The Bookends of Creation

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Some interesting revelations about the Bible and the eternal nature of God...

Sunday I listened to our pastor talk about part of the Lord's prayer, "...give us this day our daily bread..." My mind wandered as usually happens when the Holy Spirit begins speaking to me from the text. I thought, "daily bread" sounds like "manna in the wilderness". I thought about the verses in John where Jesus said "I am the bread of life...that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world". I thought about the beatitude that said "Blessed are they which hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled." And I thought "Jesus Christ is our righteousness". I want to hunger and thirst for the bread of life that comes down from heaven and gives righteousness and abundant life!

But my mind didn't stop wandering. I noticed all the paragraphs in the book of John that start with "I am". John is the gospel that describes how the soldiers of the chief priest drew back and fell down when Jesus declared "I AM" (probably "eh-yeh" or the name of God in Hebrew). After church I made a list of all the declarations of Jesus' identity (Word of God made flesh, Anointed One, bread of life, light of the world, good shepherd, resurrection and life, way/truth/life, true vine, eternal Son of God) and noticed that at the end of John something quite profound had happened to the disciples:

None of the disciples ventured to question Him, “Who are You?” knowing that it was the Lord.
John 21:12

Ponder that for a moment. Jesus had taken on a glorified body and was in many ways different from when they last saw Him, but they understood His NATURE and felt his divine presence in their midst. They KNEW HIM because He said who HE IS.

The remainder of the chapter is the most intimate picture of the love of Jesus in all the gospel accounts.

The gospel of John clearly defines Jesus' eternal divine nature, but the Revelation to John at the end of the Bible contains the most profound "I AM" statement of all.

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.
Revelation 22:13

I didn't realize until this week that this is a quote from Isaiah:

"Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: 'I am the first and I am the last, And there is no God besides Me.
Isaiah 44:6

Clearly Jesus through John is speaking as the eternal almighty God.

The Greek words of this verse in Revelation are also very interesting. Omega is not just the final letter of the Greek alphabet, but a form of the verb "to be", the same verb used in the words "I AM". Alpha on the other hand is not just the first letter of the Greek alphabet, but a prefix that negates whatever comes after it. So Alpha is "the state before anything" and Omega is "the final state of being".

Jesus is the author and finisher, before creation and the ultimate end of creation. Protos and Eschatos, beginning and end, Arche and Telos, pre-eminent ruler and the long-awaited answer to every prayer.

This is my savior and Lord who finally says "I am the root and offspring of David, the bright morning star." Even so, come Lord Jesus!

Harvest Time in the Kingdom of God

It's a beautiful crisp fall day, much like another day I remember that began as a crisp clear day across the country. That day ended with smoke and flames and the winds of war stirring in the east.

Just to our east a tropical storm is brewing and strengthening. We can't see it but soon its effects will be felt on the east coast. Beyond that another storm is gathering and moving west, carrying refugees fleeing the violence in the Middle East. While we enjoy relative peace here in the west, let's not forget those who are already experiencing (or are soon to experience) great tribulation. There is a harvest ripe for gathering ahead of this brutal storm; let's remember every day to pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out more workers, to not hold back their wages, to pray for and help those who are suffering, and to build up our own faith in the coming days for we will surely need it.

Above all remember, the joy of the Lord is our strength. Father, pour out your Spirit again on all flesh, and let us live in the joy that strengthens our faith!

God's Destroying Army

John the Baptist preached repentance and ate locusts for lunch.

Our God has destroying armies that he has prepared to bring his people to repentance. In the Bible these armies are referred to as "locusts". The locusts are destroyers that take away our earthly possessions and leave us desolated and desperate for help.

Locusts may come in the form of actual armies, or in the form of actual locusts. They may be financial disasters or natural disasters brought upon us by divine appointment. They are intended to strip us of our worldly ambitions and turn our eyes upon Jesus. Locusts are commanded by God because of sin, and are defeated by repentance and cleansing from sin.

The plagues of locusts and darkness were the last two plagues on Egypt before the destroying angel took the firstborn of Egypt, and the precursors to armies in the book of Revelation.

In the book of Exodus, the plagues of hail and locusts each brought Pharaoh to confession of sin and repentance though not for long.

In the prophecy of Nahum the Assyrian armies are compared to an army of locusts.

In II Chronicles 7 God promises Solomon that if He sends drought or locusts or pestilence on the land because of sin, and the people humble themselves and pray and seek His face and turn from their wicked ways, that He would hear from heaven, forgive their sin and heal their land. Forgiveness corresponds to the removal of the destroying locusts.

In the final apostasy described in Revelation 9, the locusts of the destroying angel inflict pain on those who have rejected God. The armies that follow them destroy 1/3 of mankind, but the people who remain still do not repent. This is the last time repentance is offered before the final trumpet blast.

In the prophecy of Joel there are four waves of locusts (destroying armies) that successively destroy the land of Israel. The last destroyer (Rome) leaves Jerusalem completely desolate, but those with understanding find the greatest gift of God written on their hearts.

“Yet even now,” declares the LORD,

            “Return to Me with all your heart,

            And with fasting, weeping and mourning;

      And rend your heart and not your garments.”

            Now return to the LORD your God,

            For He is gracious and compassionate,

            Slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness

            And relenting of evil.

Joel 2:12-13 NASB

Don't Play the Trump Card

I woke up this morning with this disturbing thought. What if Donald Trump were really elected president?

What is it people like about the Donald? I don't think it's his anti-immigrant rhetoric.

I think conservative Americans have a deep anxiety about our lack of leadership and feel that the executive branch is no longer protecting them. I'm not even sure we have connected all the dots.

• Our children are under assault from the corrupting influence of entertainment and technology
• Our homes are under assault from criminal gangs that operate with impunity in sanctuary cities across the nation
• Our police are under assault from a justice department that undermines their authority
• Our jobs are under assault from cheap foreign labor and automation technology, made worse by an anti-employer government bureaucracy
• Our religious liberty is under assault from anti-family organizations that have been empowered by the president and his party
• Our state governments are under assault from a Supreme Court that has assumed powers not granted by the constitution
• Our standard of living is under assault from a government addicted to deficit spending and unsustainable debt
• Our national defense is under assault from a commander-in-chief that believes our military power must be reduced, restricted and in some cases eliminated
• Our civilization is under assault from medieval savages intent on the destruction of western culture and lifestyles, both from outside and inside our borders

Against all these fears comes one who promises to solve these problems by virtue of being "the Donald". Many people embrace this man because they feel he is the only one smart enough and strong enough to overcome the entrenched powers of both parties. In a small way the Donald appeals to the same desperation that brought the Nazis to power in the failing Weimar Republic.

I am uncomfortable with someone who travels the world with his name emblazoned on his helicopter, who shoots from the lip like a nineteenth-century cowboy, and who celebrates materialism and self-indulgence with unfettered bravado. Are these not the traits of the Babylonian harlot in the Bible?

Surely among the ranks of conservatives we can find a candidate who would serve with unselfish dignity, who has proven leadership skills and the brains and personality to sell herself or himself to the general electorate. I think a few candidates fit this bill, and I will support any one of them over the Arkansas mafia couple or their socialist peers. It's time for these candidates to rise up and show how they will defend us from the assaults listed above, and it's time for us to pray that God will have mercy on us and give us the leadership we need, not the government we deserve.

One Giant Misstep for Mankind

Regarding the Supreme Court decision on gay marriage, justice Anthony Kennedy was a Ronald Reagan appointee. He must surely be "rolling over in his grave" right now - just as much as this decision causes my stomach to turn. Justice David Souter, another Republican appointee from the first Bush administration, carefully timed his retirement to allow Obama to appoint another liberal justice to the court.

Did it ever occur to either of these justices that the people overwhelmingly elected a Republican president at the time and thus expressed a desire for conservative justices on the Supreme Court? Why did Souter wait for Obama and not retire under Bush? This raises my blood pressure a couple of notches when I think about it.

However, the Court can only hold back the tide of majority opinion for a short time, as the ruling today proves. Unfortunately the majority in America has turned against unchangeable truth and taken the next step on its pathway to apostasy and depravity.

First let me say that I don't judge anyone; our Supreme Judge will decide our eternal destiny - not based on our sins which may be forgiven - but based on our acceptance or rejection of Jesus Christ as Lord.

So for the record, I regard all same-sex relationships simply as friendships whose intimate details I would prefer to remain private, and I will never endorse or render services for a ceremony that sanctifies practices the Bible clearly calls sin. Furthermore, I will do everything in my power to peacefully oppose those who would use the power of government to force me or my Christian brethren to do so. I would go to jail before giving up my right to hold and express this opinion and freely practice my faith.

Understanding the Trinity

One of the things I struggled with over the years is reconciling the monotheistic concept of Judaism with the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. Since the term "Trinity" is not in the Bible I have felt a need to understand why it has been considered a core doctrine by Christian churches for virtually all of church history.

So before I raise questions in your mind about my own orthodoxy, let me explain. I tremble to even consider that I might misrepresent God's nature, and don't believe that anyone can truly comprehend the nature of God since he exists beyond our frame of reference in time and space. However, I really want to understand what the Bible says about the nature of God and his relationship to Jesus our Lord, so I will proceed with my limited analogy if you will bear with me in this endeavor.

The SHMA

Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! (Deuteronomy 6:4 NASB)

This is a phrase that every Jew knows and memorizes as a child. It is the foundation of Judaism and the first commandment in the Torah. Jesus, being a Jewish Rabbi, understood and agreed with the writings of Moses, calling the SHMA the Greatest Commandment. However, the New Testament clearly indicates that Jesus made Himself equal with God by calling God His Father. So now God appears as two personalities in a family relationship.

This Father-Son relationship is most fundamental to Christianity and most abhorrent to the religion of Islam, who consider Christianity to be a polytheistic religion. So how do you explain to a Muslim (or a Jew for that matter) that you believe in one God who has multiple forms or personalities? Is He one God or two or three? One morning recently I awakened with thoughts that helped resolve that question in my mind.

The FORM of God

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. (Philippians 2:6 NASB)

All through the Old Testament there are references to the "right hand" or "strong arm" or "outstretched arm" of God. These references uniformly occur in places where God is interacting with creation as Lord and Savior, in other words, in the role of Messiah. In fact in practically every reference you can substitute the name of the Messiah for this term and it makes perfect sense. For example,

My righteousness is near, My salvation has gone forth, And the Messiah will judge the peoples; The coastlands will wait for Me, And for the Messiah they will wait expectantly. (Isaiah 51:5)

Ah Lord GOD! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and the Messiah. (Jeremiah 32:17)

Try this yourself; I think you will find a blessing in that.

In the New Testament we see the glorified Jesus our High Priest, seated at the right hand of God. The thought occurred to me that perhaps Jesus actually is analogous to God's right hand. The concept of a spiritual body consisting of multiple interacting personalities is not foreign to the Bible; reference the Body of Christ for example.

So when Jesus communicates with the Father, is this a conversation, or an interaction analogous to the interaction of the brain with the body, where the brain communicates via a type of nervous system to produce visible action? In this case, even though the Son of God is communicating to the Father as a person, in the spirit the two are considered one. You would not refer to me as "they" in reference to my body parts, but as to "him" who has a single will and many interconnected members. Is it possible that in the incomprehensible nature of God we can make such an analogy? Let me continue.

The Spirit Connection

I now understand that the Holy Spirit is analogous to the central nervous system of God. The Holy Spirit makes it possible to connect directly to God. It was the Holy Spirit that rested upon Jesus, fusing His will to God and allowing Jesus to carry out the perfect plan of God on earth. The Holy Spirit so fully embodied the Father's presence in Jesus that He could say "whoever has seen Me has seen the Father."

Now, the body analogy may be confusing since the Holy Spirit is invisible, like the wind. In my lifetime this has become much easier to visualize since we transmit control signals invisibly all around the world and through the darkness of space by various forms of electromagnetic radiation. Certainly the Creator of the universe could operate in ways that go far beyond our mortal technologies, even transcending the boundaries of time.

Jesus said that those who worship God must worship Him in spirit and in truth. That is our connection protocol. We authenticate by being authentic, by emptying ourselves of our old lives to put on the righteousness of Christ. We connect to Jesus through the Holy Spirit, the Helper whom the Father sends to be with us and in us, who teaches us and intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. The Holy Spirit translates our earthly requests to heavenly and perfect petitions before the throne of God.

Jesus said "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." In our human form we cannot behold the face of God and live, but through His Spirit we can grasp the nail pierced hand of God and draw near with confidence to the throne of grace.

Conclusion

Though we may not comprehend God's true nature while we exist in earthly form, we can understand that God took the form of a man (Jesus), and was indwelt by the Holy Spirit who empowered Him to perfectly reflect the nature and will of God on earth. The creator is still worshiped as the one true God. There is one throne in Heaven, not three, and Jesus is seated or standing there at the right hand of God to execute God's plan for creation.

The Death of Fighting and the Birth of Faith

I give up! Those are sweet words to the angels in heaven, who rejoice when a sinner is saved. Many times, until we give up God can't really begin to work in our lives.

I was reminded of this in a powerful way at Bible study tonight, where we studied from John 5 about a man whom Jesus healed at the pool of Bethesda. This man had been paralyzed for thirty eight years, presumably waiting much of this time for an angel to come and cure his paralysis.

Our teacher Gene Smith pointed out that there was another significant time of thirty eight years mentioned in the book of Deuteronomy.

"Now the time that it took for us to come from Kadesh-barnea until we crossed over the brook Zered was thirty-eight years, until all the generation of the men of war perished from within the camp, as the LORD had sworn to them." (Deuteronomy 2:14 NASB)

Gene thought that the Jews would recognize his thirty eight years of paralysis as a reference to the time that God denied Israel entry into the promised land due to their lack of faith. At that time the Israelites were paralyzed by fear. God told Moses that Israel must wander in the wilderness until every man of fighting age is dead.

Something in my spirit echoed this thought - thirty eight years is enough time for everything in us that wants to fight, to find our own solution, to use human strength instead of Godly power, is exhausted and dies.

The lame man at the pool of Bethesda had given up too. Perhaps his parents or some friends who had brought him here year after year for healing had finally given up, or perhaps they were just too old and lame to carry him there themselves. This man told Jesus he had no one to bring him to the pool when the angel stirred up the healing waters. The only known solution at that time had failed him, so when Jesus asked him if wanted to be healed, he could only offer an excuse why he couldn't be healed.

Now the miracle could begin. Now this man's heart was tender and open to a different kind of healing, not by balmy waters but by living water flowing through the healing hands of Jesus. Now the wall of human effort was down and the Spirit of God came crashing into his life when Jesus spoke the words, "Get up, pick up your pallet and walk."

Faith was born in his heart that day. Faith to defy the temple priests who stood ready to exile him for picking up his bed on the Sabbath. Faith to accept Jesus at his word, even in place of the "medicine men" of his day. Faith that was willing to look foolish in front of a large crowd that knew him from years of struggling in this place. Faith that expected a miracle and caused him to rise in obedience and receive the healing touch from Jesus.

Pastor Gene told an amazing story of evangelism and healing when he was traveling on a mission to Brazil. The testimony of healing in one of his mission services led to an opportunity to testify before the president of one of the regional provinces, resulting in many conversions inside the capitol building.

In third world countries miracles are much more common and expected than in the modern world. I think this is because the wall of human effort is already down. The people are already "poor in spirit" so faith finds an open door in their hearts. There is no human solution to their problems so they have to rely on the power of God. I spend most of my time planning and implementing my own solutions to my own problems. I think if I want to experience the true power of God I will need to let these "men of war" in my own life die.