Tuesday, September 29, 2015

JESUS (YAHWEH) - KING OF THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES 2016 - BONUS: LIVE STREAMING DIRECT FROM JERUSALEM OF THE FEAST RIGHT HERE!

Zechariah 14:16-17  And it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. 17 And it shall be that whichever of the families of the earth do not come up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, on them there will be no rain.

As the Fall Festival of Tabernacles gets into high gear over the next few days, it is time to look at this important event through the Eyes of Christ and what it means to the Christian. Original given as a command to the Hebrews to commemorate their 40 years in the Wilderness when God provided food, manna from heaven, no sickness and clothes/shoes which never wore out. It also celebrates the time when His Presence was with them for those forty years- a huge cloud by Day and a pillar of fire by Night. 

Tabernacles or Sukkot (Booths) happens each year around the end of the Fall Harvest in Jerusalem and each  Hebrew was required to build a booth in their back yard or on their roofs and many in Israel or in practicing Judaism still do. It is the most joyful of all the major Jewish Feasts found in the Bible and is the only one which will survive throughout the 1000 Year Rule of Christ.  Jesus celebrated this major Feast as it is almost certain that as a man, Jesus was born in Bethlehem on September 30 in our Julian calendar at the time of this Feast! That is a point for another day.

John 7:2-3  in the New Testament records the following: “Now the Jews' Feast of Tabernacles was at hand. His brothers therefore said to Him, "Depart from here and go into Judea that Your disciples also may see the works that You are doing”. (NOTE: the brothers mentioned here are Jesus’ actual half-brothers: James, Jude and others!)…..then jumping down to John 7:8-10 “You go up to the Feast (Tabernacles), I am not going up to this Feast for my time has not yet come”. When He had said these things to them, He remained in Galilee.  But when His brothers had gone up (to the Feast of Tabernacles), then He also went up to the feast, not openly, but as it were in secret”.

Now, what is coming in the 1000 Year Reign of Christ WILL NOT BE IN SECRET! First of all we have to know just WHO will be present during that time which draweth nigh daily.  The most important Person present during the 1000 Year or Millennial Reign is the Living Breathing Person of the Savior Jesus Himself, sitting on the Throne in Jerusalem! With Him will be all who were born again and saved from creation to the Rapture and the Tribulations saints.  There will be King David, Abraham, Adam, Abel, Noah, Moses, Joshua, Elijah, Samson, Samuel, Peter, Paul, Mary, Martha, Tyndale, Joan of Arc, Luther, Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, CS Lewis, DL Moody, Billy Graham, Franklin Graham and you and I among the millions.

it is interesting who will also be there – a bunch of unsaved people, living right alongside the Saints of God and the Armies of the Living Christ! Just briefly, after the Rapture of the Church, and then the Seven Year Tribulation which leads to the Return of Christ and the 1000 Year Reign of the King in Jerusalem, unsaved people will still be born in hospitals in St. Louis, Mo; London England; Rome; Cairo etc. The, the nations, will be living side by side with the glorified saints who have returned to the earth with Jesus Christ until the final sifting at the end of time.

In that time, even THEY - the Nations, even though they know just WHO sits on the Throne in an untouchable Jerusalem - GOD HIMSELF - in the form of Yeshua, King Jesus, will refuse to bow to Him! They will be required to go to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Tabernacles at the End of Every September - and they will refuse. The prophesy from Zechariah 14:17 will then be fulfilled and Christ will cut off their rain....proving once again He is STILL the Real Climate Changer! This is serious business, as is disobedience to Holy God. 
                            

Monday, September 21, 2015

JESUS IS THE REAL CLIMATE CHANGER - NOT MERE MORTALS

In these last days, where every man (and woman) does what is right in their own eyes, we see increasing tendencies in people, including even somereligious leaders, to assume God's power unto themselves. Some do it without knowledge. They lack knowledge because they know not the One Who gives true knowledge. 

The Bible says at the beginning of the Wisdom Book of Proverbs that "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of Knowledge". The reason we have no knowledge in the world today is there is absolutely no Fear and Awe of God. Even with some of today's Christian "leaders", you can see it in their secular TV interviews where they fail to defend the Truth of the Word of God and the Gospel and weasel around the topics of sin, salvation and Satan.  In the religion of Climate Change (formerly known as Global Warming), more and more of professing Christians are falling for an untruth because they do not know the Scriptures of the One Who inspired and wrote it. Those of us who are followers of Yahweh, the Great I am, know that only He can change the climate, the winds, the weather because He created them all.

When Jesus rebuked the winds after the disciples woke Him up in the middle of the storm as He slept on a pillow, those winds feared Him and stopped. "They came to Jesus and woke Him up, saying, "Master, Master, we are perishing!" And He got up and rebuked the wind and the surging waves, and they stopped, and it became calm. And He said to them, "Where is your faith?" They were fearful and amazed, saying to one another, "Who then is this, that He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey Him?" (Luke 8:24).


All creation worships Him. Yet, increasingly and unfortunately, are dismissing His claims as Creator and Sovereign God over all. This mindset of "man-made climate change" leaves the Creator completely out of the picture and creates a god out of mortal men who now think they have the solutions to things they know nothing of, hereby overruling the Sovereignty of Holy God. 

Which person today can create a snowflake, a rain drop or an apple on a tree? Who can create a mountain and the elk or mountain goat to inhabit it, thereof? Who can fill the sea with fish, and even when natural fossil fuels (called oil) seeps out of the ocean bed, those same seas cleans and restores themselves? Who can describe how every part of the human eye was created and who create sight in the blind? No one can. There is no one.  Even the god of the lost - Charles Darwin doubted his own theory of evolution when he said "to suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I confess, absurd in the highest degree...The difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, should not be considered subversive of the theory.” (A broken clock is right twice a day).


While we expect non-believers to act, sound and behave like unbelievers, what is really troubling are today's celebrity preachers - are not even speaking the Truth about any of this. Their silence is acquiesence to it, in a way.  
There are so many Bible passages from Genesis and through the New Testament that these preachers have no excuse for not proclaiming Truth and standing ON the Truth. The Truth is as plain as day. What Creation does not explain in Genesis Chapters 1 and 2 on Creation, the first book of the Bible ever written – the Book of Job – explains in Job chapters 38-41. (Watch the video below on Creation). God is very clear as He tells Job about the storehouses of the snow and hail; the lightning and winds. God fills in more details on dinosaurs; the great Leviathan fish; the entire Galaxy of stars and their names and more. Yet, most, if not all of these modern American and western celebrity speakers; preachers and pastors would say nothing about that as young children are brainwashed into thinking that they came from an ape or some non-existent “Big Bang” as being responsible for them being here.  These same western church leaders then complain that young people are walking away from Christianity as, they lose members.  Instead of looking at their own modus operandi, they proceed to hire marketing gurus to develop more useless programs which end up creating MORE unbelievers! This is more than a travesty. This is unforgiveable. It reminds me of millstones and neckties. But that is another story.

This is the foundation for the confusion about who controls the Climate. Born-again, spirit-led believers and students of the Bible instinctively know who is owns, controls and directs all the affairs of mankind – GOD. Almighty God, King of the Universe Who will show His Mighty Hand one day soon, is Lord of EVERYTHING. HE IS LORD OF EVERYTHING, NOW. He is Lord not then but NOW. He owns the back 40 in Odessa, Texas and the frozen tundra north of Alaska. He owns the land some Saudi king has his worldly palace on and the majestic snows of Kilimanjaro. He owns the ice that stops foolish ships in Antarctica and the heights of Mount Everest. He owns Vatican City; New York City and Diverse City, USA. He owns it all. What is mere man, whether he is a priest, politician, CEO or scientist, before the Power and Majesty of Holy God? 

Those who question the Creator and His Sovereignty would do well to see where this "man-made climate change" movement is heading - doubting the Power and Role of God in Creation. It is so dangerous that it can lead to so many people doubting their faith and eventually walking away from Jesus as we see in increasing numbers daily. It all started when mortal men first started promoting earth worship and worship of the Creation rather than the Creator Jesus. Here is what God has to say about this: For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. (Romans 1:20-23)

In all of this, one thing is constant - Jesus (Yahweh) is the King. He created all things and all things were created by and for Him. He controls that which He has created and that includes - the Wind, the Rain, the Snow, the Storms and all thereof. He controls the Climate and changes it as He pleases. It was so, IS SO, and will always be.


Thursday, September 17, 2015

PART 2: BE LIKE THE HUMBLE SUFFERING SAVIOR

Scripture says in more than one place that "God resists the proud but gives Grace to the Humble" This is absolutely true. If you look at it from God's perspective, pride is one of the worse sins of all. But just who are the humble? James, "old Camel-knees", quotes this verse in James 4:6 and uses the word "humble" from the original Greek "tapeinos"....or lowly in spirit. Can a mighty man or woman of God, who is successful in his or her field, (say a top female executive in a local bank, or owner of the best two auto-shops in town)....can such a person be "lowly in spirit" and God reliant instead of "self-reliant"? Yes, indeed, this is more than possible. It has been done since Christ rose from the dead and launched His best work - the Church.

We already know what humility is NOT. Satan/Lucifer's fall from heaven in the Five "I Wills" from the previous post, shows us what the opposite of humility is. History and Scripture told us why God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. The perversion in their twisted sexuality was just a sympton of what the root cause was - pride! In Ezekiel 16:48-50 God Himself says "48"As I live," declares the Lord GOD, "Sodom, your sister and her daughters have not done as you and your daughters have done. 49"Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had arrogance, abundant food and careless ease, but she did not help the poor and needy. 50"Thus they were haughty and committed abominations before Me. Therefore I removed them when I saw it". This is the exact mirror of America and the west today where all the excesses of arrogance, pride and easy living has led to perverted lifestyles, pornography and the persistent filthy culture.

But we, who are called by His Name are called to a different purpose. While God will not just resist the proud but deal with them harshly on the Appointed Day, we are to walk in unity and righteousness in the midst of a perverse and wicked generation and people. Here is our charge from Philippians 2:1-4 "Therefore if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, 2 fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. 3 Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. 4 Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. 


This is a reflection of the Humble Savior, the Suffering Savior Who went to the Cross silently, resolute and with purpose in the Greatest Act of Love - for the forgiveness of sins. He gave us access to the very Throne of Heaven and so, the choice is ours. Do we put our pride aside and come to the end of ourselves, seeing our desperate need for a Savior or do we keep going the way we have with the delusion that we are okay and are basically, good people? Being like Christ requires knowledge - knowledge of the Holy and a realization that we are nothing, He is everything and we must be remade into HIS image and not ours.

Can the prideful and arrogant be saved and born again? Can they/we be remade and be reborn into the image and likeness of King Jesus? We sure can. History of full of such men and women. We will examine them as time goes by. It takes a lot of soul-searching to know that something is not right, that our relationship with God does not exist in actuality and that we have been kidding ourselves all along, in our pride. It requires a desperate cry for mercy, grace and compassion from the Only One Who can rescue and that cry and the resulting response to that repentance will lead to the re-birth. Are you ready for that call my friends?  The great prophet Micah leaves us with this to ponder our prideful estate as we seek restoration with him in Micah 6:8 under inspiration from God "He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?"

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

PRIDE AND THE FALL OF SATAN, PART 1: "I WILL"

There has never been a time where pride, ego and self-aggrandizement combined with social gospel -which has nothing to do the real Gospel, have all come together to confuse even some of the faithful. This has always been the intention of the Evil One, who was created along with the main angels of God - led by Gabriel and Michael - yet fell from his lofty perch as worship leader in the Heavenlies when he thought he was more important than God.

We read about this incident in Isaiah 14:12-15 where God Himself, through the Holy Spirit inspiring Isaiah to write, revealed exactly how Lucifer (Satan) fell from grace to the detriment of him, one third of the angels and all created mankind. We read here thus:
How you are fallen from heaven,
O Lucifer, son of the morning!
How you are cut down to the ground,
You who weakened the nations!


For you have said in your heart:
I will ascend into heaven,
I will exalt my throne above the stars of God;
I will also sit on the mount of the congregation
On the farthest sides of the north;
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds,
I will be like the Most High.
Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol,
To the lowest depths of the Pit"

The five "I Wills" (highlighted in BOLD above) shows the pride and self-importance of the being now known as Satan which has billions from creation and billions now and until the end of time, to end up in eternal destruction in a place called hell. If that is too strong, try this one: "Eternal Seperation from God". Lucifer used his high position as the worship leader in Heaven or "son of the morning" and his freedom to be his own personality, yet under the final Authority of God, to promote his own agenda. Since then, he has been spreading lies, deception and worse and contributed 100% to the Fall of Man in the Garden of Eden as recorded in Genesis Chapter 3. So how do we avoid that "fall" today? How do we, in the land of the living, go from "I will" to "Thy will"?
Tomorrow: "Humility"

Friday, September 11, 2015

AMAZING FREE CHRONOLOGICAL TIMELINE OF BIBLICAL HISTORY

This amazing timeline, from Creation to End of the 1000 Year Reign of Christ (or the Milennial Reign) takes us through Biblical Historical events and figures from "In the Beginning" and then with chronological precision, brings us to the Second Coming and a proposed timeline after this. This chart is from the Book - THE CHRISTIAN'S GUIDE TO THE BIBLE by Robert Nicholas (2015) and the chart is FREE for download if interested.

PLEASE CLICK HERE FOR THE FREE BIBLE TIMELINE FROM CREATION TO ETERNITY

ABOUT "THE CHRISTIAN'S GUIDE TO THE BIBLE":
(Click here for more info.....)
"This book explains the intended purpose of the Bible. From scripture you will discover how God's original calendar is calculated and how He is using it to set His prophetic feasts that Jesus is fulfilling.

A complete Biblically based chronological time line from creation to the end of the age is included which is linked directly to our Gregorian calendar. You will discover the true understanding of the prophesies yet to be fulfilled as well as explaining ones that have gone before.....click here to read more and purchase the paperback version.

END OF THE AGE TIMELINE FREE CHART!

The signs of the times are all around us, as Bible prophesy unfolds. When you and I get in conversations with family and friends, and consider the state of things around us, invariably, the talk goes to the Second Coming Of Christ or "where do you think this is heading". 

Well, Scripture tells us where we are heading - swiftly to a conclusion of all things. The days now may seem horrible, but we know from the Bible that we literally "ain't seen nothing yet"! One helpful resource is this timeline below which was developed by our friends over at the GUIDE TO THE BIBLE Wordpress Blog. I recommended you now link and click over there to view this timeline and read more about this work on this PLUS another free (for download) chart which I will link to in a separate blogpost. This chart is from their brand new book (The Christian's Guide to the Bible), now available at all major retail bookstores worldwide.

End Of The Age Time Line

Saturday, September 5, 2015

A GREAT MAN OF (NO) FAITH - CYRUS THE GREAT

Archeaology proves the Bible again
It is amazing how, when, why and for what God uses a man (or woman).  Do you know what is even more incredible? God, in His infinite, grace, mercy and long-suffering, does so even when He knows this person will reject Him! But such is the case with the Great Amazing God of the Universe. 

One such person is Cyrus, the great Persian King,
King Cyrus the Great
who overran Babylon a generation after Nebuchadnezzar was saved and went on to be with the Lord. His grandson Belshazzar had just ignored the prophet Daniel’s interpretation of the famous “handwriting on the wall” which had told the corrupt final king of Babylon that God had weighed him in the scales and found him wanting. Less than 24 hours later, Cyrus’ men ingeniously pierced the fortress that was the city walls by diverting the river and coming in under the gates, eradicated Belshazzar and assumed control of Babylon.

The Cyrus Cylinder with
Rich  history written on it

In effect, Cyrus had accomplished the work of God in one  fell swoop to end the pre-ordained 70 year old Babylonian captivity of the Jews, for the latter’s disobedience to the laws of the Holy One of Israel. Over 150 years before this, the Prophet Isaiah predicted this event and even named the person who would thus emerge!  In Chapter 45, Isaiah wrote in verses 1-3: "This says the Lord to His anointed, to Cyrus, whom I have seized by the right, to subdue nations before him. Yes, I will open the loins of kings, to open the two-leaved doors before him, and the gates shall not be shut. I will go before you and make hills level; I will tear apart the bronze doors and cut the iron bars in two. And I will give you the treasures of darkness, even treasures in secret places, that you may know that I am the Lord who calls you by your name, I the God of Israel.” 

The great God of heaven called Cyrus by his name and even called him “His anointed”! Yet, God Himself says of Cyrus (and TO Cyrus) 150 years before in the next four verses (4-7): "For Jacob my servant's sake, and for Israel my elect, I have called you by your name. I named you but you do not know me. I am God, and there is no other, there is no God except me, I will clothe you, even though you do not know me, that they may know from sunrise to sunset that there is none except me; I am God and there is no other who creates light and forms darkness; makes peace and creates evil. I God do all these things"

Cyrus did NOT “know” the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel because He was a like a lot of Persians of the day and believed in many gods. Even when he was
Excellent book about
God's Hand in Persia
told that the God of the captive Jews had prophesied him by name 150 years before the event, Cyrus in his pride, attributed his success as a might

y warrior and king to his “great military prowess”, and even wrote about himself in the third person. These can be found in the writings of the ancient Greek historian Herodotus and in Cyrus’ Cylinder, which archaeologists discovered years ago. A book which I have read and which details all of this and the special relationship Persia had with the one True God is the book “PERSIA AND THE BIBLE”  There are photographs of Cyrus’ Cylinder (seen here), his tomb and some of the pagan temples he set up there

So we know how great this king was. In fact he is known as Cyrus the Great and his Declaration of Human Rights predates the Magna Carta by 1700 years. It was so great a document, that the UN had it translated in 1971 into modern English. With all the great things he did- from his military conquests to his tolerance and all, Cyrus never acknowledged the God Who prophesied him by name, spared his life as a child and was the one who gave him all the power, wealth and honor he received. Even when told about the Prophesy of Isaiah, he never changed his view of God and prefered the unknown gods of the Persians. Marduk and Nebo were his favorite pagan idols. He set up temples to gods and sought prayers and worshipped everything except Yahweh, the One True God of Heaven. Cyrus was the fore-runner of the Bahai Faith.

Are there lessons for us today in the account of this amazing man who freed the Jews from 70 years of Captivity in Babylon? You bet there are:
1. The Bible is true and God knew us before we were born as He told Jeremiah in Jeremiah 1:5. He knows our names and how we will turn out. He knows those who will believe and trust in Him and those who will never bow the knee.

2. Just because a person is ordained for worldly greatness by God, does not mean that said person will actually believe and love the Lord with all heart, mind, body and soul. America and the west are full of people calling themselves "Christians" who know there is a God, know there was a man named Jesus Who lived and preached and was nailed to a Cross. They believe He may have risen from the dead on Resurrection Morning. They even tell folks "you are in our thoughts and prayers" when something goes wrong, yet never pray or even know how to. Our western churches are packed with these cultural Christians, in name only. The proof is in their lack of a testimony of their conversion, from a child of wrath to a child of the King.

3. The wealthier or the higher position in this life that a person occupies, the more difficult it is for him (or her) to give all the credit and glory to God. We see it in self-made millionaires, celebrities, politicians, most athletes and especially Kings and Queens. The common denominator is both pride and self-reliance. Sure, they worked hard and earned that fortune, or in some cases, inherited it, but the life and breath and good health to become successful - you guess it - came from God! Both the uber-rich, and everybody else, are just one breath away from eternity, yet very few really recognize that and live accordingly.

Cyrus is really an intriguing personality and it is sad to read about his fishing around for some non-existent God to "worship". But what a great King Cyrus the Great was! He not only freed the Jews from Babylon as he was prophesied about 150 years before, but he ruled such a huge part of the known world around his time, that Alexander the Great made a pilgrimage to his tomb, when the latter rampaged through the Middle East less than 300 years after Cyrus. The main takeaway from this - our God, Yahweh, is Sovereign and His Word (the Bible) is always TRUE!!

Credits:
Slideshare.net (Clay brick photo above)
Ancient Origins (Cyrus Cylinder)
Amazon.com (Persia and the Bible)