http://bible.org/seriespage/goodness-godThe Knowledge Of God
Friday, June 26, 2009
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
THE SPIRITS OF THE PROPHETS
1 Corinthians 14:32 “And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets” is a loosely quoted scripture that I think needs a little clarification. The scriptures that I quote below seem to contradict most of what is commonly taught.Daniel wrote of his encounter with a messenger of God and said, “So he came near where I stood: and when he came I was afraid, and fell upon my face: but he said unto me, Understand, O son of man: for at the time of the end shall be the vision” (Daniel 8:17).
“And I Daniel fainted, and was sick certain days; afterward I rose up, and did the king’s business; and I was astonished at the vision, but none understood it” (Daniel 8:27).
“Therefore I was left alone, and saw this great vision, and there remained no strength in me: for my comeliness was turned in me into corruption, and I retained no strength” (Daniel 10:8). Daniel had no control over his strength, and in verse 17 said, “Neither is there breath in me.”
Ezekiel had a similar experience that accompanied his encounter with the presence of the Lord, he said, “…I fell upon my face…” (Ezekiel 1:28). This same type of phenomenon occurred a second time to him in Ezekiel 3:23-24, “Then I arose and went into the plain: and, behold, the glory of the Lord stood there, as the glory which I saw by the river of Chebar: and I fell on my face. Then the Spirit entered me, and set me upon my feet…”
The New Testament also records this same kind of effect when a person encounters the presence of the Lord. John gives his own personal testimony of this in Revelation 1:17, “And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And He laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not, I am the first and the last.
2 Chronicles 5:14 says the priests could not stand, “So that the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud: for the glory of the Lord had filled the house.”
Both Old and New Testament, saved and unsaved testify of a humbling experience outside the control of man when the glory of the Lord becomes present. For thousands of years and from all walks of life people have witnessed encounters with the glory of the Lord that has caused them to completely loose control, faint or fall down under the power; from an unsaved Saul on the road to Damascus to faithful John the beloved on the isle of Patmos.
If I teach that 1 Corinthians 14:32 “And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets” means that you are at all times in complete control, why then did the prophets of old faint, loose their breath, and retain no strength? That does not sound to me as if they were fully in charge of what was happening to them. It’s true, God will not force His will over our will, but he does at times allow us to become confounded. For example Acts 2:6 says, “Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded because that every man heard them speak in his own language.”
The spirits of the prophets are as Paul said, “subject to the prophets” but I don’t think he meant it the way it is being taught today. Anything that is subject to man is flawed and cannot be trusted a hundred percent. Prophets, prophesy in part (1 Corinthians 13:9) and according to the proportion of faith (Romans 12:6). They are not perfect.
The spirit of a prophet is subject to the prophet, just as the tears of a prophet are subject to the emotion. Have you ever cried so hard that you couldn’t stop? Not even the apostle Paul was able to at all times contain himself in the midst of what God was doing. He said in Romans 9:3, “That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart.” Why didn’t he just claim complete control of his spirit and stop the sorrow? It can be embarrassing to cry in public but that does not stop us from crying. Church history records that in one of Jonathan Edwards’s services people were moaning and sobbing as the congregation came under strong conviction to repent of their sins. The title of his message was ‘Sinners in the hands of an angry God’. Travail in the spirit can cause people to react in strange ways.
‘The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets’ are often times the very cause of canceling an encounter with God. You can determine within your spirit that you will not fall down when being prayed for and you probably won’t. You can cancel all kinds of spiritual activity with your spirit. If you choose not to respond or participate with the Holy Spirit, he will not override your choice. The Spirit that empowers us will not overpower us, but when we yield to his control, we loose our own.
Tilson
Saturday, June 13, 2009
How God Changes the Hearts of People- The Apostle Peter...."
Apostle PeterAnd Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers. And He saith unto them, Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men. And straightway they left their nets, and followed Him". -Matthew 4:18-20. ....
Is there a more interesting disciple of the Savior than Peter? I've heard many humorous messages over the years spoken about him because of his propensity to 'put his foot into his mouth', to speak before thinking, and for his alternate bravery and cowardice in the face of danger. It appears that Peter was one tough dude. When Jesus called him, he left all- immediately- and followed Him. He was a bold talker, his loyalty to his Lord was unfeigned and strong, and I have no doubt that he'd walk up and punch a man in the face if the man had said anything less than good about Jesus. Some have wondered out loud why Jesus would choose such a tactless time bomb of a man to be His disciple. I think that Peter was a wonderful example of God's grace and power, as he eventually became perhaps the most important and influential disciple that Jesus had.....
Now, we all know of his bold affirmations of his love and loyalty to Jesus, of his being the first to declare Jesus' divinity ("Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God"), of his being rebuked by Jesus for suggesting that Jesus would not go to the cross, of his denial of his Lord in the face of persecution- but it's what happened after the Holy Spirit fell upon the disciples that we see a dramatic change in this wild man. He boldly proclaims to observers just what had happened to those in the upper room as God poured out His Spirit, he proudly testifies of Christ in the face and in the very midst of imprisonment and persecution- he is bold, sure- but no longer boastful, no longer trite, NO LONGER LIVING FROM HIS FLESH.
God had changed this man from a loud fraidycat to a man who eventually wrote two epistles dealing with standing for Christ IN THE FACE OF PERSECUTION (1 Peter deals with persecution via enemies from without, 2 Peter addresses the reality of enemies from within the Body of Christ)...
Everybody is different, and God does not make 'cookie-cutter' Christians. Peter was not a GQ kind of guy. He was 'rough around the edges', to be sure. He was also somebody whom God's hand was upon mightily. God help me, I want to be a man like that!
En Agape, Jim Ewing
God's Creatures
From the humming bird that's faster than the Space Rocket to the polar fish that make their own anti-freeze, nature has some incredible creatures.
PTL
The May update of the USA TODAY/IHS Global Insight Economic Outlook Index shows increasing evidence that the recession is likely to end in September, with a mild recovery starting in October.
Is There Really Only One Way To God?.......
Is There Really Only One Way To God?.......and is Jesus Christ the one and true way? There have been about three times in my own life in which that question, in differing forms, has hit me right between the eyes and made me ponder for a minute just what the absolute truth about a genuine relationship with Christ was really about......The first time occured when I was just a boy. I wasn't saved yet, and I didn't have much of a grasp of Christ, the Bible, sin, or anything spiritual, but I had been to church a number of times, and thought I was a believer. A friend asked me if I believed the bible, and I replied, "yes". He instantly challenged me with his incredulous question, "Does that sound like a merciful God- sending you to hell just because you don't believe in his son?" I was blindsided by his question (as well as his attitude) because I had never before in my young life really been challenged about the Gospel, or about why I believed what I believed (or thought I believed)......
The second time I was quickly challenged about my faith (and I was truly born-again at that point, having been apprehended by the Lord at twenty years of age) was in a wheat field on a summer job as I was sharing the Gospel with a co-worker. The man retorted, "That sounds like a threat!" Again, I was taken back for a moment, trying to figure out just how to respond.....
The third time happened as I was leading a Bible study a few years ago, when a man asked, "Sincere Muslims aren't wrong, as long as they really believe, right?"... All of these questions seem poignant and honest, don't they? We as believers in Christ and His Gospel must understant though, that we do not come from the position of a neutral world view. If we did, then who could say who's right and who's wrong about eternal life and the true condition of a soul? We in fact DO come from a Biblical world view- a view which clearly states that mandkind is helplessly and hopelessly dead in sin, and that only God Himself could and did take the initiative in bringing lost humanity back into a right relationship with Him through the substitutional death and subsequent resurrection of His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ......
One of the first scriptures we learn as new Christians is John 14:6- "Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me." So simple, really. But an unsaved individual must be confronted with the fact that they are lost. If they cannot see that, then they'll never really see the need for a savior. Jesus didn't just die and rise from the dead to be our friend- He did it to bring us to the Father and deliver us from eternal damnation.....
Objections to the Gospel will not take us by surprise, and answering them will be considerably easier when we realize just what world view we espouse, and the lost will be forced to look at their own spiritual condition and seriously consider it as we make it clear to them that Jesus takes us FROM death and hell, and TO salvation and life- eternal life.
En Agape,
Jim Ewing
Leading of the Holy Spirit.....
John 15:5 "I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing."Jesus is letting His disciples know the true relationship between He and them. They are completely dependant on Him for everything spiritual, and He emphatically stresses, "Without Me you can do NOTHING"....
Now, before leaving this world to return to His Father, He knew that they had no real concept of what was actually happening in terms of His death and resurrection, so He lovingly prepares them- "...I tell you the truth,
it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you, but if I depart, I will send Him to you (John 16:7)"....
He shows them the intimate relationship within the Godhead- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit- "But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me". Never lose sight of this truth, Christian- The Holy Spirit always bears witness to the truth of the pure Gospel of Jesus Christ, always testifies of Him, and always leads people to Him. On earth, Jesus pointed people back to the Father, and since His death and resurrection, the Holy Spirit leads lost humanity to the risen Lord of all of creation, Jesus Christ, the Messiah, as the only Divinely accepted sacrifice for the sin of the whole world. Any teaching that would take you away from these truths must be identified and rejected, for the Holy Ghost will support only God's truth. Praise His Holy Name, He made the way so clear to mankind, and so simple that any fool or wayward man could understand it!.....
Ever since Jesus' resurrection, believers were and are to be totally dependant on the Holy Spirit in our walk with Christ- This is God's will and design. Yet today we see believers doing many other things, don't we? So many Christians are getting involved in 'seeker-friendly' classes, in 'church-growth' programs, in various method teaching- all designed to reach today's unbeliever, as if TODAY'S unbeliever was somehow lost in a different way than the rest of lost humanity throughout history, or that they now must be reached through other avenues than their spirit, and the Holy Spirit can no longer reach them through the anointed presenting of the Gospel of Christ! .....
When did we cease depending on the Spirit whom our Savior sent as promised, and who He said would lead us into all truth (John 16:13)? When did the Body of Christ decide that there was perhaps a more sophisticated or clever way to share the Savior with the unsaved? How can we honestly expect to be successful in reaching the lost with our silly programs and methods, when only the Spirit of God can bring a soul to Christ, and yet we're so unwilling to depend and lean on Him in the process? ......
Christian, do you want to see the lost truly be brought to Christ? Do you want to be involved in bringing them in? Then cease with all of your self-confidence, your fleshly methods, your arrogance, and begin to seek to be lead of the Spirit of the Lord. He can do what we can't. Trust Him. Beloved, there is no other way.
En Agape,
Jim Ewing
Kent Henry
Curt Landry and Kent Henry invite you to join them in Israel for the Destiny in the Desert tour 2009. The tour will begin at the Dead Sea, continue on to Jerusalem, and then onward to Tiberias---every step of the way will lead you closer and closer to meeting your own personal destiny. Don't wait---go to Israel this year! The time to hear from the Lord is now!
The “Thumbprint of God”
We can zoom in on the above graphic forever,literally FOREVER;and as we zoom further inward, an endless seriesof new shapes and patterns will arise.Amazingly, as we continue to move inward,one distinctive shape will appear, disappearand then appear again - it is this one...
Reality
"Perhaps most amazing of all, is the presence of an under water pathway. Along the length of the the Gulf of Aquaba, depths reach to an average of one mile and the Egyptian shoreline drops steeply under water at a slope of about 45 degrees. If the Israelites had tried to have crossed anywhere else along the Gulf of Aquaba they would have been faced with an extremely steep drop to about one mile. With all of their animals and wagons, the task would have been practically impossible. Only here, on the shores of Nuweiba, does the 'pathway' drop off at a gradual slope of one in fourteen, to a depth of just over 850 meters. On the Saudi side the slope climbs again at a slope of one in ten. The Bible describes it as, "Away in the sea and a " path in the mighty waters" (Isaiah 43:16, 17) The distance from Nuweiba to Saudi Arabia is about 9.6 miles. And the width of the under water bridge is estimated to be 900 meters."
Saturday, June 06, 2009
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
Our support letter: The Bible,
As Christians, we have all the support we will ever need written in the Bible. Man has no control whatsoever over God’s promised provision. When God opens the windows of heaven to pour out a blessing, no man can stop it. He opens doors no man can shut and shuts doors no man can open. When God gives us the green light, we are unstoppable.We need not kiss up to man or depend on man for anything at anytime. God is on the throne and not man. God’s thoughts toward us are good and his blessings are bountiful. We need not ever trust in our self or anyone else. The Bible has never asked us to trust in ourselves or the child within us, or the hero inside. If you ever found the child within you ‘he or she’ would be corrupt and you will never find a hero inside of you.
When Jesus returns every eye will see him. All they who pierced him will look upon him to see the price that God paid for the redemption of mankind and none of us will be exempt. All of us who pierced him will see him because it was our sins that nailed him there.
It was on an old rugged cross that God provided us with a savior when he offered up his only begotten Son. Jesus died a brutal death in our place shedding his own innocent blood. There is absolutely nothing innocent about our blood: No innocent child within; no hero, no way of self help.
Our hope is in the Lord.
Tilson
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