Ozzy

There is a price that must be paid for breaking the laws of God. Since God is just, justice demands the price be paid. But since God is merciful as well, He wants to give mercy to those who ask. The only way to appease justice and to also be merciful was to have a mediator. Someone who could pay the price to fulfill the demands of justice, but also to extend mercy to those who are penitent. Our Savior, Jesus Christ, was the one chosen for this role. That is why He is called the Christ, or the Messiah. He is the chosen one, the anointed one, chosen from before the foundation of the world to atone for our sins. He lived a perfect, sinless life on Earth, thus becoming the only one that justice had no grasp on. Being spotless and blameless before God, He could offer his blood and life to pay the price for us. In the garden of Gethsemane He prayed and pleaded for us. He suffered beyond imagination anguish of both body and soul, so much so that His sweat turned to great drops of blood. Asking the Father if there was any other way, He knew that there was not. He had to drink the dregs of the cup of the wrath of God, He had to descend below all things, He had to feel the pains of hell and damnation, and feel the complete withdrawal from the Father and His spirit. He had to suffer what we would suffer if no intercession had been made for us. He had to know our pains and our infirmities. He had to pay the price for all of the children of the Father. After that anguish, He was taken and beaten, stripped of His clothes and pummeled, spit on, accused falsely, and hung on a cross. He fulfilled His mission by suffering death and being resurrected. After all this, all He asks of us is that we repent and keep His commandments. We learn of the gospel and what was done for us, we decide we want to be better, so we repent by asking God for forgiveness, we try to correct what we have done wrong, we move forward in faith in trying to keep His commandments to the best of our ability, becoming better and better every day. The animal sacrifices that you speak of in the Old Testament was to point their minds forward to the time when the Lamb of God would atone for their sins and pay the price. Today we look backwards and remember what He has done for us. This is why we take the bread and the wine often, so that we REMEMBER Him and keep our minds fastened on the atonement and that we should have a repentant heart and keep His commandments always. It should be kept in mind that we are preparing ourselves to enter the presence of God. Our life has become a probationary life where we can learn from experience, by trial and error, why we want to be good and keep God's commands. As we taste the pain that breaking the laws most assuredly brings; as we have sorrow and regret for our actions and misdeeds, we have the great promises of our Lord and Savior that we can and will be forgiven if we repent and try our best. If we do this, we will stand before God to be judged and the Savior will be on our side and mercy will be extended. That is how the atonement works.

Search for "lost books of the Bible" and you'll get a real eye opener to how much was excluded from the canon for political reasons.

Everything that is good and holy is being treated as evil. The family unit is being broken up. The gays want their debauchery to be normal. Killing your unborn children is not only okay, but others should pay for it. Adultery and divorce are normal. Almost every sexual perversion that can be thought of it done and shown to others by mass acceptance of pornography. Truth is pulled out of our schools and our societies. Everything that is good is now treated as though it is evil.

It was very near to Paul's time and continuing from there and is still taking place today. The 2nd, 3rd, and 4th centuries were terrible times for the Christian religion. Heavy persecution mixed with infiltration of pagan doctrines, followed by Rome taking over the religion and mixing it with it's ideas. The truth was slowly disregarded and men's lies became a part of the religion. Many false doctrines became normal and still serve as a foundational doctrines of today. Most are still living those lies, until the Messiah shall correct them.

The Mormons? Aren't those the weird bearded men in the mountains of Utah? No, I said the church of Jesus Christ. I'm still looking for it myself. I don't want to join the church of Luther, or the church of the Catholics, or the church of King Henry VIII, or the church of whoever decides to throw one up somewhere, or the church of the non-denominational...... I want to join the church of Jesus Christ. If you find it, let me know so I can investigate it please.

All of Isaiah 53. There are a few others, but the OT as we have it today is missing a lot of them. Do a search for lost books of the Bible and you'll see the many, many books that have been pulled out or simply been lost to history.

Join the church of Jesus Christ.

How sad. It seems everyone has gotten married just to get divorced.

The law of sacrifice has always been apart of the law of the gospel. It is important to note that it was not instituted with the Law of Moses. Remember that way before Moses was around, people like Abraham were offering up sacrifices. It probably goes back all the way to Adam and Eve after they got expelled from the garden. They were most likely taught the law of sacrifice to point their hearts to the Savior, who would be that sacrifice. It seems almost all civilizations and people had some form of sacrifice, even though it was corrupted by their false priests. Sacrifice seems to be in our nature. Anyway, when after Jesus accomplished His sacrifice, the way we remember it is by the bread and wine. At some point, when the sons of Levi return to the gospel, receive their temple ordinances, and are purified in order to perform those ancient sacrifices, they will again do so and it will be a sweet savor unto the Lord.

Jesus is God because His Father chose and ordained Him as such. He became the anointed one, the chosen one, the Messiah, to come atone for our sins and help us to be clean to go live with the Father. Jesus overcame the world and inherited all that His Father has, eternal life. He inherited all the attributes and powers that His Father has. He was an heir to all of this, and we, if we are faithful, will be joint-heirs with Christ of all that the Father has. Now whether or not that has anything to do with a "soul" is just semantics.

There are lots of good scriptural writings out there that are good for faith. A lot of things just didn't get added by the politicians and they try to force you to think that you can't have any more. There are apocryphal writings of Peter, James, and Paul. I love reading those! They look at feel more like the book of Revelation does. Peter really slams hard on the false doctrine of infant baptism, which is why it was excluded from the 4th century compilation. By the way, a historian working on ancient documents that are held at the Vatican found a journal of a guy who was journeying throughout Israel. He records his eye witness account of a miracle that Jesus did. Search for "Newly found document holds eyewitness account of miracle of Jesus". Enjoy!

Remember that the story of Adam and Eve and their 900+ years of life are contained into just about 10 pages! We ABSOLUTELY do not know everything there is to know about them. One assumption most people make is that Cain and Abel were the first two children born. There are merely the first two mentioned because of the major plot of Cain and Satan to kill Abel. But one thing to note is that after that event when God is banishing Cain, he is afraid that ALL the other people around are going to kill him. What other people? If Cain and Abel were the only two around, who would be there to kill him? It seems evident that Adam and Eve had already been having children, probably as soon as they left the garden, and there were lots of sons and daughters, who also had been reproducing. Then the next great notable event was the birth of Seth, who was a righteous man.

Remember to keep in mind the ultimate goal for having a temple. The goal is to symbolically represent fallen mankind preparing to enter the presence of God by ritual sacrifice, washings, anointings, clothing, and gaining heavenly instruction as the person symbolically travels from a fallen state to a state of perfection in the presence of God. So, any decorations, designs, and symbols on the temple are geared to reinforce in the mind of the person of the path they are taking. As you enter the outer court, you would have offered a sacrifice in the similitude of the Only Begotten Son of God. You were still outside of the temple proper, you were presented before the priest where he made the sacrifice for you, sprinkled the blood on the altar, and then escorted to the laver, or washing basin. You would then receiving a washing of water and anointing of oil, been clothed and prepared to enter into the actual building, or the holy place. There you would have walked through those doors, leaving the world behind and would be remind of the peace and holiness that you were going into. I think your interpretation of the doors is perfect. Your mind would have been turned to heavenly things as you left the profane world behind. You would have been instructed inside of the ways of God, and then presented before the veil to gain entrance into the holy of holies, or the presence of the Lord. This would signify, symbolically, the journey we all take from our fallen state to a state of being able to be in God's presence and have eternal life. Unfortunately, the children of Israel were a disobedient and rebellious people. When the temple instructions were given to Moses on Mount Sinai, each and every Israelite would have gone through this process when they appeared at the temple. But when Moses came down from the mountain and found them in their gross sin of sexual fornication and idolatry, the Lord altered the temple ceremony. Only the tribe of Levi would have any temple priesthood to perform the ceremony and only the High Priest would be allowed to take that journey all the way through to the holy of holies, or presence of God. The High Priest acted as a proxy for the individuals, who were not yet ready to do it for themselves. So yes, all of it is symbolic of this journey. There would be items reminding you of the Garden of Eden, of the fall of Adam and Eve, of Lucifer's plan to ruin us, of the redemption made through Christ, etc. These symbols were all around.

Yes, the commandment is still in force. Everyone who is married by the power of God is giving that instruction. Now does that mean to constantly have sex and have many children as possible, probably not. But, should you say that you are only going to have 2 kids and then stop because one more would be a burden? It's probably a personal thing that we all should consult with the Lord about. But remember that one of the greatest blessings ever given to Abraham was the blessing of having a great posterity as innumerable as the sands of the sea or the stars. Since we are adopted into the seed of Abraham and are apart of that seed, we too can have that blessing, or partake of it with him. Also, those Old Testament guys who had dozens and dozens of kids, they did it through polygamy. They had numerous wives, and in some cases concubines, that bore children, so don't think one wife has to do all of it herself! The whole house of Israel is from polygamist relationships and many great blessings came and will continue to come from that blessed and chosen line.

The sin is the sin of fornication for unmarried people to take part in sexual acts. Paul described a lot of the sexual sins in Romans, where he warns against masturbation, petting, homosexuality, etc. So, any sexual act outside of marriage is forbidden, but I think your question is more along the lines of should unmarried people be kissing and becoming somewhat intimate with each other. I think kissing in and of itself is not a sexual act. We kiss our mothers, our family, our friends, we hug and comfort each other. But of course there is more intimate kissing, French kissing, etc. that are done to arouse the sexual passions that we all have. If a young man and woman sit on a couch and engage in lots of kissing for great lengths of time, all that does it stir the passions and greatly tempt them to perform the forbidden acts. So, some light kissing to get to know each other I think is fine, but that may lead to heavy kissing with problems arising from not being able to stop. I think the term dating has changed over the years. We see young people, even as early as junior high, wanting to EXCLUSIVELY date one person for a long time. By this point they have watched years worth of movies telling them there is one true love or soul mate out there, that once the love feeling happens you should focus on that one person. We all know that isn't true, that we would be compatible with lots of people, but our kids are growing up with that distorted image. So they meet someone they like at school and feel they need to be exclusive with them. They act like it is a marriage type relationship, try to spend all their time with that person, and act wholly devoted to them. This leads to increased intimacy, and with a constant barrage of media and music telling them to have sex, they end up doing it. So, that is the kind of dating that should be avoided. The kind of dating that is good is to go out on dates with many different people. Do not become exclusive, but hang out and see what attributes you like and what you don't. As young people learn these things, they will be prepared when they are adults to find the kind of person they know they like.

Wouldn't it be nice if the Bible or the Jews used the same calendar? Wouldn't it be nice if the Bible told us what day it was, or what specific day was the Sabbath, or the date of Jesus' birthday? But it doesn't, so all you'll get with those question is speculation. For those of you who think the Bible is a perfect record, take another look please!

I would have to search the forums to find that. Maybe you can go do that

I prefer the term pro-murder. Pro-choice is just a satanical scheme to make women think the issue is about their rights and makes them not think about the life they are killing.

There is a righteous anger. For instance, when Jesus got mad at drove out the money changers and thieves from the temple. He used His anger to further righteousness.

Your terms our wrong... The Christianity formed in 325 AD says Jesus is not a created being. This is when the trinity was concocted. No biblical reference can be found.

The Biblical cannon is simply a collection of some of the historical/spiritual writings of some of the people of God. Around the point that GE is talking about, the Romans met in councils to determine which writing would go in there. Keep in mind, these were not apostles or prophets, just men holding a political station in the empire. Think of our politicians today taking all the records and determining which ones would be compiled into an "authorized record" in which they would say no one else can change the configuration that they have chosen. It would turn out to be a political power struggle. This is what happened with the compilation of the Bible. These guys fought, argued, compromised, and came up with a record that best fit their political needs and the needs of the emperor. Many of the writings were left out because they did not agree with what these politicians wanted to achieve. At any rate, they did leave a lot of great stuff in there. For the most part, the cannon serves as a great teacher of repentance, redemption, and righteous living. But do be careful when you think it is everything. Remember how it was compiled. On a side note, for those of you who believe that the verses in Revelation that talk about not adding to or taking away from this book is wrong, - this is exactly what these politicians did in the 4th century. The added and took away from the scriptures and compiled their own record.

I agree, at first the two different accounts of the creation in Genesis may be confusing. But when you realize that God created everything spiritually first, physically second, then it makes sense. The two accounts are not contradictory because they are describing two different events. The first event is the spiritual creation of everything and the second event is the physical creation. For instance, God created Adam spiritually in the first, then in the second created his physical body and breathed the breath of life, or put Adam's spirit into the body. Remember the two accounts tell of the two creations.

The term morning star just means something bright and glorious. Jesus, Lucifer, and many others are bright and glorious, powerful beings. Unfortunately, Lucifer rebelled, wanted to overthrow God, wanted to be the chosen one, and when that position was given to Jesus, Lucifer started an all out rebellion and was cast out of heaven. He was one of the great ones that had fallen. Even more unfortunate was that 1/3 of the people went with him. A terribly sad story.

Outer darkness is what you are speaking of. The people who inherit no kingdom of glory... remember, the kingdoms are compared to the sun, the moon, and the stars. All of those glories are a kingdom of God. The residue that inherit no kingdom at all, like satan and his anges and those mortals that follow after them, they are cast out into outer darkness where there is no light of God. That is the hell that you wish to avoid.

As most of us, I have heard the age old doctrinal argument over grace and works many times. Most of us have given it much thought and basically there are three paths we can take. We can say only grace(faith) saves us, or that we need only works, or we need some combination of both. But lately I have been thinking about what the pure doctrine of grace has to be. Many people get angry at those who say works is needed, say, such as baptism, or keeping commandments. But usually I find that people just have different vocabularies when it comes to debates like this and that usually they do believe the same thing as the others, they just use different words. So, I have been trying to decipher the languages and words people use to describe their beliefs and I think they are both talking about the same thing. For instance, salvation by grace supporters say that "God loves us so much that He sent His Son to save us and that by the mercy, love, and grace of God we are saved. There is nothing we can do, nor nothing we should do. God loves us that much." So in this pure form of salvation by grace, this would mean that everyone ever born, good or bad, righteous or evil, or just someone who doesn't care about anything - everyone is saved. God loved all of us, so he saved us. That would be it. We wouldn't even need to know about it because it would be done. But what I have found is that no salvation by grace believer actually believes that. They do not believe everyone would be saved because they really believe that we have to DO SOMETHING. Even if it is minimal, like say, confessing with your lips that Jesus is our Savior. Or merely having a belief. Or having to be a Christian, or have a good heart, etc. You get the idea. In other words, you take two people side by side. One person has done nothing, and the other person has done the work of accepting Jesus and being a good person. Saved by grace people would say the first person is lost and the second is saved. So in my opinion, the saved by grace people really do believe in salvation by grace and by works. Now they may argue over how many works need to be done, but their true belief is that some sort of work, even if it is minimal, is necessary. Otherwise, someone who doesn't even know about Jesus is saved right along with someone who murders for a living, and right along with someone who is righteous and holy. I see the two camps fighting over and over, but they both believe the same thing! So the question is, is either everyone saved or do we need God's grace and to do good works?