Are You the One?

 Are you the one?

By Richard P. Joseph

12/11/2021

    I wrote in another article how John the Baptist preached that the messiah would come in wrath and judgement.  John’s warnings included statements like; “Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”, “ And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees.”,  “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit [a]and fire.”  “His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

    As you can see, you won’t hear this stuff in most churches as it is an affront to the sissyfied Jesus that most pastors preach about.  Jesus is no more than a peace loving hippie according to modern seminary thought.  The real Jesus, however, is loving and yet just.  His love is what led him to die for our sins but his justice has avenged his holy name.  This brings up another point about John the Baptist. 

    When John was in prison and near his end, he sent two of his disciples to Jesus asking him;  “Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?”   There are many people who have commented on this as to why John would ask such a question.  Did not God confirm that this was the coming one when John saw the Holy Spirit descend upon Jesus and a voice from heaven exclaiming that this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased?  In light of the disciples' ignorance, even after three years with the man, were still in the dark as to how Jesus’ mission would be rolled out.

    In Matthew 16;20 Peter takes Jesus aside and begins to rebuke him saying  ]“Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!”  It was clear that Peter and the apostles still did not have a clear view of how the mission of Jesus would be accomplished.  In John 14:8 Phillip was astonished when Jesus had to inform him that he was God in human form.  I, therefore, deduce that John the Baptist was in the same boat as the disciples.  John knew that it was the end of the age and that judgement was coming.  When he saw Jesus performing miracles of love and compassion, he was probably a little bit confused and therefore was wondering if Jesus was the one to pour out this wrath that he was preaching about or not.  It turns out that John had the message correctly but he just did not understand exactly how and when it would occur.  It turns out that Jesus did completely pour out the wrath of God on Jerusalem and executed judgement on the faithless but this was to take place in its proper sequence.  Jesus performed his acts of love and healing to prove who he was so that there would be no excuses when the wrath did come.  He gave Jerusalem every opportunity to repent and believe, then the judgement took place.  Jesus began his ministry around AD 30, was executed by the unbelieving Jews 3 ½ years later.  The disciples then continued the mission for another 30 plus years then the wrath came.  First the Christians had to endure tribulation to seal the deal then a rapture occurred which emptied Hades out and took up any remaining disciple into the realm of God then the wrath was poured out on Jerusalem for 3 ½ years culminating in the destruction of the temple and the end of the Mosaic economy in AD 70.  Thus John the Baptist was correct in all he said except for the simple fact that he did not have the entire sequence given to him.  That is why Jesus told his disciples that no man knows the exact time or day that the parousia would occur and for good reason.  

   

   

WOKE!

 WOKE!

By Richard P. Joseph

4/16/2021

Every person born on this earth is born under the sin of Adam.  In other words, we are in a condemned state of being which was made clear by Jesus.  

John 3:18 “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

The word “already” is telling because that puts us all in a condemned state of being until we are born again by believing in Jesus Christ.  

 John 3:19 And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 

Men love the darkness and will choose it every time unless the Holy Spirit resides in them.  Those that have been born again have been pulled out of that darkness and into YHWH's marvelous light.  We have left the world of evil and hopelessness and have entered the glory of Jesus Christ.  This has prompted men to write creeds such as the Nicene Creed etc.  

We believe in one God,

the Father, the Almighty,

maker of heaven and earth,

and of all that is, seen and unseen…..

There is a new creed going around today.  People are so proud that they put signs of it on their front lawns to let the world know that they are “woke” or in other words “born again of Satan”.  These people have been moved from bad to worse.  From lost to hopeless.  From ignorant to pure evil.  From off- base to debase.  From bad to perverted.  From free to communist and from dim to dark.   And unfortunately most of the world and businesses have fully embraced this new darkness.  

This is just one example of a creed that says loud and clear that they have rejected Jesus Christ and love the darkness.  Some other signs go into more detail but this is sufficient to see that they are communist, anarchist, homosexual, murderers, atheist, and lost.  And they are proud of it.  They are WOKE!  And worse yet most churches go right along with them.  That is why I quit going to church.  I belong to the church of Jesus Christ and get ill when I attempt to go to a local woke church.  

I only write this article to show the sad state of affairs on earth.   Satan is a defeated foe that has been thrown into the lake of fire yet we have lost souls flocking to Satan’s doctrine.  The woke philosophy demands that Christians be silenced and punished.  Jesus left us as the light of the world and yet we have put that light under a bushel and most are afraid to even let someone know it's there.  Our cowardice is shameful and hurtful.  We must repent of our shameful behavior and once again put that lamp on top of the table where it belongs and stand up for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The Gangster from New York

The Gangster from New York

By Richard P. Joseph

2/16/2021

Many people have seen the movie Schindler’s List and if you haven’t seen it, you should see it.  The movie was superb and gave a great visual of Nazism and of repentance and even heroism.  The book, however, gives a little more detail.  In the book there is a story that is not brought out in the movie but has impacted me greatly in understanding evil and one’s compromise with it.  The book tells of an event that occurred that taught me a very important lesson when dealing with evil.  

This evil presented itself when the NAZI SS brought in a group of rabbis and told them to spit on their holy books such as the Torah.  But not to just spit on them, they must drool spit on them in a dramatic fashion or else they would be shot.  They commenced to perform the best they could in order to not get shot.  They spit on the very scripture that supposedly gave them their very existence in life.  Then a Jewish street gangster was brought in and they told him the same thing.  The gangster, much like the Samaritan, had other thoughts though.  He simply refused to spit on the scriptures.  He was already accustomed to threats and lies and traitorous behavior, he knew the results of compromise and cowardice.  The SS,  outraged, did what they did best; they shot the gangster; then shot the rabbis.

Jesus told a story similar to this in Matthew 21:28-30.  

28 “But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, ‘Son, go, work today in my vineyard.’ 29 He answered and said, ‘I will not,’ but afterward he regretted it and went. 30 Then he came to the second and said likewise. And he answered and said, ‘I go, sir,’ but he did not go. 31 Which of the two did the will of his father?”

They said to Him, “The first.”

Jesus said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you that tax collectors and harlots enter the kingdom of God before you.

While the Rabbis said yes to God, it was the gangster that actually did the will of the father.  

In like manner I have voted for many “Christian” politicians and they all said yes but when it came to doing the will of the father they were complete disappointments.  Then in 2016 we elected a gangster type playboy from New York as our president.  Donald Trump, a successful business man with a long history of involvement in Hollywood, beauty pageant dealings, and many other worldly adventures, now took on the mantle of President of the United States.  Trust me, he was not my choice in the primaries but I pinched my nose and voted for him in the General election being that I would never vote for the opposing communist/NAZI party.  To tell you that I was pleasantly surprised by President Trump would be a massive understatement.  Deep inside this man of the world were the seeds of holiness that were planted long ago by his grandparents back in Ireland.  When the media asked Mr. Trump to spit on the bible and bow before Dagon, he held his chin up high and refused.  Not only did he refuse to spit on God’s word, he actually fought to uphold the spirit of the Word better than any of those weak “Christians” that I have ever voted for in the past.  The man had balls of steel.  He was akin to Judas Maccabaeus.  He stood up like an oak tree and would not budge.  He called the media exactly what they were, “fake news”, right to their faces and began heckling them with slogans such as “merry Christmas” and many other in-your-face Christian type slogans.  He fought abortion better than anyone else that came before him and at least tried to remove sexual perverts from the military.  His support for faith based operations was second to none in the modern era and he really did try to Make America Great Again.  The Democrats and the rest of the God haters all went apoplectic.  Never in my life have I seen the left wing lose their minds like I have now.   As we all are now experiencing their rage, I am full of joy in my heart that God reigns.  Yes, we have to deal with our current situation but nothing can ever take my joy away that Jesus Christ reigns.  They have run Trump out of town on a rail and are pursuing in an attempt to utterly destroy the man and his followers.  So let the war begin, but I still have a smile on my face put there by the gangster from New York!

Revised edition below, 4 years later    (2/27/2025)

    Well they did it, the communist Democrats executed a successful coup of the American government in 2020 with, of course, the help of weak cowards in the Republican party.  I won't waste time explaining the carnage that was swept in and utterly decimated our economy, our military, our schools, our borders, our morals and everything in-between.  It is so bad now that even some Democrats are waking up.  The country actually needed someone like Joe Biden to help them see how bad it can get when atheist communists run the country.  The result, a landslide victory for Donald Trump to accept a second term in the White House.  My real question is this; is this a result of faithful Christians in America or not?  In the end, it is, but at the same time it is also a stern rebuke on the same.  It appears that Donald Trump's Christian faith is something that developed later in life rather than early.  It also appears that his faith is real and it also appears that God called him in somewhat of the same way God called the Apostle Paul.  God needed Paul, a strong headed legalistic Jew, to do something extra ordinary and Paul had not much choice in the matter as Jesus knocked him to the ground and blinded him in order to convince him to the right way.  I think God called Trump, a billionaire playboy, to do something extra ordinary and Trump had no choice in the matter and accepted the terms.  Even two assassins, multiple court cases, an onslaught by the media and multiple frivolous lawsuits couldn't deter him.   He is, in my opinion, the most effective Christian president in our history.  Even if he isn't the most dedicated and scholarly Christian president, he is the most effective.  He has now assembled the most productive cabinet known to the United States of America.  This cabinet is made up of Christians, Hindus, agnostics and probably some other stuff that I don't know about.  My next question is; why not all Christians?  The short answer; because most Christians simply will not obey God.  They are weak cowards that don't understand that being a Christian is a bold and courageous lifestyle.  Since God ultimately sets up governments and takes them down, God did this.  This is where the rebuke comes in.  God has to use non-Christians to do what Christians fail to do.  We have been voting for "Christian" politicians for our entire lives and what do we get?  Abortion, inflation, transgender ideology, oppression, invasion, tax robbery, child molesters, forced vaccination, economic depression, social discord, communism, cancel culture, and complete social entropy.  That sounds a lot like what Jesus described that would be outside the kingdom of God.

Revelation 21   8 But the cowardly, [e]unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”     

Maybe it's time to redefine what a Christian really is.  The one thing he isn't is a sissy coward.  It is almost as if we need to learn from Trump's cabinet how to become a bold and effective force for the kingdom of God.  America is a Christian nation and we are in desperate need of strong Christian men to lead us in our future.  If you fit Revelation 21:8, please stay home, but if you are a worrier like David and Peter then step up, we need you.  Our future depends on it!

Eat and Run

 Eat and Run

By Richard P. Joseph   

    2/11/2021

    In Exodus 12:11 God tells Israel to get ready to “eat and run”.

“ And thus you shall eat it: [c]with a belt on your waist, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. So you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover.”

According to today's modern interpretation that scripture means that we should eat our meals with bags packed ready to leave Egypt at any moment.  Right?  Why not?  

    Jesus gave the disciples similar instructions.  In Matthew 24:17-18 Jesus tells them to “eat and run”.  

17 Let him who is on the housetop not go down to take anything out of his house. 18 And let him who is in the field not go back to get his clothes. 

Those that were in Judea were to flee and run when they saw the signs that Jesus described.  So, my question is this; if the modern interpretation for this verse means that thousands of years later they were to eat and run then why not interpret the first Passover the same way?  Why would God keep his promise to Moses but not to Peter?  If Moses really thought that their deliverance was nigh at hand then why wouldn’t Peter think the same thing?  Why would God tell Moses the truth but fool Peter?

    All of those are legitimate questions.  It is quite obvious that all of the New Testament writers believed Jesus as they wrote using imminent language such that they believed the end was at hand.  History bears out that they were correct.  In fact there is more history confirming the destruction of the temple and the sacking of Israel than there is of the exodus of Israel from Egypt.  Josephus left us a first hand documentation of it.  With so much knowledge of the “end of the age”, how is it possible to get the wrong interpretation of it?  It may be because we have a “me” based view of the bible but that was not so in ancient Israel.  Israel had a “God” based view of scripture.  With the me based view we always see God as our magical genie.  It is about our health and wealth.  It is about “I, me, mine” to quote George Harrison (the Beatle).  When you have a me based view you are 100% sure to get an inaccurate interpretation of scripture.  Although we do benefit from God’s plan, the scripture is really focused on God, not us.  We must learn to interpret scripture from an ancient point of view and with God as the focus point.  We must never add or detract from scripture, we are just to believe it as written and to what audience it was written to and understand the time statements according to their vantage point, not ours.

    The only thing “eat and run” does for me is give me indigestion.  However, for the first century Jew, it meant life.  It meant the escape from bondage.  It meant that destruction was about to befall those that disobeyed and failed to believe.  If they believed, then we need to also. Amen.

144,000

 144,000

12/14/2020

By Richard P. Joseph

I have been listening to Pastor David Curtis going through the book of Romans and enjoy his cunning insight.  Paul uses several chapters to describe what true Israel really is.  It appears that true Israel are all those who are in Christ regardless of whether they are Jew or Gentile.  Paul makes it clear that not all Israel is Israel.  The true Jewish Israelites are those that have accepted the gospel of Jesus Christ and that is only a remnant, not the entire Jewish nation.  

The nation of Israel as a whole rejected the messiah.  In Matthew 23 Jesus pairs the current Jewish leadership with all the past leaders who murdered the messengers of God.  

Mat 31 “Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers’ guilt.  

Jesus told them plainly that their house would be left to them desolate.  As AD70 approached, every word of Christ came true.  The Jews continued murdering the apostles and followers of Chrst and then they brought on their own demise by taking on the Roman army.  But what about the faithful Jews.  

John tells us in the book of Revelation that the remnant was indeed saved.  

Rev 14:1 Then I looked, and behold, [a]a Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with Him one hundred and forty-four thousand, [b]having His Father’s name written on their foreheads.

I believe that this 144,000 is the assurance of what Paul was telling us about “all Israel shall be saved”.  This number is obviously 12,000 X 12.  Twelve is the number of Jewish tribes and to multiply it gives it a fulfilled number of sorts.  This is reminiscent of when Jesus told the apostles to forgive 70 X 7 times.  It is not a real number but a meaningful number.  In other words there is no limit to forgiveness.   I believe John here is telling us that the faithful remnant of Israel is saved (in a continuing effect).  They are singing a new song that the unfaithful cannot learn.  They have received the promise that God gave to Israel that the others will not receive.  They are the first fruits of Israel in the new kingdom.  There is no real pure national ethnic Israel today.  The church is the real Israel.

Felix gets scared

Felix gets scared!

By Richard P. Joseph

                7/15/2020

    In Acts 24 we find Paul on trial in Caesarea.  The Jews, especially the Judaizes, were committed to killing Paul because they felt that he had forsaken the Mosaic covenant in his teachings.   Some Jews allowed the belief in Jesus but only as a sect of Judaism as they were never able to understand that Judaism was really only a precursor to a coming Messiah.  Since the Jews were the murderers of many of the prophets and then finally the Messiah himself, they were to be judged and found wanting.  Physical Israel was to give way to spiritual Israel.  It was made quite clear in the gospels, in the epistles and in Revelation that physical Israel had run its course and would soon become defunct as a religious system.  Jesus Christ had become the fulfillment of the  law.  Now Paul was on trial for that very hope, the hope of, not only a resurrection of souls but of a resurrected Israel to be realized in both Jew and gentile alike.  

    During Paul’s trial that Felix was overseeing, he made it clear that he spoke only of the things that were written in the Old Testament.  He then said:

Acts:2415 I have hope in God, which they themselves also accept, that there will be a resurrection [e]of the dead, both of the just and the unjust.  NKJV

Young’s literal translation actually makes it clear that this coming resurrection was imminent, not just something in the future.  

Paul kept reminding them that he was an orthodox Jew and that that orthodoxy demanded a resurrection and Paul made it quite clear (as well as the other apostles) that this rising from the dead was imminent.  

    This soon coming (Greek word mello) resurrection caught Felix’s attention but his love for money was stronger.  He kept a hope up that Paul would bribe him with some money for his release which, of course, Paul never offered.  But it came around that Felix’s Jewish wife became interested in this Paul and Felix, perhaps,  thought that she might have a fresh perspective on this so called new doctrine (which of course wasn’t since the prophets have been predicting it for centuries) so he called Paul in for a private session with just him and his Jewish wife Drusilla.  Drusilla was descended from the Herodian dynasty.  Paul began to share the gospel with them and when he finally got to the resurrection Felix began to become afraid.

Acts 24:25 and he reasoning concerning righteousness, and temperance, and the judgment that is about to be, Felix, having become afraid, answered, `For the present be going, and having got time, I will call for thee;'  Young's literal translation.

My question therefore is this; “why would Felix be concerned with something that won’t happen for maybe thousands of years” (according to the common futurist doctrine of eschatology)?   Answer; Because Felix never interpreted it that way, only modern day seminarians do because they use poor hermeneutics.  That might sound harsh but I think Felix had it right.  Felix was the original recipient of Paul’s sermon and he correctly understood that this resurrection was “about to occur” very soon.  Since paul was preaching about self control and righteousness, this definitely caught Felix’s attention because he was a wholly corrupt man.  When Paul mentioned an approaching judgement, Felix became frightened and promptly dismissed Paul back to his jail cell.  

    The point I am attempting to make is that the preterist position is thoroughly ensconced in new testament writings.  The context always indicates an imminent judgement and resurrection.  It never ever considers a long and protracted timeline for the events of the parousia.  Not one apostle ever embraced such a doctrine.  Stick with what was written and with the historical events that prove it and you can’t go wrong.

Original Intent

Original Intent

                                                               By Richard P. Joseph

                                                                7/1/2020

    Just about anything that David Barton writes is worth reading.  Barton has a passion for explaining the Christian origins of the United States government. These origins have a blatant biblical foundation which has been blotted out and perverted by modern day liberal judges and educators.  Their hatred for all that is holy and good has caused them to disregard the original intent of our founding only to replace it with an imaginary and twisted distortion of American history.  In Barton’s book Original Intent,  he produces the historical documentation to prove his point concerning the writing of our constitution and amendments showing that our modern courts, in many instances, have altered the meaning to such a degree that it is unrecognizable and completely detached from its actual meaning.  

Many of our founders expressed their concern when people attempted to use “modern thought” to interpret ancient documents.  Noah Webster expressed this when he said “..not only misinterpretation but even serious error can result when original meanings are ignored.”  Joseph Story added: “The first and fundamental rule in the interpretation of all instruments is to construe them according to the sense of the terms and intentions of the parties”.  Preterists call this “audience relevance”.  

An example of blatant misinterpretation by way of the disregard for audience relevance would be the misapplication of our first amendment.  

In a nutshell, the amendment is written only to congress, not to individuals.  To apply this to individuals is a gross misapplication of the law.  This amendment is not intended for any individual, its only purpose is to limit congress from enacting any law that would restrict religion, free speech etc.  It has nothing to do with telling someone they can’t have a bible in a school or the ten commandments in a courtroom etc.  But because they have ignored the original intent and have a complete disregard for audience relevance, they got away with brainwashing 90% of American citizens that they can’t express their inalienable right to worship when and how they wish.  What is funny about this whole thing is that David Barton is a futurist!

    If David Barton applied this same logic to his bible studies, he would quickly turn into a preterist.  Preterism is really nothing more than a proper interpretation of the bible via audience relevance.  In other words, what did that passage mean to those that first heard it.  Nearly all new Christians today pick up the bible and think that it was written just last week and commence to interpret it that way.  The scamsters feed on this ignorance and prey on the ignorance of the new believers.  What is worse is that seminaries actually teach in this same manner.  People that should know better dig their feet in and will not relent because of either money or pride; both of which will destroy you.  For example if I ask nearly any pastor “who was the book of Timothy written to?”, he would smile and say “to me, of course”.  I hate to be the one to tell him that this book was written to a young man named Timothy who lived 2,000 years ago and must be interpreted in light of that.  What would Timothy think about the letter that was sent to “him” not me.  That is how we can benefit from Timothy’s letter, by extracting the original meaning from it.  It is ironic that someone like David Barton has not done such a thing so I now encourage him to do so (like he is going to be reading this!!!).   So let’s all glean the precious meaning from past historical documents, which includes the bible, in the most accurate way possible by applying the concept of audience relevance to our study.  

Ps, I heartily recommend Barton’s book.