WHAT SCRIPTURE DOESNT SAY IS AS IMPORTANT AS WHAT IT DOES SAY. What is constantly amazing to me are the teachings that are accepted as truth......when we can find scriptures that utterly contradict what has been taught. Instead of swallowing a teaching, hook line and sinker, are we not to test everything against Gods breathed Word ? Just three examples of how the Word can and does contradict false teachings, should be enough to show us that we MUST stop listening to mere men ( and women)....and to go straight into the Word. ONLY the Holy Spirit will reveal the truth of Gods Word.....NO person has the whole truth as God is still revealing it. One teaching that is always sure to get me incensed is the one that we go to live in heaven. Just ONE scripture tells us that this is impossible: 1 Timothy 6:16 ► who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen. So, God lives in unapproachable light...yet we are asked to believe that we CAN be in that unapproachable light , by living with Him in heaven. I prefer to believe scripture. But, just to make sure, let the words from Jesus own lips convince you: John 3:13 ► No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven--the Son of Man. Jesus was proving two things when He spoke to Nicodemus. Notice that this verse speaks of Jesus ascending to heaven...yet He had not died or been resurrected at the time He said this. Jesus was telling us of His omnipresence ....that He could be in two places at once ....that He was IN heaven at the same time that He was speaking to Nicodemus, here on earth. Second, He said this 800 years AFTER Elijah was supposedly taken to heaven. Yet...Jesus plainly said that NO man had ascended to heaven. This is plainly telling us that we have misunderstood the account of Elijah being translated. You see, if Jesus said it then that is the end of the matter. The account of Elijah must mean something other than what many believe...that he is now in heaven. He is not. Remember, there are three heavens.....the third is where God lives and we see that he lives there in unapproachable light. We have Jesus telling us that NO man has ascended there......so NOW is the time to stop preaching and believing that heaven is populated with all manner of dead saints. It isnt. When Paul was taken to the third heaven, also called Paradise, He was shown, in the Spirit, the New Jerusalem ( commonly referred to as Paradise......the new Eden )........and John was shown the New Jerusalem ..ing down , OUT of heaven from God, where He will have His dwelling place with man. Revelation 21 1 Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,”[a] for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’[b] or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” 5 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” If these words, via Jesus, through the Angel, to John, ARE trustworthy and true.....WHY then are they ignored ? Why then do many preach that we live in heaven and ignore the fact that we actually live in the New Jerusalem.....which comes down OUT of heaven ? The reason can ONLY be that these scriptures do not fit in with a false teaching. STILL people are swallowing the lie. The second teaching that has NO basis in scripture is that Jesus returns in two stages. This teaching was invented to fit the theory of a pre tribulation rapture.....that He comes secretly to gather His people....then he comes back AGAIN to judge the earth. That will be THREE comings of Christ. Hmm....this is a teaching from a gospel other than the one Jesus brought. NEVER will you read where Jesus does anything secretly.......and NEVER will you read where He comes back in Two stages. lets see what scripture ACTUALLY says: Acts 1:9-11 9. And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight. 10 And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; 11 Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven. JESUS WILL RETURN THE SAME WAY HE ASCENDED. WHAT SCRIPTURE EVER SAYS HE ASCENDED IN TWO STAGES ? JESUS WILL RETURN, IN THE CLOUDS, THE SAME WAY HE ASCENDED....IN A CLOUD. ....NOT IN TWO STAGES. There are SO many examples of scripture , all through the Word, that contradict false teachings......ALL we have to do is know the Word sufficiently so that whatever is preached can either easily be confirmed .....OR exposed for the lie it is. Just one more: Matthew 24:29-30 29 “Immediately after the tribulation of those days “‘the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’ 30 “Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. 31 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. God uses specific language. here, in verse 29 He uses the word AFTER. NOWHERE in the Word, in any of the 66 book of the Bible, will we EVER read that Jesus comes back BEFORE or DURING the Tribulation. Yet...that is the teaching, a teaching that is directly contrary to EVERYTHING the Word says about the Tribulation. Matthew 24 is specifically about everything that leads up to, during and after the tribulation. Everything is covered....every aspect. If Jesus meant to tell His disciples that they would be taken out of the tribulation...He would have SAID so, in this very chapter. Instead He said the exact opposite. He warns believers to run for the hills and He specifically insists that we do NOT take the Mark of the beast ...why would Jesus warn us not to take the mark....IF WE WERE NOT GOING TO BE HERE ? God is a God of Truth and common sense. It makes NO sense to read the above scriptures, which are all clear as crystal. only to preach the opposite of what they actually say. We can search all day long, and find, scriptures that SEEM to say what we want them to say....to say what we think they mean .....to NO avail as they will NOT be Gods Truth. God tells it like it is. Yes, He uses Parables and symbolic language ...for those who have ears to hear and eyes to see. Many do not even believe that the account of Lazarus and the rich man IS a Parable. It was the last in a series of parables that Jesus gave to the rich merchants and scribes of Jerusalem ....to teach them that wealth did not make them superior in Gods eyes and that the love of money WOULD prevent them from entering the Kingdom of God. Abrahams Bosom is a fictitious place, it does not exist ...that is why there is NO mention of it anywhere else in the entire Bible...ONLY in Luke. Not ONE Old Testament author mentioned the creation of it or of anyone being there ...it was an ORAL (not written) tradition of religious Rabbis who taught that both good and bad people went there upon death. These Rabbis taught that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob ruled over Abrahams Bosom and that Abraham pleaded with the Angel on behalf of the bad people so that they could cross over from the bad part to the good part. In Jesus Parable He made sure to include the fact that, upon death, NO one could cross over from the fiery pit ( Hebrew Gehenna...Lake of fire)....to Paradise....the New Jerusalem. The Rabbis taught that the bad people could earn their way OUT of the bad part ( place of torment) of Abrahams bosom , and go to the good part ( paradise) by being prayed for by their loved ones who were still alive. This was based purely on the Ancient Greeks myth of the underworld ....where two places existed under the earth...a bad part and a good part, separated by the river Styx ....ruled over by Apolyon, the God of the underworld, who ruled over both places....and that one could earn their way out of the bad part by being prayed for by their loved ones who were still alive. This, in turn, was carried on by the catholics when they translate the Bible from Koine Greek into Latin...and they created Purgatory...a place under the earth where both the good and bad went when they died. They also taught that the bad people could earn their way out of purgatory by being prayed for by their loved ones on earth IF those loved ones did penance for them. According to catholicism a loved one could come out of purgatory IF their loved one PAID the church a certain amount of money, said so many Hail Marys and Our Fathers...using rosary beads. THIS is the Abrahams Bosom that many ( far too many) believe exists. It is a pagan invention from beginning to end. Believe in it at your peril. It simply does NOT exist. All this is easily researched......give it a try...before you argue. And here is the explanation of WHY the term Abrahams Bosom actually came into being: Abrahams bosom was an expression in the oral traditions of the Jewish Rabbis for the state of bliss after death. So, Christ made it plain...poor Lazarus would have bliss, but not the rich man. (the rich merchants and scribes knew He was talking about them.) Christs point was that being rich in this life would be no help to them after they were dead. Abrahams Bosom was an oral tradition...not part of Gods Word. You will find no reference to it in the Old Testament. God dictated every word in the OT so the fact that Abrahams Bosom is not mentioned once tells us that the authors either knew nothing of it or didnt include it as it was not from God. Bosom of Abraham refers to the place of comfort in sheol ( grave.Hebrew), (Greek: hades) where the Jews said the righteous dead awaited Judgment Day. These religious Jews were influenced by pagan Greeks with their myth of the underworld and they started teaching Abrahams Bosom as a fact, with NO basis in scripture. The word found in the Greek text for bosom is kolpos, meaning lap bay. This relates to the Second Temple period practice of reclining and eating meals in proximity to other guests, the closest of whom physically was said to lie on the bosom (chest) of the host. (See John 13:23 ) According to Maldonatus (1583), the metaphor to be in Abrahams Bosom is derived from the custom of reclining on couches at table, which prevailed among the Jews during and before the time of Jesus. At a feast each guest leaned on his left elbow so as to leave his right arm at liberty, and as two or more lay on the same couch, the head of one man was near the breast of the man who lay behind, and he was therefore said to lie in the bosom of the other. It was also considered by the Jews of old a mark of special honour and favour for one to be allowed to lie in the bosom of the master of the feast ( John 13:23), and it is by this illustration that they pictured the next world. They conceived of the reward of the righteous dead as a sharing in a banquet given by Abraham, the father of the faithful ( Matthew 8:11), and of the highest form of that reward as lying in Abrahams Bosom. Blessed are they who read, believe and rightly divide the TRUE Word of God.
Posted on: Thu, 13 Mar 2014 12:37:43 +0000
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