SIGNS 2

Signs 2    

After Christ’s ascension we know the last words that Jesus told them… “tarry in Jerusalem until you be endued with power from on high… (THIS WAS A SIGN…) And as they stumbled out of that upper room as drunk men... Then came the questions… “What meaneth this???” Acts 2:12… “What shall we do???” Acts 2:37… And of course, some with accusation accused them as being drunk at 9:00 in the morning…

WHAT CAN WE SAY EXCEPT; THIS WAS A SIGN… A SIGN FROM HEAVEN… A SIGN PROPHECIED…

These were Jews, these were the first of the believers in Jesus… Their lives were built around all that which was Jewish, their community, their synagogues, their worship, all their expectations were Jewish…

Then out of nowhere with much surprise to the Jewish church… In Acts chapter 10, came the same visitation of the Holy Ghost as it fell on them in the beginning… What they saw was that just as suddenly as Christ came on them, came the same visitation and experience of Pentecost to the Gentiles…

Now the kingdom of God was suddenly open to the Gentiles. That which they (the Jews) experienced in Acts 2… repentance, remissions of sins in water baptism in the name of Jesus Christ, and the receiving of the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in other tongues… Christ now came with the same power and the same visitation to the house of Cornelius… He along with his entire house experienced what they had... What can we say, except now the Gentiles became co-heirs of the kingdom with the Jewish believers… CHRIST HAD MADE HIS ABODE IN THEM ALSO…

They all seen the signs… And they knew the origin of those signs…

Joel 2:28 And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions:

29 And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit.  KJV

AGAIN THE SIGNS AS PROPHECIED… SIGNS AS GIVEN, some 750 B.C.

Gentiles who had repented and left paganism, and Gentile traditions and worship of idols and false gods stopped and now they began attending synagogues... Some no doubt observing Jewish festivals, and reading with understanding through the study of the Torah, the Psalms and the prophets…

THEY WERE SEEING THE SIGNS…

These two groups, the Jew and the Gentile now understanding like never before the working and the manifestation of Christ the Messiah… THE MANIFESTATION OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD...

However, numerous problems were encountered and occurred between these two groups… It was the apostle Paul who God anointed to preach the gospel to the Gentiles… 

In that time despite much persecution, faith in Christ, the obedience to God and HIS word was very widespread during the first century among the Jewish population…

Acts 17:6… (IN PART) --- “these that have turned the world upside down…”

AGAIN; WE RECOGNIZE WHAT THEY SAW WERE THE SIGNS AS FORETOLD…

But in time, the Gentiles were becoming more and more prevalent, they were increasing in number…

The Gentiles eventually gained the upper hand in decisions affecting most of the congregations outside the region of ancient Israel…

Events that happened 100 years following the death of the apostle Paul seen the changing of faith… Paul prophesied yet another sign to be made aware of… Wolves as the apostle Paul called them in ACTS 20; savage wolves that would come in with the purpose to destroy the faith…

THE WARNING NOT JUST OF PAUL BUT ALL--- WARNING OF THE ANTICHRIST SPIRIT… SIGNS…

Apostle Paul’s death 66 A.D. Then followed the Jewish nation revolt against the Roman Empire… Four years later Roman legions led by Titus, circled Jerusalem at the feast of the Passover… Jesus even warned the believers of that generation that was alive at the time of his death would see Jerusalem destroyed. Not one stone would remain upon another… (AGAIN ANOTHER FULFILLED SIGN PROPHECIED…)

This took place in 70 A.D. (THIS WAS A PROPHECIED SIGN THAT JESUS HIMSELF GAVE…)

Thus, we see the scattering of the Jewish people… Still yet in 90 A.D… The Rabbi leaders who did not believe in Jesus Christ took steps to bar the Jewish believers from the synagogues…

THE FURTHERANCE OF YET ANOTHER SIGN…

Pressure was being put on the Jewish believers of Christ from three sides:

1)     First from the nonbelieving pagans who hated anything Jewish…

2)     Second, from the nonbelieving Jews who feared their power among the people…

3)     And third within their own congregations… The new Gentile believers who were entering the faith…

In 116 A.D. another war broke out in Egypt between the Jewish population in Rome… ANOTHER SIGN GIVEN TO THE SCATTERING OF THE JEWS…)

In 135 A.D. another rebellion… Legions of Rome marched on the Jewish homeland… Hadrian, the Roman Caesar, with vengeance came against the Jewish people again diminishing their numbers…

(ONE MORE SIGN GIVEN…)

In the fourth century 325 A.D. Constantine as the Caesar of Rome supposedly became a so called “believer” for reasons of his own… It was at this time he gathered from the Christian community the few that he invited… Less than 20 % was even there amongst the Gentile believers... Mostly those in his invitation were those who he could persuade and easily be corrupted… The rest he found he would, ignore, and others he would place in exile…

History says in this Council, Constantine purposely left out every Jewish leader. And he passed laws to deny Jewish believers to circumcise their children… He formed laws against them to keep them from observing Jewish festivals, or to rear their children as Jews… The Jewish believers were being forced to drop their Jewish beliefs and to become, in every sense of the word as the Pagan Gentiles…

The Jews were forced into Greek names, and the acceptance and embrace the Pagan festivals… In every sense of the word the implementation of certain things from the decisions of Constantine were now in place and caused the changing of days, times, calendar for the Jew. (DANIEL 7:25…)

The Jewish faith became a totally different religion. Greek names, concepts and religion became “Christianity…” Jewish traditions were being stamped out… Culture was changed and altered… Their sense of identity under attack and forced to change…

It was at this 325 A.D. Council of Nicia that brought to us man’s Trinitarian concept… Then too the changing of the baptismal formula of Acts 2:38…

SIGNS…

We see this as those in power to deny truth as we know it… However, we seldom see what it did to the Jewish believers who went on and who desired to keep their traditions, their feasts, and their festivals…

Constantine who stood against the Jews and the true church, had now taken political control and thus a implemetation of a false church…

·        Laws were issued forbidding Jewish believers to circumcise their children…

·        There was the implementing the replacing of the Passover with the Babylonian fertility goddess…

·        There was the implementing of the pagan; Roman birthday of the sun God…

Many were killed… Many hid… Many fled… The Shema Deut. 6:4… Their belief in one GOD was under attack… Their ways of worship were under attack…

SIGNS…

Is it any wonder to where we in this present world have arrived to???

Eph 2:2 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:     KJV

2 Cor 4:4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.     KJV

The descriptions as follows… “The prince and power of the air…” “The god of this world…” works disobedience, and blinds the minds…

SIGNS… THAT TODAY ARE SO PREVALENT THAT EVEN WITH SUCH SIGNS READILY SEEN THEY MISS THEM…

JESUS IS SOON TO RETURN; AND YET, HOW AMAZING IT IS THAT SO MANY HAVE AND ARE MISSING THE SIGNS OF THE SOON RETURN OF JESUS FOR HIS PEOPLE…

HOW ABOUT IT MOM??? DO YOU SEE THE SIGNS???

HOW ABOUT IT DAD??? DO YOU SEE THE SIGNS???

YOUNG PERSON, CAN YOU SEE THE SIGNS???

HEAR THE WORDS OF JESUS…

Matt 24:37 But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,

39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.     KJV

THEY MISSED THE SIGNS… WILL YOU BE ONE OF THOSE WHO MISSED HIS SIGNS???