General Articles

Manger, Cross, Grave, Throne :: By Grant Phillips

Published on: by RR10

Christmas is only eight days away as I type these words. Most at this time of year are thinking of Christmas trees, decorations, lights, family gatherings, dinners, cookies … and, oh yes, presents! Many children are getting excited and can hardly wait. Christians enjoy these things too, but we are also enjoying special events at our local churches and thinking how blessed we all are that God sent His Son to us.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

MANGER

All of us are sinners and need a Savior. Have you ever wondered why Jesus started out on His rescue mission in a manger as a helpless baby? We all inherited a sin nature from our original parents, Adam and Eve, and when that happened, all of us also inherited a debt we cannot pay. That sin debt could only be paid by the blood sacrifice of another like us that is without sin … but there’s a problem. Everyone born from Adam and Eve is corrupted with sin, so no one could ever be qualified.

Only God is without sin, but God, as God, couldn’t be that sacrifice. Remember, the sacrifice must be of like kind, a human being, and they must be totally pure, without sin. This is why God said I will be that sacrifice by taking on human flesh and pay that debt for anyone who will accept it.

“who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:6-11).

So, at this time of the year, we celebrate God temporally laying aside His glory and becoming man, born of a virgin, and they called His name Jesus. Throughout Jesus’ earthly life, He was tempted as we are and experienced the ups and downs of being human. Yet throughout it all, He never once defiled Himself with sin. He remained pure and undefiled all the way to the cross. Even Pilate said, “I find no fault in Him” (John 19:4).

Jesus is God and is called the Son of God, but He also apparently liked to be called the Son of Man. He loved identifying with us. If anyone could have had a snooty nature, it would have to be Jesus, but He wasn’t that way at all. I don’t think we’ll ever understand His pure love until we see Him face to face. No, there was no snobbery in Jesus. Read the Gospel accounts (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) about Him and see for yourself.

CROSS

Sad to say, I have met some folks who have their nose so uplifted, they would drown if it rained. They even call themselves Christians. A better name would be Pharisees. Whether they are or not a Christian is for God to decide, but concerning Jesus, His arms are always open to accept anyone who will come to Him. I will not rehash the horrible physical suffering Jesus endured for us, but I personally believe that when the Father had to turn away from Him at the cross, He experienced a suffering that you and I cannot comprehend.

The Holy Spirit tells us through the apostle Paul, “And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13).

Jesus’ love for us took Him to the cross and kept Him on the cross until His work was done. His grace is what saves us, but if it hadn’t been for His love for us, we would not be celebrating His birth in that lowly manger.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).

GRAVE

In 1874, Robert Lowry wrote a hymn called “Christ Arose.” Below are the lyrics.

1. Low in the grave He lay,
Jesus, my Savior,
Waiting the coming day,
Jesus, my Lord!

Refrain:
Up from the grave He arose,
With a mighty triumph o’er His foes;
He arose a Victor from the dark domain,
And He lives forever, with His saints to reign.
He arose! He arose!
Hallelujah! Christ arose!

2. Vainly they watch His bed,
Jesus, my Savior;
Vainly they seal the dead,
Jesus, my Lord!

3. Death cannot keep his Prey,
Jesus, my Savior;
He tore the bars away,
Jesus, my Lord!

We should never speak of the cross and omit the grave that now stands empty. Jesus is not in the grave. Mohammad is. Confucius is. Any man-made god you want to mention is in the grave, but not the Son of God. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is alive and well in Heaven and will be returning.

“For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:3-6).

THRONE

“Immediately I was in the Spirit; and behold, a throne set in heaven, and One sat on the throne. And He who sat there was like a jasper and a sardius stone in appearance; and there was a rainbow around the throne, in appearance like an emerald” (Revelation 4:2-3).

Also, please read Revelation 1:1-20. Jesus came to a manger for us. He walked to a Roman cross for us. He walked out of the grave for us. He sits now on His throne in Heaven, waiting for the Father to say something like, “Go get your bride.” His last words in the book of Revelation are, “Yes, I am coming soon.”

Grant Phillips

Email: Phillip5769@twc.com

Pre-Rapture Commentary: http://grant-phillips.blogspot.com

Rapture Ready: https://www.raptureready.com/featured/phillips/phillips.html

Looking for That Blessed Hope: Part 1 :: By Gene Lawley

Published on: by RR10

In the Bible, hope is not wishful thinking, such as, “I hope I get what I want for Christmas” kind of hope. In Titus 2:12-13, Paul writes to Titus, “Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.”

In Luke’s gospel in chapter 21, he relates Jesus’ account of growing end-time difficulties and tribulations, then He says, “When these things begin to happen, look up, for your redemption draws near” (verse 28). Then He tells a parable of the blossoming of the fig tree, which pictures the restoration of Israel to a nation. That occurred on May 14, 1948, and signaled the beginning of the end times of this age. Bible believers have been looking up for their redemption much more intensely in the years since.

The Blessed Hope is Jesus, and that “hope is an anchor of the soul and is both sure and steadfast, which enters into that which is within the veil” (Hebrews 6:19).

When Jesus breathed His last on the cross, major things happened in Jerusalem that day. An earth-shaking earthquake rocked the city, and while the Jews were sacrificing their Passover lamb, the Lamb of God was sacrificed for the sins of mankind. That gift was made ready to be received by “whosoever will.”

In the temple, the heavy veil sealing off the “Holy Place” was torn from top to bottom, and the empty “Holy Place” was open to the world. A few weeks later, the Holy Place became the hearts of mankind when they individually received Christ into their lives. This happened at the Feast of Weeks or Pentecost, fifty days after the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

In 1 Corinthians 6:17, we are told, “those who belong to the Lord have become one spirit with Him.” That Blessed Hope became intensely personal, as Paul wrote to the Colossians, “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27).

But what kind of hope is this Blessed Hope? As indicated above, it is the Hebrews 6:19 kind of hope, an “anchor of the soul.” Romans 8:24-25 tells us how that hope is different than wishful thinking: “For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.”

This is when faith enters the picture. Several places in the Scriptures, it is said, “the just shall live by faith,” and Hebrews 10:38 adds this admonition: “But if any man draws back, My soul has no pleasure in him.” And Hebrews 11:6 brings it to a very personal thing: “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to Him must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder to those who diligently seek Him.”

So let’s talk about “that Blessed Hope.” One of the promises Jesus made in the presence of His disciples and forward to all believers when He ended the Great Commission is at the end of Matthew 28:20: “‘and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.’ Amen.” (Meaning “so be it.”)

I ask the question, “What happens then; does He go away and leave us alone?” No, it is the end of the age, and all of the believers go to be with Him.

Another promise He made is in John 14:2-3: “In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.” (Read this over several times.)

One of the false beliefs prominent now is that there is no pre-tribulation taking out of the world of the believers (the Rapture). Try to fit this promise into Revelation 19, where the prophecy of the Second Coming of Jesus is reported. It does not fit.

Lately, I have been drawn to Proverbs 3:5 for the glaring truth of how easily one can forget the foundational truths of the Word of God and turn to one’s own understanding. It says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” Many false doctrines have risen because of that diversion.

As we consider the coming of that Blessed Hope, we must think of the timing and the conditions in the world. When Paul began to pinpoint the timing of that event in connection with events in the world, he wrote in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-2, “Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come.”

It seems obvious that he is intending to reveal future events that are about this pre-tribulation event now called the “Rapture.”

He then announces, “Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.”

This is the “abomination of desolation” of the Daniel 9:27 prophecy and is done at the halfway point of the coming seven-year tribulation. The description of that event is precise and is not at the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem by the Roman army in 70 A.D.

Back again to 2 Thessalonians 2:6-7, we are told of the spiritual warfare, the “falling away,” and the restraining efforts of righteousness in those coming last days. That One who restrains the evil one until it is the time for the end can only be the Spirit of God in the born-again believers who are in the world. Verses 6-7 tell us how it will happen: “And now you know what is restraining, that he [the evil one] may be revealed in his own time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way.”

Incidentally, some early students of the Bible, perhaps trying to prove their marvelous intelligence, have claimed that the second letter to the Thessalonians was not written by Paul. I just looked at the letter again and noted how Paul began the greetings with his name and two others with him. Then, at the end of the letter, chapter 3, verse 17, he makes a personal salutation: “The salutation of Paul with my own hand, which is a sign in every epistle, so I write.”

Perhaps this is what some latch onto today to deny the fact of the Rapture detailed in that letter. As I pointed out in Proverbs 3:5, turning to one’s own understanding that is based on what the Puritans and early writers believed cannot replace the Word of God fixed in a heart that is solely trusting the Lord. This is how a denial of the Rapture gets promoted as truth and great correlated passages of the Scriptures are ignored as irrelevant and meaningless. It is an appropriate continuity from his first letter.

For many scores of years, America has been the target of evildoers with the intent to destroy the nation’s sovereignty and replace it with a New World Order. Why America, the USA? Topple that citadel of liberty and freedom, and the whole world will fall. Therefore, we are the generation seeing that happen, for the Scriptures do not show a dominating USA in the world at the end of the age. God’s plan is to allow that evil one, the Antichrist, to show himself for seven years, then his judgment of being cast alive into the lake of fire.

What will be the economic and social conditions in the world as this falling away is progressing? Luke reports on this in Luke 17:26-30: “And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.” (Genesis 6:5 and Genesis 19 tell of those prior situations.)

The revealing of the Son of Man will be as Paul described it in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17: “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.” (How does this mesh with John 14:2-3 quoted earlier? It also compares exactly with John 11:25-26.)

It is clear that John Darby and the vision of a teenager named Margaret back in the early 1800s are not the sources of the Rapture of the church doctrine, but the Holy Scriptures tell it like it is!

Finally, we are “looking for that Blessed Hope” to appear in the sky with a shout and the trumpet of God sounding; then, in the “twinkling of an eye,” believers will meet Him there in transformed immortal bodies to be with Him forever and ever! (There’s more following in Part 2.)

Contact email: andwegetmercy@gmail.com