A simple Doctrine
Introduction
This chapter is aimed at giving you a simple introduction to doctrine so you know what you believe in without the clutter of theology so I have tried to keep this chapter as simple as possible. If you wish to go deeper then buy a good book on doctrine that clearly explains it.
On God!
There is only one God
He is a Trinity
There are three separate people in God:
God the Father
God the Son (Jesus The Christ)
God the Holy Spirit
All are equally God. All have the Character and Abilities of God and work in unity as one.
Do not try and understand the Trinity as it is beyond our understanding
God is all knowing, All powerfull and is present everywhere so He knows all you do and need and can help you with whatever you need help with.
God has said He is love so that all He does is out of His Love for you.
How do we know about God?
We can know about God personally from what we can see and experience about Him in His Creation as well as what The Holy Spirit tells us about Him in our mind.
We also know about God because He has told as about Himself.
The Bible tells us about Him; what He has done for us as well as what He requires us to do to obey Him and receive the good things He wants to do or for us or give to us.
Jesus, THe second person of The Trinity also came to earth as a man and taught us about God, showed how to live as a follower of God and explained what God required of us and what He has prepared for all who will follow Jesus as Lord (God)
Can we prove God’s existence?
He has to tell us about Himself and does this through the Bible as well as what The Holy Spirit tells us about Him through creation and our experiences with God. As we live in the way He requires us too He becomes more real to us as a result of His being able to work in our life and reveal more of Himself to us in an ever increasing way!
How can we describe God.
We are able to describe Cod only in the things He has shown about Himself to us. We can only know of God what He allows us to know about Himself. Anything else is reasoned or imagination and allows Satan to influence our idea of who God is and what He can do.
He has no beginning and has no end. He has always existed and always will exist.
He does not change in any way as He is perfect and complete so never needs to add, subtract or change any part of Himself.
He is infinite. Eternity and time are just a phase and will pass away one day leaving only infinity, We cannot understand these things as God has not explained them to us yet.
He is everywhere and because of this is able to keep all things in existence. God is greater than everything that has been ever made so that all things exist in Him, move in Him and are kept by Him.
God is all knowing so nothing happens anywhere: hell, heaven, earth, the universe, that He does not know about it.
Because He knows every thing He knows the answer to every problem or situation. He is all wise and can advise on any problem we have. All we need to do is to ask Him and be willing to listen to the Holy Spirit as He replies to our question and then to do what He has told us to do.
God is Love and else flows from that: His Grace, Mercy, Compassion, salvation. All flow from His Love. All He does for us and to us is because of His love for us working for our best interest and eternal good.
God is all powerful and able to do any thing He wants which is why He can help us to do His Will and defeat His enemy Satan.
God is the final authority in every thing. He rules all through Jesus and all must bow to His Will. It is no use rebelling against God as you will lose the fight and probably your eternal salvation.
What are the names of God?
He use various names to describe different ways He relates to us. There are in The Old Testament. After Jesus came we use only a few:
God the Father - called Our Father
Jesus The Christ - called The Lord Jesus
The Spirit of God - called The Holy Spirit.
Jesus told us one new name for God. He said God is Love so we can call God Love!
The New Testament brought in a new way to relate to God in a personal based on love and appreciation and gratitude for what He has done for us.
In what form does God exist?
No man has seen God except Jesus so the only form God has revealed to living people is that if a man sometimes a spiritual man in the form if Jesus The Christ. In heaven He will show Himself as a form that spiritual beings can see and appreciate.
We know God is a person (He told us HE is a spirit and spirits are persons) which is why we can have a personal relationship with Him. We know He is a Spirit and as we are made a reflection of Him we too have a Spirit.
We know God is a trinity (Three spiritual persons acting as one in spirit and Will.
Each is fully God, possessing all the character and qualities God has. All (The Trinity) is worshipped as God. All are to be related too as one should relate to God.
God reveals Himself to us to the extent we are able to understand what He is trying to Tell us about himself. What He has told us about Himself is believed by faith.
The Bible
What is THe Bible?
It is a collection of God inspired writings in which God tells is about Himself, what He requires of us to do as well as what is going to happen in the future.
How did God Give us The Bible?
God used people who could hear The Holy Spirit clearly, who wrote down what God told them to write.
Did they make any mistakes when they wrote down what they were told to write by The Holy Spirit:?
If they did God would have shown these to them before the writing was distributed. Because of this the Bible is completely true and accurate. There is no error in it. This lack or error is called Inerrancy.
Inerrancy is necessary for God to preserve His truths so we will always know what He requires from us. From the day each word of the Bible was written, til today and into eternity God has preserved His truths in His Bible so we would know His love for us as well as a what He requires us to do to obey Him and obtain the wonderful promises He has for us.
God gave us the Bible so it world show as what we needed to do To live as He wanted us too and as a result become like Him in character. The Holy Spirit Teaches what we need to know and as we obey God we are changed into the Character of God. It is through obedience to the Bible (God’s requirements) that we are changed more and more to be like Jesus.
Who inteprets The Bible teo us?
THe Holy Spirit teaches us the truths in THe Bible that God wants us to know as well as how to teach these to others so He also use these words when the do not read The Bible to give them understanding of these truths (Job 32:8)
How do we know the correct books are in the Bible?
The Holy Spirit told people what books should be in The Bible and what books were not of God.
To know about God we need to know our Bible. To be like God we need to obey it.
The Father
The Father is God, He is The first person of the Trinity with all the Character and attributes of God.
The Kingdom of Heaven is His but He has given Jesus authority over all of it, the Holy spirit being the Guide and Teacher of people showing them how to live and obey as a citizen of The Kingdom of God so that they keep the correct relationship with The Father and Jesus and inherit eternal life.
He prepared heaven for us and sent Jesus to help us get there. He was the Father of Jesus who told Jesus all God wanted Jesus to do on earth. He showed who Jesus was through the miracles He did through Jesus and the way He protected Jesus on earth and witnessed to whom Jesus was through the Miracles He did through Jesus and the empowerment of The Holy Spirit in Jesus,
The Will of The Father was empowered by The Holy Spirit working through Jesus.
He reveals Jesus to people and as they draw closed to Him He draws them closer to Jesus. He helps all who follow Jesus. If He did not do this then no one would enter heaven as it is a spiritual battle and we cannot fight as we are only on a physical plane of existence.
The Father desires all to be saved and when we decide to follow Jesus as Lord He takes us into His Kingdom. He gives us The Holy Spirit to mark us as belonging to Jesus and at the request of Jesus gives the anointing of The Spirit so we can serve Jesus.
When we serve Jesus we are also serving the Will of the Father.
The Father knows all about us and what we need and prepares it for us before we know we need it. For God to call us to serve Him as a citizen of His Kingdom and not give us what we need to do His work makes Him a careless, unloving and hypocritical God.
He adopts us as His children and cares for us as a Father cares for His Children, providing all we need, disciplining us and rewarding us according to His requirements as explained to us by Jesus.
The Father honours all who honour Jesus and as we seek to be like Jesus we will do what Jesus did. The Father will empower us and bring us glory as we do these things, to glorify, exult and worship Jesus.
Access to the Father is only through Jesus and what you do to Jesus you do To The Father.
The Father has prepared a place for u s in heaven and also prepares us for that place.
He alone knows the time of the return of Jesus so those who say they know this time are liars. Even if they guess correctly the time they will never know that they are correct as even Jesus does not know the time! We can however know the season (rough time period) of His return.
God is Love, and the Father is Love and all He does to us is out of His Love for us including the path God has a ordained for us to walk in this life on which all God’s promises for us are placed..
Do not neglect talking to the Father as He has done so much for you and loves you so much.
Jesus The Christ
Jesus is God. He is the second person of The Trinity. He rules all, receives worship from all, Has all the character and abilities of God and He does everything God can do because He is God. He is part of The Trinity equal to the other two members of it; God The Father and The Holy Spirit.
He became a human like us with free will, able to feel emotion and pain as we do and to be tempted (tested) in every area of His life as we are except He never disobeyed God in any area of His life so He never sinned.
He came to earth in the form of a baby. He was born from a Virgin called Mary, God was His Father and Mary’s body was used to grow Jesus and have Him born as a baby into the world. He was a stepbrother to the other children of Joseph and Mary.
He was truly God’s offspring. He was The unique son of God by birth. We become sons/daughters of God by being adopted by God when we truly follow Jesus as Lord and as a result become citizens fo The kingdom of God, being led by THe Holy Spirit in all things.
Jesus was God on earth when He lived among men but did not choose to exert or claim His rights as God so He could live like us and not have any of His Godly attributes help Him to live while on earth, This was so He could live as we did and relate to what we experience in our life on earth.
He lived among us doing the work of God’s Kingdom: teaching, preaching and demonstrating it as we should be doing.
He then died on The Cross to remove all the barriers between God and us so we could have a personal relationship with God without the need for a Temple, a priest and the sacrifice of an animal.
He rose from the grave and was seen by many people. He has a new resurrection body which is like our physical body but without any of the effects of sin and Satan’s world on it.
He should not have died as He had not sinned . Death was only for those who had sinned so God raised Him from the dead.
Jesus is now in heaven as King (Lord) of everything spiritual and physical. He is protecting His people and helping them to do His work on earth in the kingdom of His enemy, Satan, as well as helping the citizens of His Kingdom to be more like Him.
The Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit is God. He is the third person of the Trinity. He has all the character and attributes of God as He is God. He is a person like the Father and Jesus. A person is someone who is an individual, has personality and a mind that can rationalise and think. A human form is not required for someone to be a person. All persons have a spirit which is why animals that exhibit personality are not persons as they have no spirit!
Because Te Holy Spirit is a person we can relate to Him on a personal level and we can also hear Him when He talks to us. This is why He can lead us in our Christian walk to live as Jesus and the Father wants us to.
He lives in us, which is why He knows our needs in a personal way and asks Jesus and The Father to meet them (when they are accordance with their will).
The Holy Spirit, prior to the birth of Jesus The Christ guided and protected Israel and guided the writing of the Old Testament! He dwelt in a few people so these could form a specific task and empowered and led them in the work God wanted them to do.
He empowered Christ in His ministry anointing (authorising) Him to commence His earthly ministry when Jesus was baptized by John The Baptist. The Holy Spirit was involved in the birth and resurrection of Jesus.
He convincts people they need Jesus and teaches them how to be saved (and thus become a citizen of the Kingdom of God). He lives in their spirit and marksw them as belonging to Jesus. This is a new birth spiritually and He renews the person’s attitudes and understanding of spiritual things.
He anoints (baptizes) them spiritually for service. When you inherit eternal life (are saved) you receive The Holy Spirit. When he appoints you to a service He baptizes (anoints/empowers) you for that ministry so you have the authority and gifts you need to carry out that ministry on the behalf of Jesus.
He is our teacher and gives as understanding of the things God wants us to know. When asked too He takes the place (in the soul) of demons that are cast out so they can not return, You must ask Him To do this as He is not forceful and will not enter uninvited!
He only can do what we allow Him to do in our life so we must ask Him to guide an teach us and not assume more authority and empowerment than He has given us on the behalf of Jesus.
The Holy Spirit anoints (empowers/authorises) people for ministry but also gives them the ‘gifts’ (abilities or authority) to do what they need to help them in the ministry God has authorised (anointed/baptised) them to do.
These gifts are all of a supernatural kind so are nothing we have in us that we are naturally able do! These gifts are given as we need them to help us in our God-given ministry and can not be obtained by asking God form them for any other reason than to serve Jesus in the way He has asked us to do.
If we are led by The Holy Spirit we will be told what gifts we have and when to use them. Any other use is for personal reasons as they given for the purpose of serving Jesus and not for our own benefit or pleasure.
The Holy Spirit will always be there to guide us, not just now but in the Millennium and in eternity and while there is a choice for people between Jesus and Satan He will be there to give people understanding of the truths they need to know and understand to see why they need Jesus.
Angels
Angels are created beings. They were created before man and like us have personality, free will, can feel emotion and pain and can accept or reject God! Unlike us they can work in the spiritual plane as well as the physical plane we exist in.
They are spirits God created that were all originally God’s servants till Satan rejected the rule of God through pride and rebelled with 1/3 of the angels.
They do not die and cannot have children or reproduce in any other way unlike human beings. They have more knowledge and understanding of things than we have and also have more authority (power) over physical and spiritual things than man does.
Good Angels
They are organised like an army and have different roles. By their lifestyle they bring continual praise and worship to God. Some also are appointed continually to praise God in songs and word.
They serve God, and at His direction serve mankind meeting our needs at God’s direction in the way He directs them too. They surround God’s citizens protecting them from demons unless we give demons right of access through accepting what the demons offer us.
Bad Angels (Satan and his demons)
Demons are led by Satan, an angel who was a leader of angels in heaven but who rejected God. He was cast out of heaven to earth and is The enemy of God and of all who follow Jesus.
God controls what Satan can do and limits His activities. It is we who allow Satan to tempt us to sin and reject God’s Will by accepting what Satan offers us and rejecting what God wants us to do.
Satan promotes evil every way He can and as he still control this world uses all he can (media, apostate or liberal Christians, Bibles and writings, law making bodies, education system etc) to try and cause all he can to follow him and sin against God.
He tries to stop, distract or divert Christians from doing the work of God or from believing in him (Satan) or from knowing the danger he is to them.
He blinds people so they do not know the Gospel or hinders their understanding of their need of it if they realise what it is.
Demons are fallen angels that serve Satan and do his work for him. They are his army he uses to attack the followers of God!
They try and get into the soul of a Christian and even more so into the spirit of a non-Christian so they can possess them. They cannot get into the spirit of a Christian as The Holy Spirit is there but they can get into the soul of a Christian and cause them real problems until they are evicted from there.
Demons cause physical and mental illness as well as hinder Christians in their daily life through the problems they cause them. They know the damage Christians could do if they knew their delegated authority over them so they try and hide this from them.
They try and cause disunity in The Body so that they will be too busy protecting their ‘denomination’ to fight them.
Satan was taken captive and defeated at Calvary as were all the demons controlled by Satan. We have been delegated authority over Satan and his demons for the purposes of The Kingdom and all need to learn this to effectively live the Christian life and defeat Satan.
Man and Sin
Man was created to have a relationship with God in a garden built especially for them. He created the first man and called Him Adam. He created a wife for him, called Eve, some one to compliment Adam and mesh with him to create a unity in marriage before God.
Man was made to reflect God in their life. God works through the life of people and how they show what God has done in them reflects God’s character in some way.
Man has three parts
A spirit in which a demon or The Holy Spirit lives (depending whether Satan or Jesus is their Lord)
A soul where demons and/or The Holy Spirit live. It is here the thoughts of a Christian are hindered by Satan and where emotions, physical sensations and desires are placed to try and cause them to sin.
A Body, which interacts with the world and which Satan tries to excite or use to cause you to sin with the pleasures of the world.
The spirit is contained by the soul and the soul by the body, The Spirit and soul have been weighed and together are about 4oz (125 gm).
As the soul is a cleared of demons people can hear The Holy Spirit more clearly to be able to be led by Him.
In the beginning man lived in this perfect garden as steward of it and his wife. He was to tend the garden and protect the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He failed in his stewardship, disobeyed God, ate the fruit with his wife and was cast out of the garden.
As a result of his rebellion and listening to Satan, Satan now ruled the earth where the man and woman had been placed when they were evicted from the Garden. They were placed in the kingdom of the person they chose to follow and could not remain in the garden as they had rejected its ruler, God so were evicted into the kingdom of Satan. Death and decay now became a part of the world they lived in. They were separated from God and facing eternal death.
They had sinned and as a result of this sin death and decay entered the universe.
What is sin?
Sin is falling short of God’s requirements. It has to be a deliberate rejection of His requirements as God does not judge you for doing what He has not revealed to you yet.
You cannot inherit a sin from your father or mother but you can be in an environment where you learn the sin from them (iniquity). Each person is punished for their own sin. The punishment for sin (rebellion against God) is separation from God which is eternal death. Eternity away from the presence of God!
As sin is individual so is the salvation God offers you. you cannot be saved for another as each must individually choose to accept or reject God and what He has ofered them in Jesus.
God saw the situation man was in and that man could never meet the requirements of God for Salvation so He did what was necessary to enable man To be able to obtain salvation.
This is the reason Jesus was sent to earth:
To teach us what God required of us to obtain eternal life with Item
To teach us to live as God desires us to live
To die to remove all that stopped in approaching and relating to God as we shouted
To demonstrate God,s love for us!
Salvation.
We reap what we sow. You disobey God you reap eternal death. If we follow Jesus as Lord we reap eternal life. In the Old Testament salvation was a result of obedient faith in God. In the New Testament this has not changed. The only difference is now it is faith in Jesus, who is God and represents God, that saves us from eternal death.
Jesus said that salvation was a relationship with The Father and Himself (Jn17:3) guided by The Holy Spirit resulting from following Jesus as Lord. This Lordship of Jesus meant we were in. A relationship that allowed God to save you from the kingdom of darkness (Satan’s kingdom).
Salvation did not occur at Calvary, Redemption did.
At the cross Christ met God’s requirement too redeem all man kind from sin. As Christ was God His sacrifice was infinite as He was infinite. His sacrifice and redemption covers all that lived, is living or will live anywhere in creation. He died once for All not just those on earth.
Jesus took the punishment that should have been ours, taking our place so that His death was in place of our death. In a sense we died with Him to those sins so they no longer affect us. Every sin we have committed, are committing or will commit was placed on Him so that the guilt, judgement and condemnation for our sin was removed from us as He bore it all on the cross.
To receive this redemption it we need to obey Jesus as Lord and Saviour, and accept His sacrifice at Calvary. Only those who follow Jesus as Lord and Saviour and obey Him voluntarily in all they do have eternal life.
We have free will and it is our choices that determine whether we go too heaven or hell. God helps us as much as He can or as much as we allow Him too but He does not force us to make a decision to follow Him as Lord. Those who do choose to follow Him He elects to help further and mature them more to His image. Those who reject His salvation cannot be chosen (elected) by Him for salvation or development and maturing because they reject all He offers them so He cannot help them any further except to keep trying to get the truth to them that will help them see their need of Him
You must also believe Jesus redeemed you at Calvary, bearing all the spiritual consequences of your sin so that they no longer affect you and prevent you from going to heaven. Sin is no longer a barrier if you try to stop it (repent) and keep trying to follow Jesus.
Salvation is a result of following Jesus as your Lord (ruler) and trying to obey Him in all you do. Once you make the decision to follow Jesus The Father removes you from the Kingdom if darkness into the Kingdom of Light (heaven). You become a citizen of the Kingdom of God and as long as you try and stay in that relationship with Jesus as your Lord you will be with Him in heaven when you die.
Can you lose your Salvation?
Yes!
Rev 3:5 He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.
There is a book that lists all who have salvation. It is called The Lamb’s Book of Live”. If your name is not in it you do not get eternal life.
In Rev 3:5 this church was told to repent and obey Jesus. They were disobedient and were not repenting. The threat was that their name would be removed from the Book of Life. These people had their name written in this book so had eternal life but were in danger of losing it through disobedience. Hebrews 6:6-8 also talks about having salvation and losing it, the result being there is no second chance so that you can never repent and be saved again.
What should be our motivation for following Jesus as lord?
His Love for us and what He has done for us should result in love and thankfulness to Him and a result of this is the desire to serve Jesus and follow Him!
What must a believer do to be saved?
You must believe Jesus is God, came to earth and lived like one of us, lived a sinless life, was crucified and rose from the dead and now rules all as Lord of all. You must believe all He said and obey what He requires you to do.
What assurance do we have of our salvation occurring?
Jews said that none that came to Him would been lost. So if you truly love Jesus and obey and serve Him as best you can, seeking only His Will and the furtherance of His Kingdom He will ensure your salvation (Mat 6:33).
It is God’s love and Grace that has made it possible to be a citizen of His Kingdom so that on our death we will be home in His Kingdom, the ultimate salvation from Satan and his attacks against us. After all, that is who we are being saved from and our choice of Jesus as Lord, Master and King is that which saves as from the kingdom of Satan and all the consequences of the belonging to that kingdom.
The War
There are only two kingdoms: The Kingdom of God and The kingdom of Satan. Satan was defeated at Calvary so all he has are spoils of war belonging to Jesus. Jesus will return soon to take over earth and claim all Satan rules. Satan will then be imprisoned in the abyss and Jesus will rule for 1000 years showing how, corrupt and degenerate the rule of Satan was through the excellence of the way Jesus rules earth for those 1000 years.
The Kingdom of God is where ever Jesus is lord. The followers of Jesus on earth, (in the enemies kingdom), Heaven (their true home) and any land, place or object that is dedicated to Jesus to be Lord of.
There are two commanders, (Jesus and Satan) each trying to destroy the works of the other. Each has spiritual beings (angels/demons), possessions for their army to use and people on earth they use to do their work in this battle.
The weapons are spiritual but have their effect in the physical.
You belong to one kingdom or the other. There are no fence sitters as there is only one kingdom on earth, that of Satan, and it has no fences around it. Jesus said His Kingdom was not on earth leaving only Satan’s.
If you are not fighting for the things of Jesus, resting from the battle, to young to fight or learning to fight on behalf of Jesus then you are helping His enemy, Satan, even if only by inactivity in the battle and may need major deliverance to be able to become involved in the battle in the way Jesus desires you to be.
Satan is a defeated enemy so must do the Will of Jesus, the one who has defeated him. Whenever we command the Will of Jesus over Satan, if we have the right to command it Satan must do what Jesus commands through us.
It is the responsibility of every citizen of the Kingdom of God to know how to fight in this battle on behalf of Jesus or to learn how to fight in it!
The battle is intense as Satan knows he has only a short time left and is trying to do as much damage as possible before his reign on earth is finished. You either fight him or are resting, preparing to fight him or are at his mercy!
One day the battle will be over then the peace and lordship of Jesus will reign forever and all will be in harmony as it was in the beginning.
The church.
The true church is made up of people on earth in whose spirit The Holy Spirit lives. It is called the Body of Christ. It is built up by Jesus using people who are willing to do His work and serve others in this activity.
The body is one but the people in it meet in smaller local groups. It is the leading of the Holy Spirit that unites the people in the Body as a unity and He shows each member to do what God wants Them to do so that the body functions as a single unit. To be a part of this unity you need to know how to be led by the Holy Spirit so you know what God wants you to do.
The purpose of the Body is to serve Jesus. He Tells the members: where to go, what To do so and when to do it so that the work of God is done on earth.
He has given some commands like the great commission and the orders in Mark 16:17-18 to attack His enemy’s kingdom but these must be done in the timing of Jesus and in His way or they will not be in accordance with His Will and will not be successful.
As we obey Jesus we give Him worship
As we do His work it gives Him Glory
As His work is completed it gives Him praise
And people rejoice out of gratitude and give Him thanksgiving
Jesus gave people to help others perform His work and help the people in the Body grow, They have no right to spiritually control another. They advise and counsel people in the Body and submit themself to the needs of the body and serve their needs out of love for Jesus. Jesus alone is our spiritual head (1 Pet 2:25.)
There are two classes of service in the Church: spiritual and physical. Deacons do the daily administrative work while those who are spiritual guides to others of the Body are to give (themselves to communing with God and to withdraw from worldly pursuits so they can better hear what God advises them to do or to tell others to do.
The Holy Spirit is the guide Jesus gave to the Body and He advises on the structure and activity of each local assembly so it will do the Will of Jesus. Only as the local assembly is led by the Holy Spirit will it do the work of Jesus.
The Purpose of the local assembly.
The purpose of the local assembly is to bring Glory to Jesus and Worship Him through the way it serves Him. Jesus is King (Lord) of all and the primary purpose of a citizen of the Kingdom is to serve their King faithfully.
What Commands has God given His Citizens?
The first command is Jn 13:34-35 from which all other commands flow, namely to love all as God Loves them. It is mandatory as there is no exception to it given by God. Deliverance may be needed to obey this command.
From this love for God and His unsaved children is the desire for these to have the same relationship with Jesus and The Father that you have. His command in regard to this is the so-called Great Commission.
In summary reads as follows:
“All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in My name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”
Note the specific signs that would follow in the lives of those that followed Jesus and did His work. If these signs are not in your life you had better find out why! He said In His Name (or His purposes) we would:
Cast out devils;
Speak with new tongues;
Take up serpents;
If we drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt us;
We will lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover
The Body represents Jesus on earth and are His army to fight His enemy. If you are not representing Jesus or fighting His battle you had better find out why.
The battle is for eternal souls. Satan trying to capture those of the follower of Jesus and the followers of Jesus being used to release the captives of Saturn from the slavery he has them under.
Nothing is as important to Jesus as the freeing of these souls from the enemy so anyone not able to do this needs to learn to be able to do this work and then to do It. Deliverance may also be needed. The Holy Spirit will show you what you need to correct in your life so you can do this work of Jesus (Jn 7:17).
The Future
The world will progressively become more evil till the time that evil is fulfilled when Jesus will return for His people and bind His enemy, Satan, for 1000 years. In the seven plus years before He returns to rule there will be a time of trial for all who will not follow Jesus.
Those who followed Him wholeheartedly will be taken to heaven and eat at the Marriage feast of The Lamb. Lukewarm Christians will stay behind and have to prove their faith through martyrdom.
In this period of tribulation the messiah of Satan, the Antichrist will appear. He cannot appear until the true followers of Jesus revealed in the last greet revivals are removed from the earth, So great will these three last revivals be that they will seriously hinder the plans of Satan.
After Jesus returns there is a 1000 year reign and then Satan is released and once again he tries to corrupt the Kingdom of God and defeat Jesus. This is the second time Satan does this (The first time was in the Garden of Eden) so now Jesus. has the two witnesses necessary to judge Satan and put him away for good.
So time is finished and eternity begins and God makes judgment on all: the followers of Jesus and The followers of Satan. The followers of Jesus go to be with Him in heaven forever While the followers of Satan go with him to the Lake of fire. Hell and all that belonged to the kingdom of Satan is thrown into the lake of fire. The earth is also destroyed by fire and a new purer earth, free from the pollution of Satan and his kingdom is now made along with the new heavens also freed from his polluting influence.
The new Jerusalem is then placed on earth. The Kingdom of God is now on earth in all its purity and all is as it should have been in from the beginning.