March 13, 2008

• Resurrection of the dead part 2 by Pastor Don

  You can read part one here.

  1 Corinthians 15:29 Otherwise, what will they do who are baptized for the dead, if the dead do not rise at all? Why then are they baptized for the dead?

  Pastor Don began by talking about various cultural traditions, and traditions in churches. Some churches eat fish on Friday. Not realizing that that was a tradition in many cultures for 1000′s of years, to honor dagon, who was a god who was half man/half fish. The church permitted this practice of fish on Friday because people have done it for so long that they chose to let that tradition slide. But when the Ark of the Covenant was stolen by the Philistines and put into the same room as the statue dagon, the statue fell on its face before dagon. The Philistines picked up the statue, dusted it off, and the next time they went to the room, not only had the statue of dagon fallen, but it broke apart. God did not like idols and anything connected with worship of idols.

  It is not a sin to eat fish, but if it continues a pagan tradition and is religiously adhered to, then we may want to consider if it is to the benefit of the Body of Christ. It is not wrong to eat fish on Friday, but is it biblical? No. Do people feel good when they adhere to this rule? Yes. They feel holy when they do it.

  In the days of Paul, people were concerned about the salvation of their dead loved ones, and started the practice of baptizing themselves for the dead. It is a practice in Macedonian churches and in other cults. The thinking goes something like this. My father-in-law died. I just got saved last week, and my father-in-law was a good man, did good works, but he didn’t know Christ. Is he in heaven? Hell? Purgatory? Well, we’ll get baptized in proxy for him.

  This is not idol worship, and you can’t talk to the dead. People began that practice to help people feel better about their unsaved dead, in the time of the apostles, they thought it won’t do good or harm. Now, this practice is not acceptable because people almost everywhere have heard the Gospel, and made their choice. So it is not practiced today in the Church because we believe in the Resurrection of the Dead, and we know that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. The only way that people would do that practice of proxy baptism is if they don’t believe in the resurrection of the dead.

  1 Corinthians 15:30-33 I affirm, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.  If, in the manner of men, I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantage is it to me? If the dead do not rise, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!” Do not be deceived: “Evil company corrupts good habits.”

  We do not need to do proxy baptisms, for we believe in the Resurrection of the dead, and we die daily to our self.

  1 Corinthians 15:34 Awake to righteousness, and do not sin; for some do not have the knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame.

  Some do not have the knowledge of God, and that is to our shame for we are not sharing the Gospel.

  1 Corinthians 15:35-38 But someone will say, “How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come?” Foolish one, what you sow is not made alive unless it dies. And what you sow, you do not sow that body that shall be, but mere grain—perhaps wheat or some other grain. But God gives it a body as He pleases, and to each seed its own body.

  We are not a monkey’s uncle. God sowed us as a human seed. Monkey’s will not reproduce human men. And when we are sown by God, we will raise up exactly as God has determined, and the seed dies to produce fruit.

  1 Corinthians 15:39-40 All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of animals, another of fish, and another of birds. There are also celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.

  In earth there are various kinds of flesh, men, animals, fish, birds. There are also celestial and terrestrial bodies, but they are different. The celestial body is different from the terrestrial body.

  1 Corinthians 15:41-42 There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differs from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption.

  What is sown in corruption can deteriorate. We get older minute by minute. Our older bodies cannot evolve into 29 year old bodies. We just have to cope with that reality. The healing ministry is effective, but it cannot remove the design from the seed, and the design is that we will deteriorate over time. Faith helps us to recover and sustain longer. Pastor Don said that even King David needed “hot mommas” to help keep his temperature warm. But when we are raised from the dead we are given incorruptible bodies, that are glorious. And they will be individual, just as the sun looks different from another star or the moon.

  1 Corinthians 15:43-45 It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.

  Does the Spirit have a body? Yes. Do you have a spiritual body? The Spirit has a body outside of the physical body or else how can Spirits recognize each other? Who is the last Adam mentioned in verse 45? Jesus.

  1 Corinthians 15:46 However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual.

  Some people believe that babies are spirits in Heaven that are sent down to earth and then placed into a body. Wrong! We don’t exist in Heaven before, and we are not angels. Angels have never been human. They have a different spiritual makeup.

  Hebrews 1:13 But to which of the angels has He ever said: “ Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool”?

  They may look like us, walk and talk like us but they are not like humans. Someone commented on the passage that, God made us a little lower than angels. Pastor Don pointed out that the word for “angels” in that passage was Elohim (God), not angels as we are conditioned to think of angels. Pastor don told us that when the King James Bible was translated, they did not want to offend King James, by making everyone a little lower than God, so they translated that as angels. 

  Pastor Don told us that God knew us before we were in the womb. He thought about creation first, then spoke it into being. We were God’s idea, before we were created into being And we were created in His image, so we too can think things and speak them into existence. In that we are just a little lower than Him. We are, as Galatians tells us, heirs and joint heirs with Christ. We are the joint Bride of Christ, waiting and expecting His return. Those not waiting and expecting are not going to be His Bride. He is our expected hope.

  People may not believe in the rapture. Some say that the events in Revelation have already occurred. Is the rapture in scripture? Some say that the concept of the rapture was added in more recent times. But all we have to do is read the Church father’s writings. Augustine, Tertullian, etc. The early church fathers talked about the rapture and believed it. The early church writings talked about waiting for the return of Christ and to be changed according to scripture. Then there was a long historical period where the rapture was not taught. In the 1800′s in San Francisco there was a charismatic movement, and we came out of the dark ages of the church and back into gifts, signs and wonders. 

  After Martin Luther, who read the books of Galatians and Ephesians, it was taught that we are saved by grace. It is taught in the scriptures, but the Church had gotten away from that truth. 

  But after the 1800′s the church began to experience a Spiritual Renewal, with new visitations of the Presence and the power of God. The Rapture, not the new idea that some claim it to be, was reintroduced. With a spiritual renewal, old ideas are remembered.

  How did it happen? Theologians read the scriptures and went back to the founding fathers, who talked about it to their congregations. Two sisters, sick and on their death bead, were powerful women of prayer, and had visitations. The Lord showed them the event. People visited and wrote down what the women saw. Anyone visiting them received healings and the Power of God came in. The problem is to back up what happened scriptures had to be reinterpreted in light of what was written. People revisited Daniel’s 12th chapter and he describes the event of the Resurrection of the Dead. People wanted to change the scriptures to try and make it fit historical events, but they could not do that if they honestly read the scriptures. 

  Ideas fall out of practice, but God reintroduces the truth. Azuza street in 1901. The Power of God fell, the Pentecostals, in the 1930′s the faith movement. Acts of God were being revived and people were doing what was written about in the Bible. The truth was always there, but the church fell out of believing it.

  Someone asked about a recent tv program that they saw about the end of times being in 2012. 1967 + 45 years of Daniel and other scriptures add up to 2012. We don’t know the day and the hour, but we are to know the season and read the signs of the times. There is much going on today that is showing us that we are nearing the end times.

  The last bit of this study was given very quickly, but I do know that Pastor Don is planning a prophesy conference and when he does that, I know much of this will be gone over in greater detail.

  Praying your day is blessed.

  Heather

  • 11:39 pm
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