Unruly and vain talkers and deceivers

Joan Boney ... apostle/prophet

Paul describes religious people of his day in the following statement:

Titus 1:10-11   For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision:  Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre's sake.

We can certainly see that Paul was concerned over that being spoken in the NT church.

Paul once told Timothy the following:

I Timothy 1:3-4    As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine,Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith: so do.

We know by these scriptures there was trouble in the early church.  Men were carrying false doctrine into the church.  Some were focused on tracing ancestors which is of no edification at all to the church.  Some told fables to the church, tickling the flesh, to no edification.

Today we have the same thing among the church both in ministers and in church people.

When we speak we need to pay attention to what we say that it be based on scriptural truth.

One woman told me, after her husband died, that she couldn't wait to die and join him in heaven.  (a Baptist woman)

I wondered if she knew there would be no marriage in heaven as we have on this earth.  She acted as if she and her dead husband would get together and set up housekeeping in heaven.

Here is what Jesus told us about the resurrection.

Matthew 22:30    For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.

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The prophet Isaiah gave us a view into life in heaven when he said the following:

Isaiah 65:17   For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.

Since the "former" will not be remembered nor come into mind, will we even remember the earth and our lives on this earth, our relatives here and such?  I doubt it.

Isaiah 65:18-19   But be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create: for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy.
And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people: and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying.

We won't have these earthly bodies in heaven.  We will be given new forms.  Will we look like we do on this earth?  I Corinthians 15

It would be a terrible problem if we could remember this life and if we had our current bodies where we recognized one another from this earth.  For then wouldn't we be hunting those persons we knew on this earth?  And what if they were not there?  We would be grieved, wouldn't we?

But there will be no sorrow nor tears in heaven.

We cannot live in fleshly fables of our own mind, but need to reconstruct our thinking based on what the Bible allows us to see about heaven.

There are many books and movies showing dead people with bodily forms like they have on this earth, looking down on humans who live on this earth, and even guiding these humans.

This is very non-scriptural.

Dead people are asleep.  Dead people do not watch over the living.  What does the Bible show us?

John 11:1    Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany

11-13    These things said he: and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.

Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well.

Howbeit Jesus spake of his death: but they thought that he had spoken of taking of rest in sleep.

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Concerning those who die in the Lord ... the apostle Paul told us the following:

I Thessalonians 4:13-16    But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep (dead), that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.

For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.

For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

That dead person is asleep.

We can relate to being asleep for each of us sleep at night.  We fall asleep and time passes.  When we awaken we often can't believe all those hours passed.

The apostle Paul is asleep now.  Decades have passed since Paul's earthly life ended.

When Jesus returns "with a shout",  Paul and all others who are dead in Christ will rise to meet Jesus in the air.  Until that time, Paul sleeps.

To say a dead person went to "be with the Lord" is unscriptural.

That dead person is asleep and will rise when Jesus returns.

I know a Baptist woman whose husband died.  She said to me, "RB and my bother-in-law are in heaven now.  I can see them enjoying a beer and watching the Cowboys."  (football team)

I was shocked.  This was a belief being held by a Baptist woman.  Somehow she was "comforted" in her thinking otherwise she would not have told it this way.  But such fleshly comfort will not stand the test of time and at some point we will become very shaken if we base our belief on that which is not true.

Dead people are asleep.  Why can't we just say, "He died."  If we believe in the resurrection from the dead we will have joy, knowing this sleep is temporary.

If we, as Christians, tell others that which is false about such things, we do harm toward them.

We should consider all things we say and conform our doctrine to Bible and keep our thinking about issues in line with that which the Bible shows us.

Therefore Paul says:

Romans 12:2    And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

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In August, 2017, a man in our church group died.

Here is a letter I wrote to his widow.

Very quickly now you must enter into your new life.

That life you once had ended.

To try to cling to that life with John, the memory of that life will be death for you.  

You must make yourself go forward in God in the new life that remains on this earth.

I've seen too many widows try to cling to dead husbands.  I know this is death to do this.

When I saw my mother try to do this when my dad died, I said to her, "You can go down, but I won't go with you."

She awoke and said, "I don't want you to go down."

She got better.

I have a cousin, who is Church of Christ.  Two years after death of her husband she was still trying to cling to husband.

Often I hear women say, "I want to live where we lived for I feel closer to him there."

We don't need to feel closer to the dead person.  That is death for us.

These are a few things to beware of.

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We can't allow ourselves to cling to a past life.  Some people try to cling to their childhood and look back longingly.  This is a type of death, like Lot's wife encountered when she looked back longingly at Sodom in the destruction.

Each of us have times when we would like to go back.

Like those going through the Red Sea, we must realize we have to go forward.  There was no way for them to go but forward.  The sea was walled up on their right and left.  Pharaoh and his army of 600 chariots were behind them with goal to capture them and take them back into slavery.

For us to wallow in past and to allow our mind this perceived luxury, is a type of death and slavery.

The past is over.

We must live in now, this moment, in reality.

But we have a mighty help to do this.  God.

The apostle Paul made the direction clear to us when he said the following:

Philippians 3:13-15    Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded.

It takes faith in God.

Daily I awaken with nothing to do and no humans in my midst.  At first it is frightening.  Then I begin praying, "God help me." ...  "Please God, fill my day." ...  HE does.

God is our only hope today and in going forward.  

Once God said to me:  "One step at a time.  It is enough."

Take that step that is brought to your mind.  If you are reminded of Bible, read Bible.  If you are reminded of something secular, take care of that.  Just follow the Spirit of God who reminds us of that which is in the heart of God.

And we can know the wisdom that is from God by the following:

James 3:17    But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.

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