Just as Moses told the people of Israel to choose life by loving the Lord your God, obeying His voice, and holding fast to Him.
“Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying His voice and holding fast to him, for He is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.” Deuteronomy 30:19-20
Jesus has told us that only He is the way the truth and the life.
“Jesus said to him (Thomas), I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also.” John 14:6-7
What do you choose, life eternal, by accepting what Jesus has accomplished on your behalf or death? Jesus paid the price for our rebellion against God, how good is our God? Do not be like the Israelites who turned away from God and suffered the consequences of being cast out of the land God gave them.
“But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish.” Deuteronomy 30:17-18 2
If you choose Jesus you will not perish, nor will you be left like orphans. Jesus made it possible for our Heavenly Father to send the third person of the Trinity to indwell our Spirit to be our helper, our counsellor, our teacher, and our comforter.
“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you… But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” John 14:18, 26
You can have all you need to live righteously in this life and begin to live in the knowledge that you have eternal life in Jesus through the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit. Start living eternal now ready for Jesus soon coming return. My book is available on Amazon as an ebook or trade paperback edition. I hope you will get a copy and put it into circulation.
This is an important message from Nelson Walters and the Last Days Overcomers team.
“Most readers miss this simple fact about hope. In these seemingly “hopeless” times, they ask, “What is our hope?” And many times, people at our conferences ask Marquis, Jake, and me the same question, what is our hope?
After completing four amazing (4) conferences so far this summer and interacting with a number of you one-on-one, we can answer inarguably. It is the same answer that the Apostle Paul gave to the Thessalonian church. And it’s not the answer you expect:
“For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it, not you? For you are our glory and joy.” 1 Thessalonians 2:19-20
Yes, you are our glory and hope. The people to whom we minister. Didn’t see that coming, did you?
As Westerners (USA, UK, Canada, Australia, SA, etc.) we tend to view hope in terms of politics or comfort. Do we have hope in our nation’s survival, do we have hope in the economy, do we have hope in our church? But on the day that we stand before Jesus when he comes, you will be our hope and glory. And likewise, your ministry will be your hope. Our hope isn’t in our individual survival or comfort, but it’s in those we have been called to disciple and minister to. Because on the day of Jesus’ return, all other things will be swept away.
In our private conversations, Marquis, Jake, and I spoke of these summer conferences as “building up the remnant;” as an opportunity to prepare those who will face the things we read about in prophecy. And here is the second shocker: you share that ministry with us.
Notice in 1 Thessalonians, Paul didn’t say “You are MY glory and joy,” he said, “You are OUR glory and joy.” It was a shared ministry then, and we are thrilled to share our ministry with you now.
In this upcoming month, you will receive a notice about a new series of free, online conferences we will be undertaking in the Fall and Winter with a number of well-known guest speakers. And you will be given an opportunity to participate in FOCUS GROUPS to help us form and shape what those conferences will be like. We look forward to you sharing in this ministry in this way.”
In the natural, when we read who Jesus says will be blessed in TheBeatitudes we think “crazy” but in our hearts, we know it is right because it is righteousness.
Shortly after Jesus started His ministry he gathered crowds because he healed all who came to Him.
“And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. So his fame spread throughout all of Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, those having seizures, and paralytics, and he healed them. And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.” Matthew 4:23
The first time Jesus preached to the “multitudes” He preached the Beatitudes:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.Matthew 5:3-12
Surely, those who are open-minded can see that Jesus truly is who He said He was. Before Jesus went to die on the Cross on our behalf, the disciples were perplexed. Take to heart what Jesus said to Thomas.
“Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”John 14:5-7
I am sure we can bold;y assert that no man of all the myriads that have ever lived – let him be as wise as Solomon, the absolute best as Job could ever have invented from his own “thoughts”, the GOSPEL. It was impossible for such a plan of salvation ever to be devised by man’s thoughts.
I believe Andy McIntosh (Professor of Thermodynamics and Combustion Theory at the University of Leeds, UK) provides a good answer as to why humans continue to deny God and His son, Jesus.
“As a scientist, I see nothing to discount straightforward belief in Scripture, when considering the mechanisms in nature… man’s prejudice against design in creation can only really be answered by a radical change of heart and by personally meeting the Author of all… I believe that it is because humans do not want to be accountable to a Creator God that they persist with a theory (evolution) that has little evidence to support it.”
They cannot countenance a Creator to whom they are responsible for their actions. Where do you stand? What do you believe?
Note what David said in these two Psalms, that he would do. We can at least do the same.
Thank Jesus for what He has accomplished for us – our salvation, recognising how costly it was for Jesus and our Heavenly Father.
Devote ourselves and all we have to His service.
Doing good is sacrifice, with which God is well pleased; and this must accompany giving thanks in His name.
We are not ashamed to be in God’s service and to invite others to join us. Such are true saints of God, in whose lives and deaths He will be glorified.
“What shall I render to the LORD for all his benefits to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the LORD, I will pay my vows to the LORD in the presence of all his people.” Psalms 116:12-14
“I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving and call on the name of the LORD. I will pay my vows to the LORD in the presence of all his people, in the courts of the house of the LORD, in your midst, O Jerusalem. Praise the LORD!” Psalms 116:17-18
“I know that the LORD will maintain the cause of the afflicted, and will execute justice for the needy. Surely the righteous shall give thanks to your name; the upright shall dwell in your presence.” Psalms 140:12-13
What about the ten lepers who were healed by Jesus. Only one returned to give thanks to Jesus, and He was a Samaritan. Not one of the Jews, members of Jesus’ chosen nation, returned to give thanks.
“And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance and lifted up their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” When he saw them He said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went they were cleansed.Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks.Now he was a Samaritan.Then Jesus answered, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” And he said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”
Do we thank God constantly for His Word as Paul and His fellow believers did? Sadly, His church is not even upholding the inerrancy of God’s Word let alone thanking Him for it.
“And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.“1 Thessalonians 2:13
“If there is no absolute beyond man’s ideas, then there is no final appeal to judge between individuals and groups whose moral judgments conflict. We are merely left with conflicting opinions.” —Francis Schaeffer
What did Jesus say when Pontius Pilate asked if he was a king? “ ‘You are a king, then!’ said Pilate.
“Jesus answered, ‘You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.’” John 18:37
Of all truths in the universe, the most important is the truth of who Jesus is. After all, Truth is not merely an impersonal moral standard. It is a living Person who loved us so much He bears on His hands eternal scars because He rescued us.
“Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life”John 6:47
The phrase “Truly I tell you” appears 79 times in Scripture, 78 times spoken by Jesus. He is the Truth, and He tells the truth. We can fully trust everything He says. His promises are written in blood.
Truth claims are exclusive. Jesus didn’t say He was a truth, but “the truth”. If someone says Jesus isn’t the primary truth, then either he’s wrong or Jesus is.
If we grasp this truth, we’ll undergo the ultimate paradigm shift: without Christ, any sacrifice we make is worthless. We are miserable without Jesus. Nothing we have can satisfy us. And even if it did, we couldn’t hold on to it.
When we hear Jesus tell us to take up our crosses and follow Him and say we should lose our lives for His sake, we’re tempted to think, “Too hard, I will never be happy.” But in fact, Jesus is saying our short-term sacrifices for Him are a means to an end, and that end is true and abundant life: “Whoever loses their life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10:39).
Scripture is full of disheartening diagnoses, including that “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure” Jeremiah 17:9
But the Great Physician must tell us this hard truth so we can say,
“Create in me a clean heart, O God” (Psalm 51:10).
The Physician also promises,
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees” (Ezekiel 36:26-27).
Words that at first may sting us deeply don’t mean we are without hope, only that we cannot cure ourselves. But God has provided the cure:
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” 2 Corinthians 5:17
Eternal life is not found by believing in just any god but by believing in the “only true God.” False gods, both religious and secular, litter the landscape. “Jesus prayed, ‘Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent’” (John 17:3). The only true God is the one who sent the only true Savior, Jesus Christ.
Jesus gives us more than eternal existence. He gives us eternal life: “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” Ephesians 2:4-6
This great truth all hinges on the person and work of none other than Jesus.
God’s best and most perfect gift to us is Jesus Himself.
“All things were created through him and for him…and in Him, all things hold together” Colossians 1:16-17
How can we be anything less than optimistic? Our optimism is based squarely on realism: Jesus is real, atonement is real, resurrection is real, and Jesus soon coming Millennial Kingdom is real. The Gospel really is “good news.”
“They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.” Revelation 20:4-6
“The OT is a messianic document, written from a messianic perspective, to sustain a messianic hope.” J. Hamilton, “The Skull Crushing Seed of the Woman: Inner-Biblical Interpretation of Genesis 3:15,” SBJT 10 (2006): 30.
Messianic prophecy is “the infallible guide leading in a straight line from Moses and the Prophets to Jesus and the Apostles.” Without it, “The Messiahship of Jesus becomes a purely subjective conviction without anchorage in historical revelation.” 1. J. Jocz, The Jewish People and Jesus Christ (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1979), 208–9.
In fact, for books to be accepted into the Old Testament canon, they all required an essential characteristic—they had to reveal the Messiah.
“Jesus opened their mind to understand the Scriptures” (Luke 24:45), demonstrating that divine enlightenment was essential to an accurate understanding of messianic prophecy. In addition to the diligent study of messianic texts, the disciples could not understand messianic prophecy without divine enablement.
Jesus’ hermeneutical perspective (that all the Old Testament pointed to the Messiah) is evident in Peter’s preaching. In his sermon at the portico of Solomon, recorded in Acts 3:11–26, he asserted that “all” the prophets pointed to the Messiah. Moreover, he maintained that the central message of the prophets was indeed eschatological and messianic. He stated
” And all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and those who came after him, also proclaimed these days.” Acts 3:24
As shown in John 5:45–47, Jesus told the Jewish leaders who had rejected Him that He was not the one accusing them before the Father but that Moses was. The rationale for this statement is that if they had believed Moses, they would also believe in Jesus, “because he wrote about Me” (John 5:46). It was their failure to believe Moses’ writings that caused these leaders to not believe Jesus’ words. Jesus indicated that Moses knew that he was writing about the Messiah. If Moses had not known of whom he was speaking, how could he accuse those who did not believe him?
The apostles both believed in Jesus as Messiah and effectively proclaimed His Messiahship to ancient Jewish audiences because of their confidence in His fulfillment of Messianic prophecy.
Significantly, Peter’s perspective, that David was directly speaking of the Messiah, is in harmony with David’s own understanding of his writings (2 Samuel 23:3-5).
“Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Being, therefore, a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, “‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”’ Acts 2:29-35
In the book of Acts, the central message of the apostles to the Jewish people was that Jesus was both Lord and Messiah (Acts2:36). According to F. F. Bruce, the apostles substantiated their claim with two arguments, one from prophecy and the other from miracles. They proclaimed that “the prophetic scriptures which foretold Messiah’s coming have been fulfilled by the ministry, suffering and triumph of Jesus, and the mighty works which he performed were so many ‘signs’ that in Him the messianic age had arrived.” F. F. Bruce The Defence of the Gospel in the New Testament (Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, 1959).
Peter was the first to use messianic prophecy in Jewish evangelism. At Pentecost, in his first sermon, Peter proved his central message with a messianic prophecy (Acts 2:22–36). He declared that Jesus of Nazareth had been raised from the dead in fulfillment of Ps 16:8–11 and that he had ascended into heaven in fulfillment of Ps 110:1. Psalm 110 does indeed picture the divine Priest-King, now seated at the right hand of God but who will descend from heaven at the end of days to save Israel and extend His rule over all the earth. This is none other than the Messiah.
In Peter’s second sermon at Solomon’s Colonnade, after the healing of the lame man (Acts 3:11–26), he argued,
“But what God predicted through the mouth of all the prophets—that His Messiah would suffer—He has fulfilled in this way”Acts 3:18
Peter further claimed that “all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and those after him, have also announced these days” Acts 3:24
Philip also used messianic prophecy in evangelism. When the Ethiopian official (Acts 8:26–40), who apparently was a proselyte to Judaism, asked of whom the prophet spoke in Isaiah 53, Philip answered that it was Jesus (Acts 8:34–35).
Jesus’ millennial reign on earth does not rest on an isolated passage of the Apocalypse, but all Old Testament prophecy presents the same view (Isaiah 4:3; 11:9; 35:8).
“They (Resurrected Saints) came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.” Revelation 20:4-6
If God exists, then we also need to consider a positive aspect, which is sometimes called “freedom for.” Just like a car that has been designed by its creator to operate in a certain fashion, humans have been made in God’s image for a greater purpose and only experience freedom when they discover and live that purpose (Genesis 1-2). It is only when we know the truth, and align our lives to it, that we can experience genuine freedom.
LIVING IN ACCORDANCE WITH GOD’S DESIGN: The secular worldview says to live as you want. The Christian view says to live as God leads.
The secular view emphasizes the individual as supreme. The Christian view says that loving God and loving others is supreme.
The secular view says that we create existential truth. The Christian view says we discover the truth.
God has done His utmost to reveal the truth to us by sending His only Son not only to reveal the truth about Him and us but to atone for our sins and rebellion by dying on The Cross in our place that we might have the opportunity to get back into a right relationship with our Heavenly Father.
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father,full of grace and truth.“John 1:14
“For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” John 1:17
“God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” John 4:24
God has also made it clear as to what is the outcome for those that reject the truth about God.
“Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.” Romans 1:24-25
“He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.” Romans 2:6-8
God has also revealed in great detail what will unfold in the last seven years prior to Jesus’ return and the wrath of God is poured out on an unrepentant people. For those that want to know the truth, God has given it to us in His Word. Literally, thousands of fulfilled Bible prophecies prove the Bible is God’s revealed inerrant Word. You reject it at your own peril as the following Scripture reveals.
“Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?”Revelation 6:15-17
There is only one claim that might be more radical than Jesus rising from the dead. It is that Jesus also claimed to be Holy God. Consider these words from Jesus Himself. He states that
“I and the Father are one.” John 10:30
This statement drew considerable anger from many of the Jews, as just a few verses later we read they tried to stone Him – in their eyes this was blasphemy.
Elsewhere in the book of John, Jesus declares that:
“… before Abraham was born, I am.” John 8:58
Here, Jesus is basically quoting God in the Old Testament when God declares Himself to be:
“I AM.” Exodus 3:14
I can think of nothing more radical than claiming to be God. Yet, this is what Jesus claimed and demonstrated. He was God. Correction – He is God. He is very much alive.
“I am the way the truth and the life no one comes to the Father except through Me.” John 14:6
Jesus, The Only Hope for Sinners
The truth about Jesus is that He is the eternal, holy, and magnificent God. He existed in eternity past before the world ever was. In Him, creation was made. He is perfectly holy, supremely righteous, and wholly just. Being just, he must also deal with sin and evil appropriately.
“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him, all things hold together. And He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything He might be preeminent. For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of His cross.” Colossians 1:15-20
When sin entered our world through Adam, all men fell and death reigned. As the book of Romans says,
“All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (v. 3:23) and “The wages of sin is death” (v. 6:23).
Every member of the human race is fatally flawed and stained with sin. Because of this, we’re born evil and we choose evil. We rage war against the laws and morality of God. We lie, we lust, we steal, we hate, we murder, we blaspheme, we make idols, and we deny the very God who made us. All of us are deserving of judgment and eternal death for our sins.
Yet, from the beginning, God had a rescue plan. He made a promise to redeem His people from the guilt, shame, and judgment of their sins. Prophecies were made about a Messiah and in a mystery that was hidden for ages, God revealed that He is Messiah. Truly – Jesus is the Christ.
For sinners, such as you and me, the person and story of Jesus offer eternal hope. Born of a virgin and fulfilling every prophecy made about the coming Messiah, Jesus came to bring forgiveness, life, and hope. God took the form of man, lived a perfect life, and fulfilled the law completely. He was captured, beaten, tortured, denied, and executed by those He came to save. In doing so, He bore the stored wrath of the Holy God. He became the substitute and took the punishment His people deserve; the innocent died for the ungodly. After this, He rose from the dead and established His church.
You can have your sins forgiven if you repent of your sinful life and receive Jesus as your Lord and Saviour, thereby committing your life to His example and commands. Jesus’ blood spilled on the cross covers your sins and the judgment you deserve is transferred to Him. Instead of wrath, you receive life. This gospel has been preached for 2,000 years by men willing to die horrible deaths for their faith.
For those in Christ, we are credited, or imputed, with the righteousness of Jesus. Meaning, that in the eyes of God the Father, we are clothed in the righteousness of Christ.
Jesus also made it possible for our Heavenly Father to send the Holy Spirit to be our counsellor, comforter, and teacher and thereby enable us to live the Christian life. Nevertheless, the effects of our sinful natures linger and will ultimately kill us in this life unless, of course, we live until the time Jesus returns to rapture, first the dead in Christ and then those who are living, prior to the wrath of God being poured out on an unrepentant world with the Trumpet and Bowl judgements of Revelation 8 (Trumpet), 16 (Bowl).
Folks, today you are faced with a binary decision. You can choose to believe and trust that Jesus is everything He said He was, or He wasn’t. In denying Him, you remain under the wrath of God and judgment waits for you. Receive Him today! Trust Him! Believe in Him! The Bible tells that “All who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” There is no sin or evil you’ve committed that grace cannot cover. Forgiveness is available to all who seek it.
Seek Him while He still may be found.
adapted from an article by Jack Lee on April 11th, 2019 “Who was Jesus?” http://www.patheos.com
The biggest reason people followed Jesus wasn’t because of what he taught. In fact, most probably wished Jesus would stop talking because every time he talked he upset them. People followed Jesus because of His miracles. Because He healed the sick. and fed them. We all like free healthcare and free food.
“Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” There was plenty of grass in that place, and they sat down (about five thousand men were there). Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed them to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish. John 6:10-11
This was such an impactful miracle that it is the only miracle that is recorded in all four eyewitness accounts of Jesus’ life: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Once the people realized what Jesus had just done, they responded exactly how you would expect:
“After the people saw the sign Jesus performed, they began to say, “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.” Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, He withdrew again to a mountain by himself.” John 6:14-15
What the Jews wanted more than anything else was a political and military ruler that could defeat the Romans. They were ready to join His army and that’s why they tried to force Him to become their king.
As things progressed, the crowds grew more frustrated. Again, the crowds literally wanted to make Jesus their king, and he disappeared. So they went after him.
“So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum, seeking Jesus.” John 6:24
When they caught up with Jesus, He said to them, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill.” John 6:24-26
Jesus saw straight through them. They weren’t interested in the Kingdom of God, they just wanted a free meal. That ended up being a real sticking point between Jesus and the crowds because He performed legitimate signs and wonders to prove His divinity. But they weren’t interested in getting to know the Blesser so much as they wanted His blessings. They weren’t interested in the Giver, they just wanted the gifts.
“But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.)” John 6:61-64
They wanted to follow Jesus on their terms, they wanted Jesus to give them what they wanted. As Jesus continually reminded them, it doesn’t work like that. Jesus did not come to be a genie in a bottle who would grant magic wishes to anyone who said a magic prayer. Jesus came to do something much more majestic.
From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.
“And He said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.” After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”John 6:65-69
We all need to ask ourselves why we follow Jesus. Has the Word been sown on good soil? Are we bearing fruit “thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.”
“The sower sows the word. And these are the ones along the path, where the Word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the Word that is sown in them.
And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: the ones who, when they hear the Word, immediately receive it with joy. And they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while; then, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the Word, immediately they fall away.
And others are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the Word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the Word, and it proves unfruitful.
But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the Word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.”Mark 4:14-20
The real general theory of evolution teaches that “all the living forms in the world have arisen from a single source which itself came from an inorganic form (non-living).” The inorganic chemicals ultimately came from hydrogen, itself produced from the Big Bang, where nothing exploded and became everything.
This is the true position of atheistic evolutionists and when considered in the light of recent scientific discoveries revealing the incredible complexity of life and the amazing design in nature it is inconceivable they are still arguing against intelligent design and teaching evolution as capable of producing it all.
The ENCODE (Encyclopedia of DNA Elements) project has now published some 30 papers of phase two, revealing that most of our DNA is functional and effectively killing the evolutionary idea that nearly all our DNA is ‘junk’. This work was completed in 2007, and the results of more recent studies show levels of even more complexity.
The major international ENCODE research project junks the idea of ‘junk’ DNA
The 2007 research involved over 440 scientists in 32 institutes performing over 1,600 experiments. They found that over 80% of the human DNA does something, although the details of what it does mostly remain to be determined. Less than 2% of the DNA codes for proteins; the rest turns out to be like a huge control panel, with millions of switches that turn protein-producing genes on or off. And different cells have different switch settings because they need different parts of the DNA to be active. The complexity is mind-boggling and can only be the result of a mind of indescribable intelligence. Certainly chaos and random chance is not an option.
We need to understand that in the case of atheistic evolutionists, they have been blinded by the god of this world, Satan. They, like most people, do not consider the spiritual realm which God’s Word reveals is where the true battle for people’s souls is taking place.
“In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.“2 Corinthians 4:4
Jesus and God’s Word have revealed the truth about the spiritual battle that is being waged by Satan and the fallen angels (demons). The following scriptures reveal that God has provided all we need to be overcomers in this battle.
“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” Ephesians 6:12
“Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication.” Ephesians 6:13-18
Our children need to be taught the truth about God and His creation. Only the Bible reveals the true history of this fallen world so it is foundational to educating our children. Religious Education (RE) was once considered an essential part of the school curriculum. This is no longer the case in most States of Australia.
LIVING ETERNAL NOW 