We think that the question here is: Why isn’t Satan destroyed when he comes into God’s presence because in Exodus 33:20, God tells Moses that no one can see His face and live?

Satan was created in his eternal state and does not risk death coming into God’s presence. (God’s plan is that eventually Satan will be thrown into the lake of fire. He will then be unable to roam the earth or come into God’s presence. From that point on he will be tormented forever and ever.)

But as humans, if we were to approach God in our sinful state, it would not hurt Him, but would bring immediate death to us. Which is why Jesus died on the cross. He made the way for us to have access to God.

Yes. Job 1:6-7 says that “One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan also came with them. The Lord said to Satan, ‘ Where have you come from?’ Satan answered the Lord, ‘From roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it.’”

So, yes, Satan does roam the earth. We know that he appeared to Jesus in the temptation found in Matthew 4, Mark 1, and Luke 4.

If there are things in this life that can hurt us, why did God create them?

Genesis 1 says that God created everything and it was good. But when sin entered the world, along with it came pain, suffering, thorns, thistles, toiling and death. The things that hurt us in this world are a result of sin, not just Adam and Eve’s sin but a world of sin.

The Good News is that Jesus died and paid for all sin. And if we receive Him, He will someday take us to heaven where there will be nothing that will ever hurt us again.

What is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit?

This is an important question because in Matthew 12:32, Mark 3:29 and Luke 12:10, Jesus said that it is the only sin that wouldn’t be forgiven.

So what is it and could we have committed it?

To understand this we need to go back to Genesis 3.

In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were perfect people in a perfect place and yet they ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, the tree from which they were prohibited from eating. It was one single sin and immediately everything changed. Adam and Eve now knew that they were naked and they were ashamed and hid from God. God said there would now be pain and suffering. The ground was cursed and produced thornes and thistles. They would sweat to toil for a living. And death entered the world. All of this was the result of one single sin.

But even in the midst of this sin, God promised a Savior.The offspring of the woman would crush the head of Satan.

We fast forward to another Garden…the Garden of Gethsemane. It was here that Jesus, born of a woman, would begin the payment, not just for Adam and Eve’s sin but for all sin.

The Bible tells us in Isaiah 53:6 that God laid on Jesus the sin of us all. Jesus sweat; it was drops of blood. He was stripped and beaten. The Romans most likely crucified Him naked, with all the shame that accompanied that. He wore the thorns as a crown. He suffered; the pain was excruciating. And then Jesus died, not just for one sin but for all sin.

Everyone thought it was over but on that glorious Easter morning, Jesus rose from the dead. Jesus conquered death. He also conquered all sin. Since the punishment for one sin was death, had there been one sin that His blood couldn’t cover, had there been one single sin that He couldn’t forgive, death would have kept Him in the grave. But when Jesus rose from the dead, it meant that every sin was covered; all sin was forgiven.

Jesus’ righteousness was greater than the world’s unrighteousness. His sinlessness was more powerful than our sinfulness. Every sin from every person for all time was paid for on that day. And God offers that payment to us as a free gift. All we must do is receive it.

This means that blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is refusing to receive this gift.When the Holy Spirit calls us to receive this gift and we never do, that will keep us from God.

Even now as some of you are reading this, the Holy Spirit is calling you to receive this gift of eternal life. Say “Yes!”

There are more TV shows today about ghosts and paranormal activity. How do we explain these activities and what does the Bible say about this?

God has created us to live forever. Luke 16:19 begins an account about life after death and shows us what our lives here will determine about our eternal lives.

God has created us with a spiritual hunger. Unfortunately people often try to fill that hunger with a counterfeit.

Just recently Pastor Dave was in Atlanta and he walked out of a hotel onto the parking lot and happened to see a man digging through a dumpster. The man was embarrassed and afraid of being rebuked. He looked at Dave and said “I’m hungry. I’m just hungry!”
Dave gave him some food and then went to work on his real hunger…knowing Jesus.

But that man’s response sums it up for all of us…”I’m hungry. I’m just hungry!” We are hungry but that hunger cannot be filled with anything but a relationship with Jesus.

These television shows are revealing man’s spiritual hunger and attempting to fill it with a counterfeit. Man wants to believe that he can live any way he chooses and then will have the opportunity to fix it after death. That is not what scripture teaches.

Hebrews 9:27 tells us that it is appointed for us to die once and then to face judgement.
The great theologian, Charles Spurgeon, said it like this: …Where death leaves us, judgement finds us and eternity keeps us.”

So we must base our lives on the truth of the Gospel and that is that we are all sinners and we need to invite Jesus Christ to come into our lives and accept His death as payment for our sins so that when we face judgement, we will be declared “Not guilty!” and this not because of what we have done but because Jesus paid the price by shedding His blood on the cross to wash away our sins.

The paranormal programs will most likely not diminish but increase. Most of it is fabricated for television just like the magicians in Moses’ day were able to do “magic” tricks. But there is also a dark spirit realm that exists. There is some power there and we see that in the book of Revelation.

But know this…all powers will one day bow to the Name who is above every other Name…Jesus!

Why don’t we see more miracles of the breath of God demonstrated in the lives of His people today?

John 20:21-22 says this: “Again Jesus said ‘Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.’ and with that he breathed on them…”

And what amazing things those disciples went on to do! And the most amazing is still being done today. When the Gospel is presented and someone turns his or her life over to Jesus Christ, they pass from death to life. It is the most miraculous event on the planet.

If we do not forgive, the Father will not forgive us. How does this relate to the Lazaroo…our sins are removed as far as the east is from the west? (Matthew 6:14-15)

Don’t you love that passage? East and west never meet…not true with north and south. If you travel north long enough, there will come a time when you will start to head south.

But no matter how far you travel to the west you will never meet the east. So what this is saying is that once our sins are forgiven, they are gone… and we will never meet them again.

Btu there is a prerequisit to forgiveness and that is repentance. Forgiveness does not come because we mumble out an “I’m sorry,” but rather forgiveness comes when we recognize that we are sinners and we need a Savior to wash away our sins.

When we see that we are nothing more than sinners, saved by God’s amazing grace, then we are willing to forgive others.

How come Jacob is allowed to get Isaac’s blessing after the great deception? (Gen.27)

In Gen. 25:23, God had told Rebekah that her older son would serve her younger son before the birth of her twins.It was always God’s plan for Jacob to be blessed but it was not God’s plan for Jacob to pursue the blessing through deception.

It is true that Jacob receives the blessing from his father but he does not live under that blessing for years. In fact, he has to flee his home for fear that his life will be taken by Esau. It appears that he never sees his mother again. And the same deception that he used came back to visit him over and over again. In short, he reaps what he sows.

When he wants to marry the girl of his dreams, the older sister is dressed as the bride and passed off to him as Rachel. His father-in-law changes his wages numerous times and he feels so tricked by him that he has to flee with his family without even saying “good-bye”.

On the way back home, he wrestles with God and the Lord asks him the same question that his father had asked him: “What is you name?” This time he answers truthfully and God changes his name from “Grabber” to “Prince with God.”

He still though continues to reap from his deception because his sons do the same thing that he did. They kill a goat and deceive their father into thinking that Joseph is dead.

It is true that Jacob received the blessing but it is many years before he gets to live under the blessing. He got to choose to sin. He did not get to choose the consequences.

Jacob paid a huge price for his deception.

Does God choose us or do we choose Him?

The answer is both.

God gives us many pictures in His word to help us to grasp the love that He has for us. One of those is the picture of the Bridegroom.

At the time that Jesus lived on the earth, a Jewish bridegroom would see a young girl and at some point decide that she was the one that he wanted to be his wife. Many times both he and his father would approach her family. They would usually bring a gift for her family, the bride price, and a skein of wine.

The bride price would often be a lamb or a goat that would be killed to seal the covenant. The blood would be pooled into a blood path that would be walked through by both parties. Essentially what they were saying is that if either one of them broke the covenant, he would pay with his life.

We actually see that in Genesis 15 when God enters into His covenant relationship with Abram. God had Abram kill a number of animals and establish this blood path. But then He caused Abram to fall asleep and He walked the path alone as a flaming torch. What He was telling Abram was that if either He or Abram broke the covenant, He would pay with His life. Which is exactly what He did on the cross. He paid the bride price as the slain Lamb of God.

The gift for the family might be something like a jar of olive oil. The gift that Jesus gave for the family is the Holy Spirit.

After the bride groom asked her to be his bride, he would pour her a glass of wine. If she consented to become his wife, she would drink the wine. Jesus offered that glass of wine to us at the last supper.

So, does He choose us?

Yes!

He came to ask us to become His bride.

Do we choose Him?

Yes!

When we come to Him and ask Him to come into our lives and forgive us of our sins. When we take the cup at communion, we are letting the world know that we said “Yes”.

Which translation is better – the King James Version or the New International Version?

We have the very rare privilege in America to get to ask that question. Many people groups have only one translation of the scripture. Myanmar is just such an example. Adoniram Judson translated the Bible into Burmese in the early eighteen hundreds. It is still the translation that is used in Myanmar today.

We have the opportunity to have many translations at our fingertips that can give us additional insight into what a passage is saying.

Find a translation that is readable for you and become familiar with that Bible.Read it, study it, learn it. But know that other translations can be used as you study the scriptures.