God and Prophecy

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Prophecy. What is it? It is the word of God. It cannot will not fail.

In ancient times the Hebrew prophets were men who never got it wrong. They preached to their generation for the people to repent. To turn to God in humility and deep sorrow for their sins. Never did they teach that if one does what God says he will immediately begin to acquire riches and wealth.They saw what the problem was.  These is why they were called seers. They had 20/20 spiritual vision.

They saw what was there.  They saw what people needed to do and why; Repent. They told the people exactly what was coming if they did not repent. They did not study trends and somehow were able to figure out what would happen next if the people did not repent. God told them exactly what he would do to the sinners if they did not repent. It happened as the prophets said to the jot and tittle. Many of their prophecies are still coming to pass. And will still in the future come to pass.

But also within their preaching were prophecies of the coming Messiah.

But there are many false prophets that preach today money and wealth instead of repentance. Give to them and God will give to you.

Consider this: There are rich people out there who give nothing to God and his kingdom. So what does this say? It says that one does not have to give to God to be rich and prosperous. These false prophets are basically saying to us that Hollywood Celebrity can be rich without giving to God. But Christian must give to God to acquire the same things Hollywood Celebrity did without giving to God.

The world is rich and prosperous and it has nothing to do with serving God.

And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth. (Luke 12:15)

Nor did the prophets go around telling people what they wanted to hear. Their message was always about repentance and returning to God. Their preaching was leading to the appearance of Messiah. Prophets will always preach and teach what will bring you to God. If you obey it will bring you to his salvation. If you do not obey it will bring you to his judgment.

You will not pass go and you will not collect $200.

Prophets knew that the only way for the people’s lives to improve was for the people to do exactly what God said. Do what God says and you will be happy. Don’t do what God says and you will suffer judgment. This was the prophet’s message. Do or die. No in-between clauses were found in their messages. It was simple. Return to God or be destroyed.

That is simple to understand. It was like in ancient times when Israel was traveling God told them when the cloud moves you move. When it stands still you stand still. God made it so simple a child could understand. He has not changed.

But today there are prophets out there who tell the people exactly what they want to hear. Nothing but good will come to you if you give to their ministry. Granted God always honors anything done for him. But woe to the ministries that are giving to Caesar what belongs to God.

It is important to know the difference.

There is the law of probability. There is always a chance of a so-called prophesy coming to pass. A prophet says that tomorrow you will get a visit from a person who will write you out a check for the amount you need to meet your bills. If God did not say that there is still a chance of that happening. How?

Well the one who made the prophecy can bring it to pass themselves. They can call a friend and tell them to do exactly what the prophecy prophesied. They can say to their friend..go to this person I prophesied to and write them a check. Or I will be seen as a false prophet.

Prophets can go to a government leader and prophesy; Thus says the Lord..You will be re-elected. There is a fifty-fifty chance of that prophesy coming to pass. This prophecy is still not from God even if the  prophet told the exact number of votes the leader will get. It is not a prophecy from God if the prophet does not tell the wicked person to repent of their sins and to follow Jesus. Not follow God whoever you imagine her/him to be as the new age gurus teach. But as the scriptures say follow Jesus.

Many false prophets are gone out into the world to deceive those who do not know ONE thing; the Holy Scriptures. If one does not know the Holy Scriptures he is a sitting duck for the devil to deceive.

And what do the false prophets damage besides their own reputations? Others faith in what is true. If a prophet says that a prophecy can be obtained from God if you leave an offering that should set off a loud alarm that the prophet is false.

Jesus said many MANY false prophets will arise and deceive many. But according to the false prophets there are no false prophets..anyway not them. But what Jesus said is true when he told of to beware of false prophets.

If a prophet does not warn you of coming judgment IF you do not repent of your sins…you can be sure he is false.

Judeo-Christian Roots in America?

Judeo-Christian Roots

“And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. (Deuteronomy 6:7)

American Founding Ideal:

“Let [the Constitution] be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges, let it be written in primers, in spelling books and in almanacs, let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice. And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation.” (Abraham Lincoln, “The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions”, January 27, 1838)

This is misleading. This is being taken out of context. Firstly the Deuteronomy 6:7 passage was given to Israel by God. It was not given to America. America did not even exist at the time. And to apply this to America is to rob Israel and the church of its blessing and purpose. It is to dismiss the entire Old Testament and ignore the sacrifice of Jesus when he died for all nations and all people.

We would have to travel orderly from this passage to the judges and  prophets and kings of Israel. To the Psalms and Proverbs. To all of Israel’s history in God’s dealings with them. From there we need to study their captivities to their return the first time to Jerusalem.  We need to look at what God said to them his promises to them. His warnings of judgments. Then to the New Testament. There we find Jesus coming to save his people from their sins. Then we need to go to Acts to see what the apostles did after the Lord ascended to heaven. Then we have to read all the epistles to see what we must do after we are saved.

It is absurd and it is wrong to steal a passage from the Hebrew Torah and apply it to a nation that it was not given to in the first place. Much happened between that passage and to now. To dismiss that fact  is to dismiss the will of God for all peoples in all lands.

God formed and raised up Israel for his own glory and purpose.  America is not Israel and neither is the church. The Bible is a literal manuscript. The land God promised Israel is literal. The Christ was a real man who died in a real land at a real time in history.

He is none of the things many present him to be.  Jesus did not die on that old cross for America. He bled and died there  for sinners.

One reason alone why God created Israel; It was to bring Messiah into the world. The Bible is the story of Jesus. It is how he came into the world to save sinners. Not to single out any nation to say they alone are the recipients of God’s blessing.

Beginning at the beginning in Genesis in verse 16 of chapter 3 God told the serpent.

God did not tell Adam and Eve but to the serpent. He did not tell America or Israel. He directed this to the serpent.

And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; it shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.

Is there any mention there of any nation or people? No. God has in mind to save the world. I will is what the Lord said to the serpent. And he will do what he said. No matter what man does God said his word will not return to him void. God will accomplish what he set out to do.  It was between God and the devil with the devil being in subjection to whatever God said.

God’s whole purpose is the salvation of the world. He intends to keep what is his. America does not have a monopoly on God. Nor does America have a hold on his robe whereas all others nations for whom he died are hard pressed to get near him. People get confused when they see that God allows man to get it wrong. They erroneously think that because it happened it is the will of God. There is such a thing as the permissive will of God. And there is the perfect will of God. His permissive will is what is causing all the problems.His perfect will will fix it all for his own glory. Be it know it is not for the glory of any nation. Nothing but Jesus impresses God.

Paul at Athens, Greece speaking on Mars Hill when he spoke to the pagan people there said to them of God’s heart for the human race.

That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: (Acts 17:27)

God chose Israel to be his elect nation. To make Jews rich? To create Hollywood where Jews own almost everything? So Jews can strut around the world bragging they are physical descendants of Abraham Isaac and Jacob?

God created and raised up the nation of Israel for one purpose it was to bring salvation to the world through the Messiah. It has to do with Jesus the Christ. Why God chose to come into the world as an Israelite is not a concern of mine. I am only glad that he did come to die for our sins.

Because of what happened in history with the church when Rome became the  church (which it did not) all hell has broken loose not only on Rome but the entire world. From popes in Rome to kings in England to kings in Spain to the burnings of the Inquisition the gospel is presented as what it is not.

No wonder the world is in the condition it is in today. History filled with Burnings, crucifixions, Christians  thrown to lions, crusades, murders, false doctrines, wars, dissensions, etc.

John Calvin one of the most wicked men that ever darkened the doorway of the world not only killed Michael Servetus for not agreeing with him but actually thought he was doing God a favor. Servetus was a believer yet another so called believer Calvin killed him. And Calvinism is taught today as something to be proud of. It is seen as a holy way of life.

From Rome to England to Spain to Portugal to the America’s to all parts of the world went the gospel so distorted that no one even knew what was true and what was false.

Did the gosepl ever get to India? Maybe Thomas the disciple of Jesus whom history says died there did take it there. But after his death distortions were considered gospel, the Indian people saw cows as sacred instead of bullocks offered on the altar for sins? People can get things confusing if they do not stick to the plain scriptures of God.

Who knows what happened in the last two millennium but we can be sure it was not good by the results we see today.

The gospel did not get to America with love. It came here in the hands of people who thought all non white peoples must die.  Erroneously thinking they were Israel and America the promised land these intruders proceeded to kill anyone that they considered non Israelite (according to them) aka white.  Which is not true that God is so foolish to cause such evil. That black Africans were no good except to use as slaves to bring in the cotton. To tend the fields while having their families torn apart all in the name of  the plantation owners God.

That God would cause all this hate is so absurd it boggles the mind. But he gets the blame for it by Bible ignorant people.

Their reason was they were escaping tyranny in England to come to worship God in a foreign land. But what does the Bible say about this notion? It says God is not confined to temples or nations or people. God can be worshiped anywhere because he is within us not in certain geographical locations.

But will God indeed dwell on the earth? behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built? (1 Kings 8:27)

He is omnipresent. To the far unreachable depths of the universe he is there.

Just because this is a great nation is no proof that it is favored by God. Rome was the greatest and it was the enemy of God though God was able and did use it to bring many inventions to the world. Such as roads and highways.  God raises up nations for his own purposes not to exalt people. But to exalt himself in one way or another he will be glorified. God shares his glory with none. God used Egypt to enslave Israel and what does this tell us about great nations and God’s view of them?

I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images. (Isaiah 42:8)

America is not getting any glory only God gets it.

The ancient Israelites carried God around in the Ark of the Covenant. But that was millennia ago we should know better by now that God is not confined to a little space in time. They did this according to his word to them then . He had something else in mind and it wasn’t to do the same thing using America as the Ark of the Covenant.  With the religious Right carrying him around. God even gave us telescopes to look into deep space so we can get at least a hint of how big he really is.

To believe he lives specially in America is to rob him of love and of his glory. To accuse him of having a narrow bigoted view of the world he created is to not know who God really is. The Religious Right is basically saying that all those who do not believe as they do must bow to their beliefs. This is not God.

The Native Americans were deemed as worthy of nothing but death. If Stonewall Jackson was correct in his belief when he said that the Almighty wanted him to kill Indians. Then why do Indians still live on reservations? Should not the will of the Almighty be carried out by going to all reservations and wherever native Americans are found and kill them so the will of God can be done? How absurd and stupid the beliefs of those who see the Bible as a grab bag to take out any passage and use it to gratify their own sick belief. No wonder the world hates God.

The early settlers from England took holy passages from the Torah and wrested them to justify killing people for whom Christ died. And called it freedom. And called it blessing from God. This is the truth. Hate it as I do it is the truth. Now the Religious Right wants to take America back. Back from what? From what it did to America in the first place? Back to its roots?

Church and state are separate and when this truth of the gospel is trampled on it is saying that no one in America matters only the religious right and the christian coalition. It is wrong.

When people carry their version of the gospel really it is not the gospel but another Jesus they are doing damage to the cause of Christ. Here is an example:

 

To be continued….