a lot easier with Satan removed. Had Satan been present then (as he is now in his return) God's battle for souls during that period would have been as it is today an environment so filled with contrary messages, especially from high office, and the extraordinary tempations of our age that a reign of Christ on the planet could not have occurred by preaching alone.
Yet many still see the four horsemen as a body of riders that will be unleashed only in the last days. That, too, is a viable alternative. Here is a comment from a reader following that interpretation:
"The breaking of the seals and the four horsemen of which we are to endure do not necessarily come as a lion, but subtly. The down fall of the dollar, America on the cusp of losing its dominance in the world, the rise of China and Russia, rising inflation in Asia, rising food prices, etc... It is so easy to pay no attention to it. It is not global warming it is the sins of man. We need to pray for stronger faith and a heart to know Jesus. My comment." W
I watched the History Channel program about the Bible Code. Have you seen it? Do you think it is plausible and does it go along with what you present? NJ
Answer:
No. As far as I am concerned it is not plausible. Certainly not for Christians. This program talks about a hidden code in scripture that when revealed presents a Torah devoid of religion and obsessed with tabloid journalism.
It offers a 2-hour examination of a contorted alphanumeric code that virtually ignores the Messiah, and makes not a single mention of Jesus Christ. How can this be when the focal point of the entire Bible was to define a messianic mission for the salvation of mankind? They leave us a Bible code filled with TV stars and terminal violence, but no Messiah? That's total nonsense, is it not?
The Jewish Torah revolves around only one thing the anticipation of a coming "Messiah", a word meaning 'code breaker'. Yet the History Channel program uses the word "Messiah" just once (and that, only in passing) in 2 full hours of programming.
By contrast, the New Testament (itself a code) incorporates thousands of Messianic quotations in narrative from the Old Testament a sweeping scriptural proof of prophecy in Jesus considered by billions the definitive revelation of the hidden code of God's entire religious purpose.
Not only does that program ignore the Messiah,, mention of the words "Jesus" or "Christ" cannot be found in its entire script. This despite the fact that over 2 billion people on the planet are Christian, a third of the population of the entire earth, all of these people a direct outgrowth of the Jewish Jesus and the Hebrew Bible through their relationship with the 12 tribes of Israel a vast population absent from the program, but referred to again and again in the narrative of the scriptures.
Instead of the monumental messianic figure Jesus on whose shoulders 2000 years of the earth's most salient history rests, the "code" program ponders Timothy McVey, Elvis Presley, Oswald, Ruby, and a similar array of individuals and events scattered across the 20th century. It leads nowhere except to the end of the world. It sees no salvation, no hope, no eternal life. Just annihilation.
It reads like a Nostradamus knock-off, uttering in its own way the kind of 'quatrains' found in supermarket tabloids of interest only to those who follow the fleeting stars and events of modern times. If you want to know about the attack on Pearl Harbor, the fall of the Twin Towers, the names of the hijackers, Napolean, Waterloo, Elba, and Gore versus Bush in Florida, it's all there in the code presented. If you are looking for God or religious insight, the code is silent as a tomb.
Jesus showed that the hidden code of the Bible is in the narrative of scripture itself, clear and observable to all. It was never hidden in complex ancient codes that masked the names of such biblical luminaries as the freeway sniper, John Lee from a 3000 year old audience.
"I have spoken openly for all the world to hear." (Jn.18:20).
It is in the time-honored verses of Isaiah and John that the code of the Bible is truly revealed, not in a parlor trick of stairstep letters, improbably reconsitituted.
At what point in the prophesy are we now? PL
Answer:
In the allegorical template of Judaism we are at the time of Pharaoh's final hour his attack on the rear-guard of the departing Israelites. The mood has changed in Babylon. No longer does it support our departure along the path of Jesus. The forces against Christ are gathering strength and the attack is beginning much like the attack against the Israelites as the last of them proceded through the parted waters of the Reed Sea.
Today the last of the Christian faithful are making their way to the land of God's promise. The winds of change are everywhere and prosperity is in collapse. This is the way it was prophesied the time of tribulation and chaos ushering in the physical assault against the Church. And then the Return of Jesus.
"I have told you all this so that your faith may not be shaken. They will expel you from the synagogues, and indeed the hour is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is doing a holy duty for God. They will do these things because they have never known either the Father or myself. But I have told you all this, so that when the time for it comes you may remember that I told you." (John 16:1-4).
This darkness will be shattered by the eternal light of God as He Returns in victory to take eternal command of all creation.
Ted, A headline from today - "Hamas Cleric Predicts 'Rome Will Be Conquered by Islam'" "A sermon last Friday by a prominent Muslim cleric and Hamas member of the Palestinian parliament openly declared that "the capital of the Catholics, or the Crusader capital," would soon be conquered by Islam."
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,351242,00.html
This was a story from FOX News. It appears the prophecy is now more than an idealogy, it is a strategy of the Islam's radical wing. The days appear to be growing dark.JF
Answer:
I missed the headline, but the Bible didn't. It's still hard to grasp that we seem to be in the strategic age to watch all this happen. It is interesting that their focus on Rome relates to the Crusades. It figures.
The Bible's statement that Jesus will rebuild the temple in 3 days is traditionally understood to mean that He will resurrect Himself from the dead on the third day after being crucified. Which He did. Could it also apply to His kingdom being completed within 3000 years of His crucifixion (since it says a day to God is 1000 years to man)? DE
Answer:
Yes, of course. And when you examine the three days Jesus was entombed, there were three days involved, but the hours were far less than 3 times 24. He was resurrected very early on sunday morning, perhaps before sunrise. We should expect the same thing to happen on the third day of the Christian era.
If we count the Christian era as beginning with the Christian calendar, the world entered the "third day" (the 3rd 1000-year cycle) on January 1st, 2001. This date in that sense would correspond with the beginning of the "sunday" of Christ's resurrection in Jerusalem.
We do not know when He will return, but we can fairly well assume that it will be quite early during this "third day". Since the "third day", like the two that preceded it will be 1000-years in length, quite early can entail alot of years and months. But this is the "day" to expect His Return in glory.
You wrote that prophecy is only to be found through church committee's under anonymous authors:
"Surprisingly, with all this prophecy abounding, what we have rarely seen during the era of the Christian Church is prophets, per se. Most of the prophecies that have emerged outside of scripture over the last 1600 years have appeared in the form of decrees made through councils by committee. In this respect, while the role of prophecy in New Testament times has been large, it has come to us seemingly authorless. This is precisely the mechanism that has glorified the Holy Spirit above all others as the progenitor of Christian prophecy over the last 2000 years." -Letters January 6, '08.
Nowhere else? JY
Answer:
That statement related to the great prophecies of the Christian religion such as the concept of the Trinity, the inclusion of the pagans in His salvation, or the understanding of the nature of baptism, etc. These teachings are in keeping with Jesus' message to his Apostles that He had much more to tell them, but that it was too much for them at that time (during Christ's lifetime on earth) to really understand, but He would send the Holy Spirit to lead them to a full comprehension of these unstated truths which He has done.
The backbone of prophecy in the Christian age are the ministers who broadcast the message of Christ to the world as they preach from the pulpit.
Those messages, in of themselves, form the greatest prophecy of all time. When coupled to the words of the Hebrew prophets, this is stunning prophecy shown fulfilled. That is the message we often hear on sundays at church. From dynamic monuments of inspiration such as Francis Assissi or Billy Graham, to the least known ministers in scattered outposts, the message of God's offer of salvation comes through loud and clear for anyone with ears to hear.
It is Peter and Paul, the scripture itself, put into real life. This is the purest form of God's prophecy and it has been preached day after day for almost 2 millenia.
Those sermons are rarely written down in books, but taken altogether, they give us a continuous evolution of living Jeremiah's, Ezekiel's, Hosea's, Micah's, Isaiah's, John's, Matthew's, Marks and Luke's a barrage of the highest form of prophecy ever uttered on earth, and we do not have to go out into the wilderness to hear it.
As Jesus said, pray always for more preachers!
The thought of a master race...is this not a variation on a Judeo-Christian theme? OP
Answer:
Were Judeao-Christianity measured in terms of DNA (genetics), then it would be. However, measured on faith in Christ it represents a stand against sin.
This choice (on which side of the line one is to stand in relation to sin (as determined by the Gospel) is the "decision" Jesus compelled the people of the world to make when He forced them to choose sides once and for all. (Ez. 9:3-7). That choice is what Jeremiah's famous "cup" stands for (Jer.25:14-29).
The elixer in that cup are these very words this very choice.
The Old Testament bears witness to a special people on earth, the people of God. At first, this people were considered to be a race. Scripture showed them to be descended from the union between Abraham and his wife Sarah. Yet not everyone in this descendancy were seen to share in the reward. Just special ones. For instance, Abraham and Sarah's son Isaac bore two sons, Esau and Jacob. Esau sold his birthright to his younger brother Jacob for a bowl of lentils and was thus viewed eliminated from the promise.
Jacob's 12 sons formed the 12 tribes of Israel (ever after to be designated the template for the house of God on earth). But Jacob also had daughters, yet they were not understood to figure in this formula.
The 12 sons ended up in Egypt, most as a result of a famine and were later imprisoned there by Pharaoh. Their escape from the clutches of captivity to a foreign enemy power, juxtaposed against their relationship with God is one of the two overarching themes that will haunt this people for the rest of history. The other is the tribe's expectation for the coming of a Messiah to defeat their enemies and give them dominion over all the earth's inhabitants.
The Jewish understanding of this story further contracted the reward. Seeing the destruction and permanent exile of the 10 northern Israeli tribes, they supposed themselves to be sole heirs to the promise, embracing the idea that the 10 lost tribes were like Esau, discarded by God because of sin. Their conclusion was that it is to them alone (the Jews the fourth tribe of Israel) that the Messiah will come, and to them alone that dominance over the earth will be granted.
The prophets agreed that the Messiah would be Jewish, but argued against the Jewish singularity. The promise, they said, was given to all 12 tribes and would be fulfilled in all twelve (Ez.11:14-21). Not only that, but it would be extended to believing pagans as well, and would be offered across the entire earth (Is. 49:6).
"All the pagans will come and adore you, Lord, all will glorify your name..." (Ps.86:9).
" Understand, then, that the salvation of God has been sent to the pagans; they will listen to it. (Acts 28:28).
"It is not enough for you to be my servant, to restore the tribes of jacob and bring back the survivors of Israel; I will make you the light of the nations so that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth." (Is. 49:6)
When Jesus came to Judea, He came in the image of the prophetic understanding. Not only did He extend the offer to all 12 tribes as well as to the pagans to men and women alike He showed that the promise included eternal life, a miraculous gift of bodily resurrection from death wholly unexpected by the Jewish elders. Moreover, He revealed that God's kingdom was not of this earth.
Jesus had been sent by God His Father to rescue the captive Israelites and lead them to a spiritual kingdom far beyond the borders of earthly imagination or understanding. He showed the Jewish religion to be a "guardian" covenant (Gal.3:24-26), a template, to be fulfilled by the true religion (i.e., new and everlasting covenant) of God in keeping with the prophecy of Jeremiah:
"See, the days are coming - it is God who speaks- when I will make a new covenant with the House of Israel (and the House of Judah), but not a covenant like the one I made with their ancestors on the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt.
They broke that covenant of mine, so I had to show them who was master. "No, this is the covenant I will make with the House of Israel when those days arrive: Deep within them I will plant my Law, writing it on their hearts. Then I will be their God and they shall be my people.There will be no further need for neighbor to try to teach neighbor, or for brother to say to brother, 'Learn to know God!" No, they will all know me, the least no less than the greatest since I will forgive their iniquity and never call their sin to mind." (Jer.31:31-34).
We find in this outline a disputation between 'exclusion' and 'inclusion', with the old covenant adherents favoring the former, but Christ offering the latter, a global reach without geographic, racial, sexual or church boundaries to all who renounce earthly sin and walk in His righteousness thereafter.
"No need to recall the past, no need to think about what was done before. See, I am doing a new deed, even now it comes to light; can you not see it? Yes, I am making a road in the wilderness, paths in the wilds. The wild beasts will honor me...because I am putting water in the wilderness (rivers in the wild) to give my chosen people drink. The people I have formed for myself will sing my praises." (Is.43:18-21).
"And God will...stretch out his hand over the River, and divide it into seven streams, for men to cross dry-shod, to make a pathway for the remnant of his people..." (Is.11:15).
"Pass through, pass through the gates. Make a way for the people. Bank up, bank up the highway, clear it of stones. Hoist the signal for the peoples. This the Lord proclaims to the ends of the earth: Say to the daughter of Zion, 'Look, your savior comes, the prize of his victory with him, his trophies before him'. They shall be called 'the Holy People', 'the Lord's Redeemed'. And you shall be called 'The-sought-after', 'City-not-forsaken'." (Is.62:10-12).
"And through it will run a highway undefiled which shall be called the Sacred Way; the unclean may not travel by it, nor fools stray along it." (Is.35:8).
You agree then that the true church is the church of the heart? KL
Answer:
Yes, except your question compares a physical entity with a spiritual entity. Jesus did not come to torpedo the existance of churches. They are essential!
In this we must trust the work of the Holy Spirit. He has not made a single mistake since Jesus first appeared in Bethlehem. Everything He has done on earth has been perfect. It may look chaotic, the river divided into so many streams, but God's work of salvation has been accomplished in perfection through the historical structure of Christianity.
There are two major veins of understanding in the religion of Christ. The single gate to salvation and the multitude of paths the religion presents with respect to reaching that gate. Conceptually, the two are quite different.
Almost all religious talk in the world centers on the second, the path.
Both are founded on the outline of scripturethat God interrupted time by sending Jesus to the earth to liberate His lost people who had been imprisoned by Satan. That rescue changed the entire structure of history. A time descended on the world during which the path to salvation was preached by many different churches.
The moment for that teaching would be short, said Jesus. It would be bordered by war and involve the incarceration of Satan so that the people's escape could be completed successfully within the narrow time frame prophesied.
Prophecy has been essential to this success. The code of the Bible is that the past is prologue. God sent two faiths, one in Moses to establish the matrix for that prologue and the other in Christ, the true religion of God, to fulfill it. Thus we have two parts to the one Bible, the first to make the prophecies and the second to complete them.
Just as the Guardian gives way to the true Father, so must Moses give way to Jesus. Moses will never return, nor will his temple or religion. The future belongs only to Jesus. The churches are there to support and promote the message of salvation, but they cannot preempt Jesus any more than can Moses.
That is because salvation itself belongs only to those whose faith in God compels them to live according to the Gospel that Jesus preached. That is the one and only gate in, and all churches lead to it so long as they herald Christ's Gospel. It is up to each listener to hear that Gospel and take heed of it.
What did Jesus mean that the kingdom of God is within you? KL
Answer:
"The coming of the kingdom of God does not admit of observation and there will be no one to say, 'Look here! Look there!' For, you must know, the kingdom of God is within you." (Lk.17:20-21; Mt.3:2; Lev.26:11)
"The hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. True worshippers must worship the Father in spirit and truth; that is the kind of worshipper the Father wants. God is spirit, and those who worship must worship in spirit and truth." (John 4:21-24)
It isn't what we worship inside a building or city that counts to God.
It is what we worship inside ourselves:
The gods of this world include money in all its forms: the stock market, finance, real estate, mansions, cars, diamonds, and gold and all the other luxuries of life. They also include power in all its forms: politics governance and warmongering.
False god worship is manifested in prestige, social status, fine clothes, and all the sexual lusts. Add to these, pridethe drive for world acclaim social, personal, academic, athletic and artistic supremacy. These are among the battalion of false gods whose worship competes with the Father of Christ. These false gods are the worldly spirits that are worshipped by mankind during life on earth.
Jesus Christ has called us to choose between this world's gods and the teachings of the Gospel which is the image of the true God of creation. It is a question of obedience to a master. We are called to choose between two masters the prince of this world or the God of heaven imaged on earth by Jesus Christ. The winner of this competition stamps on our soul his unique mark.
Whose mark do we honor?
All competitive worldly drives must take second seat to the obedience of faith. No one can claim worldly excellence when they have assumed the mantel of a slave; giving away their possession, or going two miles when asked to go one. This is why Jesus said "those who find their life will lose it...those who love their life in this world will lose it as far as eternal life is concerned".
If we write, we should write for God. If we draw, we should draw for God. If we speak we should preach for God. Those with money should see to the welfare of the poor. No one lights a lamp, said Jesus, without putting it on a lampstand so that it gives light in the house for all to see. The church is that house.
We are called to give up everything so that our only worldly ambition is to do good according to the commandments of the Father Almighty. That is a tall order, especially since we have to live in this world while we are trying to make the transition. That passage is the trial by fire through which God cleanses our soul for eternal life. Our new body in Christ can only dwell in a soul that God has cleansed in this way.
During that cleansing, some fall away, lured into evil by temptation. Even then,, forgiveness stands only a breath away, waiting patiently, though perhaps in vain, for repentance.
We are called in Christ to sacrifice on an internal altar a spiritual altar hidden within our own soul. It is our own choice whether we choose to offer on this internal altar sacrifices to God through Jesus by obeying the Gospel He preached, or to Satan through succumbing to the false gods of this world that encourage us to disobey the commandments of Christ.
This is not a community choice. It is individual. Salvation comes one by one each by personal name one altar at a time.
Where does it say in the Bible that women cannot be priests? PV
Answer:
The Apostle Peter wrote that all baptised Christians are priests; both men and women alike. This ecclesiastical status was conferred on every Christian believer through baptism:
"He is the living stone, rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him; set yourselves close to him so that you too, the holy priesthood that offers the spiritual sacrifices which Jesus Christ has made acceptable to God, may be living stones making a spiritual house." (1 Peter 2:4-5)
"...you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a consecrated nation, a people set apart to sing the praises of God who called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light." (1 Peter 2:9).
In the Book of Revelation it is written:
"You are worthy to take the scroll and break the seals of it, because you were sacrificed, and with your blood you bought men for God of every race, language, people and nation and made them a line of kings and priests, to serve our God and to rule the world." (Rv. 5:9-10).
The word "man" in the verse above is not literal. It is metaphoric, stemming from the word "mankind". The priesthood is conferred on all Christians because they have been given the job of consecrating the entire universe to God. And kingship because God has decreed that the People of God shall rule the world. Had women been excluded from God's priesthood, they would be unable to offer any spiritual sacrifices, and therefore incapable of pleasing God by obeying Christ's commands. This would make them aliens to the promise.
"All baptised in Christ, you have all clothed yourselves in Christ, and there are no more distinctions between Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female, but all of you are one in Christ Jesus. Merely by belonging to Christ you are the posterity of Abraham, the heirs he was promised." (Gal.3:27-29).
The Law was only a reflection of these realities (Heb. 10:1+) God did not want the sacrifices the Law laid down. He took no pleasure in the holocausts or sacrifices for sin offered by the Hebrew priests. "As it says in the scroll of the book, 'Here I am, I am coming to obey your will. He is abolishing the first sort to replace it with the second: Justice, mercy and good faith" (Heb.10:8-10). Those are the sacrifices that please God.
"We have our own altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat...through him, let us offer God an unending sacrifice of praise, a verbal sacrifice that is offered every time we acknowledge his name. Keep doing good works and sharing your resources, for these are the sacrifices that please God." (Heb. 13:13-16).
This concept of God's people as a priesthood is not new. It stems from the Book of Exodus:
"If you obey my voice and hold fast to my covenant, you of all the nations on earth shall be my very own nation...I will count you as a kingdom of priests, a consecrated nation." (Ex.19:5).
This passage shows that God meant to include women from the beginning, but the traditions of the Jewish elders blocked that intent, nullifying God's will. Jesus rectified this misdirection by offering God's spiritual priesthood to all people, men and women alike. And not just to Jews, but to pagans as well. Everyone who is baptised in Christ becomes a priest of God in His name. And a High Priest at that.
We have seen that in the Law there were two priesthoods, a high priesthood that followed the lineage of Moses' brother Aaron, and a low priesthood made up of the Levites. These latter were the caretakers of the Temple and its trappings. Only the higher priesthood could head the Sanhedrin or conduct the sacrifices or enter into the naos, the inner chamber where the Ark of the Covenant used to be housed.
The Holy Spirit has built the Christian religion on the template of the Mosaic Law and Prophets. Thus we see in Christianity both priesthoods replicated according to God's true will. The high priesthood is that which flows to all Christians through Peter. It is spiritual and offers the sacrifices that truly please God, mercy, justice and true faith. It is conducted in the inner chamber where God dwells inside men and women, now housed inside the soul of every baptised Christian. The Ark is now in us.
Because we have the inner chamber of the temple inside ourselves because God dwells inside us and not in a building or some other architected chamber we house the complete Temple of God inside ourselves, everything that once stood in Jerusalem on the holy mountain. And more, because we have the Word of God which the institution in Jerusaelm forbid entrance to when He came to them, asking to be admitted.
The physical priesthood, that which is built on the Levites, is the lower priesthood. It is lower because, being physical, it cannot last. It will pass away. The high priesthood will never pass away. God has made it eternal.
The fact that every baptised Christian is a high priest in God is the very reason why every baptised Christian has complete authority to baptise. Usually this authority is deferred to the lower priesthood, the ministers and priests who are the caretakers of our churches. But in emergency situations, we must exercise this power too. It is commonly seen in neonatal units in the major hospitals where coding babies, in the absence of ministerial presence, are baptised according to their grieving parents wishes by nurses, doctors, therapists or others who are, themselves, Christians.
Some churches refuse to baptise babies. This, too can be considered an emergency situation. When the parent wishes their baby to be baptised, any baptised Christian can perform the sacrament. That is because no person is ever baptised into a church. There is no clerial theology attached to baptism as far as God is concerned. Every baptism is into Christ alone. That is why most churches accept the baptisms of other denominations.
The priesthood, once conferred, cannot be taken away. Therefore baptisms performed by reprobate ministers are just as legal, just as binding as those performed by the most saintly. It is only at the Judgment that the good are separated from the bad.
No one ever has to be baptised twice, but churches usually ask for written proof. This is not for God. It is to make sure the baby was properly baptised (touched by water in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit). In the absence of this proof, most churches want to rebaptise the child just to make sure.
That is as it should be, because baptism is very important. It is the legal mechanism that frees us from the Law. It is also the mechanism that confers on us the royal priesthood of God. Baptism breaks our prison chains so that we can follow Jesus Christ to eternal life in His new Kingdom in heaven.
But I digress. Your question concerned women priests. While most churches allow Christian women (already priests according to God) to be ministers and priests in the lower tasks as well, others do not. This is not a matter of God, it is a matter of the tradition of each church's elders. Scripture's position is as stated above.
What are the connections between the lenten season and prophecy if any? PL
Answer:
Lent recapitulates liturgicallly the stress