A relative called me recently and asked me to look at a video of a news broadcast that contained a brief image that appears to fit the description of the “pale horseman” described in the Book of the Revelations.
God has seven “spirits” and according to a prophecy of the coming Messiah by Isaiah in chapter eleven, verse two; six of these are described. “And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD;”. John the Revelator tells us of these spirits of God as well: “And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices: and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God.” These “spirits” are an interaction of God with mankind, and also include the “spirit” of creation.
These Spirits can be viewed from the point of view of humanity as the characteristics of God. They accomplish the actions and interactions of God with the created universe and humanity. God (elohiym-authority of great creative power) took counsel of His own will and created all that exists by His wisdom:
"According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence; Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: That in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him: in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:" (Eph.. 1:4-11)
The Apostles discuss the power and wisdom of God as being manifest in Jesus Christ (I Cor.1:24). John revealed the Word as the will of God from before the foundation of the world and seen by us as the Messiah in John 1:1.
When we look to the signs and wonders that follow the Christians in the book of Acts of the Apostles, we see that they all have a purpose that brings the attention of people to their personal need of God, and to a God that can satisfy that need. Salvation is always the result of, or the goal of, these miracle events. None of the types of miracles manifested includes a “flash and boom” to cause consternation or fear.
Recently, a video broadcast of the civil war in Cairo Egypt included a sudden appearance of a pale horse and rider that miraculously disappeared from the crowd of fighting citizens. Considering the above scriptural point of view, this is not a manifestation of something in the apocalyptic account of Revelations. The horsemen described in that book are revelations of the powers of Nations involved in the environment near the end of the church age of Grace. The scripture does not suggest these are going to be observed as real objects as described in revelations, but rather they are metaphor: the horse symbolizes a warring king of responsibility.
The pale horse represents the ensuing death.
When Jesus rode into Jerusalem at the beginning of the festival, his family and friends were disappointed because he did not ride a horse into town. That would have symbolized his role as an authority on Earth as a king. They had hoped he came to relieve them of the Roman government rule over Israel. Instead, he rode the colt of an ass that symbolized peace. This was the objective of his ministry; to bring peace.
This is a similar metaphorical remark as the “mark” of the beast described to be in the forehead and the palm of the hand. It might simply represent an implication of thought and action rather than an actual imprinting on the hand and forehead. The saints were “sealed” in their forehead as well, yet they bore no distinguishing marks on their foreheads that we can determine. So these statements are the result of Hebrew usage of idiom to explain the events to transpire. We may be separated from the bulk of society as a result of our faith and belief; we should be recognizable as very different and excluded from the transaction of society at large possibly because we will not be afforded the civil rights to participate based on the illegal status of our religious belief.
Paul gives us a definite description of this process to the church in Thessaloniki:
"Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.
Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;
Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.
Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things?
And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time.
For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.
And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,
And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." (II Thess. 2:1-12)
A lying wonder is a falsehood. What we saw in that video clip is a manipulation of our society, and many will believe it. This will confuse and frighten a world of spiritually deceived people into a form of submission to the “assumed” apocalyptic processes based on an unknowable purpose by an unknown agency.
If I Am in Christ, I am admonished to be “anxious for nothing”. I am to be a symbol of the hope of Jesus Christ to my society, a banner made by God to attract the population that will seek God, rather than reject Him. I need to lift up Jesus before the people around me, not cower in fear of the coming judgment. If I become afraid, I will seek his face for peace in all things.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Monday, February 21, 2011
The Heart
The successes we have in the kingdom of God are more a matter of our behavior from the heart than anything else we do. God relates to us spiritually and interacts with our “heart”. He wants us to interact with him the same way.
Gen 6:5 And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
Gen 6:6 And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
Gen 8:21 And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.
The heart is an unknown for most of us. It is commonly believed that men are the least knowledgeable about how the heart works, and the emotional sensitivity of ladies make them much more aware of the notions within the heart: they often can say what they “feel” while men very often have to stop and really think hard to understand what is within the heart. Often, men just do not consider it at all.
Most of us recognize that emotions are connected to our internal thinking; our subconscious responses to stimuli often provoke an emotional response. This is what the Bible refers to as the heart. It is not the emotional seat (that is the belly or bowels); it is not the conscious logical thinking process (that is the mind) it is the underlying set of conditions that govern how you perceive everything. The conscious thoughts we have arise from these parameters that are in our “heart”. Those parameters are learned from our upbringing and our understanding of “truth”.
In fact, we are strongly cautioned to watch out for what goes into the training of children, and what adults digest as thinking material:
Pro 4:23 Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.
ADDICTIONS AND BAD HABITS ARE ALMOST ALWAYS GOING TO STOP YOU FROM HEARING YOUR HEART.
The story of Noah reveals to us that God not only has emotional responses from His heart, but those responses can be influenced by the behavior of people. Noah offered a burnt offering of thanks out of gratitude for being saved by God. Because of this response from a man who followed God’s nature closely, God changed his mind about how he would relate to his creation after that. What God said in Gen 8:21 is that because the heart is evil, he would have to do something else about that…
Exo 4:21 And the LORD said unto Moses, When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go.
Very often we are not aware that we make decisions in life based on our heart. Many marriages suffer because the heart of a person can be hardened toward another. When that happens,thoughts about the spouse become excessively logical and harsh. The emotional content of a relationship can melt away under these conditions. Suspicions and judgment follow, and compassion may disappear. There is no contact with the part of a person, the heart, which tells your partner what your true thinking about them might be.
You see, when you have a relationship, it is because your inner thinking, the parameters you have had set in your own psychology by close contact with a person point out to you that you must include this person in life to be happy. You may have no idea that this has happened until something triggers the mental thought that causes you to say”I need this person in my life”. This is felt as an emotional response. We call that emotional response a particular signal word: we “love” someone. The same process exists for family, but the results are not the same. How we love family is very different because the emotional response is different and the parameters in our “heart” are different. WHEN WE DISCOVER WE LOVE GOD, THERE IS AN EMOTIONAL RESPONSE, OFTEN SEVERAL RESPONSES. THIS LOVE FOR GOD IS DIFFERENT THAN ANYTHING WE HAVE EXPERIENCED BEFORE KNOWING GOD.
The response to God’s love for us is important. We see that Noah expressed his emotions as an act that would please God. Men very often show emotion this way. We do things for people rather than expressing emotions verbally or with physical contact. Women are commonly facile at expressing emotional responses and so this leads to understanding through vocalization and physical contact.
God hardened Pharaoh’s heart resulting in a loss of compassion and mercy for the people of Israel. He would no longer be concerned with the well being of these slaves. This cut off the possibility that Moses would be effective in convincing the Pharaoh to let Israel go free. THE LINES OF COMMUNICATION WERE ERASED AS A RESULT OF A HARDENED HEART.
What we must develop as a Christian is a heart that is not hardened toward the kingdom of God. Realizing that our communication with God is spiritual, and that our hearts are affected by this communication and we see that this is the crux of a relationship with God.
Several things to consider:
1) God provided rules of behavior so that we would not be offensive to his “heart”, as the people in Noah’s day were. These rules are called the Law of Moses.
2) God saw that even providing a correct upbringing by the law did not guarantee that our heart would be in it, and he would harden his heart toward us. So he changed the system again.
3) God came as a human partly so we could relate to him better. A spirit is a hard thing to make a solid connection with if it is not close to our own “perception” of life. The man, Jesus the Messiah, was just that connecting figure we needed. We know that he has emotions like us, feels pain, sickness and even death like us. We can connect better because God seems much more like us now.
4) GOD KNEW THAT RULES AND PROCESSES ALONE WOULD NOT KEEP US IN LOVE WITH HIM. SO HE GAVE US PART OF HIS SPIRIT TO LIVE INSIDE US WITH OUR OWN SPIRIT. This way, God could interact with us emotionally, and at a level that affects the heart directly. It is so important to have the Holy Ghost within you so that this can happen in your life. Without this, your relationship with God is difficult to maintain, and your understanding of him is diminished. In fact, you cannot become part of the “bride of Christ” in resurrection without it.
One of the most important signals for us that we are doing well in the kingdom of God is that we love our brothers in the kingdom of God. (I John 4:12 )This emotional acceptance of (often) strangers is not the result of our own “parameters” but the influence of God’s heart within us. The spirit of God modifies how we relate to everyone else. A newly filled Christian will often go around hugging total strangers and have a genuine feeling of brotherly love for everyone.
This is the plan that God had in mind to change things for us. This is how God wants us to relate to Him. If you have not yet received the Holy Ghost, you cannot fathom this emotional connection because it is only from God. It cannot be learned by human experience. If you do have the Holy Ghost within, then you already are aware of this property of salvation.
What can we do to be successful in the kingdom of God? We have to maintain a relationship with God very much like the ones we maintain with other people. Family, spouses and close friends always make an effort to accommodate, have compassion for and consideration of the others in their life. We have to do this same thing for God.
WE DO NOT POSSESS THE SKILL TO DO THAT AUTOMATICALLY. WE ATTEND CHURCH FAITHFULLY SO THAT WE CAN HAVE THE RIGHT PARAMETERS TO PUT IN OUR HEART. PREACHING IS DESIGNED TO DO THIS.
We pray every day to keep lines of communication open with God. If you do not draw close to him, the same results occur as when you fail to talk to your own people. Marriages suffer; friends grow cold and indifferent. Family members start to leave you out of their immediate plans.
We listen to God. We read his words regularly, and the Spirit he put within us teaches us as we read.
You wish to be successful in the kingdom of God? This is how: FAITHFUL ATTENDANCE TO WORSHIP, FAITHFULLY READING THE WORD, AND PRAYING EVERY DAY. Doing this causes many things to happen: God keeps you in his immediate plans, you are constantly aware that he loves you very much, and your compassion for others grows. The spirit within you seems to bubble over onto others, and God will definitely use you to reach others.
1Jn 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
1Jn 4:8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
1Jn 4:9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.
1Jn 4:10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
1Jn 4:11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.
1Jn 4:12 No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.
1Jn 4:13 Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.
The successes we have in the kingdom of God are more a matter of our behavior from the heart than anything else we do. God relates to us spiritually and interacts with our “heart”. He wants us to interact with him the same way.
Gen 6:5 And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
Gen 6:6 And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
Gen 8:21 And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.
The heart is an unknown for most of us. It is commonly believed that men are the least knowledgeable about how the heart works, and the emotional sensitivity of ladies make them much more aware of the notions within the heart: they often can say what they “feel” while men very often have to stop and really think hard to understand what is within the heart. Often, men just do not consider it at all.
Most of us recognize that emotions are connected to our internal thinking; our subconscious responses to stimuli often provoke an emotional response. This is what the Bible refers to as the heart. It is not the emotional seat (that is the belly or bowels); it is not the conscious logical thinking process (that is the mind) it is the underlying set of conditions that govern how you perceive everything. The conscious thoughts we have arise from these parameters that are in our “heart”. Those parameters are learned from our upbringing and our understanding of “truth”.
In fact, we are strongly cautioned to watch out for what goes into the training of children, and what adults digest as thinking material:
Pro 4:23 Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.
ADDICTIONS AND BAD HABITS ARE ALMOST ALWAYS GOING TO STOP YOU FROM HEARING YOUR HEART.
The story of Noah reveals to us that God not only has emotional responses from His heart, but those responses can be influenced by the behavior of people. Noah offered a burnt offering of thanks out of gratitude for being saved by God. Because of this response from a man who followed God’s nature closely, God changed his mind about how he would relate to his creation after that. What God said in Gen 8:21 is that because the heart is evil, he would have to do something else about that…
Exo 4:21 And the LORD said unto Moses, When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go.
Very often we are not aware that we make decisions in life based on our heart. Many marriages suffer because the heart of a person can be hardened toward another. When that happens,thoughts about the spouse become excessively logical and harsh. The emotional content of a relationship can melt away under these conditions. Suspicions and judgment follow, and compassion may disappear. There is no contact with the part of a person, the heart, which tells your partner what your true thinking about them might be.
You see, when you have a relationship, it is because your inner thinking, the parameters you have had set in your own psychology by close contact with a person point out to you that you must include this person in life to be happy. You may have no idea that this has happened until something triggers the mental thought that causes you to say”I need this person in my life”. This is felt as an emotional response. We call that emotional response a particular signal word: we “love” someone. The same process exists for family, but the results are not the same. How we love family is very different because the emotional response is different and the parameters in our “heart” are different. WHEN WE DISCOVER WE LOVE GOD, THERE IS AN EMOTIONAL RESPONSE, OFTEN SEVERAL RESPONSES. THIS LOVE FOR GOD IS DIFFERENT THAN ANYTHING WE HAVE EXPERIENCED BEFORE KNOWING GOD.
The response to God’s love for us is important. We see that Noah expressed his emotions as an act that would please God. Men very often show emotion this way. We do things for people rather than expressing emotions verbally or with physical contact. Women are commonly facile at expressing emotional responses and so this leads to understanding through vocalization and physical contact.
God hardened Pharaoh’s heart resulting in a loss of compassion and mercy for the people of Israel. He would no longer be concerned with the well being of these slaves. This cut off the possibility that Moses would be effective in convincing the Pharaoh to let Israel go free. THE LINES OF COMMUNICATION WERE ERASED AS A RESULT OF A HARDENED HEART.
What we must develop as a Christian is a heart that is not hardened toward the kingdom of God. Realizing that our communication with God is spiritual, and that our hearts are affected by this communication and we see that this is the crux of a relationship with God.
Several things to consider:
1) God provided rules of behavior so that we would not be offensive to his “heart”, as the people in Noah’s day were. These rules are called the Law of Moses.
2) God saw that even providing a correct upbringing by the law did not guarantee that our heart would be in it, and he would harden his heart toward us. So he changed the system again.
3) God came as a human partly so we could relate to him better. A spirit is a hard thing to make a solid connection with if it is not close to our own “perception” of life. The man, Jesus the Messiah, was just that connecting figure we needed. We know that he has emotions like us, feels pain, sickness and even death like us. We can connect better because God seems much more like us now.
4) GOD KNEW THAT RULES AND PROCESSES ALONE WOULD NOT KEEP US IN LOVE WITH HIM. SO HE GAVE US PART OF HIS SPIRIT TO LIVE INSIDE US WITH OUR OWN SPIRIT. This way, God could interact with us emotionally, and at a level that affects the heart directly. It is so important to have the Holy Ghost within you so that this can happen in your life. Without this, your relationship with God is difficult to maintain, and your understanding of him is diminished. In fact, you cannot become part of the “bride of Christ” in resurrection without it.
One of the most important signals for us that we are doing well in the kingdom of God is that we love our brothers in the kingdom of God. (I John 4:12 )This emotional acceptance of (often) strangers is not the result of our own “parameters” but the influence of God’s heart within us. The spirit of God modifies how we relate to everyone else. A newly filled Christian will often go around hugging total strangers and have a genuine feeling of brotherly love for everyone.
This is the plan that God had in mind to change things for us. This is how God wants us to relate to Him. If you have not yet received the Holy Ghost, you cannot fathom this emotional connection because it is only from God. It cannot be learned by human experience. If you do have the Holy Ghost within, then you already are aware of this property of salvation.
What can we do to be successful in the kingdom of God? We have to maintain a relationship with God very much like the ones we maintain with other people. Family, spouses and close friends always make an effort to accommodate, have compassion for and consideration of the others in their life. We have to do this same thing for God.
WE DO NOT POSSESS THE SKILL TO DO THAT AUTOMATICALLY. WE ATTEND CHURCH FAITHFULLY SO THAT WE CAN HAVE THE RIGHT PARAMETERS TO PUT IN OUR HEART. PREACHING IS DESIGNED TO DO THIS.
We pray every day to keep lines of communication open with God. If you do not draw close to him, the same results occur as when you fail to talk to your own people. Marriages suffer; friends grow cold and indifferent. Family members start to leave you out of their immediate plans.
We listen to God. We read his words regularly, and the Spirit he put within us teaches us as we read.
You wish to be successful in the kingdom of God? This is how: FAITHFUL ATTENDANCE TO WORSHIP, FAITHFULLY READING THE WORD, AND PRAYING EVERY DAY. Doing this causes many things to happen: God keeps you in his immediate plans, you are constantly aware that he loves you very much, and your compassion for others grows. The spirit within you seems to bubble over onto others, and God will definitely use you to reach others.
1Jn 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
1Jn 4:8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
1Jn 4:9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.
1Jn 4:10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
1Jn 4:11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.
1Jn 4:12 No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.
1Jn 4:13 Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.
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