CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION

Christian Persecution

Exists around the world today because there are realitively no or very little true Christians within the modern churches. The world sees phonies and fakes and there is no real respect for the individual or their God, and thus persecution sets in against them. Jas 4:4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. Modern Christianity as it's taught in the modern churches is "enmity" with God, and they have because of this become the "enemy" of God while they all claim Christianity. Enimity definition: A state of deep-seated ill-will, the feeling of a hostile person. Enemy definition: Any hostile group of people, the synonmym of enemy is opposition which means: The action of opposing something that you disapprove or disagree with, the relation between opposed entities, a contestant that you are matched against, a body of people united in opposing something, a direction opposite to another.

Every church denomination who opposes the Law of God i.e. the Ten Commandments of God to the degree they claim God's GRACE over and above the Law of God is in "opposition to God." They claim to know the Lord yet they do not do the things He says. What does He say regarding His Ten Commandments? Joh 14:15 If ye love me, keep my commandments. How much more clear can this be? You can't "authentically" love Jesus without keeping His commandments. Why would the Lord say this if it were impossible to keep those commandments? He was a human being when He spoke the above verse and He kept His own commandments as a man showing man that it is possible for them to keep them. God will never ask us to do something impossible for us to do.

Well one will say "Jesus was the divine Son of God" and they would be right, but Jesus never used His divinity at any time when He walked the Earth as a man. Everything Jesus did from turning water into wine, to healing the blind, to the resurrection of Lazarus from the grave was done by and through the power of His FATHER, Jesus did NOT use His divine power while in the flesh as a man. He said: Mat 11:27 All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him. Joh 5:19 Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. This is called obedience friends, and since Jesus was God in the flesh He could see in the future what the Father would do at His request. This is why Jesus said at the tomb of Lazarus this: Joh 11:41,42 Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me.

Jesus asked the FATHER ahead of the time of this event for the resurrection of His friend Lazarus. It was God the FATHER that raised Lazarus from the dead in answer to the prayer of Jesus the Son. Jesus Himself as a man didn't have the prerogative to do so as a man in the flesh. Had He used His divinity of which He had, He would NOT have been fully mankind as a man. Paul stated: Heb 2:16-18 For verily he [JESUS] took not on him the nature of angels; but he [JESUS] took on him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all things it behoved him [JESUS] to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. [After the Cross] For in that he [JESUS] himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted. Since Jesus was God in the flesh among man and since the scripture states God cannot be tempted Jas 1:13 Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man, proves that since Jesus was tempted that He was fully and completely man.

Question: What man do you know of that can raise a dead man i.e. Lazarus from the shroud of death?

No man has that capability NOT even Jesus Christ as the man that He was had the ability to resurrect Lazarus it was done by the power of the FATHER. Jesus couldn't even raise Himself from the dead because He died as a man NOT as God in His divinity. Paul stated: Gal 1:1 Paul, an apostle, (not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead. Jesus did NOT resurrect Himself. When Jesus spoke this statement: Joh 2:19 Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. He was "speaking" as the divine Son of God, NOT as a man. This was done to show the Jews that He was the Messiah and for no other reason. Jesus knew as a man and depended entirely upon the Father by faith in His Father that the Father "would do" the raising up. But this faith Jesus had when hung on the Cross and died as a man who had lived a perfect life before His Father when He stated: Mar 15:34 And at the ninth hour [3pm] Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

This study of why Jesus spoke this is a deep spiritual truth that many can't see or fail to contemplate. When Jesus said this He felt abandoned by God the Father and He was right. He was abandoned by his Father for a short time period about three hours from the sixth hour when it became darkened when God the Father moved down upon Earth to view the sacrifice of Jesus Christ to the ninth hour, but just before Jesus died on the Cross His assurance of God's acceptance of Him was restored to Him before He gave up the ghost. Mat 27:45 Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour. This darkness eludes to the darkness that covered the top of Mt' Horeb when God came down to deliver His Law of Ten Commandments to humanity and wrote them in stone to solidify their eternal existence. Exo 19:11 And be ready against the third day: for the third day the LORD will come down in the sight of all the people upon mount Sinai. God told Ezekiel: Eze 32:7,8 And when I shall put thee out, I will cover the heaven, and make the stars thereof dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light. All the bright lights of heaven will I make dark over thee, and set darkness upon thy land, saith the Lord GOD.

When Jesus hung on the Cross for you and me as a man with the same mortal attributes that you and I have His physical mortal death was imminent at the ninth hour. At the sixth hour three hours earlier the FATHER came down and darkened the skies at 12 noon that day. Why 12 noon why the sixth hour of the day? There were two main reasons for this. 1. To draw close to His Son, and to show those who worshipped the SUN at it's highest point in the daily sky when they would all be waiting for it noonday solstice rise at its daily circuit each day, that Jesus the Son was truly God the Son "the True God in the flesh" and the FATHER darkened the skies above Jesus on the sixth hour when all the worshipers of Baal would be waiting to honor the wrong (SON) SUN and the darkness remained sufficiently long enough for it the SUN's circuit to move towards the evening time. 2. To withdraw from the Son completely before Jesus died on the Cross that caused Jesus to make His cry of being forsaken of His FATHER. WHY? Why would God the FATHER withdraw from His "Only Begotten Son" on the cross when Jesus needed His assurance the most? There was a reason friiends!

You see there is ONLY one form of death to GOD and that's the (eternal death) that no "unrepentant" human being can come back from. That's because God can bestow life again from the physical life of the one who "repents from sin" and then dies. Since Jesus had no personal sin to repent of His physical death played the role of a pure life that God requires in order to live with heavenly beings. It wasn't the physical death of Jesus as a man that secured your and my redemption folks, it was His experience of the "eternal death" the second death that all sinners who don't repent rightly deserve to die. Since Jesus was "IMMANUEL" God with us in the flesh His own divinity couldn't die His divine side was and is always "immortal" as Jesus was God the Son. However to fully effect the second death for all humanity God in the Son must die the eternal death for humanity, and the only way since Jesus was divine that could happen was for the FATHER to abandon the Son in His divinity as the Son so as to allow the Son of God to experience that "eternal death" for you and me. The idea of substitutional death in our place carries more than one meaning. Jesus was both the physical and the spiritual substitutional sacrifice for humanity. That could only be accomplished as Jesus died both the physical death and the spiritual eternal death which accomplished our redemption. This is why the FATHER had to forsake Jesus on the Cross, but returned to Him just before Jesus died. Jesus had to experience the second death of which He did, the spiritual death that all unrepentant sinners are guaranteed to suffer.

Man is born the scripture states and appointed to die. When Paul said this: Heb 9:27 And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment. Paul was speaking of the first physical death but ALSO that of the second death "eternal second death" NOT the physical first death. WHY? Because there is only one form of death before God, the death one cannot come back from. God can bring anyone back from the first physical death. Many misunderstand this verse as applying to the first physical death which is NOT death to God. It's considered sleep to God and NOT death. When Jesus said to the disciples concerning Lazarus He stated: Joh 11:11 These things said he: and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep. AGAIN in: Mat 9:24 He said unto them, Give place: for the maid is not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed him to scorn. The physical death of man is NOT death to God, it's the (eternal death) that is the only death God recognizes as real death. It was this death the eternal death that Jesus died on the Cross that makes the way of escape from that death through obedience to God's word and His Law.

For man he/she is born lives and dies the physical death every man/woman that comes into this world, but that is NOT death to God as He can raise you up from that death, but once the eternal death takes place there's no coming back from that death. God will not restore back to life anyone human being and the keywords are "any human being" who dies the second death it's eternal, forever, for all time. We know that the FATHER returned back to Jesus on the Cross before He died, because of the statement Jesus made just before He expired on the Cross. His statement that proves this is: Luk 23:46 And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost. In the Cross of Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone He did something no other man could do aside from securing our redemption. Jesus reversed the order of death for Himself alone as the event will never be repeated. Jesus died the "second death" FIRST the spiritual death before He died the physical death the FIRST death in which He died at the very last.

When did JESUS become our substitute? Was it on the Cross or before the Cross? Many will say at the Cross and they would be WRONG. Jesus became our substitute at the incarnation. That is why His perfect life from birth to death can be imputed and imparted to the repentant sinner. It's us IN CHRIST at the incarnation, at His birth, throughout His life as He lived so did we live IN HIM. As He died so too did we die with HIM and IN HIM. Many don't understand the ATONEMENT (AT-ONE-MENT) IN CHRIST. Just like the disciples said: Joh 6:60 Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it? The IN CHRIST motif is indeed a "hard saying" nevertheless it's a hard truth that many cannot accept and one of those "many things" that Jesus desired to reveal but knew that people couldn't bear it. Which is why He said: Joh 16:12 I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.

The human mind stands in the fallen state and cannot accept the truth when the truth is spoken. Many scriptures taught today in scripture by preachers/ministers/ and bible teachers are totally taken out of context or misunderstood entirely. EXAMPLE: The most quoted scripture by all Christians today, that of John 3:16 clearly states that the wicked will PERISH, yet most of those Christians believe in the eternal punishment of the wicked. The bible doesn't teach eternal punishment but eternal death and if one is eternally dead they cannot eternally be burning. Joh 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. This verse clearly states that those who do NOT believe unto repentance will PERISH, and contrast "eternal life" with the second death which is perishing that will take place in the Lake of Fire which is eternal death. NOT eternal perishing! Which is impossible! Either one exists (everlasting life) or one perishes, (everlasting death) there's no other state of being.

ANOTHER POINT to be made here! If God allowed the wicked to exist somewhere off in some eternally burning flame, God Himself would be perpetuating eternal wickedness in those burning and that is NOT what the scriptures teach. Nahum 1:9 clearly states in his statement:Nah 1:9 What do ye imagine against the LORD? he will make an utter end: affliction shall not rise up the second time. Many Christians who claim Christianity claim a false Christianity and never bother to verify what they have been preached with the scripture. THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS ETERNALLY BURNING HELL, it's a medieval doctrine that God's word doesn't teach and a total misunderstanding of the words "everlasting", "eternal" and other phrases like "where the word dieth not", the fire is not quenched" etc.

For EXAMPLE: Jude 1:7 Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. Is Sodom and Gomorrah burning today friend? NO! This eternal fire Jude spoke of here is the results of the fire "that is eternal NOT the FIRE" in that Sodom and Gomorrah would never again exist, it's destruction was eternal NOT the fire friends. It's the same context Jesus used in these two verses using the words "everlasting fire": Mat 18:8 Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire. Mat 25:41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.

The destruction of the gates of Jerusalem the scripture states: Jer 17:27 But if ye will not hearken unto me to hallow the sabbath day, and not to bear a burden, even entering in at the gates of Jerusalem on the sabbath day; then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched. This "kindling" was done in 70 A.D. by the Roman General TITUS. If the fire that destroyed these gates and the palaces of Jerusalem couldn't be "quenched" wouldn't they still be burning today? The fact is the fire was quenched by the one who burned those Gates which was God. The fire God ignites cannot be quenched by man, but He can quench it at any time. Many scriptures such as this one: Paul stated: 1Co 3:15 If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: [eternal death and the loss of eternal life] but he himself [If Repentant and obedient] shall be saved; yet so as by fire. What does the phrase "yet so as by fire" mean here? The scripture states that "our God is a consuming fire." Heb 12:29 For our God is a consuming fire. The phrase means that the repentant obedient servant will be saved by God thus the phrase "yet so as by fire."

The Lake of Fire will eternally destroy all the wicked with eternal death NOT eternally burning ever living wicked life in the flames which would mean that they would be eternally wicked in God Universe and as the phrase Nahum used "affliction shall not rise up the second time" clearly for those who desire to see with their spiritual eyes, that the same affliction, the affliction of the "Mystery of Iniquity" has passed from God's Universe and will NOT appear the second time.

The WATCHMAN !!!