The Bible-Understanding God, His Kingdom, Jesus, The Holy Spirit
The Bible
God is the main character in the Christian Bible.
The main theme of the Bible is God’s sovereignty, the kingdom of God and God’s communications to man to bring redemption to mankind. This is done by an historical account of mankind’s earthly beginning and end. It’s presented in an eternal historical perspective which includes past, present and future.
A very powerful sub-theme included in God’s dealings with mankind is that of a righteous remnant. This remnant will always be a minority, and will not depend each other or upon the majority for their personal understanding of, and relationship to, God, and will trust only God, and God alone. That trust, of course, will come from:
(1) biblical knowledge,
(2) understanding of God Himself,
(3) God’s sovereignty,
(4) the kingdom of God and
(5) God’s communications to mankind to bring redemption to mankind.
(6) This righteous remnant will also have a biblical understanding of the eternal historical perspective of the written Bible.
Who And What Is God?
To unravel those statements it’s important to understand Who and what God is and Who and what God is not. God is all powerful, all wise and fills all time, space and matter as a separate living entity. He has no weaknesses, He is not unwise and is, in fact, the sum of all wisdom. There is no place in this universe where God is not there.
It’s important to understand that the God of the Christian Bible is sovereign. He is the Creator of all that exists and He continues to maintain all that exists and He requires absolutely no outside assistance, especially from mankind, whom He created.
Who And What Is Man?
Mankind disobeyed God from the very beginning and slipped down to a very low depth of spiritual existence, particularly when compared to a Holy God. It’s also important to know who and what we are and who and what we are not. We are not all powerful, we are very limited in our wisdom and in our ability to travel from place to place. We are, ultimately, weak in every area and totally dependent upon our environment for our existence and survival. Without air to breathe, food to eat, liquids to drink, a healthy functioning body, and the ability to adapt to the environment which God created and maintains for us, we would die in an instant. We have very limited sovereignty. We are also limited in our creative abilities and in our ability to maintain that which God has created and maintains for our benefit. We need every bit of assistance from God that we can avail ourselves of. We must also obey God in all of His laws, orders, statutes, commandments and precepts.
The Results Of Our Disobedience To God
What is the result of our disobedience to God? “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” (Genesis 6:5). Thoughts and imaginations proceeding from the heart of man cause corruption and imperfection, creating evil.
In Matthew 15:19 Jesus told us: “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts ...” The heart refers to the human spirit and soul of man. “Evil” here is poneros, meaning evil in influence and effect. It’s destructive, harmful and malignant. In the companion passage in Mark 7:21, He uses the word kakos for evil. This means evil in character ... worthless, shameful and disgraceful. “Thoughts” is dialogismos, inward reasonings and questionings. The character of fallen man is worthless, shameful and disgraceful. This comes from his inward reasonings and questionings. In influence and effect the exercise of man’s reason is destructive, harmful and malignant.
Jesus said in Matthew 7:11: “If ye then being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?” The word “being” is on, to be, the verb meaning ordinary existence. “Evil” is poneros, defined above as evil in influence and effect. It is destructive, harmful and malignant. In Luke 11:13, the parallel passage of the verse, He states “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” Here, the word “being” is huparcho, which Vines Expository Dictionary defines as “to exist, which always involves a pre-existent state, prior to the fact referred to, and a continuance of the state after the fact.” “Evil” is the same word, poneros.
We were “evil” (poneros) before Jesus stated the fact, when He spoke, and will continue to be “evil” in the future. We have been corrupted and imperfected by the terminal illness of sin. Many humanistic and spiritualistic efforts to repair, recondition or refurbish humanity come and go in society. These are simply trends by fallen man to disown his problem.
As saved human beings we are still “evil.” By God’s love, grace, mercy, wisdom, judgment and divine justice we can become legally perfect in His sight. Our personal and individual acceptance of the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ makes us eligible for a brand new existence. Any other hope of change of our “evil” character and influence is a false hope.
In Matthew 15:19 Jesus discussed thoughts, what’s in the spirit and soul of man. In the eighteenth verse He said, “But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man.” Paul tells us: “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; ...” (Galatians 5:19), and then lists them.
We see the outcome as Jesus enumerates them in Matthew 15:19: Murdersphonos, is in the plural. We correctly understand it as meaning to criminally kill another person. In Matthew 5:21,22, however, Jesus admonishes us that we are subject to the judgment of murder when we hate our brother. I John 3:15 tells us: “Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.” Adulteriesmoicheia and Fornicationsporneia ... adulteries is sexual relationships with the spouse of another. Fornications is sexual relationships with someone who is not a spouse, but sometimes includes adulteries. In Matthew 5:28 Jesus said whoever looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart. “Look” blepo, implies special contemplation, not a casual look or glance. Adultery separates from God: “Ye adulterers and adulteresses,” (adulterers is not in the original manuscripts) “know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God” (James 4:4). Theftsklope, means to take the property of another without their knowledge or consent with no intention of returning it. In Matthew 22:21 Jesus affirms: “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.” Taxes are a responsibility of earthly citizenship. The biblical tithe was an example of giving by the people of God as expressed according to the Divine love of God (John 3:16), the dedication of your life to God (Romans 6:13) and desire for the largesse of God (2 Corinthians 9:6-15). Failure to pay taxes or to give biblical offerings is robbery, or theft. On earth and in heaven there is a penalty for theft. Payment of taxes is based on a computed sum. Payment of biblical offerings is based on an obedient and loving heart. False witnesspseudomarturia, means untrue testimony, declaring what we have not seen or heard and not a known fact. “A false witness shall not be unpunished, and he that speaketh lies shall perish” (Proverbs 19:9). Blasphemies blasphemia, is harmful speaking — slander. It especially means speech that profanes, mocks and ridicules God, Jesus and scripture.
In Mark 12:30 Jesus instructed us: “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.” However, they have locked out God from school classrooms, and teach the unproven theory of evolution as fact. Secular humanism perverts the character, wisdom, justice, morals and ethics of God. His image (men and women) is profaned with pornography. Speech on TV, radio and publications blasphemes His name.
In Mark 12:31 Jesus continues: “And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.” However, public display of prejudice for institutional church neighbors is a standard and a subject of mockery.
Perversions, profanity, pornography and prejudices are blasphemies. They are an insult and an outrage to the God Who made us all.
Jesus continues with the list in Mark 7:22: Covetousnesspleonexia, is in the plural. It means excessive desires to get more than we need or deserve, to overreach. Jesus warned us in Luke 12:15: “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.” In Ephesians 5:5 and Colossians 3:5 Paul equates covetousness with idolatry. Nations have historically been guilty of covetousness in their conduct of international affairs. Fashionable lifestyles and material possessions gotten with overextended credit are covetousness and idolatry. Wickednessponeria, is an active form of evil that is destructive and painful. The Pharisees and the Herodians approached Jesus, trying to entangle Him in His talk “But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites?” (Matthew 22:18). “Hypocrite” hupokrites, means a stage-actor, a pretender, playacting. Hypocritical attempts by fallen man to project a false image spring from destructive and painful evil (wickedness). Deceitdolos, is skill deceiving with trickery by representing as truth that which is false. Paul warned the church in 2 Corinthians 11:13-15: “For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.” The ministers of satan are deceiving the world and the institutional church today. They are transforming themselves into the apostles, workers, and ministers of Christ and righteousness. Attacking from outside, they are also firmly entrenched inside the institutional church. Lasciviousness aselgeia, is excess, absence of restraint and decency, shameless conduct being foremost. This description mirrors the activity of today’s society. In 2 Corinthians 12:21 Paul advises that some in the church have not repented of the uncleanness, fornication and lasciviousness that they have committed. The fourth verse of the book of Jude talks about certain men in the church, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness. Some in the institutional church today are attempting to turn the grace of God into excess and indecency. Evilponeroseyeophthalmos, is envy and discontent that causes a person to want what someone else has. They want it so much they will take it away from that person. Envy and discontent are responsible for many crimes reported by today’s news media. (Jealousy wants to have the same thing, not deprive another of what they have, which is envy). “Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife; and some also of good will:” (Philippians 1:15). Some in the institutional church preach Christ for no better reason than to create riches, a reputation, and a rostrum for secular talents. They want other pastors’ congregations, and deprive that pastor of members. They want them so they can increase their profit, prestige and pomp. Blasphemy. We covered that in Matthew. Pride huperephania, expresses arrogance, i.e., contempt for those who are considered inferior. A worldly attitude brought into the church, it produces heat, not light. Jesus said the church was the light of the world, not the heat of the church in disagreement. James 4:6 and I Peter 5:5 warn us: “God resisteth the proud, but (and) giveth grace unto the humble.” Foolishness aphrosune, means unreasonable, meaningless and stupid. Stupidity shows a lack of ability to learn. Ignorance means unlearned or unawares. We put harmful substances into our bodies, through our mouths and lungs and even mechanically inject them into our bloodstreams, They cause sickness and death. We allow entrance of ungodly things into our eyes and ears. These are detrimental to our souls and cause spiritual death. Foolishness is the only excuse for this behavior.
Every one of these things is found in the current societies on this earth and in the institutional church. Jesus teaches the foremost requirement for heavenly entrance is to recognize our complete spiritual poverty. We must also understand that it proceeds from the heart of fallen man. Failure to identify and agree with these requirements will leave us spiritually destitute.
Only God Is God
When we come to realize the sinfulness of our fallen nature, and the perfection and holiness of our God and our Creator we will cease making unbiblical statements equating mankind with God. The alternative is to deny the truth of the scriptures and attempt to obey satan and his urging that “... Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”
Failure to repent from the mindset of not rightly understanding Who and what God is and Who and what He is not, and failure to know who and what we are and who and what we are not puts us on a downward path to hell itself.
The more we can learn about God, the kingdom of God and how God communicates to man to redeem us to Himself the more we can work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus ...” (1 Timothy 2:5). No one, I don’t care who you think they are, or who they think they are, is a mediator between God and men except Jesus Christ.
Only when an individual person comes to truly understand that Jesus Christ has paid the penalty for our sin of disobedience and they come to a point of loving Jesus, and their lifestyle reflects that fact, does the Father, Son and Holy Spirit come to make their abode, i.e., dwelling, within that person.
When a fellow human being attempts to interject themselves between you and God, remember what proceeds from the human heart and that Jesus has described us as being evil because of our sinful nature. Do you really want such a one as your mediator between you and God instead of Jesus Christ?
The Bible is an historical account of mankind’s earthly beginning and end. It’s presented in an eternal historical perspective which includes past, present and future. In the Bible you will find all the answers to all your questions. Why look for another, inferior, source for understanding God? Especially if it comes from another human being’s heart as some type of special revelation from God, which it’s not. If it was a “special” revelation from God then we would all receive it because we are all “special” in His sight.
An Unrighteous Majority
How about this righteous remnant? A minority and not a majority of those who name the name of Christ? Not depending upon each other or upon the majority for their personal understanding of, and relationship to, God? Trusting only God, and God alone?
“Well, that’s not what I see all around me in the institutional churches I’ve attended!” you say.
Hey, great, you’re starting to understand now! Keep looking and you will also see that those people who fail to exhibit those attributes also are sadly lacking in biblical knowledge and understanding of God Himself, His sovereignty, the kingdom of God and God’s communications to mankind to bring redemption to mankind. So they don’t have a biblical understanding of the eternal historical perspective of the written Bible.
They also don’t understand that God is all powerful, all wise and fills all time, space and matter as a separate living entity. They don’t understand that God has no weaknesses, and that He is not unwise and is, in fact, the sum of all wisdom.
They are thoroughly confused and don’t understand that mankind disobeyed God from the very beginning and slipped down to a very low depth of spiritual existence, particularly when compared to a Holy God. Because of the many false teachings that circulate from within the institutional church system. So they don’t know who and what we humans are and who and what we are not. They don’t understand that we are not the Creator and maintainer of all that exists. They don’t understand that we need every bit of assistance from God that we can avail ourselves of. They don’t understand that we must also obey God in all of His laws, orders, statutes, commandments and precepts.
They also don’t understand the wickedness, evil, corruption and imperfection that man allowed to become part of his existence when he said “Yes” to the devil and said “No” to God. They don’t understand the evil things that proceed out of the human heart. Things like murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, evil eye, pride and foolishness.
Would you hire someone who had all those things on their resume? Of course not!
Then why are you listening to their sermons, teachings, tapes and videos? And going to their conferences and seminars? And paying them huge amounts of money to make sure their private, personal little kingdom exists into perpetuity?
These people are responsible for the false teachings and false prophecies which are so popular in the institutional church system. Because of lack of biblical understanding many of those who name the name of Christ have proclaimed occultic manifestations by these people as being from God.
The Bible is clear about the great end-time apostasy, not a great revival among God’s people. Those who engage in the Godly activities I’ve outlined above know that. The rest simply don’t have a clue and believe the false teachings they hear.
Treating Symptoms Won’t Cure The Sickness Of The Institutional Church System
Question: why does anybody who knows the truth of God’s word concern themselves with what these false Christians continue to invent and practice, perfect and perpetuate?
When someone is sick do you treat the symptoms or the cause of the sickness? The cause of all this sickness is the institutional church system. It can’t be cured and is an active agent in bringing about the great end-time apostasy spoken of in the Bible. Why continue to discuss the symptoms? Just get out of that sick, sick, sick place and get close to God and listen to Him only.
When I was in the military there was a saying: “A complaining ship is a happy ship.” (They used another word for “complaining,” but the meaning is the same.) Complaints were heard from every quarter on a constant basis. The truth of the matter is that as long as they could freely vent their feelings against the military authority structure they found to be oppressing at times, they could continue to function in it. But when things got deadly quiet there was a problem. A bad problem. Re-enlistments dropped, requests for transfer multiplied, AWOL’s (Absent Without Official Leave) increased. The feelings ran too deep for simply venting their feelings and they attempted to get out from under the “system.”
In other words, they were serious, very serious about doing something to get out from under what they considered to be an intolerable system of authority.
It’s the same thing happening in institutional churches through the world. Complaints about the pastor, the youth minister, the worship leader, other false self-appointed authority figures are voiced with a tremendously increasing frequency. Others leave one institutional church and begin to attend another one. Some leave the entire church scene behind them and then attempt to set up the exact same authority system in their living rooms and then pathetically call it “home church.”
Eliminate The Cause by Eliminating The Institutional Church System
But those who are serious, very serious about eliminating the cause of the problem do their research. They get out of the institutional church system entirely and leave it behind them as only a bad memory.
This righteous remnant pays a tremendous cost for doing so. All the prestige and recognition they had previously known from within that system is lost to them. Those they knew in the institutional churches they attended now count them as if they were dead and no longer existed. When there are encounters, deliberate or planned, with those in the institutional church, there are charges of backsliding, being in rebellion, losing their “covering” downright apostasy and more and more and more.
As I said there is a tremendous loss by this righteous remnant.
This remnant will always be a minority, and will not depend each other or upon the majority for their personal understanding of, and relationship to, God, and will trust only God, and God alone. That trust, of course, will come from:
(1) biblical knowledge,
(2) understanding of God Himself,
(3) God’s sovereignty,
(4) the kingdom of God and
(5) God’s communications to mankind to bring redemption to mankind.
(6) This righteous remnant will also have a biblical understanding of the eternal historical perspective of the written Bible.
They will continue to study and pray and will come to understand Who and what God is and Who and what God is not. They will come to know that God is all powerful, all wise and fills all time, space and matter as a separate living entity. And that He has no weaknesses, And that He is not unwise and is, in fact, the sum of all wisdom. And that there is no place in this universe where God is not there.
They will understand that the God of the Christian Bible is sovereign, the Creator of all that exists and He continues to maintain all that exists and He requires absolutely no outside assistance, especially from mankind, whom He created.
They will discover that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is simple, simple, simple! They will be a disciple of Jesus Christ, i.e., a learner, follower, supporter and imitator of Him. Not what somebody else is thinking, saying or doing! And practice being a family and then meet with other families (as lead by the Holy Spirit, not on a rigid schedule) to minister to “one another” at the leading of the Holy Spirit of God. That’s what a biblical ekklesia of God is and does.
There will come from this practice of being a disciple of Jesus and following the leading of the Holy Spirit a genuine love of the Father, with all of one’s heart, soul, mind and strength. And a love of one’s neighbor. Those around them will see their seven day a week, 24-hour a day lifestyle and know by their love for one another that they have something that they don’t. And they will then want to read your tracts, and read the Bible you give them, and come to your occasional home meetings. And, in turn, become disciples of Jesus Christ.
Then attention and activities will cease to be focused on complaints about a sick and perverted institutional church system which promotes self-centeredness, death and bondage. Instead it’ll be focused upon the love of the Father, the abundant life we have in Jesus Christ, and the liberty of the Holy Spirit. And sharing, socializing and supporting (which is what koinonia means in the Greek), those in need until they get back on their feet again. And taking care of the fatherless, widows, strangers/travelers in the land and the spiritual Levites God has called as such. And the Father’s eternal purpose, which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, of bringing all things together in one in Christ. Why? So the manifold wisdom of God is made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly realms through the church, i.e., ekklesia. It will happen because “... it is written ...” The alternative is biblical apostasy, isn’t it?
What Are You Doing About The Bible, God, His Kingdom, Jesus And The Holy Spirit?
You know what you’re really doing now in your institutional church setting and its attendant mindset? You are bypassing the only Person Who has the authority from God to be your mediator with God, i.e., Jesus. You are also ignoring what the resident Holy Spirit within you is trying so very hard to teach you about God. Especially when you don’t read the Bible as if your life depended upon it and then the Holy Spirit has nothing to reveal to you from scripture because there is nothing in your spirit, soul or body for Him to work with.
Think about how this will affect your conversation with Jesus on that day when you are standing in front of Him and face to face and He asks you about these things.
What effect do you think all these activities, both good and bad, will have upon your eternal soul?
