Basic Christianity Archives - Page 4 of 18

“With what body do they come?”

Jan 12, 2017 · by Mark McMillion · In: Angels, Miracles and the spirit world, Basic Christianity, Insights

A friend wrote me to ask, “Why is a resurrection necessary if those who died in Christ have already gone to be with the Lord?” So I wrote back, “The best answer I know of is that God’s plan is that we have new bodies like the Lord had after His resurrection. That’s what I Corinthians 15 is about.”

That may raise some big questions for some people. “New bodies?” “Jesus’ body after His resurrection?” Well, it’s all in the Bible. Many people have heard of “doubting Thomas.” What was he doubting? He was doubting the resurrection of Jesus and that the other apostles had seen Jesus literally, up close and personal, after He’d been crucified and buried.

But then what happened? The Bible says a few days later Jesus again appeared to His disciples, this time when Thomas was there. So Jesus told Thomas to “Reach here your hand and thrust it into my side [the wound He’d received from the soldier while He was on the cross] and be not faithless but believing.” (John 20:27)

On another occasion around the same time after Jesus’ resurrection, He told His disciples when He was visiting them. “Touch me and see for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see Me have.” (Luke 24:39) I know this can severely strain the brains of unbelievers and even those who are weak in faith. But this is what the Bible says so it might be good to look a little more at what all this means and signifies.

For one, the Bible clearly teaches that we, the saved believers, will have a body like Jesus at His coming. In I Corinthians 15:51 and 52, Paul said, “Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep [meaning die here] but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of the eye, at the last trumpet.” This is the 7^th trumpet, spoken of in other places as the sign or signal of the return of Jesus bodily to this earth. The verse goes on to say, “For the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”

This is one of the best verses that touches on this subject of the eternal bodies we’ll receive at the return of Jesus, at the end of this age and the beginning of the Millennium. Just to throw in one more verse on this, Paul wrote to the Philippians about Jesus who would “change our vile body that it may be fashioned like to His glorious body…” (Philippians 3:21).

But what kind of bodies will they be? Here’s what John wrote in his old age to the church at that time. “Beloved, now are we the sons of God and it does not yet appear what we shall be. But we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” (I John 3:2) We shall be like Him; we’ll have a similar-like physical existence to that which Jesus now has.

And what did Jesus say about His body? “A spirit has not flesh and bones as you see me have.” So it sounds pretty much like the body we have now. We have flesh and bones. But what does it seem Jesus didn’t have? Blood. Because “the life of the flesh is in the blood” (Leviticus 17:11). And also sin is in the blood.

So Jesus was able “to eat and drink, after that He rose from the dead.” (Acts 10:41) He asked His disciples as He was with them after His resurrection, “Have you any meat? And they gave Him a piece of broiled fish and a honeycomb. And He took it and did eat before them.” (Luke 24:41-43) So it’s pretty clear that He wasn’t like some ethereal ghost or spirit but was a tangible living man, the Son of God, in His new body, like the one we will ultimately have.

But it must be that it will in some way really be sustained in a new way, utterly by the Spirit since it seems that blood may no longer be involved. He could appear and disappear, evidently pass through walls and finally ascend up into heaven. But He said of Himself that He still had flesh and bones and He could and did eat with them, even in this utterly new physical condition.

This is fascinating for me. This is our ultimate destiny and destination, to still retain many of the attributes of the life we have now, but in a new, eternal, upgraded condition. We’ll be utterly changed but it won’t be all so different that we can’t understand it or work within it. The Corinthians had asked Paul about the resurrection and about “with what body do they come?” (I Corinthians 15:35), referring to the eternalized saints. I Corinthians 15 is a whole chapter on that subject. It’s just natural that we all are curious about some of these things and that we need and want some answers for it all to make sense. Wonderfully, it does. We’ve got a lot to look forward to.

Spiritualizing Prophecy

Dec 19, 2016 · by Mark McMillion · In: Basic Christianity, Insights, The Future and Endtime

Sometimes things really are simple. Isn’t prophecy by definition spiritual? Doesn’t the prophecy we study come from the Spirit of God? Of course. So it might sound odd if I write something about spiritualizing prophecy—but hear me out.

What I mean when I speak against what I call “spiritualizing prophecy” is this: it’s when someone takes a passage of Scripture that clearly refers to a specific, real-world event and interprets it solely in a symbolic or spiritual way, rather than expecting it to be literally fulfilled. But some prefer a spiritualized application instead of it being literally fulfilled, physically.

But Jesus didn’t come to earth spiritually. He wasn’t crucified spiritually or raised from the dead spiritually. These were physical, real-time events. Likewise, Israel didn’t spend 70 years in captivity and then return to their homeland spiritually. These events actually happened in history. That’s the point I’m trying to make.

Just this past year, I spoke with a dear friend—someone who has led many to the Lord—who passionately told me that we are currently living in the Kingdom of God on earth. According to this view, since “Jesus now reigns”, this present age is the Millennial Kingdom. I didn’t get angry, but I was deeply saddened—and frankly astonished—that any group of believers could be so clouded in their thinking as to mistake this present, broken world for the promised Kingdom of Christ on earth.

But as often happens, it doesn’t stop there.This morning I came across another article promoting the idea that nearly all of the key elements of the end-time picture—those long held by the Early Church—should now be spiritualized. We are now being told, “There will be no Antichrist as is told us in Revelation 13, II Thessalonians 2, Daniel 7 and many other places. We are the antichrist; we are the son of perdition”. This kind of teaching is, to me, a dangerous distortion—strong delusion spreading like a poisonous fog across the world.

I try to keep my blog posts short and direct, since most people today are busy and don’t have time (or patience) for lengthy essays. But I’ll say this plainly: in the history of both prophetic and biblical interpretation, this tendency to over-spiritualize has often been a serious hindrance to understanding God’s Word.

In recent centuries, there’s been a welcome return to what many consider the best approach—taking Scripture at face value. When a passage appears to say something plainly, that’s usually the best way to understand it, unless there’s a clear reason to read it otherwise.

When we read of the “woman clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet” in Revelation 12, we can be pretty confident in looking for some spiritual meaning there. But when chapter after chapter and book after book, stretching over centuries point towards a time of great trouble immediately preceding the coming of the Lord to establish God’s Kingdom on earth, we do ourselves and Him no service by endeavoring to spiritualize the whole thing. Nor do we stand on solid ground when we reinterpret the Antichrist or his actions as mere metaphor.

For example, Paul in II Thessalonians chapter 2 was trying to give a specific warning of something that he knew would come to pass before the second coming of Jesus. That is, that the Antichrist will “sit in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.” (II Thes. 2:4) That doesn’t sound symbolic. The Early Church wasn’t confused about it either. They taught it as a literal future event—just as the passage plainly says.

If you have any questions about that, get a copy of “Hippolytus of Rome’s Commentary on Daniel”, written around 211 AD. It’s as clear as can be how he saw that event to come from his Early Church vantage point.

Yet today, many insist, “We are the temple!” Yes, Paul did use that analogy when writing to the Corinthians: “You are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you.” (I Corinthians 3:16) But that’s not the context in 2 Thessalonians. There, Paul is referencing what was revealed to the prophet Daniel some 600 years earlier—the same Daniel that Jesus told us to study when He spoke about the end times to His disciples, “whoso reads, let him understand.” (Matthew 24:15)

I feel that to spiritualize key elements of the prophetic endtime picture is doing a great disservice to the Word of God and to the people of God. Jesus Christ came in the flesh, was buried and “rose again the third day, according to Scripture.” (I Corinthians 15:4) And according to those same Scriptures, a number of critical prophetic events will happen in real time, on this earth, before His return.

Serving God or Mammon

Dec 2, 2016 · by Mark McMillion · In: Basic Christianity, Current events, Insights

One of the more striking and perhaps perplexing things that Jesus said was this: “No man can serve two masters for he will either hate the one and love the other or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Mammon.” (Matthew 6:24) Determining how that plays out in the life of each individual has been a huge question for Christians through the centuries.

Examples in the four Gospels are numerous. Jesus said to the fishermen Peter and Andrew, “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” The Bible goes on to say, “And immediately they left their nets and followed him.” (Matthew 4:19 & 20) Matthew the tax collector is another example. “And as Jesus passed forth from there, he saw a man named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he said unto him, Follow me. And he arose, and followed him.” (Matthew 9:9)

Of course there are those who will rightly say that Jesus didn’t say that to everyone. But it might surprise you to see how many He did say that to. It is clear, though, that the concept of serving God, being a true follower and disciple is what the Bible has taught from beginning to end. God told Moses to say to Pharaoh, “Let my people go, that they may serve me.” (Exodus 8:1)

But what does that mean? How can we serve God? Are we serving God as we go about our secular employment? The daily “affairs of this life”? (II Tim 2:4) In the history of Christianity, there was a time when a very large number of people were in what was considered Christian service. The lived in monasteries, abbeys and various religious houses throughout Europe. It got to where these religious orders owned as much as 30% of the land of some nations. They accrued vast wealth in obligatory tithes and enforced offerings which all levels of society felt impelled to pay to these vast numbers who were ostensibly “serving God”.

And some of them were. They, some of them, ministered to the poor and did other things such as offering prayers or works of righteousness. But it got to where it was increasingly obvious that so many were just living off the fat of the land, laying a heavy yoke of religious bondage and servitude on society while doing little or nothing to serve God or man.

Actually, the place I’m writing this in was once a rectory of a Catholic church in Normandy, France, built in 1760. But at the time of the French Revolution, this property was seized by the government from the church and turned over for secular uses. This kind of thing had been going on in fits and starts since the 1500’s throughout Europe when kings and governments increasingly saw many if not most religious orders (those who said they were serving God) as being not much more than leeches on the body politic, neither truly serving God or rendering much of any service to mankind.

With Protestantism and the Reformation, the whole concept of serving God swung radically the other direction. Martin Luther said that one could faithfully and adequately serve God as a cook or plowman. And that to this day is the prevailing view of those whose roots are in Protestant Christianity.

But how about now? It’s pretty well known in modern Christian circles throughout the world that spiritual and moral darkness has precipitously increased in the lifetimes of many of us. It’s increasingly difficult to be “unequally yoked together with unbelievers” (II Corinthians 6:14). Very many are forced to compromise and even renounce their Christian convictions in their workplace in order to conform to the mores of “post-Christian” society throughout the Western world. Or simply hold their job. Millions are finding they must put their children in Christian schools or home school them in order to preserve some atmosphere of Godliness that their children can be safe in.

And I feel this trend is only likely to increase and accelerate. I’m still of the opinion that what Jesus said is true when He told His disciples just before His crucifixion, “I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go, I will come again and receive you unto myself.” (John 14:2 & 3) That Jesus said He would return to this world at the end of this age is indisputable. And it says in the Bible that in the times just before His return, that a worldwide economic system will be in place so that “no man might buy or sell except for those who had a mark in their hand or forehead”. (Revelation 13:17) The choice between serving God or Mammon is already becoming increasingly stark. And in the future to come, believers worldwide will literally have to choose the satanic world government to come or to throw their trust utterly on the Lord and to serve Him only.

I feel there’s a strong stirring in the body of Christ worldwide. So many sense that modern Christianity is insufficient for present times and certainly so for times to come. One of the most glaring deficiencies is how individual Christians are not being challenged or prepared to truly serve God in the way Christ taught and the way the early Christians lived.

If there is any happy ending to this post, it could be that I do feel the Bible indicates that in the prophetic endtime future, there will be a called out, vibrant, fruitful body of Christian believers who’ll stand up as some of God’s strongest witnesses in the world’s darkest time. “The people who do know their God shall be strong and do exploits. And they that understand among the people shall instruct many.” (Daniel 11:32&33)

Budapest Stories

Nov 15, 2016 · by Mark McMillion · In: Basic Christianity, Current events, My past

Presently I’m in Budapest, Hungary to do recordings of some of the prophecies of Daniel videos that I’ve done in English. Through the years, I’ve lived for perhaps a total of 5 years in this interesting central European capital and I consider this country to be one of my favorites that I’ve been in.

Tonight I met again the father of a dear Hungarian friend of mine here; it’s been nearly 20 years since I last met him. And I was thinking how much many of my friends back in the States would enjoy knowing this man. He is ethnically fully Jewish and was raised Jewish. But he’s been a Christian for years. He was born in central Budapest during some of the very worst of the early days of World War II.

Years ago I knew his mother, my Hungarian friend’s grandmother. When I knew her, she was in her late 80’s and was still a clear-eyed active skier in the snows of wintertime here. Twice during World War II she was marched down to the Danube River that flows through Budapest to be shot because she was Jewish. Twice Allied bombers appeared over the city to bomb it and she escaped.

It’s hard to describe how these things affect me when I meet these people. It’s a strong feeling in me of respect and almost awe in what they’ve experienced, juxtaposed with the incredibly stable and safe life that I and so many have lived in my lifetime.

Then later this evening my friend who does the Hungarian voice-over for my videos was telling me about the circumstances under which his mom was born in Budapest in the last days of World War II. His grandmother had been sheltering with others in a downtown basement for weeks as battles raged house to house throughout the city between the occupying Germans and the Russians who were liberating Hungary.

My friend told me tonight that his grandmother had gone upstairs from the basement and lay down on the kitchen table to give birth to his mom in 1945. There were firefights on the grounds of the property and soldiers running and firing back and forth just outside when she gave birth. He said his newborn mother didn’t cry or make a noise when she was born. She was taken back down to the basement by her mom and spent the first two weeks of her life there.

Many of us are concerned about our Wi-Fi connection, how our sports team is doing and if we’ll be able to take advantage of the upcoming sale at the shopping mall. We’ve seen nothing but relative stability and prosperity all our lives and it’s no wonder that almost all of us just really take it for granted that it will always be this way. So I often get really quiet and sober around people like I met tonight or when I hear stories from my friends about their parents who went through things like I heard today.

I know people in Holland who ate tulip bulbs to stay alive in World War II. Or a friend whose grandmother was being marched out of Warsaw, Poland by the Nazi’s when she asked permission of them to lay down in a haystack on the side of the road to give birth to my friend’s mother. It was granted. Or a friend in South Africa whose dad was on a prisoner train on the way to a German prison in World War II when he jumped off in the night into the snow and survived on turnips till he could get to safety. I could tell you more and it all affects me deeply.

“It can’t happen here!” they say. But of course it can. If you read history or get to know some of the people I’ve known, you realize how easily the world so many take as the only real world can actually crumble and be blown to dust, never to return again, in a matter of hours or days. So often we don’t realize how fragile and fleeting the things of this world are.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against wealth or prosperity. Moses of old said, “You shall remember the Lord your God, for He it is that gives you power to get wealth.” (Deut. 8:18) But then King David said of prosperity, “And in my prosperity I said, ‘I shall never be moved’. Lord, by your favor you have made my mountain to stand strong. You did withdraw your hand and I was troubled.” (Psalm 30:5 & 6)

Jesus told the story of the man who had much wealth laid up for many years and he was confident in his stability and prosperity. But then God spoke to him and said, “You fool, tonight your soul shall be required of you. Then whose shall those things be that you’ve lain up.” Jesus went on to say, “So is everyone who lays up treasure for themselves and is not rich towards God.” (Luke 12:20 & 21)

If you’ve ever had it all taken away from you, and I have a few times, you may begin to realize how fleeting and tenuous all our present prosperity and progress can turn out to be. Maybe it will continue for decades and generations to come. But more often than not, good times can vanish into the worst of barbarianism, no matter what country you’re in or society you are from. So many rant about the evils of government. But how many are truly trumpeting Jesus’ warning about “the deceitfulness of riches” (Matthew 13:22) which has extinguished the light of so many.

Solomon said, and he should know, “There is that makes himself rich, yet has nothing. And there is that makes himself poor, yet has great riches.” (Proverbs 13:7) It’s been a happy but sobering evening for me with these friends here and in this presently prospering place. But it’s been good to remember how it has been for even those here who are still with us and, except for the undeserved mercy of God, how it could be again. Anywhere.

Citizenship in heaven

Oct 11, 2016 · by Mark McMillion · In: Basic Christianity, Current events, Insights

Paul told some folks, “Our citizenship is in heaven” (Philippians 3:20). That may be a strange concept to some. And it may hit a raw nerve for others. Our citizenship, our nationality is for many people everywhere perhaps their most cherished identity. But then at the same time they will say they are Christians. Or Jewish. Or Muslim. And most, let’s say many, don’t see any clash at all between their professed faith in God and their nationality.

Patriotism is a very strong force in the USA, probably more than in many countries. I’ve met a number of new friends here over the last 6 months who are both extremely patriotic while at the same time being exceptionally serious about their Christian faith. They are very aware of current events here. Many feel the USA has already moved far towards a totalitarian state. They believe the original freedoms and rights that the country was founded upon are being eroded or are just plain gone. There’s talk of taking a stand, of fighting for liberty.

But this is where the discussion turns intense and focused. What exactly should one fight for? What are we? Is it a matter of just standing up for a cause? Which one? And for many of us, it comes back to our identity. What are we?

Pilate asked Jesus if He was a king. And Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews. But now is my kingdom not from hence.” (John 18:36) And this is where our conversations turn to when my friends and I discuss these things. Where are our loyalties and our basic allegiances supposed to belong to?

You don’t have to be a Christian in America to be extremely patriotic. Certainly there are millions of exceptionally patriotic Americans who are not Christians or for whom their faith is a distant second place to their allegiance to their country. But what about for a Christian, one whose life is centered around their faith in God and in Jesus?

I’ve written a few articles on this web site previously on this subject. I wrote “Proud to be an American” about my experiences while outside the USA for 36 years as a missionary and some times when I felt proud of my nationality. Another article was “Consumer, Citizen or Disciple” which traced the history of our identity and how people in America and elsewhere see themselves now.

But this dilemma, this conflict of interests has in history brought some believers in God to stark, immediate choices. If you read the history of Christianity, many early Roman Christians were brought to the place where they had to show allegiance to the Roman Empire or face death. Immediately. Countless numbers chose to take their stand with Jesus Christ and the God of Abraham, rather than to an earthly king and country. Of course we always can think, “That can’t happen here, not in my country! We’re too advanced for that, too intelligent, too sophisticated, too modern.”

For me personally, over 40 years ago I had to decide what would come first in my life and how I would see myself. I had to know that my allegiance to Jesus Christ and my citizenship in heaven had to be the most precious thing for me and what I felt was worth living and dying for. Since that time I have lived in over 40 countries as an ambassador of the kingdom of God and I have no regrets about that.

But for many here, this is a time of deep heart searching. Some even question if they should take up arms to defend what they see as their inalienable rights. But I don’t think I’m supposed to do that. That’s not the battle I’m supposed to fight. And I question if any sincere, consecrated Christian is supposed to take up earthly weapons to fight an earthly war for worldly goals. I don’t believe that’s the battle I’m called to and I feel many American Christians are going to be sadly shocked if they go that direction, to take up arms against their country.

Our calling is to stand up for the truth of Scriptures and perhaps especially to use the weapon of the truth within Bible prophecy to share with all we know the condition the world is in today and the soon possibly beginnings of the final events of the endtime. I feel it is there that the Lord will meet us, is even waiting there for us, to be His salvation army of true witnesses to what has been foretold in prophecy for over 2000 years, of the final events of the endtime before His coming. Yes, we are supposed to fight but it should be “the good fight of faith.” (I Timothy 6:12)

That’s a battle worth fighting that we’re destined to win. Those with true faith in God will find their strength and calling and victory, not fighting earthly political battles to save their nation but fighting the good fight of faith for the truth and for lost souls everywhere. It is written, “They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.” (Revelation 12:11)