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Tag: salvation

  • The Pervasiveness of Sin

    The Pervasiveness of Sin

    If you perceive the pervasiveness of sin,

    you will pour forth great gratitude for God’s grace

    and the cross of Christ.

    Revelation 18:  For your merchants were the greatest in the world,
    and you deceived the nations with your sorceries.
    24 In your streets flowed the blood of the prophets and of God’s holy people
    and the blood of people slaughtered all over the world.”

    … all the nations were deceived by your sorcery.

    So warns Christ’s Revelation to John of Babylon, a home for demons – the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit. Even Ezekiel had warned Jerusalem of these same evils (perhaps appropriate warning to a 21st c. church).

    3 For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.

    Disclaimer & Caution

    Researching the Revelation of Jesus Christ to John reconfirms a need for a note of caution to the reader.

    MUCH false teaching, speculative interpretation and agenda-driven preaching will easily mislead and confuse most believers, except believers well-versed scripturally in apologetics. Perhaps one of the greatest dangers is to accept an interpretation of just one man on the many important symbols John presents in Revelation – especially in the following chapters.

    The following is a continuation in my series on Revelation, begun with the Letters to the Seven Churches and now continuing from much later in John’s apocalypse in Chapter 17.

    May I suggest that you take my interpretation of scripture (or anyone’s interpretation) under consideration of:

    • the Holy Spirit
    • Scripture (including, possibly root meanings of the Greek or Hebrew)
    • prayerful consideration of application to your life and those in your life

    Roger Harned

    Central

    to the Judgment of Christ Jesus

    in the Apocalypse of John.

    Revelation is misunderstood and much misrepresented. Will the deception of these last days not increase with the pervasiveness of sin?

    BABYLON, the Harlot Queen,

    sits upon the scarlet beast –

    Revelation 17:5 And upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon The Great, The Mother Of Harlots And Abominations Of The Earth.

    SIN is pervasive!

    Revelation begins with warning to the churches. Should the churches of these last days not heed the warnings of a time so near?

    The Apostle John describes Heavenly visions (none of which I will describe today):

    • The Scroll and Seven Seals (ch. 4-7)
    • Seven Angels with Seven Trumpets (ch. 8-11)
    • Seven Symbolic Histories (ch. 12-14)
    • Seven Bowls of God’s Wrath (ch. 15-16)

    All of this leads up to the drama of punishment, with its great symbolism. All of Revelation leads to a drama:

    CENTERED ON EVIL vs. GOOD

    SATAN vs. CHRIST JESUS.

    Though the FINAL BATTLE does not take place until Revelation 19, the familiar opponents of God confront the believer and unbeliever alike with the great symbolism of Revelation 17 and 18. What Jesus reveals is what our Lord has always revealed to those with ears to hear.

    Matthew 24

    dome and wall

    English Standard Version (ESV)

    Jesus Foretells Destruction of the Temple

     

    Signs of the End of the Age

    3 As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”

    4 And Jesus answered them, “See that no one leads you astray. 5 For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray.

    6 And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. 7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places.8 All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.

    9 “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. 10 And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another.

    egypt-violence-eu11 And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. 12 And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. 13 But the one who endures to the end will be saved.

    14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come…

    wolf23 Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There he is!’ do not believe it.

    24 For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.

    25 See, I have told you beforehand. 26 So, if they say to you, ‘Look, he is in the wilderness,’ do not go out. If they say, ‘Look, he is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. 27 For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

    Do NOT be deceived:

    1 Corinthians 6:9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality {note: The two Greek terms translated by this phrase refer to the passive and active partners in consensual homosexual acts.}

    2 Timothy 2:12-13 Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.

    1 John 2:26 I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you.

    Do you with ears to hear understand how the world is being deceived?

    Do you sip from the cup of the Harlot?

    Hear and understand the wine of her cup.

    … all the nations were deceived by her ‘pharmakeia’ sorcery.

    Heed the warning of the punishment for those who partake of the sorcery of the Harlot:

    Revelation 21:8 But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, G5332 and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.

    Let us continue to proclaim Christ crucified; for He IS and He will return in victory over Satan, the Harlot, and all the armies of evil which surround the believer every day.

    We have Great Grace in Christ Jesus and His Blood of the Cross, where by His death and resurrection we are victorious over sin and death.

    Christ Jesus our Lord has defeated the enemy. These last days will end and the faithful will be most thankful for the grace of the Cross.

     

  • In God We Trust – Hope

    In God We Trust – Hope

    The Lamentations asking “HOW?” are really questions of hope for a fallen nation. Christians hold onto hope.  In God we trust (at least, some of us.)  No Biblical consideration of our present and passing crisis would be complete without hope.

    Recalling from our parallel to Lamentations some of the earlier history of this young nation:

    • October 19, 1781 – Cornwallis surrendered to General George Washington and the French at Yorktown Virginia, ending the war. Peace is not declared until two years later in Paris, September 3, 1783.
    • February 18, 1815, (just three decades later) renewed conflict ends after the British attempt to re-conquer the colonies (and defeat the French in Europe & the New World), burning the White House and sacking Washington DC.

    lincoln-memorial-and

    In a temple in Washington D.C., United States of America, sits a statue of a man and leader who often quoted scripture.

    Abraham Lincoln, the new Republican President was about as popular with the Democrats as President Obama, our nation’s first black president is with the Republican party of 2013.

    • November 6, 1860, the election of Lincoln assured that America would be divided by the politics of slavery.
    • Just fifty years after the sacking of Washington D.C. by the British, defeat of the Confederates, the surrender of Lee on April 9, 1865 and the compassionate grace of Lincoln’s policies to reconstruction prevented that collapse and held on to hope.
    • Less than a century later on December 7, 1941, the United States of America entered a war to save Asia and Europe from tyrants of Japan and Germany worse than Napoleon.

    After final defeat of the Axis powers in 1945, the US had a decided edge as empire of strength in a 20th century world which provided a stability of growth and hope until the evolution of decline of morality diminished the once considerable influence of the US empire.

    NOW (just sixty-eight years later), as in Jeremiah’s lament the people are asking HOW?

    A man is no longer a man of his word. A vote of one man has no influence; only money.

    • 1/21/2009 – WASHINGTON – Barack Obama, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Harry S. Truman, and Richard Nixon (also a Quaker) swore the oath on two Bibles. According to Wikipedia, the word “faithfully” was misplaced. The second oath was administered in a simple, private ceremony.
    • 9/11/2010 – WASHINGTON — House Democrats were preparing late last year for the first floor vote on the financial regulatory overhaul when Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio and other Republican leaders summoned more than 100 industry lobbyists and conservative political activists to Capitol Hill for a private strategy session.  He maintains especially tight ties with a circle of lobbyists and former aides representing some of the nation’s biggest businesses, including Goldman Sachs, Google, Citigroup, R. J. Reynolds, MillerCoors and UPS. They have contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to his campaigns… — he has raised $36 million for Republican causes during this election cycle… source: New York Times
    • 12/7/2011 – SWITZERLAND – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Clinton also announced that the U.S. will use both diplomacy and $3 million in foreign aid to help the global fight for gay rights. –Source: Business Insider
    • 12/26/2011 -The complete timeline of the Gingrich divorces shows he’s not been honest with voters source: The Raw Story

    A man is no longer head of his family.  A marriage of a man and a women is no longer honored in the land.

    Corporations have sovereignty over the US Congress, President, and Justices, as well as most ‘consumer’ Nations. Pornographic ads for pharmaceutical companies (with disclaimers which once would have brought congressional restrictions on broadcasters) bombard healthcare ‘consumers’ who are told to ‘tell your doctor’ about their government-subsidized products.

    A genocide of over 45 million children worldwide once unthinkable after the 1945 revelations of the concentration camps is policy guaranteed by government, insured and paid for by taxes from the budget.

    Greed and immorality are rampant: as the Prophets had warned Judah and Jonathan Edwards had warned America.

    We are sinners in the hands of an angry God!

    The lessons and hope of Lamentations are no less applicable in 2013.

    I have presented the warnings of the Prophets to Judah and the disobedience of the kings and people going back 200 years (1813, in context of present-day America).  Jeremiah closes Lamentations with hope, which proved true.

    Lamentations 5:

    21 Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored!
    Renew our days as of old—
    22 unless you have utterly rejected us,
    and you remain exceedingly angry with us.

    As you may recall:

    •  607 BC – Jerusalem fell. Yet just 70 years later:
    • 537 BC – the exiles return to Jerusalem, after which the Temple is rebuilt
    • 455 BC – Ezra and Nehemiah re-establish the Law and rebuild the walls of Jerusalem
    • 440 BC – Warnings of the Prophet Malachi

     “I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you say, “How have you loved us?” – Malachi 1:2

    Does this lament of God through a later Prophet sound familiar as Lamentations of just two centuries earlier?

    Alexander ruled Judah (no longer an empire) from about 332 BC, thus the Greek influence of culture represented in the New Testament and lasting beyond the influence of the rise and fall of the later Roman Empire.

    A great period of silence from God ensues until the time preceding Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, promised Messiah and King.

    The warnings of Malachi to WE the people are little different from what Jesus would preach in Jerusalem.

    Willem A. VanGemeren, in the Baker Bible commentary states:

    God raised up Malachi to address the problems of cynicism, formalism, and unfaithfulness, and questions about the benefits of godliness.  Malachi defends the love, honor, and justice of God…

    Malachi calls for responsibility in marriage, sacrifice, religion, social concerns, tithes, and observance of God’s laws. He redefined the “godly” as those who persevere in godliness.

    Do you persevere in godliness? Do you hold near your trust in God and faith in Christ Jesus?

    MANY in America and the world lament over a pervasive evolution of evil into the morality of mankind and governments who do NOT put their trust in God. As you can see, this is nothing new under the sun… even in America.

     

    • November 19, 1863, just 150 years ago, Lincoln’s words at Gettysburg echo a faith and hope immortalized in the memory of all faithful people of the United States of America (even now divided in the halls of Congress and the streets of Washington D.C.)

    … that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom… and that government of the people… by the people… for the people… shall not perish from the earth.” 

    This government and all governments not obedient to the Laws and will of Almighty God will indeed fall; as have all governments of rebellious man and tyrannical ambition.

    A King, who we crucified on a cross and show disobedience in our daily lives, will rule all people of hope and restore His own Kingdom to come.

    Thy Kingdom come.

    Thy will be done.

    On earth as it is in Heaven.

    This nation is a nation of its people. As in every nation, even a fallen Judah, a remnant of the faithful and obedient remain.

    Leaders and citizens obedient to the King of Heaven, Christ Jesus, will indeed not perish from this fallen earth or the eternal hope of this Kingdom to come.

    Even so, come Lord Jesus.    +

     

     

  • Hansel and Gretel – 4

    Hansel and Gretel – 4

    IF you have NOT already taken time to watch the Hosea Movie of a previous post, it is related to this series and I recommend it. Watch it as a family, if possible (80 min.); especially your teens.

    Roger Harned

    HANSEL & GRETEL – Chapter 4

    The story of Hosea is a story of reconciliation between a husband and a wife.  It is a story of reconciliation between a people who have done evil in the sight of the Lord and our God of unfailing, unconditional love.

    As a wife commits adultery against her husband; so does a people who sin commit adultery against God.

    Why is it that after his adultery with Bathsheba David had prayed, “Against You and You only have I sinned?”

    God will judge and punish; yet God may have mercy on the one who repents.

    Christ died for sinners, adulterers against God. Christ died for you and for me. We have His blood as our redeeming Light of hope, an escape from this woods of darkness away from our Father.

    If we are like Hosea, a faithful husband with unconditional love, we know that the evil of the step-mother of this story is not committed against Hansel and Gretel or against her husband. The evil of their actions affects ALL, but God will judge.

    Dear Christian husband, beloved Christian wife: do not believe you have sinned against each other, when Christ has sacrificed His undying love for your forgiveness and redemption. Do not continue to sin against our Lord.

    You believe your sin is against me; but your sin is the adultery of Judas.

    Rev. 2:21

    (Enough for now of the importance of marriage.)  Returning to the story of our children:

    Hansel and Gretel are children of a step-family. Their father has given in to an evil step-mother and sent the children off into the woods… twice. The father and step-mother want to be alone.  The children want to be with their parent. CONFLICT.

    (Parents, once you have a child you do NOT get to be alone. That is God’s intention. Children need the loving affection of both parents… often.)

    Go to your room!

    As the story goes, after being sent away once the children find their way back. Hansel has marked the way with stones.

    Yet after their return to what they hoped and had known as the love of home, the second time the wicked step-mother locks them in their room and they cannot gather stones to mark the way home.

    Separation. Return home. Locked up alone by hatred. Sent away once more… never to see the love of home again.  A sad and all-too-familiar contemporary non-fiction.

    Then, as we observed in a previous chapter, a wicked witch (not unlike the step-mother, according to literary analysts) holds the children to serve her and even to become the food for the table of her famine.  All seems hopeless; but once again (as we discovered in the previous chapter) their cleverness wins out and they escape the witch, who comes to her death as a result of her own evil intended for Hansel and Gretel.

     2 Chronicles 29:6 For our fathers have been unfaithful and have done what was evil in the sight of the LORD our God. They have forsaken him and have turned away their faces from the habitation of the LORD and turned their backs.

    A man has turned his back on his own children in favor of a new wife.

    Is a father not lord over his children? Is a husband not lord over his wife? Is the man who led his own children into the hands of hopelessness and the fates of the darkness of the woods not unfaithful to the Lord?

    The father and the step-mother have BOTH done what is evil in the sight of the Lord.

    Yet somehow, without the help of their earthly father, Hansel and Gretel escape.

    But what next? How better off will the children be in returning a third time to the home of an evil step-mother?

    Then they stayed for several days to  eat some more of the house, till they discovered amongst the witch’s belongings, a huge chocolate egg. Inside lay a casket of gold coins.

    (The Grimm answer of fable: the money will make it all right.)

    I hadn’t really remembered this part of the story after all these years, until looking up Hansel and Gretel and rereading the ending.

    I had only remembered that they returned home.

    God has planted this deepest desire into the heart of every child (even a man, who has no home).

    So I ask us: where is home?

    How must a father welcome a lost child?

    They filled a large basket with food and set off into the forest to search for the way home.

    After two days they find their own way home (not knowing what to expect). Yet the picture of the father is of joy, as in the story of the prodigal son. (My mom needed not tell us that the prodigal of Hansel and Gretel is the father.)

    Once upon a time, children were innocent. Fables and bed-time stories spoke to hope – hope of living “happily ever after.” Hansel and Gretel (in a sense) does not disappoint in this.

    “Promise you’ll never ever desert us again,” said Gretel, throwing her arms round her father’s neck.

    Is this not the heart of every child who loves her father? The heart of every little boy who loves his father?

    Promise.

    (I did not remember the next scene of the ending, either.)

    Hansel opened the casket.

    What did Hansel see?

    Competition? For had the step-mother not also seen competition for love in the children of the woodcutter? Of course.

    It was evil for her to not love these as her own children. And now, providence has placed her with the same fate as the witch: death. Hansel looks inside the casket at the face of evil – dead and harmful no more.

    His conclusion is perhaps childish. (Even his father, the woodcutter, may have learned an untold lesson in this fable.)

    “Look, Father! We’re rich now . . . You’ll never have to chop wood again.”

    And they all lived happily together ever after. The little ones who were still awake would say in unison.

    As parents we know that this is but a fable. As Christians we know that indeed we are the prodigals of the story. As those whose home is in heaven, hopefully we tell our children of the real treasure.

    Jesus said: The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. – Matthew 12:35

    Proverbs teaches children what Hansel and Gretel observed in the house of the witch. She was hungry in a house made of food. The witch had not purchased the food of righteousness with the treasure she had hidden away.

    Proverbs 15:

    6 In the house of the righteous there is much treasure,
    but trouble befalls the income of the wicked.

    16 Better is a little with the fear of the LORD
    than great treasure and trouble with it.

    Therefore, look into the casket, dear children. See the death of the wicked and the bones of our future.

    And look to your Father in Heaven to the hope of our salvation.

    2 Corinthians 4:16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.

    2 Corinthians 5:

    The Ministry of Reconciliation

    11 Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others. But what we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience.

    18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

    As I see it, Hansel and Gretel is a story of reconciliation. The father, who loves his children, is finally reconciled to them. And the children, who love the father, are finally reconciled to him.

    It is not really a story of a step-mother or of a witch, as much as a story of the death of evil and the triumph of God – that is, the triumph of God: Who IS and was and will judge every evil and reward every good.

    Therefore, IF you want to live happily every after (and eternity is a long time…):

    Our Heavenly Father has rescued us from the woods of deep darkness and evil through the Light of the Sacrifice of His only Son and the redemption by His Blood on the Cross.

    Walk in Love

    Ephesians 5 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. 2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

    8 for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light 9 (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), 10 and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.

    Wives and Husbands

    22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

    25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her

    Dear Christian brother, beloved Christian sister of these last days,

    Do you look to the light of the promises of Scripture and obey?

    Teach these to the children of your bowels and remain faithful to the Head of the body, Christ Jesus our Lord.

    31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

    Children and Parents

    6 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), 3 “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” 4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

    And they lived happily ever after… Eternally!