Category Archives: Reblogs

Personalities in the Tribulation: The 144,000 Witnesses

Posted on by
Reply

Stephen Nielsen's avatarStudying Bible Prophecy

A record of these witnesses is recorded for us in Revelation 7:3-8 and 14:1-5. Here are four important points to note about them.

1. They are Jewish and not part of the church. The 144,000 witnesses (or evangelists) are undoubtedly Jewish because they are from every tribe of Israel, twelve-thousand from each tribe (Rev. 7:4-8). Some have insisted that they are part of the church, but that is impossible since the church will be raptured.

Also, as Ron Rhodes has pointed out in his book, Israel on High Alert, “God had originally chosen the Jews to be His witnesses…to share the good news of God with all other people around the world (Isa. 43:10).” Well, as we know, and as Rhodes has pointed out, they failed at this mandate and did not even recognize Jesus as their Messiah. But in the Tribulation, they will finally fulfill this mandate as…

View original post 552 more words

Five Forms of Faith

Posted on by
Reply

Stephen Nielsen's avatarPrayer A to Z

Faith by itself is nothing, useless.  James tells us that faith without works is dead.  Hence, to just say “I believe God” really has no meaning unless there is a work of proof attached to it.  And when that faith is worked out it needs a form, a form of expression.  Therefore, we can say that there are various ways that faith is worked out.   Here are…

 

Five Forms of Faith

 

1.  Faith as commitment.  We first come to God in faith by our repentance and surrender, surrendering our ears to hear His voice and our eyes to see Him.  We continue our life of faith by that same yielding commitment.  This is the most basic form of faith.

 

2.  Faith as fellowship.  After we have surrendered and committed ourselves to God, our faith grows in love toward Him so that it becomes fellowship.  When we…

View original post 352 more words

Personalities in the Tribulation: The Unredeemed – Part 2

Posted on by
Reply

Stephen Nielsen's avatarStudying Bible Prophecy

I don’t think that anyone can say how many unredeemed there will be on the earth during the Tribulation compared to the redeemed. As I already stated, there will be a great revival on the earth during the Tribulation and many will be saved. So, that hopefully will cut down the number of the unredeemed substantially. Also, because of so much death on the earth due to the great Tribulation, the number of the unredeemed will progressively decrease until all are gone just before the beginning of the new kingdom. In my study of this topic, I found the following seven points on the unredeemed.

4. They will continue in their sins (Rev. 9:20-21) Continued from part 1…

Drugs. From the word sorceries we get the word pharmacy, which infers drug use. I can imagine that drugs during the Tribulation will be legal and cheaper. And with all the pain…

View original post 432 more words

Five Descriptions of Faith

Posted on by
Reply

Stephen Nielsen's avatarPrayer A to Z

In some respects the meaning of faith is so simple.  It means to just believe God, to trust and rely on Him.  But because we are human and sinful, faith becomes so hard for us.  Hence, we seem to need to dissect it and to look at it from different angles, in order to get the meaning of faith that pleases us or that helps us to understand it.  And I think that’s good.  We need to do that.          

In my reading on faith I have come across numerous descriptions.  Here are a few I have put together.  I hope these will help you understand faith.  Perhaps from these you will come up with your own description. 

 

1. Faith is a work of God’s Spirit in the heart. 

Andrew Murray wrote, “Faith is completely the work of God’s Spirit through His Word in the prepared heart of the…

View original post 462 more words

Personalities in the Tribulation: The Unredeemed – Part 1

Posted on by
Reply

Stephen Nielsen's avatarStudying Bible Prophecy

I don’t think that anyone can say how many unredeemed there will be on the earth during the Tribulation compared to the redeemed. As I already stated, there will be a great revival on the earth during the Tribulation and many will be saved. So, that hopefully will cut down the number of the unredeemed substantially. Also, because of so much death on the earth due to the great Tribulation, the number of the unredeemed will progressively decrease until all are gone just before the beginning of the new kingdom. In my study of this topic, I found the following seven points on the unredeemed.

1. They will follow after the beast (Antichrist), and they will worship both the beast and the dragon, or Satan (Rev. 13:3-8). I think that even during the first half of the Tribulation, before it is revealed who the Antichrist really is, the world will…

View original post 415 more words

What is Faith?

Posted on by
Reply

Stephen Nielsen's avatarPrayer A to Z

Faith is the avenue through which every believer became a Christian; and it is the way every Christian should live.  I’m sure most believers would say that they desire to have a stronger faith.  I sure do.  Well I have 8 different blog posts ready to go on this subject, which are excerpts from my book Prayer A to Z.  This first one is most basic and what we need to know in order to begin this study.  I want to ask you right from the start if you would consider making some comments.  So, when you read this, think of that you want to contribute.

 

The Definition of Faith 

 Vines dictionary defines faith (pistis) as “firm persuasion, a conviction based on hearing.”  The verb of faith (pisteuo), translated as believe, is defined as: “to believe, to be persuaded of, to place confidence in, to…

View original post 595 more words

Personalities in the Tribulation: The Great Harlot

Posted on by
Reply

Stephen Nielsen's avatarStudying Bible Prophecy

The harlot is not a person, but is a false religious system. And she is called great, I suppose, because she is able to influence and control so many people. One may think that the false prophet is the leader of this false religious system, but I don’t think so. Though he will no doubt have some influence and interaction with her, Scripture makes no mention of any connection. In fact, since the false prophet seems to show up just when the harlot is put out of commission (at the mid-point of the Tribulation), he may be her replacement. Here are four points pertaining to the Great Harlot.

The Great Harlot’s Identity

She is called a great harlot because she “sits on many waters,” which means that she reigns over many “peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues” (Rev. 17:1, 15). And she is also called “the great city, which…

View original post 754 more words

Our Prayers Will Fail If We Don’t Pray According to the Bible

Posted on by
Reply

Stephen Nielsen's avatarPrayer A to Z

 

Here are the last seven reason why our prayers fail, beginning with our neglect of the Word of God.

 Teachings on Prayer – We don’t let the Bible teach us how to pray.  Everything in the Bible was written for our instruction (Rom. 15:14).  All the prayers of the Bible and all the teachings on prayer, all the stories of how people prayed and how they had faith to pray (Heb. 13:7) are our teachers on how to pray.  If we fail to read the Bible and heed it’s teachings about prayer, we can’t expect to know how to pray; therefore, we will certainly fail in prayer.

 Unity – We lack unity.  Prayers will always fail when there is no unity in the body of Christ.  For where there is no unity in the body of Christ there is also no unity with Christ.  And where there…

View original post 534 more words

Personalities in the Tribulation: The False Prophet

Posted on by
Reply

Stephen Nielsen's avatarStudying Bible Prophecy

In Revelation 13:11, he is referred to as “another beast,” in reference to the beast in verse one. Moreover, Revelation thirteen, verses one through ten speaks of the Antichrist, and verses eleven through eighteen speaks of the false prophet. The first beast comes out of the sea, and the second beast comes out of the earth. There have been so many different ideas as to what this means, so I think I will just skip that part of it.

However, the second part of verse eleven is clear: the false prophet has two horns like a lamb, and he speaks as a dragon. This tells us that he is weaker than the Antichrist, who has ten horns; and it also tells us that he comes on as being gentle—like Jesus. Hence, he will masquerade as the true Lamb of God, yet he is deceptive, for he…

View original post 266 more words

We Fail In Prayer When We Are Not Exposed To Real Needs

Posted on by
Reply

Stephen Nielsen's avatarPrayer A to Z

 

Here are six ways we may fail in prayer. The first failure listed is that we don’t let ourselves be exposed to many of the real needs around us.

 Needs – We don’t see the real needs.  One of the reasons why we fail in prayer is because our prayers are not specific enough to meet the real needs of people.  It is possible that our prayers are too much for ourselves and not enough for others, too heavenly and not enough on the earth.  We may pray thanking God for all the beautiful things, but we don’t have eyes to see the sin, the suffering, and all the pain on earth.  Therefore, because of this neglect, we lack compassion for others and our prayers don’t carry the burden of their needs.  What value then is our praying except to make ourselves feel good; but in the end…

View original post 578 more words