Some believe that the Church will have been raptured by the beginning of Revelation 4. In Revelation 1:20 it describes the Seven Lampstands as being the Seven Churches. Then Chapter 4 mentions that there are Seven Lampstands with burning flames present in front of the Throne and that they are the Seven Spirits of God. The Seven Lampstands are first described as The Seven Churches and then we are told that they are The Seven Spirits of God. Can you explain these things?

I have always understood that a generation was 70 years as shown in Psalms 90:10 and Isaiah 23:15. But during my reading of the bible I came across a couple of verses in Genesis 15:13-16. It tells in verse 13 of Abram’s descendants being enslaved for four hundred (400) years and in verse 16 it refers to Abram’s descendants will come back in the fourth (4) generation. I take this to mean that a generation is 100 years. Is my thinking correct?

I was checking my Facebook recently and discovered that my sister’s boyfriend (they’re both in their 50’s) posted a video of Christian Music personalities who’ve been caught in sin. I must admit it was a shock to see this, and left me at a loss for words. I know there are tons of “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven” cliche’s, but with the times being what they are, I guess I’m looking for more meat in response to all this.

My question is in regards to the word “bitter” used in Genesis 26:34-35. “When Esau was forty years old, he took Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite to be his wife, and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite, and they made life bitter for Isaac and Rebekah.” Why and what was the purpose for Esau and his wives to make life “bitter” for Isaac and Rebekah? And is it good practice when ever reading something in the Old, to find a correlation of it in the New?

I have read about the seven Churches and that we are at this point in history considered the Church of Laodicea. Beginning with the first Church, Ephesus, what was it’s length of time and also the length of time of the rest of the Churches leading up to present. I am curious to know the average length of time for each of these seven Churches.

Can you tell me what 2 Timothy 2:4 means? “No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.”

My question is on Satan and the Garden of Eden. “The Serpent,” told Eve it was OK to eat of the tree. Then she does and God puts a curse on the Serpent. He says, “Because thou has done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life” (Gen. 3:14). So before the curse, he was something other than what we recognize as a snake. Any ideas of what he may have looked like?

There’s a man in my church (Southern Baptist) who knows when someone is hurting in a particular area of their body. He can announce to the group that someone has a pain in some area of the body and when someone acknowledges that pain and wants prayer for healing he prays for them and the pain goes away right then. He claims to get pain in the same part of his body and that’s how he knows that someone else is hurting too. How do you explain this to the church and where is the scripture to back up what is going on? This man says sometimes God reveals who is hurting to him but not very often. Is this biblical?

Can you please explain what does predestination mean because this word confuses me. At times I think it means to be programmed before time to come to God, but when I come to think that God gave us a choice to choose to believe in the redemption of our sins by Jesus Christ then my concept of predestination does not make sense. When you are explaining it please do that by also touching where Paul speaks about it in the book of Ephesians.

Could the falling away happen due the the lack of sound preaching? It is so very difficult to find a church that has preaching and teaching based strictly on the Bible.