Chapter 11—Bible Codes--The Keys to Unlocking Them.
Do you like to decipher codes? If you do, you will love the Bible. The Bible is full of very rich language that has layers and layers of meaning. For one thing, the Jews had a mathematical system called gematria where numbers had certain meanings. In addition, letters of the alphabet were assigned numbers, so that you could take the letters of a word and add up the numbers to get a number meaning for the word. How fun is that! Think of all the secret messages you could send if you knew gematria!
Here are some examples of the meanings of numbers in the Bible:
One is associated with unity.
Three is associated with the trinity and ultimate perfection.
Four is associated with the four corners of the earth or four points of a compass.
Six is the number of man.
Seven means complete.
Ten is a perfect number.
Ten cubed or One Thousand is perfect perfect!
Twelve is associated with foundations.
In Revelation the number six hundred sixty six means powerful but corrupt and it is the number of a man.
Seven is seen a lot in the Bible. There are 7 days of creation, 7 days in our week, 7 weeks of feasts, 7,000 of those who are faithful to God in Israel, and when you get to Revelation, there are so many sevens that you lose count of them!
There are a lot of twelves too. Twelve sons of Jacob, twelve tribes, twelve apostles, twelve baskets of food left after Jesus fed a huge crowd. Here is a fun calculation: The twelve tribes of Israel times the twelve apostles times one thousand = 144,000. One hundred forty-four thousand symbolically represents the number of Jews who became the first Christians during the lives of the apostles. They came from twelve tribes, were taught by twelve apostles, and multiplied by the perfect number 1000; they are God’s elect—the first fruits of Christian believers.
There is also a lot of what we call apocalyptic language in the Bible—mostly in the Old Testament prophets and in Revelation. The Greek word apocalypse means revelation. The Bible uses apocalyptic language in conjunction with God’s judgment on men and creation. When you read apocalyptic language it sounds really scary—like the whole cosmos is being shaken apart. Some phrases you might recognize are: the sun will turn black, the moon will turn to blood, the sky will be rolled back like a scroll, the stars will fall from the sky. You will find these phrases and a lot more in the Old Testament prophets.
When you see these kinds of descriptions, they are not to be taken literally. The stars will not really fall from the sky and the moon will not really turn to blood. This is just a way that God uses to describe how he judges all the things that people worship instead of him. He is just letting them know that there is no God more powerful than He is. No sun god or star god is more powerful than our God. And God also uses natural disasters to judge human beings. He sends terrible storms with fire (lightning) and thunder and hail; he sends earthquakes and tsunamis; he sends diseases and horrible plagues. Everything that ever happens comes from God’s hands.
But those who believe in Jesus never have to worry about God’s judgment on them. In the Bible, God made a way for his people to escape before he rained down judgment on unbelievers. That doesn’t mean that bad things won’t happen to you, but it means that God will protect you in it just like when he walked in the fire with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and when he shut the mouths of the lions when Daniel was in the lions’ den. Sometimes the bad things that happen to you will be very painful, but God will not let you be destroyed.
Anyway, it is important that you know how to decipher these codes so that when you read the Bible, you don’t FREAK OUT and get so scared that you stop reading. Just remember that God is bigger than any bad thing that can happen. Reminds me of a song we used to sing:
God is bigger than the boogie man
He’s bigger than Godzilla and the monsters on TV
Yes, God is bigger than the boogie man
And He’s watching out for you and me.
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