The Scriptures Have Opened Up
Thanks Mike for taking the time to reply so quickly. Thank you for your spiritual insight into these scriptures. It all makes perfect sense. I guess I saw the sons of the Kingdom as being the nation of Israel, but overlooked the type application; elect and rejected, called and chosen. I really do persevere to try and apply the scriptures in this way always, but occasionally the flesh takes over still, and we tend to overlook things.
This evening I'm watching Rev 1:5, and I'll be working through the rest throughout the rest of the week. Hopefully I'll be up to date by Sunday evening. We're 6 hours in front in the UK, so it will about 9pm. It would be a blessing indeed to log in and join you all live. I shall give it a go and see if I can figure it out. I'm a member of the ustream TV iswasandwillbe group.
Mike, until I heard how you understood Matthew 4:4 in the spirit a couple of years ago, I really never saw it that way. Since I came to see that, the scriptures make so much more sense and just open up in a way they never did before. But, as you mention from time to time, it's still so easy to just read over stuff and think "yeah, well that was then" or "thank God that's not me". Of course every verse in the Bible is applicable to all of us, even the bad ones that the Church want to put out on the "sea" or put in the past or the future.
I'm recently coming to see that the temptations Christ went through in Matthew 4 are not only the same temptations we go through in life, but in the Church. The Church offers us all these things if we will just bow down to men; bow down to their doctrines. And another thing that the Church refuses to acknowlege is that Christ was led into the wilderness by the "Spirit". God led his Son to be tempted by the Devil to test Him. Christ learned obedience by what He suffered. The Church just can't see it. And that's exactly what we have to do. We have to be tempted in order to be overcomers; we have to learn through suffering - not through being rich, comfortable, fitting in, etc.
Well, you won't be able to see me, but God willing I'll be seeing you and your home group on Sunday, and I'm looking forward to it.
God bless you Mike, D____
Hi D____,
I cannot tell you how encouraging it is to hear that there are those out there who are coming to see that mankind will all one day live by every word of God, and that His elect will do so while yet in these vessels of clay. What you say about our temptation at the hands of men in the orthodox church is so very true! I look forward to seeing your name in the group this Sunday.
Your brother in Christ, Mike