Posted on 03/31/2015 2:13:21 AM PDT by SoFloFreeper
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from Joel Beeke Mar 30, 2015 Category: Articles
“And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”(Matt. 27:46, KJV).
It is noon, and Jesus has been on the cross for three pain-filled hours. Suddenly, darkness falls on Calvary and “over all the land” (v. 45). By a miraculous act of Almighty God, midday becomes midnight.
This supernatural darkness is a symbol of God’s judgment on sin. The physical darkness signals a deeper and more fearsome darkness.
The great High Priest enters Golgotha’s Holy of Holies without friends or enemies. The Son of God is alone on the cross for three final hours, enduring what defies our imagination. Experiencing the full brunt of His Father’s wrath, Jesus cannot stay silent. He cries out: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
This phrase represents the nadir, the lowest point, of Jesus’ sufferings. Here Jesus descends into the essence of hell, the most extreme suffering ever experienced. It is a time so compacted, so infinite, so horrendous as to be incomprehensible and, seemingly, unsustainable.
Jesus’ cry does not in any way diminish His deity. Jesus does not cease being God before, during, or after this. Jesus’ cry does not divide His human nature from His divine person or destroy the Trinity. Nor does it detach Him from the Holy Spirit. The Son lacks the comforts of the Spirit, but He does not lose the holiness of the Spirit. And finally, it does not cause Him to disavow His mission. Both the Father and Son knew from all eternity that Jesus would become the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world (Acts 15:18). It is unthinkable that the Son of God might question what is happening or be perplexed when His Father’s loving presence departs.
Jesus is expressing the agony of unanswered supplication (Ps. 22:1–2). Unanswered, Jesus feels forgotten of God. He is also expressing the agony of unbearable stress. It is the kind of “roaring” mentioned in Psalm 22: the roar of desperate agony without rebellion. It is the hellish cry uttered when the undiluted wrath of God overwhelms the soul. It is heart-piercing, heaven-piercing, and hell-piercing. Further, Jesus is expressing the agony of unmitigated sin. All the sins of the elect, and the hell that they deserve for eternity, are laid upon Him. And Jesus is expressing the agony of unassisted solitariness. In His hour of greatest need comes a pain unlike anything the Son has ever experienced: His Father’s abandonment. When Jesus most needs encouragement, no voice cries from heaven, “This is my beloved Son.” No angel is sent to strengthen Him; no “well done, thou good and faithful servant” resounds in His ears. The women who supported Him are silent. The disciples, cowardly and terrified, have fled. Feeling disowned by all, Jesus endures the way of suffering alone, deserted, and forsaken in utter darkness. Every detail of this horrific abandonment declares the heinous character of our sins!
But why would God bruise His own Son (Isa. 53:10)? The Father is not capricious, malicious, or being merely didactic. The real purpose is penal; it is the just punishment for the sin of Christ’s people. “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Cor. 5:21).
Christ was made sin for us, dear believers. Among all the mysteries of salvation, this little word “for” exceeds all. This small word illuminates our darkness and unites Jesus Christ with sinners. Christ was acting on behalf of His people as their representative and for their benefit.
With Jesus as our substitute, God’s wrath is satisfied and God can justify those who believe in Jesus (Rom. 3:26). Christ’s penal suffering, therefore, is vicarious — He suffered on our behalf. He did not simply share our forsakenness, but He saved us from it. He endured it for us, not with us. You are immune to condemnation (Rom. 8:1) and to God’s anathema (Gal. 3:13) because Christ bore it for you in that outer darkness. Golgotha secured our immunity, not mere sympathy.
This explains the hours of darkness and the roar of dereliction. God’s people experience just a taste of this when they are brought by the Holy Spirit before the Judge of heaven and earth, only to experience that they are not consumed for Christ’s sake. They come out of darkness, confessing, “Because Immanuel has descended into the lowest hell for us, God is with us in the darkness, under the darkness, through the darkness — and we are not consumed!”
How stupendous is the love of God! Indeed, our hearts so overflow with love that we respond, “We love him, because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).
This post was originally published in Tabletalk magazine.
The 'prophet' of Mormonism has been found to deceive people, openly, on TV no less. This is not a prophet of God, it is a blind leader of the blind. The Lorenzo Snow couplet stands as witness to the foolishness that is Mormonism.
To YOU Paul wrote, 2 Timothy 3:1-5
Verse 1 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
Verse 2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves (Earning His Grace by all that you can do!), covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
Verse 3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,
Verse 4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;
Verse 5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.
The power thereof is The Holy Spirit within, guiding the regeneration of the fallen man. By claiming you must earn this Grace, you are denying the Holy Spirit, denying the power thereof.
The “devil” is in heaven, and has been for 6000 years.
He will be cast out at the midpoint of Daniel’s 70th week, bringing on his tribulation of the saints.
He has access to Earth as he pleases, but his chief occupation is accusing the saints before the throne of the Father.
The war here on Earth comes after the first resurrection, and after the bowl judgements that follow the first resurrection.
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First, if you have a child, you are to raise up that child in the way that they should go. You don't beat it into that child, you don't withhold food, shelter, and love from that child until they can show they have earned it.
You love that child so you grow that child gradually into the person who will know the right way through a life of growing into adulthood. The suckling baby is not fed strong meat in the beginning. You do not withhold blessing to the child until they prove themselves worthy. You instill in the child as it grows toward adulthood The Way. So it is that God grows us as we mature in The Way, by His indwelling nature as The Holy Spirit.
Now how does God tell us He is raising up His children in the way that they should go? ... Well, by indwelling them when they are 'born again' in this life, still on this earth, in order that they can 'see the Kingdom of God'. As Jesus showed Nicodemus:
Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?
Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.
Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be? (Nicodemus is asking the question you refuse to ask, regarding how it is that The Holy Spirit can indwell while we are on the earth.)
Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness. If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?
Jesus tells Nic how God in the Holy Spirit is to be here on Earth, so that those indwelt may then see/enter into the kingdom of God, the Heavenly things. When Paul wrote to Timothy about 'denying the power thereof, he was explicitly pointing to this indwelling, and if there is no evidence of the character of God coming out in the behavior of the man, that man is not under 'the power thereof, the guiding loving power of The indwelling Holy Spirit.
Jesus uses the present tense with Nicodemus, showing that being born again is something happening now, not 'after all that you can do. Paul tells Timothy that to deny the power thereof is to deny The Holy Spirit the right to transform in the now, a process God accomplishes at the spirit level in the here and now, preparing the believer, the born again to live in His Kingdom. That preparation is GOD raising a new born up in the Way that should go, by the daily indwelling and transforming Holy Spirit.
If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?
Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?
If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?
Peace be with you, be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.
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>> “Jesus uses the present tense with Nicodemus, showing that being born again is something happening now” <<
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Not!
He did exactly the opposite.
The words of chapter 3 that you posted deny your premise.
First, no one here sees the kingdom of God. If you could see it, you could describe it.
Verse 8 makes it abundantly clear that nobody is yet “born again” in the sense that Yeshua is explaining to Nicodemus. Can you move invisibly like the wind? Can people hear you but not see where you’re going? Those that are born again will have that capacity, Yeshua said so!
Being born again into an incorruptible body will be the difference between resurrection, and remaining here on Earth to see the wrath of God of the Bowl Judgements.
Born again as Yeshua explains it, and born again as Peter did are two separate things, one we experience in our flesh and blood daily lives, and the other coming later at the day of Trumpets when we are resurrected for the wedding feast.
This is an important thing to understand. It makes the revelations of the NT writings very clear and easy to understand.
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Do you get prophecy?
Revelation 12:8 is in our near future, the middle of Daniel’s 70th week.
The “Angels that kept not their first estate” mentioned by Yeshua’s brother Jude were prior to the Genesis 6 judgement, and had nothing to do with Revelation 12.
Satan is in the throne room of God, accusing the bretherin at this moment.
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On the news/activism forum?
My mind is REALLY stubborn!
If your works are unacceptable to the Lord and Joseph Smith!!, you're cast out.
They succeeded in killing Joseph, but he had finished his work.He was a servant of God, and gave us the Book of Mormon.He said the Bible was right in the main, but, through the translators and others, many precious portions were suppressed, and several other portions were wrongly translated; and now his testimony is in force, for he has sealed it with his blood.As I have frequently told them, no man in this dispensation will enter the courts of heaven, without the approbation of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Jun.Who has made this so?Have I?Have this people?Have the world?No; but the Lord Jehovah has decreed it.If I ever pass into the heavenly courts, it will be by the consent of the Prophet Joseph.If you ever pass through the gates into the Holy City, you will do so upon his certificate that you are worthy to pass.Can you pass without his inspection?No; neither can any person in this dispensation, which is the dispensation of the fulness of times.In this generation, and in all the generations that are to come, everyone will have to undergo the scrutiny of this Prophet.They say that they killed Joseph, and they will yet come with their hats under their arms and bend to him; but what good will it do them, unless they repent?They can come in a certain way and find favor, but will they?
--JOURNAL OF DISCOURSES, vol. 8, p. 224
I cannot move invisibly like the wind, but The Holy Spirit of God can and that is what Jesus was explaining to Nicodemus when he asked 'how can this being born again be?'. As Paul said clearly, it is God Who is in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure. At the stoning of Steven, what did Steven see before he gave up the ghost? Did Jesus tell the Disciples to wait for Pentecost? Why do you suppose that is?
Nicodemus had trouble with that 'You must be born again.' So much so that he reverted to what earthly thing he knew, about being born from his mother's womb. Jesus explained that you must be born again, by the Spirit. The transformational life is God in you, the Hope of Glory.
I again say being Born Again is in the here and now, something which is accomplished by the Spirit of God invisible to your eye but gradually evidenced in the transforming He does in you whereby you begin to evidence the character of God in the soul of man. What transformed the sons of thunder, the doubting Thomas, the denying Peter, etc? No less than God as the Holy Spirit in them.
The Salvation Jesus gives is not pie in the sky in the by and by, it is a new life now, by the Power of His Holy Spirit in the born again believer. Can you behave godly by your efforts? Without the character of God in the soul of man, godliness is beyond your ability. His nature comes into your human spirit when you are born again, and he transforms from the inside out. I have witnessed His work so often in men and women that I will not and cannot deny it is His power, His presence. Thanks be to God it is not of human works lest any man boast of his 'worthiness' to be born again.
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No, he was explaining what kind of changes being born again would be for Nicodemus. He was not explaining anything at all about the Holy Spirit. He didn't need to explain anything about the Holy Spirit to Nicodemus; he was the High Priest. He had studied spiritual things for his entire life. He was much like the apostle Paul in terms of knowledge.
He wanted to know about being literally born again into a new incorruptible body that could exist in the realm of the Father.
We all must experience the same changes that Yeshua spoke of. Paul said it too, to the Corinthians, in chapter 15:
[50] Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.
[51] Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
[52] In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
[53] For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
[54] So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.
[55] O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
This change is what actually "saves" us. That is why the apostles always spoke of salvation as future. They were not doubting our dedication to Yeshua, they were preparing everyone for the total reality of salvation.
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It is very simple. Moroni does not exist. 😱😃😀😄😎 He is a figment of Joe Smith's imagination. I am not even convinced Joe Smith really intended to start a new religion, as much as he wrote a fable, with the intent of selling it. Who knows for sure, but I have my suspicions.
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>> “John was given a vision, past, present, and future” <<
Not So!!
Paul was told [19] “Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter”
Paul didn’t see any things past. All that he was shown in the vision was future. That is why his descriptions seem so fanciful; he had no knowledge of 21st century military hardware, so he likened what he saw in the vision to the things with which he was familiar.
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Mormonism is just another works based cult, in a long line of works based cults. They may very well all be wrong, but there is no way they can all be right. Someone else said Mormonism attracts people because it offers God status to them. That may be true, but isn't that about the same thing that Satan offered Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden? They fell for it, and people are still falling for it, unfortunately.
Spot on.
“This change is what actually “saves” us.” No, I think you are conflating the transformation by the Holy Spirit in the human spirit during the life on Earth and the new body God promises following the Great White Throne. When Jesus arose from the dead, He had not yet ascended to Heaven of the Father, but He had a body of flesh and bone which could be seen and touched. But you appear to need to be ‘right’ and are not open to looking more deeply so I will say bye bye and let you post on as you see fit. Peace be with you.
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