Bible Prophecy by Rick Lange

TOUCH QUESTIONS PART 4    The Sabbath.             I grew up as an Adventist and later attended a Messianic congregation so I am keenly aware of the Sabbath and the issues that surround it.             Of all the tough questions we will deal with in this series of tough questions, the Sabbath may be the hardest to handle as well as the one to stir up the most ire on one side or the other or both.             So let us settle one issue that I believe can be agreed upon by everyone. Everyone knows that Saturday is the Sabbath. The Jews know it. The Messianic Jews know it. Christians everywhere know that Saturday is the Sabbath of the Old Covenant.                         So the big question we must deal with is what form the Sabbath takes on as it crosses over into the New Covenant. Is the Sabbath of the Law still mandated by God or was it a picture of something that we would find in Christ?             This is, of course, a loaded question. After all, w

PERSECUTION IS COMING             Hong and Esther Yang, a Chinese couple that is sponsored in part by our church came and spoke to us last night, having just returned from a trip to China. Hong reported to us that the persecution in China is the worst it has been in 40 years, or ever since Mao tse Tung was in charge of the country.             Their new president has changed their constitution removing term limits, making himself leader for life and he aspires now to be the new Chairman Mao with one important upgrade. He will become the god of China and anyone who has any other allegiance, whether Muslim, Buddhist or Christian will be imprisoned and tortured and forced to renounce their allegiances or die.             Hong reported that in spite of or maybe even because of persecution the underground is growing by leaps and bounds and the Christians there consider it a privilege to suffer for Christ.             Hong as spent two different terms in prison, f

TOUGH QUESTIONS PART 3    THE PASSAGE             Picture if you will finding a small hole in the ground. You are curious to know what is in the hole so you get down on your knees and peer into what appears to be a small tunnel. To your surprise at the other end of this long dark tunnel there appears to be another realm, a glorious new realm and as you gaze at the light of that glorious realm at the other end, you find a desire welling up inside of you such as you have never felt before.             You sense that everything that your heart has ever desired is on the other end of that dark tunnel and yet it is too small to crawl through. But finally, being unable to resist the pull of that bright realm at the other end of the tunnel you begin to push through head first into that small hole. But even as you do, you find that you must leave everything you have ever known behind. All of your possessions… friends… cherished memories… even you own flesh your old life you mus

DID GOD FAIL?             A friend on Facebook recently commented that it is confusing calling the Old Covenant Old. The idea was that it looks like God tried a covenant and it didn’t work so He tried another covenant.             Friends, the New Covenant has always been God’s plan. Jesus was slain from the foundation of the world and it was the New Covenant that God established with Abraham under the Melchizedek Priesthood.             Paul tells us the Law that came 430 years later in no way interferes with the covenant previously ratified with Abraham. Gal. 3:17             The Old Covenant was never intended to save us. Its job was to identify sin and to condemn us to death, so that in bringing us a New Covenant Jesus could die in our place and then fill us with His Holy Spirit. The Law is there to condemn us, not to save us.             God brought us the first covenant in order to lay the groundwork for the real covenant which is the covenant th

TOUGH QUESTIONS PART TWO                 Our first question from “tough Questions part one had to do with Law and Grace and here we deal with what appears to be an apparent paradox. Jesus said, “If you love me you will keep My commandments.”   John 14:15. He also said that not one jot or tittle will in any wise pass from the Law until all is fulfilled. Mt. 5:18, Luke 16:17. Then to add to this list Jesus identifies His remnant people in the end times as keeping the commandments of God. Rev. 12:17 and rev. 14:12                 However, if we read Paul’s writings and especially the book of Galatians, he states emphatically that we are no longer under Law saying that the Law is not of faith… on the contrary He who practices them shall live by them. Gal. 3:11 For as many as are under the Law are under a curse.””                   Paul throws down the gauntlet beginning in Gal 3:1-5 saying unequivocally: “You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you before whose eyes Jes

TOUGH QUESTIONS (PART ONE)             There are tough questions to be asked concerning scripture that most people don’t really want to ask. There are apparent paradoxes, places where one prophet said one thing and another prophet said another and they seem to be in direct opposition.             But if we believe that the Bible is infallible and written and guided by the hand of an infinite and all-knowing God, then solving these paradoxes will actually guide us to a greater truth behind them that will become revelation to us.             One of those big questions is why did Jesus say, “IF you love Me you will keep My commandments, while Paul tells us that the Law is not of faith… that it was a temporary tutor to lead us to Christ where its work is finished.             Another question is found in Hebrews 9 where there is a dispute between some biblical scholars as to when Jesus actually entered into the Most Holy Place to minister as our High Priest after t

GOD’S FIRE AND THE REMNANT FACTOR             God’s fire came down upon Mt. Sinai as if to consume the whole mountain and the people quaked and feared and made promises to God that whatever He said, they would do. But when all was said and done there were only two of the people that were there that day that lived to cross over into the Promised Land.             God’s fire fell in Elijah’s day and consumed the sacrifice and the people all said, “The Lord He is God.” But Elijah fled anyway, in spite of that mountain top experience. Ahab and Jezebel were still alive and in control and Elijah felt very much alone. This one was going to come back and bite him, he was quite sure.                         Elijah complained to God that he was the only one left, but God assured him that He had 7000 left in Israel that had not bowed the knee to Baal.             GOD WATCHES OVER HIS REMNANT PEOPLE AND HE KNOWS WHO THEY ARE.             In the days of King Solomo