God idetifies Himself, Ways & Holy Seasons, chapter 30
To 36,247 subscribers we pray God is making Temples of His Spirit. 6/6/22, God’s 3rd month Sivan 7, 5,782
Hopefully each called person understands that God’s laws and oracles are perpetual, we’ll be looking back and forward to their spiritual magnifications and benefits during Jesus millennial reign. The whole world will learn the benefit of God’s calendar. Review our Pentecost study from yesterday.
Doctor Luke witnessed Jesus’ life and much of what His apostles did. He wrote the, “gospel of Luke” and “Acts of the Apostles” both are addressed to “Theophilus”, a person asking sincere questions of him about Jesus and The Kingdom of God.
(Acts 1:1-5; “I (Luke) wrote the former account, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day He was taken up to heaven, after He had given orders by the Holy Spirit to the apostles He had chosen. To the same apostles also, after His suffering, He presented Himself alive with many convincing proofs. He was seen by them over a forty-day period and spoke about matters concerning the kingdom of God. While He was with them, He declared, “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait there for what My Father promised, which you heard about from Me. For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized ‘immersed’ with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”) (Noting that Jesus was seen of His apostles over a 40 day period, His being in the tomb 3 days and nights, seems to make it obvious that His ascension was 7 days before Pentecost.)
Review Acts 1:7-11 & Acts 2. Jesus had previously explained the characteristics of the Holy Spirit’s entrance and making people at one with Himself, ‘born again’ to Nicodemus. Let’s review John 3:7-8; Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must all be born from above.’ The wind blows wherever it will, and you hear the sound it makes, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.) Jesus’ good news demonstrates that God the Father preplanned Jesus’ return with power to assume His position on earth as King of Kings and why He preplanned that time is to be cut short, was, “for the Elect‘s sake.” May we each be led to pray that our kingdom, soon come.
Though Jesus is the same yesterday today and forever, ‘new beginnings for His people were always planned.’ (The Noah day flood was a new beginning as was Jesus’ calling and making awesome promises to Abraham. The New Covenant principle of reveled teachings and Jesus’ faith imputed to believer’s minds depict new beginnings. His promised return to bring peace and deliverance will be a new beginning. Abraham’s future position with his heirs and Isaac’ birth was by promise. Remember Isaac was born when Abraham and Sarah were past reproductive age. Jacob’s birth, calling, promises, and name change; his descendants enslavement, deliverance through Moses, the covenant, forty years of total care, Joshua’s calling, the miraculous Jordan river crossing as they celebrating another Passover season celebration and manna’s cease when Israel began eating from crops from the promised lands.
Israel’s greatness was by grace, they’d done nothing to deserve their blessings. Israel’s disobedience, scattering, a smattering restored to Judea under Roman authority was all predestined, as was the promised Messiah Savior (Jesus’) birth and a new spiritual covenant with promises of eternal life to Believers. (Believers being a spiritually called out people made ‘at one’ with Jesus, to become spiritual Israelites and heirs with Abraham.)
More new beginning will be Jesus’ second coming, the Elect’s resurrection to serve-rule with Jesus, Satan bound, peace on earth, righteous judgment, another miraculous deliverance of Israel back to the promised lands, while all people calling on the name of the Lord being saved. After 1,000 years, Satan’s release to go out and deceive, a final judgment and New Jerusalem’s coming down with God the Father. (Jesus’ millennial reign was prophesied.) (Joel (3:1) After all of this I will pour out My Spirit on all kinds of people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your elderly will have revelatory dreams; your young men will see prophetic visions. (Joel 2:29-32; “Even on male and female servants I will pour out my Spirit in those days. I will produce portents both in the sky and on the earth – blood, fire, and columns of smoke. The sunlight will be turned to darkness and the moon to the color of blood, before the day of the Lord comes – that great and terrible day! It will so happen that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be delivered. For on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be those who survive, just as the Lord has promised; the remnant will be those whom the Lord will call.”) Always study the whole.
It’s promised to Abraham and his heirs, God the Father’s predestined people, ‘the fathered’, “the born again’ or ‘born from above’, called people that overcome to the end will be saved to eternal life. Be gifted with Jesus’ nature and made literal children through Him. The very same Jesus shared with Moses, in Joshua’s presence; that He knew how the Israelites would prostitute themselves to other gods and turn from Him. Likewise He foreknew the apostate that would develop during Jesus’ apostle’s lifetime and continue until His second coming. (See Deut 31:16-23,)
James and Jude were Joseph and Mary’s sons and Jesus’ half brothers. Each became devout followers of Jesus, after His resurrection. Each probably wrote much more than what’s recorded. Jude particularly was compelled to write about the apostate he was witnessing taking place, (an apostate likened to Israel’s prostituting themselves.) As the old covenant was written to Israel, the New Testament-Covenant is written to God’s Church, (spiritual Israelites) not to the world at large. Take note of the ones Jude’s letter is addressed to. (Jude 1:1-2; “From Jude, a slave of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to those who are called, wrapped in the love of God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ. May mercy, peace, and love be lavished on you.) (If we’re followers of Jesus, we’ve been called by God the Father, our minds are opened to understand the scriptures and kept for Jesus. This is the common salvation, the way God adds to His family, (His Church.)
(Jude 1:3; Dear friends, although I have been eager to write to you about our common salvation, I now feel compelled instead to write to encourage you to contend earnestly for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the Saints. (Faith entrusted to Jesus’ followers is likened to Abraham’s faith and God the Father’s fathering, as gifted on and after that first Pentecost after Jesus‘ ascension.) (Jude 1:4; “For certain men have secretly slipped in among you – men who long ago were marked out for the condemnation I am about to describe – ungodly men who have turned the grace of our God into a license for evil and who deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.”) (Remember Jesus’ identity is revealed at John 1:1-5. Colossians 1:15-20 & Hebrews 1. God foreknew these marked out deceivers, for their condemnation. It was evil of these people, to turn people back to the idea of law keeping for salvation and to prostitute themselves to paganism, rather than believing IN (obeying) Jesus for their saving. Evil of them to introduce pagan practices with a mix of Judaism, calling it God’s righteous ways. These Satan inspired deceptions, through fleshly minded unbelievers, pretty much sum up the apostate that invaded God’s Church and will until Jesus’ return.)
(Jude 1:5-6; “Now I desire to remind you (even though you have been fully informed of these facts once for all) that Jesus, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, later destroyed those who did not believe.” (Jude knew his half brother, (Jesus) was the Son of God and that it was He who delivered the Israelites from Egyptian bondage. Jude understood the comparison of Israel’s deliverance from Egypt, to our calling, deliverance and separation from this world’s system of things. If only professing Christianity believed and taught this fact; (imagine the togetherness and peace that would flow from that knowledge.)
(Jude 1:6; “You also know that the angels who did not keep within their proper domain but abandoned their own place of residence, Jesus has kept in eternal chains in utter darkness, locked up for the judgment of the great Day.”) (When we consider Jesus’ prophetic revelations to John about Satan, we know Jesus will keep these demonic angels in eternal chains, utter darkness, locked up for the judgment of that great future Day, (when Jesus returns. This prophecy is absolute, spoken of as in past tense because it’s certain. When Jesus returns, Satan and his demons bound until a preplanned release date, to go out and deceive, (particularly Gog & Magog.) (See Ezekiel 38:2)
Rev. 20:7-10; “Now when the thousand years are finished, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations at the four corners of the earth, (Gog and Magog) to bring them together for the battle. They are as numerous as the grains of sand in the sea. They went up on the broad plain of the earth and encircled the camp of the Saints and the beloved city, but fire came down from heaven and devoured them completely. And the devil that deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet are too, and they will be tormented there day and night forever and ever.”)
(Jude 1:7; “So also Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighboring towns, since they indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire in a way similar to these angels, are now displayed as an example by suffering the punishment of eternal fire.” (God foreknew what happened at Sodom & Gomorrah and these things are recorded, (preserved for our learning.) Today’s current Pope says he can’t judge homosexual priests. He’s out of step with Jesus’ apostle Paul. (See 1Corinthians 6)
(Jude 1:8-10; “Yet these men, (of Sodom & Gomorrah), as a result of their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and insult the glorious Ones. But even when Michael the archangel was arguing with the devil and debating with him concerning Moses’ body, he did not dare to bring a slanderous judgment, but said, “May the Lord rebuke you!” But these men do not understand the things they slander, and they are being destroyed by the very things that, like irrational animals, they instinctively comprehend.”) (Peter concurs)
(1Peter 2:12; “Like irrational animals, these false teachers do grasp one thing, “their instinctive behavior is like animals in heat.”) (Peter notes that, “Though they claim to be guided by special spiritual insight gained in heavenly revelations, they are in fact following the sexual instincts which they share with animals.”) Such aren’t believers IN Jesus but believers in tradition, Baal etc.