Bible Study Seattle

Why do we sleep?  Science seems to point to memory retention as the reason.  Apparently our brains need to organize the thoughts and feelings of the day.

Another curiosity is the Bible’s association of sleep and death.  Sleep is a near unconscious state and death is totally unconscious.  Sleep implies an awaking and so does death, hence the association in the Bible.  After he had said this, he went on to tell them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.”  John 11:11  “For she is not dead, but sleeps.”  Matthew 9:24 “Why make a tumult and weep?  The child is not dead, but sleeps.”  Mark 5:39

While ordinary sleep is roughly 8 hours, the sleep of death is much longer.  However, just as time seems to fly between the time you fall asleep and wake the next morning, so with the sleep of death.  Centuries may go by as if it were a flash in the night.  It will be as if King David closed his eyes in death, only to open them back up again to the new reality where Christ is the ruler instead of Satan.

Plants play a role in the return to paradise.  Both the grain offering and fellowship sacrifice included fine flour (Leviticus 2 & 7).  In the days before Noah, people were vegetarians.  Afterword the flood Noah was told, “Every living creature will be food for you; as I gave the green plants, I have given you everything.”  But evidently in the future, people and animals will return to being vegetarians.  Isaiah 11:6-9 says, “The wolf will live with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the goat.  The calf, the young lion, and the fatling will be together, and a child will lead them.  The cow and the bear will graze, their young ones will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like an ox.  An infant will play beside the cobra’s pit, and a toddler will put his hand into a snake’s den.  No one will harm or destroy on My entire holy mountain, for the land will be as full of the knowledge of the Lord as the sea is filled with water.”

Plants’ greatest honor is hinted at in the beginning and end of the Bible.  “The Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there He placed the man He had formed.  The Lord God caused to grow out of the ground every tree pleasing in appearance and good for food, including the tree of life in the midst of the garden, as well as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”

Trees were essential to mankind’s wellbeing.  This is really brought home in Revelation 22.  “Then he showed me the river of living water, sparkling like crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the bread street [of the city].  On borth sides of the river was the tree of life bearing 12 kinds of fruit, producing its fruit every month.  The leaves of the tree are for healing the nations, and there will no longer be any curse.”

Perfect trees yielding perfect fruit allowing mankind to live forever!  Not bad.  And there’s 12 kinds rotated each month so you won’t get bored!

What is the future of the animals?  Adam named the animals, and Satan used an animal (the serpent) to tempt Adam & Eve.  Perhaps this is why Abel offered an animal sacrifice: it was punishment for playing a part in humans’ fall. 

There’s a curious line in Genesis 9:5: “And surely for your lifeblood I will require an accounting; from every beast I will require it, and from man, from every man [who spills another’s lifeblood] I will require a reckoning.  Every animal is accountable if they kill a person. 

Numbers 3:40-41 is curious: “Register every firstborn male of the Israelites one month old or more, and list their names.  You are to take the Levites for Me – I am the Lord – in place of every firstborn among the Israelites, and the Levites’ cattle in place of every firstborn among the Israelites’ cattle.”  The Levites won the honor of the firstborn by slaughtering the unfaithful who worshiped the golden calf.  Exodus 32:25-29  “The Levites did as Moses commanded, and about 3,000 men fell dead that day among the people.  Afterwards Moses said, “Today you have been dedicated to the Lord, since each man went against his son and his brother.  Therefore you have brought a blessing on yourselves today.”  They earned the chief blessing of the firstborn, and so did their cattle! 

The firstborn Hebrews received a double portion of the inheritance.  Why?  To illustrate heaven.  Heaven is a better inheritance than earth.  Since the firstborn animals were also set apart, therefore there will be a faithful group of animals in heaven just as there will be people! 

The Law of Moses is a curious thing.  There’s no jail.  Except in the case of accidental murder, where the accused are to seek asylum in one of the six cities of refuge (asylum not being the same as prison).  There were only two courses of action: restitution or death.  Also note that there was no torture.  God is not a god of torture, Satan is.

Thus it is in the judgment.  God wishes that all should come to a knowledge of the truth.  He is not happy at the death of the wicked.  But He will not suffer evil forever, hence the ultimate penalty is second death.  Not torture.  First death (the death we all experience) is described in the Bible as sleep, from which everyone will awake in the first and second resurrections.

Judgment consists of a trial and a verdict.  Most people today have the incorrect assumption that this life is all there is.  Not so.  There’s a second life where all will learn righteousness (unless they refuse).  God gives everyone ample time to reform; up to a thousand years.  All of us will have the opportunity to repent of our sins and to forgive our enemies in the Millennial reign of Christ.  We must do this if we are to eat from the trees of life in the great City and live eternally.

https://biblestudyseattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/the-millennium.pdf

Why do we have five fingers?  Why not four or six?

Prophecy!  Daniel 2 tells of a dream King Nebuchadnezzar had that troubled him.  A colossal statue appeared, with a head of gold, chest of silver, thighs of copper, and feet of iron/clay mixture.  These were four successive universal kingdoms.  Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome.  Then a fifth, a stone broke off without a hand touching it struck the statue and shattered the first four kingdoms.

Solomon’s temple was built without chisel or hammer on site.  All hammering and chiseling happened beforehand offsite.  The same was true with the great pyramid of Gisa.  Final assembly was whisper quiet.  And so with the heavenly temple, all the shaping and polishing happens beforehand.  Final assembly is absolutely quiet.  When the Lord combines his heavenly stones into his temple (of which Jesus is the chief capstone), not a sound will be heard.  The world will be unaware.  This stone kingdom will shatter the four previous kingdoms.

Notice that we have opposable thumbs.  Thus Christ’s kingdom works with yet opposes the four other kingdoms (fingers).  Was it not Paul who said that all nature declares God’s design?

Leviticus 8 and 14 says the priests or the people had the blood of the sin offering or restitution offering placed on the lobe of their right ear, the thumb of their right hand, and the big toe of their right foot.  This is significant.

Google this question, and you will see that perhaps the Egyptians or Babylonians came up with this because they were fond of base 12 number systems.  I have a different theory.  The 24 hour day is prophetic.

Remember that days are not always 24 hours.  We talk about George Washington’s day or say ‘back in the day’.  Peter tells us that to the Lord a day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is as a day.  Adam was warned that he would die the day he ate the fruit.  He died 930 years later.  So the ‘day’ he died was a thousand years long.

Even longer, Adam was created in the sixth day of creation; we are now in the seventh.  That day is much longer than a thousand years.  It’s probably 7,000 years.

The Hebrew day is peculiar.  It starts at sundown, and ends at sundown.  Approximately 6pm to 6pm.  The first half of the day is called evening, the second half morning.  The first half is dark, the second half light.  Why?

The dark/light pattern of the Hebrew day is also prophetic.  The first half is dark and troublesome.  The second half is described as the Sun rising with healing in it’s beams (Malachi 4:2).  Mary replied to Jesus that she would rise from the dead in the last day.  The thousand year Millennial reign of Christ.  All enemies must be put under Jesus’ feet, and the last enemy to be destroyed is death.

There are 12 months in a year.  There are also 12 tribes of Israel, and 12 apostles of the Lamb.  Revelation 4 mentions 24 elders ruling from 24 thrones.  1 Chronicles 25 has a peculiar set of 24 men who were to prophesy with music in the temple.  Each was a family of 12 – a total of 288.  Revelation 7 lists 144,000 Hebrew princes who are to rule.  Revelation 14 lists 144,000 Christian saints who are to rule.  288,000.

There are 24 hours in a day, and 24 rulers in the Millennial Day.  12 rule seen in the day, and 12 rule unseen in the night.  12 x 12,000 rule from earth, and 12 x 12,000 rule from heaven.  1 Chronicles 27 says David stationed 24,000 men on military duty each month of the year.  288,000.  Jesus will be the King who leads this army whose only weapon is truth.

Was the crucifixion Nisan 14 or 15th?  Was the resurrection Nisan 16th or 17th?  The passover says the lamb should be killed at twilight Nisan 14.  But was that twilight beginning the day or ending it?