Posted in Blessing • Children • Church • Comfort • Daily Living • Fear • Identity • Prophecy • Resurrection • Righteousness • Salvation • Second death • Worship

Shining Wise

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Daniel 12:1–3 ESV. “At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book. And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.”

Imagine you are walking through a dark forest. There are creatures of the darkness all around you, slavering in anticipation of the meal you represent. But none attacks. Instead, they retreat as you move forward. They wrinkle their noses in disgust at the smell of you, though you just took a shower and have on some nice deodorant. The creatures wince and hide their eyes from some unseen pain as you pass by, as if they are looking at the sun, though you see only darkness.

Children of God actually shine in a way that is painful to the hateful eyes of the deceiver’s creatures. We can’t see this light with our own eyes; we still need flashlights to light the way in our houses at night. This light manifests itself to those in darkness and they hate us because of it. There’s a smell around us too, sharply repugnant to the noses of the creatures, because it is the aroma of Christ and life. It reminds them they are destined to die a second death in the lake of fire.

2 Corinthians 2:14–16 ESV. “But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things?

We wonder sometimes why we suffer. In our jobs we might be unfairly attacked and pressured to quit, and it seems to us as if there’s no rationale. At school there are few (too few) that are friendly and many who avoid us and spread gossip about us behind our backs. In the line at the grocery store we experience hostile stares. Even at church we might be marginalized or outright asked to leave. We can’t see the reasons. But they are offended by our mere presence because our internal light hurts their eyes and the smell of life around us is worse to them than an open cesspool or Limburger cheese on a hot muffler.

As we head into the trials and turmoil prophesied in the Bible, we are marked by God more obviously and surely than a tattoo on the head or hand. Our Messiah is with us, and no creature of darkness can stand against us. They might get us fired from a job or kicked out of church; they might even kill the body in which we are temporarily resident. However, to those who are being saved we are a fragrance of life and light in the darkness of the world. Remember that you are a child of God and a friend to Yeshua, and the salvation you have will be shared with many who turn to righteousness because of His light and aroma.

Shalom, Bruce

Posted in Book publishing • Church • Feast and Festivals • Prophecy • Rapture • Resurrection • Righteousness • Salvation • Second death • Theology

Whole Bible Prophecy

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Our book Whole Bible Prophecy: Horror and Hope is out, finally. You can find it on Amazon and later perhaps it will make it to the bookstores.

It’s a little over 500 pages including a 17-page Topic and Scripture Index and several illustrations. We cover everything from Genesis to Revelation (at least somewhat) with lots of Scripture quoted and referenced.

Like all our books, we come at the subject from a Biblical Theology view using a literal interpretation, meaning what did the author intend to say. Some of our ideas will be off-putting, such as a “rapture” that is attached to the resurrection of the righteous, and the seven seals on the Scroll of Authority are an outline of the entire Tribulation. Many churchgoers will not like our take on The Church and its place in prophecy. Some of the visions given to Daniel and John I don’t think are sequential, so we took that into consideration when we made the timeline and it shows some of the events in a different order than you might have been taught before.

The cover art is sideways to emphasize our different way of looking at prophecy. There’s a whole chapter on the resurrection and rapture, a chapter on the holy days or feasts of Yeshua, and a whole bunch of other information. You can browse through the Table of Contents in Look Inside feature of the book listing and get a good idea of what is covered.

Check it out.

Shalom, Bruce

Posted in Daily Living • Feast and Festivals • Feast of Trumpets • Marriage • Resurrection • Shofars • Worship

Day of the Awakening Blast

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Coming up next week on Thursday the 5th is a day of blowing otherwise known as the Feast of Trumpets or Yom Teruah (day of the awakening blast). Oh boy. Wednesday night as a family tradition we will be having gyros with tzatziki (zot zee kee) sauce. It’s worth eating the gyros (year-ohs, a mixture of lamb and beef with nifty spices) just to eat my wife’s tzatziki sauce (yogurt, garlic, cucumber mostly). I like to chop it up, others like to make sandwiches out of pita bread, onions and tomatoes.

 

We will be blowing shofars a lot. If you don’t already know, shofar is Hebrew for trumpet. Traditionally it is a curved animal horn (goat or ram’s horn for smaller ones, big ones are from the African Kudu), although some Bible trumpets were made out of silver. We’ll probably also have a fire in our fire ring and make s’mores or something. Or maybe we’ll skip the s’mores to avoid going into sugar shock. My wife likes to call this the “Feast of Sugar.”

 

We like the three fold principal involved in celebrating the feasts of God centered around the word “remember.” Remember in the biblical sense often means to speak or act on behalf of something or someone. That’s why we can not only remember the past (what God has done for His people) and remember the present (practice as a testimony), we can even remember the future (rehearse what God is going to do for His people).

 

Trumpets has themes associated with it including the coronation of the King, waking up from the sleep of sin, marriage (for us it’s associated with the marriage supper of the Lamb), concealment (on the day of wrath), and warning to repent before the day of Judgment/Wrath also known as Yom Kippur or day of atonement.

 

There are some articles on www.wholebible.com including Christian Faith and Practice through Cycles http://www.wholebible.com/Biblical_Feasts.htm and Christian Faith and Practice through Yom Teruah http://www.wholebible.com/trumpets.htm for more information. The Yom Teruah article has a flash video at the bottom where you can hear us sounding the shofar.

 

Shalom
Bruce

Posted in Adoption • Comfort • Daily Living • God • Humility • Resurrection • Reward

Father of Mercies, God of Comfort

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Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. (2 Corinthians 1:3–5, ESV)

 

It’s tough to find comfort in the middle of sadness, and it is usually tough to offer comfort too. My mother-in-law passed away recently after a few years of not knowing who her family was and not hardly being able to feed and dress herself. Comfort was a little easier in her case because she had lived a pretty full life. My dad died from a brain disease at 62, a nephew died by his own hand recently at 30, and a friend died from cancer a few years ago in middle age after adopting five children. A six year-old girl I know is fighting leukemia. I have trouble finding comfort in understanding sometimes, but I do find comfort in the Father of mercies and God of comfort.

 

Believers have comfort because we know this life is not all there is. Our hope is that we will be reunited with loved ones who have gone before. This life is hard and death abounds because of sin, but it’s not going to stay that way forever. God is righteous, just, merciful and loving and has offered us a way out of the eternal consequences of sin.

 

It is a comfort to realize in a way that we MUST die once in order to enter eternal life. Sometimes it happens sooner than we want, but it must happen. None of us is getting out of this alive. We have a resurrection hope, that even if we lose life in this age we will regain it in the next. It is a comfort that God is in control, and He knows what He is doing.

 

Pagans are a different story in the comfort department. It’s a super tragedy when someone dies without God. There is no hope there, except perhaps that we might be wrong, they really did have God, and maybe God will look with favor on them somehow. The other hope is that people will be moved to make their own position with God secure by accepting His mercy in the form of His only begotten Son Jesus the anointed.

 

Before we get uptight about bad things happening to good people, we really should make sure of our definitions of bad and good. We can take comfort in the fact that just because something feels bad doesn’t mean it really is. And we might think we are good, but is that really true? Are we really doing everything we can to pursue His kingdom? Yet even if we are good, we live in a sinful, wicked world and sometimes we suffer because of other people’s sin. In all of it believers find comfort that God is a God of reason and all things work together for good for those of us who love Him.

 

The bottom line is the mercy of God. We need to recognize that He doesn’t owe us anything. We owe Him everything. Pagans don’t acknowledge this (even though they owe Him everything too) so they have no comfort. Believers do, so we throw ourselves on His mercy and ask humbly for things to be different. If not, then we continue in comfort knowing that we are in the household of the Father of mercies. We suffer as sons and daughters of the most High God, brothers and sisters to the Messiah who makes adoption possible, and have the mercy of eternal life. In 10,000 years or so, we will look back on this life as a wisp of a memory, and only our walk with Him will remain.

Posted in Law • Love • Resurrection • Righteousness • Whole Bible Christianity • Whole Bible Christianity book

Thoroughly Investigate

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Our God is a just God, and He expects His people to pursue justice too. But influence pedaling is a major past time. Pastors or rabbis are untouchable. Money is king with a lot of people. Real justice is scarce. Many want to commit the Law to the rubbish heap so they can pursue their agendas unburdened by accountability or humility.

And don’t try to sell me the lame concept that justice and love are separate. People try this all the time. You’ve heard it said (now where have I heard that statement before?) that we should exercise ‘justice in love.’ This is true, except that the two are not separate. Justice is love; love without justice isn’t love.

If we use the Word properly, we are doing both. The reason Jesus had to die is because justice and love both had to be satisfied. One could not be exercised by God without the other. It was a very difficult thing for God to justify sinners without merely ‘overlooking’ sin. The resolution was the death and resurrection of God in human form. There is such a thing as being too harsh. But that is generally connected with condemnation, not justice. We condemn when we try to practice justice outside of God’s Word, and fail to investigate according to the Word.

‘Whole Bible Christianity’ chapter 9 section on Thoroughly Investigate

Posted in Bible Verse • Clean & Unclean • Comfort • Fear • God • Humility • Identity • Love • Resurrection • Righteousness • Salvation

Fear the Lord and be Treasured

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Then those who feared the LORD spoke with one another. The LORD paid attention and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the LORD and esteemed his name. “They shall be mine, says the LORD of hosts, in the day when I make up my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him. Then once more you shall see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him. (Malachi 3:16–18, ESV)

Posted in Bible Verse • Comfort • Judgment • Resurrection • Reward

When I Fall, I Will Rise

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Rejoice not over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the LORD will be a light to me. I will bear the indignation of the LORD because I have sinned against him, until he pleads my cause and executes judgment for me. He will bring me out to the light; I shall look upon his vindication. Then my enemy will see, and shame will cover her who said to me, “Where is the LORD your God?” My eyes will look upon her; now she will be trampled down like the mire of the streets. (Micah 7:8–10, ESV)

Posted in Bible Verse • Resurrection

Resurrection

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“Come, let us return to the LORD; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him. Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.” (Hosea 6:1–3, ESV)

Posted in Bible Verse • Resurrection

Shining like stars

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“At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book. And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever. (Daniel 12:1–3, ESV)