Stop Asking for A Sign: Walk by Faith :: By Sean Gooding

Published on: October 20, 2017 by RR7

Matthew 16: 1-4 (continued)

“Then the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and testing Him asked that He would show them a sign from heaven. He answered and said to them, “When it is evening you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red;’ and in the morning, ‘It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times. A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.’ And He left them and departed.”

Last week we found how the Lord satisfies our needs to the fullest. I have a personal testimony of the Lord’s provision to my family. We needed some beds for our two girls; we also have a son. Their bunk beds had fallen apart a few weeks ago, and we were looking for new beds for them. We kept praying for the Lord to supply for us, as we–like many families–live on tight budgets. The Lord supplied us with two free box springs from a lady who lived about ten minutes from us. And then my wife was able to find a new mattress, two new bed frames and other needed items at a local store that had a great sale; they paid the taxes as well. So now our girls have two new beds, and the cost to us was less than $300. God answered our prayers and supplied all that we needed and beyond. You cannot outgive God. You can never do better for yourself than God can do for you.

We will move on to the importance of proper doctrine. This is a weighty issue for us in the modern church. We can honestly say that there has been a great movement away from the doctrine once delivered to the saints. False doctrine is nothing new. Satan has been trying to slip teachings into the Lord’s work since the Garden of Eden. In Jesus’ day the false doctrine mainly came via the teachings of the Pharisees and Sadducees. These men were revered as scholars in the Law of the OT (Old Testament), but Jesus simply took them head on and destroyed any reliance that they had on their own righteousness. He simply laid them bare as unregenerate agents of Satan.

Give Us a Sign, verse 1

These religious leaders came to Jesus and demanded that He perform a sign from Heaven to convince them that He was who He said He was. What more could they ask for? Just in these last 15 chapters, we have seen Jesus perform miracle after miracle. He did everything from healing the sick, to feeding the masses, casting out demons, and calming the storm of the Sea of Galilee. Don’t ask us to believe that the Pharisees had not seen at least one of these great miracles. Surely they had heard of them; they could easily take firsthand accounts from multiple people about the veracity of the miracles Jesus had performed. There was simply no need for Jesus to put on a ‘dog and pony show’ for them once again. If they were going to believe, they would have by now.

Sadly, I find myself in the same situation, constantly asking God to prove himself over and over again. Think of your marriage: What if–after many years of faithfulness and caring for your spouse: loving her/him; working to provide a home, food, clothing; sharing all of life’s ups and downs–your spouse would come and ask you to prove your love over and over again? What if no matter what you did, no amount of sacrifice or kindness you showed, you had to prove your love over and over, yet he/she doubted it. Well, that is kind of like what we are with God all too often. God has proven His love for us. He has proven His ability to care for us and provide for us. Yet still we ask him to prove himself with every new obstacle. It is as if we are actually waiting for God to fail.

Jesus refused to get involved in their foolishness. He explained how they were able to read the weather simply by looking at the sky (verses 2-3), but refused to believe that He was God, even with a mountain of supernatural evidence right before their eyes. There are none so hardhearted as those who refuse to believe. Jesus addresses them as a ‘wicked and adulterous generation’ (verse 4), because they were seeking for a sign.

Wow, what a statement to our generation! We live amongst a host of churches that are all about the signs from God. They just call on God to perform sign after sign, and that is their basis for belief. Let me share a couple of verses with you:

2 Corinthians 5:7 “For we walk by faith, not by sight.”

Hebrew 11: 1-2 “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good testimony.”

We put our faith in the testimony of the Bible and the men and women who saw firsthand the wonders of the Son of God. We put our faith in the integrity of God in that He wrote the truth in the Bible.

Folks, we are called to believe by faith that Jesus is God and that God has redeemed us in Him. No one, not even Billy Graham, not even the smartest, most elegant preacher in the world, can ‘prove’ that God is real, that the Bible is true or that we will go to Heaven. We have to accept it by faith; we have to trust God and put our faith in Him. We are told in Hebrews 11:2 that this is how the elders attained a good testimony, and it is also the only way for us to have a good testimony as well. I can testify that God has never let me down. When He has closed a door that I prayed to be opened, it was always because He knew what was best for me and did what was best for me, even when I did not appreciate it or even understand it.

Most if not all of the apostles, except for Judas, of course, were executed for the name of Jesus; they refused to back down or deny Him. Since that time millions upon millions have died for the cause of Jesus. They put their faith in the now and the forever as well–in Jesus. They counted that this life was not worth having if that meant denying Jesus. These people put their faith in God, in Jesus, and they accepted the consequences of that faith.

The Only Sign, verse 4

The sign of Jonah: What exactly was the sign of Jonah? Jesus had already dealt with these religious zealots back in chapter 12, and there He first told them of the sign they should look for in verse 39:

“For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

You will recall the account of Jonah from the OT: He was called by God to go and preach to the great city of Nineveh. He did not want to, and so he ran from his task and ended up being thrown into the sea by the sailors of the ship he intended to escape on. God prepared a ‘great fish’ to swallow him and then spit him out three days and three nights later (read Jonah 1-2). The important part of the story to these Pharisees was that Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights; then the fish vomited him out. Thus, the sign was that Jesus would be in the heart of the earth, or the tomb for three days and three nights; then the tomb would open. He would not stay in the tomb, just like Jonah did not stay in the belly of the fish.

We have firsthand testimony from the apostles, including Paul, who hated the followers of Jesus. He initially left Jerusalem in Acts 9 to go to Damascus to find these “heretics” and bring them bound back to Jerusalem to be punished. Then Saul (as he was named then), still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and requested letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus. Then, if he found any who were of “the Way,” whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

This same Paul met the risen Jesus and became an immediate follower. He became the embodiment of a missionary of Christ and wrote 50 percent of the New Testament, testifying to the very event of Jesus’ resurrection. In addition to these 12 men and several women, we are told by God through Paul that over 500 people saw the resurrected Jesus over the course of the 50 days between the resurrection and the ascension, recorded in Acts 1. We see these verses in 1 Corinthians 15: 3-8:

“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. After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time.”

My friends, we have 500+ eyewitnesses to the resurrected Jesus. If a man, who was beaten and killed by Roman soldiers (men who were professional killers), came back from the dead and was seen by 500+ people, many of whom were willing to die rather than deny that the resurrection did not happen, why do we need other signs? The answer is we don’t. God does not need to do another thing to prove who He is to us. We convict people on the eyewitness testimony of one or two witnesses; Jesus had 500+.

God does miraculous things in our lives because He is a miraculous God, not to prove anything to us. He is God; either accept Him by faith or take eternity into your own hands. But stop asking for signs, and be wary of those that keep asking God for signs. Simply believe and put your faith in God. If you are lost He will save you; if you are saved He will reveal Himself to you in new ways, because you trusted by faith.

Romans 4: 1-5 “What then shall we say that Abraham our father has found according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.’ Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt. But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness.”

Sean Gooding, Pastor Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church

Missionarybaptistchurch76@yahoo.ca Missionarybaptistchurch76@yahoo.ca

Evil is Alive and well–For Now :: By Sean Gooding

Published on: October 14, 2017 by RR7

Zechariah Lesson 12, Chapter 5: 5-11

“Then the angel who talked with me came out and said to me, ‘Lift your eyes now, and see what this is that goes forth.’ So I asked, ‘What is it?’ And he said, ‘It is a basket that is going forth.’ He also said, ‘This is their resemblance throughout the earth: Here is a lead disc lifted up, and this is a woman sitting inside the basket.’ Then he said, ‘This is Wickedness!’ And he thrust her down into the basket, and threw the lead cover over its mouth. Then I raised my eyes and looked, and there were two women, coming with the wind in their wings; for they had wings like the wings of a stork, and they lifted up the basket between earth and heaven. So I said to the angel who talked with me, ‘Where are they carrying the basket?’ And he said to me, ‘To build a house for it in the land of Shinar; when it is ready, the basket will be set there on its base’” (Zechariah 5: 5-11, NKJV).

We have had a tumultuous week here in North America, with the shootings in Las Vegas; the cry of ‘pure evil,’ referring to the man who shot all those people. We can also consider that this is a typical week in cities like Chicago, where 50+ people are gunned down each week. At the same time, we hear of sex trafficking going rampant in the world; and, for the life of me, it seems that more female teachers are having sex with students than men all of a sudden. We have the leader of North Korea threatening to launch a nuclear attack against the West, and on and on we can go. There is much more that we can probably talk about, but Evil is everywhere. And, as we approach the end times, it is rapidly going to get worse and worse.

The death of Hugh Hefner, who helped to make Pornography commonplace like all other books, signaled the end of an era. What he began as simply pictures of naked women has spawned into a global billion-dollar industry of immense proportion, with young women and young men now offering themselves to anyone who will pay attention. Pornography has helped to normalize such behaviors as homosexuality, lesbianism, having multiple partners, and just about any kind of sexual perversion one can think of. These things have always been around (Solomon had 1000 women at his sexual disposal). But, what pornography did was to bring them out of the shadows into the light. They made palatable what was once behavior to be hidden. And, last but not least, there has been a removal of shame from our lives.

It would seem that no behavior is shameful anymore; and worse, it seems that most, if not all, can now be excused by the cry of ‘I have a disease.’ Sinful choices are the fruit of our disease. Yes, the disease is our totally corrupted sin nature, and the only cure is Jesus.

Evil is Real, verses 1-8

Today, we will explore the eighth vision that Zechariah sees, that of a woman (representing Evil) in a basket; and her being taken away to the city of Shinar. As we get into this, we need to clear a few things up. In the King James Bible, the word ‘basket’ is referred to as an Ephah; it is a description of a basket that was common in the era, that carried an ephah of measurement. So, in translations like New King James, it is translated as a basket. That is what it was. In the basket sits a woman. An ephah, as far as I can research, was about 6-7 gallons. So, this basket was not big enough to hold a grown woman; but a lot of the deities that the Jews followed after in rebellion to God were female deities such as: Asherah (the lady of the sea) from the books of the Kings, who was supposedly the wife of God; Anat, the goddess of war and sister of Baal; and Astarte, the goddess of fertility.

There are others, but these were some of the ones who stole the hearts of the people of Israel. Later in the New Testament we would hear of goddesses like Diana and others, who were worshiped by many cities in the Roman Empire. Many of these female deities were worshiped in sexual perversion and promiscuity. In the Roman times, prostitution – including temple prostitution – was normal everyday behavior.

The book of Romans tells us in chapter 1:24-26 that, when we turn our backs on the Lord God, the Creator, we will then be able to do all manner of evil:

“Therefore, God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason, God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise, also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.”

We see the whole idea of sexual perversion in these verses, but these are a gateway to other evils; and the two often go hand in hand. The word that is used in the Bible for evil is ‘Wickedness.’ This is defined as ‘baseness, viciousness, depravity, immorality, corruption, villainy and dishonesty.

Wow! This gives us a whole new understanding of the growth and prevalence of evil in our midst. We are an evil people, and we would love to be able to blame it on a disease, a mental disorder, a lack of proper upbringing – whatever takes the blame from me, us, the man in the mirror. I am evil, sold under sin, and so are you. Our world system is corrupt, sold under sin. The religious system is wicked, sold under sin and greed.

We have, as a society, turned our backs on God. Sadly, a lot of churches have done the same. They have traded the truth of God’s word for money, popularity and attendance. God’s truths are cast aside like dung. New ideas and new gospels are preached; and wickedness grows. How many pastors have been arrested for corruption or stealing, or have been caught in adultery? Some that I have read of don’t even believe the Bible, or have never trusted God as Savior. This is wickedness.

I recently read of a congresswoman in the US that was indicted on 37 counts of stealing from a charity to pay for her lifestyle. The corruption is just as strong in the Canadian government.

Folks, evil is alive and well in our time. It has taken over the schools. For instance: The man who helped to write the sex education course for the Province of Ontario was arrested for child pornography. This is wickedness. Now we can understand why the curriculum is so sexually explicit. He is helping to groom our children to be perverts like him.

There are systemic evils around us. The Vatican continues to cover up the sexual predators of the ‘church’ from all over the world. They even house some in Vatican City so that they cannot be prosecuted.

Idolatry is rampant. We have kicked God out of our homes and schools; and now He has to be replaced. We need something or someone to worship. God built that into us; we cannot escape it. So now, instead of prayer rooms to God, we have Muslim prayer rooms. We have more yoga being pushed on our kids than ever before. There are Buddhas, and just about everything but God.

It is hard to find a TV show that does not promote the homosexual lifestyle and make it seem normal. We murder 3000+ babies a day in North America; often their body parts are being sold for profit. There is no remorse and no regret, no shame, no fear of God, and no repentance. Abortion has become a get- out-of-pregnancy-free card. Sleep around, throw your legs open for anyone; and then just kill the child and do it again. Evil is prevalent and getting worse — and more and more accepted as the norm.

Evil is Kept at Bay, for Now, verse 7-8

There is a lead disc that is placed over the woman in the basket. With a bit of research, I was able to find out that this lead disc would have been about 108 lbs. or so of lead, enough to keep the woman in the basket. Evil is rampant, but it is still restrained by an outside force. In the New Testament, we find this verse in 2 Thessalonians 2:7: “For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work, but the one now restraining will do so until he is out of the way.”

This verse tells us that lawlessness is now at work. Actually, the ‘mystery’ of lawlessness is now at work, but there is someone restraining it. Soon, that someone will be taken out of the way, and there will be no more restraining. If you think that we have evil today in the world, the world after the Rapture will make ours look like a sunny meadow filled with beautiful yellow daisies. Right now, the Holy Spirit is on the earth; it is the heavy weight on evil. Soon, we will be raptured; the New Testament church will be ‘caught up’ to Jesus. The Holy Spirit will leave His job as restrainer, and then evil will become rampant like never before.

Society has called for the removal of God for the last 50 years, and He has gradually allowed the evil bound in us to come to the surface. Think of how children were mischievous back in the 60’s; but, in the last 10 years, we have seen the growth of evil amongst our youth. We see a rise in deliberate disobedience and defiance to any authority. Just a few years ago, there was a prostitution ring run by teenage girls through Facebook. Two of the girls were 15 years old, and the other was 17 at the time.
We have seen more and more ‘girly boys,’ but now suddenly rampant are these young boys who see themselves as girls; and worse, their parents and the society around them are condoning it and even promoting it.

We have had the growth of churches who don’t preach against anything. Everything is okay because Jesus loves you, and He does not want to hurt you or make you feel uncomfortable. Maybe they need to read the passages in the Gospels where Jesus addresses the Pharisees as ‘hypocrites’ and as ‘grave sites.’ He called the apostle Peter ‘Satan’ at one time; and He simply did not water down the truth for Nicodemus, letting him know that he did not know anything, and that he needed to be born again – saved. This was a teacher of the Law, but Jesus was not afraid to speak the truth to him.

The preaching of the truth keeps evil at bay; it reminds men that they are sinful and in need of a Savior. Honest preaching of the truth of the scriptures is followed by the convicting power of the Holy Spirit, and this keeps evil at bay. But too many have stopped preaching the truth. We have called sin a disease and not sin. We made it so that men are not responsible for their sin, their choices, and their decisions. Thus, there is no shame in doing evil. Once shame is removed, evil grows and grows and grows.

Imagine what life will be like without the Lord’s churches here and without the Holy Spirit here to thwart and hold down the growth of evil. I certainly do not want to be here. Even so, come Lord Jesus.

Evil Has a Head Office, verse 11

When we think of the New Testament church, we can immediately think of Jesus walking the streets of Jerusalem and the countryside of Israel. We can see Him as the King of the Jews. And if we are to trace our history, we can find our way back doctrinally to Abraham in Genesis 12. He left Iraq to come and find the Promised Land. We are told in Romans 4 that Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. That is all we have as well. We too are called to believe on the Lord Jesus, and we will be saved. Abraham links us to Jerusalem, as does Jesus. Jesus lived in and ascended from Jerusalem, and we are told in Revelation 19 that He will return to Jerusalem. Jerusalem is called the Holy city; it is the HQ (headquarters) of Christianity, so to speak. In much the same manner, evil has a HQ.

The first time we see an organized rebellion against the power and position of God, we find it happening in the plains of Shinar – a place in modern-day Iraq that we call Babylon today. If we are to go back and take a look at history, beginning with Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon, we can begin reading in the later parts of Jeremiah. Also in Daniel, we see that Babylon was the chief city of the Chaldean empire that took the Jews into captivity. They were conquered by the Medo-Persians, but the capital city stayed the same during that empire; we find that in Nehemiah. It was the Greeks who conquered the Persians; and, once again, the capital stayed the same during that empire. Then the Romans conquered the Greeks, and the capital of the empire moved to Rome.

Rome, for the most part, has never really been conquered; and it is gradually coming to life again in the form of the European Union. I have found out that the EU head office is built to look like the Tower of Babel from Genesis 11. They are the new persons defying God as a community and pushing God out of their space. There is no more pagan of a place in the ‘First World’ than Europe, and its paganism is growing by leaps and bounds.

There is a war coming: The kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of Light will clash. This sounds like a Disney movie, but I assure you that there is no happy ending, and no plot twists; rather, we will have a badly broken, beaten, abused and used-up world that Satan and his minions have ravaged. He, the father of Lies, has convinced some of us humans that he has the answers and that Jesus is the enemy. It is the same lie he told Eve in the Garden of Eden–God is cheating you; work for me and I will bless you beyond measure. But he is the ultimate ‘snake oil’ salesman. What you are going to see is Satan himself bound by angels and imprisoned for 1000 years, and then judged to Hell for eternity. If you follow him and believe the lie, you will be in hell with him as well. Repent; Jesus is coming soon. Don’t get caught in the Lie.

“And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was committed to them. Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands. And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. But the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years.

Now when the thousand years have expired, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle, whose number is as the sand of the sea. They went up on the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. And fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them. The devil, who deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are. And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever” (Revelation 20:4-10).