A Few Thoughts on the Sabbath

The Sabbath is God's day of rest, not a day of rest of the Jews only, it is not owned by the Jews. It was kept by many before the Jews even existed. It was kept by all of Israel, until they sinned. Then God punished Israel for breaking His Sabbath, not just the Jews.

At the time of Christ, the Sabbath was still being observed by the Jews, and by Christ. Christ set the example. He did not keep the Sabbath because He was a Jew, but because He created it and understood the significance and meaning of the Sabbath.

It was made for man, not for Jews alone, nor for Israel alone. It is for all of us, and as followers of Christ, it is our duty to observe the day of rest that Christ created and observed.

Sunday is the first day of the week, and although we can worship God on that day, just as we can worship God on any of the week, it is on the Sabbath that we cease from our labours and have fellowship with God the Father and Christ. The Father is not accessible to those who do not seek Him on the Sabbath.

The USA is going downhill

I believe that Barack Obama has never proved that he was born in the USA. It is a prerequisite to become the President of the USA that the person be born in the USA. There is a suggestion that he was actually born in Kenya, which would disqualify him from being the US President. This would make him a usurper, a pretender, and a thief.

It is a shame to see the USA go down the way it is going. But a country often gets the leader or President it deserves. Too many people today have abandoned biblical values, and worship fully consumerism, materialism, murder of unborn children and the cult of the self. Even many of those who go to church regularly, are guilty of being only a christian in name and not in deeds.

At least those of us who are true Christian have God's truth and understanding, and the Holy Spirit that guides us and helps us to at least try to obey God, even though we are far from perfect. But the majority of people today do not have the Spirit and thus they are easily led astray, as has happened in the USA.

I believe that the current situation in the world, including Obama, is all leading up to the Great Tribulation.

At least those of us who are true Christians know that the end of this evil world is near. Christ will return soon, and we can then enter God's wonderful Kingdom.

Pray that you may be counted worthy to escape the bad things of the Tribulation and to be in a place of safety at that time.


God bless us all.

The Gospel Message (video)

short video promoting the book

The Gospel Message

The original Gospel Message has been greatly misunderstood by members of the Church. Christ’s Gospel Message has always been one of hope, filling a person with joy.

Yet there are those in the Church, whose hope has been tainted with doubt, fear and anxiety, leaving many in confusion.

Michael Burman's new book, The Gospel Message to the Seven Churches, has been likened to an open door leading the reader to an understanding of Christ’s original Message that has been corrupted for centuries. This compelling book contains other related material that makes for an inspiring and worthwhile read that does not disappoint.

About The Author

Michael Burman is a former member of The Worldwide Church of God. His detailed research into the Gospel Message has continued for over a decade, leading to the writing of his book, The Gospel Message to the Seven Churches.

Book Purchase

You can purchase the book through the Amazon online bookstore.

Click here to get the book from Amazon in the US

Click here to get the book from Amazon in the UK

The book is published by Trafford Publishing, and you can order the book from their website as well.

Unlocking the Book of Revelation

The book of Revelation is the final book of the New Testament. The Apostle John witnessed visions relating to the end-time. Today, those devastating events will soon be upon us!

The book of Revelation portrays within its pages mysterious visions and imagery. The book itself was written by the Apostle John, who was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day (Revelation 1:10), and who was shown things that were to take place at the end of the age; a time just prior to the return of Jesus Christ. The book has been written in such a way that many view its contents as fictitious. But nothing could be further from the truth.

War, famine, pestilence, civil unrest, racial tension, hatred, fear and turmoil are prophesied to increase at an alarming rate, at a time the Bible refers to as the End-Time.

There are signs given within the pages of the Bible that point to modern times as being the prophesied End-Time period! Humanity’s woes are to increase at an unprecedented rate. These devastating times will touch the lives of everyone, and shall lead into a third and final World War.

The Christian Bible predicts that a sequence of events will unfold and lead directly to the end of this present age and into the Wonderful World Tomorrow, ruled by Jesus Christ.

“Unlocking the Book of Revelation to the Seven Churches” unveils that sequence of events and provides the reader with a clear understanding of the End-Time, and the effect that it will have upon the Earth. If you are a mature Bible student this book will not disappoint. Read it and find out for yourself!

Book Purchase

You can purchase the book through the Amazon online bookstore.

Click here to get the book from Amazon in the US

Click here to get the book from Amazon in the UK

The book is published by Trafford Publishing, and you can order the book from their website as well.

What Will You Invest In?

We are only days away from the Feast of Trumpets, which pictures the return of Christ. Trumpets were often sounded in ancient Israel — either warning of an enemy approaching or some danger, or to designate something important, e.g. a Feast day.

As we near the end of this world, and the return of Christ, we see the world breaking down, financial problems, strife, war, depression, recession, liars, immorality, crime, etc. These signs are showing us that the end times are near.

Matthew 24:3–14 states:
“Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, ‘Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?’
And Jesus answered and said to them: ‘Take heed that no one deceives you. For many will come in My name, saying, “I am the Christ,” and will deceive many. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.
Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake. And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.’ ” (NKJV throughout except where otherwise stated)

Continuing from verse 42,
“Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.
Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his master made ruler over his household, to give them food in due season? Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing. Assuredly, I say to you that he will make him ruler over all his goods. But if that evil servant says in his heart, ‘My master is delaying his coming,’ and begins to beat his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him and at an hour that he is not aware of, and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

We can see things in this world getting worse, changing, and we might wonder when will Christ return? We should not be worried about when, nor to become drunk, or a hypocrite as some do.

The trumpets should wake us up to what is happening, and what to expect in the time ahead. We might have financial worries, but we can trust in God to keep us safe from the serious problems that will afflict some.

Looking at 1 Timothy 3:2-4, we read:
“A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach; not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous; one who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence.”

The current financial meltdown that has seen banks go bankrupt, debts that cannot be repaid and great worry and concern about money, has its roots in greed.

And in 1 Timothy 6:10,
“For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”

The greediness of banks, people and society has led us to this difficult situation. Originally, of course, it was Adam and Eve who chose for themselves the right to decide right and wrong. Since then, mankind has been swayed by the Devil to make mistakes and get closer to self-destruction. There is nothing more that Satan wants than to see us all dead and destroyed, with no one entering God’s Kingdom and God’s great plan thwarted.

People are greedy to borrow money to buy things they cannot afford and do not need, such as big plasma screen TVs, new and more comfortable furniture, lots of holidays, lots of booze, partying and entertainment. In the past people would save up their money before making a large purchase, buying only what they needed with the occasional luxury item. Today credit has been too easy to get, thanks to the greed of the banks in wanting to earn more money from lending it out to people, charging usury and high interest rates.

Quoting from an article on the UCG website:

“Earlier this year USA Today writer Dennis Cauchon wrote: ‘Taxpayers are on the hook for a record $57.3 trillion in federal liabilities to cover the lifetime benefits of everyone eligible for Medicare, Social Security and other government programs, a USA Today analysis found. That’s nearly $500,000 per household. When obligations of state and local governments are added, the total rises to $61.7 trillion, or $531,472 per household. That is more than four times what Americans owe in personal debt such as mortgages.’

Interestingly, the European Central Bank’s purpose differs from that of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s policy in recent times. The role of the ECB is to control inflation, which means currency must be kept strong, thereby limiting borrowing.

America’s Federal Reserve since 1978 has had the responsibility of ensuring continuing growth and full employment, a recipe for over spending and higher rates of inflation. The United States is now paying the price for continuous overspending.”
(http://www.ucg.org/commentary/america-debt-crisis.htm)

The greediness of Americans has led to a massive overspending, and a huge rise in debts. They have lacked the wisdom to plan sensibly for the future and keep their finances in order. They have been lazy when it comes to financial planning and selfish in their investing.



I want to look at a parable which you all know, but to modernise it and see what it means for us today.

It is in Matthew 25:14-30.

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a man who owned a large corporation, and he decided to open up branches in another country. So he called his top staff and told them to invest some money to bring in a good return, to make it all worthwhile. And to one he gave £500,000, to another £200,000, and to another £100,000, to each according to his own ability; and immediately he went on a journey.
Then he who had received the £500,000 went and invested his money wisely, in things like hedge funds, bonds, and large stable corporations, and made another £500,000. And likewise he who had received £200,000 to invest gained £200,000 profit from his investments. But he who had received just the £100,000 was lazy and invested in shares in an overstretched investment bank without even bothering to do a due diligence and see whether it was a good investment or not.
After a long time the boss of those investors came and settled accounts with them.
So he who had received £500,000 came and brought the £500,000 profits, saying, ‘Boss, you gave me £500,000 to invest; look, I have gained £500,000 extra.’ His boss said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful employee; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you manager over many things. Enjoy your new promotion.’
He who had received £200,000 came and said, ‘Boss, you gave me £200,000 to invest ; look, I have gained £200,000 more.’
The boss said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful employee; you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you manager over many things. Enjoy your new promotion.’
Then he who had received £100,000 came and said, ‘Boss, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown, and gathering where you have not scattered seed. And I was afraid, and went and put the money into shares of an investment bank. Look, here is the report of what I did.’
But his boss answered and said to him, ‘You wicked and lazy fool, you knew that I reap where I have not sown, and gather where I have not scattered seed. According to this report, you did not bother to do any due diligence or research, and you put the money into Lehman Brothers. Now they have gone bust and the shares are worthless. You ought to have deposited my money in a bank account if you were too lazy to look for a good investment, and at my coming I would have received back my own with interest.
So I am taking whatever money you still have, your job responsibilities and salary, and giving it to him who has £1 million. For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away.
And give this unprofitable employee the sack and get him out of here, and he will very annoyed when he has to go to the Job Centre and look for a new job.’ ”

In this parable, each of the three men were given something to invest. But only two of them made the effort to invest wisely. The third man was a risky investor, who was too lazy to find out what he had to do to make money. He was even too lazy to just put the money into a bank account where he might have earned 4% interest.

God gives each of us some gifts, and invests his Spirit in us. We must use what God has given us, with wisdom, to make good investments in our lives. I am not talking about finance, but about spiritual matters. We can invest our time in prayer, Bible study, keeping the Sabbath, working hard at whatever we do, and spending time with God and with His people. We can do a proper due diligence. In the world of business and investing, due diligence is where you get all the relevant information about a company before investing in it. We have to be diligent to study God’s Word to ensure that we are investing our time and efforts in the right things. For example, is it wise to invest time in going to the pub to drink lots of beer? Or to fight with people? The Bible tells us not to get drunk nor have strife, in Romans 13:13, “Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy.”

In a modern Bible version called The Message, let us look at Ecclesiastes 11:1-6

“Be generous: Invest in acts of charity. Charity yields high returns.
Don’t hoard your goods; spread them around.
Be a blessing to others. This could be your last night.
When the clouds are full of water, it rains.
When the wind blows down a tree, it lies where it falls.
Don’t sit there watching the wind. Do your own work.
Don’t stare at the clouds. Get on with your life.
Just as you’ll never understand the mystery of life forming in a pregnant woman,
So you'll never understand the mystery at work in all that God does.
Go to work in the morning and stick to it until evening without watching the clock.
You never know from moment to moment how your work will turn out in the end.”

This speaks of investing in acts of charity, i.e. acts of love and doing good, doing what God wants us to do. We should invest in something that will give us a good return, a good spiritual return. This week Warren Buffet, the world’s richest man, invested $5 billion in Goldman Sachs, because he always knows a good investment when he sees one. He knows he is going to get a good return, getting millions of dollars every week from his investment.

When we invest in what God wants us to do, our time, efforts, prayers, etc., God will bless us with a great return. The greatest return on our spiritual investment will be eternal life in the Kingdom of God, which we will receive when Christ returns to set up the Kingdom, as pictured by the soon-coming Feast of Trumpets next week.

So think about what investments you can make in your spiritual life, and what you can do to give to others, and what you can give to God. What will you invest in?

Passover 2008

It is almost time for the Passover service on Friday 18 April 2008, when we remember the great sacrifice that Christ made for us by allowing Himself to be killed, to pay the penalty for all the sins of mankind. We can come before God at this time, to remember that event, and recall the events that happened on the night before Christ died, at the time of Passover. And also remember that the Passover was instituted back in ancient times, when the Israelites were slaves in Egypt, and God decided it was time to let the Israelites be freed. But to do so, they had to sacrifice a lamb on the night of what we now call Passover, and God sent a death angel over Egypt to kill the firstborn of all those who did not sacrifice a lamb to God.

If you are a follower of Melchizedek (Christ) then you should be keeping the Passover, just as Christ instructed His followers to do (see Luke 22:19, 1 Corinthians 11:23-25) and participate in this annual reminder of Christ's saving sacrifice and resurrection, and eat the unleavened bread (symbolic of His broken body), drink the red wine (symbolic of His shed blood), and wash each others' feet in the footwashing ceremony that He instituted so that we may remember to be humble and to serve others.

If you are keeping the Passover this year, I hope it goes well for you, and please remember to take it in a worthy manner.

Death and the Proud Man

Revelation 6:8 is a prophetic verse of the Bible that shows us what will happen in the future. The setting is in the Great Tribulation, which lasts for 3.5 years, and precedes the return of Jesus Christ.
It reads: "So I looked, and behold, a pale horse. And the name of him who sat on it was Death, and Hades followed with him. And power was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword, with hunger, with death, and by the beasts of the earth."
The rider of this horse is called Death. Death is a figure in mythology pictured as a skeletal man wearing a black hooded robe, the original "hoodie", carrying a scythe; he comes for people whose turn it is to die and takes them away. The reality is that Death is an enemy (see 1 Corinthians 15:26) rather than a figure of fun or fiction.
But the Bible might also use the word death to picture other people.
I noticed this in the book of Habakkuk, a minor prophet in the Old Testament.
"I will stand my watch and set myself on the rampart, and watch to see what He will say to me, and what I will answer when I am corrected. Then the LORD answered me and said: 'Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry. Behold the proud, his soul is not upright in him; but the just shall live by his faith. Indeed, because he transgresses by wine, he is a proud man, and he does not stay at home. Because he enlarges his desire as hell, and he is like death, and cannot be satisfied, he gathers to himself all nations and heaps up for himself all peoples.' " (Habakkuk 2:1-5).
Here God is comparing a proud man to death. This proud man gathers all nations and peoples to himself, like a great dictator or world ruler.
He says it is a vision, i.e. something yet to happen. I compared this to Revelation 6:8 and saw Death being mentioned in both these scriptural passages, as well as Hell. In Revelation 6:8 the word "Hades" is Greek for hell, but this is not a place of eternal torment for sinners, but refers to the grave (hell is an old Saxon word for hole in the ground).
Note also that the proud man does not stay at home.
This could well be a prophecy of something that is going to come to pass soon, I do not know for sure. It could be that a man who is proud, well-known, and power-hungry, will come on the world scene as a man who wants to gather lots of people to himself, such as building large armies that are from many nations, to go to war and kill 25% of their enemy, or even 25% of mankind, although the reference in Revelation 6:8 to killing "one fourth" (i.e. one quarter, 25%) is of mankind as a whole, to happen in the Great Tribulation at the end time. And note this proud man does not stay at home, i.e. not doing these things in his home country, but going abroad or around the world to do it.
So could there be someone today who fits this description?
Habakkuk 2 started with "I will stand my watch and set myself on the rampart"; elsewhere the Bible tells us to watch and keep an eye on things that are happening in this world.
The best we can do is to keep reading the written Word of God, keep in mind the things God says, and watch the world scene and see what fits with what, as well as being just and to "live by his faith", i.e. put your faith in God and His Word and trust in Him. One day Jesus Christ the Messiah will return to this Earth to put an end to humanity's abuse and misrule of the planet, to bound Satan so that he can no longer deceive the nations and set up the wonderful Kingdom of God on Earth, which will bring true peace and justice to us all.

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All Bible quotes taken from the New King James Version, Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.