James 2:14-26 Matthew 3:7-9 John 3:2-3 1. The FOUR CHARACTERISTICS of being alive James 2:15-20· If you are spiritually alive YOU SHOW COMPASSION James 2:15-16; 1 Timothy 6:6-8; 1 John…
Jewell, Iowa
COMMITTED to train men and women
to have minds for the Lord Jesus,
hearts for the truth, and
hands that are skilled to the task.
to have minds for the Lord Jesus,
hearts for the truth, and
hands that are skilled to the task.
"Abraham" Tagged Sermons (Page 2)
Most people in churches today are familiar with the story recorded in Genesis 1 -3 and some of them are going even further all the way to Genesis, chapter 12. But few understand that the recorded divine transgressions found in Genesis, chapter 3 and another described in Genesis, chapter 6 are part of a gigantic battle in the supernatural world that not only shapes human history, but has also been a major component of the ancient Israelites supernatural world view.
Without this supernatural world view, not much of the rest of the Bible makes sense. As a matter of fact, stripping the Bible of its supernatural world view leaves us to deal with spiritual bread crumbs. All we have left is a Bible from where we get some insight HOW TO LIVE A BETTER LIFE TODAY. HOW TO DEAL WITH THE PROBLEMS OF TODAY AND HOW NOT TO BE LIVING LIKE OTHERS AROUND US DO. Such teaching can do a lot of good in the here and now, but misses the more important truth with eternity in mind.
Did you notice that the Gentile nations are not called GOD’S PEOPLE? Israel is the only nation that God calls HIS PEOPLE. WE will look at that a little later. This is important to understand. Why? Because the birth of Jesus Christ, God coming to this earth in human form, as a human being, is not just good news to individual people but also good news for individual nations.
During those 339 years, the people started to reject the God who created them and longed to communicate with other gods, spiritual beings God also created. Under the leadership of Nimrod, the name means REBELLION, the people started building a tower in the midst of a great city called Babylon, in defiance of God’s command to populate the earth. A gigantic battle took place in the spiritual realm against God’s purpose for the Adamic race.
The Apostle Paul is summarizing this battle in Romans, chapter One.
It is difficult to understand this battle between God Almighty and some of his spiritual beings which rebelled against him, until we read God’s response to the rebellion at Babel in Deuteronomy 32:8-9 (ESV) When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. But the Lord’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage.
Other translations say: When the Most High divided their inheritance to the nations, when He separated the sons of Adam, He set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the children of Israel.
Remember, all the other nations have been given over by God to lower spiritual beings to rule over them. These lover spiritual beings will rule the nations of the world with a corrupt administration and will wage war against God’s only nation on earth, ISRAEL. God started new with Abram. From now on He is known as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Jacob’s name will later the changed into ISRAEL.
The battle is intense, but the outcome is certain. Jesus came as a light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel, was the great proclamation of Simeon as he was holding God’s son, Jesus Christ, in his arms.
The gigantic battle is still raging and will until Jesus will return the second time to this earth, this time not in the form of a Baby or a servant, but as the King of Kings and Lord or Lords to rule and reign in the spiritual as well as the physical world.
The name Nimrod means: “rebellious, revolt, indignation or disgraceful”.
The word Babel or Babylon means: “confusion”.
Mystery Babylon shrouded her plans within plans within plans, while this intentional shrouding is a well-thought-out methodical art to lead people astray. In Ephesians, chapter six, the Apostle Paul is telling us that the “wiles of the devil” are carefully planned and implemented secrets, spiritual traps, that one day will entrap the entire world. Satan used Nimrod, the son of Cush and the grandson of Noah, to develop a system of religious practices that would replace man’s walk with God in every aspect of life. His goal was to entrap the people of Babylon by making them absolute dependent upon those religious systems. What Nimrod did was implementing a system of control where people replace RELATIONSHIP WITH A RELIGIOUS SYSTEM. In Revelation 17 we see how God Almighty will destroy that religious system. The people who relied on that system to sustain them will be left to themselves.
We rejected the offer to restore the RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD ALMIGHTY AND exchanged it with a religious system. THAT’S MYSTERY BABYLON. All man-made religious find their origin in MYSTERY BABYLON. There are many of them, plans within plans within plans. Nimrod was a genius. He was able to provide everything the people had need of, including their religious freedom: all roads lead to God. God is always the same for ALL religions in the world. He is just called by a different name. Right now, his name is NIMROD.
Remember, Abram had to leave behind the Nimrod System he was dependent on for all his life.
Abram was rich in earthly goods, but he had no relationship with God Almighty nor did he know HOW TO WALK WITH GOD LIKE ADAM DID IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN.
Now El Shaddai was the one who would multiply Abraham abundantly,
El Shaddai was to restore life to Abraham and Sarah who were as good as dead where offspring was concerned. Through El Shaddai would they have future offsprings as the dust, stars and sand in numbers. By God’s grace, Abraham would escape the religious trap Nimrod set for everyone. Listen, God called Abraham out of Babylon to WALK WITH HIM, much the same way that the Holy Spirit calls us to salvation through the preaching of the gospel. We must leave the religious system behind and learned to WALK WITH GOD ALMIGHTY.
The Apostle Paul reminds us about this truth regarding our relationship with God Almighty, El Shaddai.
Paul was writing to believers in Christ, and when he did so, he was not merely referring to marriage. This is a cry of the Holy Spirit to our generation as well. We need to learn to walk with El Shaddai, walk with God Almighty, the only source of our strength, the only source of our health, the only source of our supplies. We are talking here about spiritual survival.
Satan has done a great job with his earthly disciples to make sure that we cannot see what his plans within plans within plans are. But the Holy Spirit knows and reveals those truths to God’s children so they stop walking within the system but walking with God and Him alone.
Last year we have studied the book of Revelation all the way up to the 16th chapter. So I will not repeat what I have shared with you then. However, to fully understand the 16th chapter before us, we need to read it in context of the previous chapter.
The question must be asked: WHY DOES GOD HIMSELF LET ALL THIS TROUBLE COME UPON THIS WORLD? What’s the purpose of all this? The Answer: Let My People Go. In other words, God’s judgment will always fall on those who tried to destroy everything God has created, especially His crown creation: THE HUMAN BEING made in God’s image.
He will come unexpectedly! The vast majority of people will still be eating and drinking, focusing on their everyday lives, unaware of the dangerous times they’re living in. Just as the people in Noah’s day, they will be ignoring the warning messages and rejecting God’s righteous ways Noah, the prophet of God, was very likely mocked and ridiculed for preaching “righteousness” (2 Peter 2:5). The Bible reveals that in the end time, prior to Christ’s return, people will also ignore warnings to repent. As Peter notes, “Scoffers will come in the last days, … saying, ‘Where is the promise of His coming?’” (2 Peter 3:3-4).
Noah preached for 120 years while he built the arch. Eventually only 8 people made it into the arch. THOSE WHO WERE IN THE ARCH WERE SAVED FROM THE WRATH OF GOD. This was not Noah’s idea. It was God’s master plan to destroy wickedness on this earth and to start over again. “I will destroy them with the earth”.
Egypt was the Empire that ruled the known world at this time. Egypt called the shots in this world. Without understanding what God did with Egypt, you will not understand the bowl judgments, the last 7 judgments that will come upon this whole earth, known as the wrath or judgments of God.
Like Egypt enslaved God’s covenant people, so has every world empire enslaved God’s people. The last Empire on God’s calendar was and is the Roman Empire. While today, this empire is fractured, it will COME BACK TO FULL POWER under ONE MIGHTY RULER, THE ANTICHRIST. By the time the bowl judgments will come upon this earth this REVIVED ROMAN EMPIRE WILL BE IN FULL CONTROL OF ALL HUMANITY.
And Pharaoh said, “WHO IS THE LORD, THAT I SHOULD OBEY HIS VOICE TO LET ISRAEL GO? I DO NOT KNOW THE LORD, NOR WILL I LET ISRAEL GO.” Wrong thing to say to God Almighty who made the heavens and the earth and who is the owner of His own creation. But the rulers of this world have not learned anything yet. The final ruler of this world, before Jesus Christ will set up His kingdom here, will act exactly the same way. Look at the plagues God brought upon this nation Egypt. Four of the seven judgments of Revelation are copies of the plagues Egypt had to endure. They were literal plagues in Egypt and they will be literal judgments when God will pour his wrath upon this world.
LET MY PEOPLE GO. The final judgment upon this earth is carried out by God to set His people free, to set his entire creation free.
The first time he did use WATER.
The next time he will use FIRE.
Why did John call for a water baptism?
The ritual of water baptism was applied to Gentiles, unclean people, who wanted to convert to Judaism. Ritual baptism was never administered to Jews, only to non-Jews who converted to Judaism. Why? Because Gentiles were considered unclean and needed to go through a purification rite, to take a bath – in order to be welcomed and received into the covenant community of Israel.
However, John the Baptist primarily directed his calls for repentance to Jews. With that, he told Israel “the Messiah is about to arrive but you are not ready for Him. It is you, the people of Israel,that are unclean. That’s the reason why John called the Jews to submit to a ritual of cleansing that up to this point had been administered only to Gentiles. The typical procedure when a Gentile was going through the proselyte baptism, he was never baptized by a Levite or by a priest, who normally performed all the other purification rites in Israel. The convert was to baptize himself. No wonder the religious leaders asked themselves: Who does this man think he is, to call us, the children of Abraham, to undergo a cleansing rite?
The Lamb of God is also prefigured in the Passover, when God prepared to bring His final plague on the Egyptians, the death of every firstborn male of the Egyptians, including the crown prince of the Pharaoh (Exodus 12:3-31). Just as the blood of the lamb caused the people of Israel to be spared from God’s wrath, the Lamb of God redeemed His people from the penalty that was due for their sin.
This sermon is not going to be on the book of Revelation. Instead, we will focus on another battle that is raging since the dawn of time; and the ultimate target in this battle is the women. We have come a long way since God gave Adam a wife, the future mother of all human beings. The spiritual battle transferred from heaven to this earth in an instance and never ceased since. As a matter of fact, the battle intensified each time period since. This spiritual war has culminated in a total destruction of the family unit as God has ordained it since its creation. We are witnessing right now in our own country the destruction of the family and in the process deliberately distort the meaning of motherhood. Satan forgot to tell them what the true consequences would be. Like always, Satan forgets to tell his targets the whole truth. It is God who speaks the truth and warns his creation in advance of the schemes of the Devil.
Who was the target of Satan this time? The women! They would have to kill their own sons because the government demanded it to be so. Listen, any law that is contrary to God’s Word, no matter what government is writing it, MUST BE DISOBEYED BY THE CHILD OF GOD. The consequences must be left in God’s hands. The old song says: “God will make a way where there seems to be no way. He works in ways we cannot see, he will make a way for me.”
No mother knows in advance what God has in store for her and her children. It is not important after all. What is more important is the fact that God has gifted every mother to be the best mother to her children.
Jerusalem was filled with people that came from all over the world to celebrate the Passover, the feast God commanded the Hebrews to keep every year as a reminder that it was He alone who brought them out of slavery, out of the Egyptian bondage.
They did not deserve to be delivered, and they certainly did not pay a ransom to the Egyptians to be delivered.
It was a picture of what God is doing for His people, because HE PROMISED LONG AGO, that the spiritual battle of the ages, a battle which started in heaven itself and eventually was introduced to God’s creation in this world, will be won by God Himself, Victory will be declared by God Himself, and the battle of all battles will be settled ones and for all.
That was Satan’s goal all along. TO BE LIKE GOD. That’s the goal of all those who run around the churches claiming to have the same power God has to command Satan and his fallen angels to do their bidding and to command God what to do. Well, all in THE NAME OF JESUS. It’s the battle of all battles.
God uses truth to conquer lies, Satan, the father of lies, uses deception to conceal the lies. Deception is the most powerful weapon Satan has in his arsenal.
When Jesus, willingly, went to the cross, to be crucified for our sins, He did what the Father long ago promised would happen:
The seed, which is Christ Jesus, will win the battle of all battles, not by conquering Satan, but by submitting to the Father’s will.
Remember, a key is to lock or unlock something. Jesus has the key to lock or unlock Hades, which is the GREEK word for HELL. This is a physical place located within the Earth’s core. Jesus used that key after His crucifixion and before He rose from the dead. It is Jesus who led THOSE CAPTIVE IN PARADISE TO CAPTIVITY IN HEAVEN, under the throne of God. No wonder Paul is saying to the Ephesians: HE LEAD CAPTIVITY CAPTIVE.
What is striking here is the fact that as Jacob is on the run, he certainly was not seeking God. Jacob is certainly not a candidate for a holy experience of worship! Grace and worship must go together. GOD’S GRACE MUST BE A PART OF TRUE WORSHIP. My friend, true worship must be an experience of God’s Presence. Jacob, overcome with fear, realized that he was at the very house of God, the gate of heaven. What he thought was a dead-end street was actually the gate of heaven, giving him a new purpose to live for God. Jacob the schemer started to acknowledge his need for God. When we worship the Lord, we will experience God’s purpose, which is a transformed life. It may start slowly, but God will do his work until it is done.
For Abraham to loose his wife was a very painful experience. Abraham was a man of faith and certainly his tears did not indicate any unbelief.
Abraham knew that Sarah was now in the Lord’s care. He had to say goodbye, but he did not loose Sarah.
“When you know where something is, you haven’t lost it.”
Too many people when they reach old age cannot experience what Abraham did. They live without faith and eventually cannot die IN FAITH.
“When they look back, it is with regret; When they look ahead, it is with fear; When they look around, it is with complaint!”
For us who trusted Christ, old age should be a time of rich experience in the Lord and a wonderful opportunity to share Jesus with the next generation.