Tag: teaching

“Jewish People: Rejected or Beloved”, review by Don Koenig

Posted on by Don

I recently received a signed complementary copy of the new book “The Jewish People: Rejected or Beloved?“, from Dr. David R. Reagan. After I read the book, I thought it was important to do a book review on my Blog to help get out his message. Others need to get more informed about the history of the Jews and about certain heretical theologies that Christendom has regarding the Jews. This book accomplishes that job.

First, let me say, that Dr. Reagan is the founder of Lamb & Lion Ministries. The ministry has an active website, a TV program called “Christ in Prophecy”, and a magazine named “LAMPLIGHTER”.… continue reading

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There but for the grace of God even true believers fail

Posted on by Don

I think we Christians often forget that we had nothing to do with our own salvation. It is all by God’s grace that we heard the gospel message at all. We then believed and turned to Jesus to save us from our sins. Many Christians will say they also believe that we did nothing worthy to get saved, but then some will turn down their nose at those living in sin that never had an opportunity to clearly hear the Gospel.

The old statement, “there but for the grace of God go I” when we encounter a person living in a worldly or unfortunate lifestyle is just the plain truth.… continue reading

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Aww…Poor God!

Posted on by Don

Some claiming to be among Christianity would have us think that the universe that God spoke into existence for His own purpose is not really under His control. They have a God that dwells in creation wringing His figurative hands just hoping that someone will love Him and be His friend. Aww…poor God!

Although many “Christians” may deny that they see God in the above terms, their theology and what they say about God indicates otherwise. I will give a few examples but it certainly will not be all-inclusive because this anemic concept of God is exceedingly widespread and is subtly interwoven in “Christian” concepts about their Creator.… continue reading

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Internet ministries don’t get no respect from local churches

Posted on by Don

The late great comedian Rodney Dangerfield used to set up his brilliant self-deprecation comedy routine with the line I tell ya, “I don’t get no respect”. Dangerfield actually did get a lot of respect from those that appreciated his humor. I suppose independent Christian ministries that write articles on the Internet are respected by some of their readers but generally few get any respect from their local church congregations.

Think about it, people like me often sit in front of computers 250 to 350 hours a month keeping our websites and Blogs going but we don’t get no respect. In fact, we often get just the opposite from Christian pastors or other Christian leaders that think that what we do is not filling some slot in their local pegboard.… continue reading

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2Th 2:3 and other teachings of Paul indicate pretrib Rapture

Posted on by Don

Those crusading against the pretribulation Rapture really need to get a life because their arguments do not have a biblical leg to stand on. Every week I get emails or comments from some crusader wanting to inform me that the Bible does not teach a pretrib Rapture. They tell me that my pretrib Rapture teaching will send people to hell, so I need to repent of my teaching or I will be going to hell myself.

They make the unfounded claim that those teaching a pretrib Rapture are leading Christian people to hell because they think that many Christians that were expecting to be taken in the pretrib Rapture will then lose their faith when they find themselves under persecution in the tribulation.… continue reading

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Heaven and Hell might not exist where most religious people think

Posted on by Don

Most religious people think that after death those that did enough good works will go up to Heaven for eternity and people who did too many bad works will go down to Hell for eternity. They might be surprised that the Bible does not agree with that premise. First, salvation depends upon faith in the Lord, not in our own good or bad performance. And second, the Bible teaches that Hell will be done away with and the Kingdom of Heaven will actually come to the Earth.

The first words in the Bible say, “In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth”.… continue reading

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Emasculated men and their women let LifeWay replace Bible Studies

Posted on by Don

Ten years ago while in a LifeWay Sunday School group I challenged some of the points of theology of the “teacher”. He whined to the pastor and the pastor told him that he might listen and learn from me. He got so upset that the pastor did not get on my case that he went into a hissey fit and quit the church. The pastor did tell me that I could be more tactful. I agree. Tact never was a strong suit of mine. Emasculated men often have the emotions of women. I should keep that in mind when dealing with them.… continue reading

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Questions and answers at The Prophetic Years website

Posted on by Don

The Prophetic Years website gets emails that have questions that often address issues that are not addressed on my website and blog or would not be easy to find if I had addressed these issues somewhere. I have selected five such emails below. I did edit them where appropriate so the senders could remain anonymous and for grammatical and subject clarity.

Question:

I’ll try to be brief: Thanks for you website.  I only wish I had more time to spend in it.  It is hard to find trustworthy information and good study material these days.
I’ve been studying and teaching  a small church adult class in II Peter 2 about false prophets and teachers, needless to say, there are so many forms of false prophets today.… continue reading

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Modern Bible studies often fall far short of studying the Bible

Posted on by Don

If you have been a Christian for a few decades and attended Bible studies, one thing that you should have noticed is that Bible studies are not what they used to be. There was a time when Bible studies were actually taught by elder teachers in the congregation. These teachers actually prepared their own well thought-out lessons that were based on knowledge of the Bible and their own understanding of the scriptures. Teaching was a ministry given through spiritually gifted men.

Quite often Bible studies were led by pastors or elder teachers that were formally trained in the Bible. Today, most “Bible studies” are led by facilitators that lead group discussion on passages suggested by expensive quarterly magazines.… continue reading

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In God’s eyes the Roman fourth beast still rules the world

Posted on by Don

The visions given to Daniel document that there will only be four Gentile world kingdoms from his own time until the Kingdom of the Messiah. The four kingdoms that Daniel saw that were identified with four beasts have been unquestionably identified by reputable historians as Babylon, Medio-Persia, Greek, and the Roman. The Roman is the fourth beast described and last Gentile Kingdom on earth. At the end of the age this kingdom will be destroyed and the earth will be given to the people of God (Daniel 7).

There is no other worldwide Gentile kingdom in scripture between the time of the ancient Roman Empire and the time that the latter-day prince makes a seven-year covenant with Israel at the end of the Gentile age (Dan 9:27).… continue reading

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Charismatics leading others to offer strange fire before the Lord

Posted on by Don

I had shoulder surgery Friday so I really am not physically or mentally up to doing any long post this week. It all seems to be going well but I think the steroids or something else they used really did a number on my ability to think through issues or even stay awake.

Probably one of the most important issues in Christendom is taking place at Grace Church led by John MacArthur. It is called the Fresh Fire Conference and is getting into all the negative influences that the Charismatic/Pentecostal Movement is having on the modern Church.

Whether you agree with MacArthur that the signs gifts ceased or not, you might want to hear out his arguments against what is taking place in the Charismatic movement under various movement subtitles.… continue reading

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Blood moon of Joel and Revelation not about eclipses of 2014 2015

Posted on by Don

The various end time speculations of 2012 never panned out, so it really should not surprise anyone that a replacement theory would now arise in order to sell new hype to people looking for a tribulation that fits their impatient unrealistic schedule. I am talking about the new hype that the blood moons of 2014 and 2015 could fulfill the blood moon talked about by Joel, and Revelation.

Pastor Mark Biltz of Tacoma Washington first came up with the theory and now Pastor John Hagee is running with the ball with his new book, “Four Blood Moons: Something Is About To Change”.… continue reading

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Koenig’s perspectives on Bible prophecy and world issues Oct 2013

Posted on by Don

People are wondering how the House of Representatives not funding parts of our federal government will all play out. That really is not the main problem because they already funded most of our government in separate bills. About 83 percent of government employees are working again and they all will get paid. The more critical issues is the need to raise the national debt ceiling limit by October 17th or the U.S. Treasury says we could have a debt default.

This is not to be taken lightly because Treasury Secretary Lew, has cleaned out every government trust fund in existence over the last couple of months to pay the bills.… continue reading

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Textus Receptus Devours Alexandrian Family Found at the Vatican

Posted on by Don

Often people will ask, what is the best Bible translation to use? Bible and translation seems to have become synonymous but keep in mind that unless you read Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic the Bible you read is really a translation of ancient manuscripts that are distant copies of the original autographs. All ancient manuscripts are not equal and all translations of those manuscripts are not equal.

Therefore, in order to know which are the most reliable translations, we first have to know something about the manuscripts that they were translated from. I think I can make some generalizations that may help you decide on a good English translation.… continue reading

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Rabbi Judah Ben Samuel of 1217 tips Jack Van Impe on 2017 tribulation

Posted on by Don

I recently watched two of the latest Jack Van Impe’s TV programs. I probably had not watched his program in almost a decade for a number of reasons. Van Impe fell out of favor with me when he started quoting mystics and pagans to support his end time speculations about how soon the Lord would return. Of course, Jack would always say that he is not setting dates, but then he would go ahead and set an outermost date for the fulfillment of the Rapture. Over the years, Jack Van Impe has proven that he can be wrong on his date speculations.… continue reading

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You can know if you are a Christian but don’t deceive yourself either

Posted on by Don

There seems to be some confusion among Christians on how one is saved. So let me try to clarify what the scriptures teach on this.

We first have to acknowledge that we are talking about the Church since Pentecost and not those believers that lived and died before the New Covenant promise was given at Pentecost. The believers that died before this are also covered by the blood of God’s lamb sacrifice but we are not talking about them because the New Covenant had not yet been given.

To find out how people are saved since Pentecost we only need to go back to the book of Acts.… continue reading

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Who and what are the two Beasts of Revelation?

Posted on by Don

This is one of those posts where I have more questions than answers, so I will be relying on knowledgeable readers of this blog to use their critical thinking skills and their knowledge of the scriptures and their spiritual insights to come up with reasonable answers or even good food for thought.

Mark Levin often says that he has the most intelligent audience in talk radio. Even if that is true, intelligence does not always mean that people have good critical thinking skills. We all know about the educated idiots that obviously have intelligence but continually display that they have no common sense.… continue reading

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Spiritual formation is gearing the Church up for self delusion

Posted on by Don

The greatest danger to Christianity today is the downplaying of biblical doctrine. The Church is built upon the word of God given to the prophets and the apostles for leading people to Christ and for maturing believers in the faith.

True Christianity is not built on personal feeling or what you think God is saying to you because you learned to practice certain spiritual disciplines. Yet, that is what many Christian leaders and Christian education centers are teaching others.

Spiritual formation is taught and is required in almost all Christian higher leaning centers today and the graduates then teach it from pulpits, in seminars, and in Christian books.… continue reading

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Less quickening means more compressing of end time bible prophecy

Posted on by Don

Art Bell, on his radio program of the late 20th century, used to say that the earth had entered a period that he named “The Quickening”. Many in the late 20th century thought that we were at the end of the world or age as we knew it. Bell had one late night guest after another, telling his Dreamland listeners what would be coming upon on us in the next couple of years.

The guests ranged from secular prophets and remote viewers, to people that claimed to have various kinds of insider information about high level secrets. It made for great fiction, but the fantasy that was so often suggested, did not become reality just because some claimed it would.… continue reading

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Bill Salus teaching blazes an alternate path to Revelation Road

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There are a few new names in the eschatology field that did not get there by first obtaining a formal theological education. Some such as Chuck Missler, Tom Horn and Bill Salus earned a respected name in Eschatology by doing independent research and then coming up with end time scenarios that do not exactly fit within the classic dispensational eschatology box.

Not all original thinkers like these base their views on scripture or sound hermeneutics, so you do have to check them out. I recently did reviews on two of Tom Horns books and I could not give them my endorsement, because it seems to me that Horn’s books are mostly based on trying to find the future in demonic writings.… continue reading

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