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To our fellow cybernauts: Every now and then we try to use only one WRAP AROUND to address a problem that is being experienced by many of you. This eliminates repetition and it also lets those WRAPPING know that they're are not by themselves with their problem. The problem we're addressing in this WRAP is unique to believers and the following excerpts—taken from your WRAP AROUNDS—expresses it more clearly than I can put it."…I feel that I am so far from God now that He doesn't even listen to my prayers…I don't even know if I was ever saved…I believe that I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and that He was crucified and resurrected, and that He is returning for His church—but if I believe this, would I be continuously doing the things that I am doing?" "…since I know what I am doing wrong and continue to do it, have I already damned myself to Hell?… What do I do to become saved, because according to the Bible, I have already confessed with my mouth and believed with my heart, as Romans 10:9 said to do. But I can't believe that I've done all that I am supposed to do, because I would not be in such a state." DON & B'ANN WROTE: Because of such Scripture as the following, the seventh and eighth chapters of Romans are often referred to as the valley and the mountaintop of the believers' walk of faith.
For all who want to leave the valley of failure and despair and climb the mountain of faith, the way is in the Bible and it is clear; for God wants you out of the valley as much or more than you do. In our Book MARK THEM (Go to our home page and click the button MARK THEM), we discuss why believers are in the valley of which Paul wrote and some of the ways to get out of it. If after reading MARK THEM, you still have questions, feel free to WRAP again. Thanks for taking the time to WRAP with us. We are praying for you, and we need your prayers as well. Don & B'Ann |
JEFF B______ WROTE: I am currently attending NYU Film School in New York City. The recent insurgence of various beliefs concerning the end of days has interested me greatly, and I was wondering if we might be able to discuss these subjects further. An opportunity to commit these perceptions on to film has arisen, and I was hoping you might be of some assistance. Please don't hesitate to respond whenever you are free. Thanks a million. B'ANN WROTE: Dear J___: The writing of a documentary of the Book of Revelation would be quite an undertaking. Most certainly, a visual representation of the things described in the chapters would be both awesome and esthetic. However, giving meaning and interpretation would be a challenge that really makes me hesitate. The Bible is not a book for private interpretation and I usually make Don look again and again at anything he might choose to write in the way of a commentary. That is why we named our web site DOWEKNOW? We were just purposing to the world at large that perhaps as a collective church community we DONOTKNOW everything about the Holy Scriptures. With this in mind, the church world can claim the Lord's promise: "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you" (Matthew 7:7) Also, we feel that we are not alone in this quest to understand the prophetic portions of the Scriptures, but that the Spirit of Christ is stirring the Body universal to understand and to be expecting more Scriptural truths to be revealed to our generation. This is a reason for our DOWEKNOW WRAP AROUNDs—i.e., so that we can share with one another our questions, comments, concerns, and enlightenments about those things that are ready to be revealed to this age. We also feel that we have been led to put our site on the web because of the great falling away from the precepts of the Bible that we are currently experiencing. There is a pertinent saying coined in the 70's: i.e., "the world is getting so 'churchy' and the church is getting so worldly that you can't tell the two apart." Don would often surmise during the 70's and 80's, when the mega-media ministries were on TV, that the world system and the church system were growing side beside in two giant towers. He observed that when this happens at any time in history, they would eventually collide in a conflict. But this time, this did not happen. The mega ministry tower toppled like an unstable stack of dominoes. The Christian faith is similar to the domino effect. One person witnesses, a soul is converted, that soul witnesses and another soul is converted and it does spread like a long row of toppling dominoes on the floor. The "super" ministries, which were very visible to the world, were not spread on the floor in a chain effect but rather stacked further and further upward. When they toppled, there was not the domino effect but just a jumbled chaos. This is what can happen when precept upon precept is not correctly fitted together, but built in the wrong direction. The only thing that truly remained from these ministries were the Bible verses quoted and the Christian charity from the hearts of all those who gave their offerings in a manner acceptable to God. (God said the Bible would never return unto Him void.) I am of an opinion that any person who receives enlightenment about the Bible, that is sound/correct, can only do so after years of diligent Bible study. "Not a novice" is a warning in the Scriptures. This brings about the awesome responsibility to which I was referring. The wrong idea or movie about the end time events could seriously delude a world that needs truth. I have watched the movies about the Bible, and for the most part find them historically correct. Note I say historically correct. However, the historical correctness of Revelation would be difficult. In this Book, God does not call nations by name or people by name as He did in the Old Testament and the New Testament up to the Book of Revelation. In fact, as Don noted in one of his WRAP AROUND replies, God doesn't even give the beast a symbolic representation such as the eagle, the women, horses, etc. The "beast" will be such a repugnant thing to God, that the Creator will not even let him be represented by one of the creatures that He created. Selah. |
J_______ R_______ Wrote: Question-Comment: I have been reading the things from your site, and I must say that I agree with you. I have a question regarding the trinity. I hear the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit being referred to as separate person's (yet one) and I have a lot of difficulty accepting this concept. I feel that when we refer to God as a person we are bringing Him down to our level (personhood). A person is a created being, having been created by God Himself and since God is not a created being, but God is Spirit, how in the world can He be referred to as a person in any sense of the word...(I think I answered my question in my question..."in the world".) The only time God was a person was when He walked upon the earth, Jesus. Who was the all the fullness of the Godhead, bodily. I keep hearing references as to personhood, and this sounds to me as if God is being separated into three different beings and all of them are a person. I accept the idea of trinity, but the way I look at it is that The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three facets of the same God. Like a diamond, which has many facets, but all makes up one diamond and not many diamonds. The Father, who is the Godhead, (mind) The Son who is the word (the power) and The Holy Spirit who is the thoughts and emotions...comforter, guide, searcher of our hearts, (I have more on these thoughts, but to save space I am just adding a few) This has bothered me for quite some time and no matter how much I study the Word of God, I cannot come up with anything that tells me or which inspires me to think of God as three separate persons who are one. God is ONE. I wonder if the explaining of Him as three persons, has something to do with not understanding…. B'Ann wrote:Concerning the Godhead and the creation of the heavens and the earth, try thinking of this using the analogy of a contractor, carpenter, and homeowner that are all involved in the building of a house. Each of them can point to the house and say, "Look at this home I'm building." Certainly the homeowner has the right to declare that he/she is building a home, the contractor can declare that he/she is building a house, the carpenter can take pride in the house being built by his/her hands and knowledge…so in this sense, the concept of the trinity shouldn't be too hard to understand. They are all one, united in a common goal/entity. God the Father is the creator of mankind, Jesus was the sacrifice for mankind's redemption and The Holy Spirit is the power that brings our redemption to pass. Don Wrote: Even though we might be able to partially handle the concept of the "three-in-one Godhead," we will never be able to totally understand the Trinity while we're in this life. This is because we cannot fathom God. Who of us haven't had the thought, "If there must always be something before something can be created or produced, then how did that first something (i.e., God) get here?" Again, when trying to imagine God's confines and we consider the question, "If God were to go in a geometric straight line in any direction, who or what would be there to stop Him?" These sort of questions go beyond our ability to answer; and to the thoughtful, they should seriously challenge the argument that we can't believe in God because we can't see or measure Him. Such a statement is based upon the assumption that the human brain is the ultimate tool for measuring reality. However, as we saw when we considered the two questions above, the brain/human reasoning is fallible. It cannot even explain our existence. In fact, if we are to totally trust it, then it is impossible for us to be here. Consequently, we might ought to seriously consider God's statement that without faith it is impossible to please Him (Heb. 11:6). Does this mean that God wants us to trash reasoning! No! In fact, the Bible also tells us that God wants us to reason with Him.
Let's face it! We are here, and we have no choice in the matter. However, we do find ourselves in an existence where it is impossible not to choose. We must choose in the morning if we get out of bed or not, then we begin a series of choices that make our day. Do we want to brush our teeth or do we want to spend the day "offending the brethren"? This is silly you say? Well, try not brushing those teeth long enough, and consider the consequences. In fact no decision that we make is without some consequence. However, the heaviest decision with which we must deal, is what to do with the Word of God. But it is comforting to know that we are not alone in facing this decision, nor are we left without the means to make the wise choice. We are not alone because the things revealed to us about the Trinity, for the most part, show us a God that is very much concerned with our salvation and our welfare. And we can also know that we have been given that which is necessary to please God because the Bible declares that every man (woman, and child) has been given a measure of faith—the measure need to reach out and touch Him and to accept His Salvation. A good simile of the Trinity might be found by looking at ourselves. In the book of Genesis we are told that God created us in His image, and in I Th. 5:23 Paul writes, "And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (cf. Gen. 2:7; Deut. 6:5). Since we are made in His image, and we are a triune person (i.e., we consist of a body, a soul, and a spirit) can we then make a comparison of ourselves to the Godhead for understanding? (Remember, because God and His thoughts are as far above us as the heavens are above the earth [Isa. 55:9], even the analogies/Parables that Christ gave us comparing the earthly with the heavenly always break down at some point.) In this analogy, God the Father would be the soul. In our soul is our will, our intellect, and our emotions—the things that distinguish us. Like God, we do things because we decide to. We then set our body in motion, hoping that we will be happy with the results. Applying our analogy, we are because God the Father willed us to be and had the power to make it so. We are also told that He was pleased with His creation, saying it was good. In this analogy, God the Holy Spirit would be the spirit of the Trinity. As we read the Bible it is hard to get a grasp on the unregenerated spirit for it seems the spirit and soul of the unbeliever are hard to distinguish. Perhaps this is so because of what transpired in the Garden of Eden the day that Adam ate of the forbidden Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Remember the account? Adam was told that if he ate of that tree, on the day that he ate of it he would surely die. However, his body lived for hundreds of years after that day. We also know that his soul continued to live, so this leaves only his spirit to have experienced death. (I'll resist the urge to begin preaching here and just say that this would explain Jesus' telling Nicodemus that to enter the kingdom of God, he had to be born again of the Spirit [See John 3:1-21]--we should also note that because of being born-again, the believer is conscious of God in his spirit, although this is possible only as the Holy Spirit quickens our spirits.) In addition, it seems that in the spirit of Adam and Eve (and subsequently, in the spirits of all their offspring) was placed a conscience to work in conjunction with the Ten Commandments written on the tablets of their hearts. For man, the soul and the spirit must work together; i.e., our consciences will either agree or disagree with the decisions made in our souls. With God, of course, God the Father and God the Holy Spirit are always in agreement. And in this analogy, God the Son would be the body. We use our bodies for world consciousness. Likewise, Christ became conscious of all that we go through, having experienced similar things in a body fashioned like ours. Of His earthly body the writer of Hebrews wrote, "Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me" (Heb. 10:5 cf. Mark 14:22). (It's interesting to note that while on the earth, Jesus did not act without first praying to God the Father, not did He act apart from the Spirit which was given to Him without measure ("For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him" [John 3:34]). So as per our analogy, with our souls we decide what we want to do and make plans accordingly; and our spirits either agree or disagree. (In addition, we believers have the option of walking with God [called walking in the Spirit] and incorporating Him in our plans, or we can leave Him out of our decisions and wonder why everything goes wrong!) And then we see our bodies being subservient to both our souls and our spirits. We can't function in this world without our body, so its importance is without question. But other than its reflexes for self-preservation, it can do nothing of itself. It exists only to serve our soul and our spirits. With this in mind let's read John 8:28: "Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things" (cf. John 8:42). Like our body, on this earth Christ was on a mission for God the Father, empowered by God the Holy Spirit, and totally submissive to those things He was told to do by the rest of the Godhead. So, to add to the mystery of the Trinity, it would seem that He is not just three individuals with one mind and will…but more like one individual with three distinct identities—but as I said, as long as man is in his finite form, he will never fully understand the Trinity. So, let's just thank God that He is and that we can know that He is all for us!!!
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