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GPS and GGPS?
These are truly amazing
days in which we are living! New inventions are constantly being
presented to us, and one of the newest is GPS or Global Positioning
System. You can buy this device for your car, take it with you if you
go hiking, biking, flying, shopping or wherever you go. GPS even tells
you where you are so you can't get lost!
Even more amazing than this new invention is a very old, but very
valuable book called the BIBLE. The Bible contains GGPS, which is
God's Global Positioning System that is able to guide and direct those
who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior so they can grow
up spiritually. God's global plan does not have to be carried in our
hand or our pocket in order to guide us, bllt it must be in the right
lobe of our brain ... where we do our thinking! How does Biblical
information get into our brain? Only by a daily intake of Bible
Doctrine. Then the doctrine we learn and metabolize can be applied to
every situation we may encounter in life.
In eternity past, God the Holy Spirit programmed His GGPS plan for our
lives. We have all the necessary instructions the believer needs in
order to function properly during the time period in which we live,
and those instructions are found in a book we call the Bible. For
example, we now live in what theologians call "the Church Age", which
is unique from all other ages, because in this dispensation, God the
Holy Spirit indwells every person the moment he believes in Christ as
his substitute for sin. The Holy Spirit brings to remembrance the
things he has learned and produces the character of Christ in him,
i.e., "love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness
faithfulness, meekness, and self-control". (Galatians 5:22-23) |
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God has provided prepared men to be pastor-teachers who are able to
equip believers to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus
Christ, and because the scriptures were originally written in the
Hebrew, Aramaic and Koine (common) Greek languages, a pastor-teacher
must learn those languages, or be mentored by another man who has
learned them in order to present a correct interpretation of the Bible
to their hearers. If you, as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, have
positive volition toward God's Word, the Lord will provide a right
pastor-teacher for you.
The night before Jesus was arrested and taken before the Jew's
Council, He and the 12 disciples who had been with Him for three years
celebrated the Last Supper (the Passover supper) together. Near the
end of the meal, Jesus dismissed Judas Iscariot who would betray Him
that very night and then began to teach the others what would be
taking place after His departure. Even though He had taught them many
times how He would be crucified, buried and then after three days be
raised from the dead, they were very sad. Jesus told them He would be
going to heaven to prepare a place for them, but meanwhile He would
ask the Father to send the Holy Spirit to comfort them and would
permanently indwell them during the next dispensation called the
Church Age. In this present age, believers are baptized into Christ
... that is, they are permanently sealed and identified with Him,
because the word 'baptize' means identification. Paul said in
Ephesians 4:10, "Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God whereby you are
sealed until the day of redemption. "
After His death, burial and resurrection, Jesus spent 40 days on the
earth teaching His disciples about things to come, and then He
ascended into heaven. The Day of Pentecost occurred ten days later,
and the Holy Spirit came to indwell the 11 apostles and gave them the
ability to present the good news of the Gospel
to thousands of pilgrim Jews who had come to Jerusalem from other
lands to celebrate the feast days. They were amazed to hear the Gospel
in their own language from unlearned men, but that ability was a gift
from the Holy Spirit, and that very day about 3,000 men believed in
the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior.
The canon of scripture was not completed until 96 A.D., so during the
interim between 33 A.D. and 96 A.D. we have the transitional book of
Acts during which the apostles were given miracle gifts of healing the
sick and the lame, casting out demons, and raising the dead. Those
gifts were given temporarily so that people would listen to the Word
of God as presented to them by the apostles. Once the Bible was
completed, those gifts ceased to be legitimate, because now God speaks
to mankind only through His Word.
In the ninth chapter of Acts, we find the record of the conversion of
Saul of Tarsus to Christianity. His name was changed to Paul, and he
spent several days in the house of a man called Ananias. After that
the Lord took Paul to Arabia and instructed him for the next three
years about the mysteries of the Church Age. (Galatians 1: 17 -18)
The mystery doctrines that were unknown to Old Testament writers and
prophets were given to Paul, and they are for us who live in this
present dispensation. With God's Global Positioning System to guide
us, we will not try to live according to what was expected of
believers in past ages. For example, we are not required to offer
animal sacrifices to the Lord, but we are instructed by Paul to
"present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God,
which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world,
but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove
what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." (Romans 12:
1-2)
Information about the mysteries of the Church Age are found listed on
page 769 of Unger's Bible Dictionary as follows:
The mystery of the Church as the "body of Christ composed of saved
Jews and Gentiles in this age" are explained by Paul in Ephesians 3:
1-11; 6: 19; and in Colossians 4:3.
The mystery of the Church as the "bride of Christ" is revealed in
Ephesians 5:28-32.
The mystery of "Christ in us, the hope of glory" is explained in
Galatians 2:20 and in Colossians 1 :26, 27.
The mystery of "Christ being the fullness of the Godhead in bodily
form" is stated in Colossians 2:2 & in 1 Corinthians 2:7.
The mystery of the "operation by which man is restored to godliness"
is found in 1 Timothy 3: 16.
The mystery of "Israel's blindness during the Gospel age" is revealed
in Romans 11: 25.
The mystery of the resurrection of all believers in the Church Age
when it comes to a close is our "blessed hope". Paul takes a look at
this exciting event in 1 Corinthians 15:51-52:
"Behold, I show you a mystery ... we shall not all sleep, but we shall
all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last
trumpet; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised
incorruptible, and we shall be changed."
Again, and in more detail, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 states the
following:
"I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who
are asleep, that you sorrow not, even as others who have no hope. For
if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so those also who
sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. For this we say unto you by
the Word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the
coming of the Lord shall not precede those who are asleep; for the
Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of
the archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ
shall rise first.
Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them
in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be
with the Lord. Wherefore, comfort one another with these words!"
You cannot take advantage of God's Global Programming System until you
believe that Jesus Christ paid the penalty for your sins when He died
on a cross over 2,000 years ago.
“NEITHER IS THERE SALVATION IN ANY OTHER; FOR THERE IS NO OTHER NAME
UNDER HEAVEN GIVEN AMONG MEN WHEREBY WE MUST BE SAVED
(Acts 4: 12)."
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