FROM THE TREE TO THE CROSS

What’s the point in all of this misery called life? I just don’t undestand.

Its hard I know and even harder when it all makes no sense.  I am sorry that this life is so hard but it is hard so that you can learn about love first hand.
The hard way, the real way, with all of its vulnerability and mistakes and heartbreak but ultimately joy when you realize that the one who made you is in fact love itself, and he loves you and desires you to find him and love him back which completes the cycle of love that he started in you when he first created you.

He loved you so much that He became a man, a human just like you so that he could show you his love by experiencing the same hardships and misery that we all experience, so that you would know that he is not some unknown being or unrelatable spirit that couldn’t understand you and what you are going through.

He loves you so much that He proved his love for all of us by allowing his own creation to kill and destroy him with the most humiliating form of death possible, being crucified on a cross, naked and in shame, nailed to a tree for all to see and mock their own creator.

Even though you were not there and did not participate in his execution, we all are guilty of his death because we all have sinned and it was the sin that we created and perpetuate that caused his life and example of love to be reduced to a body on that cross.

But he loves you so much that He refused to let yours and my mistakes become your sealed fate for eternity because an eternal death is the inevitable end and price that must be paid for sin, so he paid it for us.

He transformed that cross of sin and shame into the cross of Glory and Grace, an everlasting symbol of the unfathomable love of God

All we have to do is recognize his sacrifice for us and turn from our sin that caused his death, and in return we will get to experience his love for an eternity, this is an experience that can not be described or explained but I promise you it will be worth it. 

So please don’t give up, and don’t give in, as hard as it is now it is nothing compared to how amazing it will be when sin and death is finally conquered because we put his cross and the debt he paid for us in our minds and In our hearts forever.

All of my love to all of you.

J

Wether you believe in the Book of Genesis as factual, metaphorical or simply fiction one concept that is attempted to be conveyed to the reader cannot be denied or ignored
What we think what we speak and what we fear we manifest and create in our own reality
When eve was told the fruit would not kill her and would make her wise like God. She already began the process of creating her new reality by contemplating the possibilities and entertaining the idea of actually eating the fruit
Sin began when she desired to think about and enjoyed the potential outcome of eating the fruit instead of immediately recognizing the danger and foolishness of going against God’s command and instead of looking for and understanding the reasons why she shouldn’t instead she embraced the temptation and reasons she thought she should
Part of this may have been from lack of experience, part may have been from a self deceiving notion that God would forgive a slip up or mistake
In a way she was right because he would and he did, but he did not undo the reality she created by thinking and then doing something
It can not be passed over or only slightly understood that our words are wrapped with potential to create or undo our reality just as our thoughts desires and actions do because we are created in the creators image who in the very same manor thought, desired and then spoke us and our world of time and physical space into existence and reality

if we break our reality down to its basic fundamental truths then we exist because of vibration and light
but before this must have come thought.
in the first book of the bible when God spoke the word for the heavens, the earth and light to be, and for life to begin, the word was a vibration that carried out his will but that word and vibration began as a thought, he chose to set that thought into motion when he spoke his desire and it came to be.
we live in a simular if not the exact same reality, our thoughts can be whatever we choose to ponder but when we set them with intention and purpose to achieve something and then speak those thoughts or do any action that would result in their  existing then those thoughts become a reality,     not only our reality but everyone’s shared reality.
good or bad we think and then speak or set into motion our thoughts and desires and this is why the tree of knowledge was forbidden to Adam and eve to eat from, because God wanted us to be sheltered from having these thoughts and desires that would only be harmful to ourselves and our reality and every living creature in it.
just as a father keeps a loaded gun away from a child, its not to restrain or test the child but because he knows that the child is incapable of understanding the severity and irreversible consequences of their actions if they were to shoot the gun and it cause damage.
Adam and Eve had knowledge of the good they simply had been sheltered from the thoughts and knowledge of evil and all of the variables that come with them, in order to protect their environment and reality from the potential outcomes of their evil thoughts  being set into motion either by words or by actions.

this might seem controlling or unfair to others who have not had children but it is an act of responsible parenthood and comes only from a place of love and protection because a child or an immature person needs time to grow and learn slowly before they can handle more responsibilities and fully understand the consequences of their actions.
In a way this is what the devil did is to say its not fair for God to keep the gun away from the children and deny them the full experience of possibilities, let’s give the gun to the child anway and see what happens.

We live in a world, a reality that was sabatoged and is in a constant struggle against itself.
It has always been referred to as the battle of  good against evil, but in reality it is a battle of order against chaos.
God is the creator of structure and pattern because good comes from planning and shaping to avoid undesirable outcomes or side effects.
chaos on the other hand enjoys the unpredictable outcomes of not knowing what will happen next by not having boundaries or rules and instead letting desire, chance and actions be the one to decide an outcome.
choas will always end in harm and self destruction because without planning, entropy is always the end result which means there can be no eternity.
but order can arrange and allow for any and all potential possibilities to be managed and addressed so that problems would be taken care of In due time rather then be allowed to cause entropy and collapse.
only with order is eternity possible.

and here we are, in a world surrounded by children shooting out their thoughts and desires like a loaded gun and not caring about the consequences and who those words and actions harm.
if we could simply come to terms with this reality we have created and live in then maybe we could grow and mature and be responsible with our thoughts and intentions and use them for good instead of evil.

one day when we have all experienced the fullness of the extent of our thoughts, words and actions, and the entropy of evil has set in and caused irreversible harm to our fellow man and environment.
God will step in and reinforce order and restrain chaos, and on that day we will be restored to a new being that was in line with what God intended us to be, we will have matured to the point of knowing evil and all of its outcomes but having the knowledge and wisdom to have no desire to contemplate them let alone speak and create those thoughts and desires.
one day, we will all return to being of one mind and one heart in line with God and his desired order, instead of creatures of chaos doomed to self destruction and harming each other.

In the very least this is why we are given this time of trial and experience so that we can make our mistakes and regrets now when we only have a child’s version of this power to create and destroy because one day we may be given more power and more responsibility
on a much grander universe level.

this verse of John 3:16 that declares the love of God shouldn’t be taken out of context and manipulated to mean that God has only love for the world because it is very relevant to your understanding of God’s love and what defines the world, I would like to expound upon this even further by asking, would you say that God loved the “world” when he destroyed it with a flood?

Would you say that he loves everyone when he destroyed Sodom or told the Israelites to utterly destroy the cannanites and to spare no one, not even the animals?

Would you say that he loves everyone when he returns and will destroy this world along with the wicked in it ?

These are hard questions to ask and to find the answers to, but it is expected of us to read his word looking for the truth and not just the nice smooth and easy things to ponder like God’s unconditional love no matter what I do or how I live that some people seem to see in it.

So first off let me just say, yes , by every definition of the word God does indeed love everyone, but he does not, and can not love sin because sin is anti love and leads only to death and destruction. When people choose sin over God’s love then they are ignoring his love and choosing themselves instead. God is patient and forgiving and waits for them to relent and return to him, but he will not force anyone to love him back or to choose not to sin.

The other aspect of this that people have a hard time grasping or taking into account is the simple fact God is beyond time and has seen every angle of this. He has already seen and knows the outcome of every aspect of our little time bubble of existence that we call life and this is why he created the way for our redemption through himself who is his son and it was set in stone from the beggining of time itself, just like the victory in the end nothing can change it.

If you can partially let this concept sink in then add to it the fact that he seen the ego and perversion of man controlling others at the tower of babel and Sodom and Egypt, he felt the corruption of his law and people when they built poles and altars in his temple and sacrificed their children to other gods. He even witnessed how men would use religion In order to destroy and control others, all of this he saw before our time even began. And yet he loved us anyway, explain that one because I never will be able to.

But when you do take into account Gods timeless and eternal nature along with his love for us, then hopefully you will begin to see the irony in the fact that God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac In the same place that they would later sacrifice their sons and daughters to molech and baal, and later became the same place that they would sacrifice Jesus, yet God stopped Abraham because he did not desire or require the sacrifice of innocent children like the false gods they had created did.

There simply must be some form of irony here in that he seen them sacrifice their sons to fake gods that had no capability to love or even live, but God chose to become a child in the form of his son Jesus and to let them sacrifice him to themselves as proof of his love and redemption of our sin for those who would one day see his love because of his sacrifice and turn from evil.

So to me the meaning of John 3:16 is this. For God so loved everyone of his creations that despite everything we would do and the sin we would embrace he chose to display and prove to us his love by becoming mortal and allowing the pride and sin of men to hang the creator of everything on a cross naked and in shame even till death, all so that if anyone who chooses him and his love over themself can be saved from the eternal death that sin required.

Galatians 6:6
Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.

This verse may be confusing to some people because of the wording and context but what it means is simply this, do not be decieved by the people who go around preaching false doctrines (ie prosperity gospels) or manipulating religion or the bible to fit their agenda and take advantage of people that eventually turns them Into hypocrites or bitter victims and turns them away from God.

Those people will reap what they have sowed because God is not and will not be mocked, he sees all, nothing escapes his knowing, he does not look the other way and will not forgive a person who takes his name in vain.

Even though it seems like they are getting away with it and making a mockery of God and his son Jesus, they are not getting away with anything in the end because everyone will be held accountable for their actions and God warned them in Exodus 20:7

7 “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.

The priests of the tabernacle and later the temple wore a turban over their head that had a small gold plate with the name YHWH, the name of the LORD written on it.

It was their responsibility to represent man attempting to return into a fellowship with God by being obedient to God and to teach his fellow man how to do the same,

Any form of perversion or misrepresentation of that simple duty would have been taking the LORDs name in vain and he would not simply be forgiven for doing so because not only did he corrupt himself but corrupted those who looked to him as a guide and teacher of the path and the way to God.

But anyone who is willingly decieved is just as guilty as the deciever himself,  so don’t fool yourself into thinking you can blame your selfish and ungodly behavior on someone else in the end.

Ezekiel 14 Now some of the elders of Israel came to me and sat before me.  And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their hearts, and put before them that which causes them to stumble into iniquity. Should I let Myself be inquired of at all by them?

4 “Therefore speak to them, and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Everyone of the house of Israel who sets up his idols in his heart, and puts before him what causes him to stumble into iniquity, and then comes to the prophet, I the Lord will answer him who comes, according to the multitude of his idols, that I may seize the house of Israel by their heart, because they are all estranged from Me by their idols.” ’

6 “Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Repent, turn away from your idols, and turn your faces away from all your abominations. 7 For anyone of the house of Israel, or of the strangers who dwell in Israel, who separates himself from Me and sets up his idols in his heart and puts before him what causes him to stumble into iniquity, then comes to a prophet to inquire of him concerning Me, I the Lord will answer him by Myself. 8 I will set My face against that man and make him a sign and a proverb, and I will cut him off from the midst of My people. Then you shall know that I am the Lord.

9 “And if the prophet is induced to speak anything, I the Lord have induced that prophet, and I will stretch out My hand against him and destroy him from among My people Israel. 10 And they shall bear their iniquity; the punishment of the prophet shall be the same as the punishment of the one who inquired,

What God is saying to Ezekiel here is that there are many false prophets who lead the people astray and claim to speak for the LORD, so why should he even answer them when they ask for his guidance, and if a person is willingly decieved and gone astray and seeks from a false prophet a prophecy or sign to confirm that he is speaking from the LORD, if he is given anything to speak it will be as a snare and a trap to further give them what their heart desires instead of the truth from the LORD.

So let this be a warning to you to examine yourself and your path with God, because there are many wolves in sheep’s clothing out there, seeking to devour whoever enters into their trap.  

Satan, The enemy of God and the accuser of his creation, continually seeks to pervert the truth and the true worship of God by any means available.  One of the easiest ways to accomplish this is by using man’s own greed and pride against himself, so let’s look at the truth of the matter.  God wants all of his children to be taken care of, and he provides for them anything they genuinely need, but money and wealth corrupt all things, you need only look at what happened in the end to King Solomon as an example of this corruption, if the wisest king who ever lived was corrupted because of wealth how do any of us stand a chance.

To do well at a profession and make good money is not wrong or discouraged but to hord wealth and have excess at the suffering and expense of others is a false doctrine that can only turn people away from a true relationship with God.  The enemy doesn’t desire to turn people into obvious monsters because he knows that they would eventually realize what they have become, so he subtly gets you to turn away from God and towards other things just enough to make you ineffectual and complacent and even more a bad testimony to others who may be on the outside looking in so that they might see you as an example of the hypocrisy of religion and people who claim to be religious and care for their fellow man.

This is not applied to only the prosperity gospel, but to all religious institutions that allow the truth to be twisted and packaged in a nice shiny pleasing way so that those seeking for the easy and most self serving path of religion can choose it instead of the truth that can sometimes be hard and difficult.

So please do not allow yourself to be decieved by others who have twisted the truth and think they can mock God and get away with it, but do not decieve yourself into thinking you can blame them for your actions in the end either

Jesus spoke many parables about the seed being the word of God and the sower being the one who plants the word of God because he wanted everyone to see and understand that just as planting a physical seed reeps the reward of food
Planting a spiritual seed reeps the rewards of the spiritual kingdom in the next life
Just as man plants a seed and can not control when or how the seed sprouts and grows and produces fruit
So also is planting spiritual seeds and growing spiritual fruit, our only responsibility is to plant it and water it, it is entirely up to God and his spirit of when and how it will grow and become fruitfull

We plant spiritual seeds by speaking to our fellow men about Jesus and his life and sacrifice for us and that he only asked for us to in return for the price he paid for us, love one another and to be a humble servant to all who are in need without asking or expecting a reward.

Caesarea Philippi is a famous location for many reasons, but one of them is because Jesus visited it with his disciples.

It was a small town at the southern base of Mt Hermon. Compared to other parts of Israel it would have seemed very fertile, almost magical even because of the cave, groto, and stream that flowed from the base of the mountain with lush vegetation on the ground and the snow capped mountain of Mt Hermon above. In fact it apparently did appear magical to the Roman’s when they conquered the area because they built a temple there to the half goat half man devil pan, who was associated with many different myths most of them connecting back to baal and asherah the gods of the cannanites, but the reason that Jesus visited this site during his ministry can only be summed up by what Mt Hermon represented to the Jews of that day.

A brief history of Mt Hermon. In the time of Moses and Joshua when God defeated the caananites and gave the israelites this land that was promised to their forefathers Abraham Isaac and Jacob.  The land that included Mt Hermon was not specifically referenced but lumped together with the names of Heshbon and Bashan. To any good bible studier that should have bells dinging in their ears because king Og was a giant of possibly 14 feet in height, Bashan was his kingdom but he was defeated immediately after king Sihon of Heshbon was also defeated. Both of these kigdoms connected with Mt Hermon.

Now take a second and let that sink in and your next thought should be a question. Why would God, after having the Israelites wander in the desert for 40 years send them to the northern most part of Israel to fight two kings one of whom is a giant at the base of a mountain? Deuteronomy 3:11 even claims that Og was the last of the true giants. The answer is because that mountain has a symbolic significance.

The book of Enoch is considered by many to be non cannonical or not part of the ancient books included in the bible, but it was read and well known to the Hebrews of Jesus day and even quoted by Jude 1:6 and 14 , and even Peter alludes to the subject matter in 1 Peter 3:19–20, and 2 Peter 2:4. So it deserves at least consideration for a historical perspective. My personal stance is that at least the first section of 1st enoch known as the book of the watchers is ancient and has in the very least an oral tradition that makes it authentic, the rest may have been altered or added later. The first 36 pages tell a story involving Mt Hermon and the fallen Angels who make a pact with one another to take human women as their wives and to share in the curse or punishment for it. This of course started the chain reaction refered to in Genesis 6 where the angels mated with women who then gave birth to Nephilim who then gave birth to giants that caused the corruption of all the earth to the point that all life had to be destroyed by the flood accept for Noah and his family.

So if we take that and apply it to what happened in Jesus’ ministry, you may find that many pieces fall into place, and many things make far more sense than they did before. For example when Jesus had come towards the end of his ministry he took his disciples to Caesarea Philippi at the base of Mt Hermon and asked them the famous question “Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?” So they said, “Some *say* John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus answered and said to him, ” Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. 

I personally believe that when he said “and the gates of hades shall not prevail against it” he was pointing directly at that cave and groto at the base of Mt Hermon that is associated with the pact made in the book of the watchers and even the gateway to the abyss or bottomless pit.

Now imagine for a second that the spirits of these giants who were drowned in the flood and whom Jesus had been casting out of people and sending to the abyss to join their chained parents in darkness until the end. Imagine that they are watching this scene when Jesus was proclaimed by men to be the Son of God right in front of the very same mountain that their parents and their beggining had been judged and sentenced, imagine them watching as Jesus 6 days later traveled up to the top of Mt Hermon with Peter, John and James and was transfigured before them. Would this not be a direct in your face way of proclaiming I am here to take back this mountain and confirm to you that your punishment still stands and the time for your final judgment is near.

After Jesus and his disciples left Mt Hermon it says that his face was set towards Jerusalem and he did not waste any time getting there and riding the colt that was prophecied to bring the Messiah. Only a short time later he was crucified on the cross.

It is worth mentioning that in Luke’s timeline after the transfiguration on Mt Hermon that Jesus appointed 70 disciples to heal and cast out demons. When they returned successful he was filled with joy in the spirit and said one of my favorite verses “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven”.

Was Jesus born on the wrong side of the fence?

At first glance this appears to sound like a political statement meant to stir up animosity and anger, but realy it’s not meant to be, it’s simply an observation of history repeating itself that I would like to share because the question is just as relevant today as it was 2000 years ago when Jesus was born and began to preach the coming kingdom of God.  

With all that is going on right now at the border of Israel and even the border of the US it raises the question, what century are we living in? Because it feels like humanity as a whole has not changed at all for the better, we are just as territorial and divided as the people were over 2000 years ago in the time of Jesus.

Don’t misunderstand me, I am not saying that there shouldn’t be borders or a separation of countries.  But what should have changed by now is the consideration, love, and compassion for our fellow man when it comes to securing and enforcing those borders.  Instead, we still resort to discrimination and hate and eventually violence just as they did to Jesus.

Most people know that Jesus was killed by the Roman’s because the religious leaders of the Jews compelled them to, by convincing them that he was claiming to be a king and desired to overthrow the Roman rule of the Jews. But what most people don’t know is that part of the hatred that fueled them into not listening to Jesus and conspiring to murder him was because of where he was born, or at least where they thought he was born.

Jesus was born in the little town of Bethlehem just a few miles south of Jerusalem, but his birth in that town had to be kept a secret  because it had been prophecied in Micah 5:2 that the anointed ruler of Judah and Israel would be born there.  This prophecy concerned king Herod so greatly that he had all of the children that were born there murdered just in the off chance that one of them would try to dethrone him.   So Joseph and Mary escaped to Egypt with the infant Jesus and after king Herod died they returned to Jerusalem, but because king Herods son now ruled in his place, Joseph took them to the small town of Nazareth about 60 miles north of Jerusalem.  Making the choice to move them to Nazareth would group them with a different class of people in a region known as Galilee because of the small body of water called the Sea of Galilee that was the central hub to its economy.

So why was Galilee considered a different class of people by the Jews? Well, we might have to go back a little farther in time to get the full picture. 

When the Israelites (or children of Jacob)  came out of egypt and arrived at the promised land, God instructed Moses and Joshua to divide up the land into 12 sections so that each tribe could have its own lot.   It didn’t take very long for arguments and disagreements to arise, and eventually, a division formed between the 12 tribes that would become two sides, a northern side known as Israel and a southern side known as Judah.    This line of territory was fiercely enforced by each side until the Babylonians came and conquered both of them around 600 bc.   When the Jews returned to their land around  520 bc, they found that the Jewish people who had not been taken into captivity had mixed with the Assyrian people and created a mixed race that they labeled Samaritans.  The Jews who took back possession of Jerusalem refused to allow the Samaritans to be part of their worship in Jerusalem, so once again, lines were drawn, and fences were created to seperate one people from another.  So the Samaritans simply created their own temple on top of Mt Gerazim in order to mimic the temple at Jerusalem and have their own place for religious sacrifice and ceremonies.

Over the next 500 years the territory would become even further defined and separated when Greece and  Alexander the great conquered the area, then followed by the Roman’s who would develop and populate the areas of their choosing by building small towns and temples to their pagan gods along the northern coast as well as at Mt Hermon and the Sea of Galille area. Which meant that anyone who chose to live there were now discriminated against by the jews in Jerusalem because they considered them to be living in pagan god towns and prospering off of a roman economy that was built around pagan worship and temples.   The Sea of Galilee became such a town because of the  fishing industry there.  Anyone from Jerusalem would have considered them to be comparable to filthy wicked sailors who only cared about making money off of the Roman’s and living a life of pleasure in a continuous drunken stupor.

Nazareth, the little town that Jesus grew up in, was about 15 miles west of the sea of Galilee, even though it was to far away to be considered part of this Roman economy around the Sea of Galilee in some ways it was looked down on even worse because it was so small of a town that it was hardly even known to exist,  and only the poor labor class lived there such as carpenters.  Nathaniel even pointed out its ridiculed status as a town in John 1:46 when he said to Phillip, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?    To make matters even worse, Nazareth was right on the northern border of Samaria which meant that from a traditional Jewish perspective of someone living in or around Jerusalem, Jesus might as well have been from both Samaria and Galilee.

So let’s try to take all of that historical information and put it into perspective.   There were three separate and segregated groups of people at that time, the traditional Jews who lived in Judea in the south and had Jerusalem as their holy place where their temple and religious leaders were.  And then above them  was the region of Samaria that consisted of the Samaritans who the jews considered to be a mixed race of people not worthy to call themselves jews or to come to Jerusalem to worship.   Above them was the region of Galilee that consisted of fishermen and the poor working class who the Jews of Jerusalem disliked because they drank and made money off of the Roman’s.

Now imagine Jesus, a man not clothed in expensive outfits like the priests in Jerusalem did, because he grew up in Nazareth, a small border town of poor people that might as well be mixed race  Samaritans, along with his group of 12 disciples most of whom were fisherman from Galilee going around preaching and healing people and telling them to repent because the kingdom of heaven is at hand.  Then Jesus and his disciples came to the temple, and Jesus began to turn over the tables of money that the priests made their living off of, and rebuke them for making Gods house a den of thieves.  This was the last straw for them, he had to go.  They immediately paid Judas to lead them to him secretly at night so that they could trap him away from the public and charge him with false charges and then have him crucified by the romans because they could not legally punish anyone with death because of the Roman rules.

They considered him to be a nobody, just a nuisance that needed to be gotten rid of, but the question then comes back to the original question that I asked.  Was Jesus born on the wrong side of the fence?  The religious leaders who were responsible for the death of Jesus knew the law and the prophecy of the Bible very well.  They knew that the Messiah would come from the lineage of David and that he would be born in Bethlehem, the birth town of David.

Jesus, as far as they knew, was not born in Bethlehem, they thought he was born in Nazareth of the region of Galilee, which meant he was a nobody, because not even a prophet had been said to come from Galilee. John 7:52
So would it have changed anything if they had known that Jesus was born in Bethlehem and was a descendant of King David.   It’s very possible that it would have, and if knowing he was possibly the Messiah because of where he was born changed how they viewed him, then it means that they did think it was ok to murder Jesus simply because he was born on the wrong side of the fence.

How sad is the truth of this reality? And why have we not learned anything from it even to this day?

The irony of it all is that Jesus himself preached to everyone without discrimination,  class or hate and told them to love everyone as if they were yourself or your family, no matter who they are or where they come from because even though turning the other cheek may get you struck again, love is the only way to get back love in return.  Hate will always only grow and be returned with more hate.

For all of its points about the human condition and suffering without cause or end, I too have read the book of Job over and over again thinking that patience and suffering through the trials of life and the tests of satan while faithfully waiting for God to forgive and restore us was the point and theme of the narrative.

But it’s actually not, because hidden away in the back and forth extremely deep although somewhat repetitive discourses is the true purpose for the book of Job and it is revealed not by Job or his friends but the very last person to make his case before God shows up in the whirlwind to rebuke Job and his three pity party friends

His name is Elihu and he is in the very least a prophetic and symbolic representation of the messiah himself, his discourse to Job if I summarize, is that he has waited patiently for Job and his three older friends to finish their accusing and complaining but he can no longer hold his tounge because they have all got it wrong and no one has spoken truly on God’s behalf about the purpose and reason for the suffering of Job.

The three friends claim Job suffers because he has sinned but Job insists that he has not sinned but being punished anyway and that he no longer seen the motivation or point in being righteous if his punishment and end is the same as the wicked.

Elihu rebukes all four of them but the important thing to notice is that when God shows up in chapter 38 he does not rebuke or correct Elihu, and In the very end of Job in chapter 42 God tells Job’s three friends to ask Job to pray for them because they have not spoken the truth about him, yet there is no mention of Elihu needing prayer or correction.

It is worth it to re read the book or at least the Elihu discourse with this thought and realization in mind, that Elihu pronounced to Job that man would be redeemed from going down into the pit or sheol, because man was no longer doomed after death to stay in the pit of despair along with the wicked, God did have a plan for the salvation of man.

Job and his three friends believed and spoke to the effect that man was doomed to sheol whether they lived righteous or not. This is because sheol or hades was the ancient understanding of the afterlife and underworld in that because man had fallen into sin he was doomed to an eternity of torture with the rephaim, the drowned giants of the flood and the fallen chained Angels in the abyss

So what did Elihu say that points to or is a prophecy of the redemption of man’s soul by christ who was Jesus or Yeshua

Job 33:22-30 NKJV

In order to turn man from his deed,
And conceal pride from man,
He keeps back his soul from the Pit
And his life from passing over into sheol

“If there is a messenger for him
A mediator, one among a thousand
To show man His uprightness
Then He is gracious to him, and says
‘Deliver him from going down to the Pit
I have found a ransom

He shall pray to God
and He will delight in him,
He shall see His face with joy
For He restores to man His righteousness.

He will redeem his soul
from going down to the Pit
And his life shall see the Light.

“Behold, God works all these things,
Twice, in fact, three times with a man,
To bring back his soul from the Pit,
That he may be enlightened with the light of life.

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What a simple and sweet irony that the oldest book in the bible is actually about God’s plan for the salvation of man through his son

After all isn’t that what the entire book of the bible is ? The slow and steady but effective revelation of God back to man who abandoned him at a tree all while dropping hints and clues about the future and grand plan to show us his love, through his son on a cross who died for us so that we could return to him and not be lost forever in the abyss

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Verse excerpts from the book of Job
Chapters 4-13

1“Call now is there anyone who will answer you?
And to which of the holy ones (angels) will you turn?

9“As a cloud vanishes and is gone,
So he who goes down to Sheol (the nether world, the place of the dead) does not come up.
I will speak in the anguish of my spirit,
I will complain in the bitterness of my soul .

12“Am I the sea, or the sea monster,
That You set a guard over me?

17“What is man that You [should] magnify him [and think him important]?
And that You are concerned about him?

20“If I have sinned, what [harm] have I done to You, O Watcher of mankind?
Why have You set me as a target for You,
So that I am a burden to myself?

21“Why then do You not pardon my transgression
And take away my sin and guilt?

Job chapters 14-18

1“Man who is born of woman
Is of few days and full of trouble.
2He comes forth like a flower and fades away;
He flees like a shadow and does not continue.

3“You also open Your eyes upon him
And bring him into judgment with Yourself.

4“Who can make a clean thing out of the unclean? No one!
5“Since his days are determined,
The number of his months is with You [in Your control],
And You have made his limits so he cannot pass [his allotted time].

6“[O God] turn your gaze from him so that he may rest,
Until he fulfills his day [on earth] like a hired man.

7“For there is hope for a tree,
If it is cut down, that it will sprout again,
And that the shoots of it will not cease nor fail, [but there is no such hope for man].

8“Though its roots grow old in the earth
And its stump dies in the dry soil,

9Yet at the scent of water [the stump of the tree] will flourish
And bring forth sprigs and shoots like a seedling.

10“But [the brave, strong] man must die and lie face down;
Man breathes his last, and where is he?

11“As water evaporates from the sea,
And a river drains and dries up,

12So man lies down and does not rise [again].
Until the heavens are no longer,
The dead will not awake nor be raised from their sleep.

13“Oh, that You would hide me in Sheol (the nether world, the place of the dead),
That You would conceal me until Your wrath is past,
That You would set a definite time and then remember me [and in Your lovingkindness imprint me on your heart]!

14“If a man dies, will he live again?
I will wait all the days of my struggle
My adversary sharpens His gaze and glares [with piercing eyes] at me.

10“They have gaped at me with their mouths,
With contempt they have struck me on the cheek;
They massed themselves together [and conspired] against me.

11“God hands me over to criminals
And tosses me [headlong] into the hands of the wicked.

18“O earth, do not cover my blood,
And let there be no [resting] place for my cry [where it will cease being heard].

19“Even now, behold, my Witness is in heaven,
And my Advocate [who vouches and testifies for me] is on high.

20“My friends are scoffers [who ridicule];
My eye pours out tears to God.

21“Oh, that a man would mediate and plead with God [for me]

Just as a man [mediates and pleads] with his neighbor and friend.

22“For when a few years are past,
I shall go the way of no return

Job chapters 19-32

19“All the men of my council hate me;
Those I love have turned against me.

20“My bone clings to my skin and to my flesh,
And I have escaped [death] by the skin of my teeth.

21“Have pity on me! Have pity on me, O you my friends,
For the hand of God has touched me.

22“Why do you persecute me as God does?
Why are you not satisfied with my flesh (anguish)?

23“Oh, that the words I now speak were written!
Oh, that they were recorded in a scroll!

24“That with an iron stylus and [molten] lead
They were engraved in the rock forever!

25“For I know that my Redeemer and Vindicator lives,

And at the last He will take His stand upon the earth.

26“Even after my [mortal] skin is destroyed [by death],

Yet from my [immortal] flesh I will see God,

27Whom I, even I, will see for myself,

And my eyes will see Him and not another!

My heart faints within me.

28“If you say, ‘How shall we [continue to] persecute him?’
And ‘What pretext for a case against him can we find [since we claim the root of these afflictions is found in him]?’

29“Then beware and be afraid of the sword [of divine vengeance] for yourselves,
For wrathful are the punishments of that sword,
So that you may know there is judgment.”

5“The spirits of the dead tremble
Underneath the waters and their inhabitants.

6“Sheol (the nether world, the place of the dead) is naked before God,
And Abaddon (the place of destruction) has no covering [from His eyes].

12“He stirred up the sea by His power,
And by His understanding He smashed [proud] Rahab.

13“By His breath the heavens are cleared;
His hand has pierced the [swiftly] fleeing serpent.

Job chapters 33-38
Elihu speaks

The Spirit of God has made me,

And the breath of the Almighty gives me life.

5“Answer me, if you can;

Set yourselves before me, take your stand.

6“Behold, I belong to God like you;

I too was formed out of the clay.

He holds back his soul from the pit [of destruction],

And his life from passing over into Sheol (the nether world, the place of the dead).

19“Man is also disciplined with pain on his bed,

And with unceasing complaint in his bones,

20So that his life makes him loathe food,

And his soul [loathe] even his favorite dishes.

21“His flesh is so wasted away that it cannot be seen,

And his bones which were not seen now stick out.

22“Then his soul draws near to the pit [of destruction],

And his life to those who bring death (the destroyers).

23“If there is an angel as a mediator for him,
One out of a thousand,
To explain to a man what is right for him [that is, how to be in right standing with God],

24Then the angel is gracious to him, and says,

‘Spare him from going down to the pit [of destruction];

I have found a ransom [a consideration, or reason for redemption, an atonement]!’

25“Let his flesh be restored and become fresher than in youth;
Let him return to the days of his youthful strength.

26“He will pray to God, and He shall be favorable to him,
So that he looks at His face with joy;
For God restores to man His righteousness [that is, his right standing with God–with its joys].

27“Then He shall cry out to other men,
‘I have sinned and perverted that which was right,
And it was not repaid to me!

28‘God has redeemed my life from going to the pit [of destruction],
And my life shall see the light.’”

29 “Behold, God does all these things twice, yes, three times, with a man,

30To bring his life back from the pit [of destruction],
That he may be enlightened with the light of the life.

5“Look to the heavens and see;

And behold the skies which are [much] higher than you.

6“If you have sinned, what do you accomplish against Him?

And if your transgressions are multiplied, what have you done to Him?

7“If you are righteous, what do you give God,
Or what does He receive from your hand?

8“Your wickedness affects only a man such as you,
And your righteousness affects only a son of man.

10“But no one says, ‘Where is God my Maker,

11Who teaches us more than the beasts of the earth

And makes us wiser than the birds of the heavens?’

12“The people cry out, but He does not answer
Because of the pride of evil men.

13“Surely God will not listen to an empty cry
Nor will the Almighty regard it.

14“Even though you say that you do not see Him
Yet your case is before Him, and you must wait for Him!

15“And now, because He has not [quickly] punished in His anger,

16Job uselessly opens his mouth
And multiplies words without knowledge [drawing the worthless conclusion that the righteous have no more advantage than the wicked].

He who is perfect in knowledge is with you.

5“Behold, God is mighty, and yet does not despise anyone

6“He does not prolong the life of the wicked,
But gives the afflicted their justice.

10“He opens their ears to instruction and discipline,
And commands that they return from evil.

11“If they hear and serve Him,
They will end their days in prosperity
And their years in pleasantness and joy.

12“But if they do not hear and obey, they will die by the sword [of God’s destructive judgments]
And they will die [in ignorance] without [true] knowledge.

13“But the godless in heart store up anger [at the divine discipline];
They do not cry [to Him] for help when He binds them [with cords of affliction].

15“He rescues the afflicted in their affliction,
And opens their ears [so that they pay attention to His voice] in times of oppression.

17“But you [Job] were full of judgment on the wicked,
Judgment and justice take hold of you.

18“Do not let wrath entice you into scoffing;
And do not let the greatness and the extent of the ransom turn you aside.

21“Take heed and be careful, do not turn to wickedness,

For you have chosen this [the vice of complaining against God] rather than [learning from] affliction.

Will we see our precious and beloved pets when we get to heaven?

Traditionally the answer is no and without any reason or explanation, but I am not a Traditional person so I will give a very untraditional answer of a most definitely, and without a doubt yes they have and do and will go to heaven and I will follow it with a very untraditional explanation of why.

I have been a pet owner all of my life and I have never viewed or treated my pets as an object or treated them as pets.

I have always let them grow and develop into their own little unique and individual personalities and loved them for their strengths and their weaknesses just as they have loved me without conditions, and yes I can say without a doubt that my furry, finned and feathered family members have truly loved me because through my example of showing them love they have learned what love is.

The reason I know they have learned to love me and why is because I have studied the bible and many other books and developed a much deeper understanding of our relationship with God and what his original plan for us was before it got detoured into this terrible experience of separating the wheat from the chaff so to say
The good from the evil
The Abel’s from the Cain’s

In the beggining as in the book of Genesis beggining, God created man in his image as in to have the ability to have understanding and forethought and have a desire to create and grow things and share love with others.
God loved and cared for man and provided for him all that he needed he only asked that he in turn care for the animals and the garden.
You could say that this is a circle of Love that was meant by design for love to be shown to others who then show love to lesser beings and creatures until eventually the love is returned back to God who first gave it because God is Love and thereby the creator and first source of Love.

God because he is Love did what love does which is to not be selfish but selfless and shared his love by creating a universe capable of life and love by sharing a part of himself so that by the continual giving and returning of love the circle would not become stagnant and die but be alive with life and complete with love.

That all sounds pretty hippie I know
But part of answering the question of do animals go to heaven involves understanding that everything is part of God and his energy, spirit and love.
I don’t pretend to know or understand what part of himself he used to create us and everything we see
I only know for certain that it traces back to his spirit of love.
We are all created by a perfect creator a perfect source of the beggining of love but we are not perfect, we are quite imperfect but through experience and relationships we become better and better everyday when we allow love to pass through us and on to the next person and especially when it is to a lesser creature such as a pet.

Jesus gave us the perfect example of this in his life and eventual self sacrifice at the cross.
His life was the ultimate living example of humility and love because as the Son of God he was more important than anyone who ever lived and yet instead of becoming a king and ruler and demanding power and authority over all lesser beings, he became the servant to his own creation and showed them his example of love by taking their sickness upon himself and by doing so healing them of their infirmities, and then taking on our very sins upon himself at his execution on a cross that was the creation of the very men whom he created.
The creator himself allowed his own creation to disgrace and murder him with the ultimate example of shame and pain of his time which was to be nailed naked to a tree that men shaped into a cross for the sole purpose of displaying the punishment of a slow and painfull death for all to see and remember forever.
He could have destroyed them instantly or in the very least put them on a cross to suffer the same fate as he did but he didn’t
Instead he transformed that cross of sin and shame into the cross of
Glory and Grace an everlasting symbol and sign of the unfathomable love of God
By dying an eternal death in our place and paying the price for us that was required of sin which is death eternal.
Yep it sounds complicated
How did Jesus die an eternal death for us in our place but be resurrected again.
He actually explained it in John 10:17-18
“Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father.”

Even if we do not fully understand his sacrifice for us we are expected to at least follow in his example which was to love and serve others especially those less fortunate then us, and by doing so we share the love that God freely gave to us so that they can in turn learn from it and share love with others.

Jesus gave many parables about this very subject of being humbled and the master being the servant of those who are lesser because this is a requirement of love and being selfless.
Just as God created man to be more Intelligent and capable then animals, It was man’s responsibility to care for them and to teach them love through example by serving them instead of being selfish and making them serve us.

It’s unfortunate that the opposite of God’s plan is what we have done and continue to do with the entire world and it’s creatures but we are unfortunately stuck on this path of sin and selfishness until it leads to our own demise from self destruction.

Animals unfortunately are the innocent who suffer because of our choices and the world we have created
But no matter what we do or believe we can not change the fact that all energy and mater came from God and will return to God in the end, we are powerless to change this
This includes animals both wild and pets.

But what we can change is that by sharing our life and love with animals we form a bond with them that God intended for all of his creation to share and when we do so we allow them to become a part of our journey and experience to completing the circle of Love that leads back to God.

The Father who is God loved the Son who is Jesus who loved us enough to save us from death by sharing his love and giving up his life as proof of that love.
They would not deny us the bond that was formed with another of his creations that we shared his love with.

So yes our pets that we truly loved unsefishly and bonded with we will see again in heaven

Hope this has helped any who were genuinely seeking and answer to this question.

There are not very many examples of scripture that pertain to animals or pets in heaven but here are a few for reference.

Isaiah 11:5-7
“The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb,
The leopard shall lie down with the young goat,
The calf and the young lion and the fatling together;
And a little child shall lead them.
7 The cow and the bear shall graze;
Their young ones shall lie down together;
And the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

Revelation 19
11 Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war. 12 His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except Himself. 13 He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. 14
And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses.

People often ask the question, who is God, and why doesn’t he just reveal himself to us?   Why doesn’t he give us some kind of proof that he exists so we can believe?

They are all good questions but the truth is that God does want you to know that he exists and that he loves you enough to give you ways to find him, but only if you seek him with an open mind and heart that allows for him to reveal himself and his love and try to understand why he hasn’t made it obvious and easy to prove that he is up there.

Faith is believing in something without seeing it or having proof of its existence. The reason that faith is necessary to finding God is because man joined sides with the father of evil and sin, the devil or satan,

By making this choice of participating in sin, man challenged God by saying we know a better way, our own way to do things and we don’t need you telling us what is good and what is evil anymore.    God accepted this challenge, but it meant that he would no longer intervene or be a part of our choices unless it is necessary because doing so would affect the outcome of our very long lesson that we have chosen to learn the hard way.

So, in that summary, we can see that he does not give us proof of him or his actions because we have decided that we don’t need him.   In many cases, it would seem that there are far more reasons made easily available to not believe in him than their are reasons to believe,  but this is by design and on purpose to allow those who trust in usless knowledge to find exactly what they are looking for, which is a reason to not believe.

However, for those who do seek him with their heart, mind, and soul, he does find ways to reveal himself and his plan for the salvation of man to them.  One of these ways that provides proof to the believer is called typology.

What is typology?  As if there wasn’t enough biblical terminology to memorize already.    But this one is just as important as prophecy because, in a way it is prophecy, accept its prophecy without actually saying anything.  let me explain.

The bible is filled with stories that involve people, objects, and events that, by themself, seem to convey what happened and what we need to know about the story that’s being told. Yet hidden within almost all of the stories in the bible, there is a typology that links or groups other events yet to happen or to be revealed that are so closely related to each other that when they did come to pass they actually become prophecy fulfilled from the first story.

For example,  Paul conveyed in Roman’s 5:14  that Adam was a type, a foreshadowing or pre-figure of Christ in that Adam was the first man created by God, he was created to be perfect yet because of his wife Eve and the deception of the serpent, he chose to join her fate of death and ate also of the tree whose fruit is sin.  He was cast out of the garden and God’s presence because of sin and clothed with the skins of animals that represented the sacrifice that must occur in order to cover their sin.

Jesus was the second Adam, born in this world of sin, but lived a sinless life even though the same serpent tried to decieve and tempt him. He then conquered death by taking on all of our sin and dying naked on a tree so that we could be redeemed of our sin by his sacrifice and once again be in God’s presence in the Garden.

So Adam and all of these things that he and his story represented are a typology of the future actions and symbolic death of Jesus, hidden in this simple little story about Adam and a tree.

Adam was created perfect in a perfect world without sin but fell and became imperfect and created a world of sin.

Jesus was born in a world of sin but became perfect to undo the curse that Adam had created and bring man and the world back to perfection and back to God

Adam was created naked but died  clothed because of sin

Jesus died naked because he had removed our sin

Adam created sin at a tree

Jesus overcame sin at a tree

Adam created the need for sacrifice in order to cover and atone sin.

Jesus became the sacrifice in order to redeem Adam and atone for his sin once and for all.

So you see, Adam’s life and choices became a prophecy of the reversals that Jesus would perform when he came and was born as an ordinary man more than 4000 years later.      Not because Adam was not in control of his life or choices but because Jesus and God are one and the same and not bound by time like we are. They saw our future and knew what we would do and what would have to be done in order to save us from ourselves.      This was Gods plan for our salvation was for himself to become a man and die in our place for us and with us, even by our own hand.

This is typology, that all of these are linked together across long lengths of time and it is in a way definitive proof that God exists because only he could see beyond time and have the Hebrews tell these stories and write down their history for thousands of years and then not even understand or believe who Jesus was when he did come as a man to fulfill all of the typology prophecies that they had created a religion and lifestyle around.  You can not make this stuff up.

Another example of a typology is the flood and baptism.   The flood of Noah occurred as a judgment on the evil and wicked offspring of the fallen angels who had mated with human women and created wicked souless giant monsters.   Only Noah and his three sons  were perfect in their generations and had not been corrupted by the fallen anglels and the seed of the serpent.  Because the world could not continue in this state of chaos and evil and still allow for Gods plan for the salvation of man, God instructed Noah to build an ark and to put the animals and his family inside because he would destroy the earth and all of the wicked giants and chain the angels who created them in the abyss.      Noah did as he was told, and God submerged the ark with water by opening the windows of heaven and drowned all of the inhabitants of the earth.   Afterward, the ark rested on the mountains of Ararat, and Noah and his family emerged to a cleansed earth to start over.   This story is significant enough by itself, but the typology and prophecy of it are beyond profound.

First would be the judgment on the evil offspring who would later be referred to as rephaim or the drowned giants and the fallen Angels who created them.

The typology of this would have three separate future fullfilments of the giants being drowned in the flood and the fallen angels chained in sheol. 

After the flood, the spirits of the rephaim would haunt men and possess them because their hatred for man and anything that is associated with God drives them with a relentless psychopathic desire to hurt and destroy.    This desire led to men murdering other men and the deception of men believing in the existence of false gods and idol worship whose end goal was always the sacrifice of the innocent to appease the false gods, even if it means sacrificing one’s own child.  Sound familure?   Thats because Abraham and his being asked by God to sacrifice Isaac was yet again a typology of the other false gods requiring that children be sacrificed to them, even in the very same spot that God led Abraham to sacrifice Isaac at.   The key difference being that God did not allow Abraham to go through with it because it was only a display of Abraham’s faith in God and a way for it to be recorded for the rest of history that the God of Abraham does not desire or allow his creation to sacrifice their sons, but instead Abraham prophecied that God himself would come down and provide for himself the Lamb for a sacrifice

This false god worship and sacrifice of children had finally reached its apex in the egyptians and pharoh who had believed so wholeheartedly in the  god resheph (who later became apollo to the greeks) that the pharoh himself began to believe that he was the physical imbodiment of the god and began throwing the male children of the hebrews into the nile river in order to control their population and prove authority over all other gods even the God of the Hebrews.        Moses was spared from this fate, and after living a life of ease as egyptian royalty, he was exiled to the wilderness for the murder of an egyptian.         God then revealed himself to Moses in order to bring his chosen people the Hebrews out of egypt, and he would do so by proving to  the Egyptians that he was the only true  God by punishing them with the very same plagues and miracles that they believed their pharoh and god resheph possessed.

Here is where the typology of the first flood of Noah gets fulfilled in that pharoh in his prideful rage chased the Hebrews to the coastline of the sea intending to destroy them just as the wicked giants of Noah’s day intended to destroy all of mankind.  But God once again intervened, and instead of Moses building an ark to survive the coming flood, God created an ark in the water itself by parting it in the very same shape as the hull of a ship would be.       After Moses and the last of the Hebrews touched the ground of the mountainside on the other end of the sea, God no longer restrained the waters that had been parted for his people, just as he no longer restrained the waters of the heavens that flooded the giants.  All of pharoh and his chariots of men drowned just as the children of the fallen angels had in the first flood, only Gods children were saved.

The second fulfillment of the flood typology would be the baptism of men by John the Baptist and his followers just before Jesus would begin his ministry and mission that would lead to the cross.       When we think of getting baptized, most people think of it being a commitment to God and a purification of our body by the washing away of our sins in water.    But if we are to fully interpret and understand all that the typology of it seems to present, then it is symbolic of even more than that.

When we get baptized, we are in fact, becoming a member of the small family of Noah on that giant ark that was symbolic of Jesus because he is the Ark and he is the one and only door of the ark that allows for salvation. All who enter in through him will be saved John 10:9.      Because we all have been born in sin we are part of the family of the fallen angels and their wicked offspring.  Because of this we are submerged in water and drown in our sins with them, but because we are God’s children and not the offspring of angels we are offered one last choice and lifeline that is Jesus and if we believe in him and his sacrifice for us then unlike the drowned giants and the chained angels we have the possibility to emerge from the water by stepping through his door and entering in his ark and joining the family of Noah.

As if that wasn’t enough to make the typology and  symbolism of baptism amazing, remember those spirits of the rephaim who possessed and tormented men up to Jesus’s day.   Well their time was now up once again because not only did Jesus get baptized and cast them out by sending them to the abyss to be with their chained parents, but the followers of Jesus also got baptized and because they believed in him, they also cast out demons in his name.    Once again, just as the flood of Noah they had been judged and sentenced to another form of death (confinement to the abyss) but this time not through a flood of water but by men themself being submerged and coming out alive and victorious because of Jesus.   Who as it turns out rose from the grave on the very same day that the Ark rested on the mountainside and again the very same day that the Hebrews crossed the through the parted sea to arise on the other side free from the evil and death that phoroh represented.

This brings me to the last and final typology of the flood, which has yet to be fulfilled.    We are nearing its fullfilment now because the world has become disillusioned with money, technology, and selfish pride, which is only paving the way for the apostasy that is to come.   The devil himself will come proclaiming himself to be God and the fulfillment of prophecy and provide all the proof that anyone could ask for, accept one thing, his time will be short because unlike God he is not eternal and can not tell or predict the future because he is bound by time.   Unfortunately, many will believe him though, and the earth will once again become corrupted and evil like it was in the days of Noah.  The rephaim and the angels who were bound will be released once more and will be the cause for God to come once again to judge and destroy the wicked but this time the flood will not be with water but with fire and it will be never ending for those who chose it.

Many people think they have got it all figured out and that there is no God because everything is just chance and chaos just as science proves.  And that not being able to prove that there is a  God is proof enough that there isnt one.  To those people I would like to say, now is the time to decide who’s team you are on before the great deception comes and you are given the proof you have asked for.  As much as you might firmly believe that people of faith are ignorant and that you have found all of the proof and evidence that you need to decide they are wrong and that there is no God.   Is it enough proof if you had to stand in front of him right now and explain to him why you dont believe in him or his son?   

Man who is born of woman,
is few of days and full of trouble.
He comes forth like a flower
and fades away like a shadow
Job 14:1-2

God created the universe, and all that is in it to be inhabited, he did not create them in vain. Isaiah 45:18

He spoke the words, “Let Light Be” and the words became vibrations of light, matter, and energy that created all that we see when we look up into the heavens and see the milky way, the galaxies and the stars.
The heavens at night are breathtaking, the stars shine as bright as the angels because they probably are the angels in their still and resting forms.
The galaxies look like the breath of God swirling like the vapor of breath in the cold still air. Yet the heavens seem frozen in time, lifeless and cold, almost as if they are waiting for something.

           Let there be Division?

In the beginning, God created division. The book of Genesis is a book of division.
When God created the earth he separated everything so that there would be division and a difference between one and the other, so that every aspect of life and reality could be tested, tried and experienced in a spectrum of light and varying environments so that we could experience the difference between hot and cold, good and bad.
He divided the light from the dark, the waters in the sky from the waters on the earth, and the water on the earth from the dry land beneath.

A garden is placed in Eden, and God took from the dust of the earth and put his spirit into it to form a man like his Image with his goodness and character and to be the administrator over all the earth.
But the man was not content to be alone and without a partner.            God knowing his creation, did one last final division, he divided man from himself, he took the feminine side of Adam and formed a woman with it so that individualy they would be the opposite and incomplete, but when they found each other and joined together they would compliment each other to form a whole, and become one again.
With silent reverence, all watched this moment of the creation and union of man and woman but there were some watching that had evil growing in their hearts at this scene.
A serpent became prideful and jealous of this man that would have dominion over him, so the prideful serpent set out to do his own division and decided to divide man from God by first dividing him from the woman God had created for him named Eve.
“Did God say to you, do not eat from the tree? the serpent asked Eve with a smile.
Eve replied, “God said we may eat from all of the trees, but from the tree in the middle of the garden we can not eat from it, God said we can not even touch it or we will die.”
But God did not tell Eve not to touch it. She added to the word of God and distorted it.
Adam had not explained to Eve the word of God and this allowed the serpent a weakness to exploit.
So as he climbs up the tree the serpent says to Eve why would God say that you would die, he did not say that to you but to Adam and he did not mean to death he would die, but only that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods and no longer men, your ignorance would die because you will know of the choice of good and evil just as God does.
Eve ponders this new information and possibility and because the fruit does not look like something that would kill her and because she is younger and less experienced then Adam she to would like to be wise.
As she reaches out to take a fruit from the tree, the serpent smiles and revels in his accomplishment, in a mere moment he will have succeeded in his goal which was to show to God the inferiority of man and he will do so by getting man to kill himself by eating the fruit that God told him would kill him.
He became the first murderer even though he thought he was clever enough and deceitful enough to have hidden the murder in this trick of man killing himself.

After eve ate of the fruit her eyes were indeed opened and she did see and understand more then she had before. Suddenly the whole world before her was no longer simple and easy but complicated and filled with choices and decisions and with these choices came voices, so many voices pulling her this way and that until she felt overwhelmed with it all and thats when she finally realized, her connection with God and his spirit had been severed, she was instantly filled with anxiety and doubt, she felt immediate panic and loneliness, in fear she fled to Adam he would know what to do, “it was only a mistake the serpent tricked her yes that’s it It’s the serpents fault”, when she finds Adam not far from her she immediately begins weeping out of fear and shame.
As she tells Adam the events and shows Him the fruit still in her hand, his heart drops he knows what has transpired.
Only a short while ago his heart was filled with joy and a sense of purpose and belonging that was unshakable because the living God who had created everything was his friend and had made him a mate to spend his life with.
He could think of nothing that would add to his happiness, but now everything has changed, now what God has told him not to do Eve has done and she will die, there is no way around it because God can not lie.
Even if Adam were to beg for her life and even though God loved Adam enough to grant him his request, allowing Eve to live would have made what he said a lie when he said in the day that you eat from it you will die.
He feels the loss of Eve even before this event takes place, and immediately, his mind goes back to how he felt before God made Eve.
He was complete in the love of God yet alone when God was not in his presence,
He decided to join Eve in her fate and to eat also from the fruit. He would rather die with her than be alone again without his other half. In a way, he knew that the Love of God would triumph no matter how this turned out, but he knew that either way, death would be required of it. So he took the fruit from her hand and looked in her eyes as he also took a bite
Eve gasped at seeing Adam do this.
Her knees grew weak as she began to fall like water being poured out on the ground.
A vision began to play before his eyes, the tree of life vanished from sight and Eve transformed into the tree of the knowledge of good and evil with its large spreading branches and beautiful green leaves that began to wither away and dry out until all the leaves had fallen off.
The branches began to crack and splinter until even they began to fall to the ground. All that was left was the trunk and two branches that formed the shape of a T.
Lightning flashed and thunder cracked and a great storm appeared out of nowhere causing a darkness to cover the garden, suddenly the tree now held a man suspended from his hands by the branches writhing in pain and a crown of thorns on his head, as Adam tried to see who the man was he fell back in shock when a flash of lightning lit up the face of the man who appeared as both his own and the fathers.
Blood begins to drip down the tree from a wound in his chest and the nails in his hands and feet, holding him firmly to the trunk.
The blood drips upon a golden box at the base of the tree,
It has the appearance of both a throne with two angels on either side and an altar with handles in the base.
As the blood drips and slowly covers the mercy seat, the storm begins to calm the lightning slows its flashes until the sun begins to shine, the blood ceases to flow when the two angels on either side of the throne suddenly become alive and fly up to the man to remove the nails out of his hands and feet and gently place him on his throne that used to be an altar.
They remove the crown of thorns, and on his head, they place a golden crown as the angels bow down and praise him for redeeming the world by giving up his life to pay the debt of death from sin.
A trickle of water begins to flow from the base of the throne that turns into a stream and then a river. The garden springs back to life, and the tree of life grows from a vine that shoots out from the back of the throne and covers the trunk where the tree of sin stood.
Adam is amazed at this vision but does not understand it
He is a creature of time and is not capable of understanding that God is a spirit outside of time because he created time.
God knew that Adam would make the choice he made to give up and sacrifice his life and partake of sin to be with Eve. Just as he knew that the  serpent would become prideful and deceive Eve in order to kill man. But he allowed it to happen so that he could come down in the form of a man and give his life for Adam’s and redeem him by proving his love for him because just as Jesus said
“Greater love has no one than this:
to lay down one’s life for his friends.”

His name is Yeshua, he is the YHWH yod hey vav hey, the unspeakable name of the LORD in the bible, which literally means hand behold nail behold.  He is the Aleph and the Tav, the first and the last.  He is the light that was created by God and his Word in the very beginning because God knew that we would leave him at a tree and that at a tree he would die for us so that  we would have one more chance to go back to him but only if we choose him instead of us

His name is Jesus, and he showed the true darkness and intentions of their hearts by letting them put him to death on the cross.
He then proved that he is the Son of God when he conquered death and rose from the grave the very same day that Noah’s ark rested on the mountainside.
One day very soon he will return once more but this time he will not be the kind and gentle person of the Gospels but will reap the earth of what fruit of his remains and will flood the earth with fire and punish the seed of the serpent once and for all.

We can choose to ignore God and his calling for us to find him but one day in the end he will hold you in his hand to see you, the real you that can not hide. So now is the time for you to ask yourself

What kind of fruit are you?

I don’t know when or in what way there will be a judgment day for us

Jesus said no one knows the day or the hour, so don’t let anyone ever tell you when it will happen

But I do know that it is coming for Lucifer and those who have embraced sin into their hearts

I know that I will never be foolish enough to live a life that ends with me going to hell with them

But I can imagine that if there is a judgment day for me , the scales of justice will be calibrated

and the witnesses brought forward
to give testimony of my sins and mistakes

I can imagine Lucifer is the prosecutor

his suit is as black as his heart

and he has carefully crafted his case against me

to show without a shadow of a doubt
That I have sinned

and have fallen short of the Glory of God

And as he closes with his last witness
and rests his case

the scale is tipped against me.

My heart is found wanting

My soul begins to feel weak

my public defender stands up

his name is Jesus

his suit is Light

and as he walks up to the stand

and approaches the scale

a drop of blood falls from his hand 

the scale slams to the ground

and shatters to pieces

as he looks to me and says

this one is mine. I paid for him

Lucifer weeps as the gavel is slammed,

and God says case dismissed on account of the cross

So bring on my court date Lucifer

“I AM” ready for it.

only, and I mean only because of Jesus

There is Nothing I did. Nothing I said.

Nothing I gave away, and Nothing I paid for

that made me forgiven and worthy but for Jesus

Genesis 18:3-4
My Lord, if I have now found favor in Your sight, do not pass on by Your servant. Please let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree.

Did Abraham know and understand the significance of these two verses when he spoke them?
Did he know that 2000 years later Jesus would return the gesture of his friend and humble servant Abraham by washing the feet of men at the passover supper before he would be hung on a tree and rest for three days

John 13:6-7
Then He came to Simon Peter. And Peter said to Him, “Lord, are You washing my feet?”
Jesus answered and said to him, 
“What I am doing you do not understand now, but you will know after this.”

John 8:56
“Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.”

Genesis 18:17   And the  Lord said,  “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing“

It’s possible that Abraham did understand that this simple act of kindness to wash the LORD’S feet and provide a meal while they rested was ordained and meant to happen and that the symbolism of his humbleness and kindness would reverberate across time and space until it’s eventual fullfilment in the last supper and the cross.

The wording of the scriptures throughout chapter 18 of Genesis seems to call attention to the parallels that would happen first in Exodus 12 with the passover Lamb, and then later in all four of the gospels in the fullfilment of the passover ritual when Jesus became the passover Lamb whose blood would cause the wrath of God to pass over us.

Exodus 12:13
And when I see the blood, I will pass over you

The Bread of Abraham

Genesis 18:5-6
I will bring a morsel of bread, that you may refresh your hearts. After that you may pass by,
They said, “Do as you have said.”
So Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah and said, “Quickly, make ready three measures of fine meal; knead it and make cakes.

Bread or cakes can not be made quickly with yeast because it would have needed hours to rise, so this would have been unleavened bread that Sarah prepared and cooked for this meal in a hurry
Which is paralleled again in

Exodus 12:39 
And they baked unleavened cakes of the dough which they had brought out of Egypt; for it was not leavened, because they were driven out of Egypt and could not wait

Jesus gave a reference that paralleled Sarah and this moment of her making bread in
Matthew 13:33
“The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened.”

But leaven or yeast is always a symbolic reference to sin in the bible.

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Just as the washing of the feet of the LORD by Abraham was returned in kind by the LORD washing the feet of his disciples
So to was the offering of bread by Abraham returned with the offering of the true bread given to men which is the Word of God made flesh in the man who was Jesus.

Luke 22:19
He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”

John 6:48-58 
I Am the bread of life, which I shall give for the life of the world
“This is the bread which came down from heaven, not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead.
He who eats this bread will live forever.”

John 6:4-13 Now the Passover, a feast of the Jews, was near. Then Jesus lifted up his eyes, and seeing a great multitude coming toward Him

Then Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” And Jesus took the loaves, and when He had given thanks He distributed them to the disciples, and the disciples to those sitting down; and likewise of the fish, as much as they wanted.  So when they were filled, He said to His disciples, “Gather up the fragments that remain, so that nothing is lost.” Therefore they gathered  them up, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves which were left over by those who had eaten. 

Jesus is the same LORD who appeared to Abraham beneath the oak tree where he washed his feet and ate what would become the symbol of the passover meal of unleavened bread and passover Lamb that was sacrificed in order to spare God’s people from death and bring them out of slavery.

John 8:57-58
Then the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?”
Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.”

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So why is all of this symbolism of the passover in this one chapter of Genesis 18 but not the passover lamb?
After all, Abraham prepared a calf for the meal, not a lamb

It’s because Isaac, the promised son soon to be born who would later symbolically represent the sacrifice of Jesus and the passover lamb, had finally been conceived in the womb of Sarah.

Genesis 18:14
At the appointed time I will return to you, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son.”

“The time of life”  is meant to describe in the season of spring, which later became the time of passover.

Isaac became the symbolic representation of Jesus and the passover lamb when Abraham once again obeyed a command of God that seemed like he understood its historical and symbolic significance when God asked him to bring Isaac to Mount Moriah and offer him there as a sacrifice.
Abraham never questioned or doubted this unusual command because he understood that God always has a plan and that his faith in the promise of God to make Isaac into more offspring then the stars was a part of that plan. 

Genesis 22:6  So Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son. 

John 19:17 And Jesus, bearing His cross, went up to a place called the Place of a Skull, which is called in Hebrew, Golgotha, where they crucified Him.

When Isaac asked Abraham,
Father, where is the lamb?
Abraham replied  “My Son, God will provide for Himself the Lamb.

when John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him he said     “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.  John 1:29

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God stopped Abraham before he could complete his command because this was only a display of Abraham’s faith and a testament pointing to the future when Mount Moriah would later become Jerusalem where Solomon would build the temple and Jesus the Son of God would become the Lamb that God provided to be sacrificed on a tree.

The place where Jesus was hung on the tree was directly above the garden tomb of Joseph of Arimathea where Jesus was laid for three days before he rose from his rest.
Pointing once again to that 4th verse in
Genesis 18:4 when Abraham said to the LORD
Wash your feet and rest yourself under the tree.

This may all seem like inference or conjecture on my part and is simply a coincidence, but let me ask one last question, and then I will leave it up to you to decide what it means.

Later, in chapter 18, verses 23-33
Abraham pleads with the LORD to spare Sodom if there is at least 10 righteous people found in the city.

So why did he not ask for 4, which would have accounted for Lot his wife and 2 daughters.
Or 6, which would have added in his 2 sons in law?
why 10?

Once again, this is a symbol pointing towards the passover but not of Sodom or of Egypt because they were both destroyed, but rather the passover on the day of the death of the true passover Lamb that God provided for us all who is Jesus.
And on that day, the wrath of God was kindled towards men because they had denied his son in their hearts and instead hung him on the cross.

Matthew 27:45-54
Now from the sixth hour until the ninth hour there was darkness over all the land. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, 
“Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is, 
“My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

Some of those who stood there, when they heard that, said, “This Man is calling for Elijah!” Immediately one of them ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine and put it on a reed, and offered it to Him to drink.

The rest said, “Let Him alone; let us see if Elijah will come to save Him.”

And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit.

Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split, and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many.

So when the centurion and those with him, who were guarding Jesus, saw the earthquake and the things that had happened, they feared greatly, saying, “Truly this was the Son of God!”

God could have destroyed the whole world on that day that they crucified his only son instead of accepting him into their hearts, and he would have been justified in doing so.
But he didn’t for two reasons
One because he already knew that they would do this and that is why the blood of the passover Lamb became a covenant promise to the jews that when God seen the blood of the innocent lamb he would passover them.
And two, because of Abraham’s plea with God to spare them if he found at least 10 righteous in the city.

So how do we know that there were 10 righteous in the city?
Actually, there was one more than 10
There were 12 disciples. One had betrayed Jesus and then killed himself (judas)
The other had denied him three times (peter), but that didn’t stop him from being his disciple.
So there were at least 11 righteous in the city that caused God’s wrath and judgment to passover as Abraham had requested.
But a day is coming when there will be no more righteous to hold back God’s wrath, and the earth will be punished like Sodom and Egypt.
But then on that promised day, we will all get to hear Abraham himself tell us the story of the day that he humbly washed the feet of God beneath a tree.