According to Scripture, zeal, properly exercised and directed, is an important key to winning the spiritual battles we must face. With zeal for victory, we can overcome, and reach the goal of God’s kingdom.
“Zeal for Victory,” by Rod Reynolds, COGMessenger is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
According to Scripture the Kingdom of God will be established on earth at the time of the second coming of Jesus Christ (Daniel 7:13-14; Revelation 11:15-18). Foretold is a resurrection to occur at that time, to be followed by other resurrections later.
The hope of the resurrection enters into the faith of all who believe the true gospel (Acts 24:15; I Corinthians 15:4, 11).
But upon what is that belief predicated? The second coming of Jesus Christ is predicated on the reality of his first coming. And the resurrection that will occur at Christ’s second coming is predicated on the reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ following his death at the time of his first coming. And so also are other resurrections spoken of in the Bible.
Let’s examine what the Bible reveals about the resurrections, beginning with the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Continue readingIn his “Second Annual Message” to Congress of December 1, 1862 President Abraham Lincoln proposed a plan for amendments to the Constitution to end slavery in the United States, with concessions he hoped would bring an end to the Civil War and reconcile the rebel states to the Union. In September of 1862 Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation, as an executive order which changed the legal status of enslaved persons in states in rebellion against the United States as of January 1, 1863, giving any enslaved persons in those states the status of free men or women under United States law. The Emancipation Proclamation applied only to slaves living in the rebel states, or serving in any segment of the executive branch of the U.S. government. However, it encouraged or required six states to abolish slavery during the war, including three Confederate states which had largely come under control of the Union army, and three Union border states. It also freed slaves living in other rebel areas which had been occupied by the Union. The plan for the Constitutional amendments proposed in 1862 was never acted on.
The plan was different from the thirteenth Constitutional amendment Lincoln championed in 1864-65 to permanently and immediately end slavery in the United States. By late 1864 the defeat of the Confederacy by Union forces was eminent, negating any rationale for concessions in the ending of slavery for political reasons. The thirteenth amendment was passed by Congress in January 1865, about two and a half months before General Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, which effectively ended the Civil War. The thirteenth amendment had been ratified by a sufficient number of states to become law by December 6, 1865.
In his “Second Annual Message,” early in the Civil War, when things weren’t going so well for the Union army (cf. Battle Cry of Freedom, James M. McPherson, pp. 560-561), Lincoln described the United States as “the last, best hope of earth.” William Lee Miller, a professor of ethics, who has taught at several universities, in his book “Lincoln’s Virtues,” states the following concerning the phrase “the last, best hope of earth”:
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