Which Prosperity Is More Important, Our Soul Or Body?

Should We Only Pray For Our Soul And Not For Our Body?

Question : Should we neglect our body when we want our Soul to prosper, because we know Jesus said, "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life." (John 6:63)? I believe we should only pray for our soul and not our body.

Answer : Yes Jesus said, "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life." (John 6:63), but the context does speak about our physical flesh, but about our soulish flesh of self understanding against God's spiritual understanding that comes by the Spirit of God (1 Cor 2:14). Many disciples who followed Jesus misunderstood the saying of Jesus when He said, "He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him." (John 6:56). They thought as though Jesus was promoting cannibalism and grumbled against Jesus inside their heart, they misunderstood the spiritual message that Jesus conveyed because of having no Holy Spirit given light to understand the spiritual words of Jesus even though they followed Jesus outwardly (John 6:60-61). Jesus was actually saying that He who believes in the cleansing power of His blood that will be shed by Him for the forgiveness of their sins and He who believes the words of Jesus which He has commanded to keep, will live because Jesus will give them eternal life as a gift from God (John 3:16; 6:39-40; 10:28). In Jesus the eternal God who spoke the word of God became flesh and his blood became the means through which the covenant between God and man to supply God's forgiveness freely to all who believed this truth was established (John 1:14; Matt 26:26-28). So eating the flesh of Jesus means believing that Jesus has come from heaven from the Father God who has sent Him to us (John 6:51), and drinking the blood of Jesus means to believe the supernatural forgiveness of God that we all can receive through believing the truth of Jesus death and resurrection (1 Cor 11:23-26; Col 1:14; Eph 1:7; 1 Cor 15:16-17). It ultimately refers to enjoying the benefits which come to a believer when He is saved by His blood and believes to live by the words of Jesus, thus becoming as dead to sin and alive to God through the substitutional death of Jesus which has been personalized by him through believing (2 Sam 3:28; Psalm 30:9; Psalm 27:2; 1 Chronicles 11:19; Rom 6:10-11).

So John 6:63 does not speak about literal physical flesh and the human body. We should never ever use this above Scripture to speak about human body when it does not mean it or else it will be a total misinterpretation of the original meaning which it intends to convey.

Paul the apostle in one of his ministerial letters to his apostolic son Timothy says, "7 But reject profane and old wives’ fables, and exercise yourself toward godliness. 8 For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come." (1 Tim 4:7-8). Through these above verses the apostle Paul clearly describes that all misinterpretation of Scriptures should be rejected, instead by believing the words of faith and of the good doctrine which is the exact interpretation of the original meaning that the Scripture conveys, we should exercise ourselves towards godliness because it will not only profits us for now through helping us to discipline us to exercise bodily for the present life, but also it helps us to grow spiritually strong and rich for the life to come after our physical death. Self-control is a fruit of the Spirit, but it is as much equally needed to maintain a good physical body as it is to our spiritual life (Gal 5:22-23). The above verses does not mean that physical exercise is of no value, but rather physical without spiritual exercise is of less value because it is temporary and is useful only until we die, but physical with spiritual exercise combined together will be of great value because we will be healthy both in our spiritual and physical body to live, praise God and glorify Him for eternity ahead.

We should pray for our body as well as our soul, but the first priority should be our soul (3 John 1:2). In other words when our soul prospers, automatically God's blessing will come upon us to be active physically in our bodies. As our body is the temple of God in which God lives, we should take proper care for it. If we destroy it knowingly, God has told that He will destroy us (1 Cor 3:16-17). Taking heed of the warning, we should carefully keep our soul in a beautiful state and also take responsibility to maintain a healthy lifestyle even if we cannot keep a rigorous exercise schedule to keep a six-pack. It is our duty to pray to God for His blessings in our soul, as well as for our body to be healthy and prosperous (Psa 103:2-3).

Asceticism is the doctrine that the ascetic life releases the soul from bondage to the body and permits union with the divine. It is the wrong belief of Hinduism and yogic lifestyle in paganism that believes that through renunciation of worldly pleasures it is possible to achieve a high spiritual or intellectual state. But we in Christianity believes that it is a demonic doctrine of men promoted by self-imposed religion that actually is against the Christian believer's way of overcoming all shortcomings and weakness of our soul and body through the power of the Holy Spirit that works within us (Col 2:21-23; 1 John 4:4; Gal 5:16; Rom 13:14; Gal 3:27). There are many people in Christianity who take care of their soul and neglect their body to die early before the time God has set for them (Psa 139:16; 102:24). They will all have to give account to God on that day of judgment for their early demise due to their own foolishness (Heb 9:27; 2 Cor 5:10-11). So we must take care of our soul as well as our body (1 Peter 2:11). Taking care of our body is a good quality decision. One can easily neglect one's body when we are spiritually inclined (Col 2:23). So it is true that when we take care of our soul, God will help us take care of our body properly, but still we must discipline ourselves in order to cooperate with God and set time to walk or jog and pray everyday at the same time which will take care of both (1 Thess 5:17; Luke 18:1; 1 Cor 9:27).

Much Blessings....

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Are You Saved Really?

Salvation Is Not Just A Feeling, But A Knowing!

By Abraham Israel

Salvation is not just a feeling that comes and goes, but it is a firm knowing conviction deep with in our spirit-man. I was born again at the age of seven when I approached God to tell Him that I am sinner in need of salvation, as I closed my eyes I saw a vision in which Jesus was hanging before me, wounded and bleeding all over His body. I saw the crown of thorns which was placed for all the bad thoughts I had ever thought, His hands were nailed for the bad things my hands did, His feet were pierced by nail for all the sinful evil places my feet carried me, he was pierced at His side with a spear which made blood and water to pour out which finally confirmed that Jesus died for my sins and was raised for my justification (Rom 4:25). While I saw the vision, my heart melted deep within me, tears flowed freely not as a sign of sympathy for Jesus but for the fact that my sinfulness had caused such a vicarious death of Jesus who knew no sin but became sin for me (2 Cor 5:21).

The water and blood that came out of the side of Jesus when he was pierced with a spear spiritually symbolized the baptism of Jesus in which He became our righteousness and the death of Jesus on the Cross in which our sins were forever forgiven by God once and for all time (John 19:34; Matt 3:15; 2 Cor 5:21; 1 Cor 1:30; Col 1:20; Eph 1:7). So apostle John says that there are three that bears witness of our salvation on earth, "the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three agree as one." (1 John 5:8). As we have seen above the water and the blood justifies us and bears witness within us by our faith in it, but the most important witness is the Spirit of God who will speak within us that we are saved because we have believed in Jesus (1 John 5:10; 3:24). The Spirit of God who had spoken that we are saved from sin, will also speak to us that we have now become God's own children (Rom 8:16). This is the most important testimony of conviction that every believer on earth should have. Apostle Paul talked to all believers about this subject and exhorted saying, "5 Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified. 6 But I trust that you will know that we are not disqualified." (2 Cor 13:5-6). In other words, Apostle Paul was saying, if you are not sure whether you are saved, test yourself by the testimony which the Spirit of God gives within you. If you have not got the testimony of the Spirit that you are saved from sin and have become God's child, then you are not really saved (Rom 8:9). But those who are saved and have lost the assurance must know that we cannot be lost again (Eph 1:13-14; John 10:28-29; Rom 8:38-29).

After I was saved at the age of seven, then I had this testimony of the Spirit within me that I was saved. Great joy, peace and righteousness flooded in to my childish soul (Rom 14:17). But growing up during those times, I lost the assurance of salvation many many times till I became an adult. Some people who are not grounded in sound doctrine teach that when we sin and lose the assurance of salvation, then we become lost in sin again. This unbiblical wrong doctrine leads us to unnecessary fear of going to hell because of our works. We are saved by Jesus apart from our own works and so what we do cannot affect our salvation really but can only show up to a certain degree that we are saved (Eph 2:8-9). A righteousness apart from works has been put in to our spiritual bank account of heaven when we are first saved, and from that moment of salvation God sees us rich through the riches of Christ deposited in our spiritual bank account of heaven, and not as filthy spiritual beggars in rags who are in need of righteousness (Rom 4:5-6; Isa 64:6).

Because of such doctrine taught to me, I used to go to retreats to regain salvation again and again. In the retreats, a strong word of repentance for salvation will be preached after which I will ask God sorry again and will restitute the wrong I have done to again come in to the so called new experience of salvation in which the joy of repentance will stay with me for a while and I would sink in to the old life of sin after a period of time.

As this elementary principles of repentance from dead works and faith towards God became a routine to me (Heb 6:1-2), when I entered in to teen age, sin strongly took control of me and I became a hypocrite after a year or two in to my teen age. I would feel miserable for the wrong evil and lustful things I would indulge in during that time, but I hardened my heart more and more towards God, not knowing that all I need to get back to God was to confess my sins as soon as possible to God (1 John 1:7, 9; Heb 10:19, 22-23).

Finally when I started to enter my twenties, God mercifully in His faithfulness allowed a severe bodily infirmity and a thorn in the flesh through hyper thyroid abnormality (Psa 119:67, 71, 75; 2 Cor 12:8-10). Because of severe infirmity I began to seek God in desperation (Gal 4:13-14). At this time God began to reveal to me how the mercies of God have saved me without any of the works that I have done (Titus 2:4-5). In the midst of all my affliction, the joy of salvation began to engulf me all around. The peace of God that comes knowing we have peace with God already through Jesus Christ then brought an assurance of salvation that had stood the test of times after that even until now (Php 4:6-7; Rom 5:1). From that time onwards I have taken the shield of faith with which I have been able to quench the fiery missiles of unbelief, doubt, wrong doctrines of men, sinful behavior and evil thoughts of the wicked one (Eph 6:16-17).

Further as days and years went on, I have stood by the word of God and nothing but the Bible I have allowed to convince me about eternal things. I thank God and praise Him for having revealed His truth and Himself to me through His word which I truly love in my life now. Sola Scriptura (Scripture Alone) became my motto in life as I depended on God by faith to put all the weight of questions on Him and received the answers of life to guide me in the ways of God.

Today I ask all my dear friends, do you know within you that you are saved? Do you have the testimony of God within you? Have you heard the Spirit of God assure you within your spirit-man that you are saved and have now become a child of God? If your answer to the above questions are a no, today I ask you to pray with me this following prayer by faith towards God, and I can assure you that the God in heaven who responded to me by giving assurance of salvation within me will now give it within you.

Say this from you heart sincerely, "Dear God, I am a sinner in need of salvation. I deserve hell for all the sins I have done, but I thank you that by your love you have sent Jesus your only begotten Son and have promised that if I believe in Him, I will not perish in hell fire but will have everlasting life (John 3:16). Now I believe in Jesus as my Lord and Saviour who has taken my sin during His baptism and made me righteousness of God forever, and then He carried my sins on to the Cross two thousand years ago and shed His sinless blood to forgive all my past, present and future sins forever (Heb 10:12, 17, 19, 22; Eph 4:32). Thank you for saving me from sins by giving me salvation as a gift apart from my works (Eph 2:8-9). Help me serve you and walk in the good works prepared before hand which you had planned for me to walk and be a example to all the people around me (Eph 2:10). Help me to look to your word to find assurance of salvation whenever I slip off because of sin and face any kind of doubt or unbelief regarding my salvation. May 'only the Scriptures,' be my motto from now onwards. In Jesus name I pray!!! Praise the Lord!!!"

Now that you are saved, ask the Holy Spirit to give you assurance that you are saved and that you are a child of God! I bet you, sure He will. Rejoice in your salvation from now onwards, because your destiny has forever been changed. For those of you who have been saved in the past and have lost the assurance because of your doubt and unbelief, from today never again doubt your salvation by your behavior because salvation is a gift that God has given to you apart from your behavior by your belief in His word. So may you doubt your doubts based on your belief in the word of God that never changes forever, but remain firm in faith on the word of God and you will overcome all unbelief and doubts that arises to test and shake your faith and finally make you miserable (Matt 24:35). When you continually live by faith in the word of God, you will begin to experience more and more the abundant life of joy and peace which Jesus has promised to give irrespective of the circumstances you go through in you lives journey (John 10:10; Php 4:4). So enjoy your journey of your walk with God day by day!

Much Blessings....

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Did Jesus Make A Pact With The Father Before He Became Man?

If Jesus Was God...?

Question : Who saved Jesus during the crucifixion? Nobody. If He was God he could have saved Himself. Ok...He died for 3 days, at that time who looked after the universe if He was still God. If Jesus was God why should He say,"My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me." I am not good in religion but logic can tell. If Jesus was God why He should say, "I am of myself can do nothing." So it shows that, "The power to save is from God who is one and the only person, and not the one God in three person."

Answer : Jesus voluntarily died on the Cross because He himself said, "17 “Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. 18 No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father.”" (John 10:17-18). The love of Jesus made Him who is the Creator of the universe to give His life to redeem mankind from sin. In other words, anytime during the death and even after His death, He had power over Himself to wake Himself up from that state of death, but doing the will of the Father in heaven, Jesus waited for three days by committing His life in to the hands of the Father God (Luke 23:46). Father God seeing His submission, resurrected Jesus on the third day through the Spirit (Rom 8:11) and immediately sent Him to Hades prison under the earth to preach the full gospel to the righteous spirits in Prison who died in the flood during the time of Noah due to their disobedience (1 Peter 3:18-19; 4:6).

Father God in heaven was looking after the Universe as usual including when Jesus was dead for three days. And Jesus Himself confirmed this fact during the time of His ministry, Jesus said that His Father was working always right from the day man fell in to sin so He too was working as He Himself is God's Son, and Jehovah God in the Old Testament Himself said in His word that He never slumbers nor sleeps (Matt 10:29; John 5:17; Psa 121:4). At the time of creation Jesus spoke the whole universe in to existence and from that day the universe is running according to the set laws of God by the power of the word that Jesus spoke while creating it (Heb 1:2-3; John 1:10). Jesus does not have to run around the universe once in a while to maintain its right speed or He has to keep speaking to maintain the earth's position right. Jesus commanded in the beginning and all the universe obeys Him until today (Gen 1:1-5; Psa 11:90-91; Jer 33:25-26).

Because the sins of all humanity was placed upon Jesus and He himself became the embodiment of sin, at that point of time even though God's heart would have longed to look and help His only begotten Son, because His eyes of justice was so pure that it could not behold evil and look on wickedness (2 Cor 5:21; Hab 1:13; Isa 30:18), God's anger against our sins was seen in God for a moment in the light of eternity when He forsook Jesus. But after Jesus suffered three hours for the sins of humanity, God with everlasting mercies embraced His Son again by tearing the veil of the temple in to two from top to bottom and made way for Jesus to commit his spirit in to His hands, thus welcoming His Son back in to His very throne room Presence of the Holy of Holies (Isa 54:7-10; Luke 23:44-46; John 19:30; Heb 9:12). Jesus was forsaken by God for our sins and anytime He could have come out of the suffering, but we humanity in our sins would have been lost forever (Matt 27:46). That cry, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" was for us and not for Himself. Jesus Himself told that if He prayed to His Father in heaven, the next micro second 72000 angels approx would appear to defend Him and rescue Him from suffering (Matt 26:53), he chose not to do that to save us who believe in Jesus from our sins. Jesus chose not to use His power as He made a pact with Father God before becoming man that He would act as God's bond-servant all through His life on earth, so that all humans could be saved from sin (Php 2:5-8). So Jesus had the power but did not use it independently apart from the Father's will because of submitting to Father God according to His pact. God honored it and gave Jesus the highest name in all the universe so that He was able to lift all His brethren on earth to His spiritual height (Php 2:9-11; Eph 1:19-23; 2:6-7).

Jesus learned obedience through submission and suffering, though He Himself was God who was found in appearance as man, yet this pact that He made with the Father regarding the salvation for man made Him suffer for us (Heb 10:7-9; Php 2:8). Jesus said, "...The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner... I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me." (John 5:19, 30). The above verses does not mean that Jesus is powerless to do anything by Himself, but it does mean that Jesus by His own choice has chosen to do only the will of God. And so He was telling that what ever He sees the Father doing He was doing also because of the pact He made with the Father God in heaven before coming to the earth as a human. He was doing the will of the Father so that He could save us from sins (Luke 19:10; Matt 18:11).

So I conclude that Jesus though He was God in the flesh, yet He chose to submit to God the Father as His obedient bond servant to fulfill the pact that He made with the Father before coming to the earth. The pact was as follows, if Jesus would 100% fulfill God's will in His own life and die for the sins of mankind, God the Father in heaven promised that all humanity who would believe in His death as their own for the sins that they have committed, would be forgiven, acquitted and justified before Him (Isa 53:10-11; Rom 5:1). So we cannot ask, If Jesus was God question at all because He was God who became man, as God's servant for us humans He lived for 33 years approx and died for our sins and rose again by the Spirit of God to tell everyone that all their sins are forever forgiven and that we are justified before God through Him (1 Cor 15:16-17; Rom 4:25). It is misunderstanding the triune God and the pact of Jesus with the Father that confuses the monotheist of other religion to understand the deep meaning of it. So one should first get acquainted with the basic in these two areas to get a clear understanding.

Much Blessings.... :)

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Elijah Is Coming Or Has Come?

Who Is Coming, The Spirit Of Elijah Or Elijah Himself?

Question : Will just the spirit of Elijah or Elijah himself will come very soon in our end time according to Scriptures?

Answer : The Jewish people of 2000 years ago were expecting to see the Old Testament Prophet Elijah literally, physically descend from heaven as God promised them through the Prophet Malachi around 450 B.C. saying, " 5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD. 6 And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.” (Malachi 4:5-6). This they were expecting before Messiah would come to deliver them from the bondage of evil.

According to the Old Testament book of II Kings chapter 2, Elijah the Prophet had ascended "into heaven" in a "chariot of fire", in this same way they were expecting him to come and announce the coming of the Messiah. But as the New Testament says, "14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one." (1 Cor 2:14-15), they were not spiritual enough to understand the right interpretation of God's timetable of his blueprint for the salvation of humanity.

Because these Jewish people were fleshly expecting a political kingdom to be set up by the Messiah as they were under Roman rule and oppression, they completely missed that God was going to send the Messiah the first time for the people of Israel and for the Holy City of Jerusalem, "...To finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy [in heaven (Heb 9:12)]." (Dan 9:24). With their natural mind they could not understand the spiritual plan of God which He had to free people from their sins and also bless the whole world spiritually if the Jews would reject the offer of the suffering Messiah (Matt 21:42-44; 23:34-39; Rom 11:20-33). Only when the Jews will accept Him as the Messiah who have suffered for their sins on the Cross, then Jesus will appear in His Second Coming to the earth to rescue them from the imminent destruction of the nation of Israel from Antichrist and the nations of the world at time of Armageddon (Zech 12:10-11; Rev 19:19-21).

The spiritual people who expected the things of God to happen in God's own way understood and saw the Messiah as a baby and praised God for seeing salvation, in the same way, also Zacharias understood how Elijah's power will come upon Israel through his little boy John the Baptist whom God gave to them to make him the greatest prophet who will welcome Messiah to Israel through his baptism (Luke 1:13-17, 46-55, 67-80; 3:21-22). To both Simeon a just and devout man and Anna a prophetess, God promised that they will see the little baby Messiah and exactly according to His promise they saw him and were satisfied (Luke 2:25-38). These people were spiritual enough to understand the truth from the Spirit and were not fleshly to misunderstand and miss God's ways in their generation.

Before the time John the Baptist was conceived in his mother's womb, an angel of the Lord visited Zacharias his father and told him about the prophetic future of his baby by saying, "...15 For he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink. He will also be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. 16 And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. 17 He will also go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, ‘to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,’ and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”" (Luke 1:15-17). From the above Scriptures we know that John the Baptist was the one who had come to turn "the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers" so that they all could turn to accept the wisdom of the just and be prepared for the Messiah's coming. During the first coming of Jesus, thus John the Baptist in the spirit and power of Elijah did the job of Elijah to turn the people of God towards the Lord (Matt 3:1-12; Luke 3:1-20).

God always has spiritual fulfillment and also literal fulfillment for all His Scriptures. First the Spiritual and then the literal fulfillment is the order of God's execution (1 Cor 15:46). So in the first coming of Jesus, the spiritual fulfillment of Malachi's prophecy has already taken place, but the literal fulfillment of it will also happen in the very near future in which Elijah the prophet who had gone in to heaven will again come alive to this present earth to warn the people of the earth against accepting the false Messiah of Antichrist, but to wait for the true Messiah Jesus who will come to rescue them from this false impostor of evil. At that time whoever will try to destroy Prophet Elijah and Prophet Enoch of the Old Testament (Jude 14-15), they will command "Fire" against all their enemies and a supernatural fire of heaven will immediately come and consume them all (Rev 11:3-6). They will stand at the entrance of the third temple which will be built soon and will bring the judgment of God on the unbelieving world, they will demonstrate their ministry for three and half years after which they will die being overcome and killed by the beast, and will get resurrected after three and half days and will return back to heaven (Rev 11:1-2, 7-13). These two prophets will blow the prophetic horn for repentance of all humans, to make them fear God and turn them around to believe the Messiah because the final war of the Messiah will be at hand at that time in which Anti-Messiah and all his supporters will be killed (Joel 2:1; Rev 8:1-6; 9:20-21; Matt 24:12). After this event literally Jesus will come to defeat all His enemies and rule on earth for a thousand years (Rev 16:12-15; 19:11-21; 20:4).

Jesus agreed with the same truth we discussed above. The four closest disciples of Jesus who were Peter, James, John and his brother Andrew were taken by Jesus to a high mountain later at the end of His ministry, in which they saw Jesus' transfiguration as the Son of God and also saw Elijah and Moses literally appearing and talking with Jesus about his departure from earth to heaven which was going to happen very soon through His death on the Cross for their sins, all these things they saw in a vision and understood that Jesus was God their Messiah on earth. Immediately while coming down from the mountain, their natural mind being confused with what their spiritual mind saw, asked about the mysterious theological question of Elijah that was still unsolved at that time because all the Scribes who were the most brilliant theologians of their times were still saying that Elijah must come first and then only Messiah can ever come, thus rejecting the belief of people that Jesus was the Messiah of all (Matt 17:1-10).

"11 Jesus answered and said to them, “Indeed, Elijah is coming first and will restore all things. 12 But I say to you that Elijah has come already, and they did not know him but did to him whatever they wished. Likewise the Son of Man is also about to suffer at their hands.” 13 Then the disciples understood that He spoke to them of John the Baptist." (Matt 17:11-13). In the above verses one of the greatest truth of all time about the coming of Elijah has been revealed by Jesus. When Jesus said, "Indeed, Elijah is coming first and will restore all things", he did agree with what the Scribes were telling but placed this event in the future of his Second Coming. But when Jesus continued saying, "But I say to you that Elijah has come already, and they did not know him but did to him whatever they wished. Likewise the Son of Man is also about to suffer at their hands.", he was emphasizing that this was his first coming so already Elijah has come spiritually in the form of John the Baptist who came in the "spirit and power of Elijah" (Luke 1:17) and he was killed by evil people to make a way for Himself to die for the sins of the world and bring everlasting righteousness to all humans (John 1:29, 36-37; Matt 3:14-17). Once He explained this truth they "understood that He spoke to them of John the Baptist."

As we are living in the end of time, we should understand that as Jesus is going to come for His bride the Church and want to rapture us all back to His and ours Father's mansions in the heavenly city of New Jerusalem (John 14:2-3; 1 Thess 1:10; Heb 11:16), once again the spirit and the power of Elijah will come upon the Church spiritually to revive and turn it towards the Lord Jesus its Messiah before the rapture takes place. Also this truth was confirmed by John the Baptist himself who told that Jesus the bridegroom must increase in the desire of the bride of His which is the Church and he as a personality must decrease before their eyes (John 3:29-30). Now that the shell of John the Baptist's body is no more who is the Elijah to come (Matt 11:14), he who is the least in the kingdom of heaven will operate in a greater capacity than him to violently take the kingdom of God by force which suffers violence from the days of John the Baptist who is the spiritual Elijah who opened up the "spirit and power of Elijah" to turn people towards Jesus until the time of rapture of the Church in which the Spirit without measure will be withdrawn because literal Elijah immediately will appear literally in Jerusalem after the rapture of the Church (Matt 11:11-12; John 3:34; John 20:21).

So both the spirit and power of Elijah will be upon the Church in its zenith to turn people to Jesus before the rapture takes place in these end of end times and also Elijah himself will literally come very soon to Jerusalem once the Church is raptured with Jesus in our end time according to Scriptures. Both are right and will take place very soon.

Much Blessings...

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New Earth Or Old Reformed?

Will The Present Earth Exist Forever?

By Abraham Israel

Question : Will the present earth exist forever? I want a Biblical basis to believe that it is true.

Answer : There are a lot of people of God who have been misled by the opinion of great Bible teacher's who have taught in the past that God will not destroy this present earth completely because it is the will of God that it should continue forever.

To prove this they begin to quote the following Scriptures,

“While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease.” (Gen 8:22).

Actually this is a promise of God made to Noah after the flood destroyed the whole world because of the wrath of God for the sinfulness of all mankind at that time (Gen 6:13). Many have pointed to the word "shall not cease" at the end of the above verse and have wrongly come to the conclusion that this present earth will not cease to exist but rather be reformed. Actually this is a mistake and a error because at the beginning of the same verse, God has clearly put a conditional statement that says, "While the [present] earth remains", which in other words means 'as long as the present earth continues' then "seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease". So this clearly proves that the present earth has a limited lifetime.

"68 But chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion which He loved. 69 And He built His sanctuary like the heights, like the earth which He has established forever." (Psa 78:69).

This is the next Scripture that is used to point out that God has "established [the earth] forever". But we see that in context to the earthly Mount Zion of Jerusalem this comparison is done and not the heavenly eternal Mount Zion that in above which cannot be touched physically (Heb 12:18-24; Gal 4:26). So as the Scripture says, the earthly and physical is temporal and has an expiry date, and that which is heavenly is eternal and imperishable (2 Cor 4:18). Therefore, the interpretation for the above verse for the phrase "like the earth which He has established forever" will go like this, "like the earth which God has established according to the set time of its existence in His purpose" thus indicating that "forever" in an earthly sense has both time and purpose for the fulfillment of God's plan and not an eternal one like the new earth which will exist forever in to eternity (Rev 21:1).

"5 You who laid the foundations of the earth, so that it should not be moved forever, 6 You covered it with the deep as with a garment; The waters stood above the mountains. 7 At Your rebuke they fled; At the voice of Your thunder they hastened away. 8 They went up over the mountains; They went down into the valleys, to the place which You founded for them. 9 You have set a boundary that they may not pass over, that they may not return to cover the earth." (Psa 104:5-9).

These above Scriptures also clearly indicates that God's promise to Noah through the sign of rainbow on the sky signifying that rain will not come in such a destructive way as like it came upon Noah's time to destroy the whole world, and also it mentions the Genesis story in which God rebuked the waters that covered the earth against His will and purpose, which was caused by the fall of fallen angels who fell and started working against God in rage to create chaos initially in the earth (Gen 9:11-17; 1:1-2; Rev 12:4, 9). So in context, the above 5th verse "You who laid the foundations of the earth, so that it should not be moved forever" means that 'because God has put the foundation of the present earth, as long as it remains it shall not be moved.' Once the set time for the existence of the present earth gets over, the whole earth will be completely destroyed and not just its foundation (2 Peter 3:10).

The same applies to Psalms 119:90 which says, "Your faithfulness endures to all generations; You established the earth, and it abides...". In other words, because God established the present earth, it continues until the destruction comes, once His purpose for it gets over. God's faithfulness to keep it intact makes it to abide in its position.

"One generation passes away, and another generation comes; But the earth abides forever." (Eccl 1:4). This Scripture does not guarantee that earth will not get destroyed at all, all its says is that no matter generation after generation of people come and go until the appointed time and purpose of God gets fulfilled, no human or spirits in the heavenlies can destroy it without His permission and appointed time.

All these Old Testament Scriptures are written in context to the earthly existence of humans and only the New Testament reveals about the heavenly and eternal life ahead for all humans (John 3:16). So all the Scriptures in the Old Testament cannot be taken in to eternal context of God continuing with this present earth when He has clearly revealed in the New Testament that the first time He destroyed the world with water, but at the end of time, He will destroy it with fire so that not even a iota of dust will remain, but will become in to gaseous state of untraceable proportion in eternity, once the plan and purpose of God to redeem the redeemed people of faith gets over (2 Peter 3:5-10). Only the following two Scriptures Isa 65:17; 66:22 prophetically spoke about the coming new earth in the Old Testament. Isaiah never understood its implication clearly, yet he prophesied by inspiration of the Holy Spirit to our New Testament generation about what is coming ahead for us (1 Peter 1:10-12; 2 Peter 1:20-21).

So right from the New Testament we will see what is the final word that God says about this topical question 'Will The Present Earth Exist Forever?'

1) John the apostle wrote most clearly about the new earth till date that it cannot be ever misunderstood until the interpretation of it is done intentionally to mean what it is not. Here is the final word of God that apostle John prophetically saw in his vision about the new earth and said, "Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea." (Rev 21:1). The important thing of note in the above verse are,

(i) John the apostle speaks about a eternally imperishable "new heaven and new earth" and also he speaks about the passing away of an earthly natural "first heaven and the first earth" (Rev 21:1). The apostle Peter confirms this truth by saying that he believes a natural earth destroyed by God, "But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up." (2 Peter 3:10) and gave hope to all believers about an imperishable "new heavens and new earth" in which righteousness dwells (2 Peter 3:13). In the above verse, the present earthly and temporally existing earth which is the "first" will be destroyed and then it is compared by the apostle to a future heavenly permanent existence which is the "new" in its material content and make up is said to be present which will never be destroyed or shaken (Heb 12:25-29). Both should never be mixed and confused.

(ii) John the apostle speaks about the "new heaven and a new earth" in direct contrast to the "the first heaven and the first earth", and thus have signified that it should not be mixed and misunderstood. One has existed in the past and the other one will be the one to come in the future. Apostle John used the word "first" before the earth to make it clear that the second is not the last but the eternal earth which is not the first which has passed away in to untraceable gaseous state of non existence (2 Peter 3:10-12).

(iii) In our first earth there was sea even from the beginning as far as we can incur from the word of God, and the heaven was of old which means it was created in the beginning (Gen 1:1-2). The apostle Peter confirms this truth by saying, "5 For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, 6 by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. 7 But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men." (2 Peter 3:5-7). The world of Noah's time perished by water that has been present from the beginning and as God wants to make a difference between the Old Earth [i.e. the present existing one] which had water since the beginning and the new earth which will have no sea at all (Rev 21:1), God has decided to melt the present old earth to tell to everyone of the redeemed people of God that the new earth will not be a reformed one of the same materials and structure, but a totally different structure which has no purpose of sea in it at all.

2) Apostle Peter gave great hope for all believers to look not for the old perishable earth but for the imperishable new earth by saying, "Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells." (2 Peter 3:13). Here when the apostle starts with the word "we", he is saying about the exclusivity of all believers of Jesus who are a new creation (2 Cor 5:17), to "look for new heavens and a new earth" which clearly implies that he is not speaking about this present earth but is speaking about something that is unseen but believed and seen by faith (2 Cor 4:18; 5:7). If apostle Peter had said to the believers to 'look to new heavens and a new earth' it means that they can at least look to the present earth and heavens, and imagine how the reformed earth and heavens will be. But when he is saying to look "for new heavens and a new earth", he is definitely speaking about something that is beyond human imaginations that cannot be perceived or conceived to give it a outline of how it might look like in our finite mind. So what apostle Peter is saying is, look to God's promise and see by faith in your spiritual eyes what can only be believed. This proves that there can be no chance for the present earth to continue, as it will be destroyed completely and a new earth which we are believing by faith will come in to existence, which will continue forever because in it the righteousness of Christ will dwell forever through redeemed saints inhabiting and living in it.

3) Apostle Peter confirmed that new heavens and a new earth is something that God has prepared for all the believers and that each of us should not look to the present earth which works in contrast to the new and is heading for eternal destruction but to the new heavens and a new earth where God will dwell with us literally (2 Peter 3:13).

Apostle Paul reemphasized the prophet Isaiah of old and said, "9 But as it is written [(Isa 64:4; 65:17)]: “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.” 10 But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit...12 Now we have received,...the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. 13 These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual...16 For “who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ [so we believe and understand it spiritually within us]." (1 Cor 2:9-10, 12-13, 16).

The future new heavens and new earth is described here above by apostle Paul to be something inconceivable to natural human imagination and understanding of mind because God has prepared it for the saints and have kept it in secret until the time we will inhabit it after the thousand years reign with Christ (Rev 21:1). All believers after they die go on to be with the Lord and will live in New Jerusalem where temporary mansions will be given to all believers until the thousand years reign with Christ will be over (2 Cor 5:8; Php 1:23; John 14:1-3; Heb 12:22-23). Once the thousand years of reign of Christ along with us on this present earth gets over, then this present earth will perish and the white throne judgment of God will take place in which all unbelievers will be discarded for eternity without God. Once this is over, then the New Jerusalem in which all the saints of God were living with God until then will be lowered and the New Jerusalem will be kept in the middle of the new earth. Once the New Jerusalem is kept on the new earth, the redeemed saints will scatter themselves through out the whole new earth to form new nations with kings appointed by God according to their inherited glory all over it, and then they will start to live with the Lord who is the King of kings in the middle of it (Rev 19:16). And God from then on will live with all the redeemed saints forever and ever in the new earth (Rev 19:14, 6, 11-15; 21:1-8, 22-27). Apostle Paul also promised that if we are spiritual people, we can receive information from the supernatural world through the Holy Spirit and can be able to believe it for our self with conviction within our self. Spiritual people have the mind of Christ to understand spiritual things spiritually. So all these things gives us an idea that this present sin cursed earth can never become a landing place for the holy city of New Jerusalem even if it is reformed, and so it is fit only for fire to be burnt like a unclean garbage (Gen 3:17-19; Rev 21:1-3; 2 Peter 3:10). God's decree cannot be broken or withheld until it is fulfilled and so the old earth will be burnt with fire to become dissolved and untraceable (Esther 8:8; 2 Peter 3:11-12; Isa 34:4).

4) The present size of the earth is so small that it is easily conceivable to human mind and I believe that the new earth will be so infinitely big and beautiful that eternity will only be enough to fully explore and enjoy it for the Glory of God (1 Tim 6:17).

5) New earth will be a brand new one because in it there will be no more sin or the effects of sin upon anybody or anything forever (Rev 21:4). Because of this purity of the new earth in all its make up, God guarantees that nothing that defiles or causes abomination can by no means enter the New Jerusalem which will be placed in the midst of the new earth. Because of the lack of even the slightest trace of sin in the new earth God guarantees a sinless state in New Jerusalem and lack of the effects of sin in the new earth like no more death, sorrow, crying and pain in it (Rev 21:27). Only God will be present to wipe away the tears of people who will cry with tears of joy and feel deeply grateful to God for the new life on new earth which they will experience just opposite to their old earthly lives of troubles which they had and all of which they have in their memory (Rev 21:4; John 16:33).

6) Finally many people believe that because God has spoken about the nation of Israel saying, "35 Thus says the LORD, who gives the sun for a light by day, the ordinances of the moon and the stars for a light by night, who disturbs the sea, and its waves roar (The LORD of hosts is His name): 36 “If those ordinances depart from before Me, says the LORD, then the seed of Israel shall also cease from being a nation before Me forever” (Jer 31:35-36), they think that the God is saying that moon, sun and stars will continue to give light forever and also the nation of Israel will continue forever. But God is saying just the opposite truth in this above Scriptures. What is it? God is saying, the nation of Israel will exist until the sun, moon and the stars will exist to give its light to the earth. Then we might come to think, for how long the the heavenly bodies of the sun, moon and stars will continue? Apostle Peter gave the right exact answer to this by saying, "10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up. 11 Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, 12 looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat?" (2 Peter 3:10-12). Here Peter speaks about the day of the Lord and it seems to us like he is speaking about the second coming of Jesus, but in reality when he is saying, "the day of the Lord," he is actually saying about a thousand years reign of Jesus Christ on earth along with his saints. He is saying that it actually starts with the rapture day in which Jesus will come as a thief in the night to take away His Church from the earth, and he also speaks that at the end of it "the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat,...all these things will be dissolved,...[Because of] the coming of the day of God [i.e. a thousand years reign of Christ], because of which the heavens will be dissolved [at the end of it], being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat?"

From the above exposition we know that though Jesus will come to the earth after the Great Tribulation and will judge the earth to discard sinners and unbelievers from it and then will rule for a thousand years (Matt 24:29-31; 25:31-46; Rev 20:4), yet the destruction of the present heavens and the earth will happen only at the end of it (Rev 21:1). So within that one verse in 2 Peter 3:10, it starts with the rapture of the Church, and then the thousand years of Jesus' reign stands hidden inside the same verse, and then directly apostle Peter goes to the end of the Millennium in which this present earth and heavens will all be dissolved and burned up. So nobody should mix all these things and get confused in their study about the end time events. The bottom line we understand is that Israel as a nation will only exist until the end of the Millennium rule of Jesus Christ, in which Satan being released from his prison will go to the four corners of the earth and will deceive them to form a world alliance under God and Magog (Russia), whose numbers together will be like the sand of the sea, and will make then to come and surround the camp of the saints in Jerusalem the beloved city of God to destroy it (Rev 20:-9). At this point of time, fire will come from heaven supernaturally, and thus all the earth and heavens will be burnt by fire to be dissolved completely (Rev 20:9; 2 Peter 3:10-12). Solomon the wisest king who was also a psalmist agrees with this scenario and says, "In His days the righteous shall flourish, and abundance of peace, until the moon is no more." In other words, Solomon is saying that in the Millennium rule of Jesus, all righteous people will prosper in their lives until the moon is no more, which clearly points that at the end of the Millennium, moon will be no more because it will be burned up when the heavens will pass away with a great noise as we have already seen.

Conclusion :

From all the above clear cut scriptural exposition, we know that neither will the present earth exist forever nor it will be reformed to become the new earth. But altogether this first old earth will be destroyed by fire and will become in to gaseous state of untraceable proportions. And then God will unveil His new earth which cannot be shaken anymore and will make the redeemed saints inhabit it once this old earth vanishes forever. Until then all the saints have to look forward with expectations and should rejoice that their destiny is unimaginably greater and bigger than they can ever think. Praise the Lord!

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