Dear Friends,
Last week, the people who witnessed Jesus’ miracle of the loaves and fishes went looking for Him and found Him in Capernaum. Jesus promptly began to elucidate the meaning behind the miracle. Below, Jesus continues with his discourse on the bread of life.
Father, give us understanding as we read your word, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
John 6:37-41
37 All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.
In the first part of the above verse, we have the doctrine of election. In the second part of the verse, we have the doctrine of free will. According to Jesus, therefore, these two doctrines work together in harmony with one another. It is not one or the other. It’s both, and everyone is welcome.
Have you ever considered that you are God’s gift to Jesus? That is what He just said. It therefore behooves us to act like it.
38 For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.
Speaking of free will, here Jesus shows us the wisest thing to do with the free will that God has given us, which is to give it right back to Him. That is what Jesus did.
39 And this is the Father’s will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.
40 And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.
Again, verse 39 shows election; verse 40 shows free will. There is no need to reconcile these two doctrines because, as Spurgeon once said, friends do not need to be reconciled. Belief is the key. It is said that (according to an article in Parade magazine) Nikita Khrushchev memorized all four Gospels. The problem was he didn’t believe them. He only memorized them because he was rewarded with candy in Sunday school for doing so.
41 The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven.
John 6:37-41
By the time Jesus is finished with his sermon, it will be clear that He is talking about the written word of God even more so than the Word of God incarnate with regard to the bread of life. (v 63) In the previous section of Jesus’ sermon that we looked at last week, the word of God was likened to manna. Manna means ‘what is it’ in Hebrew. When the Hebrews found it on the ground they said, What is it? (Exod 16:15) And the house of Israel called the name thereof Manna: and it was like coriander seed, white; and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey. Eventually, however, they got tired of the manna. They murmured. They said we don’t like this light bread. (Num 21:5) So what did God do? He sent fiery serpents that bit the people and they died. (Num 21:6) The fiery serpents were object lessons. If we reject the bread of life, neither are thankful, Satan — that old serpent, which is the devil — is all too happy to offer us an alternative, but his ways lead to death. Satan will offer anything and everything in place of God’s word. If he cannot get you interested in money, power, drugs, or porneia (Gal 5:19 et al), he will try Netflix — anything to keep you away from the gospel. It could even be the Disney channel, or something as harmless as your career. In their proper place, things like clean movies or minding your career are fine, but not if they supersede your relationship with Jesus Christ. If you insist on reading your Bible, Satan will try to move you to a watered-down version. Remember how Pharaoh (a type of Satan) dealt with the children of Israel in the Exodus? First, it was, ‘You can go, but not too far’. (Exod 8:28) Then it was, ‘Okay you can go, but you cannot take your kids’. (Exod 10:10) Then it was ‘Alright, take your kids, but not your herds’. (Exod 10:24) Satan will hold you back as much as he possibly can, as much as you let him, that is. Over the years I have been amazed at how people reject the perfect word of God that was translated from the pure Majority Text in favor of paraphrase Bibles that follow a corrupted, minority, text type. God has built divine watermarks into the pure Hebrew text of the Old Testament, as well as the Majority Text of the Greek New Testament. These watermarks prove which texts are the correct ones, ie which ones God has preserved. The following is an excerpt from Where Did All the People GO? (pp 113-114)
Is there a divine watermark which sets Scripture apart from every other piece of literature? There are in fact several. We have already mentioned prophecy evidence and touched on archeological evidence, but what about the controversial Bible codes? Two of the first scholars to investigate the various mathematical phenomena unique to the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, as well as the Greek New Testament, were Russian mathematician Ivan Panin, and Czechoslovakian Rabbi, Michael Dov Weissmandl. One such phenomenon is hidden codes known as equidistant letter sequences (ELS’s). By counting for example, every seventh letter, in the original text, certain words and sentences appear to have been encoded into the Bible. Consider for example this very scholarly and well documented study on ELS’s, published in Statistical Science: The eminent Statistical Science journal (August 1994, Volume 9, number 3), published by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, documented the work of three Israeli Professors: Eliyahu Rips of Hebrew University in Jerusalem, along with Doron Witzum and Yoav Rosenberg of Jerusalem College of Technology. What they did was, they took sixty-six of the most prominent men in Jewish history from the Encyclopedia of Great Men in Israel, and then they looked for their names in the book of Genesis. What they found is absolutely amazing—not only their names, but next to their names were the dates they were born, and the dates they died—all encoded in the book of Genesis in ELS’s! The probability of these codes occurring by chance is less than 1 in 2,500,000,000. The editor of Statistical Science stated, “Our referees were baffled: their prior beliefs made them think that the book of Genesis could not possibly contain references to modern day individuals, yet when the authors carried out additional analyses and checks the effects persisted.” Thus, objective scientists who lack the emotional bias that other writers and researchers in this area perhaps may have do not repudiate the presence of supernatural codes in the Bible’s text. The study was also published in the respected Journal of the Royal Statistical Society in 1988. Perhaps even more fascinating, if not more applicable to English speaking people, is the fact that the codes only appeared when using the traditional Masoretic Text used to translate the King James Version of the Bible. When the professors looked for the codes using the Samaritan Pentateuch which new versions rely on, the codes were “completely absent.” Besides using the Samaritan Pentateuch, the researchers said they also looked for the codes in a Hebrew translation of Tolstoy’s War and Peace, and found none. (1) I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Gail Riplinger and AV Publications for publicizing this information and supplying me with facsimiles of the Statistical Science journal and related articles.
1 [California] Modesto Bee, Saturday, November 4, 1995, p. G-1. The unique nature of the Masoretic Text is even more fascinating considering the fact that the Masoretic Text contains vowels and spaces which were not in the original text. The original text contained no spaces and the vowels were implied. It appears that the word of God is literally “purified seven times” (Ps 12:6), and that God’s hand is upon it to preserve it, just as He promised (Ps 12:7). The study published in Statistical Science also gained the attention of Jeffrey Satinover of Bible Review (October, 1995), and David Briggs of the Associated Press (Baton Rouge, LA, November 4, 1995).
The following is an excerpt from Dragon Slayer Jesus Christ: (pp 90-91)
Incidentally, there are similar numeric phenomena, just as fascinating as the ELS’s of the Old Testament Hebrew text, that validate the Greek Textus Receptus (Received Text), or Majority Text, that the New Testament of the KJV is translated from. Likewise, these phenomena are absent in the Minority Text manuscripts that the new versions are translated from. The phenomena are based on patterns of seven that can be seen in the Greek text. (2) For a little information on this subject, go to www.khouse.org/articles/2000/201/ or see Cosmic Codes (Koinania House, 1999), by Chuck Missler. Volumes have been written on the superiority of the Textus Receptus and the KVJ. I refer the reader to AV Publications, where scores of volumes by scholars who thoroughly investigated this subject can be found. Ivan Panin said, “I used to doubt certain parts of the Bible, now I just doubt my understanding of the Bible.” That is the right way to look at Scripture. It’s like an algebra problem. When you do not get it right the first time, you do not say there is an error in the textbook. You keep working on it until you figure it out.
2 Seven is the number of completion (Gen 2:2). E.g., there are seven days in a week, seven colors in a rainbow, and seven notes in a musical scale. God often uses seven as his signet. This unlocks the mystery behind Psalm 90:4 and II Peter 3:8. In context, these verses refer to the second coming; just as God rested on the seventh day, the earth is scheduled for a seventh millennium of rest. God created the sun on the fourth day, a type of Christ (Ps 19:5), prefiguring his advent in the 4000th year (cf Mal 4:2).
Only one English Bible was translated using these pure texts, the KJV. Undoubtedly, some will read what I have written here concerning the superior texts underlying the KJV and murmur. Just like the Israelites of old who murmured when God gave them bread from heaven, just like the people in our text above who murmured when they met the Word of God incarnate face to face, people sometimes become upset when you tell them that God preserved his word just as He promised to and we still have it today. Feel free to cleave to your NIV if you like, but you are putting yourself at a disadvantage. If you do not have a KJV available where you live, you can always read it online. The Catholic Church has spent billions producing ecumenical Bibles based on their own corrupt Codex Vaticanus manuscript, the purpose being to create the one-world church prophesied by John in Revelation 17. Think about that.
In closing, the most important key to understanding the Bible, whatever version or whatever language you are reading it in, is the Holy Spirit. (John 16:13; 1 John 2:27) It takes the Spirit of God to illuminate the word of God, thereby giving understanding to the believer. (1 Cor 2:14) Therefore, I always pray for understanding before I read the Bible. Father, thank You for the precious bread that came down for heaven. Thank You for keeping your promise to preserve it. Thank you for the faithful servants who gave the ultimate sacrifice so we could have it in our own language. Thank You in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Coronavirus Update with Dr Carrie Madej: Full Interview
Earlier this week, Bloomberg reported that in the most vaccinated country in the world, cases are surging and lockdowns have been resumed.
A pharmacist shows evidence that J&J is not providing inserts to show the ingredients and the side effects of their ‘vaccine’, as required by law.
This is all happening because, unfortunately, most people can be bought. Bill Gates has bought each of the major health organizations throughout the world. Hospitals are going along with the jabs because they do not want to lose their funding. If that sounds too hard to believe, try an experiment. When I was a kid, we used to play a game using The Book of Questions (Workman Publishing Co., Inc., 1987). One of the questions in that book was, ‘Would you kill a puppy for an all-expenses-paid trip to anywhere in the world?’ Most people I have asked that question answered yes. What they always say, is, ‘Well, maybe I could learn something on the trip’. The people who are dying from the jabs are human sacrifices. Each one of them was sacrificed because somebody, somewhere, was bought. We have always known that it is impossible to make a vaccine for a coronavirus, like the common cold, for example. A 2012 University of Texas study found that the experimental SARS vaccine caused “Th2-type immunopathology as indicated by cellular infiltrates with prominence of eosinophils” in mice, ferrets, and non-human primates. What that means is, it caused autoimmune responses that probably killed the test subjects. In other words, the testing has already been done, and just as we have always known, you can’t make a viable vaccine for a coronavirus. We have only just begun to see the adverse effects of these ‘vaccines’. The experiment is this: Ask a few people you know the puppy question and see what they say. Maybe try asking both Christians and non-Christians. I would be interested to learn what results you get.
The text we looked at this week was related to the theological question of free will versus election. I have never been a believer in five-point Calvinism but I have always believed in the first point on the list, which is Total Depravity. How else can one explain the things that happen in this world? The real problem is with the soul of mankind. Only Jesus has the cure.
