And so how can you, as a Christian, ensure that such a thing doesn’t happen to you? The answer is simple: You must do that which is necessary to keep your fellowship with Christ maintained and strong. How do you accomplish this? You do it through such things as: daily prayer, daily Bible study, weekly church attendance, cheerful giving, frequent witnessing, and regular confession and repentance. I know, I know, these things have been promoted so much they’ve become virtual cliches of Christianity. But they’ve been promoted so much because they work!

In Jeremiah 6:16, the prophet Jeremiah says to the people of Judah:

Thus says the Lord: “Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where the good way is, and walk in it. Then you will find rest for your souls…”

By encouraging the people to ask for the old paths God was telling them, “The things I’ve had you do before will still work and keep you in right fellowship with me.” To those Jews that meant keeping the moral specifics of the Mosaic law, bringing their sacrifices to the temple as acts of worship, offering up their prayers to God, confessing their sins and repenting of them, and looking to God for their guidance and protection. Sadly, though, those people would have none of it. Jeremiah 6:16 ends with the mournful words:

…But they said, ‘We will not walk in it (the good way found in the old paths).’

Now, I do realize that the “old paths” for the Christian today aren’t the same as the ones the Old Testament Jews were to walk. However, the basic template is still the same: adherence to God’s word, worship, prayer, confession, repentance, and seeking God’s guidance and protection. The Christian whose life evidences these things need never worry about rotting or sinking because his spiritual boat will be solid and worthy of sailing the seas of life. As we all know, those seas can sometimes be stormy, choppy, and downright dangerous, but the Christian who is walking God’s in old paths won’t sink. How can he when he has the Lord Himself as his captain?

In the K.J.V.’s New Testament three very different Greek words get translated as the one word “hell.” This has caused untold confusion among sincere students of the Bible. The three words are Tartarus, Gehenna, and Hades. I could devote an entire series of posts to explaining what the Bible teaches about each place, but I won’t do that because I’m already in a series. So, for my purposes here, let me just give you the barest of the bare basics.

First, Tartarus (2 Peter 2:4) is a place exclusively for the imprisonment of certain fallen angels. No human souls have ever been or ever will be incarcerated there. In the New Testament this place also goes by two other names. In the book of The Revelation it is “the bottomless pit” mentioned in chapters 9,11,17, and 20. In Luke 8:31 and Romans 10:7 it is “the deep.” The terms “the bottomless pit” and “the deep” both translate the Greek word abussos, from which we get our English word “abyss.”

Second, Gehenna is the eternal lake of fire of chapters 19-21 of The Revelation. Even though this place is in existence now it is completely empty as of yet. Its first occupants will be the Anti-Christ and the False Prophet from the coming tribulation period (Revelation 19:20).

This leaves us with Hades, which is where Acts 2:27 places Christ’s soul after His death. Perhaps it’s best to think of Hades as being a general realm of the dead. In the Old Testament Hebrew it goes by its Hebrew name Sheol. In the Old Testament the soul of every deceased person goes to Sheol (Hades). You ask, “Do you mean that in Old Testament days the souls of saved people went to the same afterlife abode as the souls of lost people?” Yes, that’s right. There is, however, more to it than that.

The thing about Hades (Sheol) is this: It has two sections. One section was for the souls of saved believers, and the other section was for the souls of lost unbelievers. While the Old Testament certainly hints at these two sections, the New Testament comes right out and describes each one. The passage is Luke 16:19-31, Christ’s story of the rich man and the beggar Lazarus. The souls of the rich man and the beggar both went to Hades upon death. The beggar’s soul went to the bliss section of Hades, where he was comforted by the soul of Abraham, an Old Testament believer. On the other hand, the rich man’s soul went to the torment section where there was no comfort. The rich man could engage in a brief conversation with Abraham and Lazarus, but a great gulf prevented him from passing over to that other section.

Now, it is the torment section of Hades (Sheol) that people have in mind when they talk about someone dying and going to hell. And this notion is factual because this is exactly the place where every lost soul now goes. This section is a place of torment and flame (Luke 16:24). It is a place of painful remembrance of the events of your earthly life (Luke 16:25). It is a place where all your requests are denied (Luke 16:24, 27-28, 30-31).

And would you believe that Hades (both sides) is literally located in the heart of the earth? The Old Testament always speaks of the place in terms of being “down.” Read the story of how God allowed a medium to conjure up the soul of the deceased Samuel so that Samuel could pronounce a word of doom on King Saul (1 Samuel 27:3-25). According to the story, Samuel’s soul ascended up out of the earth, not down from heaven. Furthermore, not only is Hades located somewhere in the heart of the earth, the Bible also teaches that the place has gates (Job 17:16, Matthew 16:18).

And so now the question becomes, “Which section of Hades did Christ’s soul go to at His death?” We find the answer in Luke 23:43. There, just before He dies, Jesus promises the believing thief on the cross beside Him, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.” Make no mistake, there is no correlation whatsoever between the torment section of Hades and “Paradise.” And since Jesus said, “you will be with me,” He obviously went to the bliss section of Hades.

I should point out that the word “Paradise” is used in two other places in the New Testament. First, in 2 Corinthians 12:4 the apostle Paul uses it in reference to “the third heaven,” which is God’s heaven, the place we think of when we use the word “heaven.” Then second, in Revelation 2:7 (when interpreted through the lens of Revelation 22:2) the word is used in reference to the future city of New Jerusalem, the city where the saved of all history will spend eternity. You see, in the New Testament the specific “Paradise” being mentioned is determined by the context and time-frame of the passage in question. Before Christ’s death and resurrection, “Paradise” was the bliss section of Hades. After Christ’s death and resurrection, “Paradise” became the third heaven, God’s heaven. In the prophetic future, after Christ’s thousand-year-reign upon this earth, “Paradise” will become the heavenly city called the New Jerusalem.

Okay, I’m going to put a period here for now, but it’s not because I don’t have more to say about Hades. I just feel like I’ve given you plenty of scriptural meat to chew on for one post. Let me encourage you to study all these references for yourself. I think you’ll find them interesting reads. Then, in my next post, I’ll say the rest of what I need to say about Hades and Christ’s soul going there after His death.

I’ll reserve judgment on where God would have had that farmer be that Sunday morning, but any pastor will tell you that a lot of people sit in church services and think about some kind of “hay.” Their minds aren’t really on worship. They don’t pay much attention to the Sunday School lesson or the sermon. They barely mouth the words during the singing. They couldn’t rename even half the prayer requests or the announcements. Their bodies are at their posts, but their minds are AWOL.

Is such a thing pleasing to God? Of course not. He wants more than mere zombies who dutifully report for roll call. Certainly this goes for church attendance, but it also goes for Bible study, prayer, witnessing, and giving. Any time we are engaged in doing any of these things, our minds should be fixated on the task at hand. No “hay” should divide our thoughts and focus. Remember this the next time you find your mind drifting as you try to do something for the Lord.

And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure. Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:7-10)

T. De Witt Talmage, one of America’s most prominent preachers in the late 1800s, put it best when he said, “Many of the theological doctors have felt Paul’s pulse to see what was the matter with him.” Boy, have they ever! The question “What was Paul’s thorn in the flesh?” is one of the most well known in all of Christianity. So I thought I’d write a blog post and offer the correct answer so I could clear up the debate once and for all. Yeah, right.

What I will do is name the two contenders for the “best answer” category. Ready? Here we go.

Possible answer #1: The thorn in the flesh was some kind of physical ailment with which Paul struggled continually.

In Galatians 4:13-15, Paul does speak of preaching the gospel in “physical infirmity” and “my trial which was in my flesh.” He also says of the Galatian Christians, “…you would have plucked out your own eyes and given them to me.” If we take that literally, Paul had a problem with his eyes and perhaps that was his thorn in the flesh. However, it’s possible that “plucked out your own eyes” was just a figure of speech (Matthew 5:29, 18:9).

Even if it was just a figure of speech, the idea that Paul’s thorn in the flesh was some kind of physical ailment (bad eyesight or something else) is further strengthened by the fact that he himself says, “Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities…” Furthermore, the thorn was in his “flesh,” which most commonly would be taken to mean “in my body.”

Possible answer #2: The thorn in the flesh was a demon (a fallen angel).

On the heels of using the term “a thorn in the flesh,” Paul further describes the thorn as “a messenger of Satan to buffet me.” The Greek word that is translated there as “messenger” is angelos, which is the common Greek word for “angel.” This answer is given even more credence by the fact that Paul knew the Old Testament well, and the word “thorn” is used multiple times in its pages to refer to enemies of Israel (Numbers 33:55; Joshua 23:13; Judges 2:3; Ezekiel 28:24). All of this explains why both Martin Luther and John Calvin held to this answer.

However, while the term “messenger (angelos) of Satan” seems to refer to an “angel of Satan” (which would be a demon), it should be noted that Paul also referred to the thorn as “this thing” and “it.” This creates a problem for this answer because scripture refers to Satan, the leader of all the fallen angels, as “he” not “it.” The point is that maybe Paul would have used a pronoun if he was indeed talking about a fallen angel.

Well, as you can see, each of these two possible answers has its merits. Because of this, the debate will continue until we all get to heaven. I don’t think that’s a bad thing, though. As many students of the Bible have figured out, the fact that Paul’s thorn in the flesh remains unidentified allows more people to relate to it. Putting it another way, if we knew for sure that the thorn was an eyesight problem, it would lose some of its appeal to people who have 20/20 vision. But since we don’t know for sure, each of us has the freedom to compare Paul’s thorn to whatever problem we are wrestling.

Of course, there’s one thing that shouldn’t be forgotten: the actual goal of the contest. The contest wasn’t held to see who could jump the highest. It was held to see if anyone could jump up and touch the moon. Lebron got the closest to meeting the goal, but even he failed miserably at it.

The Bible teaches that earning your way into heaven by way of “good works” is like that contest. The goal is an impossibility right from the start. Oh, sure, some may produce more “good works” than others. But, in the end, it’s laughable to think that anyone could get even remotely close to pulling of the goal. It can’t happen, and here’s why:

-Every human being is a born sinner (Romans 3:10; Romans 3:23; Ecclesiastes 7:20).

-Our inborn sin nature comes from Adam, the father of our race (Genesis 3:1-24; 1 Timothy 2:13-14; Romans 5:12).

-Our nature of sin compels us to commit acts of sin (Isaiah 53:6; Romans 3:11-18).

-To break just one of God’s laws is to stand guilty of breaking them all; it’s an all-or-nothing type of deal (James 2:10).

You see, once you understand the set-up going in, you’ll realize that salvation, and by implication entrance into heaven, can NEVER come by way of “good works” (Titus 3:4-7; Ephesians 2:8-9). It is instead a gift that God gives to the sinner, a gift He extends in grace (unearned favor) to the one who places his or her faith in Jesus Christ as Savior (Ephesians 2:8).

I challenge you right now to take your Bible, look up and read all the references that I have listed in this post, and let the truth of them wash over you. When you do you’ll see that the whole idea of someone earning their way into heaven by way of “good works” is patently absurd. Salvation is a gift, and like any gift it must be accepted to be owned. Since this gift is all wrapped up in a person, Jesus Christ, the only way to accept it is to accept Him. Call it putting your faith in Jesus. Call it believing in Him. Call it opening the door of your heart to Him. Call it receiving Him. These terminologies are all just different ways of describing the acceptance of the gift. But whatever you do, ACCEPT THE GIFT!!! If you don’t, you might as well be trying to jump and touch the moon.

I should begin by pointing out that the Bible uses the word “wine” well over two hundred times, and it offers many different Old Testament Hebrew and New Testament Greek words for wine. The Hebrew words are: yayin, tiyrosh, raaph, chamar, mamcak, cobe, aciyc, enab, and shemer. The Greek words are oinos and gleukos. The most used Hebrew word is yayin, which is used over 130 times. The most used Greek word is oinos, which is used over 30 times.

And is the “wine” of the Bible alcoholic (fermented, as opposed to being mere grape juice)? Of course it is, and if you can’t see that you’re just not trying. Do you remember that I said that yayin is the Old Testament’s most common word for wine? Well, it was yayin that got Noah drunk (Genesis 9:21). Do you remember that I said that oinos is the New Testament’s most common? Well, Ephesians 5:18 says “And do not be drunk with wine (oinos)…” You can’t get drunk on grape juice.

What we have to understand is that wine was as common to the Jewish way of life as milkshakes are to ours. I went with milkshakes because the Jews didn’t drink wine for their typical meals like they did water or milk. They usually saved it for special occasions such as feasts and celebrations (Genesis 14:18; 27:25; 2 Samuel 13:28; John 2:1-10). But make no mistake, wine was common to them. Let me offer three evidences of that.

First, the Jews saw wine as nothing less than a symbol of God’s blessing. When Isaac pronounced his patriarchal blessing upon Jacob, part of it was that God would give Jacob “plenty of grain and wine” (Genesis 27:28). Moses told the Jews that if they would faithfully obey the law that God had given them they would receive great blessings. Some of those blessings would be “your grain and your new wine and your oil” (Deuteronomy 7:13). Psalm 104:15 clearly lists wine as a blessing on par with oil and bread. (By the way, that verse describes wine as that which “makes glad the heart of man.” Grape juice doesn’t do that.)

Second, the God-given Old Testament law commanded the Jews to tithe their wine (Deuteronomy 12:17; 14:22-23). This makes perfect sense in light of the fact that they viewed wine as a blessing along the same lines as oil and bread. Since it was made from harvested grapes, they also saw it as a part of their harvests, which certainly qualified it for tithing.

Third, under that same body of law, the Jewish priests were to use a specific amount of wine in the daily offering up of two “drink offerings” (Exodus 29:38-45). One drink offering was to be done in conjuncture with the morning sacrificing of a lamb, and another drink offering was to be done with the evening sacrificing of a lamb. For the record, the Hebrew word that is used in that passage for “wine” is that familiar word yayin, which makes it alcoholic wine, the same kind that got Noah drunk. Yes, God really did command that alcoholic wine be used as a part of certain daily, holy sacrifices to Him.

You see, the idea that the Jews of the Bible were teetotalers is just plain wrong. They knew all about drinking wine. Furthermore, the idea that the wine was non-alcoholic grape juice is just as wrong. I’m not trying to make anybody mad or suggest that each of us should go have a glass of wine. I’m just conveying what the Bible teaches and letting it say what it says, not what some of us might like it to say. Is this all that I have to share on this subject? Certainly not. This has simply been an opening post to cover some of the basics about the Bible and wine. Hang with me for the rest of this series and I promise that we will cover much more ground, topics such as: “strong drink,” drunkenness, Jesus drinking wine, Jesus making wine, prohibitions against drinking, Christian liberty, and causing a brother to stumble. Stay tuned.

Just this week we’ve uploaded six new sermons to the ever-growing list. They are:

1. “Eli: A Man Who Failed As A Father”
2. “God’s Temporary Rejection of Israel”
3. “Making Room For Jesus”
4. “Praying In Jesus’ Name”
5. “Praying In the Holy Spirit”
6. “The Overcomer”

Now, I realize that many of you are like me in that you find it hard to find time to listen to a sermon. I understand that. But I just want you to know that the site is there to provide you with spiritual help and Biblical truth whenever you need it.

On the subject of Biblical truth, let me especially recommend that you click on the resource “A Guide for God’s Plan of Salvation.” Trust me, there’s a little more than John 3:16 there. I spent untold hours writing that guide and it is choked full of Bible verses and doctrinal facts. I start with the statement “There Is A God” and launch off from there. Really, if you used your daily devotion time to simply cover one section per day and read the verses for that section, it would be time well spent.

Another rich resource is the one entitled “What We Believe.” Again, if you used your devotion time to just cover one section per day and read the verses, you’d be blessed. The “Prophetic Events” section alone has ten different parts to it. And when you break them down into bite-size devotions, they make for great studies.

Well, I’ll hush now because I don’t want to “oversell” the product. All kidding aside, though, it’s a good website. Other sites might be snazzier and feature more graphics and such, but they’d be hard pressed to offer any more help in teaching the Bible. We’re just meat and potatoes. But what else would you expect from me? You’ve read my blog, right?

The barracks certainly didn’t disappoint as the young fellow found himself surrounded by scores of rough servicemen. They joked around, made crude comments, and cursed. His first instinct was to read his Bible by keeping it half covered under his blanket. But then a wave of conviction came over him and he thought, “I’m a Christian! I must take my stand for the Lord. I won’t hide my faith. I’ll just do as I did at home.” He then took his Bible, read a chapter, and knelt down to pray quietly beside his cot.

When the other men noticed what the young man was doing, a few of them sneered. But in just a few minutes the barracks became strangely quiet as others who respected the new recruit’s devotion hushed those who sneered. After a while the talk began again, but this time without the crudeness and cursing.

The next night when the young man opened his Bible eight other men dug out theirs and did the same. Within a month every soldier in the outfit respected the young Christian so much that they would defend him against anyone who dared criticize him. Even more than that, they would bring their troubles and questions to him and ask for counsel. Rimmer concluded the story by saying, “He influenced more men for Christ than half a dozen chaplains could have in a year of Sundays.”

This world can be a raw, coarse, vulgar place, and being a Christian who tries to live a holy life in its midst can be difficult. Do the people at your workplace tell dirty jokes? Do some of your fellow students use profanity? Do you feel like you would be mocked and ridiculed if you were caught on site reading your Bible or praying? Welcome to your army barracks.

What would Jesus have you do? Well, what example did He set? Did He isolate Himself in a cave atop a mountain and shun the “real” world? No. Did He only converse with His devout followers, people who thought and spoke like He did? No. Did He act one way in private but another way in public? No. To the contrary, He lived what He preached. And what was that? He told His followers to resist the urge to hide their light under a basket and let it, instead, shine before men (Matthew 5:15-16).

So, Christian, I hope you take this post as a call to arms. Stop hiding your light under a basket. Those around you need to see it burning brightly for your Savior. Who knows what domino effect you taking a stand for Christ might start? My guess is that there are others in your setting who are just as offended with certain things as you are. They just need a leader to show them how to create change. And that leader could be you!

You ask, “So if the passages talk about two earthly rulers, why do we bring Satan into the context?” We do it because certain parts of the passages simply cannot refer to anyone but Satan. Consider the following examples, all taken from the New King James translation.

1. “How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!…” (Isaiah 14:12) No earthly king of Babylon ever fell from heaven.

2. “For you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God…’” (Isaiah 14:13) No earthly king would think that he could ascend to heaven and take over.

3. “You were in Eden, the garden of God…” (Ezekiel 28:13) No earthly king was in the garden of Eden..

4. “You were the anointed cherub who covers…” (Ezekiel 28:14) A cherub is a type of angel.

5. “You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, till iniquity was found in you.” (Ezekiel 28:15) Because every human being is a sinner from birth, no one is perfect from the day he is created.

In light of these examples, it’s clear that God is speaking to more than the kings of Babylon and Tyre in these passages. Yes, He’s pronouncing judgment upon them, but He’s also speaking to Satan. The implication is that Satan is the real power behind their thrones. He is so closely associated with the two kings that God can speak to him even as He is speaking to them.

Okay, with all that understood, now let me explain the name “Lucifer,” which is used in Isaiah 14:12. I need to begin by saying that the King James and the New King James are the only two English translations that use this name “Lucifer.” The Hebrew word these two translations render as “Lucifer” is helel. Bible scholars are in agreement that helel literally means “shining one,” “bright one,” or even “light-bringer.” Translators have often translated it as the so-called “morning star” or “day star,” which is actually the planet Venus appearing in the east just before sunrise.

As evidence that translators agree on this meaning for helel, consider the renderings that modern translations give to Isaiah 14:12:

1. “How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning, son of the dawn!…” (New American Standard Version)

2. “How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn!…” (New Revised Standard Version)

3. “Shining morning star, how you have fallen from the heavens!…” (Holman Christian Standard)

4. “How you have fallen from heaven, O light-bringer and daystar, son of the morning!…” (The Amplified Bible)

5. “How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn!…” (New International Version)

Alright, now that we understand the literal meaning of helel, the question becomes, “Then why do the King James translation and the New King James translation render the word as “Lucifer”? Actually, since the New King James simply sticks with the King James rendering, the question is really, “Why did the King James translators go with the name “Lucifer”?

The answer to that is found in the fact that before the Bible was ever translated into any kind of English, it was translated into Latin. The Latin translation was called the Vulgate. And what is the Latin word for “morning star”? It is “lucifer.” You see, when the King James translators came to Isaiah 14:12, they decided to just carry the name “lucifer” over from the existing Latin translation. In other words, “Lucifer” is not an English word. It is, instead, a Latin word that was incorporated into an English translation.

It’s sad that modern translators have been criticized by some for simply doing their job. When they came to helel in Isaiah 14:12, they actually translated it rather than go with some long-standing Latin word that would need translating itself because so few people know Latin. In doing so, the translators left themselves open to the charge of attempting to rob the Bible of one of its greatest teachings on the devil. Even worse than that, since Jesus calls Himself “the Bright Morning Star” in Revelation 22:16, they’ve been accused of associating Jesus with Satan or even promoting the lordship of Satan.

On this whole subject, Merrill Unger, the highly respected Bible scholar and commentator, has pointed out that Isaiah 14:12 isn’t the only Old Testament passage where the morning star and angels are linked together. The other passage is Job 38:7, which speaks of the time when “the morning stars” sang together and all the “sons of God” shouted for joy. (Job 1:6 and 2:1 plainly show that the term “sons of God” refers to angels in the book of Job.) So, you see, it really isn’t so strange that the original Hebrew of Isaiah 14:12 would describe Satan as the “morning star.” And as for Jesus using the title for Himself, that’s His emphatic way of saying that He is the true “morning star,” one far brighter and far greater than Satan.

It isn’t hard for translators to understand the basic meaning of murias, but they do struggle somewhat with how best to put it into English. Take the translators of the classic King James for instance. In Hebrews 12:22, they go with “innumerable” to translate it, but in Revelation 5:11-12 they render it “ten thousand times ten thousand.” In Acts 19:19, they translate it as “fifty thousand,” but in Luke 12:1 they again use “innumerable.” In Acts 21:20, it’s “thousands,” while in Jude 14 it’s “ten thousands.”

The challenge of precisely translating murias has led some translators to basically jam the Greek word straight into the English by rendering it “myriads.” This could be called a transliteration rather than a translation. For example, in the New American Standard Version, Hebrews 12:22 reads “myriads of angels” and Revelation 5:11 reads “myriads of myriads.”

While I understand why murias might be translated as “innumerable,” we really shouldn’t think that God created an infinite, limitless, never-ending number of angels. The fact is, there is a certain number of them. No doubt it is an exceedingly high number, but it is a countable number, at least countable by God.

How do we know this? We know it because Revelation 12:4 says that when Satan fell from heaven “His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth.” (N.K.J.V.) Obviously, Satan doesn’t have a literal tail, and the angels that followed him in his rebellion against God aren’t literal stars, but the point is made: A third of the angels that God created can now be classified as “fallen” with the angel Satan. And to have a third of something, that something must have a set number, right? There simply is no such thing as one-third of innumerable.

So, now that we know all this, how do we answer the question, “How many angels are there?” Well, it’s clearly impossible for us to calculate an exact number, but we can feel very safe in saying that there are tens of thousands. I wouldn’t argue with anyone who believes there are hundreds of thousands. I wouldn’t even rule out that there are millions, perhaps even billions. What I do know is that however many there are, the more the better because the majority (two-thirds) of them still do God’s bidding.