He begins the work in us and he'll finish it.
Phillipians {1:6} Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform [it] until the day of Jesus Christ
It's not once begun and quickly finished. People like the idea of a finished work and it's not that I don't like the idea it's just that the idea is coated thickly in finishing as quickly as possible. The quicker things are done the better especially if they're done properly. Having unfinished projects that aren't worked on is never fun. Who likes to have a bunch of partially finished works in progress- no matter what it is? Yet there are some things that require time to complete. Some things are works in progress that take years to complete. Some things cannot be rushed. A good wine takes time- you've heard the saying. Some cheeses well aged are perfection. Getting a degree in education helps you get a good job and some degrees take a long time to obtain and you can't rush things. Taking our time to get things right the first time is very important and as much as we talk about rushing through things and finishing them quickly that isn't always the best thing.
It's the same with our Christian lives.
We begin them and think that suddenly we are completely what Christ wants us to be. We've been born again. We might even feel that wonderful feeling of having a new life, a new beginning, a new lease on an old life that promises better things. We might feel freed from the weight of past sins because they are all forgiven. We might have an intense emotional upheaval that makes us feel amazing. We feel these things and believe that we should always feel these things and that life will go on to be this amazing thing because we've accepted Jesus and want to live in Jesus.
The Christian life is like any other life in the respect even if you're not a Christian you have to live and get by to the best of your ability. The Christian life differs because you recognize that you aren't going to go through this life alone, on your own, you want to go through this life with Christ. You recognize that only through Christ can a life that makes little sense begin to make sense. There is a complete senselessness to life if you live it without Christ. You live it for no reason. You live it biding your time, accepting all the bad things for no reason at all.
Christ brings meaning to life by offering a new life in Him. Is that life instantaneous? In some ways it is. The promise is instant. The completion of that promise isn't realized until Christ comes again. The stuff inbetween is what we call our life. The moment the promise is made and accepted, and the moment Christ returns can be a full lifetime of say, 70, 80 years of inbetween for some. For others it's only a day long, because the next day they die and sleep until Christ returns but their life inbetween is over. The next thing those who sleep in Christ will know is Christ returning- the promise fulfilled, the work that was begun complete.
You see there is a work begun in us when we accept Christ. He begins the work in us and he'll finish it.
Phillipians {1:6} Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform [it] until the day of Jesus Christ
We have to be confident. We have to trust that as we go through life He is working in us. We have to let Him work in us. We have to understand we are embarking on a work that will take a lifetime without any completion until Christ returns. The completed work is only done when Christ arrives until then we are works in progress.
During the walk we'll get discouraged. We'll feel like the promise is far, far away. We might feel like the promise has been broken. We have to have confidence in Jesus that He will continue to make us into the creatures He wants us to be for Him when He returns. We can't make ourselves... we can't do the work ourselves. Christ who is the one who begins the work will finish the work upon His return, until then He is performing it in us. He will perform it, HE WILL PERFORM. He takes the action and it is our job to let Him perform it in us, believing that He will continue to perform it until He returns. We can't try to take over and perform it ourselves, we can't. We might try and that's where we run into trouble. We try to do Jesus' job in ourselves.
When people are given a job to do and they go and do another's job is it acceptable? Generally it's not. If someone is doing another's job the chances are they're not doing their own job. This is one thing that isn't better when it's taken over by another because NO ONE can do this job, only Jesus can and all those who think they can do His job are deluded and it's a deadly delusion they suffer under. If they are attempting to do Jesus' job then Jesus' can't perform that work, He's being interfered with. It's our job to LET Him work in us. That's our only job and yet we often find it hard to do that one simple thing- let go and let Him.
We have to take our self out of us to let Jesus in us, right? Wrong.
We are filled to the brim with self. And while it's logical to assume that we can be no other way, we know for a fact that selfishness isn't a good trait. Living among people who only think of themselves and no others isn't a good thing. We applaud the person who give up their own selfish wants so they can make another happy and yet we don't foster that in ourselves. We want to be the one catered to. Selfishness isn't a good trait at all. Wanting things our way and only our way is not good. Self is not good. So how do we empty ourselves of this selfishness?
We rely on Christ to perform that work in us. To empty us as we LET Him. We have to let HIM work in us. Because if we try to take out the selfishness even then we are claiming that work which isn't in us to perform. Does this mean we cling to all our selfish acts and do so in defiance of Christ? Absolutely not. We cling to nothing but offer it all to Christ. We recognize all that which makes us what we are and we give it to Christ asking Him to perform in us knowing that He will perform in His way, not our way. We might want Him to get rid of one thing but He might want to work on another area first. We can't presume to know how Christ is to perform the work in us, we have to trust that He will. We can lay claim to nothing accept surrendering ourselves to Christ, nothing. It's a constant surrender, and a constant knowing that His way is perfect ours is not and if we let Him He will perform His perfect way in us until He comes again.
May God through the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ begin, continue, and forever work in us performing His good work in each of us until He returns. By His righteousness, by His grace, by His love now and forever.
Amen.
8/2/10
Mat 10:34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
When did this change? When did Jesus change this to peace on earth? You hear all the time talk of world peace. But Jesus didn't bring peace to earth when He was here and He didn't tell us to try and bring world peace. He wants us to find peace in Him, for us to promote His peace to others, but not to set a course for world peace. He tells us THINK NOT. He didn't want us to be confused on this issue. So many believe that the Messiah would come and bring peace with Him, today many believe He will come again and bring world peace with Him. But there will be NO world peace until sin is totally gone. Sin will not be totally gone until the day the author of sin is destroyed along with all those that have followed Him. People who spend countless hours, countless dollars are striving for world peace before the Bible tells us there will be world peace are misguided. I know this sounds contrary to a lot of people. Shouldn't we want peace? No, not the peace this world imagines, not peace without God as it's Author. The world will strive for some semblance of peace that it can manufacture, but at it's heart it won't be led by God. Jesus' own words tell us a different story. 'THINK NOT that I am come to send peace on earth, I came not to send peace, but a sword.' That sword is the Word of God, the Word of God is the truth.
Eph 6:17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God
Joh 17:17 Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.
Joh 14:27 Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
Joh 16:33 These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.
Joh 17:9 I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine.
Joh 17:15 I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.
Joh 17:16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
Jesus didn't pray for world peace and He didn't tell us to seek peace for the world. Do a search online for world peace, you'll find it's something many, many people are seeking. To talk contrary about world peace makes you appear as a rebel, as contrary to something God and Jesus would want. But the Bible tells us differently, Jesus tells us differently. I believe it's very important we have this understanding because we know that the enemy of God likes to appear as an angel of light. The enemy of God likes to set up false hope and situations that are pure counterfeit- meant to appear as if they are from God but they really, really aren't.
Mat 10:34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
Our battle is with the same enemy of Jesus, and our armor, our weapons the same as Jesus used. We have to wear our armor and we have to wield our sword confidently, practicing and using it daily so that we NEVER are caught without it at our side, unprepared to use the sword when we need it the most.
These verses here tell a story so much different than the one we like to imagine--
Mat 10:34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
Mat 10:35 For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.
Mat 10:36 And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.
Mat 10:37 He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
Mat 10:38 And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.
Mat 10:39 He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.
This is not a pretty picture of peace in the world. This is a picture of the warfare we are part of and if it's a warfare that can hit close to home and heart, what makes us think that it would be better for us with strangers and those who have no ties to us at all?
No, we are not to bring discord, we are to bring truth and if the truth brings discord we are to remain grounded in that truth and any discord that comes as a result is not to be unexpected. We can have the peace of God with us, but still be in a situation of discord. Peace in a storm. The storm may rage all around us, buffeting us unrelentingly, but we can have the peace of our Lord and Savior with us through it all. Satan will try and tell us that all the discord around us proves we are not really followers of Christ, because wherever we go there is upset and angst, but in truth that only proves how much Satan wants to draw us away from the peace by instigating the discord.
May God bless us all richly with His peace, with His amazing, all consuming love. May we hold fast to the truth in ALL things as we fight this battle of spiritual warfare.
By His grace and mercy!
Through His love and in His righteousness forever!
Amen.
8/2/11
History-Prophecy.
As we continue on
we need to look at the continuing history of Christianity.
Missionaries eventually would go to all the world, but closer to the
declining Roman Empire -as wars were renewed and the gradual disintegration of
that empire was underway- we have an invading force that were once known for
their barbarianism. This group of
people were the Goths.
'Ulfilas, or
Gothic Wulfila (also Ulphilas. Orphila)[1] (ca. 310 – 383;[2]), bishop,
missionary, and Bible translator, was a Goth or half-Goth and half-Greek from
Cappadocia who had spent time inside the Roman Empire at the peak of the Arian
controversy.
Ulfilas was
ordained a bishop by Eusebius of Nicomedia and returned to his people to work as
a missionary. In 348, to escape religious persecution by a Gothic chief,
probably Athanaric[3] he obtained permission from Constantius II to migrate with
his flock of converts to Moesia and settle near Nicopolis ad Istrum, in what is
now northern Bulgaria. There, Ulfilas translated the Bible from Greek into the
Gothic language. For this he devised the Gothic alphabet.[4] Fragments of his
translation have survived, notably the Codex Argenteus held since 1648 in the
University Library of Uppsala in Sweden. A parchment page of this Bible was
found in 1971 in the Speyer Cathedral.[5]
His parents were
of non-Gothic Anatolian origin but had been enslaved by Goths on horseback.
Ulfilas converted many among the Goths, preaching an Arian Christianity, which,
when they reached the western Mediterranean, set them apart from their Orthodox
neighbors and subjects.
Pasted
from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulfilas>
Read this…about
the Goths invasion of the Roman Empire--
'In the first
place, it was a great thing for Europe that when the
Goths poured over
Italy and even captured Rome they came as a
Christian people,
reverencing and sparing the churches, and
abstaining from
those barbarities that accompanied the invasion of
Britain by the
heathen Saxons. But, in the second place, many of
these simple
Gothic Christians learned to their surprise that they
were heretics,
and that only when their efforts toward fraternizing
with their fellow
Christians in the orthodox Church were angrily
resented.11'
http://www.sabbathtruth.com/portals/20/documents/Truth_Triumphant.pdf
Let's look a
little bit at the council of Nicea too -
'The First
Council of Nicaea was a council of Christian bishops convened in Nicaea in
Bithynia (present-day Iznik in Turkey) by the Roman Emperor Constantine I in
A.D. 325. The Council was the first effort to attain consensus in the church
through an assembly representing all of Christendom.[2]
Its main
accomplishments were settlement of the Christological issue of the relationship
of Jesus to God the Father; the construction of the first part of the Nicene
Creed; settling the calculation of the date of Easter; and promulgation of
early canon law.[3][4]'
Pasted
from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea>
This is why the
invading Christian Goths later on were considered Heretics, they were of
differing Christian beliefs than the ruling class in Roman.
The differing
confrontations to come, the many, many battles that would end up dividing the
Roman Empire eventually into ten main kingdoms for a time before three would be
'plucked up'…
(Dan 7:8 I considered the
horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom
there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in
this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things.
)
...would be
political and religious rather than strictly political- a BIG change from past
battles.
This next
verse--
Dan 11:30 'For the ships of Chittim shall come
against him…'
Could only refer
to this man and his amazing naval forces.
'The Vandals had
suffered greatly from attacks from the more numerous Visigoths, and not long
after taking power, Genseric decided to leave Hispania to this rival Germanic
tribe. In fact, he seems to have
started building a Vandal fleet even before he became king.
Taking advantage
of a dispute between Boniface, Roman governor of North Africa, and the Roman
government, Genseric ferried all 80,000 of his people across to Africa in 429.
Once there, he won many battles over the weak and divided Roman defenders and
quickly overran the territory now comprising modern Morocco and northern
Algeria. His Vandal army laid siege to the city of Hippo Regius (where
Augustine had recently been bishop — he died during the siege), taking it after
14 months of bitter fighting. The next year, Roman Emperor Valentinian III
recognized Genseric as king of the lands he and his men had conquered.
In 439, after
casting a covetous eye on the great city of Carthage for a decade, he took the
city, apparently without any fighting. The Romans were caught unaware, and
Genseric captured a large part of the western Roman navy docked in the port of
Carthage. The Catholic bishop of the city, Quodvultdeus, was exiled to Naples,
since Genseric demanded that all his close advisors follow the Arian form of
Christianity. Nevertheless, Genseric gave freedom of religion to the Catholics,
while insisting that the regime's elite follow Arianism. The common folk had
low taxes under his reign, as most of the tax pressure was on the rich Roman
families and the Catholic clergy.
Added to his own
burgeoning fleet, the Kingdom of the Vandals now threatened the Empire for
mastery of the western Mediterranean Sea. Carthage, meanwhile, became the new
Vandal capital and an enemy of Rome for the first time since the Punic
Wars.
With the help of
their fleet, the Vandals soon subdued Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica and the
Balearic Islands. Genseric strengthened the Vandal defenses and fleet and
regulated the positions of Arians and Catholics. In 442, the Romans
acknowledged the Carthaginian conquests, and recognized the Vandal kingdom as
an independent country rather than subsidiary to Roman rule. The area in
Algeria that had remained for the larger part independent of the Vandals turned
from a Roman province into an ally.
For the next 30
years, Genseric and his soldiers sailed up and down the Mediterranean, living
as pirates and raiders. One legend has it that Genseric was unable to vault
upon a horse because of a fall he had taken as a young man; so he assuaged his
desire for military glory on the sea.
In 468,
Genseric's kingdom was the target of the last concerted effort by the two halves
of the Roman Empire. They wished to subdue the Vandals and end their pirate
raids. Genseric, against long odds, defeated the eastern Roman fleet commanded
by Basiliscus off Cap Bon. It has been reported that the total invasion force on
the fleet of 1,100 ships, counted 100,000 soldiers. Genseric sent a fleet of
500 Vandal ships against the Romans, losing 340 ships in the first engagement,
but succeeded in destroying 600 Roman ships in the second. The Romans abandoned
the campaign and Genseric remained master of the western Mediterranean until
his death, ruling from the Strait of Gibraltar all the way to Tripolitania.
Pasted
from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genseric>
AMAZING! The
victory of this man of the sea!
This verse of prophecy- Dan 11:30
'For the ships of Chittim shall come against him…' is truly fulfilled in
this!
The Roman Empire
was fighting for its survival and failing.
We'll continue
with the 30th verse tomorrow… little by little, all by the GRACE OF
GOD!!!!!!!
In His amazing
LOVE!
Amen.
It's not once begun and quickly finished. People like the idea of a finished work and it's not that I don't like the idea it's just that the idea is coated thickly in finishing as quickly as possible. The quicker things are done the better especially if they're done properly. Having unfinished projects that aren't worked on is never fun. Who likes to have a bunch of partially finished works in progress- no matter what it is? Yet there are some things that require time to complete. Some things are works in progress that take years to complete. Some things cannot be rushed. A good wine takes time- you've heard the saying. Some cheeses well aged are perfection. Getting a degree in education helps you get a good job and some degrees take a long time to obtain and you can't rush things. Taking our time to get things right the first time is very important and as much as we talk about rushing through things and finishing them quickly that isn't always the best thing.
It's the same with our Christian lives.
We begin them and think that suddenly we are completely what Christ wants us to be. We've been born again. We might even feel that wonderful feeling of having a new life, a new beginning, a new lease on an old life that promises better things. We might feel freed from the weight of past sins because they are all forgiven. We might have an intense emotional upheaval that makes us feel amazing. We feel these things and believe that we should always feel these things and that life will go on to be this amazing thing because we've accepted Jesus and want to live in Jesus.
The Christian life is like any other life in the respect even if you're not a Christian you have to live and get by to the best of your ability. The Christian life differs because you recognize that you aren't going to go through this life alone, on your own, you want to go through this life with Christ. You recognize that only through Christ can a life that makes little sense begin to make sense. There is a complete senselessness to life if you live it without Christ. You live it for no reason. You live it biding your time, accepting all the bad things for no reason at all.
Christ brings meaning to life by offering a new life in Him. Is that life instantaneous? In some ways it is. The promise is instant. The completion of that promise isn't realized until Christ comes again. The stuff inbetween is what we call our life. The moment the promise is made and accepted, and the moment Christ returns can be a full lifetime of say, 70, 80 years of inbetween for some. For others it's only a day long, because the next day they die and sleep until Christ returns but their life inbetween is over. The next thing those who sleep in Christ will know is Christ returning- the promise fulfilled, the work that was begun complete.
You see there is a work begun in us when we accept Christ. He begins the work in us and he'll finish it.
Phillipians {1:6} Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform [it] until the day of Jesus Christ
We have to be confident. We have to trust that as we go through life He is working in us. We have to let Him work in us. We have to understand we are embarking on a work that will take a lifetime without any completion until Christ returns. The completed work is only done when Christ arrives until then we are works in progress.
During the walk we'll get discouraged. We'll feel like the promise is far, far away. We might feel like the promise has been broken. We have to have confidence in Jesus that He will continue to make us into the creatures He wants us to be for Him when He returns. We can't make ourselves... we can't do the work ourselves. Christ who is the one who begins the work will finish the work upon His return, until then He is performing it in us. He will perform it, HE WILL PERFORM. He takes the action and it is our job to let Him perform it in us, believing that He will continue to perform it until He returns. We can't try to take over and perform it ourselves, we can't. We might try and that's where we run into trouble. We try to do Jesus' job in ourselves.
When people are given a job to do and they go and do another's job is it acceptable? Generally it's not. If someone is doing another's job the chances are they're not doing their own job. This is one thing that isn't better when it's taken over by another because NO ONE can do this job, only Jesus can and all those who think they can do His job are deluded and it's a deadly delusion they suffer under. If they are attempting to do Jesus' job then Jesus' can't perform that work, He's being interfered with. It's our job to LET Him work in us. That's our only job and yet we often find it hard to do that one simple thing- let go and let Him.
We have to take our self out of us to let Jesus in us, right? Wrong.
We are filled to the brim with self. And while it's logical to assume that we can be no other way, we know for a fact that selfishness isn't a good trait. Living among people who only think of themselves and no others isn't a good thing. We applaud the person who give up their own selfish wants so they can make another happy and yet we don't foster that in ourselves. We want to be the one catered to. Selfishness isn't a good trait at all. Wanting things our way and only our way is not good. Self is not good. So how do we empty ourselves of this selfishness?
We rely on Christ to perform that work in us. To empty us as we LET Him. We have to let HIM work in us. Because if we try to take out the selfishness even then we are claiming that work which isn't in us to perform. Does this mean we cling to all our selfish acts and do so in defiance of Christ? Absolutely not. We cling to nothing but offer it all to Christ. We recognize all that which makes us what we are and we give it to Christ asking Him to perform in us knowing that He will perform in His way, not our way. We might want Him to get rid of one thing but He might want to work on another area first. We can't presume to know how Christ is to perform the work in us, we have to trust that He will. We can lay claim to nothing accept surrendering ourselves to Christ, nothing. It's a constant surrender, and a constant knowing that His way is perfect ours is not and if we let Him He will perform His perfect way in us until He comes again.
May God through the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ begin, continue, and forever work in us performing His good work in each of us until He returns. By His righteousness, by His grace, by His love now and forever.
Amen.
8/2/10
Mat 10:34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
When did this change? When did Jesus change this to peace on earth? You hear all the time talk of world peace. But Jesus didn't bring peace to earth when He was here and He didn't tell us to try and bring world peace. He wants us to find peace in Him, for us to promote His peace to others, but not to set a course for world peace. He tells us THINK NOT. He didn't want us to be confused on this issue. So many believe that the Messiah would come and bring peace with Him, today many believe He will come again and bring world peace with Him. But there will be NO world peace until sin is totally gone. Sin will not be totally gone until the day the author of sin is destroyed along with all those that have followed Him. People who spend countless hours, countless dollars are striving for world peace before the Bible tells us there will be world peace are misguided. I know this sounds contrary to a lot of people. Shouldn't we want peace? No, not the peace this world imagines, not peace without God as it's Author. The world will strive for some semblance of peace that it can manufacture, but at it's heart it won't be led by God. Jesus' own words tell us a different story. 'THINK NOT that I am come to send peace on earth, I came not to send peace, but a sword.' That sword is the Word of God, the Word of God is the truth.
Eph 6:17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God
Joh 17:17 Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.
Joh 14:27 Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
Joh 16:33 These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.
Joh 17:9 I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine.
Joh 17:15 I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.
Joh 17:16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
Jesus didn't pray for world peace and He didn't tell us to seek peace for the world. Do a search online for world peace, you'll find it's something many, many people are seeking. To talk contrary about world peace makes you appear as a rebel, as contrary to something God and Jesus would want. But the Bible tells us differently, Jesus tells us differently. I believe it's very important we have this understanding because we know that the enemy of God likes to appear as an angel of light. The enemy of God likes to set up false hope and situations that are pure counterfeit- meant to appear as if they are from God but they really, really aren't.
Mat 10:34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
Our battle is with the same enemy of Jesus, and our armor, our weapons the same as Jesus used. We have to wear our armor and we have to wield our sword confidently, practicing and using it daily so that we NEVER are caught without it at our side, unprepared to use the sword when we need it the most.
These verses here tell a story so much different than the one we like to imagine--
Mat 10:34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
Mat 10:35 For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.
Mat 10:36 And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.
Mat 10:37 He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
Mat 10:38 And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.
Mat 10:39 He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.
This is not a pretty picture of peace in the world. This is a picture of the warfare we are part of and if it's a warfare that can hit close to home and heart, what makes us think that it would be better for us with strangers and those who have no ties to us at all?
No, we are not to bring discord, we are to bring truth and if the truth brings discord we are to remain grounded in that truth and any discord that comes as a result is not to be unexpected. We can have the peace of God with us, but still be in a situation of discord. Peace in a storm. The storm may rage all around us, buffeting us unrelentingly, but we can have the peace of our Lord and Savior with us through it all. Satan will try and tell us that all the discord around us proves we are not really followers of Christ, because wherever we go there is upset and angst, but in truth that only proves how much Satan wants to draw us away from the peace by instigating the discord.
May God bless us all richly with His peace, with His amazing, all consuming love. May we hold fast to the truth in ALL things as we fight this battle of spiritual warfare.
By His grace and mercy!
Through His love and in His righteousness forever!
Amen.
8/2/11
History-Prophecy.
As we continue on
we need to look at the continuing history of Christianity.
Missionaries eventually would go to all the world, but closer to the
declining Roman Empire -as wars were renewed and the gradual disintegration of
that empire was underway- we have an invading force that were once known for
their barbarianism. This group of
people were the Goths.
'Ulfilas, or
Gothic Wulfila (also Ulphilas. Orphila)[1] (ca. 310 – 383;[2]), bishop,
missionary, and Bible translator, was a Goth or half-Goth and half-Greek from
Cappadocia who had spent time inside the Roman Empire at the peak of the Arian
controversy.
Ulfilas was
ordained a bishop by Eusebius of Nicomedia and returned to his people to work as
a missionary. In 348, to escape religious persecution by a Gothic chief,
probably Athanaric[3] he obtained permission from Constantius II to migrate with
his flock of converts to Moesia and settle near Nicopolis ad Istrum, in what is
now northern Bulgaria. There, Ulfilas translated the Bible from Greek into the
Gothic language. For this he devised the Gothic alphabet.[4] Fragments of his
translation have survived, notably the Codex Argenteus held since 1648 in the
University Library of Uppsala in Sweden. A parchment page of this Bible was
found in 1971 in the Speyer Cathedral.[5]
His parents were
of non-Gothic Anatolian origin but had been enslaved by Goths on horseback.
Ulfilas converted many among the Goths, preaching an Arian Christianity, which,
when they reached the western Mediterranean, set them apart from their Orthodox
neighbors and subjects.
Pasted
from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulfilas>
Read this…about
the Goths invasion of the Roman Empire--
'In the first
place, it was a great thing for Europe that when the
Goths poured over
Italy and even captured Rome they came as a
Christian people,
reverencing and sparing the churches, and
abstaining from
those barbarities that accompanied the invasion of
Britain by the
heathen Saxons. But, in the second place, many of
these simple
Gothic Christians learned to their surprise that they
were heretics,
and that only when their efforts toward fraternizing
with their fellow
Christians in the orthodox Church were angrily
resented.11'
http://www.sabbathtruth.com/portals/20/documents/Truth_Triumphant.pdf
Let's look a
little bit at the council of Nicea too -
'The First
Council of Nicaea was a council of Christian bishops convened in Nicaea in
Bithynia (present-day Iznik in Turkey) by the Roman Emperor Constantine I in
A.D. 325. The Council was the first effort to attain consensus in the church
through an assembly representing all of Christendom.[2]
Its main
accomplishments were settlement of the Christological issue of the relationship
of Jesus to God the Father; the construction of the first part of the Nicene
Creed; settling the calculation of the date of Easter; and promulgation of
early canon law.[3][4]'
Pasted
from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea>
This is why the
invading Christian Goths later on were considered Heretics, they were of
differing Christian beliefs than the ruling class in Roman.
The differing
confrontations to come, the many, many battles that would end up dividing the
Roman Empire eventually into ten main kingdoms for a time before three would be
'plucked up'…
(Dan 7:8 I considered the
horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom
there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in
this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things.
)
...would be
political and religious rather than strictly political- a BIG change from past
battles.
This next
verse--
Dan 11:30 'For the ships of Chittim shall come
against him…'
Could only refer
to this man and his amazing naval forces.
'The Vandals had
suffered greatly from attacks from the more numerous Visigoths, and not long
after taking power, Genseric decided to leave Hispania to this rival Germanic
tribe. In fact, he seems to have
started building a Vandal fleet even before he became king.
Taking advantage
of a dispute between Boniface, Roman governor of North Africa, and the Roman
government, Genseric ferried all 80,000 of his people across to Africa in 429.
Once there, he won many battles over the weak and divided Roman defenders and
quickly overran the territory now comprising modern Morocco and northern
Algeria. His Vandal army laid siege to the city of Hippo Regius (where
Augustine had recently been bishop — he died during the siege), taking it after
14 months of bitter fighting. The next year, Roman Emperor Valentinian III
recognized Genseric as king of the lands he and his men had conquered.
In 439, after
casting a covetous eye on the great city of Carthage for a decade, he took the
city, apparently without any fighting. The Romans were caught unaware, and
Genseric captured a large part of the western Roman navy docked in the port of
Carthage. The Catholic bishop of the city, Quodvultdeus, was exiled to Naples,
since Genseric demanded that all his close advisors follow the Arian form of
Christianity. Nevertheless, Genseric gave freedom of religion to the Catholics,
while insisting that the regime's elite follow Arianism. The common folk had
low taxes under his reign, as most of the tax pressure was on the rich Roman
families and the Catholic clergy.
Added to his own
burgeoning fleet, the Kingdom of the Vandals now threatened the Empire for
mastery of the western Mediterranean Sea. Carthage, meanwhile, became the new
Vandal capital and an enemy of Rome for the first time since the Punic
Wars.
With the help of
their fleet, the Vandals soon subdued Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica and the
Balearic Islands. Genseric strengthened the Vandal defenses and fleet and
regulated the positions of Arians and Catholics. In 442, the Romans
acknowledged the Carthaginian conquests, and recognized the Vandal kingdom as
an independent country rather than subsidiary to Roman rule. The area in
Algeria that had remained for the larger part independent of the Vandals turned
from a Roman province into an ally.
For the next 30
years, Genseric and his soldiers sailed up and down the Mediterranean, living
as pirates and raiders. One legend has it that Genseric was unable to vault
upon a horse because of a fall he had taken as a young man; so he assuaged his
desire for military glory on the sea.
In 468,
Genseric's kingdom was the target of the last concerted effort by the two halves
of the Roman Empire. They wished to subdue the Vandals and end their pirate
raids. Genseric, against long odds, defeated the eastern Roman fleet commanded
by Basiliscus off Cap Bon. It has been reported that the total invasion force on
the fleet of 1,100 ships, counted 100,000 soldiers. Genseric sent a fleet of
500 Vandal ships against the Romans, losing 340 ships in the first engagement,
but succeeded in destroying 600 Roman ships in the second. The Romans abandoned
the campaign and Genseric remained master of the western Mediterranean until
his death, ruling from the Strait of Gibraltar all the way to Tripolitania.
Pasted
from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genseric>
AMAZING! The
victory of this man of the sea!
This verse of prophecy- Dan 11:30
'For the ships of Chittim shall come against him…' is truly fulfilled in
this!
The Roman Empire
was fighting for its survival and failing.
We'll continue
with the 30th verse tomorrow… little by little, all by the GRACE OF
GOD!!!!!!!
In His amazing
LOVE!
Amen.