Biblical Forensics©
“Deliverance before Judgment”
Part 1
This series is being introduced a few days into the new year of 2016 which may very well be a transitional year in which the Rapture of the Bride (Church) and the Great Day of the Lord or the beginning of the Great Tribulation occurs. Readers are encouraged to exercise “Combat Faith” spoken of by Bible prophecy scholar Hal Lindsey. His book carrying the same title explains: Now more than ever, we must learn to break the "faith-barrier" to overcome worry, anxiety, and fear and enter into a new dimension of peace and stability... to claim the invincible inner peace that God has promised each of us... no matter what the circumstances.
According to filmmaker and former BBC reporter Adam Curtis, a new system of political and social control is emerging. This, he argues, can be seen by the recent merging of conceptual arts and politics in the visual world of corporate media and the Internet. The perception management of yesterday is now a 24/7 “Alice in Wonderland” visual appearance of reality.
The new cyber control of what equates to ‘appearance’ as opposed to what ‘reality’ actually is relies on the creation of confusion in the minds of people with the consistently present question, “What is now fake and what is now real.” In a world so managed and controlled by the uber-elites, their canopy of media outlets, and their corporate control of the mind, what can be trusted or true?
Nothing is what it seems. The Orwellian world is here, and confusion and uncertainty is now the plan of a ruthless, global elite. The vaudeville of contradictions in corporate news reporting and commercialized commodified culture that pounds us daily results in the inability to fathom a coherent narrative to the history we are living and the lies we are being told. This of course, is the plan: immerse the public in confusion.
. Much has been written over the past twenty years concerning Bible prophecy, the Bible’s understanding, the signs of the times, etc. Everything written since 1997 has been prepared to support an understanding of the signs of the times, our relationship to the Bible, and to be a beacon for the closeness of the Lord’s Second Coming. There can be no title as appropriate for this series than that which has been chosen to herald the Lord’s return: “Deliverance before Judgment”. While Lucifer and his minions are hard at work seeking to undermine the Pre-Tribulation Rapture view and “The Blessed Hope”, the goal of this series launches countermeasures to buttress “Combat Faith”. Two monthly publications were published for “seven” years each, even though the length of time for each had nothing to do with the significance of the number “seven”. In the end, the funds to keep them going dried up.
Bible/Biblical Forensics began initially, a decade ago as a worship bulletin insert with the focus on teaching an “apologetics” Bible theme based upon Scripture and related disciplines. Its purpose was to educate, affirm, and exalt faith in the Word of God. My wife was a church secretary and organist, seeking a source of Bible content to offset the stream of poorly qualified pastors the church had been receiving during her employment. Thus, Bible/Biblical Forensics© became a tool to teach the laity. It was offered to pastors in general, as an educational piece, which could be used to tutor their folks, about the Bible and theology and to provide evidence for apologetics from wherever God’s truth could be found.
The evidence for God and Jesus Christ is not limited to the Bible, but is revealed in every academic discipline in a liberal arts education. Even our word “history” stands for “His Story”, namely the Lord Jesus Christ. This past September 2015 marked the 6,000th year of recorded human history. This is a significant milestone which few have recognized.
If you learn nothing else, it is important to recognize and understand that in God’s Master Plan for Redemption, “Deliverance comes before Judgment”. As Lucifer wages last ditch efforts to thwart Christ Jesus in ways that may not be fully recognizable, things are going to be strikingly terminal this year. It often comes as a shock to discover the illiteracy still existing, even among believers in Jesus Christ.
In order to grasp the Bible, one has to think systematically, while simultaneously differentiating between the “Big” picture and the “Little” pictures that seem to get the most focus. In this initial segment of the series, we will begin with the Ark. The larger “Big” picture of Noah’s Ark and the family that survived the flood are often portrayed as being unrelated especially as it pertains to the topic of “Typology”. The 8th chapter of Genesis prefigures the Ark or a true Type of Christ. “And God remembered Noah and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth that was with them in the ark, and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged (settled down). The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained.” The Hebrew term for ‘remember’ means to begin again to act on their behalf.
After 150 days of reeling on the water, the ark finally came to rest, most likely on Mount Ararat since it was the highest mountain in the region. (Genesis 8:5). After another seven months (377 days totally) Noah, his family, and the animals exited the ark.
The Bible is full of parallels or “Types”. We can see how God arranged the affairs of many Old Testament people and events to provide us with similarities leading us to Jesus Christ, the focal point of the Gospel. Consider the following parallels:
After 5 months of providing refuge and laboring to accomplish its work of saving its occupants from judgment of sin, the ark finished its mission: the work of salvation (cf. John 19:30).
The ark’s construction was made to be waterproof and resistant to decay by sealing it with “pitch” inside and out. The Hebrew word for pitch – “kosher” – means a “covering”. But it’s also the Hebrew word for ‘atonement’. Henry Morris writes: this is the Bibles first mention of ‘atonement’ - “It sufficed as a perfect covering for the ark, to keep out the waters of judgment, just as the blood of the Lamb (Christ) provides a perfect atonement for the soul”.
The Jewish date that the ark rested (Genesis 8:4) and the date Jesus Christ rose from the dead are the same: “The seventeenth day of the seventh month”.
The ark became the bridge from the old, evil world to the present one (Genesis 7:7; 2 Peter 3:6-7). God would help Noah and his family with their new life in their new world. And God graciously provides deliverance from spiritual death to us through His Son, Jesus. This is symbolized through water baptism (1 Peter 3:21). He saves us from God’s judgment of sin. He not only gives us the opportunity for a new beginning, but also offers help in our daily walk.
Although Noah wasn’t perfect, he is described as a “righteous man who walked with God” (Genesis 6:9). Jesus was the perfect, blameless man who consistently obeyed His Father (Hebrews 4:15).
Noah was like a “second Adam”, since all people come from him (Genesis 8:15-9:17). Jesus Christ is called “the second man (Adam)” since He is the only source of eternal life (1 Corinthians 15:47; Acts 4:12).
Human evil had reached a deplorable high, so God decided to destroy His creation with a flood (Genesis 6:6-7). In God’s timing, He will wipe out His creation again, but this time by fire (2 Peter 3:12-13) and then re-create it (Revelation 21:1).
Each of us share some similarities with Noah as we look forward to the removal of sin and its curse.
This lesson from Genesis is a picture of Jesus as a bridge for us to God the Father and a new life. We have the choice to accept or reject God’s gracious invitation of new life through Jesus Christ. The entire story of a literal, visual portrayal of Noah, is a representation of the Scriptural truth “Deliverance comes before Judgment” in the grand theme of the Bible. As this series will illustrate, God has a plan that provides believers with a provision for deliverance before judgment is executed on an unbelieving world of mankind. This underlying theme encompasses the entire Bible, from Genesis up through the days preceding the Day of the Lord as described in Daniel’s 70th week of Judgment upon His people, “the apple of His eye”.
This is a pictographic image for the Pre-Tribulation Rapture. Others may choose to deny it but the concept of deliverance before judgment is a core theme of the Bible!
Pastor Bob