RESURRECTION SUNDAY - JESUS LIVES !

JESUS CHRIST, OUR LORD, IS RISEN

HE'S ALIVE !

AND HE'S COMING BACK

TO JUDGE, RULE AND REIGN

FOREVER

(... After the Great Pretender ...

the Counterfeit ... the False Messiah ...

has his final few years here on earth...

And due any day ....

Beware! Don't be confused) 

1 In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre.

2 And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it.

3 His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow:

4 And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men.

5 And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified.

6 He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.

7 And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you.

8 And they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy; and did run to bring his disciples word.

                                                              MATTHEW 28:1-8

It Is Finished ....

Jesus Came to Jerusalem to Celebrate Passover

http://ivarfjeld.com/

The Messiah never celebrated “Easter”. He came to Jerusalem to become the passover lamb of God.

Jesus prepared him self to become the perfect Passover lamb of God. The firstborn. The perfect sacrifice and atonement for sins.

Many Bibles have replaced the word ‘Passover” with ‘Easter”.
That is to twist the truth.
Jesus entered the city four days before the Passover festival was about to begin. In this way He fulfilled the Law, that told the Jews to select the Passover lamb four days in advance of the festival week.
Jesus wanted to eat the passover dinner with his students. The lamb had been slaughtered at twilight as the Law instructed.
Why?
Because the life of the lamb was in its blood. The lamb had to hang for many hours, to drain it completely of blood. It was a sin to drink blood. The blood was collected in a cup, to be used to mark the doorpost of every Jewish home. A blood mark was going to be put above the door, and on both the side of the door frame.
The blood was going to cleanse all Jews from the sin of idolatry in Egypt, and the very sign that instructions were followed and forgiveness granted.
The meal was to be consumed in the evening, as a remembrance of the great deliverance during passover in Egypt. Before midnight they had to wash the dishes, and clean the cups.  The destruction angels in Egypt passed over their houses at midnight.
The very next day, was a special Sabbath. It was the first day of the feast of unleavened bread.  They had to eat bread without yeast, a a symbol that all kind of sin and corruption was going to be squeezed out of the people and culture. In the sacrifice of a blemish passover lamb, there was forgiveness for sins and deliverance.

 Matthew 12:40
For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

Jesus left the grave on Sunday morning, the first day after the Sabbath. For all who can count, Jesus must have been crucified on a Thursday, and laid in a tomb. Not on Friday. “Good Friday” is nothing but Roman Catholic fraud. The false Jesus who were “crucified” on a Friday is a lawbreaker. A lawless man, promoted by a lawless Church. Thus is a “replacement theology” copy cat.
To put the passover message of Jesus into the correct Jewish and Biblical context, the Messiah told his students:
From this day onwards, you will eat this dinner in remembrance of me. The passover bread you break, is without yeast. It is a symbol of my body that will be broken for you at the cross at Calvary. The wine you drink, shall no longer be a symbol of the passover blood in Egypt. When you drink this wine, remember the blood of the New Covenant, the blood I will shed for your sins at Calvary.

 John 19:34-37
Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water. The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe. These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: “Not one of his bones will be broken,” and, as another scripture says, “They will look on the one they have pierced.”

First when they met the resurrected Lord, they fully understood the message.  Full of the Holy Spirit, they praised God of Israel. Amen.

Jesus let the Roman soldiers nail your sins to the cross at Calvary Hill in Jerusalem. The Messiah is the perfect atonement for our sins.

May all the readers of this blog have a blessed preparation for Passover, and a blessed festival ahead. May all who celebrate Easter open their Bible and read about the fulfillment of the Law, that took place in Jerusalem this week. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah. Amen.
Ivar

Starbucks or the Bible? Choose.l

Starbucks Shows No Respect For Christians
by Michael G. Mickey

Excerpt from a ChristianNews.Net article:

At the annual Starbucks shareholder’s meeting this past Wednesday in Seattle, company officials told those who support Biblical marriage that they “can sell [their] shares in Starbucks and buy shares in another company.”

According to reports, during the meeting, the founder of Corporate Morality Action Center expressed concerns over the company’s support of homosexual marriage. Tom Stobhar from the organization cited that the company’s stance affected shareholder earnings after Starbucks backed efforts to legalize same-sex “marriage” in Washington state last year. The company’s announcement had resulted in boycotts against the coffee king.

“In the first full quarter after this boycott was announced, our sales and earnings — shall we say politely — were a bit disappointing,” shareholder Tom Strobhar stated.

“Not every decision is an economic decision. Despite the fact that you recite statistics that are narrow in time, we did provide a 38% shareholder return over the last year,” responded Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz. ”I don’t know how many things you invest in, but I would suspect not many things, companies, products, investments have returned 38% over the last 12 months.”

“Having said that, it is not an economic decision to me. The lens in which we are making that decision is through the lens of our people,” he continued. “We employ over 200,000 people in this company, and we want to embrace diversity — of all kinds.”

The response drew both applause and cheers.

Schultz then concluded by saying, “If you feel, respectfully, that you can get a higher return than the 38% you got last year, it’s a free country. You can sell your shares in Starbucks and buy shares in another company. Thank you very much.”

Click HERE to read more, including information about a website currently taking action on behalf of people of faith.

So, that's how it's going to be, Starbucks? Okay, but I have a question. Why can't you, as a company, embrace the "diversity" of your Christian customers?

If being a Christian in today's world, striving to walk in obedience to God while the majority of the world is spitting in our Creator's eye, isn't one form of the "diversity of all kinds" Starbucks claims it wants to embrace, I need a solid explanation as to why.

Until I get an explanation that doesn't fly in the face of my Christian faith, it seems proper for me to show Starbucks that, contrary to what CEO Howard Schultz is quoted as saying above, it has, in fact, made an economic decision. Starbucks has decided it doesn't need my support nor the support of fellow bible-believing Christians anymore.

As you wish, Mr. Schultz. But you're not taking a position of moral superiority, unless your opinion trumps Almighty God's.

Leviticus 18:22: Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.

God meant that, Mr. Schultz! All Scripture pertaining to this matter, both Old and New Testament, is clear. So, what is a Christian to do, Mr. Schultz, when your company makes a mockery of that, even telling supporters of traditional marriage to take their investment dollars elsewhere if they hold Starbucks stock? Don't look now, but I think you're about to find out.

Planetary Object ISON (PX?) - Important Information

This came from one of my favorites, The00SkyView, who made it crystal clear that this was from a Christian source that they do not listen to ... but they are listening to this, indicating Earth could be feeling repercussions much earlier than expected. ISON, of course, may be a part of the PlanetX solar system. (The names are often changed to protect the guilty.)

The Ring of Truth - Visit To The Afterlife

Very few "trips to heaven" ring true, but this one does.

A Visit to Heaven

Temple Groups Practice Passover Sacrifice

Arutz Sheva article

Jewish groups prepare for the Third Temple with a sample sacrifice for Passover.

By Maayana Miskin

First Publish: 3/22/2013, 11:34 AM

Jewish groups held a mock Passover sacrifice on Thursday opposite the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The ritual slaughter was not merely a historic reenactment, but, they say, practice in advance of the reconstruction of the Temple.

Listen to the trumpets! (1:23 min)

The practice sacrifice has been held annually for the past several years. This year organizers were unpleasantly surprised by a veto from Israel’s Veterinary Services, which refused to authorize the event.

Organizers took the matter to court, and were able to quickly get a ruling permitting the ritual. The various groups involved in the event were represented by Rabbi Yehuda Glick, who told Arutz Sheva that the ritual was carried out with as much Biblical accuracy as possible.

“We took the goat, as the Torah commands, we had an altar built like the real one, and a cooking pit built according to halacha [Jewish law],” he said. “We slaughtered the goat with Leviim singing and priestly clothing, just like in the real Passover sacrifice.”

Leviim are Jews belonging to the Biblical tribe of Levi, whose members took part in Temple services.

The ritual was emotionally moving, Rabbi Glick reported. “The symbolism of standing opposite the Temple Mount and preparing for the real Passover sacrifice – it was without doubt a special moment,” he said.

Christ Our Passover

"... Christ our passover is sacrificed for us..." 1 Corinthians 5:7

"And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt." Ex. 12:13.

This applies to Christians in 2013. Just as the Passover was instituted that night in Egypt, the reality of "Christ our Passover" is an everlasting fact, ordained before the foundation of the world, "manifest in these last times for us," to be repeated once again in these last days. All of this is part of what "the angels desire to look into." They are waiting and watching to see all these things come to fruition ... just as we are.

The one overriding quality that was required of Moses on the occasion of the Passover was FAITH. They were in a crisis situation, full of chaos and seeming failure. Nine plagues had fallen on Egypt from the hand of God, and Pharaoh was still refusing to let the people leave. What possible reason could this next plague be expected to have any different result? Why were they being required to spend their time preparing ceremonial observances when they needed to prepare to get out of town that same night? And why in the world would sprinkled blood have any effect? All human reasoning and logic pointed to failure for the tenth time. 

But human reason is never wanted in God's arena.

Only absolute faith in God could cause Moses - after nine failures - to obey, and to prepare this unruly and stubborn people to go through all of the details and regulations required for this Passover event.   Moses had heard from God, and "by faith" he obeyed, and God caused it to be accomplished. Moses' faith was so exemplary that he is mentioned in Hebrews 11, the faith chapter.  

The Passover was, of course, a foreshadowing of the blood shed on the cross by Christ, the unblemished Lamb of God, for the purpose of redeeming us from sin and to pass over us when it comes to the great judgment ... Christ Our Passover.

Paul was talking to the Hebrews about having that same faith, urging them to come out and boldly avow Christ, and then "go on to perfection" as their fathers had boldly acted in faith in Egypt. This argument starts in Heb. 6 and goes right on up to Heb. 11 as Paul was trying to lead all believers to maturity in the faith. 

"Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God..." Heb. 6:1

The sprinkling of the blood went beyond deliverance of sin; the results pass on into eternity, as Paul explained in these chapters. It goes to the imputation of godly righteousness, identification with Christ, a better covenant, a better substance, a better sacrifice, a better hope, a better resurrection, a better thing, and better promises - all in Christ.

And, further still, Paul says, "Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins" Col. 1:12-14

Hebrews 11 lists many others who God saw fit to mention in His Word due to their FAITH. 

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. Heb. 11:13

These folks are a part of the “great cloud of witnesses” which is watching end time events right now!

“Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us…” Heb. 12:1

They’re watching us to see what we will do! The baton has been passed to us. It's our turn now. They are cheering us on. Let’s not let them down. Let’s follow their lead. Keep your eye on the prize.

....having seen them afar off...and were persuaded of them.

Keep the faith.

ROYAL HEIR

Monday, March 25, 2013

Locusts swarm into Israel on Passover eve

Arriving with Biblically resonant timing, latest arrivals are ready to reproduce.

A day before Passover, farmers in southern Israel were suffering from another plague of locusts, entering the country from Egypt with biblical timing.

The pests hit fields and greenhouses in the south; the Agriculture Ministry was working to prevent heavy damage to crops in the Negev and stop the insects from penetrating deeper into the country.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/fertile-locusts-swarm-into-israel-on-passover-eve/

Another New "Testament" To Avoid

A New New Testament: Are You Serious?

by Daniel  B. Wallace (website at above link)

Just released from the giant publishing firm, Houghton Miflin Harcourt: A New New Testament: A Bible for the 21^st Century Combining Traditional and Newly Discovered Texts, edited by Hal Taussig.

The advertisement from HMH distributed widely via email last week was not shy in its claims for the 600-page volume. The subject line read, “It is time for a new New Testament.” In the email blast are strong endorsements by Marcus Borg, Karen King, and Barbara Brown Taylor. Borg and King, like Taussig, were members of the Jesus Seminar (a group headed up by the late Robert W. Funk, which determined which words and deeds of Jesus recorded in the Gospels were authentic). King and Taylor are on the Council for A New New Testament. All of them share a viewpoint which seems to be decidedly outside that of the historic Christian faith, regardless of whether it is Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant.

The New Books

The title of the book sounds provocative; the reality is just as much so. “A council of scholars and spiritual leaders” was convened to determine which books besides the traditional 27 should be added to the New Testament. Significantly, it’s not called a “council of scholars and church leaders” for a reason. Although, to be sure, there were bona fide scholars on the council, not all were church leaders; arguably, in fact, almost none were. The council of 19—including two rabbis—examined several ancient writings which the jacket blurb euphemistically calls ‘scriptures’ and determined which of these worthies deserved a place at the table with original New Testament books. Ten books were selected for this honor, along with two prayers and one song. The song (if that’s the right term) is called “The Thunder: Perfect Mind” and is one of the Nag Hammadi codices. There are no references to it in the ancient world; it never mentions Jesus and may, in fact, have been written three centuries before he was born. Some of the council members wanted it to be listed first in the New New Testament, in spite of (or because of?) its apparent non-Christian perspective. How it is possible for the jacket blurb to say this book was ancient ‘scripture’ when our only knowledge of it comes from Nag Hammadi staggers the mind.

Here is the list of new books added to the New Testament by this council:

• The Prayer of Thanksgiving
• The Prayer of the Apostle Paul
• The Thunder: Perfect Mind
• The Gospel of Thomas
• The Gospel of Mary
• The Gospel of Truth
• The Acts of Paul and Thecla
• The Letter of Peter to Philip
• The Secret Revelation of John
• The First, Second, Third, and Fourth Books of the Odes of Solomon

What strikes one immediately is that most of these additions seem to be of two types: Gnostic or proto-Gnostic essays and writings that exalt women. Further, what is also striking are books that did not make the cut. Among them are the Shepherd of Hermas, the Didache, the Epistle of Barnabas, First Clement, and other books in the collection known as the Apostolic Fathers. In other words, the books selected by the council were selected with an agenda in mind; they were not chosen because they ever made a serious claim to canonicity. Indeed, as was mentioned above, at least one of them is not even mentioned in any extant ancient writing.

Consider again the writings of the Apostolic Fathers. These are writings that were considered orthodox in that they offer a similar viewpoint on doctrinal and practical matters as is found in the New Testament. They are purportedly written by first-generation disciples of the original apostles, though in some cases they are another generation removed. The Shepherd of Hermas was so highly regarded in the ancient church that we have more copies of it from before AD 300 than we do the Gospel of Mark. The Muratorian Canon speaks highly of it but stops short of treating it as bearing the same authority as the New Testament books because of its known recent vintage (mid-second century). But certainly the Shepherd has far better credentials than any of the 13 newly discovered writings for canonization. That the ancient church rejected even this document is implicitly damning evidence that none of the new discoveries really belong within the pages of Holy Writ. We will revisit this issue of the ancient church’s view of authoritative writings at the end of this short review.

The Council of Nineteen and the Ancient Church Councils

The council of nineteen that is attempting to do nothing less than reshape Christianity into an image more compatible with their worldview requires some scrutiny. Who are these people and on what basis does this council have any binding authority on anyone? Most of them are professors, pastors, authors, or rabbis. I cannot say for sure, but I do not believe that any one of them would consider themselves to be orthodox in the sense of holding to the seven universal creeds of the ancient church. John Dominic Crossan and Karen King are perhaps the best known scholars in the group. All we are told about their purported authority to add thirteen writings to the New Testament (bringing the total to 40, a number which often speaks of trials and judgment in the Bible!) is that this group was “modeled on early church councils of the first six centuries CE that made important decisions for larger groups of Christians” (A New New Testament, 555). But the similarities with the ancient councils stop there. Perhaps this is why nothing more is said.

The ancient church sent representatives to the great councils who would make decisions that the churches agreed were to be binding on all. These ancient councils especially hammered out doctrinal issues. And today, all branches of Christendom embrace the decisions and viewpoints of these universal councils as at least good guidelines on what constitutes orthodoxy, if not fully authoritative. There is one key exception to this: the liberal Protestant branch of the church rejects these councils because it rejects the divinity and bodily resurrection of Christ. And the council of nineteen? I cannot speak for all of them, but a good portion of them at least are adamantly against Christ’s deity, his bodily resurrection, his atoning death, the Trinity, and that the Bible has any kind of authority in doctrinal matters.

And they certainly did not conduct their meetings in the spirit of the ancient councils. Those councils were populated by persecuted Christians, representing the major churches and sees, who came to theological decisions based on the final deposit of revelation in the New Testament. Many of them were exiled or lost their lives after the state was swept along by every wind of doctrine while the persecuted saints remained steadfast in their beliefs. The council of nineteen may claim some semblance to these ancient councils, but there is more dissemblance than semblance in the their attempted coup.

Ancient Canon Decisions

As for thinking through what belonged in the New Testament, there was no universal church council that ever made an official list. Here is another point of incongruity between this postmodern council and the ancient ones: the council of nineteen has, by its own self-asserted authority, pronounced a verdict on what goes into the New Testament. At least they did not throw out the Gospel of John, something that more than one member of the Jesus Seminar was wont to do!

Even though there was no ancient universal council regarding the New Testament canon (suggesting, in the words of Bruce Metzger, that the canon is a list of authoritative books [the Reformed view] rather than an authoritative list of books [the Catholic view]), the ancient church did follow three basic guidelines: apostolicity, orthodoxy, catholicity. These will be briefly explained below.

Apostolicity meant that a book had to be written by an apostle or an associate of an apostle if it was to be included in the New Testament. Practically speaking, this meant that any document written after the end of the first century was automatically disqualified. This is why the Muratorian Canon—the first orthodox canon list, composed in the late second century—rejected the Shepherd of Hermas as authoritative, even though it considered it to be very beneficial to Christians. Further, any book that was known to be a forgery was rejected by the ancient church. Not one of the thirteen books proposed by the council of nineteen was written by the person it is ascribed to. The ancient church would—and often did—immediately reject such books because of their spurious nature. The test of apostolicity alone thus disqualifies all thirteen newly discovered books. Relatively speaking, almost all of these newly discovered books should also be called new books.

Orthodoxy meant that those books considered for canonical status needed to conform to what was already known to be orthodox. Orthodoxy was known even before any writings were accepted as scripture. It was known through hymns, the kerygma, and the traditions passed down by the apostles. If there never had been a New Testament, we would still have enough to go on to guide us as to what essential Christianity looked like. And it looked nothing like most of the thirteen books proposed by this new council. The Gnostic and proto-Gnostic books were soundly rejected by the ancient church.

And even those that were closer to orthodoxy (like The Acts of Paul and Thecla) were rejected because they failed the test of apostolicity. To put The Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of Mary, and The Gospel of Truth into the New Testament, side by side with writings that embraced a diametrically-opposed view of the Christian faith, is unspeakably brash. And although Professor Taussig and his friends think they are doing Christendom a favor by including known heretical writings in their expanded New Testament, they are doing so at both the cost of historical integrity and pedagogical method. This can only confuse laypeople, yet even Barbara Brown Taylor—considered one of the ten best preachers in America, and thus someone who knows better than to create Chicken Littles out of the chaos that this tome will almost surely incite—has endorsed the plan and layout of this volume. Orthodoxy seemed to be the furthest thing from the minds of the New New Testament council.

Finally, catholicity was a criterion used in deciding what earned a place at the table of the New Testament canon. By ‘catholicity’ I do not mean Roman Catholicism. No, I mean that for a book to make the cut it generally needed to be accepted by all the churches. To be sure, some New Testament books struggled in this department, but not all did. In fact, within a century of the completion of the New Testament, the ancient church throughout the Mediterranean world achieved a remarkable unanimity concerning at least twenty of the twenty-seven books. This included all thirteen letters ascribed to Paul and the four Gospels. The rest would find acceptance by the fourth century, in both the eastern and western branches of the church. Most of the new additions to the New Testament fail this test miserably, too. Again, catholicity is not something that the council of nineteen considered when deciding on what books to put in. Rather, catholicity is something that this book aims to achieve. And yet it does so principally through a Gnostic-like route: by urging Christians to accept these books on the basis of their largely politically correct viewpoint, the council is seeking to reshape Christianity into something more palatable to the postmodern world, where presumably knowledge replaces faith.

(For more on these criteria, see Reinventing Jesus, by Ed Komoszewski, James Sawyer, and Daniel B. Wallace.)

Conclusion

In short, the New New Testament is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. The council that put these books forth is a farce. It has nothing to do with the councils of old, yet implicitly seeks to claim authority on the basis of concocted semblance. The books were selected by those who, though certainly having a right to scholarly examination of the Christian faith, are not at all qualified to make any pronouncements on canon. That belongs to the church, the true church. Outsiders may address, critique, and comment on the New Testament. They have that right—a right given them by the very nature of the Bible: this book is the only sacred document of any major religion which consistently subjects itself to historical inquiry. Unlike the Bhagavad Gita, the Teachings of the Compassionate Buddha, the Qur’an, or the Gospel of Thomas, the Bible is not just talking heads, devoid of historical facts, places, and people. It is a book that presents itself as historical, and speaks about God’s great acts in history, intersecting with humanity in verifiable ways. This is where orthodoxy and heterodoxy should meet, dialoging and debating over whether the Bible is in any sense true. But to suspend the discussion by a sleight of hand is both cowardly and bombastic.

Epilogue: The Value of the New New Testament

After reading the critique above, one might be tempted to ask, “Apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln, what did you think of the play?” There actually is value in this book—even, I think, for laypeople. These are important ancient books that show both continuity with the early church and discontinuity. Some are essentially orthodox; most are subchristian. But they represent how ancients perceived the Christ event and remind us that even in the early period not all ‘Christian’ groups truly embraced Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God. Heresy is found in the earliest period of the Christian faith, too: it dogged the apostle Paul and even found a home in some of his churches after he left for other mission fields. At bottom, the question that we must all grapple with, and what many of these ancient writings grappled with, is this: What will you do with Jesus of Nazareth? That question is still the most important one that anyone can ever ask.