Hello people today I write on Grace Encounters 3, another one from the amazing Arthur Manchez series; Grace Encounters for a new beginning, turning dead ends into a new beginning. May we as Saul encounter the grace of God and be set free never to recover from such an encounter.

If we go through our Christian walk feeling that God is withholding from us then really have not been set free from judgment, if you feel that God has been withholding from you because you have not been good or have not prayed for sometime then you are not really living in the freedom of God’s grace because your feeling of God withholding from you comes from the fear of His judgment.

Romans 5:6-11
6 For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.7 For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die.8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.11 And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.

We see from verse 6 above that it is mentions that while were still helpless, some translations like the J B Philips mention it as while we were still sinners, Christ died for us at His Fathers appointed time. So if Jesus did that when we were still sinners then now that we have been justified by Him then what reason have we to fear the wrath of God or to feel as subjects of His judgment? Well the answer is we as believers in Jesus have no reason to fear the wrath of God. If you were to ask, as to what if you’d willfully sin, then too scripture would say have no reason to fear the wrath of God but this does not mean you are free to sin and this has been clearly discussed in Grace Encounters 2, Let us remember how the Apostle Paul puts it in his letter to the Church of Corinth.

2 Corinthians 5:14 (KJV)
14 For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead:

Constraineth us means to lay siege, like surrounding a city manning the entrances, exits and determining what goes in and come out. In the same way God has lay siege on our hearts as and He determines what goes in and come out, when we put our trust in Him, so the sense of being free to sin is made redundant in Christ.

You may as a person like the Grace Encounter Series by Arthur Manchez but you may be afraid thinking, that if you’d let go then there would be no telling what you would get up to but you must know that fear of punishment never changes your heart but just modifies your behavior. What happens when you don’t have the will power to enforce the restrictions? In such cases then you are going to do what is in your heart. The scary thing about the message of grace and freedom from judgment is that it will expose what is in your heart. You may not like it but when it is exposed you shall realize what is deeply rooted in you, you will then call to God to help you and He will help. God needs you a believer in Jesus not to be afraid of judgment in order to help you with what you have in your heart and this is where grace comes in.

As believers we should never feel that God will withhold from us, judge us or punish us to teach us something. We sometimes feel that God allows harsh situations to enter our lives that we may turn around but this is more like when; picturize this, you are driving down a road and see an accident, you see a lot of police, fire brigades probably and ambulances rushing to the scene. You see this and turn to your co-passenger and say I know who is responsible for all this and you point your finger at the police, fire men and paramedics saying; they are! You may find it totally wacko to analyze the situation in such way but you may say that every time you’ve watch scenes of major accidents, you’ve always found these policemen, fire men and paramedics and so you point fingers at them as the cause of the accident. Similarly when tragedy strikes peoples lives, God shows up and turns things around, our mentally reasoning then associates God as the person to blame for the tragedy. The truth is we bring tragedy upon ourselves from which God latter rescues us, He certainly had no hand in the tragedy that befell.

Let us now read from the book of Isaiah, which speaks so directly on the finished work of Jesus Christ. We as Christians must remember that we cannot teach about judgment without going to the finished work on the cross and we can never teach about the cross without going to the judgment of God.

Isaiah 54:7-10
7 “For a brief moment I forsook you,
But with great compassion I will gather you.
8 “In an outburst of anger
I hid My face from you for a moment,
But with everlasting lovingkindness I will have compassion on you,”
Says the LORD your Redeemer.
9 “For this is like the days of Noah to Me,
When I swore that the waters of Noah
Would not flood the earth again;
So I have sworn that I will not be angry with you
Nor will I rebuke you.
10 “For the mountains may be removed and the hills may shake,
But My lovingkindness will not be removed from you,
And My covenant of peace will not be shaken,”
Says the LORD who has compassion on you.

Verse 7 in the above scripture is a reflection of Jesus on the cross; on whom God poured His wrath because on the cross sinless as He is, he became the sin of the world & through Christ God gathers His body the Church; with great compassion. In verse 9, Jesus declares here that this cross was like the judgment that was on the world during the days of Noah, Jesus swore then that just as He would never again lets the waters destroy the whole earth, in the same way He swore to us that He would not be wrath with us or rebuke us in anger. Sometimes we find scripture that is contrary to the teaching of grace in the Bible but it does not seem very sensible to reject loads of scriptural evidence pointing to grace and accept a tea cup full of harsh judgment that we think is up on us. God however says to us unless you accept the overwhelming evidence of the grace that is in Christ then only will the tea cup be added to your understanding.

So do this, the next time you see a rainbow thank God for His promise that just as He swore to Noah that He would not destroy the earth with water, the same way, He will never rebuke you in anger or be wrath with you even if you mess up but He will correct you through Biblical scripture.

Let us now move to verse 10, have any of you seen a mountain being removed? Do we remember Mt. St. Helens that departed about 25 years ago? May I stand corrected but the volcano in this mountain was so powerful that it was 4 times more immense that the Hiroshima bomb. Can you even imagine that? However try now and imagine this God says that though you may see destruction and tragedy, His kindness will never depart from you, neither shall His covenant of peace be removed. Do you know what covenant of peace is being spoken of here?

Luke 2:13-14 (birth of Jesus)
13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying:
14 ” Glory to God in the highest,
And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”

The covenant of peace was Jesus Himself, you ought to remember as that God has made His peace you through Christ but you need to make your peace with Him but continuing to hold on to Jesus.

Isaiah 30:18 (Amplified)
18And therefore the Lord [earnestly] waits [expecting, looking, and longing] to be gracious to you; and therefore He lifts Himself up, that He may have mercy on you and show loving-kindness to you. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) are all those who [earnestly] wait for Him, who expect and look and long for Him [for His victory, His favor, His love, His peace, His joy, and His matchless, unbroken companionship]!

The above scripture should be like an anchor you your soul, as I said earlier the book of Isaiah speaks so much on the finished work of Jesus. If you would like to see some feeling of expecting, looking and longing then go to any maternity ward, in the waiting room, you will find people waiting, looking, longing and also restless. The above scripture says that God is waiting, expecting and longing to have as grace encounter with you; he therefore lifts Himself up to look over to you to show you mercy. Mercy is defined as God’s willingness, power and passion to treat us better that we deserve. Remember God is looking and longing to show you love and unmerited favour, you may also see in the above verse that God is a God of justice but this does not means that God cannot show you favour because of your disobedience or actions.

Let us try and understand what this kind of justice means. Before the cross, God’s justice demanded wrath, anger and punishment as penalty but when Jesus came and died on the cross, he became the recipient of God’s wrath, anger and punishment. Over here now in the New Testament, God still remains a God of justice but now His justice demands of Him that He be good to you. God has not changed but His justice now demands that He be good to you in every circumstance because in Jesus your penalty is already all paid for.

Now for the later part we see mentioned in the above scripture that blessed are those who wait on God for His victory/favour/joy/unmatched companionship. We can thus come to conclude that God is looking and longing to be good towards you but His justice entails that you are going to have to expect and long for it. We thus must have an expectation not of judgment but we must have an expectation of good things from Him where we shall with out intention, turn happy, fortunate and envied. What am trying to say is that when our expectations change, we will not need an overnight prayer meeting even to see a break through in our lives.

To conclude, no matter how big or small our needs may be, God is looking expecting and longing to provide for you but you are going to have to expect and long from Him to provide. Hallelujah!!!

Hello people today I write about the amazing revelation given in a vision to the prophet Zechariah in the Old Testament.

Zechariah 3:1-9
1 Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him.2 The LORD said to Satan, “The LORD rebuke you, Satan! Indeed, the LORD who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?”3 Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments and standing before the angel.4 He spoke and said to those who were standing before him, saying, “Remove the filthy garments from him.” Again he said to him, “See, I have taken your iniquity away from you and will clothe you with festal robes.”5 Then I said, “Let them put a clean turban on his head.” So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him with garments, while the angel of the LORD was standing by.
6 And the angel of the LORD admonished Joshua, saying,7 “Thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘If you will walk in My ways and if you will perform My service, then you will also govern My house and also have charge of My courts, and I will grant you free access among these who are standing here.
8 Now listen, Joshua the high priest, you and your friends who are sitting in front of you–indeed they are men who are a symbol, for behold, I am going to bring in My servant the Branch.9 For behold, the stone that I have set before Joshua; on one stone are seven eyes. Behold, I will engrave an inscription on it,’ declares the LORD of hosts, ‘and I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day.10 ‘In that day,’ declares the LORD of hosts, ‘every one of you will invite his neighbor to sit under his vine and under his fig tree.'”

To give you some ground for the above story, Joshua is High Priest of God’s Temple around 520BC & he is assigned with restoring the Temple, the people return from exile in Babylon. I’d like to tell you first that “Satan” means one who accuses you before God. From verse 2 we learn Biblical etiquettes even in dealing with Satan, you can see here that Joshua or the angel of God did not stone or throw footwear at Satan, God has no intention to let His people stoop to the level of Satan, Satan’s punishment is not stoning or throwing footwear but eternal fire. We see here that God denounced Satan by speaking rebuke towards him and declaring possession over His people right in front of this accuser. The word rebuke means to express stern disapproval and we see something along the same lines in Matthew 4:1-11, which brings me to ponder that Zech 3:2 was spoken by Jesus Himself.

Matthew 4:1-11
1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.2 And after He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry.3 And the tempter came and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”4 But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.'”
5 Then the devil took Him into the holy city and had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple,6 and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down; for it is written,
‘He will command His angels concerning You’;
and
‘On their hands they will bear You up,
So that You will not strike Your foot against a stone.'”
7 Jesus said to him, “On the other hand, it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.'”
8 Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain and *showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory;9 and he said to Him, “All these things I will give You, if You fall down and worship me.”10 Then Jesus said to him, “Go, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only.'”11 Then the devil left Him; and behold, angels came and began to minister to Him.

The word ‘Brand’ in Zechariah 3:2, is a burning stick and in reference to Joshua refers to him being saved from hell’s fire. Zech3 verse 3 synchronizes with Isaiah 64:6 also from the Old Testament, we see here that when we stand before God clothed in the righteousness of our own good deeds or lawful religion, our garments seem like rags compared to the righteousness God is clothed in.

Isaiah 64:6
6 We have all become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.
We all fade like a leaf,
and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.

Zech 3 verses 3-5 are very similar to the reconciliation in the story of the prodigal son has after he comes back to his father, having squandered his share of inheritance in Luke 15:20-24.

Luke 15:20-24
20 So he got up and started back to his father.
“He was still a long way from home when his father saw him; his heart was filled with pity, and he ran, threw his arms round his son, and kissed him. 21 ‘Father,’ the son said, ‘I have sinned against God and against you. I am no longer fit to be called your son.’ 22 But the father called his servants. ‘Hurry!’ he said. ‘Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and shoes on his feet. 23 Then go and get the prize calf and kill it, and let us celebrate with a feast! 24 For this son of mine was dead, but now he is alive; he was lost, but now he has been found.’ And so the feasting began.

You will notice great similarity in Zech 3:4 & Luke 15:22-23. The inequity that was taken away from Joshua was similar to shame taken away from the prodigal son in Luke 15. This friend is what grace about; grace being the undeserved favour you receive from God, as a sinner. Your life here in this world is about religious performance but about what God has done for you as a sinner.

You may however ask as how come Joshua was saved, when the price of sin was not as yet paid on the cross, incase you are wondering if there were more cases like these in the Old Testament, the answer is yes, consider the case of the prophet Isaiah.

Isaiah 6:7
He touched my lips with the burning coal and said, “This has touched your lips, and now your guilt is gone, and your sins are forgiven.”

In case you don’t know how such a thing can happen then let me introduce you to something called radical faith. Something which will make you thank God for something before you even ask for it or before it is given to you. Let me give you an example, I have been struggling with my new job and going to work was like walking to the gallows. One day I just looked up on my way to work and I thanked Jesus, in my pain but knowing that he would deliver me from this trial. A strange peace came upon me then, which you will know only if His Spirit stirs you. I have now been transferred to e-mails, this peace made me so sure of my rescue like a person who is sure of a better life when he walks out of prison. So you see prophets and patriarchs such as Isaiah and Abraham, lived in faith with God (Romans 4:3) & this is what counted them among the righteous that is ‘saved them’. The price of their sin was paid later but their slate was wiped clean as soon as they put their trust in God, they too have Jesus to thank for their salvation. Hebrews 9:25-28 will provide some scripture to show you that the work of Salvation on the cross was all ages before and after.

Romans 4:3
3 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.”

Hebrews 9:25-28 (New Testament)
25 Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, 26 for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27 And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, 28 so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

The House of God in Zech 3:7, refers to God’s people,

2Corinthians 6:16 (Apostle Paul to the Church)
For we are the temple of the living God! As God himself has said: “I will make my home with my people and live among them; I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

“The Branch” referred to in Zech 3 verse 8 refers to the body of believers in Jesus as a whole, known as the Church.

John 15:5 (Jesus’ word)
5 “I am the vine, and you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will bear much fruit; for you can do nothing without me.

This is confirmed in Zech 3 verse 9, as the stone with seven eyes refers to Jesus (Rev 5:6), but Biblically the body of Christ is the whole Church (Eph 5:23), for whom Christ died to take away the inequity of that land in one day. Rev 3:11-12 gives you an idea for what the Lord of Host, will inscribe on His Church. Incase you ask why Jesus refers to His father as His God when He (Jesus) Himself is God, then I would like to tell you that in the Bible even the Father referred to His Son as God (Heb 1:8). This should not be interpreted as God has a God but that they all are the same God (John 10:22), obey Jesus is obeying the Father (1Jn2:23 & 2Jn1:9).

Revelation 5:6
6 And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.

Ephesians 5:23
…as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.

Revelation 3:11-12 (Jesus’ word to His Church)
11 I am coming soon. Hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown. 12 The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. Never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name.

Hebrews 1:1-8
1:1 Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. 3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, 4 having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.
…
8 But of the Son he says,
“Your throne, O God, is forever and ever,
the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.

John 10:22
I and the Father Are One

1John2:23
No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also.

2John 1:9
Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son.

Zech 3 verse 10 speaks of days, when every one who believes in Jesus (the Church), will openly invite his neighbor out of love (Mat 22:39) to sit under the goodness of his vine, which is Biblically Jesus as per John 15:5 (above) and under the fig tree is figuratively speaking from John 1:43-50 to have a revelation of Jesus and come to love Him (Mat 22:37) for who He really is, which is the only way to Salvation

Matthew 22:37-39
37…“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

John 1:43-50
43 The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” 44 Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. 45 Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” 46 Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” 47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!” 48 Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” 49 Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” 50 Jesus answered him, “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater things than these.”

Hello people today I write on something really interesting, I have found the time and energy to write this, so thank you Jesus. Please note that this article of mine has a lot of speculation, of what I am not certain but I wish to leave you with something to think about. We shall be looking at Rev 12:1-17.

Revelation 12:1-17
1 Then a great and mysterious sight appeared in the sky. There was a woman, whose dress was the sun and who had the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. 2 She was soon to give birth, and the pains and suffering of childbirth made her cry out.
3 Another mysterious sight appeared in the sky. There was a huge red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and a crown on each of his heads. 4 With his tail he dragged a third of the stars out of the sky and threw them down to the earth. He stood in front of the woman, in order to eat her child as soon as it was born. 5 She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne. 6 The woman fled to the desert, to a place God had prepared for her, where she will be taken care of for 1,260 days.
7 Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, who fought back with his angels; 8 but the dragon was defeated, and he and his angels were not allowed to stay in heaven any longer. 9 The huge dragon was thrown out — that ancient serpent, called the Devil, or Satan, that deceived the whole world. He was thrown down to earth, and all his angels with him.
10 Then I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, “Now God’s salvation has come! Now God has shown his power as King! Now his Messiah has shown his authority! For the one who stood before our God and accused our brothers and sisters day and night has been thrown out of heaven. 11 Our brothers and sisters won the victory over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the truth which they proclaimed; and they were willing to give up their lives and die. 12 And so be glad, you heavens, and all you that live there! But how terrible for the earth and the sea! For the Devil has come down to you, and he is filled with rage, because he knows that he has only a little time left.”
13 When the dragon realized that he had been thrown down to the earth, he began to pursue the woman who had given birth to the boy. 14 She was given the two wings of a large eagle in order to fly to her place in the desert, where she will be taken care of for three and a half years, safe from the dragon’s attack. 15 And then from his mouth the dragon poured out a flood of water after the woman, so that it would carry her away. 16 But the earth helped the woman; it opened its mouth and swallowed the water that had come from the dragon’s mouth. 17 The dragon was furious with the woman and went off to fight against the rest of her descendants, all those who obey God’s commandments and are faithful to the truth revealed by Jesus.

I strongly feel that the woman in labor in the above passage is Israel as a people (Amos 5:2; Micah 4:9). The 12 stars represent the 12 tribes. The moon under her feet possibly has something to do with Rosh Chodesh, the new moon festival marking the Passover. Clothed with the sun possible implies the way she stood out as divinely chosen among all the nations. The verse 3 dragon is Satan (verse 9) the dragging of 1/3 of the stars implies the fallen angels (demons) who followed Satan. Verse 4 shows Satan was waiting to devour the child & we know from Matthew 2 that King Herod did everything in his power to kill this baby. The child however was caught up with His Father’s assignment, dying for the sin and returns to His throne. From verse 10 we see this Messiah having fulfilled his mission on earth exercising His eternal authority in Heaven (Mat 28:18) empowering (verse 11) Chief Michael (Dan 10:13) and all God’s angels to fight and throw out from heaven, Satan with his fallen ones (Luke 10:18), for Salvation had come to people and Satan could no longer stay in heaven to accuse God’s people before God (Father Jesus Spirit). The time had come, the accuser was thrown out and heaven stood in victory by the blood of the lamb & the proclaiming of the Gospel (Act 8:26, Acts 10:3-22, Acts 12:8-11), people of God held to this more dearly than even their own lives.

Mat 28:18
Jesus drew near and said to them, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth.

Luke 10:18
18 Jesus answered them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.

Verse 13 show the danger that comes to the woman, the wings of the eagle may possibly imply the huge Roman Empire, whose emblem was partly that of an eagle with its wings spread out. We know that at the time of Jesus, Israel was subject to Roman rule, which may have protected her from outside attacks. Verse 15, I strongly feel talks about Satan attempting to corrupt Gods people with a teaching he claims to be from God, I say this because ‘water’ is an essence of life that comes from God, Jesus spoke about life giving water that would come from Him (John 4:14) that would even see His people through persecution (Jeremiah 17:8). However the water coming out of Satan mouth, would possibly be a teaching to counter the Good News of the Salvation worked out on the cross for the world, a teaching that would surely be contradictory to the Bible, to which many many would take to like a flood. These teachings would possibly be recorded as the words of an angel picturised in the Bible as water coming from Satan’s mouth. Paul puts such a case to rest in Galatians 1:8 about listening to an angel just kicked out from heaven, this he may have warned even before it possibly happened. This blasphemy (Revelations 13:4-7) was to carry the people away from God like that of a flood. The earth opening its mouth possibly implies the eternal death & permanent burial in the earth of those who possibly fall prey to this deceit of Satan’s word (verse 9). Verse 17 speaks of the fury the dragon has upon Israel, with the same contempt as he may have taught (water from his mouth) against Israel, he goes off to fight her descendant, it seems strangely attractive here to see that her descendants are not those by blood but those who obey God and are faithful to the truth revealed by Jesus, we notice here that the Gentiles (non Jews) trusting in Jesus are counted among the descendants of Israel. The verse 17 mention of the truth revealed by Jesus stands to confirm of a people who in their time have survived the deceit of the dragon/devil and have remained hung on to Jesus.

John 4:13-14
13 Jesus answered, “All those who drink this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring which will provide him with life-giving water and give him eternal life.”

Jeremiah 17:8
They are like trees growing near a stream and sending out roots to the water. They are not afraid when hot weather comes, because their leaves stay green; they have no worries when there is no rain; they keep on bearing fruit.

Galatians 1:8
8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel that is different from the one we preached to you, may he be condemned to hell!

Revelation 13:4-7 (Amplified Bible)
4They fell down and paid homage to the dragon, because he had bestowed on the beast all his dominion and authority; they also praised and worshiped the beast, exclaiming, Who is a match for the beast, and, Who can make war against him?
5And the beast was given the power of speech, uttering boastful and blasphemous words, and he was given freedom to exert his authority and to exercise his will during forty-two months (three and a half years).
6And he opened his mouth to speak slanders against God, blaspheming His name and His abode, [even vilifying] those who live in heaven.
7He was further permitted to wage war on God’s holy people (the saints) and to overcome them. And power was given him to extend his authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation,

Let us read some Old Testament scripture that fits like peaces of a jigsaw puzzle into Revelation 12:1-17. Amos 5:2-3 below could possibly imply that just as Mary, Israel too was spoken of as a virgin & from her came the Messiah. When she went out to war, she came back with as many as the percentage of which she gave God in tithe. She was possibly given the wings of an eagle because she lay abandoned to the ground.

Amos 5:2-3
2 Virgin Israel has fallen,
Never to rise again!
She lies abandoned on the ground,
And no one helps her up.

3 The Sovereign Lord says, “A city in Israel sends out a thousand soldiers, but only a hundred return; another city sends out a hundred, but only ten come back.”

Also read

Micah 4:8-13 & 5:1-5
8 And you, Jerusalem, where God, like a shepherd, watches over his people, will once again be the capital of the kingdom that was yours. 9 Why do you cry out so loudly? Why are you suffering like a woman in labour? Is it because you have no king, and your counsellors are dead? 10 Twist and groan, people of Jerusalem, like a woman giving birth, for now you will have to leave the city and live in the open country. You will have to go to Babylon, but there the Lord will save you from your enemies. 11 Many nations have gathered to attack you. They say, “Jerusalem must be destroyed! We will see this city in ruins!” 12 But these nations do not know what is in the Lord’s mind. They do not realize that they have been gathered together to be punished in the same way that corn is brought in to be threshed.
13 The Lord says, “People of Jerusalem, go and punish your enemies! I will make you as strong as a bull with iron horns and bronze hoofs. You will crush many nations, and the wealth they got by violence you will present to me, the Lord of the whole world.”

1 People of Jerusalem, gather your forces! We are besieged! They are attacking the leader of Israel!

God Promises a Ruler from Bethlehem
2 The Lord says, “Bethlehem Ephrathah, you are one of the smallest towns in Judah, but out of you I will bring a ruler for Israel, whose family line goes back to ancient times.”
3 So the Lord will abandon his people to their enemies until the woman who is to give birth has her son. Then those Israelites who are in exile will be reunited with their own people. 4 When he comes, he will rule his people with the strength that comes from the Lord and with the majesty of the Lord God himself. His people will live in safety because people all over the earth will acknowledge his greatness, 5 and he will bring peace.

From Micah 4:8-10 above notice this; Israel is compared to a woman in labor. Babylonia, whose king was referred to as Lucifer (Satan) when comparing Isaiah 14:12 in the NKJV and GNB translations, this Satan stood before the woman Israel when she was pictured in labour, we see from Micah 5:1 above that Babylonia besieged Jerusalem and was there to attack the leader of Israel.

Isaiah 14:12
NKJV: 12 ” How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!…
GNB: 12 “King of Babylonia, bright morning star, you have fallen from heaven!….

From Micah 5:2-5, we are told about this leader of Israel, Jesus who would bring back to God His people and rule with the strength that comes from God, like a Son who inherits the virtues and strengths of His Father-chip of the old block, so to say & he will have the majesty of God Himself for He is God, people all over the world will acknowledge His greatness and He will bring peace.

Amos 4:13 (identity of Jesus)
13 God is the one who made the mountains
and created the winds.
He makes his thoughts known to people;
he changes day into night.
He walks on the heights of the earth.
This is his name: the Lord God Almighty!

It note worthy to also mention that when God declares in Micah 4:13 for God’s people to go and attach the enemy it is like that of Michael and the angels fighting against Satan and his fallen ones (demons) for Michael is Biblically known to be the guardian angel of Israel (Dan 10:20).

Hello people, I write after quite some time, am sorry I haven’t been able to write for a while as am into a new job dealing in broking and that is taking a lot of time and energy. Today I would like to write to you on the book of Jonah in the Old Testament, which is seen to run in tandem with the Gospels of the New Testament.

There are many similarities in the records of Jonah when compared to the life of Jesus. The Old Testament is mostly a shadow of things to come, the relationship between the prophets of the Old Testament and God were all a shadow of the relationship Jesus, the Son of God had with His Father. A shadow my friend is barely the outline of the object casting it, in the same way the relationship between the Old Testament prophets & God shown was just the silhouette of the fullness of relationship God the Father shared with God the Son.

Let us check 3 distinct characteristics in the record of Jonah and in the life of Jesus.

1. Jonah is strangely a prophet who opposes His duty to preach repentance to the city Nineveh. The story in short is this: God has had enough of the wickedness of Nineveh, he set Jonah with the duty to preach repentance to Nineveh, Jonah’s reason for not going to Nineveh is simply because he somehow feels God does not intend to punish Nineveh, Jonah knows the nature of God, he knows He is Good and forgiving and finds it of little use to preach to a people repentance who he feels deserve punishment. So Jonah sets off in the opposite direction of Nineveh but an unusual sequence of events brings Jonah to Nineveh and Nineveh repents and is saved from destruction. Let us go through some scripture.

Jonah 1:3-16 (Old Testament)
3 Jonah, however, set out in the opposite direction in order to get away from the Lord. He went to Joppa, where he found a ship about to go to Spain. He paid his fare and went aboard with the crew to sail to Spain, where he would be away from the Lord. 4 But the Lord sent a strong wind on the sea, and the storm was so violent that the ship was in danger of breaking up. 5 The sailors were terrified and cried out for help, each one to his own god. Then, in order to lessen the danger, they threw the cargo overboard. Meanwhile, Jonah had gone below and was lying in the ship’s hold, sound asleep.
6 The captain found him there and said to him, “What are you doing asleep? Get up and pray to your god for help. Maybe he will feel sorry for us and spare our lives.”
7 The sailors said to one another, “Let’s draw lots and find out who is to blame for getting us into this danger.” They did so, and Jonah’s name was drawn. 8 So they said to him: “Now then, tell us! Who is to blame for this? What are you doing here? What country do you come from? What is your nationality?”
9 “I am a Hebrew,” Jonah answered. “I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made land and sea.” 10 Jonah went on to tell them that he was running away from the Lord.
The sailors were terrified, and said to him, “That was an awful thing to do!” 11 The storm was getting worse all the time, so the sailors asked him, “What should we do to you to stop the storm?”
12 Jonah answered, “Throw me into the sea, and it will calm down. I know it is my fault that you are caught in this violent storm.”
13 Instead, the sailors tried to get the ship to shore, rowing with all their might. But the storm was getting worse and worse, and they got nowhere. 14 So they cried out to the Lord, “O Lord, we pray, don’t punish us with death for taking this man’s life! You, O Lord, are responsible for all this; it is your doing.” 15 Then they picked Jonah up and threw him into the sea, and it calmed down at once. 16 This made the sailors so afraid of the Lord that they offered a sacrifice and promised to serve him.

Luke 8:22-25 (New Testament)
22 One day Jesus got into a boat with his disciples and said to them, “Let us go across to the other side of the lake.” So they started out. 23 As they were sailing, Jesus fell asleep. Suddenly a strong wind blew down on the lake, and the boat began to fill with water, so that they were all in great danger. 24 The disciples went to Jesus and woke him up, saying, “Master, Master! We are about to die!”
Jesus got up and gave an order to the wind and the stormy water; they died down, and there was a great calm. 25 Then he said to the disciples, “Where is your faith?”
But they were amazed and afraid, and said to one another, “Who is this man? He gives orders to the winds and waves, and they obey him!”

Add Matthew 14:33 (New Testament)
Then the disciples in the boat worshipped Jesus. “Truly you are the Son of God!” they exclaimed.

From the Old and New Testament, this is what is eye catching:
I. Just as Jonah was so confident of his security even that he was sleeping in a boat being taken apart by a storm, the same way Jesus was asleep even as the boat was endanger of sinking, these were both persons of great faith.
II. It was God who calmed the storm when Jonah was out of the boat, which was taking him in the opposite direction of God purpose, in the same way the records of Luke and Matthew reveal Jesus as the person who calmed the storm and so identity of God is revealed in Jesus even as we see the sailors with Jonah worship the God of Jonah and the disciples in the boat worship Jesus.
We thus see the New Testament being God’s unfolding revelation of many things including His identity, all being sourced from the Old Testament.

2. To continue from the scripture from Jonah 1, the story goes like this Jonah after being thrown into the sea is swallowed by a fish and remains there for 3 day and 3 nights. Jonah miraculously does not die & this is a small part of Jonah prayer.

Jonah 3
5 The water came over me and choked me;
the sea covered me completely,
and seaweed was wrapped round my head.
6 I went down to the very roots of the mountains,
into the land whose gates lock shut for ever. (A reference to the world of the dead).
But you, O Lord my God,
brought me back from the depths alive.
7 When I felt my life slipping away,
then, O Lord, I prayed to you,
and in your holy Temple you heard me.

Now let us check the reference Jesus made about Himself in the case of Jonah.

Luke 11:29 (Jesus’ word)
29 As the people crowded round Jesus, he went on to say, “How evil are the people of this day! They ask for a miracle, but none will be given them except the miracle of Jonah. 30 In the same way that the prophet Jonah was a sign for the people of Nineveh, so the Son of Man will be a sign for the people of this day

Mat 12:40 (Jesus’ word)
40 In the same way that Jonah spent three days and nights in the big fish, so will the Son of Man spend three days and nights in the depths of the earth.

There is a need to note here that Jonah by himself did no miracle, his life was that of service to preach repentance to a people called by God, in the case of Jonah the people were those of Nineveh. So you see Jonah bringing Nineveh back to God is shadow of the fullness in Jesus bringing all creation to God (Colossians 1:20) & for an unbeliever today, the stone in his shoe while he walks in unbelief of Jesus will till today be the death of Jesus on the cross, spending 3 days & nights in a tomb and rising to life. This is like a thorn for unbelief for being reconciled to God is something that keeps rolling in a person’s head till he accepts the Salvation in Jesus with a sigh of relief.

Colossians 1:20
20 Through the Son, then, God decided to bring the whole universe back to himself. God made peace through his Son’s blood on the cross and so brought back to himself all things, both on earth and in heaven.

3. It is important to note here that just as a shadow is sometimes distorted in a way as how light may falls on an object or may be because of an uneven surface on which the shadow may be cast in the same way the profits were far from perfect, they have been known to wriggle out of the task that is set upon them and their dealing with people were not reflective of the goodness of God but rather the nature of the people (uneven surface) they are dealing with. Jesus on the other hand is He in whose image we have the shadow, being a substitute for sin for all God’s people, death was cast upon Him, His nature of acceptance of His Father’s will in meekness surpassed the human nature of pride mixed with fear of the prophets. Would you like me to give you a classic example of the human tendencies of the prophets? Let’s read from the book of Jonah itself; this scripture comes to happen as Nineveh takes seriously to repentance, they are reconciled to God but Jonah is not happy.

Jonah 4:1-11
1 Jonah was very unhappy about this and became angry. 2 So he prayed, “Lord, didn’t I say before I left home that this is just what you would do? That’s why I did my best to run away to Spain! I knew that you are a loving and merciful God, always patient, always kind, and always ready to change your mind and not punish. 3 Now, Lord, let me die. I am better off dead than alive.”
4 The Lord answered, “What right have you to be angry?”
5 Jonah went out east of the city and sat down. He made a shelter for himself and sat in its shade, waiting to see what would happen to Nineveh. 6 Then the Lord God made a plant grow up over Jonah to give him some shade, so that he would be more comfortable. Jonah was extremely pleased with the plant. 7 But at dawn the next day, at God’s command, a worm attacked the plant, and it died. 8 After the sun had risen, God sent a hot east wind, and Jonah was about to faint from the heat of the sun beating down on his head. So he wished he were dead. “I am better off dead than alive,” he said.
9 But God said to him, “What right have you to be angry about the plant?”
Jonah replied, “I have every right to be angry — angry enough to die!”
10 The Lord said to him, “This plant grew up in one night and disappeared the next; you didn’t do anything for it, and you didn’t make it grow — yet you feel sorry for it! 11 How much more, then, should I have pity on Nineveh, that great city. After all, it has more than 120,000 innocent children in it, as well as many animals!”

From the above scripture we can see the vague nature of Jonah, he felt sorry for the plant that shaded him when it was attacked and destroyed by the worm at dawn the next day. Jonah did nothing to make the plant grow or die but still he felt sorry, God was thus trying to teach Jonah that till then He had not given Nineveh the privilege of being a people of God but still they repented, when a message of repentance was brought to them & so instead of letting death get the better of them, God chose to forgive them & add their sin to the cross He would bear being all-knowing (Omniscient). After all Nineveh was filled with many innocent children and had many animals too, yeah God does care for all His creation.

Cheers mate!

Hello people, how are you? I write today after quite a short break as I have been asked to write something on The Resurrection of Jesus, so here comes this article.

Well now resurrection (rising from the dead) can only after death just eternal life only came after Jesus came. Let us read some interesting scripture from the book of Amos in the Old Testament.

Amos 8:7-10
7 The Lord, the God of Israel, has sworn, “I will never forget their evil deeds. 8 And so the earth will quake, and everyone in the land will be in distress. The whole country will be shaken; it will rise and fall like the River Nile. 9 The time is coming when I will make the sun go down at noon and the earth grow dark in daytime. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken. 10 I will turn your festivals into funerals and change your glad songs into cries of grief. I will make you shave your heads and wear sackcloth, and you will be like parents mourning for their only child. That day will be bitter to the end.

When I read the above scripture what the Spirit revealed to me was that this was about the death of Jesus, let us read the New Testament record of a few moments before Jesus died.

Matthew 27:45-46,50-54
45 At noon the whole country was covered with darkness, which lasted for three hours. 46 At about three o’clock Jesus cried out with a loud shout, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why did you abandon me?”
50 Jesus again gave a loud cry and breathed his last.
51 Then the curtain hanging in the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split apart,
52 the graves broke open, and many of God’s people who had died were raised to life. 53 They left the graves, and after Jesus rose from death, they went into the Holy City, where many people saw them.
54 When the army officer and the soldiers with him who were watching Jesus saw the earthquake and everything else that happened, they were terrified and said, “He really was the Son of God!”

Jesus was cut off from His Father and the Spirit during His time of death, as He went to the cross taking on Him the penalty all the sin (1Peter 2:24) of the world (John 1:29), Biblically sin cuts people from God (Isaiah 59:2) as God said he would never forget the evil of His people (Amos 8:7) and so He forgot His Son dying on the cross, thus Jesus cried “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (Mat 27:46) on the cross.

1Peter 2:24
Christ himself carried our sins in his body to the cross, so that we might die to sin and live for righteousness. It is by his wounds that you have been healed.

John 1:29
The next day John saw Jesus coming to him, and said, “There is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

Isaiah 59:2
It is because of your sins that he doesn’t hear you. It is your sins that separate you from God when you try to worship him.

Let us do a comparative study of Amos 8:7-10 materializing in the New Testament as the death of Jesus.

• “Earth will quake, the whole country will be shaken”: Amos 8:7 fulfilled Mat 27:51,54.
• “Everyone in the land in distress”: Amos 8:7 fulfilled Mat 27:24 (Roman governor Pilate refuses to pass sentence over Jesus but the idea of the Roman governor Pilate giving in to the crowd due to the reason of being unable to contain the riot shows the distress in the land)

Matthew 27:24
24 When Pilate saw that it was no use to go on, but that a riot might break out, he took some water, washed his hands in front of the crowd, and said, “I am not responsible for the death of this man! This is your doing!”

• “sun go down at noon and the earth grow dark in daytime”: Amos 8:9 fulfilled Mat 27:45
• “turn your festivals into funerals and change your glad songs into cries of grief”: Amos 8:10 fulfilled Mat 15:6-11,15 & Luke 23:27

Matthew 15:6-11,15
6 At every Passover Festival Pilate was in the habit of setting free any one prisoner the people asked for. 7 At that time a man named Barabbas was in prison with the rebels who had committed murder in the riot. 8 When the crowd gathered and began to ask Pilate for the usual favour, 9 he asked them, “Do you want me to set free for you the king of the Jews?” 10 He knew very well that the chief priests had handed Jesus over to him because they were jealous.
11 But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to ask, instead, for Pilate to set Barabbas free for them.
…
15 So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified.

Luke 23:27 (People following Jesus on His way to the cross)
27 A large crowd of people followed him; among them were some women who were weeping and wailing for him.

• About shaving heads and wear sackcloth (Amos 8:10), that is what people in the time of Amos (middle of 8 century BC) used to do during mourning but the tradition of mourning changed as time passed & just ask we grind our masala (spices) now-a-days in a electric mixer rather that on a grinding stone in the same way the people of Jesus time mourned very differently from the time of Amos. The New Testament however keeps no record of people mourning for Jesus after His death for what He did on the cross was Good, being the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world. Thus we observe Good Friday. The disciples did mourn & this was said by Omniscient Jesus before His death.

Matthew 9:14-15
14 Then the followers of John the Baptist came to Jesus, asking, “Why is it that we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples don’t fast at all?”
15 Jesus answered, “Do you expect the guests at a wedding party to be sad as long as the bridegroom is with them? Of course not! But the day will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.

Note:-
1. Omniscient means having complete or unlimited knowledge, awareness, or understanding; perceiving all things.
2. The Church’s (believers in Jesus) union with God is Biblically compared to a marriage.

• “and you will be like parents mourning for their only child” from Amos 8:10 refers to the only Son of God that The Father s gave unto His people (Mat 21:37) hoping they would accept Him as their own (John 1:11), which many did not and this Son they put to death and made that day bitter to the end (Amos 8:10).

Matthew 21:37
Last of all he sent his son to them. ‘Surely they will respect my son,’ he said.

John 1:11,14
11 He came to his own country, but his own people did not receive him.
…
14 The Word became a human being and, full of grace and truth, lived among us. We saw his glory, the glory which he received as the Father’s only Son.

For the above the same Christian view of the true death of Jesus, many would have quoted Isaiah 52:13 & Isaiah 53 but being an ex-math student I love to come to the same conclusion trying a different approach & this is what seals the Bible uniquely as complete, genuine & truly from God because no matter what solution you are looking for in the Bible, as long you are receiving from the Bible what is been given rather than just picking what you are comfortable with, then you will always wind up finding your way; believing in Jesus. You know when people asked Jesus what God want them to do, he did not say the primary thing was fasting or praying or charity or visiting holy places. Let us see what he said.

John 6:28-29
28 So they asked him, “What can we do in order to do what God wants us to do?”
29 Jesus answered, “What God wants you to do is to believe in the one he sent.”

Now talking of Resurrection and eternal life, the Old Testament men of God rose from their death after the time Jesus was resurrected (Mat 27:52-53), these people were then seen the city & they then went into God’s presence (heaven).

Hosea 6:2
In two or three days he will revive us, and we will live in his presence.

The only thing we need to grasp about eternal life & about rising from death; is Jesus, He is Biblically God’s only Son (John 3:16) and is God’s firstborn (Colossians 1:15) because He existed before all things (Colossians 1:17) & was the first to be as man, raised from the dead (Revelation 1:5).

John 3:16
For God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not die but have eternal life.

Colossians 1:15
Christ is the visible likeness of the invisible God. He is the firstborn Son, superior to all created things.
…
Christ existed before all things, and in union with him all things have their proper place.

Revelation 1:5
and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the first to be raised from death and who is also the ruler of the kings of the world. He loves us, and by his sacrificial death he has freed us from our sins

Resurrection (rising from the dead) my friends, is only worth while if death cannot touch you again. According to the Daniel 12:2 in the Old Testament, not all who die will rise & from those who rise some will enjoy eternal life while the others suffer eternal disgrace. The Bible also speaks of 2 deaths first being the crumbling of our bodies physically and second death being been thrown into hell fire (Mat 25:41; Rev 21:8). When Jesus went back to heaven, He sent the Holy Spirit to us (John 15:26) that we may to listen to Him (Spirit) & so remain in Jesus thus being saved from the second death (Rev 2:11).

Daniel 12:2
Many of those who have already died will live again: some will enjoy eternal life, and some will suffer eternal disgrace.

Matthew 25:41
…Away to the eternal fire which has been prepared for the Devil and his angels!

Revelation 21:8
… lake burning with fire and sulphur, which is the second death.”

John 15:26 (Jesus’ word)
“The Helper will come — the Spirit, who reveals the truth about God and who comes from the Father. I will send him to you from the Father, and he will speak about me.

Revelation 2:11 (Jesus word)
11 “If you have ears, then, listen to what the Spirit says to the churches!
“Those who win the victory will not be hurt by the second death.

So you see the Spirit keep speaking to us about Jesus and in remaining in Jesus till the end we have victory over the second death or shall I more optimistically say eternal life in union with Christ (Romans 6:23).

Romans 6:23
For sin pays its wage — death; but God’s free gift is eternal life in union with Christ Jesus our Lord.

Check this scripture too; Amos 8:11-14
11 “The time is coming when I will send famine on the land. People will be hungry, but not for bread; they will be thirsty, but not for water. They will hunger and thirst for a message from the Lord. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken. 12 People will wander from the Dead Sea to the Mediterranean and then on from the north to the east. They will look everywhere for a message from the Lord, but they will not find it. 13 On that day even healthy young men and women will collapse from thirst. 14 Those who swear by the idols of Samaria, who say, ‘By the god of Dan,’ or, ‘By the god of Beersheba’ — those people will fall and not rise again.”

You can see in verse 11, the spiritual depravity/famine God said he would bring on the world, may be these are the days we live in today. People wander distant places considering them as holy, these venture far out seeking God (verse 12) and in all this even the healthiest (soundest) of people fall prey to Satan (collapse) (verse 13) for they would have found and clung to god/gods (one or many) (verse 14)other than Yahweh (Father Jesus Spirit).

My last piece of Scripture that closes this article is the answer to the question posed in the above Amos 8:11-14 regarding the spiritual depravity/famine/vacuum being set in this world for God. As I said earlier the only thing we need to grasp about eternal life & about rising from death; is Jesus.

John 6:35-40 (Jesus’ word)
35 “I am the bread of life,” Jesus told them. “Those who come to me will never be hungry; those who believe in me will never be thirsty. 36 Now, I told you that you have seen me but will not believe. 37 Everyone whom my Father gives me will come to me. I will never turn away anyone who comes to me, 38 because I have come down from heaven to do not my own will but the will of him who sent me. 39 And it is the will of him who sent me that I should not lose any of all those he has given me, but that I should raise them all to life on the last day. 40 For what my Father wants is that all who see the Son and believe in him should have eternal life. And I will raise them to life on the last day.”

Hello people, I have now got all four parts of Grace Encounters for you, here is part 1, all these 4 parts are by a brilliantly anointed Biblical lecturer Arthur Meintjes. As I would like to make this more engaging and so I will be speaking directly without quoting the speaker.

Let us read Romans 5:15-19
15 But the two are not the same, because God’s free gift is not like Adam’s sin. It is true that many people died because of the sin of that one man. But God’s grace is much greater, and so is his free gift to so many people through the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ. 16 And there is a difference between God’s gift and the sin of one man. After the one sin, came the judgment of “Guilty”; but after so many sins, comes the undeserved gift of “Not guilty!” 17 It is true that through the sin of one man death began to rule because of that one man. But how much greater is the result of what was done by the one man, Jesus Christ! All who receive God’s abundant grace and are freely put right with him will rule in life through Christ.
18 So then, as the one sin condemned all people, in the same way the one righteous act sets all people free and gives them life. 19 And just as the mass of people were made sinners as the result of the disobedience of one man, in the same way the mass of people will all be put right with God as the result of the obedience of the one man.

The spotlight is on verse 17, with this we begin this four part series of Grace Encounters for a New Beginning – turning dead ends into New Beginning, am sure that the Jesus believers out there have experienced this and know what am talking about, looking back at your life seeking God, you would surely have seen good growth in God. I am talking of situation that bring change and rapid growth in people where God is concerned, yeah ‘God moments’ is what you would call them ‘Grace Encounters’ is what Arthur calls them.

Encounter by definition means to ‘run into / collide with’ unexpectedly; the idea of the Grace Encounters series is to make known God’s ‘goodness / grace / unmerited favour /mercy / forgiveness’ that we collide with in seasons of life especially when we feel farthest from God.

Let read the story of Saul from the New Testament.

Acts 9:1-7
1 In the meantime Saul kept up his violent threats of murder against the followers of the Lord. He went to the High Priest 2 and asked for letters of introduction to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he should find there any followers of the Way of the Lord, he would be able to arrest them, both men and women, and bring them back to Jerusalem.
3 As Saul was coming near the city of Damascus, suddenly a light from the sky flashed round him. 4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul! Why do you persecute me?”
5 “Who are you, Lord?” he asked.
“I am Jesus, whom you persecute,” the voice said. 6 “But get up and go into the city, where you will be told what you must do.”
7 The men who were travelling with Saul had stopped, not saying a word; they heard the voice but could not see anyone.

This Saul, who later came to be known as Paul, was a man zealous about God, he was a man who held on the Law dearly and saw himself to be perfect in the eyes of the Law of Moses. Being somewhat of a religious fanatic he felt as though he needed to do something for God, which God was not doing for Himself!! but was counting on Saul to do. This is a characteristic feature of religiosity, people feel that if God’s doing nothing about something, whatever it may be then God is expecting help for it to be done, as though God need’s help to function.

To share a few juicy tit bits about the early Church, I would like to tell to tell you that they were known by outsiders as the “followers of the Way”, you can see this in verse 2 of Acts 9. The Bible says that the Church is an institution of God & it is God’s desire for the Church to remain in existence. The identity of the Church is not in a particular construction but a body of people who believe in Jesus, the Son of God, as the only salvation that is from God & upon this belief the Church is built, which breaks through even the house of Satan to save souls.

Matthew 16:16-18
16 Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17 And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. 18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

So you see anyone who comes against the Church is actually whether he knows it or not, coming against God. Religious Saul had such views of God, that Saul though God paid death as fitting price to all His enemies. So he blindly did the same to the Church because he thought they were against God. As you may have heard people turn out to be just like the god they serve. You see Saul asked for letter of approval from his religious houses to persecute the Church because according to His religious view that is what God would do to those who were against Him & that is why during the stoning of Stephen, Saul stood in approval, watching over the clothes of those who murdered whom he knew not was a man of God. In all his life as unbelieving Saul, he thought himself to be mercenary for God; doing what he thought was God’s dirty work, thus helping his god stay clean.

Saul had such a strict view on the Law of Moses that he felt it applied to everyone even those who knew nothing of it. According to the Law certain sin was punishable by death and to Saul people could never have an excuse such as they dint know. Death was what he thought was how God answered rebellion. From verses 3 & 4 of Acts 9, you can clearly see that Saul in a matter of seconds realized his blunder that his persecution of the Church was actually going against God, he instantly falls to the ground expecting death right there because to Saul the biggest thing about God was not love but wrath. This encounter of Saul with Jesus was that of grace and this changed his entire life.

My hope for you is that in the next 2 days that you too have such an encounter with the grace that comes from Jesus, which you will never recover from & which you will never get over. May you come to enlightenment knowing that everything in the kingdom of God focuses on the cross and the finished work of Jesus Christ. Having an encounter with grace is not about some shallow encounter with some doctrine or law but a destiny changing encounter with Jesus Christ.

Let’s read John 3:16-17
16 For God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not die but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to be its judge, but to be its saviour.

The word “world” in the above scripture indicates people, meaning that God sent His Son that people may know that they are safe when it comes to God. Even sinners whether Christian or non-Christian; are safe with God. Jesus came so that the world might know that they are safe with God. People, any people are in no way inferior or damaged in the eyes of God.

Take the example of Saul’s experience in His encounter with Jesus. God was in full right to annihilate Him right then & there but instead God asks Paul to rise & Paul instead of being condemned is given such a privilege, that it turns out that he winds up writing 2/3 of the New Testament, preaching the Good News of eternal salvation from Jesus to different Churches & looses his life holding on to his faith in Jesus.

Looking through history and the world even today; we must come to realize that no human being can live an emotionally stable life while living under the impending judgment of God. We are in need of such encounters with Jesus that make known to us the unmerited love and favour God has shown us in Jesus. If you find this concept of a gracious God very alien as it may not match certain religious views then my advice to you is repent – change the way you think because God is no stick holding policeman. The world is so full of emotional disasters, these are on a high one moment and down in the dumps the next moment. Their living environment is to them a bed of nails, they are not at peace with it & to say the least they are not at peace with God, though they may not admit it.

There is a story told of very successful lawyer, who looses everything, his wife leaves him and loots him in divorce. He is advised to live in obedience to the will of God. This advice he takes with a pinch of fanatical religiosity. Sometime he’d be on his way to a restaurant & he would turn back thinking that that was probably not God’s will for him and so he would then turn heading in the opposite direction to another restaurant. Needless to say, in a matter of a few months he lands up in an asylum.

There are also certain stories told of religious prohibition of going to the movies (theater). The Bible teaches that we have a God to leads His people to green pastures; our provision comes from Him & so there is little sense in depravity due to religious belief, when it is God Himself providing for you. Religious bondage was never a solution for sinful desire.

From John 3:16, we can see that God so greatly prized the world that he gave up His only begotten Son. This is the love the Bible speaks of that God has for man. God did not decide to redeem man, thinking of cost effectiveness or limiting the damages. He did not send some angel serving in some corner of the universe that no one would miss; no the kingdom of God is very differently from this world’s so called corporate religious beliefs. When it came to saving people, God said that he would send One through whom all things exist, God was going to bankrupt heaven, this is the value God has for people. Christianity is not about people working to be put right with God but about God working on the cross to save people, indicating Him to be a God of action rather than just sitting back in approval. If you are feeling let down today or feeling farthest away from God then let me tell you that God gave up on His Son Jesus just for you & that is how much he loves you. God did not limit the damages when it came to saving you. What He paid for you cost Him everything, He put His identity in the line of fire just for you. When Jesus came He was tempted & thank God He did not fail for if He did then everything God has & is would have ceased. God valued you and me so much that he paid the ultimate price that you may have the same life that sustains God eternally (John 3:16).

This is your Encounter of Grace with this great God (Father Son Spirit). So no matter who you are whether rich / poor / sick / healthy / addicted / abused / mental / handicapped, you may not be cared for by the world but you are precious in the eyes of God & He will let you know how precious you are when you encounter Him.

Hello people, how are you? I write today on an extract from what was preached in Church. The scripture is from Matthew 15:21-28.

Matthew 15:21-28
21 Jesus left that place and went off to the territory near the cities of Tyre and Sidon. 22 A Canaanite woman who lived in that region came to him. “Son of David!” she cried out. “Have mercy on me, sir! My daughter has a demon and is in a terrible condition.”
23 But Jesus did not say a word to her. His disciples came to him and begged him, “Send her away! She is following us and making all this noise!”
24 Then Jesus replied, “I have been sent only to the lost sheep of the people of Israel.”
25 At this the woman came and fell at his feet. “Help me, sir!” she said.
26 Jesus answered, “It isn’t right to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”
27 “That’s true, sir,” she answered; “but even the dogs eat the leftovers that fall from their masters’ table.”
28 So Jesus answered her, “You are a woman of great faith! What you want will be done for you.” And at that very moment her daughter was healed.

The above scripture may disturb some people because here Jesus is approached by a woman in desperation and here she appears to be spoken to harshly. To give you some background on this scripture, I would like to say that things then were heating up in Israel and there were certain leaders scheming to trap Jesus & Jesus left Israel for sometime as per His Father’s will. Let us go back to the Old Testament to see what God said about the fate intended for Tyre, Sidon and the surrounding regions.

Joel 3:4-8
4 “What are you trying to do to me, Tyre, Sidon, and all the regions of Philistia? Are you trying to pay me back for something? If you are, I will quickly pay you back! 5 You have taken my silver and gold and carried my rich treasures into your temples. 6 You have taken the people of Judah and Jerusalem far from their own country and sold them to the Greeks. 7 Now I am going to bring them out of the places to which you have sold them. I will do to you what you have done to them. 8 I will let your sons and daughters be sold to the people of Judah; they will sell them to the far-off Sabeans. I, the Lord, have spoken.

So you can see God’s plan for the people of Tyre, Sidon and the surrounding regions was that of a reaction to their own actions. Needless to say, their children would suffer. Jesus’ word in Matthew 15:24 is not that He was meant to save only Israel but rather sticking to scripture, prophetically that God sent His Son to a people He chose & called His own. Yes I do also have scripture to back me saying that in Jesus, His death and faith in Him made Salvation available to even Gentiles (non-Jews; rest of the world).

Acts 26:23
that the Messiah must suffer and be the first one to rise from death, to announce the light of salvation to the Jews and to the Gentiles.”

Galatians 3:8-13
8 The scripture predicted that God would put the Gentiles right with himself through faith. And so the scripture announced the Good News to Abraham: “Through you God will bless the whole human race.” 9 Abraham believed and was blessed; so all who believe are blessed as he was.
…
13 But by becoming a curse for us Christ has redeemed us from the curse that the Law brings; for the scripture says, “Anyone who is hanged on a tree is under God’s curse.” 14 Christ did this in order that the blessing which God promised to Abraham might be given to the Gentiles by means of Christ Jesus, so that through faith we might receive the Spirit promised by God.

Colossians 2:13-14
13 You were at one time spiritually dead because of your sins and because you were Gentiles without the Law. But God has now brought you to life with Christ. God forgave us all our sins; 14 he cancelled the unfavourable record of our debts with its binding rules and did away with it completely by nailing it to the cross.

You may come to understand that it was the time of the death of Christ and after that salvation was made available to the Gentiles (Col 2:13-14).The Bible says in Ecclesiastes 8:6 that there is a right time and right way for everything of which we know little. When Jesus was approached by His mother, to help with the shortage of wine mentioned in John 2:1-12; Jesus helped by turning water to wine but he did say that it was not yet His time to work miracles in His ministry. So in the same way, the right time for salvation to be declared to the woman in Matthew 15:21-28 would be the time of the cross and after.

Ecclesiastes 8:6
6 There is a right time and a right way to do everything, but we know so little!

We must know that God being God, always stands by what he says and Jesus’ reaction to the woman is because of what He spoke through the prophet Joel in the fifth or fourth century BC about Tyre Sidon and the surrounding regions. However the Bible also says that God is love, let’s read this scripture and also read about what exactly is this love.

1 John 4:8-11
8 Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 And God showed his love for us by sending his only Son into the world, so that we might have life through him. 10 This is what love is: it is not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the means by which our sins are forgiven.
11 Dear friends, if this is how God loved us, then we should love one another.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7
4 Love is patient and kind; it is not jealous or conceited or proud; 5 love is not ill-mannered or selfish or irritable; love does not keep a record of wrongs; 6 love is not happy with evil, but is happy with the truth. 7 Love never gives up; and its faith, hope, and patience never fail.

Despite this woman’s fate was sealed (Joel 3:4-8), as her daughter was enslaved to the demon that tormented her. Jesus being a God of love chose to save this woman, who acknowledged Him as the Messiah (Matthew 15:22 – Son of David), Master (Matthew 15:27) and God (Matthew 15:25). The Bible says that Jesus does not turn away anyone who comes to Him, even if the person was condemned, for these are they the Father has drawn to His Son to be saved.

John 6:37-44
37 Everyone whom my Father gives me will come to me. I will never turn away anyone who comes to me, 38 because I have come down from heaven to do not my own will but the will of him who sent me. 39 And it is the will of him who sent me that I should not lose any of all those he has given me, but that I should raise them all to life on the last day. 40 For what my Father wants is that all who see the Son and believe in him should have eternal life. And I will raise them to life on the last day.”
41 The people started grumbling about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42 So they said, “This man is Jesus son of Joseph, isn’t he? We know his father and mother. How, then, does he now say he came down from heaven?”
43 Jesus answered, “Stop grumbling among yourselves. 44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him to me; and I will raise him to life on the last day.

As the Bible says, faith in Jesus comes from hearing God (Romans 10:17); it is a gift that draws us strongly to Jesus, which saves us from damnation (Romans 4:16-17). In the scripture of Matthew 15, this woman had heard of Jesus (Romans 10:18) and from what she heard she had great faith. Nothing could beat her down, she stood strong in the fact that Jesus alone could save the situation, the faith that God gave her was so strong that she did not have to wait till the time of cross to honour Jesus as people honoured God the Father during her time (John5:23), so she and her household were saved & like Abraham her faith was credited to her as righteousness (Romans 4:22-25).

Romans 10:17-18
17 So then, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message comes through preaching Christ.
18 But I ask: is it true that they did not hear the message? Of course they did — for as the scripture says:
“The sound of their voice went out to all the world;
their words reached the ends of the earth.”

Romans 4:16-17, 22-25
And so the promise was based on faith, in order that the promise should be guaranteed as God’s free gift to all of Abraham’s descendants — not just to those who obey the Law, but also to those who believe as Abraham did. For Abraham is the spiritual father of us all; 17 as the scripture says, “I have made you father of many nations.” So the promise is good in the sight of God, in whom Abraham believed — the God who brings the dead to life and whose command brings into being what did not exist.
….
22 That is why Abraham, through faith, “was accepted as righteous by God”. 23 The words “he was accepted as righteous” were not written for him alone. 24 They were written also for us who are to be accepted as righteous, who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from death. 25 Because of our sins he was handed over to die, and he was raised to life in order to put us right with God.

John 5:23
23 so that all will honour the Son in the same way as they honour the Father. Whoever does not honour the Son does not honour the Father who sent him.

Hello people, how are you doing today? Hope all is turning out well for you, this I ask for you in Almighty Jesus name. Well I don’t have Grace Encounters 2, 3, 4 today for you; I am still to procure it. I still however have something interesting for you from my Bible reading time. As you may have noticed, am writing has turned lesser now as I am now being tutored music and a good amount of my time is going in picking this up, as I want to diversify my writing ability and go into song writing too.

What makes the Bible unique among religious books is that God spoke through the prophets, His Spirit possessed them and what came through the mouths of the prophets or from their Biblical writing was directly from God. There were no in-betweens (angels or whatever) God used the prophets as mediums but never as in-betweens. We know this because when God spoke through the prophets He spoke in the first person, you may consider the scripture below; about God in the Bible: you will never find something like “he does not beget, nor is he begotten”, In the Bible God declares his identity in the first person “I” never in the third “he”. Can there ever be any creation (angel, man or soul) capable of declaring “who is God?” or “ what He can or cannot do?”? God uses mediums but He still speaks for Himself in the first person, it is the weak who have need for a mouthpiece but never the great and there is nothing greater than God, & so God spoke in the first person even through His prophets because this Biblical God is Omnipresent. Let us read Hosea 11:9 from the Old Testament, which is one of numerous scripture of God revealing His identity.

Lets read Hosea 11:9
I will not execute my burning anger;
I will not again destroy Ephraim;
for I am God and not a man,
the Holy One in your midst,
and I will not come in wrath.

If you were to think from a strictly monotheist point of view of the above scripture then you are taking what you want from the scripture and not exactly all that you are given. Allow me to show you God declaring His Tri-union Identity here.

Consider from the above scripture “for I am God and not a man” this was written by the prophet Hosea before the coming of Jesus as man, it however refers to ‘God the Father’, for the above two statement talk of “will” and Biblically everything that happens is as per the Father’s will because He is the Dude with all the plans and He alone knows their timing (Mark 13:32), meaning all that happens through all creation happens either because He will it or allows it for the greater good of His people.

Mark 13:32
“No one knows, however, when that day or hour will come — neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son; only the Father knows.

Coming back to Hosea 11:9 “the Holy One in your midst”; refers to ‘God the Holy Spirit’ for He is God’s presence among His people.

Psalms 51:11 (from the Psalms of king David)
Do not banish me from your presence; do not take your holy spirit away from me.

Finally coming to the last part of Hosea 11:9 “and I will not come in wrath.”; refers to the ‘God the Son’ taking support of John 3:17.

John 3:17
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

To strengthen my stand showing you the references made in Hosea declaring Jesus clearly as God, I would like to quote Hosea 13:4 & Hosea 14:8.

Hosea 13:4
4 But I am the Lord your God
from the land of Egypt;
you know no God but me,
and besides me there is no savior.

Let us cross study Hosea 13:4 with Matthew 2.

Matthew 2:13:15 (Jesus as a child)
13 After they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph and said, “Herod will be looking for the child in order to kill him. So get up, take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you to leave.”
14 Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and left during the night for Egypt, 15 where he stayed until Herod died. This was done to make what the Lord had said through the prophet come true, “I called my Son out of Egypt.”

Matthew 2:15 refers to Hosea 11:1

Hosea 11:1
When Israel was a child, I loved him,
and out of Egypt I called my son.

So you see the Son who the Father called out of Egypt (Mat 2:15 // Hos 11:1) was Jesus the Lord God of Israel (Hos 13:4)

Now let’s check Hosea 14:8
8 The people of Israel will have nothing more to do with idols;
I will answer their prayers and take care of them;
Like an evergreen tree I will shelter them;
I am the source of all their blessings.”

Allow me to show you line by line through Hosea 14:8 unraveling who is Jesus. Line 1: It is important to note here that idols mentioned above are not merely crafted gods but what we hold on to more dearly than God, holding on to anything other than God was just as intolerable in the Old Testament (Isaiah 31:1) as it is was in the New Testament. Here is what Jesus said in Mark 10:29 about where people’s priorities should be.

Mark 10:29-30
29 “Yes,” Jesus said to them, “and I tell you that anyone who leaves home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and for the gospel, 30 will receive much more in this present age. He will receive a hundred times more houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields — and persecutions as well; and in the age to come he will receive eternal life.

Mark 10:29, is a reflection of the very first commandments in Exodus 20:3, you shall put nothing before the Lord your God. As for line 2 of Hosea 14:8: here below is scripture showing elders falling before Jesus (Biblically referred to as the Lamb of God) and with the prayers of God’s people, whom He has answered making them prosper.

Revelations 5:7-10
7 The Lamb went and took the scroll from the right hand of the one who sits on the throne. 8 As he did so, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each had a harp and gold bowls filled with incense, which are the prayers of God’s people. 9 They sang a new song:
“You are worthy to take the scroll
and to break open its seals.
For you were killed, and by your sacrificial death you bought for God
people from every tribe, language, nation, and race.
10 You have made them a kingdom of priests to serve our God,
and they shall rule on earth.”

Line 3 & 4: Read Galatians 3:13-14
13 But by becoming a curse for us Christ has redeemed us from the curse that the Law brings; for the scripture says, “Anyone who is hanged on a tree is under God’s curse.” 14 Christ did this in order that the blessing which God promised to Abraham might be given to the Gentiles by means of Christ Jesus, so that through faith we might receive the Spirit promised by God.

The Bible says that the Law brought with it death for it made known what sin was, where there was no Law people were not held accountable to sin (Rom 5:13) because it was only through the Law right was made known from wrong.

Romans 5:13, 21
There was sin in the world before the Law was given; but where there is no law, no account is kept of sins.
..
21 so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Law is like a reflection of the ‘fruit of the tree of knowledge of right and wrong’, which Adam and Eve ate in disobedience in the God’s Garden (Eden). The reason Adam and Eve were not allowed to then eat the fruit of the tree of life after their disobedience is because the tree of life symbolized eternal life in union with God but sin (Adams disobedience) and God are like oil water and so until God worked out a solution for sin, there was no way God and man would reunite and stay that way eternally. The fruit of the tree of knowledge or right and wrong like the Law; brought into the picture sin leading to death. This fruit was different from the fruit of the ‘tree on life’ in the same Garden. In Jesus, His death made freely available to us all the fruit of the tree of life, which became His blood shed on the cross for the forgiveness of sin (Eph 1:7).This took the outcome of sin made known by the Law/tree of knowledge of right and wrong, which was judgment leading to death. Just as the fruit of the tree of knowledge of right and wrong did not possess the key to eternal life, in the same way Law’s purpose was never Salvation but just to give man the idea of right from wrong. So the evergreen tree mentioned in Line 3, is the cross, which sheltered God’s people from death, blessing them with eternal life in union with God (Romans 5:21), the source of all things.

Eph 1:7
7 For by the blood of Christ we are set free, that is, our sins are forgiven. How great is the grace of God,

So that concludes this article writing from the book of Hosea of the Old Testament; showing you that the all powerful God of all creation is individually the Father, Son and Holy Spirit working in unison as One God. Allow me to put a fitting conclusion to this extract from the book of Hosea. I shall use the same conclusion as the book of Hosea.

Hosea 14:9
9 May those who are wise understand what is written here, and may they take it to heart. The Lord’s ways are right, and righteous people live by following them, but sinners stumble and fall because they ignore them.

Hello people I write again today, this time I write majorly from extracts of a video lecture from a Bible college that one of my brothers is currently attending. The lecture is a four part series and this post is Part-2 of “Grace Encounter for a New Beginning”. To make this post more engaging I will be speaking on behalf of the lecturer but as the first person.

Firstly, it is not possible to grasp the Gospel of Jesus Christ without understanding the Judgment of God & It is not possible to understand the Judgment of God without understanding the finished work of Jesus Christ; all these my friend go hand in hand. Let us read John 3:16-17.

John 3:16-17
16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

You know if you are reading this & you have something telling you that there is something about Jesus, which you allures you beyond fathom then you have a calling my friend. Let us get back; if we understand verse 17 in John 3 then we understand the basic concept of the grace of God in the Gospel. Believing in Jesus entails that you know that God is not out to get you, if he wanted to get you then he would have got you a long time ago. You are not at all hard to find.

To grasp the Gospel of Jesus, you need to think out of the box of religious indoctrination. We must understand that in Jesus we are free from all impending Judgment. Let us go through John 5:21.

John 5:21-22
21 For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will. 22 The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son,

From the verse 21 we can see what the Father can do the Son can too. Verse 22 requires you think from away from a religious perspective, it says that just as the Father judges no one in the same way (acting like the Father from verse 21 & taking support from John 3:17) the Son too judges no one but the Judgment referred to in verse 22 refers to the Judgment/Punishment of world that was focused entirely upon the Son of God. The reason I ask you not to think religiously is because a religious view is deceptive as its view of God is that of someone always out to get you and make you do what you do out of fear of punishment. A religious view of verse 22 will lead you to think that: Ok the Father will get me but he has now left that to Jesus.

Moving to verse 23 of John 5 (below) we see that the reason the Father focused all Judgment upon the Son was so that all creation may honour Jesus as much as they honour the Father & moving to verse 24 you can confirm the idea that he who believes in Jesus does not come up for Judgment.

John 5:23-24
23 that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. 24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.

John 9:39
39 Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.”

From John 9:39, we see that Jesus came into the world for the Judgment of all creation was upon Him. It is in Jesus that belief is separated from unbelief, He is like a lightening rod that saves believers from the wrath of God, it is in trusting Jesus that people have peace.

Let’s read John 12:27-31.

John 12:27-31 (before Jesus’ death)
27 “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” 29 The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” 30 Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not mine. 31 Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out.

From verses 28-30, you can see that it was that the whole thing of Jesus coming into the world was so that man could be saved but a religious perspective does not even make even the voice of God coherent. Jesus did not need to hear that voice, He knew His mission, He knew the predestined plan before creation even began. Verse 31 answers your question in verse 27 as to what was the “hour” for which Jesus came into the world. Jesus’ death was actually the hour of Judgment of the world. The Judgment of God was not when 6 million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, the Judgment of God was not when the Tsunami killed hundreds of thousands in Asia, the Judgment of God has never been when catastrophe hit the world but the Judgment of the world was when Jesus endured death on the cross & it was then 2000 years ago that Satan (ruler of the world) was cast out, i.e. from that day Satan has no access or accusation against you before God. If you notice verse 32 below you will notice it starts with a conjunction ‘And’ that means there is more to complete the statement of verse 31 of John 12 mentioned above. Looking closely at verse 32, you will notice that the word “peoples” is in italics, indicating that that word was not present in the original scripture, it was added by the translators to make the scriptures readable as the translators could not fathom what was the “all” to be understood from that scripture, so they added the word “peoples” to it.

John 12:32 (NKJV)
32And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself.”

Reading verses 31-33 of John 12 as originally intended, we have.

John 12:31-33
31 Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. 32And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all (Judgment) to Myself.” 33 This He said, signifying by what death He would die.

In the light of the above, this infers that man will not be judged for sins committed but if man chooses the path of unbelief or that of rejecting Jesus or if man chooses to be religious with the “compulsory” praying, fasting & other rituals then in these he will be outside canopy of saving belief in Jesus and will bear the wrath of God for his own sin.

We see God unmerited favour (grace) in this act of sacrifice that we are put right with God in believing in Jesus. This grace however does not mean you are free to sin. Freedom is only freedom when you are free and you are only free when you trust in Jesus & it is when you trust in Jesus that your ‘want to s” change radically. A preacher who preaches grace does not worry about keeping people in line when it is faith that leaves it to God to keep people in line.

Let’s read James 1:12-15:
12 Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. 13 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. 14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

From verse 13 we can see, we can see that when you go through a trial, it is a blessing to know that your hardship does not come from God but from the decisions you have made in your life based on your lustful desires. Yes desires are God given but it is what you do with them that make it sinful. The desires He gives you are to be fulfilled as per His plan not by submitting to your weakness. If your desire is sex then God’s solution is marriage. If your desire is to be prosperous then the solution is tithes, study & work, business etc. It is in moving away from God’s plan that we mess up. When your lustful desire is conceived in your own power, then that gives birth to sin and one fine day that reaps it wages: death & then unlike whatever you may have been told and taught, God is not responsible for that condition you are in but he is still there caring for you and waiting that you may come to terms with His solution for your sin: Jesus; that He pull you out of that mess. Do you know that in Genesis 3:21, God being Good beyond anyone can come to terms with, provided Adam an Eve with clothes, for their sin of disobedience brought forth their nakedness & God showed His unmerited favour (grace) to them by providing for them even when they sinned against Him.

Many oppose the Gospel being gracious with the Acts 5 scripture; allow me to show you that.

Acts 5:1-10
1 But there was a man named Ananias, who with his wife Sapphira sold some property that belonged to them. 2 But with his wife’s agreement he kept part of the money for himself and handed the rest over to the apostles. 3 Peter said to him, “Ananias, why did you let Satan take control of you and make you lie to the Holy Spirit by keeping part of the money you received for the property? 4 Before you sold the property, it belonged to you; and after you sold it, the money was yours. Why, then, did you decide to do such a thing? You have not lied to human beings — you have lied to God!” 5 As soon as Ananias heard this, he fell down dead; and all who heard about it were terrified. 6 The young men came in, wrapped up his body, carried him out, and buried him.
7 About three hours later his wife, not knowing what had happened, came in. 8 Peter asked her, “Tell me, was this the full amount you and your husband received for your property?”
“Yes,” she answered, “the full amount.”
9 So Peter said to her, “Why did you and your husband decide to put the Lord’s Spirit to the test? The men who buried your husband are now at the door, and they will carry you out too!” 10 At once she fell down at his feet and died. The young men came in and saw that she was dead, so they carried her out and buried her beside her husband.

Verses 3, 4 & 9, are not words of condemnation but words of foreknowledge that was then gifted to the Apostle Peter by the Holy Spirit, the Bible clearly says in Matthew 12:32 that speaking against the Spirit is as much sinful as rejecting Jesus as Lord and Master (Jude 1:4). Ananias and Sapphira did not die because God killed them but because what Peter spoke was radically different from what they thought the outcome would be. It may interest you to know that in Africa, many people fall dead on the spot when they hear that a witch doctor has worked a curse on them. God did not kill Ananias and Sapphira as much as He did not kill Judas Iscariot, it was their guilt, a guilt that condemned themselves beyond they could not bear, a guilt that was so heavy that it cost them their own lives. Sin does not make God kill you but takes you away from the source of life which is God (Isaiah 59:2).

Hi people, I write again, today too I have something interesting to share. I will be talking from the book of Daniel of the Old Testament.

The story goes like this, the ruling king Nebuchadnezzar of the most powerful empire then Babylon, has a dream and he wanted to share it with only those who would be able to interpret it for him. To safe guard his dream the king decides that the interpreter should also know what the dream is without being told what it is, in order to determine the interpreter as genuine. his fortune tellers and magicians are of no help but only get the king more angry & so the king order the execution of all the members of the royal court as he had deemed them all useless. The king had 4 people from the tribe of Judah, in His court, these were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah; men of God. Let’s read the scripture. Let us now read Daniel 2:31-45 to see how God makes Daniel reveal to the king, his dream with the interpretation.

Daniel 2:31-45 (Daniel speaking to king Nebuchadnezzar)

31 “Your Majesty, in your vision you saw standing before you a giant statue, bright and shining, and terrifying to look at. 32 Its head was made of the finest gold; its chest and arms were made of silver; its waist and hips of bronze; 33 its legs of iron, and its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. 34 While you were looking at it, a great stone broke loose from a cliff without anyone touching it, struck the iron and clay feet of the statue, and shattered them. 35 At once the iron, clay, bronze, silver, and gold crumbled and became like the dust on a threshing place in summer. The wind carried it all away, leaving not a trace. But the stone grew to be a mountain that covered the whole earth.

36 “This was the dream. Now I will tell Your Majesty what it means. 37 Your Majesty, you are the greatest of all kings. The God of heaven has made you emperor and given you power, might, and honour. 38 He has made you ruler of all the inhabited earth and ruler over all the animals and birds. You are the head of gold. 39 After you there will be another empire, not as great as yours, and after that a third, an empire of bronze, which will rule the whole earth. 40 And then there will be a fourth empire, as strong as iron, which shatters and breaks everything. And just as iron shatters everything, it will shatter and crush all the earlier empires. 41 You also saw that the feet and the toes were partly clay and partly iron. This means that it will be a divided empire. It will have something of the strength of iron, because there was iron mixed with the clay. 42 The toes — partly iron and partly clay — mean that part of the empire will be strong and part of it weak. 43 You also saw that the iron was mixed with the clay. This means that the rulers of that empire will try to unite their families by intermarriage, but they will not be able to, any more than iron can mix with clay. 44 At the time of those rulers the God of heaven will establish a kingdom that will never end. It will never be conquered, but will completely destroy all those empires, and then last for ever. 45 You saw how a stone broke loose from a cliff without anyone touching it and how it struck the statue made of iron, bronze, clay, silver, and gold. The great God is telling Your Majesty what will happen in the future. I have told you exactly what you dreamt, and have given you its true meaning.”

From verse 31-33, we see empires represented by gold, silver, bronze and iron. This goes without saying that these empire would have surely forced their rule on the nations subject to them. The statue in the dream is more like that of an amour, a symbolism of forced rule upon the nation. Today we may not have empires but we have economies and nations under enforced rigid rule. This today stands as that as that big intimidating statue in Daniel 2:31. In this article I would like to stress on the great stone that broke loose from the cliff without anyone touching it, this stone is said to crush elements of forceful rule on mankind & leave no trace at all of what it has crushed. This stone would represent a kingdom that will grow to cover the whole earth, a kingdom that will never be conquered & last forever.

Do you know that it is in the New Testament that Jesus is referred to as the corner stone, which is the most important foundation in the Kingdom of God, let us read for ourselves some scriptures on the same.

Luke 20:17-18 (Scripture from Psalms 118.22-23)

17 Jesus looked at them and asked, “What, then, does this scripture mean?

‘The stone which the builders rejected as worthless

turned out to be the most important of all.’

18 Everyone who falls on that stone will be cut to pieces; and if that stone falls on someone, it will crush him to dust.”

Act 4:11-12

11 Jesus is the one of whom the scripture says:

‘The stone that you the builders despised

turned out to be the most important of all.’

12 Salvation is to be found through him alone; in all the world there is no one else whom God has given who can save us.”

Romans 9:32-33

32 And why not? Because they did not depend on faith but on what they did. And so they stumbled over the “stumbling stone” 33 that the scripture speaks of:

“Look, I place in Zion a stone

that will make people stumble,

a rock that will make them fall.

But whoever believes in him will not be disappointed.”

1Peter 2:6-8

6 For the scripture says:

“I chose a valuable stone,

which I am placing as the cornerstone in Zion;

and whoever believes in him will never be disappointed.”

7 This stone is of great value for you that believe; but for those who do not believe:

“The stone which the builders rejected as worthless

turned out to be the most important of all.”

8 And another scripture says:

“This is the stone that will make people stumble,

the rock that will make them fall.”

They stumbled because they did not believe in the word; such was God’s will for them.

Note: – Zion was the place where God’s people went to worship El-Elyon (Most High God) i.e. El-Shaddai (All Powerful God) i.e. El-Olam (The Eternal God) i.e. El-Berith (God of the Covenant) i.e. El-Roi (God who sees me) i.e. JESUS: that people may believe and become a people of God (1 Corinthians 1:30)

From the above scriptures you can see Jesus is that foundation stone, whom powers of forcefulness will reject & stumble and be crushed (Luke 20:17-18). Salvation (Eternal life in heaven) can be found in Him alone (Acts 4:11-12). He is the One in whom you can securely place your trust, He will never disappoint those who believe in Him (Romans 9:32-33) [Romans 9:32//Prov 3:5 – Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;]. People & nations will stumble in unbelief of Him (1Peter 2:8).

The catch in Daniel 2 is the reason the king’s magicians and fortune tellers give the king Nebuchadnezzar as to why telling him what the dream was without being told & then interpreting the king’s dream as well was impossible. Let us check the reason out in Daniel 2:10-11

Dan 2:10-11

10 The Chaldeans answered the king and said, “There is not a man on earth who can meet the king’s demand, for no great and powerful king has asked such a thing of any magician or enchanter or Chaldean. 11 The thing that the king asks is difficult, and no one can show it to the king except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.”

Their reason to term the kings order as impossible in Dan 2:11 is that such is only possible of God, if he were to dwell as a human being, as you can see they were proved wrong & it goes deeper to show that God did dwell in human flesh and His name was Jesus.

John 1:1, 14, 17

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

…

14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

….

17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

The New Testament teaches us of a God, who not only does the impossible but His identity itself is what world finds impossible being fully God and fully man; God dwelling in human flesh. Monotheist may find this absurd as they appear to have unconsciously put limits on their god because what is impossible for them to even think about the same becomes impossible for their god. Belief in one god is not necessarily belief in Thee God, for belief is plainly known as trust & when you trust, it is normally with the intention that what you trust in, will work things out for you &  not the other way around, where you do works grab attention, indicating that even that one god is not alive because to that god the word belief is in what the people do for him and not what he does for them. The Bible teaches of God who worked out Salvation for all God’s people on the cross on purely the bases of belief/trust/faith (Romans 10:9-10; Ephesians 2:6-9), indicating Him to Alive. As you may have seen from Dan 2:10-11; the unbelief of the fortune tellers and magicians is what made them stumble, you can see that they denied the possibility of God in flesh & on that they stumbled even though they were the royal members of the court in the most powerful nation then. The same happen today to people, their unbelief in Jesus makes them stumble & their undoing unfolds in just a matter of time.

Romans 10:9-10

9 If you confess that Jesus is Lord and believe that God raised him from death, you will be saved. 10 For it is by our faith that we are put right with God; it is by our confession that we are saved.

Ephesians 2:6-9

6 In our union with Christ Jesus he raised us up with him to rule with him in the heavenly world. 7 He did this to demonstrate for all time to come the extraordinary greatness of his grace in the love he showed us in Christ Jesus. 8-9 For it is by God’s grace that you have been saved through faith. It is not the result of your own efforts, but God’s gift, so that no one can boast about it.