A Problem with Islam?
In spite of the fact that most believers believe, that the righteous dead are in Heaven and the unrighteous in Hell, no one person has ever lived and died is in Heaven but Jesus Christ. This error in Doctrine is most unfortunately not only confined to Islam. Practically every religion believes in life somewhere immediately after death. Nothing could be further from the truth.
When we die our bodies, if we are not cremated, corrupt in the ground; they rot away. You know, dust thou art, unto dust thou shalt return, right? It takes a while to turn to dust; it doesn’t happen overnight. I spent a lot of time on the subject of sleeping (death) in my book which you can get on the site, so I am not going into it here.
The point of this blog today is to highlight a problem with Islam. In “The Messengers of Islam” by Ashraf Hassan Abdul-Aziz on page 212-214, we have an account of Muhammed being escorted by the angel Gabriel to each of the 7 heavens; yes 7. In each heaven his “Prophethood” was confirmed by whoever was there. In the first heaven he was greeted by Adam. Here Mo was allowed by Allah to the “souls” of martyrs on his right and those of the wretched on his left.
In the second heaven he met John the baptist and Jesus, the son of Mary. In the 3rd he met Yusuf, the 4th Idris, the 5th Aaron, the 6th Moses, and the 7th Abraham . Then he was taken to God Almighty, like 10′ away from Him or so. This, I suppose is to confirm to all his followers that he really must be a prophet. The Problem is, that all these people are dead and in the grave. Do you see how important the truth is? Without the truth it is more difficult to expose a counterfeit.
The author goes on on page 215 to show “proof” of where in the Bible scripture passages are referring to Muhammed, like De 18:17-18 where YHWH (LORD with all caps) said to Moses that he would raise up a prophet, like Moses; John 16:12-13 (the word “he” should be translated “it,”) where it mentions the spirit of truth. The spirit of truth is not a he. Muslims believe this is referring to Muhammed.
Again, whenever error is practiced, exposing a counterfeit, in this case a false prophet, is not as cut and dry. BUT, when the Dead are dead and the spirit of truth is the gift of holy spirit, there is no problem exposing someone for what they really are. The truth really will set us free, when we know it.
God bless,
Is Your Faith based on “Another” Gospel?
When Paul spoke about another gospel he was speaking about anything other than his own gospel which he was preaching:
Gal 1:11-12
But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man.
12 For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. KJV
Paul did not receive the revelation of Matthew, Mark Luke and John. He received the gospel of Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians and Thessalonians. These epistles are in the exact same order in every Greek Manuscript.
Romans, Ephesians and Thessalonians are Doctrinal
Corinthians and Philippians are Reproof
Galatians and Colossians are Correctional.
The revelation Paul received from our Lord Jesus in these letters supersedes everything else, as these are written directly to the church of God which is the body of Christ. These represent the Sacred Secret that God kept from everyone until Paul.
To confirm that Jesus did not know about this secret, he told his disciples that some of them would not die until they saw him returning in the clouds. Yet, they all died. Jesus and the disciples believed that the Great Tribulation described in the book of Revelation and Daniel would begin immediately after his ascension. They all expected Jesus to return within 7 years.
But, God threw them all a curve ball for the sake of the Gentiles. Thank Him He did! We are now living in that time period, the Age of the Secret, the Administration of Grace. Essentially the book of Revelation has been held in abeyance for about 2,000 yrs now.
See Romans 2:16, 16:25; 2Ti 2:8 concerning Paul’s gospel. See also the word “doctrine” in 1st and 2nd Timothy. God bless!
Introduction of my Book (Followers of The Way)
Acts 11:26 is the first time anyone was called a Christian. There were no
Christians when Jesus Christ was alive on the earth and there were none
before that, except in God’s foreknowledge. The Christian “movement”
officially began when Jesus handpicked 12 Disciples to follow him. When
he chose Peter and his brother Andrew, Jesus said to them, “Follow me
and I will make you fishers of men” (Mt 4:19). He then called two other
brothers, who were fishermen as well: James and John. Then he selected
eight others, who all followed him and learned to do as he did. As the
12 began to follow him, so did others. What Jesus taught them and
showed them became known as “this way,” a term coined by Saul, who was
persecuting the followers of Jesus, as we see in Acts 9:2. Jesus proclaimed
that he was “the way” in John 14:6. After Saul’s conversion in 37 AD, 4 he
was teaching in a synagogue, where unbelievers spoke evil of “that way”
(Ac 19:9). Acts 19:23 says, “And the same time there arose no small stir
about that way.” In 22:4, Paul, recalling how he too had persecuted Jesus’
followers, referred to them as followers of “this way.” In 24:14, Paul says,
“But this I confess unto thee, that after the way which they call heresy, so
worship I the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in
the law and in the prophets.” In 24:22, the “most noble Felix” referred to the believers as those of “that way,” which occurred in approximately 59 AD, 30 years after Jesus’ Ascension.
In 1 Corinthians 4:16–17, Paul says, Wherefore I beseech you, be ye followers of me. (Notice Paul’s confidence in his own integrity of being in Christ. He implored people to follow he himself). For this cause have I sent unto you Timotheus, who is my beloved son, and faithful in the Lord, who shall bring you into remembrance of my ways which be in Christ, as I teach every where in every church. (Notice where he taught besides the synagogues, in every church–they weren’t afraid of what he was going to say).
Paul adopted the way that he had formerly persecuted as “his way,”
which was in Christ. Here Paul beseeches the believers to be followers of
him and his ways and he sends Timothy, who knew his way better than
anyone else, to testify that Paul’s way was in Christ, as Christ would
have it.
The word “way” (hodos, 3598 in Strong’s; hereafter, simply the number
will be given) metaphorically5 means “a proceeding, a movement, which
denotes a code of conduct, a way or manner of thinking, feeling and
deciding.”6 Properly, it means a traveled road, a journey, route, or progress.
The word “Christian” is only used three times in the entire New Testament.
Even though the believers were first called Christians in Acts 11:26, around
45 AD, the term did not appear again until Acts 26:28, some 15 years
later, when Paul was questioning King Agrippa, who said, “Almost thou
persuadest me to be a Christian.”
Being a Christian—a follower of the way, the truth, and the life—Jesus Christ—is not just something you are, but something you become. It is a journey in life, conducting yourself in an exemplary manner in your actions, your thinking, your emotions, and your decisions. There is more to being a Christian than just confessing Jesus as your Lord or master and believing that God raised him from the dead. A lot more. But that is enough to get you eternal life. Eternal life is longer than any mortal, except for Jesus Christ, has ever known.
Have you ever thought about what you are going to do for eternity? Well, what you do then depends a lot on what you do now that you are born again, according to Romans 10:9–10. Th e Bible is probably the most read, yet most misunderstood book ever. Th ere are many reasons for this. I will endeavor to put forth several keys to understanding the Bible, which will hopefully give the reader a more accurate knowledge of the Word and Will of God.
4 E. W. Bullinger, The Companion Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Bible Publishers, 1974, appendix 180, page 202
5 Figures of speech, like the metaphor, put life into the true, purposed meaning of things. They are used throughout the Bible. According to Bullinger, there are over 212 different kinds of figures of speech in the Bible alone. Figures tend to make things “more real and lively.” Bullinger believed they were the Holy Spirit’s, God’s, way of drawing attention to things that were of particular importance. Here in Acts, with eight usages of hodos, we can see beautifully how the metaphorical meaning is so much more descriptive. See Bullinger, The Companion Bible.
6 See Thayer’s.
Missing Persons
I recently became aware that my father-in-laws brother and his wife were missing or at least unaccounted for. It has been months since anyone has heard from them, not that they spoke a lot or even saw each other except possibly once a year. The guy was always blogging about the Bible and something called the tribulation and the rapture. I enjoyed having dialogue with him on facebook, not that we agreed on anything, but he was always a good sport. I once told him that I may not believe anything he says, but I will always defend his right to say it. Has anyone else noticed any of their Bible-toting friends missing?
I heard recently that there is some guy in Europe that is miraculously healing hundreds, if not thousands of people and that he is suppose to be on some kind of world tour. Have not heard when he is suppose to come here. A friend of mine in Spain said that he even made fire come down from the sky. Not sure if this amounts to anything but it sure would be interesting to meet them. Does anyone think it is possible that these two things are in anyway related?
Until next time,
Sr. Lobo
Jesus went to Hell and so will We
Entrance to Hell (Photo credit: joeltelling)
If you have read my book or Ecclesiastes you will know that there is no memory, or thinking or imagination or any brain activity at all, in the grave “wither thou goest!”
Ecc 9:10
Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest. KJV
Ecc 9:10
Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might; for there is no activity or planning or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol where you are going. NASU
Ecc 9:10
Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going. ESV
No matter what version of the Bible you choose to use, when we die we all go to the same place where there is no awareness that we are even dead. Jesus Christ tasted death just like we will, with one exception: we will rot away.
As you can see, the Hebrew word sheol is used in 2 of the above 3 versions. Sheol occurs 67 times in the OT in the NASU version. Of those 67, the same word in the KJV is translated hell. Hell and the grave are one and the same. You can believe anything you want to, but his is what the Word of God says.
King David says this about that in
Ps 16:10: For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. KJV
Ps 16:10
For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol; Nor will You allow Your Holy One to undergo decay. NASU
David knew that at the Awakening of the Just, he would get up from the grave. He also knew that God would not allow Jesus (thine Holy One) to rot away, as he did and we will.
Hades is the NT equivalent of sheol, the grave. It is Strong’s number 86 and is used 10 times. It is translated as hell in the KJV and kept as Hades in the NASU. Here is the same verse from Psalms quoted in the book of Acts:
Ac 2:27
Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. KJV
Ac 2:27
BECAUSE YOU WILL NOT ABANDON MY SOUL TO HADES, NOR ALLOW YOUR HOLY ONE TO UNDERGO DECAY. NASU
Here you can see how Hades, Sheol and Hell are used interchangeably. These words have nothing to do with the Lake of Fire, which was used figuratively of the dump burning outside of Jerusalem. That is an altogether different subject, which I have already covered in a different blog post.
In the absence of the Rapture, we are all going to hell! Ha! Just like Jesus did!
God bless,
P.S. By the way, you can get my book at http://www.fredswolfe.com now!
Related articles
- The Question of Hell? (fredswolfe.wordpress.com)
Signs, signs, everywhere a sign; Do this, don’t do that, Can’t you read the Signs?
English: An etching by Jan Luyken illustrating Luke 17:34 in the Bowyer Bible, Bolton, England. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Christians everywhere will tell you about all the current signs of Christ’s return, but do not believe a word they say. There are no signs concerning what is called the Rapture, the Gathering Together, episunagoge, of the Church of God. The reason there are no signs is because the time in which we now live was unknown to everyone who wrote anything in the Bible prior to Saul of Tarsus, A.D. 37-40.
For those of you who have never read the New Testament or are not real familiar with it, the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John tell about the events of the Second Coming of Christ to the earth, which is not the Rapture of the Church. The Rapture occurs 7 years prior to the events you read about there. The mindset of the gospel writers and that of Jesus Christ was that Christ was going to return within 7 years after he ascended into Heaven.
The Apostle John, who wrote the gospel of John, also wrote the book of Revelation and fully expected the things recorded in that book to occur during the first seven years after Jesus’ ascension. But, they did not. Jesus even told some of his disciples that they would not die until they saw the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great glory; yet they did die and no one has seen that yet.
Christians will tell you that Jesus knew everything God knew while he was here the first time but this line of thought is obviously in error. When that Florida preacher was talking about Christ’s return Christians were quick to start quoting Mk 13:32, “But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.” KJV On one hand they says he knows everything, on the other they say he doesn’t. All that matters is what the Bible really says.
The Rapture of the “saved” will occur with no signs at all; you will not know when to prepare yourselves for it. Do not wait for what is recorded in the gospels or you will wish you had not. God bless!
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