The Bible

Do you really know what the Bible says, or have you put your fate in the hands of a preacher that teaches in error?

Only what the Bible says is posted on this Blog Site.

Check it out and see if that is true or not!

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

INDEX TO BLOG POST ARTICLES



 
Click on Name to Open
  1. Deception in the Church 
  2. The Keys of the Kingdom 
  3. Are You Seeking The Truth? 
  4. The Four Gospels of the Bible 
  5. Jesus is not God
    According to Bible Scripture
       (Includes Comments)
  6. Speaking in Tongues
  7. Tithes and Offerings  (Includes Comments)
  8. About Israel in Egypt
    The Preachers got it wrong again
  9. From the Foundation of the World...Not So!
  10. Jesus, A Kinsman Redeemer for the Jews, but not the Gentiles
  11. Who are the Elect of God that the Bible speaks of?
  12. Understanding Paul the Apostle's Letters
  13. Silence From Heaven 
  14. The Last Word belongs to God, Are you listening?
  15. Jesus is the Only Way 
  16. Defending the Bible 
  17. Bible Truths To Consider 
  18. The Most Important Thing 
  19. Spiritual Discernment
    The Spirit of Truth and the spirit of error
     
  20. What does God expect of us? 
  21. The History of Mankind 
  22. The Way, The Truth and the Life 
  23. The Bottom Line 
  24. Be Certain and Don't Be Sorry 
  25. Adam and Eve, First Persons on Earth? 
  26. False Christs and False Prophets 
  27. Do You Know Your Bible? 
  28. False Teaching in the Church
    A Warning From God
     
  29. Let Us Reason Together 
  30. The Facts of the Faith
    Are You Listening?
     
  31. Satan's Big Lie 
  32. The Name of Jesus 
  33. The Last Word 
  34. Why Did God Test Abraham? 
  35. The Throne In Heaven, Who sits on it?
  36. Be Certain and Don't Be Sorry About The Choice You Make
  37. The Devil’s Plan From The Beginning
    Has Been Working For Him!
  38. The Unpardonable Sin
  39. Are You Looking For The End Of The World To Come Soon?
  40. When God Speaks, How do you React?
  41. The Foundation of our Faith
  42. My Burden for God's People
  43. The Last Sermon, Believe it and Live
  44. Gifts of the Spirit
  45. What Must We Do To Be Saved?
  46. What do you choose to believe?
  47. A PROPHET TO THE NATIONS  ( Comments included)
  48. What happens after your life on Earth is over?  (Includes Comments)
  49. Unknown Facts About The Bible   (Includes Comments)
  50. The Assembly of the Books of Our Bible
    Is the Bible Really as Complete as it Should be?
  51. The Authorized King James Version
    versus The Other Translations
  52. What Does Your Church Teach?
    Is it According to unadulterated Bible Scripture?
  53. Theologians, A thorn in God’s side
  54. Religious Cults in Jeffersonville Indiana   (Latest Comment Aug 31, 2016)
  55. The Book of Revelations Explained in Simple Terms
    As it Should Be

  56. The Mystery of the Godhead
  57. What's Coming Soon for God's Earthly Kingdom?
  58. Modern Day Jezebels   Comment included
  59. The Voice of God Speaking
    Through His Messenger
  60. A Word of Caution for God's People
  61. Another Look at Genesis and the Creation
    Was Adam and Eve Actually the First Persons Created?
  62. Forgiveness...God vs Man's Method  (Includes Comments)
  63. Divide and Conquer
    The Devil's Plan for Success
  64. Whose Voice do you Hear?
  65. This Day is this Scripture Fulfilled  (Includes Comments)
  66. Is Everybody Wrong but Me? (Revised 8-9-2011)
  67. What is the standard for your set of beliefs?  (Includes Comments)
  68. Does God tempt man?
  69. They Always Attack The Messenger
  70. The Mark of Cain
    A Bible Study
  71. The Fifth Commandment
  72. The return of Jesus Christ
    For His Church
  73. The Bible and the Resurrection
    of the Dead
  74. Sir, is this the time of the end?
    Escaping the fear of the second death
  75. The Tree of the Knowledge
    of Good and Evil
  76. God is not a Ghost
  77. About the Rapture
  78. The Acts of the Apostles
  79. Why do you believe, What you believe?
  80. The Lake of Fire
  81. (Comments added Feb 20, 2016)
  82. The Last Days
  83. Wisdom is the principle thing
  84. What is a Prophet
    Could you recognize one?
  85. The Church that was built on a lie
  86. What does the Bible say about the Rapture
  87. Where is the Church that Jesus built?
  88. The Origin of the Moon
  89. Send Me Your Money   (Includes Comments)
  90. The Truth about Salvation
    Are you being Deceived?
  91. Do our names come from Heaven?
  92. What Happened To The Real Church of God?   (Includes Comments)
  93. My Approach to write the Book
    The Revelation of the Truth of God's Word
  94. Do you know what this means?
    Attention All Preachers
  95. The Restoration of the Faith
  96. To my Catholic Friends
    Consider these things
  97. What Price Service?
  98. A Challenge to all Preachers  (Includes Comments)
    Prove Me Wrong
  99. Satan's Deceptions
    What he doesn't want you to know
  100. Missionaries Today are not scriptural
  101. WANTED One Honest Preacher
  102. Conduct Order and Doctrine in the Church
  103. The Wilderness Journey
  104. The Creation Story
  105. The Unity of the Faith
  106. Have we set the bar too high?
  107. The Antichrist
  108. December 25th, The Birth of Jesus?
  109. Adams Sin   (Includes Comments)
  110. What does Conversion mean?
  111. The Upper Room Events   (Includes Comments)
  112. Called to Preach   (Includes Comments)
  113. The Person of God
  114. Women in the Ministry  (Includes Comments)
  115. Under Bondage of Man's Teaching
  116. The Cause of Physical Death  (Includes Comments)
  117. The Death Penalty
  118. The Women that Followed Jesus
  119. About the Book Named Revelation
  120. A Guide for Studying Revelations
  121. The Seventy Weeks of Daniel Prophecy  (Includes Comments)
  122. Jesus the Elohiym
  123. Meet the 13 Apostles
  124. The Chronology of the Time of Man
    An Aid to Bible Study
  125. Are Miracles Necessary?
  126. What Defines a "day"?
  127. The Second Coming of Christ
  128. The Second Exodus
  129. God's Characteristics
  130. The State of the Church of God
  131. The Real Church of God
  132. William Branham's Ministry Articles

Sunday, March 15, 2015

William Branham's Last Message

 
The Trail Of The Serpent

What you are about to read here is about the Serpent who began to interact with mankind in the Garden of Eden and what he is doing today. To be certain that you know who the Serpent was and is today, let me introduce him to you. This is nothing more or less than the devil incarnate, first taking over a beast in the Garden of Eden that God had created and today as an angel of light and the antichrist whose purpose in this day is to deceive mankind about the truth of God’s Word in the Bible. There is a long history about what the Serpent has done down through the ages since he introduced himself in the Garden, but we are going to skip all of those years and concentrate on his present and recent past exploits.

There is a lot of teaching that the antichrist is a certain man with supernatural power that is coming to take control of all the Nations in the World and perform many evil exploits in the end time, but that is not true and is not going to happen. The antichrist is nothing more than the devil in spiritual form who is taking over the churches by deceiving the church leaders into believing that their own private interpretations of scripture is inspired by the Holy Spirit who they believe is leading them in their ministry.

Although all of the present day churches are being deceived and influenced by this antichrist spirit, we are going to examine just one church ministry that has evolved over the past almost one hundred years and has spread Worldwide causing believers everywhere to believe a false doctrine instead of God’s true word.

We are going to focus our attention on the Ministry of William Marrion Branham who started preaching in the 1930’s when he was about 21 years old. Even though the first major event in his ministry happened at this time, we will first examine something that occurred some thirteen years later and after that we’ll come back to the beginning with a clearer perspective of the whole picture.

William Branham testified that in May of 1946 he was visited by an angel that said he came from the presence of God. When this angel spoke to him he knew that was the same voice that he had heard speaking to him all his life, but this was the first time that he saw him as a man. I want you to hang on to that statement that he made, speaking of the same voice that he had always heard speaking to him, this is an important point. Well anyway, this angel told William Branham that he was being given a gift of divine healing. Now a gift of divine healing should mean that he could heal anyone he wanted to at anytime. But everyone who has followed his ministry should know that it didn’t happen that way. He couldn’t heal anyone. So the angel didn’t give him a gift of divine healing. If the angel actually came from the presence of God with a gift such as that, it would have worked every time that he wanted it to.

The second thing that the angel told William Branham was that he was being given two signs to help to get the people to believe him in order for them to be healed. The angel said that he was being given two signs just like Moses was given two signs to help him. But you see, that was not true. The angel was wrong because Moses was given three signs, not two. Now if this angel had come from God he wouldn’t have got that wrong. So the angel was wrong on both counts. He didn’t give him a gift of divine healing and he was wrong on the number of signs that Moses was given. Because of this I have to conclude that this angel didn’t come from the presence of God. Now there are two kinds of angels. God has his angels and the devil has his angels. So what do you think?

Remember that William Branham made the comment that he had heard that same voice speaking to him all his life. He started hearing that same voice when he was just a small lad. That voice told him then that he had a work for him to do when he got older. That same voice would speak to him in the woods later on in his life when he was told that Jehovah of the Old Testament was Jesus of the New Testament. This was in contradiction to scripture which states that Jesus was the Son of God and not God himself. Do you now see how that lying Serpent was moving down through time starting when William Branham was a small child and continued to tell him things throughout his ministry.

One other thing this angel told William Branham was that he would be with him as he ministered to the people. And for certain, the angel had to be present because William Branham’s ministry could not succeed without him. Many times in his services, William Branham said that he could do nothing unless the angel was present. He said if the angel didn’t show up, he might as well just dismiss the people and go home. You see, it was this angel that did the work of telling William Branham the intimate secrets and what knowledge Branham needed to know in order to get the people to believe in his ministry of healing. Don’t believe this? You can read all about it in the transcripts of his services. Like I told you before, the devil alias the serpent has the power to do many things including giving William Branham certain knowledge about things that were to take place making it appear that William Branham was prophesying about things.

So as you can see, if you really want to know the truth, that William Branham had no spiritual gifts other than the ability to hear the things this angel of the devil told him. So you ask, why did this all happen if you are really telling the truth? I’ll tell you why. This was all the plan of the devil, to build William Branham up to the point where the people would believe everything that he said and cause his false interpretations of scripture to be accepted. Thus causing everyone to disbelieve God’s word which is the entire plan of the devil from the very beginning.

Of course I will admit that healings did take place, but not because William Branham had any gift of healing. Healings took place during his meetings only because God honored the individual faith of the people and provided the healing of their bodies that can only be done by God Himself. Way too much emphasis has always been put on these healing services. Why is that? I’ll tell you why. Even if a person receives the healing of their body, it is only good for a short time and they will still die when their time comes. The healing is only something to draw a person to God’s Word and to eternal life if they believe His Word. In the case of William Branham’s ministry, obviously which was not God ordained, the healings and the prophecies and the signs and wonders were the devil’s method to drew the people to believing the false bible interpretations taught from the pulpit when William Branham spoke. Do you now see the trail of the Serpent?

Going back to when the angel visited William Branham, there was something else that the angel told him. The angel said that it was necessary for the people to believe him in order for them to receive their healing. He also said that if the individuals didn’t receive their healing then he should just pray for them and walk away. Does this sound like someone having a gift of healing ordained by God? I don’t think so. Well, it became very plain that William Branham did everything that he could think of in order to get the people to believe him. He obviously believed that the end would justify the means, but I can’t believe that was in the plan of God. Deceiving tactics to obtain an end result is not the way almighty God would approve of.

I saw many, many times in the beginning of his healing services, before the angel showed up, that William Branham would refer to the picture of himself with the light above his head in order to convince the people that he was what he was promoted to be, a man with a gift of healing. Then when his angel did show up he would immediately make the statement that he was taking control of everyone’s spirit that was there. Since when does a man need to take control of a person’s spirit? This doesn’t sound like the way God would operate and it isn’t. But it does sound like something a spiritualist or an evil spirit would operate. Do you really think that it would be necessary for God to take control of a person’s spirit in order to heal a person’s body?

Now we will turn back to an event that happened near the start of William Branham’s ministry. In June of 1933 after having a successful tent meeting in Jeffersonville, William Branham was baptizing new converts in the Ohio River when a strange thing happened. According to William Branham, a bright light came down from above the baptismal scene and William Branham said that he heard a voice speaking to him from above. He said that he heard the voice tell him that just as John the Baptist was the forerunner of the first coming of Jesus, his message would forerun His second coming. Here was the first mention about William Branham’s message that would be the theme for his followers for all the years of his ministry. For this to be such a notable event, according to my investigation William Branham never mentioned this in public until some 19 years later. Well it turned out that this so called message of his has been adopted by those who have followed his ministry as being everything that he preached about. This was the beginning of the deception planned by the devil that he had groomed William Branham for since he was a young boy when he first spoke to him. Over 1200 sermons that this man preached over his lifetime that culminated in interpreting the scriptures to mean something other than what was written.

Throughout his ministry William Branham had been promoted to be associated with many bible characters and events in order to establish his authenticity as a God sent prophet, teacher and healer. He was associated with Moses in regard to the supernatural signs he was supposedly given, with his name change to a last name with seven letters in it, which was untrue, with the prophet Elijah, the messenger to the seventh church age and many other things, all of which was designed by the voice of the angel which led him all the way. The same angel which had spoken to him all his life.

But the devil needed just one more thing to insure that his legacy as a prophet healer would remain long after he would die and provide the incentive for future generations to accept his teaching as the true interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. So during a meeting in Houston Texas in 1950 a photographer developed some pictures that were taken during the meeting and found that one picture on his roll of film was of William Branham with a light over his head like a halo. Now I’m certain that God could have caused that to happen and even caused the light to appear above his head in the presence of all who were in the auditorium, but I don’t believe that anyone witnessed it. One thing that I do believe because of all that has become apparent to me is that it certainly served the devil by giving the people something for them to idolize and that certainly doesn’t serve God’s purpose.

Now this title that I have given to this article “The Trail of the Serpent” was the title of a message that William Branham had intended to give when he returned to Jeffersonville. Unfortunately he didn’t quite make it. It was said that this message he intended to preach was to expose some things that were wrong in his ministry and its organization. I believe that he had recognized the same trail of the serpent that I have described. I also believe that the devil didn’t want him to preach that message and arranged for that drunk driver to be on the road that had a head-on collision with him. Well no matter why it happened, it didn’t prevent the serpent from continuing on in his mission to try and pervert the truth of God’s Word because it is continuing on even today. Now the torch has been passed on to William Branham’s sons who are diligently spreading the false teaching of their father to those parts of the World where the people are more gullible and accepting because of the signs they are told about. One thing that I am certain of is that God is certainly not pleased with the fact of the Branham family promoting this false bible teaching as “the Voice of God”. So that should certainly make the devil to be pleased that they are accepting this false doctrine as “the Voice of God”.

God’s people need to open their eyes to the fact that “signs” mean nothing unless they are followed by sound, true bible teaching just as it is written. It is written in scripture that even the devil can produce signs and wonders for the purpose of deceiving the people into believing a lie. Our only standard must be the written Word of God. That is why God inspired the Holy men of past times to write the scriptures for us to read and believe and not for some man to interpret for us.

It is my honest belief that William Branham was an honorable God fearing man who was truly trying to do his best to serve God, but he was no match for the devil who set out to deceive him for all of his life. If Brother Branham would have just opened his eyes to the false things this angel of the serpent was telling him, things that were not true according to the scriptures, his ministry could have passed the scrutiny it has faced for all of these years and would have been pure and without spot or blemish.

The trail of the serpent has traveled from the Garden of Eden to the “Voice of God Publications” in Jeffersonville and because of the efforts of Brother Branham’s sons, they have enabled the devil to publish his lies around the World.

My prayer to God has been for a number of years to not be passive in nature and allow me to write what I have written, but to be very active and stop me in whatever way He would if what I am writing is not true. When I started this article, I pleaded with God to prevent my publishing of it if it was not completely true because it was my wish that I would not be permitted to bring any harm to His Kingdom. So it must conclude that God is pleased with the work I have done and all that I have presented is the truth. If it wasn’t the truth, does anyone really believe that God would permit me to say what I have said and allow me to cause a reproach on those that I write about? I for one do not believe that Almighty God, the Creator of the Universe who has the power to do anything He wills would allow me to without stopping me. So it must conclude that God is pleased with my work and what I have said is the complete and honest truth.

Now in regard to all the churches who are guilty of allowing the people to be subjected to false teaching of bible doctrine and the “Voice of God Recordings” who are misleading all of those who regard William Branham as a Prophet Healer and his teachings as being a true revelation of God’s Word, they will all fall and be laid waste when the Day of the Lord arrives at the time of the end.

The following is a brief summary of why I have concluded that the devil, the same serpent that appeared to the woman in the Garden of Eden has planned and executed his work in Brother Branham’s ministry for the purpose of deceiving God’s people to believe something other than the truth of the Holy Scriptures.

The result in the end was that God’s people have been taught that William Branham’s interpretation of scripture, which was in violation of scripture, has been revealed to him by God for those who are elected to receive it.
 

The angel that visited Brother Branham in 1946 told him that he came from the presence of God, but lied to him about being given a gift of healing and being given two signs just as Moses was given two signs in his ministry.
 

The angel visitor impressed upon him that he must get the people to believe him in order for his ministry to be successful. Because of this mandate he did everything he could to accomplish this by allowing the people to believe he was a prophet and the fulfillment of many bible prophecies.

He believed and fashioned his teaching on the premise that he was the fulfillment of the return of Elijah because of the testimony of his wife who said that was shown to her by God.

He admitted that he was unable to minister to the people in the meetings unless the angel was present to anoint him.

He depended upon the angel to teach him the meaning of scripture including the revelation of the Seals. Both of these things were against scripture. According to scripture it is the Holy Spirit who is to be our teacher and the opening of the seals is written to be by Christ and in Heaven, not on the Earth.

 He believed the voice of the angel when he was told that Jesus was God which is in opposition to the testimony of Jesus in scripture.

 Then there were a lot of misleading things that he said during his services in order to comply with what the angel said about the necessity of getting the people to believe him. One was when he would ask the people before prayer for them, he would say: “do you to believe me to be God’s prophet”, knowing this was wrong he would immediately follow with: “I mean God’s servant”. Then he would ask the people a question saying: ‘ have I ever said anything in the name of the Lord that didn’t come to pass?” Now you know that no one is going to contradict him during the service, so all you would hear was amen’s. The record shows that there were many things that he said in the name of the Lord that did not come to pass.

 Then one of the worst things that he did was to meet with some men in a motel room the day after preaching his message on the seventh seal for the purpose of changing a part of the message he had preached so what he said would not get out to the masses of people. I wonder if the angel spoke to him and advised him to do that?

 

Well, that is enough of that because I believe that you should get the picture by now that our Brother was being used and probably believed that it was by an angel of God. I believe with all my heart that Brother Branham was convinced that he was doing God’s will through all of this and that an angel of God was with him. His Worldwide ministry and the effect of it on so many people was absolutely extraordinary because of the signs that followed. This ministry could only have been what it was because of a supernatural power behind it, but since it consisted of teaching that deviated from bible scripture, it had to have been a power other than God, because God would not contradict His own word.

 

The trail of the serpent has traveled down through the ages and has corrupted all of the churches along the way by making men think they are smarter than God. The only way to put a stop to his deception of mankind is to flee from the false teaching of man’s interpretation of scripture and let the Holy Spirit reveal the truth of His Word to you just as it was written in the Bible by God’s Prophets and the Apostles of Christ.

 

A Footnote

I felt a need to include these additional comments relating to what I have written just to state to the reader that I have not written this article for my own benefit. I have agonized over the posting of this for some time because I wanted to be certain that what I have written is the truth and not some theory that I have developed on my own. I made a vow to the Lord that I would not post this unless I was certain of the truth of it and asked God to do one of two things so that I could be sure of its veracity.

So I begged the Lord to prevent my posting of this article by whatever means He desired and keep me from doing harm to Himself, Brother Branham or God’s people. I also vowed to Him that I would not post this without receiving some kind of vindication of the truthfulness of what I have written and assurance that it was His perfect will for me to publish it.

From this point on I will refrain to call this entity that visited Brother Branham an angel and give him any credibility by doing so and will in the future refer to him as the messenger of satan which is what he was. Now with all respect to our Heavenly Father, I call on God to rid this World of all things that are contributing to the deceiving of His people including the picture, the Voice of God Recordings and all other things that the devil is using to cause harm to true believers who are being fed with the rotten manna of false doctrine instead of His true Word.

 

 

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Saturday, March 14, 2015

Are You Seeking Truth


What is Truth?

There appears to be two definitions for something that can be determined as the truth as follows;

1. That which is true or in accordance with fact or reality.

          a. Fact is something that can be proven.

          b. Reality is something that can be seen.

2. A fact or belief that is accepted as true, but has not been proven beyond a shadow of doubt

 

A person can believe something is true without any physical evidence provided to them proving it is factually true; this constitutes faith by the individual person because they desire to believe that it is true.

The Bible tells us that faith is the belief in things hoped for, the conviction of the reality of things that have not been seen.(Heb 11:1 paraphrased)

The Bible also tells us that without faith it is impossible to please God, for they that come to God must believe that he is. (Heb 11:6) Although, we cannot be certain that these are the words of God because we have no factual evidence that the author of the book of Hebrews received these words from God.

Let us examine some so called facts that we have been presented with and expected to believe are truths.

Is the existence of God a fact that can be proven? Is God a reality that can be accepted by seeing him? Or is the existence of God a belief that has been presented for us to believe without any real evidence of his existence?

The Bible tells us that it is necessary to believe the Gospel in order to be saved, but what evidence have they presented to us besides what some man has written for us to believe? Is there any proven fact there? Are God and Jesus a reality that we can see with our own eyes that can support a factual belief in the Gospel?

John the Baptist and the Apostle Peter testify that they actually heard the voice of God speaking from Heaven concerning His Son Jesus which served to them as being a factual reality that supported their belief in the reality of God and that Jesus was in fact God’s Son. Should our faith be grounded on what someone else says that they have experienced?

Jesus also said to Thomas; You believe because of what you have seen, but blessed are they who have not seen, yet believe. Is this what God expects us to do, believe without any factual or real evidence based entirely upon what some other person has testified to have experienced?

The Bible is full of testimonies from others that they heard the voice of God speaking to them. From Adam in the Garden, to Abraham, to the Lord’s Apostles etc. So why is it that only certain ones have been privileged  to experience God in a first hand encounter and not all of us?

Without a first hand, factual, real encounter with God, we cannot know for certain that God is real and that Jesus was the Son of God and most, if not all of us, must depend on whatever faith we can muster up without any factual proof outside of what others have testified to.

The Holy Bible has been promoted by most of the Christian Churches as the Word of God. They even say that the Bible is the inerrant, infallible Word of God, meaning that it is without error and even more than that, is incapable of being in error. This in itself is not true. If the Bible actually was the Word of God, it would be without error, but the Bible is full of errors and can be demonstrated as such in a multitude of its verses. So the Bible is not all truth.

If the Bible was the complete truth it should be somehow proven to be truth beyond a shadow of doubt, but it can’t. Although any one of us could accept it as being infallible and in errantly the truth of the Word of God, but in doing this we would be believing something that is false and calling it truth because the false teachers of it have convinced many to believe what they have said.

Wouldn’t you rather know for certain and believe the truth and hang your faith on the absolute and proven truth rather than a false belief that some man has promoted in error?

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that the whole Bible is false. What I do believe is that the Bible contains the true Word of God and God has a right for the truth of His Word to be made known. What I am also certain of is that some of those men who wrote the Bible have introduced errors into it. Does that make the whole Bible false? Absolutely not! You must remember that it is not written in the Bible that God wrote it. It is written that God inspired certain persons to write scripture, but He didn’t control what those people wrote and because he didn’t micromanage them, they did introduce errors into it.

Now God knew that would happen and He made provisions to rectify the mistakes of those men by inspiring certain men to make a detailed study of the scriptures and be teachers of scriptural doctrine. Men who would be completely devoted to rightly dividing what was written and teaching the truth of what scriptures were saying. Not by adding their own interpretation to what was written, but insuring that we can understand that the scriptures interpret themselves.

So unless a real factual example can be produced that we can determine is the absolute truth and not just something that we have determined in our own minds to accept as truth, what should we believe about the bible and what it says?

I believe that we have two choices to base our belief on.

One is that we can believe what some preacher says because he tells us that he or she was called of God to preach and we determine to believe in our own minds to accept what the preacher says as being the truth. Or we can believe exactly what is written in the bible about any subject as being the truth as long as it does not require some person’s interpretation of what it means.

So if the absolute truth is what we are seeking, it brings us to a point of making a decision. Do we believe what some person that says they are called of God to preach and determine to believe in our minds that we have heard the truth from that person? Or will we be resolved to believe exactly what bible scriptures say is the absolute truth?

Which of the two will you bet your eternal souls on?

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Friday, March 13, 2015

Silence From Heaven


Our Silent God

I want to start off with some verses from the Bible quoting Jesus as saying, as follows;

If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! (Matthew 7:11). 

Ask and it shall be given to you, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asks, they shall receive and they that seek shall find and to them who knocks, it shall be opened.” (Matthew 7;7-8)

“All things whatsoever you shall ask in prayer believing, you shall receive” (Matthew 21;22)

“Whatsoever you shall ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you”. (John 15;16)

If we don’t receive from God those things we ask him for, then why do we always make an excuse for God’s silence when our prayers go unanswered?

As believers we've all been there, or will be there. We may earnestly seek God, but in return only sense His silence. And this silence can be difficult, frustrating even excruciating.

And then there are those days when chaos careens with apparent carelessness through our lives and the world, leaving us shattered. Or an unrelenting darkness descends. Or an arid wind we don’t even understand blows across our spiritual landscape, leaving the crust of our soul cracked and parched. And we cry to God in our confused anguish and he just seems silent. He seems absent.

Daily I approached God with growing concern. "Okay, God, I'm sure you've got a plan. Show me what I'm supposed to do here. I need you now more than ever. I'm physically hurting, emotionally spent. How should I deal with this?" My prayers became more strident: "God, this is not the time to play hide-and-seek. I'm facing some serious anxiety here. Now would be an especially good time to hear from you!"

Have you ever felt as if God was giving you the silent treatment? Perhaps you or your loved one are going through a physical illness, and despite your prayers for healing, the Lord has not intervened. Or maybe you're fervently seeking His direction for a major decision, and He's just not answering.

One huge impediment to my faith is that God never communicates with me. I pray daily and ask for forgiveness daily, sometimes even hourly, but I still feel nothing but emptiness and silence from God. How is it possible to have a relationship with God if he won't at least have a conversation with me?

Jesus said; “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”

This verse tells us that God is ready to answer our prayers and supply our needs. So why are all our prayers not answered?  Why does it seem that God sometimes does not hear us?  What is going on when it seems like our prayers are not getting any higher than the ceiling?

Silence is especially painful when it is the silence of God in our lives. And it seems that when we are going through a painfully long period of silence from God, there are many people that want to tell us about how God has “spoken” to them. That tends to trouble me, because I begin to wonder why God is speaking to them and not to me. The silence that I am feeling becomes agonizing and then uncertainties begin to settle in my mind, and I pray really hard for some kind of answer, and it seems that all I get from God is silence. When God is silent we can simply become upset with God, we become confused, we start to doubt. The truth is that we just don’t know what to do with God’s silence. There is some sort of anguish in my life, I am suffering and in pain  and it seems that I have been praying to God for a very long time, to help me with my problems, and all that I am met with, is silence from God. Then I begin to question if God has given up on me or has stopped listening to me and my prayers.

I begin to wonder if my faith in his words have just been in vain and these words in the scriptures are just words some man has written and not really the words of God. How can a person continue to have faith in what is written when those promises fail to provide results?

Throughout the bible there are examples about God intervening in the lives of many people, providing results that could not be explained away, but they say were positively the actions of God. Why then would God not take an active role in our lives now which could not be disputed, but had to have come to pass as an act of God? Why does God deprive us, his children, of things that we ask for or not take an active role in our lives?

Yes it does appear that we have a silent God, but I wish it wasn’t so. I personally would prefer that God would take a more active part in my life and not be so passive. It would certainly help me to know if the things that I attempt to do right in my life was his will or not. Now some would say that if we just follow and do what the bible says, we will be doing his will. I wish it was that easy, but the way the bible is translated into English, it’s difficult to discern whether God is talking to us or the apostles. In some cases it’s a concern to me that whoever wrote the scriptures in the first place got everything right or not because of some of the errors in the bible that are so obvious. Wouldn’t it be easier if there was more active communication between us and God in order to be certain that we were getting it right. In the old bible days it was not uncommon for God to instruct the people directly and through his prophets. Well today we lack both of these means of communication because God is silent and there are no true prophets of God.

As for me, I’m not hearing God’s voice very often. And by “very often” I mean almost never. Since I’ve spent much of my life encouraging others in a relationship with God, this can be very disconcerting, and it’s made worse by the Christians I know who appear to have a direct line to God all the time. God is finding them parking spaces, telling them about apartments, practically giving them a “to do” list every week.

So how come I don’t hear Him like that? True, there have been times when I have a deep sense of God’s presence in my life. There have been times where I have also had a distinct sense of His voice in my soul, that still small voice that we believe is Him. But the times I “feel” and “hear” Him are hardly frequent enough to consider us in a relationship. If I’m only relying on those rare experiences, I find myself pretty confused and disheartened (especially when I’m around those “other people” who apparently have coffee with Jesus every morning!)

Maybe you also have wondered where God is in your life. Perhaps you have found yourself wondering why God doesn’t give you more specific direction, more often. After all, if He’s off finding your grandma a parking spot, maybe He’s too busy to deal with whatever woe is twisting your heart.

There are plenty of stories in the Bible of God being silent. Job experienced His silence. So did Abraham as he planned to sacrifice Isaac. The Bible doesn’t record God talking to Joseph in prison, nor John the Baptist before his beheading. There are more examples of God’s silence than we may be comfortable exploring. In my own life, I’ve discovered God’s silence always tempts me to doubt. But sometimes I wonder if God’s silence could be  leading us to a richer, more varied experience with Him in surprising ways that we are not aware of.

If I was qualified to give someone else any advice I would say this; My best advice regarding a silent God is, keep praying, keep writing, keep reading, keep walking the path before you. Keep doing the things that have worked in the past (and will work again in the future). Know that we’ve all gone through these times of silence. Ultimately, this too shall pass. In the meantime, “be still and know” that God is there because the bible tells us that.

 

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