VIOLENCE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

Often when Christians make comment on the present escalating violence by radical Moslems, someone sees fit to bring up 'The Crusades" and the violence in the Old Testament as if that somehow vindicates what is happening now. Concerning the Crusades; there were two sides to that story and yes wrong things were done by the Crusaders who went to recapture the Holy Land. That was over 1,000 years ago and I think that situation is well under control now. The thing to note is that when Christians do wrong things, they are disobeying their Scriptures. Jesus doesn't condone violence but taught "Love your enemy, pray for those who despitefully use you."

What about the violence in the Old Testament?  When Israel went in to possess the Promised Land, they were told to destroy the inhabitants. The Canaanites were a very depraved people. They practised bestiality among other vile sexual practices, also child sacrifice and all that went with the worship of idols. God gave them 400 years to repent, then used Israel to bring judgement. God withheld judgement for that length of time because He said, "The iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete." Genesis 15:16. God is longsuffering. As it says in 2 Peter 3:9, He is “……not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” Iniquity is rising in Planet Earth, but rest assured it is not going unnoticed.

 What is physical and natural in the Old Testament becomes spiritual in the New Testament. The enemies of God now are not people. God loves all people and Jesus died for everyone. The enemies of God are now “principalities, and powers, rulers of the darkness of this age, spiritual hosts of and wickedness in the heavenly [spiritual] places” committed to preserving Satan’s grip over the Earth and keep its inhabitants in spiritual darkness. [Ephesians 6:12]  Since the Cross Satan operates illegally, his only two powers left are to deceive and accuse. He is defeated by Truth.  Christ’s Army which He is raising up will bring down the devil’s strongholds in the Earth and make way for the Kingdom of God. As Jesus said “I will build My Church and the gates of Hell will not stand against it.” Matthew 16:18, 19 The Veil of darkness over the Earth will be destroyed [Isaiah 25:7-12] and Creation renewed. [Romans 8:19-21]Then at last there will be peace on Earth.

“The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb

The leopard shall lie down with the young goat….

And a little child shall lead them…..

They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain

For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord

As the waters cover the sea.” Isaiah 11; 6-9

 

PASSOVER AND THE EASTER EVENTS

It's Easter again and usually Facebook posts reflect this. Some don't think we should celebrate Easter at all because, they say, it has pagan connotations , e.g. it originated in a pagan celebration of spring and the spring goddess. Others want to debate about the day Christ actually died; some wanting exactly three days and nights in the tomb though the Scriptures don't call for this exactness, stating mostly 'the third day.' Even the quote about the sign of Jonah being 'three days and three nights' in the fish, doesn't need exactly 72 hours.

 My own thoughts on Easter are as follows:- Easter is the Christian Passover. Though the Jews and the Christians calculate the dates differently, they are both celebrating a great event - the time God delivered them from bondage to slavery under a merciless tyrant and given a whole new identity and a new life. The Last Supper was a Passover meal; the Communion cup at the institution of the Lord's supper being one of the four cups of wine consumed at the celebration.

Jesus was in Jerusalem to be the fulfilment of the sacrifice of all the little lambs which the Jews sacrificed at Passover for centuries.  The time had come for all that Passover prophesied to become a reality. A lot of Christians don't really understand the close connection between Passover and Easter. God gave the instructions for the first and subsequent Passovers knowing exactly what was going to happen all those years after, when the Lamb of God would be sacrificed for the whole world. Israel was the Priestly nation and God worked in that nation to set the stage for the Easter events which would change the destiny of multitudes. Moreover Jerusalem was the only place where sacrifices could be made and the Feasts celebrated. At the River Jordan, John announced Jesus "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world."

At the first Passover God instructed:-
The Lamb had to be chosen on the 10th of Abib.  Exodus 12: 3. On the Sunday beginning Passover week, Jesus rode into Jerusalem and was hailed by the crowds who were there to celebrate the Feast. They waved palm branches and spread their cloaks on the ground before Him, hailing Him as a king. Though they were not aware of it, they were choosing the Passover Lamb for the world. Although the Bible doesn't say it was the 10th, we know it must be. God was very meticulous in fulfilling every requirement, and the Lamb was to be chosen on the 10th. That month was to be 'the beginning of months' for Israel - a new beginning for the nation.
The Lamb had to be without blemish - a perfect Lamb. Exodus 12:5.  In the days leading up to the sacrifice the lamb was examined to ensure it's perfection.  In the days preceding the crucifixion, Jesus presented Himself in the Temple and was questioned by the Scribes, the Pharisees, and the Sadducees all who tried to 'trap Him in His words' to no avail. Finally He was questioned by the High Priest, King Herod and by Pilate- every authority in the Land. Lastly Pilate declared "I find no fault in Him" John 19: 4. The Lamb was declared to be perfect.
"Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things,......but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." 1 Peter 1:18,19
The Lamb had to be slain on 14th. Exodus 12:6 This would have been Thursday.  [Sorry about that!. Hope I didn't shock you] The Temple lamb was slain at 3pm: This is the time that the Lamb of God died. I heard lately that the Temple lamb was tied to the altar at 9am, the time Jesus was nailed to the Cross.
No bone was to be broken: Exodus 12:46 The soldiers broke the legs of the two thieves who were crucified with Jesus to speed up their death before the Feast of Unleavened Bread. When they came to Jesus He was already dead. This was in fulfilment of the Scriptures. John 19:36.
The Lamb had to be roast with fire: Exodus 12:8 Fire speaks of the wrath of God. "Our God is a consuming fire" Hebrews 12:29.  Jesus took our sins on Himself and suffered the righteous wrath of God against sin. He suffered separation from God that we might be forgiven and joined to God. That's why He cried out "My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me"
 Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, 'I thirst'. A cup of sour wine was given to Him. [John19:28-30] Then He died. The cup was significant. It was the cup of the Lord's wrath "For in the hand of the Lord, there is a cup, And its wine is red; It is fully mixed and He pours it out; Surely its dregs shall all the wicked of the earth drain and drink down." Psalm 75:8
"For thus says the Lord God of Israel to me; 'Take this wine cup of fury from My hand, and cause all the nations to whom I send you, to drink it." Jeremiah 25:15.  Jesus took that cup and drank it Himself,  drinking the cup of sour wine symbolically to show that the wrath of God was now satisfied and we can now be reconciled to God. 

There is much more we could say about fulfilled prophecy at the Cross, e.g. the gambling for His clothes. All of it pointed to Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. One more thing!
The blood of the Passover lamb had to be applied. Exodus 12:7,13, 22,23 The lamb had been slain but its death was of no avail unless the blood was applied. Only then would the death angel Passover and not destroy. Jesus' blood has been slain. Have you applied the Blood over your heart and your life. Everything has been done to save us and reconcile us to God and make us His heirs and joint-heirs with Christ. All we have to do is, by faith, place ourselves under the cover of the Blood of the Lamb. Then all that God is and has, is ours. 

"Under the blood of Jesus, safe in the Shepherd's fold,
Under the blood of Jesus, safe though the ages roll,
Safe though the earth may crumble, safe though the stars grow dim,
Under the blood of Jesus, I am secure in Him."

THE TRUE SABBATH

Are we still under the command to keep the Sabbath, and what is the Sabbath? Is it Saturday or is it Sunday or is there more to it than just a day?

 Sabbath is about rest and holds a principle much deeper than just physical rest. A ‘rest’ in Scripture denotes a finished work. God finished His work of Creation then rested and Man was commanded to rest also.

Whenever you see a rest in Scripture this is God saying ‘This is My work. There is nothing you can do about it so don’t even presume to try.’ On the Day of Atonement, everyone had to rest in their tents while the High Priest [God’s representative] made Atonement. This of course pointed to the fact that only Jesus, God’s appointed High Priest, could make Atonement. We can’t add to it by our good works any more than Adam and Eve could improve on Creation; we can only rest by faith in His finished work.

 Jesus angered the Jews when He healed a crippled man on the Sabbath. [John 5]. Jesus answered the by saying that His Father was still working and so was He. The work of Creation had been completed but there was still a work to be done. That was the work of Redemption. In Jesus Christ, God began a New Creation. That work was completed with the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus. The old Creation was put to death in Jesus, the ‘last Adam’ and the New Creation began on Resurrection Day. The Old Creation is ‘passing away’ but the New Creation is eternal.  We are part of that New Creation if, by faith, we rest in Jesus’ finished work on our behalf. When Jesus has finished His work He ‘sat down’ that is He rested, in contrast to the Old Testament Priests who were ‘standing’ continually offering up sacrifices . [Hebrews 10:11 – 14]

Jesus is the Sabbath of the New Creation. The Sabbath rest finds its fulfilment in Him who said “Come unto Me all you who labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”[Matthew 11:28 – 30] The rest that Jesus gives is a rest of soul, when we cease from struggling and striving in our own strength and rest in His finished work. This is the rest that is spoken of in Hebrews 3:7 – 4:11 which we are to be ‘diligent to enter into.’ As Colossians 2:16,17 says, the Old Testament Holy Days are ‘shadows’ but Jesus is the ‘substance’ or fulfilment of them all. He is our Passover, our Unleavened Bread, our Atonement [propitiation] our Sabbath and all that the Old Testament types portrayed.

As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5:7, 8; concerning Passover and Unleavened Bread, [my paraphrase] Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us, therefore this is how we keep the Feast [of Unleavened Bread] now. We put the leaven [symbolic of sin] out of our lives.” Likewise concerning the Sabbath  – By one sacrifice, Christ has perfected us forever [Hebrews 10:14] and this is how we keep Sabbath now. By faith we rest in His finished work. With Jesus in our heart, we can have Sabbath every day.

 Christians met together on a Sunday very early in Church history. It was not a new Sabbath, but a celebration of the Resurrection.   Ignatius 30-107 AD, Bishop of Antioch wrote, “And after the observance of the Sabbath [that the Jews kept,] let every friend of Christ keep the Lord’s day as a festival, the resurrection day,  the queen and chief of all days of the week…..on which our life sprang up again, and victory over death was obtained in Christ….” Ignatius would have been contemporary to at least some of the disciples and would surely have known which day was considered to be ‘The Lord’s Day.’

Justin Martyr born about 100 AD wrote. “And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read… but Sunday is the day on which we hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose from the dead.”

 [These two quotes are taken from vol 1 of “The Ante Nicene Fathers”]

To summarise:-

Saturday was the Sabbath of the Old Creation. It was a day of physical rest. It was a shadow or sign, pointing to the soul rest we have in Christ.

Sunday is a day of celebration of the New Creation in Christ. It is the day of the Resurrection. Also the Spirit was given on a Sunday.

The true Sabbath is a Person not a day. Jesus is our Sabbath Rest just as He is the fulfilment of Passover, Atonement and all the shadows of the Old Testament.

Setting one day a week aside for worship and rest is still an important principle to observe.

God is to be honoured every day of the week in all of our living. [Romans 12:1 ‘service’ means ‘worship’]

Christians who gather to worship on Sunday or any other day aren’t worshipping the day, they’re worshipping the Lord and that is a good thing to do any day.

The Romans 14 principle is that these things ought not to separate or cause contention among Christians, but everyone should be ‘fully persuaded in their own mind’ and not judge one another. Whatever day you choose to rest and worship on, you will only know true rest in Jesus; that is by not trusting in your own good works, but by faith resting in the perfect finished work of the perfect One.

 

For a longer version of this, click on the booklet on this page titled "The True Sabbath"

 

 

A GLOBAL FLOOD?

 

Some scientists are now postulating that Mars was once covered by water. To date they have not found a drop of water. On the other hand about 70% of the Earth is covered with water yet the Biblical account of the global flood is considered just a myth and totally improbable. Nearly every culture in the world has retained knowledge of the flood. Though their accounts vary these 'myths' tell of a flood which covered the whole Earth. 

The flood is also evidenced in the geologic record, the different layers being laid down in a short time as the waters receded, but interpreted as taking millions of years to fit in with the evolutionary theory. e.g. The Grand Canyon is said to have been carved out over a long period by a small amount of water, but Creation scientists say that it has been formed by a lot of water in a very short time as proved by the Mt St Helen's volcanic eruption. Also petrified tree trunks are found standing upright through the layers of sediment which shows that it all happened in a short time. 

The fossil record more readily fits in with the account of a global flood. Why would you find evidence of marine life on the tops of mountains?  The very fact that there are millions of fossils shows a sudden cataclysmic happening.

Some ask 'Where did all the water come from.'  Before the flood the Earth was swaddled in a protective layer of vapour called 'the firmament' which divided the waters above from the waters below. It had a terrarium effect and the earth was watered by a mist which went up. All of these waters fell plus the 'fountains of the great deep' were broken up. The earth was a very different place after the flood. http://www.answersingenesis will have a lot of material on this.

The Ark was not a dinky little boat as in a kindy drawing. It was a huge barge type of vessel three stories high and big enough to house specimens of all animal life. It has been shown that the dimensions given were ideal for balance and floatation. There are records of people who have seen it on Mt Ararat trapped in a glacier and some have even been able to walk in it. However it was all hushed up at the time. A  Google search would no doubt yield a lot of interesting articles about it.
 eg  http://www.viewzone.com/noahx.html

We live in a world where people are wilfully blind. Romans 1 tells us that men 'did not like to retain God in their knowledge.' and have 'exchanged the truth of God for the lie.' To acknowledge the existence of a Creator could  mean that we are accountable and some of us don't want to know about that. People would rather believe that everything created itself rather than believe in God. One of the end results of the lie of evolution is 'women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature' and 'men burned in their lust for one another.' '.....being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, murder, strife, deceit, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful.... '

Jesus came to bear witness to the truth and to lead us out of darkness into the light of truth and back into the arms of a loving Creator who loves all people and is 'not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.' The evidence for Creation and for a Creator is there for anyone who really wants to know. In spite of all our great technology etc., the human race does not have the answers to this world's problems. 'always learning but never coming to a knowledge of the truth.'
Jesus said "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father but by Me."

"I WILL BUILD MY CHURCH"

Jesus said, “I will build My Church and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”

What does that statement mean to you? We were told that it meant that Satan would attack the Church; but he would never be victorious over it. That in itself is true and of great comfort and assurance to the Church facing ever increasing persecution; but is that the full meaning of that statement? Picture a walled city under attack by an army. Which is the Church? Are we the ones who are on the defensive or on the offensive? Do gates attack or are they attacked?

 

Our position to date has been defensive. I remember an old song which says,

“Hold the fort, for I am coming,” Jesus signals still;
Wave the answer back to Heaven, “By Thy grace we will.”

All very heroic! but is that the extent of what Jesus intends for the Church – to be merely holding the fort?

 

The Bible tells us that Jesus is building a Church that will rise “to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” [Ephesians 4:13]. We are “being built together for a habitation of God in the Spirit.” [Ephesians 2:22]. We are “His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.” [Ephesians 1:23]. Such a Church is not to be merely on the defensive but on the offensive.

 

Against what? – The gates of Hell. Satan is the ‘god of this age’ who has blinded the minds of the people of this age. Jesus said that he is a murderer and a liar and the father lies. He holds people in bondage in darkness. If the prince of darkness is the god of this age, then Hell has invaded the earth. His minions are the principalities and powers over every nation that are dedicated to preserving extending hells grip on the earth. We see the results all around us. The strongholds of hell appear to be firmly entrenched in the earth and growing in strength day by day.

 

Jesus is building a Church that will bring down the gates of hell and set people free to receive the gospel. It will prepare the way for the Lord to come and reign. Jesus has defeated satan [the accuser of the brethren] at the Cross by removing all grounds of accusation. Satan no longer has legal authority in the earth. He operates by default. All authority in heaven and earth has been given to Jesus and He has delegated it to His Church. In His name we are commissioned to bring the nations into the kingdom. It can be done! God has shown us how in the Old Testament type of Israel’s deliverance from bondage and their possession of the Promised Land – their inheritance. Our inheritance is the earth [Romans 4:13] It is ours but we have to possess it. We need to come out of our siege mentality and get pro-active for the Kingdom. When the Church comes into the full knowledge of what the Cross accomplished, it will rise up in power and dispossess the powers of darkness that hold our world in bondage.

 

Jesus has won the victory over satan; but it is a victory which has to be enforced. The outcome is certain; but we must rise up in faith and claim what Jesus has purchased by His blood. This is a big subject and of the utmost importance. I have written about it in my books “The Other Bible Code” and “End Time Insights.” I hope you will obtain a copy and be challenged and encouraged to rise up in believing prayer for the nations.