– Back in the ’80s and early ’90s, a wave of troubling accusations swept across North America. – New and intense scrutiny on the activities of Satanic cults. – [Reporter] Stories of devil worship and Satanic cults corrupting young minds– – Unbelievable crime at the hands of Satanic cults.
– There were terrifying tales of secret Satanic cults bent on tormenting and corrupting the young. Heavy metal music had hidden Satanic messages. – Possibly Satanic messages on some rock music recordings. – Games like Dungeons and Dragons were luring kids to devil worship, and it got even stranger.
– The allegations of physical and sexual abuse of children at a babysitting service. – The dark world of ritualistic child abuse. – [Reporter] There’s a widely held opinion that what happened at the daycare was the devil’s handiwork. – Underground networks of Satanists were infiltrating daycares and preschools
To physical and sexually abuse children in occult rituals. Much of what fueled the panic was not real, but these claims led to a wave of high-profile criminal trials in the US, Canada, and beyond. The cases often followed a similar pattern, an initial report of physical or sexual abuse at a daycare would snowball, taking on a life of its own. Overzealous interveners, everyone from parents to police to counselors would question children, some as young as two years old, in ways now known to produce false allegations.
Children began to talk about animal sacrifices, blood rituals, secret tunnels, even cannibalism. Police would lay charges, prosecutors would take them to court, and the media would report uncritically on what seemed to be a growing threat. – [Reporter] Authorities searched frantically for evidence of an apparent ritual abuse epidemic across North America.
– Some cases would fall apart at trial or during appeal. Others resulted in wrongful convictions. Many of the accused spent years in prison, while others faced financial ruin and damaged reputations. As it turns out, the Satanic Panic may have its origins in Canada. When asked about the spark that set off the hellfire,
Many experts point to this book, “Michelle Remembers”, published in 1980, written by Canadian Psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder, and his former patient Michelle Smith. The book provided a template for the allegations of Satanic ritual abuse that followed. Pazder claimed he helped Smith recover repressed memories from her early childhood of a terrifying initiation
Into a secret cabal of Satanists operating near Victoria, British Columbia. – They would put me in cages. They would sacrifice animals. They would have a lot of candles, and chanting, and bizarre things I had never seen. – Did people think this was a fantasy? That you made this all up?
It was such hocus pocus that it couldn’t possibly have happened? – Well, I was one of the first to stand up and start to recount these kinds of things to bring it publicly. – There was no evidence or witnesses to Smith’s account, yet Pazder presented the book as a true story.
– The hard evidence is difficult to find, because if a child is sacrificed, that child’s body isn’t gonna be left. If it’s an Orthodox Satanic cult they’re going to burn the body and they’re going to eat it during ceremony so they’ll leave no evidence around.
– “Michelle Remembers” is also one of the first books to suggest that underground Satanic networks were not only real, but were infiltrating communities in and organized effort. Anyone could be a Satanist, your nextdoor neighbor, your dentist, or your daycare provider. It was an idea that stuck with many readers.
– The book is called “Michelle Remembers”. – The book became an overnight sensation, and Pazder and Smith received a lucrative publishing deal, about $1.2 million in today’s dollars. It also established Pazder as a sought-after expert on the burgeoning phenomenon of ritual abuse, a term he coined himself.
There was even talk of a movie deal with Dustin Hoffman playing Pazder. For the McMartin Pre-School trial in Manhattan Beach, California where seven daycare workers were accused of ritually abusing children, Pazder was flown down to be an expert consultant in Satanic cults for the prosecution. In another ritual abuse case in Bakersfield, California,
“Michelle Remembers” was used as training material by social workers who believed they had uncovered an extensive Satanic pedophile ring. Specialists in Satanic ideology were suddenly in high demand as more and more ritual abuse cases went to trial. In Austin, Texas, another self-styled Satanic cult expert was used to secure the convictions
Of daycare owners Dan and Fran Keller, who spent decades in prison before being exonerated. It became increasingly common to see ritual crime training seminars led by psychologists, church groups, and even the police. This is former FBI agent Ken Lanning, who studied the spread of the panic in the ’80s.
– [Ken] All the people network with each other, and they’d all get together and goes to seminars and discussions, and they’d be told, “This is what Satanists do and this is how they do it.” And so all that is planted through the use of these kinds of techniques, hypnosis and other ways,
That cause the spread of this kind of stuff. So many people say, “Well, you can’t identify these cases “unless you’ve been trained to learn about them.” And some of that training becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. – The commercial success of “Michelle Remembers” inspired dozens of copy-cat memoirs, which further amplified the perception
That Satanic ritual abuse was widespread, but there was never any evidence of a Satanic conspiracy. In 1994, a psychologist from the University of California researched over 12,000 accusations of ritual abuse, but found no substantiated reports of organzied Satanic groups who sexually abused children. In later years, as the panic died down,
Pazder tried to distance himself from the claims he made in “Michelle Remembers”. – I’m not there to believe or not believe, I’m there to try and understand what they’re trying to tell me of an experience. Whether that has actually happened to them or that is their way of trying to express
A profound pain that they’ve experienced. – But neither he nor Smith ever publicly renounced the book’s allegations. This strange period of moral hysteria serves as a reminder of what can happen when we abandon the pursuit of facts for a more sensational fiction. The question is have we learned our lesson?
I’m Lisa Bryn Rundle, host of “Uncover Satanic Panic”. You can listen to the series now on the CBC Listen App or wherever you get your podcasts. – Is there a well-organized plot, an insidious design right now to program and influence the minds of our children towards the occult and witchcraft?
The problem of evil is the most used and biggest objection to the existence of God there is not a skeptic out there who doesn’t cite the existence of evil as a reason God probably does not exist and So we need to be frank
This is a serious objection that Christians cannot simply overlook and There are no answers to the problem of evil that can explain every horrible event The reason why this is a persistent objection is because of the emotional sting that evil causes runs deep for mankind
Why does God allow so much pain and misery? Does God really love us if he can look down and see a child being tortured and not stop it any? One of us would if we came across such a horrible act Yet the omniscient God does nothing and simply lets evil continue unchecked why
I’ve spent years researching this in Adelaide a formal video on it because I wanted to take my time and give it a fair treatment Again, this is a serious issue that needs to be addressed But over the years of my research, I have come to the conclusion
The only way to address the problem of evil is not just through philosophy Although that is part of it because the problem of evil stings emotionally more than anything else. I’m Indebted to Clay Jones for this but one cannot truly address the problem of evil without the message of the gospel. I
Don’t think the problem of evil can be answered without Christianity and I’ll explain why later on But first we need to begin by going over what the problem of evil is and the different types of arguments I Would suspect the problem of evil has been used for millennia
But the logical problem of evil was famously given by the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus and is what most people think of when they think of the problem of evil? Premise 1 if God is all good. Then he wants to stop evil premise 2 if God is all-powerful Then can stop evil
Premise 3 there is evil Conclusion. Therefore there is on an all-powerful and all good God However, this argument is not used by most modern atheistic philosophers because it ignored another important attribute of God his omniscience
Being that God is all-knowing. He might in his perfect knowledge have very good reasons for allowing evil that we cannot see Agnostic Paul Draper notes that some serious attempts have been given that show evil is logically compatible with God’s existence Specifically he says alvin plantinga’s free will defense has persuaded many
Planting a says of his free will defense a world containing creatures who are significantly free and freely perform more good than evil actions is More valuable all else being equal than a world containing no free creatures at all
Now God can create free creatures, but he can’t cause or determine them to do only what is right for If he does so then they aren’t significantly free after all They do not do what is right freely to create creatures capable of moral good therefore He must create creatures
Capable of moral evil and he can’t give these creatures of freedom to perform evil and at the same time prevent them from doing so as It turned out sadly enough some of the free creatures. God created went wrong in the exercise of their freedom
And this is the source of moral evil the fact that free creatures sometimes go wrong However counts neither against God’s omnipotence nor against his goodness for he could have first Auld the occurrence of moral evil only by removing the possibility of moral good
Paul Draper notes in order for a logical argument from evil to succeed It is necessary to show that for some known fact about evil It is logically impossible for God to have a good moral reason to permit that fact to obtain
This however is precisely what most philosophers nowadays believe cannot be shown and So the free will defense succeeds in showing it as at least logically possible For God to exist alongside evil Because it might be the case a world with freewill and evil is more
Valuable than a world with no free will and no evil and Thus William Roe has to admit there is a fairly compelling argument for the view that the existence of evil is logically consistent with the existence of a theistic God What most atheists argue today is the evidential problem of evil
Which today is where the real debate is because it is a probabilistic argument It argues that given the amount of evil in the world. It is unlikely an all-loving all-powerful God exists as Paul Draper says premise 1 gratuitous evil exists Premise 2 the hypothesis of indifference ie that if there are
Supernatural beings they are indifferent to gratuitous evils is a better explanation for 1 than theism Conclusion therefore evidence prefers that no God as commonly understood by theists exists Perhaps Sam Harris explains the issue of evil in a far more relatable way Somewhere in the world a man has abducted a little girl
Soon he will rape torture and kill her If an atrocity of this kind is not occurring at precisely this moment It will happen in a few hours or days at most the girl’s parents believe at this very moment that an all-powerful and all-loving God is
Watching over them in their family. Are they right to believe this? is it good that they believe this know the entirety of atheism is contained in this response as You can see the issue many skeptics have is given the amount of horrendous evil in the world
How can an all-loving God allow this to happen, especially if he has the power to stop it? Surely it is far more likely there is no such God The issue itself has to be addressed by looking at what moral evil is it cannot be brushed over as mere hardship?
To put it bluntly as Lewis said the Christian answer that we have used our freewill to become very bad is so well known That it hardly needs to be stated But to bring this doctrine in the real life in the minds of modern men and even modern Christians is very hard
We need to really look at what evil is and I’m not going to hold any punches back or give a cheap account So viewer discretion is advised The reality is the atheists are right that our history is filled with insurmountable horrendous evil
The reality we all have to face his genocide is not inhumane despite that little lie. We’d like to tell ourselves Genocide is very much human When the Bible says humans are totally depraved is meant to be a very serious claim Matt Dillahunty and many others have argued
The Bible is an evil book that poisons our minds Telling us we are totally depraved is a horrible thing to say and degrades us as humans Well, that would only be true if the Bible was lying and we are not actually depraved
If I was suffering from narcissism and you told me I was a narcissist and needed to get psychiatric help That would only be a horrible thing to say if it was false If it was true that it might have been the best thing you could have told me
Because you would want to see me get help and overcome my mental disorder so if the Bible claims that we are totally depraved we ought to test that against reality and It will help us better understand. What moral evil is
What I’m about to go over will be a hard pill to swallow and it will take some time to unpack Because once we understand human nature, I suggest the problem of evil falls in the context
See, we like to think of ourselves as further along than our primitive ancestors who engaged in genocide rape and torture But there have been more people murdered in the past 120 years than any other time in our history The two world wars gave humanity an up-close look at some of the most brutal
Humans have ever committed against their fellow humans the Nazis rounded up Jews homosexuals gypsies the handicapped Polish Ukrainians and many other groups they deemed unworthy, they ripped children from their mothers and they murdered children in front of their parents. They
Made their victims walk in horrible death marches force them into sweltering rail cars and then made them travel for days without food or water People would defecate urinate and puke all over each other in these rail cars all to be taken the death camps where they were painfully exterminated with poisonous gas
Reports from guards talk of people in the chambers climbing over each other to try to claw their way out They knew everyone was dead when the screaming stopped The Nazis also performed Carew some experiments on young children where victims were put in a decompression chambers drained of blood or sewn together
The worst part was most of the young men who carried out these killings and tortures were average people from Germany drafted into the military We have identified over 10,000 camps ghettos and brothels the Nazis set up Many of the so called unfit were forcing the slave labor for Volkswagen BMW
Bayer and many other companies So it is not like the Germans did not know what was going on the German population knew early on Hillier wanted to exterminate those he saw his unfit and most did nothing when he started rounding people up and Worst of all many joined in and helped him
Was this inhumane this was completely human Of course it is sadly obvious to any student of history Japan was probably far worse than Germany the horrors They brought upon the Chinese people were thought to be unfathomable in a post enlightenment era the Japanese army raped tortured and murdered more than
300,000 Chinese and committed some of the most gruesome acts known to man People were lined up in decapitation contests civilians were tied down and used for bayonet practice Soldiers routinely would target women for gang rapes and torture and more often than not they targeted children
Many went beyond rape and disemboweled women slice off their breasts. They would hang men and women on hooks up by their tongues Fathers were forced to rape their own daughters at gunpoint people were buried alive castrated and roasted alive over fires It was so bad that Nazi leaders present and man king
Intervened to put a stop to it The Japanese army was so bad Nazis couldn’t even handle it Was this inhumane? This was completely human After the war when Russia marched into Berlin, they did many of the same things to German civilians
Starving women who came out of their homes to search for food were targeted for gang rape by Russian soldiers Fathers were forced to watch their daughters raped and tortured and were forced to pick which soldier got to go first in The USSR people were tortured and enslaved in concentration camps in Siberia
Populations like the Ukrainians were selected to be starved to death Parents were murdered in front of their children But then the children were left alive to starve to death as to not waste any bullets on them Was this inhumane? This was completely human
Okay, but surely these examples are extremes and the result of citizens being brainwashed by fascists and communists It would be wonderful if that was all this was But we see endless examples of these massacres throughout history in Rwanda in 1994 People were tortured and raped and over 800,000 were murdered
1.2 million Armenians were murdered by the Young Turks from 1915 to 1923 Roughly 2 million were murdered in Cambodia between 1975 and 1979 in Guatemala Thousands of mine Indians were murdered the Reconciliation Commission of South Africa found that there were over 36,000 cases of abductions rape tortures and killings
I could go on and on talking about the genocide committed against saroja Muslims the rape epidemic in the Congo and Haiti Isis the Taliban Saddam Hussein’s Iraq the French military in Algeria the British Empire in
Tasmania in many other lands they conquered and even the slavery of Africans in the Western world and the genocide committed against Native Americans on every continent in every century genocide rape and war has been committed by humans because that is what humans do and I’ve only stuck with recent examples
Our history is filled with countless more examples and probably even more acts of genocide that were lost a time Humans are murderous selfish evil creatures and we have the audacity to call genocide inhumane I would bet the hundreds of species. We’ve directly caused to go extinct. Wish we were actually inhumane and
Let’s not pretend that we ourselves are somehow better than these other humans or that we would never commit such horrible acts Most of the people who ended up committing these terrible acts were terrifyingly normal They did it out of hate fear pride or just to be accepted by superiors
Holocaust survivor and professor Freddie Katz says only a tiny proportion of this century’s massive killings are Attributable to the actions of those people we call criminals or crazy people or socially alienated people Or even people we identify as evil people
The vast majority of killings were carried out by plain folk in the population ordinary people like you and me Cats reminds us he was ordinary people that carried out the plans of Hitler Stalin and Mao It was ordinary people that sat by and let it happen
Assuring themselves their own skins would be saved if they just followed orders It was ordinary people They let political divides Turned into vitriolic hatred for their opponents that eventually led them to think they must be killed first before they turn and kill us
We forget that there were actually many Jews that administered the ghettos or man, the gas chambers out of fear for their own survival even now in this country People who are on opposite sides of the political spectrum Or spoken of is not even human or need to be murdered for the greater good
It doesn’t take many more steps before we allow ourselves to slide into actions. We cannot take back people today are even talking as if a civil war is on the horizon and Yet we don’t think massacres could happen today
Given the history of our species I am highly skeptical things could not get out of control as they so often have in the past Psychologist Israel journey says Sometimes sitting in a staff meeting of a modern psychiatric hospital. I could see how it all could happen
The ingredients were all there the bitter hating factions among the staff disguising themselves in the pomp and circumstances of a mental health conference the barely disguised superiority and disdain for the hapless patient the patronizing professional sympathy in
Righteousness that barely concealed the brutality of the so-called modern therapies of electric shock in brain surgery The dehumanizing everyday hurting of anonymous patients into anonymous routines Everywhere in lovely families that persecuted one or more other members in the Universities
I loved where faculty intrigues and hatred knew no bounds in the Pampas coldness of exalted physicians Turning away from the death fears of their patients Almost every researcher that has looked in the genocide Concludes that genocide is carried out by the average person not by supervillains or dark Lords
Whether we want to lie to ourselves or not There is potential in us all to commit genocide and all sorts of other selfish evil acts Laying them Gilkey believed humans were naturally good until he was placed in an internment camp by the Japanese He said nothing indicates
So clearly the fixed belief in the innate goodness of humans as Does this confidence that when the chips are down and we are revealed for what we really are We will all be good to each other Nothing could be so totally an error
We forget that we have most of our needs met in the Western world That most people who have lived on this earth did not have access to We’ve not had to face the hardships of the past like tribal warfare with the kill-or-be-killed Mentality because we are blessed with such excess
So we are lucky our primal natures are not so evident If you had to fight for your survival under a brutal regime Or in an ancient setting you may very well be surprised at what you were capable of
The reality is our depraved nature is not something thrust upon us. It is very much a part of us and our ancestry The murder rate in prehistoric times was much higher than we expected When there was no law or fear of punishment
People often did what they had to do to survive or simply just did what they wanted in fact a recent paper suggested due to high murder rates the human population bottleneck roughly between 5,000 and 7,000 years ago with only one man for every 17 women
The idea modern societies have simply corrupted us is not backed by data Studies also back this up Stanley Milgram conducted the first Milgram experiments Where a subject would be brought in under the assumption that he was there to be one of two participants in a learning experiment
They were instructed to ask a person in another room a series of questions Unbeknownst, they were actually a paid actor if the other person answered wrong They would have to give them an electrical shock as ordered by the scientists Each shock would increase in the amount of pain it caused
The actor would cry from the other room They were having heart problems But the scientists performing the experiments would tell the subject he had to keep going regardless of the pain They were causing the person in the other room the results shockingly demonstrated that 65% of subjects in ministered all the shocks as
Instructed including one that was perpetrated to give a lethal shock Other researchers replicated these results with even higher percentages with subjects administering all the shocks in 1970 in West Germany 85% administered all shocks in 2017 in Poland 90% of participants also administered all the shocks
The data shows it is not hard for the average person to do horrible things Atheist Michael ruse says I think Christianity has spot-on about original sin how could one think otherwise when the world’s most civilized in advanced people the people of Beethoven Goethe can’t Embrace that slimeball Hitler and participated in the Holocaust
But surely there has to be some good people out there who do not deserve the lives they’ve been given Clay Jones asked a very simple question in his book do gang members stop at red lights Yes, but not because they respect that particular law it is out of self-interest
No one wants it gets sidelined by oncoming traffic Most people do not rob banks because they don’t want to go to jail Most people do not cheat on their spouse because they don’t want to destroy a marriage they may like ruin the reputation or lose relationships they derive meaning from
It’s hard to deny that much of what motivates us is self-interest when people do decide to go ahead with these terrible acts it is because they think they have clever ways out of them or Think the act will benefit them more than what they could lose
The sad reality is we are all motivated by our own self-interest in The light of human nature even acts of heroism and sacrifice can be motivated by self-interest Ernest Becker who openly rejects Christianity says Everything painful and sobering in what psychoanalytical genius and religious genius had discovered about a man
Revolves around the terror of admitting what one is doing to earn his self-esteem This is why human heroics is a blind driven as’ that burns people up in passionate people Screaming for glory as uncritical and reflexive as the howling of a dog in the more passive masses of mediocre
Men, it is disguised as they humbly and complainingly follow out the roles that society has provided for their heroics Man will lay down his life for his country his society his family He will choose to throw himself on a grenade to save his comrades. He is capable of the highest generosity and self-sacrifice
But he has to feel and believe that what he is doing is truly heroic timeless and supremely meaningful The hard truth no one wants to accept is there is no one good None are righteous. No one no one understands No one seeks for God all have turned aside together. They have become worthless
No one does good. Not even one There are many that wish to whitewash Jesus and just reduce them to a good moral teacher that offers some good advice and lessons But jesus never paints humanity as something inherently good that just needs a little guidance
But instead of sinners that desperately need to repent less we to perish if Christianity is true. It needs to answer for why bad things happen to people The answer we offer is this There are no good people for bad things to happen to da Carson says
First Jesus has not assumed that those who suffered under Pilate are those who were killed in the collapse of the tower? Did not deserve their fate Indeed the fact that he can tell those contemporaries that unless they repent
They too will perish shows that Jesus assumes that all death is in one way or another the result of sin and therefore deserved Second Jesus does insist that death by such means is no evidence whatsoever That those who suffer in this way are any more wicked than those who escape such a fate?
The assumption seems to be that all deserve to die if Some died under a barbarous governor and others in a tragic accident It is not more than they deserve but that does not mean that others deserve any less
Rather the implication is that it is only God’s and mercy that has kept them alive Third Jesus treats wars in natural disasters not as agenda items in a discussion of the Mysterious ways of God but as incentives to repentance
It as if he is saying that God uses disaster as a megaphone to call attention to our guilt and Destination to the imminence of his righteous judgment if he sees no repentance this is an argument developed at great length in Amos for
Disaster is a call to repentance Jesus might have added as he does elsewhere that peace and Tranquillity, which we do not deserve show us God’s goodness and forbearance it Is a mark of our lostness that we invert these two?
We think we deserve the times of blessing and prosperity and think that times of war in disaster are not only unfair become perilously close to calling into question God’s goodness or his power even Perhaps his very existence Jesus simply did not see it that way
Now I have hammered this point for quite a while because one of the worst lies we tell ourselves Is we really are good and do not deserve the world. We have created but nothing could be further from the truth God’s judgment our absence in rescuing us from this world seems barbaric
Only to the person that has not understood the depths of human psychology But if we can take some time to reflect on the state of humanity as seus Lewis puts it God’s wrath Seems to be inevitable a mere corollary from God’s goodness
Mere sloth wolf once questioned the wrath of God, but when he saw two hundred thousand people killed in Yugoslavia He said my people were shelled day in and day out Some of them brutalized beyond imagination and I cannot imagine God not being angry
Though I used to complain about the indecency of the idea of God’s wrath I came to think I would have to rebel against the God who wasn’t wrathful at the site of the world’s evil God isn’t wrathful in spite of being loved God is wrathful because God is love
Now I need to be clear that Myself or any of the author’s I’ve quoted are not saying every horrible thing that happens to a person Should be seen as a direct punishment from God for their sin. No one is suggesting that
The point is simply to critique the notion that bad things happen to good people bad things happen to bad people and this is so because this is the world the human species chooses to live in every day as Our cease pearl once said why do bad things happen to good people?
Well, that only happened once and he volunteered The truth of the matter is no one has died before the age of accountability. That is not guilty Every person is invested in self interests and contributes to evil one way or another in
Light of all this the real question we should be asking is not why does a good God allow so much evil? But why does a good God not just wipe us out for the good of the universe? The answer to why there is so much evil is simple. There are so many humans
Every day we choose to contribute to the evil in the world by simply going about our day doing nothing and focusing on ourselves To put this into perspective with numbers the UN estimates that would cost roughly 30 billion a year to end world hunger in
Americans alone wasted 116 billion in gambling in 2016 God has already given us everything we need to turn this world into Eden and we simply delay it Whether you want to admit it or not every one of us contributes to the evil in the world
Mostly through focusing on ourselves and doing nothing to help We have everything we need to end things like world hunger and human trafficking and instead We spend our money on pointless things just to make ourselves happy Because if the problem is not right in our face we pretend it doesn’t exist
Simply put evil exists because we exist When this has been pointed out the next question is why did God create us this way? Why are we so easily prone to commit horrible acts?
Well, that is assuming God did make us evil one can argue he did not he made us free and to be truly free means We have to be allowed to choose how we want to be Seus Lewis says the moment you have a self at all
There is the possibility of putting yourself first wanting to be the center wanting to be God In fact, that was the sin of Satan and that was the sin. He talked to the human race it is not as if we were simply made to be this way as
A species we choose to be this way every day instead of focusing on good and holy things This is not how things were supposed to be Early on God called humans out of the wilderness to serve as priests over creation and to enter into a covenant with him
So that he could sanctify us to subdue the rest of creation in his name This is a story of Eden when Adam and Eve were called by God to be close to him in learn his ways But they rejected the Covenant God made with them and left his presence
So we could be our own gods in with that came the freedom to go as far into evil as we wanted to No matter how it would affect those around us god, they’re not dumas to a world of evil our species by rejecting Eden did so and without God’s protection and
Eden and the Tree of Life, we now live in a world of moral and natural evil Now many will object they were not in Eden. How can we be forced to live in a fallen world that we did not choose
Clay Jones response of this by saying that we did an individually vote to make Adam the head of our race Doesn’t matter because God knows who can best represent us Also, if God knew that all of us would have acted similarly. He does no wrong in choosing one person to represent us
If Christianity is true and the problem of evil needs to be addressed One cannot say this unfair Adam and Eve were our chosen representatives God in His omniscience knew who the best representatives would have been and therefore given human free Will there were no possible futures where humans did not choose sin?
So why even give us free will Should we really have been given the freedom to be truly evil? Why on earth would such a world not be better where we are deprived of free will So as to not cause grief pain and misery Clay Jones notes
It is not hard to perceive of such worlds and more often than not they are far worse than a world with free will we ought to consider how humanity has looked at this scenario and unsurprisingly a life without free will is
Often betrayed in movies as a horrible existence, and this should be pretty obvious Take the old movie from the 50s the invasion of the body snatchers The invaders do not want to kill off humanity But simply change humanity to lack free will and they offer it as a wonderful existence free of pain
Desire emotion ambition self-interest in such a world not only Terrifies us it becomes obvious that such a world would be worse than a world with free will and evil It would have been so much easier. If you’ve gone to sleep last night Oh relax, we’re here to help you
You know better than that Who you want us to put them would you like to watch them grow? No. Thanks. Put them in there There’s nothing to be afraid of we’re not gonna hurt you. But once you understand you’ll be grateful Remember how Teddy and I fought against it?
Well, we were wrong me and Teddy doesn’t mind of course not she feels exactly the way I do. Let’s go We’ll leave town. We won’t come back. We can’t let you go. You’re dangerous to us Don’t fight it miles. It’s no use Sooner or later you’ll have to go to sleep
I’ll wait for you in the hall Myles You and I are scientific men. You can understand the wonder of what’s happened I just think less than a month ago santomero was like any other town people with nothing but problems Then out of the sky came a solution
Seeds drifting through space for years took root in a farmer’s field From the seeds came pods, which have the power to reproduce themselves in the exact likeness of any form of life So that’s how it began, how does the sky
Your new bodies are growing in there they’re taking you over self or so atom forever There’s no pain Suddenly while you’re asleep, they’ll absorb your minds your memories and you’re reborn into an untroubled world Where everyone’s the same exactly What a world We’re not the last humans left. They’ll destroy you
Tomorrow you won’t want them to tomorrow you’ll be one of us I’m not Becky Tomorrow will I feel the same there’s no need for love no emotion And you have no feelings only the instinct to survive
You can’t love or be loved am I right you say it as if it were terrible believe me. It isn’t You’ve been in love before It didn’t last it never does Desire ambition faith without them life so simple, believe me. I
Don’t want any part you’re forgetting something miles. What’s that? You have no choice I guess we haven’t any choice good One to love and be loved I want your children. I don’t want a world without love grateful Buda rabbit are
The obvious reason as to why it is better to have free will and evil than the lack both is because we would simply lose our humanity our movies and books Celebrate realities we’re a world of free will along with pain and misery is a far better
Alternative to a world without these things a Good example can be seen in the movie, Pleasantville two teenagers are transferred into a scripted television show from the 1950s where everything is perfectly happy yet enslaved to a script they have to run through
However, the teens begin to introduce new passions and desires to the characters and throughout the movie All the characters reject are scripted enslavement for a life of freedom and color Even though that comes with passions emotions suffering in problems The message is clear the freedom to engage in love passions desires
Must come with real freedoms to do so Without free will these things are meaningless even though it comes with the bad as well an Existence of freedom along with misery and love is far better than scripted enslavement
The truth of the matter is given the option of a world with free will and pain versus a world without free will and pain Humans will always most likely choose a world with free will because as alvin plantinga says a world containing creatures who are significantly
Free and freely perform more good than evil actions It’s more valuable all else being equal than a world containing no free creatures at all So God simply could not have created humans without free will
We essentially would just be biological robots and that is not a world where we could truly experience love and companionship But with that has to come the true freedom to choose love or choose evil you cannot have your cake and eat it, too
If you want a world with true conscious agents who are free. You have to allow them to choose good without forcing them to Ask yourself this would you as a healthy adult want to spend a lifetime married to a lifeless?
Robot who always does what you command never speaks to you as a free agent or engages in an honest discussion The answer is no then you can understand why God chose a world where we are truly free and choose to love him or not
But surely there had to be another way couldn’t we have a world without the horrendous evil we currently have a World without a Holocaust or the Rwanda Massacre where we still have free will must surely be possible
Clay Jones debated Richard Norman on the radio show unbelievable and Jones, press Norman to answer this How could God give humans free will and not let them hurt others and the only answer he offered was I don’t know I’m not God, but it is possible
The key I guess back to my major point is that doesn’t just say it should have been a different world doesn’t tell us how Anywhere near how that world works. Well, I’m not to define creator I mean saying we’re talking about divine omnipotence in which any number of possible worlds could exist
Clay Jones, simply reply to that with if you can’t imagine a better way Then it’s at least logically possible that there isn’t a better way. I don’t know I’m not God as a cop-out We’ve harnessed the atom and put a man on the moon
If you’re going to complain that God should have done differently with regard to free will but you cannot offer a better way Then maybe there isn’t a better way Johnny There was no other way As we discuss in our video on omniscience Avengers infinity Wars provides an excellent analogy
Dr. Strange looked into the future and could only see one possible way to save the most number of people But that way involved a lot of pain and death given the free choices of evil creatures Likewise
Given God’s middle knowledge where he can only actualize a world that works with the free choices of creatures There are no possible worlds where God could create a world where we are free, and there is no evil or misfortune
God would actualize the world where there is the least amount of evil while taking human free choices into account Therefore the argument is given human freedom within middle knowledge God might not be able to actualize perfect worlds or worlds with less evil
Because there are no possible worlds where we are free and always do the right thing or do the right thing more often But couldn’t God just actively prevent more evil When the Nazis lined up the Jews to be shot
Why didn’t he just make the guns Jam or caused an earthquake to form a great chasm between them both? Such a world would not have freedom it would be a playpen with an overprotective mother Seus Lewis says we can perhaps conceive of a world in which God
Corrected the results of the abuse of free will by his creatures at every moment So that a wooden beam becomes soft as grass when it was used as a weapon in The air refused to obey me if I attempted to set up in it the sound waves that carry lies are insults
But such a world would be one in which wrong actions were impossible in which therefore freedom of the will would be void Evil is not evil only an intention it needs to be carried out and experienced Otherwise we are not truly free to do what we want
We would be nothing more than constrained robots locked in with predetermined boundaries This would be a sci-fi horror Where we know there is something holding us back and can’t freely reject it We can see from sci-fi shows being free up to a certain point is not freedom. It’s slavery System
God wants actual free creatures to do the good But the only way he can truly have free creatures that will do the good is allow us to see the devastating consequences that rebellion causes Babying us is not freedom nor would we ever grow and learn to freely choose to reject evil?
We have to experience it for ourselves and hopefully learn from it It’s a dictator who says be free, but you’ll suffer if you use your freedom in this kind of way. Yeah
Thank you for that Richard. I agree. Yeah be free. But if you use your free will wrongly you’re really gonna hurt each other It’s gonna be bad. Yes exactly. What is problem with your position precisely precisely that you make God sound like
Some kind of dictator that’s just a problem with your position outlet a dictator that says do what you want. And here we are Yeah, we do what you want and you will suffer for it. Well, do what you want and look what you’ll do
You’ll do outwits to each other you’ll do you’ll be the Khmer Rouge. You’ll be Rwanda This is what happens when free wit beans go off and decide they’re gonna do whatever they want
And so to say he’s a dictator that says to his people. Okay. You don’t want to follow my rules knock yourselves out if he But couldn’t God teach us another way given the self-centered nature of humanity I ask how
Some have suggested God ought to provide dreams to warn people, but that is assuming we would even listen Growing up. My parents warned me not to do a number of stupid things I did them anyway, as we all did when we were kids
There’s been a Surgeon General warning on cigarette packets for decades people still smoke Recent history alone is filled with examples of large corporations who had evidence their products were harmful and they did nothing God performed dozens of miracles before Israel in the desert and they still hardened their hearts and complained
So perhaps if God was more involved nothing would change Real life is not an episode of touched by an angel We’re glowing being can show up tell us to change and we live happily ever after people have to be shown how evil they are and what their actions cause if
Everyone could just be told to change things would have gotten a lot better thousands of years ago This is a hard truth humanity has to learn and it cannot be done by God simply Babying us and providing knee pads for every corner in
Fact if God did simply that and gave us everything needed to keep us perfectly happy Arguably it could make things worse Keith Ward says I could give people lots of good things and they will like me because of what I give them
But will they love me freely for myself? Well, they love me unselfishly Hardly, in fact such a course of action may be self-defeating. I Cannot make people unselfish by giving them lots of things they want and so encouraging selfish tendencies
We have to remember the chief goal of God is not to make us happy but to make us holy through sanctification which will make us truly happy in the long run as we discussed in our videos on the nature of Heaven and Hell and
Given the self-centered nature of humanity that God would want us to overcome Having us live in a fallen world will help us to realize we need to return to God and to be sanctified William Lane, Craig and JP Moreland, put it like this
Innocent human suffering provides an occasion for deeper dependency and trust in God if We are depraved as the evidence shows keeping humanity happy and safe will not fix what is actually wrong with us History seems to show that hardships caused more people to turn to God
Patrick Johnstone has noted in his work that Christianity tends to grow more in countries that have faced severe hardship Under communist rule in China Christianity was and still is to some degree heavily persecuted Yet despite that it is set to become the world’s largest Christian nation by 2030
Although I do not argue God is the cause of misery and suffering allowing us to live in a fallen world that we choose can be used by God to bring us back to him and Ultimately help sanctify us into eternity where our present pain will be dwarfed in comparison to the joy
We will experience there but God doesn’t always have to prevent evil. Why not just a little more why do children have to die of cancer? Couldn’t the Holocaust have been cut in half if God had simply warned the Jews in a dream to get out of Germany before Hitler Became Chancellor in
Response clay Jones says First who is to say, how much is too much? For instance skeptics often cite the Holocaust as an example I ask those who say God shouldn’t have allowed so much evil whether they would be Satisfied if instead of six million Jews killed only 600,000 had been killed
No one ever says yes six thousand. Nope 600. Nope, six Should everyone be allowed to live to a certain age before they die? should certain diseases only effect really bad people at what point is the line drawn between security and freedom a
Reality where we are free and have rejected God’s lordship has to have real consequences and be fully realized for what it is When people suggest this what they are really saying is I want to be God and the Creator needs to be our magical Butler
Who watches over us never lets anything really bad happen, but still lets us rebel so that we can do what we want if That was the case. We would never truly see the real consequences that our rebellion has caused
Instead we would have God as our servant who was supposed to take care of us when it is needed But doesn’t really let the horrendous consequences of what happened when we abandoned him to play out in the natural world without his presence
Unless we see what the evil in our hearts truly does. We will never learn God’s message is simply that your rebellion must be fully realized so that hopefully you will come back Summary so far Evil exists because humans had the freedom to choose god, but instead we chose to be our own gods
When we walked away from God in Eden, we chose a different Lord for the earth And with that a world filled with issues that a connection to God and the Tree of Life would have prevented
Although God could regularly intervene. He doesn’t because he wants our species to see the real consequences of our rebellion which is life without his presence and sanctification as horrible as it is is the only way to learn the horrors of what life without God is like
Natural laws have to work in a regular way if our actions are to mean anything at all But that is not the whole story the Skeptic who makes the argument from the problem of evil often will subtly
Presuppose a non theistic worldview, they will mention a young child who died before his or her time from a horrible disease but if the argument is to attack a Christian worldview The whole of that worldview has to be taken into consideration And more often than not we forget that when that child dies
They do not rot in the grave forever But can live on an eternity in the pain and this life will be dwarfed in comparison to the joy. We will feel the next the previous two videos I made went over heaven and hell and explain what they are and how no one in Hell
Doesn’t want to be there so It’s important to remember that God has not doomed us to a world of misery in one life or an eternity of misery in hell Those who die can go on forever in a world of endless love if they choose to and the joy
We will experience in heaven will dwarf the misery. We feel here So the child dying of a horrible disease is not forgotten but given new life in the age to come Although God lets us experience. What a world that has rejected him feels like He still rescues all who want to be rescued
The worst pains of this life will be as miniscule in the next as the pains of when you fell down as a toddler Are to you now as an adult So you can’t compare the evils we feel now on a Christian worldview without accounting for eternity
God has promised a way back to Eden for all those who want it as seus Lewis said They say of some temporal suffering No future bliss can make up for it not knowing that heaven once attained will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory and
God did not sit idly by He didn’t just make a way back to Eden. He came to us in our pain and misery to pull us out There are a lot of gods that are for joy for our misery
But sit distantly away never experiencing as we experience never suffering human pain as we suffer Not with this God There is only one God that plunged himself into pain to save us You want to know the answer to a world filled with torture and murder?
It is a God who was tortured and murdered to wipe away every tear in sadness While we were his enemies Christ died for us if Evil was meaningless or a cruel joke and omnipotent God plays on us then. Why did the omnipotent God empty himself?
Become a lowly servant to suffer as we suffer and die as we die even the Atheist philosopher Albert Camus admitted Christ the man God suffers too with patience Evil and death can no longer be entirely imputed to him since he suffers and dies
Then I don’t go Gotha is so important in the history of man only because in its shadow the divinity Abandon is traditional privileged and drank its last drop despair included the agony of death Even if you cannot find a reason for your suffering and have nothing I said thus far suffices in Christ
The reason can’t be because he doesn’t love us at The cross a coin was flipped on one side justice and the other side mercy And it was the only time in history the coin landed on its edge God allowed justice to fall on self so that mercy might fall on us
The Gospels thus tell the story which is unique in the world’s great literature religious theories or philosophies the story of the Creator God taking responsibility for what’s happened to creation bearing the weight of his problems on his own shoulders a
Sydney Carta most famous for writing the lord of the dance put it in one of to my mind his finest songs It’s God they ought to crucify Instead of you and me I said to the carpenter a hanging on the tree
Or as one old evangelistic tract put it the nations of the world got together To pronounce sentence on God for all the evils in the world Only to realize with a shock that God had already served his sentence the tidal wave Of evil had crashed over the head of God himself
The terrorist spear went into his side like a plane crashing into a great building God has been there. He has taken the weight of the world’s evil on his own shoulders You cannot look at the problem of evil while ignoring the cross
God took evil upon himself so that a new creation could begin in his resurrection If evil was the fault of God, he has already carried out his sentence as st Augustine said God had one son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering if
Evil is a problem. The problem is also felt by God the cry of Jesus – Paul says it all Saul why are you persecuting me? Notice Jesus did not say why are you persecuting my people? He said why are you persecuting me?
Jesus places himself in the midst of evil and suffering with us if Evil was too much to bear for any creature. God would never have created in the first place But God still did create knowing full
Well, he would take the brunt of it because the love of creation was worth more than all the pain he feels through us Evil exists for now because of us, but even in that God took the pain and misery of us all
Faithfully to the car and in the end he will wipe away every tear
In Judge C. R. Magney State Park in Minnesota, there exists a natural phenomenon along the Brule River known as the Devil’s Kettle- a waterfall that splits in two, with one half falling about 50 feet into the river below and continuing on its merry way towards Lake
Superior and the other half falling into a large hole in the ground that seems to go nowhere. In fact, local legend posits that anything thrown into the Devil’s Kettle will never be seen again. People trying to disprove this have thrown everything from
Boxes of ping pong balls to giant logs into the hole to see where they end up, with nothing ever seeming to emerge anywhere nearbye. So where is the stuff thrown in going? For many years, the most popular hypotheses put forward were that the water falling into
The hole either flowed into a hidden underground limestone cave carved into the rock by eons of flowing water or it flowed into a lava tube. If you’re unfamiliar, a lava tube is pretty much what it sounds like- a large tube formed
By flowing lava as it cools. In a nutshell, as the top layer cools and hardens, lava underneath potentially continues to flow for some time until the source of the lava stops. This can lead to that inner layer of lava draining and leaving behind a large empty tube in a
Lava rock shell. Thus, the hypothesis is that the falling water cut through the surface rock at some point and fell into an ancient lava tube formed at the same time as the rest of the volcanic rocks in the area.
This sounds perfectly plausible, but the issue is that while rhyolite, which forms the bedrock on top of which the river system is located, is a volcanic rock, it doesn’t form lava tubes. And as for the basalt layer underneath, while this can form lava tubes, this particular
Type is flood basalt, which comes up from fissures, rather than flowing down from a volcano. Thus, flood basalt is incredibly unlikely to create lava tubes (more typically just creating large seepage sheets of rock) and no such lava tubes have ever been discovered in the area, despite many known lava beds in the region.
As for the other popular hypothesis, this is that there perhaps is a large underground limestone cave or river system the water drains into. However, the nearest limestone deposits to the park are hundreds of miles away and rhyolite is much too hard of a rock for such
A cave system to likely have formed in it. Despite these two hypothesis thought to be unlikely by most, they were long the best guesses simply because nothing anyone ever threw into the hole ever came back out. So it must be going underground somewhere…
And as the saying goes, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” On that note, over the years scientists and common-folk alike have conducted dozens of experiments to determine where the water was
Going. These experiments have ranged in sophistication and scope, but mostly boil down to the age old “hucking an object into the hole and trying to find it later”. One of the more famous such experiments involved pouring hundreds of ping pong balls into the hole onto which
A phone number was etched with a message that anyone who found one and called in would be given a reward. Not a single ball was found by the experimenters and nobody ever called in to say they’d stumbled across one. Similar experiments that likewise ended in
Failure have involved throwing in everything from dye packs to GPS trackers. One person even dragged a bunch of large logs to the top of waterfall and threw them in; a few days later a couple were observed floating around inside the Devil’s Kettle and the
Rest had, seemingly, disappeared. This isn’t even mentioning the countless random objects thrown into the hole by tourists. (For the record, people are asked not to do this, but it doesn’t really stop them.) Along with the items you’d expect, like loose change and twigs, there are local legends suggesting that people have thrown televisions,
Refrigerators and even a car into the hole. However, given the general inaccessibility of the area, these more fantastical stories are mostly thought to be apocryphal. On that note, contrary to rumors floating around on the internet, we couldn’t find a
Single known example of someone either falling into the Devil’s Kettle or of somebody dumping a dead body into it. So what exactly is going on here? It turns out a whole lot of nothing. Early in 2017 the mystery of the Devil’s Kettle was finally
Solved when a hydrologist working for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, Jeff Green, and retired Minnesotan professor Calvin Alexander deciding to do something that had apparently never occurred to anyone prior despite it being a ridiculously obvious thing to do in investigating the phenomenon- they measured the volume of water flowing
In the river immediately above and below the waterfall. What was the result? They found that at the top of the waterfall the river flowed at a volume of 123 cubic feet per second, while at the bottom it flowed at 121 cubic feet
Per second…. While this isn’t technically the same, Mr. Green notes “In the world of stream gauging, those two numbers are essentially the same and are within the tolerances of the equipment.” And for those who would prefer the numbers line up perfectly, we can at least definitively say from Green and Alexander’s measurements
That nowhere close to half the water can possibly be disappearing into a big hole to nowhere. All evidence would seem to indicate it’s simply disappearing into a hole briefly before coming out the other side to rejoin the other water. This might all have you wondering then where
All the stuff thrown into the hole went. Well, Alexander’s hypothesis is that “The plunge pool below the Kettle is an unbelievably powerful system of recirculating currents, capable of disintegrating material and holding it under water until it resurfaces at some point downstream.” In other words, stuff thrown into the Devil’s
Kettle doesn’t get dragged to a mysterious underground cave or lava tube- it just gets obliterated by thousands of tons of falling water smashing it against rock, or otherwise doesn’t resurface until well down stream, effectively making it seem to disappear.
In order to silence the remaining doubters, when the flow decreased in the fall of 2017 coming, Green and Alexander had planned to dump a whole lot of dye into the hole. Unlike previous attempts at this, they planned to use a dye that is visible at 10 parts per
Billion. Combined with the decreased flow, this should have then been readily visible on the other side. However, when we here at TodayIFoundOut in the summer of 2017 contacted the parks department to inquire as to when this would happen so we could go film it,
They informed us the plan was called off, though did not explain why. Bonus Fact: Speaking of throwing things in other things, ever wonder how the practice of throwing coins into fountains got started? Well, wonder no more. People have been throwing coins into fountains seemingly as long as there have
Been coins and fountains. The tradition all started with water. (Shocker, I know.) Water, of course, is vital to sustain human life. While many people in the developed world today have clean, drinkable water readily available from their kitchen taps, this was
Not always the case. Potable drinking holes in many regions weren’t the easiest things to find. Thus, where clean water was available, many early European tribes believed that such areas were a gift from the gods. The idea that drinkable water was sent from
The heavens remained even as wells and fountains were built. Often, a small statue of a god could be found next to early wells and fountains, turning them into a type of shrine. Presenting gifts to gods is an ancient practice that was usually meant to appease angry gods,
Or to act as a payment for a request or prayer. In the case of fountains and wells, people would toss in a coin while sending up a prayer—an early version of making a wish. One rather prolific well can be found in Northumberland, England, and was used to pray to the Celtic
Goddess of wells and springs, Coventina. 16,000 coins from different eras of the Roman Empire were found there. Interestingly, most of the coins found in the Coventina Fountain were low denominations, much like today where people are usually more willing to part with a 5
Or 10 cent coin rather than a full dollar, euro, or pound. Of course, it wasn’t always coins. The Well of Pen Rhys in Oxford, England called for pieces of clothing to be tossed in. In this case, it was thought that the water had healing
Powers and that the clothing carried disease, so by tossing a button, pin, or piece of fabric into the well, you would be healed. The belief in the healing powers of the Well of Pen Rhys remained popular well into the 18th century. These days, believing in gods watching over
The wells or the thought that water has healing powers has largely lost favour, but people still practice this ancient tradition, in modern times usually making a wish. Probably one of the most famous examples of a wishing fountain is the Trevi Fountain in
Rome. The Trevi Fountain was built as the ending point of a 21 kilometre long aqueduct called Virgo, named for the goddess who would guide soldiers to water when they were thirsty and tired. Originally, tossing a coin in or taking a drink from the fountain was supposed
To ensure good health. Eventually, the tradition evolved to what we know today: if you toss a coin over your shoulder into the fountain, you will one day return to Rome. This idea was popularized in the 1954 film Three Coins in the Fountain, which also suggested
That if you throw two coins in, you’ll fall in love with a Roman, and if you throw three coins in, you’ll marry him or her. Since the movie, this practice has become so popular with tourists that it’s estimated that around €3,000 in coins are thrown in the fountain
Every day. Obviously, all of those coins can’t just sit in the fountain forever. The Trevi Fountain shuts down for one hour every day and the coins are swept out by the Roman Catholic charity Caritas, which pays for food for the
Poor as well as Aids shelters. The coins have to be cleaned, sorted into different denominations, and sent off to the bank. As for the more general case, some wishing wells will have a sign saying “proceeds go to…” which makes it pretty easy to
Figure out where your coins end up. Lacking a sign, however, it’s most likely that your coin will be collected and donated to a charity, or perhaps put toward the upkeep of a historic building or a zoo. Even the coins thrown in fountains owned by private businesses tend
To be donated rather than kept by the business itself.
Now Lucifer who is tied with some very heavy chains was lying on his back with the other rebellious angels in the Lake of Fire they were tied there by the archangels Michael and his colleagues as punishments for their Insurrection against the almighty God
They found themselves under such severe punishment because Lucifer who was one of the top angels in heaven and in fact the greatest and most glorious angel in heaven fell out with God when he became so powerful that he thought he could unseat God and become the boss of Heaven you may well know
The story of Lucifer and how he was expelled from Heaven due to his pride and was cast down to the Earth where he later transformed into Satan the Devil with the other rebellious angels
Well there are a lot of background stories that you may not find in the Bible in this video I will be using the book one of Paradise Lost which was written by John Milton to give you the background story of what really transpired in the spiritual World during the transformation of Lucifer to
Satan and the other evil angels well God did not find such dissident attitude funny and directed Michael and the other loyal archangels to deal with the issue but Lucifer who was still not ready to plead for forgiveness was still determined to stand against God the result of the impasse
Was the first recorded war in heaven which was the war between the good and the evil angels and of course Lucifer and his angels who were the evil angels were defeated there were the disadvantaged side apart from the fact that God was with Michael and his angels Lucifer was also
Outnumbered by two to one now John Milton said that they were cast straight into hell first this assertion is contrary to Revelation 12 verses 7 to 12 in the Bible which says now War arose in heaven Michael and his angels fighting against the Dragon and the dragon and
His angels fought back but he was defeated and there was no longer any place for them in heaven and the Great Dragon was thrown down that ancient serpent who is called the devil and Satan the
Deceiver of the whole world he was thrown down to the Earth and his angels were thrown down with him and I heard a loud voice in heaven saying now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of
Our God and the authority of his Christ have come for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down who accuses them Day and Night Before Our God and they have conquered him by the blood
Of the lamb and by the word of their testimony for they loved not their lives even unto death therefore Rejoice O heavens and you who dwell in them but woe To You O Earth and
Sea for the devil has come down to you in great Wrath because he knows that his time is short well the Paradise Lost also talked about Lucifer ending up on the earth so it is kind of still leading to same thing Paradise Lost described Satan as a gigantic creature that
Is compared to a Titan or the Leviathan who is the Beast of the Seas himself lying on the lake the next in command to Satan is Beelzebub he is Satan right-hand man the chains in which they were restricted with has made them become more evil
They were transformed for the worst through the severe punishment God has meted on them one will expect that such a punishment will make Satan and his lieutenants remorseful so that they will seek to change their ways but alas it made them more hardened and challenged
To still move against the interest of God on the Earth in fact Satan declared that it is better to reign in Hell than to serve in heaven so Satan was so interested in power that he was ready to
Forgo all the Privileges he had in heaven to the expected Authority he will wield in hell now Satan made effort to break free from his restraints and emerge from the flames he soars to a desolate plane where Beelzebub follows then the other Fallen Angels respond
To Satan’s call from the plane by rising from the lake and flying to their leader one by one the principal Devils that are currently in control of hell are listed by Milton as they appear moloch kimos Balaam asteroth astart asterath Dagon rimin Osiris Isis auris Mammon and Belial
A formal catalog of demons includes an introduction to each monster Milton makes it abundantly apparent that only God has given these Fallen Angels the freedom from their bonds that they believe they have achieved on their own Satan was able
To gather a large army of fallen angels that is impressive but do their recent ignominious defeat Satan knew he has a lot to do if he must be successful in his second attempt at opposing God the devil then addresses the fallen angels and rallies them for the task ahead of them on the
Earth since Satan also had the ability for motivation talks he told them that they should not be cast down in their hearts because they still have power and that their purpose will be to oppose God on the Earth this is their time for war they are at war with the
Creatures of God here on the Earth the devil host of Angels were motivated by his speech and they started building the capital city of their hellish Dominion right away at mammon’s command they located mineral deposits in the highlands of hell and swiftly began to establish a metropolis
They construct a massive tower that ultimately comes to represent Pandemonium the capital of Hell under the guidance of their architect molsaber the demon Army’s erratic movements are likened to a massive swarm of bees they all gather for the first Grand parade once the construction
Was completed and the capital is finished Milton underlines in the prologue of his book that his subject will be man’s Rebellion to God’s will meaning that not only Adam but all of humanity from the beginning to the end has disobeyed God he does say that the bigger man who rescued everyone
From the initial Disobedience will be a part of his subject additionally he intends to use eternal Providence to justify the ways of God to men Milton uses the word justify to indicate more than merely an explanation he also intends to show that God’s treatment of man is just
Milton’s declaration that he will compose and pursue a purpose that has never been attempted before supports the assumption that he was not troubled by any illusion of modesty in order to achieve this goal Milton’s prayer to the Muse What In Me Is dark or illumin is the only truly
Moving passage in this prologue Milton will later address his blindness more explicitly in the prologue that opens book three Milton makes no reference of Satan in this prologue or indication even though he is the poem’s principal character but not its true subject
Satan is initially seen in the beginning of the book sleeping in the bottom of hell the great theological epic puts Satan in the Forefront introduces him first and in numerous ways makes him the story’s protagonist this is so because despite the fact that Satan is a likable
Figure who faces overwhelming odds Milton does not desire his audience to have sympathy for him a fact Milton’s original audience would have been more aware of the ironies inherent in Satan’s conflicts and his remarks about power than his present audiences The Authority that
Satan claims and believes he has is fictitious only God can give him the ability to act and his battle with god is already over the audience of old are aware as Milton’s lines confirms that Satan’s conflict with God had already been decisively lost before the book begins
To the current audience Satan may appear heroic as he struggles to create a heaven out of hell the authority to act on God’s behalf not their own is given to Satan and the other Demons by God additionally Satan is at his most alluring at this point in the story
He recently descended from heaven where he held the position of closest Angel to God the celestial Radiance he had in heaven has not yet disappeared the reader will see that Satan’s personality and appearance deteriorate as the poem goes on Milton’s writing is thoughtfully organized to highlight the effects of Satan’s Deeds
Following Satan’s departure from the Flaming Lake the list of demons follows an epic pattern of identifying Heroes however in this case the list is of antagonists this particular list appears to be a deliberate parody of book two of the iliad’s listing of Greek vessels
And heroes by Homer of order to explain why so many of the Gods in paganism exist today Milton uses the catalog to enumerate a large number of Fallen Angels these beings were formerly among the Angels who revolted against God as a result the reader may not immediately link Christianity
With names like Isis Osiris ball and others but rather with a pre-christian pagan belief the two most significant Devils on the list are Beelzebub and Belial the building of pandemonium the seed of hell is the last chapter of book once in book two both contain a considerable amount of
Accidental humor both times the Devils appear to be seized by a sense of civic pride and act on the principle that hell is horrible but with a few modifications we can make it a lot better even attractive the mindset of the mayor of a tiny town that was overlooked by the interstate is
Revealed in both Mammon and the Demonic architect malsaber both of them appear to believe that hell could become so nice with changes that people would desire to leave the main objective of Milton here however is to make pandemonium a term he invented from the Latin pan all
In demonium the capital of hell for the demons overall Milton paints a picture of hell that at least in the first few volumes appears to have more than one essence thank you for your support
[Elder Uzziah] Peace and blessings family this is Uzziah and today we’re going to talk about the virgin birth for centuries it’s been said that Jesus Christ was born of a virgin and today we’re going to talk about that in the scriptures we’re going to go through the word of God
And we’re going to see what the bible really says about how Christ was born but before we begin let’s begin with a word of prayer [Praying] Father thank you so much for allowing us to come together for another day of fellowship edification wisdom knowledge and understanding
We ask o lord that you continue to anoint us with thy word father help us see wonderful things out of thy precepts o lord that have been closed for all of our lives father we ask for your mercy for we know father that we’ve committed many trespasses and sins
In these last days and we ask for your forgiveness we ask o lord that you allow this lesson to go out with free course that brothers and sisters can open up their hearts to receive
Thy word and thy word alone father we ask that you watch out for any brothers or sisters that are going through any calamities we ask that you heal them and comfort them as much as thy see fit in
The name of thy son Jesus the Christ we pray and we thank you lord amen![Elder Uzziah] All praises to the most high welcome brothers and sisters today we are going over a very important lesson
Now I promised many of you that I would do this class but I needed some time so thank you for your patience today we’re going to talk about the virgin birth was Christ born of a virgin
And is the way that we’ve been taught about the virgin birth aligned with what the scriptures say I need all of you brothers and sisters to have your bibles pens and papers ready because we’re going to go over an extensive breakdown of the scriptures today I need your time your patience
And your prayers that we can get through this as smoothly as possible now let’s go ahead and begin with the book of John in order to understand how Christ was born you must know three things first you must know the promises pertaining to how Christ was born according to the prophecies of God
Secondly you have to know the ceremonial customs of the Jews finally you must understand the timeline of the gospels if you don’t understand these three things there is no way that you can understand the virgin birth again in order to understand how
Christ was born you must know three things you must first know what are the promises that are written in the bible about the life of Christ what does the bible say about how Christ would be born what are the prophecies pertaining to him if you don’t understand the prophecies or
Even know that the prophecies are in there then you have no idea of knowing what’s right or wrong secondly you must understand the ceremonial customs of the Jews Christ was known as the king of the Jews so if you don’t understand all of the historical context
On what was happening at that time there’s no way to understand his birth third and finally you must understand the timeline of the gospels as we go into today’s lesson you’re going to see that the different accounts that was given in the gospels by our forefathers like saint Luke as well
As saint Matthew occurred during different times accounts are given of situations that occurred at different time periods and if you’re not focused on understanding the timeline it can be easy to get confused but first we are going to begin with the promises concerning the birth of Christ and
Rightly divide the word all I ask for you brothers and sisters to do is to take good notes and please make sure that you smash the like button make sure that you do that for me real quick before we begin
Because that’ll go a very long way towards growing our YouTube channel so now let’s begin this is in the book of John chapter 7 and verse 38. it reads [Reading Scripture] He that believeth on me as the scripture hath said out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water now brothers
Sisters we have to begin with this verse because this is a very controversial topic some of you may revert back to whatever teachings that you heard in the Baptist church some of you may have been Jehovah’s witness regardless of what walk of life you come from the thing that’s
Supposed to align believers together is the word of God the bible is the ultimate authority on God so please as you tune into this lesson please block out any preconceived notions that you have and go to the scriptures to understand God’s word this is not about your mama
Your daddy your grandma and your granddaddy that said that they know everything about the bible let’s believe on Christ as the scripture says if we want to receive the blessing okay now we’re going to start off like I talked about with the promises pertaining to Christ’s
Birth we’re going to go to the book of Acts in the new testament to understand what the promises were remember brothers and sisters the bible tells us in the book of John that the scriptures cannot be broken so we have to go to the scriptures to understand
What happened and then we reconcile our understanding from that we do not make up our own understandings to talk about God we go directly into the word and we know that if God said this then it must be true this is in the book of Acts the 13th chapter and the 22nd verse
It reads and when he had removed him he raised up unto them David to be their king this is talking about our forefather king David to whom also he gave their testimony and said I have found David the son of Jesse a man after mine own heart which shall fulfill all my will
Of this man’s seed hath God according to his promise raised unto Israel a savior Jesus Jesus the Christ is our lord and savior in order for us to know about our savior we have to
Go into God’s word to learn what has been written about him here God is promising us that the savior would be raised unto Israel from a man’s seed of this man’s seed hath god according to his promise
So this is not something that is speculative God is promising us that according to the loins of David we would then see Jesus Christ on earth now it’s our job to figure out how that happened
We cannot discredit this verse and act like it’s not in the bible it’s on us to figure out how this aligns with the virgin birth a lot of us have been taught that Christ was born through an immaculate
Conception where his mother Mary was impregnated by an angel and then from there Christ was born we have to reconcile that through Acts chapter 13 and verse 23 because we’re reading right now out of the new testament we know that Christ is the word so surely everything that’s been written
And document in documented in the word must stand true we must remember the scriptures cannot be broken so now let’s go to another new testament scripture here we were reading in the book of Acts now we’re going to read Paul’s epistle to the romans this is the book of romans or the letter
The epistle of Paul to the romans the first chapter in the first verse Paul a servant of Jesus Christ called to be an apostle separated unto the gospel of god which he had promised for by his prophets in the holy scriptures concerning his son Jesus Christ our lord which was made
Of the seed of David according to the flesh so it’s clearly letting us know in this verse that Christ was born from David’s seed if we’re unclear on the seed that it’s talking about its talking about the seed of man’s flesh when it talks about the word flesh in the bible
It’s making reference to your physical form and we know usually when man is created um in this earth most of the time it is done through sex most of the time whenever a man or a woman child is born it is done through the act of sexual intercourse where a man’s seed
Uh implants a woman’s egg and then from there a conception is formed and after the process of nine months lord’s will a child will be born so now this understanding is contrary to what we’ve heard in the mainstream Christian world all throughout every Christian denomination we’ve been taught
No it was not from the seed of a man that Christ was born it was through a virgin birth but again we’re going to another new testament scripture to see when the prophets are talking they keep
Talking about the seed of man creating Christ how is this the case we must continue to go throughout the scriptures we must search the scriptures to see when was this promise given in the bible hold that let’s go to 2nd Samuel’s the seventh chapter if this was a promise
When did we receive the promise pertaining to the birth of Christ we must understand even though we’ll read in the bible about Christ being born of a virgin that is not the only promise pertaining to him that is not the only detail that highlights his birth
That’s why Christ said I come in the volume of the book we must go through all scripture because all scripture is profitable for doctrine so as we read in 2nd Samuel chapter 7 and verse 10 it reads moreover I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them
That they may dwell in a place of their own and move no more neither shall the children of wickedness afflict them anymore as before time and as since the time that I commanded judges to be
Over my people Israel and have caused thee to rest from all thine enemies also the lord telleth thee that he will make thee in house and when thy days be fulfilled and thou shall sleep with thy fathers
I will set up thy seed after thee which shall proceed out of thy bowels and I will establish his kingdom so I want you to know we’ve gone through three verses now and every verse that we’re reading about talks about seed seed seed in other words this is talking about sperm
Every time we peel back the layers the bible is giving us more explicit detail on what this seed is talking about when we read in Romans 1 it said seed according to thy flesh here it goes as far as to say that the seed which is after thee shall proceed out of thy
Bowels now any brother and sister that knows what bowels is talking about knows that your bowels is referring to your lower private section this is where different things flow out of the body some of you may be familiar with the term
Bowel movement but when the bible is talking here about the seed proceeding out of thy bowels it is talking about a man’s sperm being released from him in other words what this is saying is that the prophecy is that through the sperm of David there would be descendants
In rule so as we read the promise again it says and when thy days be fulfilled this is talking to king David and thou shall sleep with thy fathers I will set up thy seed after thee this is talking about a future lineage which shall proceed out of thy bowels
And I will establish his kingdom now some of you may be thinking oh okay well that may have happened through Solomon but let’s look at the next verse he shall build a house for my name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever we know Christ’s kingdom is a everlasting
Kingdom that will reign forever this is why we read in the new testament that Christ our king descends from the seed of David I’m just giving you guys all of the promises as we begin now let’s go to first Chronicles chapter 17 and verse 11. everything that we
Read about in the new testament derives from old testament writing when we go to first Chronicles 17 David is promised first Chronicles chapter 17 verse 11 and it shall come to pass when thy
Days be expired that thou must go to be with thy fathers that I will raise up thy seed after thee which shall be of thy sons and I will establish his kingdom now this is a very important verse
It reads and it shall come to pass this is letting us know that this is a future prophecy it’s not something that’s happening right now but God promises that this will happen at a later time when thy days be expired meaning when our forefather king David passes away that thou
Must go to be with thy fathers meaning deceased like the forefathers of old that I will raise up thy seed after thee meaning there would be future leaders from the line of David the lineage would not be cut off at David but rather through his sperm his name would live on
Which shall be of thy sons this is very important when talking about the virgin birth because many will make the argument that Christ came from the seed of David through Mary that is not a son that
Is a daughter so in order for the prophecy to be fulfilled Christ had to have been born through the seed of man there had to be a son from the line of David to produce the sperm that
Then became Christ on earth we’re going to go into all this brothers and sisters please be patient with me I must go through much detail in order for you to fully understand all we’re doing right now is going through the promises and as we’ve read from verse to verse the promise was that
David would pass away leaving behind a royal legacy to follow after him it reads in verse 12 he shall build me in house and I will establish his throne forever even Christian laypersons know that Christ our king he sits on a throne in the everlasting kingdom forever the world to come
Shall be under Christ so now we’re getting all these different verses David seed David seed through his bowels according to the flesh why have we never been taught this well let’s go to Numbers chapter 1 verse 18. we’re still getting the understanding on how Christ was born
Now when we read in the book of chronicles it told us that Christ who would rule forever would come through David’s sons and the reason why it says that is because when you read in Numbers chapter 1 and verse 18 it tells us that every man woman and child
Is known by the seed of their fathers you are who your father is and when we read in Numbers 1 and 18 it says and they assembled all the congregation together on the first day of the second month and
They declared their pedigrees after their families by the house of their fathers according to the number of the names from 20 years old and upwards by their polls now brothers sisters I know that we are living in Satan’s kingdom but I want you to imagine a life of righteousness
When a child is born you will tend to notice that if that child was born uh um with a mother and father in the household and they were married the child is going to take on the father’s name the reason why the child is going to have the father’s surname is because
The father imparts the seed of life the woman uh develops the seed in the womb and nourishes it until the child is born but the child itself is a descendant from man we’re gonna go through
All of this in the scriptures I know that a lot of y’all are so used to the ways of the world where you know a lot of children that have been born in single parent households they take on their mom’s
Last name the father’s not even thought of here we’re going back to the days of old we’re going back to the historical context that set the stage for Christ’s birth so here we’ve gone through all these scriptures seed of David seed of David is going to happen through sperm that’s why when
You read in the new testament in the book of Luke the second chapter it tells us in the fourth verse and Joseph also went up from Galilee out of the city of Nazareth into Judea unto the city of David which is called Bethlehem because he was of the house and lineage of David
This is how the prophecy was fulfilled Joseph was ordained as the husband of Mary because he was of the lineage of David all of the prophecy came to pass through him but now you might be asking okay well if that’s true Uzziah why does it say that Christ was born of a virgin
Why does it seem like there was some immaculate conception that had nothing to do with Joseph at all we’re going to go to this let’s go to Matthew chapter 1 verse 1. again the three things that you
Need to understand when it comes to Christ’s birth is the promises pertaining to how Christ is born you then need to understand the ceremonial customs of the people lastly you need to understand the chronological order of the gospels so that you don’t misunderstand what is written
We’re still going through the promises and now I’m showing you how the promises was fulfilled with joseph as being from the lineage of David this is in Matthew chapter 1 verse 1. this is the beginning of the new testament the book of the generation of Jesus Christ the son
Of David the son of Abraham Abraham begat Isaac and Isaac beget Jacob and Jacob begat Judah and his brethren and Judah begat fares and Zara of Thamar and Phares beget Esrom and Esrom begat Aram why does it keep saying one man’s name after another when talking about be getting a child
Because the child is the descendant of the father’s seed yes the woman may house the seed as it is nurtured and developed in the womb but we understand from Numbers 118 Acts 13 Romans 1 and 3 that all of these children
Are born through their father’s sperm that’s why it says the book of the generation of Jesus Christ because it’s telling you Christ’s genetic pool it’s telling you Christ’s DNA he’s the son of David the son of Abraham Abraham begat Isaac and Isaac begat Jacob these are men
Who had sex with their wives and from the act of sexual intercourse they brought forth children for example Abraham and his wife Sarah through the act of sex they had Isaac and then from Isaac Jacob Jacob begat Judas and his brethren and I want us to look right here at the second
Verse when it says Jacob begat Judas and his brethren because what we know through history is that Jacob is the forefather of the 12 lost tribes of the nation of Israel let’s go to the book of Genesis chapter 49 verse 10. please brothers and sisters take good notes
Genesis chapter 49 verse 10 reads the scepter shall not depart from Judah this is the same Judah that we read about in Matthew chapter one this is the beginning of the genealogy of Jesus Christ Abraham had Isaac Isaac had Jacob Jacob had Judah and in Genesis 49 and 10 were reading
About the prophecies concerning Judah the scepter meaning power shall not depart from Judah meaning it’s always going to stay there nor a lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh come and unto him shall the gathering of the people be now the primary part I want us to focus on is
A law giver from between his feet what’s between the feet of a man is his reproductive organs that’s what it’s saying the prophecy all the way back from genesis 49 is that there would always be men in positions of power from the loins of Judah hold that let’s go to the first verse
Genesis 49 and 1 and Jacob called unto his sons and said gather yourselves together that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last days so when we’re reading about the prophecies pertaining to Judah this is about prophecies that would happen at a later time
These will be prophecies that would carry over all the way until the last days brothers sisters I need y’all to see this for yourself what tribe did David come from David came from the tribe of Judah the prophecy about him being in rulership and his descendants
Ruling is consistent about what was said through his forefather Judah God is still establishing the same order all the way from Genesis 49 through the book of Samuel into the new testament nothing has changed this is the reason why the bible tells us Christ came in the volume of the book
Because we cannot understand Christ’s birth if we don’t understand what was written about in the first book of the bible a lawgiver is coming from between the feet of Judah in between the feet of a man is his reproductive organs his reproductive organs brings forth the seed
The seed then procreates into future descendants these are all things that we must got to know and understand brothers and sisters this is not rocket science now we’re going to go to Deuteronomy the 28th chapter because I know some of y’all out there even though we’ve already
Gone through almost 10 scriptures where it’s told you seed seed seed Christ is coming through a man Christ is coming through sperm I know it’s so hard to grasp because you’re having cognitive dissonance based upon all of the programming that’s been put into you up until this point I’m
Being patient with us all brothers and sisters because all of us at one point in our lives had to learn when you read in Deuteronomy the 28th chapter it reaffirms the meaning of in between his feet that we read about in Genesis 49. Deuteronomy 28 this is verse 56
The tender and delicate woman among you which would not adventure to set the soul of her foot upon the ground for delicateness and tenderness her eyes shall be evil toward the husband of her bosom and toward her son and toward her daughter and toward her young one that cometh out
From between her feet how does the young one come out from between a woman’s feet because that is where her reproductive organs can be found a man’s reproductive organs hold sperm that’s in between his feet a woman’s reproductive organs will then push out the baby this is all fundamental
Child birthing 101. there are so many brothers and sisters that don’t know much about the bible at all but one thing they do know is that if they’re going to create life on this earth it has to come
From a man putting his reproductive organs into a woman’s reproductive organs and from there a child will be born if it’s of the lord’s will so we’re getting precept upon precept that’s showing that the rulers that descended out of the line of Judah would come from a man’s seed sperm and
Reproductive loins I know this might be a little hard for y’all but this is why the bible says this this is Hebrews chapter 7 and verse 14. for it is evident that our lord spring out of Judah
How did he spring out of Judah because he comes from the descendants of Jacob’s fourth-born son Judah then begat sons as we read about in Matthew 1 and then over the course of many generations Christ is born so now let’s bring this back okay we’re going to go back to Matthew chapter one
Now I hope that all of this is clear thus far we read in Matthew chapter one and verse one it reads the book of the generation of Jesus Christ the son of David the son of Abraham Abraham beget
Isaac and Isaac begat Jacob and Jacob begat Judah and his brethren and Judas begat Phares and Zara of Thamar and Phares begat as ram and as ram begat Aram this is an entire lineage of men procreating
Other men as you read from verse to verse now we’re going to jump down to the sixth verse of this generation and Jesse begat David the king and David the king begat Solomon of her that had been the wife of Uriah brothers and sisters one thing that you’ll notice when it talks about
Uriah and Judas they put an s on these letters because in the time of the new testament these are now writings that came from Greek scrolls I want you to understand this the same Uriah that you’re reading in verse 6 is talking about Uriah the Hittite that you read about in the old
Testament the same judas that you’re reading about in Matthew 1 and 2 is talking about our forefather Judah Jacob’s son it’s the same name just a different transliteration of words okay so now we understand this is the genealogy of Jesus Christ this is one man lying down with a woman
And procreating another son and procreating another son and procreating another son all the way up until Jesus the Christ but before we get to Jesus the Christ and we focus on uh David the son of Jesse when you jump down to verse 16 it reads and Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary
Of whom was born Jesus who is called Christ Christ is a Greek word it means anointed so now we’re going to go to the book of Luke the first chapter so that way we can start reading the
History of Christ’s birth we need to understand everything that led up to the birth of Christ right here we’re given the promises now we’re going to go into the account of how Christ was born in the gospels from saint Luke we’re now going to go to Luke chapter 1 and verse 26
And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee named Nazareth to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David and the virgin’s name
Was Mary and the angel came in unto her and said hail thou that art highly favored the Lord is with thee blessed art thou among women and when she saw him she was troubled at his saying
And cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be and the angel said unto her fear not Mary for thou has found favor with God now the reason why marriage is troubled is because whenever you read about our four parents being confronted by angels the angels took on a very
Bold appearance very intimidating it wasn’t what you see on all of these different Christian churches where hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah you got to get that out your mind you have to look at what the scriptures say if the angels were so soft and so warm and friendly
Why would Mary and the other descendants of god’s people had been afraid of them surely had they been so warm and so rosy everyone would have been excited everybody would have been singing kumbaya the class about the angels that’s for another time
It reads here and the angel said unto her fear not Mary for thou has found favor with God and behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb the reason why you need to hold at this point is because it’s
Giving you an indication of the chronology of the gospel when the angel is telling Mary thou shalt conceive it lets us know she is not pregnant yet this is important because when you go into saint Matthew Matthew is giving an account based upon a woman that is already pregnant so please
Don’t merge the two together because that’s where confusion comes in the book of Luke 1 she’s not pregnant in Matthew 1 she’s impregnated and now Joseph decides how to move forward but here we are for now Luke chapter 1 verse 31 and behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb and bring forth
A son and shalt call his name Jesus he shall be great and shall be called the son of the highest and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David and he shall reign over the house
Of Jacob forever and of his kingdom there shall be no end now where do we read about that we read about that in the book of second Samuel we read about that in first Chronicles this is prophecy
At play so then when we read in verse 34 it reads then said Mary unto the angel how shall this be seeing I know not a man this is where many people get confused when people read this verse alone
They think oh well the reason why Mary is asking this is because there’s no man in her life at all hold that let’s go back to where we were in verse 27. let me start at verse 26
And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from god unto a city of galilee named Nazareth to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David so when we read here
Mary is already promised to Joseph in marriage when Mary is asking how shall this be seeing I know not a man it doesn’t mean that Mary never foresees a day where she’s going to be uh with
A man or be intimate she’s asking this because she had not had sex the sex had not taken place as of yet that’s the reason why the angel says thou shall conceive all of those prophecies that we
Read about through a man’s seed from between his knees that part hadn’t happened yet we’re about to get there in the prophecy this is the reason why angel the angel is now coming Mary doesn’t know how all of this is going down but the angel has been sent from God
To guide her then said Mary unto the angel how shall this be seeing I know not a man why is she asking see not I know not a man because Mary understands a woman has a child through sex is not
Going to be anything mythical God’s not going to drop a baby from the heavens above it’s not going to happen like that a man has to put his sperm in her but because she hadn’t had sex yet
She’s wondering from the angel how are you able to expound on all of these characteristics about my so-called child when I haven’t even uh uh uh conceived yet let alone went through the process of labor Mary’s confused and the angel answered and said unto her the holy ghost shall come upon
Thee see this is where everybody falls off the horse brothers and sisters we’re going to go through multiple verses on this but what you’re going to learn after going through this class is when the holy ghost anointing comes upon a woman god plays a part in guiding her through
A childbirth a childbirth it does not mean that God himself is having sex with her or his angels it means that he is bringing forth a hedge of comfort and protection hold that gonna go to the book of uh Proverbs real quick we’re coming back to this proverbs chapter 20
And verse 24. man’s goings are of the Lord how can a man then understand his own way what greater example do we have of this verse in the story of our forefather mayor of foremother Mary who
Did not know exactly how all of this was going to go down and the Lord is going to guide her through the angel that’s the reason why Mary said unto the angel how shall this be in verse 35 it reads
And the angel answered and said unto her the holy ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the highest shall overshadow thee there okay when something is shadowing you it’s a long side it’s a figment what the angel is telling Mary is
Mary in your doings the Lord is going to guide you along the way it’s not going to be the Lord himself that’s just putting his seed into the woman no that’s what man is for the first commandment that was given to man in the bible was be fruitful and multiply
God uses man as an instrument to deliver sperm in order to bring forth children the angel answered and said unto her the holy ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the highest shall overshadow thee therefore also that holy thing which shall be born
Of thee shall be called the son of God and behold thy cousin Elizabeth she have also conceived a son in her old age and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren for with God nothing
Shall be impossible often times when people read this they will use that as the basis to say see this is how we know that Mary had this child from out of thin air because god is saying nothing shall be impossible that’s how we know that God was the one that impregnated Mary
Not Joseph brothers sisters this is the reason why Christ said I come in the volume of the book if we isolate these verses without a full picture of God’s word in its totality you could walk away thinking that but as we go from precept to precept you’re going to see the explanation
Of what all of this is saying that’s the reason why I just ask y’all to sit patient take notes and smash the like button and Mary said behold the handmaid of the Lord be it unto me according to thy word and the angel departed from her so when Mary says
Behold the handmaid of the Lord she’s acknowledging herself as a servant she’s not acknowledging that she’s God’s side chick she’s acknowledging that she’s going to do the will of God as is commanded to her
Be it unto me according to thy word well what’s the word from the seed of David of his sons you’re going to have a son that’s how this whole thing goes down everybody’s got their part to play
Joseph got his part to play Mary got his part to play her part to play the angel is just coming and bringing all of the prophecy to pass because this is what you got to ask yourself what woman
In her right mind would truly believe that of all women on earth she’s going to be the one chosen to deliver the only begotten of the father how many of you guys would really think that y’all gotta understand these are these are real people I know a lot of times
When we read the bible you tend to think about it like a fairy tale but this is a real woman on earth out of all the different women on earth that could have been chosen for such a high honor
The Lord chose Mary and that’s the reason why the angel told her in verse 28 thou art highly favored the Lord is with thee blessed art thou among women now where the confusion comes into play is what we’ve been taught through Roman Catholicism
We’ve been taught that Rome that um Mary is almost a deified figure even though the scripture says blessed art thou among women not blessed art thou above women Mary was a woman just like everyone else but the difference is out of all women on the earth
At that time the Lord favored Mary and chose her among women to receive the seed of David to bring forth Christ I pray that this is very clear just in case it’s not we still got a lot of scriptures
To go okay THE MOST HIGH is going to put the power of the spirit of Christ into the seed of Joseph one thing that we got to understand brothers and sisters this is where the second part of this kicks in if you’re going to understand how Christ was born you have to understand
The ceremonial customs of the Jews historically child birth it was always a collaborative process what do I mean by that you know a lot of times in this modern day women can have children just being a single parent but in the ancient world there was a mother a father
A midwife now we’ll talk about doulas there was an entire team of people who supported bringing a child into this world and this is no different when it comes to the birth of Christ
Real quick I want to show you the definition of the word midwife just so that way we are all on the same page okay this is what the word midwife reads when you look at the definition midwife noun a person typically a woman trained to assist women in childbirth
The midwife does not impregnate the woman to have a child but she’s on the roster of helpers in the support system necessary to get a child out of the womb this is a part of the Jew custom
This is a part of the Israelite way we would always have a team surrounding righteous sisters to bring a child into this world now when it comes to the man’s role the man delivers the sperm which
Then helps to build the body the Lord is the one that determines the spirit that will be implanted into the body hold that we’re gonna go to Jeremiah chapter one Jeremiah chapter 1 verse 4
Then the word of the Lord came unto me saying before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee is this God telling Jeremiah that he was the one that impregnated Jeremiah’s mother no this is the Lord telling Jeremiah that
He’s responsible for the spirit that came on the child the man that procreates the child he cannot dictate what spirit is going to be upon this boy the father ultimately decides what spirit is going to be upon man man creates the body the father imparts the spirit before I formed thee
In the belly I knew thee the spirit dwelled among the heavens before it was imparted into the sperm and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee and I ordained thee a prophet unto
The nations so the same way that the Lord ordained Jeremiah to be a prophet before his parents ever lie together that was the exact same thing that happened with the Messiah before joseph and Mary it was always known throughout bible history a Messiah is coming on the earth
But there has to be a certain way to do it there has to be a royal lineage there has to be a woman chosen and the woman would receive direction from the angel on how all of this would take
Place okay and even as we can see in the writings of Jeremiah Jeremiah himself didn’t know what God had in store but that didn’t mean that the God of uh this bible our God did not have wonderful works ordained for him now we’re going to go to Job chapter 31 verse 14. I
Just want y’all to see this God ordains things before life begins job chapter 31 verse 14 what then shall I do when God riseth up and when he visiteth what shall I answer him did not he
That made me in the womb make him and did not one fashion us in the womb so see there’s only but so far that a mortal man can go and bring forth life on this earth the man delivers the seed God is the one that fashions that child in the womb he’s
The one that decides okay this spirit is going to go in this womb this spirit is going to go in this womb this man and this woman is going to come together God is not the author of confusion
But we’ve got to know every role that’s at play in the process of childbirth otherwise we don’t understand how all this comes together the same way that God ordains a midwife to physically be there and help a woman through childbirth God’s spirit is also there guiding the process and this
Is something that we must see all of us were spirits before we were brought on this earth when we read in Genesis the bible says let us make man in our image there was already
An hour in the heavens before man was created on earth so God already has a divine will in place he’s just using people like pawns to bring a greater story about I pray that you understand this this is Ecclesiastes chapter 12 verse 7. man delivers the seed God anoints the spirit
Ecclesiastes 12 7. then shall the dust return to the earth as it was and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it so that dust which represents the body that’s temporary given of men
The spirit which is separate from the body because the body is just a shell that belongs to the Lord the Lord is the one who harbors these spirits and appoints them into the womb at will so when
We read now in Genesis chapter 25 I’m going to give you real examples of this at play right now you might be thinking this is just hocus pocus oh man Uzziah it’s a whole working crew for the baby
That’s a stretch you’re going to see it right here we’re gonna read right now about a man who lied down with a woman and God assisted the process along the way this is Genesis chapter 25 verse 21
And Isaac entreated the Lord for his wife because she was barren and the Lord was entreated of him and Rebecca his wife conceived this does not mean that the Lord had intercourse with Rebecca this means that god allowed the blessing of conception to take place once Isaac lied with her
And the children struggled together within her and she said if it be so why am I thus and she went to inquire of the Lord now wait a minute Isaac was the one that put his seed in Rebecca
Why is she not going to him because it’s the man that implants the sperm it’s God that is the judge of the spirits see what I’m trying to point out to you brothers and sisters this is something
That our fore parents knew from the beginning of time it’s only foreign to us because we’ve never been taught the word we’ve never learned hey a man and a woman could come together and it could seem carnal but God might have been a part of it the whole time that’s the reason why
The scriptures tell us that wisdom will walk with us by crooked ways even in the world they’ll say God works in mysterious ways so we don’t know how God has his hand in things as servants and the children struggled together within her and she said if it be so why am I thus
And she went to inquire of the Lord and the Lord said unto her two nations are in thy womb Isaac couldn’t have told her this this is way over Isaac’s head now just like it was over the head of
Joseph and Mary they could not fathom this is what’s going down right here same miracles are happening right now right now we’re reading a miracle about a man having sex with a woman and then from that conception two nations and superpowers on the earth would create
And the lord said unto her two nations are in thy womb and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels and the one people shall be stronger than the other people and the elder shall serve the younger this is something that only God can do y’all man can’t control that
All matters of life and death is the power of the Lord we just have a small role to play this is in Genesis chapter 4 and verse 1 again many stories tell us this Genesis 4 and 1 and
Adam knew eve his wife and she conceived and bear Cain and said I have gotten a man from the Lord why come people don’t say eve had a virgin birth this was an immaculate conception everybody knows Adam lied down with eve because the commandment was be fruitful and multiply
When did that commandment change I have gotten a man from the lord that does not mean that the Lord was in bed with Adam’s wife it means that God facilitated the process God was the one that gave
The commandment to be fruitful and multiply just like Mary was given a commandment from the angel go do this this and this and this is how the child is coming same thing let’s go to another scripture
This is Genesis chapter 21. verse 1 because I know a lot of y’all are still thinking but why did when it came to Mary the angel said with God nothing is impossible did not the Lord say the same to this woman that we’re about to read right here
Genesis 21-1 and the lord visited Sarah as he had said and the lord did unto Sarah as he had spoken now why does it say as unto the Lord has spoken because Sarah thought it was impossible
How can I be of old age and still have a child Sarah laughed at it but with God nothing is impossible if God says that this is what he’s going to do he’s going to do it
And all we have to do is follow suit that’s the reason why Mary told the angel I’m going to be a handmaiden what you’ve told me in thy word that’s what I’m going to do this is no different with eve
No different with uh Sarah no different with Hannah no different with roof we read scripture after scripture after scripture where God is allowing a man and woman to come together but he’s producing something that is bigger than them genesis 21-1 and the Lord visited Sarah
As he had said and the lord did unto Sarah as he had spoken for Sarah conceived and bear Abraham a son in his old age at the set time of which God spoken to him so everything is on God’s clock yo
God operates on a schedule God knows this is going to be the window of time where you go without this is the time that you’re going to be unmarried you’re going to come together at this time
You’re going to lie together here God puts that in us when you read in the book of Job it tells us that when we are in deep sleep God will seal our instructions on what we’re to do in
The days to come this is everything that we learn about when it comes to Mary for Sarah conceived and bear Abraham a son in his old age at the set time of which God had spoken to him this is God
Showing Sarah that all things are possible with him now let’s go to the book of Ruth this is Ruth chapter 4 verse 13. I want you to notice the pattern so Boaz took ruth and she was his wife and when he went in unto her the Lord gave her conception
And she bear a son that’s not saying that the Lord was the one sexing Boaz’s wife it’s saying that the Lord was the one that guided the process the Lord was the one who facilitated this to happen that’s why it says the Lord gave her a conception if the Lord
Wants something to happen it’ll happen if the Lord doesn’t want something to happen it’s not going to happen but what the Lord doesn’t have to do is be all things to all people he does not need to be a
Woman’s husband because he’s already appointed man to procreate he already gave man commandment to be fruitful and multiply god is the great puppet master in the heavens above saying I want this man to get with this woman they’re going to have this child he’s going to grow up and operate like this
All of this is of the Lord God is the screenwriter we’re just the actors in the film now let’s go to the next verse this is the book of Judges chapter 13. and this is eerily similar to what we read about in the book of Luke Judges chapter 13
Verse 1. and the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the lord and the lord delivered them into the hand of the philistines forty years and there was a certain man of Zorah
Of the family of the Danites whose name was Manoah and his wife was barren and bear not and the angel of the Lord appeared unto the woman and said unto her behold now thou art barren and bearest not but
Thou shall conceive and bear a son now is anybody popping up out of the woodworks at this point and saying oh how’s that going to happen Lord you’re going to come and get in the bed chamber with me nobody is thinking that we’re reading about an angel coming to a woman and saying
You’re going to conceive you’re going to bear a son it hasn’t happened yet but I’m going to tell you how it will take place now therefore beware I pray thee and drink not wine nor strong drink
And eat not any unclean thing for lo thou shall conceive and bear a son and no razor shall come on his head for the child shall be a Nazarite unto god from the womb and he shall begin to deliver
Israel out of the hand of the philistine here we’re reading about a man not conceived yet prophesied to give Israel deliverance out of the hand of their enemies so if this could happen during the time of Judges why don’t you think it would happen during the time of Luke
There’s no new thing under the sun the problem is 99.9% of the people have never been taught the fullness of the bible so all they do is open a book in the middle of
All its writings and say oh look at that an angel came to a woman and then from there a child was born if you knew this history you would know this happened you would know the angel would come to
The woman and give her clear instructions on how she would lie with a man we’re reading about it right here for lo thou shall conceive and bear a son and no razor shall come on his head
For the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the philistines we’re going to read down all the way to verse 13. then the woman came and told her husband hold that then the woman came and told her husband
The angel is going to put something in the ear of the wife the wife’s going to go to the man and then from there the child is going to be born this is common sense then the woman came and told
Her husband saying a man of God came unto me and his countenance was like the countenance of an angel of God very terrible this goes into what I was saying earlier not kumbaya kisses and hugs
When our four parents saw angels they described them as terrible but I asked him not whence he was neither told he me his name but he said unto me behold thou shalt conceive and bear a son
And now drink no wine nor strong drink this is the angel telling the woman what to do neither eat any unclean thing for the child shall be a Nazarite to God from the womb to the day of his death so the
Same way that a woman might have a midwife and a doula she may also receive godly instruction on how to successfully bring forth a child this is the entire team process of childbirth then Manoah
Entreated the lord and said o my Lord let the man of God which thou didst sinned come again unto us and teach us what we shall do unto the child that shall be born and God hearkened to the voice of
Manoah and the angel of God came again unto the woman as she said in the field but Manoah her husband was not with her and the woman made haste and ran and showed her husband and said unto him
Behold the man hath appeared unto me that came unto me the other day and Manoah arose and went after his wife and came to the man and said unto him art thou the man that spaketh unto the woman
And he said I am and Manoah said now let thy words come to pass how shall we order the child and how shall we do unto him notice this notice how you read nowhere in these verses about Manoah saying
How dare you say something to my woman I’m the man I’m running all of this our forefathers understood you may be the one to hold the sperm but God may use angels in order to
Give instructions on how the child is born this is not a one-man show I mean every time you read in the bible it’s always God utilizing multiple people to accomplish a goal the beginning creation multiple people using a goal Christ coming on the earth having up to 12 disciples setting up 70 more
After them multiple people to accomplish a common goal so why do we then think all it’s going to be in the procreation the birth of a righteous child why do you think that’s just oldest just a woman
She’s just going to you know something’s just going to pop into her and everything is good from there no there’s going to be multiple parties at play and Manoah said now let thy words come to pass how shall we order the child and how shall we do unto him see true godly people
They understand it might be them that’s doing things physically but they’re physical beings in a spiritual world they understand that they could do nothing without the Lord helping to guide the process along the way but the Lord’s part is not sexing the woman the Lord’s part is to give
The blueprint as he’s always done the entire essence of the bible is God laying down a formula for us to follow it’s no different when it came to joseph and Mary and the angel of the Lord said unto Manoah of all that I said unto the woman
Let her beware meaning everything that was told to Manoah’s wife she needed to follow it in order to bring forth a righteous seed that’s no different than what we read about in Luke chapter one as it pertained to Mary that’s the reason why Mary told the angel everything according to thy word
That will I do and that’s the reason why we saw in the word it was promised from God that the Messiah would be born through the seed of David now it’s Mary’s job to live that out so now
We’re going to go to Matthew 1. Matthew 1 also gives an account on the birth of Jesus the Christ but remember now in order for us to understand how Christ was born we gotta know what were the promises concerning Christ’s birth that we read about earlier what were the customs
Of the Jews and what is the chronological timeline of the gospels when we read in Luke chapter one Mary had not conceived when we start to read here this woman Mary is already pregnant Matthew chapter 1 and verse 18 now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise
When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph before they came together she was found with child of the holy ghost again where laypersons get slipped up is they read the words before they came together and they presume that the bible is talking about sex when you read all throughout
The new testament it mentions nothing of sexual activity when the term came together is used hold that let’s go to Matthew 27. this is another chapter in the same book of Matthew where coming together is revealed Matthew chapter 27 and verse 62.
Now the next day that followed the day of the preparation the chief priests and pharisees came together unto pilate when they came together is this talking about an orgy no this is talking about a gathering when people would commune together
The new testament would regard it as coming together being one with another not sexually but in fellowship now we’re going to go back to Matthew 1 and 18. so I can prove what this is saying now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise when as his mother Mary was
Espoused to Joseph before they came together if coming together is about a group gathering this is talking about the wedding typically when a woman is promised to a man there’s going to be a wedding ceremony to commemorate the marriage but again we’re so estranged from all this history not
Even knowing the customs that we don’t understand this word before they came together before the wedding feast she was found with child of the holy ghost the reason why this was a problem is because this is not customary when that’s why in the next verse it reads then Joseph her husband
Being a just man when the scripture says that Joseph is a just man it means it’s a man that keeps god’s laws remember this is a man from the lineage of David he comes from a royal stock he was very learned on the commandments of God the reason why it says
Joseph her husband being a just man and not willing to make her a public example was minded to put her away privately is because of the fact that they had sex before the wedding feast that is a typical custom among Israelite marriages hold that we’re going to go to
Genesis chapter 29 verse 20. now when you read in the law this doesn’t always happen whenever a man uh entices a maid and lies with her some in some cases there’s sex prior to the wedding feast
However I’m going to this verse because I’m trying to show you what the customs were of the Jews from the beginning of time this is Genesis chapter 29 and verse 20 and Jacob served seven years
For Rachel and they seemed unto him but a few days for the love he had to her and Jacob said to Laban give me my wife for my days are fulfilled that I may go unto her now when you read the history
Jacob is the forefather of the 12 tribes Labon is his father-in-law Jacob had to work for Labon for seven years in order to get one wife when you read through the history you read first about our foremother Leah okay but that’s for another time Jacob served seven years
For Rachel and they seemed unto him but a few days for the love he had to her and Jacob said unto Laban give me my wife for my days are fulfilled that I may go in unto her okay Jacob loved this
Woman so much that he was willing to work seven years to get her in marriage he says man pops it’s time man I’ve been working for you for seven years it’s time for me to do what I need to do I’m a man
And Labon gathered together all the men of the place this is they came together before they came together the same thing that you read about in the book of Matthew the coming together represents a group gathering Labon gathered together all the men of the place and made a feast
This was customary according to our customs if you took a woman as a wife uh the ideal way to go about doing that in most cases is you speak with the father you then understand what the needs of the father is whose daughter you want in marriage the father will then
Give instruction on how to receive his blessing and then once it is time for the wedding the men and people of the city will be gathered together in one place and a wedding feast will take place there’s going to be a marriage certificate behold this brother Jacob is married to my wife Leah
May they have many wonderful years together may their marriage be blessed and then there’s going to be a feast along with a bed chamber I’m going get into that in a second but I just want you to
See the customs of the feast when Jacob said unto Laban give me my wife for my days are fulfilled that I may go on going unto her he didn’t just hand uh his daughter over to Jacob and said okay
Go handle your business no there first had to be a gathering from there it was a feast verse 23 and it came to pass in the evening of that feast that he took Leah his daughter and brought her to him
And he went in unto her the bed chamber followed the commemoration of the wedding this was a joyous occasion and see this is the reason why we need to bring this back in these last days because we are so disconnected from how righteous marriages go you can’t wrap your mind
Around this when it comes to the scriptures you can’t understand how there was this controversy during Joseph and Mary’s time because you don’t understand how things go in a traditional sense but that’s Genesis 29 we’re going to go back now to Matthew 1 again Matthew chapter 1
Verse 18. now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise meaning this is how Christ was born when as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph before they had a wedding before they had the marriage feast she was found with child of the holy ghost why would this have been a problem
Because if the woman was pregnant prior to the wedding feast people would have looked at the woman prior to the wedding and spoke ill of her oh this woman is already pregnant who’s she getting sex by this woman is a whore this is the reason why when you go into verse 19
It says Joseph her husband being a just man and not willing to make her a public example was minded to put her away privately the reason why he was minded to put her away privately
Is because he was in fear that if she showed up to this wedding feast pregnant they would talk about her like a dog she would get dogged out and there are laws in the bible about a woman who has lost
Her virginity prior to the wedding feast this is why we must know the customs of the Jews before we talk about the birth of the king of the Jews this is Deuteronomy chapter 22 verse 13. Deuteronomy
Chapter 22 verse 13 reads the following if any man take a wife and go in unto her and hate her and give occasions of speech against her and bring up an evil name upon her and say I took this woman
And when I came to her I found her not a maid then shall the father of the damsel and her mother take and bring forth the tokens of the damsel’s virginity unto the elders of the city in the gate
And the damsel’s father shall say unto the elders I gave my daughter unto this man to wife and he hateth her and lo he hath given occasions of speech against her saying I found not thy daughter a maid and yet these are the tokens of my daughter’s virginity and they
Shall spread the cloth before the elders of the city what is this talking about when you go back to Deuteronomy chapter 22 and verse 13 it says if a man take a wife and go in unto her and hate her
Meaning a man has sex with a woman but he decides he no longer wants her hand in marriage verse 14 and give occasions of speech against her meaning the man who now wants to be loosed from the woman
He will now rail against the woman and make the accusation that she is uh not pure because she’s already been with a man I’m not using the term virgin here for a reason and give occasions of speech against her and bring up an evil name upon her why would the woman
Have had an evil name because up until the wedding ceremony when you’re in the bed chamber the custom is that the woman would have been chased and pure she would have not been out here having sex this is the reason why the father mentions the tokens of virginity but we’re still
At verse 14 and give occasions of speech against her and bring up an evil name upon her and say I took this woman and when I came to her meaning I lied with her I found her not a maid then shall
The father of the damsel and her mother take and bring forth the tokens of the damsel’s virginity unto the elders of the city in the gate the token of the damsel’s virginity represents blood on the bed sheets of the woman’s hymen being penetrated to let it
Be known this woman was a uh which what we would call virgin prior to us having sex when you had the bed chamber in the wedding you would have a bed chamber with a light sheet
Upon the bed so that way when the man lies down with the woman the blood can go into the sheet and then after intercourse it can be delivered unto the father and then the father will then
Show that unto the city as a badge of honor that his daughter is a pure woman rather than a harlot out in the street our forefathers needed some way of signifying that they raised righteous children
So when we read in verse 14 it says and give occasions of speech against her and bring up an evil name upon her and say I took this woman and when I came to her I found her not a maid
Then shall the father of the damsel and her mother take and bring forth the tokens of the damsel’s virginity unto the elders of the city in the gate now why would they have brought that before the elders of the city in the gate because it was on the father now to prove
That his daughter did not in fact have sex prior to dealing with this man the man is making an accusation this woman has already had intercourse the father says nope here’s the sheets right here you’re the one that penetrated her she’s now with blood as the token of a virgin I’m bringing this
Forth before the elders of the city to prove that my daughter was chased this all had to be done because in the ancient world our forefathers would act like the devil and some men to get out of their marriage commitment would potentially lie on their spouses and say that the woman uh
Already lost her virginity when in fact she did not before him this is the reason why when you read in Matthew uh 19 it talks about the men how men divorce their wives for any cause
Verse 17. uh let me go back to verse 15. then shall the father of the damsel and her mother take and bring forth the tokens of the damsel’s virginity unto the elders of the city in the gate
And the damsel’s father shall say unto the elders I gave my daughter unto this man to wife and he hated her and lo he have given occasions of speech against her saying I found not thy daughter a maid and yet these are the tokens of my daughter’s virginity so in a marriage ceremony
The father is supposed to be able to get the bed sheets after intercourse to prove my daughter had virginity and they shall spread the cloth before the elders of the city so this was public notice Joseph knew prior to the wedding ceremony well how are we going to do that
I’m there’s not going to be no way I’m gonna be in this bed chamber with you during the feast you’re already gonna be with child and it’s going to come across a certain way you’re gonna be evil
Spoken of that’s the reason why Joseph wanted to put her away privately because you all know how we do as a people y’all know how we talk y’all see again you gotta go back to the ancient world
In the modern day it’s cool in the masses of the people in the world to have sex without marriage that was a shameful thing it’s cool in the modern day you know oh I had this child on my
Own I’m the mother and the father I do it all it didn’t roll like that in the bible in the ancient world if you were impregnated that better had been from your husband after the wedding ceremony but
Not every marriage happened that way and just because it didn’t happen that way it didn’t mean that the husband and wife weren’t righteous or that they were not to deliver a righteous seed there are different laws in the bible that give stipulations about what would happen in certain
Situations and lo he had given occasions of speech against her saying I found not thy daughter a maid and yet these are the tokens of my daughter’s virginity and they shall spread the cloth before the elders of the city and the elders of that city shall take that man and chastise him this
Is if this man was lying on the woman and they shall immerse him in a hundred shekels of silver and give them unto the father of the damsel because he hath brought up an evil name upon
The upon a virgin of Israel and she shall be his wife he may not put her away all his days but if this thing be true and the tokens of virginity be not found for the damsel meaning she did have sex
Prior to all of this then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father’s house and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die because she had wrought
Folly in Israel to play the whore in her father’s house so shall thou put away evil from among you it was a shameful thing for a woman to be with child prior to marriage and those were the intricacies of what Joseph was dealing with before the marriage ceremony
When you read in Matthew 1 Joseph and Mary are already regarded as husband and wife but they had not gone through the formality of a wedding ceremony this was the customs of the Israelite way you cannot understand how Christ was born if you don’t understand the customs of the Jews
So now we go back to Matthew 1 18 it says now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise when as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph before they came together she was found with child of the
Holy ghost then Joseph her husband being a just man and not willing to make her a public example was minded to put her away privately now from here comes the contradiction let’s say that you believe in your mind Mary is the virgin Mary immaculate she’s not lied down with man
How could this have been the case if Joseph her husband being a just man was not willing to make her a public example if Mary was impregnated by anyone but her husband surely that would have been grounds to make her a public example according to the law if we already
Know that Joseph was a just man according to the law of course his recourse out of the marriage would have been a public example look city this woman says she’s a a virgin but look at these bed
Sheets ain’t nothing there I didn’t do it I wasn’t the one that had sex whether somebody else did it surely there is no way in hell that Joseph would have been a just man from the line of David and tolerated entering into a marriage dealing with another man’s son
That’s out of order but y’all know in this modern day we are so busy used to scent behavior it’s hard for men and women to wrap their mind around the fact that if you entered into a marriage uh with a woman and she got pregnant during a time where you’re courting
Her now go remember what we read in Luke 1 when we read in Luke 1 Mary had not conceived yet and she was regarded as promised to Joseph so in between that time that your promise to this man
You go out and have a child by another man what man in his right mind being a just man would not have brought her to shame Joseph her husband being a just man and not willing to make her a public example was minded to put her away privately
Why was he minded to put her away privately because he knows the shame that would have come from people’s judgments with her having already been pregnant at the wedding feast it’s an acknowledgment we didn’t already lie together this is something that a lot of times
Is best happened after the feast just like we read about with Jacob Jacob worked seven years after that the father said okay cool let me gather the people of the city together there’s a father’s honor in that he’s going to gather the city together he’s going to give away his daughter’s
Hand in marriage a feast is going to be declared and then from there you lie in the wedding chamber and because it did not go down like this in this case this is why Joseph was daunted with fear
But verse 20 but while he thought on these things behold the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream saying Joseph thou son of David fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife for that which is conceived in her is of the holy ghost meaning Joseph don’t worry
Just because this is unconventional it doesn’t mean that you’re going to be up against shame the Lord is working with you because he’s chosen you to be the father of the Messiah Mary is now going to conceive from your sperm this is what is already going down you got to put yourself
In the situation if you come into the truth we haven’t seen this happen so many years time and time and time again brother and sister are interested in each other they go through a courtship process they say with their mouths oh yeah you know we’re just gonna
Hold out we’re gonna wait until the wedding we know how to control ourselves month or two later uh yeah um I’m sorry brother um see what had happened was me and brother uh Gedaliah we already kind of did what we did this happens all the time and when it happens there’s a recourse
That needs to be taken to make sure that that marriage is godly at the wedding feast you’re getting the papers the people know about it when two people are just sexing behind closed doors it’s a secret marriage is not supposed to be that way marriage overall is supposed to be
Something that everybody knows this is the reason why there is a marriage certificate to acknowledge who this woman belongs to in marriage and this is the reason why there is a bill of divorce all of this down low stuff that makes you subject to shame this is why the scripture says marriage
Is honorable and all it’s supposed to be a great celebration that the community would rejoice fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife for that which is conceived in her is of the holy ghost the angel is telling Joseph don’t worry Joseph I’m behind this and she shall bring forth a son
And thou shall call his name Jesus for he shall save his people from their sins his people makes reference to his lineage his generation him being from the children of Israel that ha your lineage is given to you through sex through your loins then offspring from one generation to the next
But here we go here’s where the problem comes in now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet saying behold a virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth a son and they shall call his name Emmanuel which being interpreted is God
With us when everyone reads this word virgin that’s what makes them think that Mary never had sex but let’s look at what the scholars say behind the use of the word virgin in the text see this is where you have to apply scholarship to your learning when we read in verse 22
Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of by the Lord uh by the prophet saying this is talking about the book of Isaiah during the time of Isaiah it was prophesied a virgin shall be with child and shall bring
Forth a son and they shall call his name Emmanuel which being interpreted is God with us to find the proper reference all you need to do is go to Isaiah chapter 7 verse 14. here’s where we fall off the horse the scholars know the word virgin does not guarantee
That a woman has had sex or not that’s why we’re going to look at this put it on the screen so you can see it with your own two eyes I’m not making none of this up I’m sharing this so that way you
Could see it with your own eyes let’s go now to the word alma okay alma notice Hebrew text is a Hebrew word for a young woman of child bearing age this was the case regarding Mary despite its importance to the account of the virgin birth of Jesus in the gospel of Matthew
Scholars agree that it has nothing to do with virginity but is taken by many to refer rather to a woman who has not yet borne a child it’s telling you right there in plain English from the scholars is telling you right there when everybody reads the word virgin they presume
The woman hadn’t had sex they’re focused on their western world view of the word virgin which to them has been taught a woman who has not been penetrated but when you go off of biblical definitions rather than the world you will come to find that the word
Virgin does not only mean a woman who has not met had sex one of the definitions of the word virgin is a young woman of marriageable age regardless of if she had sex or not
Go and look this up for yourself I’m putting the receipts on here right here for you to see it this is what the scholars are pointing out it says alma which was the word going back to
Virgin in the text in which this was written is a Hebrew word for a young woman of childbearing age despite its importance to the account of the virgin birth of Jesus in the gospel of Matthew scholars agree that it has nothing to do with virginity but it is taken by many to refer
Rather to a woman who has not yet borne a child do you know the reason why it’s taken by many because the world imposes on us its understanding and then we take that and run with it and think
It’s coming out of the bible this is the reason why many of you don’t understand the different meanings of the word world this is the reason why many of you don’t understand what John 3 16 is truly saying this is the reason why many people don’t understand the meaning of the word
Love in its totality because what the world does is they tell you what to think not knowing there are multiple definitions of all these things there’s multiple definitions of the word virgin multiple definitions of the word world multiple definitions of the word love but yet we will be so
Locked into one train of thought that we say nope I’m gonna just stick to whatever definition I got out of Esau school system and surely I can make that square peg fit into a round hole you have to use the bible to understand bible context bible definitions and as we can see
Despite its importance to the account of the virgin birth of Jesus in the gospel of Matthew scholars agreed that it has nothing to do with virginity but it is taken by many to refer rather to a woman who has not yet borne a child so with all thy getting let’s get understanding now
Let’s move back to where we were we’re still in Matthew chapter one do me a favor brothers and sisters please make sure that you smash that like button please make sure that you continue to share
This class Matthew chapter 1 and now we’re going back to verse 21 and she shall bring forth a son and thou shall call his name Jesus for he shall save his people from their sins and let me say
Something else I truly thank all of you brothers and sisters for taking the time to go through this you’ll notice what a lot of people will do is they won’t dedicate the amount of time to actually go through this lesson read the verses for themselves and then come to the conclusion
That Joseph is the biological father of Mary instead what they’ll do is they’ll cut this video on for two seconds say up this goes contrary to what I was taught in the Christian church and they would just go off of what a man told them rather than studying to show themselves
Approved this happens all the time it takes time in order to go through these sayings this is not basic understanding brothers and sisters like I said at the very beginning in order for you to even understand how Christ was born you’ve got to know the promises that were written in prophecy
You’ve got to know the customs of the Jews and you’ve got to know the timeline of the gospels here it says in verse 21 and she shall bring forth a son and shall call his name Jesus for he shall
Save his people from their sins now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet saying behold a virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth a son
And they shall call his name Emmanuel which being interpreted is God with us now if you’re applying critical thinking to what you’re learning the question that should be popping up in your mind is if I want to stay on the understanding that Mary had not had sex in virginity
How do I reconcile that with all of the different precepts I read about Christ being the son of David according to the flesh how do I justify the word talking about he shall come from between the man’s feet how do I justify Samuel saying it’s going to come to the
Seed in thy bowels how do I explain the multitude of verses that I read beyond Isaiah 7 and 14 which says that Christ will come from the seed of David if you are using logic and reason it will
Dawn on you the only way that those scriptures can all work together in harmony is if virgin applies as a young woman of marriageable age not a woman who never had sex a woman who was
Guided by the angel to have sex with a man and that’s how she was able to receive the seed of David through Joseph of David’s lineage that’s the only way that those two things can coincide if you want to say okay Mary no no no no I’m sticking to what I’ve been taught
Out of TD Jake’s church then that means you got to omit the book of acts the book of Romans the book of Samuel the book of Chronicles the book of Genesis all of those books now are a lie just so that way you can stand on the misinterpretation of one verse amongst
A multitude of scriptures this is the reason why the bible commands us to rightly divide the word if it’s saying two different things seemingly the bible is not contradicting itself it’s for you to see how it comes together yes Mary was a virgin in the sense of being a young woman
Of marriageable age and that’s the reason why God had favor upon her among women who had different ages to say okay now you’re going to get with Joseph Joseph’s going to lie with you y’all are
Going to have this child and there you will have Jesus the Christ that is how it all comes together behold a virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth a son and they shall call his name Emmanuel which being interpreted is God is with us and you want to know something
We can prove this because if we understand the definition of the word virgin as a young woman of marriageable age we can get through this verse based upon everything else that we’ve read in the bible and the prophecies are still true behold a young woman of marriageable
Age shall be with child and shall bring forth a son and they shall call his name Emmanuel which being interpreted is God is with us that’s true this falls in harmony with the scriptures
But we’ll read on then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had been in him and took unto him his wife and knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son and he
Called his name Jesus this is yet another landmine where people will look and say got you here Uzziah how are you going to get around this one I’m telling you see brothers and sisters this is the reason why we were warned in the book of Peter that they that are unlearned and unstable
Would wrestle with Paul’s writings as they would the other scriptures a lot of us we hang our entire understanding on Paul’s epistles but yet we will reject what Paul said in Romans 1 and 3 about Christ coming according to the seed of David according to the flesh we’ll blot that out
And then we’ll air on the other scriptures of the new testament when saint Matthew says and knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son this does not denote that they never had sex this is simply giving you a chronological timeline on what happened after this point this is the
Reason why I stress the importance of the timeline if you’re going to be a bible scholar you have to acknowledge the context you have to acknowledge the timeline you got to look at things and be
Like okay when this was going on who was in rule who was the king were the Israelites under the Egyptians were they under the Assyrian’s were they under the Babylonians what was the customs you know the Israelites had all these different types of laws civil moral dietary ceremonial sacrificial
How did these laws manifest itself in day-to-day life if you don’t know any of these things but then but then you get raised up in a church that’s just like oh you know Mary just out of
Thin air here come a baby out you’re gonna be lost and that’s the reason why the scripture says ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free I’m gonna go now to um this is in a book of
Y’all bear with me first Samuel chapter one first Samuel chapter one I’m I’m I’m getting this all back we’re getting it all together now y’all know we going through a lot and we almost done but just bear with me as I’ve stated before when we’re reading in this account of the gospels from
Saint Matthew this is not speaking about what’s happening prior to this in verse 25 this is talking about what would happen subsequently after Joseph being raised up from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bitten him we’re learning about what happened after that point but the child the
Woman is already pregnant the child is coming so we need to see okay what is this really saying for any of you that think okay and knew her not till she had brought forth her born son means
He this tells us he never lied with her come look at this this is first Samuel chapter one and we’re going to start at verse uh first Samuel chapter one I wanna see where I wanna start on this this is
Verse 19 and they rose up in the morning early and worshiped before the Lord and returned and came to their house to Ramah and Elkanah knew Hannah his wife and the Lord remembered her wherefore it came to pass when the time was come about after Hannah had conceived
That she bear a son and called his name Samuel saying because I have asked him of the Lord so if we use the argument that a man knowing his wife means this is the first time that they had
Sex surely we would have to plug this into what we’re reading right here Elkanah knew his wife and the Lord remembered her was this the first time that Elkanah and Hannah had sex no when you read in the history of okay night and Hannah Elkanah had two
Wives he had Hannah as one wife and Peninnah as the other Peninnah had Elkanah’s children but Hannah did not have children throughout k9 up to this point because she was barren when you read in verse 5 it reads but unto Hannah he gave a worthy
Portion for he loved Hannah but the Lord had shut up her womb Hannah and Elkanah had sex before but the thing about it is she did not yet have child just because a child is conceived doesn’t mean that that’s the first time a woman had sex come on let’s get real now
You might not know how many times a woman had sex prior to a woman being conceived with child so I’m just wanting to show you brothers and sisters this you may read Matthew opening up the bible right in the middle having never read none of the history that predates this and you could
Come to these assumptions as a layperson but every time we’re going into a scripture I’m showing you no it’s not talking about that it’s talking about this here’s the scripture here’s the verse go and look at it on your own these scriptures said Christ would be
Made through the seed of David the question is how is that going to happen you tell me how it happened I’m going to read Galatians chapter 4 verse 4 Galatians chapter 4 verse 4 but when the fullness of the time was come God sent forth his son made of a woman
Made under the law now I got a question for you say the father actually did this miraculous virgin birth where Mary never had sex and just through a puff of smoke here it is she’s wrought with child how would Christ have been made under the law
Questions you got to ask yourself but when the fullness of the time was come meaning that the lord had a timetable on when Christ was coming into the earth he had a plan this Joseph and Mary thing this was all a part of a divine plan that God orchestrated he told
Uh the prophets the Messiah is coming on the earth through the seed of David we read this all the way back in Genesis 49 the scepter’s not going to depart from Judah nor a law given from between
His feet through the loins of Judah there’s going to be a king there’s going to be a ruler and through David’s seed this particular king is going to reign forever so y’all tell me who it was talking about if it’s not talking about Jesus Christ who’s sitting on the throne of
David forever if it’s not Jesus Christ who has an everlasting kingdom that cannot be destroyed you have to acknowledge the Messiah on that if we’re going to honor the bible if we’re going to say that this man is the king of kings we must acknowledge this is the son of David
Not because it was David himself that light with a woman and then from there Christ was born it was a line of sons as we read about in Chronicles that then ended up down to Christ in the lineage
The same way that it outlines in Matthew chapter one but when the fullness of the time was come God sent forth his son how did he do that he sent the spirit Christ was already here before he came in physical form he dwelt amongst the father in the spirit
World he was already in the third heaven so God sends forth his son how does he do it the same way that he sends every other spirit on the earth he has a man and a woman come together
Through the acts of sex the man gives the sperm God gives the spirit and then from there the child is born the child is created God sent forth the son made of a woman made under the law
Y’all tell me what law you get out of this bible where women are just born or uh women are just uh procreating all these kids pumping out all these kids through hocus pocus show me what law
I’ll stand corrected show me what law God sent forth his son made of a woman made under the law to redeem them that were under the law that’s us that we might receive the adoption of sons this is
Crystal clear anywhere you go old testament or new testament is all saying the same thing that’s the beauty of the bible this is why Christ told us I come in the volume of the book this is the reason
Why in the same chapter where that’s referenced Christ says sacrifice and burnt offering thou what is not but a body thou has prepared how was the body prepared by Joseph lying with Mary creating the shell which comes through a conception from sperm and then from there the spirit was imparted
Christ was already a spiritual presence but he needed a physical body to be made manifest on this earth to die for our sins and it’s crystal clear in the bible if you take the time
To read this is in Hebrews chapter 2 verse 9. I got more scriptures just in case these ain’t clear enough I got more scriptures and more scriptures all praises to the Lord Hebrews chapter 2 verse 9
But when we see Jesus who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor that he by the grace of god should taste death for every man who is this
Talking about Jesus the Christ king of kings Lord of Lords now we jump down to verse 16. for verily he took not on him the nature of angels but he took on him the seed of Abraham how did he
Take on the seed of Abraham because from Abraham Isaac to Jacob Jacob begat Judah Judah begat his sons and then you go over and over into the lineage of David all the way down through Joseph it tell it says right here guys how many scriptures do we really gotta pull for
Verily he took not on him the nature of angels telling you right here wasn’t no angel that was lying down with Mary this wasn’t no angel sperm it was the sperm of a man the man was Joseph
For verily he took not on him the nature of angels but he took on him the seed the seed the sperm the loins of Abraham why is this why was it that it wasn’t just this miraculous thing where up you snap your fingers and oh look there’s a baby no man
Wherefore in all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to god to make reconciliation for the sins of the people for in that he himself have suffered
Being tempted he is able to support them that are tempted now I want you all to look at this when it says wherefore in all things we already understand what that’s talking about all things it behooved him the word behooved mean it’s necessary it is necessary that he be made like
Unto his brethren how how were his brethren made through sex through a man and a woman lying down with each other and then from there a child is born wherefore in all things okay this would have contradicted if Christ was made totally different from how all of his other brothers was made
If it was this miraculous conception wherefore in all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren see this is what we got to understand brothers and sisters the miracle of the matter is that among all the women in the world the Lord chose Mary to deliver
Christ that’s a great honor but it wasn’t anything beyond God having the angel to give instruction we all know that when it comes to the time of Manoah in the book of judges but then we get to
The new testament for some reason and then just lose our wits wherefore in all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest
In things pertaining to God you all know what this is saying the reason why Christ had to be made just like everybody else is so that way he could understand the things that we go through
If he was the seed of an angel he would not resonate with the challenges of man I’m not born of an angel I’m come from my father’s seed because I come from a mortal man I have certain
Um thoughts I’m fallible I’m a human being so Christ had to be created as a human being so that way he could understand what human beings go through listen if this was just all about some angel hocus pocus stuff why didn’t the father just leave Christ in the spirit world
Why was it necessary to send that man down unto this earth so that way he could posture himself in a physical body wherefore in all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren through the act of sex that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining
To God to make reconciliation for the sins of the people for in that he himself had suffered being tempted he is able to secure them that are tempted in order for you to show mercy to me you
Got to know what I’m going through you’ve got to be able to live this out you’ve got to be able to come on this earth and understand what lust feels like you got to understand what anger feels like
Not because you’re some angel that’s holier than thou but because you’re a man like I am a man and you know what it’s like to go through this worldly state that was the entire reason why God said no
No no you ain’t gonna spend all this time just up in the heavens you want to get out here with the rest of these people and see what this world is really about and then if you endure through that
And die for the sins of the people then I’m going to sit you at my right hand that’s how the father orchestrated it but he couldn’t have orchestrated it if Christ was so disconnected from us that’s why in all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren
So now we’re gonna go to the Wisdom of Solomon some of y’all already know about this verse some of y’all don’t I just wanted to go through a whole series of scriptures before we even brought this out if y’all didn’t believe nothing else that the bible says you better believe this now remember
The prophecy from the book of Samuel in Chronicles is that through David’s loins there would reign a king to rule forever from a physical presence we know that David brought forth his son Solomon we’re going to go into the Wisdom of Solomon to see what Solomon from the seed of David
David’s biological son said about the virgin birth this is the Wisdom of Solomon the seventh chapter and the first verse in the apocrypha I myself also am a mortal man like to all and the offspring of
Him that was first made of the earth and in my mother’s womb was fashioned to be flesh in the time of ten months being compacted in blood of the seed of man and the pleasure that came with sleep
And when I was born I drew in the common air and fell upon the earth which is of like nature and the first voice which I uttered was crying as all others do I was nursed in swaddling clothes
And that with cares for there is no king that had any other beginning of birth now you might look at this and of course in the spirit of gain saying say well didn’t Solomon physically come before Jesus the Christ on earth you keep talking about this
Timeline and the chronology why aren’t you talking about how Solomon came before Christ and if Solomon came before Christ then maybe it would make sense that he didn’t see any other king be born through any other way because Jesus the Christ the king of kings he came after Solomon
I hear your thought let’s jump down into the chapter verse 17 this is still Solomon speaking for he have given me certain knowledge of the things that are namely to know how the world was made and the operation of the elements the beginning ending and midst of times
The alterations of the turning of the sun and the change of seasons so I want you all to see this and you know what I’m also get verse 21 and all such things as are either secret or manifest them
I know now look at this Moses knew about the coming of Christ scripture says a prophet shall be raised like unto me to thy brethren uh Isaiah knew it said the diversion would be in child that was Isaiah 7 and 14. all these different old testament prophets knew it
But Solomon who was shown the beginning middle and in the times he didn’t know about the Messiah Solomon the same descendant who actually lived immediately after David who was groomed by David and David told him directly show himself a man Solomon didn’t know
That there was going to be another king to come on this earth after he was gone Solomon saw all of this for he had given me certain knowledge of the things that are namely to know how the world was made and you know what’s so heavy about that
Solomon could not know how the world was made had he not known Christ because Christ made the world Christ was there from the beginning when the world was made so he knows Christ better than we do in this mortal form there’s so many wonderful things that was shown to Solomon and Paul that
We cannot even understand is too wonderful for us so if Solomon is going on record and saying I have knowledge of the things that are mainly to know how the world was made Christ created it and the operation of the elements the beginning ending in midst of the times
How could God show the end of time if he can’t show Christ that represents the end of time how can you have knowledge about the times but you don’t know the story of a man’s life who literally altered time we’re living in 2022 a.d the a.d is after the death of Christ
So Solomon had to know all of this and what did Solomon say after being shown all of that for there is no king that had any other beginning of birth he outlines it all the way from verse one
Down to verse 4 letting you know how men come into this earth I myself also am a mortal man like to all and the offspring of him that was made first of the earth okay Adam then down and in my mother’s womb was fashioned to be flesh in the time of ten months
Being compacted in blood of the seed of man and the pleasure that came with sleep and when I was born I drew in the common air and fell upon the earth which is of like nature and the first
Voice which I uttered was crying as all others do this goes back to what we read about in Hebrews wherefore in all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren Christ had to come
From seed he had to be compacted in blood there had to be time that he was in his mother’s womb and then from there he would take in the common air and the first voice in which he uttered was
Crying as all others do this is the reason why even when you look at the life of Christ you see that he began his ministry at 30. you don’t see Christ coming right out the mother’s womb okay watch me walk on water watch me you know come and declare all these wonderful things
It didn’t happen that way why because it had to be documented that Christ came out just like everyone else did through the act of sex and Christ himself had to be groomed by parents as that of us
It was behooved that it was done that way in all things now let me show you guys where all this stems from let me show you where the modern day uh programming of the immaculate conception and the virgin birth all stems from this all stems from
The Roman catholic church what many of us don’t realize is that there’s a difference between the bible referring to Christians that followed Christ versus the the creation of the religion of Christianity that was established in Rome bible Christian Rome Christianity we’re not
The descendants of Rome we’re the descendants of the children of Israel so we got to go to the bible rather than man-made religions to understand what the bible is saying this is the reason why we never impose any uh man-made denominations or man-made traditions but rather if we say something
We have to be justified from the word of God God did not give us religions he gave us commandments so now when we deal with this virgin birth right as we understand it this is what you have to see
You have to see that the interpretation of mother Mary it all comes from the roman catholic church look at this the four marian dogmas this is from catholic school learning the first dogma now what does the word dogma mean this means that these are accepted beliefs throughout the entire
Umbrella of Christianity whether you are catholic whether you are seven day adventist whether you are baptist whether you are kogic when the roman catholic church establishes a dogma it is a belief that is imposed to every denomination in the Christian world the Christian
Theology this is the reason why they have something called the world council of churches when all of these various denominational leaders will come together to learn what things they are mandated to teach as per Roman catholic order the four marian dogmas
One her divine motherhood early church upheld by the council of Ephesus in 431 a.d this is coming out 431 years after Christ perished wow a lot of things could change from from then a lot of things and that takes us to a whole other class that we got to do
About Paul’s letters about a great falling away we’ll deal with that another time Mary is properly called the mother of God because her son Jesus Christ is both true God and true man never did Christ give up his two natures since his incarnation her perpetual virginity
Early church upheld by the church fathers the incarnation of Jesus did not spoil the virginity of Mary God preserved her virginity before during and after the birth of Christ she remained a virgin for life so here it is we go through scripture after scripture where the scriptures say
Joseph is the husband of Mary Roman catholic church says nope this is just a virgin that just did her own thing now again brothers and sisters what are getting good understanding for someone to be husband and wife how do they consummate the marriage how is there a shift from
We’re promised together I’m espoused to you we’re betrothed to now okay I’m your husband now there has to be a consummation and even when you read in the scriptures this is not even Mary’s only child
But this is the reason why the bible says we ought to obey God rather than men but the roman catholic church created a dogma to say she remained a virgin for life her immaculate conception early church formerly defined by pope Pius the ninth in 1850 come on y’all
See y’all gotta y’all gotta want this to be the doctrine and let some of this stuff fly okay all of this is of the Lord but this is not defined until 1854 almost 2
000 years after the man is gone I mean it’s almost 2 000 years from the time that the man was born why do you need to 2000 years if it was evident to everybody that this was the case
Why would it need to be formally defined in any way outside the bible I thought I thought God has already given the definition he’s this is the reason why the bible says add not unto thy word except he reproved thee and thou be found a liar her immaculate conception
Early church formally defined by pope we now read about no pope pius in the bible uh 9 in 1854 in Mary God prepared a dwelling place for the incarnation of Jesus at the first moment of her conception in the womb of her mother saint anne Mary was preserved free from all staying
Of original sin wow that’s heavy her assumption body and soul early church formally defined by pope pius the 12th in 1950 some of y’all got parents that’s older than these doctrines coming out but you hold on to them as though they were gospel Mary being the immaculate ever
Virgin mother of God after finishing the course of her life on earth was taken up body and soul to heaven free from the stain of original sin her body was not subject to decay okay and also by the way before we get off this I just want you to happen to notice
The images that you see on the screen how convenient and see there’s the reason why when all of you say color doesn’t matter you don’t realize that the iconoclasm is camouflaged under the changing of doctrines it’s not just the images that were changed of the prophets
It was also the traditions and the customs this is the reason why so many people celebrate holidays that they cannot reference out of the bible all of this comes from the traditions of men but when Christ was on the earth he spoke against the traditions of men
Knowing the evils they could bring about this is the reason why Christ warned us false Christ shall arise in so much that they will deceive the very elect and we’ve been deceived my brothers and sisters and the only way that we can come back to truth is if we believe
On Christ as the scriptures say so as we close this out we’re going to go to Luke this is Luke chapter 6 verse 38 before all this stuff got changed back in 1800 a.d 1950 how did the people who actually walked the earth with Christ know Christ to be
In terms of how he was born this is the book of Luke the sixth chapter and the 38th verse it’s uh uh give me one quick second y’all give me one quick second do me a favor y’all while we’re doing this please make sure that y’all smash that like button
If you have not yet done so please make sure that you uh subscribe and turn on the notification bell so that way you can tune in to more classes from our church okay notice this this is in the book of John John chapter 6 verse 38 for I came down from heaven
Not to do mine own will but the will of him that sent me and this is the father’s will which hath sent me that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing but should raise it up
Again at the last day and this is the will of him that sent me that everyone which seeth the son and believeth on him may have everlasting life and I will raise him up at the last day
The Jews then murmured at him because he said I am the bread which came down from heaven and they said is not this Jesus the son of Joseph whose father and mother we know how is it then that he saith I came down from heaven when Christ spoke he spoke in parables
It was not for everyone to understand here the people murmured because they’re like what is this guy saying I came down from heaven I know who his father is you gotta understand this is community okay imagine now you don’t think at any point Joseph would have said well you know what guys
Ah I’m sorry I’m not really the father because an angel he was the one that put that seed in my wife and from there the child was born don’t call me the father I’m just this random guy that’s
Somewhere in the midst of this how was Joseph the father Joseph is the father because he imparted his seed in Mary his wife and they said is not this Jesus the son of Joseph see a lot of y’all
Think my people part of the reason why it was so hard for the Jews to receive Christ as the Messiah is because he came from humble beginnings it wasn’t like there was this larger than
Life oh my God look at the sky is cracked open here comes Christ now on a silver platter no he came from Nazareth and people said the Messiah is born and he came out of Nazareth can any good
Thing come from out of there we got to understand familiarity breeds contempt this is the reason why Christ said a prophet is not without honor except amongst his own people everybody is astonished at
Him talking about he’s come from heaven we’re like yo I know who your father is I know who your mama is I know you daddy is you’re just like the rest of us that’s why it behooved him to be made like
Unto his brethren in all things that was a part of the miracle and real quick I almost forgot which would have been more impressive Christ being conceived of an angel sperm and then coming on this earth and walking without sin or him being created just like the rest of us
And overcoming all trials in temptation what would have been more miraculous a man just like us growing up in the same cities dealing with the same challenges enduring all of the temptations that we received from our youth up and overcoming them
Or this story about this angelic child who was just made out of a pillar of smoke and then from there he looked at all of the servants among him and said oh you little peasants you deal with
Lust but I don’t know what that is I’m without sin no the reason why Christ was born this way is because God had to show forth the amazing wonders of a man coming on this earth in the flesh and then overcoming all of the trials of
Man this is the reason why Christ is called the son of man because he was born from a man and they said is not this Jesus the son of Joseph whose father and mother we know
Okay how could they have said they knew this father if it was some angel for far off they knew the man that impregnated Mary how is it then that he saith I came down from heaven see these
Were all things that a lot of our people they couldn’t wrap their mind around like remember whenever Christ was talking to Nicodemus and he was talking about being born again Nicodemus thought okay well is he a man going to go into his mother’s womb for a second time how
Is all this going to happen Christ is speaking uh uh symbolically while living in a physical state and it was up to us to learn it that’s the reason why it was given unto the disciples to understand
Speaking of the disciples what did they think when they saw Jesus the Christ they walk with the man surely they know more about him than we do John chapter 1 verse 45 Philip findeth Nathaniel
And sayeth unto him we have found him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did right Jesus of Nazareth the son of Joseph and Nathaniel said unto him can there any good thing come out of Nazareth Philip said unto him come and see that was a part of the miracle
The miracle was the Messiah who brings deliverance to the people is going to come from one of the most wretched of plays from a place you would not expect everybody’s thinking oh man surely the Messiah he’s going to come in on this high horse in this angelic robe
All of us are going to see him and behold his great wonders no Christ didn’t come like that he came out of Nazareth because it was a stumbling block for people to truly see wow good things do come from humble beginnings that’s the reason why Zachariah tells you not to despise it don’t
Despise humble beginning because you don’t know what could come out of this you think okay this is just Joseph yeah we know him that’s our guy but you don’t realize the Lord is going to move joseph
To then procreate the Messiah it’s God’s spirit that’s coming into this womb but God is going to use men on earth to fulfill his will okay now we’re going to go to Luke chapter 2 verse 48 Luke chapter 2 verse 48 please watch this class over and take good notes
It reads and when they saw him they were amazed um let me let me bring this back let me bring this back I’m not even gonna do it like that I’m gonna bring it up a little bit earlier just so y’all can walk with me into this point
Luke chapter 2 verse 41 now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the Passover and when he was 12 years old they went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast and when they had fulfilled the days as they returned the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem and
Joseph and his mother knew not of it but they supposing him to have been in the company went a day’s journey and they sought him among their kins folk and acquaintance and when they found him
Not they turned back again to Jerusalem seeking him and it came to pass that after three days they found him in the temple sitting in the midst of the doctors both hearing them and asking questions and all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers
And when they saw him they were amazed and his mother said unto him son why has thou dealt with us behold thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing so Mary now she regards this man Joseph as the father if anybody would know who the father is Mary would be it
Mary then says thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing why joseph don’t pop out of thin air I ain’t the father do you I never had sex with you what are you talking about this is what everyone understood when Christ was on the earth long before
Pope pius long before Christianity under the roman catholic church the true believers of the word that actually followed Christ this was the understanding they had the disciples had it the Jews had it Mary who had the boy had it
But you know what they all got it wrong us here in 2022 who’ve been following after the pope who said that Jesus Christ is a white man with blond hair and blue eyes they’ve got the right understanding everybody else in the bible who actually saw this they they’re all wrong they’re all off
And how crazy for scripture after scripture to go out and nobody correct none of this heresy and when they saw him they were amazed and his mother said unto him son why hast thou dealt with us behold thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing she’s giving Joseph the the president
She’s deferring to Joseph your father and I if this was if Joseph was a nobody it would have been all on Mary hey me and this dude that I’m with we was looking for you know thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing were your parents we birthed you
And he said unto them how is it that ye sought me wist ye not that I must be about my father’s business and they understood not the saying which he spake unto them now why wouldn’t they understand that guys could it be they didn’t understand it
Because Christ was referencing somebody outside of his biological father could it be that they didn’t understand it if Joseph who Mary is regarding as the father right here is right in front of the child confronting him and then he says I got to be about my father’s business what business son
I didn’t give you this business to stay up here in Jerusalem we came up here for the Passover now it’s time to go back he’s speaking about somebody else that they don’t know I mean this is so clear once the spirit really kicks in this is the reason why when you read in
The 48th verse of this chapter the word father has a lowercase f then when you read in the 49th verse it’s referring to an uppercase F the lowercase f from verse 48 is referring to the biological father the man who gave the seed the 49th verse is giving an uppercase F
Acknowledging the spiritual Father in heaven who’s the heavenly Father to us all that’s making reference to the man that put the spirit in the womb these are making reference to two different things there is a biological father and then there is a heavenly Father that we are
All subject to maybe you don’t see it we’re gonna go to another verse in the new testament this is in uh Hebrews Paul’s epistle to the Hebrews Hebrews chapter 12 verse 9. I want y’all to notice this furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us and we
Gave them reverence shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits and live now when Paul is writing here and using the word Father is he talking about two different people or is he talking about the same person there’s the fathers of our flesh which correct us as Joseph
Did and then there’s the Father of spirits that gives eternal life there’s a distinction one from the other these were all beliefs that our forefathers understood but us being estranged from the bible in the modern day there is no way that we could ever wrap our mind around
You’re going to have a biological father and you’re going to have a Father of spirits Jesus had a biological father the same way that David did Jesus also had a Father of spirits just like
We do we are all accountable to that man the head of every man is Christ the head of Christ is THE MOST HIGH this is a common understanding y’all but I’m telling you we’re so warped we think knowing that you’re Israel is a big deal you don’t realize throughout this entire bible nobody
Was really that geeked up and knowing that there the Israelites the bible speaks of it was common knowledge but we’ve been destroyed for a lack of knowledge so much this is like trigonometry to us
And this is the reason why we must repent this is the reason why we must endure to the end because the Lord is going to show us all things we know important prophesy in part now but in that day
When the Messiah returns he’s going to bring all things to our remembrance as well as our understanding and a lot is being brought to us right now and it’s in the prophecy but some will
See it and some won’t this is Matthew chapter 13 verse 53 we’re going to close it out right here Matthew chapter 13 verse 53 now some of you may be watching this from the roman catholic church
Um and you might be saying to yourself wow this is one of the biggest abominations I have ever seen how dare this man get on here and say that Mary wasn’t you know in her virginity and she had
Never had sex let’s look at this verse right here Matthew chapter 13 verse 53 and it came to pass that when Jesus had finished these parables he departed thence and when he was coming to his own country he taught them in their synagogue in so much that they were astonished and said
Whence have this man wisdom and these mighty works is not this the carpenter’s son who is the carpenter y’all the angel is the is the carpenter some somebody floating in the sky somewhere with a halo on their head no this is talking about Joseph Christ learned how to be a carpenter from his
Biological father the biological father he’s going to train the child is not this the carpenter’s son is not his mother called Mary now how do you think that all these different Jews are able to link Joseph and Mary together because when marriages took place it was common knowledge
For everybody to know it was it was not commonly understood among the Jews oh okay Mary’s are far off over here and she just had a baby on her own y’all we don’t know who the daddy is it’s somebody
From outer space that wasn’t the understanding is not this the carpenter’s son is not his mother called Mary and his brethren the the the siblings that they had more children with and his brethren James and Joseph and Simon and Judas and his sisters and had plenty kids are they not all
With us so now this puts us even more through a whirlwind because okay was it the virgin birth just for Jesus or was it the virgin birth for all of these children that married and had every last
One of these children married and had here it is Joseph he’s just sitting up watching somebody else baby after baby after baby after baby I’m righteous though I’m a just man come on man with all thy getting get understanding wisdom is the principal thing and it is high time for us to
Come back to this bible I pray that you brothers and sisters uh learned something were edified and you will use this class as inspiration to get closer to Christ according to the scriptures and with that brothers and sisters we say shalom okay thank you so much for all of you tuning in
If you have yet to do so please make sure you smash that like button uh make sure that you turn on the notification bell so you can receive an alert every time that we do another class there’s still a lot to go over brothers and sisters but we need your support
Okay uh please make sure that you donate because your donations will go a very long way towards us continuing to build okay if you have any questions brothers and sisters please make sure that you contact support@truespiritofchrist.com
Feel free to leave a comment and Lord’s will we will see you guys on the next lesson until next time we wish you peace and blessings may you and your households be blessed shalom
We all long for the world to be good for people to live in peace act with love and justice but there’s a problem something compels us humans to constantly wreak havoc and destruction instead and we call this evil and from the Bible’s point of view, evil ruins
Things in at least two ways. There’s a direct effect of our evil like when someone steals from another person they’ve created injustice therefore they owe something to make it right but there’s another indirect effect of evil because they’ve also ruined the environment of the relationship creating a lack of
Trust there’s emotional damage it’s like vandalism and they need to make that right too. Now many people believe ‘Hey God is good he should be the one to just get rid of all the evil in the world.’ But let’s be honest I mean the evil that I see everywhere
Out there it’s the same evil that’s inside of me. We have all contributed and we keep doing it. So this kind of puts us in a bind if God’s going to rid the world of evil, he’ll have to get rid of us. And this is what’s so remarkable about the story
Of the Bible. This God is so good that not only is he going to rid the world of evil he’s going to do it without destroying humanity. So how is he going to do that? Well early in the story of the Bible we’re introduced to this practice of animal sacrifice which I
Know seems weird to us but for the Israelites it was a very powerful symbol of God’s justice and of His grace. So remember I’m a contributor to the evil that’s in the world I should be removed. But God is allowing this animal’s life
To be a substitute. It symbolically dying in my place. And the biblical word for this is atonement, which means to cover over someone’s death. But there’s a second part to this ritual remember evil also causes this relational vandalism and in the Bible this
Idea is described as polluting or defiling the land and making it unclean so the priest would symbolically wash away the vandalism by sprinkling the animal’s blood in different parts of the temple. So the animal’s blood is cleaning things? Well, remember this is a symbol and it’s a symbol that we’re not
Used to. The blood represents life and the sprinkling of the blood is this representation of how God is cleaning away these indirect consequences of evil in their community. In the Bible this process is called purification and so the temple in the land now become a clean space where God and His people can
Live together in peace So this ritual makes things right between Israel and God? And more than that! The Israelites experience God’s love and His grace through these symbols and by being forgiven ideally this would compel them to become people of love and grace that’s the ideal but
It wasn’t always happening right so the prophet Isaiah for example he talks a lot about this he opens his book by saying that the continual sacrifices of the Israelites had become meaningless because they were also allowing great evil in their midst. Ignoring the poor and the oppressed even the Israelite
Kings were distorting justice. But Isaiah looked forward to a day when a new king from the line of David would come and deal with evil but in a surprising way the King would become a servant and not just serve but also suffer and die for the
Evil committed by his own people and his life would be offered as a sacrifice this is the promise of Jesus believed he was fulfilling he’s the king of Israel suffering and dying on the cross. In fact, Jesus himself used Isaiah’s words when he said
That he came to serve and give his life as a ransom for many. And that word ransom refers to the sacrifice of atonement and so all over the New Testament we hear about how Jesus’ death was an atoning sacrifice for us. It covered the debt that
Humans owe God for contributing to all of the evil and death in His world but the new testament authors also talk about Jesus death as providing purification and so we hear about Jesus’ blood as a symbol of his life having this ability
To wash away the vandalism that evil has caused in and around us so we can now live at peace with God so that’s the meaning behind Jesus’ death but there’s more to the story. Yeah, the New Testament makes this powerful claim that Jesus’s death was not final he rose from the dead
And so he’s the sacrifice who broke the power of death and evil which means that he lives on to offer his life to anyone who will accept it he is the perfect sacrifice to it which all the previous sacrifices were pointing all along. So because of Jesus
The early Christians stopped participating in the ritual animal sacrifice. But they were given new rituals there are two that Jesus taught his followers to perform the first is called baptism. Just as Jesus died so going into the water becomes this personal connection you now have to his death and
In coming out of the water you so to speak come back to life with Jesus baptism is the sacred ritual that joins your story to Jesus’s death and resurrection the second rituals called the Lord’s Supper which is a reenactment of Jesus’ last meal with his disciples and he use bread
And wine to portray his coming death as a sacrifice and so now followers of Jesus they take the bread and the cup regularly to remember and to participate in the power of Jesus’ death and in his life so these rituals they remind us of
God’s love and encourage us to live a life love and grace but they do more than that they connect us to a new life source the very power that brought Jesus back from the dead is the same power that can deal with the evil in our own
Lives and transform us into people who lead lives of love and peace. Hi this is Tim! And this is Jon! And we believe the Bible is telling one overall story from beginning to end and so we’re making videos about each individual book
Of the Bible its unique design and message and then how it fits into that overall storyline we also make videos we take one biblical theme we trace it from the beginning of Scripture all the way to the end. We are a non-profit and we
Want to give all these videos away for free so you can join us in making them by going to jointhebibleproject.com you could give a one-time gift a monthly gift few dollars a lot of dollars anything will help and we’d love
You to join us in making these. If you go to our website you can download a full resolution version of this video to play in your church or school or whatever we also have study guides to help you get through the content with other people its all for free at www.jointhebibleproject.com
See And the surrounding See The news to see Pinky maybe [Applause] Basta we’re marching Great swing years before we raised inside [Applause] We’re marching through scrubs The next song we’ll sing is we shall meet beyond the river another one of our songs from a hundred and fifty years ago Forever as the king of righteousness we should be We shall solve our songs of Bye-bye We shall say we surely traverse departed from this world brokenhearted We should meet We shall sing his praises We should round First our Savior [Applause] We should be To come Are Savior’s I’m a pilgrim and I’m a stranger and that’s what all of us are here on this earth isn’t it Terry button Oh here in this country I can’t I can’t – a charger There is no sorrow I’m I can tell They will service car I can’t Time now for our theme song I’d like to invite all of you to stand with us and sing together you will see your cover Music Sounds is mine See Shall we bow our heads for the invocation Oh Heavenly Father we thank you for this camp-meeting season we praise you that we have been able to praise you in song and now as we worship you in the study of the word and the proclamation your Holy Spirit would come
Very close control of this place and each heart each mind that is here as we talk about the precious subject of the humanity of our incarnate Lord lord help us to be able to break it down so that not only the giraffes can feast on it but the common sheep and pine rich
Province oles bless us and strengthen us and we thank you for the promise of your spirit being with us in Christ’s name we invoke that presence good morning and welcome to Minnesota camp meeting 2019 our 150th anniversary at camp meaning and the Lord is blessed again this week we’ve had an awesome
Camp meeting together those who are just coming today welcome we hope that you will find this to be a blessing we hope that your spirits will be revived and that when we go home we will be a blessing to others we do have a few announcements Kathy Park come on up
Share with us Thank You Justin how many of you know what’s special about this year 150 years since our first camp meeting and we’re going to be having something very special this afternoon you don’t want to miss it we’re going to first of all start out with a little
Presentation by dr. Michael Campbell that gives us a little bit of history about camp meetings and then we are going to have a reenactment of the 1869 camp meeting how many of you were there last weekend when we did it in Wasi OSHA a few so there are a lot of you that
Missed what we did last week because last week we were actually on the original farm where the very first camp meeting was held and it was a very special time there we actually were there for a couple hours and did several reenactments of camp innings and then we
Went over to Medford and did some reenactments there of the camp meetings in Medford and then we spent some time up at Northfield too so we are going to repeat that first act from 1869 because we know a lot of you missed it last week
So you don’t want to miss it this week and and then I’ll follow up with a few thoughts after that so it’s a very special afternoon program make sure you’re here Thank You Kathy we have a few more announcements everybody should have received a program bulletin inside of there is a card that
Looks like this we want to remind you of the Ministry of the gift planning and Trust Services Department there’s also a drawing that’s taking place tonight and if you want to be included in the drawing process the table is in the administration building we have hearing assistance available in
The back here at the sound booth if you are struggling to hear what we’re saying we offered that service and we also have live streaming if you’re not aware or there you’re having trouble in the audience feeling anything that happens in this auditorium is being live-streamed okay and the address is
There in the bulletin we do encourage parents to keep track of their children while they’re here on the campgrounds there are a lot of people we don’t know who everyone is in this setting and we want your children our children to be safe so please keep an eye on the kids
Parking we would ask if you’ve parked in the boys dorm dorm parking lot and you’re not a senior citizen and you don’t have a handicap tag on your card we’d really like you to move the car because people are still coming and we’ve reserved those spaces for people
Who may not be able to walk from the field our young adult group is meeting in the Hutchinson Church today if you’re a young adult and wondering where that is because the program doesn’t say so it is in the Hutchinson Church I think that’s it for announcements welcome again to Minnesota conference
Camp meaning the Lord has been blessing this week he’s been blessing the Minnesota conference and most of that he’s doing through people like you and me and we pray that God will continue to work through his people god bless you good morning happy Sabbath isn’t it all
Of this week we have been focused on talking about evangelism and today is a special day because we’re going to pick up an offering for evangelism my name is Duane mock I’m the treasurer for the midst of the conference and I usually kinda get stressed out sometimes when
People come in want to spend money that I don’t have in the book and I wish I was the type of person that I could go out and really you know rouse every bite to just open their wallets and put in you know hundreds of thousands of dollars names of things but my
Personality is just you know I just think the facts and hope that people understand so I’m gonna read something that comes from Spirit prophecy and maybe that will say it better than me says here Christ method alone will give true success in reaching the people the Savior mingled with man is one who
Desired their good he’s so just sympathy for them ministered their needs won their confidence then he bade them follow me the minister of Conference Board of Trustees believes in this type of ministry so much that we have put our focus on evangelism with non-traditional methods and we are leaving the door open
To local churches as to how they want to use advances and funds they can submit those type of requests to the committee and most the time it gets approved everything from chip programs to 3d seminars to stewardship on our principles on stewardship you name it if
The church is willing to give it a go we’re willing to consider it the other thing that we’ve noticed is that the best type of evangelism is friendship evangelism the type where you have created friendships with your neighbors your workers your friends your family those come into the church
Quicker than anything and we have spent in 2017 we spent three hundred and seven thousand dollars on evangelism in 2018 we spent two hundred seventy-one thousand and for 2019 we have budgeted two and forty thousand and have already spent through May one hundred sixty thousand dollars I would love it if I
Could go to Justin and say stop telling people to bring money in to elder lions that’d be so cool if we could do what happened at Mount Sinai where we have so much money they came in we didn’t know what to do with it today yeah I would
Like you to pray about it as the Deacons come forward to pick up the offering and give what you can because the work there’s so much to get to be done and if you’re not able to give of yourself by helping help financially so we can pay
For others who do and also for materials as the Deacons come forward let’s pray father we thank you so much for allowing us to come here and to enjoy a camp meeting father it is is enjoyable to be able to enjoy the 150 years of camp meeting but it’s also sad that we’re
Still here and father there’s much work yet to be done we know that and so we know that time is short and so help bless our people and those who receive the assistance to learn about you that we will be able to go home quickly Lord
And that we’re not here for a more longer time and the father would praise you for being our God and may this can mean be a prerequisite to heaven who asked this in Jesus name Amen It’s nice to see so many of you here for camp meeting Sabbath we are blessed by your fellowship and the spirit is here and we pray that your experience here would be a spark in your walk with Jesus Christ I would ask now that we all stand up and
Sing our theme song and let’s sing it so very well it’s a song it’s a heart beat it’s a song of hope very soon our suffering will be over and the NGOs will usher us into the presence of the Lord so let’s sing together we will let the
Musicians guide us as we sing let’s sing it with joy you see you come and you ser to come and you will see you coming feet a few more days music here the baby of music a future son Is my topic [Applause] Quentin sorry Would you bow your heads with me in prayer our Eternal Father we come now in thy presence to hear your weight we pray a special blessing upon the man that thou hast appointed to speak to us this hour we ask that you may cover him with a special garment of your righteousness
And that you would touch his lips with the call from the out of heaven we pray Lord that you will give him the ability to articulate your word loud and clear we ask that your enjoyment surround this place and your holy spirit may be poured
In a might way that all of us here seated to hear the word may be convicted of the truth but above all Lord we pray that each and every one here may be covered in your righteousness so that when we live this worship hour we would
Say like David said I was glad when they said let’s go into the house of the Lord for worship may we live this place celebrating in the salvation that has been given to us so free and so complete prepare us for that time when the sound
Is sounded and the sense of old and are brought forth and we come home to be with you now as we sit to listen we ask that you may strike a responsive chord in our hearts because we ask for these favors in Jesus name Amen good morning and happy Sabbath I have
The privilege of introducing our speaker for this morning he’s been with us for the last couple of days dr. Woodrow Wilson affectionately known as woody by his students and those who know him and befriend him I had the privilege of getting to know him a little bit at when
I was at Andrews University I didn’t take any classes with him he taught in the undergraduate department there while I was in seminary but I would hear him speak from time to time and meet him and something that’s always really impressed me about dr. Whitten is that he exudes
The love of Jesus amen he you know it’s it’s one thing to preach about salvation in Christ it’s another to really live it out so that your life really just shines with the love of Jesus and so thank you for being here dr. Whitten he was a
Pastor for two decades there in the 70s and 80s and then of course taught it and roost and then most recently at is the Seminary in the Philippines and now he’s retired but not really retired because you’re still traveling around and doing special speaking engagements here around
The country and around the world so so thank you again for being here dr. Whitten at this time the pilgrim singers from the South view church are going to minister to us in music There’s no disappointment in heaven nowhereness or oh no baby rockin no soul without mine our new friend we’re never a believer scar Oh I’m bound for that beautiful city – Miguel 44 we’re already in the dance Signori around the white throne sometimes homesick for heaven oh what a joy that will be when my Savior I see the beautiful city Oh I’m due Oh This side if I children we share ah bound for that beautiful to me my Lourdes me bad for his home Before what I do that’ll be when my second I say beautiful city I don’t know no Transformed in a moment of time That feel difference to me I’m honestly bad for these we already know I say Oh You guys are hot you’re explosive is this thing working it appears to be okay all right it’s still morning so good morning but it will be afternoon in about two to three minutes so good day to you it’s been a real privilege to be here this is
Not first time we’ve been to Minnesota camp meeting we were here two or three years ago we popped in here on sob that the president of the North American division was speaking and it was right before an important thing was going to be done on women’s ordination it was
That two or three years ago so we’ve been here my wife and I were traveling the United States at that time trying to go to all of the national parks in lower North America in other words we weren’t at that time aiming to go to Alaska or
Hawaii or the ones that are down in the Caribbean we were just trying to see all of those that were in continental North America the American national parks and so we had been up to whatever this one is up in the north well what is this one that hardly anybody knows about what
Voyagers yeah we had been up to voyagers and so we we decided to come and we also had of course been out to the island what’swhat’s that call the Big Island National Park well royal so and we want I want you to know we knocked off all of
Them in the lower 48 now we didn’t go to every thing that the National Park System controls but we went to the National Park National Parks okay that’s what we did so that’s our bragging rights on that and we did have a wonderful Sabbath here and saw many old
Friends and made many new friends now we’ve been talking about issues having to do with Christ and His righteousness and one of the reasons that I was asked to come here is because I have gained some notoriety for having written the definitive biography of elet Joseph Wagoner EJ Wagoner along with 80
Jones were the legendary purveyors of the Christ our righteousness revival that erupted out of the 1888 Minneapolis Minnesota General Conference and George night in his wisdom and creativity asked me to write the biography of Wagner he knew that I’d had a longtime interest in all things that Wagner was interested in
And he knew that I have a love for a story and Wagner is quite a story quite a story quite a bit of it I wish I didn’t know about that’s what I call the sad bad side of Wagner and Jones by the way let me just say here they were he
And his wife and Jones were deeply committed people but they were all hopeless workaholics and let that be a lesson to all you workaholics pray to God that He will give you the Burrow the victory over your workaholism to at least the extent that you will take time
To be with the Lord and take time to really serve the Lord but you know you can go to hell in a handbasket serving the Lord and not taking time to nurture your own soul and to care for your marriage and your children and so on okay Honey I I can’t preach over you there god bless you okay I did that myself when I was a camp-meeting one time so I’ve got to be patient god bless you parents you know I’ll get a little saying you just can’t go to heaven unless you’ve been married raise
Kids and pastored an Adventist Church those are all venues of sanctification and privilege but they also test our souls at their very core right because they all work on the principle of self-sacrificing love not me me me Wow if I don’t get my way now I was advertised to speak on at this
Particular slot on the Humanity of Christ and I had the conference office copy off copies for you of my article that appears in the Ellen White encyclopedia on this subject the humanity of Christ in seventh-day adventists history and particularly as it related to the ministry and the testimonies of not only scripture about
Ellen White and so I was my first inclination was to read through this thing but I want to tell you it’s very thorough but it’s quite technical and I don’t think it is fit for this venue necessarily maybe a classroom but the subject is absolutely central and
Important and it does have an important history coming out of the Minneapolis General Conference that did involve both Jones and Waggoner okay and this subject of the humanity of Christ is very important even though it is challenging even though it has had a long history of controversy in the seventh-day Adventist Church but
Controversy surrounding the issues of the deity and the humanity of Christ have been with us since day one of Christianity as Christians have sought to come to terms with the nature of the Lord Jesus Christ and the divine nature and personhood of the Holy Spirit we
Haven’t had a whole lot of debates over God the Father most of our debates have been over whether the Holy Spirit is divine and one of the Holy Spirit is personal the major debates over the person of Christ have been over whether he was fully divine because many of our
Pioneers were not Trinitarian they were in fact many of them were anti Trinitarian but officially trinitarianism has triumphed in the seventh-day Adventist Church worldwide but over the last decade or so we have had a real revival of very forceful anti trinitarianism all in the name of Ellen White Jones and Waggoner and our
Pioneers now let me share some things with you about that historically it is true historically there was a strong strain of anti trinitarianism including clear opposition that Jesus was the possessor of a full and eternal deity that he shared Co eternally with the father and the spirit there’s no doubt
About that we have a strong that in our history because many of our pioneers were what we call restorationist Christians restorationist Christians rose in American 19th century revivalism on the basic idea that we need to restore New Testament Christianity and even better biblical Christianity and let’s get rid of all of
These traditions and one of those traditions that they thought was part of the great catholic protestant apostasy was the trinity but you know what god raised up a prophetess among us and even though she never used the word Trinity she was 20 and in fact to the court and
It was her testimony that pretty much carried the day and forced the Brethren and the cisterns to go back to their Bibles and really study this out and then when she particularly came to the time when she wrote the book desire of Ages she had some stunning things in
Their presence that in Christ is life original unborrowed under I’ve now jerry moon john Reeve and I’ve we co-authored the book the Trinity was originally published by the review and Herald I don’t even know whether they still have any of those in stock but what we did is I covered the biblical evidence
I made the biblical arguments cherry moon took care of the early Adventists history on this and the backgrounds of our anti trinitarianism in other words we were not clear on the full personhood of the holy spirit and we were not clear on the Co eternal Co eternity of the Father
The Sun and the Sun with the father and the Holy Spirit with the father and son has three Co eternal divine beings okay and again it was the steady testimony of sister white that kept our theological noses to the grindstone but again more recently we have had this crazy revival
Of anti trinitarianism and I want to say to you that even those that hold that sincerely I want to say to you you are sincerely wrong I’m not here to question anybody’s sincerity but I am here to question heresy but more important than that I’m here to try to
Exalt the truth now let me tell you one thing about the truth of the Trinity and let me just say this sin is so antithetical to what it means to be human that it would take a god to get it corrected and it would take a triune God
Who is Father Son and Holy Spirit because without the Holy Spirit we will not be able to understand the scripture revelation without the revelation of the son and the power that is in his life in person and the power that emanates from his great sacrifice we will not be able to get right
Spiritually theologically whatever so this is important central stuff and I believe that seventh-day Adventism because of the problems it’s had with the atonement I think in other words the atonement is the ID yeah that in Christ ordained by the father ministered to us via the Holy Spirit there is full salvation in a
Completed atonement that was fully made at the cross now there’s more to the atonement than everything that led up to the cross and the cross because none of that will amount to anything if it is not communicated to us in other words what we call as theologians and
Christian thinkers the benefits of the life death burial resurrection ascension and intercession and soon return of Christ if we do not have a powerful Holy Spirit to communicate all of that through our study through our preaching through our teaching through our publications and want them out to a hill
Of beans spiritually to anybody nothing will really happen here today that amounts to anything unless the Holy Spirit who is intensely divine and intensely personal is permeating this place nothing will happen unless Jesus is uplifted and that is the work of the Holy Spirit to uplift Christ and to draw
Our hearts to him so that we can get the full treatment of all the facets of God’s atoning provision for our eternal salvation and the eternal final settling of the great controversies between good and evil between Christ and Satan by the way this is one of the reasons that I
Have remained a seventh-day adventists there’s only one argument that really solves the problem of evil and that comes out of the plot of the great controversy theme now we’re never going to be able to understand the origin of evil it will remain a mystery throughout all eternity because it’s impossible for
Us to plumb the depths of God’s love it’s impossible to fully explain the depths of creaturely sin and rebellion it will always remain a mystery that will leave us shaking our eternal sanctified heads but standing and awe and praising the glory of God that he worked out the atonement through the son
And the spirit with him and over all talk about the father over all control now one of the big problems that we’ve had as seventh-day adventists is getting clear the right relationship of calling convincing grace converting grace justifying grace transforming Grace and how all of that coordinates would
Glorifying grace and that’s what we’ve been talking about here this week now what I want you to do is concentrate with me a few moments and we’ll try to have a little bit of reflection on the issue of the humanity of Christ now before I that I do want to make a
Couple of plugs it’s also been mentioned here by dick Davidson and his presentations by the way dick Davidson is the smartest seventh-day adventists I have ever met him he makes me and Michael Campbell look like a couple of preschoolers alright ai-ai-ai-aight I tell you dick is bright but I tell you
He is also one of the ambles man I’ve ever met but he passionately loves truth and he’s on Michael and my’s team always cheering us on about what we’re doing as historical theologians and for that we’re intensely grateful and so in the light of all of the debates that has
Gone on and all of this on last generation theology that was cranked out by particularly EJ Wagoner and along with its false Christology we have produced the book called God’s character in the last generation now what I did I contributed chapter this on the history of last generation theology
That’s what I did but let me tell you we’ve got some heavy-hitter articles in here we’ve got one by one or two by Davidson we’ve got one by Darius Jankovic I don’t think you guys know anything about Darius but we just lost him at the seminary he and his wife are
Going back home to Australia to take care of their aging parents I mean they’re they’ve got jobs there but we just lost him but I want to tell you we’ve got some real bright smart guys at the seminary that faculty is an amazing faculty but one of the best articles in
Here is the one by Davidson on justification now let me tell you it’s a gospel beefsteak so get your dentures out and grow some really sharp teeth given by the Holy Spirit but follow it patiently now I have written a book and this is in George Knights library of Adventist
Theology series and he and I are the co-editors of the series but he commissioned me to write on the issue of assurance and I took it as an excuse to do a volume on all of the key aspects of the doctrine and experience of salvation so although my theme was Christian
Assurance I pretty much went the whole nine yards of trying to introduce people to what’s here now the reason this book is readable is because I spent the first half of my career feeding the sheep rather than comb the giraffes okay in other words I tried
To break it down so that the average layperson in a Sabbath School class would at least have a fighting opportunity to grasp what the issues of righteousness by faith are in the seventh-day Adventist Church this book thankfully and I don’t say this in any bragging way because I wouldn’t have
Been able to do it without the help of a lot of people but this book has become the key textbook for almost all of the seminary doctrine of salvation classes and reason for that is it’s comprehensive but it’s accessible and readable now on today’s subject I have two books these
Were my first book length publications that erupted out of my PhD dissertation which was done as an analysis of the doctrine of salvation in Ellen White and so what I decided to do once I got my job at Andrews where I was expected and demanded that I publish the first book
That I wrote was Ellen White on salvation and then successive to that came its library ten twin Ellen white on the humanity of Christ now you don’t have to buy my argument I will respect you taking exception to my position on this but one thing I did put in this
Book in an appendix is all of the really important statements from the spirit of prophecy on the humanity of Christ okay so you can argue with me all day but whatever you do argue with sister white in these appendices here okay and I think that her testimony is really
Powerful now the subject again is very complex and not the easiest thing to understand but I do think it is practically and sensibly accessible so one last thing I want to mention as far as books are concerned both Michael Campbell and I we have been swimming along in the wake of our mentor
George Knight now sometimes as we beau found out that can be stormy waters because George is a very demanding mentor and he doesn’t suffer our foolishness very gladly but he and I are the beneficiaries of this and George has written this little book which is to me recently released called the end time
Events and the last generation the explosive 1950s and for any of you that are interested in theology and these particular controverted issues this is a must read you know George bless his heart he keeps saying woody I’m gonna quit I’m gonna quit but he just can’t help himself
He gets in that office down there in this house out there in Southern Oregon and all of a sudden he sees a pencil his eyes light up his brain comes along and he starts writing he literally writes he doesn’t know how to use a computer but his wife does so she’s his
Transcriptionist all right but anyhow those are some recommendations that I think will prove helpful to you now I don’t know that Ellen White on salvation and Ellen white on the humanity of Christ I don’t know that there anything there’s anything left and the publisher stock but I placed about how many was it
Peggy that we placed here at the ABC III I think it was about fifty of Ellen White on salvation and about twenty of Ellen White on the humanity of Christ and I only make a little bit off of this and plus the ABC needs to get a cut but I
Want you to know there are a number of these on available ok if you want to give them and again I think that the best thing about this one Ellen White on the humanity of Christ is the appendices where you can gather conveniently all of the key statements all right so enough
For all my book recommendations did I did I talk to you about selected messages book 1 I did what’s the key pages on righteousness by faith in here 300 to 400 don’t forget that if you forget anything I say today don’t forget that go do your own reading
Know what’s the issue with the nature of Christ there are basically two key issues one is what was the nature of Christ humanity the other one was Christ fully divine or was he a semi-divine being now you’re probably saying dr. Whitten what do you mean by semi-divine well there
Are people who do not believe that Christ existed from all eternity Co eternally with the father and the spirit in other words we have had this history of anti trinitarianism but I want you to know that in this history that if you do not believe in the full deity of Jesus
Christ you will be power challenged when it comes to spiritual power to overcome the great adversary and you will not have a correct understanding of righteousness by faith if it doesn’t flow out of the Trinity in other words the eternal deity and power and leadership of the Father the eternal
Deity of Christ that he was Co eternal with the Father and that Christ was incarnate and took the full human organism sin accepted now he was had that sin imputed to him at the cross so he bore it to the cross vicariously for us but his sinful nature was affected by
Sin but not infected with it and so when we talk about the nature of Christ we must be clear on his full coitus be clear that his incarnate existent was in a real human frame otherwise Christ could not be tempted it was only his humanity that was tempted and you know
What the greatest temptation was it was to depend upon his inherent deity and his inherent sinlessness do you understand that does does that does that settle in on you a little bit but you see the big debates have been over mainly the humanity of Christ and whether he felt real temptation real
Temptation well again I want to make it clear that his deity was not tempted but he sure was tempted to use his inherent deity rather than identify with us and depend every day upon the Ministry of the Holy Spirit and the angelic powers that were sent to aid and abet his ministry
Because he could not draw upon his own inherent deity or divine power that would have done us no good well you can say sure Christ could do it because he’s fully God but being fully man and sin affected mind you not sin infected he had to depend upon the daily
Outpouring of the holy spirit and the Ministry of the angelic powers to aid and abet him in his own battle with temptations and by the way Christ was tempted more than any man or woman ever in the history of the universe so here’s what the big debate has been about over
The humanity of Christ let me see if I can simply break it down for you here a little bit the question was is whether Christ’s humanity was totally sinless when it comes to propensity Xand tendencies to evil in other words the big question was you know you and I if you haven’t
Learned this yet we have a natural tendency to be selfish to want our own way and we’re more likely to do the wrong thing than we are to do the right thing I mean we are sin messed up now that will vary from person to person as
Far as degrees but the Bible says all have sinned and have continually come short of the glory of God I think that’s Romans 8:3 all right all have sinned and so we’re all in this mess but the issue of the humanity of Christ has been a real conundrum and
Most of our pioneers were what we call post-fall in other words they believe that Jesus was born with a nature just like ours in which he had natural propensities and tendencies to do the wrong thing but in the 1950s we had the powerful rise of what we call the so-called
Pre foo pre-fall school of thought which says that while Jesus was sin affected he was not sand infected okay so while his humanity was weakened and he had to depend upon the continual imparted power of God in his incarnation to aid him in battling the temptations and the salts of the devil
Just because he didn’t have a natural propensity in tendency to do the wrong thing doesn’t mean that he couldn’t be tempted and he was tempted more than any man I believe number one now I’m gonna be a little repetitive here to draw upon his own sanctified humanity but more
Importantly to draw upon his own inherent deity rather in concert with us to learn to trust the imparted power of the father mediated to us through the Holy Spirit now I want to get to a key point here and again I want to urge you to read carefully my article by the way
At the end of that article I have given all kinds of suggestions for reading including the publication’s of my most severe opponents in other words those that would disagree with me and my position so this was one of the features that we did in The Ellen White encyclopedia was each article was to
Have references for further research and study so you know you you can go there and you will see who all of the major partisans are on the either side of the pre-fall versus post-fall debate over the humanity of Christ now let me make a suggestion to you and I’m hoping my brain works
Michael if my brain falters feel free to get up out of your seat and run up here and help me and say woody move over my brain is working on that one okay my wife is praying for me all right now Ellen White is very clear that Jesus did
Not have natural propensities and tendencies to sin well how then could he be tempted if he did not have natural propensities and tendencies to do the wrong thing he was tempted more than anything else to draw upon his own inherent divine power to aid and abet him in his battles with the
Devil do you follow what I’m saying okay all right in other words his great temptation was to draw upon his own inherit divine advantages and then he was also tempted to draw upon his incarnate advantages that in his humanity he was affected by sin but he wasn’t naturally infected with it in the
Sense that he had a natural tendency to do the wrong thing now he was weakened by history of 4000 years but he did not have these natural propensities or tendencies to do the wrong thing now let’s think about his temptations for a moment try to imagine yourself there in
The wilderness and the devil comes to him after he has been fasting 40 days and 40 nights and he said I have some good news for you I want to remind you that you can turn stones to bread and I know you’re really hungry and I know that hunger is natural why
Don’t you turn these stones to bread and eat and satisfy your hunger do you think that was a temptation to Christ you better believe it was I can’t even fast for four days without getting desperately hungry okay I’m not a good faster I’m faster getting to the icebox
Than I am fasting all right so one of the first things that I think we ought to recognize is one of the basis of Christ’s great temptations no matter what the occasion was was to depend upon his own inherent divine advantage all right now did Jesus ever
Commit an act of sin or have a thought of sin spirit of prophecy is absolutely clear he did not he was completely victorious and I can give you reference after reference from the spirit of prophecy on this manner regarding the complete victory of Christ over every temptation that beset him well there was
A temptation to sexual appetite a temptation to food appetite a temptation to self exaltation he overcame them all by the imparted power of the Holy Spirit he did not once draw upon his inherent divine advantage I suggest to you that that became a huge disadvantage for him to win a quick
Victory by trusting his own inherent powers okay so now the question comes up how can Jesus help us who have all these propensities and tendencies to evil to call upon his name and ask him to impart his divine power through the mighty Holy Spirit okay alright again let me ask you
The question what was the great temptation of Christ it was not to go to that cross why because the spirit of prophecy says he could not see through the portals of the tomb let that sink in a moment now I’m gonna be quiet here for
A few seconds and I want you to really think about was Christ tempted absolutely and what was his great temptation not to go to that cross remember he’s there in gas M&E and what is his prayer Oh father if possible let this cup pass from me and what was the answer
Keep going go to pilots judgment hall go on to Calvary go submit yourself and be nailed up I will sustain you each step of the way but go walking by faith alone that was the greatest temptation in the history of the universe to not be able
To see through the portals of the tomb and yet go to that cross that’s the hell of hell pardon my language I don’t mean to sound profane I’m just laying it out and why is that the hell of hell because the ultimate moment of reckoning will be the
Last thought that any of us will ever have who might sadly end up in the lake of fire it will be it didn’t have to be this way if I just could have taken the work of the Holy Spirit more seriously in my life and have laid my all on
Christ who went through this for me paid the price for me that I could spend eternity with the Holy Trinity and the redeemed of all ages and the populations of the vast illimitable universe Wow what a deal don’t tell me that Christ had to have natural propensities and tendencies to evil his greatest
Propensity was to do what the father told him to do in the agreement of the Great Council of peace so that full provision could be made for the vindication of God the reconciliation of the lost human race and the reconciliation of an entire universe of beings that were created in the image of
God that inhabit other planets and worlds you see God had to think about an entire universe not just us but we became the showcase of the love of God in Christ for the entire unit folks I cannot think of a bigger vision for Christian theology to contemplate
And this of course arises out of the great controversy theme now one of my questions that I asked my post-fall partners in dialogue is how can Jesus help us with cultivated tendencies to evil since he had none this is what I asked them how can Jesus help us would
Cultivated tendencies to evil since he had done what would you answer to that question what would you answer that question I would say thank you very much you win the argument I’m going to walk off the field this is the bankruptcy of the post-fall Christology not that sincere people have not sincerely held
This and God well in probably many ways overlook that but the greatest temptation of all transcends and permeates everything when it comes to righteousness by faith Jesus won a complete victory for us therefore his obedience becomes our obedience his sin bearing death becomes our sin bearing death we will not have to face
The terrible terrors of the lake of fire the thoughts of eternal loss for an eternity that there that the Damned pardon my language that the lost the rejecters of God’s mercies will have to face that’s really something now not only was Jesus tempted to trust in
His own divine power what else was he tempted to do hmm hmm he was tempted not to trust the imparted power of the Father all right so can Jesus help us with all of these temptations no he can’t help us if you do not trust his imparted divine power through the Holy
Spirit you see what we’re talking about here you see this very deep deep stuff but to know that he took our humanity and was tempted to go it alone tempted by his own inherent powers and his own inherent human perfections you see Jesus was affected by sin but he wasn’t
Infected with it he was a rather normal-looking first century Jewish man okay spirit of prophecy is very clear on this that there were no imperfections about the physical person of Jesus and that he was in many ways perfection Pravana thong even though he was diminished in stature and was in many
Ways like his fellow first century human beings so my question is this Jesus had a great temptation to trust himself but he also had a great temptation not to trust the imparted power of the Father and folks here’s where the great identities come and this is where he can
Really help us okay all right now I want to close with a couple of exhortations here again continue to study this issue again in my appendix here in the book Ellen White on the humanity of Christ Appendix A I’ve got this all pretty well together here appendix a has Ellen White on depravity
And sin and then of course appendix B is all about the deity of Christ okay Ellen white on the humanity of Christ particularly the great testimonies regarding his full deity now let me just sum up this way and it’s time to quit conference presidents getting nervous wearing out the Saints can Jesus help
You yes how can he help you can he be your example yes your example to do what to trust the imparted power of the Holy Spirit in every occasion of witness and temptation every challenge that’s in your life every challenge that may come
As a husband as a wife as a parent as a church member as we get along seek to get along with each other if we would all be thinking more how the power of Christ mediated to us through the Holy Spirit could help us to be overcomers rather than overwhelm ursin you know
What we have in the Adventist Church is a lot of overwhelming I’m talking about people that like to win their theological arguments by what I call specious presuppositions let’s use the correct presuppositions all right and I invite you to continue to ponder this subject Ellen White has commanded us to do this
She has given us rich resources scripture is filled with many great resources on this issue let’s pray dear lord I want to thank you for the Incarnation I want to praise you and Jesus I want to shout out a praise to you thank you for coming to be one
With us thank you for taking yourself from your high estate in sharing the throne with the father and to come and be subject as a human being incarnate subject of the mighty Moving’s of the Holy Spirit and Lord we want to thank you for leading a powerful life under
The guidance and sustaining power of the Spirit we want to thank you for your example of importunate prayer and Heavenly Father we want to dress you now and we want to thank you for sending Christ and we want to thank you for sending the Holy Spirit and Holy Spirit
We would like to speak to you and thank you for coming thank you for being with Jesus strengthening him in his humanity and thank you for giving us the Holy Spirit that we may be your more able servants in all of the key roles in our lives in our families in our communities
And especially in our community of faith oh lord help us in Jesus name we do pray it give us mighty portions of your spirit Oh
[MUSIC] As foundations for nation states, religious nationalism and secular nationalism are often thought of as polar opposites. Those who value secular nationalism often depict religious nationalism as backward, irrational, repressive, and violent. In contrast, secular nationalism is depicted as modern, rational, liberal, and peaceful.
On the other hand, those who value religious nationalism often depict secular nationalism as immoral, individual, and a vestige of colonialism. While religious nationalism is represented as moral, communal and a form of self determination. All of these depictions perpetuate common misunderstandings of both religion and secularism. In reality, religious nationalism and secular nationalism
Are umbrella terms that include incredibly diverse ideologies. Their values can be overlapping or in opposition, depending on social and historical context. For example, in 1923, the Republic of Turkey was formed as a secular state, following the fall of the Ottoman Empire. It’s first president, Kemal Ataturk brought in sweeping reforms that
Replaced Muslim rule and culture, with a particular form of secularism. By the 1970s, Turkey was the most secular of all Muslim majority countries. But rampant inequality and the perception of government corruption gave rise to Islamic parties that gained enough power by 1996 to form a coalition government. In response,
Secular officials imposed a public ban on a symbol of Islam, the head scarf. Women who wore the hijab were no longer allowed to study at the university. And a democratically elected member of parliament named Merve Kavakci, representing the Islamic Virtue Party, was prevented
From taking the oath of office by her fellow secular National Assembly members. When she entered the parliament, they stood and yelled out for 30 minutes until she was forced to leave. Two weeks later, she was stripped of her Turkish citizenship. These and related restrictions emboldened members of Islamic political parties.
And the current president, Recep Erdogan, is an Islamist who has held power since 2003. In another example, the United States is a secular nation but its currency is imprinted with, In God We Trust. The pledge of allegiance includes the phrase, one nation under God.
And 42 of the 45 US presidents identified as Protestant Christians. India is also a secular nation but over the past few decades, democratically elected Hindu nationalists have gained power. They enacted reforms in education and culture that promote particular forms of Hinduism that many other Hindus and
Members of other religious and secular communities find troubling. Like all world views, religious and secular forms of nationalism can only be understood in their particular social and historical context. Understanding their rich diversities will enhance our understanding of movements on local, national and international levels.
Hello, my name is Srdan Verstovsek. I am a professor of medicine in the leukemia department at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. Today I want to speak to you about the role and interpretation of JAK mutational screening in polycythemia vera. Now, polycythemia vera is one of myeloproliferative neoplasms.
As we know, JAK-STAT pathway hyperactivity is the main biological abnormality in all myeloproliferative neoplasms, including polycythemia vera. This is depicted on this slide. We have, in a normal situation, growth factors, like erythropoietin, attaching itself to receptors on the surface of the bone marrow cells and activating the JAK-STAT pathway, making cells grow.
In a diseased state, like polycythemia vera, there is no need for growth factors, and that is because of a multiple different reasons. The JAK-STAT pathway is hyperactive, and particularly in polycythemia vera, the main reason for hyperactivity in almost all patients is mutation in a JAK2 gene.
There are 2 types of JAK2 mutations in PV. In about 95% of the patients, the JAK2 mutation is called JAK2 V617F mutation. Again, this would activate the JAK-STAT pathway without the need of a growth factor to attach to the receptors. It is always active.
There is another JAK2 mutation called JAK2 exon 12 mutation. This is only present in about 2 to 3% of the PV cases. Typically these patients present with isolated erythrocytosis but have a similar rate of transformation to myelofibrosis, acute myeloid leukemia, or thrombosis. Where do we put this information in our everyday practice?
We put it when we come up with a diagnosis of polycythemia vera. This is where the testing for the presence or absence of JAK mutations comes handy. The WHO classification for myeloproliferative neoplasms have recently been updated, and here we show a criteria for polycythemia vera highlighting the identification either of
JAK2 V617F mutation or JAK2 exon 12 mutation as a part of a diagnostic process. Important to say, there still exists a patient out there that does not have a mutation in a JAK2 mutation. It is not mandatory for all the patients to have that mutation identified.
Now, the next question is how about tumor load? That means how many cells in blood have a JAK2 mutation, more or less, and does this matter for the outcome of the patient? Significance of a JAK2 V617F allele burden in polycythemia vera has been studied.
The patients that have a higher tumor burden—meaning more than 50% of the cells in a patient’s sample have the mutation, which is more than 50% allele burden—these patients appear to have a worse outcome as we follow them along their life. They may have leukocytosis, higher hematocrit, more splenomegaly, more symptoms, and high
Risk of transformation, in general, more aggressive disease. However, they do not have a high incidence of cardiovascular events, which is the main target for the therapy. Therefore, at this point in time, measuring JAK2 V617F allele burden has little value for management of PV patients.
A very attractive part of new developments in a polycythemia vera in terms of therapies is possibility of some of them—and here I show Interferon—to be able to decrease the JAK2 allele burden, perhaps even eliminate the number of cells in the blood or bone marrow that have a JAK2 mutation.
We don’t really understand the significance of this achievement with the different therapies. With Interferon, for example, up to 20 to 25% of the patients may become JAK2 V617F negative. However, we are cognizant of a persistence of the disease despite the elimination of the JAK2-positive cells.
Therefore, in every practice, one should not judge the efficacy of a therapy or modify the therapy based on a measurement of the JAK2 allele burden. In summary, the JAK-STAT pathway hyperactivity is the main biological abnormality in PV, as is in other myeloproliferative neoplasms.
Almost all patients with PV have mutation in JAK2 gene, either in JAK2 V617F, which is the great majority of the patients, or in JAK2 exon 12 mutations in a few percentage points. There is no difference in their outcome based on the mutational profile, and identification
Of the JAK2 mutation, one or the other, helped in the diagnosis of PV. Measuring JAK2 allele burden during therapy or a life of a patient, at this point in time, has little value.
