KNOWLEDGE AWAITS
Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. (2 Timothy 2:15)
Three things you should know about ...
- God is all-powerful (omnipotent), all-knowing (omniscient), and is everywhere at once (omnipresent), and by His word spoke everything into existence. (Psalms 33:6, 1 John 3:20, Jeremiah 23:24)
- God is holy and requires perfection of any who will enter into his kingdom, despising sin, and providing a means to righteousness by faith in Christ. (Leviticus 11:44, Romans 3:23, Philippians 3:9)
- It is God’s will that all men should be saved, and He has made eternal life available to all through faith. (Romans 6:23, 1 Timothy 2:4)
- Jesus Christ is the Son of God, he is one with the Father, and by him were all things made, both in heaven and on earth. (John 1:1-3, Colossians 1:16)
- Willingly came to the earth to live as a man and to suffer and die on the cross as sin for mankind that salvation might be offered. (Romans 8:3, and 6:23)
- Is the head of all things both in heaven and on earth, to whom all living things will bow down and proclaim Lord. (Philippians 2:10-11)
- It is the Holy Spirit, the third member of the Godhead (trinity), also called the Holy Ghost, that raised Jesus from the dead, declaring him to be the Son of God and promises to raise up also all believers in Christ. (Romans 1:4, and 8:11)
- The Holy Spirit indwells all believers upon them believing the gospel of Christ, making them children of God. (Romans 8:9, and 8:11, 1 Corinthians 3:16, Galatians 3:26)
- The Holy Spirit seals all believers until the day of redemption, thus declaring it to be impossible for a believer to lose their salvation during this current dispensation. (2 Corinthians 1:22, Ephesians 1:13, and 4:30)
- The earth was created by God and declared to be good; yet sin entered the world, and it became so corrupt that God destroyed all of mankind, except Noah and his family, with a global flood. (Genesis chapters 1 and 6)
- The earth will be where Jesus Christ returns to establish his 1,000-year reign (the millennium) and in so doing will fulfill many of the promises made to Israel in the Old Testament. (Genesis chapter 12, Revelation 20:4)
- Will not be destroyed by natural cause or manmade disaster but shall be destroyed by fire of God and replaced with a new earth. (2 Peter 3:7, Revelation 21:1)
- As was the earth, the heaven was created in the beginning by God, and will be destroyed and made new by God after the millennium. (Genesis 1:1, Revelation 21:1)
- Heaven is the realm of the invisible beings, where both angels and devils currently reside and operate. (Ephesians 2:2, 6:12, Colossians 1:16)
- Heaven will be the eternal destiny for the believers of this current dispensation, the church, the body of Christ. (Ephesians 1:3, Philippians 3:20)
- Is a very real and terrible place, described to be in the center of the earth, that serves as a holding cell until the great white throne judgment, after which those in hell will be cast into the lake of fire. (Job 17:16, Ezekiel 31:16, 2 Peter 2:4, Revelation 20:13)
- Jesus mentioned hell fifteen times in the gospels, describing it as a terrible place, even giving warning three times in Mark chapter 9, declaring that it is a place where their worm (their body) does not die, and the fire is not quenched. (Luke 16:23, Mark 9:44, 46,48)
- Anyone whose sins are not forgiven will be made to pay for them in hell. (John 3:18, Romans 6:23, Revelation 20:13)
- Satan was one of God’s most magnificent creations, if not the most magnificent, perfect in beauty, given a body fashioned with musical elements, and having access to God’s holy mountain as the anointed cherub that covereth. (Ezekiel 28:12-14)
- Satan became prideful and sinned against God, declaring that he would establish himself to receive praise of the angels. (Ezekiel 28:17, Isaiah 14:13)
- Satan works tirelessly to keep all of mankind from the salvation that God has offered, attempting to drag as many as he can into eternal torment with him, doing so with deception and subtlety. (2 Corinthians 4:4, 1 Timothy 4:1, 2 Timothy 2:16, Revelation 20:8)
- Angels are beings created by God, made a little higher than man, though in appearance similar to men; and are all male. (Genesis 19:5, Hebrews 2:7, 13:2)
- Angels that remained faithful to God are holy and serve the Lord in the heavenly realm and observe the activities of men. (1 Corinthians 4:9, 1 Timothy 3:16)
- Angels cannot reproduce to create more angels, die, or be saved should they fall into sin. (Matthew 22:30, Luke 20:36, Jude 1:6)
- The cross was predicted by the prophets of old and was received knowingly of Jesus as he ended his earthly life as a man. (Numbers 21:8, Psalm 22:16, Isaiah 53:5, John 3:14)
- Even though it had been foretold, Jesus’s work on the cross accomplished greater victory than anyone had known it would, especially Satan, in that it would not only provide a means for God to redeem Israel on earth, but to restore the heavens also. (1 Corinthians 2:7-8, Ephesians 3:5-6, 1 Thessalonians 4:17)
- Jesus’s death on the cross is foolishness to those who are blind to God’s plan, but precious to those who have come to understand its victory. (1 Corinthians 1:18, 1:26, and 2:14)
- Time wears on all living things of the flesh and decays and destroys our current bodies. (Ecclesiastes 11:9)
- The days of our lives will come to end for each of us, so do not be foolish and trust that the accumulation of possessions and wealth will provide lasting security, and do not delay in making the most important decision of your life which will determine your eternal fate. (Luke 12:20, 2 Corinthians 6:2)
- We were made in the image of God as a three-part being (spirit, soul, and body); our souls are eternal, and we will be fitted with a new immortal body, one either suited for paradise or for punishment. (Genesis 1:26, 1 Corinthians 15:50 and 53)
- It is because our bodies of flesh are subject to death that the Lord was able to come as one in the flesh himself and die so that we might trade our mortal bodies for immortal; (Romans 8:3, 1 Corinthians 15:50, 53, 2 Corinthians 5:21)
- It has been said that a believer dies only once, while an unbeliever will die twice; death in the scripture does not only pertain to the failing body of flesh and blood, but of the soul being condemned to hell and the lake of fire. (1 Corinthians 15:50, 53, Revelation 20:6)
- Death should not be something we believers in Christ should fear, for our lives here last but a moment when compared with eternity; the struggles we endure cannot compare to the future glory of which we shall partake. (Romans 8:18, 1 Corinthians 2:9, 2 Corinthians 4:18)
- It is common among Christianity today to believe that nowhere can be found the preserved word of God, that it has been lost through years of copying and translation errors; MBF rejects this notion, knowing that the God who spoke heaven and earth into existence is able to preserve his word. (Psalm 12:7, Mark 13:31, Luke 21:33)
- God’s word has been preserved in the English language in the form of the King James authorized (1611) Bible; modern translations differ from the KJV and should not be considered God’s preserved word. Much investigating has been done on this topic – refer to our “Resources” page for more information.
- Be advised that it is Satan’s tendency to distort God’s word, seen when he conversed with Eve in the garden, tempted the Lord in the wilderness, and worked to hide Paul’s gospel from the early church; it should not be a surprise that he continues to work to cleverly and subtly alter the Bible to conceal truth from mankind. (Genesis 3:1, 4, Matthew 4:6, Galatians 1:7)
- Even as early as Genesis 3:15 God made known his intent to restore mankind and rescue it from the corruption of sin, and he continued to make his plans known throughout the Old Testament, choosing certain men to be prophets to carry his word to the people. (Genesis 3:15, Judges 6:8, 1 Samuel 3:20)
- Israel became the nation that God intended to use to bless the rest of the world, becoming the focus of the Old Testament prophecies that Israel would occupy the land flowing with milk and honey and be given a righteous king to rule a heavenly kingdom established on earth. (Genesis 12:3, Exodus 3:8, Isaiah 9:7, Daniel 9:25)
- When Jesus came in the flesh, the nation of Israel did not receive him as the Lord, for they were looking for a ruler to conquer the nations, not a man who would be arrested and crucified; they did not recognize him as the necessary sacrifice to make atonement for sins against an eternal God; thus, Israel and the prophetic program were put aside as the mystery of Christ ushered in a new dispensation. (Matthew 23:37, Luke 4:28, Acts 7:52)
- The mystery of Christ was revealed to the apostle Paul following his encounter with the Lord in Acts 9 while he was zealously persecuting the kingdom church; it was a secret that God had kept hidden since before the world, which he revealed to Paul: that Gentiles and Jews both would be put into a new creature, today’s church, called the body of Christ. (Romans 16:25, 1 Corinthians 2:7, Ephesians 3:5-6)
- The revelation of the mystery was a defeating blow to Satan, showing how God would restore heaven to glory; it is a thing Satan strives to keep secret from the world; he is succeeding to a large extent, as the vast majority of Christianity today does not understand the mystery, practicing a confused and mixed-up doctrine of Israel’s prophetic program and the dispensation of grace that God gave to Paul. (Galatians 2:7, 1 Corinthians 2:8, 2 Corinthians 4:4}
- The mystery (the current dispensation of grace) shall conclude when Gentiles as a whole reject the grace of God being offered, no longer caring to receive the free gift of salvation made available by Jesus’s shed blood on the cross; afterward, Israel’s prophetic program shall resume and conclude as the prophets of old and Jesus’s disciples have written. (2 Thessalonians 2:3, 7, Revelation 1:1)
- Every person, whether a saved Christian or an unsaved person, will stand before the Lord Jesus Christ and face judgment of what they did during their life, though there will be two different judgments, one for each group of people. (John 5:29, Romans 14:10, 2 Corinthians 5:10, Hebrews 9:27)
- Believers will stand before the judgment seat of Christ, not to be judged for salvation, but to have their life evaluated on how they used the time and resources they had been given, whether they walked after the flesh or after the Spirit and if they built with gold, silver, and precious stones, or wood hay and stubble; the fire of God shall reveal the quality of their works and determine their reward. (1 Corinthians 3:8, and 12-13)
- Unbelievers, having treasured up wrath by sinning over the course of their lives, will be presented with an accounting of their every sin at the great white throne judgment where the harshness of punishment shall be determined, and they will then be cast into the lake of fire. (Matthew 12:36, Romans 2:5, Revelation 20:12)