Dan's Weekly Message

I just read the most recent number of people being Born Again in Middle Eastern countries. I shared some with you in the Sunday evening studies in Zechariah, but the new numbers are even higher. The Holy Spirit is busy around the world. Here are a few numbers; (From Missler’s personal update)
Iran’s underground churches are currently experiencing an annual growth of 20%—the highest rate worldwide, followed by Afghanistan at 16%… An Algerian pastor… reports that today the Evangelical churches in his country can claim more than 200,000 members… Libya also holds surprises…
the spiritual climate in Libya has changed significantly since Ghadaffi’s fall… not enough Bibles for those seeking them… A Moroccan Church is emerging and accelerating in growth and maturity…
New believers [in Tunisia] have increased and new church groups have come into being over the past few years… In Jordan, the evangelical Church is experiencing encouraging growth, doubling from 1995 to 2010… Similar reports are emerging from Syria and Lebanon… One of the most sustained revivals is taking place in Indonesia which has the world’s largest Muslim population but is now around 30% Christian…
We had an interesting conversation at camp Monday concerning heaven and dealing with the pain of knowing that loved ones who never accepted Christ as Savior will not be with us for eternity.
A question came up of how would there not be tears in heaven if we know loved ones we grew up with on earth are in the Lake of Fire?
An answer that I have suggested in the past is that we may not remember them. This was a question that I researched as a new believer. I may be wrong on this topic, since my Bible verses are not clear and I don’t have many verses. But this idea came to me as I was reading Isaiah years ago.
Also we get new names in heaven but scripture reveals that unbelievers who go to hell do not have names. Read the passage in Luke 16 about the rich man and Lazarus. Why doesn’t the rich man have a name?
Below are my verses on this subject; tell me what you think-
Ecc 9:5 For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten.

Isa 26:14 NET The dead do not come back to life,
the spirits of the dead do not rise.23
That is because24 you came in judgment25 and destroyed them,
you wiped out all memory of them.

Psa 6:5 For in death there is no remembrance of you; in Sheol who will give you praise?

Psa 34:15 The eyes of the LORD are toward the righteous and his ears toward their cry.
Psa 34:16 The face of the LORD is against those who do evil, to cut off the memory of them from the earth.

These verses do not specifically say that we won’t remember those who are not saved. But they could allude to that we will forget those who didn’t choose to be with Christ for eternity. These verses seem to make the point that those who didn’t live for God made no impact on this earth and thus are forgotten. This could be a question we will have for God when we get to heaven, if we remember to ask it.

Have a great week, God bless

Tags: "memories of loved ones in heaven" remembering the lost in heaven

last Sunday we looked at the Resurrection of Christ and of Lazarus and Moses and Elijah. It seems that God has reserved this miracle as very special. When the Pharisees asked for another miracle after Jesus had done so many, Jesus responds that they would only get one more and that was of His resurrection. Three days below ground seems to be a standard.

Mat 12:38 Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.”
Mat 12:39 But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.
Mat 12:40 For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

The Pharisees were told this was the final they should pay attention to. They did know Jesus was raised from the dead because they had to do a cover-up with the soldiers at the tomb to keep the resurrection a secret. Below is the story of the bribe money to keep them quiet;

Mat 28:11 While they were going, behold, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests all that had taken place.
Mat 28:12 And when they had assembled with the elders and taken counsel, they gave a sufficient sum of money to the soldiers
Mat 28:13 and said, “Tell people, ‘His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ 14 And if this comes to the governor’s ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.”

So they did know of His resurrection and they still refused to believe that Jesus was, who He said He was. I believe that Saul who would later be Apostle Paul, also was in on this. They had the evidence also of the curtain in the temple being torn, the earthquake and the darkness. But belief is a choice and they chose not to believe.

We know that before the death and resurrection that even Jesus disciples had doubts because they fled. Peter who earlier made some bold claims denied Jesus three times.

Mat 26:55 At that hour Jesus said to the crowds, “Have you come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs to capture me? Day after day I sat in the temple teaching, and you did not seize me.
Mat 26:56 But all this has taken place that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled.” Then all the disciples left him and fled.

I underlined the part where it says they fled. I mentioned Sunday evening that I watched a debate years ago between Craig Blomberg and an atheist. Blomberg brought up that the strongest evidence for the resurrection of Jesus was the change in the disciples from cowards before the resurrection to bold evangelicals after the resurrection. Even Jesus own family didn’t believe until after the resurrection. After the resurrection we see great boldness-

We see that the rulers who wanted to shut up the disciples recognized the boldness in them after the resurrection;

Act 4:13 Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished

The atheist who was a psychologist explained that often when people want to see someone badly enough that they can imagine seeing someone and that would explain that the disciples didn’t really see the risen Jesus but only imagined seeing Him and that could account of the change in them. But he did recognize that there is proof of a change in them from cowards to bold evangelists.

I loved Bloomberg’s next statement. He said what about a man that hated Jesus; a man that seeing the risen Lord would be his greatest nightmare. What if he claimed to see the risen Christ and then he changes and becomes a follower. Then that would reject the hallucination theory and then he explains Saul who would be changed to the Apostle Paul claimed being changed by a risen Savior. The atheist had no more answers. Change in people can be a very powerful witness to the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Like Richard Boone in the movie Big Jake, with John Wayne, when at the end Boone says to Big Jake; I thought you was dead! John Wayne as only he can say it; “NOT HARDLY”!

Saul who would become Paul may have thought when he saw Jesus on the road to Damascus, I thought you were dead! Paul wouldn’t have known John Wayne’s punch line, but I can imagine Jesus smiling and saying “NOT HARDLY”. Of course Jesus didn’t say that, but Paul was changed by a risen Lord Jesus Christ and history backs it up.

The tomb is empty! Praise God

Tags: the two witnesses

The rapture of the church has been coming under fire lately by some Christians. One of the reasons is actually a complaint against God. They think if the rapture was going to happen it should have already taken place. I also would like to see the rapture happen, but do we realize the self-centeredness of this wish?
Do we realize that when the rapture happens that it will be as when God closed the door on the Ark and then the rain started? Perhaps we should be praying for more time for those who are still lost before God shuts the door. Remember what Peter said-
2Pe 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

Every day the Lord tarries is another day that some will be saved and will not go through the 7 year tribulation period. God expects us to have patience concerning his coming back for us. It will be seven years that God pours out His wrath on the whole earth. We who know Christ will not suffer through that period. God makes this clear in Revelation chapter 3;
Rev 3:10 Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth.

Let’s look at some rapture references from what I covered in chapter 2 of Zechariah.
The primary reference for the rapture of the church is in I Thessalonians chapter 4.
1Th 4:16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.
1Th 4:17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.
Those who have trusted Christ as Savior and are already in heaven, have left their bodies in the grave to decay and turn to dust. When Christ returns as He promised, we who are alive rise up with our suddenly changed bodies to meet Christ in the air. The dusty remains of believers Spirits in heaven are changed back to a body but this new body is incorruptible and is now what we call a glorified body. People that died and went to heaven have not yet been ubited with their bodies. The merging of Spirit and new glorified bodies happens at the rapture.
These new glorified bodies rise up from the earth or graves and the spirits of those in heaven are placed in the new glorified body. This happens very quickly and in that instant the Holy Spirit leaves the earth with the believers.

1Co 15:51 Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
1Co 15:52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.

Jesus tells us in the gospel of John that He has rooms for us in heaven OR HEAVENLY CHAMBERS. Remember that the temple was a picture of heavenly things. If you do a study of Solomon’s Temple form I Kings chapter 6 you see that God made a blue print for chambers or rooms inside the Temple and never says what those rooms are for. I believe that are a picture of the rooms for us in heaven. God has always planned on having a place for us in heaven while He pours out His wrath on earth for seven years. We will be in the mansions and safe from what’s happening on the earth just a dimension away. Jesus comforts us with this in John 14;

Joh 14:1 “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.
Joh 14:2 In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.
This promise of keeping us from the trial that will come on the whole earth was a mystery because the church was a mystery in the Old Testament. But Isaiah gives us a glimpse of the rapture and being in God’s protective presence while His wrath is poured out on the gentile nations on earth.

Isa 26:19 Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead.
Isa 26:20 Come, my people, enter your chambers, and shut your doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until the fury has passed by.
Isa 26:21 For behold, the LORD is coming out from his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity, and the earth will disclose the blood shed on it, and will no more cover its slain.

If we really want the rapture to come sooner, then our focus should be evangelism. There must be a person or persons that God will not close the door until they are ready to spend eternity with God. Let’s take as many with us as we can and remember Satan is our enemy in this effort. I think time is short.

Tags: church, glorified body, rapture, twinkling of an eye

- Last night we just got started into the first vision in Zechariah.
The first thing I tackled was who is the Angel of the Lord, who is also the man on the red horse, standing among the myrtle trees?
Zec 1:8 “I saw in the night, and behold, a man riding on a red horse! He was standing among the myrtle trees in the glen, and behind him were red, sorrel, and white horses.
Zec 1:9 Then I said, ‘What are these, my lord?’ The angel who talked with me said to me, ‘I will show you what they are.’
Zec 1:10 So the man who was standing among the myrtle trees answered, ‘These are they whom the LORD has sent to patrol the earth.’
Zec 1:11 And they answered the angel of the LORD who was standing among the myrtle trees, and said, ‘We have patrolled the earth, and behold, all the earth remains at rest.’

We spent some time discussing that The Angel of the LORD is a preincarnate appearance of Jesus Christ who is very Jealous of Jerusalem and Israel.

We see the Angel of God and the Angel of the LORD many times in the Old Testament. ( Over 60 verses).
He defends Jerusalem when Hezehiah is King of Judah at the time of Isaiah.
Isaiah. Sennacherib King of Assyria plans on attacking Jerusalem with a huge army and The Angel of the Lord decides to take out the army to protect Jerusalem.

2Ki 19:35 And that night the Angel of the LORD went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. And when people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies.

Let’s look at some of the passages I gave last night that give us a better picture who The Angel of the LORD is.
First I’ll go to the parents of the strongest man in the Bible, Samson. The Angel of the LORD appears to Samson’s mother and tells her she is to be the mother of Samson and she goes and tells her husband. Her husband Manoah prays and asks the Angel to return. Let’s go to where the Angel of the LORD comes back;
Jdg 13:10 So the woman ran quickly and told her husband, “Behold, the man who came to me the other day has appeared to me.”
Jdg 13:11 And Manoah arose and went after his wife and came to the man and said to him, “Are you the man who spoke to this woman?” And he said, “I am.”
Jdg 13:12 And Manoah said, “Now when your words come true, what is to be the child’s manner of life, and what is his mission?”
Jdg 13:13 And the angel of the LORD said to Manoah, “Of all that I said to the woman let her be careful.
Jdg 13:14 She may not eat of anything that comes from the vine, neither let her drink wine or strong drink, or eat any unclean thing. All that I commanded her let her observe.”
Jdg 13:15 Manoah said to the angel of the LORD, “Please let us detain you and prepare a young goat for you.”
Jdg 13:16 And the angel of the LORD said to Manoah, “If you detain me, I will not eat of your food. But if you prepare a burnt offering, then offer it to the LORD.” (For Manoah did not know that he was the angel of the LORD.)
Jdg 13:17 And Manoah said to the angel of the LORD, “What is your name, so that, when your words come true, we may honor you?”
Jdg 13:18 And the angel of the LORD said to him, “Why do you ask my name, seeing it is wonderful?”

I have two points to make here, one is that this messenger is the Angel of the Lord and when asked his name He replies WONDERFUL. I’ll explain this more in a moment.
Next we find out that the Angel is God.
Jdg 13:19 So Manoah took the young goat with the grain offering, and offered it on the rock to the LORD, to the one who works wonders, and Manoah and his wife were watching.
Jdg 13:20 And when the flame went up toward heaven from the altar, the angel of the LORD went up in the flame of the altar. Now Manoah and his wife were watching, and they fell on their faces to the ground.
Jdg 13:21 The angel of the LORD appeared no more to Manoah and to his wife. Then Manoah knew that he was the angel of the LORD.
Jdg 13:22 And Manoah said to his wife, “We shall surely die, for we have seen God.”

Manoah understood from Exodus that the Angel of the LORD was God. He was able to see God and live. The disciples of Jesus saw God the Son and yet they lived. But let’s explore the Name Wonderful. It is a name for Jesus in Isaiah.

Isa 9:6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

Many people run wonderful and counselor together but there should be a comma separating them into two names, not one name. We have a little hint here of God telling us His Son is the Angel of the LORD. Let’s look at another Old Testament passage.

In this passage Moses is drawn to a strange site. A thornbush is on fire and is not burning up. I see it as a picture of Jesus with a crown of thorns and not consumed by the grave.

Exo 3:1 Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb.
Exo 3:2 And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.
Exo 3:3 And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.

Please note that the Angel is in the midst of the thorn bush. ( The Hebrew is Thorn bush)
Now we see its God in the Thorn Bush. This is God’s way of making us pay attention to His word and to see that The Angel of the LORD is God just as Jesus is God. ( Read Joshua chapter five and see a similar passage where Jesus is the Commander of the LORD’s army)

Exo 3:4 And when the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I.
Exo 3:5 And he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.

And just so there is no confusion, he is told to take off his shoes because he is in the presence of God.
Moses wants to know God’s name and God tells Him a different name than YHWH or Adonai.
Exo 3:13 And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?
Exo 3:14 And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.

God tells Moses to use the name I AM. Jesus made seven I AM statements in John and one of those is in John chapter 8. Jesus is arguing with the Pharisees and this statement causes them to try and stone Him for blasphemy or claiming to be God.
Joh 8:56 Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.”
Joh 8:57 So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?”
Joh 8:58 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”
Joh 8:59 So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.

Jesus used the name for God that the Jews were very familiar with. It was another name for God and the name for the Angel of the Lord. When you tell some people that Jesus is claiming to be God in John 8:58 they often say Jesus wasn’t claiming to be God. They say the Jews were just angry and decided to stone Him. You next need to go another chapter over and show them John 10 verse 31;

Joh 10:31 The Jews picked up stones again to stone him.
Joh 10:32 Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you going to stone me?”
Joh 10:33 The Jews answered him, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.”

Notice that verse 31 says they picked up stones again. This is the same group from chapter 8. Verse 33 says they plan on stoning Him for calling Himself God which he did when He claimed to be I AM and when He said He and the Father were one. So from these two Old Testament stories and what Jesus says in John chapter 8 I believe that Christ is the second person of the Trinity, He is God, and He and has taken on visible form in the past as the Angel of the LORD.

As we progress in the book of Zechariah it will become more evident that The Angel of the LORD is God and Jesus Christ. We will see that God uses prophecies of Christ as a comfort to the Jews.

That’s all for this week, God Bless

Dan

Tags: Angel of the LORD, Jesus preincarnate Word

- I had a very good question last week that I would like to discuss. The question was do the cults worship the same God that we do. The answer is they don’t by the definition of the word cult itself. But I use Dr. Walter Martin’s definition and he got it from Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse. A Christian cult is a church that believes in a Jesus that is not the Jesus of the Bible.
They can use His name all they want but theirs’ is another Jesus. We get our definition from II Corinthians chapter 11.
4 For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.

The Apostle Paul told the Corinthian church they were being deceived as Eve was by the serpent or Satan which he mentions later in the chapter. So Paul himself says there is another Jesus.
I know this to be true because the Jesus I believed in until I was saved was another Jesus. My Jesus had a beginning; my Jesus was married to Mary and Martha and was a polygamist. My Jesus was not all powerful and could not create the universe from nothing. My Jesus didn’t pay for all my sins on the cross. I didn’t really need my Jesus because I could get myself to heaven by good works. The Jesus of the Bible has no beginning and He is eternal, past and future. The Jesus of the Bible is fully God and the second person of the Trinity. He is not one God of many Gods. He is not the Angel Michael. He is not just an extremely good man and not God. He is not an advanced medium in the sixth sphere.
When I found the Jesus of the Bible I found the real thing and my Jesus that I had believed in went away for good. The Jesus that I used to believe in was made up by man.
We call other belief systems that call God by other names just religions. If it has to do with Satan, astrology, witchcraft etc. we call this the occult. The occult come from the Latin word used in the book of Revelation. Revelation 2:24 (ASV) But to you I say, to the rest that are in Thyatira, as many as have not this teaching, who know not the deep things of Satan,

Who Jesus Christ is and what He did on the cross and His resurrection from the dead is what separates us from the Christian cults. When we run into people who call themselves Christian it doesn’t hurt to define terms and these days it seems that some people want to be considered Christian even thought they are not. So here are some questions we could ask someone;
• Is Jesus eternal or did He have a beginning? Did He exist as God before the universe came into existence?
• Is He the creator? Did He create the universe from nothing?
• Is He fully God?
• Was he bodily resurrected from the dead?
• Did He commit any sins?
• Did He fully pay for our sins on the Cross?
• Is He God in the flesh and the second person of the Holy Trinity or is a he a God.

Tags: Paul said there was another Jesus than the Jesus of the Bible

Could Jesus be tempted to sin?

The answer is no, God can’t be tempted. In fact God tempts no one to sin, we do
that easily enough ourselves.

 God has revealed his nature and character
to us. There is no verse that says God can be tempted to sin. Sin is disobedience
to God and He will not contradict Himself. Jesus Christ is God in the flesh. This presents a particular problem becasue as a man Jesus could be hungry, thirsty and sneeze, and yet he was eternal God. The Bible says that jesus was tempted in all ways as we are. I take this to mean a general sense as the “lust of the flesh”, “the lust of the eys”, and the “pride of Life”. Jesus didn’t know what it was like to want another drink while still having a hangover or needing another fix of meth. Since He is our creator He knows every thought we have because He also programed our minds, emotions and made our hormones. I believ He knew sorrows such as losing His dad at some point the Bible doesn’t mention. He had friends turn on Him and yet He would have known sorrow and yet never retaliated.

He never sinned. We can’t understnand that He could never look at a woman His entire life and not have a lustful thought slip in. He never gossiped or lashed out at someone when His feelings were hurt. We know that Satan Tempted Him for 40 days and in a weakened state, and yet Satan was unable to get Him to use Divine powers to work outside His Fathers will.

Let’s look at what God says about this
subject;

Jas 1:13  Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God,” for God cannot be
tempted by evil, and he himself tempts no one.

 The reason for the virgin birth was so that the curse and sin nature of Adam would not be imputed
to Jesus. Jesus is 100 % man, but also 100% God. The Hypostatic union is one of
those things beyond our comprehension, but we can’t understand all the
attributes of God anyway.

Now reason this out; everyone with a sin nature sins. Is this true or not?
Rom 3:23  for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Why do they fall short?  They sin and God
doesn’t. We have a sin nature and God and Jesus don’t. Anyone with a sin nature,
sins, is this true or false?

We have a verse that says there was no sin in Jesus down to His very heart, soul
and core in the original Greek.

1Jn 3:5  And you know that Jesus was revealed to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.

I’ll believe that Jesus has a sin nature if you produce one verse that says He
sinned. You will not find one. If Jesus sinned then we are lost in or sins. It
took a perfect Savior to save us.

Some Christians think that since Satan tempted Jesus, that it is possible for Jesus
to sin. Just because Satan tempted Jesus to do his will rather than God’s will proves
nothing. Satan was trying to prove that Jesus wasn’t God. 

Mathew 4:6 And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down

 If Jesus had failed the temptation then He wouldn’t be God and He would prove to us that He did
have a sin nature. Just because Satan attempted it proves nothing. Read the
Book of Revelation. You will see that Satan leads a rebellion of the armies of
the earth at a place called Armageddon. Satan takes on God Himself, being Jesus,
and He can’t win. Just as he tried to get Jesus to sin he thinks he can win a
war against God. Did he have chance of defeating the creator who created him?
No not even a slim chance. But he tried.
Rev 19:19  ThenI saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies assembled to do battle
with the one who rode the horse and with his army.

Rev 19:21  The others were killed by the sword that extended from the mouth of the one who
rode the horse, and all the birds gorged themselves with their flesh. Rev 20:2  He seized the dragon — the
ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan — and tied him up for a thousand years.

So just because Satan tried to tempt Jesus doesn’t mean that Jesus could lose the battle of the mind and be tempted. Satan
often tries things that are not possible.  As Christians we must understand one thing! We test our feeling and experiences by
the Bible. We never test the Bible by our experiences. So again we have God
instructing us on Himself being tempted.

Jas 1:13  Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted by evil, and he
himself tempts no one.

Have a good day

We are giving lessons this year at our men’s retreat concerning the disciples of Jesus and what He taught them. This is a possible story from a man named Nicodemus.

My name is Nicodemus, I was a Pharisee. This
is my story of how I met Jesus and what He taught me.

The first
time I met Jesus, I was on assignment to watch a new so-called prophet who had
come on the scene. His name was John the Baptist. He was ornery and very blunt.
We knew at once that he wasn’t from God. We knew that if God sent anyone to
Israel that God would use a Pharisee or at least bring him to the Pharisees and
scribes for confirmation. John wanted nothing to do with us or the teachers of
God’s law. John delighted in preaching about sin and he thought even we
Pharisees were sinners. That showed how ignorant he was.

I was on the banks of the Jordan river
watching those weak willed sheep go to him and confess their sins for the whole
world to hear. Then John looked up at me and my companions. He said-

“You
brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

Mat 3:8  Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

Mat 3:9  And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We
have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to
raise up children for Abraham.

Mat 3:10  Even now the axe is laid to the root of the
trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and
thrown into the fire.

I thought it strange that I was thinking of
Abraham and that since I was a child of Abraham I didn’t need be baptized or admit
any sin. It was gentile sinners that needed water cleansing and to clear their
consciences. I was a righteous Jew.

Then I saw Jesus for the first time. I wrote
down the conversation between Him and the Baptist.

Mat 3:13  Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to
John, to be baptized by him.

Mat 3:14  John
would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do
you come to me?”

Mat 3:15  But Jesus
answered him, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill
all righteousness.” Then he consented.

We Pharisees had already heard of Jesus, but
we knew if He was really from God He would have allied Himself with we
Pharisees. Instead He joined company with the Baptist. He didn’t admit any sins
but he did let Old Camel Hair baptize himself. Then something happened that
I’ll never forget;

Mat 3:17  and behold, a voice from heaven said,
“This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

The voice thundered and the ground seemed to
shake. Even the Baptist seemed shaken by it and treated Jesus as if He was God
himself.

I reported
back to the council what I saw and heard. We started having more and more
meetings to discuss what to do with these two trouble makers. Jesus had a large
following for some time and then he seemed to withdraw and concentrated his
teaching on just twelve followers. Why he picked those twelve I’ll never know.
The Zebedee boys were pretty wealthy and you would never dream they would leave
a good career as commercial fishermen to follow Jesus. The big guy, Peter, he
was all mouth and dumber than a post. But Jesus treated them like brothers and
best friends. In fact he treated everyone good except we Pharisees.

The biggest disappointment was that Jesus
healed everyone, even sinners that we knew that God had cursed. It seemed the
whole world was talking and infatuated with this deadbeat. He had no job and no
education. There were rumors that before His father died that they were
carpenters together and they specialized in oxen yokes. Another story was that
His mother claimed to have become pregnant after an angel had visited her. The
story we Pharisees decided to believe was that she had an affair with a Roman
soldier and Jesus was the result of that affair.

We Pharisees continued to gather information
and it was always confusing and impossible to know what the truth was, so I
decided to go see Him one night and learn more for myself. Many of my
colleagues were afraid of Him and intimidated by Him and yet I didn’t think He
was dangerous. We as a council had decided to accuse Him of sorcery and doing
His many miracles by the power of Satan, so I said to Him; “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one
can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.”I expected Him to defend His source of power as being from God and He changed thesubject on me. He said; “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one
is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”This made no sense to me. Instead of defending
Himself and proving He was doing miracles by the power of God He seemed to be
more interested in teaching me something.

So instead of asking Him again to defend
Himself I decided to try and understand what He was teaching here. So I asked; “How can a man be born when he is
old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”

Joh
3:5  Jesus answered, “Truly, truly,
I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the
kingdom of God.

Joh 3:6
That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the
Spirit is spirit.

Joh 3:7
Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’

Joh 3:8
The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not
know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born
of the Spirit.”

I
will never forget that moonlit night. Just as He said “the wind blows where it
wishes” a huge gust of wind blew some dried leaves down the path and around us
and swept them away. I immediately thought of chaff being blown away by the
wind on a threshing floor and what the Baptist had said that day on the river.

Mat
3:12  His winnowing fork is in his hand,
and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but
the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

I had never
been so confused before. The wind and the leaves were also troubling me. I was
convinced that Jesus had control over the wind. But what really shocked me was
He was far more concerned about me than He was about Himself. I had to admit I
was confused;

“How can these things be?”

Joh 3:10  Jesus
answered, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand
these things?

Jesus went
on for some time talking about God so loved the world that He didn’t want
anyone to perish or be chaff for the fire as I took it.

Later my
colleagues were even more baffled by how the people were accepting Jesus and
His teachings.  What the Apostle John
wrote about this meeting is true;

Joh 7:42  Has not the Scripture said
that the Christ comes from the offspring of David, and comes from Bethlehem,
the village where David was?”

43  So there was a division among
the people over him.

44  Some of them wanted to arrest
him, but no one laid hands on him.

45  The officers then came to the
chief priests and Pharisees, who said to them, “Why did you not bring
him?”

46  The officers answered,
“No one ever spoke like this man!”

47  The Pharisees answered them,
“Have you also been deceived?

48  Have any of the authorities or
the Pharisees believed in him?

49  But this crowd that does not
know the law is accursed.”

50  Nicodemus, who had gone to him
before, and who was one of them, said to them,

51  “Does our law judge a man
without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?”

52  They replied, “Are you
from Galilee too? Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee.”

After Jesus
was crucified we realized that Jesus was born in Bethlehem and was of the tribe
of Judah and the house of David. My fellow Pharisees had never bothered to
check out His linage or place of birth.

But I was
bothered by the “born again” term that Jesus used on me the night of our meeting
under the cover of darkness. Jesus had expected me to know the doctrine of this
term :born again”. I searched until I found it and I realized Jesus knew far
more about the Word of God than any of us experts in the Law. I found it from
the pen of Ezekiel the Prophet.

and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and
from all your idols I will cleanse you.

Eze 36:26  And I
will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will
remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

27  And I will put
my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to
obey my rules.

After the
Day of Pentecost the Ezekiel passage really hit home. Jesus gave me a new heart
of flesh and I was born of the Spirit. I was really born twice, once when my
mother’s water broke and I was physically born and once when I accepted what
Jesus did on the cross and paid for my sins. I was forgiven by God.

Joseph and I
took down Jesus body and put it in Joseph’s tomb after they crucified Him. My
fellow Pharisees broke the law they taught several times to convict Jesus of
things He was not guilty of. I knew the tomb could not hold Jesus and it
didn’t, he showed Himself many times after his death.

The things I learned most from Jesus was his
self sacrifice. He used every moment for others. The night we met he was really
busy and yet I had his undivided attention and his whole focus was on me and
where I was headed and correcting my thinking. His miracles were never to get
attention to Himself or make money. Every doctor charges for his services but
Jesus just wanted people to be whole and trust God. God was glorified in every
act and every teaching. When Jesus said “that God so loved the world that He
gave His only begotten Son” He really meant it.

Signed;
Nicodemus, from Pharisee to follower of Christ.

Just thinking-a way to understand doctrine better is to take a theme or word and trace it’s occurrence everywhere you find it in the Bible. Let’s look at demons or unclean spirits today.

Mar 1:23 And immediately there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit. And he cried out,
Mar 1:24 “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are–the Holy One of God.”
Mar 1:25 But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!”
Mar 1:26 And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying out with a loud voice, came out of him.
Mar 1:27 And they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, “What is this? A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.”

Let’s take a close look at this passage and try to see what we can observe. First we see this man was in a religious setting and there were more than one demon in him. We also see that they know more about who Jesus is than the human populace around Jesus. They know he is from Nazareth and make special note of it. They call Jesus the Holy One of God. Not even Jesus’ disciples were calling Jesus by this title, so we understand they had more information and also understood the danger they were in. They let everyone know that they understood that Jesus had the power to destroy a demonic spirit. In Isaiah we have an angel that kills 185,000 Assyrian soldiers. Angels are nothing to mess with and yet Jesus has no problem ordering them to do what they don’t want to.

No human has power over angels, they are more powerful than we are and know more. Let’s compare this with another passage.

Luk 8:28 When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him and said with a loud voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me.”
Luk 8:29 For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many a time it had seized him. He was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the desert.)
Luk 8:30 Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Legion,” for many demons had entered him.
Luk 8:31 And they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss.

In the passage above we have demons asking the same question; are you going to torture or torment us. They know with certainty that they have a day of judgment awaiting them. I picked this passage in Luke because here they ask Jesus not to throw them into the abyss or what you and I call hell.

If you know people who reject the idea of a future punishment and judgment, or of a place called hell, the study of demons and exorcism by Christ himself can give us a lot of information. You can also read other encounters the demons have with Christ and you will come to understand that the demons know for certain that a day of judgment is scheduled for them and that it appears by their own words that they know pain is involved.

Let me explain two other things that you won’t find in the text.

(1) Is that the teachers of the law taught that no one could exercise a demon from a person unless the person casting out the demon found out the name of the demon. They taught that you had to find out the demon’s name and then command him using his name to cast it out. If he would give his name then you couldn’t cast the demon.
(2) If the demon possessed man was mute and couldn’t talk then it was impossible to cast out the demon since you couldn’t get his name. They said in the case of a mute person that had an unclean spirit, only God himself could do such a thing. They taught this to the people in the synagogues and then their enemy comes along and does exactly what they said only Jehovah God could do. You can see this was a fine mess Jesus put them in. What could they do to keep any kind of credibility with the people and yet make Jesus who was healing people look bad? They came up with the only response they could.
Mat 12:22 Then a demon-oppressed man who was blind and mute was brought to him, and he healed him, so that the man spoke and saw.
Mat 12:23 And all the people were amazed, and said, “Can this be the Son of David?”
Mat 12:24 But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, “It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons.”

All they could do was say that Jesus was demon possessed or Satan himself, and it was the power of Satan that the demon was cast out of the mute man.
There is another lesson here beneath the surface. If people choose not to believe in Christ, they have made a decision. It doesn’t matter how much information we give them, they will find a reason not to believe. Jesus proved over and over that he was God in the flesh, the demons even let the cat out of the bag and the people would not believe.
When this happens I think our best response is give them the gospel again. Back to being a sinner that needs a Savior. It’s time to get personal; Jesus knew how to get personal with people. The most important thing isn’t that it’s Ok to see a Harry Potter movie or go to a Halloween party; who is Jesus and what does He offer, is the main thing.

All for this week,, God bless

Dan Slyter

Tags: Bible study, Christ, Demons, excercism