Get ready. Because it is late in the day.
Bible-prophecy-speaking. End-times speaking. Days to end all days speaking.
All one has to do is read any non-major media outlets news (and I emphasize the word non-major) to see that world events are happening at such a rate it is difficult to keep up with all of them.
However, if you know the sign posts to be watchig out for (as Herb Peters has stated), it is astounding to see how many of these world events are just lining up with end-time prophecy already fortold in the scriptures. * For more on the fulfillment of end-time prophecies, check out http://www.fulfilledprophecy.com/~
That is.....until it is either removed or censored bythe powers that be, whether at Google, the FCC under the current administration and the return of the Fairness Doctrine, or some other power given to the NWO by FEMA or some other shadow government. No, I am not a conspiracy theorist, (unless you are talking about the original conspiracy as outlined in the book of Genesis). I am just an American Christian who is waking up from a long slumber of distraction and deception....
Today, I would like to talk about a new perspective in the fulfillment of the One World Goverment and One World Religion. Put away your cheesy made-for Christians- rapture movies and the theories they spout as to how the anti-christ will arise. For I am about to tell you that he is already here. His vehicle has been in place for over a decade and the influence it is exerting over our culture as well as our government is disconcerting.
Many Americans are emotionally sick over the state of the economy in our country, as well as the rise of socialism and fascism which we could see coming a mile away since before election day. This country is in a constitutional crisis right now. The quibble over the elegibility of Obama to hold office per his birth certificate- or lack therof- is a minor issue in this crisis, although it does say a lot to how little the leaders (almost ALL of them) in our country care about the constituion which they swore with uplifted hand to protect. When I saw Obama, then all of his staff raise their hand and swear to protect the constitution, I shouted, yes, shouted at the tv screen "LIARS!!!! ALL LIARS!!" How dare they treat with disdain, the blood of men and women who have died in order to protect that unique and special document by which all of our freedoms given by God Almighty are protected in this land.
But I digress....
My friend, we have been sold up the river by private bankers and by politicians paying off thse private bankers for political favors and position. Our rights to privacy have been chipped away at, and we cannot point the finger at former President Bush and the Patriot Act, for all that did was make official what the government had already been doing since the Clinton Administration....spying on the American people. Wire-tapping was something Slick Willey was doing back when a penant for the Texas Rangers was a gleam in George Bush's eye.
Now we must look to the ones who have real power in the world. Ones who would not think twice about weilding it over us, as a slave owner wields his whip. I am talking about the WEU (Western European Union) and the massive global agenda they have, not only to dictate what is done in the European Union itself, but in the Middle East as well- including the pan Arab states and...yes, you guessed it~ Israel.
Last week, Javier Solana threatened the new Israeli government under Benjamin Netanyahu to accept a two state solution or else (in not so many words). This is the first time such a tone has been taken with the Israeli government in recent years concerning an outside "broker for peace", and with such a staunch defender of Israel's soveriegnty (Netanyahu) ...the Good 'Ol Mr Huggie (that is what they call Solana) is showing his true colors. This is exaclty what he had in mind when he brokered the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership for Peace. Sound familiar? I bet you didn't catch that on Fox News. Sounds alot like the "North American Parnership for Peace", does it not? Googe that.
If you look at a map describing the aforementioned document (EUROMED Partnership for Peace) , and set it up side by side with a map of the Old Roman Empire straight from the back of your Bible, you will see that they look identical. Broker for peace, Hmm??....
They way the EU is going to bring about their global agenda is partly (or at least at the present) due to an idea called "Global Governance". I did not say "Global GOVERNMENT". This is where you have to put aside the images you have of the anti-christ taking control of the nations a la Hitler from those old end-times videos produced by Christian ministries in the 80's and 90's.....this is why I say it is already here. Global Governance does not come in like Chuck Norris in a china shop, the way we would describe "global government". No, it is much more insidious than that. What Global Governance does is it weilds its influence as just that...influence. Much more diplomatic. Much more subtle. If a nation can come under the influence of the ideas and values of the One-World System, no force is needed only compliance in local areas (a la the Old Roman Empire). This is exactly how Solana expects to gain the reigns of current soverign nations. Such priming of the masses has already come through our popular culture...media, arts, entertainment, gorup-think, evolution and it's assumptions of the origins of life, or lack thereof, which is programmed in to our citizens daily through the public school system, and of course, the dumming-down of American citizenry to where the next generation is so fixated in their toys- playing Guitar Hero, whilst they are led to the slaughter.
Global Governance is scary. It is legislation at mere suggestion. It is offering the nations of the world to join in the status and benefits of the European Union by offering them "Neighborhood Status"as opposed to "Member status" complete with econimic, trade and security benefits, and in return, expecting local, state, and nation level compliance.
And right about now, we could use some help in those areas, wouldn't you say??
What would you need in order to create a police state? Only the cooperation of local police and fire departments to comply with an overriding order or legislation to "keep the peace', and then an ensuing atmosphere of chaos and destruction, so that ordinary citizens will gladly give over their individual and inalienable rights. What kind of events could we imagine that could possibly precipitate such an ordeal??? Anyone? Anyone? Beuller? How about: food and water shortage, disinfranchisement of the classes (as in what socialism brings), mass political unrest followed by the organization of factions and in-fighting leading to civil war (as what the current constitutional crisis could muster), and oh, wait a minute, any natural or man-made disaster or perceived disaster FEMA would deem necessary to institute their emergency powers which they already have!! (see article on FEMA shadow-government at http://www.apfn.org/apfn/shadow.htm.
Any one of these scenarios, or a combination of them and we would be crying out begging for relief from outside sources. Either that, or they would come so insidiously and we would already be so stremlined into compliance, that we would hardly know what was happening.
My friend, we are a bit distracted. Boy, isn't that the understatement of the year?! And it is late in the day.
But none of these events have taken God off guard. Nor have they taken Him off of the throne. He forewared us about them in the books of Daniel, Revelation, and the gospels to name a few(during what's referred to as the Olivet Discourse- see Matthew chapter 24 among others). When these books are lined up in what the Hebrew perspective of Bible study calls "parallelism", one can see that the order in which events of the last days are mentioned is no coincidence. Nor is it any accident. Jesus mentioned even the order of world events prior to the end- all according to this way of organization. Now, for this persepective, I am going to stamp on many people's theological toes. For the Bible in it's entirety, when studied form a Hebrew perspective (in which it was given), only talks about ONE RESURRECTION, and that after many of these events I have been describing to you have already happened. (!!) Many warnings are there for believers as well. I won't get into the fact that the Bible does not contain a phrase called "the Great tribulation" in the sense that many pre-trib Christians have been taught. That is a man-made tradition. No, it is all in the context of Daniel's 70th week and there is no splitting up of believers to rapture some now and some later. What I will say is this....for those who have ears to hear, eyes to see, and a heart that perceives, we are already in the throws of birth pangs that will bring about the Day of the Lord (which is a day of Judgement where every man and every nation will have to give an account to God Almighty).
It is late in the day. I urge anyone who has any inkling of studying Bible end-time prophecy, to do so in the context of the entire bible as understood from the Hebrew perspective. For that is the perspective in which it was written. In order to do so, you may have to have your "lenses" cleansed of Western gentile Chritsitanity where it departs from this perspective. And that perspective does not allow for lawlessness. So put away your ideas that you can live how you want, do what you want, celebrate what you want (did I say that out loud to my Easter/Christmas-loving bretheren?!) , continue to violate the commandments of God and still be counted among his people who are separated out of the nations as those who do not take the mark of the Beast (antichrist and his world system). We already see the constructs in place for all power to be handed over to him. We even have an educated guess as to who he is. But only those who refuse to bow down to idols (remember Daniel who kept himself pure, not eating contaminated food from the king's table and who refused to bow down to the image of Nebuchadnezzar- the anti-christ of his day?) but remain faithful to the Lord til the end will be saved out of the coming deception. Some of us may have to pay for that faithfulness with our lives....not be raptured out of it.
If my writing is not concise, neat, pretty, or spelled right, it is because I am writing feverishly and frantically while my son sleeps. Then when he wakes, my real work, my important work begins. Because it is late in the day......
**
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Why My Child is a Miracle
One time, a ruler was pontificating with an advisor. He asked if there was a God, what would be the proof of his existence?
The advisor responded thoughfully, "The existence of the Jews".
In the Beginning
The descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, nowadays referred to as the Jews, were a unique people about which God said he would bless and all nations through them would be blessed:
The Lord had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you.
I will make you a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you". (Genesis 12;1-3)
God promised Abram that he would become a great nation, that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars and as the sands of the sea. God changed the name of Abram to "Abraham", meaning father of a multitude (of nations).
God also promised Abram that he would grant him land that would be an inheritance to his offspring (Genesis 12:7; ratified through blood covenant in Genesis 15). The land would be an inheritance to the descandants of Abraham, through his offspring Isaac and Jacob, forever. God ratified this covenant in a unilateral blood covenant while Abraham was asleep. This is to indicate that God Himself would bear the brunt of the covenant and make sure it would be fulfilled (after all, Abraham was in a deep sleep when God did this. See Genesis 15:9-21).
God also prophesied to Abram that his descendants would be slaves in a nation not their own (Egypt) for 400 years. Moreover, through later prophecies in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, God also told the Israelites that they would be taken captive and scattered to the far corners of the earth and into every nation for serving idols rather than serving the Lord their God who brought them up out of Egypt and out of slavery. This did indeed happen.
But here is the catch: God also promised to bring them back from captivity and into their own land, the land God swore to their father Abraham. God made many promises to Israel which have been fulfilled in history.
No other nation or people group on the face of the earth has existed that was decimated by their enemies, then were re-gathered to become a people group again. No other group was taken over by their enemies, scattered to the four corners of the earth, then came back to their land with their language restored! This could only be described as a miracle.
The definition of a miracle is: any amazing or wonderful occurrence; a marvellous event manifesting a supernatural act of a divine agent.
The fact that God prophecied the future over a period of thousands of years through various people and that many of those prophecies have already come to fruition is quite miraculous. It declares that there is One author of the scriptures, one who is supernatural and who exists outside of time. Furthermore, the way those scriptures are arranged in the Hebrew language to where certain messages are encoded beneath the text (and still make sense at the surface of the text), indicates that the authorship of the Word of God itself is none other than the One who causes all things to be fulfilled.
Moreover, the regathering of the Jews into their own land and the restoration of them as a people is nothing short of a miracle.
The fact that my son is one of those physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is nothing short of a miracle. For all intents and purposes, my son should not be living on the face of this earth! If evil men had their way, my son's ancestors would have been decimated long ago through not one, but two captivites, a slew of wars, and countless acts of persecution throughout the centuries (remember the Crusades, and the Spanish Inquisition?- all attempts at wiping out the Jews).
During World War II, as many as 1/3 of world Jewry were destroyed in the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps, when Hitler attempted to wipe off every Jew from the face of the earth. They were stripped of their citizenship, women were raped, and Jews were locked in their synagogue with it set on fire whilst their enemies marched around singing Christian songs. I seriously doubt those people were real Christians. The Jews were imprisoned, many of them, an estimated 6 million total were gassed and burned in the crematoriums. Unspeakable horrors happened to this people. All because (and only because) they were Jewish. Even still, God caused the Jews to survive and not only survive, but come back to...you guessed it, the Land of Canaan (modern-day Israel) and become a nation. This too was prophesied thousands of years before it happened:
"Before she goes into labor, she gives birth; before the pains come upon her, she delivers a son. Who has ever heard of such things? Can a country be born in a day or a nation be brought forth in a moment? Yet no sooner is Zion in labor than she gives birth to her children" (Isaiah 66:8) (emphasis mine).
When was the fulfillment of this prophecy? On May 14, 1948, after Israel had been scattered to the four corners of the earth, Israel the nation was re-born! She was recognized by the United Nations and she was once again her own sovereign nation.
From that point on, and up til this day, millions of Jewish people have emigrated (the term is to make 'aliyah') to the land of Israel, the nation. This is in fulfillment of many prophecies, including Jeremiah 16:14-16-
"However, the days are coming", declares the Lord, when men will no longer say, 'As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the Israelities up out of Egypt', but they will say, 'As surely as the Lord lives who brought the Israelites up out of the land of the north and out of all the countries where he had banished them'. For I will restore them to the land I gave their forefathers".
This is the scripture the Lord gave me after an intense time of prayer during which He showed me the work I would be doing in my then-upcoming trip to Russia. While on my face, the Lord showed me a vision of a map of Russia and myself behind a group of people- Jews- pushing them up north, over Finland, and south into Israel. I said in my heart, I have never heard of such a thing. I asked the Lord to confirm this to me in His Word if it was true. I opened my Bible. It fell open to Jeremiah 16 and my eyes fell on verses 14-16. The land of the north, Russia, is the land referenced in the above passage, for the land of Russia is directly north of Israel. The Lord had shown me we would be routing Jews up out of St. Petersburg, Russia, by way of Finland, south to Israel, their new home.
In October of 1998, we did just that. Now, dozens of Jews are living safely in Israel, due to the work we did in Russia.
What a profound way for me to see Bible prophecy coming true before my very eyes!!
Implications
You know why I think the truths I have just explained to you are so far-reaching and impacting, even unto our own lives right now?
Because it is further proof that God means what he says. He has kept his word concerning the Jewish people. He will keep his word concerning your life and my life as well.
Either God is right and true and He will keep all of His word, as the fulfillment of these prophecies indicates, or he is a liar and is untrustworthy. If you say that God is true and His word is trustworthy, then the logical conclusion you must come to is that even what God says about sin and salvation is true as well.
It says in 1 Corinthians 6:9 that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God. And it lists the immoral behavior of those who will not be inheriting the kingdom. But then it says in verse 11 "And that is what some of you were". What happened? They repented and believed in Jesus Christ, God's only son and his death on the cross as the provision for their sins. They realized the truth of God's word as stated in Romans 6:23, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord." The word wages in this verse means the same as payment.
And in Romans 3:23 it says "For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus". Jesus himself said, "I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the father but through me" (John14:6). He didn't say I am a way, or a life, as in one amongst many ways to get to God. What He said was pretty exclusive.
Jesus was the lamb of God prophecied throughout the entire Old Testament (or what we Messianic Jews refer to as the First Covenant.) Just look at how Isaiah prophecied the Messiah's coming in Isaiah 53:4-6:
Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
(emphasis by this blogger).
Isaiah could have only been talking of one person: the one who would take away the sins of the world. (John the baptist, or immerser declared this about Jesus of Nazareth. And Jesus' own words declared himself to be the one who would do this.)
The fact of the matter is this: every man on the face of the earth has sinned (transgressed God's moral law as outlined in the 10 Commandments, Deuteronomy chapter 20. Jesus explained further how strict God's law is: if you have so much as looked at a woman with lust in your heart, you have committed adultery. If you so much as hated someone in your heart, you have committed murder (from God's point of view). Ever told a lie...even a little one? Then according to God's strict standard, you have bore false witness. Who amongst us has done that? I sure have!! And no one who has sinned in this life will be permitted to enter Heaven when he or she dies. Nothing unclean or unholy can enter Heaven. Because God is a just God, like the judge of a court, a payment must be made to pay for these sins (every one of them) if you are to enter into His Heaven.
Good News Indeed!
The Good news is......(that is why they call it 'gospel' the word means good news) that that debt for your sins has already been paid!!
By whom?! By God Himself!! In 1 Peter 3:18 it says, "Christ died for sins once for all". You see, to fulfill God's righteous requirement to pay man's sin debt, God Himself came in the flesh. His name is Jesus (Yeshua in Hebrew). He lived a sinless life so he could fulfill God's requirement for a sinless sacrifice (read about the Passover lamb Exodus 12). He then took our punishment on himself. That is why if you accept Jesus' death on the cross as payment for your sins and repent (turn from the way you have been doing things toward God's way of doing things), and follow Jesus, then on the day of Judgement, which will be attended by every human being who ever lived, God can commute your death sentence (eternity in hell), and allow you into Heaven. We don't have to pay the sin debt. We couldn't anyway even if we tried. But we are required to accept what was already done for us. Not only that, but we get to have a close personal relationship with God, who loves us much he knows (at any given moment!) how many hairs are on your head! We get to enjoy fellowship with Him, know his truth, as well as the abundant (full and meaningful) life Jesus came to bring us. If that weren't enough, we get to spend eternity in Heaven with God and have every tear wiped from our eyes, free from emotional and physical pain forever. And forever is a looong time. What could be better news than that?!
It is not a church you join. In fact many churches do not follow after Messiah or walk in the truth. It is not a list of rules and regulations you have to follow in order to be good enough. You could never be good enough to meet God's requirements. In fact, no one should think he must first go and get cleaned up before coming to God or following Jesus! There is no need. Simply believe that he already paid for your salvation, start walking with him by talking to him everyday (praying), and let him change your heart. That's all. Read his letters to you (the Bible) and find out more about him, who he is, things that please him and the things that don't, and he will guide you, as a loving Father; giving your life meaning and giving you a destiny you could never have even dreamed of on your own. And don't forget to ask God to lead you to a group of believers as well so you can grow in His grace. All believers need to fellowship with other believers to be strengthened and to realize our gifts, callings, and destiny in the Messiah.
But don't delay! Jesus warned about the folks who were distracted by the cares of this life that they didn't come to Him when they first heard. The truth is, none of us knows exactly how much time we have on this earth. And why would you want to delay such a wonderful existence anyway?
This is the reason I am so excited to know that God is who He says He is and the reason I can know His Word is true. That is why everytime I look into the precious brown eyes of my son- the ones he inherited from his father's side, his Jewish ancestors.....I think of how faithful our God is and how He always keeps his word!
**
The advisor responded thoughfully, "The existence of the Jews".
In the Beginning
The descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, nowadays referred to as the Jews, were a unique people about which God said he would bless and all nations through them would be blessed:
The Lord had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you.
I will make you a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you". (Genesis 12;1-3)
God promised Abram that he would become a great nation, that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars and as the sands of the sea. God changed the name of Abram to "Abraham", meaning father of a multitude (of nations).
God also promised Abram that he would grant him land that would be an inheritance to his offspring (Genesis 12:7; ratified through blood covenant in Genesis 15). The land would be an inheritance to the descandants of Abraham, through his offspring Isaac and Jacob, forever. God ratified this covenant in a unilateral blood covenant while Abraham was asleep. This is to indicate that God Himself would bear the brunt of the covenant and make sure it would be fulfilled (after all, Abraham was in a deep sleep when God did this. See Genesis 15:9-21).
God also prophesied to Abram that his descendants would be slaves in a nation not their own (Egypt) for 400 years. Moreover, through later prophecies in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, God also told the Israelites that they would be taken captive and scattered to the far corners of the earth and into every nation for serving idols rather than serving the Lord their God who brought them up out of Egypt and out of slavery. This did indeed happen.
But here is the catch: God also promised to bring them back from captivity and into their own land, the land God swore to their father Abraham. God made many promises to Israel which have been fulfilled in history.
No other nation or people group on the face of the earth has existed that was decimated by their enemies, then were re-gathered to become a people group again. No other group was taken over by their enemies, scattered to the four corners of the earth, then came back to their land with their language restored! This could only be described as a miracle.
The definition of a miracle is: any amazing or wonderful occurrence; a marvellous event manifesting a supernatural act of a divine agent.
The fact that God prophecied the future over a period of thousands of years through various people and that many of those prophecies have already come to fruition is quite miraculous. It declares that there is One author of the scriptures, one who is supernatural and who exists outside of time. Furthermore, the way those scriptures are arranged in the Hebrew language to where certain messages are encoded beneath the text (and still make sense at the surface of the text), indicates that the authorship of the Word of God itself is none other than the One who causes all things to be fulfilled.
Moreover, the regathering of the Jews into their own land and the restoration of them as a people is nothing short of a miracle.
The fact that my son is one of those physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is nothing short of a miracle. For all intents and purposes, my son should not be living on the face of this earth! If evil men had their way, my son's ancestors would have been decimated long ago through not one, but two captivites, a slew of wars, and countless acts of persecution throughout the centuries (remember the Crusades, and the Spanish Inquisition?- all attempts at wiping out the Jews).
During World War II, as many as 1/3 of world Jewry were destroyed in the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps, when Hitler attempted to wipe off every Jew from the face of the earth. They were stripped of their citizenship, women were raped, and Jews were locked in their synagogue with it set on fire whilst their enemies marched around singing Christian songs. I seriously doubt those people were real Christians. The Jews were imprisoned, many of them, an estimated 6 million total were gassed and burned in the crematoriums. Unspeakable horrors happened to this people. All because (and only because) they were Jewish. Even still, God caused the Jews to survive and not only survive, but come back to...you guessed it, the Land of Canaan (modern-day Israel) and become a nation. This too was prophesied thousands of years before it happened:
"Before she goes into labor, she gives birth; before the pains come upon her, she delivers a son. Who has ever heard of such things? Can a country be born in a day or a nation be brought forth in a moment? Yet no sooner is Zion in labor than she gives birth to her children" (Isaiah 66:8) (emphasis mine).
When was the fulfillment of this prophecy? On May 14, 1948, after Israel had been scattered to the four corners of the earth, Israel the nation was re-born! She was recognized by the United Nations and she was once again her own sovereign nation.
From that point on, and up til this day, millions of Jewish people have emigrated (the term is to make 'aliyah') to the land of Israel, the nation. This is in fulfillment of many prophecies, including Jeremiah 16:14-16-
"However, the days are coming", declares the Lord, when men will no longer say, 'As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the Israelities up out of Egypt', but they will say, 'As surely as the Lord lives who brought the Israelites up out of the land of the north and out of all the countries where he had banished them'. For I will restore them to the land I gave their forefathers".
This is the scripture the Lord gave me after an intense time of prayer during which He showed me the work I would be doing in my then-upcoming trip to Russia. While on my face, the Lord showed me a vision of a map of Russia and myself behind a group of people- Jews- pushing them up north, over Finland, and south into Israel. I said in my heart, I have never heard of such a thing. I asked the Lord to confirm this to me in His Word if it was true. I opened my Bible. It fell open to Jeremiah 16 and my eyes fell on verses 14-16. The land of the north, Russia, is the land referenced in the above passage, for the land of Russia is directly north of Israel. The Lord had shown me we would be routing Jews up out of St. Petersburg, Russia, by way of Finland, south to Israel, their new home.
In October of 1998, we did just that. Now, dozens of Jews are living safely in Israel, due to the work we did in Russia.
What a profound way for me to see Bible prophecy coming true before my very eyes!!
Implications
You know why I think the truths I have just explained to you are so far-reaching and impacting, even unto our own lives right now?
Because it is further proof that God means what he says. He has kept his word concerning the Jewish people. He will keep his word concerning your life and my life as well.
Either God is right and true and He will keep all of His word, as the fulfillment of these prophecies indicates, or he is a liar and is untrustworthy. If you say that God is true and His word is trustworthy, then the logical conclusion you must come to is that even what God says about sin and salvation is true as well.
It says in 1 Corinthians 6:9 that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God. And it lists the immoral behavior of those who will not be inheriting the kingdom. But then it says in verse 11 "And that is what some of you were". What happened? They repented and believed in Jesus Christ, God's only son and his death on the cross as the provision for their sins. They realized the truth of God's word as stated in Romans 6:23, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord." The word wages in this verse means the same as payment.
And in Romans 3:23 it says "For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus". Jesus himself said, "I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the father but through me" (John14:6). He didn't say I am a way, or a life, as in one amongst many ways to get to God. What He said was pretty exclusive.
Jesus was the lamb of God prophecied throughout the entire Old Testament (or what we Messianic Jews refer to as the First Covenant.) Just look at how Isaiah prophecied the Messiah's coming in Isaiah 53:4-6:
Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
(emphasis by this blogger).
Isaiah could have only been talking of one person: the one who would take away the sins of the world. (John the baptist, or immerser declared this about Jesus of Nazareth. And Jesus' own words declared himself to be the one who would do this.)
The fact of the matter is this: every man on the face of the earth has sinned (transgressed God's moral law as outlined in the 10 Commandments, Deuteronomy chapter 20. Jesus explained further how strict God's law is: if you have so much as looked at a woman with lust in your heart, you have committed adultery. If you so much as hated someone in your heart, you have committed murder (from God's point of view). Ever told a lie...even a little one? Then according to God's strict standard, you have bore false witness. Who amongst us has done that? I sure have!! And no one who has sinned in this life will be permitted to enter Heaven when he or she dies. Nothing unclean or unholy can enter Heaven. Because God is a just God, like the judge of a court, a payment must be made to pay for these sins (every one of them) if you are to enter into His Heaven.
Good News Indeed!
The Good news is......(that is why they call it 'gospel' the word means good news) that that debt for your sins has already been paid!!
By whom?! By God Himself!! In 1 Peter 3:18 it says, "Christ died for sins once for all". You see, to fulfill God's righteous requirement to pay man's sin debt, God Himself came in the flesh. His name is Jesus (Yeshua in Hebrew). He lived a sinless life so he could fulfill God's requirement for a sinless sacrifice (read about the Passover lamb Exodus 12). He then took our punishment on himself. That is why if you accept Jesus' death on the cross as payment for your sins and repent (turn from the way you have been doing things toward God's way of doing things), and follow Jesus, then on the day of Judgement, which will be attended by every human being who ever lived, God can commute your death sentence (eternity in hell), and allow you into Heaven. We don't have to pay the sin debt. We couldn't anyway even if we tried. But we are required to accept what was already done for us. Not only that, but we get to have a close personal relationship with God, who loves us much he knows (at any given moment!) how many hairs are on your head! We get to enjoy fellowship with Him, know his truth, as well as the abundant (full and meaningful) life Jesus came to bring us. If that weren't enough, we get to spend eternity in Heaven with God and have every tear wiped from our eyes, free from emotional and physical pain forever. And forever is a looong time. What could be better news than that?!
It is not a church you join. In fact many churches do not follow after Messiah or walk in the truth. It is not a list of rules and regulations you have to follow in order to be good enough. You could never be good enough to meet God's requirements. In fact, no one should think he must first go and get cleaned up before coming to God or following Jesus! There is no need. Simply believe that he already paid for your salvation, start walking with him by talking to him everyday (praying), and let him change your heart. That's all. Read his letters to you (the Bible) and find out more about him, who he is, things that please him and the things that don't, and he will guide you, as a loving Father; giving your life meaning and giving you a destiny you could never have even dreamed of on your own. And don't forget to ask God to lead you to a group of believers as well so you can grow in His grace. All believers need to fellowship with other believers to be strengthened and to realize our gifts, callings, and destiny in the Messiah.
But don't delay! Jesus warned about the folks who were distracted by the cares of this life that they didn't come to Him when they first heard. The truth is, none of us knows exactly how much time we have on this earth. And why would you want to delay such a wonderful existence anyway?
This is the reason I am so excited to know that God is who He says He is and the reason I can know His Word is true. That is why everytime I look into the precious brown eyes of my son- the ones he inherited from his father's side, his Jewish ancestors.....I think of how faithful our God is and how He always keeps his word!
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