Famine

In Amos chapter 8, a basket of summer fruit is discussed between the prophet Amos and God. God tells us that “The end is come upon my people of Israel; I will not again pass by them any more.” Amos 8:2 KJV

So by this we know that end times are being prophesied in this chapter, with details that we can clearly understand when we put our minds to it. The basket of summer fruit means that Israel is ready for harvest and it has to be done right away or the fruit will rot. We do know that Israel became a nation in 1948, and elsewhere in His word it was told us that once that happened, the world would be in its final generation.

We should not let this scare us! It’s a good thing as long as we know what the word of God truly says. The most important truth to know is that the antichrist will arrive on earth first (hence the 6^th trump); and Jesus will come to earth after many have bowed to the antichrist (means “instead of Christ”), because they will believe antichrist is the true Christ.

But Jesus’ feet touch the earth at the 7^th trump, and those who worshipped the antichrist during his time here will ask for the mountains to fall on them, they will be so ashamed. Yikes.

Amos chapter 8 is a most interesting read (hopefully you will read it in the King James Version of the Bible). In verse 3 the description is of those who are spiritually dead, like so many are at this time in our world.

I’m going to fast forward to verse 11, but in verses 4-10 God talks about those who have put financial oppression and deceit on His people (i.e., the banking industry, which is one of the four worldly dynasties controlled by Satan. The other three are education, politics and religion). Also, note in verse 8 that the “flood” is the flood of lies and deceit that will overwhelm the end time.

Amos 8:11 says, “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD:”

So when we hear about the famine of the end times, let us not fear our bodies starving; let us instead fear the starvation of our spirits. We see it all around us more and more every day. But there is a solution! Study, learn and understand the true word of God, and you will not be one of those poor starved souls. You will not be fooled by the antichrist, you will wait for Jesus to arrive at the Second Advent, and in the process you will be able to help others not to be fooled.

God has clearly warned us in this chapter not to be fooled by the lies, to know that He is aware of the oppression, and to know and understand the time we live in.

Don’t be deceived! Read and understand God’s word so that you can be fully armored!

God bless you in that endeavor.

Amos 8:1-11
8:1 Thus hath the Lord GOD shewed unto me: and behold a basket of summer fruit.
2 And he said, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A basket of summer fruit. Then said the LORD unto me, The end is come upon my people of Israel; I will not again pass by them any more.
3 And the songs of the temple shall be howlings in that day, saith the Lord GOD: there shall be many dead bodies in every place; they shall cast them forth with silence.
4 Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail,
5 Saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit?
6 That we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes; yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat?
7 The LORD hath sworn by the excellency of Jacob, Surely I will never forget any of their works.
8 Shall not the land tremble for this, and every one mourn that dwelleth therein? and it shall rise up wholly as a flood; and it shall be cast out and drowned, as by the flood of Egypt.
9 And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord GOD, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day:
10 And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness upon every head; and I will make it as the mourning of an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day.
11 Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD:
KJV

Israel

How do YOU fit into the Bible? In His Word, God made promises to the nation of Israel. They are the offspring of the 12 sons of Jacob (whose name was changed to Israel by God, see Genesis 32:28, Genesis 35:10). But Israel, you say, is a small nation over in the Middle East so why do we care so much about that? Jesus came to this earth and was crucified for our sins and arose to eternal glory, and then the promise of eternal life was extended to not only Israel but to the “Gentiles” as well.

Ah! True! But do you understand who Israel really is? The Bible and history tell us. Of the 12 tribes, first the 10 northern tribes were defeated and taken into captivity by the king of Assyria, (around 600 B.C.) taken away and then they were scattered, something that God had warned he would do when they wouldn’t listen to Him, over and over and over. They are known as the “lost tribes of Israel”.

Two hundred years after the 10 northern tribes were taken, the 2 remaining tribes of Judah and Benjamin (known collectively as Jews) were taken into captivity by somebody else, the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar. However, we know where most of the Jews are – they returned from that seventy-year captivity in Babylon to rebuild Jerusalem and re-populate the country of Israel, a subject that is well defined in the Old Testament, see the books of Nehemiah and Ezra, particularly. Yes there are Jews living throughout the world, and in general, they know that they are Jews and can trace their genealogy (and DNA, now) back to those olden times.

But those 10 lost tribes – where are they? Who are they? Whatever happened to them? First off, God has not lost them, even if they don’t know who they are, He does. He counts every hair on their heads (Matthew 10:30). There are many mentions of them in the Bible, and we know from history that after they were taken to Assyria, they later traveled over the Caucasus mountains of southern Russia, and went north… and eventually migrated to Europe, and all along the way, they multiplied greatly.

In the great migrations from Europe to the North and South Americas and further in the more current history of the world, especially the 1800s, many of those “Europeans” who arrived in the New World and became Canadians, Americans, Mexicans, Brazilians, Australians… well, put two and two together – the Christian countries of today are no doubt populated by many who don’t know that their ancestors were once part of the ten lost tribes of Israel, but who have the words of God written on their hearts. God said, “go forth and multiply, you will be like the sands of the seas and like the stars of heaven in multitude”.  (see Jacob reminding God that He would multiply Jacob’s offspring like the “sands of the sea” which could not be numbered for multitude in Genesis 32:12.)

Often, when we read the Bible, common sense is required. Use your common sense to understand that Bible subjects are really not difficult or confusing, but pretty much stated in plain language. We need to use our common sense and do some study to understand what is being discussed.

Then apply those ideas to current history, all the while consulting and understanding what the history of the Bible and the prophets are talking about, and confusion will melt away. Once you have an understanding of the peoples and the prophecies of the Bible, your life will be on point! You will be able to move forward with strength and understanding and knowledge of the Truth, and in the process you will find great peace.

God bless you in that endeavor. If I can help in any way, please let me know, and I will do my best.

Thanks for reading, and I pray that this post will bless you and your family in a big way.

One Book - No Secrets

I want to share happiness and joy with other people. We don’t always have time to pay attention to Jesus, to our Christianity. People have jobs, kids, spouses and a host of other things going on. But if in the midst of that I can share a glimmer of true hope and peace with anyone, I will be so pleased.

God wrote us a letter with ALL of the information in it. Everything is explained, nothing is kept secret, we are allowed to know and understand everything. And the thing is, the story and the plan are easy to see – not difficult as people tend to think. The Bible is just one book, it is the word of God. In fact, there is simplicity in the way the story is told and re-told, and the way the plan is woven in and plain to see. God wouldn’t make it too hard for even a child to understand.

How to find this out for ourselves? It sounds good and it IS good. We just need to read and understand the book – God’s word to us. Remember I said there are no secrets? Well, don’t believe me, believe God when he tells us in Amos 3:7, “surely the Lord God will do nothing but he reveal his secret unto his stewards the prophets”.

You may say, “Well, I’m no prophet”, and that would be true. Since Jesus, there have been no new prophets. But guess what? The prophets wrote down all that God said! And it’s in the Bible. God has revealed his secret to us, we just need to read and understand.

And, in Mark 13:23 Jesus himself says, “But take ye heed: Behold, I have foretold you all things”. Whoa! I guess we can find out everything we need to know to be true Christians; fulfilled, peaceful, happy, hopeful and strong in our faith and our knowledge of the Word – right now, in this life and on into the next life.

God is not keeping anything from us – all we have to do is read and learn what the letter he wrote to us says. It’s not hard! It is just one book.

God will not force His word on us, though. We have to take it. God even begs us in Isaiah 43:26 to put him in remembrance of his word – in other words he is asking us to know his promises and commands and wants us to prove to him that we know. God is asking us to “call him out” on his promises, to remind him what they are. This is the way he can justify us, make us righteous!

Isaiah 43:26 (this is God speaking directly):
“Put me in remembrance: let us plead together: declare thou, that thou may be justified”. KJV

It is written.

Have you read it?

 

What Does God Have To Say About Knowledge?

Here are three verses from the Bible that deal clearly with what God wants us to realize about us having knowledge of his Word, knowing what it means:

Hosea 4:6 – “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: …”

Hosea 6:6 – “For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings”.

Isaiah 5:13 – “Therefore my people are gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge: and their honorable men are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst”.

“Gone into captivity” - because they have not the knowledge of God to keep them free.

“Their honorable men are famished” - famished for the truth of God’s word, spiritual meat, knowledge of the true word of God.

The subject of spiritual meat is covered in Hebrews 5:12-14 

12  “For when for the time you ought to be teachers, you have need that one teach you again which be the first principle of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat.

13 For every one that uses milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe.

14 But strong meat belongs to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil”.
 

So the Bible is relating our level of knowledge to strong meat vs. milk.  And who is it that the strong meat (spiritual truth) belongs to? Those who by reason of use have their senses exercised. God tells us in Hebrews 5:14 – use your senses to learn my word, so that you are fed with spiritual meat, not milk.
 

In Isaiah 5:13, "Their multitude", the people, are dried up with thirst because they don’t have the living water, the truth of God, to give them drink.
 

These verses apply now, in our time, as much as then. That’s part of the mystery of God’s word, a beautiful mystery that once unlocked in our minds sends us out to search every day so that we won’t be famished or thirsty for spiritual truth.
 

We can look around us to see – the knowledge of the word of God is missing from our society. But we don’t have to follow society’s lead in this matter – we can, by reason of use, have our senses exercised. What good news! The word of God is for our use now, every day, so that we will not be destroyed by lack of knowledge.

 

Jesus says, “I have foretold you all things” – we will have no excuse for not knowing. Mark 13:23.

It is written.

 

Have you read it?
 

TIME WELL SPENT

When I first undertook a deeper study of God’s word from the King James Version of the Bible, I was just hoping to be a little more “holy” and do what God probably wished I’d do – find out more about Him.

After a while I realized how deceived we who live in this world in flesh bodies truly are. The more I discovered, the more amazed I became. I couldn’t stop studying! I started seeing that there are these layers of incredible information in God’s word, and when I started understanding one part of the story, before long, that same story became deeper. It is like peeling layers from an onion – and it doesn’t seem to stop. There is always more, it continually gets deeper, all from the same words.

I’m just a normal middle class person living in America, with a normal middle class life, and now retired. I got married, we raised kids.  There were grandkids, now there are great-grandkids. We worked in jobs, we moved a few times, we didn’t get rich or famous. Now we’re old, and God has blessed us by allowing us to “get it” – and to know that the story is really, really BIG… and even more so now in this time of the world.

The trouble is – hardly anybody knows there is a big story that is affecting their current lives every day and is going to affect their eternal life from the day they leave this earth. And that not being aware of it really IS going to make a difference, unfortunately. Pastors don’t teach it, churches water everything down, and people are truly deceived. BUT, it doesn’t have to be that way, and I encourage every person reading this to start moving forward from those church pews where a little inspiration on Sunday really takes you no place except back to the same pew the next week. It doesn’t do much for your spiritual life at all. Now don’t blame me for being critical – I sat in those pews many, many weeks during my life – and never got out of kindergarten, so I know what I say is true.

There’s a story, God wants us to know it, and He wants us to realize that we are living in the time of the end, which makes it that much more important. Stuff is going to happen! It is happening, all around us, but just like watching a child grow, it happens very slowly, day by day, week by week, and we hardly notice.

Unless we become “watchmen” and steeped in God’s word and His story and plan, well, then we are wandering around with a tiny bit of information in our heads and hearts, and when the big things happen and it’s too late to really understand – it’s like when your child suddenly leaves home for good – how the heck did that happen? Why wasn’t I paying more attention?

It’s way more important for us all to pay attention to God’s word than to realize how quickly our kids are growing up. Way more important.

So, I encourage you. Find out what happened in 1948 that tells us we are living in “end times” now in 2017. Understand what happened back at the beginning – if we don’t get that part, we won’t understand what is happening at the end. And, it’s upon us, whether we want to think that the generations are going to continue forever or not – it’s upon us and we don’t have much of a choice about the timing.

It’s the best time to live, right now. Doesn’t seem like it until you know the plan and realize – some of us are going to be serving God in a different, bigger way than we ever supposed. And, those who understand it are excited! Ready! We are going to stand strong at a time when nothing is the same as it has been. And we are going to see the most momentous occasions of mankind’s time in history ever, and be blessed by it.

But not if we don’t know the plan – then we will be deceived, and it will be the greatest deception ever seen, and many will be fooled. It will cost them their eternal lives. It won’t be God’s fault – He has given us the word and the story, and the ability to read. The rest is up to us.

Again, I encourage you - don’t keep living in your day to day life without adding a very close connection to God and understanding of His word into it. It will be time well spent.

God bless you in that endeavor!

Hope? Not given. *

Once again I say “don’t be deceived” as respects what the Bible says and some of the ways that important people in our lives may mislead us as to what God’s plan is.

The one statement I want to make and have others hear clearly is this: you cannot trust ANY other person with telling you what God’s word says. You MUST read it for yourself. You can’t trust me, you can’t trust your pastor, you can’t trust the church worker who seems to know, and you surely cannot trust what you read on the Internet.

You have to check out everything you are told or that you now believe in your own Bible, with prayer and supplication that God will help you with the wisdom and understanding you need.

The beginning of Proverbs talks to us about wisdom and where it comes from:

Prov 1:2-7 KJV

2 To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding;
3 To receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity;
4 To give subtilty to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion.
5 A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels:
6 To understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings.
7 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.”

(The word “fear” should often be translated as “revere” in the Bible…)

I have to recommend one Bible version to everyone – it is the King James Version. It is not completely perfect as a translation, but is much closer to the original manuscripts than any other English version of the Bible. Tossing those versions and getting a King James Version makes total sense. Yes, yes, the “thees” and “thous” aren’t like modern English writings, but do you want the truth? The other versions have been horribly messed with, even the NKJV. And, as I have discovered for myself, you will soon get past the difficulty with the language differences from then to now, and will find a much richer experience. And a much more truthful recounting of the word, which of course is the important thing.

* That being said, I want to give an example that has horrified me for months since I first read it. Some background: for many years I have supported a certain youth organization that helps troubled children and teens. It’s a Christian organization that teaches with the Bible, with church, with many other activities like caring for animals and so forth that very much enrich the lives of these kids who have a hard time with where they came from. The organization will remain unnamed here, but I will be sharing my thoughts with the organization once I have them written. I won’t withdraw my support at this time, because I think they are doing a good job with these children overall. But after reading what was told a young girl in answer to her questions about “Why?”, I can see that they are not teaching real Biblical principles, just as many churches and other organizations don’t. And why is this? Because, they don’t really know, and so they spout things that are “traditions of men” and aren’t based on what God has said at all.

To explain, the girl who is now 17 years old has been living at the organization for two years. She had a lot of trouble in her early life, was angry, was self-harming and totally didn’t trust adults. And as you will read, doesn’t trust God either. But when she turned to those in charge of her Christian education at this organization, she was given such a song-and-dance response that I was shocked. The reason I know about it is that the organization sends out a publication several times a year, and her story was in it.

Two disturbing things that happened in her early life were that her younger sister died of a rare chromosome disorder; and her best friend committed suicide when they were in the 5^th grade. Tough things, both.

So she has reservations towards God, because she doesn’t understand why God would have done these things to her. She wonders why God didn’t plan her life differently.

We can say her concerns are somewhat reasonable, coming from a teenager. We all remember that we were completely the center of our little worlds when we were teens, it was all about “us” to whatever level we were allowed to take that idea.

Unfortunately, here is the problem – first of all the Senior Chaplain of the organization says in the article that the young girl has “an important, authentic perspective” and that her journey is “unique”.

But the awful thing is that the Director of Christian Education there says this: “for many of these “why” questions, there simply aren’t answers “on this side of heaven”. Oh my, that is certainly poetic. As well as being a terrible, un-Biblical answer that can never help any child. That same Christian leader of these children says that chapel staff emphasize to these hurting young people that God values and loves each of them.

I’m floored! Hello!! Hello!! You are Director of Christian Education and THAT is the answer you give a hurting child? That there are no answers but don’t worry, God loves you? Have you ever opened a Bible and read the story? It’s very difficult for me to write about this because that is the dumbest response ever.

Why do I say that? Because one constant thread throughout the Bible is this: there is an antichrist who has a lot of power to deceive flesh humans, and who is intent on deceiving as many of those humans as he possibly can during their lives, before his time comes to an end. Satan knows he is sentenced to the most final death possible, and all he cares about is lying to each of us as much as he can before that happens, so that we can be taken to that final death along with him. He never wants us to put on that “gospel armour”, because he knows that if we do, we will be able to “stand”.  (Ephesians 6:11-14).

Satan is alive and well, and his story is detailed throughout every book of the Bible, yet “there are no answers this side of heaven”? Oh no, that’s not true, it’s wrong, and somebody needs to go back to the beginning, to Basic Bible 101, before she is allowed to spread this kind of information to children or to adults again.

And Senior Chaplain too. Don’t say the girl has an “authentic perspective”. She doesn’t trust God! Tell her the truth. Yes, there is a battle going on for your soul! Yes, God loves you, but Satan hates you, and your Creator, your Father, has set in motion the only possible plan for your salvation, and you need to know what it is. God put you here on this earth, in a flesh body with Free Will, so that you could make a choice between Him or Satan during this life. Period. You need to know the true story, so you can make an educated choice. You need to read it. God wrote you this letter, gave you every bit of the truth, so you could make the right choice and not be fooled.

So, that is why none of us – NOBODY – can ever trust another person with our Christian education. Because as God says about a thousand times throughout the Bible as warning to us: false pastors, false priests and false prophets destroy His Word. If you doubt that – just do a search for the word “pastor” in the book of Jeremiah. There are eight instances just in that one book. Here are two of them:

Jer 12:10 KJV

10 “Many pastors have destroyed my vineyard, they have trodden my portion under foot, they have made my pleasant portion a desolate wilderness.”

We are His vineyard. We are His pleasant portion. Many false pastors are destroying us with teaching traditions of men, and not God’s true word!

And a second example:

Jer 23:1-2 KJV

1 “Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! saith the LORD.”
2 “Therefore thus saith the LORD God of Israel against the pastors that feed my people; Ye have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them: behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your doings, saith the LORD.”

Who said it? “saith the LORD”. Those are two small examples of how God feels about those who mislead His people. The Bible is riddled with similar statements made by God. He doesn’t want us trusting “pastors” who don’t teach the true word. He wants us to trust and know Him. This doesn’t mean you should never listen to others. Just that you must check out what they have said about God’s word and about his plan for yourself.

God wants our love. The only way we have to show Him that we love Him is to read and understand His word. Jesus was the Word made flesh (John 1:14). This should give us some idea how important God’s Word is. If we know the word, we know Jesus; and Jesus is the only name by which we can be saved. (Acts 4:12)

John 1:14 KJV

14 “And the Word was made 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.”

Acts 4:12 KJV

12 Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

Don’t be deceived. Find out what the Bible really says.

 

It is written.

 

Have you read it?

One

For this first post, I would like to encourage my readers - the Word of God is very clear and reasonable and very simple when it is taken chapter by chapter and verse by verse, with understanding.

BUT, there are so many attempts by Satan and his armies to confuse Bible readers, especially in these times, that we have to be careful who we are listening to. There is nobody on earth you should trust, not even me, but you should check out everything any person says about God's Word for yourself. Pastors and preachers are spewing forth nonsense from many pulpits in the Christian world - but you can find out the truth for yourself in the true Word of God.

Have you read it? If not, don't trust what you hear or what others tell you. It's your responsibility to know what God's letter to you says.

I will start with this - Bible versions DO matter, very much. As far as Bibles written in English, it is my opinion that the only one you should trust is the King James Version (KJV). This Bible has the fewest mistranslations of any that are available, it is the closest to the original Hebrew and Greek manuscripts. There are a few errors, and when I know of them I will definitely point them out to you and tell you what I know about the original manuscripts and the problems in translation from there to the KJV. Other Bible translations are sorely misleading many of God's people down the wrong path.

The KJV was translated from the original manuscripts over a period of years by 52 scholars of the word of God at the beginning of the 17th century, and they did a very good job overall. It was first published in 1611. Other Bible translations since then, unfortunately, have been messed with and are misleading in many important places, even the NKJV.

A good Strong's Concordance is a must for any serious Bible student. Dr. James Strong lived from 1822-1894 and he cataloged every word in the Bible for us, and linked it back to the definitions for the original words in Hebrew and Greek. It's an amazing help for any student intent on learning and understanding God's Word.

I have recently learned, however, that some current publications of the Strong's Concordance have been amended to make certain words "fit" better with our present society, so I will tell you that I feel confident in the publications of the Strong's Concordance from Thomas Nelson Publishers that were copyrighted in 2010 or prior ONLY. I seriously warn you away from concordances published later than that.

Satan is very much at work causing deception in the world, and in these times the deceptions are increasing day by day. I pray that this blog will lead you to the true Word of God with understanding, and give you peace and comfort in these difficult times of the world.

God bless you!