Hope In Judgment

[NOTE: This teaching supplements and “piggybacks” on my friend Gerry Beauchemin’s groundbreaking book Hope For All. I strongly urge you to obtain a copy of Gerry’s startling book at hopeforallfellowship.com or amazon.com]

At the outset of this teaching, I want to point out that both judgment and justice in the Bible are topics and concepts that are inseparably related—but also much different in many respects and in many aspects. In some respects, they constitute a genuine paradox              

In a perfect world here on planet earth, a courtroom judge would weigh very carefully a case brought before him or her.  After weighing all the relevant data in a case, the judge (or jury) then hands down a perfect judgment and verdict based on perfect justice.  Obviously, we don’t live in a perfect world with perfect justice and judgments.  But such a perfect scenario would be, nevertheless, a dim reflection of heavenly judgment meted out by God who is perfect.

This teaching is about our perfect God who weighs all matters with perfect justice and hands down perfect judgments—always tempered with perfect love, perfect grace, and perfect mercy.

 In brief, here’s the typical Christian view of God’s judgments—including his final judgment of all humanity.  God created humanity, and when first created, humanity was good.  However, humanity (personified in Adam and Eve) sinned against God, turning “good into bad and evil.”  Because of humanity’s sin, God has no other choice but to judge those who do not turn back to Him and back to good.  God judges them by sending them to suffer eternal conscious torment in the ever-burning fires of hell. 

Some may escape hell and be welcomed into heaven—if they receive Jesus into their lives and faithfully follow Him in this mortal life.  After this life, there are no more opportunities to receive Jesus and turn from bad to good.  The majority of humanity will suffer in hell; only a relatively small minority will go to heaven.  “In a nutshell,” that’s the typical view of God’s judgment for sinful humans as understood and believed by millions of God-followers and pre-followers alike.

With this teaching, I am attempting to question whether that typical view of most of humanity’s bleak and hopeless, eternal fate is true.  Perhaps there are other ways to look at God’s judgments.  Perhaps most of humanity does not need to succumb to such despair and hopelessness.  Perhaps there is hope for all!

Having stated that, let’s next examine some definitions of justice and judgment as it applies to God’s “courtroom.”  Of course, we understand that nowhere is there a real, material, heavenly courtroom where God the Judge sits behind a high judicial bench presiding over a courtroom with the accused person and his or her attorneys, bailiffs, opposing attorneys, court reporters, witnesses, and the like.   That is a human courtroom scenario.

Generally speaking, the Bible defines “judgment” as “a favorable or unfavorable verdict pronounced judicially.”   “Justice” is defined as coming from the word “just” meaning “righteous” or “morally clean.”  It also means to have “right standards” or “right conduct.”  If we put these various definitions together in terms of God’s judgment and justice, they mean that God is altogether righteous and morally clean, and, therefore—after fully considering all the relevant information—always hands down perfect judgments.  Of course, we must factor in that He is God and therefore knows everything there is to know about the one being judged.  God’s judgments are never judicial decrees of punishment; they are always remedial, rehabilitative, and restorative!

Genesis 18: 19 is the first reference in the Bible about God’s judgment.  In that reference, God is commending Abraham for being a good husband and father who practices good judgment (righteous judgment) and justice.  This occurrence pretty well sets the tone for the concept of judgment throughout the remainder of the Bible; God’s judgments flow from perfect and righteous justice.

Throughout the remainder of both the Old and New Testaments, when God is portrayed judging humans for one thing or another, He is judging them based on his own perfect righteousness, upon his omniscience (God is all-knowing), and his omnipresence (God is fully present everywhere at once, and sees all).  For those three reasons God can render only perfect judgments in every instance.

The final instance of God’s judgment in the Bible is found in Revelation 19: 2:  “For true and righteous are [God’s] judgments…”  Thus, from the first reference about God’s judgments in Genesis 18: 19 to God’s final judgments in Revelation—and almost every reference in between those two references—God’s judgments are true and righteous.  We know from elsewhere in the Bible, his judgments flow from his love, grace, and mercy.  Someone has said, “Mercy means we don’t get what we deserve, and grace means we get what we don’t deserve!” 

I hope it goes without saying that God does not judge humanity as humans do, because anger, rage, and wrath are human characteristics. To say that God has wrath, anger, and rage are anthropomorphic human figures of speech applied to God.  I invite you to turn to another teaching on this website titled “The Wrath of God” for clarification of God’s wrath.  (leservices.org). 

In his popular book, Hope For All, Gerry Beauchemin lists a number of other qualities and purposes of God that are inseparably linked with his judgments.  He begins writing about Anchor Three (reason three) by asking the question:  “Does God have a remedial and corrective purpose in his judgments, or are they solely punitive?”  He begins to answer that question by writing about remedial and corrective purposes.  Do God’s judgments offer a remedy for the sin of humanity?  Or, are God’s judgments handed down for the sole purpose of punishing sinful humanity?

What does “remedy” (or “remedial”) mean?  In human legal terms one of its meanings is “to remove an evil or wrong.”  In Hope For All, Gerry Beauchemin lists eighteen biblical references from the Bible supporting the view that God’s judgments are remedial and corrective.  Some detractors of this view might suggest that Gerry has simply done some “cherry picking” in the Bible or selected some isolated “proof texts” to prove the view.  On the contrary, Gerry knows that a basic “rule” of Bible study is to study all biblical references about a given subject or topic before arriving at a conclusion.  The eighteen references he gives about God’s judgments being remedial are presented to the reader after extensive study of all the Bible references on the subjects of justice and judgment.

Next, let us examine Gerry’s contention that God’s judgment and mercy are synergistic. 

What does he mean by that?    I believe he means that God correlates his judgment and mercy so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects; that is, God’s perfect judgments and his perfect mercy together restore humanity to a far greater and better state  beyond their   original condition when humanity was first created as being “good” (Genesis 1: 31).

All of restored humanity will eventually be far better than merely good.  For more teaching about the concept of God’s restoration, see another teaching on this website titled “Restoration.”

Think of that synergistic effect of judgment and mercy this way.  Picture a human courtroom scenario when a defendant will often throw himself or herself upon the mercy of the court; often when that happens the judge will make provision for the defendant to become involved in some program that will lift the defendant higher than their former social and criminal status.  That’s a very dim picture of how God’s judgment and mercy work together to make our final state better than our original condition.

Finally, in terms of God’s judgment and mercy, the Bible clearly proclaims that God is the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort (2 Corinthians 1: 3).  God dispenses to us whatever amount of mercy we need for Him to fully restore us into an ever-growing, loving relationship, (in another synergistic relationship with mercy).  His comfort and mercy combined are to give us a sense of ease in our relationship with Him, console us in all our trials, tribulations, and pains of this life, and give genuine hope to all humanity.

Next, Gerry Beauchemin makes a very strong point about the following matter.  He writes, “Note carefully: many think that because they have “accepted Christ” in this life, no judgment awaits them.  Yet Scripture abounds with warnings to followers of Jesus.  Yes, many followers of Jesus mistakenly feel that simply because they have invited Jesus into their lives, that invitation gives them a “free ticket” to Heaven when they die—that when they die they will immediately be welcomed with open arms through the gates into Heaven and instantly perfected with no consequences for their mortal lives.  That’s just not true. 

Unfortunately, that belief has led many followers of Jesus to feel that merely inviting Jesus into their lives makes them a Christian.  In one sense, that is true, but in a greater sense a Christian is one who has become a lifelong follower of Jesus “through thick and thin.”  Accepting Jesus into one’s life is only the starting point of the Christian life.  The judgment events of Romans 14: 10 – 12, 1 Corinthians 3: 9 – 15 and 2 Corinthians 5: 9 – 11 make abundantly clear that there are judgments after a follower of Jesus leaves this life. A number of other biblical references support this view.

 Finally, in Hope For All, Gerry Beauchemin writes about “Rejoicing in Judgment.”  How can that be?  If we think of judgment in terms of punitive verdicts handed down in a human courtroom scene, certainly there is not cause for rejoicing in such circumstances.  But remember, we are not thinking in terms of human judgments; we are thinking in terms of God’s judgments—an altogether different scenario.

God’s judgments are redemptive, not punitive, and ultimately lead to our restoration far greater and beyond our originally created condition.  When we really come to understand God’s judgments in that light, then we can have cause for rejoicing and joy—knowing that all shall be well for us in the end!  We can know that no matter what life’s dreadful circumstances bring, no matter how we have sinned, there is forgiveness and cleansing for our sin. 

Our sin is not merely covered as it was for those pre-followers of Jesus in the Old Testament.  No, our sin is completely taken away (John 1: 29), never again to be brought up or held against us by God.  That, dear reader, is cause for joy as the ages of time roll on and are swallowed up into the Eternal State—all judgment finally and forever behind us!  There is hope for all

“Now may God, the source and fountain of all hope, fill you to overflowing with uncontainable joy and perfect peace as you place your hope in Him.  And may the inner power of Holy Spirit continually surround your life with his superabundant goodness until you radiate with hope!”  (Romans 15: 13, paraphrased)

Bill Boylan
leservices38@yahoo.com
Revised and Updated February 2023

The Wrath of God: Is God Really Mad At Me?

The Bible is replete with references to the word “wrath” (and its derivatives) including, of course, the wrath of God. In fact, the Bible contains over 200 references to wrath, making it a major theme throughout the Bible—in both the Old and New Testaments.

By definition in American English, “wrath” is “intense anger; rage; fury.” The Bible’s definition of human wrath is similar. But when the Bible defines God’s wrath there is a great difference.   Since God is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, wrath as it applies to God is a figure of speech—an anthropopathism (attributing human feelings and emotions to God); God does not really become angry; He only appears to do so from the standpoint of humans. God’s basic character and nature is that He is altogether good and absolutely everything He does is good (Psalm 119: 68, and many other biblical references).

My own view is that instead of using the words “wrath” and “anger” when describing God’s response to sin and wrongdoing, perhaps it might be better to use such words as “displeased” and “disappointed.” Such words seem to me to describe our Father God more accurately than to think of Him as “mad” and angry with people. This view is not “written in stone,” so to speak, but is merely an attempt for us as finite humans to understand an infinite God.

Here’s a simple illustration of what I’m attempting to say. Because He is unchangeable, God cannot “feel” loving, gracious, and kind toward me one moment, and then the next moment (because of something “bad” I have done) feel intense anger, rage, and fury towards me. That’s simply not the unchanging nature and character of God. His unchanging nature and character is that He is good. He cannot become angry as humans do.

The real issue is not whether God dispenses or pours out his wrath upon humans; the real issue is what is God’s wrath—what constitutes God’s wrath. That is the issue: what is the wrath of God and how does it “work”? I will attempt to answer that in this teaching, but bear in mind I am a fallible human and don’t know all the answers; in fact, I don’t even know all the questions. My knowledge about God and the way He works among humans is very incomplete. However, I have studied this subject for many years, and I feel that gives me a measure of understanding. This is the first teaching I have presented about God’s wrath.

Through those many years that I have wrestled with what the Bible teaches about God’s wrath, I have arrived at two basic conclusions upon which this teaching you are reading is based; I have not arrived at these conclusions easily or hastily because they seem to contradict much of what is taught by Bible scholars throughout the western Church, but I must be true to my own studies. Here are those two conclusions or premises:

  1. God’s wrath toward humans must always be seen in the light of the clear biblical teaching about apokatastasis, God’s final restoration and reconciliation of everything—including all humanity—to Himself.
  2. God’s wrath toward humans is ultimately to destroy what’s destroying us.

If those two conclusions are kept in mind as anyone studies God’s wrath throughout the Bible, a very clear understanding will emerge, but it will fly in the face of much western biblical scholarship.

Another matter about God’s wrath that emerges from studying and discussing the matter with many other people through the years is this: for whatever reason, most people hold to a traditional view of God’s wrath being like human wrath because something in us wants “bad” people to get “what’s coming to them.” Most people do not want bad people to get away without punishment for their bad behavior and deeds. We humans want vengeance. We want to believe that God will ultimately punish people and pour out his wrath on them for evil, sinful behavior. That feeling seems to be pretty basic to the thinking and feelings of most humans. 

Before beginning to examine specific references in the Bible about God’s wrath, there is a little-known matter about God’s wrath as revealed in the Bible that is often overlooked by Bible scholars and theologians. I will address that matter for a few paragraphs. It goes something like this. Before God chose and selected Abraham and the tribes of Israel to represent Him on earth with monotheism (belief in one Supreme God), most of the tribes, people-groups and nations on earth were polytheistic (belief in many gods) and some were pantheistic (belief that God is not a person, but, rather, the universe is God).   

Polytheism and pantheism were prevalent among almost all earth’s human inhabitants almost from the dawn of human history until “civilization” began. One of the few exceptions to that prevalent view was in ancient China or Sinim. The pre-civilized world consisted largely of tribal groups gathered in villages or small city-states immersed in polytheism. Numerous local gods (most often displayed and worshipped in homes and centers of worship as countless hand-made idols) ruled all of life. A personal relationship with the gods was not considered possible—only some means of appeasing them, often by human sacrifices, including infants. One’s relationship with the gods was only as a member of the tribe. The gods were impersonal—often “mean” and evil—beings who ruled all of life without regard to individuals.

In those ancient polytheistic systems, individuals could not conceive of themselves as individuals outside of the tribal or city-state system. While part of the tribe or city-state, one was only a tribal member, with duties to one’s tribal gods, nothing outside the tribe.   This was why exile from the tribe was the worst possible punishment. It was worse than death because the exiled one was cut off from the local gods as well. Such exile or banishment was considered to be the wrath of the gods upon the banished individual.

Often, people from other tribes were not even considered part of the same species. To enslave or kill a member of another tribe was to kill another species. One did not seek to kill individuals from another tribe, but to slaughter the entire tribe—men, women, and children; this was considered to be the wrath of the gods.  What existed was the tribe, not individuals within the tribe. One’s tribe was “human”; other tribes were not.

With that in mind, it’s somewhat easier to understand the mentality of many of the incidents in the Old Testament when God would summon one tribe or people-group to slaughter another entire tribe, including men, women and children. This understanding does not explain why God would do that (or excuse God), but it helps to understand the context, mind-set, and milieu in which such events occurred. 

Also, when one understands the biblical teaching of apokatastasis, one then realizes that all the people slaughtered throughout the Old Testament are not doomed forever, but will one day be restored, redeemed, and reconciled to God in ages to come and in his Kingdom. I’m not suggesting that excuses all the slaughter and bloodshed in the Old Testament ordered by God, only that such understanding serves to help us comprehend that was not the final end of things for all those men, women and children who were slaughtered. I am not making excuses for God.

Look at it this way, too. Today we would label all those killings in the Old Testament ordered by God as genocide and condemn them as war crimes. Remember such genocide took place a long, long time ago before the time of Jesus when very little was understood about God’s true character and nature, when human life had little or no value. When the mind-set and culture of people was all about death and dying. Killing, death, and dying—sometimes in horrible ways—was simply what most people believed in and practiced in those ancient times. It was simply a given that one tribe was to enslave or kill other tribes.

As horrible as such scenarios were, one answer might be that God ordered them killed in order to spare them from further degradation, abomination, and depravity—from further evil and horror, and even more brutal and vicious killings had they been allowed to live a lifetime of slavery when they had no worth as humans or as individuals. What is best? A quick death or a lifetime of brutal slavery and degradation?

These are merely some additional thoughts to address the issue of God pouring out his wrath on people by ordering them slaughtered. They are not intended to be complete and full answers to such matters. I suggest them only as more “food for thought.” I’m not certain that even in Eternal Realms will we have full and complete answers to such matters.

Let’s now begin to examine some of the biblical references about God’s wrath, simply to get a feel for what it’s all about; there are many such references. I will select only a relatively few that are most representative of all those many references. I mentioned earlier that there are approximately 200 references in the Bible about wrath—both human wrath and God’s wrath. Let’s examine some of the representative references about God’s wrath and see if we can arrive at a conclusion about what God’s wrath is and how it works.

The first biblical mention of God’s wrath is found in the second book of the Bible (Exodus), chapter 15, verse 7. It is in a song Moses and the recently freed Israelites sang to God, praising Him for freeing them from their bondage by the Egyptians. They sang: “In the greatness of your majesty You overthrow those rising against You. You send forth your wrath and consume them like stubble.” (The Amplified Bible). This description of God’s wrath seems to be consistent with the generally accepted view of God’s wrath toward humans.

Let’s read on. In Numbers 25: 11, we read of an incident where the actions of one of the Israelites turned back the wrath of God by his actions to stop some of God’s people from worshipping other gods. That holds true today: God’s people can still turn back the wrath of God by prayer and righteous actions.   A similar incident is recorded in 2 Chronicles 12: 7: when some of God’s people humbled themselves God wrath was stopped. Another such incident is found in 2 Chronicles 29: 10 when one of Israel’s kings—Hezekiah—turned away God’s wrath by making a covenant with God. The point of these 3 incidents in the Old Testament is that God’s wrath is not necessarily fixed; his wrath can be turned away or stopped by righteous actions, prayer, and humility.

Isaiah 66: 10 speaks of God’s wrath striking people, but accompanied (or followed?) by God’s mercy and favor. Nahum 1: 2 tells us that God reserves his wrath for his enemies. Habakkuk 3: 2 tells us that while the wrath of God is being poured out, He remembers his mercy.

Those, then, are merely a tiny smattering of Old Testament references about God’s wrath. Such a smattering of only a few references doesn’t really answer any questions about the wrath of God—or resolve any issues about his wrath, but merely sheds a little different light on the wrath of God in the Old Testament. Many legitimate questions remain about God’s wrath.

Through the years I’ve often taught that the Old Testament is the New Testament concealed and the New Testament is the Old Testament Revealed.

We now turn to the New Testament to shed further light upon what God’s wrath is and how it works. Much of what the New Testament teaches about the wrath of God can be found in the book of Romans, specifically the first chapter. In fact, it could be stated that the first chapter of Romans is God’s summary statement about his wrath and how it works among humans. 

The first 7 verses of Romans 1 are about Paul greeting his readers and giving his “credentials” to them. Verses 8 – 13 are about Paul’s desire to visit the city of Rome for the first time. Verses 16 and 17 are about God’s Good News and living by faith. The remainder of the chapter (verses 18 – 32) is about the wrath of God, including Paul’s definition of God’s wrath and how it “works.”

The passage reveals all sorts of evil, uncleanness, unrighteousness, vile passions, and ungodliness—including murder—people resort to when they turn their backs on God and seek to go their own way—to do their own thing. Unbridled, unrestrained anarchy prevails in such instances. The essence of sin is when people go their own way, disregard God, and are deluded into thinking they can control their own lives apart from God and his ways. To successfully live a good life independent from God is a strong delusion!

Notice in verses 24, 26, and 28 the expression “God gave them up (or over)…” Some versions read “God hands them over…” or “delivers them over…” Other versions read “So God let them go ahead and do…” “God abandoned them to…” “God said, in effect, “If that’s what you want, that’s what you get…” “God quit bothering them and let them run loose…” “God surrendered them…”

Yes, God “gives people up” when they wrongfully choose to go their own ways in total disregard for God. This passage catalogues and lists various wrongful acts (including murder) when God gives people up to their own ways. One translation of this passage reads like this in verses 28 – 32: 

“Since they didn’t bother to acknowledge God, God quit bothering them and let them run loose. And then all hell broke loose: rampant evil, grabbing and grasping, vicious backstabbing, They made life hell on earth with their envy, wanton killing, bickering, and cheating. Look at them: mean-spirited, venomous, fork-tongued God-bashers. Bullies, swaggerers, insufferable windbags! They keep inventing new ways of wrecking lives. They ditch their parents when they get in the way. Stupid, slimy, cruel, cold-blooded. And it’s not as if they don’t know better. They know perfectly well they’re spitting in God’s face. And they don’t care—worse, they hand out prizes to those who do the worse things best!”

If we comprehend this understanding of wrath in the New Testament it can go a long way towards helping us understand God’s wrath throughout the Old Testament, notably the slaughter of so-called innocent people at God’s command. Sinful people were simply “doing what comes naturally” when God “gave them over” to sinful lifestyles.

As I begin to conclude, let me put my understanding and definition of the wrath of God as simply as I’m able to: The wrath of God in both the Old and New Testaments is when God gives people up to their own sinful ways to reap the consequences of those ways. Yes, even including giving people over to killing and slaughtering other people.

Again, I fully recognize this teaching does not answer all the questions about God’s wrath as it is typically understood by most people. But if it helps you understand just a little better what the Bible teaches, then I am satisfied. 

I invite you also to read another related teaching on this website titled The Killer God.

Bill Boylan
leservices38@yahoo.com
Revised and Updated March 2023

Hope In Justice

[NOTE: This teaching supplements and “piggybacks” on my friend Gerry Beauchemin’s groundbreaking book Hope For All. I strongly urge you to obtain a copy of Gerry’s startling book at hopeforallfellowship.com or amazon.com]

The book, Hope For All, by my friend Gerry Beauchemin, lists 10 Anchors or 10 reasons why God’s infinite and eternal love ultimately draws everything and everyone to Himself.  To me, this book, along with its companion book, Hope Beyond Hell, studied together, is the clearest introduction available on the market today about the subject of God’s relentless, prevailing love.  They are about how God is lovingly drawing every human being to Himself because of what Jesus has sacrificially accomplished for each of us.  I always keep copies of both books to give away; over the past few years I’ve given away scores—maybe hundreds—of  copies. 

In Hope For All, Anchor 2, titled “Hope In Fire,” is essentially about the English word “hell” and the average person’s concept of hell.  This teaching addresses the issue of whether or not the Bible presents the view that the vast majority of humanity will suffer eternal conscious torment in hell, while only a relatively small percentage of humanity will spend eternity in Heaven—as is commonly taught by followers of Jesus—at least in western (as contrasted with eastern Orthodox) Christendom.

In this teaching, I won’t be quoting much from Anchor 2 of Hope For All because I’m presuming you have read it already; if not, I certainly urge you to do so; the book contains the main thrust of this subject—what I will share with you is only supplementary to what the author wrote.  It would be helpful if you can look up what the author wrote about Anchor 2 on pages 27 – 35.

First, let’s define the English word “hell”:  it’s basic origin and history comes from a word used way back in ancient Greek mythology meaning a “Greek goddess who punishes people from Mount Olympus.”   Then the word became part of pagan, early Anglo-Saxon mythology in northern Europe, first surfacing in Old English in about 725 A.D. as “hel” or “helle,” a word meaning “to cover over” as when you bury someone and cover them over with dirt.  The word also has roots in the early German language when it was spelled “haljo,” meaning the “world below.” 

The main point is that the concept comes mainly from mythology; a myth is defined as fictitious stories, views, or beliefs about something.  So…the concept of hell as an English word is fictitious from its beginning.  Through centuries of time the myth has morphed and changed into the modern English word meaning a place where the vast bulk of all humanity will suffer eternal conscious torment in the ever-burning fires of hell.  Both standard English dictionaries and Bible dictionaries define hell pretty much as a place of never-ending fires in which unrepentant, wicked people burn forever after they die.

But that’s the meaning of the English word hell.  In the original languages in which the Bible was written—Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek—the words they use that are translated into the English word hell simply do not mean a place of eternal conscious torment.  The English word “hell” occurs 54 times in most Bible translations—31 in the Old Testament, 23 in the New Testament (including 16 times by Jesus). 

Not once do the original Hebrew or Greek words mean a place of eternal conscious torment; in fact, they do not even mean a place of punishment or torment at all.  They simply mean places where the dead are buried:  graves, tombs, oceans and seas, mausoleums, and columbariums where the bodies (or ashes) of people are placed after they have died. 

How then did the English concept of hell as we presently—and mistakenly—understand it really catch on in history?  There are many reasons, but one major reason that mythical concept caught on is this.  A man named Dante Alighieri was a popular Italian poet who lived from 1262 to 1321 A.D., about 700 years ago.  He wrote a famous book-length poem titled The Inferno that was his fictional account of how he perceived hell to be.  He wrote of 9 descending levels of hell (sort of like a downward spiral), each downward level of the spiral being worse than the previous level—the 9th level being the very worst.  I have a copy of the English translation of Dante’s book right here as I’m writing.  I wish I could show it to you—especially the weird, macabre illustrations in the book.

Interestingly, even after the horrible suffering Dante portrayed in his fictional hell, he ends his poem by people in hell actually being released from hell!  They did not suffer there eternally.  Dante’s classic poem sort of caught on like what we might call a “best seller” today and has influenced how people conceive of hell for hundreds of years, even to this present day.  Even if many people today have never heard of Dante or read his famous poem, the way they perceive hell comes from Dante’s poem.  However, remember his poem was a fictional poem and at the end, people who had suffered in his 9 levels of hell were released from the inferno.  They did not suffer there forever; most people who read The Inferno focus on the horrible suffering, and neglect noting that at the end people are released from Dante’s fictional hell.

The printing press was invented not long after Dante wrote his classic poem, and many people—especially the common people—were learning to read about that time.  So, when the printing press was invented in 1454, Dante’s poem caught on like wildfire.  Dante’s Inferno is difficult to understand in English; much of what he wrote—even in his original Italian language—is garbled, mysterious, and confusing.  Following is how one author interpreted, translated, and summarized Dante’s Inferno in plain English. 

In level 1, people are roasted in flames.  At level 2, people freeze solidly every night, thaw out every morning, and then freeze again at night.  Level 3 is a place of blinding, searing light.  In contrast, level 4 consists of pitch darkness.  Level 5 is a place of freezing, icy winds that cut like a knife.  In level 6, people are pierced over and over by flaming arrows.  In level 7, people are eternally stung by armies of stinging ants.  People are crucified in level 8.  Finally, in level 9, wild beasts gorge themselves on human hearts they rip out of people over and over and over, while they are still “alive.”   Except for level one, does that sound like any hell you’ve ever heard about? 

For that matter, most evangelical followers of Jesus who believe in hell—or the average pre-follower of Jesus who might believe in hell—have many differing personal views about hell.  For example, they feel that maybe some people who have never heard about Jesus in this life, don’t suffer in fire that’s quite as hot as the fires are for those who heard about Jesus, but rejected Him.  Some others glibly state, “Well, if I go to hell at least my drinking buddies will be there with me.”  Some “soften” their concept of hell by stating, “Hell is really just eternal separation from God, not really fires that burn forever.” 

Many who’ve lived since World War II say, “Hitler (and for that matter, their ex-spouse) have special places in hell reserved just for them.”  Years ago, one Bible scholar even taught that our sun was hell and people are already burning forever in the center of the sun.   Some feel that Satan is in hell gleefully poking people with his pitchfork to ensure they suffer even more.  Or, that Satan’s demons dance around the people in hell constantly tormenting them and poking at them while they’re roasting in the flames.  And so it goes: many widely differing views.  Examine yourself:  what do you really, truly, honestly believe about hell?

Back to our definition of the word hell.  The single Hebrew word in the Old Testament  translated into the English word hell is Sheol, meaning only the grave, nothing else.  The 3 Greek words in the New Testament  translated hell are Hades, Gehenna, and Tartarus.  Hades means the resting place of the dead, the grave—identical to Sheol.  Gehenna (a Hebrew word translated into Greek) is an actual valley (the Valley of Hinnom) south-southwest of the city of Jerusalem that was used for centuries as the city garbage dump where garbage (often including some dead bodies, too) was burned; the garbage dump was kept burning all the time–mostly to deal with the stench of the garbage and so the valley didn’t get too full of smelly garbage. 

Also, during some Old Testament times, fires were often kept burning in the Valley of Hinnom to sacrifice human babies and infants to the false god Molech (also Moloch), the pagan deity of the Ammonites who were sort of distant  relatives of the Israelites.  Today, the valley of Hinnom is a beautiful park-like area, containing some homes, trees, gardens, and orchards; it’s actually quite beautiful, serene, and peaceful.   It’s not burning forever and ever.

Tartarus, the third word translated as hell, is found in only one place in the Bible—2 Peter 2: 4.  It is imagined to be a place reserved for “bad” angels—another story altogether that I’ll not teach about here.  The word comes from a Greek myth believing it’s a place below Hades where the mythical god Zeus consigned and hurled the rebellious Titans.

Hell is decidedly not a place of eternal conscious torment.  I first came to understand this many years ago in a flash of insight one night while driving on a dark country road thinking about nearby brush fires and wildfires.  Then after further studying the matter for another 5 years, I taught and wrote a general teaching about the subject of fire in the Bible.  That teaching is titled “Fire” and is available for you to read on this website.  

It’s a rather lengthy teaching of about 14 pages in which I cover the subject of fire in the Bible pretty thoroughly.  Feel free to download and print it for better reading and for study purposes.  Through the years I have continued to study the subject of hell and fire in general in the Bible.  I have concluded that hell as a place of eternal conscious torment for multitudes of people is simply not taught in the Bible (as properly translated and understood), is not rational or logical in any way, grossly demeans the loving character of God, and just doesn’t make any sense.  In fact, it’s nonsense!

My mother used to have an expression, “stop pussyfooting around,” meaning quit wavering and being indecisive; make a decision and stick to it.  For many years, God has asked me to teach many general subjects and topics from the Bible—including subjects related to the Bible such as psychology.  Only a year or so ago, God asked me not to pussyfoot around, but in addition to other biblical and related subjects I generally teach, to now begin also to teach more about the illusion and myth of hell and about God’s final restoration, renewal, and reconciliation of all things—including all humanity—to Himself.  That restoration, renewal, and reconciliation of all things to God comes from a Greek word apokatastasis found in Acts chapter 3, verses 19 – 21, in the New Testament.

In Anchor 2 of Hope For All, the author clearly points out that much teaching in the Bible about fire is metaphorical—a figure of speech used to give special emphasis to something.  For example, “The tongue is set on fire by hell” is a metaphor.    Hundreds of different figures of speech are used throughout the Bible—as is common in all human languages.  The author, Gerry Beauchemin, also makes the point that in most cases throughout the Bible, fire has the purpose of cleansing, refining, purging, purifying, and transforming—not destroying, punishing, devouring, consuming, or tormenting—especially when the Bible mentions the lake of fire and brimstone in the New Testament book of Revelation. 

For example, any dictionary will tell you that “brimstone” in the lake of fire is an ancient word for sulfur, from which is made the antibiotic, sulfa, traditionally used for combating infections before the more widespread use of antibiotics such as penicillin and other modern anti-bacterial medications.  Penicillin was discovered in 1928, sulfa was created from sulfur in 1932, but penicillin did not widely replace sulfa until after WWII when it was found to be a more effective antibacterial medication than sulfa.  Thus, when the Bible says the lake of fire and brimstone, metaphorically it means a lake of healing and cleansing, not a place of eternal conscious torment.

In addition, when the Bible states in English that the lake of fire burns “forever and forever,” the actual Greek words translated forever and ever in English are Greek words meaning “through the ages of the ages” or “unto the ages of the ages,”  not words meaning  never-ending “forever and ever.”  They are words having to do with ages of time, NOT words having to do with the timelessness of eternity.  For that matter, have you ever asked how there can be “forever”—with an additional “ever” tacked onto the end of “forever”?  How can there be a “forever” followed by an “ever” as in “forever and ever”?  That’s nonsense, too!

Anchor 2 concludes by stating that fire throughout the Bible is used primarily to transform us—you, me—into the loving character and nature of our heavenly Father by disciplining, pruning, correcting, and purging us. He created the first humans, and ever since then has continued to create all humanity in his image.  To be created in God’s image means we are visible representations of the invisible God.  He will eventually transform all humanity into his clear image as best seen in Jesus.

When teaching, I often ask people to turn to the end of the Bible; invariably, they turn to chapter 22 of the Book of Revelation, the last book in the Bible. The true end of the Bible is not Revelation chapter 22; that is merely the end of the format of the Bible.  The true end of the Bible is 1 Corinthians 15: 24 – 28 (which I have paraphrased):  “The final event [telos in Greek] shall come when Jesus will bring an end to all opposition—all other rulers, authorities, and powers, at which time He will hand over his Kingdom to our Father God.  Jesus won’t let up until the last enemy—death—is subdued and conquered—never again to plague all humanity.  After that, Jesus Himself will step down and place Himself under the Father’s loving, grace-filled authority.  When He does that, then God will be ALL in all—everything to everyone, in full and complete, loving, eternal union with all humanity, a perfect ending to the long journey of humanity through all the ages of time!” 

As a sidebar, thinking of our last enemy death, during our mortal lives here, death always looms as a dreaded specter, haunting us throughout our lives, always lurking in our future.  Death always involves losses throughout our lifetimes:  loss of health and wellbeing, loss of loved ones and friends, loss of things we want to hold onto tenaciously, loss of strength, and, finally, loss of our mortal lives.  In vivid contrast, in Jesus’ bright, eternal Kingdom, Jesus has defeated death and then it will always be in our past, never again to haunt us with all its losses as in this life.

I pray earnestly that this brief teaching will give you a large measure of renewed hope for the bright future God has in store both in this life and the next—for you and your loved ones and friends.  Hope is defined as “confident, optimistic expectation of good things to happen, based on one’s ongoing relationship with God, who is altogether good and absolutely everything He does  is good.”   There is hope for all—as the title of Hope For All boldly proclaims!

“Now may God, the source and fountain of all hope, fill you to overflowing with uncontainable joy and perfect peace as you place your hope in Him.  And may the inner power of Holy Spirit continually surround your life with his superabundant goodness until you radiate with hope!”  (Romans 15: 13, paraphrased)

Bill Boylan
leservices38@yahoo.com
Revised and Updated February 2023

Hope in Fire

[NOTE: This teaching supplements and “piggybacks” on a portion of my friend Gerry Beachemin’s groundbreaking book, Hope For All.” I strongly urge you to obtain a copy of Gerry’s startling book at hopeforallfellowship.com or amazon.com]

The book, Hope For All, by my friend Gerry Beauchemin, lists 10 Anchors or 10 reasons why God’s infinite and eternal love ultimately draws everything and everyone to Himself.  To me, this book, along with its companion book, Hope Beyond Hell, studied together, is the clearest introduction available on the market today about the subject of God’s relentless, prevailing love.  They are about how God is lovingly drawing every human being to Himself because of what Jesus has sacrificially accomplished for each of us.  I always keep copies of both books to give away; over the past few years I’ve given away scores—maybe hundreds—of  copies. 

In Hope For All, Anchor 2, titled “Hope In Fire,” is essentially about the English word “hell” and the average person’s concept of hell.  This teaching addresses the issue of whether or not the Bible presents the view that the vast majority of humanity will suffer eternal conscious torment in hell, while only a relatively small percentage of humanity will spend eternity in Heaven—as is commonly taught by believers in Jesus—at least in western (as contrasted with eastern Orthodox) Christendom.

In this teaching, I won’t be quoting much from Anchor 2 of Hope For All because I’m presuming you have read it already; if not, I certainly urge you to do so; the book contains the main thrust of this subject—what I will share with you is only supplementary to what the author wrote. 

First, let’s define the English word “hell”:  it’s basic origin and history comes from a word used way back in ancient Greek mythology meaning a “Greek goddess who punishes people from Mount Olympus.”   Then the word became part of pagan, early Anglo-Saxon mythology in northern Europe, first surfacing in Old English in about 725 A.D. as “hel” or “helle,” a word meaning “to cover over” as when you bury someone and cover them over with dirt.  The word also has roots in the early German language when it was spelled “haljo,” meaning the “world below.” 

The main point is that the concept comes mainly from mythology; a myth is defined as fictitious stories, views, or beliefs about something.  So…the concept of hell as an English word is fictitious from its beginning.  Through centuries of time the myth has morphed and changed into the modern English word meaning a place where the vast bulk of all humanity will suffer eternal conscious torment in the ever-burning fires of hell.  Both standard English dictionaries and Bible dictionaries define hell pretty much as a place of never-ending fires in which unrepentant, wicked people burn forever after they die.

But that’s the meaning of the English word hell.  In the original languages in which the Bible was written—Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek—the words they use that are translated into the English word hell simply do not mean a place of eternal conscious torment.  The English word “hell” occurs 54 times in most Bible translations—31 in the Old Testament, 23 in the New Testament (including 16 times by Jesus). 

Not once do the original Hebrew or Greek words mean a place of eternal conscious torment; in fact, they do not even mean a place of punishment or torment at all.  They simply mean places where the dead are buried:  graves, tombs, oceans and seas, mausoleums, and columbariums where the bodies (or ashes) of people are placed after they have died. 

How then did the English concept of hell as we presently—and mistakenly—understand it really catch on in history?  There are many reasons, but one major reason that mythical concept caught on is this.  A man named Dante Alighieri was a popular Italian poet who lived from 1262 to 1321 A.D., about 700 years ago.  He wrote a famous book-length poem titled “The Inferno” that was his fictional account of how he perceived hell to be.  He wrote of 9 descending levels of hell (sort of like a downward spiral), each downward level of the spiral being worse than the previous level—the 9th level being the very worst.  I have a copy of the English translation of Dante’s book right here as I’m writing.  I wish I could show it to you—especially the weird, macabre illustrations in the book.

Interestingly, even after the horrible suffering Dante portrayed in his fictional hell, he ends his poem by people in hell actually being released from hell!  They did not suffer there eternally.  Dante’s classic poem sort of caught on like what we might call a “best seller” today and has influenced how people conceive of hell for hundreds of years, even to this present day. 

Even if many people today have never heard of Dante or read his famous poem, the way they perceive hell comes from Dante’s poem.  However, remember his poem was a fictional poem and at the end, people who had suffered in his 9 levels of hell were released from the inferno.  They did not suffer there forever; most people who read The Inferno focus on the horrible suffering, and neglect noting that at the end people are released from Dante’s fictional hell.

The printing press was invented not long after Dante wrote his classic poem, and many people—especially the common people—were learning to read about that time.  So, when the printing press was invented in 1454, Dante’s poem caught on like wildfire all over Europe.  Dante’s Inferno is difficult to understand in English; much of what he wrote—even in his original Italian language—is garbled, mysterious, and confusing.  Following is how one author interpreted, translated, and summarized Dante’s Inferno in plain English. 

In level 1, people are roasted in flames.  At level 2, people freeze solidly every night, thaw out every morning, and then freeze again at night.  Level 3 is a place of blinding, searing light.  In contrast, level 4 consists of pitch darkness.  Level 5 is a place of freezing, icy winds that cut like a knife.  In level 6, people are pierced over and over by flaming arrows.  In level 7, people are eternally stung by armies of stinging ants.  People are crucified in level 8.  Finally, in level 9, wild beasts gorge themselves on human hearts they rip out of people over and over and over, while they are still “alive.”   Except for level one, does that sound like any hell you’ve ever heard about? 

For that matter, most evangelical followers of Jesus who believe in hell—or the average pre-follower of Jesus who might believe in hell—have many differing personal views about hell.  For example, they feel that maybe some people who have never heard about Jesus in this life, don’t suffer in fire that’s quite as hot as the fires are for those who heard about Jesus, but rejected Him.  Some others glibly state, “Well, if I go to hell at least my drinking buddies will be there with me.”  Some “soften” their concept of hell by stating, “Hell is really just eternal separation from God, not really fires that burn forever.” 

Many who’ve lived since World War II say, “Hitler (and for that matter, their ex-spouse) have special places in hell reserved just for them.”  Years ago, one Bible scholar even taught that our sun was hell and people are already burning forever in the center of the sun.   Some feel that Satan is in hell gleefully poking people with his pitchfork to ensure they suffer even more.  Or, that Satan’s demons dance around the people in hell constantly tormenting them and poking at them while they’re roasting in the flames.  And so it goes: many widely differing views.  Examine yourself:  what do you really, truly, honestly believe about hell?

Back to our definition of the word hell.  The single Hebrew word in the Old Testament  translated into the English word hell is Sheol, meaning only the grave, nothing else.  The 3 Greek words in the New Testament  translated hell are Hades, Gehenna, and Tartarus.  Hades means the resting place of the dead, the grave—identical to Sheol.  Gehenna (a Hebrew word translated into Greek) is an actual valley (the Valley of Hinnom) south-southwest of the city of Jerusalem that was used for centuries as the city garbage dump where garbage (often including some dead bodies, too) was burned; the garbage dump was kept burning all the time–mostly to deal with the stench of the garbage and so the valley didn’t get too full of smelly garbage. 

Also, during some Old Testament times, fires were often kept burning in the Valley of Hinnom to sacrifice human babies and infants to the false god Molech (also Moloch), the pagan deity of the Ammonites who were sort of distant  relatives of the Israelites.  Today, the valley of Hinnom is a beautiful park-like area, containing some homes, trees, gardens, and orchards; it’s actually quite beautiful, serene, and peaceful.   It’s not burning forever and ever.

Tartarus, the third word translated as hell, is found in only one place in the Bible—2 Peter 2: 4.  It is imagined to be a place reserved for “bad” angels—another story altogether that I’ll not teach about here.  The word comes from a Greek myth believing it’s a place below Hades where the mythical god Zeus consigned and hurled the rebellious Titans.

Hell is decidedly not a place of eternal conscious torment.  I first came to understand this many years ago in a flash of insight one night while driving on a dark country road thinking about nearby brush fires and wildfires.  Then after further studying the matter for another 5 years, I taught and wrote a general teaching about the subject of fire in the Bible.  That teaching is titled “Fire” and is very informative; it’s available for you to read on this website.  

It’s a rather lengthy teaching of about 14 pages in which I cover the subject of fire in the Bible pretty thoroughly.  Feel free to download and print it for better reading and for study purposes.  Through the years I have continued to study the subject of hell and fire in general in the Bible.  I have concluded that hell as a place of eternal conscious torment for multitudes of people is simply not taught in the Bible (as properly translated and understood), is not rational or logical in any way, grossly demeans the loving character of God, and just doesn’t make any sense.  In fact, it’s nonsense!

My mother used to have an expression, “stop pussyfooting around,” meaning quit wavering and being indecisive; make a decision and stick to it.  For many years, God has asked me to teach many general subjects and topics from the Bible—including subjects related to the Bible such as psychology.  Only a year or so ago, God asked me not to pussyfoot around, but in addition to other biblical and related subjects I generally teach, to now begin also to teach more about the illusion and myth of hell and about God’s final restoration, renewal, and reconciliation of all things—including all humanity—to Himself.  That restoration, renewal, and reconciliation of all things to God comes from a Greek word apokatastasis found in Acts chapter 3, verses 19 – 21, in the New Testament.

In Anchor 2 of Hope For All, the author clearly points out that much teaching in the Bible about fire is metaphorical—a figure of speech used to give special emphasis to something.  For example, “The tongue is set on fire by hell” is a metaphor.    Hundreds of different figures of speech are used throughout the Bible—as is common in all human languages.  The author, Gerry Beauchemin, also makes the point that in most cases throughout the Bible, fire has the purpose of cleansing, refining, purging, purifying, and transforming—not destroying, punishing, devouring, consuming, or tormenting—especially when the Bible mentions the lake of fire and brimstone in the New Testament book of Revelation. 

For example, any dictionary will tell you that “brimstone” in the lake of fire is an ancient word for sulfur, from which is made the antibiotic, sulfa, traditionally used for combating infections before the more widespread use of antibiotics such as penicillin and other modern anti-bacterial medications.  Penicillin was discovered in 1928, sulfa was created from sulfur in 1932, but penicillin did not widely replace sulfa until after WWII when it was found to be a more effective antibacterial medication than sulfa.  Thus, when the Bible says the lake of fire and brimstone, metaphorically it means a lake of healing and cleansing, not a place of eternal conscious torment.

In addition, when the Bible states in English that the lake of fire burns “forever and forever,” the actual Greek words translated forever and ever in English are Greek words meaning “through the ages of the ages” or “unto the ages of the ages,”  not words meaning  never-ending “forever and ever.”  They are words having to do with ages of time, NOT words having to do with the timelessness of eternity.  For that matter, have you ever asked how there can be “forever”—with an additional “ever” tacked onto the end of “forever”?  How can there be a “forever” followed by an “ever” as in “forever and ever”?  That’s nonsense, too!

Fire throughout the Bible is used primarily to transform us—you, me—into the loving character and nature of our heavenly Father by disciplining, pruning, correcting, and purging us. He created the first humans, and ever since then has continued to create all humanity in his image.  To be created in God’s image means we are visible representations of the invisible God.  He will eventually transform all humanity into his clear image as best seen in Jesus.

When teaching, I often ask people to turn to the end of the Bible; invariably, they turn to chapter 22 of the Book of Revelation, the last book in the Bible. The true end of the Bible is not Revelation chapter 22; that is merely the end of the format of the Bible. 

The true end of the Bible is 1 Corinthians 15: 24 – 28 (which I have paraphrased):  “The final event [telos in Greek] shall come when Jesus will bring an end to all opposition—all other rulers, authorities, and powers, at which time He will hand over his Kingdom to our Father God.  Jesus won’t let up until the last enemy—death—is subdued and conquered—never again to plague all humanity.  After that, Jesus Himself will step down and place Himself under the Father’s loving, grace-filled authority.  When He does that, then God will be ALL in all—everything to everyone, in full and complete, loving, eternal union with all humanity, a perfect ending to the long journey of humanity through all the ages of time!”  

As a sidebar, thinking of our last enemy death, during our mortal lives here, death always looms as a dreaded specter, haunting us throughout our lives, always lurking in our future.  Death always involves losses throughout our lifetimes:  loss of health and wellbeing, loss of loved ones and friends, loss of things we want to hold onto tenaciously, loss of strength, and, finally, loss of our mortal lives.  In vivid contrast, in Jesus’ bright, eternal Kingdom, Jesus has defeated death and then it will always be in our past, never again to haunt us with all its losses as in this life.

I pray earnestly that this brief teaching will give you a large measure of renewed hope for the bright future God has in store both in this life and the next—for you and your loved ones and friends.  Hope is defined as “confident, optimistic expectation of good things to happen, based on one’s ongoing relationship with God, who is altogether good and absolutely everything He does  is good.”   There is hope for all—as the title of Gerry Beauchemin’s book, Hope For All, boldly proclaims!

“Now may God, the source and fountain of all hope, fill you to overflowing with uncontainable joy and perfect peace as you place your hope in Him.  And may the inner power of Holy Spirit continually surround your life with his superabundant goodness until you radiate with hope!”  (Romans 15: 13, paraphrased)

Bill Boylan
leservices38@yahoo.com
Revised and Updated February 2023

Free Will

No, this teaching is not about the popular children’s movie starring a porpoise that was popular a few years ago: “Free Willie.” It’s about our human will, roughly defined as “the power of choice.”

About 20 years ago I began keeping a file labeled “Human Free Will” in which I jotted down some of my own thoughts as they occurred to me, some thoughts Holy Spirit gave to me, and some thoughts I gleaned from various books and other literature I read. I failed to write down the names of some of those writers and their literature in which I read their thoughts about this subject. 

I’ll begin with this thought:  As commonly understood, we do not possess free will, the power to freely choose! On the contrary, our will is finite, limited, stubborn and rebellious toward God, self-centered, and self-absorbed. However, during the coming eons of time after Jesus returns, our will shall slowly become completely blended with God’s will, until at long last our will shall finally be untethered, unfettered, and unlimited—totally and truly free!

So, this teaching is a compilation of my own thinking, Holy Spirit’s thinking, and the thinking of unnamed other people over a period of about 30 years. I cannot take full credit for what you will read in this teaching. That’s my confession to you.          

I’ve been very hesitant to write this teaching about so-called human “free will” because I know how sacrosanct this subject is among most people who believe in the Bible. The prevailing “orthodox” view is that the Bible clearly teaches that human beings have been given completely free will by our Creator. To question that view is to question a very widely held, supposedly inviolable view. Well, I’m questioning that view, and here’s why…

First, bear in mind that the two-word term “free will” doesn’t appear anywhere in the Bible—except for a few places in the context of “free will” financial offerings to God. It’s a two-word term that was contrived and formulated by theologians and Bible students through the centuries of Church history in an attempt to explain theologically the interaction between the sovereign purposes of God for humans—and human responses to those purposes. It’s a human-devised “theological construct”—if you need a theological term for the concept of “free will.” The term is taught only in theological circles, not, for example, in business, economic, psychological, or sociological circles, or the like. It is an entirely human-contrived theological teaching!   

If God is really God—totally and completely sovereign over all creation (every thing and every being)—then He is the only Being who possesses “free will” in the absolute sense of the term. It logically follows, then, that any sentient (meaning self-aware, such as humans) beings within God’s creation can possess free will only in a limited sense of the term. Yes, if humans have free will in any sense, it can be only limited free will.

In one sense, even the sovereign God is limited in the exercise of his will. How can that be? The Bible clearly teaches that God is love—not that God has love or exhibits love or possesses love. No, God is love. His essential character and nature is love. Thus, God is not free to do anything that doesn’t flow from his essential nature of love. That’s the only sense in which God doesn’t have unlimited free will; He can’t do anything that is not totally loving.

The human soul (mind) is “wired” like a vast switchboard, perhaps not all of the time or even most of the time, to make possible the exercise of free choice, or at least an extraordinarily large range of possible choices—but not an unlimited range. Yes, there is such a thing as a vast range of free choices, but humans do not have absolute, unlimited freedom of choice (free will) as only God possesses.

Because of the presence of sin in the fallen human condition, often overpowering instincts (such as fear, along with what we have been taught and how we have grown up as fallen, sinful beings in a certain era, society, and culture) predetermine our responses, choices, decisions, and actions. Humans are never completely free of such “background forces” in our makeup every time we make choices and decisions. 

Here’s an example of such limiting background forces in our lives: Think of the way in which we who live in the 21st century might make a certain choice about a given matter as contrasted with how a lowly serf in feudal Europe 1,000 years ago might make a choice. We are “products” of our culture and thus limited in any choices we might make. Here’s another simple, kind of “hokey,” example: While we may have free will to jump unassisted to the moon some 243,000 miles away, we are prevented and limited in doing so by physical limitations of space, gravity, our own limited physical strength, etc. 

We always make choices and decisions based upon a “tempered” version of such limited free will. God’s choices and decisions are never limited in any way because He “sees all and knows all.” We don’t. Thus, the choices all humans make are always limited in some manner; we always “see through a glass darkly,” as the Bible puts it. God has the liberty of always making his choices and decisions based upon full and complete knowledge. We don’t.

We always make our choices and decisions based upon our current states of awareness and present levels of understanding—which are always limited and incomplete at any given moment when we make our choices and decisions. That’s all we can ever do: make our choices and decisions based upon our current states of awareness and present levels of understanding. We always make only the best decisions we can make at any given time.

Let me illustrate in the following manner—in another way—what I’ve been attempting to write… For any human being to make a completely free will choice at any given instant in time, that person would need to have total and complete information about the matter about which the choice or decision needs to be made. Just as God has complete and total information when He makes choices and decisions. Without total and complete information at the time, any human’s choices could not be complete and total free will choices.

At any given instant in time, our five senses are assaulted with about 14,000,000 separate bits of information every second! The “bandwidth of human consciousness” can take in and process only about 18-20 bits of external information per second. In fact, there is a web-shaped group of cells at the base of our brains called “the reticular activating system” with which we were created in order to “filter” incoming sensory information—otherwise, we would go on “overload” and our brains would be “fried” instantly by those millions of bits of incoming data every second. 

Thus, any free will choice we make at any given moment in time is based, first, upon our very faulty and untrustworthy memory of past events and information we have stored in our conscious and subconscious “memory banks” in terms of images and remembered experiences. Second, such a free will choice is based upon only 18 bits of data available to us at the moment we make our decision, not upon the 14 million bits of data we would need to process in order to make a full and complete choice or decision in that given situation. 

The only factors that assist us in making the “best” choices and decisions in given situations are that if we are followers of Jesus, we are continually coming to know the truth more and more as we come to know Jesus progressively more intimately—because He is THE Truth. Knowing Him helps us make better, more informed decisions and choices, but they will always remain limited because we will always remain finite, limited beings. Only God is infinite and unlimited, and only God can make genuine “free will” choices and decisions.

Here’s sort of a bottom-line statement about this entire matter: We humans feel we’re completely free to choose; on the contrary we’re probably not nearly as free to choose as we like to convince ourselves—and tell ourselves—we’re free to choose.

God is absolutely sovereign over the affairs of his universe and everything in it—including you! God, as Creator, is “owner” of all things (Psalm 2: 8; Ezekiel 18: 4; Colossians 1: 16; Hebrews 1: 2, for example), and that includes you and me. He has never relinquished his sovereign ownership of all things. Only God has absolute “free” will over the “property” He “owns.” 

Many believe God’s hands are tied; as much as He would like to save us, deliver us, keep all of us, and preserve all of us, He is unable. But, is our power to destroy His property really greater than His power to preserve or restore it? How “free” and powerful are we? What role did we play in controlling our life experiences that have made us who and what we are? What faulty, limited intricacies of our reasoning processes, which determine our decisions, do we fully control?

Is the Bible correct in stating no one seeks after God, that our natural mind is at odds with Him and not subject to His law? “Indeed it cannot be subject,” said Paul (Romans 3: 11; 8: 7). How can a naturally hostile mind, that cannot subject itself to God, of its own limited will subject itself to God? Only God can give us faith and draw us to Himself; we cannot muster up faith and draw ourselves to Him by our own efforts. (Romans 12: 3; John 6: 44 and 12: 32, for example) 

To idolize free will as though it were the crux of our salvation contradicts the Bible and fosters a boastful attitude that it is we who save ourselves! What are we implying when we infer that God is helpless in the face of human free will? It intimates that our salvation depends on human power, not God’s power. Thus God is stripped of His power and glory, leaving the blood of Jesus powerless to save all humanity for whom it was shed.   In fact, it negates the very definition of God as “Almighty,” leaving us with no real God at all. 

The Old Testament story of Joseph in Egypt pictures God powerfully working behind the scenes influencing the wills of people. Who of these people thought their will was not solely their own? Yet God, in His infinite power, was at work accomplishing His purposes through their decisions (Genesis 45: 5). Even while Pharaoh resisted Moses, God was at work fulfilling His purposes. Where was Pharaoh’s “free” will?

What about such Bible references as the following (and many more)?

  • The king’s heart is a stream…in the hand of the LORD; He turns it wherever He will (Proverbs 21: 1).
  • The way of a person is not in himself; it is not in people who walk to direct their own steps (Jeremiah 10: 23).
  • He does according to His will among the inhabitants of the earth. No one can restrain His hand (Daniel 4: 35).
  • Those…were born…not of human will, but of God (John 1: 12, 13).
  • No one can come to Me unless the Father…draws [drags] him (John 6: 44; 12: 32).
  • Without Me [Jesus] you can do noth­ing.
  • You did not choose Me, but I chose you… (John 15: 16).
  • It does not depend on the person who wills or the person who runs, but on God who has mercy (Romans 9: 16 )
  • You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?” (Romans 9: 19).
  • [God] predestined people…to the purpose of Him who works all… according to the counsel of His will (Ephesians 1: 11).
  • God works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure (Philippians 2: 13).

What are we saying to God in “deifying” the will of humans, making them all-powerful instead of God? 

  • You [God] cannot have what is yours (Romans 11: 36).
  • You cannot find what you have lost (Luke 15: 4).
  • Isaiah was wrong about your hand not being so short it cannot save (Isaiah 59: 1).
  • The Bible exaggerates in saying nothing is too difficult for you (Jeremiah 32: 17).
  • People have robbed the keys of Hades from You (Revelation 1: 18).
  • He who is in the world [Satan] is stronger than You, God (1 John 4: 4).
  • Your sacrifice for all the people of the world is really only for a few people (1 John 2: 2).
  • Your promises to reconcile all things are just exaggerated hopes (Acts 3: 21).
  • Your hands are tied. You cannot accomplish all your will. (Isaiah 55: 11).
  • All creatures will not really worship you as You “hope” they will. (Revelation 5: 13; Philippians 2: 10-11).

Given that Bible translators are human, they are naturally inclined to conform the text they are translating to their own worldview; it’s just human nature. Since most have believed in the sovereignty of human will, they must weaken the sense of phrases such as “to will” and “to purpose” with “to desire” and “to wish” when referring to God. Thus, God is seen as merely “desiring” things instead of “willing” them.

This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior; Who will have [“desires”–NKJV] all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time (1Timothy 2: 3-6 ).

Tradition has taught that God will not save a person against their will. I agree. However, He has the power to orchestrate whatever circumstances are necessary to cause one’s will to change. No one has complete or perfect knowledge of God. So when a person “rejects” a given concept of God, they are not in truth rejecting the true God, but only their partial or flawed understanding of Him. Only Jesus truly knows Him, and the person to whom He chooses to reveal Him (Matthew 11: 27; Luke 10: 22; John 6: 46). If Jesus has not “revealed” the Father in truth to someone, can that person be held accountable for rejecting what was not really made known?

Once a fuller understanding of God is given each of us in the ages to come (Ephesians 2: 7), all humanity will bow and confess Jesus is Lord, just as Isaiah and Paul prophesied (Isaiah 45: 21-25; Romans 14: 11; 1 Corinthians 12: 3; Philippians 2: 9-11). Who would want to continue in active and persistent rebellion knowing God only wants what is best for them? Knowing the great goodness and love of God, along with Holy Spirit working in their hearts, these hardened hearts must eventually soften in the face of God’s great love for them. 

It is impossible that an omnipotent God can fail in His purposes, and that some humans would forever resist unconditional love, opting, instead, for suffering and loss. This would be totally irrational. And even if one were that irrational, such resistance would not arise out of a “free” will, but an “enslaved” will, a will in bondage to a mind of limited thinking, understanding, and comprehension.

“Free” will? Have you really thought it through? Are God’s hands really tied by it?   Your belief or disbelief in “free” will must inevitably be determined by your view of God’s sovereign will and His unlimited power. The biggest factor overlooked by those who say God will not violate man’s “free” will, is the fact that man does not own himself.   Can man’s puny, limited will “trump” God’s sovereign will? 

Please think carefully about this. Do you really think God would place a higher value on man’s self-destructive “free” will than He does His own loving and gracious will for a person whom He “owns”? Such freedom would in effect be an illusion, for such absolute freedom would be bondage of the worst kind imaginable. Why is it that our tradition will only accept human will as “free” if it leads someone to age-lasting destruction, but cannot accept it as “free” if it leads a person to have God’s own eternal LIFE in them, though God’s LIFE for everyone is God’s will (Philippians 2: 9-11; Romans 14: 11)?

                Do YOU really have unlimited free will that is stronger than God’s will?

Bill Boylan
Leservices38@yahoo.com
Revised and Updated February 2023

The Wilderness

Wilderness: n. A dry, hot place; a wild, isolated, barren, place; an obscure or unknown place; a deserted, desolate place.

The word, “wilderness,” appears over 300 times in the Bible, making it an important subject therein simply by sheer volume of references. Bible scholars and students have often focused on the “Wilderness experience” of Jesus (Luke 4: 1 – 13), and have often neglected teaching about the similar wilderness experiences of Jesus’ followers. This study will be mostly about our wilderness experiences as followers of Jesus, but we will first look at Jesus’ wilderness experience to sort of set the stage for the remainder of our teaching.

When studying any subject or topic in the Bible, the honest Bible student will first look at all the references in the Bible about that subject before arriving at a conclusion. In addition, all subjects or topics found in the Bible will always have one reference, chapter, book, etc., that serves as a summary of the Bible’s teachings on that particular subject. For example, the chapter that summarizes the subject of “resurrection” is 1 Corinthians 15; the chapter that summarizes the subject of “love” is 1 Corinthians 13.

Jesus’ Wilderness Experience—Our Pattern

I have examined all 300+ references in the Bible about “wilderness” before arriving at the conclusions I will set forth in this study. The main biblical reference summarizing the subject is Luke 4: 1 – 13, Jesus’ wilderness experience. I won’t go into any depth about his experience, but I want to touch upon a few points before moving on to the subject of our wilderness experiences.

First, I want to point out what should be rather obvious: Jesus didn’t end up in the wilderness by accident, or because He was “outside” the will of God for his life, because He had sinned and was being punished, because He had mistakenly wandered into the wrong place. NO! Jesus was in the wilderness because God the Holy Spirit led Him there.

I’m not certain if I can “prove” the point, but it seems to me from the biblical record that we are also led by Holy Spirit into the wilderness experiences of our mortal lives. Yes, we may end up in the wilderness because of sin or wrongdoing, or by prideful rebellion, or by turning our back on God, or for some similar reason. But it seems that we are actually in our wildernesses because God the Holy Spirit leads us there. Oh, He may be orchestrating our wilderness experiences from behind the scenes, so to speak—not leading us directly—but leading us there, nonetheless.

Second, we must understand that—just as Jesus did—we will always encounter Satan in our own wilderness experiences. But, please remember that Satan is merely a limited tool, an instrument, in the overall purposes of God for his children. Satan does not appear by accident in our wilderness experiences; He shows up only because God has “sent” him there so he can be used as an instrument by God to test and try us just as he did Jesus.

And, we must deal with Satan in exactly the same way Jesus did. We combat Satan’s conniving, scheming strategies by quoting to Him ALOUD the Scriptures, the Living, Written Word of God, the Sword of the Spirit! (For a full, detailed expose about Satan and his strategies in our lives, I urge you to read two other teachings on this web site: Satan: From Beginning to End and Soldiers Training Manual).

Third, our wilderness experiences are so that we will be tempted, tested, and tried at the weak points in our character and nature so we can emerge on the other side of the wilderness stronger at those weak points. In His sovereign, overarching plans and purposes for our lives God always allows us to tested, and then broken, at our weakest points—so that afterwards we are strong at the broken places!

Although there’s much more that we can learn from Jesus’ wilderness experience in Luke 4: 1 – 13, those 3 points are all I want us to look at for now.  Obviously in this brief study, we are not going to examine every one of those 300+ references to “wilderness” in the Bible. Instead, we will examine only a few that seem germaine to this study or those encapsulating or summarizing the Bible’s teachings about our experiences in the wilderness.

The very first wilderness experience in the Bible was that of Hagar, Sara’s servant, whom Abraham sent into the wilderness (Genesis 16). We could learn much from that experience alone, but we won’t linger there; I’ll let you study such experiences for yourself.

Let’s move on to the wilderness experiences of the 12 tribes of Israel as they wandered in the wilderness of Arabia for 40 years. What were those 40 years all about? God summarizes their experience in Deuteronomy 8: 2: God Himself led them into that wilderness to humble them and to test them. They weren’t there because they had sinned, or by accident, or because they couldn’t reach their destination by some other route (they could have!, but that’s another story–); no, they spent 40 years in the wilderness because God led them there and kept them there until they were humbled and until they had “passed” their test.

“Remember all the ways God led you during 40 years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would obey Him or not.”                                                                                                                                       –Deuteronomy 8: 2

In the very next chapter, Deuteronomy 9: 3, God says of Himself that He is a consuming fire! Wow, I could write a lot about that aspect of God’s nature in his dealing with his people, but—wait a minute—I’ve already written about that in another teaching on this web site, where I invite you to read all about the subject of fire in the Bible; that teaching is entitled Fire! If you read that teaching, you’ll gain some more insight about how God tests us with fire in the wildernesses of our lives.

How does the Bible define “humble”? In its basic essence, it means to “bow one’s knee voluntarily.” God leads us into and through our wilderness experiences so we will voluntarily “bow our knees” to his absolute sovereignty in our lives. So that we willingly proclaim in our proud, stubborn hearts that He is in all, through all, and at the end of all. So that we will acknowledge that He is in absolute control of our lives. No, “Yes, buts….” He is Lord of all my life, or He is Lord of none of my life! And it often takes a wilderness experience for us to honestly humble ourselves before his absolute sovereignty.

To “test” us means that God puts us through the fires of cleansing and purifying so that the “gold, silver, and precious stones” He is working into our characters—into the very essence of our newly created beings—rises to the surface, and the “wood, hay, and stubble” of our old, pre-Jesus natures is burned up completely. You may read about that process in 1 Corinthians 3. I could teach much more about that process of cleansing and purifying, but my teaching about fire covers that in much more detail.

The ancient Patriarch, Job’s, exclamation in Job 23: 10 – 12 furnishes more insight into God’s testing us by fire. Isaiah 48: 10 speaks to the matter of testing by fire, also.

Four Major Areas of Testing

So…God leads us into our own wilderness experiences to humble us and to test us. My own observations and my own experiences based on the biblical record lead me to believe that the major areas of our lives where God seeks to humble us and test us are areas of disobedience, pride, rebellion, and where we have “hardened our hearts” over some issue in our lives. I’m sure there are other areas of our lives that God deals with in our wildernesses, but those are the 4 major areas I’ve seen over and over in my own life and in the lives of others. God will always “custom tailor” our humbling and testing experiences to areas of our own lives (often ones we attempt to keep hidden from others) needing such humbling and testing. He sees all and knows all; nothing in our lives is ever hidden from God!

Okay, now I want us to take a look at the actual processes in which God leads us into the wilderness, takes us through it, and then takes us out of the wilderness.

“Pay attention! I will do a new thing in you… I will make a road through the wilderness and rivers in the wastelands… I provide waters in the wilderness and rivers in the wastelands, to quench your thirst so you may proclaim my praise. I will allure you into the wilderness, and there I will speak tenderly to your heart. There I will cause you to bear new fruit. The Valley of Achor—the valley of trouble and testing—will turn out to be a Door of Hope for you. [When your testing has been completed] you will sing and rejoice!” – Isaiah 43: 19 – 21, and Hosea 2: 14 & 15, paraphrased and personalized

One of the first reasons God leads us into the wilderness experiences of our lives is so that He can get us aside from the distracting routines and busyness of our lives and speak to us. Of course, God is always speaking to us through the Bible and by means of Holy Spirit Who lives inside us in our spirits, but He often leads us into the wilderness so He can speak more “loudly” to us, in a sense, during a time when we are more apt to be listening more intently.

You’ve heard the old expression (or something similar) : “He had to hit him with a 2 x 4 to get his attention!” Well, the wilderness experiences of our lives are often “2 x 4” experiences when God needs to really get our attention so we will focus our listening to what He’s attempting to say to us. So, that’s one of the first things that happens when He leads us into the wilderness: He speaks to us.

Next, generally (but not always) God leads us into the wilderness so He can do a new thing in our lives. A new thing that will spring forth in the wilderness itself, often a new thing in our lives that we don’t even consciously know we need to have happen, a hidden area of our lives that needs exposed and brought out to the light so that God’s “laser light” can “burn” it out of us, to be replaced by a new thing. Something new and amazing often stands at the other side of our wilderness experiences…

Let me mention a recent experience I was involved in that might illustrate this point. I was counseling a young man who was an habitual liar, but he either didn’t know that was the case, or he might have felt he was hiding that part of his character. When I prayed in person for him, Holy Spirit exposed his propensity to lie hidden deep in his character.

The young man confessed it, let it come out into The Light of God, and that LIGHT burned it out of his character just as the rising sun burns off the morning mist!  That young man instantly became a “new creation” in that area of his life; that occurred a number of months ago and he is still “lie-free”!   That was his own wilderness experience to humble him in that regard and burn out that aspect of his character.

Custom-Tailored For You

Each wilderness experience God leads us into is custom-tailored by God for us so we can humble ourselves, learn from the experience, be tested, purged, cleansed, and “broken,” so the Potter can re-form, re-mold, re-shape, and re-store us more and more into the image of Jesus, so, in turn, He becomes more “fully formed” in our new natures.

Isaiah 43: 19 goes on to say (in some versions of the Bible) that God not only leads us into the wilderness, but He also leads us through the experience.  God-led wilderness experiences are always transitional experiences in our lives to take us from and old level of our relationship with God to a new, higher/deeper level of relationship.  If…we allow Him to take us through the wilderness.

At any point in time, we can choose to run away from any wilderness experience and leave incomplete the changes God wants to  work out in our character and nature.  God will not force us to stay in the wilderness experience until it is complete on his terms; at any point, to our own harm and detriment, we can stubbornly and pridefully interrupt the testing, humbling, purifying, cleansing process.

Next in Isaiah 43: 19 note that the end result of our wilderness experience is not only that God does a new thing in us, but He also gives us rivers in the wilderness.  The rivers God creates in our wilderness experiences are those rivers Jesus spoke of in John 7: 37 – 39.  As you emerge from any wilderness  experience experience, look for a new “Pentecostal” experience (however you define that experience based upon your own current state of awareness and level of understanding) with Holy Spirit to come out of your experience—where rivers of Living Water will begin to flow anew from your innermost being to quench your own thirst and the thirst of others in new, creative, and power-full ways.

The reference in Hosea promises us that even though there will be a Valley of Achor in the wildernesses we find ourselves in, beyond the Valley of Achor there will always be a Door of Hope.  In the Bible, “hope” is defined as “confident, optimistic expectation of upcoming good based upon the sure and certain promises of God.” Dear readers, that’s the type of hope we can find in our wilderness experiences.  You might want to look up Jeremiah 29: 11 in that regard.  For the Jesus-believer there is always hope—culminating in what the Bible calls The Blessed Hope we have that Jesus will return and begin to set all things right!

Now I want you to turn to Song of Solomon 8: 55.  I want to make this important point: The only way up and out of your wilderness experience is by leaning on your  your beloved!  Of course, Jesus is not only God’s beloved, but He is the One beloved by all Jesus Believers! 

I want to encourage you:  you will get through and up and out of your wilderness experience by trusting God’s absolute sovereignty of leading you into your wilderness, by “bending your knee” to God, by letting his fires test you, purify you, and cleanse you, and by leaning on your Beloved to come up and out of your wilderness!

Comfort Beyond Human Comfort

Another thing God will do in our lives while we are in the wilderness is that He will comfort us. If I understand anything at all about such references as John 14: 6, 16, and 27, the Holy Spirit is The Comforter in a unique manner.  Most of our wilderness experiences will lead us into a new, more vital and personal relationship with Holy Spirit, the Comforter.  One important characteristic of The Comforter is that He not only comforts us with a comfort He alone can give us (2 Corinthians 1: 3 and 4), but He also empowers us for work and service to God just as He did for Jesus after He emerged from his wilderness experience.

When you emerge from your wilderness experience, you will not only have been comforted in a special way by God, but you will be newly empowered with “Pentecostal Power” (Acts 1: 8) for work, service, witness, and ministry…and to comfort others with the same comfort with which you have been comforted.

Don’t miss out on all God has in store for you in your wilderness experience by stubbornly and pridefully resisting what God wants to do in you, through you, and as you.

God will bring you out of your wilderness experience in his perfect timing.  God is never late.  He is never early.  He is on time every time! Hosea 2: 14 claims that God allures or entices or draws us into our wilderness experiences.  One feeling that most people often have while they are in the wilderness is hopelessness. God always provides a “door of hope” while we are in our wildernesses.

“Blessed by the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!  By His boundless mercy we have been born from above to an ever-living hope through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead!” (1 Peter 1: 3)  While you are in your wilderness, I want to encourage you:  please do not despair, do not feel isolated, do not feel deserted by God, do not lose hope!”

God Disciplines Those Whom He Loves

Since our relationship with God is by our inner faith-sense rather than with our “outer” five senses and objective reality, do you ever have those occasional moments when you honestly question whether you truly are a child of God?  I do!  Here I am, one mere mortal among 7 billion other mere mortals living on a tiny planet near the edge of an obscure galaxy in this vast, boundless universe and I have the audacity to believe I am a child of the Great God of the Universe.

Well, one of the reasons (among many other reasons) I know I am a child of God is because God tests, purifies, and disciplines those mortal humans who are his children!  (Hebrews 12).  If I—a mere mortal human—am often led by God to the wilderness in order for Him to humble, test, purify, and discipline me, that means I am a well-loved child of God.  He wouldn’t discipline me if He didn’t regard me as his well-loved son.  That’s one way I “know in my knower” that I am child of the Living, Almighty God!  I know that’s a strange way of knowing I am his child, but He wouldn’t bother disciplining me if I weren’t his well-loved child.  Think about it–

Our hope is as eternal as God is, and comes to us because we follow a risen, Living Savior Who leads us into, takes us through, and brings us out of our wilderness experiences.  Lean hard on your Living, Loving, Returning Savior during your wilderness experiences!

“My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus’ Name.
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand.
All other ground is sinking sand!”

Bill Boylan
Life Enrichment Services, Inc
leservices38@yahoo.com
Revised and Updated December 2020

Rewards

I became a follower of Jesus many years ago. Details of that awesome experience are written in my autobiography,  Him ‘n me (available on amazon.com). Immediately after I became a follower of Jesus, I began voraciously reading the Bible—and haven’t stopped since, reading it completely through a minimum of once a year—sometimes more. In addition to reading the Bible, I often study certain portions and texts in much more detail.

Naturally, during all those years of reading and studying the Bible. I often came across what it teaches about rewards and awards in the “afterlife” for serving God in this life. For whatever reasons, I seemed to skip over those texts as simply being something I was not interested in. In addition, I would sometimes hear preaching or teaching about such rewards, but they simply weren’t in the forefront of my thinking; I just “spaced them out.” Why, I don’t know. Perhaps I felt it was a matter of harmful, pretentious pride to think about rewards for serving God. Or, false humility. Only God knows why I felt that way.

The matter of “earning” rewards for serving God just never “registered” with me for many years and remained outside of my thinking and personal “theology.” How about you? Are future rewards from God part of your thinking?

Not long ago I was loaned a book to read entitled, All Things New, by the well-known author, John Eldredge. In his book, Eldredge devotes 8 pages to the biblical subject of rewards within the overall theme of the book about God’s future restoration of all things when Jesus returns to establish the Kingdom of God on earth.

For whatever reasons, Eldredge’s treatment about rewards lodged deep in my soul and spirit and I simply couldn’t stop thinking about such matters. Somehow, during almost all my waking moments, in the back of my mind and deep in my spirit it seemed all I could think about was rewards. After all those years of avoiding thinking about rewards, now it seemed I just couldn’t escape thinking about them. For a number of months I was actually deeply troubled and distraught thinking about rewards; perhaps this was a “God thing,” and maybe it was His timing for me to look into the biblical subjects of rewards and awards. I have now spent a number of months doing so. The rest of this teaching contains my findings.

Even though I think I now have an honest and balanced view about what the Bible teaches concerning rewards, I readily confess I still don’t like to think about them; it’s just something that “grates” on my mind and spirit. I still don’t know why that is, but I will attempt to be fair and balanced about what I teach herein. I’m assuming in his own good time God will somehow make it clear to me why I have such inner resistance to the matter—and, if necessary forgive me for it.

Let’s begin with some simple definitions. Rewards: They are given for successfully and properly carrying out assigned work. Awards: Although not mentioned in the Bible, I am giving their definition here because they are “related” to awards; they are given for going “above and beyond” completing assigned work. Prizes: They are given out based upon one’s attitudes, character, and nature while carrying out assigned work; example: “She received a prize for always being cheerful [an attitude] around her fellow workers.”

Now let’s begin to look at rewards for doing our assigned work and service for God. First, I want to point out that we really cannot work for God or serve Him. All we can do is invite Jesus into our lives and then let Him do his own work in us, through us, as us, and with us as we spend our lifetimes following Him. Similarly, we cannot live a Christian life! Only Jesus can live a Christian life. All we can do is cooperate with Jesus in letting Him live his own LIFE in us, through us, as us, and with us. Many years ago, I gave up attempting to live a Christian life as being an absolutely futile endeavor. I simply let Jesus live his own LIFE in his “Bill Boylan skin.”

Nevertheless, the Bible clearly teaches Jesus does dispense rewards, awards, and prizes—and crowns!—for serving Him and working in cooperation with Him through the inner power of his Holy Spirit; Holy Spirit is Jesus in his “unbodied other form” living inside those who are followers of Jesus and choose to have an ongoing, lifelong relationship with Him.

With the foregoing preliminary information, let’s examine these matters in more detail now. First, we can be certain Jesus will return to earth from Heaven where He is presently enthroned. One of Jesus’ last statements is that He said He will return and bring his rewards with Him (Revelation 22: 12).

Yes, upon his return to earth, Jesus will bring with Him all his rewards, prizes, and crowns to dispense in great ceremony before all of Heaven’s inhabitants and the onlooking universe!

During December of each year I spend extra time reading my Bible, praying, and fasting—asking God to give me some insights into his work “assignments” for me for the upcoming year. Last December, here’s what God said to me for this year:

                “When I return I will dispense my rewards, awards, and prizes. Ever hold in the back of your mind and deep in your spirit that, yes, there are rewards for serving me in this life. You serve Me because you love Me, and I will reward those who lovingly serve Me! At this time you cannot begin to understand what your rewards, awards, and prizes will be, but they will involve your ever-growing relationships with Me and with others. Many of your rewards will be to see the abundant ‘harvest’ of fruit from seeds ‘sown’ into the lives of hundreds of other people through the brief years of your pilgrimage toward your True Home.

                Gold, silver, and precious stones are your works in serving Me at my direction and with my inner empowerment. They are supernaturally created in your life by intense heat and pressure. Wood, hay, and stubble are your futile and wasted works done for Me by natural means, ‘ in the flesh’—to be burned up, of no worth to Me.” [1 Corinthians 3: 10 – 15; Revelation 22: 12; Isaiah 42: 10; Isaiah 62: 11]:

When I began to study these matters in more detail, I then learned that God also dispenses crowns to certain individuals; we’ll teach about them later in this study.

Let’s do some basic biblical background studies now. I have long taught that before arriving at a conclusion about any subject in the Bible one must first study all the references about that subject, put all the references together, and only then form conclusions about what the Bible teaches concerning that particular subject. Among other reasons, that type of approach to Bible study guards against using isolated “proof texts” to push a particular point of view on others.

The word “reward” (and derivatives thereof) occurs 68 times in the Old Testament portion of the Bible. In the New Testament portion of the Bible, the word occurs 38 times—for a total of 106 in the entire Bible. As already mentioned, the word “award” does not occur at all. The word “prize” occurs only 2 times—in the New Testament portion of the Bible. Thus, we can’t build a case from the Bible for awards from God, and we can only make some suppositions about prizes from God, but the Bible clearly teaches a great deal about rewards.

As to “crowns,” there are a large number of references throughout the Bible, but most of them are about “earthly” crowns for earthly monarchs. The crowns we will look at later in this study are: 1. Crown of life. 2. Crown of righteousness. 3. Crown of glory. 4. Imperishable crown. 5. People who comprise a “crown” of sorts for the Apostle Paul. 6. Crown of rejoicing.

Every major subject in the Bible always has one reference or verse that summarizes and encapsulates that subject. For example, the matter of how and when your resurrection from the dead will occur is summarized in an entire chapter in the Bible: 1 Corinthians 15. The subject of giving money to God is summarized in two references that dovetail with one another: Acts 20: 35 and Luke 6: 38. The matter of rewards is encapsulated in Ephesians 6: 7 – 8. Of course, there are usually other references about each subject that support and give additional information about a specific subject.

We should never serve God specifically to earn rewards, awards, or prizes, but only because we know He loves us (and all humanity!) deeply with eternal love ever flowing from his own innate, basic character and nature of love; God is love! God loves me; that’s why I serve Him!

However, knowing there are rewards for serving God should cause us to serve Him wholeheartedly, rightly, honorably, and properly, not reluctantly, double-mindedly, poorly, or sloppily. To serve God with less than excellence is simply not an option. We either choose to serve Him with excellence or not at all.

Rewards should never be foremost in our minds, but, yes, to have them ever in the back of our minds as secondary motivators is well and good—simply because Jesus Himself spoke and taught much about rewards; we’ll look at some of those biblical references later. On the other hand, I should not ignore, denigrate, or minimize the matter of receiving rewards for serving Jesus. Nor should I ever ask questions such as “What is the ‘size’ or worth of my rewards for doing this or that service”?

To ask such questions leads to serving God for many wrong reasons. The size, nature, and worth of rewards for specific service is entirely up to the sovereign God, remaining largely unknown to me while I go about serving Him in this life. I must leave the rewards to God! Some service to God has its own rewards in this life; other rewards—entirely unknown to us—must wait until a time and place of God’s own choosing in the life to come. Thus, rewards for their own sake must never be pursued. They should remain ever secondary to our simple, honest motives of serving God because He loves us . . . and we love Him!

Some of our greatest rewards in this life are to see other people changed and transformed as the result of something we’ve said, done, taught, written, shared, or prayed. Or as a result of simply touching or hugging someone. Are rewards in the Kingdom of God the same or similar as noted above, but in a greater, fuller, broader, deeper sense?

 Are such rewards in the life to come relational rather than tangible such as medals, trophies, olive wreaths, fame, or fortune? In this life, for most people relational—rather than tangible—rewards are far more satisfying. From what I’ve studied so far, it appears to me that rewards in Jesus’ Kingdom are largely relational in the sense of a “harvest” of relational “seeds” we’ve planted in the lives of others by serving them in this life.

 I might mention at this point that a dear friend of mine died a few months ago; before he died, I know that for many years he prayed daily for me and for my service to God. His prayers for me kept me going on many occasions. When I attended his funeral service I was strongly impressed that I should “give” any of my upcoming rewards to my deceased friend simply because of his faithful prayers for me during his lifetime. I don’t know if we can do that sort of thing—or the “mechanics”—of doing so, but I did it. I suppose it remains to be seen upon my death and entrance into Jesus’ Kingdom whether or not that was an acceptable thing for me to do: to give all of my rewards to my friend.

Let’s consider Jesus’ “inheritance” from God. Hebrews 1: 2 says Jesus has inherited all things from God. Romans 8: 17 says we are “joint heirs” with Jesus. Among other things concerning our rewards, is that we who are followers of Jesus will inherit exactly everything Jesus will inherit from God. I don’t know precisely what that means or exactly what Jesus will inherit, but sharing equally in his inheritance in and of itself will be sufficient reward for me personally, but there is more, much more.

Now let’s look at rewards in the Old Testament portion of the Bible. I’ll begin with Genesis 15: 1. In that text, God told our spiritual forefather, Abraham, that God Himself is Abraham’s reward. Couple that text with Proverbs 11: 18 and we find that rewards are given for right living (righteousness). Jeremiah 23: 6 says that one of God’s Names by which He reveals Himself to humankind is “JHWH Tsidkenu” (in the Hebrew language) or “The LORD our Righteousness” (in English).

From these references and others, we find from the Old Testament alone that the way for us to live righteous lives is simply to let “The Righteous One” live his own righteous LIFE out through us. When we “allow” Him to do that, his righteousness is its own reward in our lives: God is our reward. And that is enough. Psalm 58: 11 states simply that “there is a reward for the righteous.” Psalm 19: 11 teaches simply that keeping God’s Word (obeying what God tells us to do) is its own reward; in fact, it’s a “great reward.”

What does the New Testament teach about rewards? Although not using the word “reward,” Ephesians 6: 6 and 7 (paraphrased) says this: “Don’t work only while being watched, but always work with a good attitude, always keeping in mind that no matter who happens to be giving you orders, you are really working for God. Good work will get you good wages [rewards?] from the Master . . . “

Jesus has much to say about rewards, even “great” rewards in the Kingdom of Heaven. (Matthew 5: 12) It appears also that rewards granted in Heaven will be given openly, not secretly. Whether or not that involves some sort of public “ceremony,” the Bible doesn’t say, but it is implied in I Corinthians 3: 12 – 14.

 Jesus goes on to teach in the Book of Matthew that simply being a gracious “host” to others will result in rewards to such a host (Matthew 10: 41 and 42). Matthew 16: 27 are Jesus’ own words similar to some of his last words in the Bible that when He returns to earth He will reward people according to their works.

When we turn to some of the words of Paul the Apostle, we find that it’s important that the work we do must be done willingly and freely if we are to obtain rewards for our work (1 Corinthians 9: 17 and 18). Also, we must work “heartily” at whatever it is that God assigns us to do (Colossians 3: 23 and 24). John the Apostle tell us that there is a possibility of “losing” our full reward if we don’t work hard at God’s assigned tasks (2 John 8). And, the writer of the Books of Hebrews tells us there are rewards simply for “seeking” God diligently (Hebrews 11: 6).

The previous few paragraphs have simply been a brief “safari” through what the New Testament teaches about rewards for service done for God. There is much more I could write and teach, but I think I’ll just let those few references speak for themselves.

Bottom line? Are there rewards for serving God? Yes! But much depends on how diligently we work at the tasks He assigns us and our prevailing attitudes while we work. As we pointed out earlier, who even thinks about rewards from God anymore?   From reading John Eldredge’s book, I, too, have searched my own relationships with others, and in all the years I’ve been a follower of Jesus, never once have I ever had a conversation with another follower about rewards in his Kingdom after Jesus returns. Not once!

However, now that I have learned more about such rewards, have written about them, and have discussed them with others, I’m much more aware of how important they are to God—and how important they should be to me as a follower of Jesus and as one who has been following and serving God for many years.

Tied in with rewards for serving God, what about the crowns I mentioned earlier? And prizes? First, let’s examine crowns.

 As mentioned earlier, it seems the Bible teaches there are six crowns available to be awarded to followers of Jesus; it’s not clear to me whether each follower will receive one or more crowns—or crowns are awarded only to certain followers for specific service to God. But, let’s examine what the Bible teaches. First, I want to make it clear that if I am awarded any crowns, I fully intend to cast my crown(s) at Jesus’ feet just as the heavenly Elders do who surround God’s throne—giving Jesus all honor and glory (Revelation 4: 10) Also, I am not certain these are literal, tangible crowns such as earthly monarchs wear; it seems they are perhaps something much more and greater than literal crowns, but—again—I’m not certain.

 First, there is a “crown of life.” This crown seems to be awarded to those who have resisted temptation and have proved they love God by overcoming such temptations (James 1: 12).

 Next, there is the “crown of righteousness.” We have already discussed the righteousness of God which He gives to those who believe in Him; He makes them righteous with his own righteousness. Further, this crown seems to be given to those who have come to the end of their life having fought “a good fight, having finished the race, and having kept the faith.” In addition, it seems to be given to those who “have loved [Jesus’ appearing].” (2 Timothy 4: 7 and 8)

There is also a “crown of glory.” Clearly, this crown is given to “shepherds” (Pastors? Elders?) in Jesus’ Church for being good and faithful shepherds, examples to the “flock.”   (1 Peter 5: 2-4)

Next, the Bible teaches there is an “imperishable crown” awarded to those who have disciplined themselves to maintain self control and to “run a good race.” (1 Corinthians 9: 24 – 27) It doesn’t look like winning the race is necessary, only that one has run a good race.

Paul the Apostle wrote to believers in Jesus in the city of Philippi that they were his “joy and crown.” (Philippians 4: 1) Not much more is said about this crown, but perhaps it’s an example of how people themselves–relationships–are actually one’s crown for serving those people.

Finally, the Bible teaches there is a “crown of rejoicing.” (1 Thessalonians 2: 19) this crown seems to be the same as the one Paul wrote about to the believers in Philippi. It seems to be a “people-crown”—a relational crown—awarded when Jesus returns.

 Let’s examine now the two instances in the Bible where the word “prize” is mentioned: 1 Corinthians 9: 24 and Philippians 3: 14. Remember, God “told” me in December of last year that prizes are given for attitudes while serving God, not necessarily for the service itself.

 In Paul’s letter to Jesus’ followers in the city of Corinth, it seems the prize is given for self-control while one is “running the race” through life.   In Paul’s letter to Jesus’ followers in the city of Philippi, it seems to be that one’s attitude of not living in the past, but—instead—looking to the future is necessary for one to receive this prize.

 There you have it: a brief safari through the Bible about rewards, awards, crowns, and prizes awarded to followers of Jesus when He returns to earth to consummate his Kingdom. I can no longer ignore what the Bible teaches about them. As I continue to serve God with all my mind, heart, and strength, if it should turn out that I will receive recognition in the form of rewards, I have already “given” them to my friend who died recently. And if that scenario doesn’t occur for whatever reason, I choose to cast my crowns at the feet of Jesus who alone is worthy to receive them from me.

Bill Boylan
leservices38@yahoo.com                                                                                           
Revised and Updated March 2023

Restoration

In Romans 8: 18 in the New Testament portion of the Bible, the writer of the letter to the Romans, Paul, made an outrageous statement: He says that all human sufferings are “not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” (Romans 8: 18) The human race has experienced unspeakable amounts of suffering throughout history. What can possibly make that seem like nothing? The Great Restoration of all things, including all humanity. Paul then went on to write, “The entire created universe waits in eager expectation for followers of Jesus to be unveiled [when Jesus returns].” (verse 19) The Great Restoration of all things is being more or less held back, waiting upon the restoration of all humanity.

Two Basic Principles

Two very basic principles must be understood at the very beginning of this teaching. The first is that when humans restore something (such as restoring an antique car), they always attempt to restore the object to its original condition. In reality, humans often restore something to less than its original condition, but even in a lesser condition they consider it restored, nevertheless.

 The second principle is this: when God restores something, He always restores it to FAR GREATER than its original condition—often up to seven times greater than its original condition! Furthermore, the Bible implies in a few places that God’s restoration may sometimes reach even a hundred times (or more) greater than the original.

This teaching is about God’s restoration of everything He created—including all human beings. His universal restoration began in the Garden of Eden immediately after our first ancestors fell into sin, and will end when He freshly restores the entire universe and the earth.

See Isaiah 65: 17; 66: 22; 2 Peter 3: 13; and Revelation 21: 1 for references about the “new” heaven (universe) and the “new” earth; those are the only four such references in the entire Bible. In the two references in Isaiah, the word “new” is the Hebrew word, “chadash,” meaning “something begun again as in the beginning of a new cycle.” In the two references in Revelation, the word “new” is the Greek word “kainos,” meaning “freshly restored.”

If you put those meanings together, the words “new heavens” and “new earth” mean a freshly restored universe and earth begun anew by God.

 Again, this teaching will be about how God is in the process of restoring his entire creation, until in the end the entire universe and earth will be “freshly restored” and “begun again.” In a manner of speaking, God will simply hit the cosmic “reset button” and all things will begin to be freshly renovated and restored.

Let’s begin with our first parents, Adam and Eve—how God is in the process of restoring them as well as all humanity “in Adam,” as the Bible puts it. I have already covered that particular process of restoration in two other teachings on this web site, so I will not write any more about it in this teaching; those other two teachings are: “Let There Be Light” and “Whole In One.”

We’ll look at some Bible references about restoration in general in a few moments, but for now, I want to simply generalize with the following thoughts adapted from the writings of a Jesus-believing brother named John Eldredge:

What It’ll Be Like

                    “In Jesus’ Kingdom and, later, in the freshly restored universe and earth, things are not stained or broken; everything is as it was meant to be in the beginning—and greater. Think about this for a moment. Aren’t every one of our sorrows on earth the result of things not being as they were meant to be? And so when Jesus returns and establishes his Kingdom, wonderful things will begin to unfold. ‘When He spoke to people about the Kingdom of God, He healed those who needed healing.’ (Luke 9: 11)

          What will happen when we find ourselves in the Kingdom of God? The disabled will jump to their feet and begin dancing. The deaf will go out and purchase stereo equipment. The blind will head to the movies. The dead will not be dead anymore, but very much alive. They’ll show up for dinner. In other words, human brokenness in all its forms will be healed. The Kingdom of God will bring restoration. Life will be restored to what it was meant to be. ‘In the beginning,’ back in Eden, all of creation was pronounced good because all of creation was exactly as God meant for it to be. For it to be ‘good’ again is not for it to be destroyed, but healed, renewed, brought back to its goodness, fully restored.

          The few glimpses we see in the miracles of Jesus were the ‘first-fruits’ of God’s restoration of all things. When He announced the full coming of his Kingdom, Jesus said, ‘Look, I am freshly restoring all things.’ (Revelations 21: 5) He means that everything in the entire created universe that has been so badly broken will be restored—and then some.”

Restoration In Job, The Oldest Book In The Bible

Back to some of the Bible’s teaching about God’s principles of restoration. I’ve already mentioned how God will restore Adam and Eve. God also taught some principles of restoration during the time of the Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) and Moses. But I want to look at just a few examples of God’s restoration during the times of the kings of Israel and Judah.

Of course, many of the prophets who lived during the times of the kings proclaimed God’s restoration; we’ll get to some of them later. But I actually want to begin with some of God’s principles of restoration as found in the oldest book of the Bible, the Book of Job.

I hope you remember the story of Job. How God essentially allowed him to be stripped of everything to test and purify his faith and humble him before Almighty God. I won’t go into details, but the first 41 chapters of Job address that in full and lengthy detail. Instead, I want to focus on the 42nd chapter of Job where God restores Job.

Chapter 42, verse 10 says this: “and the Lord turned [around] the captivity of Job and restored his fortunes, when he [Job] prayed for his friends; also the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before.” Verse 12 goes on to say: “And the Lord blessed the end of Job’s life much more than his early life.”

Earlier, Job 33: 26b also conveys some very powerful inherent concepts about God restoring righteousness to unrighteous human beings. We read in Isaiah 64: 6 that all human righteousness is just filthy rags; we humans are totally unrighteous. Here in Job we read that God restores all of humanity’s righteousness to them. How does He do that? God himself is the only inherently righteous Being (Jeremiah 23: 6); God the Son—Jesus—is also totally righteous (1 Corinthians 1: 30). God—through Jesus—implants his own righteousness in humans, displacing and replacing their unrighteousness. Just those few sentences are a summary of an entire large body of teaching in the Bible.

In the time of Moses, Deuteronomy 30, verses 1 – 3 intimate and allude to the same type of restoration if in their future God’s people might depart from Him and then return to Him for his restoration. Yes, such principles of God’s restoration are taught here and there throughout both the Old and New Testaments.

Restoration In Elisha’s Time

But now let’s turn to one example during the times of Israel’s kings.  In 2 Kings chapter 8, Elisha, one of God’s prophets, predicted that a seven-year famine would come upon the land. In light of the upcoming famine, God—speaking through Elisha—told a widow, whose son Elisha had raised from the dead by God’s power, to go to another land and stay there until the famine ended. She obeyed the prophet and did as he told her to do.

At the end of the seven-year famine, the woman returned to her homeland and went to the king to appeal to have her original land restored to her. The king had the woman’s claims checked out in the court records and, sure enough, she did have a prior legal claim to the land which had previously been hers. The king decreed not only to restore her land, but for her to receive the income from the land from the previous seven years.

In Job, we saw that God restored to Job double what he had previously owned. Now in 2 Kings we find that God restored to the woman seven times what she previously possessed. Those are timeless principles of God’s restoration. He often restores from two to seven times what a person had previously lost! He did that in those days, and He is still practicing those principles of restoration in our time. His restoration is always more and greater than the original condition or situation.

Other Restoration In The Bible

Here’s another example from the time of Israel’s kings along with a parallel example from the New Testament in the life of Jesus.  Turn to 2 Samuel 12: 6. It’s about an incident in the life of King David after he had committed adultery with Bathsheba; Nathan the prophet was confronting David about his adultery by telling the fictitious story of a sin committed by another man. David responded to Nathan’s story by exclaiming that that the man Nathan spoke of should restore fourfold what the man had stolen from another person in the story. David then understood that Nathan’s story had actually been about David.

Okay, what do we have—in principle—now? Two fold restoration. Fourfold restoration. And sevenfold restoration. (see Psalm 79: 12 for an intimation of seven-fold restoration.) Does it get any better in this life? Look at Mark 10: 29 – 31. In some few instances, some people will receive in this life one-hundredfold restoration! In this reference, there are some other details that are part of that degree of restoration, but I’ll let you ponder those for yourself.

Revival = Restoration

I want to insert at this point in our teaching this thought which you might want to pursue with some study on your own. In the Old Testament, the words “revive” and “restore” are often used synonymously. I guarantee if you look up both those Old Testament words in an exhaustive Bible concordance, you could find yourself studying an entire body of thought about the Bible’s principles of revival and restoration.

 As already indicated, the Bible is replete with references to restoration; please take a look, for example, at Proverbs 6: 31. There is not one, single reference that teaches the entire principle of restoration found in the Bible; you must take references such as this one in Proverbs and put it together with numerous other references on the subject before arriving at the “big picture,” before arriving at an honest conclusion about the Bible’s overall teaching about this subject.

Now to just a few examples from the prophetic books of the Old Testament. First, turn to Joel chapter 2. There had been a horrible plague of locusts in the land, stripping away every green and growing plant. The land was completely denuded and devastated. God then prophesied through the prophet Joel (verses 25 and 26):

                    “And I will restore or replace for you the years that the locust has eaten . . . And you shall eat in plenty and be satisfied and praise the Name of the Lord your God, Who has dealt wondrously with you.”

Look at Isaiah 58: 12 for another example. It speaks of rebuilding waste places, rebuilding foundations, repairing breaches, and restoring homes that people dwell in. It’s a “word picture” of the principle of God’s restoration of our broken, ruined, abandoned lives.

“Flow Chart” For Restoration

Finally, I encourage you to read the entire short book of Lamentations. It’s about the prophet Jeremiah lamenting the destruction and fall of Jerusalem and pleading with God to rebuild and restore that great city. If you read through the book carefully, you will find a “flow chart” that goes something like this: Human, self-willed sin leads to suffering. Suffering leads to sorrow. Sorrow leads to repentance. Repentance leads to prayer. Prayer leads to hope. Hope leads to faith. And faith leads to restoration. In a general way, you can follow that flow chart throughout the Bible in terms of God’s principles of complete and total restoration of fallen humanity, the earth, and the entire universe.

Before we proceed, I want to clarify and expand a basic “rule” or principle of Bible study I hinted at above. When studying any one topic or subject in the Bible, it is simply sound, honest scholarship to study all the references on a given subject before arriving at a conclusion about that subject. In other words, be wary of simply taking isolated “proof texts” in order to “prove” something from the Bible. Check out everything the entire Bible has to teach about a subject or topic and then draw your conclusions. That just makes plain good sense.

For example, if you choose to study for yourself the subject of restoration in the Bible, there are over 60 references to “restore” or “restoration” (and more references to “revive” and “revival”) which you should look up and study—in their context—before you arrive at any conclusion about the subject. That’s what I did when studying this subject before writing about it and sort of summarizing the subject in this teaching.

 In following the rule or principle of Bible study I mentioned above, however, there is often one more factor to take into consideration. Generally (not always) most Bible subjects or topics will have one specific reference—a verse or two, a chapter, etc.—that sort of encapsulates or summarizes that particular subject or topic in the Bible.

For example, the subject of resurrection in the Bible is pretty well summarized in 1 Corinthians 15; the subject of love is encapsulated in 1 Corinthians 13. And so on . . .

Summary Of the Restoration Process

 Following that principle, for the subject of restoration in the Bible, it is summarized or encapsulated in Acts 3: 18 – 21; Peter was speaking to some of the Jewish people of his day:

                    “God has fulfilled what He foretold and predicted through all the [Old Testament] prophets, that Jesus should suffer, undergo ill treatment, and be afflicted.  So change your mind [repent] and your life’s purposes; turn around and return to God, that your sins may be wiped clean [erased, blotted out, removed]; then wonderful times of restoration [revival and refreshing] will come from the Lord.  And [repent so] that God may send to you Jesus, who was designated and appointed for you long before; yes, I’m speaking about Jesus. He must remain in heaven until the time for the complete and final restoration of all [everything in all of creation] that God spoke about by all his prophets from the most ancient times in the memory of humankind.”

 As mentioned at the beginning of this teaching, the final restoration of all things God has ever created—the entire universe, including the earth and every human who has ever lived—will be fully restored to far more and greater than its original condition. Put it this way: whatever we can possibly think or imagine that the restored universe and earth will be like, it will actually be far more than we can ever think or imagine—in our wildest imaginings!

 The earth and universe will be a virginal re-creation, fresh and unspoiled; a universe without blemish, whole and clean and undamaged. It will be ever new, ever changing, ever fresh as it was in its first beginning, but this time preserved in innocence for in eternity.

The End Of The Bible

If I were to ask you to turn to the end of the Bible, you would most likely turn to the 22nd chapter of Revelation. Revelation 22 is the last chapter in the format of the Bible, but it is not the actual end of the Bible in terms of last events. The actual end of the Bible’s teachings about events is in the 15th chapter of First Corinthians. Let’s examine what I mean by that being the true end of the Bible.

I’m going to paraphrase and “modernize” for you verses 23 – 28:

                    “Jesus was the very first Person to be resurrected from the dead. When He returns, then we will be resurrected into his Kingdom. Some time after that event, there will occur the final consummation when Jesus delivers his Kingdom to God the Father after He has rendered inoperative and abolished every other opposing power in the entire universe.  Jesus will reign in his Kingdom until He puts every enemy—even our worst enemy, death—under his feet and completely abolishes them.  Having done that, then Jesus will turn his Kingdom over to God the Father and completely submit Himself to the Father.  When that takes place, then God will be All in all, everything to everyone, once and for all indwelling everyone and every thing in all creation!”

Dear reader, that’s the final restoration, when God has completely restored every human ever born and the entire universe and earth, and He becomes All in all! Everything God is doing in your life and mine, both now, and in our resurrected state in his Kingdom is always working toward that end. Our final destiny is to be fully and completely restored through Jesus’ total and finished work of complete and full salvation on our behalf.

Restored Into God’s Image

Let me be just a little more specific now and think together for a few minutes about God’s restoration of us: you and me.  God’s vision for us . . . God’s dream for us . . . God’s destiny for us . . . God’s plans and purposes for us are to fully restore us into his clear, unblemished image. God created us in his image. We marred his image in us. God is restoring his image in us.

The fullest—the perfect—image of God is Jesus Christ (Hebrews 1: 3; 1 Corinthians 3: 18; 4: 4; Colossians 1: 15). Jesus is the unmarred, unblemished, completely focused, and perfect image of God. I am an imperfect, marred, blemished, fuzzy, unfocused, and blurred image of God.

 What does it mean to be in the image of God? It means that I am a visible representation of the invisible God. Let me emphasize again: Jesus is God’s perfect visible representation; I am God’s imperfect visible representation.  How is God restoring his image in me? I cooperate with Holy Spirit as He empowers me (from within where He lives in my spirit) to change my mind daily from choosing to live a self-filled life to choosing to live a Jesus-filled life.

Changing my mind (what the Bible terms “repentance”) day after day, year after year, and on into Jesus’ Kingdom, then afterwards in the eternal state of the freshly restored universe and earth—changes me more and more into the fully restored image of God . . . into a less blurred image of God . . . into a more clearly focused image of God. (Romans 12: 1 and 2; Ephesians 4: 23, etc.)

 Thus, God’s vision and destiny for my life—and for yours—is to fully restore us into his image!  He is taking whatever steps are necessary (many known only to Him) in order to accomplish that vision for us. He is eternally farsighted. I am very often shortsighted, not seeing beyond the finite limitations of my mortal life. Tapping into God’s vision for my life draws me toward my future. It helps me stay focused on my future. My life’s vision—in tandem with God’s—continually helps me shape my future. What my past has been does not necessarily equal what my future is to be—fully restored into the image of God.

God is love, and unconditionally and eternally loves his entire creation. Everything He does flows out of his eternal love for his entire creation and is filtered through his love. (1 John 4: 8; Jeremiah 31: 3) He is an altogether good God, and everything He does is good. (Psalm 119: 68) Everything—everything!—that happens in our lives is working toward our ultimate, final good. (Genesis 50: 20; Romans 8: 28, and similar references taken together as a whole!)

Like a magnet irresistibly draws iron filings to itself, God is always and ever . . . inexorably . . . inescapably . . . unerringly . . . drawing every human being and everything else everywhere and everywhen in the entire created universe to Himself through the once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus on the cross of Calvary—restoring them to a far, far, greater condition than they were in the beginning! (John 6: 44 and 12: 32; Genesis 1: 1)

The Bible begins with “In the beginning God . . . “
The Bible wraps it all up with “In the end God . . . “
(Genesis 1: 1; 1 Corinthians 15: 28)

Bill Boylan
leservices38@yahoo.com
Revised and Updated March 2023

Repent

Whew, even the sound of that particular word, repent, evokes all sorts of negative images in the minds of many people, doesn’t it? Those negative images are wrong. Honestly! They really are. The concept of repentance has been given some pretty bad and untrue publicity by Hollywood movies, by some fictional novels, by hellfire and brimstone preachers, by some Christian TV personalities, and by some poor teaching about what the Bible really teaches about repentance.

As just one negative example among many…. The other evening my wife and I watched the movie “Evan Almighty.” There’s one scene in the movie where a freshman Congressman, Evan, tells another, long-time Congressman, Mr Long, that he needs to repent. You could just see on Mr Long’s face what he was thinking when Evan told him he needed to repent; it was a totally negative image of repentance that Mr Long had in his mind. To him, the very thought of repenting was humiliating, ugly and distasteful. That’s because his idea of repentance was wrong.

There are two words (and their derivatives) used in the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek languages of the Bible which have been translated “repent” or “repentance” in English. The most basic meanings of those Hebrew and Greek words are to change one’s mind, or to expand that definition just a little, it means to set my mind in opposition to a self-filled life and in favor of a Jesus-filled life. That’s it. That’s all repent means—to change one’s mind. Maybe right now you’re thinking that it means a lot more that that . . . but it doesn’t! It simply means to change one’s mind. It does not mean to cry, to moan, to sob and weep at a church altar or in a church revival meeting, to be extremely sorry for wrongdoing, to promise never to do something again, to promise to turn away from sin. Nope. None of those. It means to change one’s mind. Period!

That’s a real basic definition. Let’s expand it a little to give you just a bit more of a feel for what it means. Here’s an expanded, amplified meaning: Repentance is to live in a continual state of changing mental and attitude awareness whereby we see life and reality more and more as God sees them, and think more and more like God thinks. How do we reach such a state of awareness and comprehension?

By continually reading and studying the Bible and letting Holy Spirit point out what we need to change our minds about. It means that—based upon the Bible’s teachings—we are constantly changing our minds throughout our lifetimes so that we develop godly minds and think more and more like God thinks. There are many references in the New Testament that teach this concept; I’ll let you look up those references for yourself. The life of a follower of Jesus is a continual, lifelong state of repentance, of changing our minds.

Repentance is never just a one-time act a person commits in order to be saved! It’s a lifelong process of changing our minds. Also, it does not mean “doing penance” for a period of time after we repent or continuing to be “penitent” for a period of time after we have repented. The concepts of Penance and Penitence are man-made traditions not found anywhere in the Bible! Oh, after we have repented of a particular sin, transgression, or wrongdoing, there may be a period of remorse or regret; there may be a time when we feel contrite; that’s pretty normal for most people; that’s okay.  

But, nowhere does the Bible teach there should be a volitional period of penance or penitence after we have repented (changed our minds) about something. So, go ahead and feel remorse or regret or contrition if you have sinned and repented of it. But don’t feel there needs to be a time of penance or penitence to make the repentance “stick;” that’s simply not taught anywhere in the Bible.

You may be asking, “Bill, isn’t it almost blasphemy to teach we can think like God thinks?” I’ll let you answer that question for yourself after you read and ponder just a few references from the Bible: Romans 12: 1 and 2; 1 Corinthians 2: 16; 2 Corinthians 10: 5; Ephesians 4: 23 and 24; Philippians 2: 5; and Hebrews 8: 10. Don’t all such references say either directly or by inference that we are to develop the mind of Jesus? How do we develop the mind of Jesus so we think like He thinks? By constantly repenting—constantly changing and renewing our minds based upon what we read and study in the Bible!

There are three basic reasons (actually there are many, many reasons) why we need to develop a lifestyle of repentance. I want to make this point first—before we go any further: God doesn’t change our minds for us, and our minds don’t change by means of some sort of spiritual magic. No! We change our own minds using the inner power of Holy Spirit God has already placed within us. Once we change our minds, then Holy Spirit empowers us from within to change our thinking, attitudes, and our behavior—based upon our change of mind.

Here are those three reasons why we need to repent—change our minds. First, God commands us to repent. You can read about that in Acts 17: 30 and 31. Repentance is not optional. Does God have the right to command us to repent? C’mon now. Who’s in charge? Who has the final word? Yes, the Almighty God—the Creator of the entire universe and of you—has the right to command us to repent. It’s not a suggestion. We are commanded to change our minds. And, when God directly commands us to do something, it’s probably smart of us to obey Him. Disobedience can get us into all sorts of negative situations.

Second: Please refer to Romans 2: 4 for this one. We need to practice changing our minds because God is a good God—not a bad God. God is always good and never bad. (also see Psalms 119: 68) One significant flaw in the lives of many followers of Jesus is that they really don’t think God is good. If we really believed that God is good—everything about Him, everything He does—our lives would change dramatically. When we begin to see that God is altogether good—not a stern, judgmental, vindictive tyrant—we will just naturally want to change our minds in order to be more like Him. Not to become “goody-goody” or “holier-than-thou,” but just good: loving, upright, honorable, honest, clean, reliable, wholesome, dependable . . .

There are some followers of Jesus and congregations of Jesus; followers that seem to feel a need to constantly remind people they need to keep hearing about the severity and judgment of God—his “badness”—all the time in order to get them to repent. They almost have a mindset about God’s “badness” rather than God’s goodness. Such followers of Jesus seem to constantly dwell on “hell fire and brimstone,” on the horrible judgments of God, on all the bad things that happen to people, on the awful calamities that people experience because they are lost and hopeless sinners.

The Bible is very clear in Romans 12: 3; it is the goodness of God that leads people to repentance, not his “badness.” Most people know they are sinners without us followers of Jesus constantly reminding them of their sin and its consequences. See John 16: 7 and 8, which makes it quite clear that Holy Spirit is very capable of convicting everyone of sin all by Himself, without us feeling we need to assist Him in that endeavor!

Third: Read 2 Corinthians 7: 10. It says “Godlike sorrow produces repentance.” You might ask: “Does that mean I have to weep and moan and be sorry for something?” Nope, not necessarily, although sometimes there’s nothing wrong with a good cry and being sorry for something we’ve done wrong; as mentioned above, it’s okay to feel remorse, sorrow, and contrition. That’s not what this reference is saying, however. It’s saying: If you have sorrow which is like God’s, you will change your mind.

What is sorrow like God’s? When is God sorrowful? Well, for starters He’s sorrowful when He sees how we hurt ourselves and are often negative about ourselves. He’s sorrowful when we choose not to live up to our full potential as his sons or daughters. He has sorrow when we hurt and are in pain . . . when our relationships become broken or fragmented . . . when we hurt ourselves and others physically or with the strange, negative mind games we sometimes play with one another . . .

Yes, God sees all those things in our lives—and more—and it causes Him to be sad and sorrowful—not angry. That reference is about how God feels toward us at times. Sometimes we need to see ourselves as God sees us—how most often we are our own worst enemies and cause ourselves so much pain and harm. Sorrow about things we say and do—from God’s viewpoint—causes us to repent. This is not referring to a human type of sorrow which is usually only a mere emotion or feeling and doesn’t result in lasting and meaningful changes in our lives; in contrast with fleeting human sorrow, when we have godly sorrow it does produce meaningful and lasting changes in our behavior.

Those, then, are three main reasons provided in the Bible why we regularly and consistently need to practice the process of changing our minds . . . day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year throughout our entire mortal lives on planet earth.

At this point, your “homework assignment” is to stop where you are and turn to our companion teaching on this web site titled: “Change Your Mind.”  Honestly, stop what you’re doing and study that teaching before you come back to this one. Please . . .

Okay, that ends our teaching about Repentance—if you’ve read my companion teaching, “Change Your Mind.”  If you haven’t read that teaching, then my teaching—for you—is not complete. If you haven’t read that teaching, you’ve missed out on an entire body of teaching about this subject and you will not have a complete view of what repentance is all about. Please read that teaching before you go any further!

Bill Boylan
leservices38@yahoo.com
Revised and Updated February 2023

Prayer

God Says: “We Need to Talk.”

Before I invited Jesus to take up permanent residence in my life at age eighteen, I had very little understanding of church, religion, the Bible, God . . . .   But somehow I knew that since I had recently invited Jesus to come to live inside me, I should attend a church service the following Sunday.  No one told me; I just knew it. 

I chose a little neighborhood church I had spotted while driving around town near the U.S. military base where I was stationed at the time.  I had no clue what “brand” of church it was, only that it was a building with a cross displayed on a steeple. 

Because I had very little awareness of what people did in churches and didn’t know what to expect that Sunday morning, I decided to slip in quietly, sit in the back, observe what the people were doing . . . and then imitate what they did.  

They began with some music and singing.  Next, the leader up front said, “Let spray.” I had heard that some brands of churches sprinkled people with “holy water,” so I wondered if perhaps at this church they sprayed people with holy water.

I noticed everyone bowed their heads and closed their eyes.  I assumed they did so because they didn’t want the holy water to get in their eyes.  I felt that spraying people was a little strange, but up until that time I felt most of what I mistakenly believed happened in churches was strange.

Then the leader up front began speaking to someone (I couldn’t see who it was, but felt it might have been someone named “Art” because he kept saying “thou Art . . .”).  Also, he was using strange words such as “thee,” “thou,” “whithersoever,” “thy,” “whosoever,” and “thine” while talking to the person named Art I couldn’t see.

It took me a few minutes to determine what was happening.  He was praying!  He hadn’t said, “Let spray”; he had said, “Let’s pray.” Now I knew what we were doing, but I still couldn’t understand why he was using such strange words; maybe it was some sort of “prayer code” people used when praying to God.

That was my first meaningful introduction to prayer many years ago.

I Don’t Know How To Pray

I hope this doesn’t come as a shock to you, but like Paul, one of the writers of the Bible, I admit to you that often I don’t know how or what to pray!  (Romans 8: 26)  I’ve been a born again follower of Jesus for many years, but I still have difficulty praying effectively.  Honestly.

That’s why I’m writing this teaching—to continually remind myself how to pray more effectively . . . and possibly help you, too, if you have difficulty praying effectively.

Prayer is never a one-way activity!  It is always two-way . . . or should be.  Prayer is visiting with God.  It is having a dialogue with God, not a monologue.  It is God and a person conversing with one another.  It is listening as well as speaking;  Let’s learn to practice the discipline of “listening prayer!”

God is pleased to dialogue with us.  He longs to share Himself with us.  He yearns for a deep, abiding relationship with us; such a relationship comes mostly through prayer–God and us dialoguing and visiting with one another.   He loves us dearly and deeply and wants to have a loving relationship with every human being.  He wants to share with us both his daily and future purposes for our lives . . . if we will listen.

Consider some brief thoughts.  From the Bible, we know God—Who inhabits eternity—is allwhere allwhen; from the “center” of eternity everything is absolutely simultaneous to God.  Being God, He is completely focused on every human at the same time.  Each of us is always in the precise center of his vision and the sharp focus of his thoughts.  He doesn’t go back in time or forward in time.  He is always in everyone’s present—in the “Now” of our lives . . . concurrently.  That’s why He is referred to in the Bible as “I am,” not “I was,” nor “I will be.”

Mistaken Ideas

Many people mistakenly believe God is always extremely busy with quadrillions of tasks and has to “slow down” and focus in order to make time to hear the prayers of any individual.  People erroneously believe God must scramble around and somehow find time in his busy schedule to hear our prayers.

Or, many mistakenly believe something like this: “God is far away somewhere beyond the universe and can’t bother coming near this tiny planet to listen to my sad stories.”

Such erroneous ideas are not true; at any given moment in time God can precisely focus on everyone, everywhere, and everywhen.  He can completely devote his time to any individual while at the same time focusing his loving and full attention on everyone else . . . simultaneously.

Many times I have heard people mistakenly make statements such as these:  “I don’t pray because God is too busy with all his other tasks.  God doesn’t have time to listen to my poorly worded, feeble prayers; other matters are far more important to Him.   After all, He operates the entire universe, causing Him always to be busy with far more important matters than to listen to my prayers.  I don’t want to bother God; He has better things to do than take time to listen to me.”

 I hope those few thoughts have helped you understand God is always fully attentive and carefully listening to you and to every other human on planet earth “24/7,” 365 days a year.  No one is “bothering” God when they communicate with Him by means of prayer.  Some people ask, “Does God really communicate with us?”

God Speaks

On four occasions in the tenth chapter of John’s Gospel in the Bible, Jesus stated that those of us who are his “sheep” (his followers) hear his voice.  God does, indeed, speak to us; He is speaking to us all the time, far more clearly and distinctly than we imagine.   We “hear” his voice within the spirit component of our three-part beings (body, soul, spirit) by means of our inner “faith-sense.”  He generally speaks to us in a quiet, soft whisper within our spirits.

The question is not, “Does God speak to me?” Rather, the real question should be, “When is God not speaking to me?” Do not be surprised at the Good Shepherd’s tender voice constantly whispering into your thoughts . . . from within you where He abides permanently in your spirit.  Keep in mind, however, it’s difficult for us to hear God if we’re doing all the talking!

But God is not limited to communicating with us only in a quiet, soft whisper; He can communicate with us in any manner He chooses.

However, He generally speaks to us from within in five distinct and clear ways:

  1. From the Bible, God’s written, LIFEgiving, transforming Word for all humanity.
  2. By inserting and imbedding and implanting his thoughts and creative ideas into our thoughts. 
  3. By means of visions, images, pictures, and dreams “broadcast” to the “viewing screen” of our spirits…and by means of our creative imaginations.
  4. By means of strong, inner impressions and urgings that won’t diminish or go away.
  5. By means of speaking in tongues with interpretation immediately following.

Again, I don’t want to limit God speaking to us in only those five ways; He cannot be limited to our finite comprehension; we cannot “put Him in a box” and limit Him in any manner, but He does Self-limit his means of communication in order for us mortal humans to understand Him.

 A prime biblical example of listening to God is found in the life of Samuel, an Old Testament prophet, when he was a boy.  In the night, Samuel heard a voice calling his name.  Thinking it was the priest calling him, Samuel ran to the priest’s bedroom to ask what the priest wanted.  The priest informed Samuel that it was God who had called Samuel’s name.  When Samuel heard the voice next time, he responded:  “Speak, God, for I’m listening.” That was the beginning of a long lifetime relationship with God in which Samuel heard God speak to him many times.  The simple lesson to be learned from Samuel’s experience is:  God speaks.  Are we listening?

Beginnings of Prayer

Archaeological and other historical research informs us that since time immemorial, humans have prayed either to the one, invisible, true and living God as revealed in the Bible . . . or to human-devised, visible  idols and gods that can’t see, hear, speak, or move.

Prayer to someone or something perceived as greater than ourselves seems to be almost instinctual among the vast majority of humans.  Even those who claim to be atheists refer (and sometimes pray) to a God they claim they don’t believe in.

From the Bible we learn, of course, that our first human ancestors—Adam and Eve—enjoyed unbroken fellowship and communication with God until that relationship was broken and communication diminished by the entrance of self-centered, self-absorbed sin into the human condition.

After the “fall” of Adam and Eve, prayer seems to have declined somewhat until their grandson, Enosh, was born.  At that time (for some unknown reason not stated in the Bible), humanity once again began “praying and worshiping in the name of GOD.”  (Genesis 4: 26)

With rare exception, all humanity has prayed in some fashion ever since that time—to God or to gods and idols of their own making.

What Is Prayer!

In its distilled essence, the basic definition and purpose of prayer is to maintain open and free, two-way, ongoing conversations with God, bringing us more into alignment with his purposes for our lives and his purposes in the lives of others for whom we pray . . . and enhancing, enriching, and building our growing, eternal relationship with Him.

Effective prayer (James 5: 16) is a highly skilled, focused, transcendent endeavor involving much learning and practice by trial-and-error.   Effective prayer doesn’t come easily.  There’s a price to pay—a price of much time and much effort . . . and more time and more effort . . . and more time and more effort.

In my own limited experience, I have never met an effective pray-er who told me it’s easy to pray or that prayer comes naturally.  The only Person I know to Whom prayer likely came naturally (but not necessarily easily) was Jesus while He was here on earth in his full humanity.

Prayer can bring us great peace, joy, and satisfaction, but it does take our commitment, persistence, dedication, time, and hard work.

Prayer transcends all finite limitations of time and space, always winging its way to God’s throne of grace in eternity; Note clearly: God’s throne is a throne of grace (the foundations of which are righteousness and justice), not a throne of judgment!  By the way, in the Bible the word “justice” always means “to make all things right.”

In responding to prayer God has absolutely no bounds and no limits in scope, magnitude, place, and direction.  Nothing—absolutely nothing!—is beyond the reach of our prayers . . . and God’s responses to our prayers.  He always responds out of love and grace for the ultimate good of all humanity.

 Since all God’s judgment against humanity’s sin was poured out and completely dissipated on Jesus on the cross, God never responds in judgment to our prayers.   We must never fear God’s judgment.  If we humans must fear anything, it should be ourselves.  We humans are our own worst enemies—not God, not Satan (a fully defeated and disarmed foe) . . . but ourselves.

          “Stop fretting and worrying; worry is simply a misuse of your creative imagination.  Instead of worrying, pray!  Let praise and thanksgiving shape your worries into prayers.  Let God know your requests—make them clear and definite.  Then you will have God’s unspeakable peace, transcending all human understanding.  That peace will surround and guard your hearts and minds through Jesus.”  —   Philippians 4: 7 and 8, modified

To Think About:

“I don’t beat around the bush with God.  I am specific when talking with Him.  God is not impressed by a flurry of fanciful words.  When praying, I’m talking with a real Person who loves me and knows me intimately.”

           “Don’t become too impressed with yourself.  One wrapped up in oneself makes a very small bundle.  When scientists finally discover the center of the universe, you may be very disappointed you are not it!”

God Speaks.  God Hears.

Humans cannot “construct” any barriers that keep out, limit, or “block” prayer . . . except sin in our lives.  And sin does not block our prayers; rather, sin in our lives causes us not to want to pray, and to attempt to avoid God.

No jails, no prisons, no dungeons, no forgotten places, no hospitals, no distance can obstruct God responding to prayer.  God is always “on call,” always listening, always ready to respond . . . according to his will.   He is never “on break” or away on vacation.  God always responds to prayer in his own way according to his own purposes, but his responses are always far more and greater than we can ask, think, or imagine.

Prayer is a path where there is no path.  With prayer, we can enter situations where there is no other way in—where every other way into a situation is blocked.  Prayer is the original “wireless connection,” faster than the speed of thought.

Prayer is the means we use to reach Him Who is larger than and Beyond-The-Universe, yet “small” enough to live within our spirits in his unbodied form of Holy Spirit.

God chooses to shape and transform the lives of other people—in part—by our prayers.  Our prayers are deathless.  Every prayer we ever pray in and through Jesus according to God’s will shall be answered according to God’s eternal purposes.  Our prayers far “outlive” us, well beyond this all-too-brief mortal life.

For example, who knows what prayers prayed in Jesus’ Name by those who lived long ago are being answered even now.  Some of our prayers are remembered in Heaven long after we’ve prayed them.  When our prayers in Jesus’ Name reach God’s throne room, they linger until He answers them.   Jesus’ prayer 2,000 years ago asking the Father that all his followers be one (John 17) has not yet been fully answered; what believer in God can honestly doubt that it will be fully answered at some future time?

It doesn’t matter that other people don’t know we are praying for them.  God always knows . . . and hears . . . and responds according to his purposes for those for whom we pray . . . here, there, everywhere, everywhen, pastward, futureward.

Postures and Positions For Prayer

There are no standard or normal positions, forms, or postures necessary or required for effective prayer:  Sitting.  Standing.  Eyes open.  Eyes closed.  Kneeling.  Hands folded.  Hands open.  Arms outstretched.  Gazing upward.  Looking down.  Peering around.  Walking.  Running. Prostrate. Using written prayers.  Praying spontaneously and extemporaneously.  Lengthy prayers or short prayers.  All—and more—are acceptable, and neither hinder nor enhance effective prayer.

Prayer can be engaged in by one who is extremely poor, by one in a condition of vast wealth . . . and by anyone in between those extremes.

In most instances, when someone requests, “Let us pray,” many people bow their heads, close their eyes, fold their hands, and kneel in prayer.  Such behavior is usually traditional and learned, but it is not necessary when praying . . . nor is it a biblical mandate to pray using such postures and positions.  All too often the emphasis on using certain postures and positions to engage in prayer distract one from praying because of the felt need to “perform” prayer properly.  It can be very distracting focusing on whether or not one is using “correct” postures, positions, and words.

God Hears And Speaks All Languages

Please, please understand God does not restrict Himself to hearing prayer only in 400-year-old King James English with its archaic, outmoded, and outdated wordings and phrases.  He hears everyone in their native language and in the innumerable “tongues of angels” all humans have at their disposal for worship, praise, and prayer.  God hears and speaks in over 7,000 human languages and in countless languages of heaven, including those spoken by angels, which we humans may use, too, during our mortal lives.

All 7,000+ human languages have been corrupted and polluted by foul words, curse words, “dirty” words, and swear words.  Anyone can pray in one’s native language, in any other learned human language, and in “tongues,” one of heaven’s many languages.  Notable about tongues is they are languages that have not been corrupted, dirtied, fouled, or polluted, thus making them “cleaner” languages in which to pray.  God hears and understands them all . . . human or heavenly.

Jesus Believers And Prayer

Concerning followers of Jesus who pray, ponder this.  Before Jesus was here as the God-man 2,000 years ago, there was no entity called the church.  While He was here, He promised He would begin to build his church when He left.  Were it not for his church—his body on earth—the fact that Jesus was here would have faded into near nothingness.  Now, 2,000 years later, He would have been simply another, almost forgotten religious leader of the past.

 Jesus birthed his church in an atmosphere of prayer.  (Acts 1: 13 and 14).  And his church has continued to pray for 2,000+ years.  The church on earth Jesus is growing and building with “living building stones” (1 Peter 2: 5) has continued to do and teach what Jesus first began to do and teach . . . including prayer.  The church was launched with prayer; it continues to grow and thrive by means of God’s response to its prayer.

Of course, any student of the Bible knows about the occasion when Jesus’ disciples came to Him asking Him to teach them how to pray.  He responded by teaching them the so-called “Lord’s Prayer” (actually the “disciples’ prayer”).   That prayer is only a model prayer, only a prayer outline, never intended to be used as a rote, memorized prayer.  By using that prayer as an outline or “guide” for prayer, any believer in Jesus can readily and easily pray an hour or more on any occasion!  (Matthew 26: 38 – 41)

 Note, too, God is not necessarily moved by those who pray repetitious prayers over and over—what the Bible terms “vain (empty or meaningless) repetitions.”  Such repetitious prayer in and of itself is not necessarily meaningless, but it certainly can be—if the emphasis of repetitious prayer is on the “correct” wording rather than upon the meaning of what one is repeating.

How To Intercede

 A major task of Holy Spirit living within our spirits is that He intercedes for us.  (Romans 8: 26 and 27)  In addition, while Holy Spirit is interceding for us here on earth through other people, the Bible teaches that Jesus is also in heaven interceding for us. (Romans 8: 34 and Hebrews 7: 25)   What a power-full combination to have both of them praying for us! I don’t understand that, but I believe it.  We are invited to stride boldly into God’s throne room by means of prayer. (Hebrews 4: 16)  God’s throne is a magnificent throne of grace, the foundations of which are righteousness and justice; it is NOT a throne from which He dispenses judgment!

What does it mean that both Jesus and Holy Spirit are interceding for us? On the viewing screen of my spirit in my creative imagination, I envision it in this manner.

Jesus is in God’s throne room at God’s right hand interceding for us. That takes place in heaven. Meanwhile, here on earth, Holy Spirit is simultaneously interceding for each of us . . . through one another.   He self-limits his prayer activity here on earth to praying through those who “let” Him pray in and through them.  How does Holy Spirit “handle” all those people—millions of them, perhaps billions—all praying at once?  Holy Spirit is God; He is the quintessential, ultimate “Multi-Tasker,” totally focused on—and vitally involved in—every prayer being prayed everywhere and everywhen through Jesus.

 Intercession by means of prayer is best defined as requisitioning God’s unlimited,  inexhaustible, abundant resources to meet the overwhelming needs of people for whom we pray.  Another way of viewing intercession is a principle found in 1 Kings 10: 13 where we ask God the King (after meeting our needs) to give even more from his royal generosity and bounty! Please understand that intercessory prayer is both the most and best we can do for others, not the least (as people often mistakenly say with such statements as:  “Well, the least I can do is pray for . . .”).

One fascinating thought about intercession is that you and I can join Jesus and Holy Spirit in interceding for the needs of other people.  That means we are joining them in perfect intercession.   True, the fact that we are imperfect humans means we don’t intercede perfectly, but at least “tapping into” and joining Jesus and Holy Spirit in their perfect intercession means that our imperfect intercession for others is in many respects more “effective” than it would be by not joining them.

In regard to intercession, recently I was privileged to see this vision: “I had just begun my daily, early morning time of prayer and intercession.  When doing so, I often picture myself and the people I pray for that day striding up to massive, golden double doors opening into God’s throne room.

           “Huge angelic beings often open the doors for us so that I and the group of people with me can stride right on through them into the room.  As we humbly bowed in front of God, I swept my arm around behind me to indicate to God the people I had brought with me for whom I would be interceding.

           “As I did, Jesus simply glanced over to his right; I followed his glance and noticed he was glancing at a door labeled ‘Supply Room.’  Another angelic being opened that door so I could peer inside.

           “It was a huge room, appearing much like a Sam’s Club or CostCo with rows and rows of shelves that reached higher than I could see and stretched into the distance farther than the eye could see.  It seemed to be an infinite storehouse full of unlimited items.  I knew inside me that as I prayed for various people that morning, other angelic beings would come from that supply room to give people what I was praying about for them.” 

For a number of years I have been joining Jesus and Holy Spirit in interceding for others. One thing joining them does for me is that I don’t feel quite so “alone” while praying for others.  It places me in a position where I am “agreeing” with them as the three of us are praying in harmony and unity about matters for which we pray together. It’s difficult for me to explain, but now I experience much more effectiveness in interceding for others by joining Jesus and Holy Spirit in their limitless, boundless intercession transcending all time and space.

I do not enter God’s throne room presumptuously, arrogantly, or proudly. In fact, when I join Jesus and Holy Spirit in intercession, in my creative imagination I picture myself  striding boldly and confidently—yet humbly—into God’s throne room (again, it is a throne of grace!), bringing with me those for whom I am interceding.  I see myself and those for whom I pray humbly bowing our knees to the King before whose throne we have approached, receiving from Him only that which is good and in our best interests . . . from God’s viewpoint.  I encourage you, too, to take this approach to joining Jesus and Holy Spirit in intercession. I think you will find you, too, will be able to intercede much more effectively for others.

Prayer Lists or Guides

Like many Jesus believers through the centuries, I, too, often use a written prayer list or guide in praying for others.  But while praying using my prayer list, I attempt to stay “open” to Jesus and Holy Spirit inviting me to pray for people and events not written on my prayer list.

By joining them in intercession from their universal, eternal “prayer list”—subsuming my own list into theirs’—I am able to pray much more effectively for others.

Here are two simple illustrations of how this “works.”  I might be praying in general for missions using my own prayer list when I begin to “see” on the viewing screen of my spirit a family in—let’s say Yunnan Province, China—who are being persecuted because of their faith in Jesus; that’s the Holy Spirit asking me to join Him in praying for that family . . . even though I don’t know their names or specific details (unless He chooses to disclose such details to me).

Or, perhaps I’m praying for someone on my prayer list when Holy Spirit “tells” me that person is in some sort of imminent danger.  I immediately pray for God’s protection for that person. Those are only two simple examples of how this type of prayer works.  I could cite innumerable other examples, but I hope those two give you a “feel” for what it’s like to join Jesus and Holy Spirit in interceding for others.  It’s an amazing, creative, effective, and more power-full way to pray and intercede for others—with much better “results.” In my creative imagination, I “see” the three of us holding hands in a majestic prayer circle while we unitedly and harmoniously agree in praying together to God the Father for others.

Again, I admit to you that for many years I simply was not an effective pray-er until I learned this method of interceding and praying for others.  For many years, prayer and intercession were actually pretty much of a chore I felt I was required to engage in simply because I was a follower of Jesus. Prayer was not meaningful, exciting, or fulfilling . . . nor effective.  But now, well, I can’t even begin to describe to you how exciting it is to join Jesus and Holy Spirit as we three pray and intercede together for the needs of other people.

Study those references again in Romans 8 and Hebrews 4 and 7 in their contexts; ask Holy Spirit to make them “come alive” for you as you begin to join Him and Jesus—and me!—in praying and interceding for other people in an eternal “prayer circle” unlimited by time and space.

Pray Always

There are numerous biblical references admonishing believers in Jesus to pray.  Ephesians 6: 18 encapsulates and summarizes those references: “Pray always.” The question is never:  “When should I pray?” Instead, the question should be:  “When is there any time or situation when I should not pray?”

God loves every person very deeply with eternal, ever-giving love, and yearns for us to maintain an abiding, eternal relationship with Him.  Such a relationship grows and is strengthened and deepened as we spend time together with God in praying regularly and consistently.

Here are some closing thoughts about prayer . . . perhaps the most important words I’ve written for this teaching.  For centuries, many people who believe the Bible have used the very words of the Bible to pray.  What better way to pray than to use God’s own words!  For example, here’s what I’m praying for you—using words from the Bible—this very minute just before I press the “Send” key:

          “Now I’m turning you over to God, our marvelous God whose grace-filled words can change you into what He wants you to be and give you everything you could possibly need within your local community of believers.”                                –Dr Luke in Acts 20: 32

          “I ask God to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength.  And I ask Him that with both feet planted firmly on his love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Jesus’ love.  Reach out wide with both arms outspread and experience the breadth!  See its unending length!  Plumb the depths!  Rise to the heights!  Live full lives.  Live in the fullness of God!”  -the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 3

           “And now to Him who alone can keep you on your feet, standing tall in his bright presence, fresh and celebrating—to our one God, our only Savior, through Jesus our Master, be glory, majesty, strength, and rule before all time, and now, and to the end of all Time.  Yes!  Amen!”   — Jude 24 and 25

To Think About: 

           “Hallelujah!  The Master reigns—our God, the Sovereign, the Strong One.  Let us celebrate, let us rejoice, let us give Him the glory! –The Book of Revelation

Bill Boylan
leservices38@yahoo.com
Revised and Updated February 2023