The shortest way is not always the best way - Exodus 13:17-18

We all know more or less the story of the Israelites. It took them 40 years to enter the promised land, in a trip that shouldn’t normally last more than a few weeks. As we may also know, almost all the delay was due to their own disobedience. When the time had finally arrived to enter the land, they were afraid to do so and stepped back. The result was that it took them 40 years more (!!) to go into the land and only 2 people from the initial generation succeeded. All the others died in the wilderness and it was their kids that entered in their place. We will not concentrate on this exercise of disobedience today. Anyway, it was NOT the initial plan of God to have them in the wilderness 40 years. However God did delay a little bit the plan of entering the land. Not for years but it was indeed a little bit longer than the shortest way. We find the relative passage in Exodus 13:17-18. There we read:

Exodus 13:17-18
"Then it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God did not lead them by way of the land of Philistines, ALTHOUGH THAT WAS NEAR; for God said, "Lest perhaps the people change their minds when they see war, and return to Egypt." So God led the people around by the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea. And the children of Israel went up in orderly ranks out of the land of Egypt"

What impressed me in this passage is the fact that God didn’t lead the people through the shortest way but He preferred a path a little bit longer. We sail off sometimes to a trip that we expect to take time X. We expect that we will get a job at age X, we will get married at time XX, we will make the first kid at time XXX and we will live XXXX years. It may not be an illogical plan. We may have planned things as we see them around in our world. And the way we may have planned them it may be fine and it may work this way. But it doesn’t always. At least it didn’t in the case of the Israelite's, in my case in certain things and it might be in your case too. Sometimes, time is going by and our lives seem to drift away from our expectations. We wonder what are we doing in a wilderness that is looking like the "wilderness of the Red Sea". If a few years ago you had told me that I would be in Germany, doing the job that I’m doing right now I would have told you "that’s impossible. It is completely out of my plans." I had planned my life probably in a similar way that you had planned yours. But it didn’t turn out like this. Not living the alternative (what I had planned), I don’t know whether it is better or worse. I don’t know and I may never know. You don’t know and you may never know - perhaps prior to see the One that sits on the throne - why things turned out the way they did. Why you are there still expecting something that you thought was the simplest thing of the world. Things may have happened that you had never imagined. You might have planned your life the way I had planned mine but…. You might have planned your life the way the Israelite's had planned theirs but…. I good news for you: GOD LEADS YOU. There is the case where the wilderness is because of disobedience. I don’t want to speak about it today. I hope you are not in this one. If you are, the answer is OBEDIENCE. "Draw nearer to God and He will draw nearer to you" (James 4:8). But this is not the purpose of this article. The purpose of this article is the unfulfilled expectation. The cases were it seems that God is late. "God" we say, "I expected from you more than what I ask or think. And yet the years go by and by and I never see my prayer answered." And God says through the mouth of the Lord with the parable of the widow (Luke 18:1-5): "Don’t give up praying son. I don’t give up on you." We say to God, "God, you have written about deferred hope… that makes the heart sick. And yet it seems like You Yourself act like you never wrote about it". And God says "be patient". What God tells you brother today, is to be patient. Follow the lead of the Lord, trust in Him and He will bring it to pass. He will give you the desires of your heart. This may not be what your mind says. After years and years you may have given up on your dreams and godly desires. I would like to encourage you to stand UP. God does not give up on You. The God that you saw when you first believed is the same God today. God NEVER changes (James 1:17). Jesus is the same yesterday and today and forever (Hebrews 13:8). The God of the terrible wonders before Pharaoh is the same God that is leading you in the wilderness too. Don’t give up, admitting a defeat that is NOT there! If God does not take you straight away to what He has promised for you is only because HE LOVES YOU. It is not his main concern. His main concern is YOU! It was not His concern to have the Israelite's in the promised land a few weeks earlier. His main concern was THEM. If you look at the passage it is like God is skeptical. God is not a machine, a robot. He is Someone that THINKS. Thinks about you and your best. In this case, He was concerned about the Israelite's, that if they went through this shortest way they might see war and thus return back to Egypt!! God thinks of YOU my friend. The shortest way may have things that you may not be able to handle. Have you ever thought that if everything came as you had planned it, whether you wouldn’t have returned to the Egypt, to the world, again? You don’t know. I don’t know either for myself. But I do know something. That whatever I have, wherever I stand right now is the path that God has chosen for me to stand. And in this I have peace. For God is leading the way and He chooses only the best for me. And the best is to be near to Him, even if the way is a little bit longer. The purpose is NEVER to short the promises. The promises will come, for God has SPOKEN. But with no danger to be afraid and step back, or be tempted and do the same. The path of your life may not be exactly as you had planned it. But I can tell you. It is as GOD has planned it. It is what GOD has thought it for YOU. And being so, it is the BEST. Stand up, walk on the way, live for today, don’t care for tomorrow and God will lead your life, NOT to frustration but to what you may expect, no.. to more than what you think or expect. Don’t give up on whatever is godly. Don’t give up praying for this.

Anastasios Kioulachoglou

               Please check out Anastasios's book 

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“Fear not YE”

I know, "ye" is not a word you will find in the NKJV that I usually use. It is a word of the good old KJV. I love KJV. I believe that in some points no other English translation can catch the tone of the original language as much as KJV does. But let’s get to our subject, which obviously is not Bible translations! So we are at Matthew 28. It is "towards the first day of the week". Three days before, the religious leaders had crucified the Lord. Joseph from Arimathea put His body in a tomb and the Pharisees sealed the stone and put guards around the tomb. And then, "in the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week"…

Matthew 28:1-6
"… came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. And behold there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. His countenance was like lighting, and his raiment white as snow: AND FROM FEAR OF HIM THE KEEPERS DID SHAKE AND BECAME AS DEAD MEN. And the angel answered and said unto the women, FEAR NOT YE FOR I KNOW THAT YOU SEEK JESUS WHO WAS CRUCIFIED. He is not here: for He is risen as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.

What impressed me in this passage is that the angel didn’t say "fear not" to the guards. They were terrified. They became as dead men when they saw him. The one that was dead was risen and those who were up guarding him became as dead! But the angel didn’t say a word to them. He didn’t encourage them! And that’s why the word "you", "YE", becomes so important. Turning to the women the angel said: "Don’t be afraid YE". "Don’t look at the guards. They are terrified and that’s what they should be. But not YOU. YOU, follower of Jesus, seeker of Jesus, DON’T BE AFRAID. I don’t say this to those who guard an empty tomb. To those who try to keep the Lord in a tomb. These are terrified but not YOU. For I know that YOU, dear brother, dear sister, seek the Lord and wherever He is, you will be also. Don’t be afraid! "Fear not YE, for I know that you seek Jesus".

In the same tone the holy spirit tells us in I Thessalonians 5:1-10:

I Thessalonians 5:1-10
"But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. For when they say, "Peace and safety!" then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape. But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief. You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night. But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation. For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him."

As suddenly as the resurrection came upon the guards, so also the day of the Lord will come. Like a thief in the night. "For when they say peace and safety suddenly destruction comes upon them. And they shall not escape". They will be terrified and nobody will tell them "don’t be afraid". But again, not we dear brethren. For we are not in the darkness so that the day overtake us as a thief. God knows whom we follow. God knows whom we seek. That we seek and wait for Jesus. Therefore, don’t be afraid! For God didn’t appoint us to wrath but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ! He is coming. Our Lord is coming. YOU, follower, seeker of Jesus, don’t be afraid!

Anastasios Kioulachoglou

               Please check out Anastasios's book 

               "The Warnings of the New Testament". 

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               Articles/pdf/the-warnings-of-the-New-

               Testament.pdf

Saul vs. David

I was recently reading in I Samuel, the record of the start of Saul's kingdom. Saul was made king within very short time. Before he even understood what was going on, he found himself as a king. He did not have the character, he did not have the qualities needed. He was a humble man in the beginning. He did not even dare to come out when his name was called (I Samuel 10:22). But the children of Israel were so pressing asking for a king. I bet they could not wait at all. They wanted a king and they wanted him now! No wonder therefore that Saul ended up the way he did. Most of us would have ended up the same. We would not know what to do, our pride would rise up, and we would mess around not having the character and the qualities needed. It is not to know exactly what to do, but to have the character to wait and find out what to do. It seems to me that Saul was a victim of the Israelites stubbornness. But then David came. David did not come as a king. He had the word of God from the beginning but then many years passed and it seemed that this word would never be realized. He was fighting in the deserts and in the mountains and it seemed that that word only trouble had brought to him. He had lost his friends, his peace, his contact with his family and all this because of that word. Why did God tell him that? Why He did not rush him to be a king right away? Why God "treated him so badly"? If somebody had un-answered whys this must have been David. And yet the appointed time came. Saul, the result of the rush of the Israelites, died. I am so sorry for him. It was not God's mistake, it was probably not even his mistake. It was mostly the mistake of his own people who did it. Saul dies and David becomes a king. It took many years. It took many frustrations. It took many whys. It took much trouble in between. He could have died in those years. His life was continuously at stake. It was certainly not what he had dreamed about God, about his life about the word of God spoken to him. And yet its purpose was clear: after all these, David was now READY to be a king. He would not blow it. Because he was trained. He was softened. His desires were subjected to God's will and were put into His hands. It is frightening all that he went through, but it is also encouraging. For it may also have happened in our lives. We just wonder why this and why that. Why God does not do it right from the beginning. But God wants to make us like David, so that we can enjoy what he opens before us. Saul had it right from the beginning but then he destroyed it. I love God's way even if it is sometimes painful and looks like a desert. For the desert finishes and a new bright day starts!

Anastasios Kioulachoglou

               Please check out Anastasios's book 

               "The Warnings of the New Testament". 

               Purchase at Kindle and Amazon or 

               download for FREE at: http://www.jba.gr/

               Articles/pdf/the-warnings-of-the-New-

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Christian, are we mere men?

I was recently reading in Matthew 4 the temptations of Christ in the wilderness. The adversary two times challenged Him with the phrase "If you are the Son of God". Taking it in another way, it sounded to me like "Jesus, you are not the Son of God. You are just a mere man... if you fall down from the temple nobody is going to pick you up. If you are hungry nobody is going to feed you. Come on try....can you make these stones bread? Can you fall down from the temple? Go ahead try, if you are not but a mere human being i.e. if you are the Son of God". It is the same story with us today. We are sons and daughters of God and the enemy wants to persuade us that we are nothing else but helpless human beings. He whispers to our ears: "you are alone in this world .... your God is very far away. Just settle down as anybody else.".

We are human beings like anybody else on this earth. Right. BUT, and this is the BUT that he was distorting with Christ and with us: we are also CHILDREN OF THE KING. We have a home in His palace right now, a place in his hug right now. We are not the helpless beings he presents to us but God’s kids!! "BELOVED NOW WE ARE THE CHILDREN OF GOD" says the Word (I John 3:2). This is what WE ARE NOW. This is what you heavenly ID says. It goes like this: Name: [Put your name here] Known: Before the foundation of the world, Born by: God, Saved by: Jesus Christ, he/she is: Son/Daughter of God, Access to God's hug: unlimited.

Mediocrity ("be as anybody else" with the hidden sentence behind it: "because YOU ARE as anybody else") is a weapon of the devil against the excellence of God's kids. We are men but not "mere" men. We are NOT as anybody else. We are God's kids NOW. Let's rest in the Father's hug, relaxing in His lap, today and tomorrow and for ever. It is there where we belong.

Anastasios Kioulachoglou

               Please check out Anastasios's book 

               "The Warnings of the New Testament". 

               Purchase at Kindle and Amazon or 

               download for FREE at: http://www.jba.gr/

               Articles/pdf/the-warnings-of-the-New-

               Testament.pdf

The keys of death: Who holds them

I was in the church today, and the preacher started his preaching from Revelation 1:12-20. There, starting from verse 10 we read:

Revelation 14:12-20
"I was in the spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice, as of a trumpet, saying, I’m the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last," and, "what you see write in a book and send it to the seven churches which are in Asia: To Ephesus to Smyrna to Pergamos, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea." Then I turned to see the voice that spoke with me. And having turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the seven lampstands One like Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the feet and girded about the chest with a golden band. His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes like a flame of fire; His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, and His voice as the sound of many waters; He had in his right hand seven stars, out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword, and His countenance was like the sun shining in its strength. And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. But He laid His right hand on me, saying to me, "Do not be afraid; I’m the First and the Last. I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. AND I HAVE THE KEYS OF HADES AND OF DEATH. Write the things which you have seen, and the things which are and the things which will take place after this. The mystery of the seven stars which you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands: the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands which you saw are the seven churches."

What drew much my attention here, together with the glorious appearance of our Lord, is verse 18 where the Lord says: "AND I HAVE THE KEYS OF HADES AND DEATH". Jesus has the keys of Death! He is the "who lives, and was dead, and behold He (Jesus) is alive forever". Hebrews 2:14-15 tells us:

Hebrews 2:14-15
"Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He himself like wise shared in the same, THAT THROUGH DEATH HE MIGHT DESTROY HIM WHO HAS THE POWER OF DEATH, THAT IS, THE DEVIL, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage"

Jesus Christ came to destroy the one that has the power of death, the devil, and He did this through his death. Jesus holds the keys of Death and Hades. A day will come that the dead will hear the voice of the Son of man and will be raised! The voice of Jesus Christ, the one that keeps the keys of death, will raise them all, great and small, Christians and none (independent of time I speak here), ALL! Jesus holds the keys of death and therefore, He is able to release those who through the fear of death were subject to bondage all their lifetime. We are no longer under the bondage of death. We are no longer captive by death. If you believe in the Captain of life, in Jesus Christ, the Lord and Savior, "if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead you will be saved" (Romans 10:9) and have eternal life!!! Even if you taste death still Jesus holds the keys to death. The day will come that you will hear His voice. The day will come that you will get a body like His body. A day will come that you will sit in His right hand side. A day will come that you will see Him as He is. A day will come that you will be with Him eternally. A day will come that you will go to the place He has prepared for us in the Father’s house (John 14:2-3). Jesus Christ the prince of life, the Son of God, the Lord and Savior loves you my friend. Nothing can separate you from His love. You are His wonderful bride! You are the one He is engaged with. Yes YOU! II Corinthians 4:18 tell us that those things that are seen are temporary but those who are not seen are eternal. Which realities do we see? Which realities do we follow? Temporary or eternal? Far too many go after what they see, the temporary. Far too many are under the bondage of death. But not we Christians. Not we, the sons of the Eternal God. We have as much life as our Father has: ETERNAL. All of us we have lost or we will probably lose a loved person. All of us we need to keep in our hearts and minds what the Lord said to Martha who had very recently lost her brother: "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die" (John 11:25-26). Jesus is coming and nobody can stop Him. He will open and who will close? He is coming and the dead will hear His voice. And your loved ones, if they are brothers and sisters, are going to appear with Him. Nothing is going to hold them. Nothing is going to stop them. Nothing is going to keep them. Look here what the Spirit says in I Thessalonians 4:13-18

I Thessalonians 4:13-18
"But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord Himself will descent from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words."

"Lest you sorrow as others who have no hope"… There are others that have no hope. There are others that look at the temporary, have fixed their eyes on the temporary and have no hope. But not we. Jesus, the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the Lord and the Savior and the Captain of Life IS COMING. And the dead in Christ shall rise first! Then all those who are alive will be caught in the air to meet the Lord there. What a wonderful meeting this is going to be! We will ALL, ALL those who believe in Him, be there! This is our hope and this is our comfort.

Revelation 21:4
"And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, not sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away."

Anastasios Kioulachoglou

               Please check out Anastasios's book 

               "The Warnings of the New Testament". 

               Purchase at Kindle and Amazon or 

               download for FREE at: http://www.jba.gr/

               Articles/pdf/the-warnings-of-the-New-

               Testament.pdf

Christian Believers. The Four Steps That Most of us Did Not Take

The Biblical way to the Holy Spirit as seen in Acts 8 and 19.

Repent of your sins toward God.

Believe in the Lord Jesus.

Be baptized in water.

Receive the Holy Spirit. 

What does God say about sexual sin?

Transfer into the internet.

www.evangelicaloutreach.org/audio/adultery.mp3