HEAVENLY PROTOCOL

HEAVENLY PROTOCOL

 

For those of us who never lived in a culture that contains masters and slaves, we have a hard time understanding the idea of "protocol". It means there is a proper way to address people, and an improper way. As I understand it, you must never speak to, or give orders to a slave! You always speak to the master, and he in turn gives the orders to the slave to carry out your request. This sounds logical when it comes to earthly situations, but how can we understand it when we consider events in heaven?  Here we face the mystery of the Godhead, which we call the "Holy Trinity", Or "Three in One". God is certainly only One, Who has chosen to reveal Himself in three ways, for us to better understand Him. With our finite minds it is near impossible to understand the "Infinite"! As near as I can understand it, they are all equal in essence, but different in function. The Father as the Source of all things is Spirit, and is invisible. (John 4:24) The Son is the visible image of the invisible God! (Col 1:16, 2:9). The Holy Spirit is of course invisible too, but His role seems to that of a servant or  "Slave", to the Father/Son who we can consider the "Master". This may not be a proper analogy, but when I read scriptures like (John 16:13-15), that is the picture I come up with.

 

With that in mind, and the limited knowledge I have about the relationship of a slave to his master, it seems to me that a heavenly protocol would demand that we never speak directly to either the Holy Spirit, or angels! Yet I'm aware of many Charismatic believers who do both! You read testimonies of people being transported to heaven and talking to angels, and even giving them commands. I have often heard well meaning believers commanding the Holy Spirit to do things, like "come" or to pour out "more" of the Spirit on certain people. This sort of thing opens the door to spirits of darkness, in my opinion. Read (2 Cor 11:12-15) carefully and consider the warning given by Paul. Derek Prince declares that any spirit you can give orders to is not the Holy Spirit, but must be a counterfeit spirit, or demon operating under orders from Satan! We are warned many times in scripture to be aware that many false prophets will be sent by our enemy in these last days to deceive many! For example hear what Jesus said in (Matt 24:4, 5, 11, 24), and we should believe Jesus because "He is the truth"! Right? So let us beware of the danger of deception, and heed scriptures like ( 1 John 4:1) or (1 Thess 5:21-22) because we are certainly in the last days!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer

THE PHARISEES

THE PHARISEES

 

I have often wondered why Jesus was so hard on the group of Jews known as the Pharisees. (see Matt 23:1-36). Recently I read some of the history that explained how this religious group got started. They were the descendants of a Godly family of priests named Maccabees, who for over 200 years before Jesus came to earth fought for the scriptural standards against the paganism of the day. The word Pharisee actually means "the separate", representing their stand for righteousness against the onslaught of paganism. Apparently this concept of separation eventually made then aloof and self-righteous toward their fellow man. They were experts at interpreting the Law of Moses, yet when Jesus came in fulfillment of OT scriptures, they were unable to realize who He was because of their spiritual pride.

 

Before we level too much criticism against them, we better give some thought to the body of believers in the church today. There are some people today that have been labeled as "Fighting Fundies" because of their stand for what they consider the fundamentals of the faith. They can be compared to the Pharisees in certain ways. Because of their stand against what they consider "Liberalism", they tend to become aloof, and proud of their position, so they often miss the new things God could be doing. When the Magi from the East came to Jerusalem asking about where the new king was to be born, they told them that Bethlehem was the place. Because of their knowledge of OT scriptures they knew the Messiah was to be born there, but never bothered to check it out for them selves although Bethlehem was only 6 miles from Jerusalem. This is so typical of church members today, they may hear of some new thing God has been revealing to His people, but fail to check it out. They believe they already have the final word from God based on their understanding of scripture. A brief study of church history will reveal many cases of this very thing happening in the past. So as followers of Jesus today, we need to check out carefully any reports of new things, but heed (1 Thess 5:21). Jesus warned us about the danger of being deceived (Matt 24:4, 5, 11, 24). We need spiritual discernment as well as knowledge of scripture. The Pharisees had a knowledge of the OT scriptures, but were blinded by their pride, and missed the coming of the greatest gift ever given to mankind, that tiny babe in the manger, Emmanuel, Jesus the only begotten Son of God, our Savior and Redeemer!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer

INCARNATIONAL CHRISTIANITY

INCARNATIONAL CHRISTIANITY

This is a relatively new term to me, but coming just after we have celebrated the incarnation of Jesus for another year, I think I know what it means. When Jesus left His place in heaven to become the babe in Mary's womb, this to me was the greatest miracle that ever could be! Our Creator God becoming flesh and blood, in order to put a face on God, so to speak, that we might see what our invisible [to the human eye] God is really like, we call the "incarnation". And after Jesus had completed the work of redemption, by dying for our sins on the cross, he made provision for us to be the physical "body" to take His place on this planet. He said He would send the Holy Spirit to be with us and "in us" (John 14:17). Thus as I see it, when we receive salvation by the act of recognizing we are sinners, confessing our sin. and receiving Jesus as our personal Savior, the Holy Spirit comes into our life. He is the one who never leaves us, and therefore wherever we go and whatever we do, we are the incarnation of Christ. When we read the book of Ephesians where Paul describes the Church that Jesus said He would build, we should see that we are the body of Christ on planet earth. Our head is Jesus Christ, who is seated at the right hand of the Father, and we are His body. This is a tremendous privilege and responsibility, to be His "ambassadors", or representatives on planet earth!

I recently read a book by Jerry Cook called "The Monday Morning Church", in which he stresses this point that we are the Church not only on Sunday morning when we "go to church", but every day of the week! When are we ever going to wake up and realize that what we have seen and experienced as "church" in our Western society is nothing like what Paul describes in his NT letters? I recently read an article by Wolfgang Simson in which he made the following statement "Church as we know it is preventing Church as God wants it". I don't know brother Simson personally but I sure agree with this statement. I think Jerry Cook would also agree with it as he describes the changes that will be necessary to become the Monday morning church. In the introduction to his book Jerry uses a term "strategic placement", by which he means God has placed each one of us in certain places "to be the presence of Christ that opens the door for His revelation as Savior to an unbelieving world". Isn't that what this being a follower of Jesus is all about?  Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer

THE INCARNATION

THE INCARNATION

At this time of year when we celebrate the coming to earth of Jesus Christ, in a time we call "Christmas", our minds are drawn to the miracle of what we call "the incarnation". In the writings of the apostle Paul, we find several passages that pertain to this event. (Phil 2:5-11) is one of my favorite scriptures pertaining to the first coming of Jesus to our planet, and (Gal 4:4-7) is another. But first we should look at (Luke 1:26-38), where we read of the coming to Mary of the Archangel Gabriel, with the news that she had been favored by God for the task of being the human instrument through whom the Savior of the world would take on human form! Most of us learn quite early in life how the human reproduction system works. It requires a female to produce an egg at a certain point in her monthly cycle, which must then be fertilized by a male at the right time in order to achieve conception. In Mary's case, at the correct time in her monthly cycle, she was "overshadowed" by the Holy Spirit, and the child conceived in her womb was truly the Son of God. This was one of the greatest miracles of all time!

The way Paul described this miracle event in (Phil 2:5-11) is "awesome!" The first part of the chapter describes how we should relate to other members in the body of Christ by putting others ahead of ourselves. He uses Jesus as our example of humility. Let me quote verses 5-7 from the Amp version "Let this same attitude and purpose and [humble] mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus—let Him be your example in humility—who although being essentially one with God and in the form of God [possessing the fullness of the attributes which make God God], did not think this equality with God was a thing to be eagerly grasped or retained; but stripped Himself [of all privileges and rightful dignity] so as to assume the guise of a servant (slave), in that He became like men and was born a human being."

That is what Christmas is all about!! Is it any wonder that the world system and other world religions, do not want us to celebrate Christmas as the birthday of the Savior Jesus Christ? They do not believe in Jesus, and don't want to be reminded of His coming in the "fullness of time", born of a virgin, so that He could fulfill all the scriptures from the Old Testament prophets, who told about His supernatural birth. Let's do all we can do to keep this true message of Christ in Christmas this year, and every year until He comes again for His second appearance!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer

TIGER'S FALL

TIGER'S FALL

 

The news reports have been full of stories of Tiger Woods lately, and his fall from the pedestal people had placed him on. He was a real sports "idol" to many, truly one of the world's best golfers, and probably the richest! At last count seven women have come forward to confess that they had all been involved sexually with him since the scandal started, and who knows how many more may join their ranks? What can we followers of Jesus learn from all this exposure about these disclosures?

 

I suppose the first thing we might note is how many times scripture warns about worshiping "idols" of any sort. It seems we love to make idols out of sports figures that have developed their skills in any given sport, without bothering to checkout their character! I would think Tiger would certainly be a case in point. He may have attracted various big name sponsors, who have been willing to invest large sums of money for the right to use his name to advertise their particular products, but what happens to them now? Will they withdraw their support, and apologize to the public for their part in promoting an adulterer? I doubt it!

 

We in the body of Christ have been guilty in the past of doing this very same thing. We have promoted certain people who seem to be gifted as an evangelist, or someone used by God in ministry in some unusual way, and lifted them up and placed them on a pedestal. Only to find out, perhaps months or years later that they have been living a "double life"! I won't mention any by name, but we can all think of several such cases in the past few years. Our track record as the "church" in this regard has not been good, and shows a critical lack of proper discernment! When are we going to learn that you can't judge a man by his gifting, but only by his character? Jesus said we can tell a person by the fruit showing in their lives. Our job is not to be judges, or even policemen, to check up on people to see how they live, but to simply be "fruit inspectors". We should all be able to do that, and report back to Jesus whenever we see some bad fruit that might contaminate our brothers and sisters in the family of God. We should do thus, instead of spreading rumors throughout the church about the results of our inspection, based on scriptures like (Gal 5:22)! I'm sure the world would be a better place if we could just discipline ourselves to do that.

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer

a brief overview of end times

AN OVERVIEW OF THE END TIME

 

As most of you know I have changed my position regarding the rapture, from the popular "Pretrib" to the "Prewrath" position of the timing of the return of Christ to rapture His Church. This change has been a process for me, extending over several years. For most of my years as a follower of Jesus, the Pretrib was the only position I was familiar with. Then I realized that many of our brothers and sisters in Christ were already going through extreme persecution equal to that described in scripture as the "great tribulation". That started my search for the truth of what this rapture of the church was all about. I reasoned that we believers in the NA church were not going to escape persecution from the Antichrist by an "any moment" secret rapture, while much of the church is already going through their great tribulation. About that time, nearly 10 years ago, a friend gave me his book by Robert Van Kampen called "The Sign". In it I saw an interpretation of common end time scriptures with a completely new understanding.

 

First of all, I realized Jesus will remain in heaven with His Father "until" certain events take place. (Ps 110:1) That erased the teaching of an "any moment", or imminent rapture from the equation. Then I understood from (2 Thess 2:1-4) that Jesus will not return before the "man of lawlessness" reveals himself. That took care of the theory of a Pretrib rapture. Then I came to understand that the wrath of Satan through the Antichrist, and the Wrath of God are two separate events. Indeed, God will use the tribulation of the Antichrist to purify the church in preparation for the rapture of the true believers who refuse to accept his mark. The rapture will actually end the tribulation when Jesus returns in clouds of Glory! Read (Matt 24:21-22) without your Pretrib glasses on, and see how Jesus explains this. It is the time of great tribulation that He will shorten, not the 7 year period known as "Daniel's Seventieth Week"! This rapture will occur sometime after the mid point of the 7 year period when the Antichrist reveals himself.(Daniel 9:20-27) The remainder of the 7 year period will be used for God to pour out His Wrath on the unrighteous that are left behind. (Rev 15:5-16:27). Then the remnant of the Nation of Israel, who has been protected by God, will be dealt with as described by Daniel in chapter 12. Especially note the extra 30+45 days added to the 1260 days, which is the last half of the 7 year period. This time is especially for the remaining remnant of the Jewish nation, to prepare them for the millennium, during which they will be God's earthly flesh and blood people on earth. At this time the redeemed family of God who have been temporarily in their heavenly abode, will be transported down from heaven to earth as the "New Jerusalem" (Rev 21)

 

This is only a very brief overview of what I have come to understand the scriptures teach about the end times that we are now entering. This has only come about as I have asked the Lord to reveal to me what the writers of scripture meant to convey to us the reader, and ignore what I had been taught by some theories of man! Remember this is only my brief outline, arrived at by my study of scripture over the years, and is certainly open to further changes or correction by the Holy Spirit.

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer