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Featured Articles All the Same? (P Issue 1611 Featured Articles All the Same? (p. 3) God’s Plan for the Future (p. 5) Numbers (p. 9) Year 134 Visit us at: www.gladtidingsmagazine.org Glad Tidings Issue 1611 Of The Kingdom Of God A monthly magazine written and published by the Christadelphians (brothers and sisters in Christ) and available throughout the world. Its objectives are – to encourage the study of the Bible as God’s inspired message to mankind; to call attention to the Divine offer of forgiveness of sins through Jesus Christ; and to warn men and women that soon Christ will return to Earth as judge and ruler of God’s world-wide Kingdom. Glad Tidings Distributors Table Of Contents for orders and payments United Kingdom Fiona Oram, 24 Windermere Avenue, Ashby de la Zouch, Leics. LE65 1FA, UK All the Same? Tel: +44 (0)7521 079 190 (24 hrs) 3 [email protected] Australia Ruth Morgan, 51 Jesmond Road, Croydon, VIC 3136, Australia God’s Plan for [email protected] the Future 5 Canada Vivian Thorp, 5377 Birdcage Walk, Burlington, ON L7L 3K5, Canada [email protected] Numbers New Zealand 9 Neil Todd, 14 Morpeth Place, Blockhouse Bay, Auckland 7, New Zealand [email protected] A Parable of U.S.A. Pat Hemingray, 1244 Pennsylvania the Father’s 11 Avenue, Oakmont, PA 15139, USA Love Other Countries Andrew Johnson, 22 Hazel Drive, Hollywood, Birmingham B47 5RJ, Elijah: United Kingdom [email protected] Drought 14 Editor Andrew Hale, 52 Mardale Crescent, Lymm WA13 9PJ, United Kingdom TheSpirit is [email protected] Willing but the Publisher 17 The Glad Tidings Publishing Association Flesh is Weak A registered charity – Number 248352 Editorial A monthly magazine written and published by the Christadelphians (brothers and sisters in Christ) and available throughout the world. All the Same? Its objectives are – to encourage the study of the Bible as God’s inspired message to mankind; to AS we sat enjoying the sunshine, my and made it, who has established it, who call attention to the Divine offer of forgiveness of sins through Jesus Christ; and to warn men and colleague and I started an unexpected did not create it in vain, who formed it to be women that soon Christ will return to Earth as judge and ruler of God’s world-wide Kingdom. conversation. Rather than discussing the inhabited: “I am the LORD, and there is no company’s performance, or plan for the other” (Isaiah 45:18). coming quarter-year, he opened with a He also states here that He is the only God, question. “So tell me about your faith.” there is no other authority. This is just one I started to do so, but stopped. He is an of many similar statements which we can atheist. Why does he care about my faith? find throughout the Bible, and it shows “Where is this coming from?” I asked, clearly the power behind a Bible-based “What do you really want to know?” faith. “I want to understand why you think your The Apostle Paul made a similar statement belief is different, why you believe what to Timothy, a younger believer: you do. As far as I can tell, all religions are For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but the same. You have blind faith in a higher of power and of love and of a sound mind power and going to a better place after (2 Timothy 1:7). death.” His observation wasn’t accurate, of course, Evidence but it is a commonly held view. Are all faiths However, a sensible approach to the same? considering faith will look for reasons to believe the assertions made in the Bible. Authority Put simply, can we trust it? The starting point for any belief system The short answer is ‘yes’, and here are a should be its authority. Who established it few reasons to believe that the Bible is the and how do we know we can trust them? Word of God. If we believe the Bible, then we are ttProphecy: The Bible contains many accepting the authority of Almighty God. hundreds of prophecies about the He declares that He created the universe, future. Almost all of them have come and that He has a plan for the earth and true, and the remainder clearly point mankind upon it. to events still in the future. These For thus says the LORD, who created the prophecies are very specific, sometimes heavens, who is God, who formed the earth giving actual time periods in years. Glad Tidings | 3 Those still future are detailed and are Only One Way part of an unfolding plan, so we can see how they relate to each other. Men and Jesus Christ made it very clear that there is women cannot tell the future, so the only one way to God, and that he is it: Bible must have been inspired by God. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one ttInternal consistency: The Bible was comes to the Father except through me (John written over a period of about 1600 14:6). years, by more than 40 different He explained to his followers that many people, ranging from kings and priests would fail to find the way to eternal life: to tax collectors and shepherds. It Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate was penned in places as far apart as and broad is the way that leads to destruction, Babylon, Jerusalem and Rome, in three and there are many who go in by it. Because different languages. Despite this, it is narrow is the gate and difficult is the way one harmonious whole, with a single which leads to life, and there are few who find message throughout its pages. Only it (Matthew 7:13–14). God could have had such a book written. The Bible promise is life forever in the Kingdom of God – a main theme in Glad ttAhead of its time: The Bible talks Tidings. Here is one description of that about public health safeguards such future time: as washing hands and quarantine, thousands of years before humans I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, had identified them. It also describes “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, the earth as a globe and details the and He will dwell with them, and they shall be water cycle, long before contemporary His people. God Himself will be with them and science had done so. Again, only God be their God. And God will wipe away every could be the true author. tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall There are many other examples, and Glad be no more pain, for the former things have Tidings looks at all of them from time to passed away” (Revelation 21:3–4). time. Faith in God as explained in the Bible is like The Bible is the Word of God and we can no other. It is one based on evidence, built trust it. Its consistency in the past gives us on a true authority and with a confident confidence for the future it lays out. This hope for the future. makes a Bible-based faith different from Please visit our website for a video on any other. this subject - and more! www.gladtidingsmagazine.org 4 | Glad Tidings The God of the Bible – 7 God’s Plan for the Future GOD saves us from sin by offering us the forgiveness of our sins through His Son, Jesus Christ. But is that it? We’re still going to die. So how does He propose to save us from death – and is that even possible? This question is answered very clearly in the Bible. For, as one of God’s writers (the Apostle Paul) put it: If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable (1 Corinthians 15:19). Death is the sentence for sin that we all serve, not the immediate gateway to a Resurrection from the Dead better existence. Paul went on to answer his own question as In Bible language, those who have never follows: heard or have refused to accept the gospel But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has are said to ‘perish’. God’s people do not become the firstfruits of those who have fallen ‘perish’, but ‘sleep’ – in other words, they asleep. For since by man came death, by man will ‘wake’ from death. It was the same with also came the resurrection of the dead. For as Jesus: his death was a ‘sleep’, because God in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be brought him back to life. made alive. But each one in his own order: In the passage above Jesus is described Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are as the ‘firstfruits’ of a harvest. So God Christ’s at his coming (v20–23). promises that, when Jesus returns to the God does not say that His faithful followers earth, one of the first things he will do will will not die. Nor does the Bible say that any be to raise from the dead those who have of us has an immortal soul that enables known the good news of the Kingdom of us to continue living straight after we die. God. Glad Tidings | 5 The Judgment Seat Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt (Daniel 12:2).
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