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Acts 25:1-27  I Appeal Unto Caesar

[Study Aired October 1, 2023]

Act 25:1  Now when Festus was come into the province, after three days he ascended from Caesarea to Jerusalem.
Act 25:2  Then the high priest and the chief of the Jews informed him against Paul, and besought him,
Act 25:3  And desired favour against him, that he would send for him to Jerusalem, laying wait in the way to kill him.
Act 25:4  But Festus answered, that Paul should be kept at Caesarea, and that he himself would depart shortly thither.
Act 25:5  Let them therefore, said he, which among you are able, go down with me, and accuse this man, if there be any wickedness in him.
Act 25:6  And when he had tarried among them more than ten days, he went down unto Caesarea; and the next day sitting on the judgment seat commanded Paul to be brought.
Act 25:7  And when he was come, the Jews which came down from Jerusalem stood round about, and laid many and grievous complaints against Paul, which they could not prove.
Act 25:8  While he answered for himself, Neither against the law of the Jews, neither against the temple, nor yet against Caesar, have I offended any thing at all.
Act 25:9  But Festus, willing to do the Jews a pleasure, answered Paul, and said, Wilt thou go up to Jerusalem, and there be judged of these things before me?
Act 25:10  Then said Paul, I stand at Caesar’s judgment seat, where I ought to be judged: to the Jews have I done no wrong, as thou very well knowest.
Act 25:11  For if I be an offender, or have committed any thing worthy of death, I refuse not to die: but if there be none of these things whereof these accuse me, no man may deliver me unto them. I appeal unto Caesar.
Act 25:12  Then Festus, when he had conferred with the council, answered, Hast thou appealed unto Caesar? unto Caesar shalt thou go.
Act 25:13  And after certain days king Agrippa and Bernice came unto Caesarea to salute Festus.
Act 25:14  And when they had been there many days, Festus declared Paul’s cause unto the king, saying, There is a certain man left in bonds by Felix:
Act 25:15  About whom, when I was at Jerusalem, the chief priests and the elders of the Jews informed me, desiring to have judgment against him.
Act 25:16  To whom I answered, It is not the manner of the Romans to deliver any man to die, before that he which is accused have the accusers face to face, and have licence to answer for himself concerning the crime laid against him.
Act 25:17  Therefore, when they were come hither, without any delay on the morrow I sat on the judgment seat, and commanded the man to be brought forth.
Act 25:18  Against whom when the accusers stood up, they brought none accusation of such things as I supposed:
Act 25:19  But had certain questions against him of their own superstition, and of one Jesus, which was dead, whom Paul affirmed to be alive.
Act 25:20  And because I doubted of such manner of questions, I asked him whether he would go to Jerusalem, and there be judged of these matters.
Act 25:21  But when Paul had appealed to be reserved unto the hearing of Augustus, I commanded him to be kept till I might send him to Caesar.
Act 25:22  Then Agrippa said unto Festus, I would also hear the man myself. To morrow, said he, thou shalt hear him.
Act 25:23  And on the morrow, when Agrippa was come, and Bernice, with great pomp, and was entered into the place of hearing, with the chief captains, and principal men of the city, at Festus’ commandment Paul was brought forth.
Act 25:24  And Festus said, King Agrippa, and all men which are here present with us, ye see this man, about whom all the multitude of the Jews have dealt with me, both at Jerusalem, and also here, crying that he ought not to live any longer.
Act 25:25  But when I found that he had committed nothing worthy of death, and that he himself hath appealed to Augustus, I have determined to send him.
Act 25:26  Of whom I have no certain thing to write unto my lord. Wherefore I have brought him forth before you, and specially before thee, O king Agrippa, that, after examination had, I might have somewhat to write.
Act 25:27  For it seemeth to me unreasonable to send a prisoner, and not withal to signify the crimes laid against him.

In this chapter we will learn that, just as it was with Joseph when his ten brothers who hated him simply because their father loved Joseph more that his brothers, so it is with us as the Lord’s elect who are hated by our brothers in Christ for the same reason. Paul’s experience with his Jewish brothers signifies our experience with our Christian brothers. We, too, are safer and we receive more mercy when we are being judged by the secular people of this world than we are if we are being judged by our ‘Diotrophes’ brothers in Christ who have “cast [us] out of the church” in favor of all the lies of Babylon over the truths of the doctrines of Christ. This truth is no doubt part of the reason for these inspired words via the pen of the apostle Paul:

Rom 13:1  Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.
Rom 13:2  Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.
Rom 13:3  For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same:
Rom 13:4  For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.
Rom 13:5  Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake.
Rom 13:6  For for this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God’s ministers, attending continually upon this very thing.
Rom 13:7  Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour.

At the beginning of this book of Acts, the Jewish synagogues signify the churches of Babylon. Near the end of this book, and in the epistles of Paul, Peter, and John, the “synagogue of Satan” and “Babylon the Great” signify the apostasy of the Christian church itself.

Here are a few verses which reveal the extent of the apostasy of the Christian church before the death of the apostles. While these verses may make us shake our heads, we had better just pray that the Lord does not take away our own spiritual vision and our spiritual ears:

2Ti 1:15  This thou knowest, that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me; of whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes.

Earlier Paul had warned Timothy about false ministers who were already within the church:

1Ti 1:19  Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck:
1Ti 1:20  Of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander; whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.

This ‘Hymenaeus’ is mentioned again as working to spread his heresy with another apostate:

2Ti 2:17  And their word will eat as doth a canker: of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus;
2Ti 2:18  Who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some.

If Hymenaeus were sharing this heresy with Philetus, there is no doubt he shared it also with Alexander, whom Paul also incriminates as an early apostate along with some of Paul’s own fellow laborers:

2Ti 4:9  Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me:
2Ti 4:10  For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica; Crescens to Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia.
2Ti 4:11  Only Luke is with me. Take Mark, and bring him with thee: for he is profitable to me for the ministry.
2Ti 4:12  And Tychicus have I sent to Ephesus.
2Ti 4:13  The cloke that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, bring with thee, and the books, but especially the parchments.
2Ti 4:14  Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord reward him according to his works:
2Ti 4:15  Of whom be thou ware also; for he hath greatly withstood our words.
2Ti 4:16  At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me: I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge. [“Father forgive them for they know not what they do” (Luk 23:34)]
2Ti 4:17  Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear: and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.
2Ti 4:18  And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom: to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Peter was also contending with this same spirit of apostasy within the church in his epistles where he also reveals that Paul’s epistles were already canonized as scripture by the apostles:

2Pe 3:15  And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you;
2Pe 3:16  As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.
2Pe 3:17  Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness.

The apostle John was also struggling against the apostasy taking hold in the church:

3Jn 1:9  I wrote unto the church: but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them [meaning those in the church], receiveth us not.
3Jn 1:10  Wherefore, if I come, I will remember his deeds which he doeth, prating against us with malicious words: and not content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and forbiddeth them that would, and casteth them out of the church.

It was the leaders of the apostasy of the church who already had the upper hand and had the influence and the ability to cast Christ’s “disciples indeed” out of the church. Just like the Jews who were persecuting Paul, Diotrephes loved being preeminent in the church, and he hated John’s doctrines to the extent that, as a church leader, he cast those who received John’s messengers out of the church.

The gospels reveal that this same spirit, which desired preeminence, was in the Jewish leadership which hated Christ and His doctrines. That would be these Jews who were falsely accusing the apostle Paul:

Joh 11:45  [After raising Lazarus from the dead] many of the Jews which came to [Lazarus’ sister] Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on him.
Joh 11:46  But some of them went their ways to the Pharisees, and told them what things Jesus had done.
Joh 11:47  Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council, and said, What do we? for this man doeth many miracles.
Joh 11:48  If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation [and we will lose our preeminence].

Cain wanted to be preeminent over Abel, Joseph’s brothers wanted to be over Joseph, and Korah and the 250 elders wanted to be preeminent over Moses and Aaron. That is the spirit of preeminence which was driving Paul’s detractors, and that is the same spirit which withstands the Truth until this very day. The Truth is that the leaders of modern Christianity do not know the doctrine of Christ and will not be in the first resurrection. It is the same thing as telling them, “You are of your father, the devil” (Joh 8:44). For anyone to acknowledge that fact, alienates that person from the mainstream historic Christian church which speaks with such high regard about all the past church councils and synods, which came after the Jerusalem council of Acts 15. All those councils and synods were full of heresies about a triune God and another Christ who wants us to get involved in the affairs and politics of this age. All who follow them and do so will hear these words of our Lord:

Mat 7:23  And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

Such is the spirit of the leaders of “the church in the wilderness” who are seeking to kill Paul, the New Testament symbol of all who are faithful to the words of Christ. “The church in the wilderness” is the symbol of the great harlot who is also “in the spirit… in the wilderness.”

Rev 17:3  So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.

This ‘woman’ wants Paul, and all who are faithful to Christ and His doctrines, dead:

Rev 17:6  And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.

In this study Paul signifies “the saints” whom this great harlot wants to murder:

Act 25:1  Now when Festus was come into the province, after three days he ascended from Caesarea to Jerusalem.
Act 25:2  Then the high priest and the chief of the Jews informed him against Paul, and besought him,
Act 25:3  And desired favour against him, that he would send for him to Jerusalem, laying wait in the way to kill him.

The physical type must always precede the spiritual anti-type. Therefore, physical Jerusalem, the city which symbolizes the capital of the physical kingdom of God on this earth, is declared to be a spiritual harlot and a literal murderer of men:

Isa 1:21  How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers [“Drunken with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus”].
Isa 1:22  Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water: [Truth twisted into heresy]
Isa 1:23  Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them.
Isa 1:24  Therefore saith the Lord, the LORD of hosts, the mighty One of Israel, Ah, I will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies:
Isa 1:25  And I will turn my hand upon thee, [His own people] and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin:

The Lord has declared He will judge this great whore and “purge away [her] dross and take away her tin.”

The apostle Paul refers to physical Israel as an olive tree, with Christ as the root of that tree and the branches signifying physical Israel.  In Romans 11 he reveals that God has broken off the natural branches, and it is the Gentile Christian church which the Lord has “graffed” into the root of the olive tree. The natural branches were originally and physically only Jewish and of the seed of Abraham “according to the flesh”:

Act 2:29  Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day.
Act 2:30  Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne;

Heb 2:16  For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham.

The doctrine of the gospel going to the Gentiles infuriated the established ‘church in the wilderness’, the leaders, and the people of Judaism. It infuriated them because it alienated them from God, just as the doctrine of universal salvation alienates the leaders and the people of Christianity today from a God whom they teach will never do such a thing.

Paul explains this phenomenon in:

Rom 11:11  I say then, Have [the Jews] stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy.
Rom 11:12  Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness?
Rom 11:13  For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office:
Rom 11:14  If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them.
Rom 11:15  For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?
Rom 11:16  For if the firstfruit be holy, the lump is also holy: and if the root be holy, so are the branches.
Rom 11:17  And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree;
Rom 11:18  Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee.

What Paul writes in the next few verses here in Romans 11 is a prophecy of the apostasy of the Christian church itself. We will come back to Romans 11:19 in a few minutes, but first we must understand that being grafted into the spiritual “Israel of God” does not inoculate one from the scourge of apostasy any more than being the seed of Abraham, kept “those Jews which believed on [Christ]” from being “of your father the devil.”

Joh 8:43  Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word.
Joh 8:44  Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

The fact is that Christ spoke those words to ‘spiritual’ Israel, because He was speaking to “those Jews which believed on Him.”

Joh 8:30  As he spake these words, many believed on him.
Joh 8:31  Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;
Joh 8:32  And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
Joh 8:33  They answered him, We be Abraham’s seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?
Joh 8:34  Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin [even if you are Abraham’s seed and even if you do believe on Jesus].

Armed with the knowledge that believing in Jesus does not keep us from believing a lie, let’s go back to what Paul tells us in Romans 11:

Rom 11:19  Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be graffed in.
Rom 11:20 (a) Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith.

Earlier in this same epistle, Paul reveals that faith in Christ turns a physical Gentile Christian into a “spiritual… Jew”, and in the epistle to the Galatians he says that being ‘a new creature in Christ’ makes Gentiles who are in Christ “the Israel of God.”

Rom 2:28  For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: [Many professing Christians would say this verse is blatant heresy]
Rom 2:29  But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.

Gal 6:15  Certainly, it doesn’t matter whether a person is circumcised or not. Rather, what matters is being a new creation.
Gal 6:16  Peace and mercy will come to rest on all those who conform to this principle. They are the Israel of God. (GWV)

In Romans 11 the holy spirit inspired Paul to tell us that God Himself has broken off the natural branches for the purpose of grafting into His ‘olive tree’ the spiritual branches composed of physical Gentiles who now become “inward… spiritual… Jews” and therefore “the Israel of God.” Then in the very next few verses Paul gives us Gentile believers, these ‘spiritual Jews’, the exact same warning Christ gave to “those Jews which believed on Him… but could not receive His Words.”

Joh 8:31  Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;

Joh 8:37  I know that ye are Abraham’s seed; but ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you.

Few Christians have ever heard that it is entirely possible to believe in Jesus and yet “continue [not] in [His] word.” Few Christians know that there is a world of difference between being a disciple of Christ and being “[His] disciples indeed [only] if ye continue in My Word…”  Those are Christ’s words to Jews who believed on Him, and these are Paul’s words to Gentiles Christians who also believe on Him:

Rom 11:20  Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear:
Rom 11:21  For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee.
Rom 11:22  Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.
Rom 11:23  And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be graffed in: for God is able to graff them in again.
Rom 11:24  For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert graffed contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own olive tree?

Paul’s warning to us as believing Gentiles today, and to the early Gentile Christian church, is the exact same warning Christ gave to ‘those Jews which believed on Him.” Let us place John 8:31 side by side with Romans 11:22:

Jesus said to “those Jews which believed on Him”:

Joh 8:31  Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;

Paul, to believing Gentiles:

Rom 11:22  Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.

It is the same warning in both verses. ‘If [we] continue in [His] Word’ is ‘continuing in His goodness.’ “Otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.”

“Thou also shall be cut off” was a prophecy of what happened to the Gentile Christian churches before the apostles died, as is demonstrated from the words of Paul to Timothy, the words of Peter “to them that have obtained like precious faith… and the words of 3rd John to Gaius, concerning the power the apostate Diotrephes had to cast those who were continuing in Christ’s words out of the church.

The church that was conceived on the day of Pentecost in the New Testament was strongly opposed by the church in the wilderness, which in a sense was conceived on the first Pentecost in the wilderness of Sinai.

Act 7:35  This Moses whom they refused, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge? the same did God send to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel which appeared to him in the bush.
Act 7:36  He brought them out, after that he had shewed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, and in the Red sea, and in the wilderness forty years.
Act 7:37  This is that Moses, which said unto the children of Israel, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear.
Act 7:38  This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Sina, and with our fathers: who received the lively oracles to give unto us: [On the first Pentecost foreshadowing the birth of the New Testament church on that same day]

It was the concept that God would come to the Gentiles without going through physical Israel that infuriated these Jews who so hated Paul that they wanted to kill him. The same spirit of preeminence “rose up against Moses” through “Korah… Dathan and Abiram… and… two hundred and fifty princes of the assembly, famous in the congregation, men of renown.” That same spirit resides in the modern Christian church today. That spirit despises the message that “all in Adam… shall be made alive” (1Co 15:50). That spirit especially hates those who are faithful to the words of that ‘Prophet like unto Moses.’

The Christian church grew rapidly from the day of Pentecost and throughout the entire first century. It began to apostatize away from the doctrines of the apostles while the apostles were still alive to the extent that, after all the years the apostle Paul had spent raising up churches in the province of Asia, the home of “the seven churches of Asia” of Revelation 1-3, this is what the apostle Paul tells us in 1st Timothy.

1Ti 1:19  Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck:
1Ti 1:20  Of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander; whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.

In 2nd Timothy Paul reveals that the apostasy was continuing and had now encompassed “all they of Asia”, which would include “the seven churches of Asia” of the first three chapters of the book of Revelation. The fact that the entire book of Revelation is addressed to “the seven churches of Asia”, and the fact that Paul tells us “all they in Asia have forsaken me”, signifies that the apostasy of the church was a thorough apostasy and that it was completed before the apostles had all died.

2Ti 1:13  Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.
2Ti 1:14  That good thing which was committed unto thee keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us.
2Ti 1:15  This thou knowest, that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me; of whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes.
2Ti 2:16  But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness.
2Ti 2:17  And their word will eat as doth a canker: of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus;
2Ti 2:18  Who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some.

All my life I wondered how anyone could say “the resurrection is past already”. The fiery experience made it very clear how that is done. It is done by appeal to those who take pride in seeing a spiritual meaning to every word of scripture, including the word ‘resurrected’, but excludes these words:

1Co 15:22  For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
1Co 15:23  But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.
1Co 15:24  Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.
1Co 15:25  For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.
1Co 15:26  The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.

This seductive false doctrine reasons that we are spiritually crucified and raised in newness of life with Christ (Rom 6:1-4), and therefore there will be no future first resurrection. That is the false doctrine of Hymenaeus which teaches that “the resurrection is past already.” It was that same spirit which led the Catholic Church to proclaim that the kingdoms of the world had become the kingdoms of our Lord and His Christ when the Christian religion was declared to be the religion of The Holy Roman Empire.

It is because of the apostasy of the church that the entire book of Revelation is addressed to “the seven churches which are in Asia.”

Rev 1:4  John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace be unto you, and peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne;

Rev 1:10  I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet,
Rev 1:11  Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.

“The seven churches which are in Asia” and “all they which are in Asia” are the same. Both signify the complete apostasy of the Christian church which was accomplished before the apostles had died. Paul had been warned by the holy spirit that this would happen after he left Asia on his last trip up to Jerusalem to “bear witness” of the gospel to his “own kinsmen” the physical nation of Israel:

Act 20:28  Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.
Act 20:29  For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock.
Act 20:30  Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.
Act 20:31  Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears.

“Drawing away disciples after them” is just another way of saying they would be seeking preeminence among the brothers in the churches. It is the desire for preeminence which has contributed to fracturing the church of God into over 40,000 disagreeing and conflicting denominations of men. Any church which is a legal entity is owned by a man or a group of men. That fact alone disqualifies that church from being led by Christ, who is not a ‘legal entity’ which is an organization of men. The “body of Christ” is not a legal organization of men. Rather, He is a living spiritual organism of which He is the head and which is united by the Truth which He IS.

Joh 14:6  Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
Joh 14:7  If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.

This is the spirit that was in the church in the wilderness which has risen up against the Lord’s Christ in the person of the apostle Paul. The Lord’s Christ is the apple of His eye, and He has never forsaken His elect. Even Festus, the new governor of Judea, is caused to be Paul’s protection against the roving lion who is seeking whom he may devour:

Act 25:4  But Festus answered, that Paul should be kept at Caesarea, and that he himself would depart shortly thither.
Act 25:5  Let them therefore, said he, which among you are able, go down with me, and accuse this man, if there be any wickedness in him.
Act 25:6  And when he had tarried among them more than ten days, he went down unto Caesarea; and the next day sitting on the judgment seat commanded Paul to be brought.

Informing us that Festus remained in Jerusalem “more than ten days” tells us that Festus, who was caused by the Lord Himself to protect the Lord’s elect, was nevertheless comfortable and right at home there with those carnal-minded Jews. It was in Jerusalem, which signifies Babylon, that the Jews felt strong enough to kill Paul who signifies God’s elect in every generation. Nevertheless, the Lord causes Festus to declare that the judgment of Paul would be done in Caesarea, and the Jews who were willing and able would have to go with him down to Caesarea to falsely accuse Paul once again.

Act 25:7  And when he was come, the Jews which came down from Jerusalem stood round about, and laid many and grievous complaints against Paul, which they could not prove.

They were the same false accusations made by “the Jews of Asia” who accused Paul of taking a Greek into the temple and of teaching the Jews which were among the Gentiles to forsake Moses and not circumcise their children. They also accused Paul of fomenting an insurrection against Caesar by proclaiming that Christ is a king.

Act 25:8  While he answered for himself, Neither against the law of the Jews, neither against the temple, nor yet against Caesar, have I offended any thing at all.
Act 25:9  But Festus, willing to do the Jews a pleasure, answered Paul, and said, Wilt thou go up to Jerusalem, and there be judged of these things before me?

Paul knew that “above forty” [starving] men had taken a vow to neither eat nor drink until Paul was dead. He knew better than to agree to going back into spiritual Babylon to be judged.

Act 25:10  Then said Paul, I stand at Caesar’s judgment seat, where I ought to be judged: to the Jews have I done no wrong, as thou very well knowest.
Act 25:11  For if I be an offender, or have committed any thing worthy of death, I refuse not to die: but if there be none of these things whereof these accuse me, no man may deliver me unto them. I appeal unto Caesar.
Act 25:12  Then Festus, when he had conferred with the council, answered, Hast thou appealed unto Caesar? unto Caesar shalt thou go.

Now the Lord’s promise to Paul that he would testify for Him in Rome is about to come to pass, but not before Paul is given the opportunity to share the gospel of Christ with King Agrippa and Bernice.

Act 25:13  And after certain days king Agrippa and Bernice came unto Caesarea to salute Festus.
Act 25:14  And when they had been there many days, Festus declared Paul’s cause unto the king, saying, There is a certain man left in bonds by Felix:
Act 25:15  About whom, when I was at Jerusalem, the chief priests and the elders of the Jews informed me, desiring to have judgment against him.
Act 25:16  To whom I answered, It is not the manner of the Romans to deliver any man to die, before that he which is accused have the accusers face to face, and have licence to answer for himself concerning the crime laid against him.
Act 25:17  Therefore, when they were come hither, without any delay on the morrow I sat on the judgment seat, and commanded the man to be brought forth.
Act 25:18  Against whom when the accusers stood up, they brought none accusation of such things as I supposed:
Act 25:19  But had certain questions against him of their own superstition, and of one Jesus, which was dead, whom Paul affirmed to be alive.
Act 25:20  And because I doubted of such manner of questions, I asked him whether he would go to Jerusalem, and there be judged of these matters.
Act 25:21  But when Paul had appealed to be reserved unto the hearing of Augustus, I commanded him to be kept till I might send him to Caesar.
Act 25:22  Then Agrippa said unto Festus, I would also hear the man myself. To morrow, said he [Festus], thou shalt hear him.
Act 25:23  And on the morrow, when Agrippa was come, and Bernice, with great pomp, and was entered into the place of hearing, with the chief captains, and principal men of the city, at Festus’ commandment Paul was brought forth.

The scholars agree that this King Agrippa is the son of Herod Agrippa who had the apostle James, the brother of John, who were the sons of Zebedee, killed, and who was eaten of worms. They also tell us that Bernice was the sister of Felix’s wife, Drucilla. Both women were Jewesses.

Here are John Gill’s comments concerning this King Agrippa:

Act 25:24  And Festus said, King Agrippa, and all men which are here present with us, ye see this man, about whom all the multitude of the Jews have dealt with me, both at Jerusalem, and also here, crying that he ought not to live any longer.
Act 25:25  But when I found that he had committed nothing worthy of death, and that he himself hath appealed to Augustus, I have determined to send him.
Act 25:26  Of whom I have no certain thing to write unto my lord. Wherefore I have brought him forth before you, and specially before thee, O king Agrippa, that, after examination had, I might have somewhat to write.
Act 25:27  For it seemeth to me unreasonable to send a prisoner, and not withal to signify the crimes laid against him.

Paul will now, once again, have the privilege of speaking the Truth about the kingdom of God, and he is enjoying every minute of doing so.

King Agrippa and Bernice were both Jews and while Festus, the Roman governor of Judea, is asking for Agrippa’s Jewish point of view to assist him in what to say of Paul when he sends him to Augustus Caesar, the Lord is using Paul’s legal issue to give His chosen physical nation many opportunities to hear His Word. He has also hardened their hearts, but He must still give them a witness, thereby giving Himself the occasion He is seeking to judge them for their rejection of Him and His doctrine, just as He gave so many signs and wonders as a witness against Pharaoh, whom He had raised up for the very purpose of displaying His power over this physical realm.

Rom 9:15  For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
Rom 9:16  So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.
Rom 9:17  For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.
Rom 9:18  Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.
Rom 9:19  Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
Rom 9:20  Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?
Rom 9:21  Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?
Rom 9:22  What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
Rom 9:23  And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,
Rom 9:24  Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?

There is no room in any of those verses for the false doctrine of ‘free moral agency’.

]]> The Book of Jeremiah – Jer 14:13-22 The Prophets Prophesy Lies in My Name https://www.iswasandwillbe.com/the-book-of-jeremiah-jer-1413-22-the-prophets-prophesy-lies-in-my-name/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-book-of-jeremiah-jer-1413-22-the-prophets-prophesy-lies-in-my-name Sat, 31 Jul 2021 18:54:50 +0000 https://www.iswasandwillbe.com/?p=24042 Jer 14:13-22 The Prophets Prophesy Lies In My Name
[Study Aired August 1, 2021]

Jer 14:13-Then said I, Ah, Lord GOD! behold, the prophets say unto them, Ye shall not see the sword, neither shall ye have famine; but I will give you assured peace in this place.
Jer 14:14  Then the LORD said unto me, The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto them: they prophesy unto you a false vision and divination, and a thing of nought, and the deceit of their heart.
Jer 14:15  Therefore thus saith the LORD concerning the prophets that prophesy in my name, and I sent them not, yet they say, Sword and famine shall not be in this land; By sword and famine shall those prophets be consumed.
Jer 14:16  And the people to whom they prophesy shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword; and they shall have none to bury them, them, their wives, nor their sons, nor their daughters: for I will pour their wickedness upon them.
Jer 14:17  Therefore thou shalt say this word unto them; Let mine eyes run down with tears night and day, and let them not cease: for the virgin daughter of my people is broken with a great breach, with a very grievous blow.
Jer 14:18  If I go forth into the field, then behold the slain with the sword! and if I enter into the city, then behold them that are sick with famine! yea, both the prophet and the priest go about into a land that they know not.
Jer 14:19  Hast thou utterly rejected Judah? hath thy soul lothed Zion? why hast thou smitten us, and there is no healing for us? we looked for peace, and there is no good; and for the time of healing, and behold trouble!
Jer 14:20  We acknowledge, O LORD, our wickedness, and the iniquity of our fathers: for we have sinned against thee.
Jer 14:21  Do not abhor us, for thy name’s sake, do not disgrace the throne of thy glory: remember, break not thy covenant with us.
Jer 14:22  Are there any among the vanities of the Gentiles that can cause rain? or can the heavens give showers? art not thou he, O LORD our God? therefore we will wait upon thee: for thou hast made all these things.

In our last study, we were reminded of how we have all wandered away from the Lord and His Words:

Jer 14:10  Thus saith the LORD unto this people, Thus have they loved to wander, they have not refrained their feet, therefore the LORD doth not accept them; he will now remember their iniquity, and visit their sins.

When we wander away from the Lord and listen to the false doctrines of false apostles, then all the faithful, who have been down that path before us and have been brought back to the Lord, are instructed:

Jer 14:11  Then said the LORD unto me, Pray not for this people for their good.
Jer 14:12  When they fast, I will not hear their cry; and when they offer burnt offering and an oblation, I will not accept them: but I will consume them by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence.

The Lord is not at all hesitant to let us know who it is that makes us to wander and to err from His ways:

Isa 63:17  O LORD, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our heart from thy fear? Return for thy servants’ sake, the tribes of thine inheritance.

We have all been deceived by idols of our hearts, and again the Lord tells us who was responsible for our deception:

Eze 14:9  And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the LORD have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel.

The Mike Vinson who believed in eternal torment as a Pentecostal has been and is being destroyed. The Mike Vinson who believed in keeping the weekly sabbath and the holy days as a member of the World Wide Church of God has been destroyed and is being crucified with Christ, and the Mike Vinson who believed that Christ did everything on the cross and that there is nothing left of His afflictions for me to fill up in my flesh has also been destroyed and is being destroyed from the midst of the Lord’s people as I die daily to all those false and damnable doctrines.

Nevertheless, the Lord wants us to acknowledge our sins and transgressions and our iniquities and remember the pit from where we were dug:

Isa 51:1  Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the LORD: look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged.

Jer 3:13  Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the LORD thy God, and hast scattered thy ways to the strangers under every green tree, and ye have not obeyed my voice, saith the LORD.
Jer 3:14  Turn, O backsliding children, saith the LORD; for I am married unto you: and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion:

The Lord will indeed deliver His people and bring them to Zion, but He must first put them in bondage. Joseph had to be sold into Egypt, and Israel had to go into Egypt before they could be delivered from Egypt. The Lord tells us that Joseph’s betrayal by his ten brothers was His work and “it was not [their work]”:

Gen 45:4  And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt.
Gen 45:5  Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life.
Gen 45:6  For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and yet there are five years, in the which there shall neither be earing nor harvest.
Gen 45:7  And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.
Gen 45:8  So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.

In Ezekiel 14:9 the Lord plainly reveals that when a prophet is deceived, it is because He, the Lord Himself, sent a lying spirit to deceive that prophet, and He hardened the heart of that prophet to keep that prophet from fearing to displease the Lord. That is what is revealed in the story of how the Lord caused Ahab to go up to die at Ramothgilead:

1Ki 22:13  And the messenger that was gone to call Micaiah spake unto him, saying, Behold now, the words of the prophets declare good unto the king with one mouth: let thy word, I pray thee, be like the word of one of them, and speak that which is good.
1Ki 22:14  And Micaiah said, As the LORD liveth, what the LORD saith unto me, that will I speak.
1Ki 22:15  So he came to the king. And the king said unto him, Micaiah, shall we go against Ramothgilead to battle, or shall we forbear? And he answered him, Go, and prosper: for the LORD shall deliver it into the hand of the king.
1Ki 22:16  And the king said unto him, How many times shall I adjure thee that thou tell me nothing but that which is true in the name of the LORD?
1Ki 22:17  And he said, I saw all Israel scattered upon the hills, as sheep that have not a shepherd: and the LORD said, These have no master: let them return every man to his house in peace.
1Ki 22:18  And the king of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat, Did I not tell thee that he would prophesy no good concerning me, but evil?
1Ki 22:19  And he said, Hear thou therefore the word of the LORD: I saw the LORD sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left.
1Ki 22:20  And the LORD said, Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramothgilead? And one said on this manner, and another said on that manner.
1Ki 22:21  And there came forth a spirit, and stood before the LORD, and said, I will persuade him.
1Ki 22:22  And the LORD said unto him, Wherewith? And he said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt persuade him, and prevail also: go forth, and do so.
1Ki 22:23  Now therefore, behold, the LORD hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the LORD hath spoken evil concerning thee.

God is called “the Father of spirits” – both the good and the evil spirits:

Heb 12:9  Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?

What a wonderful revelation of how the Lord uses His evil spirits of His adversary to accomplish His purpose of destroying our old man… “The Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these… prophets”.  Ahab’s prophets knew what King Ahab wanted to hear, and that was what they prophesied. The very last thing our flesh wants to hear, and the last thing the kings of this world want to hear is that they will be judged by the Lord for ignoring Him and His Words. So, we prophesy about a secret rapture, a place of safety, or we prophesy that it is all spiritual and inward and there will never be a literal resurrection to life which precedes a resurrection to judgment.

Jer 14:13  Then said I, Ah, Lord GOD! behold, the prophets say unto them, Ye shall not see the sword, neither shall ye have famine; but I will give you assured peace in this place.

Joh 5:27  And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man.
Joh 5:28  Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice,
Joh 5:29  And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation [Greek: ‘krisis’, judgment]

Inwardly we tell ourselves that God will not judge us, and we will not reap what we have sown and are sowing. “You will not see the sword, neither… have famine” denies that these words are true:

1Co 3:13  Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.

Gal 6:7  Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
Gal 6:8  For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.

Heb 12:6  For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.

This lying spirit takes many forms, from the false doctrine of substitutionary atonement to the secret rapture or a place of safety from God’s wrath against our sins. This spirit will even tell us that there is no difference between the first and second resurrection, and therefore there is no need to strive to be in the first resurrection. I have had people come up to me and tell me just that. When I read Revelation 20:6 to them they were so blinded by another false doctrine called ‘the doctrine of two administrations’ that they said those words, “The entire book of Revelation is addressed only to physical Jews.” All these false doctrines are what the scriptures call “smooth things” that appeal to our flesh which abhors the ‘chastening’ of Hebrews 12:6, the fire that tries every man’s works of 1Corinthians 3:13, and the ‘reap what you sow’ of Galatians 6:7:

Isa 30:8  Now go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever:
Isa 30:9  That this is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the LORD:
Isa 30:10  Which say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits:

The Lord warns us:

Jer 14:14  Then the LORD said unto me, The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto them: they prophesy unto you a false vision and divination, and a thing of nought, and the deceit of their heart.

All false doctrines are “the deceit of [our] heart”, and Christ amplifies our understanding of who “the prophets [who] prophesy lies in [His] name” are when He tells us:

Mat 24:5  For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.

While the original apostles were still alive, the apostle John confirmed these words of Christ when he wrote:

1Jn 4:1  Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.

Before the apostle John died, some of the very people he had led to Christ were casting the people John sent to them out of the church:

3Jn 1:9  I wrote unto the church: but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them, receiveth us not.
3Jn 1:10  Wherefore, if I come, I will remember his deeds which he doeth, prating against us with malicious words: and not content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and forbiddeth them that would, and casteth them out of the church.

The apostle Paul began to witness the apostasy of the very churches Christ had used him to establish. He even named two of the first apostates in his first epistle to Timothy:

1Ti 1:19  Holding faith, and a good conscience;  which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck:
1Ti 1:20  Of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander; whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.

In his second epistle to Timothy, the apostle Paul reveals that the apostasy of all the churches of Asia, which would include the seven churches of Revelation 2-3, had already occurred while he was yet in prison in Rome. Paul names several more of the leaders of the apostasy:

2Ti 1:15  This thou knowest, that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me; of whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes.

In this second epistle to Timothy, Paul warned him of some within the church who were already “subverting… the hearers”, revealing the names of more of the original apostates:

2Ti 2:14  Of these things put them in remembrance, charging them before the Lord that they strive not about words to no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers.

2Ti 2:17  And their word will eat as doth a canker: of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus;
2Ti 2:18  Who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some.

This “deceit of [the] heart” of Hymenaeus and Philetus is the very deceit which took so many out of our fellowship. It is true that we are inwardly being raised up with Christ, as our old man dies day by day:

Rom 6:4  Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

Being inwardly in the process of dying with and being resurrected with Christ does not change the fact that those in the first resurrection will first outwardly relinquish these bodies of flesh and blood (1Co 15:50) before they will be granted to rule the earth with Christ for “a thousand years”. The spiritual process of dying daily while our old man is being destroyed and replaced by a new man does not provide the saviors of the “ungodly and sinners” who are not being called in this age. The vast multitudes of mankind have never heard of or known the Christ of scripture. As the Lord’s elect, we are to be the saviors of this world through a resurrection which has not yet taken place while we are yet clothed in these clay vessels:

2Co 5:1  For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
2Co 5:2  For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven:
2Co 5:3  If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked.
2Co 5:4  For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.
2Co 5:5  Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit.
2Co 5:6  Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord:
2Co 5:7  (For we walk by faith, not by [physical] sight: )
2Co 5:8  We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.
2Co 5:9  Wherefore we labour, that, whether present [in a physical body] or absent [from a physical body], we may be accepted of him.
2Co 5:10  For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.

Look at how Strong’s defines the word translated as ‘absent’ in these verses:

This word ekdemeo is a compound of G1537 and G1218. Let’s look at these two words and see if we can understand what Paul is telling us when he writes that if we are present in these physical bodies, we are absent from Christ:

There is the meaning of the Greek word G1553, ekdemeo, translated here as ‘absent’.

It means ‘out’ or ‘away from… people’. It means out of these physical, earthly… vessels of clay. It most definitely does not mean that Christ is not in us, nor does it mean that we will not be in the first resurrection as long as Christ is within us in this present time. Insisting that when Paul said that being “absent from Christ” while in these clay vessels means that Christ is not in us, or that we cannot know Him while we are in this physical body, is just one more false doctrine which will lead one to think that “Ye shall not surely die”, ‘you have an immortal soul which will be with Christ when you are absent from this body’. That is but another false doctrine.

Ecc 9:5  For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.

Joh 11:11  These things said he: and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.

Joh 11:14  Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead.

This is the fate which awaits all false prophets who are teaching that there is a way to avoid the Lord’s judgments:

Jer 14:15  Therefore thus saith the LORD concerning the prophets that prophesy in my name, and I sent them not, yet they say, Sword and famine shall not be in this land; By sword and famine shall those prophets be consumed.
Jer 14:16  And the people to whom they prophesy shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword; and they shall have none to bury them, them, their wives, nor their sons, nor their daughters: for I will pour their wickedness upon them.

By the sword of God’s Word, of which they are so lacking, in a spiritual famine those prophets shall be consumed, and all who follow their famished and starving lies will receive the same fate.

Ezekiel repeats this prophecy of God Himself deceiving us and then judging us for believing the lies of the false prophets He sends to deceive us:

Eze 14:1  Then came certain of the elders of Israel unto me, and sat before me.
Eze 14:2  And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
Eze 14:3  Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their heart, and put the stumblingblock of their iniquity before their face: should I be enquired of at all by them?
Eze 14:4  Therefore speak unto them, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Every man of the house of Israel that setteth up his idols in his heart, and putteth the stumblingblock of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to the prophet; I the LORD will answer him that cometh according to the multitude of his idols;
Eze 14:5  That I may take the house of Israel in their own heart, because they are all estranged from me through their idols. [Their false doctrines]
Eze 14:6  Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Repent, and turn yourselves from your idols; and turn away your faces from all your abominations.
Eze 14:7  For every one of the house of Israel, or of the stranger that sojourneth in Israel, which separateth himself from me, and setteth up his idols in his heart, and putteth the stumblingblock of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to a prophet to enquire of him concerning me; I the LORD will answer him by myself: [Self-righteously thinking that his lies are as nourishing as the Lord’s Truths]
Eze 14:8  And I will set my face against that man, and will make him a sign and a proverb, and I will cut him off from the midst of my people; and ye shall know that I am the LORD.
Eze 14:9  And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the LORD have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel.
Eze 14:10  And they shall bear the punishment of their iniquity: the punishment of the prophet shall be even as the punishment of him that seeketh unto him;
Eze 14:11  That the house of Israel may go no more astray from me, neither be polluted any more with all their transgressions; but that they may be my people, and I may be their God, saith the Lord GOD.

Putting all these verses together we have “The Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these… prophets” (1Kgs 22:23), the Lord first formed us of “marred… clay” (Jer 18:4). He made us all “corruption” (1Co 15:50), He put “the law of sin in [our] members” (Rom 7:23), and He does all of this because He has ordained that He must give Himself the necessary “occasion” He is seeking (Jdg 14:4), to destroy our “man of sin” and replace him with “a new man… Christ in [us] the hope of glory” (Col 1:27) :

Jer 14:17  Therefore thou shalt say this word unto them; Let mine eyes run down with tears night and day, and let them not cease: for the virgin daughter of my people is broken with a great breach, with a very grievous blow.

This being “broken with a great breach” is believing the lies of the prophets who have prophesied lies which the Lord did not send them to prophesy (vs 13-14). We live our lives by what we believe, and when we believe a lie, we “[are] broken with a great break [and] with a very grievous blow”, and if we are not granted repentance in “this present time” we will be damned to the great white throne judgment/lake of fire/second death:

2Th 2:11  And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
2Th 2:12  That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

God is orchestrating everything including “the preparations of our “deceitful” hearts:

Pro 16:1  The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the LORD.

Jer 17:9  The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

It was the Lord who gave us our “deceitful… heart”, and He did so for the very purpose of giving Himself the “occasion” He is seeking to judge our sinful flesh and declare it unfit for the kingdom of heaven. As He tells us in the very next verse of:

Jer 17:10  I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and  according to the fruit of his doings.

This is what we get for our ways, and this is the fruit of our doing:

Jer 14:18  If I go forth into the field, then behold the slain with the sword! and if I enter into the city, then behold them that are sick with famine! yea, both the prophet and the priest go about into a land that they know not.

“The field” is the secular world which hates the great harlot, and “the city” is the great whore herself, “the great city wherein our Lord was crucified”:

Rev 11:8  And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.

It is the Lord Himself who closes in on us and presses us on every side. Even our enemies are His servants to effectuate our chastening and scourging (Heb 12:6):

Jer 8:12  Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore shall they fall among them that fall: in the time of their visitation they shall be cast down, saith the LORD.
Jer 8:13  I will surely consume them, saith the LORD: there shall be no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree, and the leaf shall fade; and the things that I have given them shall pass away from them.
Jer 8:14  Why do we sit still? assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the defenced cities, and let us be silent there: for the LORD our God hath put us to silence, and given us water of gall to drink, because we have sinned against the LORD.
Jer 8:15  We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of health, and behold trouble!
Jer 8:16  The snorting of his horses was heard from Dan: the whole land trembled at the sound of the neighing of his strong ones; for they are come, and have devoured the land, and all that is in it; the city, and those that dwell therein.
Jer 8:17  For, behold, I will send serpents, cockatrices, among you, which will not be charmed, and they shall bite you, saith the LORD.

Heb 12:6  For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.

In His chastening of us, our enemies become the Lord’s servants:

Jer 27:6  And now have I given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant; and the beasts of the field have I given him also to serve him.

It is important to understand that while we are in bondage in Babylon, we do not perceive that we are mere slaves of a whore. We think we are the captains of the fate of our own souls and that we are “rich and increased with goods, and have need of nothing”:

Rev 3:17  Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:

We think we are so blessed by God that we are able to do many wonderful works of kindness to our fellow man, and therefore God should be pleased with us, and when He sends His prophets to show us our own self-righteousness, and tell us that we have not obeyed His words, then just like Job and later, King Saul, we maintain our  own righteousness, and in the process of doing so, we find ourselves to be reproving, contending with and condemning our own Maker to make ourselves appear righteous:

Job 27:2  As God liveth, who hath taken away my judgment; and the Almighty, who hath vexed my soul;

Job 27:5  God forbid that I should justify you: till I die I will not remove mine integrity from me.
Job 27:6  My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go: my heart shall not reproach me so long as I live.
Job 27:7  Let mine enemy be as the wicked, and he that riseth up against me as the unrighteous.

Eze 33:13  When I shall say to the righteous, that he shall surely live; if he trust to his own righteousness, and commit iniquity, all his righteousnesses shall not be remembered; but for his iniquity that he hath committed, he shall die for it.

Like King Saul, we want to obey the Lord to the degree we are comfortable serving and obeying Him. But God does not tolerate rebellion against His Words. Keeping some of His Words does not qualify as obedience:

1Sa 15:13  And Samuel came to Saul: and Saul said unto him, Blessed be thou of the LORD: I have performed the commandment of the LORD.
1Sa 15:14  And Samuel said, What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?
1Sa 15:15  And Saul said, They have brought them from the Amalekites: for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen, to sacrifice unto the LORD thy God; and the rest we have utterly destroyed.
1Sa 15:16  Then Samuel said unto Saul, Stay, and I will tell thee what the LORD hath said to me this night. And he said unto him, Say on.
1Sa 15:17  And Samuel said, When thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel, and the LORD anointed thee king over Israel?
1Sa 15:18  And the LORD sent thee on a journey, and said, Go and utterly destroy the sinners the Amalekites, and fight against them until they be consumed.
1Sa 15:19  Wherefore then didst thou not obey the voice of the LORD, but didst fly upon the spoil, and didst evil in the sight of the LORD?
1Sa 15:20  And Saul said unto Samuel, Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the LORD, and have gone the way which the LORD sent me, and have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites.
1Sa 15:21  But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the chief of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice unto the LORD thy God in Gilgal.
1Sa 15:22  And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.
1Sa 15:23  For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king.

Partial self-righteous obedience is the same as “witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry” and is rewarded with our rejection of the Lord.

Jer 14:19  Hast thou utterly rejected Judah? hath thy soul lothed Zion? why hast thou smitten us, and there is no healing for us? we looked for peace, and there is no good; and for the time of healing, and behold trouble!

“Why have you smitten us, and is there no healing for us?” is answered in the previous chapter:

Jer 13:22  And if thou say in thine heart, Wherefore come these things upon me? For the greatness of thine iniquity are thy skirts discovered, and thy heels made bare.

God’s judgments are intended to bring us to repentance and a humble acknowledgement of our rebellious spirit:

Jer 3:13  Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the LORD thy God, and hast scattered thy ways to the strangers under every green tree, and ye have not obeyed my voice, saith the LORD.
Jer 3:14  Turn, O backsliding children, saith the LORD; for I am married unto you: and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion:
Jer 3:15  And I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding.

When we are obedient to these words and we are granted heartfelt repentance, it is in the Lord’s heart to give us pastors who will feed us with His words and remind us of His righteous judgments.

Jer 14:20  We acknowledge, O LORD, our wickedness, and the iniquity of our fathers: for we have sinned against thee.
Jer 14:21  Do not abhor us, for thy name’s sake, do not disgrace the throne of thy glory: remember, break not thy covenant with us.
Jer 14:22  Are there any among the vanities of the Gentiles that can cause rain? or can the heavens give showers? art not thou he, O LORD our God? therefore we will wait upon thee: for thou hast made all these things.

“The vanities of the Gentiles” are all the false doctrines and lies we believe instead of the words of God. ‘Rain’ signifies the truth of the Word of God which produces nourishing spiritual food which the lies and “vanities of the Gentiles” can never produce within us.

The rains come out of heaven, but the heavens within us are being created by God, and of themselves they produce nothing:

Gen 1:1  In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

Joh 15:5  I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

Here is a link to an article which shows what and where the heavens of the scriptures are:
What and Where is Heaven?

We are blessed to know to “wait upon [the Lord who] made all these things” and who alone can and will meet and provide our ‘rain’ and our every need. “We will wait upon thee: for thou hast made all these things.”

We will close this study with this confirming verse from the apostle Paul:

Php 4:19  But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.

That is our study for today. Here are our verses for our next study:

Jer 15:1  Then said the LORD unto me, Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be toward this people: cast them out of my sight, and let them go forth.
Jer 15:2  And it shall come to pass, if they say unto thee, Whither shall we go forth? then thou shalt tell them, Thus saith the LORD; Such as are for death, to death; and such as are  for the sword, to the sword; and such as are for the famine, to the famine; and such as are for the captivity, to the captivity.
Jer 15:3  And I will appoint over them four kinds, saith the LORD: the sword to slay, and the dogs to tear, and the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the earth, to devour and destroy.
Jer 15:4  And I will cause them to be removed into all kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh the son of Hezekiah king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem.
Jer 15:5  For who shall have pity upon thee, O Jerusalem? or who shall bemoan thee? or who shall go aside to ask how thou doest?
Jer 15:6  Thou hast forsaken me, saith the LORD, thou art gone backward: therefore will I stretch out my hand against thee, and destroy thee; I am weary with repenting.
Jer 15:7  And I will fan them with a fan in the gates of the land; I will bereave them of children, I will destroy my people, since they return not from their ways.
Jer 15:8  Their widows are increased to me above the sand of the seas: I have brought upon them against the mother of the young men a spoiler at noonday: I have caused him to fall upon it suddenly, and terrors upon the city.
Jer 15:9  She that hath borne seven languisheth: she hath given up the ghost; her sun is gone down while it was yet day: she hath been ashamed and confounded: and the residue of them will I deliver to the sword before their enemies, saith the LORD.

]]> The Book of Jeremiah – Jer 11:13-23 Pray Not for This People https://www.iswasandwillbe.com/the-book-of-jeremiah-jer-1113-23-pray-not-for-this-people/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-book-of-jeremiah-jer-1113-23-pray-not-for-this-people Sat, 19 Jun 2021 21:17:19 +0000 https://www.iswasandwillbe.com/?p=23752

Jer 11:13-23 Pray Not for This People

[Study Aired June 20, 2021]

Jer 11:13  For according to the number of thy cities were thy gods, O Judah; and according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem have ye set up altars to that shameful thing, even altars to burn incense unto Baal.
Jer 11:14  Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up a cry or prayer for them: for I will not hear them in the time that they cry unto me for their trouble.
Jer 11:15  What hath my beloved to do in mine house, seeing she hath wrought lewdness with many, and the holy flesh is passed from thee? when thou doest evil, then thou rejoicest.
Jer 11:16  The LORD called thy name, A green olive tree, fair, and of goodly fruit: with the noise of a great tumult he hath kindled fire upon it, and the branches of it are broken.
Jer 11:17  For the LORD of hosts, that planted thee, hath pronounced evil against thee, for the evil of the house of Israel and of the house of Judah, which they have done against themselves to provoke me to anger in offering incense unto Baal.
Jer 11:18  And the LORD hath given me knowledge of it, and I know it: then thou shewedst me their doings.
Jer 11:19  But I was like a lamb or an ox that is brought to the slaughter; and I knew not that they had devised devices against me, saying, Let us destroy the tree with the fruit thereof, and let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name may be no more remembered.
Jer 11:20  But, O LORD of hosts, that judgest righteously, that triest the reins and the heart, let me see thy vengeance on them: for unto thee have I revealed my cause.
Jer 11:21  Therefore thus saith the LORD of the men of Anathoth, that seek thy life, saying, Prophesy not in the name of the LORD, that thou die not by our hand:
Jer 11:22  Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, Behold, I will punish them: the young men shall die by the sword; their sons and their daughters shall die by famine:
Jer 11:23  And there shall be no remnant of them: for I will bring evil upon the men of Anathoth, even the year of their visitation.

Here are the last two verses of our previous study and a few words of that commentary:

The “gods unto whom they offer incense: but they shall not save them at all in the time of their trouble” refers to our heart’s idols (Eze 14:1-9). The false doctrine of a secret rapture or a place of safety will not save us from the day of the Lord’s wrath upon the kingdom of our old man.

We concluded that study with the recognition that it is through the Lord’s judgments we learn righteousness:

Isa 26:8  Yea, in the way of thy judgments, O LORD, have we waited for thee; the desire of our soul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee.
Isa 26:9  With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.

The only way we “will learn righteousness” is “in the way of [our Lord’s] judgments”. We are told that all the judgments of the Old Testament are types of our own judgment:

1Co 10:11  Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples [G5179: ‘tupos’, types]: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.

Here is how this Greek word ‘tupos’ is translated in the Concordant Literal Version of verse 6 of this same chapter:

1Co 10:6 Now these things became types of us, for us not to be lusters after evil things, (CLV)

Being “types of us” obviously does not mean that we must literally eat of the physical tree of the knowledge of good and evil, commit physical adultery and then literally murder a man to cover up our adultery as King David did with Bathsheba. Nor does it mean that we each must literally kill the prophets or literally nail Christ to the cross. So, what is the meaning of “the way of thy judgments”?

Christ answers this question for us and makes clear “the way of [His] judgments”. First, He poses a couple of questions for us to contemplate:

Luk 13:1  There were present at that season some that told him of the Galilaeans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.
Luk 13:2  And Jesus answering said unto them,  Suppose ye that these Galilaeans were sinners above all the Galilaeans, because they suffered such things?
Luk 13:3  I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
Luk 13:4  Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem?
Luk 13:5 I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.

Our Lord’s words, “Suppose ye…” indicate that is exactly what those who were telling Him of what Pilate had done to these men were “supposing”. That is just the way we all just naturally think. Why in the world would the Lord consider you or me to be worthy of the same deaths as those whose blood Pilate mingled with their sacrifices? Why would He consider you or me to be worthy of dying as untimely a death as those on whom the tower in Siloam fell?

The scriptures answer that question, and in doing so reveal the meaning of “the way of [His] judgments”.

This is “the way of His judgments”:

Mat 23:29  Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous,
Mat 23:30  And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.
Mat 23:31  Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that  ye are the children of them which killed the prophets.
Mat 23:32  Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers.
Mat 23:33  Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?
Mat 23:34  Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city:
Mat 23:35  That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.
Mat 23:36  Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.

There it is! The reason we are just as worthy of death as the men whose blood Pilate mingled with their sacrifices, and the reason we are just as worthy of death as the eighteen men upon whom the tower in Siloam fell is that we are no better than any of them, and “all the righteous blood shed upon the earth from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zacharias… may be required of this generation” reading these words, as Luke tells us:

Luk 11:48  Truly ye bear witness that ye allow the deeds of your fathers: for they indeed killed them, and ye build their sepulchres.
Luk 11:49  Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and persecute:
Luk 11:50  That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation;
Luk 11:51  From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation.

Notice that the word ‘some’ is in italics in the King James Version. Italics in the King James indicates that the word is not in the original Greek manuscripts and was added by the translators. I have emboldened that word to make the point that it simply does not belong in the 34th verse of Matthew 23, or in the 49th verse of Luke 11. As we will see in a few moments, Young’s Literal Version leaves out the word ‘some’ in Matthew 23:34, but even Young’s fails to catch this mistake in Luke 11:49.

Before we read Young’s version of these verses containing the word ‘some’, let’s look at this question which the first Christian martyr, Stephen, posed to this very same ‘generation’:

Act 7:52  Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them  which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers:

The obvious implied answer to Stephen’s question is that there was not one single prophet of God who had not been rejected and persecuted by the established religious leaders of their day. It certainly was not “some of them”. No, it is every single true prophet who is always rejected and persecuted by the religious establishment of their day.

I used to read these verses stating that the blood of all the prophets would be required “of this generation” and I thought, “Wow, that must have been an exceptionally wicked generation into which Christ was born over 2,000 years ago!” Such thinking is that of a spiritual babe who has missed the entire point the Lord is making. That point is that the sins of all men of all time, from Adam to the great white throne judgment, are found within the flesh of every one of us who are “in Adam”. In that sense we are one and all guilty of the blood of all the prophets and the blood of Christ Himself. It is in that sense that you and I, along with all the rest of mankind, are guilty of all evil done from Adam to the great white throne judgment:

Luk 11:50  That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation;
Luk 11:51  From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation.

That is “the way of [His] judgments”.

It is you and I who say, “If I had lived in the days of our fathers, I would not have partaken of the blood of the prophets…. I am not as wicked as those men whose blood Pilate mingled with their sacrifice, nor the men on whom the tower in Siloam fell. If I had lived in Christ’s day, I would not have crucified Him.” Nothing is further from the Truth. All the wickedness that has happened from Adam until now, and all the wickedness which will happen from Adam to the great white throne judgment, is in your flesh and in my flesh, and it is in that sense we are all guilty of all of those sins, including a self-righteous spirit which tells us we would never in a thousand years be that wicked when this is the Truth of the Lord’s very elect before “judgment… begins with us”:

Lam 1:8  Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed: all that honoured her despise her,  because they have seen her nakedness: yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.
Lam 1:9  Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end; therefore she came down wonderfully [“Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen…”]: she had no comforter. O LORD, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified himself.

“Jerusalem [the Lord’s very elect] has [at first] sinned grievously… therefore she came down wonderfully [and] she had no comforter”. It was not “some of them” whom she had persecuted and killed. It was all the Lord’s Truths and all His prophets telling us of His judgments that we have rejected and killed. Young’s Literal Version caught the fact that the word ‘some’ did not belong in Matthew 23:34:

Mat 23:29  `Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and adorn the tombs of the righteous,
Mat 23:30  and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.
Mat 23:31  So that ye testify to yourselves, that ye are sons of them who did murder the prophets;
Mat 23:32  and ye–ye fill up the measure of your fathers.
Mat 23:33  `Serpents! brood of vipers! how may ye escape from the judgment of the gehenna?
Mat 23:34  `Because of this, lo, I send to you prophets, and wise men, and scribes, and of them ye will kill and crucify, and of them ye will scourge in your synagogues, and will pursue from city to city;
Mat 23:35  that on you may come all the righteous blood being poured out on the earth from the blood of Abel the righteous, unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the sanctuary and the altar:
Mat 23:36  verily I say to you, all these things shall come upon this generation. (YLT)

The religious world loves its own false prophets who speak only smooth things:

Isa 30:9  That this is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the LORD:
Isa 30:10  Which say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits:

This world loves its own, but it is “of them”, of those few who are ‘faithful to the end’ to the Lord’s words, of whose blood we have all “taken part” in our own time, when we reject and persecute and hate them and their uncompromising fidelity to the Truth, “the way of [His] judgments” (Isa 26:8-9).

However, Young’s Literal Version fails to correctly translate this exact same Greek phrase in Luke:

Luk 11:49 Therefore, also, God’s Wisdom said, ‘I shall be dispatching to them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will be killing and banishing,'”
Luk 11:50 that the blood of all the prophets which is shed from the disruption of the world may be exacted from this generation,
Luk 11:51 from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the house. Yea, I am saying to you, It will be exacted from this generation!”

No, no, it is not ‘some of them’:

Act 7:52  Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers:
Act 7:53  Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it.

What happened to Stephen for simply pointing out that the rejection of “the ways of the Lord’s judgment” is a complete and total rejection from those who claim His name and claim to be His people:

Act 7:54  When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth.
Act 7:55  But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God,
Act 7:56  And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.
Act 7:57  Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord,
Act 7:58  And cast him out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man’s feet, whose name was Saul.
Act 7:59  And they stoned Stephen, calling upon  God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
Act 7:60  And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep.

Are you and I above stoning Stephen? No, of ourselves we are not. Had we been on that Sanhedren council, you and I would have been the ones doing this vile act. “This generation” is not just the generation into which Christ was born:

Mat 23:34  Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city:
Mat 23:35  That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.
Mat 23:36  Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come  upon this generation.

No, it is rather “this generation…. whoso readeth [in every generation] let him understand”:

Mat 24:15  When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand)

With that understanding, we will continue to ask the Lord to help us to appreciate the depth of our apostasy and deception and “the [loving] way of His judgments” as revealed in today’s study:

Heb 12:6  For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
Heb 12:7  If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?

The Lord has made us err from His ways and has hardened our hearts from His fear for this very purpose:

Isa 63:17  O LORD, why hast thou made us to err from  thy ways, and hardened our heart from thy fear? Return for thy servants’ sake, the tribes of thine inheritance.

This is the depth of our apostasy. This is just how hard He has made our hearts to be. This is just how little we fear our own Creator:

Jer 11:13  For according to the number of thy cities were thy gods, O Judah; and according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem have ye set up altars to that shameful thing, even altars to burn incense unto Baal.

According to “the number of your cities [and] according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem” is just another way of saying that our apostasy is complete and thorough to this extent:

Isa 3:1  For, behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stay and the staff,  the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water,
Isa 3:2  The mighty man, and the man of war, the judge, and the prophet, and the prudent, and the ancient,
Isa 3:3  The captain of fifty, and the honourable man, and the counsellor, and the cunning artificer, and the eloquent orator.
Isa 3:4  And I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them.

“The… bread… and… the water” are both types and symbols for the Words and doctrines of Christ. We all apostatize just that thoroughly while we are in the grip of the great whore, Babylon.

As we read in our last study, God knows just how to deal with us at this point:

Jer 11:14  Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up a cry or prayer for them: for I will not hear them in the time that they cry unto me for their trouble.
Jer 11:15  What hath my beloved to do in mine house, seeing she hath wrought lewdness with many, and the holy flesh is passed from thee? when thou doest evil, then thou rejoicest.

There is a time in our lives when the Lord puts us out of His presence for the destruction of our flesh. It is a time of being tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and the Lamb.

This time of our judgment is called “the patience of the saints”. It is called the keeping of His commandments [to read, hear and keep the things written in this book (Rev 1:2)] and the faith of Jesus”:

Rev 14:6  And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people,
Rev 14:7  Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.
Rev 14:8  And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.
Rev 14:9  And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand,
Rev 14:10  The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:
Rev 14:11  And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.
Rev 14:12  Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.
Rev 14:13  And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them.

If we are His very elect in this present time, the Lord will “look on [our] affliction” and rebuke the adversary who exalts himself against us. These words of Jeremiah 11 are setting the stage for what this same prophet reveals to us about ourselves in the book of Lamentations, which I repeat:

Lam 1:8  Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed: all that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.
Lam 1:9  Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end; therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no comforter. O LORD, behold my affliction:  for the enemy hath magnified himself.

Even our own old man despises the hypocrite we have become at this point in our lives. Thank the Lord for “the ways of [His] fiery judgments” (Isa 26:8-9):

Jer 11:16  The LORD called thy name, A green olive tree, fair, and of goodly fruit: with the noise of a great tumult he hath kindled fire upon it, and the branches of it are broken.
Jer 11:17  For the LORD of hosts, that planted thee, hath pronounced evil against thee, for the evil of the house of Israel and of the house of Judah, which they have done against themselves to provoke me to anger in offering incense unto Baal.
Jer 11:18  And the LORD hath given me knowledge of it, and I know it: then thou shewedst me their doings.

“Their doings” are our doings. Until the day Christ brings us to appreciate our need for “the ways of [His] judgments”, we will continue to self-righteously place the blood of all the prophets upon others and deceive ourselves that we would never have partaken of their blood, nor ever refused the Lord’s words and doctrines, even as we do just that. That is why this next verse must first be required of you and me:

Jer 11:19  But I was like a lamb or an ox that is brought to the slaughter; and I knew not that they had devised devices against me, saying, Let us destroy the tree with the fruit thereof, and let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name may be no more remembered.

This is essentially what we first do to Christ when He sends His prophets to witness us of “the ways of [His] judgments”:

Mat 21:38  But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance.
Mat 21:39  And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him.
Mat 21:40  When the lord therefore of the vineyard cometh, what will he do unto those husbandmen?
Mat 21:41  They say unto him, He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons.
Mat 21:42  Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?
Mat 21:43  Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.

When Jeremiah is speaking these words, he is applying them to “the men of Anathoth”, his home town:

Jer 1:1  The words of Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah,  of the priests that were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin:

The men of Anathoth, like the men of Nazareth, symbolize our self-righteous, carnal-minded, Babylonian old man.

Jer 11:20  But, O LORD of hosts, that judgest righteously,  that triest the reins and the heart, let me see thy vengeance on them: for unto thee have I revealed my cause.
Jer 11:21  Therefore thus saith the LORD of the men of Anathoth, that seek thy life, saying, Prophesy not in the name of the LORD, that thou die not by our hand:

As ‘the men of Nazareth’ demonstrate, our self-righteous, judgmental old man wants Christ to “die… by our hand”. This is what you and I have done to Christ:

Act 8:32  The place of the scripture which he read was this, He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth:

This is the story of Philip’s witness to the Ethiopian eunuch, who was reading this verse of Isaiah when Philip approached his chariot:

Isa 53:7  He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.

In this verse of Jeremiah, the holy spirit is simply building upon what it had already revealed to King David of “the ways of [His] judgments”.

Psa 44:22  Yea, for thy sake are we  killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter.

This theme will carry over into next week’s study:

Jer 12:3  But thou, O LORD, knowest me: thou hast seen me, and tried mine heart toward thee: pull them out like sheep for the slaughter, and prepare them for the day of slaughter.

Paul refers to just how thoroughly we reject the judgments of Christ and His Christ:

Rom 8:36  As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.

This brings us to our last two verses of this 11th chapter of Jeremiah and “the ways of the Lord’s judgments” against the self-righteous kingdom of Babylon within us:

Jer 11:22  Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, Behold, I will punish them: the young men shall die by the sword; their sons and their daughters shall die by famine:
Jer 11:23  And there shall be no remnant of them: for I will bring evil upon the men of Anathoth, even the year of their visitation.

There will be no ‘remnant’ left to the kingdom of our self-righteous, carnal-minded old man who is enmity against God and “the ways of His judgments” (Isa 26:8-9).

That concludes our study for this week. In our next study we will “talk with [the Lord] of His judgments”:

Jer 12:1  Righteous art thou, O LORD, when I plead with thee: yet let me talk with thee of thy judgments: Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously?
Jer 12:2  Thou hast planted them, yea, they have taken root: they grow, yea, they bring forth fruit: thou art near in their mouth, and far from their reins.
Jer 12:3  But thou, O LORD, knowest me: thou hast seen me, and tried mine heart toward thee: pull them out like sheep for the slaughter, and prepare them for the day of slaughter.
Jer 12:4  How long shall the land mourn, and the herbs of every field wither, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein? the beasts are consumed, and the birds; because they said, He shall not see our last end.
Jer 12:5  If thou hast run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with horses? and if in the land of peace, wherein thou trustedst, they wearied thee, then how wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan?
Jer 12:6  For even thy brethren, and the house of thy father, even they have dealt treacherously with thee; yea, they have called a multitude after thee: believe them not, though they speak fair words unto thee.
Jer 12:7  I have forsaken mine house, I have left mine heritage; I have given the dearly beloved of my soul into the hand of her enemies.
Jer 12:8  Mine heritage is unto me as a lion in the forest; it crieth out against me: therefore have I hated it.
Jer 12:9  Mine heritage is unto me as a speckled bird, the birds round about are against her; come ye, assemble all the beasts of the field, come to devour.

]]> The Book of Jeremiah – Jer 10:14-25 It is not in Man That Walks to Direct His Steps https://www.iswasandwillbe.com/the-book-of-jeremiah-jer-1014-25-it-is-not-in-man-that-walks-to-direct-his-steps/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-book-of-jeremiah-jer-1014-25-it-is-not-in-man-that-walks-to-direct-his-steps Sat, 05 Jun 2021 14:35:28 +0000 https://www.iswasandwillbe.com/?p=23670 https://www.dropbox.com/s/xits9z6i0h373p7/20210606-Study_MikeV-OurWillNotOursm4a.m4a?raw=1

Jer 10:14-25  It Is Not in Man That Walks to Direct His Steps

[Study Aired June 6, 2021]

Jer 10:14  Every man is brutish in his knowledge: every founder is confounded by the graven image: for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them.
Jer 10:15  They are vanity, and the work of errors: in the time of their visitation they shall perish.
Jer 10:16  The portion of Jacob is not like them: for he is the former of all things; and Israel is the rod of his inheritance: The LORD of hosts is his name.
Jer 10:17  Gather up thy wares out of the land, O inhabitant of the fortress.
Jer 10:18  For thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will sling out the inhabitants of the land at this once, and will distress them, that they may find it so.
Jer 10:19  Woe is me for my hurt! my wound is grievous: but I said, Truly this is a grief, and I must bear it.
Jer 10:20  My tabernacle is spoiled, and all my cords are broken: my children are gone forth of me, and they are not: there is none to stretch forth my tent any more, and to set up my curtains.
Jer 10:21  For the pastors are become brutish, and have not sought the LORD: therefore they shall not prosper, and all their flocks shall be scattered.
Jer 10:22  Behold, the noise of the bruit is come, and a great commotion out of the north country, to make the cities of Judah desolate, and a den of dragons.
Jer 10:23  O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.
Jer 10:24  O LORD, correct me, but with judgment; not in thine anger, lest thou bring me to nothing.
Jer 10:25  Pour out thy fury upon the heathen that know thee not, and upon the families that call not on thy name: for they have eaten up Jacob, and devoured him, and consumed him, and have made his habitation desolate.

The title of this study is taken from the words of verse 23. We will come to see just how revolutionary it is to tell mankind that his will is not really his will. Such a doctrine was extremely unpopular both then and now. First we will continue where we left off with the Lord proclaiming the Truth of verse 23 in these words from our last study:

Jer 10:10  But the LORD is the true God, he is the living God, and an everlasting king: at his wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to abide his indignation.
Jer 10:11  Thus shall ye say unto them, The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens.
Jer 10:12  He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heavens by his discretion.
Jer 10:13  When he uttereth his voice, there is a multitude of waters in the heavens, and he causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth; he maketh lightnings with rain, and bringeth forth the wind out of his treasures.

The Lord said all that just to contrast Himself with who we are as “corruptible flesh and blood” (1Co 15:50).

1Co 15:50  Now this I say, brethren, that  flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.

So, we continue to learn about the judgment of the Lord upon the corruptible kingdom of our old man:

Jer 10:14  Every man is brutish in his knowledge: every founder is confounded by the graven image: for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them.
Jer 10:15  They are vanity, and the work of errors: in the time of their visitation they shall perish.

I was surprised to learn that the word translated as “brutish” here is most often translated as ‘burn’, ‘kindled’ or ‘put away’.

Here are the various ways this Hebrew word is translated in the King James Version of the scriptures:

Notice that all the verses listed for the two words ‘put’ and ‘away’ are all the same verses with a couple of exceptions. That is because they are all two English words being translated from one Hebrew word, in this case the Hebrew word ‘ba’ar’. In the context of this statement, what we are being told is, “Every man [has put away the Lord] in his knowledge.”  The positive application is to “put evil away from the midst of thee”:

Deu 13:5  And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn  you away from the LORD your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the LORD thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee.

The word ‘evil’ is translated from the Hebrew word ‘rah’ and the words ‘put’ and ‘away’ are translated from the one Hebrew word ‘ba’ar’. That phrase appears over ten times. The most common translation for this Hebrew word ‘baar’ is ‘burn’ or ‘burned’, as the burning of wood. This Hebrew word appears three times here in Jeremiah 10. It first appeared in verse 8 of this chapter:

Jer 10:7  Who would not fear thee, O King of nations? for to thee doth it appertain: forasmuch as among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their kingdoms, there is none like unto thee.
Jer 10:8  But they are altogether brutish [H1197: ‘ba’ar’] and foolish: the stock [Hebrew: ‛êts, wood] is a doctrine of vanities.

Lev 6:12  And the fire upon the altar shall be burning in it; it shall not be put out: and the priest shall burn [H1197 ‘ba’ar’] wood on it every morning, and lay the burnt offering in order upon it; and he shall burn thereon the fat of the peace offerings.

The offering of Christ is burned upon the ‘wood’ of our corruptible flesh, which the Lord is in the process of ‘putting away’. In the negative context of this study, what we are being told is that “every man [has put away the Lord] in his knowledge”.

Physical idols are “falsehoods”. “Every founders… molten image” typifies every false prophet and his false doctrines. As we have established, physical idols in the Old Testament typify spiritual “idols of the heart” (Eze 14:1-9) which are false, lying doctrines of men which come between ourselves and Christ as “the stumbling block of [our] iniquity” until we are dragged out of ‘Babylon the great’ by the holy spirit:

Joh 6:44  No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me  [G1670: ‘helkuo’, ‘drag’ against one’s will (Rom 7:15: Rom 9:16)] him: and I will raise him up at the last day.

Rev 18:4  And I heard another voice from heaven, saying,  Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.

There is a great honor being bestowed upon every man who is being dragged out of Babylon and into “Jerusalem above, the mother of us all” (Gal 4:26). Jeremiah informs us of the blessings of that honor:

Jer 10:16  The portion of Jacob is not like them: for he is the former of all things; and Israel is the rod of his inheritance: The LORD of hosts is his name.

Our “portion” or inheritance is in the Lord. He alone “is the former of all things”. We are His inheritance, and He is our inheritance, our ‘portion’:

Deu 32:9  For the LORD’S portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.

The statement, “Israel is the rod of His inheritance” is the Old Testament foundation for these New Testament revelations:

Eph 1:17  That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him:
Eph 1:18  The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,
Eph 1:19  And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power,

What a wonderful revelation! His inheritance is “in [us]”, and we are also informed that we have obtained “an inheritance… in [Him]”:

Eph 1:10  That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:
Eph 1:11  In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:

Our inheritance is in Him, and it is all being done “after the counsel of His own will”, but it entails the judgment and the daily dying of our old man before we can receive our inheritance in Him:

Jer 10:17  Gather up thy wares out of the land, O inhabitant of the fortress.
Jer 10:18  For thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will sling out the inhabitants of the land at this once, and will distress them, that they may find it so.

2nd Samuel 22 and Psalms 18 make clear to whom “the fortress” refers. It refers to the Lord’s people, you and me, as the Lord’s wayward, rebellious people:

2Sa 22:2  And he said, The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer;

Psa 18:2  The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.

Like all of us, King David lost his first love and had to be judged and chastened and scourged to be brought back to the Lord with a whole heart as Jeremiah confirms:

Jer 10:19  Woe is me for my hurt! my wound is grievous: but I said, Truly this is a grief, and I must bear it.

What exactly is it that we must bear? It is our own judgment which is even now come upon the house, the “tabernacle” of God (1Pe 4:17):

Jer 10:20  My tabernacle is spoiled, and all my cords are broken: my children are gone forth of me, and they are not: there is none to stretch forth my tent any more, and to set up my curtains.

The “great whore” of Revelation 17 and 18 is the Lord’s own house. This great harlot is the seven churches of Asia who “all forsook” the apostle Paul and whose sins are exposed in Revelation two and three:

2Ti 1:15  This thou knowest, that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me; of whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes.

[Here is the link to the spiritual significance of the number seven:  The Number Seven]

“All they which are in Asia” would include “the seven churches of Asia” (Rev 2:1). ‘Seven’ indicates that the apostasy of the Lord’s wife was already complete when Paul penned 2nd Timothy. The apostate, Diotrephes was so well established before the death of the apostle John that he was able to cast the Lord’s true followers out of the very church established by the apostles of our Lord:

3Jn 1:9  I wrote unto the church: but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them, receiveth us not.
3Jn 1:10  Wherefore, if I come, I will remember his deeds which he doeth, prating against us with malicious words: and not content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and forbiddeth them that would, and casteth them out of the church.

This complete and total apostasy is a theme that runs throughout the prophecies of both Isaiah and Jeremiah:

Jer 10:21  For the pastors are become brutish, and have not sought the LORD: therefore they shall not prosper, and all their flocks shall be scattered.

This is the third time in this one chapter where the word ‘brutish’ is used. It may appear to be speaking of some bad pastors, but you and I were ‘bad pastors’ when we once subscribed to all the false doctrines of the great whore.

“The pastors” are the leaders of the Lord’s people. This situation is prophesied of in Isaiah 3:1:

Isa 3:1  For, behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stay and the staff, the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water,

The ‘brutish pastors’ do not believe that “the Lord… hath taken away from [His people] the whole stay of bread and the whole stay of water” because they are the very Nicolaitan leaders who constitute these “seven women” of the first verse of the next chapter of Isaiah:

Isa 4:1  And in that day seven women [“The seven churches of Asia… all they which are in Asia”] shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach.

Any woman who does not want her husband’s food or His clothing is not a faithful wife, and the Lord will not be party to such an arrangement. His definition of His love is to “chasten us to forsake ungodliness and worldly lusts” and to avenge Himself of our rebellious disrespect. He accomplishes this through wicked and evil men:

Jer 10:22  Behold, the noise of the bruit is come, and a great commotion out of the north country, to make the cities of Judah desolate, and a den of dragons.

The Hebrew word translated as ‘bruit’ is ‘shemuah’, and this is how it is translated elsewhere in the Old Testament:

It obviously means “rumor, tidings, report, news” and is speaking of  the impending chastening coming upon us.

This is a repetition of what Jeremiah said in chapter 9:

Jer 9:11  And I will make Jerusalem heaps, and a den of dragons; and I will make the cities of Judah desolate, without an inhabitant.
Jer 9:12  Who is the wise man, that may understand this? and who is he to whom the mouth of the LORD hath spoken, that he may declare it, for what the land perisheth and is burned up like a wilderness, that none passeth through?
Jer 9:13  And the LORD saith, Because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice, neither walked therein;

When we turn our backs on our Lord and receive the doctrines of the great whore, we are actually receiving the doctrines of the great red dragon:

Rev 13:1  And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.
Rev 13:2  And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat [Greek: ‘thronos’ throne], and great authority.

As the natural wild beasts we all are by nature, we gladly receive the doctrines of the dragon, and it is those doctrines which become his ‘den’, his dwelling place within us.

This is the prophesied event that would come upon the Lord’s own people when they turn their backs on their own spiritual husband:

Deu 32:34  Is not this laid up in store with me, and sealed up among my treasures?
Deu 32:35  To me belongeth vengeance, and recompence; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste.
Deu 32:36  For the LORD shall judge his people, and repent himself for his servants, when he seeth that their power is gone, and there is none shut up, or left.
Deu 32:37  And he shall say, Where are their gods, their rock in whom they trusted,

The book of Job demonstrates that Satan is nothing more than the Lord’s “hand” (Job 1:11-12 and 2:5-6). That being so, the Sabeans and Chaldeans were the Lord’s own sword sent by Satan, as the Lord’s hand, to try Job and reveal to Job just how self-righteous he was (Job 1:15-17 and Job 27:5-6). King David was familiar with these verses of Job and made this statement:

Psa 17:13  Arise, O LORD, disappoint him, cast him down: deliver my soul from the wicked, which is thy sword:
Psa 17:14  From men which are thy hand, O LORD, from men of the world, which have their portion in this life, and whose belly thou fillest with thy hid treasure: they are full of children, and leave the rest of their substance to their babes.

“The wicked” are the Lord’s sword and His hand which He uses to bring trials upon His elect in this present time to humble and purify us in preparation for His service as His “saviors” of all the rest of mankind. It will be ‘through our mercy that all others will receive mercy’:

Ecc 1:13 I applied my heart to inquiring and exploring by wisdom concerning all that is done under the heavens: it is an experience of evil Elohim has given to the sons of humanity to humble them by it.

Rom 11:30  For as ye in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief:
Rom 11:31  Even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy.
Rom 11:32  For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.

Our next verse gives the lie to the false doctrine of free will and because the Lord has given the brutish pastors eyes that cannot see and ears that cannot hear, He has also blinded them from being able to see or hear this fact:

Jer 10:23  O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.

Jeremiah had the books of Moses, Job, Psalms, Proverbs and Isaiah to read and meditate upon. Those books all proclaim the total sovereignty of God and the fact that mankind is mere clay in the Lord’s hand, as Jeremiah clearly states in:

Jer 18:4  And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.
Jer 18:5  Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
Jer 18:6  O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel.

The doctrine of the total sovereignty of God is foundational to every book of scripture. All scripture teaches that God has made all things for Himself and that He is in the process of humbling all men intending from before the beginning of the world, to drag all men to Himself.

Pro 16:4  The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.

Joh 6:44  No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw [Greek: ‘helkuo’, drag] him: and I will raise him up at the last day.

Eph 1:10  That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:
Eph 1:11  In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:

It is because the Lord has given us an experience of evil to humble us by it that we are made to cry out to Him:

Jer 10:24  O LORD, correct me, but with judgment; not in thine anger, lest thou bring me to nothing.

“With judgment [and] not in [His] anger” is how the Lord always expresses His anger and His wrath, because even His wrath and His anger are “created for Himself” and for the plan and purpose He is executing. That includes the most egregious sin of all time, the death of His Son:

Pro 16:4 The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.

Act 4:26 The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ.
Act 4:27 For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together,
Act 4:28 For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.
Act 4:29 And now, Lord, behold their threatenings: and grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak thy word,

Jeremiah was made to know that the Lord’s anger and His wrath are never out of control, but are always measured to accomplish the changes He is working in His creatures. It bears repeating what we were just told:

Jer 10:19 Woe is me for my hurt! my wound is grievous: but I said, Truly this is a grief, and I must bear it.

These words reveal that the Lord’s wrath is always measured and is always for our good, and it is never out of His control. This verse also applies to that wrath which we are told “fills up the wrath of God”:

Rev 15:1 And I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvellous, seven angels having the seven last plagues; for in them is filled up the wrath of God.

Filling up these plagues is the entrance into the temple of God. Filling up these “seven last plagues” in our own lives is passing through the fiery sword which guards the way of the Tree of Life, and we will never know life eternal without passing through the ‘fire’ of that “fiery sword” which is the Word of God.

Enduring the fiery experience of the seven last plagues is called “the patience of the saints [who] keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.

Rev 14:9 And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand,
Rev 14:10 The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:
Rev 14:11 And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.
Rev 14:12 Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.

The blessing of God is only on those who read, hear, and keep the sayings of the prophecy of this book” including chapters 14-16; the seven last plagues:

Rev 1:3 Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.

Rev 15:7 And one of the four beasts gave unto the seven angels seven golden vials full of the wrath of God, who liveth for ever and ever.
Rev 15:8 And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from his power; and no man was able to enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled.

Rev 22:7 Behold, I come quickly: blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book.

“Truly this is a grief and [we] must bear it” (Jer 10:19)

The Lord drags us to Himself by bringing us low through great trials which cause the most stubborn carnal mind to ask, “Lord, what would you have me do?” Saul of Tarsus, who by the Lord’s chastening grace came to be the apostle Paul, is a perfect example of just how persuasive the Lord can be and is:

Act 9:1  And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest,
Act 9:2  And desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem.
Act 9:3  And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven:
Act 9:4  And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?
Act 9:5  And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
Act 9:6  And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do.

Just like Joseph’s ten brothers who wanted him dead, but instead ended up bowing down to Joseph, Saul of Tarsus was given a similar experience of bowing down to the very man he was persecuting.

What neither Saul of Tarsus nor Jeremiah understood at that time was that physical Israel was merely a type of spiritual Israel. Paul put it like this in:

Rom 2:28  For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh:
Rom 2:29  But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in thespirit, and  not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.

Christ was the first to reveal that physical Israel was just a type and a shadow of the true “Israel of God”.

Gal 6:15  Certainly, it doesn’t matter whether a person is circumcised or not. Rather, what matters is being a new creation.
Gal 6:16  Peace and mercy will come to rest on all those who conform to this principle. They are the Israel of God.

Bringing that revelation to His own people almost cost Christ His life at His very first recorded message to the people of His own hometown:

Luk 4:16  And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read.
Luk 4:17  And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written,
Luk 4:18  The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,
Luk 4:19  To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
Luk 4:20  And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him.
Luk 4:21  And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.
Luk 4:22  And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph’s son?
Luk 4:23  And he said unto them, Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself: whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country.
Luk 4:24  And he said, Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his own country.
Luk 4:25  But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land;
Luk 4:26  But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow.
Luk 4:27  And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian.
Luk 4:28  And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath,
Luk 4:29  And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong.
Luk 4:30  But he passing through the midst of them went his way,

It is blasphemous to a physical Jew to tell him that God is as much a God of the Gentiles as He is of the Jews. All religious Jews believe only the letter of these words:

Deu 7:6  For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.

Here are the first two verses of Deuteronomy 7:

Deu 7:1  When the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou;
Deu 7:2  And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them:

When Moses wrote those words at that time, they had nothing more than an outward letter for letter meaning, but the holy spirit reveals in the New Testament that “the letter kills, but the spirit gives life”:

2Co 3:6  Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.
2Co 3:7  But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away:
2Co 3:8  How shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious?
2Co 3:9  For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory.
2Co 3:10  For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth.

Christ tells us that His words are not to be understood letter for letter, but rather His words are spirit and must therefore be understood spiritually:

Joh 6:63  It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh [the letter] profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

This statement by Christ is the basis for Paul’s statement, ”Not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life” (2Co 3:6).

Christ was prophesied to be ‘like Moses’:

Deu 18:18  I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.

“Like unto thee” means that Christ would be a reformer as Moses was. It was through Moses that tabernacle worship with its priesthood and attendant daily offerings was introduced. Christ also introduced “the time of reformation”:

Heb 9:10  Which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation.

Reformers always face great resistance to their reforms. That is why both Moses and Christ were first rejected by the Lord’s own people. That is why the Lord’s own people first rejected hearing His voice:

Exo 14:10  And when Pharaoh drew nigh, the children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and, behold, the Egyptians marched after them; and they were sore afraid: and the children of Israel cried out unto the LORD.
Exo 14:11  And they said unto Moses, Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness? wherefore hast thou dealt thus with us, to carry us forth out of Egypt?
Exo 14:12  Is not this the word that we did tell thee in Egypt, saying, Let us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians? For it had been better for us to serve the Egyptians, than that we should die in the wilderness.

Just a few weeks after the Lord used Moses to lead Israel through the Red Sea, the Lord attempted to speak directly to the people, but He was again rejected with these words:

Exo 20:18  And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they removed, and stood afar off.
Exo 20:19  And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die.

The smoking mountain typifies our physical, carnal life of rebellion against our Lord. The thundering, lightnings, and trumpets all typify the judgments of the Lord against our ‘mountain’, and we simply cannot at first appreciate what the Lord is doing. Only Moses, typifying Christ in us, can approach the smoking, burning, dying ‘mountain’.

So, the revelation of “the things of the spirit” and the fact that all of this happened to them and it is written for our admonition”, the admonition of physical Gentiles like Naaman the Syrian and the widow of Serepta, was not revealed to the physical nation of Israel at that time.

1Co 10:11  Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples [Greek: tupos, types of us]: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.

As we just read, the revelation that “he is not a Jew which is one outwardly, but he is a Jew which is one inwardly” was rejected by the nation of Israel when Christ revealed it to the people of His hometown of Nazareth. He and His message of “the things of the spirit” were so unpopular with the people of His hometown of Nazareth that they attempted to murder Him for even suggesting that the gospel would go to the Gentiles.

1Co 2:14  But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

We are all just as guilty of first rejecting our Lord as were the people of Nazareth. So it is by the Lord’s design that “every man’s works shall be tried by fire”, and the fire will try every man’s works of what sort it is”:

1Co 3:13  Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.

Paul is addressing these words to what the people of Nazareth would consider to be heathen Corinthians, but the Truth of Christ’s reformation is:

Gal 3:29  And if ye be Christ’s, then  are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

If we have been baptized into Christ, we are Abraham’s seed, because Abraham himself was but a type of the true “father of the faithful”. Just as Christ is “the true bread from heaven” He is also ‘the true Father of the faithful’. It is our own rebellious “old man” and any others who are not “in Christ” who are now counted as spiritual heathens.

That is the spiritual application of the last verse of this chapter:

Jer 10:25  Pour out thy fury upon the heathen that know thee not, and upon the families that call not on thy name: for they have eaten up Jacob, and devoured him, and consumed him, and have made his habitation desolate.

The Lord’s “fury” and His wrath are not just for the purpose of venting His anger with our sins. Whether it is in “this present time” or at the great white throne judgment/lake of fire/second death, the Lord’s wrath is His judgment upon the rebellious, carnal kingdom of our old man, and this is what His judgments produce within “every man”:

Isa 26:8  Yea, in the way of thy judgments, O LORD, have we waited for thee; the desire of our soul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee.
Isa 26:9  With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.

This is where we are. We are “in the way of [His] judgments… waiting for His judgments to burn away all the “wood, hay, and stubble” within the kingdom of our old man and establish Christ as our new King. “The time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God…”:

1Pe 4:12  Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you:
1Pe 4:13  But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.

1Pe 4:17  For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it  first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?

That is our study for today, and these are our verses for our next study:

Jer 11:1  The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,
Jer 11:2  Hear ye the words of this covenant, and speak unto the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem;
Jer 11:3  And say thou unto them, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel; Cursed be the man that obeyeth not the words of this covenant,
Jer 11:4  Which I commanded your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, from the iron furnace, saying, Obey my voice, and do them, according to all which I command you: so shall ye be my people, and I will be your God:
Jer 11:5  That I may perform the oath which I have sworn unto your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it is this day. Then answered I, and said, So be it, O LORD.
Jer 11:6  Then the LORD said unto me, Proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying, Hear ye the words of this covenant, and do them.
Jer 11:7  For I earnestly protested unto your fathers in the day that I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, even unto this day, rising early and protesting, saying, Obey my voice.
Jer 11:8  Yet they obeyed not, nor inclined their ear, but walked every one in the imagination of their evil heart: therefore I will bring upon them all the words of this covenant, which I commanded them to do; but they did them not.
Jer 11:9  And the LORD said unto me, A conspiracy is found among the men of Judah, and among the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
Jer 11:10  They are turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers, which refused to hear my words; and they went after other gods to serve them: the house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken my covenant which I made with their fathers.
Jer 11:11  Therefore thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape; and though they shall cry unto me, I will not hearken unto them.
Jer 11:12. Then shall the cities of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem go, and cry unto the gods unto whom they offer incense: but they shall not save them at all in the time of their trouble.

]]> Prophecy of Isaiah – Part 7, Isa 1:21-26 https://www.iswasandwillbe.com/prophecy-of-isaiah-part-7-isa-121-26/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=prophecy-of-isaiah-part-7-isa-121-26 Sat, 16 Jul 2016 22:23:40 +0000 http://www.iswasandwillbe.com/?p=12019
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The Prophecy of Isaiah - Part 7 Discussion

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Isa 1:21-26 - How Is The Faithful City Become An Harlot!

Isa 1:21 How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers.
Isa 1:22 Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water:
Isa 1:23 Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them.
Isa 1:24 Therefore saith the Lord, the LORD of hosts, the mighty One of Israel, Ah, I will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies:
Isa 1:25 And I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin:
Isa 1:26 And I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counsellors as at the beginning: afterward thou shalt be called, The city of righteousness, the faithful city.

We have already demonstrated how the first verse of this study (vs 21), reveals how God's own wife has been seduced to become "an harlot". We saw how it is this verse which gives Revelation 17 and 18 its power and its force in bringing us to understand who this 'harlot' is, this 'whore' within each of us when we talk with, socialize with, and in time place the words of men above the words of our own husband. "How is the great city become an harlot???"

The apostle John was inspired of the holy spirit to take these very words to describe what had happened to the seven churches of Asia in his day:

Rev 17:1 And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters:
Rev 17:2 With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.
Rev 17:3 So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.
Rev 17:4 And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:
Rev 17:5 And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
Rev 17:6 And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.
Rev 17:7 And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns.

Isaiah wonders:

Isa 1:21 How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers.

Isaiah wonders how it is possible for a woman who knows and loves her husband one day, to suddenly turn her back on her own faithful husband and become "an harlot" who despises her faithful husband. [Just yesterday] it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers". John was well versed in the words of the prophet Isaiah, and John also wondered how it was possible that the very church Christ had come to establish could do the same thing::

Rev 17:6 And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.

Christ's own churches, the seven churches of Asia, 'seven' symbolizing the completion of the apostasy of the very "murderers... drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the martyrs of Jesus", makes Christ's elect, symbolized by John, wonder how this apostasy could flourish so quickly and so thoroughly.

Many believe Revelation 17 and 18 refer only to Catholics who killed so many Protestants. Others think those two chapters refer to the Pharisees and Jews who hated and rejected Christ. But this book of Revelation is not addressed to Catholics or to Jews who rejected Christ. This book is addressed to "the seven churches". More specifically the book of Revelation is addressed to those who 'have an ear to hear what the spirit says to the seven churches of Asia'.

This statement is repeated seven times in the second and third chapters of Revelation... 'he that hath an ear let him hear what the spirit says to the seven churches'.

Our Lord chose the apostle Paul to tell us how this apostasy happened so quickly and so thoroughly. This is what we know from the apostles of our Lord about the churches of Asia:

2Ti 1:15 This thou knowest, that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me; of whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes.

And this is what the other apostles thought of the apostle Paul:

2Pe 3:16 As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.
2Pe 3:17 Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness.

Look at where Peter makes the point of telling us that Paul's epistles are equated with "the other scriptures". It is immediately after telling us this in the previous chapter:

2Pe 2:1 But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.
2Pe 2:2 And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.
2Pe 2:3 And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.
2Pe 2:4 For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;
2Pe 2:5 And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;
2Pe 2:6 And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly;
2Pe 2:7 And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked:
2Pe 2:8 (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;)
2Pe 2:9 The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:
2Pe 2:10 But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they, selfwilled, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities.

Secondly, the book of Timothy is one of Paul's prison epistles. In the last chapter of this same epistle Paul gives us a few more of the details of those in Asia who forsook him and a few more details about how the great harlot got her start in the new Christian church by placing "Satan's throne" right in the midst of the seven churches of Asia. Paul left Timothy in Ephesus a city in Asia, and this is what he tells us from his imprisonment about what happened there in Ephesus:

2Ti 4:14 Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord reward him according to his works:
2Ti 4:15 Of whom be thou ware also; for he hath greatly withstood our words.
2Ti 4:16 At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men [in Asia] forsook me: I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge.
2Ti 4:17 Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear: and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.
2Ti 4:18 And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom: to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Pergamos was also a church in Asia, and this is what we are told was taking place in Pergamos:

Rev 2:13 I know thy works, and where thou dwell, where Satan's throne is. And thou hold firm my name, and did not deny my faith in the days in which Antipas was my faithful witness, who was killed among you where Satan dwells.
Rev 2:14 But I have a few things against thee, because thou have there men who adhere to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a snare before the sons of Israel, even to eat idol sacrifices, and to fornicate.
Rev 2:15 So also thou have men who likewise adhere to the teaching of the Nicolaitans.
Rev 2:16 Repent therefore, and if not I come to thee quickly, and will war against them with the sword of my mouth.

Warring against "men who adhere to the teaching of Balaam, who... cast a [spiritual] snare before the sons of Israel, even to eat idol [of the heart spiritual] sacrifices... also... men who adhere to the teaching of the Nicolaitans" is exactly what we are doing at this very moment "with the sword of [Christ's] mouth".

But this apostasy was brewing much earlier, and like Judas himself, the apostasy of the church was coming from within "the seven churches" themselves. It was not Jews who were not believers. Paul knew who were his enemies and he warned Timothy of these men in his first epistle.

This was the doctrine of those who were out to discredit Paul and therefore Christ Himself. This epistle was written before Paul was imprisoned in Rome and the apostasy of the church had already begun:

1Ti 1:4 Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith: so do.
1Ti 1:5 Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned:
1Ti 1:6 From which some having swerved have turned aside unto vain jangling;
1Ti 1:7 Desiring to be teachers of the law; understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm.
1Ti 1:8 But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully;
1Ti 1:9 Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers,
1Ti 1:10 For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine;

Why would Paul be compelled to mention "endless genealogies"? He mentioned 'endless genealogies' because those who are under the law of Moses consider genealogy to be of utmost importance. To this day, Messianic Jewish christians refer to physical Jews as God chosen people. For that matter, so do most Protestant and Catholic christians who are completely unaware of these verses of scripture:

Rom 2:28 For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh:
Rom 2:29 But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.

Just how much value does the holy spirit place upon one's physical pedigree?

Php 3:3 For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.
Php 3:4 Though I might also have confidence in the flesh. If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more:
Php 3:5 Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee;
Php 3:6 Concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.
Php 3:7 But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.
Php 3:8 Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,
Php 3:9 And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:

The righteousness of the law of Moses was not "through the faith of Christ" but was rather "our [own] righteousness", because it was not through the spirit and of the heart.

Deu 6:25 And it shall be our righteousness, if we observe to do all these commandments before the LORD our God, as he hath commanded us.

Which "commandment is charity out of a pure heart"? Here is Paul's own answer:

Tit 1:3 But hath in due times manifested his word through preaching, which is committed unto me according to the commandment of God our Saviour;

Heb 7:18 For there is verily a disannulling of the [Mosaic] commandment going before for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof.

For those who are just learning to recognize the voice of the True Shepherd, another apostle verifies that Paul is "of the same mind" as the mind of "our Savior":

2Pe 3:2 That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour:

It is not Paul, but Peter, who tells us that all of Paul's epistles are "as.. the other scriptures:

Just a few verses later Paul is compelled to name names:

1Ti 1:19 Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck:
1Ti 1:20 Of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander; whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.

Here we have the names of the men who withstood Paul. Here they are in the order in which we are given their names: Hymenaeus and Alexander (1Ti 1:19-20), Phygellus and Hermogenes (2Ti 1:15) and Alexander the coppersmith (2Ti 4:14). The name 'Alexander' was very common in the Greek world, and the fact that "the coppersmith" is added in this second epistle suggests that this is not the same Alexander of the first epistle to Timothy.

This is the very same theme Paul was dealing with when writing the epistles to the Romans and the Corinthians, the Galatians and the Thessalonians. Look at these three verses to see what Paul was confronting:

Rom 2:28 For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh:
Rom 2:29 But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.

Gal 3:1 O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?
Gal 3:2 This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?
Gal 3:3 Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?
Gal 3:4 Have ye suffered so many things in vain? if it be yet in vain.

1Ti 1:7 Desiring to be teachers of the law; understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm.

From the days of Isaiah and before, God's true ministers have been called false prophets. They were always hated by those who claimed to be righteous through the law. Paul himself started out as just such a person.

Php 3:3 For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.
Php 3:4 Though I might also have confidence in the flesh. If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more:
Php 3:5 Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee;
Php 3:6 Concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.
Php 3:7 But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.
Php 3:8 Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,
Php 3:9 And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:

It seems impossible that anyone could take these verses and make them say that Paul took pride in being a Pharisee of the tribe of Benjamin. The Lord Himself has blinded them from seeing that Paul considered all physical pedigree, as well as being a Pharisee, as nothing more than a pile of dung. But that is exactly what those who hate the doctrine of Christ do, just as our Lord told us they would:

Luk 6:22 Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake.
Luk 6:23 Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets.

Luk 6:26 Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets.

It is a truly sad day when "a codex which precedes the Bible" is used as proof that the apostle Paul is really Appolonius, which is stretched to equate to the son of the Sun God Apollos, and then made to somehow connect the apostle Paul with the Freemasons! All based on "a codex which precedes the Bible", and that is a quote from a link submitted by a detractor of the apostle Paul. According to our Lord Himself the apostle Paul is a truly blessed man simply because it was Christ Himself who said:
Luk 6:22 Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake.

Speaking directly to the great city within us which has so quickly and so thoroughly "become an harlot", the spirit tells us:

Isa 1:22 Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water:
Isa 1:23 Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them.

Just as the 'giants in the land' symbolize the passions of our flesh, so are the false doctrines and false teachings which occupy our minds likened unto "rebellious... princes, and companions of thieves" who rob us of the fruit of our labors in our Lord's service. "An harlot" can hardly expect to be given the favors her husband would just naturally want to shower upon her. As little appreciated as it is, the scriptures teach that we must all reap what we sow.

Gal 6:8 For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.

Now let's be very analytical about what it means to "sow to the spirit". This is what Christ tells us about His Words:

Joh 6:63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.
Joh 6:64 But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him.

Christ's "words are spirit". Therefore His "sayings" are spirit", and it is not those who read His sayings who are building their house on Him, the rock, it is only those who are doing "His sayings" and who "keep the things [He] says":

Mat 7:24 Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:
Mat 7:25 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.
Mat 7:26 And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:
Mat 7:27 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.
Mat 7:28 And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine:
Mat 7:29 For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.

Luk 6:46 And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?

But let's not forget what the holy spirit inspired Peter to tell us about what the holy spirit considers all of Paul's epistles to be, and I repeat:

2Pe 3:16 As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.
2Pe 3:17 Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness.

Mat 7:29 tells us Christ's words are authoritative spiritual words. They are not spoken with any hesitation, and Christ and all who speak His words with authority "[will] be hated of all men".

But be aware that when you speak the "many things" which Christ revealed through the apostle Paul, which Christ's own disciples could not bear at the time of His crucifixion, then like Christ Himself, you and I will also be "hated of all men":

Joh 16:12 I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.
Joh 16:13 Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.

But didn't Christ guide His apostles into all truth while He was here on the earth in an earthen vessel? The obvious answer to that is that He did not reveal the "many things [which His disciples could] not bear now"!

John 16:12-13 is pivotal to demonstrating the fallacy of the spirit of "[we] will neither eat nor drink till we have killed Paul".

Act 23:12 And when it was day, certain of the Jews banded together, and bound themselves under a curse, saying that they would neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul.

The holy spirit which was to "guide you into all Truth" did not come to men until 50 days after Christ's resurrection. Therefore the anti-Paul doctrine which teaches that Christ delivered the entire message of His gospel while He was here on this earth in a body of flesh and bone, is manifestly not what Christ Himself taught. Rather Christ taught that He had "many things" to reveal to his disciples which would not be done until after "the spirit of Truth is come", that is sometime after the day of Pentecost. As it turned out, Peter's visit to the house of Cornelius, demonstrating that the holy spirit was being given to the uncircumcised Gentiles, was revealed several years after Christ's resurrection. The revelation that the Gentiles did not even need "to be circumcised, and to keep the law of Moses" was not settled until several more years at the conference in Jerusalem in Acts 15.

Act 15:7 And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up, and said unto them, Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel, and believe.
Act 15:8 And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us;
Act 15:9 And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith.
Act 15:10 Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?
Act 15:11 But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.

But that truth first uttered by Peter in Acts 15, stating that "there [was] no difference between [the Gentiles and the Jews]" but both are being saved by grace through the faith of Jesus Christ and that not even the Jews needed to be circumcised, was not to be revealed until Paul was in prison in Rome, where this great revelation was given him:

Eph 2:14 For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us;
Eph 2:15 Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace;
Eph 2:16 And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby:
Eph 2:17 And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh.
Eph 2:18 For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.
Eph 2:19 Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God;
Eph 2:20 And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;

Here is that "middle wall of partition between [the Gentiles and the Jews]":

Act 15:24 Forasmuch as we have heard, that certain which went out from us have troubled you with words, subverting your souls, saying, Ye must be circumcised, and keep the law: to whom we gave no such commandment:
Act 15:25 It seemed good unto us, being assembled with one accord, to send chosen men unto you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul,
Act 15:26 Men that have hazarded their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Act 15:27 We have sent therefore Judas and Silas, who shall also tell you the same things by mouth.
Act 15:28 For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things;
Act 15:29 That ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication: from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well. Fare ye well.

Here are James and all the elders at Jerusalem calling Paul "our beloved brother... Paul, and confirming that the Gentiles who were called to know Christ need not "be circumcised and keep the law". He goes to such lengths to proclaim "we gave no such commandment", but it was not, at that time, agreed that the Jews no longer were required to be circumcised and to keep the law. Rather, it was agreed that while the Gentiles need not keep the law of Moses, yet concerning the Jews, "Moses is taught every sabbath in the synagogues:

Act 15:20 But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood.
Act 15:21 For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath day.

The twelve apostles all agreed that they and all Jews must yet "be circumcised and keep the law". This is made crystal clear when many years later this agreement which was made in Acts 15 is reiterated by James in Jerusalem just before Paul is apprehended by the Jews, resulting in his Roman imprisonment where the epistles of Ephesians and Colossians were written revealing "many things" which Christ's apostles could not bear when He was crucified, which they could still not bear when Peter went into Cornelius's home, which the apostles still could not bear when they wrote that letter to the believing Gentiles in Acts 15, and which they still could not bear many years later when Paul had gone up to Jerusalem and was again told this:

Act 21:18 And the day following Paul went in with us unto James; and all the elders were present.
Act 21:19 And when he had saluted them, he declared particularly what things God had wrought among the Gentiles by his ministry.
Act 21:20 And when they heard it, they glorified the Lord, and said unto him, Thou seest, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe; and they are all zealous of the law [of Moses]:
Act 21:21 And they are [falsely] informed of thee, that thou teachest all the Jews which are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying that they ought not to circumcise their children, neither to walk after the customs.
Act 21:22 What is it therefore? the multitude must needs come together: for they will hear that thou art come.
Act 21:23 Do therefore this that we say to thee: We have four men which have a vow on them;
Act 21:24 Them take, and purify thyself with them, and be at charges with them, that they may shave their heads: and all may know that those things, whereof they were informed concerning thee, are nothing; but that thou thyself also walkest orderly, and keepest the law.
Act 21:25 As touching the Gentiles which believe, we have written and concluded that they observe no such thing, save only that they keep themselves from things offered to idols, and from blood, and from strangled, and from fornication. [Acts 15]
Act 21:26 Then Paul [because he still "walked orderly and [was still] keeping the law" of Moses] took the men, and the next day purifying himself with them entered into the temple, to signify the accomplishment of the days of purification, until that an offering should be offered for every one of them.

Just as it was Jews which believed on Christ, along with Herod and Pilate, the priests and the multitudes who wanted Him dead, so it was believing Christians, Jews who "[were] zealous of the law" who believed the lie that Paul was teaching the Jews among the Gentiles to break the law of Moses. Many Christians believe that Paul taught the Jews which were among the Gentiles that they did not need to circumcise their children, nor to keep the law of Moses, to this day. So it was believing Jews, along with the multitudes and the priests who once again wanted Christ in Paul dead.

That lying spirit is still very much alive today, but the Lord defended His word in that day, and He is doing so today with His authoritative spiritual words, and all who oppose His words have thrown in their lot with "the great city [which has] become a [spiritually murderous] harlot", and this is all they can now expect:

Isa 1:24 Therefore saith the Lord, the LORD of hosts, the mighty One of Israel, Ah, I will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies:
Isa 1:25 And I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin:

These words are just telling us that we will indeed reap what we have sown, and anything that can be burned up will be burned up, including the dross and the tin.

Here is how the apostle Paul expresses this same concept:

1Co 3:13 Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.
1Co 3:14 If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.
1Co 3:15 If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.

Our study today ends with this same positive outcome for "every man":

Isa 1:26 And I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counsellors as at the beginning: afterward thou shalt be called, The city of righteousness, the faithful city.

The "fiery trials" (1Pe 4:12) are undeniably "fiery", and at the time they are being endured, they seem to last an eternity, but the purified product will prove to be worth enduring the most severe most fiery trial.

]]> Foundational Themes in Genesis – Study 105 https://www.iswasandwillbe.com/foundational-themes-in-genesis-study-105/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=foundational-themes-in-genesis-study-105 Thu, 13 Aug 2015 15:58:12 +0000 http://www.iswasandwillbe.com/?p=9953 Foundational themes in Genesis – Study 105 (Key verses: Genesis 48:21-22; Genesis 49:1-4)

In the final section of the book of Genesis we see that Jacob is brought back into focus as Jacob lived with Joseph and the whole family in the country of Goshen in Egypt before his death (Gen 41:54-57):

Gen 47:28 And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years: so the whole age of Jacob was an hundred forty and seven years.

Jacob was in the process of dying, and it was the time to tell his sons “that which shall befall [them] in the last days”:

Gen 49:1 And Jacob called unto his sons, and said, Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last days.
Gen 49:2 Gather yourselves together, and hear, ye sons of Jacob; and hearken unto Israel your father.

Jacob’s words shall be applicable “in the last days”, and this concept of the “last days” is very important throughout the scriptures. The theme of the “last days” is also very appropriate as this concludes the final section of the book of Genesis. Here are a few scriptural references about this concept of “last days” which will help us to gain a better understanding of how God want us to see this:

Isa 2:2 And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD’S house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.

Act 2:17 And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams:
Act 2:18 And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.
Act 2:19 And I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke:
Act 2:20 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come:
Act 2:21 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

The “last days” therefore relate to the process of the establishment of the Lord’s spiritual house in our lives when our own house of flesh will be removed through His fiery judgment (Isa 26:9; Mat 7:24-27; Mat 24:1-51; 1Pe 4:12-13). These “last days” indicate the perilous times which will come unto the flesh because the end of the fleshly age has come, especially for those who can receive this even in this age (1Pe 4:17):

2Ti 3:1 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.

God’s Word has a primary spiritual meaning which is the inward application for those who can see that the application of this Word of God is “at hand” (Mat 4:4; Luk 17:20-21; Joh 6:63; Rev 1:3). This is the time of judgment when it is revealed to us that we have stored up corrupt treasures in the wrong place as a witness against us:

Mat 6:19 Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:
Mat 6:20 But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:
Mat 6:21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Jas 5:3 Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.

Everything written in the scriptures has therefore both a physical and spiritual application, even the words of Jacob to his sons. But the physical applications of Jacob’s words are all but earthly shadows and spiritual types of what the church of God, the true “Israel of God”, is experiencing (Rom 2:28-29; Rom 3:1-2; Gal 6:15-16). These sons of Jacob therefore are all types of the spiritual “Israel of God”, His elected few, on whom the “last days” or the end of this physical age has come. All things, present, past and things to come are applicable now in the lives of the elected “generation” of God (Mat 23:36; Mat 24:34):

1Co 10:11 Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples [Greek: tupos = figures/a resemblance]: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world [Greek: aiōn = age] are come.

1Co 3:21 Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours;
1Co 3:22 Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours.

What Jacob said to each son has spiritual meaning for us “upon whom the ends of the world” have come. This means we can see how these words of Jacob concerning his sons connect with our own spiritual development. In this discussion we will look only at the eldest son Reuben and what he typifies in our lives, even through the words of Jacob.

Reuben

Reuben was Jacob’s firstborn from his wife Leah who was not the wife he loved as much as he loved Rachel, who was his second wife. In this sense Leah and Reuben spiritually connects with our firstborn, our own flesh (1Co 15:45-49):

Gen 29:31 And when the LORD saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb: but Rachel was barren.

The name “Reuben” means “behold a son” or “the vision of the son”:

Gen 29:32 And Leah conceived, and bare a son, and she called his name Reuben: for she said, Surely the LORD hath looked upon my affliction; now therefore my husband will love me.

The fleshly Adam is a son of God but only in terms of him being a type of the spiritual Adam, Jesus Christ, who is the true Son of God with whom only the Father is well pleased:

Luk 3:38 Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.

Mat 3:17 And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

These are Jacob’s words to his eldest son Reuben when Jacob was dying:

Gen 49:3 Reuben, thou art my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power:

Reuben had the “might” of the firstborn of the flesh of Jacob. It was Reuben who preserved the life of Joseph when Joseph’s life was in danger of the other brothers who wanted to kill him. Reuben used the might of his status as the firstborn to change the plans of the other nine brothers:

Gen 37:19 And they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer cometh.
Gen 37:20 Come now therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we will say, Some evil beast hath devoured him: and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
Gen 37:21 And Reuben heard it, and he delivered him out of their hands; and said, Let us not kill him.
Gen 37:22 And Reuben said unto them, Shed no blood, but cast him into this pit that is in the wilderness, and lay no hand upon him; that he might rid him out of their hands, to deliver him to his father again.

But these efforts from Reuben could not prevent the trials which Joseph had to endure. In Reuben’s absence the nine brothers sold Joseph to slave traders (Gen 37:23-28):

Gen 37:29 And Reuben returned unto the pit; and, behold, Joseph was not in the pit; and he rent his clothes.
Gen 37:30 And he returned unto his brethren, and said, The child is not; and I, whither shall I go?

Reuben was extremely upset and saddened by this as he also reminded his brothers years later about their sin against Joseph when they were judged by the very Joseph whom they could not recognise at this time of torment in Egypt:

Gen 42:22 And Reuben answered them, saying, Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against the child; and ye would not hear? therefore, behold, also his blood is required.

Reuben even used this position of might to guarantee the safety of Benjamin when Jacob did not want to send Benjamin to Egypt:

Gen 42:37 And Reuben spake unto his father, saying, Slay my two sons, if I bring him not to thee: deliver him into my hand, and I will bring him to thee again.

Our Reuben and all his firstborn glory and might cannot give proper protection. We also learn from this that the best protection which the flesh can give should always be seen as a temporary and insecure shelter:

1Pe 1:24 For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away.

God will bring us to our appointed time of tribulation no matter how safe we think we are from His terrors. All will fear the Lord in due time (Rev 6:12-17):

Job 6:4 For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit: the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me.

Psa 139:7 Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
Psa 139:8 If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.

Isa 2:10 Enter into the rock, and hide thee in the dust, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty.
Isa 2:11 The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day.
Isa 2:12 For the day of the LORD of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and upon every one that is lifted up; and he shall be brought low.

The second attribute connected to Reuben as being the firstborn of Jacob was that he was “the beginning of…strength”. The firstborn in our lives is this earthy man and he is indeed the beginning of our earthly strength. However this earthly strength is connected to all that relate to vanity and futility in our first man:

Rom 8:20 For the [earthly/physical] creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope,

The firstborn in our Egypt (our flesh) and “the chief of [our earthly] strength in the tabernacles of Ham” will be smitten as God will remove him (Exo 12:12):

Psa 78:51 And smote all the firstborn in Egypt; the chief of their strength in the tabernacles of Ham:

Psa 105:36 He smote also all the firstborn in their land, the chief of all their strength.

The firstborn of the spirit is the true Son of God, and He rules in strength and in power, even in earth as it is ordained first in heaven (Luk 3:38; Mat 6:10; Mat 18:18):

Mat 28:18 And Jesus came and spake unto them [His disciples – those who can receive these words], saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

The third attribute connected to Reuben as the firstborn of Jacob was that he had “the excellency of dignity”, according to Jacob. The Hebrew word for “excellency” is “yether”, which connects with the idea of having an excess, superiority or abundance. The word “dignity” is translated from the Hebrew word “śe’êth” which means “elevation” or “exaltation”. Our Reubenite flesh is given a delusion of elevation, and we all are captivated by his influence for an appointed period of time. But the true elevated One will appear with the brightness of the glory of God which we see and experience through the fiery trials and destruction of this false earthly “excellency of dignity” in us:

2Th 2:3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;
2Th 2:4 Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God [deluding itself with attributes only linked to God, e.g. having a free will].

2Th 2:7 For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.
2Th 2:8 And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming.

The fourth attribute Jacob connected to Reuben as his firstborn was that he had “the excellency of power”. This position of strength is so distorted and twisted when the flesh has dominion over us, as Jesus also indicated:

Mat 20:25 But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them.

There is no humility or mercy in our fleshly rulership as it will even send its enemies to an eternal hellfire…and have no problem with that while claiming moral high ground. With God’s true “ministers…of fire” there is a spirit of servanthood and impartiality, because they serve and fulfil God’s “royal law…of liberty”, even as they love their worse enemies (Mat 5:38-48; 1Co 13; Jas 1:25; Jas 2:8-13; 1Jn 5:1-4). They have received mercy from God and they can therefore give love and mercy even when judgment must be executed (Mat 18:15-17; Rom 11:30-36; 1Co 6:1-2; Tit 3:9-11; 2Jn 1:9-11; Rev 20:11-15.). Judgment is temporary and has a love-filled purpose to fulfill – to teach God’s righteousness:

Mat 20:26 But it [ruling over others with no love and mercy] shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister;
Mat 20:27 And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant:

Isa 26:9 With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.

Jacob was also given the insight to see that his physical firstborn will never realise these roles within his fleshly limitations, as we also see in the words of Jacob what the physical firstborn in us symbolizes:

Gen 49:4 Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel; because thou wentest up to thy father’s bed; then defiledst thou it: he went up to my couch.

This instability of water gives the negative application of water in the scriptures, which applies to the flesh. We are all first “born of [unstable] water” having the restless and unfulfilled spirit of the world before we will be born “of the spirit” of God, which brings stability and the peace with God in our lives (Gen 2:7; 1Jn 2:16):

Joh 3:1 There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews:
Joh 3:2 The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.
Joh 3:3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
Joh 3:4 Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?
Joh 3:5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

The corrupt flesh shall not excel as it has never been in the spiritual kingdom of God and will never enter into “the glory [of the spirit of God] that excels” (2Co 3:10; Php 1:10-11):

1Co 15:50 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.

All of this instability and restlessness were in Reuben from his birth as he could not even resist sleeping with his father’s concubine:

Gen 35:22 And it came to pass, when Israel dwelt in that land, that Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his father’s concubine: and Israel heard it…

Due to this act of Reuben it was clear why he could not have the birthright of the firstborn – it was reserved for Joseph and his offspring who typify the true firstborn Jesus Christ and His spiritual offspring:

1Ch 5:1 Now the sons of Reuben the firstborn of Israel, (for he was the firstborn; but, forasmuch as he defiled his father’s bed, his birthright was given unto the sons of Joseph the son of Israel: and the genealogy is not to be reckoned after the birthright.

Flesh and all its instability is what we are all defiled with, even as we spiritually are in bed with the worldly concubine and her mind-set. We naturally believe and follow the teachings and philosophies of this world, and we all, like Reuben, live in disobedience to the commandments of God, even under the influence of the spiritual whore Babylon:

Rev 17:1 And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters [all flesh]:
Rev 17:2 With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.
Rev 17:3 So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.
Rev 17:4 And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:
Rev 17:5 And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.

The false church system is part of this world system, which is an outward representative of this spiritual harlot. These false churches are the spiritual equivalent of Jerusalem “which now is”, even part of the rejected bride of our Head, Jesus Christ, with whom we all sleep at our appointed time (Jer 3:8; 1Co 5:1-7; Gal 4:22-25). This harlot incorporates the symbolic “seven women” or “seven churches in Asia” which use Christ’s name (Christ-ian) but eat her own bread and wear her own apparel (Mat 24:4-5; Rev 1:4, 7, 18):

Isa 4:1 And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach.

This spirit of this harlot cannot submit to God’s order and authority, as designed and ordained by God for our learning to see what is in our unstable flesh with its deceitful heart (Jer 17:9; 1Jn 2:16). This unsubmissive Babylonian spirit was evident also when some of the offspring of Reuben took part in the revolt which was led by Korah against the God-ordained leadership of Moses:

Num 16:1 Now Korah, the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, and Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, and On, the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took men:
Num 16:2 And they rose up before Moses, with certain of the children of Israel, two hundred and fifty princes of the assembly, famous in the congregation, men of renown:
Num 16:3 And they gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron, and said unto them, Ye take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the LORD is among them: wherefore then lift ye up yourselves above the congregation of the LORD?

This is again a witness how the natural spirit in these Reubenites still thought of themselves in terms of their “might…strength…the excellency of dignity….and the excellency of power”. The old man’s ideas die very hard, and this also shows that flesh always opposes God’s true leadership in His church here on earth, even disputing the many scriptural references in this regard (Mat 20:25-27; Act 20:28; 1Co 12:28-31; Eph 4:11; 1Pe 5:1-6; 1Ti 1:19-20; 2Ti 4:14-18; 3Jn 1:9-10). Reuben and these offspring typify the flesh,which is like a child that is indeed unstable and easily “tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine”:

Eph 4:14 That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.

Again this distant aloofness and indifference of the tribe of Reuben is seen during the time of settlement in Canaan. Reuben’s tribe chose a settlement on the east side of the Jordan with the tribe of Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh after their entry and victories in Canaan (Num 32:1-33):

Jos 13:7 Now therefore divide this land for an inheritance unto the nine tribes, and the half tribe of Manasseh,
Jos 13:8 With whom the Reubenites and the Gadites have received their inheritance, which Moses gave them, beyond Jordan eastward, even as Moses the servant of the LORD gave them.

During the war against the king of Canaan, Jabin, and his general, Sisera, the tribe of Reuben also refused to join Barak and Deborah in battle but rather “stay among the sheepfolds to hear the bleating of the flocks”:

Jdg 5:16 Why did you stay among the sheepfolds to hear the bleating of the flocks? For in the divisions of Reuben there were great searchings of heart.

The “divisions of Reuben” are symptomatic of the ongoing schisms in the world. The world is rather obsessed with its own “sheepfolds … [and] to hear the bleatings of [their] flocks” bringing them honour and accolades. This spirit of the Reubenites is the spirit of the world which also occupies the mind of the carnal babe in Christ, who thrives on creating factions and focussing on schisms (1Co 11:19; 1Co 12:25; Gal 5:20; Tit 3:10). This is the spirit which Paul also endured in the churches like those in Corinth:

1Co 3:3 For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?
1Co 3:4 For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal?

The tribe of Reuben also joined the other nine northern tribes after the death of Solomon under the leadership of Jeroboam, after the counsel of God’s will:

1Ki 11:31 And he [the prophet Ahijah] said to Jeroboam, Take thee ten pieces: for thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel, Behold, I will rend the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and will give ten tribes to thee:

But Moses prophesied of the life that will be given even to the Reubenites in the resurrection from the dead, as Ezekiel and John also see this tribe in spiritual terms being part of the new temple of God (Eze 48:6; Rev 7:5):

Deu 33:4 Moses commanded us a law, even the inheritance of the congregation of Jacob.
Deu 33:5 And he was king in Jeshurun, when the heads of the people and the tribes of Israel were gathered together.
Deu 33:6 Let Reuben live, and not die; and let not his men be few.

Reuben also spiritually represents those who are part of God’s elect who can give a righteous account of their own time of living in rebellion and disobedience before they repent of that by dying daily to that spirit of Reuben in them (Psa 139:23-24; 1Co 15:31; Eph 2:1-3; Col 3:6-7; Rom 12:1-3). This is when the meaning of the name of Reuben refers to us beholding the true Son, and being part of the new city of God build on the spiritual foundations of truth (Rev 7:5):

Rev 21:10 And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God,
Rev 21:11 Having the glory of God: and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal;
Rev 21:12 And had a wall great and high, and had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel.

———————————————————————————-

Detailed studies and emails relating to these foundational themes in Scripture are available on the www.iswasandwillbe.com website, including these topics and links:

The Meaning of “The Time Is At Hand”
When Did The New Testment Apostasy Begin?
When Will Matthew 24 Be Fulfilled?
Living by Every Word of God
What Becomes of Our Flesh? – Part 1
Numbers – The Number 12

]]> Subject To The Government? https://www.iswasandwillbe.com/subject-to-the-government/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=subject-to-the-government Mon, 05 Mar 2012 18:31:08 +0000 http://www.iswasandwillbe.com/?p=4323

Hi Mike,

I’ve heard many a preacher claim Rom 13:4 gives the NATIONS the right to vengeance. I saw it said that anything in the bible that is italicized was added by the translators (in this verse execute is italicized in King James). I’m new to your site and would like some clarification.

Thank you,

C____

Hi C____,

Thank you for your question. Here is that section of scripture:

Rom 13:1 Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.
Rom 13:2 Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.
Rom 13:3 For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same:
Rom 13:4 For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to [ execute] wrath upon him that doeth evil.
Rom 13:5 Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake.

When Christ was before Pilate and Pilate told Christ that he (Pilate) had the power to release Christ or to kill Christ, Christ answered Pilate: “You have no power but what is given you from above.” This accords with Peter’s statement in Act 2:

Act 2:23 Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain:

God is “working all things After The Counsel of His Own Will. Read the paper by that title, and it will open your eyes to the Truth Christ was telling Pilate.

The work ‘execute’ is in italics, but it is not at all going against the sense of that verse. God has indeed “given from above,” as Christ told Pilate, the power to “execute wrath upon him that doth evil.” Sometimes, as in the case of Christ, it is also used to “execute wrath” upon God’s innocent elect. But even then it is “by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. “Whosoever resists that power resists the ordinance of God.”

I am unusually aware of the corruption within government as well as in God’s church. But that corruption is from the harlot to the beast. It is not vice versa.

Rev 17:3 So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman [ God’s apostate church] sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.

It is the woman who is calling the shots. The poor beast at this time is being “sit upon.” Eventually the beast will always turn on the woman and devour her. But that is only near the end.

Here again is the Truth of how things are being done, no matter how contrary to this Truth things may appear:

Act 4:26 The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ.
Act 4:27 For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles [ governments], and the people of Israel [ God’s apostate people], were gathered together,
Act 4:28 For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.

I hope this has answered your question. Read After The Counsel of His Own Will.

Mike

]]> When Did the New Testament Apostasy Begin? https://www.iswasandwillbe.com/when-did-the-new-testament-apostasy-begin/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=when-did-the-new-testament-apostasy-begin Sat, 14 May 2011 04:39:16 +0000 http://www.iswasandwillbe.com/?p=5433

Dear Mike,

I was more than a little surprised when I read that you consider it unacceptable to allow an Orthodox Priest (a Christian) to pray for another Christian.

Can you kindly elaborate on why you would consider the oldest Christian denomination to be unworthy of receiving prayer from? These are quite fervent people who spend many hours a week in Christian prayer and worship. Are you perhaps thinking that Orthodox Christians are the same as Orthodox Jews? (they are quite different)

(Quoting you) “…. Orthodox Christian ministers do not “hear God’s words”. They are ‘of their father the Devil’. They ‘do the deeds of their father’, and they do not understand Christ’s speech because they cannot hear His word, simply because they have not yet been given to understand the mysteries of the kingdom of God……”

I assure you, that this does not sound like you are referring to an Orthodox Christian, but rather an Orthodox Jew, and you might consider writing a clarification on this point. Can you kindly clarify your response in a succinct manner please?

To assist, I’ve narrowed it down to 2 basic choices: Orthodox Jews – yes or no and Orthodox Christians – yes or no. If it is because they are considered by God to be apostate, when did this start?

Thank you for your time.

In Christ,

M____

Hi M____,

Thank you for your question. You asked me to clarify whether I was writing about Jews or Christians when I wrote that those who know the Christ of the scriptures should not allow orthodox Christian ministers to pray over them.

Let me assure you that when I write that a follower of our Lord should not permit an orthodox Christian minister, to whom the words of our Lord are pure heresy, to pray for him, I am not referring to an orthodox Jewish Rabbi, to whom the Pope would be considered a scriptural heretic anyway. And I am not speaking of an instance where an orthodox friend or minister, finding out you were sick, asks if you would like prayer for your illness. The point under discussion is an orthodox minister praying for your doctrinal or spiritual understanding. That is just how stark the differences between anyone who takes seriously the words of our Lord and those who proudly proclaim themselves ‘orthodox Christians’ are.

Neither an orthodox Christian nor an orthodox Jewish Rabbi would dare to tell those in their charge that they should love their enemies and “put up thy sword, all who live by the sword shall die by the sword”. If either of them were to abide by that one commandment of our Lord, he would not be an orthodox Christian nor an orthodox Jew.

In this email I will demonstrate for you that the apostasy of the Christian church was an accomplished fact before the death of the original apostles, and that “many have come in Christs name saying He is Christ, [and yet] have deceived many”, and that this process has only gotten worse since the day our Lord uttered those words.

2Ti 3:13 But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.

Mat 24:3 And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world Greek, aion, age]?
Mat 24:4 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.
Mat 24:5 For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.

In light of the fact that the word “many” means ‘the majority’ and in light of the fact that Christ said that it would be doubtful that the Son of Man would find faith when He returned, it is super clear, that either our Lord was lying or else the established orthodox Christian church is the “many” who have come in His name, have confessed that Jesus is the Christ, and who are still in the position of “deceiving many.”

Luk 18:7 And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them?
Luk 18:8 I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?

If orthodox Christianity is the church of our Lord, then the answer to that question, posed by our Lord, would be, certainly, when the Son of Man comes, he will find that orthodox Christianity is the largest religion on the earth, and the evil men and seducers are the vast minority, and there are but a few who have come in Christ’s name and they have deceived but a comparative few souls, compared to the billions Christians who consider themselves to be a part of the orthodox Christian faith. Is that what the scriptures show us will be the case? Not according to Luke 18:8.

But when I say that we ought not allow orthodox Christian ministers to pray for us, please understand that I am not denying the sincerity of anyone in the orthodox Christian denominations or the Jewish religion. Nevertheless, it is abundantly clear that the Son of God would never allow a dedicated Pharisee, who wanted Him dead and who considered Him to be a heretic, to pray over Him and to ask God to remove Christ’s own doctrine from Christ. That is why we are not to allow those who are completely opposed to everything we stand for to pray over us, and anyone who is an orthodox Christian has virtually nothing doctrinally in common with the Christ, of scripture or with those who know the Christ of scripture.

Having said that, let me confess that I was myself a very sincere orthodox Christian for much of my own life. So I am not condemning anyone for being where God has placed them at this time in their lives. Where any of us are at any given time is all the sovereign work of our Lord Himself according to the scriptures. Every day of life for every human who has ever lived was known and planned of God “before there were any of those days”.

Look at this 16th verse of Psalms 139 in several different translations:

Psa 139:16
(ASV) Thine eyes did see mine unformed substance; And in thy book they were all written, Even the days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was none of them.
(CEV) but with your own eyes you saw my body being formed. Even before I was born, you had written in your book everything I would do.
(GNB) You saw me before I was born. The days allotted to me had all been recorded in your book, before any of them ever began.
(GW) Your eyes saw me when I was only a fetus. Every day of my life was recorded in your book before one of them had taken place.
(MSG) Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread out before you, The days of my life all prepared before I’d even lived one day.
(NIV) your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
(NKJV) Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them.

This is all summed up in the New Testament in these verses and many others like them.

Eph 1:11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:

Rom 11:36 For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.

So contrary to what every orthodox Christian minister teaches, it was not the Jews or the Romans who were responsible for Christ’s death. Instead both the Jews and the Gentiles were then, and are to this very day, “doing what God’s hand and God’s counsel has before determined to be done… [since] all their days were written in God’s book before there were any of them”. That is the doctrine of Christ, and that is the doctrine of the New Testament. The death of Christ had nothing at all to do with Judas’s or the Pharisee’s or Pilate’s, or the Romans’ supposed ‘free will’. Every detail of Christ’s crucifixion was planned in advance and was executed simply because God’s own “hand and counsel determined before” that it be done, as it was done. That is what the scriptures teach.

Act 4:26 The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ.
Act 4:27 For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together,
Act 4:28 For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before [in God’s book] to be done.

This subject of the sovereignty of God is dealt with in depth in a paper which is entitled After The Counsel of His Own Will, which can be located in the Essential Reading section of iswasandwillbe.com here.

So sincerity is not to be confused with obedience to the doctrine of Christ. Christ Himself acknowledged that those who killed Him did not know what they were doing.

Luk 23:33 And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left.
Luk 23:34 Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots.

Saul of Tarsus, before his name was changed to the apostle ‘Paul’, persecuted the body of Christ thinking he was doing God a service.

Act 22:8 And I answered, Who art thou, Lord? And he said unto me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest.

1Ti 1:13 Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.

We all, and I include myself, “were before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious… doing so ignorantly in unbelief”. When we give the doctrines of Christ lip service and then do the exact opposite, we are “blaspheming the name of God among the Gentiles”.

Rom 2:21 Thou therefore which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? thou that preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal?
Rom 2:22 Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery? thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege?
Rom 2:23 Thou that makest thy boast of the law, through breaking the law dishonourest thou God?
Rom 2:24 For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you, as it is written.

It seems like only yesterday that I hated the truths I now see in the Word of God. I hated the idea of having to love my enemies. I especially hated the very thought of not having a free will, which was independent of God’s will over my everyday life.

So Christ recognized those who “believed on Him” and who yet “wanted to kill Him” as being “of their father the devil”, and He recognized them as being such by God’s own design, and yet He never once doubted their sincerity, and even asked His Father to forgive them because they were completely unaware that they were crucifying the Son of God.

So when you say:

I have no doubt that is very often true, but then so did the “blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious” Saul of Tarsus, who was later to become the repentant “Paul the apostle” who agreed with our Lord that we are to love our enemies and “endure all things”.

Mat 5:43 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.
Mat 5:44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;
Mat 5:45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
Mat 5:46 For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?
Mat 5:47 And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?

1Co 13:4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
1Co 13:5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;
1Co 13:6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
1Co 13:7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

So this question of yours offers me the opportunity to clarify for you how the established Jewish church of Christ’s day, as well as the Jews of Christ’s day who “believed on Him [and yet] wanted to kill Him”, are the Biblical type of the established church of every generation since our Lord walked the earth. The established church of every generation rejects the above words of our Lord, along with many other teachings of the New Testament.

When we fail to see that the Jewish church and the Jews of Christ’s day are the Biblical symbol of the established Christian church of today and of every day since the apostles, then all of our Lord’s words will always be for, and apply to, someone else besides us. They will always apply to ‘those evil Jews’, ‘those sadistic Roman soldiers’, or to someone who is not part of the orthodox Christian church. When that happens, His “words will have no place in us” (Joh 8:37)..

You see, it was not just those Jews which did not believe on Christ, who wanted him dead. It was also “those Jews which believed on Christ” who wanted Him dead. This is something “the oldest Christian denomination” to this very day does not recognize. They still think it was unbelieving Jews who sought to kill Christ, and they demonstrate their spiritual blindness and their inability to see that it is “believers in Christ” to this very day who reject the Christ of the scriptures, and in doing so fulfill these words of our Lord:

Mat 24:4 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.
Mat 24:5 For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.

It is people “who believe in Christ”, and who “come in His name, [who] shall deceive many”.

Here it is again:

Joh 8:30 As he spake these words, many believed on him.
Joh 8:31 Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, [then] are ye my disciples indeed;

Joh 8:37 I know that ye are Abraham’s seed; but ye [“who believe on me, and who claim to be Abraham’s seed by being “in Christ”, Gal 3:28] seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you.

So it was believers who “had no place in them for Christ’s Word”, who wanted to kill Him. It is the same to this very day, and that is why the established Jewish church of Christ’s day is the Biblical type and shadow of orthodox Christianity to the very day. The Jewish church was even called “the church in the wilderness”.

Act 7:38 This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Sina, and with our fathers: who received the lively oracles to give unto us:
Act 7:39 To whom our [church] fathers would not obey, but thrust him from them, and in their hearts turned back again into Egypt,

Our so-called, orthodox Christian “church fathers”, except for the true apostles of our Lord who are the real “church fathers”, have done the same and have thrust Christ and His Words from them. What orthodox minister can you name for me who would dare to tell a most loyal soldier, fighting for the Son of God Himself, these words, as Christ told Peter and you and me:

Mat 26:52 Then said Jesus unto him [Peter], Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.
Mat 26:53 Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?
Mat 26:54 But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?

All orthodox ministers teach us to fight for God and country. They despise these words of our Lord when it comes to fighting in the wars of this age and of this world. That is true for both orthodox Christians and Jews.

When orthodox Christians, be they the Pope himself or any Protestant minister, teach you to ‘love your enemies” and then with the same mouth and same forked tongue, tells you to hate our enemies and go out and fight for God and country, while claiming to be Christians, they are doing nothing less than “blaspheming the name of Christ among the Gentiles”.

What orthodox minister or priest, can you name who even knows the meaning of these words?:

Col 1:24 Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church:

If Christ really is living His life in us, then we, like Him, will lay down our lives with Him, we will “put up again our swords”, and we will ‘fill up in our flesh what is behind of the afflictions of Christ’ rather than fight to preserve this life.

Luk 17:33 Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.

If Christ really is living His life in us, then our battle for Him and His cause will be fought as He fought that battle. It will be fought against all the false orthodox ministers who have come in Christ’s name, “saying that [He is] Christ”, and yet teaching those in their charge, who are all part of the differing warring denominational factions in this world, to go out and fight and kill their fellow man in the name of God and country.

My intention is to stand on the Words of Christ, and the most obvious thing in this world is that orthodox Christianity is exactly who Christ had in mind when, as quoted earlier, He made this statement concerning the end of this age:

Mat 24:3 And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world? [Greek: aion, age]
Mat 24:4 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.
Mat 24:5 For many [read orthodox Christians – not Jews who deny Christ] shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.

Those words have been true since the day they were uttered. There always have been, and there will always be, “many who come in Christ’s name, confessing that Jesus is Christ, [and yet] deceiving many”.

Now I want you to be honest with yourself. Do you honestly believe Christ was speaking of physical Jews when, in answer to “When will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the world?” Christ’s answer was referring to ‘Many orthodox Jews shall come in My name, saying I am Christ; and shall deceive many’? Would that even be logical, seeing that all but a few of the Jews have completely rejected our Lord?

“Many” does not mean ‘a few’. It means the majority of orthodoxy – Jewish or Christian – who in actual practice, utterly despise these words of our Lord:

Mat 5:43 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.
Mat 5:44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;
Mat 5:45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
Mat 5:46 For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?

Can you name a single orthodox minister or priest who lives by those words? Of course you cannot. If he did, he would not be an orthodox priest or minister. Orthodox ministers teach that you should love your enemy unless he really means you and your family and your country bodily harm, in which case, and I quote one nationally known minister, “You should step on him like a cockroach”. That explains why our Creator used a serpent to symbolize the devil. A serpent has a forked tongue and confesses to the Truth, while at the same time denying it.

Those who read this web page regularly know that the primary application of all scripture is to be understood as being first lived out within the lives of each of us.

Mat 4:4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man [Greek: anthropos – mankind, you and me] shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

We all first fall into the lies of orthodox religion, including orthodox Christianity. Orthodoxy is called in scripture, “Babylon the Great, the Mother Of Harlots, and of the Abominations of The World”.

Rev 17:1 And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters:
Rev 17:2 With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.
Rev 17:3 So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.
Rev 17:4 And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:
Rev 17:5 And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
Rev 17:6 And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.

Who is this great spiritual harlot? Many Protestants say it is the Catholic Church. But if that is the case, who then would that make the many Protestant churches? Who also would that make the established Jewish church of Christ’s day? Would Judaism then become the Grandmother of Harlots? It is clear from Christ’s own teachings, that all who hate Christ’s doctrines and in whom “Christ’s words have no place”, are “Mystery Babylon The Great” in every generation of mankind. In Christ’s own words, it was the established church of His day, and so it has always been. It is Babylon The Great, in whom Christ’s Words have no place, who want Him dead. Today’s established church which utterly despises the doctrines of Christ, happens to be both the Jewish religion, who to this day considers Christ to be “a criminal who died for His crimes”, as well as all of the established Catholic and Protestant churches, who have all been killing each other and their enemies since the days when Christ told Peter, “Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword (Mat 26:52 ).

Joh 18:7 Then asked he them again, Whom seek ye? And they said, Jesus of Nazareth.
Joh 18:8 Jesus answered, I have told you that I am he: if therefore ye seek me, let these go their way:
Joh 18:9 That the saying might be fulfilled, which he spake, Of them which thou gavest me have I lost none.
Joh 18:10 Then Simon Peter having a sword drew it, and smote the high priest’s servant, and cut off his right ear. The servant’s name was Malchus.
Joh 18:11 Then said Jesus unto Peter, Put up thy sword into the sheath: the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?

Who gave Christ this “cup to drink”? That is right, it was “My Father”. We are to drink of that same cup from which our Lord drank by simply obeying His doctrine. That is how we “die daily” and “lose our lives”.

Mat 10:39 He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.

1Co 15:31 I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.

Our drinking of that same cup is laying down our lives in His service instead of fighting to preserve our physical flesh. This is Christ’s doctrine, and that doctrine to this very day will get Christ and His disciples crucified, by the established Catholic and Protestant ministers, to whom it is not given to drink of His cup.

Mar 10:39 And they said unto him, We can. And Jesus said unto them, Ye shall indeed drink of the cup that I drink of; and with the baptism that I am baptized withal shall ye be baptized:

Jesus told His disciples of every age, that if they were willing to follow Him they would “be hated of all men”, and those men would “scourge you in their synagogues” [read ‘churches’].

Mat 10:16 Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves [A Biblical word for apostate Christians, not Jews, Act 20:29-30]: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.
Mat 10:17 But beware of men: for they will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues; [churches]
Mat 10:18 And ye shall be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles.
Mat 10:19 But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak.
Mat 10:20 For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you.
Mat 10:21 And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death.
Mat 10:22 And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved.

Act 20:29 For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock.
Act 20:30 Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.

“Christ’s name’s sake” is His doctrine’s sake. It is those who hear, but “cannot receive” Christ’s words who hated Christ while He was here on this earth, and it is the very same people who hear Christ’s words today, who claim to be Christians, but who cannot receive and live by Christ’s doctrines, who hate those who are faithful to that doctrine. It has always been so.

Joh 15:20 Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they [the church] have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.

As I have shown, it was not the Romans who wanted Christ dead. No, it was the church of His day, and what is so little understood to this very day is that it was those of that church “who believed on Him” who wanted Him dead, simply because it was not then, and it is not to this day, granted to the “many which believed on Him” to receive His Words and His doctrine. That is what the New Testament teaches from Mat 1:1 to Rev 22:21.

Here is what has been given us to understand, if we have been given eyes that see and ears that hear the mysteries of the kingdom of God. Here is the very root and beginning of the apostasy of those who believed on Jesus Christ. That apostasy from our Savior began before he was even crucified. It subsided after the founding of His spiritual church, but it gained great momentum even before the death of the original apostles of Christ.

Here is what we have been told by the scriptures themselves as to how “many would come in Christ’s name and would deceive many”:

Joh 8:30 As he spake these words, many believed on him.
Joh 8:31 Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;
Joh 8:32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

Speaking to these very same “believing Jews” Christ continues in this same chapter:

Joh 8:37 I know that ye are Abraham’s seed; but ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you.

Here we have our Savior acknowledging that these believing Jews are “Abraham’s seed”, and yet He also tells us that “those Jews which believed on Him… seek to kill Him… because His Word has no place within the many who believe on Him.

There is one more thing we need to realize concerning when and where the outward apostasy away from the words of our Lord, of the orthodox Christian church began. The truth is that the apostasy moving away from the words of our Lord, was an accomplished fact, even before the death of the apostles themselves.

We are all aware of the sad shape of the seven churches of Asia as a whole, as their sad spiritual condition is made known to us in Rev 2-3.

Rev 2:1 Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write; These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks;
Rev 2:2 I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars:
Rev 2:3 And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name’s sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted.
Rev 2:4 Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.
Rev 2:12 And to the angel of the church in Pergamos write; These things saith he which hath the sharp sword with two edges;
Rev 2:13 I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even where Satan’s seat is: and thou holdest fast my name, and hast not denied my faith, even in those days wherein Antipas [was] my faithful martyr, who was slain among you, where Satan dwelleth.
Rev 2:14 But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication.
Rev 2:15 So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, [Meaning ‘Nico’ – rule, ‘laitans’ – laity] which thing I hate.
Rev 2:16 Repent; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth.
Rev 2:18 And unto the angel of the church in Thyatira write; These things saith the Son of God, who hath his eyes like unto a flame of fire, and his feet [are] like fine brass;
Rev 2:19 I know thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works; and the last to be more than the first.
Rev 2:20 Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols.
Rev 2:21 And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not.
Rev 2:22 Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds.
Rev 2:23 And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works.

Rev 3:1 And unto the angel of the church in Sardis write; These things saith he that hath the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars; I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead.

Rev 3:14 And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God;
Rev 3:15 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.
Rev 3:16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.
Rev 3:17 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:

That was the state of the church before the death of the apostles. Here is what the apostle Paul said of these same churches of Asia before his death.

2Ti 1:15 This thou knowest, that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me; of whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes.

Paul saw this coming and had warned Timothy of it in his first epistle:

1Ti 1:19 Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck:
1Ti 1:20 Of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander; whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.

How do we “blaspheme the name of God among the Gentiles”? We do so by preaching one thing, and then with a forked tongue preaching and doing the exact opposite. So this epistle concludes with the names of even more of “those who believed on Christ” who forsook the very apostles of Christ, and thereby they forsook Christ.

2Ti 4:9 Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me:
2Ti 4:10 For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica; Crescens to Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia.

2Ti 4:14 Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord reward him according to his works:
2Ti 4:15 Of whom be thou ware also; for he hath greatly withstood our words.
2Ti 4:16 At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me: I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge.
2Ti 4:17 Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; that by me the preaching might be fully known, and [that] all the Gentiles might hear: and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.
2Ti 4:18 And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom: to whom [be] glory for ever and ever. Amen.

To this very day, all orthodox men, men who, like Demas, Cresens, and Titus, who all were formerly Paul’s “fellow laborers in the gospel”, “love this world” more than the words of our Lord, and they forsake those who stand firm on the word of God. That is how it was with Christ, that is how it was with His apostles, and that is how it will be with “all who will live godly in Christ Jesus”, as Paul had just told Timothy.

2Ti 3:12 Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.

Did the other apostles have this same experience? Yes, of course they all did, but the apostle John makes it clear that the orthodox Christians of his day were already so ensconced as to be able to put the true Christians “out of the church”.

3Jn 1:9 I wrote unto the church: but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them, receiveth us not.
3Jn 1:10 Wherefore, if I come, I will remember his deeds which he doeth, prating against us with malicious words: and not content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and forbiddeth them that would, and casteth them out of the church.
3Jn 1:11 Beloved, follow not that which is evil, but that which is good. He that doeth good is of God: but he that doeth evil hath not seen God.

The apostasy had gained so much strength in the churches that the apostates were in control and were “casting out of the church” those who were sent to them by the apostles.

What do we know for certain of these “evil men”? Were they prophesied to be rooted out of the church by those who put the love of God above the love and acceptance of their fellow apostate Christians? No, that is not what we are told would happen. Here is the one thing we know for certain concerning these apostate Christians and their doctrines:

Mat 24:4 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.
Mat 24:5 For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.

To which the holy spirit adds these words immediately after telling us that we are to expect to be persecuted by these very apostates known as orthodox Christians.

2Ti 3:12 Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
2Ti 3:13 But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.

So that is what has been taking place since the days of the apostles. It was so bad by the beginning of the fourth century that a pagan king named Constantine had co-opted the entire church and was waging wars against his enemies in the name of Christ.

Instead of “rejecting a heretic, and having no company” with him, as the holy spirit admonishes us, Constantine and the Catholic bishops appointed by Constantine, had heretics killed. Orthodox Protestants did no better when Martin Luther waged war against the Catholics of Europe, making the so-called Reformation nothing less than simply a more insidious apostasy.

Tit 3:10 A man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition reject;

2Jn 1:9 Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son.
2Jn 1:10 If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed:
2Jn 1:11 For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.

But the words inspired by the holy spirit were not sufficient for either the Catholics or the Protestants, so the great Protestant minister Calvin, had Michael Servetus burned alive at the stake, and had his throat slit so as to keep Servetus from spreading his supposed heresy with his dying breath. I have no doubt that Luther, Calvin and many Popes have been very sincere men who have spent many hours in fervent prayer, but sincerity and due diligence do not equate to obeying the words of our Lord.

Luk 6:46 And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?

Orthodox Christianity and each of us within it have “lost (our) first love, dwelled where Satan’s seat is, and held the doctrine of Balaam”, who snared God’s people with the doctrines of the daughters of the people of the lands who they were told to destroy. Those pagan daughters are the Biblical symbol of all the false doctrines which have taken root in the orthodox Christian Church and in each of us who have all been a part of that unholy system called Babylon the great the mother of harlots and of abominations of the world.

Evil men and seducers have waxed worse and worse since the days of the apostles, to the extent that orthodox Christianity now practices the doctrine of the Nicolaitans who lord it over the laity, while supporting the false doctrines of the false prophetess Jezebel.

Orthodox Christianity has a name that it is alive, but it is, in reality, spiritually dead. It thinks it is rich and increased with goods and in need of nothing, not knowing it is wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked.

Rev 3:17 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:

In the epistles of Paul to Timothy, and in the second epistle of John, we have an array of sincere, Christian men, who no doubt had spent many hours in prayer with the apostles Paul and John. They include Paul’s fellow laborers in the gospel like Demas, Crescens, and Titus, whom he considered a son.

Phm 1:24 Marcus, Aristarchus, Demas, Lucas, my fellowlabourers.

Tit 1:4 To Titus, mine own son after the common faith: Grace, mercy, and peace, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour.

They include all the prominent men of the Ephesian congregation: Hymenaeus and Alexander, Phygellus and Hermogenes, and Alexander the coppersmith. This may be the same Alexander of 1Ti 1:20, but whoever these men are, they became the original orthodox Christian church fathers, who “cast out of the church” the true followers of our Lord, and did not allow them to speak in the very churches which the apostles had raised up in all those cities.

We have no record of these men being exposed and rooted out of their prominent positions. We do have scriptures out of the mouth of our Lord which tell us that many would come in His name and deceive many, and we have even later inspired scripture which declares that these very same deceivers would wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.

So you tell me – where are the many who Christ said would come in His name and deceive many? Where are the wicked men and seducers who would wax worse and worse? Are these not words which have proceeded out of the mouth of God which you and I have lived as we have all been partaking in the Babylonian harlot system known as orthodox Christianity, which to this very day would crucify Christ if He returned and taught the multitudes of orthodox Christians of today to love their enemies?

I hope this has made clear of whom I was speaking when I said that no true follower of Christ would receive a prayer over him by an orthodox Christian minister who has nothing spiritually in common with a true son of God who calls Christ his Lord and does what Christ says to do.

Your brother in the true shepherd of His flock, Christ,

Mike

]]> Orthodox Creeds https://www.iswasandwillbe.com/orthodox-creeds/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=orthodox-creeds Thu, 08 Jul 2010 06:00:00 +0000 http://www.iswasandwillbe.com/?p=3619

Dear Mike,

It would be interesting to see an essay, or series of essays, aimed at highlighting the errors of such highly regarded “Christian” documents as the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed.

Warmest Regards,
I____

Hi I____,

It is good to hear from you. Both of those creeds, the apostle’s creed and the Nicene Creed as well as the creeds of most Christian churches, all make mention of the holy spirit as a person. This simply serves to demonstrate that the apostasy of the Christian church was completed as the apostle Paul had prophesied, before the death of the apostles.

Act 20:29 For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock.
Act 20:30 Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.

Here are a few of those grievous wolves, and here is the extent of that apostasy:

2Ti 1:15 This thou knowest, that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me; of whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes.

“All they which are in Asia” included the seven churches of Rev 2-3. They all turn against God’s own apostle while he was still alive. Here is a verse which demonstrates the extent of the power of the apostates in the church while the apostle John was still alive.

3Jn 1:9 I wrote unto the church: but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them, receiveth us not.
3Jn 1:10 Wherefore, if I come, I will remember his deeds which he doeth, prating against us with malicious words: and not content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and forbiddeth them that would, and casteth them out of the church.

The Christian church had become the synagogue of Satan while the apostles were still alive! Those creeds just serve to demonstrate that fact. It would be good to write an essay on that subject, and if the Lord wills I will do so, but don’t hold you breath, because at this time it is all I can do just to answer all the letters I receive and keep up with studies for the Revelation series.
Any church that has a ‘creed’ or a ‘statement of beliefs’ is a false church which is a daughter of the great harlot. We know that is so because of this verse of scripture:

Mat 4:4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

All that is in Adam is in my own flesh and the flesh of every human being.

Rom 7:18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but [ how] to perform that which is good I find not.

But when Christ comes and takes up His abode in any of us, then we begin to be converted, and become “as He is in this world”.

1Jn 4:17  Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.

In Christ’s own words, we become Him.

Mat 25:40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
Act 22:8 And I answered, Who art thou, Lord? And he said unto me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest.

Now since Christ is the Word Of God, and is God in the same sense that we are “Jesus of Nazareth”…

Joh 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Joh 17:22 And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:

… the only “creed” that any Christian can profess is to hold up the entire Bible. Anything less is a sin.

Rev 22:18 For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:
Rev 22:19 And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and [ from] the things which are written in this book.

If all of mankind is to “live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God”, why would we claim to believe in anything less than every word?

God bless you in His service.
Your brother in Christ.
Mike

]]> When Did Apostacy Begin? https://www.iswasandwillbe.com/when-did-apostacy-begin/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=when-did-apostacy-begin Thu, 19 Jul 2007 05:00:01 +0000 http://www.iswasandwillbe.com/?p=5429

Regarding your email response
http:// www. iswasandwillbe. com/ What_ Is_ Communion. php
I thought It would also be good to include this further in addition to the truth written there:
Like the foot washing, Christ had a specific reason why he chose to do the ‘last supper’
The reason why Christ took the bread and wine specifically was, as you say, to not start a new ritual, but to further show that the Moses Passover was only a type/ shadow of Christ.  That it is Christ who puts His blood on our ‘door’.  He is the ‘firstborn’ that dies so that all in the house are saved.  And of those without His blood, the first born in that house will die.
He also intended to show the disciples that His bringing this up then meant He would die soon… but we see that they were still oblivious to this despite His example.
The bread was also used because He is our bread of life which sustains life.  We need It every day.  And ‘as often’ as we consume physical bread we need to remember our spiritual bread which is also needed daily to ‘live’.  The spiritual bread (God) is more important than physical (wheat).
Unfortunately, the Catholics of the middle ages used their ‘communion’ to scare people and force them to come to church for other reasons under pain of controlling the means to forgive sins (ie communion, baptism, holy water, etc.)  Along with many other things ‘invented’ or distorted to keep people in bondage instead of enhancing their faith/ relationship with God.
The Romans were into rituals from their old polytheistic religion.  When Christianity became the official Roman Empire’s religion, it didn’t take long for that mentality to infest the practices of the people.  Today after many years since its departure, the Roman Catholic church was truly one of the first to fall under the banner of ‘Babylon’.
I would also suggest reading where Paul mentions the “Lord’s Supper” and partaking… it has nothing to do with the ritual we call ‘communion’ today.  The wonderful title we see in our Bibles which describe the section where the disciples had their last physical meal with Christ… was not in the manuscript, but placed there to ‘help us’ interpret what we read.  I think a better title for that section would be ‘Christ, the passover Lamb’.
Lastly, I’d like to state that the ‘cup’ which Christ shares with them is similar to the ‘cup’ He mentions in the Gesthemene garden.  They are to share in this ‘cup’ with Him.  This new covenant of His blood, shed for us to forgive us of our sinful fleshly state which He began with in our creation.
K____

Hi K____,
Thank you for your input. Your point are all very well taken.
The only thing I would add is that the Catholic church was a ‘Johnny come lately’ in the apostasy which was complete before the apostles were all dead:

2Ti 1:15  This thou knowest, that all they which are in Asia [ the seven churches of Asia  to whom John wrote – Rev 2-3] be turned away from me; of whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes.

2Ti 4:14  Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord reward him according to his works:
2Ti 4:15  Of whom be thou ware also; for he hath greatly withstood our words.
2Ti 4:16  At my first answer [ to Alexanders words withstanding Paul’s words] no man stood with me, but all men forsook me: I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge.

Alexander the coppersmith, an apostate Christian, apparently had more influence in the church than did Paul. 
I have no doubt that the apostle John was exiled to Patmos at the behest of apostate Christians like this man:

3Jn 1:9  I wrote unto the church: but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them, receiveth us not.
3Jn 1:10  Wherefore, if I come, I will remember his deeds which he doeth, prating against us with malicious words: and not content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and forbiddeth them that would, and casteth them out of the church.

Diotrophes, an apostate Christian, apparently had more influence in the church than did the apostle John.
That is just for your consideration.
Mike

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