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ONLY Scripture – Sola Scriptura

The HOLY BIBLE IS: The written word of God from scripture.

Follow After Me -3- The Holy Bible
It is written…

And the LORD delivered unto me two tables of stone written with the finger of God; and on them was written according to all the words, which the LORD spake with you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly. – Deuteronomy 9:10

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works. – 2 Timothy 3:16-17 KJV

written from an angel

written from dreams

A man comes up to you and claims, ‘I have a new doctrine, a new teaching. It was given to me by an angel in a cave.’ Would you follow him? Would you believe him?

A different man tells you, ‘I have a new doctrine, a new teaching. It was given to me when I sat alone on a mountain.’ Would you follow him? Would you believe him?

Wouldn’t you ask a man who would lead you to death for proof of his doctrine and teaching? Wouldn’t you ask a man making a claim of royalty and promises for the after-life for independent proof beyond dreams and visions?

In fact, Jesus IS the Christ of the Living God! When Jesus came to us, our Lord and Savior not only worked miracles by the Hand of God, Jesus pointed always to Scripture.

He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.” – Matthew 21:13 ESV

Jesus was challenged by not only Satan to prove He IS the Son of God, Christ was challenged continually by the Jews, who asked him,

“By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?”

Our Lord answers always with additional proof from the scriptures.
- And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written,
  “‘This people honors me with their lips,
  but their heart is far from me… Mark 7:6
- And Jesus said to them, “You will all fall away, for it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’ – Mark 14:27
- and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead… – Luke 24-26
- It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me— – John 6:45
- In your Law it is written that the testimony of two people is true. – John 8:17
Some make false claim to know what God has said, who God is and how God would have you use your mortal life. They may speak of a peace in death or a present leading to death for their cause…

Do you follow these who would claim to know God better than you from ancient and unreliable myths never proven true? Would you bet your eternal life on their self-serving temporal claim of a mere mortal man?

Hebrews 9 English Standard Version (ESV)

The Earthly Holy Place

Now even the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly place of holiness…

¹² he [Christ] entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.

26b But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

27 And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,

28 so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

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We will face, though we would deny it, a day of our mortal death. We will face, though we justly fear it, a day of our eternal judgment. And let us not think that any calculation of our own can alter the plan of Almighty God.

Job 10:

“I loathe my life;
I will give free utterance to my complaint;
I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.
2 I will say to God, Do not condemn me;
let me know why you contend against me.
3 Does it seem good to you to oppress,
to despise the work of your hands
and favor the designs of the wicked?

18 “Why did you bring me out from the womb?
Would that I had died before any eye had seen me
19 and were as though I had not been,
carried from the womb to the grave.

20 Are not my days few?

Then cease, and leave me alone, that I may find a little cheer
21 before I go—and I shall not return—
to the land of darkness and deep shadow,
22 the land of gloom like thick darkness,
like deep shadow without any order,
where light is as thick darkness.”

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Now I saw, upon a time, when he was walking in the fields, that he was (as he was wont) reading in his book, and greatly distressed in his mind; and as he read, he burst out, as he had done before, crying, “What shall I do to be saved?” – John Bunyan, from The Pilgrim’s Progress

I saw also that he looked this way, and that way, as if he would run; yet he stood still because (as I perceived) he could not tell which way to go. – Bunyan

¹⁴Can your courage endure, or can your hands be strong, in the days that I shall deal with you?

I the Lord have spoken, and I will do it. – Ezekiel 22:14

To be continued…

NEXT: Evangelist
January 25, 2016
Days of Despair

In Christ we have a Light of hope in a season of our dark despair.

Job 30:

¹⁶“And now my soul is poured out within me;
    days of affliction have taken hold of me.
¹⁷The night racks my bones,
    and the pain that gnaws me takes no rest.

Have you ever had a bad time in life like this?

¹⁸With great force my garment is disfigured;
    it binds me about like the collar of my tunic.
¹⁹God has cast me into the mire,
    and I have become like dust and ashes.
²⁰I cry to you for help and you do not answer me;
    I stand, and you only look at me.

IF you even ask, do you sometimes feel like God does not answer you?

²¹You have turned cruel to me;
    with the might of your hand you persecute me.
²²You lift me up on the wind; you make me ride on it,
    and you toss me about in the roar of the storm.
²³For I know that you will bring me to death
    and to the house appointed for all living.

Does despair, inward pain and silence from God turn your Christmas joy into a longing for the gift of hope?

²⁶But when I hoped for good, evil came,
    and when I waited for light, darkness came.

²⁷My inward parts are in turmoil and never still;
    days of affliction come to meet me.

²⁸I go about darkened, but not by the sun;
    I stand up in the assembly and cry for help.

Bible trivia: Job is the oldest of any book of the Bible written approximately 2100-1800 B.C.

Job was a righteous man who had some big troubles test his faith. Perhaps you think that you are a righteous man or woman as well. You do mostly good. You live like you should (for the most part).

You cry out to God for help… and nothing…

Job could not help himself, except to pray to God. Often, neither can you or I.

This time of year you may hear the familiar Christmas nativity story told by either Luke or Matthew. If we were to read on in Matthew to a time thirty years later when Jesus first began His teaching, we would read how our Lord heals the afflictions of mankind.

Matthew 4:

²³And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people.

²⁴So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains,those oppressed by demons, epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them.²⁵And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.

Are you just one in the Christmas crowds who follow Jesus just to see if He will heal someone else?

Jesus Christ IS the balm for your wounded soul and the salvation of your sinful flesh.

Hear these words of encouragement from the Apostle Paul to the church at Corinth:

2 Corinthians 4:

But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.

We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed;

perplexed, but not driven to despair;

persecuted, but not forsaken;

struck down, but not destroyed;

always carrying in the body the death of Jesus,

so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.

To be continued…

This look at the afflictions of Job is the third installment in my Christmas series in the year of our Lord, 2015.

December 3, 2015
Interrupting Jesus 12 – interrupting sin

`… to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy… build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince… the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. Daniel 9:24-25 KJV excerpt

I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

Jesus answering the religious leaders. Luke 5:32 KJV

The following is the conclusion of a 12-part series on Interrupting Jesus.

What interruption are you expecting to your day today? What interruption to your mission and ‘to do’ list? Who has stepped into time you thought was your own?

Will you take time, like a loving and merciful God, to love those who get in the way of what you had planned for today?

Jesus made people the focus of His time. No sinner was too unimportant to receive His love and healing. You are not so important or unimportant for God Incarnate to grant you grace, forgiving your sins.

The LORD had interrupted men like Abram, Moses, David and the Prophets. The LORD made covenant and promise. He has given the Law to Israel and made judgment on nations. God IS the LORD!

Why would the eternal GOD interrupt the time of history, even the measured mortality of one man or one woman?

The LORD is Almighty, yet God loves the world – the sons and daughters of the generations – enough to interrupt the rebelliousness of our sin with the love, mercy and grace of a Perfect Heavenly Father.

God interrupted the sin of mankind in the Person of Christ Jesus.

Jesus loved every sinner who interrupted His mission and ministry; from His mother at the wedding where He turned water into wine, to the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well, to the tax collector Zaccheus in the tree, to you and me.

Jesus Christ loves the people of the world with a personal love and forgiveness of God the Father.

Every generation has looked for God or selfishly ignored God.

The LORD may not have appeared to your grandfather Abraham and your father and mother. The LORD may not have promised a home to your twelve children in a land of milk and honey. The LORD may not have given your leader the Law or appeared to your High Priest. The LORD may not have called you to rebuke kings and nations or given you writing on the walls of history.

For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. John 1:17

The LORD God is known. The LORD IS. In the Person of Jesus Christ and through the Holy Spirit, God is present to those who believe, repent and obey His will; those who believe in Him, as a faithful child follows a loving Father.

Ungodly men seek to do as they please and lead other men into their own sinful ambitions. Israel and all nations look to strong men to lead us into a promise of land and riches for our own ambitious pleasures. False prophets and evil leaders of men will seek your sacrifice for their gain of land and riches.

Jerusalem and Solomon’s Temple had been destroyed. September 21, 520 B.C., Temple rebuilding resumes and is completed in 515 B.C., only to be destroyed once again. A faithful exiled Hebrew Prophet had predicted this and more from Babylon (modern day Iraq) under Nebuchadnezzar and later under Cyrus II of Persia (modern day Iran) who overthrew Babylon and allowed some of the Hebrew captives to return to Judah.

Daniel, Prophet of God, lives a godly and high priestly life in a foreign land from about 605-535 B.C. Here the testimony of God through Daniel:

Daniel 9:

In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, by descent a Mede, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans— ²in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years that, according to the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet, must pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years…

“O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments,

⁵we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules.

⁶We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. ⁷To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us open shame…

¹¹All Israel has transgressed your law and turned aside,refusing to obey your voice. And the curse and oath that are written in the Law of Moses the servant of God have been poured out upon us, because we have sinned against him. ¹²He has confirmed his words, which he spoke against us and against our rulers who ruled us, by bringing upon us a great calamity…

¹⁵And now, O Lord our God, who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and have made a name for yourself, as at this day, we have sinned, we have done wickedly…

The Israel of Moses and Joshua had not yet received the true promise of the promised land. Jacob and the twelve sons of Israel did not reap the harvest of the leading of God. David and even Solomon would suffer defeats of a mighty kingdom and evil kings to follow did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord.

Prophets of the LORD, like Jeremiah and Daniel had warned the people of their sin, yet like us… like those leaders of defeated Judah who lived comfortable in their ‘religion’… most souls will not have the ears to hear the LORD. Israel did not expect the kind of Messiah the LORD had sent to personally give accountability for our sins. Jesus was not a leader like them.

Five hundred years after the Prophet Daniel, Herod the Great [37-4 B.C.] envisioned himself as the kind of King Israel should have to restore the kingdom. Many others recognized the true godliness of a Prophet like John the Baptist.

John 1:

¹⁹And this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?”

²⁰He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Christ.”

During the time of the Messiah in the Person of Jesus Christ, men of Judah, living under the strong rule of a Roman Empire, expected a Messiah King to restore their land to the glory of David and Solomon. Jesus Christ, a Son of Man, came to us that all might be restored to the glory of God by receiving forgiveness of our sins through His Holy and Perfect Sacrifice.

The LORD God is just. The Lord God is a loving Father. Christ Jesus IS sacrificed for us. He IS risen to return once more to judge all souls in the Light, forgiving those who repent and turn back to the righteous LORD.

Three years of earthly ministry of Jesus Christ lead to the gates of Jerusalem more than once, a final time as the Passover Sacrifice for the sins of all mankind on a Cross. An interruption of the centuries and generations by Almighty God gives rise to all nations and all mankind – hope to all the generations for the forgiveness of our sins and eternal life with the LORD God, our Father in Heaven.

Not only does Jesus interrupt history with a resurrection of His soul, as one might expect; but the greatest interruption of all: Jesus rises from the grave of death in the body and appears to more than five hundred over a time of fifty days!

The Prophets and the Psalmist had spoken and written of the Messiah, who would be King of the Jews. The Scriptures had spoken of the King to whom all will bow down. It was not to happen on earth, in the brief lifetime of Jesus of Nazareth or in yours or mine. Yet Scripture and the promises of the LORD will be fulfilled.

Another interruption is yet to come:

Daniel is not the only true Prophet to see the handwriting on the walls of what the LORD will surely do. Read more of the Prophets about the day of the LORD.

Jesus Christ, our Lord, also warned of His return on the clouds. The Apocalypse written at the close of the New Testament is well-known to the world as an interruption of history yet to come, though the Revelation of Jesus Christ to John is little understood even by believers.

Do you live your life in expectation of the return of Christ our Lord on the clouds?

Revelation 21

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

5 And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” 6 And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end…

Do you give the souls who interrupt your day the same love and compassion Christ Jesus has given us by showing a most personal interest in our forgiveness of sins?

Revelation 22 KJV

11 He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.

12 And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.

13 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.

14 Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.

LORD, interrupt our mortality with your own loving immortality.

Amen.

September 21, 2015