Daniel in the Court of the KingGenesis 11:1-3In 605 BC the army of Babylon moved into Palestine and subjugated the kingdom of Judah. They carted off the treasures of the temple and took much of the nobility and skilled tradesmen of Judah as captives to Babylon. Daniel, the prophet was among those captives.The Hebrew text of Daniel calls Babylon by its ancient name... Shinar. A name that points us back to the plain where people first sought to unify themselves under one government and magnify themselves before God. Babylon in the time of Daniel was not a new kid on the block... it was only the most recent version of an ancient civilization between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Babylon had risen and fallen many times. From the biblical perspective it is the place where wickedness dwells Zechariah 5:5-11.Babylon remains the biblical label for the wicked nature of human self government from the time of Daniel... to Zechariah... to our own day and the prophecies of the end time. Babylon is a cultural, social, and political model of human self government with its own standards of righteousness... standards that are presented as the alternative to the righteousness, and authority of God.· Daniel lived in a Babylonian world --> You and I live in a Babylonian world· Daniel had to find a way to survive in culture hostile to God --> You and I must survive in a culture hostile to Godhttps://ucgraleigh.blogspot.com/2022/05/daniel-in-court-of-king-nebuchadnezzar.html Keep Reading »

Your Part in God's Master Plan of Spiritual CreationThe biblical festival of Unleavened bread follows immediately after the biblical festival of Passover. There is no separation between the two. The nanosecond the Passover ends at sundown the first day of unleavened bread begins. Perhaps this is to tell us how closely inter-related the spiritual meaning of both festivals are. Step 1: Jesus' sacrifice makes possible forgiveness of sin and provides atonement for it. He who was God and was with God came in the flesh to do for us what we could not ever do for our self. Step 2: After Passover, comes the festival of unleavened Bread which tells us about:l First, the contribution we must make towards God's great purpose for us l AND it points to the help God extends to us through the living risen ChristMy purpose today is to explore both of these aspects of the festival: Keep Reading »

A repost from the archives...Passover is a time of spiritual renewal and rededication. We get more out of it if we prepare ourselves mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. What better example can we look to that Jesus and how He approached the Passover. #christ #passover2022

Why Should We Keep the Biblical Holy Days?God’s Holy Days Are Full of Meaning, Instruction & InsightGod created human beings for an amazing/eternal purpose! Every man, woman, and child here has been made in God's own image... a physical being made of dust, clay, molecules.... yet with a spiritual component built into us. That spirit within humans distinguishes us from all the other creatures on the planet... it takes humans to a different level of being and thinking. That spirit God has placed within us is designed to interact with and work with the holy spirit of God to bring about a new creation... each completely unique... yet conforming to a righteous pattern. Humans are designed for spirit-born life... and all have the potential to be born into the family of God Himself.The chart referred to in this message can be downloaded at this link - https://www.ucg.org/system/storage/serve/1371366/slide5_1.jpg Keep Reading »

  Jesus Himself put in place a new Passover service for His followers. He changed the practices of the old Passover service and gave us a new purpose for observing the Passover. This is a message from 2016 that is appropriate for the present season. I am re-posting it to our podcast feed. I hope you find it helpful for understanding why Christians ought to observe the biblical holy days and festivals as outlined in Leviticus 23. This message starts with the first of these observances found in Leviticus 23:5. The original post with full text can be found here: Passover Observance for Christians

Betrayed By A FriendThe Messiah/King entered the gates of Jerusalem in the spring of 31 A.D. The Passover and Days of Unleavened Bread of 31 AD. were about 2 days away... there was excitement and expectation in the air. To many the signs looked like the restoration of Israel was about to unfold.But, over the course of the next few days, that same Messiah/King would be rejected by the very people God had chosen to represent His name on earth. Even as Jesus triumphantly entered Jerusalem [riding on a donkey... greeted with shouts of joy], the chief priests and leaders of the Jewish people were plotting for a way to arrest and kill Jesus. They wanted a way to do it that would not cause Jesus' crowds of followers to rise up in revolt. They did not know it yet, but their plans would be fulfilled though a man names Judas who would betray his friend, master and teacher... Jesus... for a handful of silver coins.https://ucgraleigh.blogspot.com/2022/03/jesus-betrayed-by-judas-for-30-pieces.html Keep Reading »

Prophecies of The King of PeaceToday we are going to survey the prophecies made about Jesus as the Messiah who would come to bring peace and reconciliation. BUT… would be rejected by humanity.The Messiah Would Be Rejected[ca 740-700 B.C.] Isaiah 52:13 - 53:3 Jews who knew the scriptures were eagerly expecting a powerful Messiah figure to restore Israel to its former position of honor, Godly purpose, and dominant status on the world stage.  They understood “the servant of the Lord” to be the Messiah come with great ruling power. For example; Isaiah 42:1-4. Embedded in these prophecies of the Messiah were a subtext of suffering and death which confused the Jews. These prophecies of the suffering and rejected servant only made sense after Jesus first coming. Jesus had prepared the disciples for this. He told them the rejection would come and the contempt  would come Luke 17:25, Matthew 16:21, Mark 10:34. Yet like so many other prophecies they only really got it after it came to pass. The holy spirit would later help them to recall and understand all these events and fulfilments... but their understanding began with clear, literal statements from Jesus which they would be able remember... and record for future generations.https://ucgraleigh.blogspot.com/2022/03/the-king-of-peace-comes-humbly-and.html Keep Reading »

The Care & Feeding of Your ConscienceTo have a conscience means "to know better"... a child caught stealing candy might be scolded by a phrase like "you should know better than that". Which begs the question: just what were they taught? Were they taught at all? Were they expected to figure it out on their own?The English word conscience comes from the Latin conscientia which is two words joined  together con and scio... meaning "to know together", or "joint knowledge with others".  In the new testament conscience is used to translate the Greek word syn [together] and eidenai [to know]... to have common knowledge together with someone. https://ucgraleigh.blogspot.com/2022/03/the-care-and-feeding-of-clean-conscience.htmlKeep Reading »

Christ & the Church: Together We Are a TempleThe bible often compares spiritual realities to features of our day to day existence to draw out some feature of that spiritual reality... Jesus compared the work of the holy spirit to the wind "you can't see the wind but you can see the results of the wind". Sometimes a variety of different comparisons are made about the same thing. Each drawing attention to a different aspect of the spiritual reality. The relationship of Christ and the church is just such a subject. It is compared to a marriage, it is compared to human anatomy, it is compared to a shepherd with his flock, it is compared to a city with citizens, and it is compared to a temple.Today we will look at the relationship of Christ & the Church through the analogy of the temple where they come together.https://ucgraleigh.blogspot.com/2022/03/the-church-is-temple-of-god-and-christ.htmlKeep Reading »

God's instructions for the feast of Tabernacles appear in three places:Leviticus 23 gives the responsibility of proclaiming the time of the biblical festivals to the priests. Numbers 29 itemizes specific sacrifices and offerings for each biblical festival. Deuteronomy 16  instructs where the biblical festivals are to be conductedThe Place Which The Lord Your God Shall ChooseDeuteronomy 16:13-15 for many this means Jerusalem. But, Jerusalem only became the place to keep the festival many centuries after these instructions were given. Jerusalem became the place around 960 BC. in the days of Solomon… But was rejected and destroyed in 70 AD.Prophecies of the millennial rule of Christ tell us Jerusalem will be restored as the geographic center of God's government... but that is not NOW. Jerusalem is NOT the place for God’s people to keep the Feast of Tabernacles in this age. Today we’ll review the places God has placed His name and how He designates any given place. We’ll finish with a quick look at how the present day Church of God fulfills this instruction to come before God in the the place He will choose. Keep Reading »