The Plan of God

There is one chapter in the Bible which summarises the future for those God has called and chosen. Not yet ALL those who have ever lived, for there are 2 distinct resurrections and we are here looking at the “first fruits” resurrection, Revelation 14:4, as against  the second resurrection of the ‘great white throne’ judgement in Revelation 20:11-12, which I will cover later.

That chapter is John chapter 17.  John 17:2 tells us who the chapter is about. They understand that Jesus’ teaching was from His Father, John 17:6-9, and now they keep Gods commands and belong to both the Father and Christ.

They are the called out ones and will be kept through God’s Name, John 17:11, as we read throughout the New Testament – ‘The Church of God’.  Christ has given them God’s word, but the world has then hated them, John 17:14, for it is not easy to be a true Christian in an evil world, John 17:15-18.

The next verses speak of  a mystery, and you can read about that in a recent article on this site entitled,  “The Mystery of The Gospel”.  It explains  that Jesus and His Father are “one”, as of one mind in all things, but now christ prays that these too may become ‘one’  with Himself and His Father.

This will occur fully when they are resurrected and marry Jesus Christ  before His Father’s Throne, on the Sea of Glass, in Heaven. Revelation 14:1-5, 15:2, 19:7.

They are now the children of God but will become the Bride of Christ and take His Father’s Name, as they join His family, Revelation 14, and rule with Christ here on the earth, Rev. 20:4. They  will remain close to their Lord and Husband for eternity, John 17:24, and share in His Glory.

These are not the beliefs of any denomination, but simply the plain words of God, John 17:17, which you may believe, or not, but your choice could determine if you will be in the better resurrection, Hebrews 11:35,  ‘Women received back their dead, raised to life again. There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. NIV. Or, in the second resurrection, which we will examine next time.’

Biame and God our Father

Years ago I lived in a beautiful valley in NSW which contained many caves in which were found many aboriginal cave paintings, most of them very simple silhouettes of hands, boomerangs etc. formed by spluttering white clay from the mouth, but one quite separate cave contained a larger than life, impressive, coloured  painting of a man with arms and legs akimbo. This was understood to be  the aboriginal god Biame, the sky god of the Dreamtime – the Creator of all, and the guardian of the valley.

The difference between all the others and this one made me doubt that they were done by the same people. Was Biame painted by  an earlier race, like  the more figurative works in the Kimberly, which some anthropologists have suggested were produced by an earlier race, later wiped out by much larger and stronger aboriginals?

The fact is that ALL Australians arrived here from overseas, and we can’t know for sure when. The Bible tells us that ALL humans descend from Adam, and then Noah after the Flood,  when God created different languages to make Noah’s descendants spread out over the earth. Even today most races retain some knowledge of the Flood, and the Creator God. Is it a co-incidence that Biame, the sky god, was for the Aboriginals also the Creator? Could be that he is the same God worshipped by Christians?

The aboriginal people never had a written language, and knowledge passed on orally soon becomes confused, so it could be expected that they would forget more than the cultures which wrote down their history. At the time of Abraham in Babylon there were great libraries where records were kept on clay tablets and stone. Moses , one of Abraham’s descendants, wrote down the first five books of the Bible, as God instructed, and  Abraham’s descendants eventually gained the whole of God’s word.

That book tells us that Aboriginals are just as much God’s children as for example, the Jews.  Jesus said we ALL should pray to our Father in Heaven and that God’s words are Truth.  It is quite understandable that, without writing. Truth quickly became lost to confusion during the ‘Dreamtime’, when Satan could take advantage of the situation to insert a plethora of false gods into aboriginal culture, but  the one true Creator God is their Father, as He is ours.

The Jews and the rest of Abraham’s descendants in the Western nations largely kept god’s Laws and so developed Western civilisation, until, eventually, Australia was colonised.  But, like the Aboriginals,  They too eventually forgot God’s Laws , encouraged by the evolutionists  to reject the Bible.

The result was the same.  With the lack of God’s Laws they too began to degenerate. Society began to unwind. Like the Canaanites of old they began to sacrifice their children.  Millions of the unborn have been killed, torn from the womb. Broken homes, lawlessness, violence and murder now pollute the land, and perversions have become the acceptable norm, even here in Australia.

But God’s word is  still there and individuals can still prosper and be blessed by following it, for the rewards are as automatic as the penalties for breaking it. God’s word also contains God’s Plan for those who chose to obey – a future so magnificent, so stupendous that it is almost beyond our comprehension.

Next time I will attempt to summarise that Plan, but first, here is a clue:    ‘So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them’.  Genesis 1:27.

An Amazing Cultural Decline

It is a remarkable and horrible thing to contemplate the dramatic changes brought about by political correctness in less than one lifetime. The very foundations of Western civilisation have been undermined by this crass foolishness, and yet few recognise the extent  of the change that has taken place, as the time honoured beliefs, standards and morals of our nations have been swept away in the pursuit of  liberal and ‘progressive’ transitory mores of a decedent society, even in my own lifetime.

For two thousand years those standards, based upon the 10 Commandments, provided an unchanging bedrock upon which our laws were built, family life was based, our gender was determined, our different gender roles were realised,  our respect for any authority existed, and our stability and patriotism survived.

What we have instead is the quite automatic result of rejecting that foundation. We have seen the loss of an Empire, the breakdown of the family, gender confusion, society fragmented by immigration and terror, increacing false religion, lack of respect for our police, teachers, the unborn and the elderly, and chaos in our governments.

All of this in less than a lifetime! The tragedy  is that we have not yet  reached the depths to which we will fall;  bringing about defeat and destruction. Only then, when those who remain realise our error and repent, will Jesus Christ raise us up again – to change not only ourselves, but the whole world!

As the Scriptures say, in 1Corinthians 1:19-20,  ‘”I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and discard the intelligence of the intelligent”. So where does this leave the philosophers, the scholars, and the world’s brilliant debaters? God has made the wisdom of this world look foolish.’   NLT.

Only God defines ‘Christian’

 Acts 2:38, ‘And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.’ ESV.

 1 John 3:4, ‘Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.’ King James Version.

 Ezekiel 18:21, ‘“But if a wicked person turns away from all his sins that he has committed and keeps all my statutes [laws]and does what is just and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die.”’ESV…..

 1 John 2:3-4, ‘And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments.‘ Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him,’

 1 John 5:3, ‘For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.’

 Mark 12:30-31,“And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

 Romans 13:10, ‘If you love others, you will never do them wrong; to love, then, is to obey the whole Law.’ Good news Translation.

 Acts 2:38, And Peter said to them, “Repent and bebaptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.’

 1John 3:24, ‘Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.’

 Acts 5:32,  “And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.”

 Romans 2:13, ‘For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.’

John 14:17, ‘even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him.You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.’

 1 Peter 2:21, ‘For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps.’

 Revelation 22:12,14,“And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be. Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.” King James translation.

 Matthew 7:22,23. ‘On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

 Matthew 7:13-14, ‘“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

 Emphasis throughout by editor.

 

Cry aloud and Spare Not!

Jesus Christ said that He came to set family members against each other ( Matthew 10:35-36), that they would become enemies.

How could this occur? It happens when God opens the mind of one family member  to His word, but not the rest. That family member then recognises the sin in society, unrecognised by others in their family, and is regarded as a bigot for believing, for example, that the homosexual agenda pushed by our biased socialist media, is evil, that the lionisation  of gay pride, homosexual marriage, and gender confusion is shameful, wrong and destructive to a nation.

The fact is that like the frog that stays in hot water until it dies, much of society has been gradually brainwashed into believing that human rights are more important than God’s Laws.

So, millions of babies are aborted, criminals go free while their their victims are jailed, evil murderers take a few years holiday in jail, liberal elites would have us remove our borders and destroy our national identity, Christians are made criminals for believing that which has been recognised as evil for thousands of years is not to be accepted, but spoken out against. It will reach the point where Christians are not just hated, but killed for their beliefs. Matthew 24:9, “Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me.”

But those who hate them are not aware that they speak out because terrible punishment lies ahead for our nations  because of our sins. Matthew 24:21-22,  ‘For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again. If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened.’   They speak out because they don’t want to see that suffering, that people may repent and be spared.  Isaiah 24:6, ‘Therefore a curse consumes the earth; its people must bear their guilt. Therefore earth’s inhabitants are burned up, and very few are left.’ NIV.

Have you been successfully brainwashed? Are you like like the frog in hot  water, unaware of God’s  anger?      Please consider God’s words!