By Bob Barney
“Have you ever wondered why the number thirteen is so important to this country? The number 13 relates to the 13 colonies, there were 13 stripes on the flag, 13 stars, the eagle, there are 13 tail feathers, 13 arrows in his claw even, 13 berries on the branch, 13 stars over the eagle’s head. Our forefathers understood the symbolism of the number 13 and the13th tribe of Israel being Ephraim. “
Insert music playing “there is a season, turn, turn, turn…and a time to every purpose unto Heaven…”
Ever heard that song before?
Hi, this is Bob Barney. Back in the 1960’s, legendary rock and roll group The Byrds sang the song Turn! Turn! Turn! but what some people don’t know is that it was based on scripture in the Bible from Ecclesiastes 3.
Turn turn turn, a time to be born…A time to die,
a time to plant, a time to be plucked, a time to kill, a time to heal, a time to break down, a time to build back up, a time to weep, and a time to laugh…a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together again, a time to embrace, a time to refrain from embracing, a time to gain, a time to lose, a time to keep and a time to throw away…a time to tear and a time to sow, a time to keep silent and a time to speak out, a time to love and a time to hate…a time of war, and a time of peace.
Pete Seager wrote that song after he was told that he was writing songs that were more controversial and needed to write more songs that had the Bible in them. He went to the Bible and wrote this song word for word basically. He used Eccl 3 to show his plight for peace for the Vietnam war. It was heard as an anti-God song even though every word, like I said, came from the Bible.
Most people, you see, ignorantly and blissfully are unaware of what is really written in the Bible and hence, as we heard the other day from GTA, there are many Biblical misconceptions that people form because people think they know what is in the Bible when they really do not.
For example, as I pointed out in Ecclesiastes there are points made that go against what people think. People think when you die you go to heaven or hell, as if you have an immortal soul, and GTA shows you how that isn’t true…but King Solomon said, “Concerning the states of sons of man, God tested them all, that they may see themselves as nothing but beasts”. When you go back to the beginning of Genesis you find out that man was a living creature, not a living soul like the King James interprets it, the word nephesh used for soul is most often translated LIVING CREATURE, man is no different than in animal. It goes on to say in chpt 3 vs 20, “all go to one place. For what happens to the son of Man also happens to the beast. One thing befalls them all, as one dies so dieth the other. Surely, they have one breath, man has no advantage over the animal for all is vanity…all go to one place…all are from the dust and all return to the dust. Who can say that the spirit of man goes upwards, but the spirit of animals goes downwards”. Saying that sarcastically I might add. because man was made in the image and likeness of God…we are God in the making, we are God in the womb of the church, but we are still physically an animal. We have animal instincts that we must overcome and sin which is really disobeying God’s laws inspired by the devil, who is in fact the first lawbreaker, sin is taking advantage of the animal instinct that is within us.
One of the basic biblical misconceptions is that man is something different than an animal. Physically men and animals are similar, almost the exact same thing, science agrees with me, but most churches do not…the Bible agrees with me most importantly!
Another misconception we hear about in the Bible especially when it comes to the Jewish Americans or the people that follow the Jewish faith, when they are presented with the life of Christ and His death and resurrection from the dead, Jews do not believe that it really happened, and they claim that Christ cannot be the Messiah. They claim this because of the fact that there is nothing in the Old Testament that would convince them that their Messiah that is to come as a King, would suffer and die for the sins of Mankind. The suffering Messiah they claim is just not scriptural to them. Remember, Jewish people, the people who follow Judaism, only believe in the Old Testament. To them, you have to show them in the Old Testament where there is any hint of a suffering Messiah. There are many. Let me read you a chapter in the book of Isaih which is found in the OT. I believe and I have been told that it is not often read aloud in the synagogue. maybe you can help me figure out why, because they didn’t believe there is no suffering, Messiah.
Who has believed our report and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he shall grow up before him a tender plant and as a root out of dry ground. He has no form that when we see him, we see no beauty that we should desired him.
Here is a misconception. Whenever you see a picture of Christ. You always see him with long hair which he did not have. He stands out from the crowd, which he did not…we are told that he was a strikingly handsome person. Yet here we see a foreshadow of the coming Messiah in the OT in part of Isaiah, (which the Jewish people don’t want to take literally because we will see a suffering Messiah not coming as a King) but that Jesus didn’t have beauty nor is he the most handsome man as he is portrayed in the movies and in artwork.
How do we know this from the gospels?
Because it took Judas to betray Christ to the leading priest to identify him out of a crowd. He couldn’t even be picked out of a crowd of people even though he taught every single day in the temple every week, he presented himself at the temple to the priest, talked to the pharisees, they didn’t know what he looked like and had to bribe Judas with 30 pieces of silver to pick him out of a crowd and arrest him> if he looked like Brad Pitt, I think everyone could pick him out but he looked so ordinary like the average Jew of the day that he couldn’t pick him out of the crowd and needed one of his own disciples to point him out. This is a biblical misconception when they think about what Christ actually looks like, he had no beauty that we should desire him, he was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief and we hid from him, his face, as although he was despised, and we did not esteem him. We do not even want to be seen with him, back then, people who saw him ran away and hid themselves just as the disciples did. Surely, he bore our griefs and sorrows, yet we esteemed Him stricken and smitten by God and inflicted by God. The Jews of the time and the high priest and the priestly class saw him on the cross suffering and said this is the man God’s punishment for lying to us about who he was. He was wounded for our transgressions for our iniquities. Chastisement was peace upon him, meaning the father, and by his stripes we are healed. We all like sheep have gone astray. We have turned, every one of us, to our own way. Isn’t that what I said in a prior broadcast, I don’t care if we are 3, or 83, we want to be our own person. We don’t want God to tell us what to do, we want to decide what is best for us.
When Christ came the first time to absolve us of our sins, and grace is our arrogance against God and his laws. So, the Lord laid upon Him the sin of all of us. He was oppressed and afflicted yet he did not open his mouth. Remember in front of Pilot He didn’t even speak. He was led as a lamb to slaughter, so right there is your suffering Christ who was going to die. But the Jewish religion says this isn’t found in their Bible. It says as sheep before a shearer is silent, He did not open His mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment and who can declare of His descendants of His generation? Because he had not married, had no offspring or wife, because he was cut off from the living for the transgressions of my people, Isaiah is talking about the Jewish people, he was stricken. They were made a grave from the wicked. He died between two criminals.
Remember that story where there were three crosses, or three stakes, not sure if they were really “T” crosses as they depicted, in fact even the Greek word there translated to stake not cross. But the Bible translates it as “Cross”. He was pushed between two criminals on the cross when He died. And they made His grave with the wicked, meaning the criminals, but with the rich, after His death. He was laid in a rich man’s tomb. Joseph from Aramathia gave him his own personal tomb, never used, he was a very rich man, and most likely the uncle of Jesus Chrst or maybe Jesus’ mother Mary’s brother.
Because He had done no violence nor was there any deceit in HIs mouth, it would please the Lord, and in this case the Lord is meaning the father, to bruise him, he was put to him to grief, when you make his soul an offering for sin. We shall see His seed and prolong His days and the presence of the Lord will prosper in his hands. You will see the prevail of his soul and be satisfied. God the father was satisfied with the death of his fellow, mate, his fellow being, his fellow God as you could say, and was satisfied with his death. Knowing it had absolved the sins of the world. By God’s knowledge my righteous servant shall justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities, therefore I will divide him a portion with the great and he shall divide the spoil with the strong because.he poured out his life for death and numbered with his transgressions, called a sinner, and bore the sins of many, and He made intercession for their transgressions.
This is the suffering Christ that unfortunately the Jewish people mistakenly think is not found in their own Bible. Misconceptions of the Jewish people show that the suffering Christ IS IN FACT found in their scriptures, not only the New Testament. There are hundreds of references of a suffering messiah in the Old Testament scriptures.
A second misconception, just the identity of Israel and the Jews. You see, most people today mistakenly believe that the word Israel and the word Jew are synonymous. People believe that all Israelis are Jewish people and that the Jewish people are all of the 12 tribes of Israel. That is simply not the case. The word Jew comes from the word Judah. Let me go back, the first person blessed before Moses was Abraham. He was given two blessings: that he would be the father of many nations and many people and that his people would become the greatest people that ever walked on the face of the earth; a physical blessing was bestowed.
The second blessing Abraham was giving was that through his seed would come the Messiah. So, Abraham’s two blessings were one of grace, the Messiah, and one of race…that his descendants would be the greatest people to ever exist on the face of the earth. That blessing went to his son Isaac. Isaac had a son Jacob who received both blessings, Jacob got two because one he stole one and the other, he received rightfully.
Jacob struggled with God one night, that is a real story in the Bible in Genesis. You can see that Jacob struggled with an angel that turns out to be the “lord God’. He was beating God and God touched his hip, putting it out of joint, therefore causing Jacob to limp for the rest of his life. That angel which means just that angel or messenger of God or the word of God, that is Logos in Greek…and Jesus is the word of the Godhead. The Godhead is composed of Jesus and the Father. There is no holy spirit as God, the holy spirit is what they are made of. Male and Female are made of blood, and God the father and Jesus are made of the holy spirit. We are made in the image of God. We look at each other and we are made in their image. That is in your bible, this is our destiny, this is another misconception.
Only one of the 12 tribes of Jacob, one of his other sons was named Judah. The descendants of them are the Jews but there are still 11 other tribes. The main tribe of the Old Testament if you really want to see it in the Old Testament is really Joseph. Joseph was the favorite son of Jacob. He loved Jacob more than his other sons. This may seem bad, and you might not like to hear that, but it is clearly in the Bible. His other brothers were jealous of him and sold him into slavery in Egypt. Joseph as a result became the 2nd most powerful figure on the face of the earth under the pharaoh for saving the Egyptians from starvation from a blessing of God to interpret dreams.
After 27 years and Jacob found out that his son was not killed as the other sons reported he was mauled and killed by animals, Jacob as an old man heard that his son lives and that he is so powerful in Egypt and that there was a famine who moved to Egypt. Jacob saw his son Joseph for the first time in 27 year and he blessed his two sons. Joseph’s sons were named Ephraim and the older was Manasseh. When Jacob blessed the two sons, he crossed his hands and put his right hand which was the greater blessing onto Ephraim, and placed the left hand on the other son, the older, that should have really had the right-hand blessing. Joseph saw this mistake and was like my father, you are making a mistake. Your right hand belongs to the older brother and Jacob said no my son I know what I am doing. The older son Manasseh will be a great colonizing empire on the face of the earth. Bu8t the younger son whose name was Ephraim will become the single greatest nation to ever exist on the face of the earth. A blessing to all mankind. Well, Manasseh is Great Britain and the British commonwealth, and the younger son is the United States of America, the 13th son of Jacob. Jacob said I am going to adopt these two sons as mine and my blessing will be on them, and Joseph’s one tribe now becomes two. So, the 12 tribes of Israel become 13 tribes and the 13th tribe is the younger son Ephraim, with the greater blessing.
Have you ever wondered why the number thirteen is so important to this country? The number 13 relates to the 13 colonies, there were 13 stripes on the flag, 13 stars, the eagle, there are 13 tail feathers, 13 arrows in his claw even, 13 berries on the branch, 13 stars over the eagle’s head. Our forefathers understood the symbolism of the number 13 and the13th tribe of Israel being Ephraim. Another thing that Jacob said during this blessing was, let my name Israel be on these two young lads. So, whenever you read a prophecy in the Old Testament and it is talking about Israel ist is not talking about the modern state of Israel, it is talking about the modern countries of Israel namely the Commonwealth of England, the countries aligned with England and the younger brother Ephraim, which is America. When Jesus said it would be a time of Jacobs’ trouble, the end times, it will be the end time of America and England trouble.
Here is a prophecy from Hosea Chapter 7 verse 8. He said remember Ephraim has mixed himself amongst the peoples, meaning non-Israelites foreigners if you will. Ephram is a cake unturned. Aliens have devoured his strength. Does that sound familiar to you in this day and age? Well, this was written 3500 years ago. The American people do not even know who they are and what is happening to us was prophesied by God.
Yes, gray hairs are there on him and he does not know it. Meaning, he is getting old and weak but thinks he is still strong. The pride of Israel testifies to his face, but they do not return to their Lord God nor seek him for all their needs. Ephraim is like a silly doe without sense. They call Egypt for help when Assyria is modern day Germany, for help, but wherever they go I will spread my net over them and bring them down like birds in the air and I will chastise them according to what their congregation has heard. Woe to them for they have fled from me, and destruction is the result. Yes, because we refuse to obey God, God is ordaining destruction for this country eventually. It is a sobering thought. The good news, the gospel which is an old English term for the good news, and Christ brought Good news with him as he was the greatest newscaster that ever walked the face of this earth because he knew the news of the future. Not the news of the past. When you watch the evening news, you watch yesterday’s news, when you listen to Christ you are watching tomorrow’s news which is more important. Well, the good news is that we can forestall this prophesy if we as a people return to God in prayer. God says those who seek me diligently will find me. If you really care about finding the true God and not the god of man, or God of tradition, but the real God of this bible, the real God in Heaven, made up of the Father and the Son and you seek him diligently God will listen to you. God will listen to this nation if they return to God in fasting and in prayer, ask for forgiveness and ask for help…God is true to his word, he will return to this country and bless us again.
That is another misconception of the Bible. Who we are.
A third misconception and probably the most serious one for this nation because this nation has become lawless. We are a lawless nation, and it comes from Christianity, fake Christianity which is basically false teachings about God coming to abolish the law.
It is really funny when i first started reading in the Bible when I was challenged to read the Bible by Garner Ted Armstrong, it really got to me that everything I thought Jesus said was the exact opposite.
We are told by our ministers that God came to abolish the law and do away with it but in Matthew chapter 5 verses 17, “do not come to think I have come to destroy the law or the prophets. I have come to magnify the law to make them understandable to everyone.”
Is that what is being taught by the churches? No, they said he came to abolish the law. Why would anyone want to follow a God who has no laws? Laws protect you. There is no freedom without the law. The law is what keeps your house from being taken over by other people because you record a deed, a legal document that protects your house from being stolen. the law protects you when it says it will punish people who rape you who rob and mame you and murder you because they broke the law of man, which is just the physical laws of God but we same Christ came to abolish the laws. HE goes on to say, “for verily verily I say to you until heaven and earth pass away not one jot or tittle of the law has been done away with”, not until everything is fulfilled, has Christ returned and has everything been fulfilled? No, but yet our preachers, teachers of religion say the law has been abolished. For whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches those to do so will be considered least in heaven, but whoever teaches them will be great in the kingdom of heaven. Unless your righteousness supersedes that of the pharisees, you will by no means enter into the kingdom of heaven. WOW. What a statement.
We are a lawless nation today because our leaders including our clergy teaches lawlessness.
That is the absolute plain truth.
Another misconception of the Bible that needs to be rectified.
Probably the last misconception I want to talk about today and there may be future programs on this from myself and others is the misconception that GTA got into this a little bit from the show the other day, but that God is desperately trying to save your soul. And that he is in a struggle with the devil to save man from destruction.
Well, I got news for you…I will be as straight to the point as GTA was the other day, GOD IS NOT TRYING TO SAVE YOUR SOUL. He is in no struggle or worry about your soul, maybe you should be worried about your future, but God has a plan and that is not going to change one wit. God and Jesus Christ when he walked this earth was not going around trying to save souls. In fact, you can read a scripture in the New Testament where His own disciples were a bit miffed with him for talking in parables. People can go to a dictionary and see the definition of parables is to make something plainer. But the disciples would go to him and say why are you doing this? Jesus said to them to you I speak in parables, to you, it is given knowledge of the kingdom of heaven. But to the others it is not given, so they would not understand, they would not perceive, they would not change from their sins and then I would have to save them.
Is that the Jesus Christ you know?
Is that what you are being taught about Jesus Christ in your church? This loving Christ that forgives you about anything you want to do? No. He said I do not want these people to understand because if they did then I would have to forgive them and they would be doomed to eternal damnation because their sin would not be covered, because they are a lawless bunch of people.
You are saved by the Law, but you are also judged by that Law. God sent Christ to abolish the penalty, not the Law, but the penalty of the Law.
It is a great pardon; everyone understands a pardon like when a President pardons someone. That is when someone is convicted of something and it is an absolute pardon, they can go full pardoned, not to go and break the law again, but the pardon only works from behind what happened from that pardon backwards. Not forwards. It is the same thing with Christ. He came to give you a pardon from your past sins, not a license to continue in your lawlessness. Not a license to do harm to yourself and others. It is time to understand that we do not understand what is in the Bible. We need to start to read it like a book. Believe exactly what it says because it means what it says, not that we have to go to some holy roller and some commentary to understand that the Bible doesn’t mean what it just said.
Like this, “oh year, Christ did away, don’t think he came to abolish the law, but he did”. He says what he means, and he means what he says.
Why do we constantly want to take the easy route out and not take the right route? That is one of the fallacies or weaknesses of man. That we went to have someone else do our work for us. Well, when it comes to your salvation and your eternal life which you do not have, you have two choices ahead of you, eternal life or eternal death. Eternal death is not suffering in hellfire, that is another misconception. Eternal death is exactly what it sounds like, you will be burned up and never have a memory again. You also have a choice of eternal life of bliss and happiness; you will be God’s children and you too will be a god.
Pretty good story.
It is a pretty good ending to a miserable existence possibly for many people who are in this world living a miserable existence. There are those that are good Christians who are suffering every day in Africa. On average 60 a day are being butchered because they will not denounce Christ for a Muslim religion. Denying their faith. Do not forget what Christians around the world are suffering for. They see a life coming that is far superior to the life they have today that is miserable. You can have that life, it is in your hands, and no one can do it for you. You have to start thinking about what God wants you to do and you cannot do that without starting to read the Bible, read what it says and start practicing what it says to do in the Bible.
What Paul says is very important, “Follow me as I follow Jesus Christ, don’t listen to me, don’t listen to Paul, don’t listen to any holy roller, listen to the words of Christ and they are found in the Bible, and you will find life. You will find the Truth. The Plain Truth.
This is Bob Barney for The Plain Truth saying thank you for listening.
“Why do we constantly want to take the easy route out and not take the right route? That is one of the fallacies or weaknesses of man. That we went to have someone else do our work for us. Well, when it comes to your salvation and your eternal life which you do not have, you have two choices ahead of you, eternal life or eternal death.”
— Bob Barney