An excerpt from New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens January 31, 2023
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We spend hours each day watching TV, reading the news, and listening to music. We pend maybe a few minutes each day in prayer, in the Bible, and seeking God. And we wonder why our lives are confused, pointless, and lonely?
Is America Under Judgment? January 30, 2023
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All that follows I will preface with, “I believe.” I am not attempting to establish theology for anyone or to declare that anyone who does not agree with me is a heretic. I am merely sharing my beliefs, grounded on study and prayer, since my opinion has been solicited on this topic more than once.
Many Christians today bring every conversation back to, “Do you think these are the last days?”
This may be based on a personal reading of the Book of Revelation in the Bible. It could be based on the broadcast sermons and teachings of any number of professional End Times preachers who have built careers on pointing to an apocalypse around the corner.
The signs of the times are always easy to read they just aren’t so easy to interpret. Nero was the Antichrist as was Diocletian, King James II, Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. False Prophets have equally abounded from the Pope to Martin Luther, from Henry VIII to Rasputin to Jim Jones.
Is the End coming? Most certainly. Can we know when it is coming? Most certainly not. Since it is impossible to know when the end is coming I cannot believe that God would want us wasting any of the precious time He gives us speculating as to when it will arrive instead of being His witnesses to the world.
Since it is anti-biblical to believe we can know the date of the End, it is obviously not a Godly use of our time to try and figure it out anyway. What can we know? Just as we can look at the clouds and know when a storm is coming or smell the wind and know when a rain is on the way, so to we can look at the present state of our nation and know the time of the season. If we use the analogy of a year’s cycle it is obviously fall headed for the winter. It has been fall headed for the winter since the crucifixion of Christ: the fulcrum of History.
Some may ask, “Why has fall lasted so long?” The problem is we really don’t know how long the previous winter and spring were. The belief that the Bible tells us that there were approximately X number of thousand years before Christ and there will be X number of years after Christ equaling 7,000 years as a week in God’s time as taught by some popular TV preachers is based on the a tissue of strung together scriptures and cherry-picked verses. Equally, the belief that the time from Adam and Christ is discernible from the Biblical text is based on the erroneous belief that the Bible is presented as a linear historical document.
While I believe that the Bible contains real History and that it is literally true, I do not believe that it presents a year for year time-line type of presentation. The Old Testament is above all a spiritual History of how God chose one people and eventually one person to bring forth the Chosen One: Jesus Christ, the Messiah of the Jews and the Savior of man. I do not believe that by counting the lives of everyone mentioned in Old Testament genealogies it is possible to know how many years elapsed between “Let there be light” and the birth, death, or resurrection of Christ.
Most of the names mentioned in the many Old Testament genealogies have no age associated with them so the would-be Biblical time liner has to make a guess. Also, when you compare the genealogies there are obvious overlaps, repetitions, and omissions. Compare the New Testament genealogies of Christ found in Luke and in Matthew and you will see the problem with genealogies as linear History. Now multiply that by all the genealogies in the Old Testament and you will begin to see the problem with this method of calculating time.
The people who tell us that the Old Testament gives us an accurate count of the years between the beginning and the beginning of the end are the same ones who tell us that they can figure out from the book of Revelation when the end of time will come. They do this although Christ Himself tells us in Matthew, “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” Then to make the point again it was one of the last things He told us before ascending to Heaven in Acts, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority.”
Since we cannot know the day or the hour, the times or the seasons how godly can it be to spend so much time trying to figure it out? So much for trying to figure out when THE end is since it can’t be done. However, I felt I had to deal with that before I moved on to the real subject of this column: whether or not America is under judgment.
I believe that is a topic that can be discerned by anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear. I am not talking about the end of the United States. It is and will be called by the same name, waving the same flag. I will let you judge if it is the same country we grew up in.
Looking at the spiritual History of the Old Testament as a guide we see that Judah the southern kingdom of the Jews, the believing remnant that carried on the covenant after the apostatized Kingdom of Israel had been carried off into exile was finally delivered into the hands of its enemies because they had sacrificed their children to pagan gods and walked in the ways of the world. Since 1972 when a case based on a lie was used by an activist Supreme Court to invent a constitutional right to abort babies over 60 million Americans have been deprived of the most fundamental right of all: Life.
God does not condemn societies because of the sin within them because the same sins are in all peoples at all times. Rather God condemns societies for the sins they condone. Sodom, Gomorrah, and the cities of the plains were not destroyed because they were filled with more evil than the Canaanites that God eventually sent the Israelites to destroy. No, these cities were consumed by fire and brimstone because they gloried in what others did in shame.
Stroll down the streets of San Francisco. Flip the dial from the Modern Family to Two and a Half Men from The Jersey Shore to Glee and it seems Jerry Springer has defined the new America. On cable and satellite hard core porn fills the overnight hours while state after state legalizes pot on their way to legalizing everything. The government has taken over the numbers racket, calling it a lottery as they plunder the poorest amongst us by selling them false hope where winning is as likely as being struck with lightening.
What is the judgment of God on nations that have moved out from under His blessing by rejecting His guidance? He casts them down from the heights their former obedience had achieved. In the near future we may become the tail instead of the head as our leaders continue to wag the dog.
Alexis de Tocqueville one of the most astute observers of America said in the early 1800’s “America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.” Now survey the current state of America for yourself. Don’t accept the opinion of someone else but make up your own mind.
Is America good? The answer to that will provide the answer to the question posed in the title of this column “Is America under Judgment?” For if we are not good what are we? And what is the result of that?
If you decide for yourself that America is under judgment does that mean you should run for the nearest exit or hide in a fallout shelter?
Remember God has told those who follow Him, “A thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand; but it shall not come near you.”
Don’t hide run. Run to the nearest rooftop and proclaim Jesus as Lord. Share your witness everywhere with everyone you can for it will only be through a renewal of the heart that we will come to the heart of the problem.
Keep the Faith. Keep the peace. We shall overcome.
This is an excerpt from the book Faith by Dr. Robert Owens. This and all his books are available from Amazon in paperback or kindle at Amazon.
An excerpt from New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens January 25, 2023
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When we close our eyes or shrug our shoulders to injustice, we might as well say we agree with it.
What is Righteousness and How Do I Get It? January 24, 2023
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The first part is easy. Righteousness is the ability to stand in the presence of God as if we’d never sinned. When we stand in righteousness before God the Father it’s without any sense of fear, condemnation, or inferiority. We have this righteousness because we are now children of God through Christ and as children, we are members of the family and have a rightful place.
Just think of Buckingham Palace as heaven. If you walked up to the gate and said, “Let me in” the guards would turn you away. If Prince Charles walked up and said let me in the guards would open the door and bow as he walked past. It’s the same way with heaven. If we show up covered in our sin we will get turned away. If we show up in Christ, as a member of His body the gates will swing open and glory to God, we will at last be home.
This was promised to us through the prophet Isaiah long ago, “All your children shall be taught by the Lord, and great shall be the peace of your children. In righteousness you shall be established; you shall be far from oppression, for you shall not fear; and from terror, for it shall not come near you.”
As natural men we have a sin consciousness. We inherently know that we are not worthy to stand in the presence of God. We have knowledge of our own weakness to the sins which so easily overtake us. This has kept us slaves to sin. This consciousness of our own sin and weakness destroys our abilities and short-circuits our ability to live as God intends.
That is why we must be born again. For in our re-birth, our re-creation in Christ we acquire righteousness. Without it we could no more be children of God than an ant could be a man. For without righteousness the Father could take no pleasure in us as His children since we would shrink away from the fire of His love since it would then be the fire of His judgement, for it is the same fire.
This righteousness is the gift of God. It is not something we could have ever earned for ourselves. Before we’re born again, we were without Christ. We were aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. We were bankrupt, sold out to sin, and without the ability to help ourselves.
This is why God laid our sins upon Christ. This is why Christ died upon the cross. He paid the penalty demanded by justice. Sin had to be paid for before a fallen mankind could be re-created and, in His death, the substitutionary death of the sinless for the sinful the penalty was paid in full. And not only did Christ pay our penalty He descended into Hell, defeated our advisory stripping of his authority over humanity. Then He rose again to give us the promise of eternal life re-created in union with Him through faith.
In the Old Testament Israel had righteousness reckoned to them but in the new creation it becomes our very nature because Christ Himself is our Righteousness.
He is the vine, and we are the branches. And since the vine is righteous so the branches. And so should the fruit of the branches be. We should produce the fruit of righteousness in this world and be a blessing as we are blessed. And we can bear a type of fruit that Christ could not when He walked this earth. He could heal the sick, raise the dead, and calm the storm. But He could not lead people to salvation for He had not yet paid the price. He had not yet opened the way for us to be re-united with God erasing the sin debt of Adam’s fall.
So that is righteousness, right standing with God, the ability to stand in God’s presence as if we had never sinned. We get it through confessing with our lips that Jesus is Lord and by believing in our heart that God has raised Him from the dead.
And once we have it, we are tasked by Christ to share our witness so that all mankind can have it too.
This is an excerpt from the book Faith by Dr. Robert Owens. This and all his books are available from Amazon in paperback or kindle at Amazon.
An excerpt from New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens January 22, 2023
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If we slander our neighbors, we curse our neighborhood.
An excerpt from New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens January 21, 2023
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Traditions are the living faith of dead men. Traditionalism is the dead faith of living men.
An excerpt from New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens January 20, 2023
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If all we seek is pleasure, we will never know satisfaction.
An excerpt from New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens January 19, 2023
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Using religion to get ahead stinks to high heaven.
An excerpt from New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens January 18, 2023
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Knowing what is right, is deep water in our heart, doing what is right is sharing that water with a dry and parched world.
Jump January 16, 2023
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!Christ came to fulfill the Old Covenant. He paid the price for Adam’s sin and made a way back into fellowship with God. Sin was the problem and Jesus is the answer.
When he was offered up by the High Priest as a sinless sacrifice, He fulfilled all that had ever been required in the Old Covenant.
When He breathed His last on the cross and cried out, “It is finished,” the curtain in the temple was ripped in half. God left the Holy of Holies on earth signifying the end of the Old Covenant. When Christ rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, He poured out his blood on the eternal alter of God in the heavenly temple of God. All the sacrifices of the Old Testament had been but a foreshadowing of this event.
When we confess Jesus as Lord and believe in our heart that God raised Him from the dead as it says in Romans 10:9-10 we shall be saved. It doesn’t say we might be saved. It doesn’t say we will be saved by and by. It says we shall be saved. The moment we do that we’re born again, recreated, and translated from the old world of sin caused separation from God and death to the new world of fellowship with God and life.
Once we’re saved from the curse of sin, we become the righteousness of God. This means we can stand in the presence of God without any guilt, shame, or fear for we’ve become His children. And as His children we have the right and the ability to come boldly into our Daddy’s throne room any time we want.
Think of it this way, if you or I walked up to the gate of Buckingham Palace and told the guard, “Let me in I want to see the queen” we wouldn’t even get a smile from one of those guys. But if Prince Phillip walked up and said the same thing, they would immediately usher him into the royal presence.
It’s the same with us and the heavenly Holy of Holies. God is our Father. We can enter His presence any time we want. There’s no need to beg or plead. It’s our right as His child because we are one with Christ. He’s the head and we’re the body. We’re the very living stones built up into His eternal temple. We’re individually the tabernacles of His Holy Spirit who dwells in us.
Don’t accept less. Be all that God re-created you to be. We’re a new creation the old has passed away and behold all has become new. We dwell this moment in God’s New Jerusalem and collectively we are His Holy Temple. God the Father is on His throne. Christ the Lamb that was slain for the sins of the world and yet lives is seated to His right hand. The Holy Spirit indwells the temple built of living stones.
There is nothing left to be done. It is finished. There is nothing we can add. We have been given the authority to act in the Name of Christ. We shouldn’t sit back waiting to get good enough. We shouldn’t expect some hireling to do what God has called us to do. We’ve been called to take the light of Christ into a world of darkness.
He never told us to build a lamp. He never told us to pay a lighthouse tender. He told us to take the light of His love to those sold under bondage to the king of this world. And we must always remember greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world.
Jesus told us that if we have faith, even if it’s as small as the smallest seed, and we tell the mountain to jump it’ll jump. Let’s quit waiting for some collective bulldozer to move the mountains and start living as what we are: children of the Most High God.
In the desert God told Moses to speak to the rock. He has told us to speak to the mountains. So now, all together on the count of three let’s say to the mountains in our life, “Jump!”
One, two, three.
Dr. Robert Owens Chronicles the History of the Future 