JustJeff

I don't necessarily learn anything about the church from the opening of the fifth seal. What I do learn is that there are people (the church?) who pay a great price for their Christianity, that is, their lives. These souls, living under the altar obviously are deeply loved by God as illustrated by their closeness to Him. Throughout the ages, many Christians have been martyred for their faith. They were killed because they remained steadfast in their belief in the Lord and our blessed hope. Vengeance belongs to God so it would seem unlikely that those who perished in His name would pray for it. More likely they are seeking the finality of the promise, the fulfillment of hope, eternity and habitation with our Blessed Savior. The with robe would mean purity, that these have attained the righteousness that only God can give us. The Lord wants that no one would perish, that all who have attained the promise would be received in heaven by Him. To wait a little longer is to wait until the very last of these makes it.

The Lamb, Jesus Christ, the Worthy One, opens the Seven Seals to reign destruction upon an evil and unjust world, diobedient toward the will of the loving God. And yes, it is just in the face of generations of rebellion and blasphemy against the One who created us, who has given the nations ample time to repent of their sins.

Jesus is God the Son manifest in the flesh. They are One. To us, they are Father Creator, Son Deliverer, Father, Brother and our God.

To the degree that Jesus will return and look for those who will rule with a rod of iron, and as joint heirs with Him, we, who are His saints, will also reign with Him. We will worship the Lord day and night, offering Him sacrifices of praise and serving Him for eternity. This is a job which priests do. We are His people and His people comprise His Kingdom.

Jesus, by His bloody sacrifice, is the only One worthy to open the scroll. He is the Lamb of God, the atonement of our sins. There is no other. Who could dare not to praise Him? Who else has done such a thing? No one.

Glory, The One, eternal, worthy, honor, power, creator, His will, His name, His authority, His lineage, prostrate, prayer, praise, His sacrifice, His blood, His atonement for our sins, His people, our authority, our priesthood, His riches, wisdom, The Amen.

Holy,Holy, What a Gathering That Shall Be, When We All Get To Heaven, All Will Be Glory, Everybody Will Be Happy Over There, Hallelujah Chorus, Heaven's Jubilee, How Beautiful Heaven Must Be.

The requests being made of God in the subject verses are for Christians to do good works to all people. Lest we forget, those who are well off need help spiritually as well as the poor need help spiritually and materially. We also need to keep God on our lips continually in praise and in our conversation. He truly takes great pleasure in this. Those who are Christians should live to please God and they should know why they must.

Our sacrifice today is a sacrifice of praise or an offering of our lips. Additionally our walk must include giving to those less fortunate than ourselves. This is pleasing to God.

I would think that the original readers of Hebrews were being taught about Jesus as the true Messiah and as Jews, were constantly under assault from non-believing Jews. It was important to identify Jesus as a stablilizing, unchanging Savior, not subject to the winds of changing laws or doctrine. The same holds true for me today, to know that His word of yesterday is still the same word today, in spite of a rapidly changing Christian world. Jesus is God, in the likeness of man, confirmed by this scripture. The power of an eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God is just as real as the air we breath. That is what is meant by Hebrews 13:8.

One more thing. Today, in the guise of Christianity, a whole new religious movement has started. It is one that preaches worldliness and wealth. Be not deceived. It is false doctrine.

When we, as Christians place the worlds needs, the things that are temporal first,take note. When we desire material blessings more than spiritual, be very affraid. When we store up more than we could ever use or need it is time to repent. A greed free life in one in which we are quite content with whta God has given us. He is Jehaovah Jireh, our Lord Provider and it is by Him that our future is secured. In Hebrews 13:5-6 God promises that He will always be with us, that He will never cast us away. He is our helper (our provider, meaning we will never lack what we need.), our protector.

God does not respect persons, neither should we. It is our obligation to love, as He does and as He showed on Calvary. Whether brother, sister or hatefilled enemy, love is the same. The love I show and give comes from the Holy Spirit within and as contagious as it is, I have a long way to go before I love as Christ does.

The churches of Revelation 2-3 have, to some extent fallen into worldliness, compromising the word by allowing the things of the world to become part of them. Those that maintain some degree of their faith in Jesus as their primary purpose are hailed by the Lord. It would seem to me that things really haven't changed. Twenty centuries later we're still the same.

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom:" (Prov 9:10) A healthy fear of God is to respect Him and His might and to maintain your integrity before Him for fear of hurting Him. We should indeed be mindful of His power in order to keep ourselves under subjection. While we should be aware of the consequences of sin, we shouldn't look at the Lord as some terrible dictator. He is a loving Father who gives His children great freedom to live as they choose. He doesn't intend for Christians to lock themselves up in a closet for fear of His wrath. God wants us to grow up and in order to do that we have to make mistakes and, hopefully, learn from them. When we truly walk in love of God we are in His will, all fear is gone.

No fire, no burning. Churches today are being taught not the love of God but the kind of love of the flesh. God loves you, no matter who you are or what you do. He wishes that you would be blessed with great material wealth. Once you claim Jesus as your Savior you go to heaven. It is not politically correct to witness. There is no hell and so on and so on. I mean, how could anyone in a church today possibly be on fire for God? They all have it made. Find a real church. A church that preaches the truth, whether you like to hear it or not.

We are saved by grace, not by anything that we can do, even if we could become holy. Since we are sinners, that is we sin whether we want to or not, we need forgiveness by Christ to be made clean. If, however, we willingly sin, we become separated from God, living for the flesh. We are dead in our sins and the Lord no longer sees us nor hears us.

"Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world." (1 John 2:15a) Today, sadly, we are not much different than the church of John's time. Anytime that the Word of God is compromised it fails to be truth, becoming a lie, which always fails. We have sold out insofar as we have taken hell out of our sermons, embrace fornication, both heterosexual and homosexual, promise that giving money to the church will get you great material blessing from God and so much more. This is not Christianity but religion. So sad.

Anyone who believes that God does not punish His children either has never read the bible or needs to take more of these bible studies. From Adam to Paul and now, God always disciplines those He loves, which is the whole world. His discipline is to bring us back in line when we stray from Him. His discipline is to correct us when we sin. All is for the greater good of bringing us to holiness in order to have complete oneness with Him. God is the perfect Father. His example to fleshly dads illustrates that complete love requires loving discipline. Once in a while a child may need a wack on the tail end to get the message. Those who are paying attention should see that Our Father is giving the world a pretty good wacking right now.

God created marriage as an eternal relationship between man and woman. Yada, the Herbrew word for knowing someone in a sexual manner, is intended to be a demonstration of love for one another and procreation. The bliss that comes from such a union is to be cherished in love, now and forevermore. To interpret the sex act strictly for pleasure is to denigrate God and His intention, blasphemous for His church to do. Sex outside of marriage is sin and for His church to condone such as this is truly a testimony that it is not His church at all, rather it is the synagogue of Satan. There is therfore no witness for Our Lord, rather it is putting Him to an open shame. As a church we will never shy away from the truth and as a result we will probably always be a small church as people would rather believe a lie and be damned rather than to hear the truth.

When we go through the fire we grow. We become experienced in the Christian life, mature and complete in our application of the Word. It makes us elders of the church, leading to increased responsibilty and dependability. The benefits are numerous. To me the greatest is an enhanced relationship with the Lord, a greater closeness to Him. I am more in tune with His still small voice and more able to respond in a manner favorable to Him.

One more thing, experience works patience, necessary to be a true witness for the Lord.

A congregation can lose it's first love for Jesus when it puts Him second, behind the pastor, tradition, worldliness, compromise and even sin. Genuine love for Jesus is when He is pre-eminent in every aspect of the church and congregation's life. When envy and strife show up in church self has become first, along with it all of it's ugly trappings. To regain what was lost, sin and self must cease. The church must return to a repentant state.

Spirirual warfare wears me down at times because it takes place between my ears. I am in constant combat with myself (thoughts, desires, lusts), the Tempter (through the world) and the Holy Spirit. I know that I have to die a little each day so that God may have rule over me so, I press on. When I die I am victorious as death (sin) has no dominion over me. Thanks be to God for the victory through Jesus Christ, His Son. I have been overcome by Satan, especially when I was a babe in Christ, simply because I was not rooted and grounded in the Word. It's easy to grow weary when you don't eat enough to sustain you.

Jesus, walking amongst the seven lamps is our light, leading us out of darkness. This shows us that we, the church need to walk in the light, that is Jesus at the head and the light of His word. Jesus is the eternal lamp, forever the light of the world, the old and the new.