The Sevenfold Description of the Holy Spirit

Posted: February 26, 2022 in Bible, Christ, Christian, Church, GOD, Holy Spirit, Isaiah, Israel, religion
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When I started writing this, I had no idea why the Holy Spirit directed me to write on this subject, but the book of Jonah has taught me not to argue with one of the three most powerful sentient beings ever. Once I got into it, however I quickly discovered the potential hidden gems of this scripture from Isaiah.

Isaiah 11:1-5 There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse, And a Branch shall grow out of his roots. The Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon Him, The Spirit of wisdom and understanding, The Spirit of counsel and might, The Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD. (NKJV)

Spirit of the Lord is the supernatural power source that creates God’s Thoughts in our hearts.

Spirit of Wisdom is all of God’s supernatural Thoughts themselves.

Spirit of Understanding is God’s personal illumination of those thoughts.

Spirit of Counsel is God’s personal instructions for Godly choices.

Spirit of Strength is God’s supernatural ability to perform those Thoughts in our lives.

Spirit of Knowledge is seeing God’s Thoughts manifested in our life actions.

Fear of the Lord is walking in God’s Love and Truth, fleeing anything that would quench His Spirit.1

What little facts and jewels jump out at me from these verses? Throughout the Old Covenant we find examples of the Holy Spirit working within people, but it seems to always be on a temporary basis. Here in Isaiah though, we find an example, possibly maybe the first mention, of the permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit upon a man, which I see as a typological example of an act of the Holy Spirit that began on the Day of Pentecost and which heralded in the future dispensation that we all enjoy called the Church Age. Of course in this example the man happens to be Jesus Christ. We know this is a prophecy of Christ because of several clues, the first of which is one of the known Old Testament titles of Christ in verse one. If we look at verses three through five of Isaiah chapter eleven we have even more insights why this can only be Christ;

Isaiah 11:3-5 His delight [is] in the fear of the LORD, And He shall not judge by the sight of His eyes, Nor decide by the hearing of His ears; But with righteousness He shall judge the poor, And decide with equity for the meek of the earth; He shall strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, And with the breath of His lips He shall slay the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt of His loins, And faithfulness the belt of His waist. (NKJV)

Jesus is the only human that ever has lived and ever will live that can be called righteous….then we read He will be striking the earth with another characteristic of Christ; the rod of his mouth, which is basically what John saw in Revelation 1: 16 and again in Revelation 19:15. I, of course, wonder when this took place and I believe it was when Christ arose from the water after He was baptized by John. 2

I am sort of a mystic I suppose, for I automatically look for clues and patterns and types in the scriptures and a couple of other things that popped out at me in this passage relate to numerology which many are somewhat familiar with. For an example, many people think seven means something akin to holiness…but it seems to be more along the line of completeness. The number six seems to be a number relating to man and humanity. There are seven Spirits listed here which denotes complete and total spiritualness. If you notice the first Spirit, the Spirit of The Lord, it is a singular Spirit by itself and the other six Spirits are listed in pairs (the number two is considered union or witnessing). If you look at the three pairs you can see Spirits that can be considered qualities of people and are qualities that have been noted as characteristics of individuals throughout the bible. These three pairs added together total six, which is the number of man. The singular Spirit, the one at the top of the list, the Spirit of The Lord, can only be obtained by giving you life to Jesus and allowing Him to come into your life, for the Spirit of The Lord can only come through Christ. If you add the Spirit of The Lord to the other six Spirits you have seven complete Spiritual characteristics of the Holy Spirit that were imparted onto Christ.

If you do allow Christ into your life and allow Him to rule over you, then when you add the singular but most important Spirit of The Lord, which can only come from Him, to the other Spirits that can possibly be obtained by good living and by trying to following the statutes of The Lord, you end up with seven Spirits encompassing you within your life. Which, with Christ in the middle of your life, adds up to the completeness you can only obtain through salvation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I was going to end it there and call it a day, but I think I need to continue.

Let’s see if we can link this passage in Isaiah with Revelation…primarily, Revelation chapter one verses four and five.

Revelation 1:4 John, to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth. To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, (NKJV).

What we have here, I believe, is a peek behind the curtain of obscurity to the basic characteristics of the Holy Spirit. The fact that Isaiah mentioned that the Holy Spirit endows these seven Spirits upon Christ and we read in Revelation that there are seven distinct Spirits before the Throne of God tells me that the Holy Spirit is a multifaceted sentient being with seven separate individual Spirits, which, in my mind, reminds me of the description of the multi-faced Cherubim listed in several places within the scriptures. Not only that, but when we read the list of ‘Spirits’ we find the qualities that God fearing (seventh spirit) prophets and men of God throughout the scriptures were said to possess or requested from God, all rolled up into one neat package. When Solomon asked God to give him Wisdom, I didn’t realize the Spirit of Wisdom was one of the descriptions of the Holy Spirit before the Throne of Our Lord and was sent to Solomon…I kind of figured God just flipped a switch in Solomon’s psyche to give him the ability instead of the Holy Spirit sent to indwell him. That being said, when we read of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in our lives…now we know (I should say, now I postulate) that it is the actual Spirits of The Lord, the Holy Spirit in sevenfold that can indwell in us.

God Bless, Jim

1 http://www.khouse.org/articles/1996/281/

2 Matthew 3:16, Mark 1:10, Luke 3:22 John 1:32

Can we lose our salvation?

Posted: February 26, 2022 in Bible, Christ, Christian, GOD, religion, Salvation, Sin
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I’m not sure.

I was raised in a church that taught (but denied that they taught) you had to basically work your way to Heaven. I haven’t been involved in that congregation for almost three decades, but my siblings still are. As a teen I walked away from God and the Christian religion and practiced paganism for over two decades. I never was fully satisfied with my search for spiritual truth and ultimate peace by alternate means and about ten years ago, after some hardships, I was convinced to give the Christian God another try and as soon as I did, he saved me from the burdens and issues I had drug along with me. So after I gave myself to Him, I realized that I had arrived back full circle to the place I had basically started as a child. Subsequently, I decided that I was going to prove the teachings within the scriptures to myself through prayer and an expositional journey through My Lord’s word.

When I started this process a decade ago, I didn’t believe in the rapture, I didn’t believe in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and I had no idea what religious affiliation my mentor, Chuck Missler was…I went in blind, but open to learning. I quickly found out that Chuck Missler believed in the things I mentioned but he also encouraged disbelief so we would figure it out for ourselves (Acts 17:11) and I appreciated that. I had not encountered a teacher with that attitude before (the church of my youth, if you didn’t walk lockstep with their teaching they would virtually break your bible over their knee and drum you out of the doors, locking them behind you). In the last ten years I have grown to understand more about the scriptures than I ever imagined I would and it is a very enjoyable journey. I now am down with the concept of the rapture as well as the separate destinies of the nation of Israel and the church. I find the scriptures are plain and open for all to see about the teaching of the continued presence of the Holy Spirit within our lives and the existence of spiritual gifts (unlike the legalistic, work based, replacement theology that the church of my youth taught). A few months ago, I really started to grasp and understand the difference between tongues…IE, the tongues of interpretation and the tongues of fire, or prayer language. I have my mind solidly wrapped around the predestination-free will argument that seems to bumfuzzle so many. The rapture of the bride of Christ is there in black and white and in some ways, and buried in the word by patterns and example in many locations of the bible. The book of Revelation can be a little scary, but not in an intimidating way, it is a very forceful and straight blueprint of the past, present and future condition of the church and the nation of Israel laid out in a surprisingly plain way, once we get rid of all the cobwebs of allegorization and fallacy swept out from within our minds. I have also found a home at a small, but swiftly growing, full-gospel congregation near my home and I feel I am on the road to salvation.

What about salvation? Chuck Missler makes it plain that he believes that once you accept Christ and achieve salvation that you are locked into a seat on the glory train…but I’m not so sure…I still think there are some situations, noted in the scriptures, which make it seem you can lose your salvation.

The church of my youth had a roulette wheel, sort of view of salvation…you are saved until you sin, then as soon as you commit a sin, you are condemned to the lake of fire, until you repent, then you are OK…of course until you commit the next sin, then you are destined for hell again…and on, and on, and on. I don’t believe that point of view in the least. I do believe in the assurance of salvation through the mercy and grace that Our Lord assures us of…but the scriptures do indicate that it is not a free ride. The bible definitely teaches we have a personal responsibility of obedience and to produce fruit for the Lord. But what if we don’t? Is it the gallows? I don’t think so, especially if we understand the grace and mercy aspect of the scriptures. No one (except for Christ Jesus Himself) has been, is or will ever be good enough to earn salvation. God and also Christ the Son, in a couple of different places in the scriptures say that no man can snatch Their flock (us) out of Their hands. That is a couple of pretty powerful statements about our security in our salvation. However there are a couple of other places that alludes to the fact that maybe if we really try hard enough, we can slip out of Their grasps.

At this point in my journey I haven’t digested the New Covenant enough to have come to a firm conclusion. I tend to concentrate on sections and themes of the bible related to those sections that are pertinent to the book, or books of the bible I am currently working on in my journey and at the present I am in the minor prophets of the Old Covenent. I feel The Lord is providing me information as I need it and since I was compelled to answer this discussion question, even thought I wanted to stay away and not have anything to do with it, tells me it is His will that I start paying attention to it.

Let’s look at the word salvation. In the Old Testament the word salvation is normally taken from a feminine noun derivative of the base yasha which means to save, be saved, be delivered. In the New Testament, the word seems to consistently be the Greek word; soteria which means he who brings salvation, the hope of future salvation, a deliverer and is apparently the Greek equivalent to the Hebrew yeshuw’ah which means basically the same thing.

OK, let us start with some verses that I believe can cause confusion.

Romans 10:13 says: For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. (KJV) I know of some denominations that base their gospel upon this verse. I have to say, in my life I have grown very gun-shy about well-intentioned folks creating doctrine from single sources within the scriptures. I had a close relative that was a prime example of the danger of this for they believed if you are not an active member of the Church of Christ, you are hell-bound and they build this doctrine upon a single source that comes from Romans 16:16 (they handily ignore the name The Way from Acts and the Church of God which is all through I Corinthians…)

What about those that hear the gospel and are drawn to profess and call upon the name of The Lord and feel the Holy Spirit…but then they never turn from their sinful ways…they exhibit no change within their lives. If an ax murderer fell down on his knees and called on the name of The Lord…but he remained an ax murderer…if he only gave credence to the word but never submitted to the Lordship and therefore never started to grow and mature, he never yielded to The Lord…has he still achieved salvation? Also, then what about the apparent ‘unpardonable sin’ of blaspheming the Holy Spirit that we find in Luke?

Christ is pretty clear about what He expects and He says in Matthew 7:21-24 that not all that cry Lord, Lord will receive a ticket on the glory train but those that submit and yield to the Lord’s will.

Matthew 7:21-24 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: (KJV)

I believe the answer is not as simple as calling upon the name of The Lord, but apparently salvation is dependent on those other conditions that Christ outlines. I personally lean (I’m not sure why) toward Chuck Missler’s view and I feel that it is possibly conditional on The Lord’s knowledge of our heart and our giving up of our pride (which in Isaiah is considered the base of all sin) and yielding to the will of Our Lord to achieve salvation…but I am going to have to absorb and digest more of His precious word before it ‘clicks’ with me.

What about Hebrews 6:4-6 For [it is] impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put [him] to an open shame. (KJV)? To take it out of context and to look at it by itself (which unfortunately some churches do) it would seem to create a conundrum. Unless this same viewpoint is clearly covered somewhere else in the scriptures, in my thinking it doesn’t mean what a lot of denominational leaders think it does. So, what does it mean? Was this passage a special judgment reserved for the apostolic Jews? Possibly. We know that God had harsh rules design just for His people that weren’t levied on the Gentiles, such as death penalty for not observing the Sabbath properly, among others. Does it mean something else? I just don’t know…the jury is still out…but now that the ramifications about salvation on my radar I will come to a solid, teachable conclusion within a short time, The Lord willing.

God Bless, Jim

The Birthday of the Church

Posted: February 26, 2022 in Bible, Christ, Christian, Church, Pentecost, religion
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We, as Christians, all know that the church was established on the Day of Pentecost as we are told in Acts chapter 2. The Day of Pentecost (also known as the Feast of Weeks) is one of seven major feasts of Israel that the Jews celebrate every year and it occurs fifty days after the Sunday that follows the Feast of Passover.

I have often wondered why the birthday of the church on Pentecost (betrothal day of the bride of Christ) is never mentioned, much less celebrated amongst the Christian community? I think it may have to do with the Christian traditions carried down through the centuries from biased roots grown from the early church fathers. Some of Chuck Missler’s recordings touch on this matter in a round about way when his, and other scholars research have shown that the early church did it’s dead level best to separate themselves from anything relating to Israel because of their anti-Semitic view point, blaming the Nation of Israel for the crucifixion of Christ as was evident by the rulings made by the Council of Nice in 325AD1 when they created their own “Passover Day‘, that is calculated as the first Sunday following the first full moon following a pagan holiday in the spring of the year called the Spring Equinox2

When you read about the church’s development in the book of Acts starting with the preachings and teachings of Peter and other disciples and then continuing with the miraculous ministry of Paul and his fabulous interpretations of the gospel of Christ for us through the inspired letters that he wrote, you don’t see any anti-Semitic tendencies coming through. Somehow, though, in the decades that followed, despite the warnings to watch for false apostles, teachers and preachers by Peter, James, John and Paul, Satan was successful in embedding enough false teachers within the church to create small misdirections that grew into the beginning of the allegorization and misinterpretations of God’s word. The apparent influence of Satan, coupled with a sanctioned hatred toward the Jews, caused the early church to eventually chose to distance itself from anything relating to Jewish practices and one of the results was the creation of a resurrection day who’s place on the calendar is determined by counting from the base of a pagan holiday even though, at this point in time, they still called the celebration Passover. We also find that after the papacy firmly established itself politically, as well as religiously, they renamed the day of celebrating the resurrection of Our Lord as Easter, a name that has it’s roots in Babylonian pagan religious fertility festivals celebrating Ishtar (that is where the crazy tradition of an egg laying rabbit came from).

Wow! So even if you searched the internet for the calendar day of Pentecost, the betrothal day of the Bride of Christ, most likely you would find a false day, for Pentecost is a Greek word that means count fifty. We need to know what day they are counting their fifty days from, from a pagan fertility feast called Easter, or are they counting from a full moon, or is it from the Feast of First Fruits, which is the Sunday that follows the Sabbath that follows Passover and is the day that Our Lord, Our Savior met Mary at the tomb after He had arisen.

So why isn’t Pentecost on list of special days of recognition? The other days of recognition, Easter (even though the origins and the name of the holiday is Babylonian), the meaning behind the day still allows us to reflect on the greatest miracle ever performed since the creation of the universe) and Christmas (another one that has scary Babylonian roots) are about Christ our Savior. The day the church was created and Christ’s bride was betrothed is a known traceable day. Why isn’t it recognized? I suspect the reasons have their roots buried in the anti-Semitism of the early church and the fact that we, as the body of Christ hold traditions almost as dear to our hearts as facts. There may be some churches tucked away somewhere that recognize the Day of Pentecost, but I don’t know of any and those Christians I mention it to kind of look at me like “What?…what’s up with this guy?”. I personally try to find when the actual Day of Pentecost is and sing a little happy birthday song to recognize the birth of the vehicle that allows us as Gentile, but more so as sinful humans to prepare and meet Our Lord.

God Bless, Jim

*1 http://www.debate.org.uk/topics/theo/council_nicaea.html

*2 https://www.learnreligions.com/all-about-ostara-the-spring-equinox-2562471

http://antipas.net/pentecost.htm

The Church, Men in heaven and the 4 horsemen

Posted: February 26, 2022 in anti-christ, Bible, Christ, Christian, religion, revelation, Satan
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I love the book of Revelation with all its teachings, prophecies and insights into the mind of The Lord, but I also love that it is full of mystery and intrigue. In Revelation chapter four we read in verse four about twenty-four elders sitting round the throne of The Lord. Every time I read this I pause and wonder who the 24 elders are. So to get a hint of who these elders may be, we want to find another reference to the number twenty-four in the bible. In the Old Testament we find references of twenty-four concerning time periods, but when the number relates to people, it is in relation to David dividing the priestly duties by separating and sectioning the time periods of their duties into twenty-four courses.

So now we can ascertain that these elders may have something to do with the priesthood. If this was the only reference to them in Revelation, that would be a very weak link indeed, but the next chapter gives us more insights on who these elders represent. In Revelation chapter five verses nine and ten we find them falling down before the lamb and singing a new song. In this song, they specifically sing to the one that is worthy to open the book, someone who was slain and was resurrected and redeemed them by His blood. By now, the evidence shows us they are singing to Christ. If we look further, in the next verse we see that they sing something specific to Him, they sing their appreciation to Christ for making them kings and priests (ah hah, a clue!). We have already learned that there are only three times in the bible that people are referred to as being a king and a priest in the scriptures; Melchizedek in Genesis, Christ our savior and the body of Christ, the church. Therefore it seems pretty plain to me that the twenty-four elders represent the church in heaven at this time.

Let’s take it a little further, though.

Still looking in Revelation chapter five, we see in the first few verses, that John was shown a scroll written on both sides and sealed and he wept because we read this in Revelation 5:3-4 And no man in heaven, nor in earth, neither under the earth, was able to open the book, neither to look thereon. And I wept much, because no man was found worthy to open and to read the book, neither to look thereon. (KJV)

Notice what it said? “and no man in heaven, nor in earth, nor under the earth…” This indicates there are people populating heaven at this time…not just one person, who is Christ, but many people…I find that interesting. Of course Christ is the only man worthy of opening the sealed scroll. OK, who could these people be? I think we are shown additional clues who they may be in the following chapter, for we find as Christ opens each one of the seals, something happens. Let’s look at what happens when he opens the first seal.

Revelation 6:1-2 And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see. And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer. (KJV)

Many commentators as well as many casual readers of Revelation seem to think this appearance of a rider on a white horse is an appearance of Christ and they base it upon the fact the rider is riding a white horse and because he has a crown and a bow. One thing I noticed immediately that they appear to ignore is Christ is the one opening the seal. Could He be opening the seal and also be the rider shown when the seal is opened? Yes, it could be possible, but let’s look at the rider in context. The rider is going forth conquering…that in itself is OK, but let’s look at his buddies. When Christ opens the other seals, the riders that we are shown each have different purposes for the inhabitants of the earth, none of them too pleasant for we have war, destruction, famine and pestilence…which one of these horsemen is Christ suppose to be again?

If it’s not Christ, then who is this first rider? The first thing we find is the rider is riding a white horse, which normally signifies purity. I guess that’s where the mistake comes in misidentifying this horseman. He also has a bow that is an indication of a covenant; similar to the bow (rainbow) that God gave to Noah as a covenant to never destroy the earth again through a flood. We read also that our horseman is wearing a crown, demonstrating prominence and power. So, standing back and looking at the evidence, we find a horseman that initially appears Christ-like with a covenant and a position of power, but a horseman that is part of a quartet of death and destruction. With these identifiers spread before us, I believe that this horseman is most likely the Anti-Christ (Greek meanings include deceiver or ‘in place of’).

OK, if this is the Anti-Christ, then we know that one of the prerequisites of the appearance of the Anti-Christ is the rapture of the church. Therefore, I believe the men mentioned inhabiting heaven by John in Revelation chapter five are saint of the raptured church. This is a Revelation to me (pardon the pun…I couldn’t help it), and I hope you find this link to the raptured church followed by the Anti-Christ wreaking havoc on the earth interesting, also.

Christ does show up in Revelation 19 triumphantly riding a white horse, but when you compare the horses and the riders from Revelation 6 and Revelation 19, the differences between the two are night and day!

Jim Bussell 3-28-21

Refuting Evolution: Living in a Universe of Irreducible Complexity

Posted: February 26, 2022 in Bible, Creation, GOD, science
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The concept of “irreducible complexity” is having something the least complex it can be and still work.

Take a mousetrap; there are five basic components, if it is missing any one of these five parts, it simply doesn’t work…it was designed and engineered around these five parts. You can go up in complexity, for instance, you could add paint for color, add a sensor that would notify you when the little rodent came to its end and even a camera that would record it’s grizzly execution…but unless you’re a sadist, these additional parts are not necessary. However, if you remove any of the basic five pieces of the trap and attempt to use it, you will find it simply will not work.

OK, the mousetrap is a basic example of human design, but let’s climb up a few more rungs of the complexity ladder. Another example of irreducible complexity would be the mammalian eye. Once again, we have five basic components1, a cornea, pupil, iris, lens and retina. If any one of these components is missing it doesn’t work. This means that the eye couldn’t have progressed along an ‘evolutionary’ assembly line where you see a little, then a little better, then a little better, until it progressed to our eye…if any one of these components is missing, it simply doesn’t work…you would be blind and there is no evolutionary advantage that could be gained by being blind for eons until the eye developed sight…evolution makes no sense here…that means the eye was developed and engineered from the beginning as a unit around these five major parts, just as the mousetrap is manufactured as a working unit.

Let’s then look down at the micro level at a single cell bacterium. This single cell organism has a flagellum2 tail that propels it by turning in a corkscrew manner, operated by a motor comprised of forty different components. If any one of these forty parts of this motor are missing, it simply doesn’t work. This one example is simply mind-boggling to me. We have a single celled organism, specializing as a bacterium, with its propulsion being provided by a variable speed electrical motor powered by sub-atomic protons and it sounds more science-fiction than fact.

Why is that? We humans are barely at the level where we can begin to look at and understand the micro world, much less replicate it…that’s why to most of us it reads as science fiction. Everywhere we look from the macro to the micro, from the large to the small, we see design everywhere and it drives some in the scientific community bonkers to see their theories of Darwinism lying in tatters. Evolutionary progression cannot explain how this can be…only design…who was, and is, the designer? The Creator of everything, The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Our Lord, Jehovah Jireh.

This is only a couple of examples from a pool of tens of thousands that could be looked at and they all explode the theory of evolution to pieces and prove that everything that exists is digital and by design.

1 http://www.tedmontgomery.com/the_eye/

2 http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v325/n6105/abs/325637a0.html

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