The Testimony of Jesus
The Testimony of Jesus
*
2 Tim {1:7} For God hath not given us the spirit
of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
{1:8} Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our
Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the
afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God;
*
Rev. {1:1} The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave
unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must
shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified [it] by his
angel unto his servant John: {1:2} Who bare record of the
word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all
things that he saw.
*
Rev.{1:9} I John, who also am your brother, and companion in
tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ,
was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God,
and for the testimony of Jesus Christ
*
Rev.{6:9} And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under
the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of
God, and for the testimony which they held
*
Rev. {11:7} And when they shall
have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of
the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall
overcome them, and kill them.
*
Rev.{12:11} And
they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the
word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto
the death.
*
Rev.{12:17} And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and
went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep
the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus
Christ.
*
Rev.{15:5} And after that I looked, and, behold,
the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was
opened:
*
Rev. {19:10} And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said
unto me, See [thou do it] not: I am thy fellowservant, and of
thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God:
for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
*
{2:1} And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with
excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the
testimony of God. {2:2} For I determined not to know any
thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
{2:3} And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in
much trembling. {2:4} And my speech and my preaching
[was] not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in
demonstration of the Spirit and of power: {2:5} That your
faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the
power of God. {2:6} Howbeit we speak wisdom among
them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor
of the princes of this world, that come to nought: {2:7} But
we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, [even] the
hidden [wisdom,] which God ordained before the world
unto our glory: {2:8} Which none of the princes of this
world knew: for had they known [it,] they would not have
crucified the Lord of glory. {2:9} But as it is written, Eye
hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the
heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them
that love him. {2:10} But God hath revealed [them] unto us
by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the
deep things of God. {2:11} For what man knoweth the
things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him?
even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of
God. {2:12} Now we have received, not the spirit of the
world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know
the things that are freely given to us of God. {2:13} Which
things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom
teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing
spiritual things with spiritual. {2:14} But the natural man
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are
foolishness unto him: neither can he know [them,] because
they are spiritually discerned. {2:15} But he that is spiritual
judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.
{2:16} For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he
may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.
*******
The testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy. From the moment Jesus started preaching what was it He was preaching exactly? The gospel. What is the gospel? The good news. What is the good news? The good news is that we sinners have a was to be forgiven. Us wayward children of God now have a way to become reconciled with God. Our sins can be forgiven by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. How is this the Spirit of prophecy which we are told is the testimony of Jesus? Prophecy is a prediction of a future event. The future event predicted by Christ Himself was total reconciliation with God encompassing us living and dead being made new in Him and being caught up to heaven with Him when He returns to take us with Him. Not once did He tell the disciples they were on their own, that there was no hope of a future with Him, that they had this life on earth now and that was that. Jesus preached hope! Jesus preached salvation! Jesus preached to us of a new world, a new life and the prophectic aspect of receiving the fulness of that hope in time. Jesus' testimony is most certainly prophectic. We accept Jesus Christ and a lot of times people fall back away from Him giving up hope in what? In the prophectic prediction of Jesus' that He will come again. It's like a reliable human being, someone you've always been able to count on in the past, telling you they'll be there to pick you up between a certain time, say 12 noon and 12 midnight. So you wait, and you wait and you wait until finally you grow tired of waiting and you focus on the fact they said 12 noon. Sure they also said 12 midnight, but surely they meant somewhere closer to 12 noon not the later time. So it comes to 6 pm, halfway through the time and you're pacing, and pacing. You begin to lose hope even though you KNOW that they could still be considered on time if they arrive at midnight. Finally it's 9 pm and you don't want to wait any longer. Taking that analogy to Jesus we need to substitute years and years and years for hours but it holds true. The fact remains Jesus predicted He would return and He WILL return. The testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy simply because He preached prophetically of salvation and life everlasting.
We must have the testimony of Jesus if we are to overcome this world by the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ. We must have the Spirit of prophecy in us, the willingness to believe and holdfast until Christ comes to redeem us unto Him as He promises.
May we all holdfast to that which is holy, good, and true. May we cling tightly to God and have the Testimony of Jesus.
By His amazing mercy and unending grace now and forever.
Amen.
7/6/10
Pro 18:14 The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity; but a wounded spirit who can bear?
When I read this I was instantly struck by it's truth.
Why do some people overcome when others succumb to all trying situations in life? People will tell you it's the difference between their attitudes. They'll go further and say how courageous a dead person was because of their attitude as they dealt with their terminal illness. They'll say that Soandso died valiantly, fighting the good fight. However not everyone fights that good fight courageously. Some go kicking and screaming, miserable and totally wretched as they move through life's upsets - large and small, serious and non-serious, life-threatening and non-life-threatening.
Attitude- spirit of a man.
The spirit of a man can thrive or be wounded. You know what I'm talking about. We see wounded spirits all the time, we might even have a wounded spirit ourselves. It's the aching of the soul that feels the depth of pain physically or emotionally either, and despair sets in. Depression overtakes the spirit dragging it down into darkness not wanting any light to shine upon it because the despair shouts out the pain to everyone searching endlessly for sympathy, for understanding.
Now lest someone say that I don't understand at all, that depression is an illness that a person can't help, let me reply that I know that the complexity of the brain and it's chemical make-up are astounding and confounding and yes, depression can be an illness. That's what I'm talking about really- illnesses whether chronic or not, whether life-threatening or not, the spirit of a man plays a part in it all. A spirit can be wounded without any fault of a person, or through plenty of fault.
'A wounded spirit who can bear?' I feel for those who suffer medical depression because their wounded spirit is that much more in pain. Truly clinging by faith to our Lord's promise of life everlasting in Him is the saving grace when a wounded spirit is so crushed the infirmities of life seem overwhelming. To those whose spirit sustains them, how marvelous! Their attitude - their outlook on life- their ability to see beyond their infirmity is amazing and a blessing.
There are numerous sayings people hear all the time about life and the attitude we should possess throughout it.
Buck up.
Stick it out.
Be strong.
Chin up.
Look on the bright side.
You can add a lot to those few and yes, they are good advice that would be nice to be able to follow but sometimes we get discouraged and our spirit is wounded.
Is a wounded spirit good for us? NO. Not a single person will try to say depression or a damaged spirit is a good thing. More people are proven to heal better with a positive spirit, with a healthy, unwounded spirit.
When our spirit is wounded it needs to be repair by the greatest physician of all, God. He is the only one who can heal our wounded spirits and we need to cling to Him and find all our hope in HIM. Maybe our lives are falling apart with illness, finances, family, all of those, one of those and we're guaranteed not to get through life without things falling apart sooner or later, but we need to cling to the promise of a new life without all the anguish. Easy to say… I know.
I find it very interesting to read this though--
Pro 18:14 The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity; but a wounded spirit who can bear?
We can be sustained through our infirmities. We can be. The spirit in us the is the spirit part of us that connects with our Savior and through His strength we can be made strong through our infirmities. If our spirit is wounded we need to pray, pray, pray to be healed in spirit and then we will be able to endure our infirmities no matter the form they take.
May God bless us and keep us in Him, our spirits in Him now and always. By the grace and mercy of our Lord and Savior now and forever. Amen.
7/6/11
*
2 Tim {1:7} For God hath not given us the spirit
of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
{1:8} Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our
Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the
afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God;
*
Rev. {1:1} The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave
unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must
shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified [it] by his
angel unto his servant John: {1:2} Who bare record of the
word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all
things that he saw.
*
Rev.{1:9} I John, who also am your brother, and companion in
tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ,
was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God,
and for the testimony of Jesus Christ
*
Rev.{6:9} And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under
the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of
God, and for the testimony which they held
*
Rev. {11:7} And when they shall
have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of
the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall
overcome them, and kill them.
*
Rev.{12:11} And
they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the
word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto
the death.
*
Rev.{12:17} And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and
went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep
the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus
Christ.
*
Rev.{15:5} And after that I looked, and, behold,
the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was
opened:
*
Rev. {19:10} And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said
unto me, See [thou do it] not: I am thy fellowservant, and of
thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God:
for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
*
{2:1} And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with
excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the
testimony of God. {2:2} For I determined not to know any
thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
{2:3} And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in
much trembling. {2:4} And my speech and my preaching
[was] not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in
demonstration of the Spirit and of power: {2:5} That your
faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the
power of God. {2:6} Howbeit we speak wisdom among
them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor
of the princes of this world, that come to nought: {2:7} But
we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, [even] the
hidden [wisdom,] which God ordained before the world
unto our glory: {2:8} Which none of the princes of this
world knew: for had they known [it,] they would not have
crucified the Lord of glory. {2:9} But as it is written, Eye
hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the
heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them
that love him. {2:10} But God hath revealed [them] unto us
by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the
deep things of God. {2:11} For what man knoweth the
things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him?
even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of
God. {2:12} Now we have received, not the spirit of the
world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know
the things that are freely given to us of God. {2:13} Which
things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom
teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing
spiritual things with spiritual. {2:14} But the natural man
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are
foolishness unto him: neither can he know [them,] because
they are spiritually discerned. {2:15} But he that is spiritual
judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.
{2:16} For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he
may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.
*******
The testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy. From the moment Jesus started preaching what was it He was preaching exactly? The gospel. What is the gospel? The good news. What is the good news? The good news is that we sinners have a was to be forgiven. Us wayward children of God now have a way to become reconciled with God. Our sins can be forgiven by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. How is this the Spirit of prophecy which we are told is the testimony of Jesus? Prophecy is a prediction of a future event. The future event predicted by Christ Himself was total reconciliation with God encompassing us living and dead being made new in Him and being caught up to heaven with Him when He returns to take us with Him. Not once did He tell the disciples they were on their own, that there was no hope of a future with Him, that they had this life on earth now and that was that. Jesus preached hope! Jesus preached salvation! Jesus preached to us of a new world, a new life and the prophectic aspect of receiving the fulness of that hope in time. Jesus' testimony is most certainly prophectic. We accept Jesus Christ and a lot of times people fall back away from Him giving up hope in what? In the prophectic prediction of Jesus' that He will come again. It's like a reliable human being, someone you've always been able to count on in the past, telling you they'll be there to pick you up between a certain time, say 12 noon and 12 midnight. So you wait, and you wait and you wait until finally you grow tired of waiting and you focus on the fact they said 12 noon. Sure they also said 12 midnight, but surely they meant somewhere closer to 12 noon not the later time. So it comes to 6 pm, halfway through the time and you're pacing, and pacing. You begin to lose hope even though you KNOW that they could still be considered on time if they arrive at midnight. Finally it's 9 pm and you don't want to wait any longer. Taking that analogy to Jesus we need to substitute years and years and years for hours but it holds true. The fact remains Jesus predicted He would return and He WILL return. The testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy simply because He preached prophetically of salvation and life everlasting.
We must have the testimony of Jesus if we are to overcome this world by the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ. We must have the Spirit of prophecy in us, the willingness to believe and holdfast until Christ comes to redeem us unto Him as He promises.
May we all holdfast to that which is holy, good, and true. May we cling tightly to God and have the Testimony of Jesus.
By His amazing mercy and unending grace now and forever.
Amen.
7/6/10
Pro 18:14 The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity; but a wounded spirit who can bear?
When I read this I was instantly struck by it's truth.
Why do some people overcome when others succumb to all trying situations in life? People will tell you it's the difference between their attitudes. They'll go further and say how courageous a dead person was because of their attitude as they dealt with their terminal illness. They'll say that Soandso died valiantly, fighting the good fight. However not everyone fights that good fight courageously. Some go kicking and screaming, miserable and totally wretched as they move through life's upsets - large and small, serious and non-serious, life-threatening and non-life-threatening.
Attitude- spirit of a man.
The spirit of a man can thrive or be wounded. You know what I'm talking about. We see wounded spirits all the time, we might even have a wounded spirit ourselves. It's the aching of the soul that feels the depth of pain physically or emotionally either, and despair sets in. Depression overtakes the spirit dragging it down into darkness not wanting any light to shine upon it because the despair shouts out the pain to everyone searching endlessly for sympathy, for understanding.
Now lest someone say that I don't understand at all, that depression is an illness that a person can't help, let me reply that I know that the complexity of the brain and it's chemical make-up are astounding and confounding and yes, depression can be an illness. That's what I'm talking about really- illnesses whether chronic or not, whether life-threatening or not, the spirit of a man plays a part in it all. A spirit can be wounded without any fault of a person, or through plenty of fault.
'A wounded spirit who can bear?' I feel for those who suffer medical depression because their wounded spirit is that much more in pain. Truly clinging by faith to our Lord's promise of life everlasting in Him is the saving grace when a wounded spirit is so crushed the infirmities of life seem overwhelming. To those whose spirit sustains them, how marvelous! Their attitude - their outlook on life- their ability to see beyond their infirmity is amazing and a blessing.
There are numerous sayings people hear all the time about life and the attitude we should possess throughout it.
Buck up.
Stick it out.
Be strong.
Chin up.
Look on the bright side.
You can add a lot to those few and yes, they are good advice that would be nice to be able to follow but sometimes we get discouraged and our spirit is wounded.
Is a wounded spirit good for us? NO. Not a single person will try to say depression or a damaged spirit is a good thing. More people are proven to heal better with a positive spirit, with a healthy, unwounded spirit.
When our spirit is wounded it needs to be repair by the greatest physician of all, God. He is the only one who can heal our wounded spirits and we need to cling to Him and find all our hope in HIM. Maybe our lives are falling apart with illness, finances, family, all of those, one of those and we're guaranteed not to get through life without things falling apart sooner or later, but we need to cling to the promise of a new life without all the anguish. Easy to say… I know.
I find it very interesting to read this though--
Pro 18:14 The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity; but a wounded spirit who can bear?
We can be sustained through our infirmities. We can be. The spirit in us the is the spirit part of us that connects with our Savior and through His strength we can be made strong through our infirmities. If our spirit is wounded we need to pray, pray, pray to be healed in spirit and then we will be able to endure our infirmities no matter the form they take.
May God bless us and keep us in Him, our spirits in Him now and always. By the grace and mercy of our Lord and Savior now and forever. Amen.
7/6/11
Prophecy -
proph·e·cy
–noun, plural -cies.
1.
the foretelling or prediction of what is to come.
2.
something
that is declared by a prophet, especially a divinely inspired prediction,
instruction, or exhortation.
3.
a
divinely inspired utterance or revelation: oracular prophecies.
Pasted
from <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/prophecy>
*******
Divinely inspired
predictions.
Daniel was given
divinely inspired predictions and told to write them down. Jesus referred to
Daniel's predictions. We are studying Daniel's predictions in an effort to
understand all that our Savior would have us understand.
First we were
given an overall picture- the broad picture- the wide view.
Secondly we were
given a deeper understanding.
Thirdly we were
given an even deeper understanding.
Fourthly … it is
safe to say that all through the book of Daniel we are being given more
understanding of the future He has planned for us. A future that ultimately ends
with us living with Him in a world without any sin, in the purest love ever.
Sin had a
beginning, sin will have an end.
We have to believe that. We have to believe that we aren't suffering
under the curse of sin without any hope.
If we truly believed that there was no hope of a life without sin then
how depressing life would be. How senseless life would be. If there were no hope
then when God sent the flood to destroy all of mankind but 8 people, He would
have left the 8 to perish as well. But with the creation of the world, with the
creation of humanity there was a plan for our salvation. A great plan that would
once and for all and undeniably reveal the depths and horrors of sin and the
reason for it to be eradicated. No
question would remain anywhere in anyone's mind about God's love and from that
love the need for obedience.
Predicting that
sin would have an end, that all the earthly kingdoms would be completely
destroyed and God's kingdom set up, was a gift to us from God.
Unwrapping this wondrous gift and putting the pieces into place as
they've been revealed through history is an amazing thing.
Remember how I
mentioned we have been putting together a prophecy timeline? Well I'm going to
try and set it up for us now in a picture timeline.
This basically
shows the things we've studied concerning the prophecies we've found in Daniel.
Yesterday we left
off with the realization that our 2300 year prophecy would have it's fulfillment
in 1844 AD.
So what happened
in 1844? Here's one very remarkable thing--
October
22 – This second date, predicted by the Millerites
for the Second Coming
of Jesus, leads to the Great
Disappointment.
Pasted
from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1844>
I say it's
remarkable because of this--
Rev 10:9 And I went unto the angel, and said
unto him, Give me the little book. And he said unto me, Take it, and eat it up;
and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey.
Rev 10:10 And I took the little book out of the
angel's hand, and ate it up; and it was in my mouth sweet as honey: and as soon
as I had eaten it, my belly was bitter.
We've looked at
this Revelation prophecy before.
That little book we remarked about then and are going to remark about now
is the fact the little book of prophecy that goes hand in hand with Revelation
IS the book of Daniel. Now let's
read these verses again…
Give me the
little book. Help me understand
this little prophecy book finally. It's the time of the end, it's been a couple
thousand years since the prophecy was given, it is time for understanding. Let
me have this and eat it… understand it.
The angel said-
Take it and eat it- it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth
sweet as honey.
Take it, eat
it- it'll make your belly bitter,
after you've eaten it you're going to feel sick, but ohhhhhhhhh while you're
eating it you'll taste the sweetness of it just like honey.
The ability to
suddenly piece together the prophecy of Daniel has hadn't been so fully done
before was amazing leading up to the year 1844. There was a great, great
movement as more and more people- learned people too not just silly fanatics,
not the lunatic fringe, not the feeble minded, not the sad, ignorant people that
everyone wants to imagine people who believe in prophecy movements must be. In
fact we just recently had a man and his followers predicting the world would end
in May of this year 2011 and that didn't happen. People sat back and laughed,
they ridiculed these people, the press really gave it to them making them
laughing stocks, and yes- those crazy people. At this time in 1844 people weren't
aroused to that sort of belief there were many, many believing in this prophecy
only it ending up that the understanding of the prophecy was wrong.
While William Miller was predicting Christ would come in 1844, and people
were believing Him whole-heartedly there was a HUGE disappointment so much so it
is known as the Great Disappointment.
'The Great
Disappointment was a major event in the history of the Millerite
movement, a 19th-century American
Christian sect
that formed out of the Second
Great Awakening. William
Miller, a Baptist
preacher, proposed based on his interpretations of the prophecies in the book of
Daniel (Chapters 8 and 9, especially Dan. 8:14 "Unto two thousand and three
hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed"), that Jesus
Christ would return to the earth during the year 1844. A more specific date,
that of October 22, 1844, was preached by Samuel
S. Snow. Thousands of followers, some of whom had given away all of their
possessions, waited expectantly. When Jesus did not appear, October 22, 1844
became known as the Great Disappointment.'
Pasted
from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Disappointment>
This describes
PERFECTLY the sweet honey taste of the believe that the Savior was going to come
soon to the bitterness in the belly after it is realized that no, this isn't
what this prophecy was predicting at all.
Sweet to
bitter. A perfect prophetic
interpretation of those verses in Revelation.
Rev 10:10 And I took the little book out of the
angel's hand, and ate it up; and it was in my mouth sweet as honey: and as soon
as I had eaten it, my belly was bitter.
So this begs the
question- what was meant by the 'Sanctuary being cleansed'?
Because this is such an amazing prophecy it needs a study all it's own
and we'll start that tomorrow.
By the grace of
God we will be able to understand more and more and in understanding more and
more we will grow ever closer to our Savior. His love is in all these prophecies
for us, His amazing love.
By His grace
always!!!!
Amen.