“God is in control” If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard this phrase. How about this one; “Why did God allow this to happen to me” or maybe; “Why do bad things happen to good people”. I watched a man the other day interviewing a boy of about 10 years old and obviously very sick. The man in his interview asked the boy why does he think God made him sick because “nothing happens unless God approves it. So, basically God gave the boy cancer. This young boy probably as sincere as anyone says; “God chose me” When the boy was asked why God chose to make him sick, he said, so my sisters would not have to go through all this pain. Now the sincerity of this boy is quite emotional and would bring a tear to even hardened hearts, but the doctrine in both the questions and answers could not be more wrong. How unbelievable that this boy thinks God gave him cancer. This false Calvinistic teaching that God is controlling every thing that happens in our lives is a hideous and horrible contrivance of man. The truth is this; only a grace believer and right divider of scripture can answer why. Only someone Pauline in doctrine as we are instructed to be can answer these questions. Only a right divider can answer the question of UNANSWERED PRAYER. A real grace believer understands we are living in a present evil world full of sickness and disease and there are NO scriptures in Pauline doctrine promising freedom from this. A real grace believer understands that we are in the “bondage of corruption” the “sufferings of this present time” according to Romans chapter 8. A real grace believer understands that trials, troubles, persecutions, and other Christians calling us names is par for the course for being a Bible believer in this dispensation. Paul does not teach you that being a Christian gives you any physical blessings above a lost person. Paul does not teach you that being a Christian saves you from hurt and pain, and he actually tells you to EXPECT IF it you will live Godly. (2 Tim 3:12) Preachers today have NO ANSWER to the question of unanswered prayer. They preach ISRAEL’S prayer promises to their people and then have no answer when these promises don’t pan out. God is NOT controlling your life! YOU ARE. YOU are making decisions every day to control your life. Stop blaming God for things he had nothing to do with. God did not give this boy cancer and shame of this man and this boy’s parents for lying to him. Let me help you understand something. You are closer to God’s will after death than before. The ultimate purpose for the body of Christ is in heavenly places.
2Co 2:15 For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish:
Read it again. Our short sightedness blinds us from God’s ultimate purpose for us. If this boy were to die, they would once again blame God for taking him. Then some preacher would lie to those at the funeral and say dumb things like “God decided to bring him home” God did no such thing, this present evil world did. I hope you understand the food you eat is what is killing you, not God. I am being quite straight forward in this blog because Christians spend their entire lives believing and teaching others these things. There is no promise of physical healing and prosperity in this age. God is building a spiritual body in this age. God is not controlling the world, Satan is. Soon enough Jesus will set all this straight. Soon enough Jesus will restore all things both in heaven and in earth. God’s healing program for this age is the new body we will receive someday. Till then we groan and travail waiting for it. Rom 8:23, 2 Cor 5:2-4.   
 

One of the many things you learn when you start to become a Bible believer is that many words you have become accustomed to applying to yourself are actually stolen. What I usually call “church language” is one of the primary causes of stolen words. Another cause of stolen words is that hymnal sitting in the church pew in front of you. There is a whole lot more of your belief system grounded in hymns than you are willing to admit. Let me help you understand with an example. We are currently studying through Israel’s kingdom program found throughout the entire Bible. The kingdom program that virtually every church today allegorizes to some extent. I grew up singing “We’re marching to Zion, beautiful, beautiful Zion, Were marching onward to Zion the beautiful city of God.” It’s a catchy song that I really wish I could sing. We don’t sing this song at AGBF. Actually, we don’t sing LOTS of songs found in lots of church hymnals. This song steals words from Israel’s kingdom program and falsely applies them to the body of Christ today. If you are saved today, you are NOT marching to Zion. Zion is primarily defined in scripture as the “city of David”. There are 153 uses of Zion in the OT and only 7 in the NT (Sion). Paul uses the word twice and only to quote an OT reference. These 2 references are in Romans chapters 9-11 where he is talking about Israel’s position dispensationally. So, you are NOT marching to Zion. Zion is in Canaan, or the Promised Land, and that land is not promised to you, it is promised to Israel. God himself guarantees on his Holy name that this land will indeed be occupied by Israel. The church language that we have grown up hearing and repeating and popular hymns that we grew up singing are replete with false teaching and bad doctrine. These days when you point out these obvious problems you are quickly wrote off as crazy. I’m not whining about this, just sad in general that dozens of stolen words flow out of the mouths of preachers and song leaders every Sunday and the people in the pews eat it up as truth. A fairly simple word study like this can be completed in one evening with a slight bit of effort. Truth is not so easy to hear these days. Truth however is not far from your reach. Stealing from Israel is commonplace today. Do you have the guts to seek the truth? I dare you. Do a study on every use of the phrase “for ever” in the OT. Maybe a study of every time God says “I will” in the OT in relation to Israel. Your eyes will be opened I promise you. Is the truth worth one evening? YES!