Posts filed under ‘israel’
Bible Summary: Overview of the Old Testament
Together, the 37 individual books make up the entire Old Testament of the English Bible. In order to appreciate the chronological history of the Hebrew nation (prior to even becoming the Hebrew nation), until the Inter-testamental period, it is important to gain a solid understanding of each of these eleven chronological books; their themes, the period they cover and how they connect. Once these are understood, then the blanks can be filled in so to speak with the complementary, wisdom and prophetic books.
Continue Reading September 7, 2016 at 11:11 AM Leave a comment
Bible Summary from Genesis to Revelation: About
In the Old Testament, we learn how God began to unveil His plan of redemption by creating a special and peculiar people He would later call Israel. This specially created nation was intended to be a “light” or witness to the rest of the world of God’s goodness and justice. It was to be attractive enough so that people from other nations would want to join themselves to Israel so that they too, could become part of the “covenant” people that God had created. While we know that this did not work itself out as was ideally intended (because of Israel’s consistent and continued failure), God’s plan of redemption continued, moving onward.
Rolling Toward Reparations for Slavery
There is one huge difference between the persecution that God allowed in the past and the coming Tribulation/Great Tribulation of the future. The coming Tribulation is all about God pouring out His wrath on humanity for their continued rejection of Him and their constant rebellion and proliferation of evil. Just as it was in the days of Noah and just as it was in the days of Lot, God poured out His wrath then on a rebellious and disobedient society that refused to bow the knee to Almighty God. Those events foreshadowed the final pouring out of God’s wrath throughout the globe in what I believe is the near future and is called the Tribulation/Great Tribulation.
What Should Authentic Christians Look Forward to in the Future?
This is all-too important to ignore or treat with disdain. We Christians have tremendous reasons to “look up” and understand that our citizenship is not here on earth, but in heaven. John tells us that as we focus our hearts and minds on the eventual return of our Lord and the culmination of all things by Him and His eternal power, many cares and concerns in this life will fall away.
Why Are Satan and Demons Allowed to Produce Miracles? Part 2
I find it fascinating that God did not prohibit Satan and his minions from doing what they do naturally in their realm, here in this natural realm. Instead, God simply forbade the Israelites (and Christians as later reiterated in the NT in numerous places) to avoid going there. The door was never to be opened to that realm. Why not? Because those spiritual beings have no good intentions for humanity at all. Their goal is to help Satan bring his promises of Isaiah 14 to fruition, where he will become complete and total ruler of this world and make himself “like the Most High,” (Isaiah 14:14), for a very brief period of time. It all comes down to that, which, in my opinion, is the very reason he makes initial contact with Eve in the first place.
Why Are Satan and Demons Allowed to Produce Miracles? Part 1
We see throughout the Old and New Testaments these examples of what Satan is capable of doing. Again, I’d like to emphasize that anything he does, he does only with God’s permission, but clearly, he is a very powerful being and the fact that he exists mainly in the spiritual dimension gives him the power to bring about what we call miracles, but for him, they are simply part of his natural ability. I also think that this is why Christians should not chase after miracles per se, because in doing so, our emotions will often catch us up so that we will become so myopic that we will accept miracles from any source, believing that only God would provide what we deem the “miracles” to His children. This is absolutely incorrect thinking and the fact that God has forbidden any connection with the occult or dark arts is proof that alleged miracles can come not just from God, but from Satan and his demons as well. Satan exists in the supernatural realm, therefore it is reasonable to conclude that performing what we call miracles are natural for him. However, he is always kept in check by God.
Caleb: Give Me the High Country
Joshua and Caleb saw the same thing that the other 10 spies saw but were not discouraged. They were not unfaithful to God. But in spite of their protestations, in spite of their faithfulness, and in spite of their encouragement the people of Israel rebelled, refusing God’s good graces and ultimately experienced the consequences of their terribly faithless decision.
Did the Exodus Actually Happen?
If there is virtually no evidence to support the biblical account, then where do we go from here? I believe Mahoney answers that question and answers it clearly. He sets about to determine the truth, wherever that truth happens to fall. He’s willing to let it fall on the side that either proves or disproves Scripture. To do so, he simply looked for any clues he could find. What he did find was that there is definitely a problem, but the problem is not in the evidence (or lack of it) regarding the Exodus. The problem may well be in the way the experts in the field have dated the Egyptian kingdoms.
Why Do People Not Believe?
t’s not that the text in Matthew 13 is telling us that if we only believed in God’s power in a greater way, we would be healed of all physical ailments. What we learn there is that God’s hands are often tied because of the stubbornness of people’s hearts, a stubbornness that pits them against God. Friends, we know that this is a very dangerous place to be, isn’t it? Yet, most in the world are there.
King Ahab and Jezebel, Part 7
There was not only no national salvation for Israel on its way as a result of God’s victory at Mt. Carmel. Elijah now faced a new problem, one that he probably did not expect. In this case, as we read, Jezebel wasted no time. She quickly sent a message to Elijah saying that he would be dead by that time on the next day. No sign of repentance on her part! Imagine watching or seeing 450 prophets of the god you worship get cut down by the sword after losing a very decisive and clear battle between the false god of Baal and the only true God, Jehovah. I get the feeling Ahab was hoping for such a response from her because he wasn’t man enough to do it himself. Yep, he wanted Jezebel to fight this battle for him.
