Bible Doctrine

Let me pause here to point out that Donald Wiley cannot reveal one word of spiritual truth to another human mind.  Unless God is moving through the agency of the Holy Spirit to enlighten and grant comprehension most, if not all, of what I write will be just so much religious talk, going in one ear and out the other.  Most folks do not change their religious beliefs.  Born a Catholic you die a Catholic.  Reared a Baptist, you die a Baptist.  Raised to go to church on Sunday, you will probably be sitting in the church pew on Sunday when you are ninety-three years old should you live to such a great age.  Satan is well aware of this human trait – that humans generally do not abandon their religious heritage and upbringing.  Whatever your denominational affiliation, you will have scriptures that seemingly support your denomination’s viewpoint in any given matter regarding scripture interpretation.  Plus, you will have revered church leaders that support your denomination’s views.  And unless the Holy Spirit moves in miraculously affording light and understanding you will just have too much pulling you in the direction you have been proceeding all of your days.  Thus, born and reared a Lutheran your funeral will be conducted in a Lutheran church by a Lutheran minister.  Satan is far more aware of that FACT than you are.  This is not to say divine truth cannot be known.  It can, but about the hardest mental exercise anyone will ever experience is trying to unlearn something they have learned and then proceed to believe something else, generally the very opposite of their present belief in some matter. 

A Sunday observer knows and knows that he knows he has it right in at least that one area of doctrine.  He has a few, usually half-a-dozen scripture passages that he is absolutely certain supports him in his belief.  He has millions who agree with him – even much revered church leaders and spokesmen.  He feels they just cannot be wrong.  He is “locked in” to his beliefs, for he feels these church leaders would have discovered their error long ago and shared the same with fellow Christians.  He is unaware of how Satan works and what a supreme master Satan is at his craft – the art of deception.   I have never even read a pamphlet, or a tiny Bible tract, on this subject.  So I am on my own, so to speak.  I say, so to speak, as I have the guidance and illumination of the Holy Spirit as I ponder Holy Writ and type these words.  I am finally beginning to discern just WHY God early on gave me the appetite of a starving giant regarding His Word.  He knew a cursory, one time reading, would not bring me to the truth.  The Word of God had to become a huge portion of my memory bank.  And I had to read ALL OF IT –  from Genesis to Revelation, again and again and again.  And it has paid huge dividends.    To be continued….

Christ’s Aged Servant (Galatians 1:10-12),

Donald Wiley

Do you know what the temperature has to be for dried grass and dried leaves to ignite into fire spontaneously?   SIX HUNDRED DEGREES FAHRENHEIT!   The media does not want to admit that Muslims in America, and elsewhere, are following their imams’ (spiritual leaders) instructions and setting forests afire all over America, therefore they are claiming these fires are caused by climate change!  Well, folks, the climate hasn’t changed so drastically that we now experience temperatures well above 500 degrees Fahrenheit in our heavily forested states.

Wake up, America.  Your country is being intentionally burned to the ground around you by those you invited in by the thousands.  Are all Muslims to be held accountable for what we now see and experience.  Of course not!  But with every hundred Muslims entering and residing in this nation, you can well believe a small percentage of them are radical Muslims bent on destroying this nation.

Christ’s Aged Servant (Galatians 1:10-12),

Donald Wiley

Barry Manilow wrote a song he entitled “One Voice” and, in the lyrics of that song, he speaks of “one voice singing in the darkness.”  Troubled one, will you not listen to that one voice softly speaking, even singing, in your darkness.  That voice is the voice of your Creator, if you will but listen.  And that voice cries out in your anguish, “I have loved you with an everlasting love.”  Turn a dear ear to any and all voices that speak to the contrary.  God loves you and assures you – it’s a promise – “You shall seek me, and find me, when you shall search for me with all your heart” (See Jeremiah 29:13).  Seek the Lord and find Him for He is not far from every one of us.  (See Acts 17:22-31).

I repeat, the taking of one’s life is NOT the unpardonable sin. I assure you those poor innocents who threw themselves off of the Twin Trade Towers as they were burning and in danger of collapse, did NOT commit the unpardonable sin. The horror of a slow death by fire compelled them to end their lives as swiftly as possible. Jesus Himself said, “the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:41). Our Lord walked in our shoes, so to speak, for thirty-three years. He knows how difficult life can be. The taking of one’s life is an offense against God, but not the unpardonable sin. But most of us members of the human family offend our Creator in some manner, large or small, every day. So we dare not judge or condemn one who has committed an offense different from our own. The person who ends their life by their own hand is saying something quite clearly and as loudly as possible. They are saying, “I cannot go on any longer. I cannot bear this burden one more hour.” To the survivors, it is the final slamming down of the phone. We cannot answer. We cannot reply. We cannot repair the connection. Thank God our Creator’s understanding is unfathomable, His mercy limitless, His compassion all-encompassing. It is difficult at best to fully know one’s own mind. We cannot truly know the mind of another. Only God knows the real WHY when one terminates their fleshly walk for oblivion. The One who said, “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,” has quite often heard the words, “Into thy hand I commit my spirit.” Yes, even from the lips and heart of one moments before they stop their own heart from beating.

.There are two great truths that every would-be suicide would do well to keep in mind: 1) One never knows what is around the corner of time.  Perhaps the most fulfilling, happy, joyous days of life lay yet ahead, and 2) One can always hold out a little longer.  Even those who say they cannot endure one more day or one more hour, if they would put down the gun, step back from the river’s edge, or take the noose from around their neck, they would find that they can indeed hold out a little longer.

There is a Christian song that says, “tears are a language God understands.”  And that is true.  God’s promise is to wipe away all tears from our eyes.  We are not to stop the tears from flowing by killing ourselves.  That really is no solution at all, for the suicide is then faced with the terrible sin of murder – self murder – and there will be a day of reckoning.  “We shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ…every one of us shall give account of himself to God” (See Romans 14:10,12).

The would-be suicide has perhaps tried everything else.  Why not try God?  Why not surrender your life to the guidance and control of the Holy Spirit and enjoy that peace that surpasses all understanding?  “You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You” (Isaiah 26:3).  The would-be suicide’s mind is fixed on self, one’s own problems and hardships.  Fix your mind on God and on His goodness and eagerness to help, to bless and console.

Fear God and keep His commandments.  One of those commandments is “Thou shalt not kill.”  “Like as a father pities his children, so the Lord pities them that fear Him.  For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are but dust….But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear Him” (See Psalm 103:13-14, 17).  God knows what you are made of, friend.  He knows your emotions, your personality, your physical and mental strengths and weaknesses and all your disabilities, and, therefore, He says, “Come to me, and I will give you rest.”  Take Him up on His gracious offer and live!

Know that the Great God of Glory is the One of whom it has been said, “God IS love!” I truly do not believe that the one who ends their own life prematurely will then come face-to-face with an angry God. They will come face to face with One who loves them enough to die for them and whose mercy has no bounds.  But they will come face to face with One who must judge them for their the terrible act of self murder.  Please believe these things for they are true.  And they will come face to face, following a resurrection, with One of whom the apostle Paul said, “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out..” (See Romans 11:33).

Christ’s Faithful Servant (Galatians 1:10-12),

Donald Wiley

In I Corinthians 10, verse 13, we read this dogmatic statement: “There has no temptation (or trial) taken you (or, overtaken you), but such as is common to man (many others have faced and conquered what you now face), but God is faithful, who will not suffer (allow) you to be tempted above that (which) you are able (to bear), but will with the temptation (at that exact moment in time) also make a (God-made) way of escape (hence, a perfect escape route), that you may be able to bear (any trial, any temptation, any problem of life).” {Please note that all words of statements contained in parentheses are comments added by the author hopefully to make clearer what is being said in some scripture}.  But that promise of deliverance is made only to those who have a vital, ongoing relationship with Jesus Christ.  Unless and until one is submitted to Jesus Christ as the Lord of their lives they are pretty much on their own in this old world.  They have no help available from on high.

Suicide is NOT the unpardonable sin.  Many think it is, reasoning, “How can one ask forgiveness for committing the act of suicide?  They can’t ask for forgiveness after they die – they’re dead.  And if they were really sincere in asking for forgiveness before taking their own life, then they would stop and not commit suicide!”  Right?  Wrong!  Millions of Christians die suddenly, having no warning whatsoever that their life is about to end.  Most of those who so die have committed many sins, sins for which they have not asked forgiveness prior to their death!  Does that mean they die lost?  Unforgiven?  Of course not.  If that were the case, many dedicated Christians would die unforgiven and without hope.

One suicide wrote of how he saw life as a dirty trick pulled on mankind by some malevolent god.  Another forty-seven year old suicide wrote of how there wasn’t forty-seven days of his life he would wish to live over again.  One divorced sixty-one year old female wrote that she had lived sixty-one years too long, “The breaks were against me to the last.”

Suicides can be any age.  Sometimes even children commit suicide.  Often many suicides are teenagers.  Suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people aged twelve to nineteen years in the United States.  According to the CDC (the Center for Disease Control and Prevention) in 2013 there were 41,149 suicides in the United States!

The taking of one’s life – suicide – is self murder.  Make no mistake, it is a sin and it is a crime.  About the only way a suicide could be punished in this life was to refuse them burial in what was viewed as sacred ground, at least this was the view in Roman Catholic societies.  Relatives of the deceased had to find somewhere else to bury them.  Gradually that ban was lifted and those who died by their own hand were permitted burial among the rest of societies dead.

If one accepts the scriptures as authoritative in such matters, then a passage in Genesis Chapter 9 seems to clearly give God’s mind on the matter of taking one’s own life: “And surely (the shedding of) your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man…..” (See verse 5).  God will require that justice be satisfied in the taking of one’s life even if one takes his own life.  But do not read into that text more than it says.  It does not say such an unfortunate is forever lost and consigned to hell fire.  Just what God will require of the suicide is actually left unsaid.

When life becomes unbearable one needs to seek another avenue of escape other than ending one’s life.  There is a burden bearer – Jesus Christ.  Jesus said, “Come unto me ALL ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I WILL give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).  Notice that the summons is extended to all – all without exception.  And the promise is that Jesus Christ WILL give such rest from the burden of depression, loneliness, fear, anxiety, a bad marriage – whatever!

Other than the Lord Jesus Christ, the greatest sufferer in all the Bible was a man called Job.  Job’s sufferings are proverbial.  In the 10th verse of Job 23, Job cried out, “He knows the way that I take…”  There is not a sparrow that falls to the ground without our heavenly Father taking note of the same.  (See Matthew 10:29).  And, of course, some cynic might add, ‘Yes, but it falls to the ground nonetheless.”  But the Holy Spirit left the scenario incomplete.  Perhaps the tiny sparrow fell into some soft grass where the mother sparrow immediately went to its rescue.  But whatever the completed scenario might have been, the passage is actually directed toward God’s interest and care for human beings, not sparrows.  The next two verses read: “But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.  Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows” (verses 30-31).

Some years ago the Holy Spirit opened to my mind the profound truth that Jesus uttered when He said, “the very hairs of your head are all numbered.”  Look at your comb, or hairbrush, or pillow.  The hairs of your head are continuously changing in number from one moment to the next.  When Jesus said “the very hairs of your head are all numbered,” He was actually saying God’s attention on us is continuous, undeviating, unwavering.  Satan would have the would-be suicide think, “God doesn’t care about me.”  Yet scripture states quite clearly that “God is not willing that ANY should perish” (See 2 Peter 3:9).

I have heard many a preacher say, “If you had been the only human on earth that needed saving, Jesus Christ would have still come to earth and would have died for you.”  In that assessment they are right.  You alone and all by yourself are intensely loved by God and valuable to His kingdom plans.  To be continued…..

Christ’s Faithful Servant (Galatians 1:10-12),

Donald Wiley

I have heard it argued that God will not put more on us than we can bear.  That might well be so, but Satan will.  Satan will make a person’s life so miserable that he or she will turn to alcohol or drugs to numb the pain.  Satan will make life so miserable and depressing that some despondent humans see death as a welcome release and the only reasonable solution to their problems.

That is what a suicide’s life has become – an intolerable existence.  With the firing of the weapon, with the plunging from the cliff or tall building, with the dive into the waters, the suicide is saying most graphically “I absolutely cannot go on.  I cannot walk another step.  I cannot endure another minute.  I cannot bear another hurt.”  Does God have any understanding or any compassion at all in such grossly serious matters, after all the Psalmist does say, “He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust”? (See Psalm 103:14).  Surely God knows the human mind and will can only endure so much.  Although scripture does say, “He will not lay upon man more than right that he should enter into judgment with God,” is it possible Satan could well do this without God ever entering the picture?  (See Job 34:23).

In I John, chapter 5, verse 19, we are told that “the whole world is under the control of the evil one (Satan).”  And, again, in Revelation 12:9, we are told that Satan deceives the whole world!  What hope does a young boy or girl, who commits suicide, have against such an opponent?  For that matter, what hope does anyone have, young or old, against such a formidable, super-human foe?  Let it be understood, without God’s supernatural intervention, mankind is without hope.  (See Ephesians 2:11-12).

Does a suicide deserve punishment or compassion?  The apostle Paul wrote, “No man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it” (See Ephesians 5:29).  He, of course, meant no one in his right mind, no one thinking correctly, harms or destroys himself.  But when the mind becomes unbalanced by pain, be it physical or psychological pain, judgment is seriously impaired or erased altogether.  Scripture says, “To him who knows to do right, and does it not, to him it is sin” (See James 4:17).  But the suicide may well have lost that capacity.

Ernest Hemingway, a suicide, wrote: “There is no lonelier man in death, except the suicide.”  The suicide is alone, bereft of companionship and with no one to help, no one to say, “Stop!”  “A lot of you cared, just not enough,” wrote a suicide moments before ending it all.

Suicide has been described as a reverse nightmare.  When one wakes up from a nightmare they are so relieved.  It’s over!  The potential suicide wakes up into a nightmare!  The invisible agony of the suicide has reached an unendurable level.  Few commit suicide because they want to die.  They just want the nightmare to end, the pain to stop, the horror to go away.

Someone wrote, “There comes a time when you look into the mirror and you realize that what you see is all you will ever be, and then you accept it or you kill yourself.”  A suicide is under attack by his, or her, own mind!  How does one deal with that?

The suicide is looked upon as someone who simply gave up, someone who didn’t fight hard enough or long enough.  But most suicides are simply defeated by the long, hard struggle to stay alive.  Suicide is man’s way of telling God, “You can’t fire me.  I quit!  You’ll find that your world is better off without me in it.”  The suicide finds their life a pure torture and their body a cage from which there is no escape other than death.

As soon as I awakened early this morning, the Spirit whispered to my mind, “Write, write, WRITE!”  One of my most visited posts on my website is this post wherein I write about suicides.

I have found that the mind that is surrendered fully to God’s control is the mind with which the Creator can communicate.  Now when the Spirit speaks, I listen, and I listen carefully.

“I have fought against it, but I cannot fight any longer.”   That was the note left by a suicide.  Here’s another: “All will and determination to fight has left me….l have reached the end of the trail.  I feel justified in terminating a life which no longer holds any hope.”  I assure you, God understands the suicide’s dilemma and is not angered in the least by their situation or even by their choice to put an end to their own life. Continued in Part 2.

Christ’s Faithful Servant (Galatians 1:10-12),

Donald Wiley

This nation needs to steel itself and ready itself for a greater shock than the passing of some celebrity or a defeat of some highly regarded political leader. If one has even a cursory knowledge of the Creator’s character and mindset then they should realize that this nation is becoming an ever greater abomination in the sight of God.

The God of nature is about to use nature to get America’s attention. He will not rely solely upon Islam’s brutalities. He knows many Americans will see Islam’s threat as having nothing to do with God judging America just as ancient Israel failed to see Babylon’s brutalities and incursions on Israelite territory as God judging that ancient nation, but when nature is in upheaval, well, that will be a different story. When record drought and heat waves sweep across this nation, drying up lake after lake and enabling forest fires to utterly destroy our most ancient and beloved national forests as well as consume thousands of homes and businesses striking in areas never before having seen such activity in recorded history, when this old earth seems to say to America’s inhabitants, “Get off my back,” well, God is going to get the attention of quite a few whose thoughts are not turned toward Him in the least at the present. And when record-breaking floods inundate entire communities causing much loss of life and billions of dollars in lost revenue and damage, well, materialistic, live-for-the-day Americans are going to be given pause to wonder, “Could this be the judgment of God upon us?

America needs to hear the words thundered to ancient Israel many centuries ago: “Prepare to meet thy God!”

Christ’s Faithful Servant (Galatians 1:10-12),

Donald Wiley

You know, someday that is going to be true for every one of us. Tomorrow WILL never come – at least not in our present physical form. We all have an expiration date. It’s just not readable to us or to anyone else. But that date will roll around – sooner or later. If we are truly wise, we will take stock of our lives and do our best to finish this race with honors. It really doesn’t matter all that much that the former years were wasted years, if that be the case with any of us, but what about the final years or days? Will they be wasted, too?

Whether we realize it or not, we are engaged in a great twilight struggle in this life – a struggle between self and our Creator’s desire and claim on our lives. Our lives are a two-phased project of God. Phase one, our physical life has an end, often all too soon, and often quite unexpected. Phase Two begins, or began, the moment we surrendered totally and completely to the LORDship of Jesus Christ, allowing our Creator to order our life and our desires. Thus, Phase Two at some point overlaps with Phase One. Many abort – never even beginning Phase Two. Still others halt Phase Two, going back to the world and a life ordered by selfish desires and pursuits.. Those of us who are in Phase Two must press on, ever looking toward the finish line with a full commitment of heart and purpose to finish the race well and with many honors.

I realize there are multitudes who wholeheartedly believe that they are locked in to Phase Two, that regardless of how many sins they yet commit, or how sinful they might still become, they will finish the race though losing some if not all the eternal rewards they might have been given. Many cite a passage in I Corinthians 3 to support that view. That passage speaks of a man who suffers loss when his works are burnt up, “but he himself will be saved, yet so as by fire” (See I Corinthians 3:15). They overlook the fact that the man Paul describes in that passage is one who continues to build on the foundation of Jesus Christ. He continues to produce spiritual works though of inferior materials like stone, wood or hay instead of gold, silver or precious stones. (See verses 10 through 14). He has not abandoned Christ. He has not returned to the world or his former sinful life. His service for his Lord is simply inferior to the service of the more dedicated child of God.

So what about tomorrow, friend? Will the angels stand and applaud and cheer when you enter the Holy City of God or will their silence be deafening?

Christ’s Aged Servant (Galatians 1:10-12),

Donald Wiley

God gives foundational truth in the Hebrew scriptures, the Old Testament. If one uses only the Greek scriptures, the New Testament, to guide them in their instruction as to how to worship God acceptably, they quickly find that those who use the entire Bible, all the Word of God, to formulate their beliefs, doctrines and religious practices differ greatly from them in those beliefs and doctrines they hold to be true and in force for believers to keep and observe today.

When anyone argues that the Sabbath is a Jewish holy day, given solely to the Jew and for the Jew to keep, they display a profound ignorance of scripture. The Sabbath was not made for the Jew, but for mankind and was sanctified as such by the Creator at the very beginning of creation – many long centuries before the first Jew was ever born. “Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. And ON THE SEVENTH DAY God ended His work which He had done, AND HE RESTED ON THE SEVENTH DAY from all His work which He had done. THEN GOD BLESSED THE SEVENTH DAY AND SANCTIFIED IT, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made” (See Genesis 2:1-3, New King James Version).

There is no scripture in all the Bible, Old Testament or New Testament, that says God at any time desanctified His holy Sabbath day or removed His blessing from it.  NONE!  No scripture says that after Christ’s death and subsequent resurrection the seventh day Sabbath became common and ordinary, no longer holy, no longer blessed just another ordinary day of the week. And no scripture calls Sunday, the first day of the week, holy or blessed, or sets it apart from all other days of the week as a day of worship. There are some modern editions of the Bible where the producers of such “Bibles” change the wording of some passages of scripture in the New Testament to make it appear that Sunday indeed did become the “Christian” Sabbath, but anyone who has an interlinear Greek/English New Testament, can compare these texts and see that these modern Bible “translators” have departed from the Greek text and have paraphrased these passages, corrupting the texts. (An interlinear Greek/English New Testament is a New Testament that is written in Greek with the English translation for each and every word printed below each Greek word. I have possessed two such New Testaments, and they are invaluable in discerning just what the New Testament writers actually wrote.)

When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, “Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?” So they said, “Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others JEREMIAH (note that well) or one of the prophets.” (See Mathew 16:13-14).

You, who fancy yourselves to be Bible scholars, to YOU I address this question: Why did some think Jesus Christ might be the long dead prophet Jeremiah? After all Jeremiah had walked this earth, performing his ministry over SIX HUNDRED YEARS PREVIOUS TO CHRIST’S BIRTH! The Jews of Jesus day and time knew that quite well. Why on earth then would some of them upon hearing and seeing Jesus Christ have the thought pop into their heads, “Hey, that fellow speaks like what is written in the writings of the prophet Jeremiah?!” Jeremiah did no miracles, so it wasn’t their observation of Jesus’ miracle ministry that caused them to think of Jeremiah. NO, IT IS WHAT HE SAID AND TAUGHT!!!! That’s what caused many who HEARD Him to think, “This holy man sounds like Jeremiah,” so much so that some said, “He IS Jeremiah,” evidently come back from the dead!  It is understandable why some thought Jesus might actually be Elijah due to a prophecy uttered by the prophet Malachi about four hundred years previously.  (See Malachi 4:5).

It is through Jeremiah and Isaiah that your Creator spoke forth His mind quite clearly and dogmatically on how He viewed the Sabbath. The scribes of Jesus’ day, those who really had a keen knowledge of what God had said and revealed to His people through those prophets, when they heard Jesus teach, it is they who said, “It’s Jeremiah!”

Friend, if you value your relationship with your Creator at all, take the time now to turn to the 17th chapter of the Book of Jeremiah and read verses 19 through 27 slowly and carefully. In the 4th verse of the 17th chapter of Jeremiah, God says to Judah, “You have kindled a fire in my anger which shall burn forever!” What had they done that became the straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak. After all, God had extended His mercy to them time and time again, generation after generation, century after century. What had they done that caused God to finally say, “I am as angry as I can get!!”  Now read Jeremiah 17:19-27, and God help you to understand.

Christ’s Aged Servant (Galatians 1:10-12),

Donald Wiley

No, really Sodom and Gomorrah are going to be brought back to life, resurrected and settled once again in the same territory they inhabited before being judged by God and destroyed. To avoid massive culture shock, in all probability when brought back to life the territory in which they lived before will probably look exactly the same as it did when the fire of God fell from heaven thousands of years ago and destroyed them all. The same creeks and rivers will flow through the same channels they flowed through before. The same ancient palm trees will grow again on the same spot. And the town square will be easily recognizable to every one of them who saw it so long ago.

“Well, he’s gone off the deep end this time.” Is that what you are thinking? Speaking to the inhabitants of Jerusalem through His prophet Ezekiel, God said, “As I live, says the Lord God, Sodom your sister has not done, she nor her daughters (Gomorrah and other surrounding cities) as you have done, you and your daughters (Jerusalem and the other cities of Judah)….they were haughty, and committed abomination before me. Therefore, I took them away as I saw good (or, as I saw fit)…You have multiplied your abominations more than they….They are more righteous than you.” (See Ezekiel 16:48-52).

Now before considering the next words Ezekiel writes, one needs to consider the fact that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed around 1900 to 2000 B.C. Ezekiel lived and prophesied between about 550 and 600 B.C. Sodom and Gomorrah had been obliterated approximately 1500 years before God inspired Ezekiel to write what follows. “When I shall bring again their captivity (that is return them from captivity – the captivity of death), the captivity of Sodom and her daughters, and the captivity of Samaria and her daughters, then will I bring again the captivity of your (Jerusalem’s) captives in the midst of them that you may bear your shame, and may be confounded in all that you have done, in that you are a comfort unto them. When your sisters, SODOM and her daughters SHALL RETURN TO THEIR FORMER ESTATE, and Samaria and her daughters shall return to their former estate, then you and your daughters shall return to your former estate” (See Ezekiel 16:53-55).

Don’t you recall what Jesus said about Sodom?  “Then began he to upbraid (rail at) the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not….And thou Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven (by Jesus’ having lived there with Mary and His brethren) shalt be brought down to hell, for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom IT WOULD HAVE REMAINED UNTIL THIS DAY.  But I say unto you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for thee.” (See Matthew 11:20,23,24).  Notice, Jesus freely admits that if Sodom had been given the same opportunity to repent and believe as was given Capernaum, not only would it not have been destroyed, it would have still been a thriving city in Christ’s own day!  He then goes on to add that this “day of judgment” He speaks of will be a time of tolerance for Sodom – not a time of condemnation!

Many falsely assume that when the Bible speaks of the judgment of the nations reference is being made to a tribunal, a time of condemnatory judgment and punishment.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  The Psalmist wrote of God, “Thou didst cause judgment to be heard from heaven.  The earth feared and was still when God arose to judgment TO SAVE ALL THE MEEK OF THE EARTH” (Psalm 76:78-9).  Whenever a prophecy is put in the past tense it is meant to show how certain is that prophecy of fulfillment.  God will yet show saving judgment to all those billions who have lived and died without having had a whisper of a chance to be forgiven their sins and granted eternal life.  “Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion, for lo, I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the Lord, AND MANY NATIONS SHALL BE JOINED TO THE LORD in that day (including Sodom and Gomorrah), and shall be my people, and I will dwell in the midst of thee” (See Zechariah 3:11).

God cannot lie when making a promise. It is impossible for Him to do so. Through His anointed prophet Ezekiel God promises to resurrect Sodom and Gomorrah and return them to their former estate, to their former territory, as living, breathing fleshly beings once more. Then – and THEN only – will they have their minds and understanding opened by God and will be offered eternal life with all the rest of the descendants of Adam and Eve, for “God is not willing that ANY should perish but that ALL should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).  Only if any of those billions so resurrected to mortal life choose the way of the flesh over the way og the Spirit shall they die the second death.  Their fate and doom will be thus sealed.

Christ’s Aged  Servant (Galatians 1:10-12),

Donald Wiley