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God has provided all we need or will ever want through His Son Jesus.
When we start to follow Jesus and actually do what he wants us to do, like heal the sick, or cleanse lepers,or raise the dead, or cast out demons, we can run into some large roadblocks in our mind! This is not just taking us out of our comfort zone, for some it's ripping up the zone and throwing it away! But, we have to approach Jesus' commands from the point of view that they give us the truth about our abilities and knowledge of the love of God for us and those He brings us into contact with. So
let's start from some first principles to see what God says, what the
results should be, and why things don't always go according to OUR
plan. Principle 1. All scripture is inspired and suitable for instruction, correction, etc… (2 Tim 3:16) This to me tells us that from Genesis to Revelation all scripture has the backing of God for it's authenticity. If we say only some of it is inspired and correct then who has the better knowledge than God to say which is correct and which is not? And since God says that He breathed on it all then if we say any of it is inaccurate then we are calling Him a liar. Many people though, do not analyse what their beliefs truly represent! Some say Genesis is not to be taken literally and the heavens and the earth were not made approximately 6000 thousand years ago because many scientists (not all) say it was made billions of years ago. If the word of fallible men, who were not there, is to be taken as a higher authority than the bible then to be consistent this should apply everywhere. A. Scientists say that a virgin birth of a man is impossible. So to not be a hypocrite one would have to disbelieve this also. B. Scientists say that the dead of three or four days cannot be brought back to life, so Lazarus and Jesus (among others) were never resurrected. These have to be lies and we do not have a Saviour alive in heaven to give us eternal life! C. Water cannot be turned into wine by the wave of a hand or a few words by a Rabbi, so this and all other miracles are myths of no more value than the Greek myths told to children as night time stories. Or,
we can believe God and the bible He wrote and read the scientific articles by
scientists who also believe! We always have to remember that by definition our
God is omnipotent and by creating proves that He can do all the other miracles! Principle 2. Life and death are in the power of the tongue and they that love it shall eat the fruit of it. Pro 18:11. This to me means that what we say has two outcomes. Life or Death. There is no middle ground. Every idle word we say, we will have to give account for in the judgement! Mat 12:36 So we need to check what the bible says accurately, so that we preach the true things as true and not preach the false things as though they are true! Simple examples… Satan told Adam and Eve that eating the forbidden fruit would make them like Gods., knowing good from evil. Was this true? They had already been given dominion over the earth. So on earth they were already like gods! Instead what they got was death, sin and guilt. Israel's sons convinced him that his son Joseph had been killed by wild animals. It's the truth that this incident took place. But, was it true that he was killed by animals? Previously Israel (Jacob) had deceived Isaac (lied) that he was Esau coming for his blessing. This incident truthfully happened. But was it true that it was Esau coming for the blessing. The Jews accused Jesus of blasphemy (Joh 10:30-33 amongst others). That's the truth. They really did do this. But is what they said true? Satan tried to get Jesus to commit suicide by throwing Himself off the temple. Satan told Him that the angels would bear Him up if He did it! This took place during the 'temptation'. (Mat 4:5-7) Is this 'true'? It's the truth as you can read also in Psalm 91:12. But is it the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth? What did Jesus say? “‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’“. Since He would have been putting God to the test He would have forfeited the protection of the angels! What Satan suggested, by even quoting scripture, was not true! This is why I tell everyone that what they say should be accurate, because we can bring death to others by what we tell them or we can bring life when we portray God accurately. We can bring death to ourselves by what we say also. There's an old saying, “What you don't resist, you keep”! Sickness is oppression by Satan – We should hate it and resist the one who has given it to us! Submit yourselves to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you. (Jam 4:7) People in the bible wanted to get rid of their ailments. They would cut through roofs to get them removed. They did not celebrate the symptoms. They called on Jesus who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil. (Acts 10:38) On the other hand, have you ever met anyone nowadays who claims their sickness as their own? People who are proud of their ailments? When they get better they still want to stay on the sick/prayer list? And soon they are sick again. “What you don't resist, you keep”! Want to see a scripture that applies to us today and gives a modern example which Satan could use to try to get Christians to commit suicide? Luke 10:19 Behold, I give you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy. Nothing will in any way hurt you. This scripture applies to all Jesus' disciples (us). Does this mean that we can play with snakes and other poisonous creatures with alacrity? Satan may suggest that through another human, but...
First
of all, in the bible, 'serpents and scorpions' is code for demonic
forces! Secondly, even if we consider that in this case it means
physical creatures, does it mean that we can test God and put
ourselves in danger deliberately and He HAS to rescue us? Obviously
not! Jesus' answer applies here also if tempted by Satan to put God
to the test!
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