Bible Study #15 - Jesus' Guarantee of victory over death

Hello everyone!

Sorry about the sabbatical that I have taken, but I am back and ready to update!


A small lad, making his way thourgh the graveyard, stopped to read an insciption on a head stone, he was intruiged by the following epitaph:

"Stop, my friend, as you go by. As you are now, so once was I. As I am now, you soon shall be. So prepare yourself to follow me."

The boy stood for awhile then, taking a piece of crayonfrom shi pocket, he wrote this message;

"To follow you, I'm not content, until I know which way you went."

What happens when people die? Where do they go? What is death? For the post-modernist, these quetions are easily answered "we live, we die, that's it" for an agnostic, these questions plague them, should they be making peace with God? Or is it all fake? Do we just die? Will it hurt? Heaven... Hell? For a christian, these questions, are again easily answered!

Death is inevitable, but Jesus once said "I am the living one, I was dead and behld I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and the hades" (rev 1:18) Jesus conquered death and he has a message of hope for us!

Death as Sleep
Over 50 times the bible mentions death as a sleep. the term cemetery is translated as "sleeping place" in Greek.

After he had said this, he went on to tell them, "Out friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going to wake him up" (John 11:11)

I am the ressurection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. (John 11:25-26)

Deaht is an intruder and jesus feels our pain when we lose a loved one! At the graveside Jesus wept for Lazarus, he then demostrated his truth by ressurecting Lazarus.

What happens when a person dies?

To understand what death is, we need to go back to the beginning and see how God made huamns in the first place.

The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the rbeath of life, and the man became a living being. (Gen 2:7)

When warning Adam and Eve against eating from the tree of knowledge God said

You will surely die (Gen 2:17)

of death, god said to adam and eve

By the sweat of your bwo you will eat your food until you return to the ground since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you shall return (Gen 3:19)

It is clear that death is the reverse of creation. The body returns back into dust, and the principle of life (the breathe, or spirit) returns to the One who originally breathed the life into Adam and Eve. Death is likened to sleep with our identity and personality secure in God's hands until the resurrection.

When we accept Jesus christ as our saviour are safe and secure with God until the ressurection! So fear not, gentle friends, for the time will come when we will sleep and then our lives shall be eternal and full of grace!

Are you ready?

Be back soon!

Just a quick note to say that i've been flat out lately and that I'll be updating etc as soon as possible!

Bible Study #14 - What and where is heaven?

I've been so lazy lately, life has gotten ahead of me, sorry I haven't updated for awhile!

Heaven...

It's a word that is bandied about a bit nowadays, don't cha think? But what is heaven really going to be like? There is so much in the bible to indicate it! How could we miss it?!

Heaven is the place where the good people go? Isn't that the common story that parents tell children.. but what is it really?

I see heaven as a place where I can spend eternity, an eternity without suffering, grief or loss. Sounds pretty good? Heaven will be on earth, Jesus made that abumdantly clear. After the 1000 year, after the cleaning fires have done there work, this earth will become God's Tabernacle and the eternal home of God's People. Evil will never rise again, it will be crushed when Jesus returns.

What won't be in heaven?

• Evil
• Crying
• Mourning
• Suffering
• Loss
• Greed
• Envy
• Death

This all sounds pretty good to me. All I had to do to find a passport to this amazing place was accept Jesus.

Are you ready to accept your passport?

Bible Study #13 - What Happens after Jesus Comes?

This was an interesting study for me as I learnt a lot of facts that I didn't know before.

The bible talks about a 1000-year period that is often reffered to as the millenium. This 1000-year period commences with the second coming of Jesus. It's about justice and judgement - when wrongs will be righted, accounts settled, rewards give and the intense longings that are common to most of us will be satisfied. It's about the vindication, clearing God of Satan's false charges. Gos will bring sin and suffering to an end. When he does, everything in the universe will know and testify that God is just and fair.

These are the interesting things that I learnt in this study:

• The righteous dead will be resureccted at the start of the 1000 years and will reign with Christ
• The righteous living will be taken to heaven and will also reigh for 1000 years with Christ
• The unrighteous dead will not be resucrectted until the end of this 100 year period
• Satan will be chained at the start of this thousand year period and be forced to wander the earh without anyone to tempt.
• The unrighteous living will call to the mountains and the rocks to fall of them to them from the face of Jesus and the scond coming
• During the 1000 years all judgements will be read and God will be declared Just and Fair
• At the end of the 1000 years the people who chose to go against God will ahve to give an account of their lives, they will recieve the consequences of their actions
• Satan and the Sinners will be destroyed
• Earth will be cleansed and renewed by fire

After learning all of this I wonder why people can't jsut have faith! Admittedly, you can be blinded by ignorance, Satan blinds people by showing the false truths.. he's very good at it

But that time will soon be at an end!

Please join me in praying for Him to come soon!

Natures

One of my favorite stories that Pr Dave tells is about an old man on the bank of river, the old man is looking out over the river and he notices that there is a scorpian drowing in the river, thrashing around triyng for all it's worth to learn to swim at that moment in it's life, the chances don't look good (you can't teach an old scorpion new trick, huh?)

So the man makes the decision to save the scorpion, he reaches out and puts his hand under the scorpian to pull it out of water, as soon as he touches it, the scorpions stings. The Old Man curses and drops the scorpion in the water, this happens several more times, until the man just sttels himself and lifts the scorpion out of the water, it stings him several times before he gets a chance to place it on the ground.

Watching this chain of events has been a young man, standing above the Old Man on a bridge and he yells out;
"You old fool, you should have let it die, now it will go on to sting many more people"
To which the old Man replied;
"The scorpians nature to sting, does not change my nature save."


This story made me think so very much the first time I heard it, I'm a sucker for returning to someone after they've hurt me, and I have never understood why.

I have to help people. Like spending hours in a bar I don't want to be in, just so my friends can get a life home, or staying up for horus to help someone with a project, or let them talk to me about their problems.

Don't get me wrong, I love to do these things, but i've had this thought just now,

Are thre only two types of people in the world;

Stingers and Savers?

Bible Study #12 - The Second Coming of Jesus

A few months ago, over a late night snack at Mcdonalds a friend expressed to me his desire for Christ to return, he asked to pray with him for it, and pray fervently, because he was sick of wordly desires. This got me thinking about the second coming of our savior, and, as a new christian I was incredibly overwhelmed, i's hard enough for me to recognise my wordly influences and temptations and not give in to them, let alone thinking about a time when there won't *be* any worldy desires.

How will we recognise our Messiah? What if I make the wrong choice...

For many will come in my name claiming "I am the messiah" and will decieve many(Matthew 24:5)

False Prophets

• Sun Myung Moon - leader of the Korean Unification Church, prophesied that the "kingdom of heaven would materialise in 1967"
• Jim Jones - Predicting doomsday, persuaded 900 plus followers to drink poisoned Kool-Aid in 1978
• Moses David - Children of God Evangelist predicted that the battle of armageddon would take place in 1986, with Russia defeating the U.S and seeting up a global communist doctatorship
• David Koresh - gun-toting, ex-rock singer forecated that the battle of armageddon would begin in his self-styled Ranch Apocalypse in Waco, Texas. It did, in a blaze of gunfire in 1993 between his Branch Davidians and government agents.
• Marshall Herff Applewhite - Heaven's Gate leaderm convinced his techno-religious cult in march 1997 that the end was near and the only way they could curvive was by commitinh suicide and hitching a ride on an alien spaceship.

How can we avoid such deceptive cults are the end days come to a close and we get more and more desperate for our Saviour to return?

It will be visible

Look he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those pierced him; and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him (Revelation 1;7)

It will be audible

And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other (Matthew 24:31)

It will be public

See, I have told you ahead of time. So if anyone tells you "There he is, out in the desert," do not go to out; or "here he is, in the inner rooms," do not believe it. For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. (Matthew 24: 25-27)

It will be glorious

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. (Matthew 25:31)

With all the signs that have been described, how will people fooled? Will I be one of those people? Will I be fooled by a false Messiah?

Jesus is coming to take his followers to heaven and to deliver us from evil and suffering.

...He will seperate the people one from another as the shepard sepeartes the sheep from the goats. (Matthew 25:32)

When people truly accept what Jesus has done for them in paying for their sins and crediting them with His perfect life, then they are ready for heaven. We become citizens of heaven the moment we accept what Jesus has done for us. If we are citizens then we have all the rights of citizens. This uncludes the right to go to heaven when He comes .

"It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine" (R.E.M - new adventures in Hi-Fi)

I'm unsure as to what R.E.M meant by this song but for those who trust in Jesus the second coming is the end of the world as wel know it... and we feel fine.

Are you ready to accept the end of your worldy temptations...

I know I am...

Test of strength

His name is Matt... He goes to school with me.

The most redeeming feature about Matt would be that he worships the ground i walk on... adn that's is always good for a girl... it makes one think they're actually worth something, and considering my history with the male species (no offence intended), it's nice to know that someone likes me and thinks I'm beautiful and would do anything for me...

HOWEVER

I don't have the same feelings back for Matt, but a huge test of faith came for me this week when I was given an oppurtunity to take advantage of his feelings for me. To just have a boyfriend to do everything for me, which would be nice... but wrong... so so wrong.

I remember less than a year ago a girl who would have done just that, and enjoyed doing it, enojyed hurting his heart...

What does a girl do in this situation, in not wanting to hurt him by using him, I'm hurting him by not having the same feelings for him...

This game sucks...
SJ

Bible Study #11 - God's window in to the future

We are based upon one tree,
All my friends and me.
The wind is blowing strong,
I'm not lasting long,
the dying tree is read,
It's spinning in my head.
Time is going fast
I know I'll never last.

This poem was written by a primary school child when asked about what they felt the future held.

Pretty bleak huh?

A survey of 500 sydney teenagers found that the average adolescent thought the world was "going down the gurgler".

"[The] fundamental failing of modern western culture [is] the absence of a shared ideal of vision of our society and it's furutre, a vision that nutures and nourishes the individual and help to hold a society together"

Without Hope Human Beings can't survive

Six Hundred years before the birth of Christ, God gave the world a startling glimpse into the future through the prophet Daniel. He presented an outline of world history. The prophecy appeasrs in the second chapter of daniel and originated in a dream God gave Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, over 2600 years ago. The dream troubled the monarch and he summoned his wise men saying "tell me what I dreamt and the meaning of the dream", but of course, they couldn't tell the king what he had dreamt, and withoutthat knowledge, the couldn't tell him what it meant. He ordered them to be killed. A young hebrew slave named Daniel calimed that the God of heaven could reveal all mysteries and he told the king of his dream.

You looked, O King, and there before you stood a large statue -an enormous, dazzling, statue, awesome in appearance . (Daniel 2:31-35)

Daniels interprtations and prophecies have all proven to be true... He predicted that the statue that Nebuchadnezaar dreamt about respresented the kingdoms that would prevail until the second coming of Jesus. Babylon was the head of Gold, which would be overthrown by the combined forces of Medes & Persia who were the chest of Silve,r in turn they would be overthrown by Greece (lead by Alexander the Great) who were the thighs of bronze. Greece would be overthrown by Rome, who were the legs of Iron. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, The 10 nations would not be re-united by no-one, these were the feet of Iron and Clay.

Many leaders have tried to re-unite europe, for example Hitler.. none have been succesful...

How did he know?


This bring me to another point!

The Prophecy Seminars!

I'm designing for these seminars, which will commence on Obtober 1st! These seminars are going to be intriguing and so interesting!

www.howdidheknow.com

www.blogspot.howdidheknow.com

Check them all out!

Bible Study #10 - I will never leave you

Surely I am with you always, to the the very end of the age. (Matthew 28:20)

Thats a pretty HUGE promise... and a promise that only one person in the history of the world has been able to make.. and keep. And that person is Jesus Christ.

The problem with society today is that we have no guidance. Nothing to apsire to, No one figurehead to unite us and show us how we should live. Jeus sent the Holy Spirit to guide us, but what of those who don't accept Christs gift?They wander, lost, alone and with nothing to stop them accepting the harmful temptations put before them. They have no one to model their lives. Sin begets Sin, once you've started, there seems to be no stopping. The Holy Spirit is a person with a mind (Romans 8:27), can teach (Luke 12:12), feels grief when we sin (Ephesians 4:30) and directs chruch affairs (Acts 13:2)

The Holy Spirit Can:

• Guide us in Life
• Give a new beginning and direction in life
• Speak to God for us
• Give Spiritual Gifts
• Help Us share Jesus
• Help us develop Christ-like qualities
• Give Spiritual Strength

In accepting Jesus Christ as our saviour, we accpt the gifts that he has bestowed upon us, one such gift is the guidance of The Holy Spirit.

Am I ready to accept that gift?