Problems with the Traditional Christmas Story!

Almost every Christmas these days I come across another example of how people have adopted a tradition rather than the Bible.  It seems that people are more comfortable with their idea of Christmas rather than what God said happened in the Bible.  What am I talking about?  Mostly I have a problem with the manger scenes and living nativities that many churches put up for this time of the year.  If you have ever read any of my blogs you know I am a stickler for the details.  I feel if God went to so much trouble to put a story in the Bible for us to read, we ought to have enough respect to figure out what it says and teach that.  Obviously there a lot of people who disagree with me on this or they wouldn’t have the wise men visiting baby Jesus in the manger in Bethlehem. 

 You really don’t have to be a rocket scientist to read and to study the Bible.  You just need to pay attention to every word.  The wise men were never in Bethlehem and Jesus was not there for more than a week.  If you read the Bible you know the story starts by Joseph and Mary having to travel to Bethlehem in order to pay taxes and participate in the census that the government had imposed.  Sounds a lot like what Congress is trying to do to us now.  But I won’t go there.  Joseph and Mary traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem because they  were of the house of David.  If they were not David’s descendants Jesus would not have been born in Bethlehem.  It is funny how God knew what was going to happen and prophesied where Jesus would be born way before hand.

 Here is another point that I always like to make about the Christmas story.  Why was Jesus born in a manager?  I think most people think it was because they were so poor and couldn’t afford anything better.  But that is not what the Bible says either.  We can understand that because of Mary’s condition of being almost 9 months pregnant that they were not making as good of time as everyone else.  When they finally arrived in Bethlehem we know that Jesus was born in the manger because the inn was already full.  We can assume that Joseph had the money to stay at the inn and enough in his pocket to pay his taxes.  You did know you don’t pay taxes if you don’t have any money don’t you?  So Jesus was born in a manger because of insufficient space at the inn and not a lack of money of Joseph and Mary.

 Next, we find in the story of Christmas, that the angels appeared to shepherds that were nearby tending their sheep and told them of the great news of the birth of the messiah.   It is certainly significant that shepherds were told this since the Lamb of God was just born in Bethlehem and who better to come see this Lamb, than shepherds.  So we know that the shepherds were at the manger and witnessed the Lamb of God in Bethlehem.  So where do we get the idea that Jesus was also visited by the wise men at the same time?  I honestly do not have a clue where this tradition originated, nor do I care.  If you read the account in the Bible you find that the wise men could have been there to see Jesus, up to two years after his birth in Bethlehem. We know that Jesus was circumcised in Jerusalem on the 8th day of his life so we can thus determine that Jesus was in the manger for less than a week.  Just long enough for Mary to recover and for Joseph to pay the taxes.  They then went to Jerusalem and did what the law instructed them to do for their new born son and offer all the appropriate sacrifices.   

 What would you assume that Joseph would have done then?  If you guessed go home you would probably be correct.  So here is the root of the problem, we have two different accounts of the birth of Jesus, the main account is found in Luke, but Matthew also provides us additional information.  The problem occurs when people try to combine these two accounts into one story when they are really two separate accounts.  In Matthew 2 we discover that the Magi were come from the east and they appear in Jerusalem, not Bethlehem.   We also discover that they talk with King Herod and stir up a hornet’s nest of controversies.  They are told that the messiah is prophesied to be born in Bethlehem of Judea.  I guess this is automatically assumed to be where they travel to, to see Jesus.  But that is not what the Bible says.

 Mat 2:11  and having come to the house, they found the child with Mary his mother,

 You can see in Matthew 2:11 that wise men show up at a house and not at a manger.  Who do you think this house belonged to?  You can assume many options, but the one that makes the most sense was it was Joseph’s house in his hometown Nazareth.   Here is the other interesting point to be made in this story, the Greek word translated as “child” does not mean baby or new born.  When Jesus was a baby in the manger he is called by a different Greek word.  You can look it up for yourself.  This Greek word actually means a half grown child.  So we can see that a lot of time has passed before the Magi make it to Jesus.

 All you have to do is read and study and you come up with the right story.  If you preach and teach the wise men showed up at the manger then you are either ignorant of the truth or you choose to preach a lie, either way the truth is oppressed for what you think and not for what the Bible actually says.  So when we see a manger scene with 3 wise men on camels we are looking at a lie, a fabrication of the truth.  How can the world learn to believe what a Christian is saying is the truth if what a lot of what they say is a lie.  Is it important to be truthful all the time?  I believe it is.  There are really so many other things we could look at in this story.  For example, no where does it say that there were 3 wise men.  Where did we get that in the story?  I assume it is because they brought 3 types of gifts and everyone assumes that every wise man had a different gift.  When we make such assumptions we again see how man can so easily get it wrong.  There could have been 100 wise men or 2 wise men both would fit in the Bible text that we read in Matthew.  My point is for us to be as precise to tell what the Bible actually says and for us to lose our traditions and what we thought was accurate.  When we start to teach the real truth the world will have a much better opportunity to see it and to accept it.

 I hope that you have a great Christmas Day.

Key to Understanding! God is into the Details

In discovering the hidden qualities of God I have discovered one of these to be significantly applicable to Bible Interpretation.  While God created a very diverse number and types of people with different talents, abilities, personalities and physical qualities we were all made in the image and likeness of God.  When people see Christians they should see the qualities of their Father so that they can come to know these hidden qualities of Him also.  So while studying the Bible I discovered that God cares a lot about the details.  I know some people look at the big picture only and they are happy with staying at the 1000 foot view of the scriptures.  Others I’ve found like to get the Word and look at it through a microscope so that they can fully understand every the little detail.  I get very frustrated sometimes when I listen to a preacher who preaches at the 1000 feet view level.  I constantly say to myself, that is not what God said.  I think overall it is what God said, but it is the fine little details that were omitted to potentially give the wrong impression of what God said.  I don’t think it is wrong to stay at the 1000 feet level, it’s just not for me.  You see when I read the scripture that told me God knows the number of hairs on my head, I very quickly realized that God cares about and pays very close attention to the most minute and trivial details of every area of our life.   If God is truly detail oriented to an extreme and I would say that He is, then this will help us in our understanding the Bible if we can apply a certain similar type of reasoning when we study the Bible.  It would immediately help you, if you just become aware of how God operates.  Just by knowing that God cares about the smallest of details will help you change your focus to potentially have a greater understanding of the Word of God, even though that might not totally fit your personality.

 My wife and I were eating out at a restaurant and we looked the menu over and placed our orders.  If didn’t matter what we ate or what we liked, then why was there someone asking us what we wanted?   I think sometimes people miss out on the basics of life, but we placed our order and asked for things to be prepared a certain way.  Something like a burger with mustard, lettuce and tomato.  So here is the rise of a huge potential problem, we were concerned with the details and someone either in the food service or preparation phase was not.   O sure we got the 1000 foot view of the burger delivered to us, but because someone either assumed incorrectly or didn’t hear the details and the end product was wrong.  Does it matter if your customer got something they didn’t order even though it was still pretty good and edible.    Sometimes customers are allergic to certain things like pickles and tell the server no pickles.  It they ate this it might make them sick or kill them.  Is that OK?  Is it important for food service and food preparation staff to be careful to follow directions?  If you don’t think so, you have a major problem.  You see if it matters how physical food is prepared it also matters how spiritual food is prepared and served.  There is no difference between the concept of both of these food sources.  The details matter a tremendous amount in both the preparation and the delivery of the Word of God.

 When I worked as a computer programmer I was very fortunate that God taught me to pay close attention to all of the details.  When you write software the details matters.  You can write a large routine correctly and it looks like it ought to work perfectly for what it was designed to do.  However, if you leave out even a single character like a semi-colon or a period it could change the logic so that it does not function correctly at all.  In my early years of mainframe computer programming I wrote a lot of code in COBOL.  The simple omission of a period in COBOL could cause huge problems and be extremely difficult to debug and correct.  Later on in work, I learned C++ and the omission of a semi-colon could also cause a similar major problem.  You see a principle here from software construction that the smallest little detail matters.  The omission of a single character can effect the outcome and actually make the rest of the code useless.  This principle actually applies to Bible interpretation whether you realize it or not.  You might not have followed my comments on writing software and find it hard to relate to my analogy, but I hope you at least understand the general concepts.

 You know what happens when you become detail oriented?  You start looking at every word in a style with much close observation and analysis.  Knowing the details doesn’t change the big picture, but it enhances your ability to understand and to teach it.  Attempt to rise to God’s level of detail analysis.  See the details like God intended you to see them.  Get into the details and it will change your perspective on the Word of God.

Understanding Bible Covenants! Part 1 Covenants and Marriage!

Most people who have read the Bible, know that the Bible is divided into 2 covenants.  The first is called the Old Testament and the other is called the New Testament.  The Word Testament is really just a synonymous term for the word covenant.   A last will and testament are what many people write to control what happens to their assets when they die.  This is an amazing realization of the Bible to some extent.  It is also important to know that these two covenants are completely different and separate from each other.  In fact each of these covenants involve 2 completely different individuals.  The two individuals of the Old Covenant are not the same two individuals of the New Covenant.  I know that statement will cause many to think.  What I am doing is being very specific and detailed oriented when I make that statement.   I don’t think a lot of people think that way when they read the Bible.  The Old Covenant was between God and the natural nation of Israel.   The New Covenant is between Jesus and the church.  One covenant was with the Father, the other covenant was with the Son.  I know it sounds like I’m nit picking because there is only one God made up of three personalities but it is an important designation to understand.  There is a difference in these two covenants.  I have heard that many think that the spiritual church was grafted into the natural Israel and therefore we have an integrated mixed up conglomeration of natural and spiritual individuals in covenant with God.  The body of Christ is made up  of a diverse conglomeration of individual members from every race and creed we can find on this planet.  But, that does not mean God has included The New Covenant and combined it with The Old Covenant.  Christianity is based upon morals and principles found in the Jewish Old Covenant but God has implemented a New Covenant that is so dissimilar that it is completely different while being completely the same.   One is a natural people and the other is with a spiritual people. 

You never say something is new without understanding that it is not the same as the old.  If I said I bought a new car, you automatically know it is not the car that I use to drive.  I still have a car, but the car that I have now is newer and different than the car that I use to have.  When God said I will make a New Covenant, you automatically know that it is not the same as the Old Covenant.  These are basic principles based upon basic logic.  But yet we have people teaching a wide variety of things that go against these truths.

Jer 31:31  Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:

Everyone reads this verse and automatically assumes God is talking about the natural nation of Israel.  This is of course a problem to make assumptions without studying to find out who God is talking about.  We have a widespread problem within the body of Christ of people taking a truth and attempting to make it the truth.  I really don’t know if you understood what I just said, or not?  We can find many truths in the Bible, but the Bible is much more complex than that.  For example, there are natural things and then there are spiritual things.  There are also multiple items called by the same name in the Bible.  Sometimes one of them is a natural item or location that reflects an image or a pattern of a spiritual reality.  God uses a wide variety of methods of concealing information and truths in the Bible.  In order to correctly understand what you are reading, you must understand how the Bible was written and why God concealed things in an encoded fashion.

Let’s get back to our subject, what is a covenant?  If we look in the dictionary we can see several definitions for the word covenant.  The basic definition of the word covenant is a formal sealed agreement or legal contract.  In many commercial loans from banks, the legal document produced between the bank and the customer often times contains covenants.  These are usually legal stipulations and requirements concerning the term and usage of the money loaned.  This is not representative of a Bible covenant.  Then if you’ve ever bought a piece of property in an established organized development, most of the time the property comes with a set of covenants.  These are usually  restrictions and rules of property usage. These often times tells you what kind of fences you can build, what kind of buildings you can add, even what colors you can paint your house.  This is not a Bible covenant either.

The Hebrew word translated as covenant occurs approximately 284 times in the Old Testament.  This word according to the Strong’s has the following definition:

From H1262 (in the sense of cutting (like H1254)); a compact (because made by passing between pieces of flesh): – confederacy, [con-]feder[-ate], covenant, league.

We can see that this word also means a legal contract, but it also has a basis founded on division or cutting of flesh.  You see in the definition that the word implies a knife that cuts.  This would also imply the flow of blood if you were cutting flesh.  The Abrahamic covenant in Genesis 15 involved the killing and splitting down the back bone of 3 different animals.  As you can imagine this would have been an extremely bloody mess.  Abraham cut the animals into two pieces and they were laid on the ground.  Then the covenant was made by walking between the pieces.  So a foundational principal of blood covenants involves cutting.  Dividing one piece into two.  This is very significant whether you realize it or not right now.  There is a principle being established with a Bible covenant.  It involves the creation of a covenant relationship between two individuals.  But it also involves a separation of those who are in covenant from those who are not in covenant.  Did you understand that statement?  It is very important that you do.  So why is this so significant?   In the Old Covenant, God made a covenant with the nation of Israel and they became God’s covenant people.  This automatically excluded everyone that was not of the nation of Israel as not being God’s people.  We can see the establishment of a division, a distinction between covenant people and non-covenant people.

The closest thing that we have to a Bible covenant in this world is a marriage between a man and a woman.  Of course modern marriages today can come with pre-nups and other legal restrictions that disqualify them from being an example of a Bible covenant.  In an example of a Bible covenant, the one party making the covenant with the other says, what I have is yours and what you have is mine.  There are no exclusions, exemptions, or exceptions, it is an all or nothing proposition.   It is a 100% commitment on both participants in the covenant.  You can also see by studying that there are different strengths of covenants in the Bible.   One of these is the blood covenant, which is the strongest covenant that can be made between two individuals.  David made a blood covenant with Jonathan in the Old Testament.  Even though Jonathan’s father Saul tried to kill David, David never retaliated against that family because of the covenant.  Even after Saul and Jonathan were killed, David tried to establish the blessings of the covenant with the descendants of Jonathan.  You can read these accounts of David in 2 Samuel and it has a story of how David wanted to honor the covenant he made with Jonathan.  David sends out his people to find a crippled boy named Mephibosheth to establish his covenant with Jonathan.  Mephibosheth was in hiding because he  thought that David was going to kill him, but David just wanted to bless him.  These are types and patterns of Jesus and the world.  Jesus came and died  to save the world and they are all afraid of him becuase they think that He just wants to kill them.  So we have a stand-off, the world in hiding and those who are sent out to tell them, Jesus loves you and wants to bless you.  Mephibosheth was eventually brought to the king’s palace and given the best of the best.  Because of the covenant that David made with Jonathan, Mephibosheth enjoyed what David enjoyed.  This is an example of  a Bible covenant, a blood covenant that describes Jesus and the church.

I guess this establishes that true Bible covenants have blessings attached to them.  If the one party of the covenant has need of something that the other one in the covenant has, it is available for them to freely use and partake of.  This is one of the key ingredients to a Bible covenant.  I think in most people’s minds today, a marriage means you also take the bad or the curses along with the good and the blessings.  But with covenants with God, He is always good and only provides us with blessings.  God does not intend harm or anything bad for any of us.  He wants to bless us with the good.  It is what a Bible covenant is all about.

Bible, covenants are always between two parties. exactly like a marriage is only between a husband and a wife.   It is important to note that covenants can be between a diverse type of individuals.   You will understand this better as we go on, but God many times considers a group of people such as the nation of Israel, to be identified corporately as a single entity, personality or individual.  Everyone in the nation is treated the same, given the same benefits and blessings.

Covenants can be between any of the following three groups or classifications of individuals:

1.  spiritual being to another spiritual being or a spiritual group of beings

• God and Lucifer
• Jesus and the Church

2.  spiritual being to a physical being or a physical group of people

• God and Abraham
• Satan and Adam
• God and Israel
• Satan and Israel

3.  physical being to physical being

• Natural husband and wife
• Adam and Eve
• Abraham and Sarah
• Abraham and Hagar
• David and Jonathan

I tried to give you some examples of some of the possibilities of each of these covenant relationship types.  I know you have probably have never heard of many of these covenants that I mentioned, but yet that doesn’t mean they don’t exist, it just means you never researched them and studied them to see if they exist.  I have done the research and I am convinced that every example that I gave you is a valid covenant found in the Bible.  There is of course one noteworthy difference in some of these covenants.  Covenants with God are a blessing and covenants with Satan are a curse.  God wants to bless you and Satan wants to kill, steal and destroy you and everything you have.  There are major distinctions and major differences between the party you are in covenant with.   I don’t know where you are or who you are, only you and God know where you are at right now and who you are in covenant with.  But I can guarantee that you are in covenant with someone right here and right now.

Some have tried to differentiate between covenants that involve God and covenants that don’t involve God.  But the principles and practices of Bible covenants apply across the board to whoever is in covenant with another.  So there really is no difference in the basic concepts of Bible covenants, they apply equally across the board to all participants.

What I will do now is to give you some scriptural backing for what these covenant types to help you understand them more completely.  Let’s start with  physical husband and wife type of covenant.  We call these covenants, marriages and in the eyes of God a marriage is a covenant relationship and a covenant relationship is a marriage.  If you asked me if I could I prove that by the Bible, I would say yes.  Let’s look at a verse found in Malachi, it is a verse that is certainly relevant to our subject:

Mal 2:14  Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the LORD hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant.

We can clearly see a relationship being established between a husband and his wife.  God chastises the man for mistreating his wife.  But he ends the verse with a statement that declares his wife to be in covenant relationship with him.   A husband and wife are the natural example of a Godly Bible blood covenant, or at least they should be.   It is funny how perverted our society has gotten.  So who were the first husband and wife?  Of course they were Adam and Eve in Genesis.  God created a natural covenant family as a pattern for us to see into the future spiritual realm.  Let us go back to Genesis 2 briefly and discover what God says about the law of marriage. 

Gen 2:23  And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

We can learn from this verse in Genesis that the woman is taken from a man and that her body is his body.  This is a natural pattern for a spiritual reality of Jesus and the church.  The church is called the body of Christ and most accept that reality without asking how the church got to be the body, if you want to learn more about this I would read my blog on the subject.  How the church became the body of Christ. 

Gen 2:24  Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.

In these two verses in Genesis a spiritual law is established by God that governs every true covenant relationship, both physical and spiritual.  God establishes a precedence that two will become one.  Either one flesh or one spirit, depending on the two parties in covenant.  If they are both physical, then they are one flesh.  If they are both spiritual then they are one spirit.  If one is a spirit being and one is a natural people, then they are the least common denominator, or one flesh but that is my opinion and I haven’t found that in the Bible yet.  I do know that the church is called the body of Christ and is also said to be one spirit with Christ.  We can learn that from these two dimensions Christ has joined with them both physically and spiritually.

So  a covenant represents a union as well as a division.  The taking of two separate individuals and making one out of them, with the exclusion of all the rest.  That is the basis of a Bible covenant.  Now what one has the other has.  What one has need of the and the other has, it is automatically made available without conditions or cost.  This is the foundation of a Bible covenant, how well does it fit your marriage?    So let’s shift focus to a Spirit being in covenant to a natural physical people example and see if it fits the pattern that I have described for you:

Jer 31:32  Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD:

Wow, this verse really blew me away!  God married to a natural people.  The verse speaks directly about a time when God led the people of Israel, out of the country of Egypt and He says He took them by the hand.  That is what a man does to a woman when he proposes marriage.  We can see that God took it that way, did Israel?  Obviously not.  Israel didn’t understand what they were getting into, even though it was the best offer they ever had, at least until Jesus came along.  God called himself the husband to the nation of Israel.   An omnipotent God married to a physical natural nation of people, both males and females.  That would make the nation of Israel the female wife to the LORD GOD.  I truly hope you are grasping the concepts of this lesson because they are so very important.   Could it really be possible that a spirit being could be in covenant to a natural nation of people.  Obviously it was true.  This was the Old Covenant, which was a pattern for the New Covenant.

Now I will show you briefly the New Covenant and see if it also fits the pattern that I have described as being a husband to a wife.  There are many scriptures that I could give you but the best one is found in Ephesians 5:

Eph 5:30  For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.

These verses in Ephesians 5 starting around verse 22 are specifically directed to husband and wife relationships.  Intermixed into this context of these verse is also the relationship of Christ and the church.  So we can clearly see that God believes that the church is the bride of Jesus Christ.  In verse 30 we read, we are members of His body.  Then it declares the words of the law of marriage found in Genesis 2, we are bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh.  These are marriage terms and direct conformation to how the church became the body of Christ.  Then in verse 31:

Eph 5:31  For this cause shall a man (Jesus) leave his father (God) and mother (Israel), and shall be joined unto his wife (church), and they two shall be one flesh.

We again see the law of marriage restated for us.  I filled in the blanks and put in parentheses who God is talking about.  I have had people question Jesus leaving His father and mother and being joined to His wife, but I just go by what the verse says. .  For we then see the realization to the truth in verse 32:

Eph 5:32  This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

God declares this covenant relationship to be a great mystery.  Obviously it has been greatly misunderstood even today.  There are many who refuse to believe the church is the bride, yet God tells us directly in verse 32 that He is speaking of Christ and the church as being a husband and a wife.  I’ve noticed that you can’t make people see the truth, you can only tell it like it is and hope they see it eventually.  I have given you three really great examples that describe covenants to be marriages and marriages to be covenants.  These included physical to physical marriages, spiritual to physical marriages and spiritual to spiritual marriages.  These are all examples of Bible covenants that fit the truth of the pattern given to us in the Word of God.

It is important to note who originates Bible covenants.  True Bible covenants are always initiated by the man and God is always the male in every relationship, except when we see the Son of God as being another male within the Triune Godhead.  The Triune Godhead is actually made up of three male personalities and all of them are One God.  In a normal human marriage the male asks the female to be his wife.  The female then has the choice to become one with this man or to walk away.  This is a picture and a direct pattern of the New Covenant relationship with the bridegroom Jesus Christ.  He has invited everyone on the planet to be in this covenant, He has proposed marriage and everyone on the earth has a choice to make, either to accept or reject.  A non decisions is of course the same as a rejection and a mistake with eternal consequences.

I hope that you are grasping these concepts, because they are truly great spiritual realities.  God created and  implemented natural things, systems, types and patterns to help us to see and understand spiritual things.  I think I will end this blog on that note for now and hopefully continue the lesson of what a Bible Covenants is, in my next blog.

The True Identity of the Woman in Revelation 12! Pt 8 Micah 4:6-10

If you have not been following this blog series from the beginning I would strongly recommend that you start at the beginning and read Part 1.  I know there are still many who are struggling with what I have shown you in the Word of God.  It is so difficult to get people to see new things.  They have been taught the woman in Revelation 12 is Israel and the man child is Jesus by so many people.  Men have stood up and taught this like it was the truth and obviously that is what they believed.  However, I have given you overwhelming evidence to the contrary.   Yet still people like their traditions better than the Word of God.  Paul and the apostles had to deal with this attitude and this attitude still exists in the hearts of many today.  I welcome you to find me wrong, study the Bible for yourself and discover the truth.  DO NOT take my word for anything, you look it up in the Bible and see if that is what God is saying to you.  I thought that my last blog would be the last blog on this subject but I decided to help skeptics a little bit more.  You see there are many Old Testament scriptures that I didn’t cover.  I primarily focused on what the New Testament said, but the New gives us insight into the Old and vice versa.  So let me continue this subject with some more Old Testament scriptures that I was told are related to the woman’s identity in Revelation 12.  Let’s look at some verses in the fourth chapter of Micah, from the prophet of God:

 Mic 4:10  Be in pain, and labour to bring forth, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail: for now shalt thou go forth out of the city, and thou shalt dwell in the field, and thou shalt go even to Babylon; there shalt thou be delivered; there the LORD shall redeem thee from the hand of thine enemies.

 So who is this woman in labor?  Who is the child that she brings forth?  These are fascinating verses, but ones that are so easily misunderstood.  If you have been reading the blogs on this subject I am going to be forced to repeat myself in order to explain the identity of this woman found in Micah.  Most Christians automatically associate Zion and Jerusalem to natural Israel.  However, I have given you numerous scriptures that have shown you there are 3 cities called Jerusalem.  Perhaps I need to explain them again. 

 Start by asking yourself this question?  Who are the children of Jerusalem?  Focus on the children of the city and not the city of Jerusalem.  We could of course say it is the Jews.  That would be correct if we were talking about the natural earthly city of Jerusalem.  But, who said that was the city that God was talking about?  You see people often times get into trouble by assuming too much, too fast.  There are three different cities in the Bible all called Jerusalem and here they are again:

1.  Earthly Jerusalem
2. Heavenly Jerusalem
3. New Jerusalem

 So when you read a verse of scripture about a city called Jerusalem you need to first ask God which one He is talking about.  All three of these cities represent Women in the family of God.  These are all separate, unique and distinct cities.  Everyone of these cities represent a different covenant relationship with God and a different family.  Children of the natural earthly Jerusalem are the natural Jewish people found on the earth still today.

 Mat 23:37  O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!

 These are the words of Jesus speaking about the earthly city of Jerusalem.  He speaks to her in terms of being a woman with children.  These are the natural children of the Jewish people that he was bringing the message of God to.  These are the children that mostly rejected the message and killed him.  What I want you to see from this verse is a woman with children.  Now let’s move on to the heavenly Jerusalem.

 Gal 4:26  But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.

 Now we see a direct contrast given to us.  This woman in Galatians is said to be a free woman.  Her location is given to us as being somewhere above this planet.  By reading the context of this verse we can see it is compared to the earthly Jerusalem who is the woman that is in bondage.  We can determine from these verses in Galatians that there are two distinct and separate cities, both called Jerusalem and both as we have seen are stated as having had children.  In fact the heavenly Jerusalem is said to be the mother of the church.  We can ascertain from that by logic that the heavenly Jerusalem is not the church.  We can see by further analysis of Galatians that the earthly Jerusalem is said to be a type of Hagar and that they heavenly Jerusalem is said to be a type of Sarah.  If you understand the story of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar you know that Sarah was much, much older than the slave woman Hagar.  We can therefore using logic again see that this heavenly Jerusalem prior to the earthly Jerusalem came into existence.  Are you following all of this?  This is important stuff.

 The Bible speaks about a new heaven and a new earth being created by God.  These verses also speak about the old heaven and old earth passing away.  Why is it necessary for God to do away with the old and start over?  It is a very perplexing question to ponder.  Nonetheless, that is what the Bible describes to us.  So I told you there were three cities in the Bible called Jerusalem so let’s find out about that one:

 Rev 21:2  And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

 We can clearly see a revelation of God being described to us in this chapter.   Here is the new Jerusalem, a city coming down from God.  This city is also a woman who is adorned for her husband.  We can see from this that there is an implied marriage.  So let’s start by asking who is the husband?

 Rev 19:7  Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the lamb is come, and his bride hath made herself ready.

 We can see in the Bible that the husband is the lamb of God.  Jesus of course is the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.  I’ve heard several ministers try to teach that since the church is the body of Christ, if Jesus has a bride then we have a bride also.  They try to place the church into the same class and gender as God.   You know the term bride of Christ technically doesn’t exist in the Bible.  No you see in Revelation it describes the bride as being the Lamb’s wife.  I don’t know about you but I have never heard the church called the Lamb of God, have you?  No, you see the church is not the groom, the church is the bride.  Here is what Jesus said on the subject of the identity of the bride:

 Rev 3:12  Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.

 Here we see Jesus speaking to the church, saying those that overcome He will write the name of this city called, the New Jerusalem.  If you don’t understand that statement.  I really can’t help you I guess.  The church is the New Jerusalem.  The church is the bride and wife of the Lamb of God.  The church is in covenant with Jesus.  A covenant in the eyes of God is a marriage.  God being the male, the people in covenant being the female.  This is how it worked in the Old Covenant and this is how it works in the New Covenant.

 So who is the mother of the church?  It is the heavenly Jerusalem according to Galatians 4:26.  So who is the church?  The church is the bride of the Lamb.  We can then logically deduce that the church is the daughter of the heavenly Jerusalem.  Where have we seen that term before?  Daughter of Jerusalem occurs several times in the Old Testament in fact it occurs directly describing the woman in labor in Micah 4:8:

 Mic 4:8  And thou, O tower of the flock, the strong hold of the daughter of Zion, unto thee shall it come, even the first dominion; the kingdom shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem.

 So who is the daughter of Zion?  Who is the daughter of Jerusalem?  It is the daughter of Jerusalem that is said to be in labor and not the mother Jerusalem.  Do you understand that statement?  Do you see that there is a difference between these two women?  If Jerusalem was pregnant, then she could be giving birth to a son or a daughter, but it says the daughter of Jerusalem is pregnant and she is about to give birth.  That is a different woman than those who have said this is Israel in Revelation 12.  If the woman in Revelation 12 is Israel, it would have said in Micah that Jerusalem is about to give birth.  It is critical that you understand who God is saying to be pregnant.

 Heb 12:22  But ye are come unto mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels,

 This statement written to the church of Jesus Christ informs us that we have come from Mt Zion, we are from the city of the living God called the heavenly Jerusalem.  The Heavenly Jerusalem is our mother, we are the daughter of the heavenly Jerusalem.  It also informs us that our mother is a spiritual mother, a city of spiritual beings.   Mary gave birth to Jesus, some 2000 years ago, the heavenly Jerusalem started giving birth to the church some 2000 years ago.  We can see from Revelation 12 that this is a prophetic birth that has not yet occurred.  This birth according to the prophet Micah is of the woman called the daughter of Jerusalem or we could also call her the New Jerusalem.  There is still so much to learn, if we open our hearts to the truth and let God teach us.  I know these lessons have been new and dramatically different than anything you  have ever heard before.  I know they are from God and not from me, so if you choose to reject them you are rejecting God and not me.  I have never been smart enough to think this stuff up.  This is my last blog in the series on the identity of the woman in Revelation 12 as being the church.

The True Identity of the Woman in Revelation 12! Pt 7 The Book of Ruth

This is now my seventh blog on this subject and I hope you have been following it from the beginning.  If not go to the beginning and start with Part 1, before you try to read this blog.  It will make much more sense if you take them in order.  In my last blog I scripturally pursued evidence if it says anywhere that Jesus could be a father and have spiritual children.  You see if it says in the Bible anywhere that Jesus doesn’t have children or simply does not say, then we would have no basis for the woman in Revelation 12 being the church.  I believe I showed you a few good scriptures in my last blog that Jesus can and does have a spiritual family and that this family can have children.  One of these scriptures was a Christmas card scripture about Jesus being called the “Everlasting Father” in Isaiah 9:6.  I hesitate to bring this point up, but nonetheless here I go again.  Why would you qualify the word “father” with the word “everlasting”?  Here we have a noun (father) being modified using an adjective called “everlasting”.  I thought God the Father was the Everlasting Father?  Everlasting means eternal or lasts forever.  The implication from that qualification is that God the Father is not the Eternal Father, Jesus is.  I don’t know everything, I just read and study the best that I know how.  I stay open to God and if He wants to teach me something about a verse I just try to listen.

 Now I want to make a turn and explore this subject from a completely different angle.  So many times God when he answers prayer He does so in a way that we were not expecting.  God gives us the answer to the prayer, but usually in a way that was different than what we would have done, or we would have like it to be done.  This is a lot of the time, the trouble with our Bible study techniques.  Instead of studying a subject from God’s perspective we want the Bible to fit our idea of the way it should be and therein lies the problem.  God is not like us, His ways are not our ways, His thoughts are not our thoughts.  But that does not mean that we cannot learn His ways and think His thoughts.  It just takes a renewing of our mind to know and understand the things of God.

 I will start this blog by saying that the child in Revelation 12 is God.  Every male child in the family of God is always God.  Every female in the family of God is always the people in covenant with God.  So if a spiritual woman has a spiritual male child it can only be God.  I just gave you some very basic concepts of spiritual things that I know I did not explain scripturally.  Right now you will have to trust that I know what I’m talking about.  If you keep reading my blogs we will eventually get there but it will take time.

 So today I want to explore the Book of Ruth.  The book of Ruth in the Old Testament has some absolutely fascinating information given to us in it.  If you have never read this book perhaps you should do that now, before you continue.  It is a short book, only 4 chapters so it will not take long to read through it and to gain a quick overview of it.  To those who have read it and think they know what it is about, let me briefly recap.  The primary subject of the book is a woman named Ruth.  This woman is a gentile woman, not in covenant with God, not born into or of the nation of Israel.   A gentile woman not in covenant with God, this is very important to understand.  The book of Ruth starts with the story of a family from Bethlehem.  Already we can see some parallels being developed.  Where was Jesus born?  Jesus was of course born in Bethlehem.   The story of Ruth starts with this family from Bethlehem leaving their home because of a famine.    Famine is a state of or the absence of natural food to eat. Natural food parallels spiritual food and gives us insight into a greater spiritual problem, but I won’t go there right now.  Any way this family consisted of the following family members:

1.  Elimelech, the father
2. Naomi, the mother
3. Mahlon,  a son
4. Chilon, a son

 This family of four members up and moves to a place called Moab and settles down.  There in that land the father dies and the two sons marry gentile women and they also die.  Now we have a family that consists of nothing but women who are left alone.  A Jewish mother with two daughter-in-laws.  One of the daughter-in-laws leaves and goes back to her family, but the other daughter-in-law made a wiser choice.  This woman named Ruth said to her Jewish mother-in-law, where you go I will go, where you live I will live and your people shall be my people and your God will be my God.  Ruth made a great choice and God honored her decision tremendously, by allowing her to become a great-great-grandmother of King David.  There are only 3 women specifically named in the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1 and Ruth is one of them.  God bestowed a great honor upon this woman Ruth for trusting in His Word.

 We can see a great story unfolding of a gentile woman not in covenant with God, speaking covenant words to be joined into the family of God.  All of these characters in this story I believe represent an allegory of a much higher spiritual reality.  God is giving us a look into the spiritual realm by analyzing this story.  This story is primarily about a gentile woman named Ruth and this woman is a type or pattern of the church.  Her mother-in-law Naomi is a type or pattern of the Nation of Israel.  Her Father-in-law is a type or pattern of God.  Earlier I told you that males in a family represent God, females represent women in covenant with God.  In this story of Ruth, we see that the father as well as the sons all die.  When Jesus died on the cross who really knew what this meant?  Obviously Satan didn’t know.    I do want to explore this subject, but I cannot do that without a huge study that would cause me to get off of our current subject subject so I have to leave that for a future blog.

 Now let me go into what Ruth is primarily about.  You see everything that I said up until this point is just the introduction to the main subject found in Ruth.  The main story line concerns the law of the kinsman redeemer.  If you read chapter one of Ruth you saw Naomi make a statement to Ruth that she was too old to have children for Ruth to wait around and marry.  You see in Jewish families if a son married a wife and died without children it was the responsibility of the nearest relative, a brother to marry the widow to raise up heirs for his dead brother.  This is the foundational basis of the story of Ruth.  What hope does Ruth have by hanging around her mother-in-law?  Where does Ruth place her trust in her destiny and future?  It is in the law of God.  God’s Word declared that a relative was responsible to come into the picture and marry the widow to have children.  Notice what I just said?  The reason for the marriage was to have children.  This is so significant that you cannot even begin to image what it all means.  Ruth is a type of the church, Boaz the kinsman redeemer is a type of Jesus Christ, our redeemer.  Boaz takes Ruth the gentile to be his wife with a covenant of marriage for the purpose of having children and they become the great-great-grand-parents to David.  This is amazing stuff if you are understanding the implications.  All of these concepts are found in the law in the book of Numbers and if you read through them closely you should begin to understand some of the spiritual implications to these words:

 Num 27:6  And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,

Num 27:7  The daughters of Zelophehad speak right: thou shalt surely give them a possession of an inheritance among their father’s brethren; and thou shalt cause the inheritance of their father to pass unto them.

Num 27:8  And thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a man die, and have no son, then ye shall cause his inheritance to pass unto his daughter.

Num 27:9  And if he have no daughter, then ye shall give his inheritance unto his brethren.

Num 27:10  And if he have no brethren, then ye shall give his inheritance unto his father’s brethren.

Num 27:11  And if his father have no brethren, then ye shall give his inheritance unto his kinsman that is next to him of his family, and he shall possess it: and it shall be unto the children of Israel a statute of judgment, as the LORD commanded Moses.

 You see God goes through a long discourse of how to distribute the inheritance of a family when the father dies.  Who is our spiritual Father?  Oh well I am sure I will have some say God the Father cannot die but I will not argue with you.  You either see it or reject it, you choose.  Any way in the law, if the father dies the inheritance begins to go to the children starting with the firstborn.  Then if there are no children it is interesting to note that we start with the nearest relatives, uncles and then cousins.  We can see a hierarchical order of inheritance being established.  God is establishing a law of precedence in the natural realm to demonstrate how He will do something later in the spirit realm.  I would like to ask those skeptics out there this question.  Did you ever notice in the New Testament that  we, the church are called joint heirs with Christ?  What is an heir?  An heir is someone who inherits after someone else died.  Get it?  Uh oh?  Who died to leave us an inheritance?  What was that, which we inherited?  How did this inheritance follow the law in Numbers that we just read.  There are just so many questions to think about, isn’t here?

 So the story of Ruth is a natural pattern to a much greater spiritual truth.  We can see Ruth is the pattern of the church marries the redeemer Boaz a pattern of Messiah in order to raise up children for the dead husband and father.  So how does all of this relate to other scriptures in the Bible?  I’ll end this blog with this related reference found in the New Testament:

 Rom 7:1  Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?

Rom 7:2  For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.

Rom 7:3  So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.

Rom 7:4  Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.

 Here we have a passage related to the law of marriage.  These verses have widespread spiritual implications written all over them.  Did you notice who they were written to?  Paul writes these verses to those under the law.  He actually says those that “know” the law (Rom 7:1).  To “know” something is a statement related to a covenant relationship.  I’ll try to do a blog in the future explaining that statement in more depth.   We can see that Paul is writing these verses to his natural brothers of the nation of Israel.  So while the book of Romans was written to the church, these verses pertain only to the natural Jews.  It is very important to see this.  The law stated that a woman who was married could not be married to another man as long as the first husband was alive or she would be called an adulteress.  But the woman whose husband is dead is free to marry another (Rom 7:3).  So what does God say to those who were under the law?  God told them that they are now free to marry another, and this one that they should marry is the one that God raised from the dead, Jesus Christ.  Are you following the reasoning and logic of these statements?  Because Jesus Christ was crucified, these verses claim that their former husband was killed or died.  That is what Romans 7:4 is telling them.  The crucifixion of Jesus now freed them from the law to be in covenant with the risen man Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  A marriage to the Son and not the Father.  We can clearly see that these verses do not apply to gentile believers because they were never under the law  or in covenant with God.  The gentiles were never in or under the law and therefore were free to be married to whomever they choose.  However, the natural nation of Israel was given the law on Mt Sinai through Moses and this law established many boundaries that they are forced to abide with as long as refuse to accept the Messiah.   Let me briefly go back to the book of Ruth and tell you about a statement that Ruth makes that reveals to us the principal of these statements in Romans 7:

 Rth 1:17  Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.

 Ruth makes a statement of truth that has widespread implications.  You can see from the statement that death represents a dividing line.  Death causes a separation of one person from another person.  Only death can separate us, Ruth said.  This is an incredible revelation if you apply it correctly and understand it fully.  Ruth gives us a secret to how God will separate himself from Satan.  Only by his death will the wife be freed from the law of her husband.  Death represents a division between two connected individuals.  Through death a legal separation occurs between two people who are in a marriage covenant.  It is important to know that God does all things in a legal, orderly manner.

 There is so much more that we could discuss about these verses, but I wanted to show you another set of verses that speak about God experiencing death for us.  The death of Jesus has so much more meaning than we have ever imagined.  That means we have an inheritance that must be distributed according to the law.  Ruth is a story that has so many great truths in it, that I did not get to them all in this blog.  Hopefully you will continue to study the book and see the other details that God reveals to us.   For example, Boaz must go to a closer relative and ask him if he wants to marry the gentile woman.  The closer relative refuses to marry Ruth because it will mess up his inheritance, so he thinks.  Who is this closer relative representative of in the spiritual realm.  How does this pattern fit into the redemptive work of Christ?  Then there is this fact found again in the genealogy of Jesus again.  I told you earlier this list only contains the names of 3 or 4 women and they are have significance and meaning to Jesus.  Boaz was a type of Jesus.  Who is Boaz’s mother?  Boaz is the son of Rahab the harlot.  That is also significant in the typology analysis.  Who was Jesus born of?  Israel is also called a harlot in Old Testament books like Hosea.  There are so many more things to consider.  If you dig really deep you can find so many valuable truths.

 So I have attempted to give you scriptures that show why the woman in Revelation 12 is pregnant and who this child is and why He must be delivered.  The child in Revelation 12 has widely been taught to be Jesus Christ, but the typology and symbolism in the rest of the chapter does not fit the natural birth of the Messiah.  So we have to look for spiritual truths and spiritual reasons to identify the male child and hopefully I have pointed you in the right direction.  I know I did not cover everything in its entirety and I know there is absolutely no way that I could do that even if I wanted to.   Only God knows everything and we only see things through a glass darkly and only truly understand what God wants us to understand, when He wants us to understand it.  I believe that we have so much more to learn.

Key to Understanding! Realizing That Only God Knows Everything

When studying the Bible, we discover some of theological qualities of the deity of God.  This is sometimes overlooked when we just read the Bible, but knowing these characteristics can help in our understanding of God’s Word.  We should always start by knowing that God is the only deity power that knows everything and we should then realize that we are not him.  This is a very basic truth, but I’ve heard some preachers get up and make statements, that sounds like they are God.  For example, I heard more than one preacher say something like “Search the Bible and you won’t find anything that says blah, blah, blah”.   This is about as an idiotic of a statement as anyone can make.  I can only say that God is the only one that is qualified to make a statement like that since He is the only one that knows everything that the Bible says.  Men sometimes act like they have searched and because they haven’t found anything, that means there is nothing about that subject in the Bible.  Here is a truth that you should be aware of, in the New Testament Paul wrote “For we know in part”.  If Paul knew only a part of the truth, I would venture to say that we only know a part of the part that Paul knew.  I won’t call names in this blog but I will give examples. 

 I heard a minister say, you can search the Bible and you won’t find anything in it that says the church is the bride of Christ.  What an idiot.  Who does he think he is?  Obviously he thought he was God who knows everything about the Bible.  What people don’t realize is the complex ways that God uses in the Bible to conceal subjects.  God uses a multitude of different methods to make the Bible a giant puzzle. There is symbolism, typology, analogies, patterns, parables, a multitude of ways to call the same object by the same name,  there are multiple things called by the same name, there are independent truths, dependent truths, and on and on I could go.  Guess what, I did what he said, I searched the Bible and I found a bunch of scriptures that confirmed the identity of the church as the bride of Christ and just because he didn’t see them, it doesn’t mean they don’t exist.  What he did was he made a statement that caused a lot of not so capable or mature Christians to believe something that the Bible doesn’t say.  What he did was contribute to the confusion and the divisions that are already well ingrained into the body of Christ.  After I studied the subject, I have a hard time understanding how they miss it and don’t see it.  This is such a problem that men make this mistake more often than they realize and this is the root cause of the majority of the divisions within the church.  One group sees a truth, the other groups don’t.  It would be nice if men only taught things that were really truth.   I’ll end with one more example of arrogant idiocy.  I heard a minister make this statement, “This woman is Israel, you can’t make this woman any other identity because it won’t harmonize with the rest of scripture”.  Do you understand what an arrogant statement that is?  He doesn’t know the rest of the scripture, so how can he make a statement like that?  All he did was contribute to a falsehood using his opinion of the truth.  He was talking about the identity of the woman in Revelation 12.   After I studied the subject I didn’t have clue how he could have made that statement.  He didn’t give any scriptures or backing for the statement, he just said it like it was Gospel and therefore everyone was suppose to believe it.

 I don’t fault these teachers that I just gave you as an example, for they truly think and believe they are right.  The Bible is however so much more complex than it appears on the surface.  So instead of telling people what the Bible doesn’t say, concentrate and focus on what God tells you that it does say and only teach that.  We have so many examples, of this in the church it would be impossible to include every example.  So what is the low hanging fruit of this topic?  Teach what you know and not what you think you know.  If you make a statement make sure you can provide the verses to back the statement.  If you can’t do that then it is wise to keep your mouth shut.

The True Identity of the Woman in Revelation 12! Pt 6

We have been exploring the identity of the woman in Revelation 12.  In my last blog I know I left a lot of people hanging because I just couldn’t go into the detail that I needed to explain it thoroughly.  It is very difficult and challenging to teach a subject that is highly complex and is so totally new to everyone.  I feel I need to give Bible reasons for everything that I say and I only can do that in a limited time and space.  So I try to balance not taking up too much of your time with getting enough details in to confirm everything that I say.  If you are a pastor, I am sure you know what I am talking about.  If you have not been following this series from the beginning, I would strongly recommend that you go back and start with Part 1.

 So rather than rehashing my last blog, please allow me to approach this subject in a way that you might not expect.  I think that if it is as we have seen that this woman in Revelation 12 is the church and if she is married and in covenant with the risen savior Jesus Christ, that we should determine if this man Jesus can have spiritual children?  I think you might be surprised to find that He can.  Let us first start with some Bible basics.  We know that Jesus is the Son of God, the second person of the triune Godhead.  The Trinity of God being comprised of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  These three unique personalities make up the One True Living God.   Three personalities, but One God.

 Heb 12:9  Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?

 We can clearly see that God is called the Father of spirits in this verse in Hebrews.  We should immediately try to determine who are these spirits that God is said to be the Father of.  By implication we can see that this verse at least implies that every spirit has their origin from God.  We can say this includes every spirit of every man, woman and child on the planet.  But, I would also say that this includes every angelic or demonic spirit that exists also.  All of these are spirit beings, had to originate from the Father of spirits.  That to me is just basic logic.  So if God is said to be the Father of spirits, can the son also be a father of spirits?  I think that is an interesting concept to consider.  Think of it this way, God created natural physical things to a mirror into, as shadows, as types or as patterns after spiritual things.  These natural things point us to and give us glimpses into a realm of spiritual possibilities that we cannot see.

 So what did God create in this world?  Adam and Eve were the beginning of the human race and they had children and probably lots of them.  But, certainly Cain and Abel came from Adam and Eve.  These two first parents were patterns of spiritual things to come.  Adam produces a pattern of a father to every natural living human being on this planet.  Adam you could call the father of the human race.  Whatever happens to Adam, happens to everyone that comes from Adam.  Adam had a child and his son had a child.  This is also a pattern of something to come.  There is a spiritual truth being implied here that anything that happens to God the father happens to every spiritual descendant or child of their spiritual Father.  That was a major clue to why Satan should not have killed Jesus Christ, if you didn’t understand it, I’m sorry.  I don’t have time to explain it right now.   The current subject is about spiritual fathers and sons and can they have children.  If God the Father can have children, then God the Son can also have children.   This is just basic reasoning and logic based upon patterns we see from God’s creation.  I do hope you are following my logic.  But, let us take a look at what the Bible says, here are some interesting verses that pertain to our current subject:

 Eph 2:18  For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.

Eph 2:19  Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God;

 These verses in Ephesians gives us two valuable conformations, first that God is the Father and that he also has a family.  God’s household is comprised of a family of spiritual beings in heaven.  These are representative of the pattern that God implemented with Adam and Eve’s household and family on the earth.   A natural family with natural parents giving birth to natural children.  All of these are patterns for spiritual truths concerning spiritual families.

 Now let’s explore this logic scripturally and see if it holds water.  We need to see if there are any scriptures that speak about Jesus being a father.  Let’s start this analysis with this scripture in Hebrews:

 Heb 3:6  But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.

 When I read this verse I almost missed what it was saying.  It is so interesting that I studied it for a long time until God showed me what it was really saying.  You see this verse is speaking of Jesus our Lord, the Son of God.  This verse declares that Jesus has established a new house.  This is a new house that didn’t exist before.  But what does it mean when it says house?   A new house implies a new family.  In fact if you look up the word “house” in the Strong’s you will find that it means “a family”.  Why did God have to establish a new spiritual family through Jesus Christ?  Apparently there was some problems with the old spiritual family of God.  Without getting into the details, because I would have to write you a book, we need to realize that God’s spiritual family included all of the spiritual beings, angels, Michael, Gabriel, and Satan (Lucifer) and his demons prior to Jesus coming and dying on the cross.  Remember that the Bible says that Satan would not have crucified Jesus if he had known the consequences for killing him (1 Cor 2:8).  You can see from that scripture that something happened on the cross to cause Satan to be very unhappy with the outcome.  Something happened that affected him directly and personally.  I wish I could go into in more depth but I just don’t have the time right now.  I did give you a major clue earlier on this subject so I hope you can put the pieces together and seek the answers for yourself or you can what until I have time to get into it. 

 So we can see from Hebrews 3:6 that Jesus has established a new family unit of God.  Let me ask you this basic question, that I guess many don’t know in the world today, but what constitutes a family?  What is a family defined as?   What does a family unit consist of?   I believe according to the Bible definition, a family is a man and his wife and their children.  If you try to define a family any other way, you are wrong.  Hollywood and television want to redefine marriage and modern families.  There is even a new TV show called Modern Family that promotes the homosexual lifestyle and other abnormal behaviors.  But we have to stick with what God thinks, God’s definition of marriage and family and only go by that.  Jesus when confronted on the subject of marriage and divorce said, “can’t you read?  in the beginning God created them male and female.”  That of course was my paraphrase, but nonetheless it is the basic concept that was conveyed.  We know that Adam and Eve were a natural pattern for Christ and the church.  At least, I know that.  We can see that God calls Jesus Christ the last Adam in the New Testament (1 Cor 15:45).  God connects Jesus to the pattern of Adam directly.  We can definitely see that Adam was a natural pattern of the spiritual Jesus.  Adam had one wife who was the body of Adam, Jesus has one wife who is the body of Christ.  Here is what God says:   

Rom 5:14  Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.

What is the subject of this verse?  It is directly related to Adam and God says Adam is a pattern of Jesus to come.  If Adam had children then Jesus can have children.  There are many other parallels and patterns that we could explore, but let’s continue with our subject study or can Jesus have children.

 We know from Hollywood and a non-Christian author named Dan Brown that Satan has attempted to say that Jesus who was a man, had a sexual relationship with a woman on the earth and had children.  I often times wondered why it was important for Satan to try to plant these misdirected seeds in the minds of people on the earth.  Satan rarely does anything that does not have a purpose.  I believe it is an attempt to distract us from the truth.  True Christians will always reject that Jesus had a sexual relationship with a natural woman, but what else does the Words of Dan Brown do to us?  They automatically cause you to reject any other new assertion that Jesus could be a spiritual father of a spiritual child.  The automatic conclusion would be, if we reject the physical child birth we must also reject a spiritual child birth. But here is the main difference, we reject the physical child birth because it is not in the Bible.  So we should see if the spiritual child birth is in the Bible.

 We can see so many verses that give widespread implication of the establishment of a new family of God if we look for them.  Here is a verse that speaks to us along these lines:

 Gal 6:10  As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.

 Using logic again we can see this verse speaks of two divisions of people.  Those who believe and those who believe not.  Those who believe are a people in a new family or a new household of faith.  This word “household” literally means a close relative, those who are in the same family.  But this is not just any family this is His family, the family unit of Jesus Christ.  Those that have believed on Him.

  So we have seen scriptures that indicate Jesus has established a new family of God and that this family is a spiritual household.  So does Jesus Christ have children?  Here is another scripture that I found absolutely fascinating:

 Isa 9:6  For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

 This verse is absolutely more proof that people read things and don’t see what it says.   I’ve had this verse printed in a bunch of my Christmas cards and I didn’t see it for a long time.  Did you see it?  Is this verse about Jesus Christ?  Sure it is!  Since it is currently the Christmas season, we can certainly see that Jesus, the Son of God is being called a father.  This verse in Isaiah 9:6 calls Jesus Christ the “Everlasting Father”.  Do you understand the implications behind that little statement?  I doubt very seriously that you do.  You can’t be called a father, unless you have children.  That is a Bible fact.  There are two kinds of fathers in the Bible, one is a natural father and the other is a spiritual father.  A natural father is only someone that has sown natural sperm into a natural woman and she has conceived and has given birth to a natural child.  Then he is a called a father.  Spiritually speaking a pastor, a priest or a bishop could be a spiritual father.  All of the apostles were considered spiritual fathers.  Paul was considered a spiritual father.  In fact any Christian can sow spiritual seed into a non-Christian and if they believe and Christ is conceived in them, then they also become a spiritual father.    You see there are spiritual families as well as natural families.  That means there are spiritual seeds that were sown into the hearts of men and women and they have believed and accepted Jesus as Lord.  The spiritual process follows a pattern of the natural process so that we can understand it.

 I have probably gone too long on this blog, but I hope you realize how difficult it is to give you just a little bit and not cover a subject with adequate scriptural backing.  If it is just my opinion it is not worth a dime, but if it is God’s Word, then you cannot dismiss it or write it off, unless you are stupid.  All we have seen so far is the possibility that this child in Revelation 12 is a child of the church and Jesus, we have not really concluded who the child is, so please realize it will take more time for me to explain what God has taught me.  We will continue with the subject of the identity of the woman in Revelation 12 in my next blog.

The True Identity of the Woman in Revelation 12! Pt 5

In my last blog I went into verses found in Revelation 12 that described qualities and features of the woman.  These descriptive terms spoke of those that overcame with the blood of the Lamb, the word of their testimony, those that kept the commandments of God and those who possessed the testimony of Jesus Christ.  I provided a number of verses that all demonstrate these qualities are describing the church.  I also said that in this blog that I would start the process of identifying the man child that this woman in Revelation 12 delivers.  I do not think that I will be able to get to everything that I wanted to today, but we will get there eventually.  If you have not read this series from the beginning I would strongly suggest that you go to the beginning and start there.

 First, I want to briefly address a difficult comparison without going into a lot details about the subject.  In other verses in chapter 12 we can clearly see that the woman is persecuted by Satan.  We can see a hatred and anger directed at the woman.  Satan is said to be at war with this woman.  I believe those statements can and do apply to both Israel and the Church equally and is therefore is one reason why people have said this woman in Revelation 12 must be natural Israel.  However, from my study in the Bible, there are two completely different reasons why Satan is persecuting these women.  Both of these reasons revolve around Satan being motivated by a need for self-preservation.  If you haven’t figure it out, Satan knows that his time is short (Rev 12:12).  He is doing everything that he can to stop the plan of God and save himself from being cast into hell.  I could go into this in much more depth, but I believe I will save that for possibly a future Bibles study topic.  Just keep in mind that both women are being persecuted by Satan so both qualify based upon that to be the woman in Revelation 12.  But as we have seen in other verses in this chapter everything must line up in order to conclude the true identity of the woman.  We can’t just take a part of the chapter and say this is this woman based upon a part of the chapter.  That is why I will now try to continue to explore the subject of why the woman is pregnant? 

 This of course will be something new, as if nothing that I have said is something new.  Oh well, here we go.  If the woman is a spiritual symbolic reference like I believe she is being the church, then the child also has to be a spiritual child and not a physical child.  That is just basic logic and it is also what the Word of God says.   Jesus said that which is born of flesh is flesh and that which is born of spirit is spirit (John 3:6).  Taking what Jesus said we can see that this woman has to be either one natural woman with a natural child or one spiritual woman with a spiritual child and you can’t mix them up.  If you try to mix them up you violate God’s Word.  You can’t have a spiritual woman giving birth to a physical child and you can’t have a natural woman giving birth to a spiritual child.  So who or what was Jesus born as?  Of course he was born as a natural physical man in Bethlehem from the natural woman called Mary.  The Bible says the Word was made flesh.  Jesus was born of the flesh as a natural man.  So Jesus was a physical man born of the flesh, even though he was still the Son of God.   Jesus always made a point of calling himself the “son of Adam” or the “son of Man”.  If you have read my blog you already know that Adam and man are the same Hebrew word.  So if it is as most Bible teachers have declared, that this child in Revelation 12 is Jesus the Christ, if that is true then we are forced to conclude that the symbolic woman has to be Mary his natural mother.  You see that which is born of flesh (Mary) is flesh (Jesus).  I don’t know if you are following my logic or not.  Me, being a computer programmer I am a highly logical thinker and God uses this to teach me things in the Bible.   If you are not a logical thinker then you are probably struggling with this paragraph.   What you should take away is this, if this child in Rev 12 is Jesus the natural man  he had to be born of a natural woman called Mary.  But Jesus the risen Savior was born from above.  Jesus is called the firstborn from the dead (Col 1:18).  Jesus himself said that a man must be born again in order to see the kingdom of God (Jo 3:3).  Knowing that Jesus is a man, he included himself into that statement.  Any man in heaven must have been spiritually born again in order to get there.  I know this is a difficult side trip but one that has spiritual significance if you can see it.  If the child is a spiritual child, like I believe it is, then the mother has to be a spiritual mother and wife.  I told you the Bible was complicated and there are many potential interpretations, but still only one truth.  Let us therefore strive to understand the truth.

 So can a spiritual woman have spiritual children?  Of course she can and here is the scriptural precedence for that statement:

 Rev 1:5  And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood,

 Jesus in this verse is called the first born from the dead.  This is obviously a spiritual birth and not a natural birth, yes?   If Jesus is born of the Spirit, then that demands by logical deduction the existence of a spiritual mother.  That which is born of spirit is spirit!  The implication is that a spiritual woman existed, prior to the resurrection of Jesus in order to  give birth to him.  This also shows us that a spiritual woman existed prior to the church.  This woman is assumed to be mature enough to give birth to children.   Are you following my logic?  These are all awesome statements of truth.  So who is this woman that is mature enough to give birth to a risen Lord Jesus Christ?   Here is another verse that God gives us in Romans that sheds more light on the subject:

 Rom 8:29  For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

 Again we see Jesus called the firstborn, but this time it says there is a second born, a third born and on and on we go.  It actually says Jesus has many spiritual brothers and sisters.  What we see is another implied reference to a spiritual woman that gives birth to these spiritual children.  This is such an important concept to fully grasp and understand.  Now let us figure out who this mature spiritual woman is that gave birth to all of these spiritual children:

 Gal 4:26  But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.

 This of course is a scripture that has been bypassed for lack of understanding for a very long time.  We can see that this verse is speaking to the church directly so we can conclude that the church are the spiritual children that is being referred to.  If we apply the logic that only spirit beings can have spirit babies, then the woman mentioned here, this Jerusalem has to be a mature spiritual woman.  We can also see the location of this woman as being somewhere above.  Meaning it is not the earthly Jerusalem or any other place on our planet.  Now some might try to conclude that this is the New Jerusalem, but it cannot be.  You see I haven’t told you directly yet, but the church is the New Jerusalem.  By using basic logic, a mother has to exist prior to having children.  A woman does not give birth to herself.   If Jesus was the firstborn from the dead, his spiritual mother had to exist prior to that birth.   If the church is the new Jerusalem, there is no way it could be the mother of Jesus, it is said to be his wife in Revelation 21:2.   So what is this Jerusalem that is above?  We can see another reference to this in Hebrews:

 Heb 12:22  But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels,

 You can clearly see that this city Jerusalem is said to be the city of the living God.  It is the current location of heaven where God has his throne.  This city as it says in this verse in comprised of an innumerable company of angels.  What we see is a pattern being given to us of a spiritual city, with a heavenly location with a lot of angels in it.  This is the spiritual mother of the Jesus and the church.  This woman existed a long time before the earthly Jerusalem ever existed.  Here again are the cities that we have just confirmed:

1. Earthly Jerusalem
2. Heavenly Jerusalem
3. New Jerusalem

 So what we have is the clear reference in the Bible to three completely different cities, all called Jerusalem and all three in covenant relationship with God at some point in time.  I know this is complicated and totally new to most of you, but you don’t know everything that I do and I can’t teach you everything that I know all at once.  What you need to realize is that there is a spiritual woman called the heavenly Jerusalem that has given birth to a spiritual daughter called the New Jerusalem and both of these women are not related to the earthly Jerusalem.  The next thing that you should realize is that if one spiritual woman can have children, then another spiritual woman can also have children.  I know I have a lot of explaining to do and hopefully I will get to it in a future blog.

Key to Understanding! Seeing the Big Picture

I think in order to correctly interpret the Bible you need a good understanding of Bible concepts and themes.  The Bible is probably the most complex book that you will ever read or attempt to understand.  That statement might surprise many.  You see I base that statement upon the clear evidence of the number of splits and divisions within the body of Christ that we see everywhere.  What other religion in the world do you see such widespread division?   Can you name any?  I know Islam has two basic groups and maybe a third group of extremist.  But look through the phone book yellow pages and see how many different types of Christian churches you find listed.  In some large cities you could be looking for a long time.  The Bible contains simple truths but even these are not always clearly presented.   However, I believe that we have to understand some basics before we can begin to understand any of the more complex subjects of the Bible.

 What are the primary themes and subjects of the Bible?  I would say that we should start by saying the Bible is predominantly about Jesus Christ.  In other words Jesus Christ is the central theme to the entire Bible.  You should be able to find Jesus in every chapter of the Bible in some form.  Jesus as a central theme occurs very frequently in every book of the Bible.  This is one of the primary keys to understanding and interpreting the Bible correctly.  There are certainly many other central themes that are found throughout the Bible and I will not attempt to name them all.  If you would like to leave a comment on this blog about a central theme that you see as important, please do that and share it with the rest of us.

 The Bible is written much like a weaver would create a fine tapestry.  There are threads of truth woven throughout the scriptures.  These truths are woven among other truths and intersect at specific points of the textual fabric.  Like a tapestry, these threads woven correctly project a larger image and a picture that can only be seen after stepping back and looking at it from a distance.  If you stand too close you always miss the big picture.  If you only study the big picture, you always miss the details.  Biblical themes should be prevalent throughout the scripture and help you to clearly see the big picture.  The big picture themes should always help you to understand the details.  There is a unique harmony and balance between the two.   For example, Jesus said in the Gospels, I give you a new commandment and he told us of the commandment of love.  In this he also told us that love fulfills all of the law.  So we should recognize that the God who is Love, is a central theme of the Bible and you should see love in action as you read the rest of the Bible.  God gives us the definition of the Agape kind of love in 1 Corinthians which I have included from the Amplified version of the Bible:

•  Love endures long
• and is patient and kind;
• love never is envious
• nor boils over with jealousy,
• is not boastful or vainglorious,
• does not display itself haughtily.
• It is not conceited (arrogant and inflated with pride);
• it is not rude (unmannerly) and does not act unbecomingly.
• Love (God’s love in us) does not insist on its own rights or its own way,
• for it is not self-seeking;
• it is not touchy or fretful or resentful;
• it takes no account of the evil done to it
• [it pays no attention to a suffered wrong].
• It does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail.
• Love bears up under anything and everything that comes,
• is ever ready to believe the best of every person,
• its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances,
• and it endures everything [without weakening].
• Love never fails
• [never fades out
• or becomes obsolete
• or comes to an end].

 So the challenge is to find the big picture themes of the Bible and then interpret the details in context with the big picture.  You might think this doesn’t sound difficult, but you will soon discover that things on the surface are not always as easy as you might think.  Hopefully I will get back to blogging on the Identity of the Woman in Revelation 12, tomorrow.   God Bless.

The True Identity of the Woman in Revelation 12! Pt 3

Ok, in my last blog I talked about the identity of the symbolic moon in Revelation 12 as being Satan.  This information has been encoded into the Bible by God using some very tricky techniques.  One of these techniques that God has used, is the way that He calls the same person or spiritual entity by many different names, titles and descriptions.  If you have ever studied the Bible you know that Satan is referred to as the serpent, the great dragon, the devil, the father of lies, the ruler of darkness, the god of this world, the deceiver, the thief, the accuser of the brethren, and as we saw in my last blog, the moon.  That of course is not a complete list, but just an example of what I am talking about.  There are many reasons why God has done this, but one of the main reasons is to allow Him to reveal the true meaning at the appointed time.  The Old Testament was full of the prophecies of the coming Messiah, but yet Satan didn’t understand them neither did any of the Jews who kept the scrolls.  God went through and completely revealed them to the apostles and Paul only after Christ was risen from the dead and ascended into heaven.  There is a reason for this and it also establishes a pattern  of how God works and give notice that can do it again if He so chooses.   You might call it God’s modus operandi.   God has given to us a huge book of information, which contains a countless number of  prophetic scriptures and God can reveal them to us even now and I believe that is what He is doing.

 In Revelation 12:1 we saw a descriptive picture or a woman being given to us.  For emphasis I believe that I should review these featured elements.  This woman is said to have the following characteristics:

1.  A head with a crown of 12 stars
2. A body clothed with the Sun (the Greater Light)
3. Her feet standing on the moon (the lesser light)
4. Finally, the location of the woman is said to be heaven

 I hope you can agree with those statements, because they are all so very significant.  We have seen that the body (the church) is clothed with Jesus Christ who is the symbolic Sun.  We have seen that the woman’s feet is on the ruler of the darkness, the moon, who is Satan.  I have given you numerous scriptures to back these explicit and implicit asserted truths.  Knowing this revelation and understanding it will now help us to clearly identify the woman.

 Today I want to explore the identity of the moon from a different perspective and see if we can establish precedence in the scripture for Satan to be under the feet of the Church (the body of Christ).  After all the woman in Revelation 12 is said to have the moon under her feet, and where are the feet, nowhere but in a body?  Let’s start by asking what does it mean to have something under foot?  It is a clear symbolic reference to order and a sign of triumphant victory over an enemy.  God told Joshua in the Old Testament, everywhere the sole of your foot shall tread, I have given to you.  To tread on means to walk over with your feet.  What God gives, man is required to possess.  These were God’s way of demonstrating to Joshua that he was going to be victorious.  The enemy to the church is of course Satan and I won’t go into every scripture that we could use to verify this.  I believe that what God spoke to Joshua was a prophetic utterance that applies to a pattern for the church.

 Let us begin by looking at what Jesus says to the church right before he ascends into heaven.  At this point and time Jesus was crucified, and after 3 days arose to live for ever more.  So were the instructions given to us, the church?  In the book of Luke Jesus makes this amazing statement:

 Luk 10:19  Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.

 You see in this verse God is talking to the church about their enemy.  This is a spiritual enemy and not a fleshly, carnal or natural enemy.  In this verse, Jesus clearly delegates responsibility to the church.  But did you also notice the reference to the serpent?  Where was the serpent suppose to be?  Under the feet of the church, yes?   Tread on means to put under your feet and walk on.  This is a descriptive symbolic representation of where Satan is to be in relation to where the church is suppose to be.  It is not coincidental or by accident that the identity of the serpent is clearly given to us in Revelation 12:9.  But, where does this statement and concept first originate in the Bible?  It is found in the Bible in Genesis chapter 3 after Adam and Eve sinned.  God comes on the scene and speaks the following words directly to the serpent, Satan:

 Gen 3:15  And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

 I am going to have a difficult time here because the translators made a huge mistake.  But I’ll attempt to explain it and hopefully you will understand it.  God is speaking to Satan, the serpent so we know at least one of the primary subjects or nouns in the verse.  God says “I will put enmity between thee…” and let me stop right there.  What is enmity?  It means hatred, it is an emotional status between two enemies?  It seems to indicate a confrontation or even an assumed warfare.  Are you understanding so far?  Now God reveals the other primary subject or noun in the verse and He calls her the woman.  Let’s stop there again and figure out which woman.  Since there was only one physical woman on the planet, was it Eve or was it a prophetic statement of a different spiritual woman.  Since at no time in scriptures do we see that Eve crushed the head of Satan, I feel we can rule out this natural woman as being the woman that God is referring to.  I am convinced that it is a prophetic statement concerning the church and I will tell you why later.

 Then God seems to change the subject, and He says “between your seed and her seed”.  Here we have the first reference in the Bible to “the seed of the woman”.  This of course is an interesting concept.  But, what need to determine is, according to the Bible, what is a “seed”?  There are many different definition of seed given to us in the Bible, from natural seeds in fruits and vegetables that you plant into the ground, all the way to the sperm in a human male.  Then, children are also called seeds in the Bible.  These are all examples, of natural seeds.  But, there are also spiritual seeds in the Bible and if this is a prophetic reference to a spiritual woman, I would also guess that “her seed” is a spiritual reference.  So what are spiritual seeds?  Jesus tells us in the Gospels that the sower, sows the word of God (Mk 4:14).  We can learn from this that the seed that the sower was sowing were God’s Words.  These are spiritual seeds that are planted into the hearts of men (Mat 13:19).  These seeds are either fruitful or they die or get choked out by the enemy’s seeds because the hearer did not understand them.  There are multiple parables in the gospels about seeds, gardens and harvests that all apply to the spiritual realities that I am referring to and I will not attempt to include these in order to keep this lesson as short as possible.  If nothing else you should have learned that there are many possibilities for what the seed of the woman could be.

 So here is where I’ll probably lose some, the next statement in Genesis 3:15 is the part of the verse that I believe was mistranslated by two little words.  This is what the King James Bible says “it shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.  The word “it” is a Hebrew word that is often times translated as “she” or “her”.  In fact if you look at Genesis 3:12, Adam’s response to God calls his wife by this word and it is translated as “she”.  The translators thought they were talking about a prophetic statement of Jesus Christ so they changed the verse to reflect the male gender of Jesus.   Then there is the term “his heel”.  From what I could see there was no Hebrew word for “his” so it was also added for clarity by the translators.  However, if we change the verse to what I consider to be a more correct translation it would read like this:

 Gen 3:15  And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; she shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise her heel.

 Right now this is just a minor technicality but I believe based upon more scriptures that I will show you it will become very significant.   Remember this, right before Jesus ascended He told the church to walk on serpents.  Right there ought to tell you that Jesus didn’t already do it.  Jesus would have never delegated something that he had already done.   In Luke 10:19 we have all of the same nouns found in Genesis 3:15.  We have the serpent, the church’s feet, and Jesus’ instruction to her, the church, to walking on him.  I know some of these are indirect references yet they are there if you can see them.  Let me give you another valuable scripture found in the New Testament that will shed significant additional light on the subject.  In the book Romans, God makes this statement that is truly  outstanding:

 Rom 16:20  And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.

 Again we have all the subjects and nouns found in Genesis 3:15 just using different terminology and perspectives.   We see God speaking to the Church, the bride of Christ a spiritual woman saying to her that God will bruise Satan the serpent under her feet very soon.   You see there is a problem if Jesus has already put Satan under his feet, why would God still need to do it using the church’s feet later?   God gave Paul the book of Roman’s many years after the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ and at the time of this writing, the bruising of the serpents head had not yet occurred.  Did you also notice the term “bruise” in Romans 15:20?  Isn’t that what God said would happen to the serpent in Genesis 3:15?   Again, we can see a spiritual woman, her feet and Satan the serpent being bruised, all mentioned in relation to a pending action that was soon to occur.  We can see in God’s timetable that the time of this crushing of the serpent’s head has to occur very soon.  From prophetic words that we studied in Genesis 1, we can see that the church age only lasts two days, or 2000 years.  So if it is going to happen it has to happen very, very soon.  Here is one more verse that I will leave this blog with.  In this verse we again see the pending status of God’s enemies:

 Heb 1:13  But to which of the angels said he at any time, Sit on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool?

 Here we have another verse that states Satan, the enemy of God is not yet under the feet of Jesus Christ.  Jesus Christ is seated at the right of the Father and he waits for his enemy to be made his footstool.  A footstool is a place you rest your feet, yes?  If the church is the body of Christ, where is Jesus’ feet right now?  We are the feet of Jesus and Jesus is waiting for God to bruise Satan under our feet.  I believe it is time to demonstrate the defeat of Satan under the feet of the spiritual woman.