Group Bible Study

45 Then he entered the temple area and began driving out those who were selling.  46 "It is written," he said to them,” 'My house will be a house of prayer'; but you have made it 'a den of robbers.'"  47 Every day he was teaching at the temple. But the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the leaders among the people were trying to kill him.  48 Yet they could not find any way to do it, because all the people hung on his words (Luke 19:45-48).   It was a confrontation time! Jesus stood against the High priest who was overseeing a corrupt system. The Court of the Gentiles in the Temple had been taken over by money changers and merchants hired by Annas, Caiaphas' father in law, who had also been High Priest. When birds or animals were brought to the Temple to be sacrificed, they would often be refused for no apparent reason other than the fact that Annas wanted more money. A worshipper who bought an animal inside the Temple precincts was charged...

We are continuing our meditation of the last week before Christ’s crucifixion, and specifically today on Jesus coming to Jerusalem as Messiah.   41 As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it  42 and said, "If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes.  43 The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side.  44 They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God's coming to you" (Luke 19:41-44).   When a person rounds the bend on the top of the Mount of Olives, the view of the city of Jerusalem is one of the most spectacular in this world. One can look down on the Temple Mount from the top of the Mount of Olives. At the sight of the city below Him, the Messiah of Israel looked upon t...

28 After Jesus had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.  29 As he approached Bethphage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples, saying to them,  30 "Go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here.  31 If anyone asks you, 'Why are you untying it?' tell him, 'The Lord needs it.'  32 “Those who were sent ahead went and found it just as he had told them.  33 As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, "Why are you untying the colt?"  34 They replied, "The Lord needs it."  35 They brought it to Jesus, threw their cloaks on the colt and put Jesus on it.  36 As he went along, people spread their cloaks on the road.  37 When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles ...

Jesus arrived in Bethany six days before the Passover (John 12:1).In Israel, everything stops for the Passover festival. At the time of Jesus, Jerusalem swelled in size anywhere from one to two and a half million people with pilgrims arriving from all over the world. Jesus waited in Bethany until four days before Passover, presenting Himself to the Jewish people as the Passover lamb on the tenth day of Nisan, in fulfillment of Moses' command:    3 Tell the whole community of Israel that on the  tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household.  4 If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbor, having taken into account the number of people there is. You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat.  5 The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats.  6...

The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannotseethe light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God (2 Corinthians 4:4). We are in the midst of an unseen battle between the forces of good and the forces of evil. This war is fought on a hidden spiritual plane for control of the human race. The majority of the population of planet earth has the cloak of deception placed over them. They cannot see the good news as to what Christ has done in redeeming (buying back) men from the grip of the god of this age. Satan is the god of this age, an evil angel that chose to rebel against God and drew away with him an army of angels and demons after himself. His chief tactic against you and me is a strategy of deception to keep you from seeing that the Bible is the Word of God. The Bible is a compilation of 66 books that tell the story of the creator of the world, who loves us so much that He paid the penalty of sin by dying on a cross as the ju...

26 “ Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. 27 People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage  up to the day Noah entered the ark . Then the flood came and destroyed them all.  28 “ It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building .  29 But  the day Lot left Sodom , fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.  30 “ It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed (Luke 17:26-30). Jesus shared two examples of times when there was unrestrained evil on earth; one in a local area, and one that was worldwide. In both cases given, life was going on seemingly as normal; people were eating and drinking, they were planning long term, as in planting for a harvest, building homes, weddings planned, etc. But all of a sudden, a day came when Lot and his family disappeared with a couple of angels...

There is coming a massive parting of the ways between the two kingdoms that are at war with one another on a cosmic scale on planet Earth. The Bible makes it plain that you are either in the kingdom of Satan, or you are in the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no other. You may think you are serving a different God, but it is a deception of Satan. Here’s what Jesus said:   “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters” (Matthew 12:30)   If you are not walking with the Lord Jesus Christ, you are walking with the enemy, Satan, the arch deceiver, the one whom the apostle Paul called:    …The ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is  now at work in those who are disobedient (Ephesians 2:2).   God does not want you to keep walking in disobedience to the good news of Jesus Christ and His forgiveness of sin and rebellion against Him. This world is on a downward curve to ...

9 After this I looked, and there before me was  a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language , standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.  10 And they cried out in a loud voice:  “ Salvation belongs to our God,  
 who sits on the throne,  
 and to the Lamb .”  11 All the  angels were standing around the throne and around the  elders and the  four living creatures . They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped  God ,  12 saying: “ Amen!  
 Praise and glory  
 and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength  
 be to our G od for ever and ever.  
 Amen! ”  13 Then one of the elders asked me,  “ These in white robes — who are they , and where did they come from? ”  14 I answered,  “ Sir, you know ....

Is the Doctrine of Immanence biblical? Those that teach this doctrine say that at any moment Jesus could come. The urgency to be ready for the return of Christ is pressed upon those who are without Christ. I wholeheartedly agree that the Church should preach that those without Christ should repent (turn from sin toward obedience to Christ) and get their lives right with God, but it is not biblical to tell people that Jesus Christ could come today. Jesus Himself said that He would send forth His angels and snatch away His Church, the people of God, only after the Abomination of Desolation had taken place, and during a time of great tribulation or persecution of Antichrist. The Greek Word translated as Tribulation is  Thlipsis, and contrary to what some teach, it is not the wrath of God. Twice in Matthew 24, Christ tells us that His people will endure persecution:   “Then you will be handed over to be  persecuted (Thlipsis) and put to death, and you will be hated by...

1 Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and  our being gathered to him , we ask you, brothers and sisters,  2 not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by the teaching allegedly from us—whether by a prophecy or by word of mouth or by letter—asserting that the day of the Lord has already come. 3 Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for  that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction.  4 He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God (2 Thessalonians 2:1-4).   The apostle Paul has received a letter back from the Thessalonian church after his first letter that was in part about the rapture. We know this for he starts out this chapter with the word “concerning.” The Thessalonians had received some communication from some people t...

6 Wail, for the  day of the LORD is near; it will come like destruction from the Almighty.  7 Because of this, all hands will go limp, every heart will melt with fear.  
 8 Terror will seize them, pain and anguish will grip them; they will writhe like a woman in labor. They will look aghast at each other, their faces aflame.  9 See, the  day of the LORD is coming—a cruel day,  with wrath and fierce anger —to make the land desolate and  destroy the sinners within it. 
 10 The stars of heaven and their constellations will not show their light. 
 The rising sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light.  11 I will punish the world for its evil, the wicked for their sins. 
 I will  put an end to the arrogance of the haughty and will humble the pride of the ruthless.  
 12 I will make people scarcer than pure gold, more rare than the gold of Ophir. 
 13 Therefore I will make the heavens tremble; and the earth will shak...

13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep,   that you may not grieve as others do   who have no hope.   14 For   since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him   those who have fallen asleep.   15 For this we declare to you   by a word from the Lord, [ a ]   that   we who are alive, who are left until   the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.   16 For   the Lord himself will descend   from heaven   with a cry of command, with the voice of   an archangel, and   with the sound of the trumpet of God. And   the dead in Christ will rise first.   17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be   caught up together with them   in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so   we will always be with the Lord.   18 Therefore encourage one another with these words...

9 When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained.  10 They called out in a loud voice, “ How long , Sovereign Lord, holy and true,  until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?”  11 Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were  told to wait a little longer, until the full number of their fellow servants, their brothers and sisters, were killed just as they had been (Revelation 6:9-11).   In Matthew chapter 24, Jesus was asked as to what would be the sign of His coming and the end of the age (v.3). Verses 4 through 31 are an outline of the significant events that will happen at the time of the end. These verses describe events almost the same as the outline that the Lord gives us in Revelation 6-7 in the opening of the Seals. After chapter 7, the Lord gets into specific details. These events all happen in the ...

15 “So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand),   16 then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.   17 Let the one who is on the housetop not go down to take what is in his house,   18 and let the one who is in the field not turn back to take his cloak.   19 And alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days!   20 Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a Sabbath. 21 For then there will be great tribulation , such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be  (Matthew 24:15-21. ESV).   Many of you have heard of the time that Jesus warned us about, the time He called the “Great Tribulation." The Lord said that an event called the “Abomination of Desolation” would precipitate this time of great tribulation or distress in Israel, along with the rest ...