Israel

In the course of time….

/ Tracy Eldridge / Leave a comment

We, being the people of the United States, have done great things, both great good and great evil in the course of becoming a nation and a people, populated by people who claim to believe in God and in His laws. Some of us have used those laws and His Word to justify great and good things and very evil and vile treatment of people, especially those of color whether they were of African origin or Native American. Using the Word of God to justify the killing or maiming of anyone is wrong! There is no justifying these sorts of crimes, in the past or today, regardless of which Holy Book you claim to be following!

Killing someone is wrong and has been since the time of Cain and Abel, and using God’s Word or another so-called “holy book” to justify the killing of people because they don’t believe like you do or because of the color of their skin is something that God will hold you accountable for! Our history is replete with examples of this type of behavior, and so is the rest of the world especially in the area around Israel today. There is no True God which requires this and anyone who claims that Allah says to do this and then says that the God of Abraham is the same is a liar!

Our world is going through some tough times right now and will go through more as the time nears for Jesus’ return. Whether you believe in Jesus or not, it will happen. Although it may not be in the next five years or even ten, but it will happen. Nothing that was prophesied in God’s Word has failed to come to pass, although many try to scientifically explain away the things which have happened.

The killing of innocents will not go unpunished, whether they are children or fetuses, all will be avenged by God. Evil, in all of its forms and guises, will not prevail but will be defeated and all of the atrocities which happened or are happening because of people claiming to be doing “God’s will” by doing these things, will be avenged by God Himself, so whether you believe in Him or not, be warned.

Those of you who may have accepted Christ at one time in your life and then walked away from the church are only doing yourself a disservice. No matter what it was that drove you away from the church, or maybe it was a person or a preacher, you need to get back into it. God loves you and He hasn’t moved, you did. The more distance you put between yourself and God, the less influence He has in your life. Your spirit will not be convicted by His Spirit if you have distanced yourself from Him and quenched His power in your life. When this happens, there is less of Him showing through your life which is when people call you a hypocrite. Think about it.

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The news is in God’s Word

/ Tracy Eldridge / 3 Comments

Have you noticed how much many of the stories in the news today parallel scripture? I am not speaking of the prophecies of the book of Revelation, I am speaking of some prophetic scripture which was written before. Many of the times and the things which were happening during the first century while the apostles were spreading the good news to the world around them, sound as if they came from our time, today! Wars and rumors of wars, murders, groups which were trying to discredit the church and those who were spreading its message, persecution of those who had converted to this “new Way”, these all sound very much like the things which we hear today!

The anti-Christian sentiment has been around since the beginning and although they are working harder today to discredit us and make us seem to be blind followers of a dead prophet, when they are the ones who are following a dead prophet! What about all of the other prophecies which have come true concerning Israel’s people coming back to their land and speaking the language that had been declared dead?

Many of the things that we read in God‘s Word should be taken as literal prophecies, foretelling events which have not happened yet. It should also be realized that the miracles in the time of Moses as well as in Jesus’ time did not come about by man’s intervention, but by God’s. The sea splitting so that they could cross on dry ground, the walls of Jericho falling after the blowing of the trumpets after the people marched around the city seven times, these things were not caused by man forcing God to do something!

That is similar to the way that people take the Word of God today and try to mold it to their way of doing things by saying, “God, I know what you wrote, but…”, when you insert a “but” into this argument you are taking God out of the equation and placing your own wisdom in place of His. So, don’t go blaming Him when something goes wrong. It is your fault because it was you and your “but” that got you into the mess that you are in. God may help you get out of it, but He may choose to let you get yourself out.

Besides, you can’t force God to do anything! He does as He wills and as He deems necessary, not according to our will but His. Give Him credit for being God! He created all that is around us and each person that has ever lived too! He even has a plan for your life if you will give it to Him. Do so while you have a chance to. I am not trying to scare you into giving your life to Jesus, but it is a simple truth that our lives are not guaranteed to last for 87.5 years or whatever your life-span is supposed to be. I may not be here next week, but I am going to keep posting until I have to stop.

In service to Him!

Matthew speaks…. (part one)

/ Tracy Eldridge / Leave a comment

My name is Matthew. I was a tax collector in Judea during the time when Jesus was teaching and healing in the country. Oh, those were wonderful days, but I digress. He had asked me to follow Him and I felt that I should. I am not sure why, but I did and I learned so much from Him and His teachings! We, that is his disciples and I found out that He really is the Son of the Living God! Can you imagine being instructed by Him?

One day as we were going through the cities and the countryside around Jerusalem, He was healing many of their infirmities and teaching the glad tidings of the kingdom of God. Some women that He had healed and who also were disciples of His, were tagging along with us and helping us with our mission to Israel and its people.

Many people were following us, so we sat down on a hillside and He taught them with this parable about a farmer sowing seeds. He said, “Some of the seeds fell along the roadside, but with little soil they were eaten by the birds. Some fell on good soil, but they fell among thorns. They sprang up with the rains, but were choked by the thorns and were not fruitful at all. Some fell on very thin soil on rocky places and they sprang up but since their root was so shallow, they weren’t able to bear the heat of the day and withered. But some of the seed fell on good soil and they produced a harvest of thirty, sixty and one hundred-fold. The people looked confused about this so we asked Jesus why He was teaching them with parables.

He told us that it was given to us, His disciples, to understand the mysteries of the kingdom of God but unto them it is not, because by seeing they might not see and by hearing they might not understand. He explained that the parable was like this: The seeds are the Word of God and the ones that fell by the wayside are those that hear but the devil comes and steals the word away lest they believe and be saved. Those which fell on the rock with the thin soil are those which receive the word with joy but they have no root and so believe for a while but when temptation comes they fall away. Those which fell among thorns are them that have heard but are choked by the cares and riches of life and they produce no fruit. But, those which fell on good soil are they which have an honest and good heart and having heard the word bring forth fruit with patience.

Then Jesus said that we were not to light a candle and put it under a basket but to put it on a lamp stand so that the whole house could receive its light. Meaning that when we have received the Word of Truth and have taken it into our hearts, we are to let others see its effect in our lives so that they will want that light too! He also told us that when we are given this knowledge, we are not to keep it to ourselves lest we lose it, we are to give it away so that others may have it too.

Jesus’ mother and his brothers came to see him, but they could not get to him because of the crowds. It was told to him that “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside desiring to see you.” He told them that His mother and His brethren are those which hear the word of God and do it.

The next day, Jesus told us that He wanted to go to the other side of the sea of Galilee. So He got into a ship with us and we set out for the other side. As we were sailing, Jesus fell asleep on a cushion in the rear of the ship and a storm came up which was casting water over the sides of the ship!

We all felt that we were going to sink and here He was sleeping through all of this! We went to Him and woke Him saying, “Master we are about to die!” But, He got up and rebuked the wind and the waves and it became calm again. Then..He said, “Where is your faith?” We were afraid and wondered “What manner of man is this? Who commands the waves and the winds and they obey Him!”

Knowing our Creator

/ Tracy Eldridge / Leave a comment

Have you every thought seriously about the awesome gift that we have in being able to know and be known by the Creator? The One Who spoke everything into being before He personally formed mankind from the dust of the earth!

But, you know what else is fantastic? He actually came to earth to die for our sins, not just the sins of those in Israel or those in the world at the time that He was born, but for us and all of us in the past two thousand years as well as those until the time that Jesus comes back.

There is a scripture that I want you to see from the apostle Paul:

There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.—Romans 8:1-2 (KJV)

If you have given your life to Christ, Who is the Creator, you are not condemned because your sins have been forgiven already, all that you have to do is believe in Him and the sacrifice that He gave for you. Our Creator is the only Savior or God Who has come and sacrificed Himself for all of us!

Muhammad, Krishna, Buddha, whichever one you wish to name, none of them sacrificed themselves for their believers. No man-made god has ever done anything even close because they can’t! The only real God is God. Our Lord did so much for us and yet there has never been any other that can do what He has done in the past or is doing now.

We have God’s grace given to us every day because we have everything that we need to live. I don’t mean that we have all of the money that we need or a big house or a fancy car, but we have air, water, food and a place to live! God gives us our talents as well as our jobs so we are able to live our lives and provide for our families.

God, His Son Jesus and the Holy Spirit all work in tandem as One. They have different functions, but they are God yet God the Father is in control. He knows when things will happen, how it will happen and who it will happen to. God loves us and allows us to have our choice in our lives and  He will not force His will on us at all, but we have to choose to follow Jesus and believe in His sacrifice for our sins in order to be saved and go to Heaven.

Belief in God doesn’t do it. Satan believes in God, he knows God and Jesus but he won’t serve them and won’t bow to them. Knowledge of God and His Son, Jesus, is not enough! You have to give your heart to Jesus and believe that He died for your sins and choose to serve Him.

The Bible, God’s Word

/ Tracy Eldridge / 1 Comment

I watched the entire series on the History Channel this past month and I was impressed. They didn’t make fun of it or anything in it and it got some people interested in the Word of God, so it accomplished what it was supposed to.

Many people don’t think that the Word is viable today because of its age but no one questions college professors when they assign the Iliad and it is an ancient story too. There are fewer actual copies of it than there are of the Bible, yet there are many people who still don’t think that the Bible is true. The reason behind this is easy to find and it starts in the first book of the Bible, Genesis.

Satan tempted Adam and Eve and got them to rebel against a command that God had given them, ever since then there have been questions about the veracity of the words contained in it. Yet, the prophecies in the Old Testament have nearly all came true. The ones concerning Jesus were fulfilled when He came and through His teaching, and crucifixion and resurrection they were verified. Whether people choose to believe is totally under their own control.

For many people, I think it is their ability to choose that is the stumbling block in their ability to follow Jesus. We like having the freedom to choose but it is used against us because our nature chooses not to follow Christ until we have come to a point where we know that we can’t control our lives on our own anymore. Some people choose to use drugs or alcohol to numb their perception of life, but this is only a temporary, chemical induced feeling and it doesn’t last.

The Bible shows us that people tend to choose their own ways over the ways of God and following Him. All through the Old Testament, Israel would choose to follow God until things started going good, then they would turn to whatever the people surrounding them were worshiping. At which point, God would send someone like the Babylonians or Assyria to take them as slaves until they decided that they needed God again.

In our technological lives today, we don’t see the need for God and His Word until there is a real turning point in our life brought on by something in our life like a death in the family or cancer that comes suddenly to our attention. When these things happen, we realize that we need someone who can do something about this and for many people that someone is God. Doctors can’t cure everything and many times the treatment for cancer is worse than the disease since it poisons not only the cancer cells but the rest of the body as well.

Can we trust God’s Word? Absolutely! Because it has been proven by archaeology and history and by prophecy that has come true. The New Testament shows the beginnings of the church after Christ went back to the Father and yet He said that He would return one day. With few exceptions, most of the prophecies concerning the beginning of the “end times” have already come to pass. Israel being a country again and the language of the Jewish nation being spoken again after over one thousand years of being “lost” are but two of the prophecies that have been fulfilled in the past one hundred years.

The Bible is a great book of literature but it is also a collection of stories written at the prompting of God’s Holy Spirit. The reason that I say this is because of the way it is arranged and how many authors are involved in it. The Bible spans more than three thousand years, has sixty-six books written by over forty authors from all walks of life and yet they all point to Jesus’ birth, death and resurrection at one point or another in each book, and toward His second coming from the point of the prophetic books of which most were written at least four hundred or more years before He was born!

Read it, study it but don’t discount it. The Bible is and has been the most important book in the history of mankind and until Jesus comes to set up His kingdom on this earth it will remain so.

The Remnant saved

/ Tracy Eldridge / 1 Comment

And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel. Rev. 7:4

Who are these who were saved? The Remnant of Israel. Although, today there is a so-called religion that professes to belong to this 144,000. I say that they are wrong!

Unless there are that many people in America who are true descendants of the tribes of Israel, all of them, I don’t believe that this religion has anything to do with the 144,000 saved from the wrath of God. These are also not the only ones who will be in Heaven because after the Millennial Kingdom and the Great White Throne judgment, there will be a new heaven and a new earth created upon which the Kingdom of God will be forever.

Our God’s word will not be changed to meet the needs or the desires of a man-made religion. He will set up His Kingdom the way that He sees fit, not according to our desires. The book of Revelation should be taken literally and read with a prayer so that you can understand the words contained in it. Our generation will see the coming of Him. He has not started His Kingdom yet. We have not had the Tribulation spoken of in the Bible yet. Don’t believe the lies that are being told today.

Hear the word of God and believe it.

Are we living on the edge of Revelation?

/ Tracy Eldridge / Leave a comment

According to the prophecy that is in the book of Revelation, I would say so. Mainly because of the number of prophecies that have already been fulfilled. In general, all of the prophecies that were to be fulfilled before the time of tribulation have been fulfilled. The only ones left are those which precede the seven-year peace accord that the Antichrist will broker between Israel and her enemies.

There are many people in the church today who think that we, the church, will be gone before this happens. I am not so sure. There is another view that shows the church being subjected to the first half of the Tribulation and then taken away to Heaven before the wrath of God is poured out on the world. It is a very compelling argument and it has many scriptures to back it up. I am very interested to see just what will happen in the next few years because I believe we are that close to the time of Tribulation which will come on the whole world.

“But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only”. Matt. 24:36; our Lord told His disciples this in the Olivet discourse after they asked Him about the signs concerning the end of the age. We are living at that time or immediately before it right now. I know there have been many people who have said that the end of the world is on this day or this day, but no one knows! Your last day on earth is your personal “end of the age” and we have no clue as to when our last days are, thankfully! The times that we live in are and have been told about many times in God’s Word, from Daniel and Ezekiel to Joel and Isaiah then to the New Testament and the book of Revelation in particular. This time in our world should not surprise anyone if you have ever read God’s Word.

There are many who say that they will wait until their last day to accept Jesus as their Savior, but you and I don’t know when our last day is! It is arrogance beyond measure to plan your life that way because as soon as you leave home, your life is in danger! Even when you are at home, you may die of a heart attack, stroke, or any other ways. We are not given X number of years and days to live, and we don’t know when our last day is, only God knows that. Thankfully, He keeps that a secret from us.

The end of the church age is near and we are living in the “last days” right now and have been for a long time. Since the state of Israel became a nation again, there are few prophecies left to be fulfilled before the times foretold in the book of Revelation. In the past sixty years technology has advanced at a rapid pace, the world has grown smaller due to the rise of the amount of technology that is available to us on a daily basis. We do have the ability to talk to someone on the other side of the world and see them talk to us by way of the Internet. The Bible says:  “But you, Daniel, close up and seal the words of the scroll until the time of the end. Many will go here and there to increase knowledge.” Daniel 12:4

Our world is beginning to see some of the signs of the “end of the age”, but not the ones foretold that would be immediately prior to it. God loves us all and wants us to have a relationship with Him. If we choose not to accept the gift of the grace offered to us through Jesus’ sacrifice for us, we are the ones who will condemn ourselves to everlasting punishment! The day or the hour may not be known by us because our personal “day and hour” could be at any time since we are not guaranteed tomorrow. Get into God’s word, the Bible and ask Him to reveal what His will is for you because it is important to Him and to you and your family. He loves you and all of us and doesn’t want any to perish, but if we wait too long our chance to accept His gift of Grace may pass us by and then all you can say when you stand before Him is “I am sorry, Lord, I waited too long and I didn’t realize my condition in time”. The most dreaded words that anyone could hear at that point are “Depart from Me into everlasting punishment because I never knew you”. There will be a tear in His eyes when you are told this, but it will be too late. Don’t let this happen, come to Him and give your life to Jesus before it is too late!