Ozzy

They do not understand that as Gentiles who have converted to Christianity and follow the God of the Hebrews, they have been adopted into the house of Israel and have the responsibility to returning the gospel to them. They don't understand that God has covenanted with Israel to gather them in again. They have a world view instead of a gospel view. Sad indeed. What this means is, the mark of the beast - which is false governments and societies, has deceived these Christians into following after the beast.

Maybe those individuals were not listening to the spirit. As we know, the gospel has lots of symbolism. Symbolism is used to help us remember what we should be thinking about. Yes, Jesus was born of water, and of blood, and of spirit. This is representing the physical birth. The body is made up of these things and is housing our spirit. So when we remember how we came into this world, we can also remember how we should go out of the world. We should be baptized by the water and the spirit, and we need to have the blood of Christ. All of these together cleanse us and allow us to go back into the presence of God. This is referred to as the spiritual birth, or being born again. These three are in agreement because with them all, you will be clean and like Jesus.

The state of Israel consists mostly of Jews who are of the tribe of Judah from the House of Jacob (Israel). There are 11 other tribes out there who have been scattered and God has promised to recover them and gather them back to the lands of their inheritance. They kept a wonderful history of their affairs with God for us to have. Let us not forget, they had the true gospel of the Messiah. The law of Moses was the gospel of Jesus Christ in a strict form. The Hebrews who kept this law were saved and entered into the kingdom of God. At some point, the house of Israel falls away from the truth and gets scattered. This sort of happened in two stages, around 700 BC and then again in 600 BC. The tribes are scattered, Judah is taken into Babylon. Then a remnant of Judah returns and vows to never commit idolatry again. So they form a system of rabbis and scribes to learn and interpret the law. Eventually, they add so much to the law and alter the true law of Moses that the Messiah comes among them and they reject him. More specifically, the LEADERS of rabbis and scribes reject him because he challenges their craft. Anyway, they reject the higher law and the apostles are then commanded to take it to the Gentiles. The Gentiles that repent will become adopted into the house of Israel, bear up the kingdom of God, preach the word to the world, and prepare for the return of the Lord. Then the gospel will be brought back to Israel - the first will be the last and the last will be the first. But rest assured, even though Israel is stuck in the state of rabbinical doctrine, the Lord does remember His people. Do we think the Lord will forget His people? Your friend needs to spend some time in Isaiah, chapters 2 through 14. There he will learn all about the covenant people, the scattering of Israel, the light being given to the Gentiles who will bear an ensign to the nations, and the gathering of Israel. In essence, we who have the gospel now should be doing our best to bring back the Jews to the gospel. It is our responsibility to help them and nurse them back to the full light. "But Zion said, The Lord has forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me. Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee." Isaiah 49:14-15

Anytime you go about doing good, you are glorifying God. For instance, how did Jesus glorify God? He went about doing good, preaching and healing and keeping his Father's commandments. People here have listed the gifts of the spirit, so I don't need to repeat those, but all of us have one gift or more that we can use. God blesses His children through others, which is why we have these gifts. But also remember, that in our quest to be like our Father in heaven (Matt 5:48), we learn a great deal as we use these gifts for others. If we are going to be perfect like our Father, we need to know how to use the gifts we have and how to bless others unselfishly. Doing this glorifies God because others see your faith, your patience, and they believe in God.

At the point where these two prophets are in Israel, the world will be in complete turmoil and war. It says ALL of the nations with be at war with Israel and these two prophets will be holding back these world armies through the power of God for 3 1/2 years. Usually world can mean the bad people, or also termed as Babylon - just meaning wickedness. So these two prophets hold back all these nations who have great war machines for 3 1/2 years, which will drive the world crazy. They will be so upset about this. We know that men's hearts will fail them in the last days. They will lose their morals, their faith, and a lot will fall away. Christians, as you say, or let's just say, anyone of good morals and faith, will flee from the wicked. They wont be a part of the world war against Israel. Though the good population may be growing, the more part of the world will continue to be deceived by the beast (false governments and systems of religion) and will follow the beast to destruction. The wicked will want so much to destroy Israel, but be stopped by two prophets! Then they will finally kill the two prophets who will lay in the streets for 3 1/2 days while the armies ravage Israel, then the Lord will come to mount olivet and save his people.

Like I said, they seem to preach the same thing as other Christians, you can become like Jesus. And what is Jesus? He is what his Father is, a God. You just term it differently than those Mormons do. If you want to attack someone who has changed the gospel, you should be starting with 4th century Rome and the heretic doctrines they introduced. The problem with a lot of Christians is they use different vocabulary than other Christians to describe the same thing. Then they each point their finger at the other and cry "foul!" So maybe Mormons describe becoming a saved being as being like God and you describe it as being a saved being. Either way, it is the same thing. This is what you do not see.

You have to have a probationary period for a time to repent. Meaning, you must have a mortal life in where you have time to accept Jesus, keep the commandments, be baptized, receive the Holy Ghost, and be saved. Since Satan was cast out of heaven with the third of god's children, they have not come to earth, they have remained as spirits, and will be unlike God forever. The rest of us will live a mortal life, hopefully follow Jesus and be saved, then go on to be resurrected, glorified beings like Jesus, forever.

There are contradictions in the Bible and critics will be happy to point them all out. Most of them are inconsequential, such as did Paul's friends see the light, or did they hear it. One version of the story says they saw the light, while the other says they saw no light but only heard it. But does that change the story that Paul had a vision and converted? Nope. The fact is, we as Christians, know the Bible has mistakes. We know it was written thousands of years ago by many different men, handed down through many generations, gone through many translations, survived through the 4th Century Roman Empire that was struggling for power, money, and politics where they compiled, edited, and cut out many portions of the texts, went through more translations, got put into a poetic form for King James, .... and on and on and on. What we have today is wonderful, but it is no sense a perfect record. It has great history and it has great spiritual stories. The intent of the book is to teach of Christ, bring faith to our hearts, and get the world to repent and live the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are not saved by the book. We cannot hold it in our hands and claim salvation. Even if these stories had been passed down orally, they would have the same intent of building faith and teaching obedience to the laws of God. So, I cringe when I hear fellow Christians applauding the book like it is a perfect record with no flaws. Then they let critics get to them by pointing out some flaws as if God wrote some imperfect, therefore untrue, record. God did not write it, but inspired men did. Unfortunately, it has passed through some pretty uninspired hands. Please, study the history, know how the things we complied, and understand the full context of the record! Though not perfect, it's ability to get people to build faith, repent, and join the kingdom of God is unmatched. Praise be to God for the Bible!

I don't know about Mormons, but those are some interesting things to think about. Where did God come from? Truthfully, no Christian can answer that question. God just appears to be. How or why we do not know. Then God created a Son who He calls Jesus and sends him to earth to help us. This Jesus grows in faith and truth, follows the commandments of his Father perfectly, and becomes a saved, resurrected being with all the glory and power that the Father gives him. He becomes an heir of the Father, given to share in all that the Father has. In essence, Jesus becomes god-like, or shall we dare say gains the position of a god? Now, I am aware many people want to say Jesus and the Father are the same being, which is really just a 4th century concoction to try and turn these two gods into one, but the Bible teaches no such thing. You may point to the "oneness" verses, but not of those have to do with any physical attributes of God, they all have to do with their relationship to each other. Anyway, the point being, Jesus completes his mission and becomes a glorious resurrected being, to live forever in a perfect state with His father.... and as for us, God's sons and daughters, we can become joint-heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17) and inherit all the glory, blessings, and power that Jesus did, through faith and obedience. So I don't think you should be scolding some Mormons who really believe the same as you, they just term it differently.

Hi Gigman! Baptism serves multiple purposes and most of the people on this thread have shown the scriptures for them. The first and most obvious of these purposes is to be washed in a symbolical manner to take away your sins. The next reason, which others term "outward sign of an inward change", is really where a person who has gained faith in Jesus Christ and repented of their sins enters into a covenant with God to take upon them the name of Jesus Christ and become disciples in the kingdom of God. They promise to follow Jesus, always remember Him, and keep His commandments. In return, they are promised the receipt of the Holy Spirit. I think many people want to debate whether it be a commandment or not, in other words, MUST one be baptized? We can look at a few selections and determine the answer. First, Jesus, obviously a sinless being, went to John the Baptist for His baptism. John doesn't;'t really want to baptism, knowing Jesus is holy and does not need baptism to wash away sins, but Jesus insists on doing it. Some may correctly argue that Jesus wanted to set an example for us, but there is more to it. Jesus says to John, "Suffer it to be so now; for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness." (Matt 3:15 KJV) Can we say that we can fulfill righteousness if we don't want to follow our Lord and Savior into the waters of baptism? Jesus had to do it to keep the commandment of His Father and so must we. Other posts in this thread have clearly shown that the apostles when asked what should men do to follow Jesus, they constantly demanded repentance and baptism. A couple of things on the symbolism of baptism. 1) Baptism by immersion is symbolic of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. As we repent and enter into the waters of baptism, our old sinful self is being put to death, being buried, and then brought up out of the water into a new life, a life of being a disciple of Christ. (2) The whole commandment to be accept Christ's atonement, be baptized, and receive the Holy Spirit is symbolic of being born again. As a baby is born physically of water, blood, and spirit - we too are born again. We are washed in water, cleansed by the blood of Christ, and by the Holy Spirit. Also, some think that the thief on the cross is a great reason to excuse people from following the commandment. They fail to realize that the thief nor Jesus went directly to heaven, or at least where God the Father dwells. They went to a place termed "paradise". It is easy to see how some may equate paradise with heaven, but as we look at some examples we will see that it is not. First, Jesus dies, He is gone 3 days, then He returns as a resurrected being and tells Mary not to touch Him because He had not yet gone to the Father. If He did not go to the Father, or heaven, then where was He? 1 Peter 3:19-20 talk about Christ preaching to the spirits in prison, those who had been washed away in the flood of Noah. Apparently they had been in a spiritual prison all this time. (Isaiah 24:22) We have two terms here, prison and paradise, both of which do not seem to denote heaven, or where God dwells. To say the thief enjoyed repentance and forgiveness by merely asking Jesus to go with Him is incorrect. But the thief went to this spirit realm where Jesus then taught them and offered them the way to God.