Bible Prophecy by Rick Lange

PRAYING IN THE SPIRIT… A GREAT BLESSING                 One of the great blessings of praying I the Spirit is that we can ask the Holy Spirit to awaken our spirit to worship in the Spirit. Praying in the Spirit moves us from the activity of the carnal mind and into the activity of our born again spirit, and of course on that note, Jesus said: “God is spirit; and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth.” John 4:24                 Nicodemus sought to converse with Jesus on an intellectual level, but Jesus cut him off at the pass. He said emphatically: “Do not marvel that I said to you, “You must be born again." The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from or where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”                 How many of us seek a conversation with God on an intellectual level. We use our own carnal minds to tell God how we think He should run our lies and what He shoul

BAPTISM: DECLARATION OF FAITH # 10                 Baptism is what one might call a meat and potatoes doctrine. It is common across a wide spectrum of Christianity and it is certainly described in the Bible just as it is written here:                 “We Believe: In water baptism by immersion and all who repent should be baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.”                 This, of course, is the Gospel commission given by Jesus Himself saying: “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Mt. 28:18-20                 There is a great deal said in this Gospel Commission to which we must pay close attention because the church is in many way weak and living far below its potential as t

HOLINESS    (DECLARATION 7)                 “WE BELIEVE: Holiness to the standard of living for God’s people.                 I remember as a youngster standing in church and singing the doxology, “The Lord is in His holy Temple. The Lord is in His holy temple. Let all the earth keep silent. Let all the earth keep silent before Him.”   (Taken from Habakkuk 2:20)                 There was a certain sense of awe and reverence for the house of God, which translated to us kids as “Don’t run in the church, this is God’s house.” And we should have reverence for the place of worship, for we do come there with the specific purpose of meeting with God and with His people.                 As a child though, I didn’t give much thought to the fact that God was only in the house because we brought Him there. He wasn’t sitting in the church waiting for us to come to Him. He was in us and inviting us to come together to experience a group dynamic as many living temples would

SANCTIFICATION     (Declaration # 6)                 We BELIEVE IN: Sanctification subsequent to the new birth, through faith in the blood of Christ; through the Word and by the Holy Ghost.                 I haven’t read a whole lot of statements of faith from a whole lot of religions, but what I do see in the world today is a great falling away from sound biblical truth. For this reason Pentecostal groups have often been called the “Holiness People.” That is to say, they consider Justification to be the beginning of a journey with Christ and His Word and not the end of the journey.                 There are a lot of religions out there that like to add a lot of requirements to the Christian walk, but it usually just middies the water. The essence of Christianity is that we enter by faith into Christ’s death where we die to the flesh and to the world and then we are raised up by the resurrection power of Christ to be transformed from glory to glory by the indwelling

FEEDING THE POOR                 Today is our monthly weekend for feeding the poor of the community. We have food baskets for 328 families this month. Unfortunately it is pouring down rain and I hope it stops before that long line of people has to stand in the rain.                 We have had an exceptional year for rain here in Tennessee. This winter has been like a monsoon season. We live on a hill and I had to dig a ditch across the base of the hill just to divert the water away from the house. We live on six acres, most of it wooded and about 4 ½ of those acres are above the house and go all the way up to the ridge. I have hiked up there once to stand on the ridge and look into the valley below on the other side. It is impressive, but it is also a pretty steep climb.                 Still it is a beautiful spot and we love living here along the Clinch River. There is a boat ramp nearby where we can lower our Kayaks and paddle upstream in what is almost more like a lak

SETTING IT STRAIGHT                 As Christians that support Israel we need to be very wise in coming months. We need to support biblical Israel and God’s plans for true Biblical Israel… that being those who will eventually receive Yeshua as their Messiah. (Zech. 12:10, Romans chapter 11)                 We cannot, however, be in support of political Zionism, for it is part and parcel of the New World Order and the coming global kingdom of the antichrist.                 In this I am not picking on the Jews, for indeed there is a false Christianity as well, which under the leadership of Pope Francis is joining other world powers to bring in the reign of the antichrist.                 We know that the third temple is going to be inhabited by the antichrist as he commits the ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION that Jesus warned us about in Mt. 24:15 as being an event during the tribulation of the last days. And while this abomination may be reflected spiritually in the

ALL HAVE SINNED (Foundation number 4)                 Let us stop for a minute and ask ourselves; why are we going through the church’s declaration of faith, ours or anyone else’s. 1.        Some churches hold doctrines and interpretations and or additions that are not really biblical. 2.        What we believe we must personally own, or it doesn’t transform us. 3.        We are heading into a new Dark Ages in which our biblical faith will be severely tested and criticized. 4.        We may have to die for our faith and so we must have a faith worth dying for.                 The first Dark Ages occurred simply because the church ruled with impunity. No one dared question the authority of the popes and Bibles were very rare and largely unavailable to the public.                 The Reformation started first with a few hand copied pages of scripture and one Bible chained in a monastery, but it really gained steam with the invention of the printing press. T