Mike Oliver's Messages

There are beasts rising from the sea, a lion, a bear, a leopard and a terrible devouring kind with iron teeth, multiple heads and horns in Daniel 7. These are later explained as representing kingdoms and kings referred to as the empires which ruled over the earth in Biblical history - Daniel living in the time of Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon who had won Jerusalem and taken Israel captive as prophesied by Jeremiah. These unusual beasts are rising from the sea; symbol of humanity. These animals depict the nature of the beast which gains thrones over other nations just as the royals of Great Britain utilise the lion, Russia the bear, China the dragon and USA the eagle to symbolise their nature. Interestingly in this piece the lion has removed its eagle wings (symbol of spirituality) but is given a man's heart. Nebuchadnezzar had his heart changed from that of a man and given the heart of an animal (Dan 4:16). One king of England w...

Simon Peter, praying around lunch time, finds himself in a trance, hungry and contrary to God's command saying, "Not so, Lord! For I have never eaten anything common or unclean." (v14). But a voice from heaven tells him, "You must not call unclean what God has cleansed" (v15). Here we have a wonderful example of what power prayer can be and what powerful things can occur while on home visiting. Here our Father in heaven is bringing elements of His realm to earth through the Holy Spirit; creating a place for His children without racial or cultural distinction. But his servant is caught up in a paradigm of Jewish exclusivity and prejudice; it being unlawful for a Jew to mix with Gentiles (v28). Cornelius is a Roman centurion in Caesarea, a God fearer, generous, praying daily, and he is also praying in a trance like vision when approached by an angel of the Lord, saying to send for Simon Peter w...

An article I came across puts faith and belief into perspective: "Believing in God is not having faith in God. The Apostle James says so in James 2:19 ,"You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe - and tremble." Believing in God is great, but it wont change your life. Believing in God is great, but it will not save your soul. There are millions upon millions of people around the world that call themselves Christians because they believe in God and Jesus Christ. Believing is good but it is only the beginning!" 1 It's only a beginning to believe; continuing is to take faith into action. An example may be Jonah's success may have been in the story of how he got to Ninivah in the first place. The Lord conceived a rather stunning way for Job to begin his mission; a whale of a ride. Jesus said the only sign he would give to the Jewish leaders was that of Jonah, i.e. his 3 days was spent in the grave. Another article ...

 Six to one you would be thinking that Paul led Barnabas into mission work but that's not exactly how it was. In fact it's Barnabas who first mentored Saul, after eight years in the shadows from "ex-persecutor of Christians," to what we know as "Paul, Apostle to the Gentiles." Originally named Joses (meaning consolation) he was renamed by the Apostles to Barnabas (son of encouragement).   Barnabas is the sort of Christian we all should be; identifying the call of God on a person, his or her gifting, and helping get them working towards building the kingdom of heaven on earth. Unloving people put others down and raise themselves up but inhibit the spread of the Gospel.  Loving people raise others up for the good of the Gospel of Christ. When Barnabas realised Paul was beginning to lead the missionary effort into the rest of the world he placed himself in a followers role where he could still encourage Paul on the difficult road to successfully lea...

Paul poses the notion of comparing spiritual things with spiritual. He's talking about the spirit of the world and the Spirit who is from God and leaves us to "compare apples with apples." Paul's world view is that all things are spiritual, i.e. is it the wisdom or foolishness of man or the wisdom or foolishness of God for the foolishness of God is greater than the wisdom of man (1Cor 1:25). The normal Christian life is sorting out the good apples from the rotten ones as we navigate our daily journey. Those who know the scriptures will be reminded of the words relating to the disposition of our heart (Is 41:10, John 14:27) and the disposition of the mind (Rm 12:2, 2Tim 1:7). It is clear God is not the originator of fear and so our being anxious or afraid has to have come from elsewhere. Paul makes it clear that we have available to us the mind of Jesus Christ (1Cor 2:16). The issue is then not so much where is Go...

A man said to me recently that he thought most people believed in God but just don't think he's doing anything for them. They do believe in God enough to pray but don't believe perhaps because of low self-esteem that he will bother himself to move on their behalf. Consequently this doubting is not met positively and therefore the cycle of low expectation persists. Jesus however taught us that our prayer should be embedded in trust and thanks for the response of a faithful God. He said profound things like ask and you shall receive (Mat 7:7) and I will do whatever you asked in my name! (Jn 14:14) Why then are some prayers answered immediately and others seem to go unanswered?   The Old Testament gives us a good understanding when elders came to Ezekiel (Ch 14) the prophet to seek the Lord when the Lord spoke to him saying, "These men had set up idols in their hearts and put before them that which causes them to stumble into iniquity."...

At first Isaiah 15-16 seems like a mishmash of strange names and places but just like Facebook it has actually a colourful set of connections. Moab is the nation mentioned which developed from the first son of Lot after his city and his wife were destroyed by two angels; the wife escaped but turned into a pillar of salt when she looked back. (Gen 19) However the circumstances surrounding Moab's births are a bit shocking by our set of boundaries and yet the Book of Ruth is that of a Moabitess. Righteous Lot's two virgin daughters also escaped the angels destruction against corrupt Sodom and Gomorrah were concerned that they wouldn't find suitable husbands to father their children in such a rampant homosexual world as they has witnessed in their destroyed home town. The young women, we imagine, are thinking there is no unmarried non-homosexual males available saying, "there is no man on the earth to come to us as is...