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Can the Dead Hear?

Published by dadmin on 19 September 2022 Respond

John chapter five contains an event where Jesus heals a man on the Sabbath and tells him to carry his matt and walk. In the minds of the Jewish leaders, this equated to working, a thing which was not supposed to be done on the Sabbath day. Jesus clearly saw it differently and considered healing someone a great thing to do on any day, not only a Sabbath, and walking away with his matt was not working in Christ’s mind.

After this event, we have discussion about it from verses 16–30. The Pharisees accuse Jesus of breaking the sabbath, and Jesus comments back. In the story we have a contrasted example of one group who heard Jesus speak, but rejected it, and a man who heard Jesus speak and did as instructed. The subject is thus about hearing God’s voice. In this context, here is what Jesus says:

And

It is not hearing with the physical ears which is the subject of verses 24–25, but rather hearing in the sense that you ‘understand.’ And in that quote, the ‘dead’ which are the spiritually dead will live. In other words, if you are spiritually dead, but you truly hear God’s words…. it sinks into your heart and you understand and receive it… you are changed and will live. This is the essence of believing God. It isn’t just believing that there is a God, because the Pharisees believed there was a God, but they rejected Jesus words and didn’t ‘hear’ him.

In the second quote it is now talking about everyone who is physically dead, and about the final judgement. Jesus now says that in this situation everyone will hear his voice, and rise to be judged, some rewarded and some punished. So the two quotes are talking about two different types of dead, and two differnet types of hearing, and two differnet types of result.

In the actual story, the Pharisees were dead, and did not hear the voice of God in Jesus. The disabled man who was healed did hear the voice of Jesus and received life.

The question remains, do you ‘hear’ Jesus?

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Queen Elizabeth II and the Lord Jesus Christ

Published by dadmin on 9 September 2022 Respond

Queen Elizabeth II has been a rock of stability for the world for the last seven decades. When I lived as a child in Papua New Guinea she came in 1985 to commemorate 10 years of independance and I saw her. A memory I will never forget. Presidents and Prime ministers have come and gone, but she has remained. Her calm manner has been a source of confidence for many, living through World War 2, the cold war, the fall of communism, terrorist years and everything in between.

Can I suggest that the Queen’s faith is what gives her such confidence. And can I further suggest that it is in fact God himself which gives the world its stability. God knows we need stability and so He gives us people like Elizabeth of Windsor. She has been a gift of God to the 20th century, and rather than worrying about the future, we can rest assured that the same God is still there. God will provide other gifts.

The Queen may have reigned while 13 US President came and went, and while a multitude of other world leaders changed over, but God has reigned on His heavenly throne before the Queen, and will continue.

There is one rock of stability and it is none other than Christ.

Malachi 3:6 “I am the Lord, I do not change.”

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Can You See God?

Published by dadmin on 1 September 2022 Respond

You don’t see God with your eyes, unless something very out of the ordinary happens. There are other ways of seeing Him.

God is a spirit (John 4:24) so he is “made” of spiritul ‘matter’ and not of atoms. Spiritual things are real, and in fact are the most real thing that there is. Basic philosophy informs us that somethign must have existed before atoms, or nothing could exist. This pre-existing ‘matter’ is the spiritual nature of everythign that undergirds all reality…. essentially God himself.

One question that atheists think stumps Christians is “who made God?” But in fact that question is the key to the proof that God exists. If God was a created entity, we would then ask the question again, who made that, and then who made that, and them who made that.

The “who made that” question could be asked an infinite number of times… but eventually you must come to a point where something existed that was not made, and was not physical. There must be a permanent and eternal spiritual entity or otherwise nothing would exist at all. And that is God.

So… because God is not made of physical matter the only way for him to be physically observed is for something supernatural to happen, he must ‘physicalize’ himself temporarily to be seen, or otherwise cause your physical senses to see non-physical things. Both are equally unusual, so an out of the ordinary event must happen.

However, God is seen in other ways, and many people have ‘seen’ God. There comes a moment in your awareness, that you recognize God is with you, or doing things in your life. While He isn’t physically observed, he is observed just the same – you have seen him. For me this first occurred as a four year old when I prayed to receive Christ into myself. I changed. He was real. I cannot eplain the experience, except that I saw God. Those without my experience can write it off with various excuses, but I have continued to see God regularly.

Pray for your eyes to be open in the manner I’m talking about. Visions do happen, and we cannot rule them out, but more likely is you will become aware of God’s reality.

Occasionally, someone only wants to prove that God doesn’t exist, so they pray a prayer like this deliberately not expecting anything to happen, and deliberately wanting (let us say believing) for nothing to happen. This is faith for nothing, and nothing is what they will get. This becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and they are confirmed in their doubt. They get what they want, which is to not know God. God is smart enough to know they don’t want anything to do with Him, so he will never been seen by them.

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