How many people are staring at a few dead pixels in one corner of the big picture and making lasting decisions about their future without all the information?
Here is what I have come to appreciate in my studies.....
The Bible presents one story from Genesis to Revelation.....what we lost in the beginning is restored at the end.....yet so many people do not connect all the dots.
They see the "Old Testament" and "New Testament" as one thing superseded by the other, when nothing could be further from the truth. Both are complementary because all are contained in one 'library'.....we need the whole book. You cannot understand the Greek scriptures without the Hebrew scriptures. You can't understand the end without a knowledge of the beginning.
We are taken from the creation in Genesis....to the fall of man in Eden, and God having to deal with rebellion of his free willed creatures in both realms. Since the first rebel was not human, the rebellion in heaven would have had more dramatic ramifications than anything that happened on earth, God had to respond straight way....and he did with a prophesy in Genesis 3:15. In this rather obscure prophesy was the key to undoing all the damage that the devil had caused, but much of it it was not understood until the time of Jesus. It has continued to unfold down to the present as more and more details are revealed.
A powerful spirit creature hijacked the human race by deception, baiting a trap for them and unknown to the pair, holding them to ransom, substituting himself as their god. Having lost their relationship with their Creator the deceiver stepped in to lead them even further astray. And such is the nature of a lengthy captivity, that the captives can sometimes come to see their captor as a friend rather than as an enemy, especially if he provides what they want.
e.g. If a very young child is kidnapped by a man who pretends to be his father and he grows up with that one teaching him all he knows and catering to his wants, what will the child come to conclude? That his captor is his real father and he might grow up thinking that his 'fathers' ways are OK, since it is all he has ever known and he was never raised to question his 'father's' values.
When we see the human race in this situation, its not hard to see that captivity can be embraced as a living reality....never questioned and accepted as 'normal'. The devil becomes the substitute god and ruler of mankind as the Bible confirms...."the whole world is lying in the power of the wicked one" (1 John 5:19) but not many see the resulting wickedness as something unusual.
So, what happens if the real father never stopped looking for his son, and one day the son, now grown, discovered that the person he thought was his father, was an imposter? The son is going to set out to find his real father...isn't he? Isn't that what anyone would do if they found out that their whole life was a lie? And that their real father was out there somewhere, missing them, still searching for them? But where would he start looking?
In the Bible's big picture...how is the real Father found and the happy reunion foretold in Revelation, brought about? (Revelation 21:2-4)
What does the Bible say about this?
Anyone have thoughts on this?
Here is what I have come to appreciate in my studies.....
The Bible presents one story from Genesis to Revelation.....what we lost in the beginning is restored at the end.....yet so many people do not connect all the dots.
They see the "Old Testament" and "New Testament" as one thing superseded by the other, when nothing could be further from the truth. Both are complementary because all are contained in one 'library'.....we need the whole book. You cannot understand the Greek scriptures without the Hebrew scriptures. You can't understand the end without a knowledge of the beginning.
We are taken from the creation in Genesis....to the fall of man in Eden, and God having to deal with rebellion of his free willed creatures in both realms. Since the first rebel was not human, the rebellion in heaven would have had more dramatic ramifications than anything that happened on earth, God had to respond straight way....and he did with a prophesy in Genesis 3:15. In this rather obscure prophesy was the key to undoing all the damage that the devil had caused, but much of it it was not understood until the time of Jesus. It has continued to unfold down to the present as more and more details are revealed.
A powerful spirit creature hijacked the human race by deception, baiting a trap for them and unknown to the pair, holding them to ransom, substituting himself as their god. Having lost their relationship with their Creator the deceiver stepped in to lead them even further astray. And such is the nature of a lengthy captivity, that the captives can sometimes come to see their captor as a friend rather than as an enemy, especially if he provides what they want.
e.g. If a very young child is kidnapped by a man who pretends to be his father and he grows up with that one teaching him all he knows and catering to his wants, what will the child come to conclude? That his captor is his real father and he might grow up thinking that his 'fathers' ways are OK, since it is all he has ever known and he was never raised to question his 'father's' values.
When we see the human race in this situation, its not hard to see that captivity can be embraced as a living reality....never questioned and accepted as 'normal'. The devil becomes the substitute god and ruler of mankind as the Bible confirms...."the whole world is lying in the power of the wicked one" (1 John 5:19) but not many see the resulting wickedness as something unusual.
So, what happens if the real father never stopped looking for his son, and one day the son, now grown, discovered that the person he thought was his father, was an imposter? The son is going to set out to find his real father...isn't he? Isn't that what anyone would do if they found out that their whole life was a lie? And that their real father was out there somewhere, missing them, still searching for them? But where would he start looking?
In the Bible's big picture...how is the real Father found and the happy reunion foretold in Revelation, brought about? (Revelation 21:2-4)
What does the Bible say about this?
Anyone have thoughts on this?