Love

1 John 4:16
God is love. (NIV)

When the Bible says that God is Love it doesn’t mean romantic or emotional love. It is a love that is much deeper than that. It is a love that defines his person. Imagine if you will, that the people that knew you best said that you were the embodiment of love. What a wonderful thing to have said about you. What a wonderful thing if it were true. It is completely obvious that God is powerful, and he is, without possibility of doubt, super-duper smart. But to say that he is Love; I don’t know many people that would have said that about him.

Let us look at what the Bible says this divine love is.

1 Corinthians 13:1–3
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. (NIV)

Paul is talking about spiritual prosperity here and not worldly prosperity. In worldly terms if you could fathom all mysteries and had all knowledge you would have very much indeed, but Paul here says that without love he would have nothing at all.

Without the love of God abiding in you, a person can have nothing to say, nothing to do, and can be nothing. I am speaking of spiritual things here. Also Paul says that you can be the most zealous religious person in the world, but unless you have the God kind of love abiding within you, you have nothing of God in you, and your place will be outside of the kingdom of heaven.

1 Corinthians 13:4–8
… Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. … (NIV)

If you want to know what God is really and truly like then look at the above paragraph. We have already seen that God is love, so all we need do is look at the above paragraph and swap the word God for the word love. Let’s do just that.

Qualities of God’s Person

• God is patient
• God is kind
• God does not envy
• God does not boast
• God is not proud
• God is not rude
• God is not self-seeking
• God is not easily angered
• God keeps no record of wrongs
• God does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth
• God always protects
• God always trusts
• God always hopes
• God always perseveres.
• God never fails

Well, my friend, I bet you haven’t in the past thought of God as having these qualities or being defined by these qualities. I imagine that in the past you have defined God in more scary and judgmental terms.

Matthew 7:15–20
“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16 By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them. (NIV)

Jesus told us that a person is known by what he or she does and not by what they say about themselves. We see God smiting people left and right. We see him washing away a whole world of people and yet the Bible says that God is love; what is up with that? The Bible says that God keeps no record of wrongs and yet people are judged and thrown into Hell. I can’t tell you how many times people have voiced such attacks against God to me. Are these criticisms right? No, they are not right. The Bible is never ever wrong about anything. The answers are there, but you must open your heart and ask God to explain rather than shake your fist at him.

Have you ever tried to talk to someone that will not listen? It is a complete waste of time. If someone doesn’t want to hear something then they won’t. They are full of themselves and such people cannot hear or see anything spiritual. A person must open their heart to God. They must really and truly want to know the truth.

The answers to non-obvious questions are usually pretty subtle. They require that you stop talking and start listening. They require that you ponder and think and allow the Bible thoughts and views to coagulate; one little piece at a time, until they all fit together.

I have looked out into the world that God has created for examples of God’s love and the best example that I can find is that of a mother’s love for her small children. A mother’s love for her children encompasses almost every attribute of divine love. She loves her child when her child is well, when her child keeps her up at night and when he or she is ill or cranky. She is delighted with every accomplishment and perseveres with developmental setbacks. She does not envy her child’s beauty and infant care is not beneath her. Anyway, I am sure that you get the picture here, but consider what she does if a venomous serpent were to slither up toward her child; would she not snatch her child away, or perhaps smash the serpent’s head with a convenient chair or pan. If she must choose between the life of her child and the life of the serpent, I don’t think that there is any question as to which she will choose.

So, on the one hand she is a loving and tender mother, and on the other she is a formidable warrior. Which defines her character? Love defines her character. Because of love she watches over her child, and because of love she defends her child.

So it is with God. God watches over and loves his children, but the serpents will be squashed like a bug if they threaten the safety of his children. Heaven is God’s home and he will not let any serpents live there, any more than any reasonable mother will allow a cobra to live loose in the nursery. I am not saying here that God’s children are not exposed to danger and even death. Things are more complicated and subtle than I have let on, but God will not allow Satan to move against his children beyond certain points. God allows what he allows for the ultimate good that will result, but that is a whole different topic. Every child needs to be disciplined so that he or she will know what is right.

To understand the qualities that the Bible attributes to God you must examine them from the right side of the family fence, so to say. You must always look at everything from the perspective of what is the intended purpose. And, you must understand that it is God’s intended purpose that the Bible is talking about and not man’s. So, with this in mind consider why God destroyed the world by water, but saved Noah and his wife and their three sons along with their wives. Why did he do that? Did not the whole world abandon God and chase after self-serving goals? Did not the whole world become a nest of vipers in which Noah and his family lived? Did not God have to save his children at the expense of all those that were spiritually dead anyway? My friend, you have probably seen at least one of those ridiculous zombie movies where the people must kill a hundred zombies to save themselves and who sympathizes with the zombies? Zombies are dead anyway, and they must go or they will destroy the world. A zombie is a pretty good analogy for a spiritually dead person. God is able and willing to raise a spiritual zombie to life, but before that happens let not the zombie threaten one of the living. Not one single zombie will make it to heaven, but the place will be filled with former zombies. I am not going to explain this now, but that is what the whole thing concerning Jesus Christ dead and buried, and then resurrected to life again, is all about. The whole Bible is about raising zombies to life, (please understand that my tongue is in my cheek here. There is truth in what I am saying, but I am putting it in a humorous light. In this context zombies are pretty funny.)

As I close this paper I want to describe what Love is and what its opposite is. I love opposites because they usually make both side easier to understand. To summarize love we can say that its motivation is outward. A mother’s love is directed toward her child, that is, out from herself. Love’s opposite is self, that is, inward directed motivation. What I am telling you here is big. This is a big revelation. Sin is sin because it is not love. Sin is sin because it is a motivation that is directed in toward yourself. Satan fell from heaven because he valued himself more than he valued God. God values you more than himself! Does this surprise you?

1 John 3:16
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. (NIV)
If you can understand this, then you can understand everything.

Love by its definition can exist forever because it sustains and has no limit, but self-centeredness destroys because it drains others and also has no reasonable limit.

God Bless,

Mark Heaney

God Almighty

It is my heartfelt desire to impart to you, my reader, some basic understanding
concerning the person that is God Almighty. In order for me to do that I must
first tell you why I think I can do that. Do you understand what I am saying?
If someone walks up to you and says to you, “Know God,” you might
wonder, who are you to tell me about God? I am a human being just
like  yourself, and I was born right here on planet earth, just like you. The
reason I think I can impart some knowledge about God to you is that the knowledge
I do have has come to me from the horse’s mouth, so to say. God has told me
about himself, and I desire to tell you some of what I was told.

How, has he talked to me, you might be asking? As it turns out it is God’s
earnest desire that every single human being come to know him. To this end
he has written a book about himself, in a way. That Book is obviously the Bible.
I can’t imagine that that surprises you.

If I didn’t have a Bible I could know nothing about God other than he is
extremely intelligent and extremely powerful. Both of those qualities I can
deduce from the Creation of the Universe that he has made. I don’t need a Bible
to inform me that the Universe was created by someone. All I have to do is
listen to what the astronomers and physicists say concerning the Universe.
The Universe has a beginning and it is perfectly made to astronomically precise
tolerances. I don’t want to talk about the physics of the Universe because
it will never tell us anything about the Creator beyond the fact that he is
extremely intelligent and powerful. It cannot tell us about his person, what
kind of person is he, what does he want, why did he create the universe? These
are the most important things to know about God and the Creation just can’t
answer them.

That being said and understood, we can come to know God through the Book
that he has caused to be—the Bible—and only through this Book. How could an
ant know the thoughts and desires of a human being unless the ant had been
created with the capacity of understanding, and then the thoughts and desires
of a human had been encoded into some ant language or other and given to the
ant? And, here is the kicker, if said ant had been created with the capacity
of understanding the human then he or she would not really be an ant at all.
He or she would have to be a human type person crammed into an ant body. To
do this would require a supernatural intervention of the ants creation. This
is exactly the situation that exists between God and man. Man’s brain is not
capable of understanding God even in the smallest degree. However human beings
are much more than the sum of their molecules.

Genesis 1:26–27
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock,over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them. (NIV)

When the Bible says that God created man in his image and in his likeness
it is not talking about the body. Our bodies are made out of energy/matter
and God is not. God is eternal. Matter, that is, atoms and light and any form
of energy has a lifespan. It is not eternal. In fact our own physicist have
determined that time itself is a factor of energy/matter. Time, energy and
matter are all part of the same mathematical equation. But eternity is not.
Eternity cannot be made out of atoms and such because it would therefore not
be eternal.

So, if God is not made out of energy/matter then what is he made out of?
Well the Bible says that God is spirit. We do not know what spirit is, nor
can we, I imagine. Spirit is what eternal beings are made out of, so to say.
I say, so to say, because we really cannot know. We can know that God is a
spirit and so are the angels.

John 4:24
God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”
(NIV)

Now, understanding this we can begin to understand the makeup of a human
being. The ant in my story above is impossible because an ant just doesn’t
have the capacity to understand the thoughts and motivations of a human being,
because it is just an ant—nothing more. But a man is not just a man and nothing
more. A man, or a woman, was created by God to be like God on the inside.
If you were to strip away every bit of physical material from a human being,
what would be left would be as much a child of God as any child ever born to
a man and woman. Wow and double wow. If that doesn’t put goosebumps up and
down your back then you just don’t get what I am saying here. Look at what
I have quoted from the Bible below. You don’t have to read all the names of
this, sometimes mind numbing repetition, but I want to point out something
very interesting here. First of all God frequently hides very interesting and
special things in the middle of what looks like nothing. And second I want
you to see the interesting thing hidden here. It is in the last verse.

Luke 3:23–38
Now Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry.
He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph,
the son of Heli, 24 the son of Matthat,
the son of Levi, the son of Melki,
the son of Jannai, the son of Joseph,
25 the son of Mattathias, the son of Amos,
the son of Nahum, the son of Esli,
the son of Naggai, 26 the son of Maath,
the son of Mattathias, the son of Semein,
the son of Josech, the son of Joda,
27          the son of Joanan, the son of Rhesa,
the son of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel,
the son of Neri, 28 the son of Melki,
the son of Addi, the son of Cosam,
the son of Elmadam, the son of Er,
29          the son of Joshua, the son of Eliezer,
the son of Jorim, the son of Matthat,
the son of Levi, 30 the son of Simeon,
the son of Judah, the son of Joseph,
the son of Jonam, the son of Eliakim,
31          the son of Melea, the son of Menna,
the son of Mattatha, the son of Nathan,
the son of David, 32 the son of Jesse,
the son of Obed, the son of Boaz,
the son of Salmon, the son of Nahshon,
33          the son of Amminadab, the son of Ram,
the son of Hezron, the son of Perez,
the son of Judah, 34 the son of Jacob,
the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham,
the son of Terah, the son of Nahor,
35          the son of Serug, the son of Reu,
the son of Peleg, the son of Eber,
the son of Shelah, 36 the son of Cainan,
the son of Arphaxad, the son of Shem,
the son of Noah, the son of Lamech,
37          the son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch,
the son of Jared, the son of Mahalalel,
the son of Kenan, 38 the son of Enosh,
the son of Seth, the son of Adam,
the son of God. (NIV)

Did you see it? Did you see the interesting part that I am talking about;
the part that relates to what I am talking about? The first time I realized
what I had just read I laughed out loud. I was tickled pink at the understanding
of what I had read many times but just didn’t really see, but now I could see.
That is a very exciting thing. What I am talking about here is in the last
sentence, in which it says that Adam is the son of God. In the same way that
each of the others mentioned before Adam was a son of his father, Adam is a
son of God. We are as much God’s very own children as any child you may bear
or father is to you. That is huge. Wow and double wow. We are literally, and
actually, godlike children hidden inside human being bodies.

We are really two types of being at the same time. As it turns out we are
the only beings that have two natures. God and the angels are spirit. Every
animal on the earth has only one nature, that is, the animal or flesh nature,
but we humans are both animal and spirit.

Anything animal is subject to time, and will eventually die, but the spirit
is eternal and exists outside of time. There never will be a time in which
God is not, and the same is true for you. You, the real you, the you inside,
is eternal and will be for ever and ever. Your body is temporary. Your body
will grow old and die and eventually even the atoms that you were made of will
cease to exist. But you, the person inside, is eternal and will never cease
to exist. I know this because the Bible says it is so. Without the Bible then
even myself would continue to be a mystery to me.

If you want to know the reason that you exist, then you must look to the
Bible, because the world can only tell you about your body. God brought you
into existence to be his child. It is beyond the scope of this article to explain
the reasons for hiding such an amazing being inside an animal body. I will
say now, however, that the reasons are excellent and the whole thing was necessary
For now, you need to know that this is true. You are much more than your temporary
body. In fact if you truly understand that you are in fact an eternal person
hidden inside a animal body, then you can begin to understand that the importance
on a scale of one to ten for your body and your spirit, is say one for your
body and a solid ten for your spirit person. That which is for ever and ever
must be infinitely more important than that which is here today and gone tomorrow.
This truth starts to explain just how important the Bible is to you. You rush
to the doctor if you body is hurt, but where can you go for an ailing spirit?

This article touches with the tiniest of touches the importance of the care
of your spirit person. Your inner person might be created in the likeness and
image of God, but it is nonetheless vulnerable to catastrophic hurt. You have
a godlike potential but it is only in a tiny baby form. You can grow up to
be an actual friend of God, but you can also grow up to be evil. God has given
you the potential, but you must make your own life choices. You have it within
you to choose love and you have it within you to choose self. Please keep in
mind that you might not know what evil is—at least not yet.

God Bless

Mark Heaney

Shame

Whenever I read the account of the fall of man in the Garden of Eden (Genesis chapter three) I always wondered at the wording concerning Adam and Eve’s nakedness; before and after they sinned. It always seemed to me that I was missing something. With that in mind I have tried to keep an eye out while reading the Bible for clues concerning this. Well the other day, while reading from the book of Isaiah I saw something very exciting about this.

Isaiah 47:3
Your nakedness will be exposed and your shame uncovered. (NIV)

This is an example of two words used together in the same sentence that unlocks a symbolic word meaning. In this case nakedness is first used followed by shame. I found this very interesting. When two words are used like this in the Bible the first word serves as a key-word to unlock the meaning of the second word, or vice-versa.

As I continued reading in the book of Isaiah, I then ran across this passage…

Isaiah 59:2, 5-6
But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.
5 They hatch the eggs of vipers and spin a spider’s web. Whoever eats their eggs will die, and when one is broken, an adder is hatched. 6 Their cobwebs are useless for clothing; they cannot cover themselves with what they make. Their deeds are evil deeds, and acts of violence are in their hands. (NIV)

This passage is speaking of faithless people that run off to do evil things. Notice that their deeds are useless for covering. This means that their nakedness is visible, that is, their shame is visible. Their sins have defiled them and their defiled nature is exposed. Interesting.

As I read on I saw…

Isaiah 61:10
I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. (NIV)

Now we see that it is God that must clothe us, that is, hide our shame.

Recently I started reading though the whole Bible and I started in Genesis. When I got to Isaiah 47:3, I received an epiphany concerning nakedness and being covered. That allowed me to see the meaning more clearly in Isaiah 59 and Isaiah 61. This is how things work when reading the Bible. The more key words that you unlock the more the passages make sense to you.

Jeremiah 3:3
Therefore the showers have been withheld, and no spring rains have fallen. Yet you have the brazen look of a prostitute; you refuse to blush with shame. (NIV)

When our sin is uncovered and exposed we should be filled with shame. Shame of our weakness and sin is a good thing. It is a humbling thing. When we are humbled we can seek God who forgives sin and covers those exposed by it.

Genesis 3:7
Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. (NIV)

When ‘Adam and Eve’ sinned they saw their nakedness, that is, they were filled with shame and fear. They tried to cover their shame, but to no avail.

Genesis 3:21
The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. (NIV)

The Bible says that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin (Hebrews 9:22). It is evident from this passage that God shed the blood of some animals and used the animal’s skin to cover the sin of the man and woman in the Garden.

Now that I know this key-word combination (Nakedness=shame) I look forward to getting back to my Bible reading and seeing what other passages that are now unlocked to me.

Good and Evil

Good and evil are both words that seem easy to define, but upon reflection the definitions are elusive. It is easy to identify extreme examples of good and evil, but when seen in subtle degrees they are hard to grasp. When is evil evil? When is good good. How good must good be to be good? And conversely how evil must the evil be to be evil? What, exactly, is good? What, exactly, is evil anyway?

There are certain people that the world identifies as being good, and others as being evil, but we must be very careful when accepting the world’s definition about anything. It is my experience that when the world says that this or that person is evil that they have that pretty much right, but as to good, the world doesn’t really understand what good is at all.

Mark 10:18
“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. (Jesus Christ, NIV)

This passage has always been a bit of a puzzle to me. It is clear that Jesus is the physical incarnation of the invisible God in human form, but here he says that God is good and he is not. I don’t doubt this passage, and I don’t doubt that Jesus is God in the flesh, but how is this reconciled?

After reflecting on good and evil I have come to understand that good more than anything is an outward motivation and evil is an inward motivation. What I mean, is that when you are doing good, you are not doing it for yourself, that is to say that what you are doing is not for your benefit but rather for the benefit of others. It isn’t what you do, but why you do it. Look at these examples:

Matthew 6:5
“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. (NIV)

Matthew 6:2-4
“So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. (NIV)

Matthew 6:16-18
“When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18 so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. (NIV)

It is good to pray and to give and to fast, but only if done in a manner that is not seen by other people. If you do these things to bring focus upon yourself then you are doing evil. How can doing good be evil, you might be wondering. It isn’t what you do, but why and how you do it. Evil is not an action, but rather is a motivation of the heart. Good too is not an action, but rather is also a motivation of the heart.

So then what is your motivation to pray? Is it to talk with God or is it to be seen as a prayerful man or woman? The first reason requires faith and humility, and the second is a matter of pride and is faithless. If you give money to others, do so in a way that others are completely and forever unaware of what you have done; your motives are evil if you give to show yourself a superior. These are subtle things and only you, with deep reflection, can answer these for yourself. Be careful that you don’t do your good works so that your spouse can see. Do all that you do so that only God can see, and know that God sees everything that you do.

Good deeds are those that are directed outward from yourself. Only the outward persons will benefit. You will receive nothing for what you have done; accept whatever God chooses to do for you in his own good time. Doing good is an act of self sacrifice that goes unnoticed and unrewarded. Doing good is done as an act of faith in humble obedience. Jesus said not to let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. This means that you don’t even let yourself revel in your own good deed. Do you really imagine that Jesus sat there reveling in his own good deeds? Do you think that that was what was going on when he sacrificed himself on the cross? Were those the thoughts that ran through his mind on the night of his betrayal in the garden of Gethsemane? He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.” Matthew 26:42 That was a prayer of love and was done for good.

I have said in my writings many times that obedience is not doing what you want to do, but rather doing what you don’t want to do but must do because it is right. Obedience is done in secret and in private, for the most part, or at least your motivation is complete yielding of your will to God and with no thought to yourself.

Now, remember that Scripture above that I said puzzled me so, the one about Jesus not being good? Well, it seems to me that it is impossible for a man to be truly and fully good so long as he lives in a body of flesh. That body has selfish demands that must be met. That body forces us to do things that have nothing to do with God. We must eat and we must sleep and so on and so on. God never has to do these things. He never acts selfishly. Never. He and the angels can do this, but we cannot. The angels can act selfishly but only the fallen ones have done so. It was a selfish act that brought about the fall of Satan and acts of selfishness that brought down his angels with him. We are told to do good works and to do them selflessly. We are to do these, but all the while we cannot be perfect. We are to strive for perfection, but without the possibility of attaining it. This reminds me of an alcoholic who after drinking one drink falls off the wagon and drinks himself into total intoxication. Such a person is still an alcoholic even if they haven’t drunk in 30 years. But we like all sinners must not be “sinoholics”. We must drink a little every day of sin, but we must not be overpowered by it. We must remain diligent in our efforts to lead obedient lives. Every moment of every day is one of intentional obedience. It seems to me that it is easier to completely abstain from something than to control it and yet we must control sin.

Do you remember that before Jesus started his ministry that he went into the desert and fasted for 40 days? He was resisting the basic needs of the body. In this way he was purifying himself, that is, he was preparing himself for his ministry. This is the purpose of self denial. The world is about comfort, pleasure, satisfaction, gratification and pride, but we are about holiness, purity, obedience and humility. Goodness leads to the latter and evil leads to the former. Goodness is about love, faith and hope while evil is about getting what you want in the world. Goodness is outward and evil is inward.

The Time Traveler

The purpose of this article is to make you think about possibilities. You must not take everything I say within literally; just think about it.

God in heaven set into motion a plan to bring forth children for himself; children as much like him as your son or daughter is like you. Imagine that. This is almost unimaginable, but nonetheless true. There is a fundamental difficulty in doing this that has to do with God’s very own nature. The aspect of God’s nature that I am talking about is that the Lord God is a being of Faith. Humans too were created with this foundation of Faith in the core of their being, but man has violated this faith nature countless times. The Lord God cannot violate his nature.

1 Corinthians 13:13
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. (NIV)

These three qualities are spirit in nature. Anger, fear, romantic love, happiness and such are emotions of the mind, but faith, hope and love are not of the mind at all, but rather are much deeper in our natures than that. They reside, or spring forth, from the inner heart of man, that is, from the spirit, or the soul if you like. The animal mind cannot love as 1 Corinthians 13 describes love, but the spirit can, and God can and does. And neither do any animals know faith or hope. These three remain, it says above, and that means that they exist beyond the natural mind; they are of the heart.

Man is a being of two natures. He is a spirit being like God and the angels, and he is an animal, born of the dust of the earth. Before the fall of man his spirit nature was dominate, but after, his animal nature worked strongly against him. The spirit nature was created to be like God and designed to harmonize with the Spirit of the Lord. The animal nature is selfish and is concerned with its own safety, health and propagation, among other things.

Romans 8:5-8
Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6 The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; 7 the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8 Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. (NIV)

What the Bible here is calling the “sinful nature” is what I have called the animal nature, and can also accurately be called human nature, or our natural human instincts. Paul, here in Romans, is saying that if your mind is set on what your body wants then you will die, but if, on the other hand, you set your mind on what the Spirit of God says to our spirit nature then you will grow up into godliness. My point here is that we have two natures that are at odds with one another and the voice of the natural man, for most people, is louder than that of the inner spirit man, but we must nonetheless listen to that whisper soft voice of the spirit.

Imagine, if you will, that you are at a loud rock concert and people are jumping up and down screaming out in various states of intoxication, and you are there with God speaking to your inner person in his ever soft voice, now what do you think the chances are that you are going to hear what the Spirit is saying to you? Slim, I would imagine. My point here is that the voices of the world are pretty loud and the voice of God is pretty soft.

1 Kings 19:11-13
The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. 13 When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.
Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” (NIV)

So, we find that running around in cold/hot, hungry, happy/sad and sex starved bodies it is hard to hear the voice of God, so God helped us out. He has sent to us many prophets to tell us the way of God and confirmed their words with signs, miracles and wonders. He has caused these words to be recorded in a very special book, the Bible. And if that wasn’t enough he came himself to tell us directly what is what.

Now, here is the part that I don’t want you to take my words too literally. Imagine if you will that God is in heaven at the end of the plan and he sent himself back into time to various key places and times to set things into motion; like a time traveler from the future.

Genesis 3:8
Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. (NIV)

Exodus 33:21-23
Then the Lord said, “There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. 22 When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. 23 Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.” (NIV)

Genesis 18:1
The Lord appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day. (NIV)

And the most interesting visitation of God to the earth was through the One he called his Son, but was in fact himself in the flesh, that is, Jesus Christ the Lord Almighty.

Colossians 1:15-17
He [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by him [Jesus] all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him [Jesus] and for him [Jesus]. 17 He[Jesus] is before all things, and in him [Jesus] all things hold together. (NIV)

And look at this passage…

Matthew 3:16-17
As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. 17 And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” (NIV)

Both the Father and the Son in the same place at the same time. Wow!

Now, when I suggest that God is a time traveler it is with a little tongue in cheek. God is not an ordinary man that we have seen in the movies that travels back in time. I don’t even know if time has any real hold on God. What I mean is that I don’t know if God has already seen the end of the universe, or if he just knows what will happen to an exact degree. It seems to me that the beginning and the end of the Plan of God is really the same thing to God. I think that he is at the beginning right now, and he is at the end right now, and I really don’t know how that can be, but it seems to be true nonetheless.

Matthew 17:1-5
After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. 2 There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. 3 Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.
4 Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.”
5 While he was still speaking, a bright cloud enveloped them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!” (NIV)

Both this passage and the one from Matthew 3:16-17 suggest to my mind that God the Father is in heaven talking to an incarnation of himself. It is very much like Jesus is God the Father who came from heaven like a time traveler from the future, to set into motion events and bring to completion other events, that would transform humanity, and fulfill God’s plan for mankind.

Imagine my friend if you yourself went back into time, to a time that you previously existed, and so there would be two of you. So, if God, who always existed, went back into time, then there would be two of him too. Just an interesting thought. Don’t make too much of it.

Temporary

There is permanent and there is temporary. Permanent, lasts for ever and ever and past the end of time, past the end of everything of this creation, and is before beginning of anything. Temporary has a beginning and it has an end. Temporary exists in time and can be a very short duration of time or can be a very long duration of time, but temporary is never forever. Temporary might last for a Pico-second, or for 100 billion years. 100 billion years is still temporary, 100 trillion years is still temporary; permanent is eternal.

Which is bigger, a flea or an elephant? How much bigger? A million times? Maybe. Which is longer, a day or a year? Is the difference significant? If you measure something in geologic time, then a year and a second are pretty much the same thing. For example: when someone says that this or that dinosaur lived 100 million years ago do they mean to the second or to the year? No, it could actually be 101 million years ago or 105 million years ago, or 95 million years ago—a span to ten million years! What is a second or a single year compared to ten million years—nothing.

The Bible uses a different word than permanent, it uses eternal. Eternal or eternity, are forever. Actually it is not even correct to say that eternity is forever, because forever it tied to time. There is no time in eternity. It is better to say that eternity is, and leave it at that.

God is eternal and a man’s life is very temporary. It is said that the universe, that is, God’s creation is about 13 billion years old, give or take a billion or so years either way. But, what is that to God? A billion years or one day; it is all the same to God. In eternity there is no time.

Man, on the other hand, is very much tied to time; his body and mind are anyway. A man is conceived, and cell by cell is nit together in the womb. He is born, and cell by cell he is added to. Then the machine that is the body starts to break down and eventually (very quickly actually) some critical component of the body fails and the body stops functioning.

Man is unique of all God’s creatures, man is a hybrid being. He has a very temporary body, but within man is a piece of eternity. Of all the beings that God created only man is both temporary and eternal.

Ecclesiastes 3:11
He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. (NIV)

Heart here is a metaphor. Here the heart means the core or defining central part from which everything else drives its meaning. The heart of man is spirit, just like God. The heart of man is eternal, just like God.

Genesis 1:26
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” (NIV)

The image and likeness here is not speaking of the body, but rather it is speaking about the spirit or heart of man. That is, the part of man that is like God is not his flesh and blood body, but rather his inner spirit self. Inside we are like God, outside we are like other natural animals. The outer man is temporary and actually meaningless, but the inner man is like God and is eternal.

God created the universe out of matter, or energy if you like, which are really one and the same thing. Matter can be converted to energy and energy can be converted into matter. The very famous equation says, E=MC2, which means that the amount of Energy is equal to the amount of Mass (atomic weight of each atom all added up) times the Constant, which is the speed of light squared. This energy, or mass if you prefer, is temporary. The scientific word for this is entropy. Entropy is a fundamental characteristic of the universe and it basically means that everything in the universe will eventually cool down and stop working—temporary. It is true that this entropic effect will take a very long time, but as we have seen earlier, time is meaningless. Because of entropy eventually time itself will cease to exist, so in this way we can say that time is meaningless.

Ecclesiastes 1:2
“Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” (NIV)

Solomon here was speaking of anything and everything that is of this universe, that is, created things, things made out of energy, things that obey the laws of nature. Solomon was not talking about God, and neither was he talking here about the heart of man for he later says…

Ecclesiastes 12:13-14
Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. 14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil. (NIV)

The key to reconciling these two passages of Solomon is the word Judgment here in the last verse. Judgment is not about the body which is meaningless and temporary, but rather concerns the spirit, that is, the eternal heart of man. Within the hybrid nature of man is the real (but invisible) person, the Godlike person, the person that is.

People live in this world thinking only of the outer person, the temporary person, the meaningless person, while merrily ignoring the eternal within.

Psalm 37:10
A little while, and the wicked will be no more; though you look for them, they will not be found. (NIV)

“A little while,” is a key phrase in the Bible. It is pointing out this fact that the world is temporary.

We should not focus on the world or on anything in the world. Focus, rather, on the eternal, that is, on God.

Hebrews 12:26-29
At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” 27 The words “once more” indicate the removing of what can be shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain.
28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, 29 for our “God is a consuming fire.”(NIV)

Of your two parts, one is eternal and the other is temporary. Consider what this means.

Please read the 39th Psalm

Sovereign Lord

Genesis 1:1
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (NIV)

Job 42:1-2
Then Job replied to the Lord: 2 “I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. (NIV)

Matthew 5:18-19
I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19 Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. (NIV)

Ecclesiastes 1:9
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. (NIV)

Did you know that the phrase Sovereign Lord appears 298 times in the NIV? Do you know what it means? It means that God is in charge and there is no other authority that God must contend with. God is sovereign and he is the only one. What he has determined, will come to pass. No one can oppose him. He is the King and if he commands, “Off with their heads!” then their heads come off.

There is another Scripture that I would like you to consider in the light of these others.

Revelation 9:14-16
It said to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.” 15 And the four angels who had been kept ready for this very hour and day and month and year were released to kill a third of mankind. 16 The number of the mounted troops was two hundred million. I heard their number. (NIV)

God’s plan that has been ticking down is exact. Look carefully at verse fifteen and consider what exactly it means. Jesus said that every single passage will be fulfilled and this passage tells us that the timing is exact too. There is nothing that you, nor I, nor anyone in heaven or on the earth can do to alter God’s Plan. Can you save the world? Can you make the world a better place on your own and by your own power? Can you invent some invention that changes the world, for better or for worse, apart from it being in the plan of God? No, no, no.

The phrase in Ecclesiastes 1:9 used to bother me. I couldn’t understand how it could be true. I mean, people invent things almost every day that the world has never seen before. How can the Bible say that there is nothing new under the sun? This passage is true and every Bible verse is true. It is true because there is nothing that is, that God did not make exact provision for. You, my friend, cannot think a thought that God has not considered long long ago.

No person is the captain of his own destiny. Are we then puppets? Sort of, or rather you might be. God has a plan. Every single detail is plotted out. You can think of the future history of the world as a completely worked out storyboard. Do you know what a storyboard is? It is like a comic strip where every plot moving action is pictured in a series of events that take place to tell the story. Film producers/directors/screenplay-writers frequently use storyboards to visualize the scenes that must be filmed to tell the story from start to finish. God’s storyboard is in the Bible. Every major scene is depicted there within the Bible, from start to finish. Someone once said, “All the world’s a stage and we are but players within.” How true that statement is.

Are we but pawns in God’s chess game? We are pawns and rooks and bishops and knights and kings and queens all. We are all players in God’s play, or should I say plan.

Romans 9:16-21
It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. 17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” 18 Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
19 One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?” 20 But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ ” 21 Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use? (NIV)

So, if everything in the world is already mapped out then what is the point of our lives? you might be wondering. The point is, is that God is Sovereign and he has a plan that he will work out, but the parts are not yet determined. The Sovereign Lord is auditioning the actors (that is you) for the various roles that he must fill.

2 Timothy 2:20-21
In a large house there are articles not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; some are for noble purposes and some for ignoble. 21 If a man cleanses himself from the latter, he will be an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work. (NIV)

Verse 21 above is the key to your destiny. You job, as it were, is to recognize the Sovereign Lord’s plan and to get in line with it. You are to submit to the Lord and to his plan. He is the screenwriter and the producer and the director. He isn’t interested in changing the screenplay. He is interested in selecting the perfect players for the various roles that will be played out. You can make yourself suitable for the more noble roles or be cast against your will for the fall-guy roles. It is up to you.

When you were an infant your parents did a million and one things for you that you had no idea about. You didn’t have to think about food or clothing or warmth or anything else. You just had to grow. As you matured you grew more and more like your parents. In maturity you became like your parents knowing and anticipating the needs of your own children. Looking back you can see that your parents gave up their time of doing what they wanted in order to do what was needed for you. At the time you couldn’t see it, but later you can. It is the same with you and your heavenly Father. As you mature you recognize more and more of the things that God has and is doing for you.

Romans 8:28
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. (NIV)

Stop striving for things. Walk with God. Accept what is and walk with God. Be patient, loving, helpful, kind, gentle, and good. Seek not your own good but the good of others and God will bless you with godliness, or should I say, God-like-ness. Prepare yourself for God’s better parts, so that after all is over you will be rewarded for a job well done.

Freedom

I have heard countless times about how we are free. I was born and I have lived my entire life in the United States and the message of freedom is very much identified with its citizens. America the land of the free and the home of the brave seems to be the national slogan. The United States of America is not alone in this thinking. All the nations of the so-called West all tout freedom as being the central point of the national cultures. Democracy and Capitalism are seen as to be a central part of a system of free people.

John 8:31-36
To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
33 They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?”
34 Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. 35 Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. (NIV)

The Jews too thought that they were free, but Jesus told them that if they sin then they were not free, rather that they were slaves to sin. True freedom is only attained in Christ.

Near where I grew up there is a school that has formed into a prominent quote, “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” That quote was taken from John 8:32 above, but is totally misquoted, that is, quoted out of context. I don’t know how many times I have heard that quote and it is always quoted the same way, that is, it expresses the idea that you can study and learn and the knowledge that you gain will bring you freedom. That is not a true sentiment. Truth can set you free, but truth is not learned in school.

Notice that John 8:31 says, “To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said …” Jesus did not tell everyone how they might be set free. He told those that believed him. In fact, pretty much, Jesus only ever talked to those that would believe him. Freedom comes only through submission to Christ Jesus. A person cannot be free apart from Jesus. It is utterly and totally impossible.

Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.” If you hold to Jesus’ teaching, says he. A person cannot be a disciple of Jesus unless he subjects himself to the teaching of the Bible. And it is through this relationship of Master and obedient student that freedom comes.

Sin is like the smallest yet most totally potent and incurable poison. A drop of the minutest amount is irrevocably fatal. Once ingested you are a goner.

2 Samuel 14:14
Like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be recovered, so we must die. But God does not take away life; instead, he devises ways so that a banished person may not remain estranged from him. (NIV)

This wise woman that spoke these words to King David was talking about this fatal nature of sin when she said that we must die. We have each and every one of us sinned and so each and every one of us must die. We are not free for we are subject to sin, that is, death. But, this wise woman goes on to say that God did not abandon us to sin and death, but rather he devised a way in which we might be reunited with Him.

Romans 6:23
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (NIV)

This is saying what I have been saying, and that is, if you are guilty of sin then you must die. But, God devised a way to resurrect us from death and bring us to life.

Jesus was a man that not once lived for himself. He read the Scriptures and ordered himself to every revelation contained within them. Jesus was in every sense a servant of God Most High. The Scriptures say, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28 (NIV) Jesus believed this even before this was written. He believed it and he lived by it. Jesus believed that each and every little ocurrence in his life was orchestrated by God and therefore was there for his benefit. Jesus trusted in God in every situation because of his understanding concerning this. My friend, this is a huge thing. It is easy to miss this, but it is nonetheless critical that you do not. If you love God as you say that you do, then each and every little thing in your life is there to teach you something, or to help you in some way.

Matthew 5:39
But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. (NIV)

You do not resist an evil person in this way because God has allowed it to happen to you. If God has allowed it to happen to you then you needed it. When you submit to God in this way then you will come to know the Truth and then the Truth will set you free. It is like an oxymoron. You must submit to Christ as his slave before you can really and truly be free. Weird but true.

When you become Christ’s obedient slave, as it were, you experience peace and then the truth of things begins to dawn on you. You can’t see the truth when you are fighting against it. When you are fighting against the truth then sin is in control and you are (against your will) a slave to sin. Every single person that fights against God is a slave to sin. Sin will reign in their life and will condemn them to eternal death.

Judgment Day – Part Two

Revelation 20:11-15
Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. Earth and sky fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. 12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. 13 The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done. 14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. 15 If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. (NIV)

“Earth and sky fled from his presence, and there was no place for them.” When the Day of Judgment comes the earth will be no more. The earth is only a temporary place. The universe is only a temporary place. When God’s plan for the earth is over, the earth and the physical universe will no longer have any purpose, so they will be removed. My friend, please do not live in the world as though the world mattered. You live here now, but ultimately this is not our home.

We saw in a previous post that those that belong to God are not really said to be dead when their body dies. They are said to be asleep in the earth. But, here we see those that are called “the dead,” and their fate is much different than that of those are merely asleep. I am not sure when a person’s name is written into the Book of Life, but whether it is written at conception or written in later is unimportant. The important thing is that when you have a living faith in God and in his Son Jesus Christ, then your name is either written into the Book or it remains in the Book. Those people that are in rebellion toward God do not have their name in the Book and are therefore spiritually cut-off from God. You can think of God as a large spiritual being and those that belong to him actually exist within him, like cells in a body as it were. If you are like a cell within the body of God then you are fed and nourished like any ordinary cell; God’s sustaining life force is connected to you and you are fed like blood brings nutrients to your mortal cells. If you are inside of God then you are alive, because God is alive. If you are outside then you are dead. Dead things don’t remain healthy looking long. They decompose and are gone.

We see here that the dead are judged according to what they have done. I will explain this a bit. It is like a human family. If a husband and a wife have a child then their child is in the family. As long as the child has love and faith towards the family then the child is in the family and all is well. If some outsider says to the father and mother, “I am a better child than your child so you must accept me into your family too,” they would not for that reason be adopted into the family. This presumptive child might indeed be a much better person than the natural son or daughter. They might be an A student at school and a real help around the house, but those things will not make any difference. Children of the family are either real children or adopted children, and both/either are members of the family by faith and love. Faith and love play a vital role in families whether or not the family members realize it or not. Faith and Love are king. If a child is accepted into the family then he or she is regardless of merit. God’s family is like that too. Those of his family are not judged as to be good enough. And those that are not of his family are not admitted into his family on merit alone. They can be admitted if they reach out in faith and love, but on account of merit.

So, we see that the dead are judged, but the living are not. Those that are judged will find that even though they are in some ways better, they will not be accepted because they are not in the body of God, that is, they did not love God nor have real faith in him, they are not members of his family as it were.

Verse 13 above is pretty interesting. “The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done.” The sea is a symbolic word that means the mass of human beings. What this is saying is that those that are still alive at the time of Judgment Day, that is to say, alive in the flesh, but not alive towards God, are judged. And death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them is talking about those that have died a physical death before the Day of Judgment and have been waiting for Judgment Day in Hades. Both of these groups are treated the same. Both are condemned. Neither were in the family of God. Notice that Hades is a temporary holding place. I think it likely that the notion of purgatory comes from this temporary nature of Hades. Notice too, that a person doesn’t spend time in Purgatory (Hades) paying for certain sins and then gets out and enters into heaven. This is a very common belief but I can find no Scriptural validation for this teaching. If a person dies, that is, their body dies, and they themselves do not have a living relationship with God, then they are excluded from the presence of God, that is to say, they will not live out their existence in a relationship with God, that is to say, they will not go to heaven.

The Second Death

The first death is the death of the body. The second death is the permanent exclusion from the presence of God. As long as we are alive we can turn from our rebellious ways and seek God in faith and love. God is willing to accept any and all who come to him. He is more than willing, he is delighted.

Physical death is only a metaphor for permanent spiritual separation from God, or the Second Death. Physical death is meaningless. It is a translation from one existence to another. Ironically physical death is more like physical birth than anything. During physical birth a being doesn’t suddenly become alive, no rather, they were alive in the womb but are now alive in a much broader sense. Physical death is like that. We are alive but then we undergo the death of the body and become much more alive than before. The difference between those that leave their mortal bodies and go to live with God and those that are sent to Hades and then to the Lake of Fire has everything to do with their relationship with God. Those that die in the family of God are translated into ever more life, those that die outside of the body are excluded from the life giving love force of peace and healing.

It is my opinion that what makes Hades bad is the fact that you are there with selfish people, as it were. God’s nature of Love is a healing nature. God’s nature brings Peace. Those that are connected to God are connected to Love and Peace. Those that are not connected to God are thrown into a prison with very unloving and un-peaceful people. Why are human prisons so bad? Is it not because you are there with people that make it bad? I believe so. But, even in the worst human prison, you can be there with God inside of you; protecting and sustaining you. And if you are there with God then you know that it is only temporary, but the Lake if Fire is forever.

Fire is symbolic of sin. Being thrown into the Lake of Fire is to be thrown into the realm of sin—forever.

Judgment Day – Part One

Matthew 25:31-46
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’
41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
45 “He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” (NIV)

Do you notice that verse 31 above says that this is a Coming of the Lord? Israel, for the most part, did not understand that when the Christ came the first time that he would leave and return again. The Church, for the most part, doesn’t understand that the Second Coming of the Lord is not the final Coming. The Lord will Come to the earth three times; first for the Church, second for Israel, and third for Judgment Day.

Knowing this about the Comings of the Lord helps to make sense of the Scriptures regarding his Comings. It can be confusing if you read about his Coming and think that they all are talking about the same time. Many people have read the above passage from Matthew and then assumed that when the Lord Comes, at the time of the beast, that that is the end of the world. But, every Scripture will be fulfilled. There will be a thousand year kingdom of Israel. This is a fact and it can’t be forgotten. So, as we see above, there must be a Third Coming of the Lord.

Looking at the above parable we can see that verse 41 says that the eternal fire, or the Lake of Burning Fire or Sulfur, was created for Satan and his angels and not for man. It is important to understand that the heavenly beings fell first. The happenings on the earth as recorded in the Bible are not just for man, they are for the angels in heaven too.

1 Corinthians 4:9
For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like men condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to men. (NIV)

Revelation 20:11-15
Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. Earth and sky fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. 12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. 13 The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done. 14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. 15 If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. (NIV)

There is an end to God’s plan for man on the earth. The earth is a temporary place where certain lessons can be learned in accelerated time, as it were. On the earth we have two kinds of life; animal life and spiritual life. In heaven there is only one kind of life, and heaven is the real place (eternal) and the earth is only a temporary place.

On earth the more real existence is the spiritual existence, even though it doesn’t appear to be that way. Our animal existences seem more real, but because they are only temporary they are therefore much less important. When a person dies we say that they are dead, but frequently the Bible says that they are asleep, in the earth as it were.

John 11:11-15
After he had said this, he went on to tell them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.”
12 His disciples replied, “Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.” 13 Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep.
14 So then he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, 15 and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” (NIV)

The point here is that physical death doesn’t mean to God what it means to man when man doesn’t see things from God’s perspective. We can see things correctly only when we read the Bible and believe in what it says.

We need to see things from God’s perspective because he sees what is real and we see only what is right in front of our faces and what appears to be real.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-14
Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. 14 We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. (NIV)