What Is The Mystery

What Is “The Fellowship of the Mystery”? – Part 2

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Although this mystery is spoken of often by Paul it’s easy to just gloss over it without really paying much attention to it.
But if we’re to know where our position in Christ is today, not in times past or times future, but today, we need to understand what Paul is clearly teaching. We need to know what it is, how it came into being and what it means for you and me today.

Adapted from various teaching material from Grace Ambassadors.

“Speed Slider”

Comparison Between the Old Covenant, The New Covenant and the Fellowship of the Mystery

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Old, New and Mystery Comparison

 

What is the Fellowship of the Mystery? Part 2 – Transcript

In this second part of our study of what this Fellowship of the Mystery is, that the Apostle Paul talks about throughout his 13 epistles, we get to learn exactly what it is, how it came into being and what it means for you and me today.
We’ll see how it’s one of the most important doctrines in the Bible for us the Body of Christ, the church, today.

In part 1 of this short series on What is the Fellowship of the Mystery, we did a brief summary of the history of the nation of Israel, because Israel is a major key in understanding this mystery that was revealed to the apostle Paul for us.

We need to see that it was through Israel’s continued disobedience to God and rejection of His Word that the nation fell, and that fall meant that now, God’s grace would be focused on the Gentiles and no longer Israel as a nation.

We start in Paul’s epistle to the Romans.

In Romans chapters 9, 10 and 11, Paul tells his audience what happened to Israel, and he describes Israel is fallen.

In Romans chapter 9:31 to 33 we read this,

What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness of faith; but Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness. 

Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone. 

As it is written: “BEHOLD, I LAY IN ZION A STUMBLING STONE AND ROCK OF OFFENSE, AND WHOEVER BELIEVES ON HIM WILL NOT BE PUT TO SHAME.” 

That stumbling stone, that rock of offense, Is Jesus Christ, Israel’s Messiah and the Saviour of the world.

This is a quotation from Isaiah chapter 8 verses 14 and 15 and we won’t read that but just for your own knowledge you could go back to Isaiah and see the quote.

Now let’s look at Romans chapter 10:3, and we read,

For they (Israel) being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. 

Skip down to verse 16,

But they (Israel) have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “LORD, WHO HAS BELIEVED OUR REPORT?” 

Then verse 21,

But to Israel he (God) says: “ALL DAY LONG I HAVE STRETCHED OUT MY HANDS TO A DISOBEDIENT AND CONTRARY PEOPLE.” 

Israel has fallen and that’s what Paul’s describing in these chapters and there are 90 verses in Romans chapters 9, 10 and 11 which give highly detailed evidence of how and why this fallen state of Israel came about.

But God had a plan, a plan that He kept secret from before the beginning of the world and that was that Israel’s fall was the salvation of, and to, the Gentiles.

Look at Romans 11:11,

I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. 

And in verse 25,

For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. 

Look at Romans 11:12

Now if their (Israel’s) fall is riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness! 

The riches of the Gentiles came through Israel’s fall.

Now, Israel may be fallen at this time, however God made promises to Israel, to the nation, and we saw that in the last episode. He promised a land, a kingdom, a nation and that was to be forever, and it was to be here on Earth.

God will save national Israel!

Ok, so we’ve seen the history of Israel and we’ve seen that it’s fallen today but that God will save them in the future. So, what does that all have to do with the Fellowship of the mystery that Christ revealed to Paul?

Everything actually, as we’ll see.

Now what do we clearly see in all this?

Israel is fallen and Israel will be saved in the future. We can see that Israel fell 2000 years ago. When will it be saved?

In the coming Great Tribulation as we see in Jeremaiah 30:7,

Alas! For that day is great (the day of the Lord, the tribulation), So that none is like it; And it is the time of Jacob’s trouble, But he (who? Israel is the subject here.) But he shall be saved out of it.

Then in Zechariah 13:8 and 9,

And it shall come to pass in all the land (the land always refers to Israel),” Says the LORD, “That two-thirds in it shall be cut off and die, But one-third shall be left in it: 

I will bring the one-third through the fire, Will refine them as silver is refined, And test them as gold is tested. They will call on My name, And I will answer them. I will say, ‘This is My people’; And each one will say, ‘The LORD is my God.’ ” 

Again, we see in Revelation 12 verses 13 to 17. The woman in this passage is Israel. She is protected and nourished in the wilderness during the tribulation and God preserves her from the serpent (Satan) who seeks to harm her.

Then in Romans 11:25 to 27 we read,

For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. 

And so, all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “THE DELIVERER WILL COME OUT OF ZION, AND HE WILL TURN AWAY UNGODLINESS FROM JACOB; 

FOR THIS IS MY COVENANT WITH THEM, WHEN I TAKE AWAY THEIR SINS.”

And Paul here is quoting the prophecy of Isaiah 59:20.

Of course, there’s many other prophecies relating to this ultimate salvation of Israel.

But that hasn’t happened yet! Israel’s not saved today. They bear no resemblance to the nation that will finally accept Jesus Christ as the Messiah and turn to God. This is yet future.

So, the question is what’s happened in the 2000 years that’ve past between Israel’s fall and today?

Well, there’s an interlude in the great timeline of prophecy. It’s as if the prophetic clock’s been stopped, and this is exactly how it is.

In this interlude to prophecy God’s done an almost inconceivably great work, and He’s revealed it to us, primarily but not exclusively, through the ministry of the apostle Paul.

God has “slotted into history” a period of time, a dispensation, an age, which we know of today as the Dispensation of Grace.

Paul calls it the Dispensation of the Grace of God in Ephesians 3 verse 2. Sometimes this age is called “The Church Age” or even sometimes, “The Age of the Gentiles”.

It’s this disruption, this interlude to God’s great prophecy timeline which has made God’s Grace freely available to all people, both individual Jew and individual Gentile today. And, unlike the other ages, the vehicle is not Israel and their covenants and laws.

The vehicle now is faith!

We’re now saved by God’s Grace, through faith, plus nothing. We believe God’s Word, the Gospel of Salvation, that Christ died for our sins according to scripture, was buried and rose again from the dead according to scripture, and based on that belief we’re saved. We have eternal life and we become members of the Body of Christ and partakers of all the riches of God, in Christ.

Paul was chosen by God in spite of being an intensely committed unbeliever in Jesus Christ and His claim as the Jewish Messiah.

He had an intense hatred for “The Way”. That was the movement that was gathering momentum in Pauls day that had, as its core belief, the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ and that Jesus was the Christ, the Jewish Messiah and the Saviour of the world.

Paul was uniquely saved by God, not by his murderous works, nor by the covenant promises made to Israel, but freely by God’s grace.

We see in Titus 3:3 to 7 Paul describing his salvation,

For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. 

But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. 

Paul was a unique apostle. He was the chief persecutor of the twelve apostles, and he calls himself the chief of sinners. We see him before he was saved in Acts 8 and verse 1 being a willing participant in the stoning of Stephen,

Now Saul (his name was changed later to Paul) was consenting to his death (that was the stoning of Stephen).

At that time a great persecution arose against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. 

Then, Paul was called by God to be an apostle of God’s grace.

Romans 1:1,

Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God…

And in Romans 15:15 and 16,

Nevertheless, brethren, I have written more boldly to you on some points, as reminding you, because of the grace given to me by God, that I might be a minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God, that the offering of the Gentiles might be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. 

And also 1st Timothy 1:15 and 16,

This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. 

However, for this reason I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show all longsuffering, as a pattern to those who are going to believe on Him for everlasting life. 

The Lord Jesus Christ appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus where he was on his way to wreak havoc on the church some more. The Lord Jesus appeared many times after that to reveal what was “from the beginning of the world… hid in God”, that is, this fellowship of the mystery.

Ephesians 3:8 and 9,

To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ; 

Paul calls this revelation the “mystery of Christ”, the “mystery among the Gentiles”, and the “dispensation of the grace of God”.

This mystery of Christ is different from what “was spoken of by the mouth of the prophets since the world began” concerning Christ, as Acts 3 verse 21 says,

…whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.

Paul continues to explain how he came to minister this mystery in Romans 16:25,

Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began

And in Ephesians 3:1 to 3,

For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles— if indeed you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which was given to me for you, how that by revelation He made known to me the mystery (as I have briefly written already, 

So, what is this mystery revealed to Paul?

The mystery revealed affected both the message of salvation and sanctification (which is God’s separation of a people for his service).

The mystery regarding salvation is the gospel of Christ: how any man can be justified freely by God’s grace through faith in Christ Jesus as our propitiation. Propitiation is the act of appeasing or satisfying God’s wrath or anger. It’s closely associated with atonement—the reconciliation between God and humanity through Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross.

We look at Romans 3:20 – 26,

Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. 

But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference (difference between Jew and Gentile he means) ; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. 

The mystery revealed to Paul is the identity of a new creature called the church, the one Body of Christ.

Nowhere does this Body of Christ appear in prophecy, a Body with Christ as it’s head and every other joint and cell made up of all who have received the grace of God, redemption and salvation, through nothing else but faith. Simply believing what God said in His Word.

We see that in Romans 12:5,

so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. 

And we also see it in Ephesians 4:4,

There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; 

The church, this Body of Christ in which we are all members if we’ve believed, is to practice and preach the gospel of Christ and all its blessings which are free in Christ to all men through faith.

In Romans 5 to 8, Paul lays this out in great detail.

Also in Ephesians 1:3,

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 

And Ephesians 3:1 – 9,

For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles— if indeed you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which was given to me for you, how that by revelation He made known to me the mystery (as I have briefly written already, by which, when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ), which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets: that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel, of which I became a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given to me by the effective working of His power. 

To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ; 

The most important thing we can learn in discerning God’s will in the Bible is to rightly identify and divide the mystery of Christ from what was spoken by the prophets concerning Christ, the nation of Israel and the Gentiles.

What God had spoken of by the mouth of His prophets since the world began is not what God kept secret since the world began.

Act 3:21,

whom (that’s Jesus Christ), whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things (this is the kingdom come), which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.

We put that verse up against Romans 16:25,

Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began.

See the difference? Spoken of by the prophets since the world began, kept secret since the world began!

Mixing mystery truth with the message prophesied to Israel has led to a great deal of confusion of doctrine.

Without understanding the mystery Christ revealed to Paul we can’t be faithful stewards of those mysteries, nor, actually, faithful ministers of Christ.

1st Corinthians 4:1 & 2,

Let a man so consider us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. 

Moreover it is required in stewards that one be found faithful.

More importantly, if we don’t understand the mystery of Christ revealed to Paul, we can’t obey the Lord’s greatest commission, “to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery” with its unsearchable riches and we look at Ephesians 3 verses 8 to 9,

To me (that’s Paul), who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ;

It’s not difficult to see that there was a mystery ‘hid in God’ ‘kept secret since the world began’ and then revealed to Paul.

We see this clearly in Romans 16:25, and Ephesians 3:3 and other places we’ve just looked at.

Yet there seems to be difficulty among many sincere Christians with identifying what this mystery is.

Some claim that this mystery is something that we can’t know. It’s about the nature of God. After all, they say, ‘God works in mysterious ways’.

Yet the scripture says that the mystery is now ‘known’ and ‘revealed’. Though it was once a secret it’s not hidden any more.

Others say that the mystery is simply Gentile salvation. But, there’s evidence of Gentile salvation in the both the Old and New testaments before the mystery was revealed to us through Paul.

One purpose of the nation Israel being established was to be a blessing, a light, and the ‘Priests of the Lord’ to the Gentiles. The blessing of the Gentiles couldn’t be a mystery or a secret if it was told about so often in the prophecies to Israel.

Another belief says the mystery is Gentiles becoming part of Israel and their covenants. This is a dangerous misunderstanding because it leads to confusion about both Israel and the church, which are very clearly separate throughout the Bible.

This view requires us to replace most of the prophecies given to Israel with prophecies supposedly referring to a Gentile church. The prophecies and commandments of Jesus himself concerning Zion, Israel, Jacob, Jerusalem, and ‘my people’ would need to be replaced with commandments to ‘the church today’.

This is pretty much impossible to do and still keep the verses in their correct context.

Unfortunately, many denominations and pastors believe at least one of these views of the mystery.

What leads to a mistaken view of the mystery is ignoring the revelation of the mystery which was first given to Paul.

Paul was the first to explain that Israel has fallen from their special status with God. Through this fall, salvation is no longer the covenant possession of Israel alone but is being given to the Gentiles.

It’s not until Paul that we read about salvation apart from the law and the covenants based on faith alone in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Those who’re saved do not become Israel or remain heathen Gentiles; instead, they become part of the body of Christ, which is the church today.

Our hope today lies in our heavenly position reigning forever with Christ in heaven, but for now we’re left on earth to represent the Lord and the message of his reconciliation to God by grace through faith alone to a world that’s entirely rejected God.

It’s a good thing for us to understand the differences between the Old Covenant, The New Covenant, and the Fellowship of the Mystery which, as we’ve seen, all describe different ways in which people receive God’s blessings throughout different ages.

If we ignore the differences, or we’re not aware of them, we can claim blessings or curses belonging to someone else and miss blessings belonging to us.

So, what are the differences between the old covenant, new covenant, and the fellowship of the mystery? We’ve got a chart included below this episode list to help see these differences.

As a sidenote, we do have a covenant called the Abrahamic Covenant which is found in Genesis chapter 15 where God makes a formal agreement, a covenant, with Abraham that He would do what He’d said. Interestingly, Abraham had no part in this, he was put to sleep, showing that this was God’s responsibility to ensure it was fulfilled and didn’t rely on anything Abraham would or wouldn’t do.

We also have another covenant known as the Davidic covenant where, in 2 Samuel 7:12 God makes this promise to King David,

“When your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.

But we’re concerned here with the two main covenants that we know as the Old Covenant and the New Covenant.

We’ll start with the Old Covenant.

The law was given to Israel, by God, through Moses in the exodus out of Egypt.

This law was intended to be a blessing to the world through Israel’s separation and obedience.

God declared to Israel, “You will be my people, and I will be your God.”

The covenant outlined specific terms for Israel’s relationship with God.

The law was the basis of this Old Covenant, and the terms were that if Israel was obedient to the law it would lead to blessings, prosperity, and them remaining in the land.

But disobedience would result in curses, judgment, and potential exile from the land.

It was this latter condition of the covenant that Israel would learn the hard way throughout their history. They couldn’t keep the law and they required a multitude of sacrifices to cover their sin. And, into the bargain they constantly suffered for their disobedience as we saw in part 1 of this series.

However, and this important, Israel as a channel of God’s blessing was not done away by their failure to keep the law.

God had made promises to the fathers of Israel to make Israel the nation through which the world would be blessed. Those promises of God cannot be cancelled out because they were given to the fathers before the law. Israel did not fulfill them by their own power to keep the law.

So, to summarise the Old Covenant we have:

  • Israel must perform on their own, by their own works of obedience
  • Israel is a nation separate from the Gentiles
  • The law given to obey
  • It was a Covenant to make Israel the channel of blessing to the world

Now we come to the New Covenant.

Israel was given promises from God to be the nation through which the world would be blessed. The old and new covenants were both intended to fulfill this promise. This is why both the old and new covenants are made with the house of Israel and Judah. It’s hard to see why most modern-day churches regard the New Covenant as for the church today.

We see Jeremaiah 31:31,

“Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD. 

But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

Then we see Hebrews 8:10 & 11,

FOR THIS IS THE COVENANT THAT I WILL MAKE WITH THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL AFTER THOSE DAYS, SAYS THE LORD: I WILL PUT MY LAWS IN THEIR MIND AND WRITE THEM ON THEIR HEARTS; AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE. 

NONE OF THEM SHALL TEACH HIS NEIGHBOR, AND NONE HIS BROTHER, SAYING, ‘KNOW THE LORD,’ FOR ALL SHALL KNOW ME, FROM THE LEAST OF THEM TO THE GREATEST OF THEM.

Both the old covenant and the new covenant include the law, priests, a kingdom, and sacrifices for sin. Both were intended to provide blessing to the world through Israel.

Both are the subject of prophecy, and were not part of God’s mystery kept secret since the world began.

The new covenant was made better for Israel in that God would perform all that they couldn’t do on their own. He would be the better priest, he would give the Spirit to cause them to keep the law, and he would send Christ to establish the kingdom.

The new covenant is merely the old covenant blessing, the promises to the fathers, made possible through the provision of God.

John 1:17,
For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

Whereas the old covenant emphasized man’s performance, the new covenant was God performing for Israel what they could not do. The old covenant failed to fulfill the promises because of that inability of Israel to perform, but the new would not fail.

Hebrews 8: 7 – 8,

For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second. Because finding fault with them, He says: “BEHOLD, THE DAYS ARE COMING, SAYS THE LORD, WHEN I WILL MAKE A NEW COVENANT WITH THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL AND WITH THE HOUSE OF JUDAH—

and then we go into the remainder that we’ve already read.

So, to summarise the New Covenant and compare it to the old we see this:

  • In the Old Covenant Israel must perform on their own, by their own works of obedience, whereas in the New Covenant God gives His grace for Israel to perform by the Spirit.
  • In The Old Covenant Israel is a nation separate from the Gentiles and it’s the same in the New Covenant.
  • In the Old Covenant the law given for Israel to obey in their own strength whereas in the New Covenant God’s law would be written on their hearts and minds as we saw in Jeremaiah 31 verse 33.
  • The Old Covenant was to make Israel the channel of blessing to the world, and in just the same way the New Covenant was to make Israel the channel of blessing to the world.

Now we want to compare The Fellowship of the Mystery.

Because the new covenant describes God’s performance on behalf of Israel, many people get confused by the difference between the new covenant and the fellowship of the mystery. People think that because they both require God’s grace they must be talking about the same thing.

But we can’t make a decision based on similarities. Both a Ford car and a Toyota have wheels, doors an engine and steering wheels, but does that make them the same? Of course not! It’s the differences that define them.

And the differences are critical for us to see here.

The new covenant is God’s blessing of grace through Israel, through their covenants, and their law written in their hearts.

The fellowship of the mystery is God’s grace given to all, Jew and Gentile freely, without the nation of Israel, without their earthly covenants, and without their law written in hearts.

Whereas under the old covenant God was the law giver, and under the new covenant God in Christ was the law keeper, under the fellowship of the mystery, God in Christ is the law remover. We see that in Romans 6:14,

For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

We also see it in Colossians 2:14,

…having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. 

Whereas the old covenant was given to Israel, and the new covenant was given to believing Israel, the fellowship of the mystery is for all that believe the gospel of Christ: Jew or Gentile.

2Corinthians 5:17,

Therefore, if anyone (Jew or Gentile) is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. 

Ephesians 2:15,

…having abolished in His (Jesus’s) flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances (or regulations), so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace,

Colossians 3:11,

…where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all. 

See, there is no place in the one body, revealed through the mystery, for a separation between Israel and Gentile.

Whereas the old and new covenants are the subject of prophecy to fulfill God’s promise of blessing through Israel, the fellowship of the mystery was not revealed in any promise from God since the world began.

Romans 16:25,

Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began 

The fellowship of the mystery is not the fulfillment of any covenant, prophecy, or promise given to Israel. The dispensation of grace was hid in God until revealed to the apostle Paul for the church today.

Ephesians 3:1 – 2,

For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles— if indeed you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which was given to me for you…

Ephesians 3:9 – 11,

…and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ; to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, </strong

Once the differences between the old covenant, the new covenant, and the fellowship of the mystery are understood, then the riches of God’s grace according to the revelation of the mystery will be better valued.

Grace and faith were always necessary to receive blessings from God, but today, through the fellowship of the mystery, grace stands alone without Israel, the law, or covenants. This is the way God blesses the world today.

Today , in the body of Christ, in this dispensation of grace that has temporarily interrupted the great timeline of prophecy, Grace stands alone because of the differences between the old and new covenants and this fellowship of the mystery of Christ.

What Is The Mystery

What Is “The Fellowship of the Mystery”? – Part 1

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In this episode we look at one of the most important doctrines in the Bible for us the Body of Christ, the church, today.
The Apostle Paul talks throughout his 13 epistles about something called the Fellowship of the Mystery.
Since Paul was given the position of Apostle to the Gentiles by Jesus Christ Himself and because the 13 epistles he wrote are the instructions and the doctrine for the church today, we need to know what this Fellowship of the Mystery is.

Adapted from various teaching material from Grace Ambassadors.

“Speed Slider”

Summary of Israel’s History

Click or press image to enlarge it

Timeline of Israels History

 

What is the Fellowship of the Mystery? Part 1 – Transcript

In this episode we look at one of the most important doctrines in the Bible for us the Body of Christ, the church, today.

The Apostle Paul talks throughout his 13 epistles about something called the Fellowship of the Mystery.

Since Paul was given the position of Apostle to the Gentiles by Jesus Christ Himself and because the 13 epistles he wrote are the instructions and the doctrine for the church today, we need to know what this Fellowship of the Mystery is.

Although this mystery is spoken of often by Paul it’s easy to just gloss over it without really paying much attention to it.

But if we’re to know where our position in Christ is today, not in times past or times future, but today, we need to understand what Paul is clearly teaching. We need to know what it is, how it came into being and what it means for you and me today.

The natural place to begin to understand what Paul’s teaching is to look at the verses in the Bible where this mystery is presented to us.

We’re going to take these verses in the order that the epistles of Paul appear in our Bibles, realising that this is not the chronological order in which the epistles were written.

Romans 11:25,

For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. 

Romans 16 verses 25 and 26,

Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began but now made manifest, and by the prophetic Scriptures made known to all nations, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, for obedience to the faith—

1st Corinthians 2 verses 6 and 7,

However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.

But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory,

1st Corinthians 15:51,

Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep (that means die), but we shall all be changed—

Ephesians 1 verses 7 to 9,

In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself,

Ephesians 3 verses 1 to 5,

For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles— if indeed you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which was given to me for you, how that by revelation He made known to me the mystery (as I have briefly written already, by which, when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ), which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets:

Ephesians 3 verse 9,

and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ.

Ephesians 6 verses 18 and 19,

praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints— and for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel,

Colossians 1 verses 25 and 26,

of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God which was given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God, the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His saints.

Colossians 1:27,

To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Colossians 2 verses 2 and 3,

that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, and attaining to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

Colossians 4:3,

meanwhile praying also for us, that God would open to us a door for the word, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in chains,

1st Timothy 3:9,

holding the mystery of the faith with a pure conscience.

There are other passages where Pauls refers to the mystery as well but some of these are, if could put it like this mystery within the mystery, so we’ve not included them.

Mystery! How come a mystery? How come God kept it a secret from the foundation of the world? Why was it revealed at that time to the apostle Paul?

What is it? Is it important that we, the church, the Body of Christ know this today?

These are questions we hope to satisfactorily answer.

We’ll make a bold claim here that without understanding this mystery, now revealed, our attempts to understand the Bible, particularly that which relates to us today, and the coming events of the end times, will be confusing and leave us with more questions than answers.

Let’s start by understanding that although this mystery was kept secret by God from the foundation of the world, the vast majority of God’s revealed Word, The Bible, was not kept secret.

In fact, one of the many ways, we can be sure that our Bible is the Word of God, that it was inspired by Him, is through hundreds of prophecies that were given by God long before the events actually happened, in some cases, centuries and even thousands of years before they were perfectly fulfilled.

This shows that that author was from outside of our time dimension.

Prophecy is the major portion of the Bible, and it was God revealing His plan and His will to mankind over time. He spoke through many prophets, inspired by the Holy Spirit, and these prophets wrote all these prophecies down.

So, in these prophecies God has told man about His plan and His will.

  • He would send a Saviour Who would willingly pay for the price for the sin of Adam and, by His death and His spilled blood, would take away the sins of the world.
  • He would create a special nation, separated from the rest of the world for His own purposes. That nation is Israel.
  • He told us how that nation, Israel, would continually reject Him and go their own way and how they would pay a very heavy price when they did, but how when they did do God’s will, He would bless and prosper them. As a result of their rejection, they would be enslaved and be taken captive by other nations, but that God would deliver them.
  • He told us how that nation would be a nation of priests to where the other nations of the world would come to learn of God and His ways.
  • He told how He would send a Messiah, The Saviour, to Israel through Whom they could be saved, and He told us that the Saviour would die and how the nation would reject Him and the salvation He bought.
  • He told us about a great and glorious Kingdom that would come to earth and be the inheritance of His separated nation and how this Messiah, this King would rule this kingdom for 1000 years.
  • He told us about a terrible period of time that would come upon the earth before the setting up of this glorious kingdom, where God would pour out His wrath on all the unrighteous and all the unbelievers on earth. This would happen because no unrighteous or unbelieving person could ever enter this earthly kingdom.
  • He told us how through this terrible period, a remnant of His beloved nation of Israel would finally turn from their rejection of the Messiah and accept Him.
  • He told us how the earth would be restored after that awful period of tribulation.
  • He told us about the end of sin on earth permanently.
  • He told us about a final judgement where every person who ever lived will be judged and how every person who had not trusted in the way He Had made whereby man could become righteous, at an awesome cost to Himself, would be judged to eternal damnation.
  • He told us that the current heaven and earth would pass away, and a new heaven and a new earth would replace them and how a magnificent city, called the New Jerusalem, would come down from heaven and from there God would dwell and His King, the Messiah would rule for ever and sin, death tears and sorrow would never be again.

All of this and much, much more was revealed to mankind through the prophets.

But what was never revealed to mankind, what was kept secret by God, since before the foundation of the world, told to no man, was this mystery that was finally revealed to mankind by Jesus Christ Himself to the apostle Paul.

At the same time this mystery was revealed to Paul he was given a ministry to preach this mystery to mankind both Jew and Gentile. But his main ministry was preaching it to the Gentiles.

So, the difference with this mystery revealed to Paul, is that completely opposite to prophecy, which was God revealing His plans and His will to mankind, this mystery was not revealed. It was kept secret by God until Christ revealed it to Paul.

There’s one more foundation that we’re going to need to firmly stand on as we look at these things.

That foundation is the knowledge that God deals with different people, in different ways, in different ages.

Hebrews 1 verses 1 and 2 tell us,

God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds.

See God at one time, in the past, spoke through the prophets. However, in the last days He’s spoken by His son. See different methods of speaking to people at different times.

Common sense tells us that although God instructed Noah to build an ark, He’s not instructing you and I to do that today.

Likewise, God, in a test of faith, instructed Abraham to offer his beloved only son as a sacrifice. Are we to do that as a test of faith today?

All through the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John we see Jesus Christ coming to the nation of Israel, proving He was the long-promised Messiah by fulfilling prophecy to the letter and yet we see enormous contrasts in what Jesus taught to Israel and how we, the modern-day church, live today.

So, it’s of the highest importance that we recognise that there are differences in the way God deals with mankind through the ages, and we need to know what God’s doing today so that we can understand what he requires of us today.

It’s also important to realise that God Himself never changes, scripture tells us that, but the way he deals with mankind does.

Although the Bible shows us clearly how God dealt with man down through the ages, we cannot try and select things that God did in the past, or will do in the future, and relate them to us today.  It’s vital for us to know what God’s doing today! If we don’t, if we try and mix these ways that God’s dealt with mankind so that we apply bits of what God’s done in the past, with bits He’s going to do in the future and then try and understand what’s happening today, we’re opening ourselves up for a heap of confusion, a mish mash of bits and pieces that don’t fit.

In order to guard against this confusion, we must understand the whole story, the whole plan of God, in order to understand our place today in that plan.

Scripture bears this out in 2nd Timothy 3:16 and 17,

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

And we’re instructed to understand scripture. In 2nd Timothy 2:15 we read,

Be diligent (or study) to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

Notice the emphasis on “rightly dividing” the Word of truth?

See we’re to understand these division between how God worked with man in the past, how He’s dealing with man today and how He will deal with man in the future, and those big differences are vital to you and me if we’re to know God and His purpose for us.

One word of warning!

As these differences become more and more familiar we can easily find ourselves questioning traditional church teachings and doctrines, many of which are passed down and distributed as truth without any real questions being asked.

Often they’re the product of misunderstandings about context and the reliance on single, or limited, passages of scripture that tend to become regarded as doctrine.

When we ask ourselves simple questions like who is speaking, who are they speaking to, and what is the age or dispensation they’re living in and referring to, we can see these passages in an entirely different light.

One other thing we must keep in mind is that the vast majority of the Bible is written to and about Israel, God’s separated nation, not us Gentiles.

We mustn’t try and put ourselves, as the church today, in place of Israel.

That’s not only wrong but dangerous as it’ll completely hide the truth of God’s plan and our part in it.

Israel is the key focus of the Bible even though, as we’ll see, Israel is in a fallen state in this day we’re living in now.

So, to understand this “Fellowship of the Mystery” we need to go back in time to past ages, past dispensations and understand how and why this nation of Israel has such a huge influence on what’s happening to us today.

Let’s look at some terms that relate to these past ages so when they appear we know what they mean.

These terms are parts of God’s program through the ages.

We have the promises, the Covenants and the law.

Understanding the promises, the covenants, and the law, all given to the nation Israel, is another key to understanding this mystery.

The Promises.

When we talk about the promises we’re talking about both unconditional and conditional promises that God made the nation of Israel.

We see that in Genesis chapter 12 and God’s unconditional promises to Abram who would later be Abraham. Then in Exodus chapter 19 we see the conditional promises made to the nation of Israel which had grown from Abraham.

The Law

This is the mosaic law, the law given to Israel, by God Himself, through Moses. The 10 commandments were just a sort of table of contents because there’re 613 laws.

We see the start of these laws in Exodus 20 and the details throughout Deuteronomy and many come from the Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh.

The Covenants.

The covenants are agreements that God made with the nation of Israel. There were two. The Old covenant, and the New Covenant.

The Old Covenant, which Israel did not, and could not keep their part of, relied on them keeping the law that God had given to them through Moses.

The New Covenant that God made with Israel was that, at the correct time, He would put His laws into their hearts and into their minds so they would do what God required of them as a natural instinct.

There’d be no need for them to be taught the things of God because they’d all know Him and His ways in their hearts and minds.

We see the old covenant in Exodus 20 and the New Covenant prophesied by Jeremaiah in Jeremaiah 31:31 and confirmed in Hebrews 8:10.

Then, last but certainly not least, we need to understand a person. The promises, the law and the covenants along with everything else in the Bible revolves around a hub and that hub is a person.

We’re talking, of course about The Lord, Jesus Christ.

He’s a part, a member of the Godhead, the triune God, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

He was the Word of God Who was in the beginning with God, and was God.

All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

The Word became flesh in the town of Bethlehem some 2000 years ago, born of flesh through the body of a virgin, human woman. Born apart from the seed of Adam which carried the sin nature from person to person, every person who’d ever been born, except this One. The seed of this person was not from man but from God, making Him fully God and fully man both at the same time.

He was given the name Jesus, according to prophecy, which means saviour.

Jesus came to His own, to the nation of Israel, as the long-prophesied Messiah who would save Israel, though Israel did not receive Him. They rejected Him and crucified Him, all according to prophecy.

He came to Israel in the flesh to fulfill prophecy. We see this in Matthew 5 verse 17 and 18, Jesus Himself speaking,

Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.

For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.

Then we see in Matthew 15:24 Jesus speaking to the Syrophoenician woman,

But He answered and said, “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

The prophecies and the prophetic dates that were given through prophets like Daniel made certain that there was no puzzle about this coming Messiah or the time He was due.

The nation should have known and there was no excuse for them.

But we’re jumping ahead of the story.

What exactly happened to Israel? Let’s look at a brief history.

Below this broadcast list is a timeline showing this history to make it easy to follow.

From the creation we see mankind continually rejecting God, and outliving the sin which is in every person’s heart, inherited from the fallen first humans. We see that sin and wickedness get so bad that God wipes out the population of the earth except for eight people, Noah and his family. As Noah and His family repopulate the earth we see that population continue in evil and disobedience to God and His plan through the account of the Tower of Babel at which point God disperses the population by separating their language, forcing them to spread over the earth.

But then we get to a man named Abram, whose name would be later changed by God to Abraham, and wife Sarai whose name would also be changed to Sarah.

God chooses this man to make a promise to and we see that in Genesis 12 verses 1 to 3,

Now the LORD had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, From your family And from your father’s house To a land that I will show you. 

I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing. 

I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

God has promised that a great nation would emerge from this man and that this nation would be a blessing to all the earth. That promise was passed on to Abraham’s son Isaac and then to Isaac’s son Jacob.

Jacob’s name was changed to Israel, and he had the 12 sons that would become the 12 tribes of the nation of Israel.

One of those 12 sons, Joseph, was despised by the other brothers who were jealous of him, and the brothers sold him into slavery and told their father Jacob, Israel, that he’d been killed by a wild animal.

However, Joseph, through one of the most amazing life journeys ever, becomes a ruler in Egypt where he’d become a slave.

In a background of high drama, which can be found in Genesis chapters 37 to 50, there came a great worldwide famine which ended up with this fledging tribe of Israel, 70 people at this stage, coming to Egypt for food and through Joseph, who bought them to live in Egypt, they survived as a nation.

In Genesis chapter 15 God tells Abraham that this would all happen.

Let’s look at Genesis chapter 15 verse 13 and 14,

Then He said to Abram: “Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years. 

And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions.

That happens. The nation of Israel goes into Egypt and as they’re in Egypt they increase greatly and the Egyptians fear that they may grow to be more powerful than them, so they put them into harsh slavery.

God hears their cries for deliverance from this slavery and raises up a person who would lead them out of captivity, Moses.

In Exodus 12 verses 35 and 36,

Now the children of Israel had done according to the word of Moses, and they had asked from the Egyptians articles of silver, articles of gold, and clothing. 

And the LORD had given the people favour in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they granted them what they requested. Thus, they plundered the Egyptians. 

It was God’s way of simply collecting back wages for their years of slave labour in Egypt. The Egyptians owed the Israelites so much in back wages that the children of Israel plundered them and left with much of Egypt’s wealth.

Then we go down to Exodus 12:41,

And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years—on that very same day—it came to pass that all the armies of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt. 

They go from Egypt into the Wilderness where they got God’s law. The fathers weren’t perfect people, and we can read a lot about Abraham, Isaac and Jacob’s failures in life, but the nation also learned all sorts of incorrect customs while in Egypt. They served other gods and as they came out they had to get rid of those idols and things.

So, God gave them a law.

And what did they do? Moses goes up to Mount Sinai to receive the law and the very first thing the nation does is build a golden calf, an obscene idol.

It’s the same as the story of the Earth. From the beginning sin entered by one man Adam, ruining the thing that God had created.

Now, God has created this special nation, and their fall begins right away. They start a history of tripping and falling that continues to this day.

Now out of Egypt, it’s God’s intention for them to go in and possess the land that He’d given them through His promise to Abraham.

When they get there, probably after a few weeks, they’re too afraid to go in. They’re afraid of the people who’re in the land at the time.

What they’re really saying is, “We can’t trust God to give us our land, we don’t believe His promise.”

So, God punishes them and says, “Well you’re going to wander in the wilderness until all of this current generation are dead.”

After forty years wandering in that wilderness, they finally get into their promised land, led by the only two people of that unbelieving generation who did believe, Joshua and Caleb.

As usual, they mess up very quickly. God tells them to get rid of the native peoples and they don’t, and so those people remain and cause them problems for the rest of their history.

Then, as soon as God’s man, Joshua dies the nation of Israel disobeys God.

They followed God’s statutes while Joshua was alive and as soon as he died they chucked out those statutes.

In the law that they were given God clearly told them what He would do when they disobeyed

and what they He would do when they obeyed that law.

However, its vital to point out what Paul makes clear in Galatians chapter 3 verse 16 to 18 and we read,

Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as of many, but as of one, “AND TO YOUR SEED,” who is Christ. 

And this I say that the law, which was four hundred and thirty years later, cannot annul the covenant that was confirmed before by God in Christ, that it should make the promise of no effect. 

For if the inheritance is of the law, it is no longer of promise; but God gave it to Abraham by promise. 

What Paul’s saying is that the requirement for Israel to be obedient came with the law. However, the promise to Abraham was made 430 years before the law was even given. This means that the promise of the land made to Abraham was not annulled or cancelled out by the nation’s disobedience to the law.

Let’s move to Judges now and look at Judges chapter 2 verse 14 and 15,

And the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel. So, He delivered them into the hands of plunderers who despoiled them; and He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, so that they could no longer stand before their enemies. 

Wherever they went out, the hand of the LORD was against them for calamity, as the LORD had said, and as the LORD had sworn to them. And they were greatly distressed. 

The Lord raised up these judges which delivered them out of the hand of those that spoiled them. Let’s keep reading in verses 17 to 19,

Yet they would not listen to their judges, but they played the harlot with other gods, and bowed down to them. They turned quickly from the way in which their fathers walked, in obeying the commandments of the LORD; they did not do so. 

And when the LORD raised up judges for them, the LORD was with the judge and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for the LORD was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who oppressed them and harassed them. 

And it came to pass, when the judge was dead, that they reverted and behaved more corruptly than their fathers, by following other gods, to serve them and bow down to them. They did not cease from their own doings nor from their stubborn way.

This is the continuing story of Israel. They didn’t just fall at the end; they were tripping up all along the path of their history.

Israel gets to a point that God said in the law that they would, they look around at the other nations and decide that what they need a king, a man to lead them.

That was wrong because God was their King, and they should have been looking to God for their leadership. However, God then began appointing them Kings and it’s in this time period of the Kings where they get punished some more because their Kings aren’t good.

They end up messing up yet again and God, according to the law, punishes them.

Now let’s look at 2 Samuel chapter 7 and a very important promise that God makes to King David, a man of whom God said was quote, “A man after my own heart”,

“When your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. 

He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 

Here’s a prophecy talking about the Kingdom of Israel being forever.

God will eventually raise the Kingdom of Israel regardless of how they mess up and fall, and, of course, they did mess up.

David had issues with BethSheba, and his son Solomon had issues with his 700 wives and 300 concubines.

We just saw David getting promised the throne in the Kingdom forever, but still, it didn’t take long before the problems of the nation continued and compounded.

In 1 Kings 11 starting verse 9 to 13 we see,

So, the LORD became angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned from the LORD God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice, and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods; but he did not keep what the LORD had commanded. 

Therefore, the LORD said to Solomon, “Because you have done this, and have not kept My covenant and My statutes, which I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom away from you and give it to your servant. 

Nevertheless, I will not do it in your days, for the sake of your father David; I will tear it out of the hand of your son. 

However, I will not tear away the whole kingdom; I will give one tribe to your son for the sake of my servant David, and for the sake of Jerusalem which I have chosen.”

After King Solomon’s death his two son’s Jeroboam and Rehoboam (who was Solomon’s rightful successor) cause a civil war in Israel resulting in the nation being split in two.

Israel split into the 10 kingdoms referred to as Ephraim or the house of Israel in the north of the land and only the tribes of Judah and Benjamin remained loyal to Rehoboam in the new kingdom of Judah in the south.

We read about it earlier when God was telling Solomon what was going to happen for his disobedience.

Jeroboam the first king to the 10 tribes, didn’t want those tribes returning to Jerusalem so he set up his own Temple and he set up his own idols, calves made of silver and gold, just like they did in the wilderness.

After this split in the time of the Kings, Hosea prophesied. This is when there’s still a nation, so Israel’s not fallen at this time but they’re making mistakes.

In the future, when Israel goes again into captivity, other nations came in and lived in that area and the Samaritans, who we hear a lot about in the Bible are a mixture of those peoples.

This was in the northern part of the promised land that God had given the nation, and the Samaritans originated there.

In 2nd Kings chapter 17 verse 24 we read,

Then the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Ava, Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel; and they took possession of Samaria and dwelt in its cities. 

Then in 22nd Kings 17:29,

However, every nation continued to make gods of its own, and put them in the shrines on the high places which the Samaritans had made, every nation in the cities where they dwelt. 

The idolatry and spiritual adultery were almost universal.

As the nation of Israel continued to disobey God He did what he said in the law. The punishment for that disobedience was that they were taken out of the land.

This is the period of captivity that Hosea is prophesying about. He’s says you lot are going to get punished and the kingdom is going to end, and you’ll be carried away to Egypt and to Assyria and you won’t live here anymore in your promised land.

Well, after this split occurs, they keep messing up, and eventually they fall into captivity.

The prophet Jeremiah prophesied that after the 70th year of their captivity, Israel would return back to the land.

This happens during the rule of Cyrus who, despite not being a follower of the God of the Bible, played a pivotal role in God’s plan for His people.

He decrees that they should go back to their land.

This is the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, or the nation of Judah and it’s to Jerusalem to where they’re returning.

The prophet Daniel reads the book of the prophet Jeremiah and in Daniel chapter 9 verse 2 we read,

in the first year of his reign I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years specified by the word of the LORD through Jeremiah the prophet, that He would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem. 

Go to Jeremiah chapter 29 verse 10 and 11,

For thus says the LORD: After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform My good word toward you, and cause you to return to this place. 

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.

We clearly see in Jeremiah that Daniel is speaking of the 70 years of punishment that God gave the nation of Judah for their sins and disobedience of the Covenant.

It talks about their return to that land.

Take a look at Jeremiah 25 verse 11 and 12,

And this whole land shall be a desolation and an astonishment, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.

‘Then it will come to pass, when seventy years are completed, that I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity,’ says the LORD; ‘and I will make it a perpetual desolation.

Then, Cyrus, king of Persia, (the Persians had by now conquered Babylon), issues a decree and sends those from the nation back to rebuild the city of Jerusalem in the land of Judah and to rebuild the temple.

That’s described in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, which detail the actual people. It even gives a list their names and how many there were that returned to Judah and Jerusalem and how they rebuilt the wall and then rebuilt the temple.

After that there’s nothing that God says to this nation any longer.

He’s punished them with captivity away from their promised land and then some of them returned to Jerusalem and Judah.

Then God is silent.

Then one day a prophet named John the Baptist came along.

His appearance is prophesied about in the book of Malachi, the last prophetic book in the so-called Old Testament.

Look at Malachi 3 verse 1,

“Behold, I send My messenger, And he will prepare the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, Will suddenly come to His temple, Even the Messenger of the covenant, In whom you delight. Behold, He is coming,” Says the LORD of hosts. 

We also see this in Isaiah 40 verse 3,

The voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the LORD; Make straight in the desert A highway for our God. 

In Mark chapter 1 verse 2 we read,

As it is written in the Prophets: “BEHOLD, I SEND MY MESSENGER BEFORE YOUR FACE, WHO WILL PREPARE YOUR WAY BEFORE YOU.” 

“THE VOICE OF ONE CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS: ‘PREPARE THE WAY OF THE LORD; MAKE HIS PATHS STRAIGHT.'” 

It’s here that God begins to speak to the nation of Israel again.

God spoke to the fathers previously and gave the nation prophets and here’s John, another prophet, and then God Himself comes to the nation in the form of humanity.

What did Israel do in that time?

They did what they’d done since the beginning of their history. They disobeyed God. They didn’t do what He said.

Jesus, who was God Himself came and they rejected him. They nailed him to a cross and crucified him. They rejected the kingdom that he preached was coming. This was their promised kingdom which now The Lord Himself was there to bring to fulfillment.

They rejected Christ Himself and they rejected the Apostles Christ sent to herald the coming kingdom.

Let’s look at that in Matthew 21 verses 42 and 43 where Jesus is telling his disciples what’s going to happen,

Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED HAS BECOME THE CHIEF CORNERSTONE. THIS WAS THE LORD’S DOING, AND IT IS MARVELOUS IN OUR EYES’?

“Therefore, I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it. 

And whoever falls on this stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder.”  

That stone is Jesus. Jesus is also referred to by Paul as The Stumbling Stone or what Israel tripped over and we read that in Romans chapters 9, 10, and 11 where Israel failed to receive that Kingdom because of their disobedience.

Their disobedience continued even after God punished them and sent them out of their land.

They continue to reject God.

Look at Matthew chapter 16 verse 15 to 18 where Jesus talks about how he would be rejected. He’d already asked the disciples, “Who do men say I am.” and they answered telling Him that some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.,

He (Jesus) said to them (the disciples), “But who do you say that I am?” 

Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 

Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. 

And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. 

Here we see a play on words by Jesus. Peter means rock and “on this rock” Jesus says. On Peter did He mean?

No! Don’t fall into the Catholic trap. This is not the rock of Peter! The rock is who? Jesus!

The nation of Israel rejected that Cornerstone which became the chief Stone.

Jesus is talking about Himself, Who He is, and it’s upon believing Who He is that He’s going to build his church and the Gates of Hell will not Prevail against it.

Of course, true to form, the nation of Israel rejected that stone. They stumbled over that stone which was Jesus.

They didn’t have faith in God and all God had promised but instead they sought to establish their own righteousness through the works of the law.

This is, in fact, has the opposite result, proving them unrighteous through their lack of faith in Who Jesus was, The Messiah.

Right back into the dawn of mankind faith in what God had said was accounted to man as righteousness as we see in Romans 4 verse 3,

For what does the Scripture say? “ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS ACCOUNTED TO HIM FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS.”

So, the nation rejects Jesus and crucifies Him, and His Apostles preach at Pentecost that thank God He was resurrected. He rose again from the dead and lives.

There’s still hope for our kingdom they say, just repent, or turn from your rejection of God.

The apostles continue to preach that message until we get to the stoning of Stephen in Acts chapter 7.

It’s at this time that the nation falls for the final time. They’ve rejected the prophets which the Father sent, they rejected the Son and now they’re rejecting the Holy Spirit, who the apostles at Pentecost were preaching under the influence of. Jesus Himself said there’s no forgiveness for that rejection or blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.

In God’s great prophetic timeline, what should have happened was that Israel would receive their Messiah with overwhelming joy and then, after a short but horrific time of tribulation, where God would pour out His wrath on all unbelievers and all those that had rejected the Messiah, the promised kingdom would be set up on earth and Christ would rule over that kingdom from Jerusalem and from King David’s throne, again in full accordance with prophecy.

In the next episode, part 2 of What is the Fellowship of the Mystery, we’ll see what did happen and we’ll see why this brief summary of the rise and fall of Israel was key to our understanding of that Mystery.

 

How Do I Pray

How Do I Pray – Part 2

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We’re continuing our study looking at prayer and trying to understand just what it is and how we’re supposed to approach it under the dispensation of grace in we live in today and what should we expect in response to prayer.
We’re trying toclear up some of the confusion about prayer by knowing God’s will for the age we currently live in and learning to pray according to that will.

“Speed Slider”

How Do I Pray – Part 2 Transcript

We’re in a series about prayer and we’re just trying to deal with some Elementary lessons about prayer under grace.
Last episode was simply the idea that it’s normal not to know how to pray. Romans 8:26 says,
…For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought…

There’s reasons for that and we’re trying to uncover them in our study here.
It’s very natural for people to pray to God for things, but it’s not natural to understand the things of God and to know what to pray for as we ought. Those things have to be learned.
We learned last time that a good prayer might be, “Lord teach me to pray.” Teach me to pray so I can pray knowing what you’re doing.
It’s natural for people to pray prayers saturated with requests, a laundry list of things to ask God for relating to the life they’re trying to live, but there’s gaps and holes and questions and uncertainties.
Last episode we tried to change the perspective a bit to the perspective of knowing all that God’s already done for us. That change in our prayer perspective should move us from constantly praying to get to praying to give as Paul tells us in 1st Thessalonians 5:18,
In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
That’s a result of knowing what God’s done. If we don’t know what God’s given us, what He’s done for us, it’s hard to say thank you.
Not everyone in the Bible was able to pray prayers of thanksgiving. Many didn’t receive the same things God’s given us which puts us in a unique position in this dispensation to pray certain prayers of thanksgiving.

It’s normal not to know how to pray according to God’s Will and how His will affects our prayers in this dispensation.
It’s normal not to know how to pray and we’ve covered that before.
It’s normal to make requests in prayer. Paul even instructs us to in Philippians 4:6,
Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.

It’s also normal to think that prayer is something that should work for us.
We say prayer is a tool God’s given us to submit our requests and suggestions and things because I need help and it’s all about my needing help.

But, what if it wasn’t entirely about that?
Now we wouldn’t know this unless God has revealed things in the scripture about what He’s doing and what His will actually is.

This is what we’ll explore today.
Prayer does not come naturally. We’re born with a spirit, we’re born with a conscience, we’re born with the knowledge that there is a Creator, and so praying to that creator for things is natural.
But prayer is not about making our voice heard before God even though some people think of prayer that way. They even talk about the number of people who join in prayer having a higher chance of getting that prayer heard by God. Almost like making a petition to the government or something, but that’s not how prayer functions, or how God wants it to work, especially in this dispensation of grace that we live in today.
If there’s just one person praying, God hears their prayer just fine.
It’s much less about how many people want a thing or what it is that we want and more about what God wants.
However, if we say prayers about God’s will and not ours then people tend to turn off. It’s not what they want to hear. They say well then what’s the point of me praying?
Well, now our heart is exposed for what it really is which is us wanting things according to our will.

God will hear our prayers, especially in this dispensation where we have access to God through Christ and everything we pray He hears. And that’s different from how it was before.
Prayer has the purpose of aligning our will with God’s will, that’s what prayer’s purposes is and when we go into prayer with that thinking then we’ll understand it instead of thinking that prayer is trying to get God to align with our will.
That’s how most people naturally pray and that’s normal for people to pray that way until we learn differently.

So, rather than thinking that I’m going to pray to tell God what’s up with me so that he can get on board with what I’m doing and help me out, we begin to realise it’s the opposite.
We pray so that the wills that we’re constantly using to do the things we do in life can be aligned in those moments of prayer with what God’s doing. That’s what prayer’s supposed to do.

When we do that, what tends to happen is our own will becomes very diminished. the things that we thought were problems don’t seem as big as before, because now we know what God’s will is.
So, having that perspective about prayer being about God’s will is important. We’ve already learned that God instructs us to pray in this dispensation, so we pray by the will of God, and we pray according to the will of God, with knowledge of that will, and then we pray for the will of God to be done.
We pray as God’s instruct us to pray and we pray with the knowledge of what He’s doing according to His will.
What do we pray for as we ought? Well, that requires us to learn some things and the thing we need to learn is exactly what the will of God is, so we know what to pray for. We’re going to pray for His will to be done.

People talk about prayer and how prayer it didn’t work for them and usually it’s because they want God to do something that they want, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s God’s will or not.
But that’s not what prayer is!
Prayer is us aligning with God’s will. Prayer will work for the will of God, but we have to know what the will of God is. If we don’t know the will of God we’re going to be stuck praying prayers that’re trying to get God to know our will and
it just doesn’t seem like He’s hearing us. He is but prayer doesn’t have that function. Prayer is trying to align us with His will and if we don’t know His will what are we being aligned with? It simply doesn’t work that way.

Let’s look at some men from the Bible who prayed in this way, prayed God’s will in their prayers. There’s a pattern in these scriptures that we should notice.
First, we should notice how they’re praying according to the will of God and for the will of God and secondly how what they’re praying for and how they’re praying according to the will of God changes in different dispensations.

Before the cross of Christ and before Grace, Grace being something that God’s dispensing right now, God operated through the law. He operated through Covenants and He operated through Israel, and this is the way God operated even through the day of the cross through to Pentecost as he was promising a future Kingdom.
And then we have this revelation of a mystery given to Paul by Jesus Christ Himself. It was never prophesied but was kept secret by God before the foundation of the world and then it was revealed to Paul.
It’s a new dispensation that would interrupt prophesy because of the nation of Israel’s rejection of the Messiah.
In this dispensation called the dispensation of Grace, God pours out grace, saving grace, to a wicked world and He’s no longer working through the law, Israel or Israel’s covenants. So, the way God’s operating now, or the will of God today has changed from what God was doing before. Before the law was given God was operating with people in a different way again, without the law and without covenants.
Remember, Abraham back there was not an Israelite. Israel hadn’t even been created yet until Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel. It was his twelve sons that became the tribes of Israel. Abraham was not under Israel’s covenants like the Davidic covenants, or the Mosaic covenants and he was not under the law. He wasn’t even circumcised at one point in his life when God made His unconditional promise of the land to him. The apostle Paul takes great pains to point that out in his epistle to the Romans.
And so, we have God operating with Abraham differently than how he’s operating here today.
And we can easily see this in the scripture and reflected in the prayers of men living in these different times of God’s operation.

Let’s look at Genesis chapter 20. We’ll start with Abraham and by this time, Abraham is circumcised, and he’s given a promise that he would have a seed, a son and his son would be a blessing and Abraham would be a blessing among the Nations, and if anyone blessed him they’d be blessed and if anyone cursed him they’d be cursed. It’s important to realise that this promise given to Abraham at this time is not with Israel being present.
This is for this man and his family. So, in Genesis 20 verses 1 and 2 we see this,
And Abraham journeyed from there to the South, and dwelt between Kadesh and Shur, and stayed in Gerar. Now Abraham said of Sarah his wife, “She is my sister.” And Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah.
This causes an ordeal. Abimelech thinks well she’s a pretty woman, I think I’ll take her to be my wife. Then God appears to him in a dream down in verse 3,
But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, “Indeed you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man’s wife.”

What’s interesting here is that many people come to the scripture and read these stories and they say well this must be how God deals with everybody.
But, it isn’t how God deals with everybody. These people we’re reading about are the exceptions to how God deals with people.
God gave Abraham a unique promise and Sarah was special because he gave her a promise as well to have a son, Abraham’s son, and so this is a big problem for God’s will being done.
This king of Gerar is going to take Sarah to be his wife. God interrupts and says you’re dead. Now that’s how you change the course of history!
So, Abimelech says whoa, hold on!
Genesis 20 verses 4 to 6,
But Abimelech had not come near her; and he said, “Lord, will You slay a righteous nation also?
Did he not say to me, ‘She is my sister’? And she, even she herself said, ‘He is my brother.’ In the integrity of my heart and innocence of my hands I have done this.”
And God said to him in a dream, “Yes, I know that you did this in the integrity of your heart. For I also withheld you from sinning against Me; therefore I did not let you touch her.

From down in verse seven God tells Abimelech to restore Abraham’s wife to him He’s a prophet and he’ll pray for you, and you’ll live. But if you don’t restore her you’ll die and everyone who is associated with you will die.

Abimelech then wakes up and calls Abraham and said, “Why’d you do this to me? Why’d you lie to me? God threatened me.
He goes back and rebukes Abraham, then down at the end of the chapter in verse 16 he tells Sarah behold I’ve given your brother a thousand pieces of silver, go and be at peace and leave me alone. Now in verse 17 we read and here’s the part that we want to see, it’s Abraham’s prayer,
So Abraham prayed to God; and God healed Abimelech, his wife, and his female servants. Then they bore children; for the LORD had closed up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife.
You see, God gave a promise to Abraham.
Abraham and Sarah had a special Covenant with God and God actually intervenes to make sure His will gets done.
Abraham prays to God and God healed Abimelech so that his household could again bear children.
So, we see the healing of Abimelech’s household after Abraham prays.
He prays for the healing of Abimelech’s household, and it works, let’s look at how this occurs.
This praying for healing isn’t Abraham coming out of the blue saying you’re sick and I’ve got power from God, so let’s heal you.
It’s God having a purpose with Abraham, Abimelech’s interrupting this purpose and God’s the one that actually caused the sickness here, the barrenness in the wombs. Then he tells Abimelech that Abraham will pray for you.
What’s God’s will here? God’s will is that Abimelech gives Sarah back and for Abraham to pray for him Abimelech obeys the will of God.
Abraham obeys the will of God and says the prayer.
The passages don’t even tell us what Abraham prayed but God heals Abimelech’s household.
Does it even have anything to do with what Abraham prayed? It’s that he prayed in obedience to God and God’s will was already stated. He was going to heal Abimelech when Abraham prayed. That’s what he said!
So, this isn’t some desire of Abraham, it was God’s will for Abimelech’s household to be healed.
It was written in Scripture. Abraham did it and God’s will was done.
That’s how this prayer worked!

Now let’s go to Psalm 37 and we’ll see this pattern over and over again in the scripture, where people, men of faith, pray according to the will of God that’s already known to them and then God’s will’s done.
People tend to think they’re going to pray for their own will when prayer is really about God’s will being done.
People often use Psalm 37 to justify praying for what they themselves want.
Psalm 37 verses 4 and 5,
Delight yourself also in the LORD, And He shall give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, And He shall bring it to pass.

Well, there it is in scripture! We take that verse and put it on a bookmark or a sticker on the fridge. But sadly, most people take the verse completely out of the context. When that happens, we see the verse as whatever the will of your heart is just pray and the Lord’ll give it to you.
Well, firstly, scripture cuts to the chase when speaking of the heart of man.
Jeremaiah 17:9,
The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?
So, knowing that the heart is desperately wicked and knowing that we don’t know what to pray for as you ought. Knowing that we might desire things God doesn’t want us to desire it’s good advice to follow our heart.
But Psalm 37 verses 4 and 5 say God will give us the desires of our heart if we delight ourselves in the Lord.
So, what does it mean to Delight yourself in the lord? What does the Bible say about delighting in the Lord?
Is it that God gives me the desires of my heart and I really want the desires of my heart?
Well, David says in verse 5, commit your way to the Lord!
Now, David’s operating under the law covenants that God gave to Israel. Those covenants were that if you obey, I (God) will bless your field and bless your children and give you prosperity.
Everything that was part of the Covenant was already written down, and it’s the will of God.
So, God is saying here that He’ll give you the desires of your heart after he’s already told you to circumcise your heart and love God with all your heart.
Deuteronomy 10:16,
Therefore circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be stiff-necked no longer.

Deuteronomy 30:6,
And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.

See how it fits with the good will of God already?
So, us saying well this is the desire of my heart even though I don’t love God very much, that’s breaking the Covenant.
Verse 5’s instruction to, “Commit your way to the Lord” means that your way has to be the Lord’s way. If our way is not the Lord’s way we’re not going to get anything. But what’s the Lord’s way? What’s the lord’s will?
He declared in the covenants keep my Commandments, and so verse five, “Trust also in Him and He shall bring it to pass”, does not in any way mean God’s going to do what I want. No! He’s going to do what He wants and when we get on board with what He’s doing, what He wants, that’s when Psalm 37 becomes a reality.
Let’s drop down to verse 9 of Psalm 37,
For evildoers shall be cut off; But those who wait on the LORD, They shall inherit the earth.
We can’t rip these verses out of context. The land was given to Israel. They had land covenants, earth covenants and by the way this this type of language here that they shall inherit the earth sounds familiar doesn’t it?
Look at Verse 11,
But the meek shall inherit the earth, And shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.

Remember someone else saying this in the Bible? Jesus said it. He didn’t invent it, apart from the fact that He’s God and He did say it in this Psalm as well!
Jesus said this in Matthew Chapter 5 and 6 repeating prophecy about Israel’s land covenant and it’s fulfillment on the Earth. They’re going to inherit the earth is what God promised to them going right back to Abraham’s promise.
God’s will was known. It was in the law and the covenants. So, the promise God’s going to fulfill for them is what He’s already made known to them.
When they pray to inherit the earth and obey the terms of God’s covenant, God’s going to do what He wills to do. He’s going to keep His promise.

This is not willy-nilly stuff like someone saying, “I like that beachfront property on the Gold Coast, so God give it to me please.”
That’s just not the promise here. There’s nowhere where God said it’s His will for that.
But it was His will for Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and Israel to have a certain specific measured out piece of land.
Meanwhile in this same Psalm 37:23 David writes,
The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD, And He delights in his way.
This is in the same chapter about delighting in the Lord. We shouldn’t read this like whatever I’m going to do he’s going to lead me mystically to do it.
God has given 613 Commandments to Israel from everything about what they wear to what they eat to where they go to what days they celebrate.
He’s ordered everything in Israel and in their society and how they’re to live.
The steps of a good man order by the Lord is that if you’re a good man in Israel you will keep the law. It wasn’t simply love your neighbour, even though that was the second Chief commandment, it was a whole range of very specific details.
They’re ordered by the Lord it says and He Delights in His way.
You see what that’s saying? Delighting yourself in the Lord in Psalm 37’s context is doing the law.

God already revealed what He wanted them to do and what it means to Delight in Him.
Then in Psalm 37:29,
The righteous shall inherit the land, And dwell in it forever.
There it is again. The righteous shall inherit the land! There’s a half a dozen times in this chapter it talks about the land the land the land. This is Israel! The righteous shall inherit the land and dwell therein forever.
Well, there goes Heaven if you’re going to be on the Earth forever. This is Israel!
Then down in verse 31,
The law of his God is in his heart; None of his steps shall slide.
The law of his God is in his heart. Delight yourself in the Lord and He’ll give you the desires of your heart. Well, what’s in his heart? The law of God!
What’s the law of God say? You’ll get the land forever.
Well, that seems like God’s only going to do what He wants. We come to prayer thinking we’re going to manipulate and change God to get him to do what we want. That’s not how prayer works.
We might say, “Well, God, a lot of us down here want something different than what you’re doing.”
However, it’s not going to convince Him.

Go to Psalm 40 verse 8,
I delight to do Your will, O my God, And Your law is within my heart.”
David’s talking about how to condition your heart under the law.
Delight yourself in the Lord’s law. They had to understand that the law of God wasn’t a suggestion or just something that ruled an earthly nation, it was divinely given. It was God’s will for them to do it.
It’s different from the laws of our country which were Man created. Even though many of them were originally influenced by the Bible they were not given from Heaven on Mount Sinai.
We follow laws in our society for various reasons and motivations but it’s not because God gave them from Heaven.
But the law of God that Moses was given was God given from Heaven.

See, the scripture’s clear about what’s the desires of the person’s heart in Psalm 37? The law of God! They delight in the Lord’s will. So, you see where we’re going here?
The prayer it’s not, “Oh goodie, I get to finally make my own request. God says you be good for a week I’ll give you whatever you want.”
No, it’s God saying, “I want to change your heart to do My will because although you don’t know it, My will is better than yours.”
That’s what the Bible’s trying to teach in a nutshell.
God knows better than us, but we think otherwise.

Now let’s look at Solomon.
Go to 2nd Chronicles chapter 7 verse 14,
…if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land..
God’s people here are of course the nation of Israel.
Humble themselves and Pray. In that context it says to Humble yourselves which means we’re not saying me, me, me.
First we have we have the “if” and then we have the “then”.
The “if” is humble themselves, pray seek God’s face, turn from their wicked ways.
The “then” is I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin and heal their land.
Question. Does God hear from heaven when they don’t turn from their wicked ways? Not according to this verse! If they’re not turning from their wicked ways God will not hear from Heaven.
This is why we don’t use this verse as a prayer in this dispensation today, because the unique thing about prayer in this dispensation is that if we’re in Christ, God hears all our prayers by Grace.
We’ve done nothing to be saved by grace. Nothing we’ve done or not done gets us access to God. Therefore, anything we utter in prayer God receives, unlike under the Covenant program and the law where God would only hear their prayers when they obeyed his Covenant. Obey first then I’ll listen to you says God.
Under grace today it’s, “I’ve saved you by My grace. You’re my child in Christ. Pray.” What an amazing privilege and benefit to have.

But back there with Solomon, God says forgiveness and healing of their land is received through humbling themselves, praying and seeking God’s face and turning from their wicked ways.

Forgiveness in this dispensation of grace we live in today is through the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
Colossians 1 verse 14,
…in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.
You see using this verse in 2nd Chronicles as a prayer denies the grace blessings you’ve been given by Christ today.
Forgiveness then was not yet being offered based on Christ’s shed blood.
They were under a covenant program which said you need to do the law then
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God’ll hear and then respond, and that’s what God promised. He’ll hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land.

God’s talking about Israel in 2nd Chronicles 7:14. God’s speaking to Solomon privately in Solomon’s house in response to Solomon’s Prayer.
So we should go back and see exactly what Solomon prayed, because if Solomon can get a private response from God and some sort of prayer promise even though it’s not the dispensation you and I live in today, then maybe we should learn how Solomon prayed.
2nd Chronicles 6 verse one,
Then Solomon spoke: “The LORD said He would dwell in the dark cloud.
The context of what’s going on here is that Solomon is dedicating the temple that he built for God.
The prayer to which God is responding to in chapter 7 is this prayer of Solomon’s.
2nd Chronicles 6:2,
I have surely built You an exalted house, And a place for You to dwell in forever.”
He’s talking to God there saying I built you a house to dwell in forever.
2nd Chronicles 6:3,
Then the king turned around and blessed the whole assembly of Israel, while all the assembly of Israel was standing.

The notice what Solomon says next in 2nd Chronicles 6:4,
And he said: “Blessed be the LORD God of Israel, who has fulfilled with His hands what He spoke with His mouth to my father David,
See, Solomon is praying according to what God’s already said He’s going to do. look at verse 5,
Since the day that I brought My people out of the land of Egypt, I have chosen no city from any tribe of Israel in which to build a house, that My name might be there, nor did I choose any man to be a ruler over My people Israel.

Now verse 6,
Yet I have chosen Jerusalem, that My name may be there, and I have chosen David to be over My people Israel.’
This is what God promised David!

Verse 7,
Now it was in the heart of my father David to build a temple for the name of the LORD God of Israel.
Remember, David wanted to do that. He wanted to build a house. What did God say to David? No!
But what did he say to David instead?
Verse 9,
Nevertheless you shall not build the temple, but your son who will come from your body, he shall build the temple for My name.’
When David wanted to build God’s house, God said no but his son, Solomon would build it.
Now Solomon’s built the temple and He’s dedicating it.
See how all this was God’s will. Solomon’s prayer is that we did God’s will and he’s now praying according to that will!
You see a lot of background knowledge in all these verses. Solomon’s not just praying something like, “Well I built something for you God, even though you didn’t ask for it and I hope you can bless it even though you never promised you would, and I hope that if anyone comes in this building that you know they’ll have spiritual fulfillment even though you’ve never said that.”
That’s how many of us Christians pray.
We pray about things we do when there’s no biblical justification for it.
Solomon built this because God said to!
God made a promise to do it and to bless him for doing it. And he’s is praying to fulfill what God said he wanted him to do.
In verses 10 and 11, Solomon goes on,
So the LORD has fulfilled His word which He spoke, and I have filled the position of my father David, and sit on the throne of Israel, as the LORD promised; and I have built the temple for the name of the LORD God of Israel. And there I have put the ark, in which is the covenant of the LORD which He made with the children of Israel.”
So over and over again he’s talking about God’s fulfilling of what He promised Down in verse 17 and 18 he says,
And now, O LORD God of Israel, let Your word come true, which You have spoken to Your servant David. “But will God indeed dwell with men on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You. How much less this temple which I have built!
Solomon turns his attention to speak to God directly and this is in front of the congregation of Israel.

Do not make this house the house you go to for church.
This is a house God told Solomon to build specifically for Him.
No church organisation ever received that instruction.
Solomon goes on for the remainder of the chapter praying about the temple according to the will of God.

God responds to Solomon privately as Solomon goes home and tells him that he has heard his prayer and that, quote, “I will be in this house and if my people who are called by my name shall humble themselves and pray then I will heal their land I’ll forgive their sins.”

People don’t know what to pray for because often they’re not interested in learning what God will is.
That’s why it’s not easy to know what to pray for in this dispensation of today because knowing God’s will requires us to understand how His will has been revealed and how it has changed and now been revealed in this dispensation.
Christians, not understanding that not all the Bible is written to them and about them, take prayers from everywhere.
Whenever we hear Christians taking verses out of context and asking for
things contrary to God’s will, a red flag should go off in our mind.
If it’s not God’s will as clearly given tin the Bible, then there’s no way we can walk in that information or participate in it. It’s just simply outside God’s will and we should back away.
We saw Jesus in the last episode is teaching the disciples to pray in the so called Lord’s prayer and it was easy to see from prophecy that it was all according to God’s will, and the disciples knew that.

And as we pointed out last time also, to think that the church is to pray this prayer, especially as frequently as they do, is to say that in this prayer is the will of God for the church today and there’s a problem with that.
If this prayer is the will of God for the church today it doesn’t include the cross at all, or seeing all men saved, or the body of Christ, the creating of that new creature, or the church anywhere for that matter!
It’s eating every day to survive, being led on the earth to a kingdom come and forgiving others so you might receive forgiveness.
That is actually for the 12 tribes of Israel, it’s simply not the will of God for you and me today in this dispensation of grace.
But what that prayer does include, as Jesus taught it, was the will of God for Israel.
Jesus knew the will of God. Jesus knew He was God, but he also said He came to do the will of His father. That’s why He came to Earth to do the will of His father, to confirm the promise made in the covenants and also to die on the cross.
See the pattern of prayer? God’s will, God’s will, God’s will, not our partitions for things, for health, wealth and happiness that emerge from our own desires.

In Luke 18 verse 31 to 33 we hear Jesus say,
Then He took the twelve aside and said to them, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished.” For He will be delivered to the Gentiles and will be mocked and insulted and spit upon.
They will scourge Him and kill Him. And the third day He will rise again.”

What He just said was that whatever God said before that He was going to do; He’s going to do. Is it a mystery here what Christ is going to do? No, it’s been revealed even though the disciples are kind of ignorant of it.
We see this in the next verse, verse 34,
But they understood none of these things; this saying was hidden from them, and they did not know the things which were spoken.
Like a lot of us Christians today, they just don’t know what the Bible actually says, but that doesn’t mean God hasn’t said it.
Now the disciples were not taught to pray about the situation, for Jesus’s work to die on the cross for the sins of the world.
That wasn’t even in that prayer the Lord taught them.
The disciples don’t understand anything he says here.
They didn’t know about his death and Resurrection, but Jesus did know. He
Knew He’d come to this earth to die. He also knew why.
In Luke 22, the night of His betrayal, and remember the disciples don’t understand anything about it, Jesus says this,
Likewise He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.
He hasn’t died yet. No one there that night understood the gospel preaching of the Cross, but Jesus says I’m going to shed My blood for the New Testament, I’m going to shed my blood for sins, I’m going to shed my blood for Israel’s promises being fulfilled.
Jesus knew what God’s will was for Him and why.
Now drop down to Luke 22 verse 42. It’s after the meal and they go out and sing a song then go to the Garden of Gethsemane. Peter, James and John are with Him and He’s told them to pray that you may not enter into temptation.
Jesus then prays saying,
“Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not My will, but Yours, be done.”
Jesus knows why He came. It was to die. He knew He’d come to fulfill the promises and the prophets. He knew He’d come to die for the sin of the world. He knew even what was not yet revealed according to God’s will, which is that His death on the cross would accomplish something far greater, the creation of a new creature in the body of Christ. To perform His will for the ages and that’s why He says, “Nevertheless not My will but yours be done.”
Whatever pain and suffering and sorrow He’s feeling, whatever the resistance and temptation to not perform this thing, it needs to be accomplished because it’s God’s will, incidentally, the will He Himself purposed with the Father.
That’s Jesus’s prayer to the father. Should our prayers be any less according to God’s will?
However, for us to pray God’s will we need to know His will!

1st John 5 verses 14 and 15 is a popular prayer today, taught by Jon who was there in the Garden with Jesus on that dreadful night. John says,
Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.
And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.

That’s what we’re trying to get across from the scripture.
When we pray it should be according to God’s will.
Then we have to recognise that God’s will relating to how he deals with mankind changes from age to age. God Himself never changes of course, but the way he deals with His human creation does.
John writes in this epistle of 1st John as a member of the remnant of Israel. One of those who’ve been promised a kingdom come.
He says we know we have confidence in him that whatever we ask we have the petitions we desired of Him.
That sounds like Psalm 37 which said,
Delight yourself also in the LORD, And He shall give you the desires of your heart.
As we saw at length He’ll give you the desires of your heart because your heart contains God’s will.
God’s not waiting for us to have a good idea. He has His will. We’re the ones that need to know it, for us to align with His will. In the circumstances of our lives, where sometimes it’s hard to see God’s will, we do our own thing anyway, but to do the things we need to do we must align ourselves, in that moment of prayer, to say God has a will and I’m supposed to be aligning with it. That helps us in how we walk day to day in this world.

According to Romans 8, we don’t know what to pray for, but the Holy Spirit helps but His words are not given to us in a supernatural inner voice today, they’re given to us in the scripture, which means we’ve got to open up the book and read and understand these things.
If we go back to 1st John 5 we see in verse 16 why they could ask anything according to His will and He hears, and they have the petitions they asked of Him.
See they’re talking about forgiving sins. The things that they’re asking God to do is forgiving sins.
In 1st John 1 verse 9 we see,
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
That’s what they’re ask Him. That’s why verse 16 says there’s some sins you shouldn’t pray for, which is another issue for another day, but they’re praying specifically for forgiveness.
Do we need to pray for forgiveness today? Is it our job to pray for forgiveness of someone else? No! Christ has shed his blood for all men’s forgiveness. Our pray today is that mankind, including the people we know and love, trust His completed work for the forgiveness of their sins.

In every prayer that we’ve just covered, and there are many, many more throughout the Bible, all these men prayed the will of God and their own will aligned with it.
None of them said, “Well that’s a good idea God but I have a better thought on how to do it.”
How do we get prayer to work? We need to know how God is working and what He wants. When we align ourselves with God’s will and His work then we see God working more clearly. Now we’re praying the same thing that God’s doing, His will for today.
Prayer works today according to how God works, what He’s doing in this dispensation, knowing full well that what He does changes throughout the scripture. Of course, God Himself never changes. Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever, but how he deals with His precious creation, mankind, does change from age to age.
What He’s doing today is not what He’ll do in the future on the earth.
It’s not what He was doing at Pentecost or during Israel’s wilderness wanderings or when Israel conquered the land. And, when God changes his mode of operation with man, then prayer must change as well.
We know that The Body of Christ is not Israel. The body of Christ is neither Jew nor Gentile. We’re not under the law. As Romans 6:14 says,
For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
The body of Christ is a new creature created to serve God outside of the law.
2nd Corinthians 5:1,
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
Then in Galatians 6:15,
For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision (the Jew) nor uncircumcision (the Gentile) avails anything, but a new creation.
That doesn’t mean that we’re walking in sin. It means the law’s not the motivation for us to do right. We have a greater motivation which is God’s grace explained to us in the incredible book of Romans.
Not only are we not under the Mosaic law, we’re also strangers from the covenants relating to the earthly Kingdom.
Ephesians 2 says that we’re strangers from Israel’s covenants and when we join to God we don’t join to God through Israel’s covenants We join to God through the new man that he’s made, the new creature, the Body of Christ.

To fully understand God’s will for us today we need to understand the dispensation of grace that we’re now living in today.

We look to Romans 16 verses 25 to 26,
Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began but now made manifest, and by the prophetic Scriptures made known to all nations, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, for obedience to the faith—

Now, it isn’t just knowing that there was a mystery that was kept secret even though that’s important. It’s knowing that this mystery that God kept secret from the foundation of the world has now been revealed. It was revealed by Jesus Christ Himself through the apostle Paul.
The point of this verse is that Jesus Christ will establish us in the will of God that’s the point of the verse.
It’s so we might know God’s will according to that mystery.
How did this mystery period, which is the dispensation of grace come into being?
Ephesians 3 verses 1 to 7,
For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles— if indeed you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which was given to me for you, how that by revelation He made known to me the mystery (as I have briefly written already, by which, when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ), which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets: that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel, of which I became a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given to me by the effective working of His power.

It’s hard to imagine that the apostle Paul, before he met Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus and was saved, was a violent and unrelenting persecutor of all who believed in Jesus Christ.

If you go through some of our other material you can find a more detailed explanation of the mystery revealed.
This dispensation that was revealed to Paul after being kept secret by God before the foundation of the world came into reality as an interruption, if you like, to the timeline of prophecy. This timeline included all the things that happened throughout Israel’s history and during Jesus’s earthly ministry when He came to earth to fulfill prophecy and the law to the letter. It also included the events of the day of Pentecost after the Lord had ascended back to heaven after His resurrection.
This is where the apostle Peter quotes the prophet Joel and refers to this time as the time that those events spoken of in Joel are actually happening. This certainly would have been the case but for one major factor, Israel rejected Jesus Christ, the Messiah. They rejected Him when He was on earth, and they continue to reject Him after He returned to heaven. The last straw for Israel was when they stoned Stephen in Acts chapter 7.
They had Rejected the Messiah, they’d rejected God and rejected the Holy Spirit and, as a result God rejected them, and Israel fell.
All that they were promised, the New Covenant, the Kingdom and the restoration of the nation to its former glory under King David and King Solomon were postponed and Israel entered a state of blindness which lasts right up till today.
So, in place of what should have happened, according to prophecy, God introduces this interlude that He knew about and knew would come, but kept it secret.
Every promise and prophecy relating to Israel was now on hold.
This period, this dispensation of grace, would be a time where God offered free Grace to a rebellious and wicked world. Grace that would be bestowed no longer through Israel, their priests and their religious systems, but directly from God by no other vehicle than faith in God’s Word, the gospel of grace. This gospel and salvation by grace is now open to every human, no matter how bad or good or whether he’s a Jew or a Gentile. The nation Israel has been temporarily sidelined as God’s priesthood that brings all nations to the knowledge of God. They’re sidelined until a day comes, which it will during the great tribulation, when they turn and realise that Jesus was the Messiah all along and they accept Him.
This incredible dispensation of grace has so far lasted for 2000 years.

So, now God has once again changed the way He deals with mankind. Now salvation is by grace alone, through faith, without works of the law or works of any kind. It’s through believing and nothing else!
Where do we find our instruction, our doctrine and what God’s will is for this incredible dispensation of grace today?
We find it in the 13 epistles written by the apostle Paul. The interesting thing with Paul is that in those 13 epistles Paul gives us both instruction in prayer and examples. He continually uses his own prayer life as an example of the instruction to pray.

In 1st Timothy 2 verses 3 and 4 we read about God’s overall will and therefore a baseline for our prayers,
For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

So, we have salvation by the gospel of grace of God as Paul preaches and then coming to a knowledge of the truth. The truth of what? Of whom we are and what God’s doing today and what He’s accomplished by the cross and through his grace today.

In 1 Thessalonians 4 verse 1 and 2 Paul writes concerning our walk,
Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God; for you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus.
He says very clearly that this is the will of God concerning us that we should abound more and more. In what?
In the knowledge of God and His will as we see in Colossians 1 verses 9 and 10,
For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God;
When we read what Paul wrote in Romans and Corinthians and Galatians and his other epistles we’re reading what Paul taught these churches and we can
receive from Paul what they received from Paul, and we can know how we ought to walk.
If we don’t know we go back and learn. It’s that learning process that takes us from not knowing how or what to pray for as we ought to knowing what and how to pray.

1st Thessalonians 4 verse 3,
For this is the will of God, your sanctification:
Our sanctification or our purity is God’s will. To be who God made us to be, set apart for His purpose which means we have to know His purpose, which is Grace today.
Part of that’s, in fact a very big part, is being grateful. In 1st Thessalonians 5 verses 17 and 18 we’re told,
pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

We’ve covered these verses before. Knowing the will of God is clear in these passages. In everything give thanks. That’s a prayer verse but what we’re talking about today is praying knowing the will of God and then praying for the will of God.
If we struggle praying from this perspective of grace today, maybe we need to pray to God to change our perspective.
If we constantly think that the only thing we can pray for is something that we need and we don’t respect what God’s already given us in abundance then maybe our prayer might be, “God please help me to be thankful because I know that’s your will.” See we’d no longer praying our will we’re praying His will.
We can pray, “Lord teach me what it means to be a member of the body of Christ and to be sanctified. What does it mean to walk according to what you told Paul because I’m still trying to learn that, but I know that’s your will because I can see it clearly in scripture.”
See, we’re praying according to His will and that should help inform our Prayers.
It’s sometimes easier to read these verses about God’s will and know the will of God than it is to practice the will of God in prayer.
It requires a heart change.

We have to believe that what God’s doing today is the best thing for today.
We can’t pray to God to ask Him to act like He did in another age, like start healing the masses or bring that Kingdom in because we think that’d be better. What God is doing today is what He wills to do today, and it will work when we pray according to His will.
We can clearly know the ministry God’s doing today and it’s different than what He was doing before. He’s dealing with the spiritual today. He wants to see Souls saved and be spiritually strengthened in our inner man.

Paul prays in Colossians 1 verses 9 to 12,
For this reason, we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;
that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.

This is God’s will for us.
Colossians 4 verse 2 to 4 is a great prayer of Pauls,
Continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving; meanwhile praying also for us, that God would open to us a door for the word, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in chains, that I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak.
This is for all those who strive to bring the whole counsel of God to people.

We’re trying to see how all these prayers even in the old Testament were patterned according to the will of God. We just have to discern what the will of God is for today.
The Colossians 4 prayer works by understanding what God’s doing then we pray accordingly and then we watch because when we know God’s will we know what to look for and as we pray according to God’s will we’re participating in that will.

We change our will to recognise we want God’s will being done not ours.
A good prayer to start with may be, “Lord, your will be done not mine.” And then go and learn his will and our prayers will align us with that will.
There’s reasons for that and we’re trying to uncover them in our study here.
It’s very natural for people to pray to God for things, but it’s not natural to understand the things of God and to know what to pray for as we ought. Those things have to be learned.
We learned last time that a good prayer might be, “Lord teach me to pray.” Teach me to pray so I can pray knowing what you’re doing.
It’s natural for people to pray prayers saturated with requests, a laundry list of things to ask God for relating to the life they’re trying to live, but there’s gaps and holes and questions and uncertainties.
Last episode we tried to change the perspective a bit to the perspective of knowing all that God’s already done for us. That change in our prayer perspective should move us from constantly praying to get to praying to give as Paul tells us in 1st Thessalonians 5:18,
In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
That’s a result of knowing what God’s done. If we don’t know what God’s given us, what He’s done for us, it’s hard to say thank you.
Not everyone in the Bible was able to pray prayers of thanksgiving. Many didn’t receive the same things God’s given us which puts us in a unique position in this dispensation to pray certain prayers of thanksgiving.
It’s normal not to know how to pray according to God’s Will and how His will affects our prayers in this dispensation.
It’s normal not to know how to pray and we’ve covered that before.
It’s normal to make requests in prayer. Paul even instructs us to in Philippians 4:6,
Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.

It’s also normal to think that prayer is something that should work for us.
We say prayer is a tool God’s given us to submit our requests and suggestions and things because I need help and it’s all about my needing help.

But, what if it wasn’t entirely about that?
Now we wouldn’t know this unless God has revealed things in the scripture about what He’s doing and what His will actually is.

This is what we’ll explore today.
Prayer does not come naturally. We’re born with a spirit, we’re born with a conscience, we’re born with the knowledge that there is a Creator, and so praying to that creator for things is natural.
But prayer is not about making our voice heard before God even though some people think of prayer that way. They even talk about the number of people who join in prayer having a higher chance of getting that prayer heard by God. Almost like making a petition to the government or something, but that’s not how prayer functions, or how God wants it to work, especially in this dispensation of grace that we live in today.
If there’s just one person praying, God hears their prayer just fine.
It’s much less about how many people want a thing or what it is that we want and more about what God wants.
However, if we say prayers about God’s will and not ours then people tend to turn off. It’s not what they want to hear. They say well then what’s the point of me praying?
Well, now our heart is exposed for what it really is which is us wanting things according to our will.

God will hear our prayers, especially in this dispensation where we have access to God through Christ and everything we pray He hears. And that’s different from how it was before.
Prayer has the purpose of aligning our will with God’s will, that’s what prayer’s purposes is and when we go into prayer with that thinking then we’ll understand it instead of thinking that prayer is trying to get God to align with our will.
That’s how most people naturally pray and that’s normal for people to pray that way until we learn differently.

So, rather than thinking that I’m going to pray to tell God what’s up with me so that he can get on board with what I’m doing and help me out, we begin to realise it’s the opposite.
We pray so that the wills that we’re constantly using to do the things we do in life can be aligned in those moments of prayer with what God’s doing. That’s what prayer’s supposed to do.

When we do that, what tends to happen is our own will becomes very diminished. the things that we thought were problems don’t seem as big as before, because now we know what God’s will is.
So, having that perspective about prayer being about God’s will is important. We’ve already learned that God instructs us to pray in this dispensation, so we pray by the will of God, and we pray according to the will of God, with knowledge of that will, and then we pray for the will of God to be done.
We pray as God’s instruct us to pray and we pray with the knowledge of what He’s doing according to His will.
What do we pray for as we ought? Well, that requires us to learn some things and the thing we need to learn is exactly what the will of God is, so we know what to pray for. We’re going to pray for His will to be done.

People talk about prayer and how prayer it didn’t work for them and usually it’s because they want God to do something that they want, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s God’s will or not.
But that’s not what prayer is!
Prayer is us aligning with God’s will. Prayer will work for the will of God, but we have to know what the will of God is. If we don’t know the will of God we’re going to be stuck praying prayers that’re trying to get God to know our will and
it just doesn’t seem like He’s hearing us. He is but prayer doesn’t have that function. Prayer is trying to align us with His will and if we don’t know His will what are we being aligned with? It simply doesn’t work that way.

Let’s look at some men from the Bible who prayed in this way, prayed God’s will in their prayers. There’s a pattern in these scriptures that we should notice.
First, we should notice how they’re praying according to the will of God and for the will of God and secondly how what they’re praying for and how they’re praying according to the will of God changes in different dispensations.

Before the cross of Christ and before Grace, Grace being something that God’s dispensing right now, God operated through the law. He operated through Covenants and He operated through Israel, and this is the way God operated even through the day of the cross through to Pentecost as he was promising a future Kingdom.
And then we have this revelation of a mystery given to Paul by Jesus Christ Himself. It was never prophesied but was kept secret by God before the foundation of the world and then it was revealed to Paul.
It’s a new dispensation that would interrupt prophesy because of the nation of Israel’s rejection of the Messiah.
In this dispensation called the dispensation of Grace, God pours out grace, saving grace, to a wicked world and He’s no longer working through the law, Israel or Israel’s covenants. So, the way God’s operating now, or the will of God today has changed from what God was doing before. Before the law was given God was operating with people in a different way again, without the law and without covenants.
Remember, Abraham back there was not an Israelite. Israel hadn’t even been created yet until Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel. It was his twelve sons that became the tribes of Israel. Abraham was not under Israel’s covenants like the Davidic covenants, or the Mosaic covenants and he was not under the law. He wasn’t even circumcised at one point in his life when God made His unconditional promise of the land to him. The apostle Paul takes great pains to point that out in his epistle to the Romans.
And so, we have God operating with Abraham differently than how he’s operating here today.
And we can easily see this in the scripture and reflected in the prayers of men living in these different times of God’s operation.

Let’s look at Genesis chapter 20. We’ll start with Abraham and by this time, Abraham is circumcised, and he’s given a promise that he would have a seed, a son and his son would be a blessing and Abraham would be a blessing among the Nations, and if anyone blessed him they’d be blessed and if anyone cursed him they’d be cursed. It’s important to realise that this promise given to Abraham at this time is not with Israel being present.
This is for this man and his family. So, in Genesis 20 verses 1 and 2 we see this,
And Abraham journeyed from there to the South, and dwelt between Kadesh and Shur, and stayed in Gerar. Now Abraham said of Sarah his wife, “She is my sister.” And Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah.
This causes an ordeal. Abimelech thinks well she’s a pretty woman, I think I’ll take her to be my wife. Then God appears to him in a dream down in verse 3,
But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, “Indeed you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man’s wife.”

What’s interesting here is that many people come to the scripture and read these stories and they say well this must be how God deals with everybody.
But, it isn’t how God deals with everybody. These people we’re reading about are the exceptions to how God deals with people.
God gave Abraham a unique promise and Sarah was special because he gave her a promise as well to have a son, Abraham’s son, and so this is a big problem for God’s will being done.
This king of Gerar is going to take Sarah to be his wife. God interrupts and says you’re dead. Now that’s how you change the course of history!
So, Abimelech says whoa, hold on!
Genesis 20 verses 4 to 6,
But Abimelech had not come near her; and he said, “Lord, will You slay a righteous nation also?
Did he not say to me, ‘She is my sister’? And she, even she herself said, ‘He is my brother.’ In the integrity of my heart and innocence of my hands I have done this.”
And God said to him in a dream, “Yes, I know that you did this in the integrity of your heart. For I also withheld you from sinning against Me; therefore I did not let you touch her.

From down in verse seven God tells Abimelech to restore Abraham’s wife to him He’s a prophet and he’ll pray for you, and you’ll live. But if you don’t restore her you’ll die and everyone who is associated with you will die.

Abimelech then wakes up and calls Abraham and said, “Why’d you do this to me? Why’d you lie to me? God threatened me.
He goes back and rebukes Abraham, then down at the end of the chapter in verse 16 he tells Sarah behold I’ve given your brother a thousand pieces of silver, go and be at peace and leave me alone. Now in verse 17 we read and here’s the part that we want to see, it’s Abraham’s prayer,
So Abraham prayed to God; and God healed Abimelech, his wife, and his female servants. Then they bore children; for the LORD had closed up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife.
You see, God gave a promise to Abraham.
Abraham and Sarah had a special Covenant with God and God actually intervenes to make sure His will gets done.
Abraham prays to God and God healed Abimelech so that his household could again bear children.
So, we see the healing of Abimelech’s household after Abraham prays.
He prays for the healing of Abimelech’s household, and it works, let’s look at how this occurs.
This praying for healing isn’t Abraham coming out of the blue saying you’re sick and I’ve got power from God, so let’s heal you.
It’s God having a purpose with Abraham, Abimelech’s interrupting this purpose and God’s the one that actually caused the sickness here, the barrenness in the wombs. Then he tells Abimelech that Abraham will pray for you.
What’s God’s will here? God’s will is that Abimelech gives Sarah back and for Abraham to pray for him Abimelech obeys the will of God.
Abraham obeys the will of God and says the prayer.
The passages don’t even tell us what Abraham prayed but God heals Abimelech’s household.
Does it even have anything to do with what Abraham prayed? It’s that he prayed in obedience to God and God’s will was already stated. He was going to heal Abimelech when Abraham prayed. That’s what he said!
So, this isn’t some desire of Abraham, it was God’s will for Abimelech’s household to be healed.
It was written in Scripture. Abraham did it and God’s will was done.
That’s how this prayer worked!

Now let’s go to Psalm 37 and we’ll see this pattern over and over again in the scripture, where people, men of faith, pray according to the will of God that’s already known to them and then God’s will’s done.
People tend to think they’re going to pray for their own will when prayer is really about God’s will being done.
People often use Psalm 37 to justify praying for what they themselves want.
Psalm 37 verses 4 and 5,
Delight yourself also in the LORD, And He shall give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, And He shall bring it to pass.

Well, there it is in scripture! We take that verse and put it on a bookmark or a sticker on the fridge. But sadly, most people take the verse completely out of the context. When that happens, we see the verse as whatever the will of your heart is just pray and the Lord’ll give it to you.
Well, firstly, scripture cuts to the chase when speaking of the heart of man.
Jeremaiah 17:9,
The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?
So, knowing that the heart is desperately wicked and knowing that we don’t know what to pray for as you ought. Knowing that we might desire things God doesn’t want us to desire it’s good advice to follow our heart.
But Psalm 37 verses 4 and 5 say God will give us the desires of our heart if we delight ourselves in the Lord.
So, what does it mean to Delight yourself in the lord? What does the Bible say about delighting in the Lord?
Is it that God gives me the desires of my heart and I really want the desires of my heart?
Well, David says in verse 5, commit your way to the Lord!
Now, David’s operating under the law covenants that God gave to Israel. Those covenants were that if you obey, I (God) will bless your field and bless your children and give you prosperity.
Everything that was part of the Covenant was already written down, and it’s the will of God.
So, God is saying here that He’ll give you the desires of your heart after he’s already told you to circumcise your heart and love God with all your heart.
Deuteronomy 10:16,
Therefore circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be stiff-necked no longer.

Deuteronomy 30:6,
And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.

See how it fits with the good will of God already?
So, us saying well this is the desire of my heart even though I don’t love God very much, that’s breaking the Covenant.
Verse 5’s instruction to, “Commit your way to the Lord” means that your way has to be the Lord’s way. If our way is not the Lord’s way we’re not going to get anything. But what’s the Lord’s way? What’s the lord’s will?
He declared in the covenants keep my Commandments, and so verse five, “Trust also in Him and He shall bring it to pass”, does not in any way mean God’s going to do what I want. No! He’s going to do what He wants and when we get on board with what He’s doing, what He wants, that’s when Psalm 37 becomes a reality.
Let’s drop down to verse 9 of Psalm 37,
For evildoers shall be cut off; But those who wait on the LORD, They shall inherit the earth.
We can’t rip these verses out of context. The land was given to Israel. They had land covenants, earth covenants and by the way this this type of language here that they shall inherit the earth sounds familiar doesn’t it?
Look at Verse 11,
But the meek shall inherit the earth, And shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.

Remember someone else saying this in the Bible? Jesus said it. He didn’t invent it, apart from the fact that He’s God and He did say it in this Psalm as well!
Jesus said this in Matthew Chapter 5 and 6 repeating prophecy about Israel’s land covenant and it’s fulfillment on the Earth. They’re going to inherit the earth is what God promised to them going right back to Abraham’s promise.
God’s will was known. It was in the law and the covenants. So, the promise God’s going to fulfill for them is what He’s already made known to them.
When they pray to inherit the earth and obey the terms of God’s covenant, God’s going to do what He wills to do. He’s going to keep His promise.

This is not willy-nilly stuff like someone saying, “I like that beachfront property on the Gold Coast, so God give it to me please.”
That’s just not the promise here. There’s nowhere where God said it’s His will for that.
But it was His will for Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and Israel to have a certain specific measured out piece of land.
Meanwhile in this same Psalm 37:23 David writes,
The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD, And He delights in his way.
This is in the same chapter about delighting in the Lord. We shouldn’t read this like whatever I’m going to do he’s going to lead me mystically to do it.
God has given 613 Commandments to Israel from everything about what they wear to what they eat to where they go to what days they celebrate.
He’s ordered everything in Israel and in their society and how they’re to live.
The steps of a good man order by the Lord is that if you’re a good man in Israel you will keep the law. It wasn’t simply love your neighbour, even though that was the second Chief commandment, it was a whole range of very specific details.
They’re ordered by the Lord it says and He Delights in His way.
You see what that’s saying? Delighting yourself in the Lord in Psalm 37’s context is doing the law.

God already revealed what He wanted them to do and what it means to Delight in Him.
Then in Psalm 37:29,
The righteous shall inherit the land, And dwell in it forever.
There it is again. The righteous shall inherit the land! There’s a half a dozen times in this chapter it talks about the land the land the land. This is Israel! The righteous shall inherit the land and dwell therein forever.
Well, there goes Heaven if you’re going to be on the Earth forever. This is Israel!
Then down in verse 31,
The law of his God is in his heart; None of his steps shall slide.
The law of his God is in his heart. Delight yourself in the Lord and He’ll give you the desires of your heart. Well, what’s in his heart? The law of God!
What’s the law of God say? You’ll get the land forever.
Well, that seems like God’s only going to do what He wants. We come to prayer thinking we’re going to manipulate and change God to get him to do what we want. That’s not how prayer works.
We might say, “Well, God, a lot of us down here want something different than what you’re doing.”
However, it’s not going to convince Him.

Go to Psalm 40 verse 8,
I delight to do Your will, O my God, And Your law is within my heart.”
David’s talking about how to condition your heart under the law.
Delight yourself in the Lord’s law. They had to understand that the law of God wasn’t a suggestion or just something that ruled an earthly nation, it was divinely given. It was God’s will for them to do it.
It’s different from the laws of our country which were Man created. Even though many of them were originally influenced by the Bible they were not given from Heaven on Mount Sinai.
We follow laws in our society for various reasons and motivations but it’s not because God gave them from Heaven.
But the law of God that Moses was given was God given from Heaven.

See, the scripture’s clear about what’s the desires of the person’s heart in Psalm 37? The law of God! They delight in the Lord’s will. So, you see where we’re going here?
The prayer it’s not, “Oh goodie, I get to finally make my own request. God says you be good for a week I’ll give you whatever you want.”
No, it’s God saying, “I want to change your heart to do My will because although you don’t know it, My will is better than yours.”
That’s what the Bible’s trying to teach in a nutshell.
God knows better than us, but we think otherwise.

Now let’s look at Solomon.
Go to 2nd Chronicles chapter 7 verse 14,
…if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land..
God’s people here are of course the nation of Israel.
Humble themselves and Pray. In that context it says to Humble yourselves which means we’re not saying me, me, me.
First we have we have the “if” and then we have the “then”.
The “if” is humble themselves, pray seek God’s face, turn from their wicked ways.
The “then” is I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin and heal their land.
Question. Does God hear from heaven when they don’t turn from their wicked ways? Not according to this verse! If they’re not turning from their wicked ways God will not hear from Heaven.
This is why we don’t use this verse as a prayer in this dispensation today, because the unique thing about prayer in this dispensation is that if we’re in Christ, God hears all our prayers by Grace.
We’ve done nothing to be saved by grace. Nothing we’ve done or not done gets us access to God. Therefore, anything we utter in prayer God receives, unlike under the Covenant program and the law where God would only hear their prayers when they obeyed his Covenant. Obey first then I’ll listen to you says God.
Under grace today it’s, “I’ve saved you by My grace. You’re my child in Christ. Pray.” What an amazing privilege and benefit to have.

But back there with Solomon, God says forgiveness and healing of their land is received through humbling themselves, praying and seeking God’s face and turning from their wicked ways.

Forgiveness in this dispensation of grace we live in today is through the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
Colossians 1 verse 14,
…in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.
You see using this verse in 2nd Chronicles as a prayer denies the grace blessings you’ve been given by Christ today.
Forgiveness then was not yet being offered based on Christ’s shed blood.
They were under a covenant program which said you need to do the law then
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God’ll hear and then respond, and that’s what God promised. He’ll hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land.

God’s talking about Israel in 2nd Chronicles 7:14. God’s speaking to Solomon privately in Solomon’s house in response to Solomon’s Prayer.
So we should go back and see exactly what Solomon prayed, because if Solomon can get a private response from God and some sort of prayer promise even though it’s not the dispensation you and I live in today, then maybe we should learn how Solomon prayed.
2nd Chronicles 6 verse one,
Then Solomon spoke: “The LORD said He would dwell in the dark cloud.
The context of what’s going on here is that Solomon is dedicating the temple that he built for God.
The prayer to which God is responding to in chapter 7 is this prayer of Solomon’s.
2nd Chronicles 6:2,
I have surely built You an exalted house, And a place for You to dwell in forever.”
He’s talking to God there saying I built you a house to dwell in forever.
2nd Chronicles 6:3,
Then the king turned around and blessed the whole assembly of Israel, while all the assembly of Israel was standing.

The notice what Solomon says next in 2nd Chronicles 6:4,
And he said: “Blessed be the LORD God of Israel, who has fulfilled with His hands what He spoke with His mouth to my father David,
See, Solomon is praying according to what God’s already said He’s going to do. look at verse 5,
Since the day that I brought My people out of the land of Egypt, I have chosen no city from any tribe of Israel in which to build a house, that My name might be there, nor did I choose any man to be a ruler over My people Israel.

Now verse 6,
Yet I have chosen Jerusalem, that My name may be there, and I have chosen David to be over My people Israel.’
This is what God promised David!

Verse 7,
Now it was in the heart of my father David to build a temple for the name of the LORD God of Israel.
Remember, David wanted to do that. He wanted to build a house. What did God say to David? No!
But what did he say to David instead?
Verse 9,
Nevertheless you shall not build the temple, but your son who will come from your body, he shall build the temple for My name.’
When David wanted to build God’s house, God said no but his son, Solomon would build it.
Now Solomon’s built the temple and He’s dedicating it.
See how all this was God’s will. Solomon’s prayer is that we did God’s will and he’s now praying according to that will!
You see a lot of background knowledge in all these verses. Solomon’s not just praying something like, “Well I built something for you God, even though you didn’t ask for it and I hope you can bless it even though you never promised you would, and I hope that if anyone comes in this building that you know they’ll have spiritual fulfillment even though you’ve never said that.”
That’s how many of us Christians pray.
We pray about things we do when there’s no biblical justification for it.
Solomon built this because God said to!
God made a promise to do it and to bless him for doing it. And he’s is praying to fulfill what God said he wanted him to do.
In verses 10 and 11, Solomon goes on,
So the LORD has fulfilled His word which He spoke, and I have filled the position of my father David, and sit on the throne of Israel, as the LORD promised; and I have built the temple for the name of the LORD God of Israel. And there I have put the ark, in which is the covenant of the LORD which He made with the children of Israel.”
So over and over again he’s talking about God’s fulfilling of what He promised Down in verse 17 and 18 he says,
And now, O LORD God of Israel, let Your word come true, which You have spoken to Your servant David. “But will God indeed dwell with men on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You. How much less this temple which I have built!
Solomon turns his attention to speak to God directly and this is in front of the congregation of Israel.

Do not make this house the house you go to for church.
This is a house God told Solomon to build specifically for Him.
No church organisation ever received that instruction.
Solomon goes on for the remainder of the chapter praying about the temple according to the will of God.

God responds to Solomon privately as Solomon goes home and tells him that he has heard his prayer and that, quote, “I will be in this house and if my people who are called by my name shall humble themselves and pray then I will heal their land I’ll forgive their sins.”

People don’t know what to pray for because often they’re not interested in learning what God will is.
That’s why it’s not easy to know what to pray for in this dispensation of today because knowing God’s will requires us to understand how His will has been revealed and how it has changed and now been revealed in this dispensation.
Christians, not understanding that not all the Bible is written to them and about them, take prayers from everywhere.
Whenever we hear Christians taking verses out of context and asking for
things contrary to God’s will, a red flag should go off in our mind.
If it’s not God’s will as clearly given tin the Bible, then there’s no way we can walk in that information or participate in it. It’s just simply outside God’s will and we should back away.
We saw Jesus in the last episode is teaching the disciples to pray in the so called Lord’s prayer and it was easy to see from prophecy that it was all according to God’s will, and the disciples knew that.

And as we pointed out last time also, to think that the church is to pray this prayer, especially as frequently as they do, is to say that in this prayer is the will of God for the church today and there’s a problem with that.
If this prayer is the will of God for the church today it doesn’t include the cross at all, or seeing all men saved, or the body of Christ, the creating of that new creature, or the church anywhere for that matter!
It’s eating every day to survive, being led on the earth to a kingdom come and forgiving others so you might receive forgiveness.
That is actually for the 12 tribes of Israel, it’s simply not the will of God for you and me today in this dispensation of grace.
But what that prayer does include, as Jesus taught it, was the will of God for Israel.
Jesus knew the will of God. Jesus knew He was God, but he also said He came to do the will of His father. That’s why He came to Earth to do the will of His father, to confirm the promise made in the covenants and also to die on the cross.
See the pattern of prayer? God’s will, God’s will, God’s will, not our partitions for things, for health, wealth and happiness that emerge from our own desires.

In Luke 18 verse 31 to 33 we hear Jesus say,
Then He took the twelve aside and said to them, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished.” For He will be delivered to the Gentiles and will be mocked and insulted and spit upon.
They will scourge Him and kill Him. And the third day He will rise again.”

What He just said was that whatever God said before that He was going to do; He’s going to do. Is it a mystery here what Christ is going to do? No, it’s been revealed even though the disciples are kind of ignorant of it.
We see this in the next verse, verse 34,
But they understood none of these things; this saying was hidden from them, and they did not know the things which were spoken.
Like a lot of us Christians today, they just don’t know what the Bible actually says, but that doesn’t mean God hasn’t said it.
Now the disciples were not taught to pray about the situation, for Jesus’s work to die on the cross for the sins of the world.
That wasn’t even in that prayer the Lord taught them.
The disciples don’t understand anything he says here.
They didn’t know about his death and Resurrection, but Jesus did know. He
Knew He’d come to this earth to die. He also knew why.
In Luke 22, the night of His betrayal, and remember the disciples don’t understand anything about it, Jesus says this,
Likewise He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.
He hasn’t died yet. No one there that night understood the gospel preaching of the Cross, but Jesus says I’m going to shed My blood for the New Testament, I’m going to shed my blood for sins, I’m going to shed my blood for Israel’s promises being fulfilled.
Jesus knew what God’s will was for Him and why.
Now drop down to Luke 22 verse 42. It’s after the meal and they go out and sing a song then go to the Garden of Gethsemane. Peter, James and John are with Him and He’s told them to pray that you may not enter into temptation.
Jesus then prays saying,
“Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not My will, but Yours, be done.”
Jesus knows why He came. It was to die. He knew He’d come to fulfill the promises and the prophets. He knew He’d come to die for the sin of the world. He knew even what was not yet revealed according to God’s will, which is that His death on the cross would accomplish something far greater, the creation of a new creature in the body of Christ. To perform His will for the ages and that’s why He says, “Nevertheless not My will but yours be done.”
Whatever pain and suffering and sorrow He’s feeling, whatever the resistance and temptation to not perform this thing, it needs to be accomplished because it’s God’s will, incidentally, the will He Himself purposed with the Father.
That’s Jesus’s prayer to the father. Should our prayers be any less according to God’s will?
However, for us to pray God’s will we need to know His will!

1st John 5 verses 14 and 15 is a popular prayer today, taught by Jon who was there in the Garden with Jesus on that dreadful night. John says,
Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.
And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.

That’s what we’re trying to get across from the scripture.
When we pray it should be according to God’s will.
Then we have to recognise that God’s will relating to how he deals with mankind changes from age to age. God Himself never changes of course, but the way he deals with His human creation does.
John writes in this epistle of 1st John as a member of the remnant of Israel. One of those who’ve been promised a kingdom come.
He says we know we have confidence in him that whatever we ask we have the petitions we desired of Him.
That sounds like Psalm 37 which said,
Delight yourself also in the LORD, And He shall give you the desires of your heart.
As we saw at length He’ll give you the desires of your heart because your heart contains God’s will.
God’s not waiting for us to have a good idea. He has His will. We’re the ones that need to know it, for us to align with His will. In the circumstances of our lives, where sometimes it’s hard to see God’s will, we do our own thing anyway, but to do the things we need to do we must align ourselves, in that moment of prayer, to say God has a will and I’m supposed to be aligning with it. That helps us in how we walk day to day in this world.

According to Romans 8, we don’t know what to pray for, but the Holy Spirit helps but His words are not given to us in a supernatural inner voice today, they’re given to us in the scripture, which means we’ve got to open up the book and read and understand these things.
If we go back to 1st John 5 we see in verse 16 why they could ask anything according to His will and He hears, and they have the petitions they asked of Him.
See they’re talking about forgiving sins. The things that they’re asking God to do is forgiving sins.
In 1st John 1 verse 9 we see,
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
That’s what they’re ask Him. That’s why verse 16 says there’s some sins you shouldn’t pray for, which is another issue for another day, but they’re praying specifically for forgiveness.
Do we need to pray for forgiveness today? Is it our job to pray for forgiveness of someone else? No! Christ has shed his blood for all men’s forgiveness. Our pray today is that mankind, including the people we know and love, trust His completed work for the forgiveness of their sins.

In every prayer that we’ve just covered, and there are many, many more throughout the Bible, all these men prayed the will of God and their own will aligned with it.
None of them said, “Well that’s a good idea God but I have a better thought on how to do it.”
How do we get prayer to work? We need to know how God is working and what He wants. When we align ourselves with God’s will and His work then we see God working more clearly. Now we’re praying the same thing that God’s doing, His will for today.
Prayer works today according to how God works, what He’s doing in this dispensation, knowing full well that what He does changes throughout the scripture. Of course, God Himself never changes. Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever, but how he deals with His precious creation, mankind, does change from age to age.
What He’s doing today is not what He’ll do in the future on the earth.
It’s not what He was doing at Pentecost or during Israel’s wilderness wanderings or when Israel conquered the land. And, when God changes his mode of operation with man, then prayer must change as well.
We know that The Body of Christ is not Israel. The body of Christ is neither Jew nor Gentile. We’re not under the law. As Romans 6:14 says,
For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
The body of Christ is a new creature created to serve God outside of the law.
2nd Corinthians 5:1,
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
Then in Galatians 6:15,
For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision (the Jew) nor uncircumcision (the Gentile) avails anything, but a new creation.
That doesn’t mean that we’re walking in sin. It means the law’s not the motivation for us to do right. We have a greater motivation which is God’s grace explained to us in the incredible book of Romans.
Not only are we not under the Mosaic law, we’re also strangers from the covenants relating to the earthly Kingdom.
Ephesians 2 says that we’re strangers from Israel’s covenants and when we join to God we don’t join to God through Israel’s covenants We join to God through the new man that he’s made, the new creature, the Body of Christ.

To fully understand God’s will for us today we need to understand the dispensation of grace that we’re now living in today.

We look to Romans 16 verses 25 to 26,
Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began but now made manifest, and by the prophetic Scriptures made known to all nations, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, for obedience to the faith—

Now, it isn’t just knowing that there was a mystery that was kept secret even though that’s important. It’s knowing that this mystery that God kept secret from the foundation of the world has now been revealed. It was revealed by Jesus Christ Himself through the apostle Paul.
The point of this verse is that Jesus Christ will establish us in the will of God that’s the point of the verse.
It’s so we might know God’s will according to that mystery.
How did this mystery period, which is the dispensation of grace come into being?
Ephesians 3 verses 1 to 7,
For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles— if indeed you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which was given to me for you, how that by revelation He made known to me the mystery (as I have briefly written already, by which, when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ), which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets: that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel, of which I became a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given to me by the effective working of His power.

It’s hard to imagine that the apostle Paul, before he met Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus and was saved, was a violent and unrelenting persecutor of all who believed in Jesus Christ.

If you go through some of our other material you can find a more detailed explanation of the mystery revealed.
This dispensation that was revealed to Paul after being kept secret by God before the foundation of the world came into reality as an interruption, if you like, to the timeline of prophecy. This timeline included all the things that happened throughout Israel’s history and during Jesus’s earthly ministry when He came to earth to fulfill prophecy and the law to the letter. It also included the events of the day of Pentecost after the Lord had ascended back to heaven after His resurrection.
This is where the apostle Peter quotes the prophet Joel and refers to this time as the time that those events spoken of in Joel are actually happening. This certainly would have been the case but for one major factor, Israel rejected Jesus Christ, the Messiah. They rejected Him when He was on earth, and they continue to reject Him after He returned to heaven. The last straw for Israel was when they stoned Stephen in Acts chapter 7.
They had Rejected the Messiah, they’d rejected God and rejected the Holy Spirit and, as a result God rejected them, and Israel fell.
All that they were promised, the New Covenant, the Kingdom and the restoration of the nation to its former glory under King David and King Solomon were postponed and Israel entered a state of blindness which lasts right up till today.
So, in place of what should have happened, according to prophecy, God introduces this interlude that He knew about and knew would come, but kept it secret.
Every promise and prophecy relating to Israel was now on hold.
This period, this dispensation of grace, would be a time where God offered free Grace to a rebellious and wicked world. Grace that would be bestowed no longer through Israel, their priests and their religious systems, but directly from God by no other vehicle than faith in God’s Word, the gospel of grace. This gospel and salvation by grace is now open to every human, no matter how bad or good or whether he’s a Jew or a Gentile. The nation Israel has been temporarily sidelined as God’s priesthood that brings all nations to the knowledge of God. They’re sidelined until a day comes, which it will during the great tribulation, when they turn and realise that Jesus was the Messiah all along and they accept Him.
This incredible dispensation of grace has so far lasted for 2000 years.

So, now God has once again changed the way He deals with mankind. Now salvation is by grace alone, through faith, without works of the law or works of any kind. It’s through believing and nothing else!
Where do we find our instruction, our doctrine and what God’s will is for this incredible dispensation of grace today?
We find it in the 13 epistles written by the apostle Paul. The interesting thing with Paul is that in those 13 epistles Paul gives us both instruction in prayer and examples. He continually uses his own prayer life as an example of the instruction to pray.

In 1st Timothy 2 verses 3 and 4 we read about God’s overall will and therefore a baseline for our prayers,
For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

So, we have salvation by the gospel of grace of God as Paul preaches and then coming to a knowledge of the truth. The truth of what? Of whom we are and what God’s doing today and what He’s accomplished by the cross and through his grace today.

In 1 Thessalonians 4 verse 1 and 2 Paul writes concerning our walk,
Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God; for you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus.
He says very clearly that this is the will of God concerning us that we should abound more and more. In what?
In the knowledge of God and His will as we see in Colossians 1 verses 9 and 10,
For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God;
When we read what Paul wrote in Romans and Corinthians and Galatians and his other epistles we’re reading what Paul taught these churches and we can
receive from Paul what they received from Paul, and we can know how we ought to walk.
If we don’t know we go back and learn. It’s that learning process that takes us from not knowing how or what to pray for as we ought to knowing what and how to pray.

1st Thessalonians 4 verse 3,
For this is the will of God, your sanctification:
Our sanctification or our purity is God’s will. To be who God made us to be, set apart for His purpose which means we have to know His purpose, which is Grace today.
Part of that’s, in fact a very big part, is being grateful. In 1st Thessalonians 5 verses 17 and 18 we’re told,
pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

We’ve covered these verses before. Knowing the will of God is clear in these passages. In everything give thanks. That’s a prayer verse but what we’re talking about today is praying knowing the will of God and then praying for the will of God.
If we struggle praying from this perspective of grace today, maybe we need to pray to God to change our perspective.
If we constantly think that the only thing we can pray for is something that we need and we don’t respect what God’s already given us in abundance then maybe our prayer might be, “God please help me to be thankful because I know that’s your will.” See we’d no longer praying our will we’re praying His will.
We can pray, “Lord teach me what it means to be a member of the body of Christ and to be sanctified. What does it mean to walk according to what you told Paul because I’m still trying to learn that, but I know that’s your will because I can see it clearly in scripture.”
See, we’re praying according to His will and that should help inform our Prayers.
It’s sometimes easier to read these verses about God’s will and know the will of God than it is to practice the will of God in prayer.
It requires a heart change.

We have to believe that what God’s doing today is the best thing for today.
We can’t pray to God to ask Him to act like He did in another age, like start healing the masses or bring that Kingdom in because we think that’d be better. What God is doing today is what He wills to do today, and it will work when we pray according to His will.
We can clearly know the ministry God’s doing today and it’s different than what He was doing before. He’s dealing with the spiritual today. He wants to see Souls saved and be spiritually strengthened in our inner man.

Paul prays in Colossians 1 verses 9 to 12,
For this reason, we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;
that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.

This is God’s will for us.
Colossians 4 verse 2 to 4 is a great prayer of Pauls,
Continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving; meanwhile praying also for us, that God would open to us a door for the word, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in chains, that I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak.
This is for all those who strive to bring the whole counsel of God to people.

We’re trying to see how all these prayers even in the old Testament were patterned according to the will of God. We just have to discern what the will of God is for today.
The Colossians 4 prayer works by understanding what God’s doing then we pray accordingly and then we watch because when we know God’s will we know what to look for and as we pray according to God’s will we’re participating in that will.

We change our will to recognise we want God’s will being done not ours.
A good prayer to start with may be, “Lord, your will be done not mine.” And then go and learn his will and our prayers will align us with that will.

How Do I Pray

How Do I Pray – Part 1

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In this episode we’re looking at prayer to try and understand just what it is and how we’re supposed to approach it under the dispensation of grace in we live in today and what should we expect in response to prayer.
There’s a lot of discouragement about prayer because many of us don’t understand it’s purpose.
Frustration also comes by not understanding how prayer can change in the Bible from one dispensation, one age, to the next.
Let’s try and clear up some of the confusion about prayer by knowing God’s will for the age we currently live in and learning to pray according to that will.

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How Do I Pray – Part 1 – Transcript

There’s a lot of discouragement about prayer because many of us don’t understand it’s purpose.
Frustration also comes by not understanding how prayer can change in the Bible from one dispensation, one age, to the next.


Additionally, when we talk to God, He doesn’t really talk back to us, so is he really listening?
So, prayer can be confusing and there’s a lot of ignorance associated with it.
Talking to the Eternal Creator, our maker Who’s in heaven and all around us is a difficult concept to get hold of. He’s invisible, a spirit and, into the bargain, we’re not even worthy of talking to Him.

Now, if you’re struggling with prayer and really don’t know what to pray for or how to pray, how to approach God, you’re normal!
You and I have to accept the fact that our struggle with prayer is the normal situation for Humanity.
Even us Christians who’re saved by God’s grace find it difficult to pray. It’s normal! We need to accept that and realise that the Bible actually says we need to be taught how to pray because we don’t know how.
That’s both comforting to know we’re normal and discouraging at the same time, especially when we realise there’s such a thing in the Bible as praying wrong.

We’re certainly told by Jesus Himself that we can pray wrongly.
In Matthew chapter 6 verse 5 for example, Jesus said this,
And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward.
To pray like the hypocrites would be wrong according to Jesus.
A hypocrite here means a stage player, an actor, a pretender, a moral or religious counterfeit or fraud.

How do the hypocrites pray? Jesus tells us in this verse. They put on a public spectacle to draw attention to themselves, to their own importance. Jesus said that’s the sum total of their reward, they get that recognition, and their self-importance is satisfied.

There’re so many passages on prayer in the Bible, much more than we could study here, however there’s not a lot of instruction or specific detail on how to do it.
Despite that, prayer is something God wants us to do, so we’re left with a question mark.

We learn in the scripture that prayer is something very personal between an individual and God. It’s something that we pray out of our inner man.
But these hypocrites are making a performance out of it and so they’re making it about their flesh and that’s the hypocrisy.
In Matthew 6:6 Jesus goes on to say,
But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.
So basically, the Lord’s saying rather than pray like the hypocrites do it in secret.
There’s another way to pray that’s wrong.
Matthew 6:7,

And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words.

Saying the same thing over and over and over again like a chant doesn’t affect God any more or less.
He says the Heathen, those who don’t have knowledge of God, pray that way.
They think if they repeat these incantations God’s going to hear them.

Jesus says no He doesn’t hear them.
There are religious dominations that do that, just chanting the same thing over and over again, and it’s nonsense. So’s the idea that we just pray whatever jibber jabber we want.
There’s a right way to pray and a wrong way to pray.
The difficulty surrounding prayer is partly to do with that because we’re trying to learn how to talk to our maker to the Holy God of the universe and none of us want to do it wrong.

Luke 11 verse 1 we see the disciple after ministering with Jesus and seeing all that He did and listening to Him pray. Here’s what happens,
Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.”
Jesus follows up with the so-called Lord’s Prayer, which we’ll look at closer shortly, but the fascinating thing is that if prayer was something natural, something we were born knowing, then it was a silly question they asked Jesus.
Instead, Jesus said, “When you pray say this.”
He was teaching and they were listening. So, learning how to pray is something we to do. We need to learn how and what God says about how to pray to him.
There’s good news and bad news here.
Romans 8 verse 26 says this,

Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

Paul’s talking here about us, the body of Christ, in this current dispensation of grace.
Romans 8:26 describes us as not knowing what to pray for.
The good news is that God knows that, and this verse says the Holy Spirit helps our infirmities making intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered.
Contrary to the belief of many charismatic Christians that’s not tongue talking or us groaning. It’s the things that cannot be said and the Holy Spirit who dwells in you in this dispensation can intercede between us and God with things that we need when we don’t know what to say.

I mean, that’s a very comforting verse. When we come to prayer not knowing what to pray for, God knows the mind of the Holy Spirit, Who dwells in us, and that even though you don’t know what to even request, He knows what we need.
That he can give us what we need is helpful.
Of course, we need to deal with what we think we need, and we’ll get to that, but it’s helpful to know that God knows what we feel and think and what’s in our mind and heart.
That’s interesting way to pray just like that. “God, I don’t know how to pray. You know better than me what I need. Help!”
It might not seem real eloquent but the good news is that God knows that we don’t know, and He’s provided help for us.

Another part of the reason why people don’t know how to pray is that prayer concerns the spiritual. When we talk to each other we can have a sort of two-way conversation about things in the world, but is there anything God doesn’t know? No!
It’s a bit awkward sometimes in prayer when God knows everything. What’s left for me to say?
And, it’s not easy for us to engage with someone that’s seemingly not in the room, even if God’s omnipresent, everywhere, all the time.
When we talk to other people our conversation is geared around the mutual interest of the things you have in common or the things we’re discussing, but with God, we’re dealing with His mind. How much do we know about God? When we pray to God, how do we know Him? Who is He? What and how does He think?
Well, of course we learn this from scripture of course, but how much of that have we really studied? Not as much as we should have right?
So, it’s hard to enter prayer when we don’t know the mind of God and especially when we request things of God.
Paul tells us to make our requests known to God so He can help, and He can intervene.
But what we’re talking about here is what is God’s will.
Jesus prayed in Mark 14:36 just before going to the cross,

“Abba, Father, all things are possible for You. Take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will.”

Not my will! But what is the will of God? This is also a big question for Christians and it’s why a lot of people pray in ignorance and don’t know how to pray, because they simply don’t know what God wants, what His will is.

As the charismatic movement influences the church more and more, many churches turn to the idea that God will do anything that we ask and intervene in any way that He has throughout the Bible.
In so doing they destroy any dispensational changes in God’s operation. We’re talking about God’s divine intervention you see and who are we to know how God intervenes.
When we’re talking about God’s Will and God’s intervention that’s a big subject. A lot of the prayer ignorance today is because there’s generally ignorance about God and particularly in what He’s doing today as opposed to what He was doing in the past or future dispensations.
If you don’t know that we won’t know how to pray correctly, and the result is frustration and confusion. We want to communicate to God. We want to talk to Him, and we need His help. We want to depend on Him, but we simply don’t know what He’s promised and what He’s doing now, what His mind is now, and so we’re confused.
We might try to offer up a prayer thinking God may be doing this or we read a verse in the Bible thinking maybe He’s doing that, and you pray, and it doesn’t seem to work out, or it doesn’t work out the way you thought or hoped. So, confusion and frustration.
Each of us need to simply acknowledge when we’re ignorant about something. That’s the first step to learning. We can’t learn if we think we already know. If we think we know it, we’re not going to learn anything.
We need to change what we think.

So, if you’re coming to prayer and you think you already have this sorted, you already know how to pray, then good for you. But we’re dealing with people who don’t know how to pray as we ought.
Now we combine this idea that we don’t know what to pray for as we ought with the Bible’s instruction that we’re to pray, then we’ve got a real issue.
I don’t know how to pray but God says pray!

Even outside Christianity there are pagan religions where people pray to their gods based on what they believe. They come because of faith. When you pray, you pray because of Faith, believing that there’s a God who’ll hear you.

Many pray to Saints and even to different beings in the universe claiming that they can hear them.
People pray to God because of fear. It’s like the no atheists in a Foxhole idea. People pray because they’re desperate. There’s nowhere else they can turn.
“I’m afraid so God if you’re listening, I need help”.
People pray out of a desire for something. “God, I really, really, really, want this, so pretty please give it to me”.
People pray because they need help even when they don’t know anything about God or His Word or what He’s doing today.
It’s a good thing to pray, but we shouldn’t pray in ignorance and yet we’re all ignorant of how to pray in the beginning.

Prayer usually stops when people think they don’t need God anymore or that prayer doesn’t work. “I prayed about it, and it didn’t work”.
Sometimes prayer stops or slows down amongst those who learn the Bible and start to understand what God is and is not doing in the age in which we live.
Before that, we assumed that all the Bible is written to us and we could just open the Bible at any place, wherever it falls open, and there’ll a promise there for us.
So, God will do anything today that He’s done anywhere else in the Bible.
For example, I can pray Gideon’s prayer in Judges 6:36 and we read,

So Gideon said to God, “If You will save Israel by my hand as You have said look, I shall put a fleece of wool on the threshing floor; if there is dew on the fleece only, and it is dry on all the ground, then I shall know that You will save Israel by my hand, as You have said.”

Or Jabez’s prayer in 1st Chronicles 4:10,

And Jabez called on the God of Israel saying, “Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain!” So God granted him what he requested.

Or Elisha’s prayers in 2nd Kings 6 verses 17 and 18,

And Elisha prayed, and said, “LORD, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.” Then the LORD opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw. And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.
So when the Syrians came down to him, Elisha prayed to the LORD, and said, “Strike this people, I pray, with blindness.” And He struck them with blindness according to the word of Elisha.

Or Revelation 6:10,

And they cried with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?”

We could go on and on, but it’s pretty obvious that these types of prayers would not be answered by God today.
Through the understanding that God works through different people at different times in different ways we begin to rightly divide the Word and we start to learn that God’s doing that particular thing for Israel according to His covenant with them and that not everything God said is talking to you and me today.

So, when we begin to see that God works through different people at different times in different ways, we tend to stop praying at all.
Why? Because we’re left not knowing how to pray.

God tells us to pray so at the very least it’d be good to try and learn how.
In the prophecies relating to the New Covenant made to Israel and the House of Judah there’s a huge advantage in that the Holy Spirit comes, and He guides into all truth, but the benefit of the period that you and I are living in now, the dispensation of grace where we’re members of Christ’s body is that we’re given clear information that we can understand and put into practice.
We need to be aware that as many of God’s ways of dealing with humanity change from age to age, dispensation to dispensation, prayer changes as well!

We don’t want to waste our time with things that don’t work today and unfortunately a lot that’s preached today doesn’t work and quite often it doesn’t work because we’ve not understood how things change from age to age. We try and do things today that simply aren’t for the current age.

So, can we talk to God? Sure, we can, but praying rightly requires information that we need to learn.
We might ask, “Isn’t God just happy that we’re talking to him?”
Well, He tells us to pray. And, the Holy Spirit’s in us if we’re saved in order to intercede for us, but God wants us to know and to do his will and we get that by learning.

We look at Job.
Job who existed and lived at a time long before there was a written Bible. He lived without the Revelation that we have today of all scripture.
Even the Book of Job wasn’t written to Job.
So, job didn’t have a book and he was a bit frustrated because he’s living his life, upright before the Lord and he was being blessed in prosperity and physical blessings until all this was removed because of the deal Satan had with God and God was silent towards Job.
If God had said, “Okay Job there’s going to be some trouble going on but don’t worry I’m still here and I know what’s going on,” Job could have understood but God didn’t say that.
Suddenly Job loses his children his wealth, everything, and he’s left frustrated. His friends are trying to defend God trying to tell him how he should speak to God and apologise to God and how to pray to God, and Job says this in
Job 31 verse 35,

Oh, that I had one to hear me! Here is my mark. Oh, that the Almighty would answer me, That my Prosecutor (God Himself) had written a book!

Oh, that God would hear me. He’s not talking to me. I don’t know what He’s doing. If only the almighty would answer me.
This sounds like many Christians today when it comes to prayer.
I want to pray and oh that God would just tell me something, even if he just verbally said no! But he doesn’t even do that.
We just assume it’s NO when he doesn’t respond. Or maybe it’s a YES but I’ve got to be patient. We don’t know.
But Job says oh I desire the almighty would answer me and that my prosecutor, meaning God in this situation, had written a book. We Christians pray as if God never wrote a book, but He did and it’s about what He’s done before, what He’s doing now and what He’ll do in the future, and it needs to be understood.
The trouble is when we have a book, what’s that require? Study, and who likes doing that?
We’re back to study again, because God has spoken through these words, they’re God’s words to us. It’s his revelation and if we don’t understand this revelation, we’re no better off than Job.
Things can happen to us for better or worse and we don’t know why and all we desire is that God answers us, and He doesn’t.
Job says in Job 31 verse 36 about this book he wishes he had,
Surely I would carry it on my shoulder, And bind it on me like a crown;
Job says just tell me what’s going on and why and I’ll gladly endure anything for you.
Most of us don’t have that heart to endure anything like Job did, but it doesn’t excuse us. Job had an excuse. He didn’t have a book. We do have one.

The disciples in Luke 11 verse 1 had Jesus, the Son of God, right there with them and it’s a fair question for them to ask, teach us to pray.
It’s recorded in scripture which shows us they didn’t know how to pray and here’s the Lord right here, so why wouldn’t you ask Him?

Did you know that in the law of Moses there’s no commandment to pray?
If you look up the word prayer it doesn’t show up as a commandment in Deuteronomy, Exodus, Numbers or Leviticus, yet Moses prays, and Israel prays.
When we need help in life we want to communicate with God.
But the big challenge for us is to know and understand what God’s doing today.
Is what we’re asking Him for according to His will?
And what is His will for the age we live in today?
What He’s doing today in this present age may be, and most certainly is, entirely different than what He was doing in Moses, or David’s day. Even what He did when Jesus walked the earth may be different than this church age we live in today.
We need to know how God is dealing with mankind today in order to know if what we’re asking is even His will, remembering that the most pointless prayer would be asking something that’s not His will.

The person who writes more about prayer than anyone else is King David.
Many of the Psalms are prayers from David. However, they’re written under the law and Israel’s covenants so, if we’re praying David’s prayers we’re praying Israel’s covenants. Clearly this is not the way for us to pray today.

The one whose writings are filled with more instruction on prayer for you and me today than anyone else in the scripture is the apostle, Paul.
Every epistle Paul writes it’s filled with instructions and examples of Prayer.
In the dispensation of Grace that we live in today, it’s Paul’s Epistles where we find the instructions stating the will of God for today, this present age, and how to pray.
In 1st Timothy 2 verses 1 and 2 Paul says this,

Therefore, I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence.

First, before anything else, prayers should made for all those that be in authority.
This is Paul’s instructions to Timothy on how to respond to those that’re in authority and why. That we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence.
The in the next two verses of 1st Timothy 2, verse 3 and 4 we read Paul further explaining why,

For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior,
who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
We’re praying for all men to be saved and come knowledge of the truth.

Then in 1st Thessalonians verses 16 to 18 Paul writes this to the Thessalonians,

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

This is perhaps the most popular prayer instruction in the scripture and it’s very clear.
Rejoice always!
Christians, those who have believed in Christ and His completed work on the cross, can rejoice always because their joy isn’t based on circumstances, but in God. Circumstances change constantly, but God doesn’t.
In the midst of the worst that this world can dish up to us we know our Saviour and we know we’re saved by His grace, and permanently secure in Him by the Holy Spirit. We know our ultimate destiny!
This is why we can rejoice always.
Pray without ceasing.
We don’t find anything like that in the law of Moses, but we find it here in Paul’s Epistles, under the age of grace.
What does it mean to pray without ceasing?
Surely Paul here doesn’t mean prayer without stopping.

To stop eating, sleeping, and working in the place of praying all the time would be silly. Paul himself says he does not ‘cease to pray’ for the Colossians in Colossians 1:9, yet in 2nd Thessalonians 3:8 he says that he quote, “worked with labour and toil night and day.”
The idea is that we shouldn’t give up on prayer and chuck the process of praying into the bin.
However, we shouldn’t spiritualise this verse either by saying that our whole life is a perpetual prayer to God. We simply ought to walk in continuous attitudes of prayer by being aware of God’s existence in our everyday lives and knowing our destiny through the blood of Christ.
The passage refers to regular prayer communication with God faithfully and without failing.
Paul says pray without ceasing and in everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
So, what’s the will of God?
In everything give thanks and pray without ceasing!
This is the will of God Paul’s talking about here.
We say we want to know God’s will for our life? Well, it’s in black and white in the scripture.
We might say, “But that’s not specific to my situation”. But, yes, it is!
Pray without ceasing in everything give thanks in Christ Jesus.

Why is prayer so important in this dispensation of grace today?
One reason may be because under grace, unlike any other dispensation, we don’t see God intervening in the way He did back then.
So, we need to know how God intervenes today, and to learn how God operates today and then act according to that.

Even though we don’t know how to pray there is a way we ought to pray, and the Holy Spirit can help us.
But then we’re stuck because we don’t know how to do that.
This is why people are discouraged about praying but the instruction’s clear.

In Philippians chapter 1 Paul tells the Philippians how he thanks God for them and how they’re in every prayer of his as he makes requests for them with joy. Joy because of their fellowship in the gospel and for how God has begun a good work in them and will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.

Paul gives us more instruction on prayer and the results if we do it, by what he says to these Philippians in Philippians 4 verses 6 and 7,

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

The word “anxious” in the King James is “careful” meaning don’t take the care of the world and the circumstances of everyday life on board.
Paul gives an example of this in his own life a bit later in verses 12 and 13 of the same chapter, Philippians 4,

I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

What are the “all things” he’s talking about? Being able to live and rejoice in whatever circumstances he finds himself in because of his knowledge of God.

He says stop being careful for everything. Pray to God make your request be made known to him and the peace of God which passes all understanding shall keep your hearts and Minds through Christ Jesus.
See the instruction here? In everything, by prayer, let your requests be made known.
But hold on! We still don’t know what to pray for because it doesn’t tell us what to request does it?
So, we’re going to have to learn.
In Colossians 4:2 Paul says,

Continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving;

Notice he says “continue” in prayer, so they must have started already. Being vigilant in it. The King James has the word “watch” instead of vigilant.
Watch in the same with Thanksgiving.
There’s thanksgiving again.
Then in the next two verses Colossians 4:3 – 4 Paul tells them what to pray for,

…meanwhile praying also for us, that God would open to us a door for the word, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in chains, that I may make it manifest (to make it known or apparent), as I ought to speak.

What should the Colossians pray for?
That God would open to us a door of utterance, for the word, to speak the mystery of Christ.
To speak what? The mystery of Christ!
Have you heard of the mystery of Christ? Well, we sure need to because this is what Paul says we should pray for. Our prayer won’t help Paul now. He’s been with the Lord for 2000 years but there’re ministries now popping up everywhere that have had a revelation of this mystery period, this age that we now live in called the dispensation of grace and they’re boldly preaching it and, just like Paul did, they’re challenging traditions that the Body of Christ has accepted without sound bible foundations. We need to pray this same prayer that Paul told the Colossians to pray for him, for these ministries.

In Colossians 1 verse 9 Paul describes his prayer for the Colossian Christians,

For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, (heard of their love in the Spirit) do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;

 

You see the people he tells to pray need wisdom and understanding.
When we don’t have wisdom and understanding what are we? Ignorant!
The Colossians were ignorant just as we all are. So, the very people Pauls telling to pray are the people he says need to grow in understanding.
When we start to learn to rightly divide the Bible it starts becoming clearer, much clearer. We start seeing things we didn’t see before even though they were always there in black and white.
Our understanding goes up really quick but sometimes we miss the connection of how that understanding helps our prayers.
We can even think that don’t need to pray anymore, but the opposite’s true. We need to be taught how to pray. First comes the teaching then comes the praying.
Paul explains this in the next verses Colossians 1 verses 10 to 12,

That you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.

When we get this understanding of the Bible it’s time to start walking worthy of the Lord, pleasing Him.
Well, how do I do that exactly?
How about in everything give thanks or pray without ceasing, learning to implement what God’s taught us.
Then, we can increase more in the knowledge of God. Some things we can only learn after we put into effect what God’s already taught us.

Prayer’s not something that saves us, and it’s not something we know how to do naturally.
When we learn the Bible it helps inform our prayers but often we kind of forget why we’re praying in the first place.
For example, maybe we prayed that we didn’t understand God’s will, but we wanted to know His will.
Then we learn God’s will as we study and then it’s, “great, prayer answered, no need to pray ever again because I now know what God’s will is.
Well now it’s time to try doing His will.
Prayer’s not the magic tool that gets you God’s answer. The Bible is God’s revelation it’s not something that gets you saved. Christ did that on the cross and when you put your trust in that it’s something that you use in your walk every day.
To not be interested in that walk, often results in the knowledge we’ve gained making us puffed up with pride, knowing things without actually doing them.
God wants us to do!
The instruction to pray is very clear in scripture but at this point we know that we don’t know how to pray. We know we need understanding but we don’t have it and yet we have to pray because the Bible tells us to. So, the conclusion we come to is that prayer must be taught to us.

It’s very interesting that in Jesus’s earthly ministry, His disciples came to Him and asked Him to teach them to pray. Although they were Jews, bought up on the law and the Jewish scriptures, they didn’t know how to pray!
When they asked, Jesus didn’t treat them as idiots who should have known. On the contrary, Jesus responded with the most famous Prayer in the Bible, popularly called The Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6 from verse 5 to 13.
It’s a weird title and Jesus certainly didn’t call it that. Jesus himself would never have prayed that prayer for Himself because the prayer asked to forgive your sins. Jesus didn’t have any sins. He was the sinless Son of God.
To see a prayer that Jesus did pray for Himself we look at the entire chapter of John 17.
We’re not going to study that prayer right now, but it’s Jesus praying to the Father. What’s not in Jesus’s prayer in John 17, is anything in the so-called Lord’s Prayer.

So, the disciples ask Jesus to teach them how to pray and Jesus gives them just three verses. But then he Himself prays 26 verses to the father!

Our reaction might be, well teach me how to pray those long prayers the glorious ones.
Jesus says pray this. Compared to His prayers it’s like He’s talking to Children. Look at Luke 6 verse 12,
Now it came to pass in those days that He went out to the mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.
This records Jesus praying.
There are many, many books written about prayer, and they often talk about how much Jesus prayed. The motive is often to exhort us to pray as much.
I mean we’re talking hours here! How many hours did you spend in prayer last week? See, guilt starts rising.
Many books use this verse to tell us we’ve got to get somewhere where we can see the glory of God, like in the mountains. That’s how this verse is often preached. He continued all night in prayer.
So, you have the International House of Prayer where they pray all night and all day. 24/7 in praise and prayer.
What did Jesus pray all night? Maybe that’s the secret to accessing God’s power?
When Jesus’s disciples asked Him how to pray Jesus was patterning something a little different, at least in the length of time that he prayed.
Turn to Luke 11 verse 1, and we’re trying to get an understanding of the basic truth that we don’t know how to pray, and we have to acknowledge that before we can learn anything about it. So, Luke 11 verse 1,
Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.”

Now, we already know that here in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, is not instructions for the Body of Christ in today’s dispensation of grace, so when Jesus is instructing his disciples here He’s instructing men that would reign over the tribes of Israel in the coming Earthly Kingdom.
He’s teaching Israel how to pray through that tribulation to come before their earthly kingdom. We know that because down in verse 10 to 13 Jesus says,

For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.
If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish?
Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?
If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”

You see He’s talking here about the Holy Spirit. These are going to be Holy Spirit filled Israel, who will know what to pray by the unction of the Holy Spirit telling them the words.
In fact, later in Luke Jesus’ll say the Holy Spirit will give you the words to say. People then go and teach prayer like that saying, “Well to pray you just sit down wait for the Holy Spirit to give you the words. You wait and you wait and sometimes you just force it out.
Sometimes you need to help the Holy Spirit, maybe open your mouth move your tongue a little bit, you know make a noise or groan and then the prayer’ll come.
But that’s not the instruction to pray here. The Holy Spirit giving these people words to speak is not what God’s doing today!
We’re members of the Body of Christ today.
Romans 8:26,

Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

We’ll cover this shortly.
In Luke 11 and Matthew 6 Jesus is talking to people who receive the New Covenant Holy Spirit before this prophesied tribulation period after which they’ll enter their Kingdom. They can ask and they’ll receive because they’ll know what to speak because the Holy Spirit, given to them under the New Covenant, will be the One saying it.
Every word Peter said at Pentecost was Holy Spirit inspired.
He didn’t prepare that sermon!
Let’s go back to the lesson Jesus taught to the disciples in response to their request to teach them to pray.
Luke 11:2,

So He said to them, “When you pray, say: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven.

As we said this prayer is given to New Covenant Israel going to their Kingdom and so in the context of Luke 11, when Jesus tells his disciples, who are Jews, “Our Father” God is the father of Israel.
A gentile wouldn’t pray that. He’s not talking here about the fact that He’s our Creator and so He’s everyone’s Daddy and we’re all children of God. No!
You get to be children of God through Israel’s covenants. That’s how that is in Luke 11.
There’s another way you and I are the children of God which is explained in Paul’s epistles written specifically to you and me, the Body of Christ today but that’s not the audience here in Luke 11. Paul hadn’t even been saved at this time and the mystery of the dispensation of grace certainly had not been revealed. It was still kept secret by God since the foundation of the world at this time.
So the Father here’s the Father of Israel. Jesus starts with the acknowledging who He is, Our Father, and where He is, in heaven.
Hallowed, holy, be thy name. So there’s an acknowledgement of who God is and how holy He is.
Now, even though this prayer’s not even given to us to pray, we need to learn who God is! If we’re not praying to God or the right God, we’re doing it wrong. We can all agree I think that if we’re praying to a stone figure we’re doing it wrong.
If we’re praying to the birds we’re doing it wrong. If we’re praying to Poseidon the god of the sea, who never existed, we’re doing it wrong. If we’re praying to a god that we think is God but is not what the Bible describes as God, that’s idolatry and we’re doing it wrong.
How do I know I’m praying to the right God? I can’t see Him! Well, have to be informed from the scripture who the true God is.
We must know who God is and when we don’t we just vainly throw up a prayer with the question, “If there’s a God there, hear me.”
When you teach our children we have to teach them who God is before they know who they’re talking to.
So, there’s step one of the things you have to be taught.
Jesus goes on and says our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. On Earth as in Heaven!
Jesus is saying thy kingdom come now. Where did he get that idea, the kingdom come? Is this just a desire he has? “God I really want a kingdom.”
No! This is something that’s been promised and prophesied since the world began to the nation of Israel, that He would bring his kingdom to the earth. Something we must learn, along with who God is, is what He’s doing. What’s His will? Right after Jesus says, “thy Kingdom come”, He follows it up with, “Your will be done.”
You see God’s already promised Israel this earthly Kingdom and said that it would come, and Jesus is telling the Disciples of Israel here as he’s preaching of the nearness of the Kingdom, to pray for God’s kingdom come to Earth for the fulfillment of those prophecies about the earthly Kingdom. Thy kingdom come. God bring your kingdom down.
We have to know what God’s will is behind “thy kingdom come” and understand what God has promised already and what He’s doing now.
That inform our prayers so we can pray for what God’s will is.
For example, “God I pray that I’d be more thankful. You tell me to be thankful and I’m not feeling it but I want to be more thankful according to Your will.” That’s a good place to start!
We can pray for that right now. “I pray your will be done, Lord.” If we know his will and we certainly can through His Word, we can pray it.
Jesus goes on to say, “Give us day by day our daily bread.” Matthew 6 says give us this day our daily bread.
The famous Daily Bread verse that took a swift change from thy glorious Kingdom from the heaven down to earth to I’m hungry and give me bread. Israel needed daily bread when they were wandering through the Wilderness. Until they get to their promised land they had no land to bear food to eat and they were in a desert that God led them to, and they had nothing to eat. God gave them bread every day.
Behind this part of the prayer is knowing what God provides, what He has provided, and what He will provide.
We need to know that in the context of the time.
Jesus says to the disciples, you’ll go to the kingdom. The kingdom will come. But before you get there you’ll need provision and God will provide your daily bread.
So, in Luke 11 and Matthew 6, give us day by day our daily bread is speaking of what God is providing for them.
We need to know what God is providing for us today also. How do we know that? How do we know what God’s giving us?
It helps to learn what the scripture says God has done before and what He’s doing now.
To learn what God’s provided for you informs your prayers.
Jesus goes on to say, “and forgive us our sins for we also forgive everyone that is indebted to us.”
We need to learn what God requires of us. The forgiving of sins is something that a sinner, before God, would recognise, that He’s holy and they’re not. How are our sins forgiven today? Is it because you forgave other people their debts? Many people don’t see it, but Jesus is teaching very clearly here, as he does in Matthew 6, that if you do not forgive others their sins God in heaven will not forgive your sins. Your forgiveness of sin, according to Jesus’s teachings in this instruction to pray, is dependent upon your forgiving others. God requires them to forgive other people before He will grant them the request of forgiveness.
This is opposite to Colossians 2:13 and 14,

And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

So, if we’re going to make a request to God if we’re going to pray to God we need to know what He requires and what His will is for today, not what His will was in past dispensations or what it will be in the future.
We can pray till we’re blue in the face but if we’re not meeting what God requires today, in the time in which we live, nothing’s going to happen.
What does God require today? What kind of work does God require for our salvation? Nothing, only believe His Word, The Gospel. What works does God require before you engage with him in prayer? Nothing!
What does God require before you get forgiven? Faith in Jesus Christ and nothing more! This informs our prayers, you see. We can say, “Thank you Lord for forgiving me on my faith in the gospel, even if I haven’t forgiven my neighbours. That teaches me what forgiveness looks like so that I can forgive my neighbours.”
That’s a very good prayer. We’re not talking about how you can speak, with the wisdom of men.
We must learn what God provides and what He requires of us.

The Lord’s teaching the disciples here that they’re to forgive other people to get their sins forgiven. So, you see, no one. no disciple could actually pray forgive me my sins as I forgive my neighbour unless they actually did that.

Jesus goes on to say, “and lead us not into temptation but Deliver Us from Evil” Again, we need to learn Who God is, what His will is, what He provides for us and what’s required of us.
We’ve also got to learn how God leads us.
The request here is lead us not into Temptation. But what if God wants to lead you there? How do you know? We need to know what God’s leading is, which has to do with His will.
What’s the path, what’s the ladder look like for me?
Is it just it I’m saved and now I’m stuck here the rest of my life, grateful I’m saved? Or, is there a means of growth and a purpose and a mission God’s given that he’s leading me somewhere and to do something? And what is that?
Jesus is talking about His audience going to the tribulation, and being tempted not to face that suffering but instead, take the mark of the beast and everything else.
“Deliver Us from Evil.” We live in a present evil world. How do we get delivered from evil? Well, we die, and we go to heaven! That’s how we’re delivered from this present evil world.
But, we don’t want to go through the evil, do we? Or maybe we need help to get through the evil.
But, we need to know how God leads us now, in our present day.
We’re going through what Jesus taught his disciples to pray, which they didn’t know.
Jesus gave these men an example, so should we pray that way also?
No. Because Jesus’s example has a different context. When we study the bible through a dispensational lens we recognise who is speaking and to whom. Jesus is speaking obviously, and to whom is He speaking? Israel. To the 12 disciples of the 12 tribes of Israel.
We recognise what God is doing and how what He’s doing changes from age to age, or dispensation to dispensation.
When we study the Bible recognising the changing instructions of God throughout the scripture, so we also see man’s responsibility changing accordingly.
When God instructs Noah to build an ark, no one before him or after him had to build an ark, but Noah did.
When God told Moses and Israel to keep these Commandments they had to. When he tells us that we’re not under the law but under grace, guess what, our responsibility is to walk with the knowledge that we’re under grace not under the law.
So as God’s instructions change, as he progressively, over time reveals new information, it’s our responsibility to learn that information and put it to use. So, we’re talking about how we don’t know how to pray so isn’t that a different thing from realising God’s changing instructions to mankind through the different ages? No! They’re connected.
If we think that prayer is simply the same throughout the Bible we’re wrong! What we do in response to those changing ages and changing instructions has everything to do with the way we pray.
Because prayer is our responsibility, and we’re instructed to pray, how do I pray? Well, that’s going to change according to God’s instructions. Does that mean we’ve got to learn how to pray? Yes, because we don’t know until we learn what God’s revealed.
If we don’t know what God’s doing today, we don’t know what we need to do. We talk to God knowing what He’s said for us today, His progressive revelation.
We could say, “Lord I know you created the world with Your Word and that you spoke to Moses and You parted the waters and You spoke to David and gave him promises, and I know what you’re doing now.
That’s an important prayer! Prayer changes with God’s progressive revelation. None of us know how to do it in the beginning. We need to learn.
We have to learn how to use the scripture as a tool, as a weapon, as a sword. We have to learn to use it and it’s the same with prayer.
We learn it through personal Bible study.
We should never leave it to the so-called experts to tells us what God has said to mankind so we can just close the book and don’t even consider it any further, just listen to the high and mighty priest or minister who knows it better than us anyway.
That’s not what God intended. He wants us to learn and part of that learning is opening up the book so the book can teach us what God said and what we should do.
God wrote the Bible for you and me to understand. It just requires us to engage with it so we can teach one another, and we can show each other how the scripture tells us to study it and rightly divide the Bible.

People get concerned about their lifetime struggle with prayer. They think it’s impossible to ever learn how to pray but we can if we can learn what God’s doing. We have the Bible to inform us and that’s more than Job did.
Even without a book, Job would not blaspheme God, knowing that God knew what he was doing.
God still knows what he’s doing, but unlike Job, you and I can now know too if you read the scripture and rightly divide it.

So how do we pray under grace, under this present dispensation of the Body of Christ?
First, we realise, and accept, that as we learn under grace, and learn to study and rightly divide the Bible, we will fail. We’re all going to do it wrong and that’s okay. But pray anyway.
There’s examples in the Bible of people praying wrong.
Peter’s a great example. Poor old Peter’s the guy who fails over and over again. He’s got so much zeal, and he longs to do it right. He jumps out of the boat, and he actually walks on the water but drops into the water. He gets blamed for not having faith but those other guys in the boat never stepped out. Would we?
Peter took his sword out and cut Malchus’s ear off, and Jesus says no Peter, put it up. Failed again. The guy was going to fight for his Messiah.
It’s a good thing to have zeal and to fail. At least you can learn some things from it.
Paul himself, though different than Peter, also failed when he prayed specifically in 2nd Corinthians 12:8 to 9.
Paul didn’t know but this is the thing, even when we fail it’s only because we don’t know.
If we have the heart to pray and we’re not trying to lie to God and we want to pray rightly and talk to him, Hebrews 4:12 says that the Word of God knows the thoughts and intents of our heart and the spirit who’s in us knows. God knows the mind of the spirit.
Paul got it wrong in 2nd Corinthians 12 verse 8,

For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me.
And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

Jesus actually responded to Paul’s prayer and this’s not a common thing. Jesus is speaking to teach Paul so that you and I can learn something from Paul’s failure.
Jesus doesn’t say no to Paul, He says my grace is sufficient. I’ve given you what you need. He tells Paul to acknowledge what I’ve given you what I provided for you, Grace.
And then Jesus gives the reason why His grace is sufficient. “For my strength, Christ’s strength, is made perfect in weakness.
Paul’s learning something and he changes from thinking, “I need to remove this thorn In the flesh,” to “Now therefore will I rather glory in the thorn in my flesh.”
He went from remove this thorn in the flesh, to I’m going to glory in this thorn in my flesh.
What changed? Paul learned something and this is how it’s going to work for us too.
When we pray with sincerity and with a heart to do right with God, to communicate with Him for His will to be done, and we do it selfishly and wrong, We can learn.

Romans 5:8 says God committed his love toward us that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.
Christ died for Sinners who didn’t pray and could not pray.
Oh, maybe they were praying Pagan prayers or maybe they were praying to another god or maybe they were praying to what they knew was the true God but not according to His will, either way they didn’t have to pray. How could they? They’re unsaved! If you don’t know God’s grace and don’t know what he’s doing then that’s us folks.
Christ died for our sins when we didn’t know how to pray. He died for our sins when we didn’t know how to walk rightly.
Do you think our inability to pray is going to somehow hinder our relationship to God or our salvation? No!
We’ve seen already in Romans 8:26 that the Holy Spirit dwells in us. He seals us in Christ. He dwells in us and intercedes for us when we don’t know what prayers and help that we need.
That’s a relief but it’s still left to us to learn what the fruit of the spirit is and how to walk after the spirit and what God has done. Under grace the spirit’s not given to you to judge our prayers and whether we’re doing it right and if we’re not He’s going to leave us. He dwells in us.

A very wise man once said about prayer, “Don’t frame a saviour out of your prayers. Don’t think that praying is going to save you or that praying rightly is somehow going to make you a better Christian. You are who you are because Christ made you that way.”
Paul didn’t say pray and be saved. He didn’t even say pray so that we’ll be mature Christians. Prayer, he says, is the utterance of a living soul, the breathing of a child’s desire to our heavenly Father. We are the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus, not by faith and prayer.
We mustn’t think prayer is going to do something that it doesn’t actually do. Many Christians give too much power to prayer, but the power is in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit that dwells in us. Prayer is how you talk to God to engage Him in His will. We need to learn how to do that.
Galatians 3:26 says,

For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.

We’re children of God by faith alone. No one that tells us that we must pray to make God merciful can tell us how long we must pray to be make God merciful because we can’t make God merciful or make Him save us by our lengthy prayers.
We’re saved by grace through faith. It’s a gift of God not of works (or prayer) lest any man should boast.
That means ignorant selfish prayers do not save us and rather righteous holy prayers don’t save us. Neither do they change our standing with God.

In this dispensation of Grace, we’re made a child of God by virtue of God’s grace, justified by faith. We’re put into his son, into the body of Christ and so praying wrongly or ignorantly or selfishly doesn’t change our standing with God.
It wasn’t always like that! In 1 John 1:9 there’s forgiveness of sins and confessions of sins to get back a right standing with God, but that’s not the case for us who’re in the Body of Christ.
That’s written for Israel under their Covenant program. We’ve been crucified with Christ, and we’re resurrected in Him.
That access to God through Christ cannot change by what we do which includes our prayers.
So how do we pray under grace? With that understanding! We’ve got to learn and know some things so that when we pray we’re not praying, fearful that we’ve somehow lost fellowship with God because we forgot to pray for three months. We haven’t lost anything with Christ if we’re saved by God’s grace.
So, we’re learning here that we don’t know how to pray be we should pray according to Paul’s instructions.
The disciples themselves asked Jesus to teach them and we also have to be taught how to pray in this dispensation we live in and when we pray it has to be with the knowledge of what we have in this dispensation.
If we struggle praying a good prayer might be, “Lord teach me to pray.”

What Is God's Will For Me?

What Is God’s Will For Me?

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What is God’s will for my life?

There’s many of us Christians, redeemed by Christ’s blood, and who love and trust in God, who haven’t yet discovered God’s will for their life.

Christian bookstores are full of how to guides and lifestyle improvement books that supposedly tell us how to find God’s will, and lots of churches run self-help, self-improvement programmes to find the will of God, but the fact is that most of them fail to explain the will of God.

“Speed Slider”

 

What is God’s Will for Me? – Transcript

What is God’s will for my life?
There’s many of us Christians, redeemed by Christ’s blood, and who love and trust in God, who haven’t yet discovered God’s will for their life.

Christian bookstores are full of how to guides and lifestyle improvement books that supposedly tell us how to find God’s will, and lots of churches run self-help, self-improvement programmes to find the will of God, but the fact is that most of them fail to explain the will of God.
If God has something he wants us to do, don’t you think he’d let us know?
After the incredible price that He’s paid for our redemption, which displayed His love for us, would He just leave us to figure out that purpose ourselves with no input from Him?

Christians, who haven’t discovered God’s will for their life would make us think this.

It seems that everyone’s asking for God’s will for their life.

To know God’s will for us and, as a result doubt less, have more confidence, and have a clear picture of what God wants from us, is right in front of us if we would read the scripture.

For example, Ephesians 1:9,

“Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which He has purposed in himself:”

The trouble is that’s not what most people want to hear!

When Christians ask to know God’s will what they’re often really asking is for God’s opinion about their circumstances, as if he were a personal career counsellor.

“Dear God, I feel like I am not going anywhere in life, and I would really like to do something I enjoy. Can you give me a great opportunity?”

We pray for God’s will and the quote “perfect plan for my life”. When we don’t get a clear sign in the mail, we do what we think’s best anyway.

In spite of all the how to guides, lifestyle improvement books, and churches that repeatedly preach on how to find God’s will, but many of us fail to learn what God’s will is for us. and there’s a reason.

If we add to this an almost never-ending procession of advice from the pews of the organised church, particularly the Charismatic churches, where people always seem ready to advise you to look for signs, dreams, omens, or coincidences and circumstance that point us to God’s will for us or to verify that what we’ve already decided to do is God’s purpose.

They say if God wants us to do something He’ll open doors. Be careful! That door may be a prison door. The apostle Paul spent a great part of his ministry behind bars, and he was perhaps the most certain of all Cristians about God’s purpose for his life.

Many people go and ask some sort of spiritual advisor, pastor, or some other mentor, but it’s a fact that other people love to tell us what to do. After all, the closer that person is to God the better chance we have of getting the proper message relayed from God, right?

If you’re a Calvinist, which is one who thinks that God forces his will upon every step of your life, then there’s no point in reading any further, it’s all been pre organised for you outside of you free will. So, your confusion about God’s will is God’s will.

If you’re like most people, what you end up doing is praying fervently about what you should do, where you should go or even what you should say. Some even pray about what clothing to wear and think that in doing so they’re “trusting and loving” God more.

Unfortunately, God never responds about those plans for becoming a millionaire, or that career move that you’ve all but committed yourself to.

Many people will say this doesn’t necessarily mean anything since it could be that God is testing your patience. Wait, you mean indefinitely?

Most people we ask will tell us that knowing God’s will is difficult.

However, we’re not like most people!

God’s will for our life is not difficult to understand, but sometimes it can be difficult to accept, especially if we want God’s will to line up with ours.

The fact is though, God’s will has nothing to do with personality tests, circumstances, opened doors, or prophetic utterances by self-proclaimed modern day “prophets”.

As we mature as Christians, and we mature only by knowing God’s Word, we come to know God’s will and as a result we doubt much less, and have more confidence, and a clearer picture of what God wants from us.

But the great realisation is this, Not my will But God’s Will.

We learn through the Word that God’s will is right in front of us as we read and meditate on scripture, but it is not the response that most people want. For most, it’s saying, “I haven’t got the time to learn the Word, I just need God to direct me to this career.”

Learning to discern God’s will is centred on an understanding of God’s Word, the Bible, but it must be an understanding that comes from rightly dividing that Word as 2nd Timothy 2:15 says,

Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. 

Paul also realised the importance of understanding the whole Bible. In Acts 20:27, Paul speaking to the elders of the Ephesian church says,

For I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God. 

Without rightly dividing the whole Word of God the Bible is beyond understanding, it’s confusing and so we look to our heart’s desires and life’s circumstances and to other so-called “Godly people” for clues as to what God’s will is for us.

We tell ourselves that the unknown outcome of our lives is in God’s hands, and then we take blind steps towards our own ends while being ignorant of His will. And when those blind steps fail, we make excuses as to why they failed, but deep down we know that it wasn’t God’s will after all.

The greatest deception we can experience is that we do our own will and call it God’s will.

It’s a lie that God’s will is beyond understanding. It’s a greater lie that we can do God’s will without knowing what it is.

If we don’t know God’s will, then we’re not doing God’s will. To do God’s will is to first know it.

If we don’t know God’s will, we can’t live a life in Christ in the peace that He promises in Philippians 4:7,

and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Ignorance of God’s will condemns us to a life lacking in purpose and peace and as we continue to pretend that we’re living our life according to the Lord’s purpose, we’re only deceiving ourselves.

The truth is we’re doing our own will and calling it God’s.

But there’s a giant arrow pointing us to God’s will, plainly revealed in the Bible, if we’re prepared to first look and then accept it.

It would be good to introduce something at this point that many Christians seem to trip over. It’s a state that’s called “Waiting on the Lord”.

Many Christians go about their lives hoping that one day God’ll make it clear what His purpose for them is.

They love him and want to do his will, but they don’t know what He has in mind, so until God speaks to them in some way, all they can do is wait.

Isaiah, a prophet under the Old Testament, states the condition of these people exactly in Isaiah 64:4,

For since the beginning of the world Men have not heard nor perceived by the ear, Nor has the eye seen any God besides You, Who acts for the one who WAITS for Him.

In Psalm 25:3 to 5 King David reaches out to God,

Indeed, let no one who waits on You be ashamed; Let those be ashamed who deal treacherously without cause. Show me Your ways, O LORD; Teach me Your paths. 

Lead me in Your truth and teach me, For You are the God of my salvation; On You I wait all the day.

This passage describes something different to what many Christians understand “Waiting on the Lord” to be.

This describes a person who waits on another so attentively that a mere look at the eye indicates the will of that person. It’s like a dedicated butler or some other servant who’s completely dedicated to their master. A good illustration is that servant waiting on his master at dinner where the servant knows the master so well that the master only needs to look at the saltshaker and the butler understands that he wants it.

We should notice that King David’s prayer here is for those who deal treacherously without cause to be ashamed and then he pleads for God to teach him His ways and His paths and His truth.

God promised that for those who diligently seek and focus on God, through faith, there’ll be reward.

Hebrews 11:6,

But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. 

And so, Christians “wait on the Lord” for Him to reveal what he has “prepared for those that love him” as 1 Corinthians 2:9 says,

But as it is written: “EYE HAS NOT SEEN, NOR EAR HEARD, NOR HAVE ENTERED INTO THE HEART OF MAN THE THINGS WHICH GOD HAS PREPARED FOR THOSE WHO LOVE HIM.” 

But what if God had already revealed his will, and it’s simply been ignored?

Wouldn’t it be a tremendous relief to know just WHAT God has prepared for His people?

Of course it would, and it has already been revealed!

God has declared his will for all in the revelation of the mystery given to the apostle Paul by Christ Himself, and Paul’s passed it on to us in his epistles written to the Body of Christ today.

Unfortunately, very few Christians are aware of this revelation.

Paul explains that from the beginning of the world men like Isaiah have waited on the Lord as we just saw Paul reminding us of in 1st Corinthians 2:9 where he quotes Isaiah 64 verse 4:

“eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which god has prepared for those who love him.”

But then Paul drops a bomb shell on those people that are sitting with Isaiah waiting on the Lord in the next verse, 1st Corinthians 2 verse 10.

But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. 

What has the Spirit, The Holy Spirit, revealed?

The things God has prepared for those that love him! There’s now no more need for waiting! God’s spoken his will.

Ephesians 1:9 and 10,

(God), having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him. 

God’s will is in Jesus Christ, and people being in him (Col 1:27-28).

Often, when Christians ask to know God’s will what we’re really asking is for God’s opinion about our circumstances. We’re trying to get some sort of sign or a word of prophecy that we can know that God has confirmed our plans for our day to day lives here in this world. It’s like He’s a personal career counsellor.

“Dear God, I feel like I’m not going anywhere in life, and I’d really like to do something I enjoy. Can you give me a great opportunity?”

However, God already has a purpose: His own purpose.

God’s will changes in the Bible as his operations with humans’ changes.

When the Lord revealed to Paul that He has counted the whole world in unbelief His will boiled down to two things:

1 Timothy 2:4,

[God] will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.”

If you’ve believed the gospel, you’ve already done half of God’s will. The other half includes a lifelong process of coming to a knowledge of the truth. This requires study that’s study of the Bible, prayer, and fellowship as 2nd Timothy 2 verse 15 says,

Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

When the word of truth becomes part of our inner man we gain wisdom. We learn skills to pass on to other people. We’re equipped to live according to God’s purpose in a time when the days are evil.

But it’s easier said than done, of course, like 1st Thessalonians 5:18,

in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

It’s hard to do God’s will sometimes, but at least we can understand it.

True thanksgiving comes from a grateful heart for what God has accomplished on our behalf. We owe him our life. That’s the bottom line. Whatever direction we take in our natural lives, the underlying foundation we live by is that we have eternal life because of God’s grace. He paid an astronomical price to redeem us and wipe away the death penalty for sin. When this knowledge becomes the basis of our life what else can we do but give thanks continually to God.

We can’t give Him thanks if we don’t understand that foundation.

2 Corinthians 5:15,

and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again. 

The Bible says we should not live unto ourselves. Yet, this seems to be the motive behind why people continually ask for God’s will.

The expectation is to receive a personal life assessment or a road map to earthly success and happiness from God’s divine job bank.

The complaint really, is that God’s word doesn’t give us specific enough answers about our circumstances. It doesn’t address the way we see ourselves going.

Well, perhaps God is telling us something about the way we seek His will like in Philippians 2:21,

For all seek their own, not the things which are of Christ Jesus. 

We can know God’s will, but now for the hard part, doing it.

The revelation of God’s will for the church today is called the mystery of Christ.

1 Corinthians 2:7 to 8, Paul speaking,

But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

This mystery is not something we receive in dreams and visions, or through the mouths of self-proclaimed modern prophets, or from people who long to show others they’ve ” got a special gift from God” by quote “speaking a word from God to us”.

No, it’s been written by Paul in the Bible through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, for us to understand.

Ephesians 3:3 to 5,

how that by revelation He made known to me the mystery (as I have briefly written already, by which, when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ), which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets: 

There’s now no need to wait on God because God’s already revealed his will that the manifold wisdom of God might be known by the church. (Ephesians 3:10.)

Before the mystery was revealed, Isaiah said in Isaiah 40 verse 13 (and Paul repeats it in 1 Corinthians 2:16),

For “WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD THAT HE MAY INSTRUCT HIM? (or tell the Lord what He should do)“

But now, you and I, if we’re Christians, have the mind of Christ as Paul says in the rest of that verse in 1 Corinthians 2:16,

“But we have the mind of Christ!”

It’s no longer us who should be waiting on the Lord to reveal His mind, but it’s God waiting on us to study what He’s already revealed in Ephesians 3 verse 9,

and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ.

We see God’s overriding will plainly given to us in Ephesians 1 verses 7 to 10,

In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, (wait for it) having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him. 

Furthermore, Paul says in Ephesians 5:17 we’re unwise if we don’t know God’s will, and we read,

Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

So, what is God’s will? Here it is:

  1. Salvation is God’s will for you and me and all other people. 1 Timothy 2″3 and 4,

For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved…

  1. Coming to a knowledge of the truth. 1st Timothy 2 and the remainder of verse 4,

…and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 

  1. Giving thanks to God. 1st Thessalonians 5 verse 18,

in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Notice that it’s God’s will that we give thanks IN everything, not FOR everything.

God’s not going to tell you to be a doctor or a bus driver. He won’t tell you who to marry. He’s not going to give you insider information on which stocks to trade or which investments to make.

What He’s done is give you His Son and the source of all truth in the Bible.

We make our own decisions, but those decisions should be based on these biblical truths and it’s within the dedication to these truths that our way in this world is outworked.

Don’t steal.

Ephesians 4:28,

Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labour, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need. 

Don’t marry someone who doesn’t love God as much as you do.

Ephesians 5:21,

…submitting to one another in the fear of God. 

In everything give thanks.

Thessalonians 5:18,

…in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Ephesians 6:10 to 20 further reveals God’s will for us,

Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. 

Put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. 

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. 

Therefore, take up the whole armour of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. 

Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace, above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. 

And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints— 

and for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.

Paul’s been in glory for 2000 years but there are still multitudes today that sacrifice their own lives and quote “open their mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which they are ambassadors in chains, and we pray that they may speak boldly, as they, and we, ought to speak”.

Now at this point many of us may ask, “Well doesn’t God guide us at all in our everyday lives here on earth?”

In Psalm 32:8 we have King David speaking a prophecy from God to the nation of Israel,

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will guide you with My eye. 

Here God’s prophetically promising the nation, through David, that He’ll guide them with His eye upon them.

But look at the next two verses, Psalm 32 verse 9 and 10,

Do not be like the horse or like the mule, Which have no understanding, Which must be harnessed with bit and bridle, Else they will not come near you. 

Many sorrows shall be to the wicked; But he who trusts in the LORD, mercy shall surround him.

What’s happening here is that God’s using the horse and mule to demonstrate something. The horse and the mule are not easy to guide. They need the bit and bridle, along with hard and constant training, before they’re useful to the master.

God’s saying don’t be like them, don’t make Him constantly use afflictions, trials, and testings, to keep us on the right path.

Proverbs 3:5 and 6 give us the conditions under which God will direct us,

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.

Many people are scared to have God direct their paths. They’d much rather direct themselves! However, this is the heart that doesn’t trust in the Lord. The heart that delights in God’s Word is the one that receives direction in God’s paths.

“How can I know the will of God?”

King Solomon’s answer is when we:

  • Decide to put our trust in the Lord.
  • Decide to not trust in our own understanding but give attention and priority to God’s revealed word.
  • Decide to acknowledge and honour God in all that we do.

Psalm 119:105,

Your Word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path. 

In summary you and I can know God’s will. It’s revealed to us clearly and plainly in His Word that’s freely and easily available to all today.

God’s not going to speak audibly to us or send a dream or an angel to tell us whether we should take this job or wear these clothes or buy this or that thing. These things will all come to us naturally as we live in His counsel, His Word.\

We mustn’t to fall into the trap of looking to circumstances, events, or other people’s so-called prophecies as signs from God telling us to do this or not to do that.

To know and trust in God is to know and trust His revealed Word.

The Trinity Explained

What is the Trinity?

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In our studies so far we’ve continually seen three persons referred to as God. We’ve seen God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

Because of these mentions of these three persons we thought that now would be a good time to take a break to define each of these persons which in Christianity are known as the Godhead.

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The Trinity Explained

What Is The Trinity? – Transcript

Now we have to start with a stipulation.

God is Beyond the ability of a human to fully comprehend.

Therefore, all man’s attempts to explain the three persons of the Godhead, what’s known as the Trinity, are limited, incomplete and imperfect.

God is beyond the ability of a human to fully comprehend.

Therefore, all man’s attempts to explain the three persons of the Godhead, what’s known as the Trinity, are limited, incomplete and imperfect.

God simply cannot be explained in human terms. How could he possibly be?

He’s outside of all that exists. He’s eternal which means He never began, and He’ll never end. The mind of man is incapable of rationalising that.

The only way we can truly know Him is through faith.

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, that’s Hebrews 11:1.

The hardest part of explaining the Trinity is man’s inability to grasp that there could be a being far beyond man’s own intelligence and capabilities. It just won’t compute to most people. In other words, If something can’t be explained it must not exist.

Despite this we live in a world where we’re surrounded by the unexplainable and the existence of a great many of those unexplainable things is beyond dispute, yet where God’s concerned, man’ll do almost anything to deny His existence and there’s a very good reason for that and the answer lies throughout our bible study.

Now, we don’t find the word “Trinity” in the Bible, yet the doctrine of the Trinity is there in many places, in fact throughout the whole book.

The Trinity means there is one God who is revealed in three distinct Persons, all of the same Substance, co-equal, co-existent, and co-eternal, and known as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, and the Spirit is not the Father. However, The Father is God, Jesus is God and the Holy Spirit is God.

The Trinity is explained in diagram form.

Note: No crudely created diagram can ever go close to explaining our unexplainable God! It’s simply a way of challenging our human logic and thought patterns.

Look at this Syllogism. A syllogism is an argument, a logical conclusion, a deduction, or a reasoning.

If it can be shown that:

There are three persons mentioned in the Bible,

And, that these three persons are all called “God”,

And that there is only one God,

Then the three persons must be the one God whether we understand it or not.

Can this be shown in the Bible? Yes, it can!

First, there is only one God.

James 2:19 – You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble!

1 Corinthians 8:4 – …there is no other God but one.

Deuteronomy 6:4 – Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one!

Second, The Hebrew word for “God” (Elohim) is plural but is used with a singular verb.

Genesis 1:26 – Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image…”

Genesis 1:27 – So, God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Genesis 11:7 – Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language…

Genesis 11:9 – …there the LORD confused the language of all the earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.

Third, the Hebrew word for “one” (Deut. 6:4) is not yachad, which means “absolute mathematical oneness,” but echad meaning “composite unity” or “united one.”

Genesis 1:5 – So the evening and the morning were the first day. One (echad) day.”

Genesis 2:24 – Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one (echad, the same as One God) flesh.

Numbers 13:23 – …and there cut down a branch with one (echad, the same as One God) cluster of grapes.

Deuteronomy 6:4 – Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one!

Fourth, Jesus revealed God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Matthew 28:19 – …baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…

Fifth, The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all called “God.”

The Father is God.

1 Peter 1:2 – …according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ…

2 Peter 1:17 – For He received from God the Father honour and glory when such a voice came to Him from the Excellent Glory: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

The Son is God.

Hebrews 1:8 – But to the Son He says: “YOUR THRONE, O GOD, IS FOREVER AND EVER; A SCEPTER OF RIGHTEOUSNESS IS THE SCEPTER OF YOUR KINGDOM.

Titus 2:13 – …looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, …

Romans 9:5 – …of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God. Amen.

The Holy Spirit is God.

Acts 5:3 – But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the price of the land for yourself? then to the next verse, verse 4, You have not lied to men but to God.”

1 Corinthians 6:19 – Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?

2 Corinthians 6:16 – As God has said: “I WILL DWELL IN THEM AND WALK AMONG THEM. I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE.” We are indwelled by the Holy Spirit after we believe!

Sixth, The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit exist as three eternal and distinct persons.

John 14:16 – “And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever…” This also disproves the teaching that the Father becomes the Son, who becomes the Holy Spirit.

The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, and the Spirit is not the Father. Jesus is sent by the Father, and He and the Father send the Spirit (John 14:26, 15:26, 16:7, 17:8, 20:21).

Therefore, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three persons of the one God, not three manifestations of God, which was the belief and heresy of the third-century priest and theologian Sabellius.

This proves that God (Elohim–plural) is one (echad–composite unity) and is three separate persons–Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Verses that tell us of the Trinity.

The following verses all contain each member of the Godhead.

Matthew 28:19 — Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, …

Notice Jesus said to baptize in the “name” (singular), not “names” (plural). Then 3 separate persons are listed: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Greek uses “and the” between each person, clearly distinguishing them as separate from each other.

2 Corinthians 13:14 — The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.

1 Peter 1:2 — …according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ…

Matthew 3:16-17 — The Father speaks, the Son is baptized, and the Holy Spirit descends.

John 15:26 — “But when the Helper (The Holy Spirit) comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me.

Other verses — Acts 7:55, Luke 1:35, 3:21-22, Eph. 2:18-20, 4:4-6, 5:18-20, 1 Cor. 12:4-6, Isa. 48:16, Zech. 12:10, John 14:16-17, 26, 1 Thess. 1:2-5, 2 Thess. 2:13-14, Titus 3:4-6 1 John 5:6-9

Who Indwells the True Believer?

God the Father

2 Corinthians 6:16 – …I WILL DWELL IN THEM AND WALK AMONG THEM. I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE.

Philippians 2:13 – …for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.

Jesus Christ

2 Corinthians 13:5 – …Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?…

Galatians 2:20 –  I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me…

Colossians 1:27 – …what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

The Holy Spirit

1 Corinthians 6:19 – Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?

John 14:17 – the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.

2 Timothy 1:14 – That good thing which was committed to you, keep by the Holy Spirit who dwells in us.

Romans 8:9 – But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.

Who Raised Jesus From the Dead?

God the Father.

Acts 3:15 – …and killed the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses.

Acts 3:26 – To you first, God, having raised up His Servant Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your iniquities.

1 Thessalonians 1:10 – …and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.

Acts 2:32 – This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses.

Acts 17:31 – …because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.

Jesus raised Himself.

John 2:19-22 – Jesus answered and said to them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” Then the Jews said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?” But He was speaking of the temple of His body. Therefore, when He had risen from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this to them; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said.

The Holy Spirit

Romans 8:11 – But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.

1 Peter 3:18 – For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit…

Who Will Raise the True Believer from the Dead?

God the Father

1 Corinthians 6:14 – And God both raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by His power.

Jesus Christ

John 5:25-29 – Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself, and has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.

John 6:40, 44 – And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.” The Jews then complained about 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 says, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” Jesus therefore answered and said to them, “Do not murmur among yourselves. No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.

Philippians 3:20-21 – For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.

The Holy Spirit

Romans 8:11 – But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.

God Is…

God is Sovereign.

He is absolute.

Psalm 8:4 – What is man that You are mindful of him, And the son of man that You visit him?

Romans 9:19-21 – You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?” But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honour and another for dishonour?

Everything that comes into being is a result of the sovereign choice and creation of God. Consequently, we should never question God, “Why did you make me as I am?” You are God’s unique creation. We live and move under a Sovereign God.

God is Grace and Love.

God’s attitude toward even the worst of sinners is that He wants to save him.

Romans 5:8-11 – But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.

Romans 5:20-21 – Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

God is Infinite.

He is without end – without limit. Scientists tell us that the universe is expanding outward at a tremendous speed, but God is always beyond it. The universe will never go beyond our infinite God.

God is Omnipresent.

He is everywhere, always present.

Psalm 139:7 – 17 – here can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?

If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.

If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,

Even there Your hand shall lead me, And Your right hand shall hold me.

If I say, “Surely the darkness shall fall on me,” Even the night shall be light about me.

Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You, But the night shines as the day; The darkness and the light are both alike to You.

For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb.

I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well.

My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skilfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.

Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them.

How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them!

God is Omniscient.

He is all-knowing. There is not, or was not, or will never be a time when God had to seek advice or to consult someone or some source outside Himself, or study something out. Certainly, within the Godhead there was counsel, but it was immediate, there was no debate among the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

God is self-existent.

He has no beginning; He has no end.

In Genesis 1:1, “God” refers to the Trinity – God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

This Triune God is Spirit, invisible, intangible.

He is unable to be comprehended with the senses of man. But in

Colossians 1:15, speaking of Jesus, it says, “Who is the image of the invisible God, …”

John 1:1 to 3, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

He was in the beginning with God.

All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.

 

God became visible in the flesh; He became touchable.

In summary, there is absolutely no doubt that the Bible clearly portrays The Trinity.

As individuals we have the God given right of free will to believe what the Bible says or to reject what the Bible says, however there’s one thing we cannot say!

We cannot say that the Bible doesn’t teach the Trinity, the Triune nature of God.

Sin - The Root and the Remedy

How Can I Be Saved?

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What is Salvation and why do I need it? What happens to me if I’m not saved and what happens to me if I am saved? How can a person be saved and know it for certain?

Salvation is the basic foundation on which Christianity is built an in fact all of life is built, whether we know it or not or whether we believe it or not.

In this episode we uncover these questions and show the way to salvation from the Bible.

“Speed Slider”

How Can I Be Saved? – Transcript

Many of the things that most people are searching for in life are given in the Bible.
For example, it tells us how we and the universe we live in came into existence.
It explains the cause of the evil that’s in the world; and it gives us our ultimate purpose for existence.


The Bible also speaks about the cause of death.
It says in Romans 5:12,
Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned.
The Bible tells the story of how the first man, Adam, was disobedient towards God and even though he lived physically for a very long time, he died that very day spiritually. It’s called the fall of man. His fall from relationship with his Creator, God.
When he fell and died spiritually this fallen nature that he now had, this nature that was alienated from God, introduced sin and death into the world that was until then perfect.
The Bible shows us how that nature, that sin nature, of the first man was passed on right through the entire line of humans that would ever be born from Adam, right down to you and me today.

Because of that fall of man, there’re two things we can be sure of in this life, and we find them in Hebrews 9:27,
…it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment,
Every person will die because of their sin, both physically and spiritually, and then every word they ever spoke, every deed they ever did, and every thought they ever had will be judged by God’s righteous standard.
How will the judgment turn out?
In Romans 2:6-9 we see that.
God “will render to each one according to their deeds”:
eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honour, and immortality; …but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness—indignation and wrath, tribulation, and anguish, on every soul of man who does evil…
Evil will be punished for eternity with anguish and wrath, but the righteous will be rewarded with eternal life.
But here. of course, is a huge problem: There is none that are righteous.
Romans 3:10-12 tells us that,
There is none righteous no not one;
There is none that understands; There is none that seeks after God.
The have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable (meaning rendered useless to God, spoiled); There is none who does good no, not one.”

We, each and every one of us, are headed for eternal damnation in hell!
You’re probably shocked at that. How can we talk about such an awful thing in this day and age? I thought God was love.
How can we make such a harsh statement that’s so all-encompassing and final and how can we know that we’re not good enough to get into heaven?
Well, through the Bible we can answer these questions.
We can know what our fate is on Judgment Day by using God’s standard of judgment. We can also see that although God is Love He’s also a God of perfect Justice.

In Deuteronomy 32:4 we read about the nature of God,
He is the Rock, His work is perfect; For all His ways are justice, A God of truth and without injustice; Righteous and upright is He.

But, I’m a good person, you say! I don’t go out of my way to harm anyone and I’m not a criminal. I don’t see how God can refuse me entry into heaven and eternal life when there’re many much worse than me!

In the Books of Exodus and Leviticus we see a set of laws that God gave to the nation of Israel, God’s chosen people. There were 10 specific commandments and 613 amendments.

How can we do a check to see if we are actually eligible for eternal life on that day that we leave this physical body and depart this natural world?
Thankfully the Bible clearly explains that right throughout, from beginning to end.
It explains that since were all descendants of the first man Adam, we’re all cursed with sin, death, and we all fall way short when it comes to righteousness as we just saw in Romans 3.
We see it again in Romans 5:12,
Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned.

As a result, God in his perfect justice can’t let any person tainted with unrighteousness into his perfect and eternal home.
All unrighteousness is worthy of eternal condemnation in what The Book of Revelation calls the lake of fire in Revelation 21:8,
But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”

The best way to discover whether we’re good enough to go to heaven is to examine how we compare to God’s standard of righteousness – the divine law, not to other humans either the ones we associate with every day or the people of history.
You see, if we compare ourselves to any other human, living or dead, such as the world’s mass murderers, a rapist, a murderer, or a thief, we may come up looking pretty good. But sadly, we’d be using the absolute wrong standard to judge ourselves by.
Used properly, the Bible says that the law we just saw will reveal any sin found in our nature and will indicate if we’re qualified for heaven. See only by the law can we see our true selves.

Let’s find out how we measure up to that law.
Exodus 20:16,
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.
Have we ever told a lie? Even a small one a long time ago? Then that makes us a liar and in danger of the lake of fire as Revelation 21:8 says as we’ve just looked at.
One of the things God hates is a lying tongue in Proverbs 6:16-17, and you can look that up.
Exodus 20:15 says,
You shall not steal.
Ever stolen anything? Even something small a long time ago like something from an employer maybe? Then that makes us a thief and puts us out of the running for entering the Kingdom of God. You can confirm this in 1 Corinthians 6:10.
Exodus 20:14 says,
You shall not commit adultery.
Now just in case you think you’re doing ok on that one Jesus expanded the meaning of this and other laws in the Gospel of Matthew. In Matthew 5:28 Jesus said,
But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
Have you ever looked upon a person of the opposite sex with lust? If so, even a fleeting thought, then Jesus says you have committed adultery in your heart.
The only difference between the internal desire and the outward action is a given opportunity.
Then in Exodus 20:17 the law says,
You shall not covet…
Have we ever desired someone else’s possessions? If we have, then this shows the real condition of our heart and our desire to follow after its lusts and desires. Ephesians 2:1-3 expands on this.

These are just a few of God’s laws that are written on the conscious of man, but which we continually break. The Bible says in James 2:10,
For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.
Just one minor point, one minor failure at keeping any of these laws and we’re guilty of breaking them all!

In Romans 1 verses 18 and 19 we read,
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.
See this verse says that in the Bible’s revelation of the wrath of God, which will come against all ungodliness and unrighteousness, we see what God has revealed to us about Himself. He, being perfectly righteous, simply cannot turn a blind eye to sin.
Romans 3:20 tells us how the law is what makes us realise just who and what we really are,
Therefore, by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

Breaking God’s law means facing an eternal life sentence which will be spent in anguish and torment in the place the Bible describes as hell.
Through these laws, God has not only revealed the standard by which we’ll be judged but also that not a single person who has ever lived on earth from the line of Adam has been able to keep these laws and since we’ve all broken those laws, we’re condemned automatically.

There’s not one of us that measure up to God’s standard of righteousness, not one. As a result, we’re all condemned because of our sin, and we must accept the consequences whether we like it or not or whether we agree with God or not.
Romans 6:23 we read,
For the wages of sin is death…
And then in 2 Thessalonians 1 verse 9,
These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power…
Where will this take place? Mark 9 verse 44 tells us,
where ‘THEIR WORM DOES NOT DIE AND THE FIRE IS NOT QUENCHED.’

It’s first and foremost through realising and coming to the understanding of man’s (and each of us’) depraved condition before God, that we see our need for salvation from this judgment.
We don’t need salvation from cyclones, thieves, murderers, or poverty as much as we need salvation from a more permanent and eternal condition – sin, and the judgment of God against that sin which is the death of the spirit, eternal separation from God and His presence.

Let’s look at Micah 6:8,
He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?

The law was given to teach what the Lord requires. Meditation on the law taught judgment, the severe punishments of the law demanded mercy, and through the sacrifices and prayers of the Old Testament humility was openly displayed as thousands of animals bled as sacrifices for sins.
Judgment, mercy, and humility were divinely revealed to humanity so that even today the world’s religions hold them up as the most noble religious pursuits.
Of course, the entire law is summed up in just two of those laws that Jesus identified: love God and love your neighbour as yourself.
Matt 22:40 Jesus says,
On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.

However, after thousands of years of living under the law one thing is evident: no one is righteous, that’s Romans 3 verse 10 to 12 again as we’ve just seen. No man can give God what he requires. It’s simply impossible to do all that God requires. The purest requirements of judgment, mercy, love, and humility remain only dreams to a cursed world.
The apostle Paul after receiving revelation directly from Jesus Christ Himself wrote in Galatians 3:24,
Therefore, the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
Christ accomplished all that God required.
Jesus Christ fulfilled the righteous judgment of God against sin through his death on the cross as we see Paul explain in Romans 3 verse 25, speaking of Christ,
whom God set forth as a propitiation (which means an atonement or an appeasing) by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed.
The richness of God’s mercy was shown through Jesus, Who was God in the flesh, Immanuel, God with us, and Who provided life, eternal life, to sinners.
See, it was Christ who humbled himself being made in the likeness of men so that He could do what no one else could:
We see this in Philippians 2:8,
And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.
Also in Romans 5:8,
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
And in the great passage of Ephesians 2:4-10,
But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. (That’s our own works, our own goodness, our own attempts to keep the law)
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

Today, God does not require anything from us because Christ has done everything required to provide free justification to all who believe.
How incredible is the realisation of Romans 4:5,
But to him who does not work (that’s those who do not attempt to be righteous by keeping God’s law) but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness.

If we think the Bible is simply a book telling us what God requires, then we’re still living under the law, and, as we’ve clearly seen, that path can’t possible lead us to salvation, only death.
We would’ve missed the gospel of God’s grace detailing what God has given us in Christ’s finished work.
Are you struggling to meet God’s perfect requirements?
Stop struggling!
You can never succeed no matter how hard or how long you try.
You might begin to produce good works after you have salvation but it’s so important to understand that these works would be as a result of salvation not in order to earn it!
Put your faith in Christ’s fulfillment of God’s requirements and receive the spiritual benefits of God’s righteousness freely as Romans 3:24 says,
being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus!
Salvation comes by believing what’s written here in God’s Word.
We are saved from sin and death when we trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross and his bodily resurrection. His sinless blood pays for our sins, earns forgiveness, and gives us eternal life.

Salvation is the gift of God by grace as God’s Word clearly explains. It’s not a product of:
– Prayer
– Popes
– Baptism
– Confession
– Good works
– Turning from sin
– Commandments
– Church membership
– Mass or the Lord’s Supper.
We receive that gift through faith and faith is the only way we can please God as Hebrews 11:6 tells us,
But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
Faith plus nothing! This is the gospel of the grace of God.
Only Believe!
One thing we must not do is think that being saved or being spiritual has anything to do with a feeling.
That lady that always cries during the songs at church does not feel salvation or spirituality any more than anyone else, as emotional as she may be.
We learn from the Bible that being saved and walking through life spiritually is by faith not feelings.
Hebrews 11:1,
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Our natural flesh produces a lot of feelings, but the spirit is that by which we can know the things of God.
1 Corinthians 2:12,
Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.
It has nothing to do with an emotion, a feeling.

Now, we can speak directly to God and tell Him that by our free choice that He’s given us we accept what His Word says about us, that we are sinners and can’t save ourselves and that we turn to Him and accept the salvation He provided for us. It’s not a ritual prayer that must be said to somehow seal salvation, it’s just the start of a relationship with God where we can talk to Him in prayer, knowing that He always hears us.
It’s the start of a journey that will open up truth and reality and the purpose that God has for us. That truth, reality and purpose will come as God’s Word, the Bible, becomes the central foundation on which everything else in life is built.
God bless you on your incredible journey.

Empty Tomb

The Resurrection – Fact or Fantasy? – Part 2

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It’s very important to understand the form that the resurrected Jesus took upon Himself. The New Testament teaches that when we are resurrected, we’ll have a form similar to His.

John wrote, Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. (1 John 3:2)

The resurrected Christ had a body. Someday, we too will have a body like His.

“Speed Slider”

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The Resurrection – Fact or Fantasy? – Part 2 – Transcript

Some believe that Jesus did not have a resurrected body, but was only a spirit.

However, the Scripture is very clear on the issue—the resurrection of Jesus was in bodily form.

Early in His ministry, Jesus predicted that He would come back from the dead in a body. The Bible says, in John 2:19 – 22, Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”  The Jews then said, “It took forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?”  But He was speaking of the temple of His body. So when He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He said this; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken.

This passage shows that Jesus predicted His bodily resurrection.

Jesus refuted the idea that He was some disembodied spirit when He appeared to His disciples after His death. The Scripture shows that Christ’s resurrection body had links to His non-resurrected body.

Let’s look at the similarities between Christ’s earthly body and His resurrected body.

Jesus was recognizable after His resurrection as we see In John 20:20 we see that the disciples rejoiced when they realised it was really Him after he showed them His hands and side. It was the same Jesus who had been crucified on the cross.

The resurrected Christ could talk as we see in Luke 24:36-38 and lots of other places.

The disciples were frightened by Jesus’ appearance since they assumed they had seen a spirit.

In Luke 24:39,40 we read, Therefore He invited them to touch His body to see if it were real. Scripture says And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. And when he had thus spoken, he shewed them his hands and his feet.

This also shows that His body was real as people could touch it.

He had the capacity, though not the need, to eat. Luke writes, His followers were amazed and very, very happy to see that Jesus was alive. They still could not believe what they saw. He said to them, “Do you have any food here?”So they gave Him a piece of a broiled fish and some honeycomb. And He took it and ate in their presence. (Luke 24:41-43 Easy Read Version)

Simon Peter later told a group of Gentiles about how he and the other disciples ate and drank with Jesus after His resurrection from the dead in Acts 10:39: And we are witnesses of all things which he did both in the land of the Jews, and in Jerusalem; whom they slew and hanged on a tree: Him God raised up the third day, and shewed him openly; Not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God, even to us, who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead.

In eating food with them He showed that His resurrection was indeed bodily.

Jesus’ resurrection body was also different in some respects.

The Bible says He could enter closed rooms without opening the doors. John records the following episode: So when it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and when the doors were shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” (John 20:19 NASB)

Jesus had the supernatural ability to enter a room when the door was closed.

He was also able to disappear. It was as He reclined at the table with them that He took the bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognised Him; but He disappeared from their sight. (Luke 24:30-31)

This is another unique ability of His resurrected body.

As far as we can tell, Jesus’ resurrected body did not need any rest or food. Every account of Jesus after His resurrection has Him busy with ministry. We read, After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. (Acts 1:3)

During the forty days after His resurrection, but before His ascension, Jesus was busy with ministry.

Jesus’ resurrected body was able to ascend into heaven. We read the following account in the Book of Acts: It was not long after he said this that he was taken up into the sky while they were watching, and he disappeared into a cloud.

As they were straining their eyes to see him, two white-robed men suddenly stood there among them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why are you standing here staring at the sky? Jesus has been taken away from you into heaven. And someday, just as you saw him go, he will return!” (Acts 1:9-11 NLT)

Finally, Jesus left the earth by way of the ascension into heaven.

The most detailed description of the risen and ascended Christ is found in Revelation 1:12-16.

Here John records the vision of the glorified Christ.

He was like the Son of Man, which links Him to His former earthly appearance, but He also radiated glory from His eyes, feet, voice, and face. This is the way that believers will someday see Him.

From these accounts, we can see that Jesus’ resurrection was bodily.

  1. He made it clear that He was not a disembodied spirit.
  2. He did things only a person having a body can do: He walked, He showed them the prints of the crucifixion on His body, He breathed, and ate (Luke 24:41-43).

Now that we understand what did happen with Jesus’ resurrection body, we can also see what His body was not.

It is not a soul released from prison.

The Greeks thought the soul was in prison until the body died, the soul was then released from bondage and went into heaven. This idea is not the resurrection of the bible.

It is not reincarnation.

Reincarnation means a human comes back in the next life as another human being. Resurrection, however, means eternal life for that individual, not reincarnation.

It is not resuscitation.

The biblical idea of resurrection is the raising of a new body that will never die again. Paul wrote to the church in Rome; Because we know that Christ, having been raised from the dead, no longer dies. Death no longer rules over Him. (Romans 6:9 HCSB)

To the Corinthians, he wrote, It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. (1 Corinthians 15:44 NKJV)

In the New Testament, there are several examples of resuscitations or reanimations.

Though they were brought back to life, they all died again. This is not the same as what happened to Jesus. He was raised immortal in a new body, not just a spirit, never to die again. It’s the same bodies that believers will someday have.

There’s also much indirect evidence for the Resurrection.

The changed lives of the disciples give indirect testimony to Christ’s resurrection. Something changed the disciples of Jesus from cowards to martyrs, from frightened individuals to bold proclaimers of the resurrection. It had to be something more powerful than a delusion or a lie. They said their lives were changed because they had seen the risen Christ.

We find the New Testament outlines the events that led to the changed lives of Jesus’ disciples.

When Jesus was betrayed, the Bible says that His disciples scattered:

But all this has taken place, so that the scriptures of the prophets may be fulfilled. Then all the disciples deserted him and fled. (Matthew 26:56 NRSV)

Simon Peter, who had promised to die for Jesus, denied that he ever knew Him. Matthew also writes:

Meanwhile, as Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard, a servant girl came over and said to him, “You were one of those with Jesus the Galilean.”

But Peter denied it in front of everyone. “I don’t know what you are talking about,” he said.

Later, out by the gate, another servant girl noticed him and said to those standing around, “This man was with Jesus of Nazareth.”

Again Peter denied it, this time with an oath. “I don’t even know the man,” he said.

A little later some other bystanders came over to him and said, “You must be one of them; we can tell by your Galilean accent.”

Peter said, “I swear by God, I don’t know the man” And immediately the rooster crowed. (Matthew 26:69-74 NLT)

At Jesus’ crucifixion, His disciples were nowhere to be found. Matthew records the following: Many women who had followed Jesus from Galilee and given him support were also there, watching from a distance. (Matthew 27:55)

The picture we get of the disciples at the time of Jesus’ trial and death is of a frightened band of individuals who denied their Lord and went into hiding.

Some fifty days later, however, we find these same disciples standing up bravely proclaiming, in the city of Jerusalem, that Christ has risen from the dead (Acts 2).

Something had immediately changed these cowards into bold preachers of Christ’s resurrection.

Soon thereafter the boldness of the disciples caused the religious leaders to arrest them. We read about this in the Book of Acts:

As they were speaking to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came up to them, being greatly disturbed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. And they laid hands on them and put them in jail until the next day, for it was already evening. (Acts 4:1-3 NASB)

The religious leaders then resorted to threats.

They said to one another, But perhaps we can stop them from spreading their propaganda. We’ll warn them not to speak to anyone in Jesus’ name again.

So they called the apostles back in and told them never again to speak or teach about Jesus.  But Peter and John replied, “Do you think God wants us to obey you rather than him? We cannot stop telling about the wonderful things we have seen and heard.” The council then threatened them further, but they finally let them go because they didn’t know how to punish them without starting a riot. For everyone was praising God. (Acts 4:17-21 NLT)

These former cowards were now fearlessly proclaiming the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Obviously, something happened to change the lives of these men. The disciples attributed their bravery to seeing Christ risen.

If Christ had not risen, then there must be some other explanation for their changed lives. What could that possibly be?

More indirect evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the conversion of Saul of Tarsus to the Apostle Paul.

Saul of Tarsus, the greatest antagonist of the Christian faith, was converted and became the Apostle Paul—the greatest proclaimer of the faith.

According to his own testimony, Saul persecuted the believers in Christ mercilessly. He said, “So then, I thought to myself that I had to do many things hostile to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And this is just what I did in Jerusalem; not only did I lock up many of the saints in prisons, having received authority from the chief priests, but also when they were being put to death I cast my vote against them. And as I punished them often in all the synagogues, I tried to force them to blaspheme; and being furiously enraged at them, I kept pursuing them even to foreign cities.” (Acts 26:9-11 NASB)

Saul had believers jailed and consented to their death sentence. In doing all of this, he believed he was serving God.

However, something happened to Saul to change his way of thinking. He explained it like this: “Under these circumstances, I was travelling to Damascus with authority and a commission from the chief priests.  At midday, while on the road, O king, I saw a light from heaven brighter than the sun, shining around me and those travelling with me.  When we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice speaking to me in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’  But I said, ‘Who are You, Lord?’ And the Lord replied: ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and stand on your feet.  For I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and a witness of things you have seen, and of things in which I will appear to you.’” (Acts 26:12-16 HCSB)

Saul obeyed the heavenly vision and became the Apostle Paul—the mighty defender of the faith. He wrote several books that became part of the New Testament.

The greatest enemy to the faith became its greatest champion. What was it that changed this man’s life? He said it was meeting the risen Christ.

Here we have an example of a man who was not a believer during Jesus’ earthly life, who became a believer after Christ had risen.

This is in contrast to Jesus’ disciples—who believed in Him during His earthly ministry. Saul’s testimony is yet more evidence that Christ rose from the dead.

Saul’s conversion must have some explanation. The only explanation that fits all the facts is the one which he himself gives; he met the risen Christ on the road to Damascus.

The New Testament church came into existence as a result of the faith of the believers in the resurrection.

In every sermon, the substance of the preaching of the apostles was that Christ had risen from the dead. Multitudes soon believed their message (Acts 2:41; 6:7).

It’s historical fact that Christianity spread faster than any other religion or philosophy in the ancient world. By the early part of the fourth century, the Roman Empire became “Christianised.” Something had to account for this unprecedented growth—something at least as compelling as a resurrected Christ.

The fact of Christianity’s rapid expansion gives a further witness to the truth of its resurrection message. People embraced Christianity because they were convinced that Jesus Christ has conquered death and could offer them eternal life.

More circumstantial evidence for the resurrection is found in the changing of the day of worship. The Jewish worship was on the Sabbath (from Friday sundown to Saturday sundown). However, the early Christians observed Sunday as their day of worship to commemorate Jesus’ resurrection. This was no small thing to the first believers who were Jews. The day of worship, the Sabbath, was something that no Jew would dare break or change.

Yet Jesus’ disciples preferred to worship on the first day of the week—the day He came back from the dead (Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:1, 2; Revelation 1:10). Something monumental must have happened to make them change the day of worship—something like a resurrection.

The Letter of Barnabas, an early Christian document, stated the following: Therefore we keep the eighth day with joyfulness, the day on which Jesus rose from the dead.

The early Christians celebrated the fact that Jesus had risen from the dead.

According to the New Testament, the first person who saw the resurrected Christ was Mary Magdalene.

She thought Jesus was the gardener. Jesus then appeared to another group of women. If one were to make up the story of Christ’s resurrection, they certainly would not have Him first appearing to women. In that culture, at the time of Christ, the witness of a woman was not as readily accepted as a man’s. Their testimony would not have been admissible as legal proof except in a few specific situations.

If the story had been made up, then Jesus would have first appeared to a man—either one of His disciples or perhaps one of His enemies such as Herod, Pilate, or Caiaphas the High Priest. Yet the New Testament says that Jesus appeared first to Mary Magdalene and then to other women. This is not what one would expect in a made up story. The special privilege of seeing the risen Christ would not have been given to women. Again, this is another indication the story is reliable.

Another piece of evidence concerns Christians burying their dead. Unbelievers cremated their dead. However, from the beginning, the Christians buried theirs in underground cemeteries and catacombs. Six hundred miles of catacombs stretch around Rome. In these catacombs, about four million Christians from the first three centuries are buried. Each one of these buried believers testifies to their faith in the resurrection of Jesus and faith in their own ultimate resurrection.

On the Day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit supernaturally fell upon the disciples of Jesus. They were able to speak in languages they had not previously learned. This caused amazement to those who heard. The Bible says, “What are we to do with these men? Everyone living in Jerusalem knows that a remarkable sign was done through them, and we cannot deny it.” (Acts 4:16)

What caused the supernatural ability of Jesus’ disciples to speak in languages they had not previously learned? Peter stood up and told them the reason for this miracle—the resurrection of Christ. Three thousand people converted to Christ on that day. The reason for their conversion, according to the Scripture, was the truth of the resurrection.

The miracles in the Book of Acts give further testimony to Jesus’ resurrection. The fact that the disciples of Jesus were able to perform similar miracles as He performed demonstrated that Jesus’ power was still working after His death, resurrection and ascension.

Peter and John performed a miracle—healing a lame man at the temple. They testified that the ability to perform this miracle was granted to them by the risen Christ. They emphasized again that they were eyewitnesses of His resurrection. The Scripture says, “But you rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses.” (Acts 3:14, 15 NRSV)

They had seen the risen Christ.

When Peter spoke before the council he testified that it was the power of the risen Christ that healed this sick man. The Bible says, Then Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit and said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders: If we are being examined today about a good deed done to a disabled man—by what means he was healed—let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene—whom you crucified and whom God raised from the dead—by Him this man is standing here before you healthy.” (Acts 4:8-10 HCSB)

The enemies could not deny this healing. Scripture says, “What should we do with these men?” they asked each other. “We can’t deny they have done a miraculous sign, and everybody in Jerusalem knows about it.” (Acts 4:16 NLT)

This miracle was undeniable.

Therefore, the miracles of the apostles, as recorded in the Book of Acts, were all based on the power of resurrected Christ. The message of the early church was that Christ had risen from the dead and His disciples were witnesses to that event. Their testimony was evidenced by these miracles.

Another bit of evidence is the undisturbed and folded grave clothes. John reported, Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. (John 20:6, 7 NRSV)

If the body of Jesus had been taken from the tomb by Jesus’ disciples, they certainly would not have taken the time to remove and unwind the grave clothes and then fold them again. Thus, the position of the grave clothes at Jesus’ tomb is another circumstantial indication of His resurrection.

In 1930, a Frenchman named Franz Cumont published an inscription of a text from the city of Nazareth. Called the Nazareth Inscription or Nazareth decree is a marble tablet inscribed in Greek. It can be seen at the Louvre. The inscription records the decree of Emperor Claudius, who ruled from A.D. 41 to 54. This decree ordered the death penalty for anyone disturbing tombs.

Obviously, something led to this decree. Why would the Roman Emperor give his attention to body snatching in this remote part of the Roman Empire? Why did Claudius institute the death penalty for robbing tombs only in this one particular geographic area—the area where Jesus came from? The decree of Claudius seems to support the early Jewish contention that the body of Jesus was stolen—which is an admission that the tomb was empty.

The final testimony to the resurrection of Jesus Christ is that He is still in the business of changing lives.

Millions of people throughout history, as well as millions today, personally testify to a changed life. This power to live a new life is based on the belief in the resurrected Christ.

So, let’s summarise the circumstantial evidence.

  1. The changed lives of the disciples can only be explained by the risen Christ.
  2. The conversion of Saul of Tarsus to the Apostle Paul makes no sense without the resurrection.
  3. Some power had to have given rise to the Christian church.
  4. According to the New Testament, women were the first to see the risen Jesus. This is not to be expected in a made up story.
  5. The change of the day of worship from Saturday to Sunday had to have been occasioned by some great event.
  6. The Christians buried their dead expecting them to eventually rise.
  7. The miraculous events on the Day of Pentecost have to have some explanation.
  8. The miracles in the Book of Acts testify to the resurrection power of Jesus.
  9. The grave clothes were undisturbed in Jesus’ tomb.
  10. The Nazareth Decree testifies that the first century Jews were concerned about empty tombs.
  11. Jesus Christ has changed lives and can still change lives today.

The evidence testifies to the fact that Jesus had risen from the dead three days after He was crucified on Calvary’s cross.

If Jesus did not come back from the dead, as the New Testament plainly says He did, then some alternative explanation must be offered to explain what happened. The problem is that other explanations take as much faith to believe as the New Testament’s account. These alternative theories leave more questions unanswered than they explain.

First, let’s be clear. It is theoretically possible to falsify the resurrection account. It can be done in one of two ways. They are as follows:

  1. Produce the body.
  2. Have a reasonable theory that explains all the evidence.

Since the body has not been produced, we need to look at some of the major theories that attempt to explain away the New Testament account. These include:

  1. The Real Story Was Suppressed
  2. The Story about Jesus Became Embellished
  3. Jesus Did Not Actually Die on the Cross
  4. The Body Was Stolen
  5. The Women Went to the Wrong Tomb on Easter Sunday
  6. The Disciples Merely Had Hallucinations about Seeing the Risen Christ
  7. Jesus Appeared to Believers Only – Those Expecting a Resurrection
  8. The Reports about His Resurrection Are Hopelessly Contradictory
  9. It Doesn’t Matter What Happened

Let’s take a look at each of these objections and evaluate them in light of all the evidence.

Objection 1 The real story was suppressed

Many people question the accuracy of the New Testament account of the resurrection. They contend that the true story was never told because the facts had been suppressed by those later in power. Any evidence to the contrary would have been burned or destroyed. The answer to this view is simple—there were unbelievers who gave alternative theories to the resurrection, and their writings were not suppressed. We do have writings from unbelievers who all argue that the body was stolen—they all admit the body was gone on the third day.

However, they had no better explanation than Jesus’ disciples stole His body. The Christians certainly did not suppress this popular theory. To the contrary, Matthew records this theory in his gospel as the official explanation given by unbelievers.

Objection 2 The story became embellished

One of the most popular explanations has been to say the stories about Jesus have been embellished. The problem with this theory is that there is not enough time for this to happen. The four Gospels, the Book of Acts and Paul’s earliest letter, First Thessalonians, refutes that. The fact that He was raised is stated in First Thessalonians 4:14. This was written, as were the Gospels, while many eyewitnesses were still alive.

Objection 3 Jesus did not die on the cross

A favorite objection is that Jesus did not die on the cross, but rather He fainted from exhaustion. When He appeared to His disciples, it was not as the resurrected Lord but rather as one who had been resuscitated. Therefore, what we have is resuscitation, not a resurrection. Like the other objections to the resurrection, there are many problems with this theory.

Crucifixion was common in Jesus’ time and the Roman soldiers had become experts at it. They had reduced it to a science with a set of rules to be followed. There is no possible way Jesus could have survived the crucifixion, scourging, and lance thrust.

Since the governor had personally condemned Jesus to death, it is highly unlikely the soldiers would make a mistake and not finish the job. Furthermore, we have Pilate cross-examining the centurion to make certain that Jesus had died. Mark records the following:

When evening had already come, because it was the preparation day, that is, the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea came, a prominent member of the Council, who himself was waiting for the kingdom of God; and he gathered up courage and went in before Pilate, and asked for the body of Jesus. Pilate wondered if He was dead by this time, and summoning the centurion, he questioned him as to whether He was already dead. And ascertaining this from the centurion, he granted the body to Joseph. (Mark 15:42-45 NASB)

Jesus was dead; there is no doubt about this.

The Breaking of Jesus’ Legs Was Not Necessary

Crucifixion was a slow, painful way to die, with the person usually dying of asphyxiation. The victim had to push his body up in order to breathe.

Therefore, breaking of the legs would hasten the death of the victim. The legs of the two robbers that were crucified next to Jesus were broken because the Passover was drawing near.

Passover began at sunset, and according to Jewish law, bodies could not be left on the cross on that Holy Day. Jesus’ legs were not broken because He was obviously dead. In addition, Pilate would not have given permission for Joseph to take Jesus’ body for burial if He were not already dead.

Blood And Water Came Out from His Side – A Sign of Death

We are told that at Jesus’ death, blood and water came out from His side when it was pierced with a spear. John writes,

But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out. (John 19:34 NKJV)

The purpose of the spear thrust was to ensure that Jesus was dead. This is eyewitness detail—which shows that death did indeed occur. The blood and water coming out is an outward sign that someone has died.

How Did Jesus Get Out of the Tomb?

Another question that needs to be addressed is, “How did Jesus get out of the tomb in the first place?” He had been wrapped in grave clothes and the spices would have hardened around Him in a few hours. This would make His escape difficult, if not impossible—assuming He was still alive. There was also a large stone rolled in front of the tomb that is virtually impossible to move from the inside. In addition, the guards had to have been conveniently asleep for Jesus to get by them.

Jesus Would Have Been Perpetrating a Deliberate Hoax

If this theory is correct, then Jesus would have been guilty of perpetrating a deliberate hoax by passing Himself off as one who had risen from the dead. He did not tell His disciples that He narrowly escaped death, He told them He had risen. This would make Jesus a liar—contrary to everything we know about Him and His character.

Would This Convince the Disciples?

If Jesus had survived His crucifixion, He would have been in an extremely weak condition. It is not possible to believe that a half-dead man, crawling around weak, and needing immediate medical treatment, could have given His disciples the impression that He had just conquered death. This type of appearance of Jesus would not have changed their sorrow into enthusiasm and caused them to worship Him as risen from the dead.

When Did He Die?

If it were a mere resuscitation, then we are faced with the question of when did He die? Where, if anywhere, was He buried? Why wasn’t His other tomb venerated?

The evidence is clear—Jesus died on Calvary’s cross. Therefore, any theory that attempts to explain away the resurrection must take this fact into account.

Objection 4 The stolen body theory

Many argue the body of Jesus was removed from the tomb before Resurrection Sunday morning. Since the evidence proves the tomb was empty the question is, “What caused it to be empty?” The empty tomb means two possibilities: the body of Jesus was removed by either: (1) human hands or (2) supernatural power.

Did Human Hands Steal Jesus’ Body?

If the body of Jesus was removed by human hands, then we have four basic possibilities as to who did it. The suspects include:

  1. The Jews
  2. The Romans
  3. Joseph of Arimathea
  4. Jesus’ disciples

Two questions immediately arise about the stolen body theory. First, concerning His enemies and Joseph of Arimathea, “Would they have stolen the body?” Next, we ask this question of His disciples, “Could they have stolen the body?”

The Jews

The Jews could have had the body of Jesus removed from the tomb, yet they had no motivation for such an act. Some have argued they may have removed the body to keep the site from becoming a place of pilgrimage for Jesus’ disciples. Yet this would have caused the sort of problem they were trying to avoid—rumours that Jesus had risen.

The Jewish religious rulers are the ones who asked for the guard because they were afraid His disciples would come and steal the body. If they had taken the body, then certainly they would have produced it fifty days later when Peter, in the same city of Jerusalem, proclaimed that Jesus had risen. The fact that they did not produce the body of Jesus shows they did not remove it.

The Romans

A second possible group, that could have removed Jesus’ body, was the Romans.

Since they were in charge of keeping law and order, is it possible they could have taken the body from the tomb. The problem with them is also lack of motivation. Why would they do such a thing? They wanted to keep the peace.

Stealing the body of an executed religious leader would only add to the rumours about Him. It would stir up greater conflict. Consequently, there is no motivation for them to steal the body.

Furthermore, when the Christian faith began to grow, they could have easily stopped it by producing the body. But they didn’t do this.

Joseph of Arimathea

He obviously had access to Christ’s body since He is the one who requested it from Pilate. It is argued that he may have had second thoughts about placing the body of Jesus in his family tomb. Thus he could have removed Jesus’ body after the initial burial and placed it elsewhere—possibly in an unmarked grave.

Again, we have no motivation for him to do such a thing—especially since he and Nicodemus took the time and expense to prepare Jesus for burial. If he removed the body, then why didn’t he tell anyone? However, there is another problem.

It was not the empty tomb that caused the other disciples to believe in Jesus—it was seeing the risen Christ.

Did Jesus’ Disciples Steal His Body?

The oldest alternative explanation to the resurrection is that His disciples stole the body of Jesus while the guard was sleeping.

Matthew tells us this was the story the bribed Roman guard was to tell, even though they knew it was false. He wrote in Matthew 28:11-15 HCSB; As they were on their way, some of the guard came into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. After the priests had assembled with the elders and agreed on a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money and told them, “Say this, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole Him while we were sleeping.’ If this reaches the governor’s ears, we will deal with him and keep you out of trouble.” So they took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been spread among Jewish people to this day. (Matthew 28:11-15 HCSB)

The idea that the disciples stole the body is inadequate for the following reasons.

Could They Get Past the Guards?

To begin with, the disciples would have had to get by the guards at the tomb. This theory has the guard members conveniently asleep.

The disciples would have had to move the large stone away from the tomb without waking any of them.

While this is not impossible, it certainly is inconsistent with the facts as we know them.

Why Leave the Grave Clothes Behind?

If the Roman guard was asleep you need to move fast. The position of the grave clothes shows the impossibility of the theft of the body.

Why take the time to remove the grave clothes and leave them behind? It would have been much easier to remove the body, grave clothes and all, especially if time were a factor.

The explanation that the Roman guard was asleep does not help solve this problem.

How Could the Guard Testify?

Furthermore, the guard story doesn’t stand up to cross-examination. What does anyone know about what is occurring when they are asleep? If the Roman guard were sleeping, how did they know the disciples stole the body? How can you determine anything that’s going on while you are asleep? Couldn’t Jesus, just as easily, have risen from the dead while they were asleep without the guards knowing it?

The Disciples Would Have Been Liars

The stolen body theory would make the disciples deliberate liars. These are the same disciples who gave us the New Testament; the same New Testament where they reported Jesus was sinless.

They testified He never lied—rather He always told the truth. Yet this theory wants people to believe that His disciples, while spreading the message of the truth-telling Jesus, lied and continued to lie about the most important event in His life! On the one hand, they proclaimed to the world the story of the most perfect man who ever lived; on the other hand, according to the stolen body theory; they pulled off this gigantic deception.

Their character testifies against this idea.

Even if they could have gotten past the Roman guard to get to the body, they would have had to live with that lie for the rest of their lives, proclaiming it, suffering for it, and dying for it.

They would have been preaching the resurrection in direct contradiction to their own knowledge of the truth.

They Had No Motivation for Lying

Assuming the disciples could have stolen the body, another question arises, “What motivated them to do it?” By proclaiming Christ had risen, they subjected themselves to beatings and jail.

They eventually died for their testimony. If they had stolen the body, they would have been liars as well as thieves.

They would not only have lied for the cause, they would have died for their lie. What advantage would there have been for doing this?

Their Lord’s body received a proper burial. They had nothing to gain and everything to lose by stealing His body.

There’s no motivation for the disciples stealing the body. Their leader was buried with loving hands in a tomb of a rich man.

Since they were not expecting Him to rise from the dead, this would have been the best end to Jesus’ life—all things considered.

There Was No Time to Steal the Body

There is also the problem of time. Jesus was betrayed on Thursday night and brought to trial Friday morning. His crucifixion took place from approximately 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on Friday. At sundown on Friday the Sabbath began and the disciples, as observant Jews, would rest. The end of the Sabbath was on Saturday night. The first visit to the tomb realistically would have been on Sunday morning. By then Jesus had risen. There was simply no time to steal the body.

The Mental State of the Disciples Needs to Be Considered

The mental state of Jesus’ disciples also needs to be considered. They were now leaderless for the first time in three years. All the disciples left Jesus at the Garden of Gethsemane. Later Peter denied Jesus and John was looking after Jesus’ mother.

Being afraid and leaderless, did they suddenly become brave? After the surprise betrayal and crucifixion, is it really possible to think they concocted a plan late Friday afternoon to have the body removed by Sunday morning?

No, it does not seem possible.

The Transformed Lives of the Disciples Has to Be Explained

The mere removal of Jesus’ body from the tomb could not have transformed their sadness into gladness. In less than thirty-six hours, they went from the depths of despair to the heights of joy.

They had lost hope when Christ died, but they immediately went from hopelessness to certainty, from cowards to eventual martyrs. Something gave them the power to sustain their preaching during persecution and martyrdom.

A stolen body would not have changed their lives in this manner.

Liars Are Usually Caught

There is another important point—liars are usually caught in their lies. This is especially true when a number of different people are lying.

Cover-ups have a way of becoming public, yet none of the disciples ever denied the resurrection. If Jesus had not risen, one would have expected the eventual confession of at least some of them.

But they all went to their deaths proclaiming Christ had risen. Why?

Why Weren’t the Disciples Prosecuted?

According to Roman law, the body of a condemned criminal belonged to the state. That is why Joseph of Arimathea had to ask for Jesus’ body.

To steal a body was a serious offence and, oddly, neither the Romans nor Jews did anything to substantiate the charges if the body had been stolen. The disciples were never prosecuted for this alleged crime. Why?

Jesus Would Also Have Been a Liar

If Jesus did not rise, that would make Him a liar because He predicted His resurrection. As we have seen, lying is totally contrary to everything we know about His character.

Why Was There No Veneration of His Burial Place?

The Jews venerated the graves of their religious leaders. If Christ were not buried in Joseph’s tomb, then He must have been buried elsewhere, yet there is no trace of any burial place in Jerusalem for the body of Jesus. No tradition exists anywhere that Jesus remained buried.

Why Were They Martyred?

Finally, there is the ultimate question, “Why did they die for their testimony of Jesus?” If they had stolen the body, they would have died for a lie knowing that it was a lie.

The disciples who would have “died for a lie” included Simon Peter (crucified); Andrew (crucified); James, son of Alphaeus (crucified); Philip (crucified); Simon (crucified); Thaddaeus (killed with arrows); Thomas (died by a spear thrust); Bartholomew (crucified); and James, the son of Zebedee (killed with the sword). Jesus’ disciples were transformed from cowards to martyrs. Why?

It is one thing to lie; it is quite another thing to die for a lie if you know that it is a lie. The disciples sealed their testimony in their own blood. To save their own life they would only have had to confess to lying, yet they never recanted their testimony.

They Died Separately

Furthermore, they died separately. It is one thing to die as a member of a group—strength could be gained from each other as you are awaiting death. However, each of the disciples died separately, apart from one another, apart from any type of moral support. Again, we ask the question, “Why?”

The Stolen Body Theory Is Inadequate

These different factors make the popular stolen body theory inadequate at best. The disciples were no longer capable of raiding the tomb and the other possible culprits had no motivation for stealing Jesus’ body.

Objection 5 The women went to the wrong tomb on Resurrection Sunday

Kirsopp Lake, a great textual scholar, came up with this ridiculous theory. Simply stated, the women were not certain where Jesus was buried. Thus they went in the semi-darkness to an empty tomb thinking it was the tomb where Jesus was actually buried. When they found the tomb empty they assumed He had risen.

Supposedly the young man they saw that dark morning confirmed that they were at the wrong tomb. Mark 16:6 says, And he [the young man] said to them, “Do not be amazed; you are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who has been crucified. He has risen; He is not here; behold, here is the place where they laid Him.” (Mark 16:6 NASB)

Professor Lake omits the words “he has risen” from the text. Therefore the young man is saying to the woman, “He is not here, He is over there. Come see where they have placed Him.”

Let’s consider the problems with this theory.

The Body Would Have Still Been in the Tomb

There are so many problems with this theory—not the least of which is that the body would still have been in Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb. When Peter preached the resurrection on the Day of Pentecost, it would have been a simple thing to go to the correct tomb and produce the body.

It Would Have Been Too Dark for the Gardener

In addition, if it were too dark for the women to find the right tomb, it would have been too dark for a gardener or caretaker to be working.

There Is No Reason to Omit the Words He Has Risen

Furthermore, to argue for this theory, you have to omit from the text the words, “He has risen.” There is no justification for this omission because every manuscript we possess has these crucial words.

The Empty Tomb Did Not Cause Belief

Finally, it was not the empty tomb that convinced the disciples that Jesus had risen from the dead. On the contrary, it was the fact they saw Him after His death.

No one really takes this theory seriously.

Objection 6 The disciples experienced hallucinations

Another objection to the resurrection is the accusation that the disciples experienced hallucinations. This doesn’t make them liars as much as fools. The disciples only thought they saw Jesus, and He had not really risen. Hallucinations often occur when someone wishes for something so much. This theory holds the disciples saw exactly what they wanted to see.

However, the hallucination theory does not explain how the tomb became empty, or why the authorities failed to produce a body. Since they did not produce a body, it leaves open the question of what happened to Jesus. The authorities could have produced the body, ending any testimony that Jesus had risen. The hallucination theory does not explain the missing body.

Furthermore, hallucinations are not collective; individuals experience them. Five hundred people at one time do not have the same hallucination!

Hallucinations tend to increase in intensity and occur regularly over a long period. They become worse, not better. According to Scripture, it was after forty days that the appearances of Jesus stopped and He did not appear again. This is inconsistent with the nature of hallucinations.

If the disciples were only hallucinating about seeing the risen Christ, then how were they able to perform miracles? Who gave the disciples the power to heal the sick and raise the dead?

Saul of Tarsus, who became the Apostle Paul, was converted as an unbeliever. Are we to assume that he had the same hallucination?

According to the New Testament, the disciples did not expect Jesus to rise because they had not expected Him to die. When Jesus appeared to them it was unexpected, they were not ready for it. The disciples did not convince themselves that Jesus was alive, it was Jesus Himself who convinced them. This was the exact opposite of what they were expecting.

Mary Magdalene did not see a gardener near the empty tomb and think it was Jesus, she saw Jesus and thought at first it was a gardener. The two disciples on the road to Emmaus did not talk with a stranger and then assume they were conversing with Jesus. They talked with Jesus and thought they were conversing with a stranger. Finally, in the upper room, the disciples of Jesus did not see a ghost and believe it was Jesus; they saw Jesus and thought they had seen a ghost.

Usually, it is highly imaginative people who suffer hallucinations. The appearances of Jesus were to a diverse group of people of different psychological makeup. This included: fishermen, a tax collector, and a Rabbi.

The appearances of Christ occurred at different times and places: early in the morning, late afternoon, in the evening, at the garden tomb, in a crowded room, at the Sea of Galilee, on top of a mountain, and on the Emmaus road. This is not consistent with hallucinations.

Again, the theory just does not fit the facts. Jesus’ disciples saw much more than mere hallucinations—they saw the risen Savior.

Objection 7 Jesus only appeared to believers

One of the objections is that Jesus appeared only to believers—people who already had a desire to believe the marvelous stories about Him. Again, the facts say otherwise.

We are told that the first unbelievers of the resurrection story were none other than the disciples themselves. Luke writes,…but the story sounded like nonsense, so they didn’t believe it. (Luke 24:11 NLT)

The disciples were not expecting a resurrection. Not only were the disciples not expecting Jesus to rise from the dead, but they also did not believe the story of His resurrection when it was first told to them!

Doubting Thomas did not believe—even when the other disciples told him they had seen the risen Christ. John writes, The other disciples, therefore, said to him, “We have seen the Lord.” So he said to them, “Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.” (John 20:25 NKJV)

Eventually, Thomas did see and believe.

We are even told that when Jesus met His disciples in Galilee, some doubted. Matthew writes, When they saw Him, they worshipped, but some doubted. (Matthew 28:17 HCSB)

There were still some who had doubts.

Saul of Tarsus was not a believer when the resurrected Christ appeared to Him. He had to be convinced from his position of unbelief.

Therefore, it is clear that Jesus appeared to more than merely believers.

Objection 8 The resurrection reports are contradictory

It’s often said that the accounts of the resurrection in the four gospels are so contradictory that they cannot be reconciled. However, just because we’re not exactly certain of the order of events only goes to prove there was no collusion between the various authors. If the story would have been made up, the different writers would have made certain that the stories matched detail for detail. However, when four different people tell any story, they will all give the same basic account, but there will always be slight differences in the details. The differences only point to the independence of each author.

Objection 9 We will never know what happened and it doesn’t matter

Finally, there is the argument that we will never know what happened to the body of Jesus. It’s a mystery that doesn’t have an explanation. Furthermore, it doesn’t really matter what happened.

This argument ignores the facts. It does matter what happened and we can know if we are willing to look at the evidence.

In the last two thousand years, many theories have been presented that attempt to give an alternative explanation to the one given in Scripture, that Christ rose from the dead. As we’ve seen, none of them is adequate, for they do not fully explain all the evidence.

The theory that best fits all the facts is that Jesus Christ was alive three days after His death and that He is Lord of all!

So What If He Did Rise?

If we agree that the resurrection did take place, then so what? What does it mean?

First, the resurrection demonstrates that Jesus is the One whom He claimed to be. Paul wrote the following to the Romans: This letter is from Paul, Jesus Christ’s slave, chosen by God to be an apostle and sent out to preach his Good News. This Good News was promised long ago by God through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures. It is the Good News about his Son, Jesus, who came as a man, born into King David’s royal family line. And Jesus Christ our Lord was shown to be the Son of God when God powerfully raised him from the dead by means of the Holy Spirit. (Romans 1:1-4 NLT)

The resurrection validates Jesus’ claims to be a prophet (Matthew 26:8), Lord, and Messiah (Acts 2:36). Everything He claimed to be has been validated by the resurrection.

The resurrection also proves the truth of the Christian faith. It is the Christian faith! Therefore, there is only one God who exists, and only one way to reach the one God, through Jesus Christ. The resurrection of Jesus demonstrates this to be true.

The fact that Jesus rose from the dead, gives humanity the answers to the three basic questions about life, “Who am I? Why am I alive? What will happen to me when I die?”

The resurrection of Jesus solves our identity problem. Humans need no longer wonder who we are. We now realise that we are created in the image of God. This means we have the ability to think, love and communicate. We have the chance to know the one true God because He has given us these abilities. We now know that human beings are special.

Along with identity comes a genuine purpose for living. Instead of living life without any real purpose, we can now know the reason we have been created—to love God and enjoy Him forever. Jesus Christ, and His resurrection from the dead, has provided the answer to what our purpose is here upon the earth. We not only know who we are, but we also know why we are here.

Finally, the truth of the resurrection of Jesus provides us with an answer to our future destiny. We now know that this life is not all that there is. We are beings made for eternity, and belief in Jesus allows us to spend eternity in the presence of God. Thus, the grave has no ultimate terror for us because we know that there is a better existence beyond this life. Belief in Jesus gives us a destiny to which we can look forward.

The resurrection of Jesus is the factual basis for everlasting life for those who believe in Him If a person believes in Jesus Christ, then one of the provisions is eternal life. Jesus said, “In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live.” (John 14:19 NRSV)

This everlasting life is based upon His resurrection. Jesus made this astounding claim: “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live.” (John 11:25 NRSV). He Himself is the resurrection and the life.

Christ’s resurrection is the first in a long line of resurrections of those who believe in Him. Paul wrote, But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. (1 Corinthians 15:20 NRSV)

His resurrection also serves as a prototype of the resurrection of believers. Twice Christ is referred to as the firstborn from the dead (Colossians 1:18; Revelation 1:5). This means that He was the first to have an eternal resurrected body. Our resurrection bodies, like His, will be different from our earthly bodies. Paul says our resurrection bodies will be related to our former ones (1 Corinthians 15:35-41).

In eternity, we’ll be like Him. John wrote, Dear friends, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him as He is. (1 John 3:2 HCSB)

Someday we will have a new body; a body like His.

The realisation that Christ has risen provides comfort to the believer. After writing to the church at Thessalonica about the resurrection of Christ and the eventual resurrection of the believer, the Apostle Paul encouraged the church to “comfort one another with these words” (1 Thessalonians 4:18). The knowledge that this life is not all that there is brings comfort to the believer.

Because of this, we don’t fear death in the same way as unbelievers do. The Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthian church,

“O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?” The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:55-57 NKJV)

The resurrection is comfort for believers.

Because Christ has risen from the dead and granted eternal life to those who put their trust in Him, there is hope for the future. The resurrection of Christ provides the basis for that hope.

The resurrection provides the believer with the basis to live a satisfying life. Paul wrote that believers could now experience this life. He said,

I pray that you will begin to understand the incredible greatness of his power for us who believe him. This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honour at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms. (Ephesians 1:19, 20 NLT)

Jesus Christ is alive!

Empty Tomb

The Resurrection – Fact or Fantasy? – Part 1

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To believe in Christ is to place our trust and our faith in a series of events that are unacceptable and even impossible when viewed through the lens of the natural four-dimensional world we live in.

“Speed Slider”

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The Resurrection – Fact or Fantasy? – Part 1 – Transcript

To believe in Christ is to place our trust and our faith in a series of events that are unacceptable and even impossible when viewed through the lens of the natural four-dimensional world we live in.

For the people whose faith is set upon only this world and the things that the natural mind can “see”, the events that are the basis for the Christian belief are foolishness.

Of all these events, the most significant, the most amazing and the most cherished to true believers is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is also the event most ridiculed and despised by the world.

The resurrection of Christ is the hub that supports the wheel of Christianity and the universal Church, the Body of Christ.

Without the resurrection, Christianity has no meaning for humanity.

Its founder would have been a liar and a failure, and its followers would be men and women who have no hope.

The importance of the resurrection to the Christian faith can’t be overestimated.

Some say that even without the resurrection, Christianity still has significance. They say that Christ’s teachings provide ethical guidelines for humanity.

The New Testament, however, testifies that this is not the case. Without the resurrection, there is no meaningful Christianity.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is unique to the Christian faith.

All other world religions are based upon a founder who lived in the past, died, and stayed dead. Those founders were men with sin natures just the same as you and I and without the shed blood of Jesus Christ, The Lord, they died in thier sin.

Jesus Christ, however is alive. That is a fact we can be completely satisfied with. The death and resurrection of Christ are part of the eternal plan of God.

So, how can we be sure that what we believe about the death, burial and resurrection of Christ is true?

Well, we could just look to the one authority on all things relating to God, His Word. If that’s what God’s Word says happened, then it happened. However, God has made us with an enquiring mind and an ability to reason. In Isaiah 1:18  God Himself invites us to do this. He said “Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the LORD, “Though your sins are like scarlet, They shall be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They shall be as wool. Also in 1 Peter 3:15 we’re told to be ready always to give an answer to everyone who asks you a reason of the hope in you.

Today we live in a world of un-reasoned, non-sensical religious experiences. We’re encouraged by all sorts of cockeyed beliefs to take a leap of blind faith. However, blind faith is not a biblical term. God’s way is reasonable. God has given us strong reasons to believe in Him.

One of the wonders of the resurrection is that it proves the validity of the Word of God. It testifies to who God is and to His power, His Glory and Grace.

So how can we be sure of the truth of this the most important of all historical events? Well, come let us reason together.

Let’s start with the Apostle Peter’s declaration on the day of Pentecost, fifty days after Jesus’ death:

“Men of Israel, listen to these words: This Jesus the Nazarene was a man pointed out to you by God with miracles, wonders, and signs that God did among you through Him, just as you yourselves know. Though He was delivered up according to God’s determined plan and foreknowledge, you used lawless people to nail Him to a cross and kill Him.  God raised Him up, ending the pains of death because it was not possible for Him to be held by it.” (Acts 2:22-24 HCSB).

Peter makes it clear that the death and resurrection of Christ were a crucial part of God’s eternal plan to save humanity from its sins. It simply had to happen that way!

The resurrection of Jesus is not greater than any other miracle recorded in Scripture.  Once a person grasps the possibility of God performing miracles, then the testimony for the resurrection has to be seen as any of the other miracles that are recorded.

The first verse of the Bible declares, In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1 KJV) This verse is the basis of all miracles.

If a person can believe the truth of this verse, that God spoke and the universe came into existence from nothing, then what is too hard for Him to do?

That’s why the Apostle Paul declared, “Why does it seem incredible to any of you that God can raise the dead?” (Acts 26:8 NLT) Nothing is too difficult for the God of the Bible. Nothing!

We read in Jeremiah, Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh: is there anything too hard for me? (Jeremiah 32:27 KJV) Therefore, the idea that the God of the Bible can raise the dead is certainly in keeping with what Scripture teaches about His mighty power.

The resurrection was in the eternal plan of God, and it was also predicted by Jesus. The fact that He would rise from the dead was central to Jesus’ ministry and message.  In the four gospels, Jesus predicted, over and over again, His betrayal, death, and resurrection.

Three years before He was raised from the dead, the following exchange between Jesus and the Jewish religious leaders occurred: I quote; So the Jews replied to Him, “What sign of authority will You show us for doing these things?” Jesus answered, “Destroy this sanctuary, and I will raise it up in three days.” Therefore the Jews said, “This sanctuary took 46 years to build, and will You raise it up in three days?”  But He was speaking about the sanctuary of His body.  So when He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this. And they believed the Scripture and the statement Jesus had made. (John 2:18-22)

Jesus predicted that His body would be raised from the dead.

The resurrection was the sign that demonstrated that He was the one who He claimed to be.

When asked for a specific sign from the religious leaders, Jesus said, “An evil and adulterous generation ask for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so for three days and three nights the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth.” (Matthew 12:39-40)

The reference is to Jonah 1:17.

Jonah was in the stomach of the sea creature for three days and three nights. In the same way, the Son of Man will be in the grave for three days and three nights.

Many bible scholars believe that Jonah chapter 2 shows us that Jonah was not alive in the belly for three days and three nights, but that he died.

Now, regarding the giving of signs in order to believe, think of all the mighty miracles of both the old and the new testaments. Did that ensure the belief of the people present?

Even after witnessing some of the greatest supernatural signs, the Jewish nation soon fell back into unbelief.

Look at the account of Lazarus and the rich man who died and were in Abraham’s bosom in Luke 16:20-30. In verse 30 the man says, regarding his brothers who were still alive, that if someone came to them from the dead, then they would decide to change their lives. But Abraham said to him, ‘If your brothers won’t listen to Moses and the prophets, they won’t listen to someone who comes back from the dead.”

It reminds me of a situation with a very old friend of mine. He was working once with an atheist.  The atheist would almost daily challenge my friend about his belief in Christ. One day, amid another outburst from the atheist,  my friend had a flash of revelation. He said to the atheist, “If Jesus was to appear in the midst of us right now out of nowhere, you would still not believe would you?” The atheist replied, “No!”

During the last six months of His earthly life, Jesus especially emphasised the importance and necessity of His upcoming crucifixion as well as the triumph of His resurrection.

Matthew records, From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day. (Matthew 16:21)

The resurrection would demonstrate Jesus is the One who He claimed to be.

Jesus also made the amazing claim that He had the authority to accomplish the resurrection Himself: We read the following in John’s gospel, “For this reason, the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have the power to lay it down, and I have the power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.” (John 10:17, 18)

Jesus claimed that He could bring Himself back from the dead.

The predictions by Jesus of His resurrection were such common knowledge that it led the religious rulers to ask Pontius Pilate to secure the tomb.

We read the following in Matthew’s gospel: The next day, which followed the preparation day, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said, “Sir, we remember that while this deceiver was still alive, He said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’  Therefore give orders that the tomb be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, His disciples may come, steal Him, and tell the people, ‘He has been raised from the dead.’  Then the last deception will be worse than the first.” (Matthew 27:62-64)

From these predictions, it can be readily seen that the resurrection was a central part of the message and ministry of Jesus.

As we look at the events leading up to Ressurection Sunday, we discover that the precautions taken by Jesus’ enemies actually give evidence to His resurrection.

The precautions taken at the tomb consisted of three things—the large stone, the Roman seal, and the guard.

The Stone

The Bible says that a large stone was rolled in front of the tomb of Jesus.

This stone, not only sealed the tomb, but it also would have made it difficult for someone to just waltz in and steal the body.

The Roman Seal

The Roman seal was a sign of authentication that the tomb was occupied and the power and authority of Rome stood behind the seal.   Anyone breaking the Roman seal would suffer the punishment of an unpleasant death.

The Guard

A guard, either the Roman guard or the Jewish temple police, watched Jesus’ tomb.  There is a question as to which one of the two groups was watching over it but most probably it was the Roman guard.

The Roman guard was a sixteen-man unit that was governed by some very strict rules. Each member was responsible for six square feet of space.

The guard members could not sit down or lean against anything while they were on duty. If a guard member fell asleep, he was beaten and burned with his own clothes.

But he was not the only one executed; the entire sixteen-man guard unit was executed if only one of the members fell asleep while on duty.

These precautions made the religious rulers feel secure that the excitement around Jesus would soon go away.

Jesus lay dead in the tomb, and His frightened disciples had scattered and gone into hiding. They thought that they had won.

But the story wasn’t over.

The Bible says that early Sunday morning certain women came to the tomb. They intended to anoint the body of Jesus with extra perfumed oil and spices. The initial preparation of the body by Joseph of Aramathea and Nicodemus may not have been completed to the extent it should have been (John 19:39 – 40).

In Mark 16:3 the women discuss who’s going to help them roll the stone from the tomb. They had no idea that while they observed the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders had conspired with Governor Pilate to place a Roman guard on the tomb.

But when the women arrived they found the stone had been removed, the seal had been broken, and the body was gone. An angel at the tomb asked, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee…” (Luke 24:5 – 6)

The women were left speechless by the events which transpired but were full of both fear and great joy. (Matthew 28:8; Mark 16:8). They went back to tell the other disciples who at first did not believe their report.

Luke records, But these words seemed like nonsense to them, and they did not believe the women. (Luke 24:11) However, they were persuaded to look for themselves, and they also found the tomb empty.

This caused them confusion. The confusion vanished as the resurrected Christ first appeared to Mary Magdalene, then to some other women, and finally to the disciples.

After being with the disciples for forty days, Jesus ascended into heaven.

Ten days later, the disciples publicly proclaimed to all of Jerusalem, the fact that Jesus Christ had risen from the dead.

What are the things we know for certain?

Let’s start by examining the undisputed facts that both believers and unbelievers can agree on. They include the following.

Jesus Existed

Jesus was a historical figure who lived two thousand years ago.

The primary source for His life and ministry is the New Testament, which, as we’ve already seen, was written by eyewitnesses, or people who recorded eyewitness testimony. There is no doubt that Jesus existed.

Jesus performed miracles

Another historical fact about Jesus is that He was a miracle worker.

In the first five centuries of the Christian era, every report that has come down to us about Jesus, whether from friend or foe, has Him working miracles.

There’s no doubt that miracles were a central part of His ministry. Even the Jewish leaders at Jesus’ trial didn’t dispute the evidence of the miracles. There were thousands of them walking around!

There was no dying and rising Redeemer in first-century Judaism

Another fact beyond dispute is that the disciples of Jesus were not prepared for His death.

First-century Judaism had no concept of the Messiah dying and then coming back from the dead.

The disciples were not expecting the resurrection of Jesus because they were not expecting Him to die.

Jesus died on a cross in Jerusalem

Another fact that is beyond dispute is the manner of death of Jesus.

He died on a cross or a “tree”.

All four gospels make it clear that Christ was crucified in Jerusalem. The testimony of the Book of Acts agrees as do the writings of Paul.

Jesus was executed by crucifixion in the city of Jerusalem.

Jesus was buried in Jerusalem

The New Testament states that Jesus was buried in Jerusalem after His death.

All four gospels testify to this as well as the Apostle Paul. He said, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures… (1 Corinthians 15:3, 4 )

The tomb did not contain Jesus’ body on Sunday.

A further fact is that the tomb of Jesus was empty on Ressurection Sunday morning.

Had the body of Jesus remained in the tomb it would have been a simple thing for the authorities to remove the stone and produce it. The Sanhedrin, the highest Jewish religious authority, itself testifies that the tomb was empty.

They concocted a story that they commanded the soldiers to tell to explain how the tomb became empty. This story was that the body was stolen by the disciples while the guard slept, an almost impossible situation as we discussed earlier. They paid the guard money and promised to make it ok with the governor.

Jesus was reported to have risen

The New Testament is unanimous in the fact that Jesus’ disciples saw Him after His death.

When the account of the resurrection was first proclaimed, it occurred in Jerusalem, the city where Jesus was buried and eventually to the world, that Jesus Christ has risen from the dead!

This took place less than two months after Jesus was crucified. The disciples did not go away to some distant place where it would have been hard to check out the facts.

They began in the very city where all the events took place. If their testimony were not true, then their enemies would have promptly corrected them.

The New Testament Writers Believed Jesus Had Risen from the Dead.

When the New Testament was committed to writing, it was from the perspective that Jesus had risen from the dead.  All of the New Testament writers believed the resurrection occurred.

Something led them to that belief. What made them believe?

So, these are the facts beyond dispute;

  • Jesus existed;
  • during His earthly ministry He worked miracles;
  • His disciples were not prepared for His death and were not looking for a resurrection;
  • Jesus was dead and buried, yet the tomb was empty on resurrection Sunday morning;
  • the disciples testified they saw Him alive after His death and they proclaimed the resurrection message in Jerusalem less than two months after Jesus’ death.
  • finally, all the New Testament writers believed the resurrection was a reality.

Now, let’s look at the evidence for Christ’s resurrection and let the evidence speak for itself.

Jesus appeared alive to people after His death

The main reason the disciples believed in the resurrection of Jesus is that they saw Him alive after He was dead.

As a result, we see them testifying, time and time again, to the fact they were eyewitnesses of His resurrection. This firsthand evidence of the disciples is a powerful argument for the resurrection of Christ.  The disciples knew that He had risen because they saw Him with their own eyes.

Many different people saw Jesus.  Some of the appearances include the following.

Mary Magdalene

The first appearance of Jesus was to Mary Magdalene. The gospel of John puts it this way:

When she [Mary] had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, and did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” Supposing Him to be the gardener, she said to Him, “Sir, if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have laid Him, and I will take Him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to Him in Hebrew, “Rabboni!” (which means, Teacher). (John 20:14-16 NASB)

This appearance was totally unexpected.

Mary the Mother of James, Salome, and Joanna

Jesus also appeared to these three women. This happened after the appearance to Mary Magdalene. After an angel told them Jesus had risen, they were on their way to tell Jesus’ disciples when they met the risen Christ. The Bible says, Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshipped him. (Matthew 28:9 TNIV)

As was true with Mary Magdalene, these women touched the body of Jesus.

Peter

Peter is the first person mentioned in Paul’s list of witnesses and is the first of the apostles to see the risen Christ. This was a private appearance to reassure him since he had just denied his Lord. The gospels are completely silent as to the details of this meeting. Luke merely wrote, “The Lord really has risen from death! He appeared to Simon. (Peter)” (Luke 24:34)

We only know that Jesus appeared to Peter; nothing else.

Two Disciples on the Emmaus Road

Later on Ressurection Sunday, Jesus appeared to two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Luke wrote, Now on that same day, two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognising him. (Luke 24:13-16)

As was true with the women, these two disciples were not expecting Jesus to rise. In fact, they were leaving Jerusalem because they had lost hope in Him.

The Eleven Disciples – Thomas Absent

It took place in the evening, possibly in the upper room in which Jesus had instituted the Lord’s Supper. It’s recorded in both Luke’s and John’s gospel, giving us two independent accounts as to what happened. John wrote, That evening, on the first day of the week, the disciples were meeting behind locked doors because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders. Suddenly, Jesus was standing there among them! “Peace be with you,” he said. As he spoke, he held out his hands for them to see, and he showed them his side. They were filled with joy when they saw their Lord!… One of the disciples, Thomas (nicknamed the Twin), was not with the others when Jesus came. (John 20:19,

The Eleven Disciples – Thomas Present

Eight days later, He appeared again—this time with Thomas present. The Bible says, After eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.”  Then He said to Thomas, “Reach here with your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing.”  Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:26-28)

On this occasion, doubting Thomas believed in the resurrected Christ.

Seven Disciples on the Sea of Galilee

Another appearance was to seven disciples on the Sea of Galilee. John writes, After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias; and he showed himself in this way. Gathered there together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples. (John 21:1, 2)

To the Eleven Disciples on a Mountain in Galilee

There’s also the account of Jesus appearing before His eleven disciples in Galilee. Matthew records the following: Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them. When they saw Him, they worshipped Him; but some doubted. (Matthew 28:16, 17)

Jesus Appeared to over Five Hundred People at One Time

On another occasion, Jesus appeared to over five hundred people at one time. Paul wrote, Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. (1 Corinthians 15:6 NRSV)

We know nothing about when or where this happened.

Saul of Tarsus

After Jesus’ ascension, He appeared again—this time to Saul of Tarsus: As he was travelling, it happened that he was approaching Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him; and he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” And he said, “Who are You, Lord?” And He said, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting…” (Acts 9:3-5)

As we examine the New Testament accounts of the appearances of Christ after His death, we can see that those appearances thoroughly convinced His disciples that He had truly risen from the dead.

The first chapter of the Book of Acts makes this statement about Jesus’ appearances: After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. (Acts 1:3)

When describing Jesus’ appearances, Luke uses a Greek word translated as “convincing proof.” This term refers to the strongest type of legal proof imaginable. The case for Jesus’ resurrection would stand up in a court of law.

The multiple appearances recorded in the New Testament range in size from one individual (Peter) to over five hundred people (1 Corinthians 15). These various appearances testify to the fact that He did indeed come back from the dead.

There was no specific time or place when the resurrected Jesus appeared.

His appearances include: in a locked room, on the road to Emmaus, on a mountain in Galilee, on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, and at the empty tomb.

Jesus was able to appear wherever He wished, He was not limited to one geographical area. His appearances consisted of brief encounters with people such as the women returning from the tomb to long periods as with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus.

He also appeared at different times of day—morning (to Mary Magdalene at the tomb), afternoon (the two disciples on the road to Emmaus), and night (the disciples in the locked upper room).

Jesus’ followers were surprised by the events that occurred in those few short days.

Beginning with His betrayal by one of their own—Judas Iscariot—to the arrest, trial and crucifixion, these rapidly occurring events shocked the disciples. They were not expecting any of this to happen. However, the one thing that surprised them most was seeing Christ alive after His death.

The women who arrived at the tomb were not expecting Jesus to have risen. They intended to embalm His dead body.  They went to the tomb expecting to find someone there. This shows they did not expect a resurrection.

When the disciples were first told of the empty tomb, and the reports that Jesus was alive, they didn’t believe them. They thought the women who were making these reports were mad.

When Thomas first heard that Jesus had risen, he did not believe it. Until he saw Jesus for himself and touched the scars of His wounds, he would not believe. All of these facts testify to the state of mind of the disciples—they were not looking for Him to appear.

The New Testament says it was for only forty days that Jesus showed Himself after His resurrection before ascending into heaven.

After His ascension, Jesus did not appear any longer to His disciples—except for one episode on the isle of Patmos to John. In that instance, He appeared as the glorified Christ.

We also need to consider the character of the witnesses who testified that Christ had risen.

The ones who saw Jesus after His death were in a position to give testimony to whether or not Jesus had risen from the dead.

First, they would have been able to testify if He had died. We are told that John and certain others were there at the cross when Jesus died—they observed His death.  Others saw where He was buried.

Finally, the same Jesus they had seen dead and buried appeared to them alive.

They saw the scars that were on His body from the cross. They knew Jesus intimately and would not have been fooled by some impostor.

Therefore those who testified that Jesus had risen could certainly certify that Jesus had been dead and that they saw Him again alive.

The number of witnesses to the resurrection was sufficient for us to believe their account.  We’re dealing with the twelve disciples of Jesus (minus Judas), other disciples apart from the twelve, and certain women who knew Him well. And, of course, one appearance was before over five hundred people at one time. The different number of people who saw the risen Christ is enough to cause us to believe.

Next, let’s consider the honesty of the witnesses.

We’re told they were not expecting Him to rise, they were all surprised by His appearance and, in the case of Jesus’ disciples,  they were the first unbelievers of the resurrection story. There is no effort to make the disciples into some type of “super believers.”

Their faults are listed—Peter denies knowing Jesus on the night of His betrayal as well as all of the other disciples fleeing the scene.

When all the facts are considered, there’s no motivation at all for them to lie about what happened.

There was no financial gain or greed that motivated the witnesses to falsely tell the story that Jesus had risen.

On the contrary, they suffered terribly by proclaiming the resurrection.

Their status in society was certainly not elevated for believing in Jesus—they were considered members of a sect or cult.

When everything is considered, lying about Jesus’ resurrection caused them no direct benefit but rather only grief.

The ones who had seen Him alive after His death consistently told the same story—Jesus had risen from the dead and they had seen Him alive.

As we read through the book of Acts, we find them always telling the same account.  Their story was consistently told as long as they lived.

The account surrounding Jesus’ death and resurrection is told in a straightforward manner with no flowery details.

There are many things we would like to know that we aren’t told. The account is sober and restrained, something we wouldn’t expect from a made-up story.

The character of those who saw the resurrected Christ is sufficient for us to believe their testimony. There is nothing that would cause us to be suspicious of their account.  Therefore, it’s not unreasonable to accept their report that Jesus had risen.

Now go to “The Resurrection- Fact or Fantasy? – Part 2.

The Trinity Explained

Who Is Jesus?

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The answer to this question, Who Is Jesus, is what separates every religion, cult, and new-age human philosophy from Christianity. A Christian is simply a follower of Christ, The Jew’s Messiah, The soon-coming King, The Redeemer of Man, and The Saviour and most of The Son of God – God in the flesh!

“Speed Slider”

Who Is Jesus? – Transcript

The answer to this question, Who Is Jesus, is what separates every religion, cult, and new-age human philosophy from Christianity. A Christian is simply a follower of Christ, The Mesiah, The soon coming King, The Redeemer od Man, The Saviour.

A Christian has the unshakeable belief that Jesus is God.

Every other belief in the world, without exception, believes He is not.

Some religions say He was just another human prophet, others that He was a created angel. Some say He was Satan’s brother; others say he is one of many gods. Teacher, do-gooder, rabbi – the list goes on and on – but never God.

Of course, the most common religion of today, Atheism, believes He never existed at all.

The Christian Belief

We, as Christians, believe that He is God, Who created the universe, and us, and that He was able to enter into humanity by becoming a man while remaining fully God.

He is one of the three “parts” or “personalities’ of what we know as “The Godhead”. God is a unity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. One God in three manifestations.

How this could be is a mystery locked in the incredible power and glory of God. God makes it very clear to us in His Word  (the Bible) Who He is, but He doesn’t give us details that are impossible for us to grasp.

Countless volumes have been written trying to fully explain the triune nature of God. They all fail to fully explain it in a way that our limited minds can grasp. Hey, we can’t even explain the information process of DNA which is common to every living thing. How could we fully explain the trinity?

We Are Created In His Image

We can see a little more into the nature of God when we understand how God created us. We are created in His image.

We ourselves are three parts in one.
We areSpirit (the “real” us, the eternal part that never ceases to exist. It is the part of us that is “made new” when we accept Jesus Chris as our Lord and Saviour.)
We have a Soul (the emotions, thoughts, feelings and desires), which will also never ceases to exist. The Soul is not made new instantly when we come to God but is constantly changing as we learn more about God and begin to trust Him with the details of our lives.
We have a Body (our earthly flesh which will die but will one day be resurrected in a glorified state the same as the body of Jesus after His resurrection).

In the future, God willing, I hope to present some discussion on how we can undeniably prove for ourselves that Jesus is Who He says He is. But that isn’t the purpose of this piece.

A Child Is Born – A Son Is Given

When Jesus took on the form of humanity in the little town of Bethlehem 2000 years ago, he was born a child. However, He was given as a son.

The book of Isaiah tells us in chapter 9 verse 6,

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

And, probably the most familiar bible verse of all time,

John 3:16  For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

The “child” was born in Bethlehem, but the “Son” was “from everlasting.”

The incarnation of our Lord, the promised Messiah who would take away the sin of the world, is the awesome wonder of our lifetime.

That the Creator Himself chose to enter His creation to undertake a mission that would lead to His horrific torture and death on our behalf strains the imagination of any thoughtful person. It is staggering in the extreme!

The “Son is given” occurred at Golgotha outside Jerusalem on a Roman cross 33 years after the “child was born”. This was a fulfill­ment of the promise given on the day man fell into sin. It was planned before the foundation of the Earth.

Easter

Although, as a secular society we have degraded Easter into an unrecognisable party holiday, it was once the very peak of the ceremonial year for the Christian. It was the celebra­tion of the empty tomb that vali­dated that Jesus Christ was indeed the long-promised Redeemer who would sacrifice Himself for the sin of man and rise again on the third day, defeating death and the grave and making the way by which every fallen human can get back to a full relationship with God.

His story is a love story written in blood on a wooden cross that was erected in Judea two thou­sand years ago.

So, Who is Jesus Christ?

Let’s see what the Word of God says.

He is the King of the Jews (Matthew 2:2, Mark 15:2 and others)
He is the King of Israel (Mark 15:32 and others)
But He’s also
King of all the Ages; (1 Timothy 1:17)
King of Heaven; (Daniel 4:37)
King of Glory; (Psalm 24:10)
King of Kings; (Revelation 17:14)
and Lord of Lords. (Revelation 17:14)

He is
a prophet before Moses;
a priest after Melchizedek;
a champion like Joshua;
an offering in place of Isaac;
a king from the line of David;
a counsellor above Solomon;
beloved, rejected, and exalted like Joseph;
The Heavens declare His glory, and the firmament shows His handiwork.
He is, was, and always will be. He is the first and the last, the Alpha and Omega, the Aleph and the Tau, the A and the Z;
He is the “I AM that I AM” (Exodus 3:14) that spoke to Moses on Mt Sinai, the voice of the burning bush, the Captain of the Lord’s Host, the conqueror of Jericho
He is our Kinsman-Redeemer and He is our Avenger of Blood;
He is our City of Refuge;
He was crucified on a cross of wood, yet He made the hill on which it stood.
By Him were all things made that were made; without Him was not anything made that was made; (John 1:3)
By Him, all things are held together!
In Him dwells the fullness of the Godhead bodily; He is very God of very God.
He became the first fruits of them that slept.
He has many names, among them is Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The everlasting Father and the Prince of Peace.
He is our Performing High Priest; Our Personal Prophet; Our Reigning King.
He is enduringly strong; entirely sincere; eternally steadfast;
He is sovereignly powerful; immortally graceful; impartially merciful;
He stands alone in Himself:
He’s unique, pre-eminent, supreme, unparalleled:
He’s the loftiest idea in literature;
He’s the highest personality in philosophy;
He’s the fundamental doctrine of theology;
He’s the supreme problem in “higher criticism”!
He’s the Son of God!
There is no means of measuring his limitless love:
It was written in blood, on that wooden cross erected in Judea 2,000 years ago.
He was born of a woman so that we could be born of God;
He humbled Himself so that we could be lifted; (Philippians 2:8)
He became a servant so that we could be made joint-heirs; (Philippians 2:7)
He suffered rejection so that we could become His friends;
He denied Himself so that we could freely receive all things;
He gave Himself so that He could bless us in every way.
He is available to the tempted and the tried; Blesses the young; Cleanses the lepers; Defends the feeble; Delivers the captives; Discharges the debtors; Forgives the sinners; Franchises the meek; Guards the besieged; Heals the sick; Provides strength to the weak; Regards the aged; Rewards the diligent; Serves the unfortunate; Sympathizes and He saves!
His reign is righteous; (Jeremiah 23:6)
His promises are certain; (Numbers 23:19)
His goodness is limitless;
His light is matchless;
His love never changes; (Hebrews 13:8)
His grace is sufficient; (2 Corinthians 12:9)
His mercy is everlasting;
His word is enough;
His yoke is easy and
His burden is light! (Matthew 11:28-30)
He’s indescribable;
He’s incomprehensible;
He’s irresistible; (Philippians 2:9-11)
He’s invincible! (Colossians 1:15, 18-20)
The Heaven of heavens cannot contain Him; Man cannot explain Him.
The Pharisees couldn’t stand Him but soon learned that they couldn’t stop Him;
They railroaded Him through six illegal trials,  and yet the witnesses couldn’t agree against Him and the personal representative of the ruler of the world couldn’t find any fault with Him;
Herod couldn’t kill Him, death couldn’t handle Him, and the grave couldn’t hold Him!
He has always been and always will be; He had no predecessor and will have no successor;
You can’t impeach Him or vote Him out and He isn’t going to resign!
His name is above every name; That at the name of Yeshua, every knee shall bow, every tongue shall confess That Jesus Christ is Lord!
His is the kingdom, and the power,  and the glory, forever, and ever, Amen!