April 25, 2007

• Wednesday’s Bible Study continued, Hearing from the Word of God by Pastor Don

  We, as usual for a Wednesday Bible study, started asking questions. Pastor Don expertly fielded them.

  Pastor Don answered a question about the antichrist.

  He pointed out that on earth there are people who are antichrists (not like Christ), who teach false doctrines, give false prophesies, and try to pull people away from Christ. This is not the ANTICHRIST of the last days, but many of the cults who teach false doctrines also have a spirit of antichrist in them.

  With prophets, there are real prophets and then there are those like Gehazi who are in it for the money. They want to be in the political arena, to be the big Kahuna.

  Pastor Don pointed out that there are secret organizations who, when you get to higher degrees of initiation, have a hidden agenda that is antichrist-like in nature. When you start out it sounds so godly and holy, but once you begin to elevate in the ranks the false teachings creep in.

  He was then asked, when you forgive a person do you have to let them back into your life? What if that person hurt you or your family very badly, do you have to invite them back into your home?

  Pastor Don said that forgiveness is not permission for that person to come back into your life. I can forgive them and turn them over to God’s justice. Forgiveness does not give them permission to continue to do what they once did to you. It just is a liberation for you that you do not have to carry the burden time and time again.

  Another question elicited the answer that Jesus died on the cross and that dying occurred both in the physical time period that it occurred (which was about 2000 years ago) but also outside of time because he died for our sins past, present, and future.

  Pastor Don pointed out that people usually think that there is earthly linear time, but in eternity there is time also, not our 24 hour days, but it is a time that is wrapped around spiritual events.

  In Genesis 1 God created time as we know it, day/night, the seasons, the years, and this time will continue until this earth passes away and then we have a New Heaven and a New Earth, and Jesus and God will be the light of that, we won’t need the sun and the moon to mark time.

  But Spiritual time is driven by prophetic events. The are not governed by the sun and the moon. For example, Christ will come back at a set time that is determined by events here on earth. But we don’t know when that time is.

  We take our 24 hour day and want God to operate in our time frame, but God is not in our time frame, he operates in a different time frame. Pastor Don pointed out that for a baby, there is no concept of time – there are events. One day he may discover his toes and spend time sucking on his foot, when that stops he forgets his foot and moves to the next thing, waving his fist in the air. He cries when hungry, but it isn’t on a clock or a set time. As he grows he gets caught up into the cycle of time as we know it.

  For God one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as a day. In Daniel 9, Daniel talks about the 70 weeks. Daniel 9:24-26 Seventy weeks are determined (seventy weeks of seven years = 490 years) For your people and for your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy. (Jesus Christ) Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince, there shall be seven weeks and sixty two weeks; the street shall be built again and the wall, even in troublesome times.

  The Jewish calendar had 360 days in a year and if you multiply it out with years, it showed that 4/6/AD32 Jesus rode on a donkey into Jerusalem. The scribes and the Pharisees knew the timing, in fact when John the Baptist was around they asked him if he was the Messiah. Jesus was upset with the scribes and the pharisees because they knew the hours and times.

  (Heather’s note, in fact, Daniel read the prophets and started fasting and praying because he knew that the 70 years of exile were over (Chapter 9), and that God was going to restore Jerusalem, bring Israel back to the land to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. Then from the decree of Cyrus to let the Israelites return and rebuild the temple, the time clock continued ticking until Jesus rode through the gates of Jerusalem. After the crucifixion, the timeclock stopped, and the last week of the seventy weeks has not yet occurred. When events conspire to start the prophetic clock again, it will continue. The clock is linked to events in the Jewish nation.

  We cannot wrap our minds around concepts like forever and ever, ages and ages.

  Pastor Don then said that he was going to talk more about prophetic vision because of where we are in 2 Kings. He said that the prophetic speaks, sees, hears and meditates. And he gave us a brief summary that he says he will go into greater detail about.

  SPEAK: The prophet speaks the Word of God. The prophet does not need to have revelation or understanding of what is going on, just speaking, “Thus says the LORD.”

  SEES: The prophet sees beyond the veil of the carnal, across time, and looks at it and brings back what he sees into the spacial realm. He can see future, past, or present. What he sees may never happen, immediately transpire, or happen in the future. He may not necessarily know what he is seeing, and may need another prophetic gift to explain.

  Daniel was a seer, Elisha was a seer. Remember the prayer in Daniel 2:20-22 (part of the prayer) Blessed  be the name of God forever and ever, for wisdom and might are His. And He changes the times and the seasons; He removes kings and raises up kings; He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding. he reveals deep and secret things; He knows what is in the darkness, and light dwells with Him…”

  God can reveal hidden things to the prophet. Daniel and his peers fasted and prayed, asking God for revelation. Nebuchadnezzar had a dream and wanted someone to not only tell him the dream, but interpret it. None of the court magicians or people could reveal the dream to the king, so God showed it to Daniel and gave Daniel the interpretation.

  The speaker can generate the gift of the Holy Spirit and give the prophesy that God gives for a reason.. The seer needs a Word of Knowledge. He can see something but have no knowledge of what information is being portrayed by what he is seeing. God could have shown Daniel the dream, but not the interpretation of the dream. But in this case God revealed both to Daniel.

  HEARING: This is not only audible, it can be an inner word of God, an angel speaks, you hear it inside, and sometimes it is only for you. Your word must agree with the Word of God. It can be an INWARD WITNESS. Pastor Don pointed out that sometimes people think the inner witness is kind of like female intuition (but men can also have the inner witness). It is the still small voice.

  STUDY, the prophet heard as as a loud voice, but that would never have developed without his study in the Word. Paul in Acts Chapter 27: although Paul was a tentmaker, not a sailor, he perceived that the ship would sink. No one listened to him until the ship began to sink, then Paul Got a Word of Knowledge that everyone would be safe, but the ship and cargo would be lost. The crew finally listened to and obeyed Paul.

  Then Pastor Don talked about MEDITATING ON THE WORD OF GOD, pointing out that it was for intercession, not contemplating one’s navel.  David meditated on the Word of God when he wrote the Psalms. It is a place of contemplation, not of voiding the mind and stagnation, it can be speaking in tongues, speaking the Word of God, contemplating the attributes and goodness of God.

  Pastor Don says that before he gets out of bed, that he thinks on the things of God. When we drive in the car we can thank God for His creation and the scenery.

  To be spiritually real you need a level of compassion. The presence of the Holy Spirit affects you.

  Then he continued talking and responding to questions. He pointed out that our emotions can work for or against us. If we are truly in the Spirit, we will not care what others think about us,  just what God thinks about us and getting out what God gives us in the meditative state. The Spirit brings to rembrance, and brings a Rhema word to us. For that to happen, we need to be in the Word, knowing the Word so that the Holy Spirit has Word in us to bring out. When we study the Word, part of that study is to store up for a time and a purpose the Word of God. (Heather’s note, but we also study to know about God, to fill our minds with the good things of God, etc.)

  God’s meditations suspend the carnal and we are protected as we meditate.

  There is an angelic covering. God has assigned angels to us. Unless we violate God or blaspheme the Holy Spirit, these angels are there protecting us. The Holy Spirit covers us without and within, prays for us, and brings us the Word. And there is a faith covering. When we are in a dangerous place, when times are tough, reach out to others, because joint prayer helps, and prayers of faith will help to build our faith for the situation. And then we have the Word Covering, for God’s word does not come back void. It has spoken power.

  Pastor Don told us that he would continue this on Friday.

  I am praying your weekend is blessed, this has been one spectacular week for me.

  Heather

   

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