eBible Fellowship

Chris: Before we begin, let me just say that I do not see any information that is pointing to any specific date right now. We know that the information about the flood is a possibility. The key word is that it is only possible, and I do not want to get into discussing possibilities with this particular date or that particular date because I just do not see, outside of the flood account, much evidence that points to this.

Some people say that we should not be looking for dates. In a sense, this is true. We do not want to specifically just look for anything. We want to study the Bible to find the truth concerning all information, but one problem that we have now is that doctrine is tied to dates. We just cannot get away from this. For instance, the end of the church age is tied to the Biblical calendar, and it is our knowledge of the Biblical calendar that helps us to know that the end of the church age is here.

Someone might say that we do not need the Biblical calendar to know this because there are all kinds of verses that tell us that the churches will go apostate and fall away, and we see this all around us. This is true. There are hundreds of verses that tell us this and they have been in the Bible for centuries, but it is only the calendar that has given us the insight and the understanding to realize that now is the time when the “abomination of desolation” is in “the holy place” and that now is the time to “depart out” of the midst.

In other words, it is the calendar that activated our understanding towards those verses. Without the calendar, it could be argued how we could know that now is when the church age is over.

Again, people might say, “Look at the condition of the churches,” but this is something that is outside of the Bible. This is external to the Bible and this is not the proof. Likewise, there is doctrine involved with May 21, and there is doctrine involved with the time that we are in now that is related to the calendar.

So it is very important for us to us to understand what God is doing and where we are in time or in His program of time. We have gone beyond certain areas that we did not expect to go beyond; and so I think that we have to slow down and study and pray for wisdom. God can grant us understanding at any point if it is His will to do so.

Even though this may be uncomfortable, I think that we just need to wait on the Lord. We wait on Him to instruct us. I do not think that it would be profitable for us to get into a lot of questions, questions that require more information right now in order to properly answer.

So this is why at this time that we are not going to get into certain questions. I would prefer questions related to the study or questions related to topics that were discussed in the study, like election or predestination or things like that, rather than other questions, which I know you have because I have those same questions about things that we are thinking about that are related to the time that we are in. If we can do this, then we will have a question and answer session for a short period of time.

 

1^st Question: In our physical bodies, we are now pilgrims in this present world. If we are elect and are saved, then in our new hearts/new spirits, are we even now pilgrims in the eternal Kingdom of God, or is there evidence in the Bible that states that we are somehow returning home and that we are not a stranger there?

Chris: We are not strangers there. We are citizens. Hebrews 11 tells us this. I think that there is a verse in Hebrews that tells us that we are citizens of the Kingdom of God. I cannot put my finger on the verse right now, but we do have a citizenship there. We are not strangers to the Kingdom of God. We “sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” Christ is ruling in the Kingdom of God and that is our place. We are “in Him,” and so God does not view us as strangers in Heaven at all.

Additional Comments: I believe that the verse is Ephesians 2:19. Can you look at this?

Chris: It says in Ephesians 2:19:

Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God;

I think that there is another verse that goes along with this, too, that may be in Hebrews, but this says it very well.

 

2^nd Question: Because we are the elect, can we technically say that we are somewhat sinless?

Chris: This is a good question and I am glad that you brought this up because I said that the new heart that God has given us is without sin. I said this because the Bible says this a couple of different times. One place is in 1John 3:9:

Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.

It is typical of the Bible to make a statement like this, because this will immediately make us think of other verses. In this case, we do not have to go very far, because it says in 1John 1:10:

If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

So we have this statement and probably many other statements that seemingly contradict this statement that says that if we are born of God, we do not commit sin; yet this other verse says that if we say that we are without sin, we are a liar.

Really, the Bible is enough to get someone to pull their hair out in frustration in trying to look at these statements, but this is how God wrote the Bible in order to allow people to make charges, such as there are contradictions or such as there are errors in the Bible. After all, even the same writer of this 1^st Epistle of John cannot keep things straight…right?

Well; no. What God has done is that He makes these kinds of statements, but we have to search out everything in the Bible in order to put them all together to find harmony. When we do, we realize that God has given us a new heart/new spirit, a new born-again soul that is perfect and without sin and that cannot sin.

In our soul existence, we cannot sin. It is pure and holy and there is no sin in our new nature. However, what we still have is our physical body; and in our physical body, we sin. We have corruption and this is why our physical body is going to die. It is because of this sinful corruption; and so we are split.

Even within ourself there can be a battle where our new spirit/new heart wants us to be obedient to God; but in our flesh, well, we are dead. We are seeing corruption. There is sin that indwells our physical body; and so there is a struggle even within the child of God.

But this explains how, on one hand, we recognize that the Bible tells us that there is no sin; and yet on the other hand, we have sin. Since we are one personality, since we are made up of body and soul, we admit that we have sin; but God, in a couple of verses, is specifically looking at that new nature that He has put within us.

 

3^rd Question: How can we know when we have forgiven someone?

Chris: I do not know how we can perfectly know if we have forgiven someone. Maybe we can turn this question around, because we can know when we have not forgiven someone.

If we are thinking bitterly about someone, if we are thinking bitterly about what they have done to us and if we are thinking of getting back at them in any way, maybe even in our minds, then this can be an indicator that we have not forgiven someone.

All we can do if someone has offended us in any way is to go to God and to pray, “O Lord, I pray for this person. Lord, I want to tell you about this situation. I think that they have done wrong to me.” What this should really do at this point is to help us to remember all of the wrong that we have done.

God gives us examples of this in the Bible, like the parable of the man who was forgiven a great debt by his lord; then someone came up to him who owed him just a little bit, a far lesser amount than he owed his lord that he was forgiven for. Then that man grabbed the one who owed him a little bit by the throat and demanded payment.

So God gives us illustrations like this to help us to keep in mind that God has forgiven us a “multitude of sins,” as He tells us in 1 Peter 4:8. He has showed abundant mercy towards us. He has forgiven us so many sins that we cannot even count them they are so numerous. He has completely forgiven again and again and again.

Now, here is someone and maybe it is hurtful and grievous and maybe they have sinned against you one hundred times, but what is that in comparison to what you have done towards God and His law?

It says in Ephesians 4:32:

And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.

God reminds us to look to Jesus and to look at the forgiveness that He has bestowed. This is the example of how we should forgive.

If we go to God in prayer about any person and we are reminded of these verses, the child of God realizes that this is true. How could we hold a grudge? How could we be reviled and desire to revile again? How could we not forgive someone when we have been forgiven?

So we start to develop a conscience about this. A believer could sin in this way like they could in any way, but I do not think that they would continue in this kind of a sin because God has made them very sensitive to what He has done for them. Through prayer and being reminded of the Scriptures, they would not want any part of this.

It would be more affliction for the child of God to be involved in not forgiving someone than the affliction of whatever that person did towards them, and so they would not want any part in holding bitterness towards someone.

 

4^th Question: The Bible calls angels “ministering spirits.” When I read the Bible, angels seem to only minister to Christ; and so I wanted to know if there are places in the Bible where angels have ministered to human beings. Is this part of their role as well?

Chris: You are referring to Hebrews 1 where it is speaking of angels. It says in Hebrews 1:14:

Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?

This would indicate that the believers who are the “heirs of salvation” are the ones who are being ministered to.

Additional Comments: So they do minister to human beings?

Chris: Yes. I do not know how, but God uses them somehow to minister to the “heirs of salvation.”

 

5^th Question: I missed some of the study and do not know if you have talked about the meaning of the five areas mentioned in 1 Peter 1. Do they have any spiritual meanings? Do their names mean anything to us?

Chris: I did not get into that in the study. It says in 1Peter 1:1:

…to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,

We find a few of these places mentioned in Acts 16. It says in Acts 16:6-7:

Now when they had gone throughout Phrygia and the region of Galatia, and were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia, After they were come to Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia: but the Spirit suffered them not.

So we find Galatia, Asia, and Bithynia, which are three of the same places mentioned in these couple of verses.

I am not exactly sure why God names each one of these places, but it is interesting to notice that Acts 16 takes place after the Great Commission in Matthew 16 when Jesus commands, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” Here, we have the apostles trying to do this, and yet the Holy Ghost forbids the Word to be preached in Asia.

It also says:

…they assayed to go into Bithynia: but the Spirit suffered them not.

In just thinking about things, we have to admit that there is an historical precedent for God allowing whole nations – probably some in Asia, but we also know this to be true of the American Indians in North America or the natives of South America or the aborigines of the South Pacific, as well as probably many other places – again, whole nations of men, women, and children who lived for generations – not just a year, not just for 2300 days, but for generations without the Word of God; and, therefore, without salvation. For centuries, some areas did not have the Word of God.

So even in Acts 16, God Himself is forbidding the preaching of the Gospel to a certain area of the world; and yet this is for His own purposes. His wisdom is way beyond our wisdom. He knows what He is doing.

All that we can understand is that, obviously, there were no elect people who lived in those particular regions during the period of time when the Gospel was not preached to them; and so generations would have come without elect individuals within them.

I am just saying this because we have to think about these things. As far as what is going on today, this is something for us to consider.

As far as those five areas, five were intentionally chosen in order to typify grace, especially in the case of 1 Peter, but we also know that the number 5 points to judgment. We can learn more as we look at the particular places that were mentioned, but we did not go into this earlier today.

 

6^th Question: Was the church age also spiritual?

Chris: I do not think that I understand the question. The church age is basically a theological term that is describing the period of time from the sending out of the Gospel on the day of Pentecost in 33 A.D. until the end of that period of time or the end of the church age in 1988.

God identifies all of those who became saved during those 1,955 years as “firstfruits.” He mentions this in Revelation 14 where there are 144,000 who are the “firstfruits unto God.”

Pentecost is a feast that identified with firstfruits and it was one of the feasts that God spiritually fulfilled during that period of time that we know of as the church age, and yet there was another period because there was another part of the harvest that came at the end of the year, which is the Feast of Ingathering. That feast identified with the great multitude being saved during the great tribulation.

Was it spiritual? The church age was literal in the sense that God established the churches and used the churches over the course of 1,955 years; but once the church age ended, He no longer used them and He brought judgment upon them.

What is spiritual is that we cannot see that judgment. When the Holy Spirit came out of the midst of the churches, no one could see that take place. God is Spirit and when He removed His Spirit, no one could see that; and so that was a spiritual judgment upon them.

 

I would like to thank everyone for sharing their questions and their comments. Lord willing, we will also continue with questions following the study next Sunday. For now, I am going to say thank you for joining with us.