A Devotional Study of the Living Word of God

Psalm 119:98 Enemies? Do we have enemies? The naive or natural person might say no! But to the Spiritually wise it is the Commandments of God that always pave the path of victory!

Jeremiah 33:3

Good Morning

In the face of things, all we see is what is on the surface. I am going to dig back into the past, sometime during the eighteenth year of my life on this planet. I had just enlisted in the Navy and finished Boot Camp and came home on leave. I called up the girl who I had been dating, her comment to going out that evening was “no” her father had someone over for an evening meal and she could not go out. I was angry, later I drove by her house and saw her playing horseshoes with a guy about our age. Now I was even more angry. At the end of the block, I turned around, drove back to her house, walked around back and made a complete fool of myself, thus ending that relationship. Her father had invited a person from the local orphanage to his home for an evening family style meal. The point: Many times we approach life with a critical eye. In fact; I would like to entitle the critical eye as the “One way Eye”, a one way eye has only one purpose and that is to see things – One Way! Well, there is no rocket science in understanding this, is there? But all to often I see people who have already formed an opinion before the event appears on the horizon. It is sort of like this: On the horizon there is something that looks like a storm. The one way eye, sounds the alarm, prepares everyone for a disastrous moment. The person is so pretentious that everyone pulls back and any words opposed from others is ignored because the one way eye is right. All warnings to the contrary have no merit in the selfish personal ambition of the one way eye. This form of judging is; “always wrong”. Judging someone before you really know them is a serious injustice to that person and even to yourself. God puts people in our life and if we see them with the one way eye, we do not see them then as God has and we will miss the blessing. 1 John 4:20-21. The armor of the one way eye is blindness to the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Romans 3

Romans 3:1 The hardest things for us to understand are sometimes caused by our desire to read beyond what is being said. The Jew, circumcision and the sayings of God. Men, especially gentile men have argued the circumstances of the Jew since the days of Abraham, but the Jew has not gone away by argument. Nations have tried to rid the world of the Jew, and now they are on every street corner of the world. So as a nation, they are collectively a unique people. They are the most talked about people of the world and there is not a language in the world that does not accommodate the name of a Jewish man by the name of Jesus. These may not know Him personally, but they do know His Name.

Romans 3:2 So what is this “profit” of circumcision then? Paul states; “much in every way!” do we want to believe this? Most would say, no I don't want to believe it. So how do we approach such a controversy. Romans 2:28-29. There is a Jewish nation and a nation of Gentiles also. There is this third nation, the real one, whose builder and maker is God. In this nation are men and women who have a circumcision of the heart, not made with the hands of man, but made by Spiritual wisdom, a separation inwardly, being that of the heart. So the blessing that God refers to, is not applied to the outward appearance of the flesh, but the inward working of the Spirit of God who circumcises all of the hearts of those who are sanctified in truth. Jesus Christ is the Truth of God. Yet, there remains a day when the Jewish nation will be restored to physical blessing and that will be when they speak these words. “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD. Matthew 23:37-39.

A Devotional Study of the Living Word of God

Psalm 119:97 I wonder sometimes about our relationship to the Word of God, if we are not loving the Law and we say; “I love Jesus” would God consider that a lie? Well, not if we could remove the whole epistle of 1 John. Especially 1 John 2:3-11.

Good Morning

God is not complicated, He has not buried His word so that He or His Word cannot be searched out, but there is an in depth element to search for truth. If we involve ourselves in ministry and I hope we do, it does not take long to see that many people, young and elderly are confused about biblical principles of the Word of God. They seem to have a knowledge of God, understand that they are saved, but seeing God in their personal life is hard for them to comprehend. We can hear them say; I am saved so why go any further? I suppose that is a good question, but if we allow ourself to think this way, it is the same to say, well; “I'm alive so why go any further than that?” And, there are people like that, too! But, God did not bring us into the world and give us a body of flesh to do nothing with, nor did He send His Son into the world and allow us to be saved through His Son's Blood to do nothing with being born again, either! Now, the point! There are two Greek words to consider. One is epignosis and the other is gnosis these are almost the same in meaning but very much different in application. All of us have epignosis it is the same as our English word, “knowledge” and with simple knowledge we try to understand God. Also we study long and hard and we apply ourselves to the wisdoms of the world and gain an education. Even this wisdom is nothing more than understanding the principles of learning and has little to do with biblical study. The only way to have a solid knowledge of biblical truth is to have gnosis or as the Bible describes this word; “spiritual knowledge or spiritual wisdom” In fact; another theme of the Book of Romans is “gnosis” the word is found at least eleven times. Romans 1:9, 11; 2:29; 7:6, 14; 8: 4, 5, 6; 12:1, 11 and 15:27, also note John 4:23 and 24. Each of these verses translates the word gnosis as the word “spiritual” or “spirit”. So, if you are not in the Spirit while you study, you will not gain spiritual wisdom and go from the study confused and discouraged..

Romans 2

Romans 2:17-18 We should remember that the apostle writes to the Jews and includes the gentiles, but he is not showing favoritism to them. He is in these passages going to conclude that the Jews are as guilty before God as the rest of the world. The law given to Moses, they do not rely on, but they do boast, they even claim to know (epignosis) His will and they give approval of the excellent things of His Word.

Romans 2:19-28 He will also say that they feel confident to guide the spiritually blind, know how to instruct the foolish, able to teach the young, that they even have a form of knowledge (epignosis), they know the law. But he says that they do the same as the unlearned. They steal, commit adultery, worship idols, rob the temple treasury, dishonor God, break the law of true circumcision and judge wrongly. Outwardly, they look holy, but are not practical in biblical holiness, they are guilty, like the gentile.

Romans 2:29 True Judaism is an inward work of the Spirit (gnosis), just as it is for those gentiles who are willing to lay aside from the heart a knowledge of God for a personal Spiritual experience with God. Whose praise is not of knowing the letter of the Law, but a praise from God Himself because the Spirit confirms that the heart is sanctified in Truth. (Justification, Sanctification and Glorification).

Revelation 6 – 7

Lesson #12

The LAMB opens the Seals

The First 3 ½ Year Period of the Tribulation Chapters 6-11

The Seals, the Trumpets and the Witnesses

The Second 3 ½ Year Period of the Tribulation chapters 12-19

The Persecution, The Antichrist, the Seven Bowls, Babylon and Armageddon.

The book of Revelation can be described as a play with three acts; Act 1; Scene 1, - 3. Act 2: Scene 1 through 7. and Act 3; Scene 1-3. As you may recall at the beginning of these lessons we did mention this, but we will take a look back to see where we have been. This will help us now to know where we are going.

Act 1; Scene 1 – Chapter 1. The apostle on the Island of Patmos and his vision of Jesus.

Act 1; Scene 2 – Chapter 2 and 3. The letters to the seven churches.

Act 1; Scene 3 – Chapter 4. The church in heaven and the events in the third heaven.

Revelation 6:1-2 and Daniel 9:27 – The setting of Act 2; Scene 1; Seals 1 through 7. The place where the action is taking place is in the second heaven, and the events of the next seven years will be controlled by the seven horsemen who are given authority to control men and women on the earth, from the second heaven.

Prelude to the first 3 ½ Years.

The first Seal: The rider of the white horse is the Antichrist, he is the prince proclaiming peace and prosperity for Israel and with other nations too. By his charm and charisma he is able to will be able to present himself as Christ, but he is one that is bitterly opposed to Him. His crown is a counterfeit, notice that Christ Himself rides a white horse too. Revelation 19:11.

The second Seal: The rider of the fiery red horse is given authority to disrupt the peace of the peoples earth. Murder, suicide, serial killings, abortion, genocide and domestic violence. He will not have authority to cause nations to fight against one another.

The third Seal: The rider of the black horse will be given authority to stagger the economy, the cost of living will be so high that the cost of wheat will be $75 to $100 for just one quart. This rider will strike the food and clothing, but he will not have the authority to raise the price of oil, this is not cooking oil, it is fuel. Also, he will not have authority to harm the cost of alcoholic beverages. Beer will still be affordable!

Prelude to the second 3 ½ Years.

The fourth Seal: The rider of the pale horse has a sidekick called Hades, the one riding, his name is Death. (The false prophet and the beast). It is interesting that these individual have name that are capitalized where as the others do not. Also there is a difference in the way these folks die. These die because famine, hungry beasts and hungry people who murder for food.

The fifth Seal: The stage is set for the tribulation and John's vision of things is now directed to the altar. To this point the altar was just there, and his attention has been on the charge given to the horsemen. His ears pick up on the sounds from under the altar. He watches while white robes are issued to them. He hears their cries, but their cries will continue. Their pain, hunger and suffering is over, now they are told to rest and wait until the fullness of the the tribulation saints are completed. Revelation 7:9-17.

The sixth Seal: The great day of the LORD has arrived, mankind now knows the pending doom. God removes the protecting canopy of the 1^st heaven. The sun is not able to burn properly and darkens, the moon turns to the color of blood and the stars fall from the sky like rotting apples or figs from the trees that once held them. All of the powerful people will be helpless and they will know why all of this is happening. Revelation 6:17 “For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?”

The wrath of God abides on the children of disobedience. Romans 1:28-32. John 3:36; Ephesians 2:1-3

The seventh Seal: We see some interesting things at the beginning of this event. Some angels are assigned to what is described here as the four corners of the earth. These are the; North, South, East and West corners. The angels are in charge of much, they are in charge of all of the weather related elements of nature.

The stage is set for all of these segments of God's wrath to unfold, but there is one task left to accomplish before the events become real on earth. Judaism is about to be re-instated in Israel and until the men are selected and completed by God the tribulation will be on hold.

There are still twelve tribes of Israel, you would think that after six thousand years of history and all of the mixed marriages on nations all around Israel that God would not be able to find twelve thousand men from each of these tribes who would be able to fill the qualifications of these one hundred forty four thousand men.

The twelve tribes did suffer, Israel (Jacob) predicts the history of these tribes and replaces the tribe of Dan with one of Joseph's sons Manasseh. Genesis 49.

A Devotional Study of the Living Word of God

Psalm 119:96 Even when the decree or covenant of man is completed and all known errors are corrected and man has done his best. Even then, the Best is yet to be realized since the Commandment of God by His decree or covenant will; by length and berth, supersede.

Good Morning

By now you must be wondering if I will ever say anything about the the submarine that bounced off the bottom of that Naval vessel near Manama, Bahrain – Do we even know where this place is? Unless you are tied to the Navy in some way, you do not know and maybe you do not even care! But it is none of the above to those affected by this incident. Simply put, human error is the only reasonable conclusion. The decisions of the men on board the submarine fell to the responsibility of one. The Captain of the ship, who no doubt he was relieved of his authority as Captain within twenty four hours. The men involved were not a handful of five, but the whole crew, yet one man became the “scapegoat” for the bunch. For this Captain, his career is over, for the crew, they will be reprimanded, some will receive damaging letters to be placed in their service records and some will be re-assigned to duties of a lesser degree. All but one will be able to re-build a troubled career. The human life is much like this incident, sin has rammed us all into the bottomless pit, we have crashed and trash our world. Yet there is one who stands in the gap, even referred to in the Living Word of God as our “scapegoat”. He is better known to us as the LAMB, the sacrifice, the one for the many. He, however is not like the captain of an ill fated moment in time. He is the Captain of our our eternal salvation as the KJV puts it in Hebrews 2:10. His career did not end at Calvary, HE IS RISEN, HE IS ALIVE and you can follow HIM! For He alone is able to rescue us – one by one from the bottomless pit. Won't you let Him be your Captain?

Romans 2

Romans 2:7-9 What is a good deed, biblically speaking? The world does good for several reasons, for example; the person who is doing good does it so they won't go to jail, another to be a real help to someone and to receive a thank you or compensation. Another, because it is the right thing to do. While all of these reasons can be incorporated into a biblical good deed, the good deed of the saint is “always” taken one step further. Self is removed from the deed and Christ is placed in the work. Thus the deed glorifies God, honors the doer and is placed as a reward in eternity. But those deeds that are self-seeking and fail the test of truth will be considered evil, and the results will not be gratifying.

Romans 2:10-11 We would like to believe that God would show partiality in that our works would stand even though our motives were not totally bringing glory to God. But the works of the flesh and the works of the Spirit are very defined in scripture, Galatians 5:16-26. A good work mixed in with the works of the flesh is SIN, a good work mixed in with the works of the Spirit is BIBLICAL.

Romans 2:12-16 The day is coming when God will judge the secrets of mankind, so how does justification work? There are seasons in time when there were no Laws of God to convict or condemn. Then there was a time when the Laws of God were the stand alone provision for doing and not doing things. So if both the season of no law and the season of law did nothing to justify salvation, then it must be within the conscious of man to decide right from wrong? Yes, but No! There must be a standard, there must be something or someone to look to, or to follow and Romans 2:16 reveals Justification by faith in Christ – alone!

A Devotional Study of the Living Word of God

Psalm 119:95 The command to pursue peace with all peoples, is not a blind chase to love beyond all cost. Like, “What would Jesus do? We are not Jesus! Our protection from the enemy will always be assured in the testimonies of God's Word. Jesus did His Father's Will, as we must do as well.

Good Morning

I will be retiring from work in July and here are some of my thoughts. For those of you that have retired I am sure you must know the apprehension, the excitement and the platform that all of these thoughts use to entertain much of my time as the date draws near. One day soon the door to retirement will open and I will walk through it. My first though is – maybe Jesus will return before then and I will be spared the experience. This is the most solid thought because His return is eminent and Trustworthy. All the rest of my thoughts are superficial and cover only the obvious, like. Will the finances be there? what will I do with my time? How do I keep from getting complacent? What about health? Who listens to old retired people, anyway? There is a bit of anger at becoming old! Some aggressive push now and then, that when the joints ache or the back hurts to say; this ain't happening to me! Only to find out that; yes it is and now you've gone to far and things hurt worse. I find that the fight of being depressed about this season of time can rock the boat when I run into older people and they say things like; “If you don't know it already Jesse! The golden years are not golden!” or &ldquoon't grow old Jesse, stay young!” Then I am reminded – Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, His Name is the sweetest name I know. The person is the sweetest PERSON, I ever met! All that I am and all that I have is His to do with as He wills. This brings much joy and peace to me. So instead of becoming a grumpy old couch potato in retirement, I can and do look forward with great joy of living to the fullest measure of the cup. That the promise of eternity with Him, is far more precious then this momentary light affliction of aging. These years are golden, in the Light of the Father and the Lamb. Revelation 21:22-27 and 22:1-5.

Romans 2

Romans 2:1-5 Do I hear a sigh of relief now that we are moving away from chapter one. Do not be to quick, the apostle is just warming up. Now that he has laid the foundation that all the world is bathing in the darkness of SIN. Now there is a pending Righteous Judgment of God to consider. Surprise! This righteous judgment is going to fall on those of us who think that we are better then those whom we condemn from chapter one. We practice what we condemn others of doing, we judge wrongfully. Our excuse is that in the light of God's perfect Righteousness. “We have no excuse!” If the religious and the irreligious are to be saved, it will be by the Righteous Judgment of God and not the unrighteous judgment of man.

Romans 2:6 Having said this, we should look at what eternal life by God's standard is based on. Is it based on judging others by self seeking and disobedient works of self righteousness? Tis obvious the answer is NO! But, does not all of man made religions argue with God's standard of perfect righteousness? YES. So God has a solution: All of the SIN of chapter one and all of the self-righteous practice of man made religion is placed into the same lump - SIN! by the Perfect Righteousness of God! There is only one standard of Perfect Righteousness and the owner's name is God.

Romans 2:7 More on this verse tomorrow, but eternal life is based on patience and faith, the doing of biblical, “good deeds” (vs 6). For those who search diligently; Sanctification through Justification, resulting in Glorification, called here in this verse “immortality”. This is the theme of Romans..