Thoughts about the Awakenings

March 8, 2023 

I am excited about my new book, forthcoming sometime late this month? That is just a projection, and I am working cleaning up the manuscript, and fixing errors on the book cover. I chose the title, "America's Awakenings" for it. Jonathon Edwards wrote books defending the First Awakening, which I realized was too emotional for the times. I started wondering about the other awakenings, knowing almost nothing about them though I had been a Christian for decades, and an avid reader.

To my surprise, I found out that every awakening had its emotional excesses. I was no longer surprised by the lack of willingness to write about them. People were evidently just fearful to write about such emotional moments. But in my seventy years I have noted that people are often emotional and rarely rational. Does God not clearly see that and answer us according to our needs?

I go to great lengths in my book to state my Baptist background and stress that I am not charismatic. I have no doubt whatever that emotions are seized upon and ruthlessly used by the enemy. But I also recognize that God has long been working through emotions- remember the seventy that were gripped with prophesying? They included Saul, who evidently lost all reason while he was caught up in an emotional state. 

Tell me what you think. Finding that emotions were used of God so often in the awakenings was a game changer for me.

Pat

So You Think You are Important?

 

So I was reading a Robert Parker “Spenser” novel recently, and I found an intriguing scene in which Spenser is observing a Hollywood man with a pinky ring in a restaurant, with, of course, a pretty woman by his side. His ostentatious manners, bragging about his recent trip to Europe, and his deplorable treatment of his waiter, all lent to the very realistic scene of a self-made man. I remember sitting next to pompous people who seem to have a deep love relationship with themselves, and I guess we, as humans, have had this problem a long while (See Narcissus).  Reflecting on this scene, I thought about the many people who do literally think the sun rises and sets on their whims.

At the extreme of the selfish spectrum are the murderers, for what can be more selfish than taking away someone else’s life, but there are many of our society who are not that extreme. Rather their selfishness is forged one quiet link at a time, eventually building a chain that would make Ebenezer’s ghost jealous. Their outlook is on themselves, and they never bother to notice what they miss by such a selfish focus. I do think that C.S. Lewis had it right in his caricatures of sinful people—such people even manage to perform acts of charity from a selfish basis.

It is not that man cannot do good; it is that the good is never done from the right mind set. Love of God ought to drive every one of our actions. Lewis perfectly captures the wrong motivation of people in The Great Divorce. A mother may love her son, but in the end, unless the love is properly placed under God, it is not love at all, but an extension of the mother’s selfish person. I do confess that I find this most hard to see when I look at others, but the Bible tells us that God looks on the heart rather than on the outward appearance. Now we usually see that outward appearance, and seldom do we catch more than a glimmer of what is going on inside. In that day, we shall see God as he is, and perhaps we will see the hearts of those in rebellion against God clearly, for the first time.

But that thought should be very scary; I know it is to me. The idea of God opening up my life, and seeing all the secrets of my heart, the heart that I know all too well, that idea is frightening to me. I use that fear to drive me to live this day, the only day that I have control of to live for God. I cannot change my sins of yesteryear, nor even of yesterday, and I do not know what the uncertain tides of the future may bring, but I can take the now, this present day, and turn it towards worshipping and loving my God.

It is almost as if success breeds failure. Men, charmed by the constant success of life with its growing potency, are lifted up to dizzying heights far beyond the common man. Yet, that lifting up, that soaring beyond expectation—is the very thing that damns their souls irrevocably. I read something recently where someone was praying for his children—not that they should be rich and famous, but that they should be righteous.

But it is an uncommon person who has the wisdom to seek first righteousness. Many of us seem to get lost in the details of life—as if the pressing needs of daily living quench the youthful quest for righteousness. I look at someone like Elvis, and I thank God that I do not have his wonderful talent for singing. You might at first be bewildered at my thankfulness, but I look at the enormous temptations that came to a young man with his immense success. Wine, women, and song were literally his to do with as he would, and his dismal record in living his life illustrates that the temptation was too much. I do thank God that I did not have to face those temptations; it is the very rare young person who finds himself strong enough to remain as a young Joseph, fleeing from acts of unrighteousness. I look at the Bible, and I understand when it says give me neither riches nor poverty, not riches lest I look on my wealth and forget my God, not poverty lest I forget and curse my God in my need. May God give us our portions, and the wisdom to be satisfied with them.

I have noticed the same thing in presidents. What man is there that does not become irrevocably conceited and proud by the time he reaches the highest office in the land? How much better that he should learn righteousness before power! Both Coolidge and Truman seem to be men capable of steering their own characters through the morass of entanglements that come from too much power. But in the many other biographies of presidents that I have read, it seems to me to be the exceptional president who is able to put his character and integrity before the temptations of power.

Luther pictured any man coming to the Bible, and being changed by the Word of God as God would have it. He pictured a people of priests, actionable and responsible before God, made righteous by faith alone, and that frightened the aristocratical church as badly as anything Luther ever did. Their very power base, largely founded on unrighteousness, was threatened by the idea of common people becoming priests. If people could go directly to the God to be made righteous, what power would remain to the church? I see the power of the church being so twisted that those who did read the good news of the Bible reeled in horror at the atrocities of the church. Luther was just one of many who were appalled at the things done in the name of Christ. I do wonder if the greatest deed that Luther and Calvin and the other great reformers did was to make the Bible available in common language for everyone to read. No longer did common citizens have to depend on the church to find out what the Bible said.

So what of the Bible? What does it say to those of us who dwell overlong on ourselves? The Bible teaches us that we have nothing of merit where we can stand before God. The answer is simple wisdom: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” Someone once remarked that the next time you think you are invaluable, put your finger in a bowl of water, and then take it out, seeing what impression you have made. Our value in ourselves is absolutely nothing. Some wise man once observed that you and I are a bunch of zeroes until we get behind the right One. And, it is at that point that our only value, our only worth, our only conceit should reside. I am behind the right One.

When we at last come to the realization of our utter worthlessness before him, is it not ironic that at the same point he declares our worth? For who else has the Incarnation come, but for man? Chafer¹ reminds us that at the cross, God declared the price of man to be higher than anything conceivable, as God himself willingly endured the judgments against man, and that God stretched himself even more than at Creation, paying the highest price, namely giving his all, that you and I might be redeemed. There was no greater price that God could have paid—he did everything possible for us in delivering himself to the cross. Now that is grace!

Yes, you are important! Made that way by God, but you only find that importance in him, and if you are going about, prideful over being that self-made man, you are missing everything that would define you as important. If you are such, you are in danger of being a zero who is never going to get behind the right one.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

 

1. SCRIPTURE discloses the fact that the power and resources of God are more taxed by all that enters into the salvation of the soul than His power and resources were taxed in the creation of the material universe. In salvation God has wrought to the extreme limit of His might. He spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all. He could do no more.

Chafer, Lewis Sperry (2008-07-19). Grace (Kindle Locations 447-449). Taft Software, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

Can I Trust the Bible?

 The Christian Bible. Is it what it claims to be? Is it really the communication of God to man, through 40 different and distinct authors, over the incredible period of about 1,500 years? Well, this short answer is not meant to cover all the reasons why the Bible earns our complete trust, but there is a wonderful book that has been out for many years, called, Evidence that Demands a Verdict, by Josh McDowell. I would recommend it for your delightful study, if you wish to study the reasons the Bible is reliable. Nevertheless, I would like to point to some of the most unusual features of the Bible that might make it highly trustworthy.

First, I would like to point out its collection into one book is unknown when compared to any other book. Forty different authors wrote over a period greater than 1,400 years to make this book. Prophets and priests wrote parts of the book, this book that we call the Bible. Kings and slaves wrote part of this book, and musical people and wise people wrote part of this book, and religious leaders and religious zealots wrote part of this book, this book that we call the Bible. Songs and poetry fill this book, but prophecy and narratives also fill this book. We even find fishermen and tax collectors filling this book, this book that we call the Bible. From every avenue of ancient culture, from every person, from least to greatest, from the enemies of Christ to his best friends, we have a collection that is united in one purpose. All Scripture is pointing to the grace of God which is in Christ Jesus. Jesus himself proclaimed, “Search the Scriptures, for in them you think that you have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me.” No other book could ever compare to that!

Second, the prophecies of the coming Christ border on spectacular. To name just a few: he was pierced for our sorrows, he was born in Bethlehem, he fled to Egypt as an infant, that out of Egypt he was called. These prophecies are one of the most amazing parts of the Bible. Josh McDowell does a fine job of documenting the prophecies in chapter nine of his book, and I do not want to repeat it here. There is an interesting story about probability that I do recall from his book. Mathematicians took just eight of the several score of prophecies and tried to figure the odds of eight prophecies coming true. The odds were compared to covering the state of Texas in two feet of silver dollars, with one dollar marked, and then releasing a blind-folded man to randomly pick that one marked dollar. Spectacular is not a big enough word to describe all the Christological prophecies that were fulfilled. John, the apostle, spoke of himself in third person, saying of his gospel, “The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe.”

Third, there is what I term the seamlessness of the Bible, and by that I mean its continuity. Remember that it was written by 40 different writers over a period of approximately 1,400 years. The really strange thing is that a single-themed book would, or could, be produced. Yet, when I read the Bible, that is exactly what I find. A great many themes are started in Genesis, and completed all the way in Revelation. For instance, sin separates man and God in Genesis, but in Revelation, Jesus brings that separation to an end. The tree of life figures prominently in Genesis, and we see it again, all the way to the end of the book, in Revelation. The earth is new in Genesis, old and passing away in Revelation, with a new heaven and a new earth to be revealed. God clothes Adam and Eve after their sin, and in Revelation, the saints are clothed in white robes, signifying the righteousness of God. A single author is what it takes to unify all these themes, and though there were 40 writers, I think that we are forced to the conclusion that there is but one Author. Paul, the apostle, signified the veracity of scriptures famously, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.”

The last testimony of the reliability of the Bible is in the millions of lives that have been changed by it. Look at Chuck Colson, who had a complete turnaround in his life when confronted with the Bible. Oh, you say, that is just one man. But any astute student of history will tell you that every generation has had its Chuck Colsons. Every generation has been filled with people who have found something in this great book which forever changes their lives. Look at the world around you, and tell me which book is forbidden in many countries of the world. Which book cannot be taught in many countries, and which book can you be thrown into jail for even owning? The testimony is from both those who have learned to love the Word, and those who hate it to such a point that they would ban it. Millions of lives have been separated by the words of this book, and I find that most persuasive as to its reliability. Peter tells us of the testimony of his disciples, “For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.” 

Reliable? Yes! Foundational? Yes! A Stumbling Block? Only to those who willfully disregard God’s message. Perhaps it’s time to take up the Bible with a new eye. Or at least a renewed eye—taking a fresh look at an old message. Maybe God does have something to say to you, and maybe it really matters enough for you to pay attention.

So you want to know what I believe?

          Just take your Bible and open up to any verse. Read the verse. Ask yourself the question, “Now I wonder what Pat would say about this verse.”

 

          You may rest assured that Pat indeed believes the verse. 

 

          “But what sense does Pat believe the verse?”

 

          I would answer to you that I believe it in the plain simple sense, trying to read it just as it was written.

 

 

          But you might ask, “What about difficult things like the trinity?”

          

          My answer is that I read my Bible. I find that Jesus claims to be equal with the Father, that the Holy Spirit is God also. I believe.

 

          “But that’s absurd,” you say. “You have to explain the triune nature of God somehow, because it is so important.”

 

          “If it is so important, then why did God Himself not explain it to us?” I answer. “Maybe, just maybe, He desired that we trust HIM for what we cannot explain.”

 

          “Oh,” you say. “I never thought of that before. You are saying that we should trust God for what is not explained.”

 

          “Exactly,” I reply. “The Scriptures tell us many things about God. We can build a systematic theology based on agreement of many of these things. Many of the early creeds did just that. But when we try to build out a systematic theology too far it becomes much more problematic. Just look at the disagreements between many of our godly historical figures.”

 

          You say, “But I am a bit dubious. Perhaps you can help me with other examples.”

 

          “I would be glad to point to another example. What is heaven like? I find myself, particularly in my older age, thinking of how God is going to make our lives. If I read my Bible right, we are to live with Christ (Paul says reign) in Jerusalem someday. We will partake of the water which is everlasting, and live with Him eternally. I often find myself, and hear others also, speculating what that life is going to be like. But too much speculation is not good for it goes beyond the ken of Scripture. If I go too far in assuming what that life will be like, I am sinning.”

 

          “How do you mean it goes beyond the ken of Scripture? I can see how one might get carried away. The Biblical allusions to heaven are many, and I like to dream also.”

 

          “Easy. Scripture says, “But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” We will not know the extent of the wonderful estate God has prepared for us until we get there. 

 

          “I chose this example deliberately, because it is rather easy to understand. Jesus tells us that he goes now to prepare for us “many mansions”. But we do not know what that means. I suspect that God has some rather tremendous surprises in store for us, but what they are I cannot guess. I rather think that God desires his children to be surprised.”

 

          “Okay, I get it. You are saying the mysteries of God sometimes need to stay His mysteries until the time comes “when we shall know even as we also are known.” Do you have more examples?”

 

          “Yes, you are getting exactly what I am saying. There are many other examples in the Scriptures where men of God have greatly differed over the years. One is the ordinance of communion. Some older churches think that communion is partaking of the actual blood and body of our Lord. Others think the passage is meant to be taken symbolically. But I read, “This is my body which is broken for you”, and I believe.”

 

          “So which viewpoint do you choose, the older church model, the symbolic model, or the one between?”

 

          “I say to you that it is not necessary to choose one of the viewpoints. It is necessary for me to believe what God says. I find it very easy to believe Him, because I assent to doing so, and I do not want to go beyond the scripture. Perhaps the Catholic view is correct, perhaps the Lutheran, or perhaps the symbolic. God asks us to simply do the ordinance, believing His scriptures. This I aim to do.”

 

          “Oh I see. You are saying that you should again let God decide how it is—rather your job is to have faith in the ordinance. Do you have another example?” 

 

          “Yes, an example that I think most Christians will readily see. In my neighborhood, a very rich man has paid for billboards all over town proclaiming the Lord’s coming to be on a certain date in May. This particular soul has once before proclaimed the date of the Lord’s coming, and though shown to be wrong, has evidently not learned his lesson. Jesus himself clearly teaches us that “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” Jesus is careful to tell us signs and that we will know the “season” of his return, but the Father has reserved to himself that date that the Son shall return. Many saints of God have gone astray when they have picked dates for his return, and they have always been wrong.

 

          “Simply put, the Bible says that Christ will return as a thief in the night, and Paul tells us that we shall all be changed in a twinkling.  Again, it is my job to believe the Scripture and not to go beyond it. He is coming as “a thief in the night” and we saints are responsible to know the season of His coming, but not the day. “For no man knows the day.”

 

          “So are you saying we shouldn’t have developed creeds?”

 

          “No, not at all. I am saying, though, that there are many areas of Bible study that are unclear; sometimes the more we work to clear them up with our understanding, the more harm we do to the total of Scripture. God says it; that should be more than enough for the believer. I have a wonderful quote from A. W. Tozer on the same subject:

 

It is a sure road to sterile passivity. God will not hold us responsible to understand the mysteries of election, predestination and the divine sovereignty. The best and safest way to deal with these truths is to raise our eyes to God and in deepest reverence say, "O Lord, Thou knowest." Those things belong to the deep and mysterious Profound of God's omniscience. Prying into them may make theologians, but it will never make saints.

 

We believers have a main job: to preach the gospel to every person with the full expectation that many will hear the Word, believe, and begin to discover the deep love of God for themselves; it ought to be more than enough to keep us busy. “Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.”

 

 

What is Biblical tolerance?

Tolerance is from a Latin word, tolerantia, which meant endurance. The idea is that one “puts up” with someone else’s lifestyle choices. This was the meaning that most of our American forefathers had when they began teaching about tolerance. The idea of putting up with someone else’s wrong belief is intrinsic to the beginning usage of this word. We are to endure one another’s choices, even though they may set our teeth on edge.

When I study American history, I find the early immigrants to be people tired from being persecuted, mainly for their religious beliefs. Many, but not all, of the original colonies were settled by people who came across the ocean to find freedom to worship in the way that they chose. Roman Catholics settled Maryland, Baptists settled Rhode Island, Virginia was full of Anglicans, and Puritans settled Massachusetts. Each sect did not give up their beliefs when they formed the United States; rather they sought to keep and preserve their religious differences through state’s rights, something that figured very prominently in our early history. Thus, our forefathers tolerated, or endured other belief systems, and expected toleration of their belief system in return.

However, today’s tolerance has come to mean something quite different from endurance. Many take tolerant to be a synonym for permissiveness. I was explaining this definition of tolerance to a liberal friend once, whose countenance fell rather dramatically when she at last understood my definition of tolerance. “Eww!” She exclaimed, “I don’t think of tolerance in that way at all.” In her mind, I daresay, tolerance had come to mean a permissiveness accompanied almost by an embracing of what is different. Culture was the main medium to introduce this heresy back into modern thought (for it has entered into our thoughts many times before), and today, we are all taught not just to tolerate other cultures, but to embrace all cultures as having equivalent value—on the face of it, an illogical and thus preposterous notion.

Sometimes when I am trying to share what a life changing experience knowing Jesus has been, I am met with the casual comment: “Well, I suppose its wonderfully good for you to believe that, and I am glad for you.” There is a prevalent hidden seed from, perhaps, the dogma of toleration, where when one is challenged to change their lifestyle and believe God, they are able to defend themselves, saying tacitly, my beliefs work for me just as well. But, of course, they do not. Toleration has so confused their thinking that they no longer think in terms of right and wrong, but merely in what works for you or what works for me. In terms of moving away from Christianity, this generation’s move has been colossal.

My father’s generation, who for the most part did not know Christ, knew at least there was a right and a wrong. They may not have been able to point to the reason for right and wrong—most did not know the Source of morality—but they passionately embraced their notions of right and wrong. Most of the time their notions were fairly close. But the modern generation has lost any notion of morality—and that is bound to lead to deep disaster. Tolerance and inclusiveness are the deceivers of the day; it takes a rare person to build a foundation of morality other than that which the state routinely sets out.

Biblical tolerance was introduced in New Testament times when such a thing was almost unknown. I find it an irony that Paul is often berated for his attitude towards women, but most of the epic-setting free tolerance statements that we have, also come from Paul. Let’s examine the main toleration passages that he wrote, and try to contextualize them to see what they meant during Paul’s time. There are two epic toleration passages to look at:
For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.
1 Corinthians 12:13

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
Galatians 3:28


In these statements, evaluate for a moment just exactly what Paul was saying. He made Gentiles to be the equal of Jews, something that no good Jew of that day would ever have done. He made slaves to be the equivalent of their masters. He made male and female to be equal, something that would have been tantamount to rebellion against all the known rules of that day. The barriers of race are crossed here, and those barriers have forever been thrown down. With these two statements, Paul was negating the values and traditions of all of the known world.

However, as ecstatic as I am about these two great passages, there is one caveat. All belonged to the same club—to one Spirit—Paul says, or we are all in Christ Jesus. All were Christians. And here is one of the main differences in tolerance, as it is being taught today. All of us are together, but only if we are in Christ. We are to be tolerant, yea, more than tolerant, loving and giving toward one another. We are “to esteem others as better than ourselves” says Paul in another place.

And for the Christian, there is to be another deep difference in toleration. Jude tells us that, instead of embracing their different lifestyle, that we saints are to be merciful to those who doubt, snatching others from the fire and save them. . . hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh. (v.22,23) Somehow, our society has fallen into the trap of comparing lifestyles one with another. But there is no, not one, lifestyle which will please our Lord. It is not a question about whether you are as good, or better, or worse, than me. It is altogether another question. How will you stand before God? There is only one way—and that way is through faith that leads to repentance for what we are. Not one person will stand before God and be able to justify himself on the basis of being a little better than his neighbor.

Before I conclude, I ought to say something about that parenthetical remark above—this kind of modern tolerance has entered our society before. Though I know little of the study of the rise and fall of civilizations, it seems to me, at least, that this modern definition is taken often by societies just before they collapse. We do not have to look further than Paul to find evidence of a confused church, confused over the right way to tolerate. In the first letter to the Corinthians, Paul directs the man with his father’s wife to be expelled from the church. Most likely, the Corinthians had thought themselves “tolerant” for accepting this man. In the second letter to the Corinthians, Paul directs the church again, this time to take the man back into the church, because he had repented of his misdeeds. In both cases, the early church was already committing our modern sin—redefining tolerance to be something that it should not be.

Those Christians who would be biblically tolerant would do well to remember the words of the Lord: “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it” (Matthew 16:25). According to Jesus, losing our lifestyles is the only way in which we can find our own lives. We are not to be engaging in pitiful contests with each other, vaunting the comparative nature of our lifestyle. We are to be humble and penitent, lest we neglect the treasure which we have now found. The spreading of the gospel has been properly defined as one beggar telling another beggar where to get bread. The Bread is not to be found in lifestyles. We are but beggars.

 

Why is the Bible Important to Me?

Why is the Bible Important to Me?

I suppose I should start answering this question by first showing that the Bible is important to me. This objective, I think, should be easily accomplished by first giving my testimony. I was saved in May of 1972, after a couple of college friends witnessed to me about the last times. Now I was, up to this time, skeptical in the extreme of those who said that God was real, and I was quite used to challenging other friends about their church habits, wanting to know what it was that interested them in church. Never receiving a rational answer, I was growing a little more confident all the time in my skepticism, that is, until I listened to these two college friends. For several hours around lunch time, they prattled on like they actually had read the Bible, something that no one I knew admitted to doing, and once more, they actually acted like God was real and speaking through these books of the Bible. I was invited to receive Christ as my Savior, but far too independent to allow myself to be pushed into anything, I went home, somewhat rattled.
I had lots of questions, many of them partially answered by my friends referring to the Bible. They kept quoting this book they referred to as Revelation, so I went home and began doing what I do best: read. I turned to the table of contents and found Revelation, tucked in right at the end of the Bible. I read Revelation all through chapter 22, and then remembering some of the other books they had quoted, I read Ezekiel, Nahum, and Daniel. After praying to God for understanding: God, if you are really there and caring, and part of what I read in the Bible, show yourself to me, that I may know. And believe me when I say, he answered the prayer in a dramatic fashion. I saw all the times of my life when God had been revealing himself to me. Even while I ignored him, he called to me, and now he was calling me again. I believed God, repented, and began a new life.

In my lifetime of being a Christian, over 40 years now, I have found maybe one other Christian who claims to have read Revelation before believing. It is almost unique. So, I think you should readily see that I consider the Bible very important, and I think it essential for anyone who wants to understand what God is doing in our world. Revelation is the only book in the Bible that promises a blessing to its reader; try it and see for yourself.

But it didn’t stop there for me—I mentioned that I love to read, and it was not long before I became convicted to use that love for the Bible. I began a Bible reading program that included one major book a day, and I get through the entire Bible about seven times a year. Along with it, I have committed many chapters of scripture to memory, just because they are such wondrous words. So you see, when you are asking why the Bible is important to me, I do want you to realize the magnitude of its importance.
And, in the interests of full disclosure, the two college friends that talked so patiently with me—one is now my wife of forty-one years, and the other remains a close friend. That is enough of the how of the Bible’s importance, and now it is time to deal with the meat of the question, why is the Bible important to me?

I have long observed that a Bible which is falling apart usually belongs to a man who isn’t. A truism, perhaps, but it contains the next truth that I am trying to establish. Look at what the Bible has done. Millions, perhaps several billion, of people have radically changed their living because of this one book. Of course, I realize that includes some people with whom I would disagree on foundational doctrine, but nonetheless, I recognize that this singular book has had more to do with changing mankind than any other book. Tozer tells us that, “The Word of God well understood and religiously obeyed is the shortest route to spiritual perfection. And we must not select a few favorite passages to the exclusion of others. Nothing less than a whole Bible can make a whole Christian.”

Christianity, founded on the Bible, is, I think, radically different from any other book. Christianity alone points to man as the problem in the communication between God and man, and alone, of all the religions, tells man that he is completely beyond fixing, broken beyond putting back together, and then, offers love and renewal to those who will recognize their brokenness.

I wonder at the American myth that each day is a new page, and I surmise that this famous myth of man being able to start completely anew, is out of the larger Christian story that tells of a grace freely offered to all, that anyone partaking of it might find an unlikely source in starting over. I will cast your sins into the depths of the sea, says the Bible, and I will remember them no more. I think that the experience of having God enter my life, and love me, and forgive me, and renew me with his matchless grace is the reason why I find the Bible so important to me. It points me to the Giver.

It is no good for you to point to the many who have misused the Bible; I am aware of the fact that it has been used by Hitler, not so long ago, to institute his pogrom against the Jews, and I know that before that it was misused by many in the South to justify slavery. The list of its misuses is quite long, as it has been a stumbling block that evidently trips people in quite different ways, as some fall into the greed of TV marketing, and others take the paths of significantly different beliefs that lie in the many Christian cults. But that is just the point. If we find something so real, so concrete that the temptation of bad people to use it, seems to be so compelling, does it not again prove that there is a stumbling block, one that demands to be considered? I do not think it a reach of historical viewpoint at all, to declare that the Bible has been the axis around which history has revolved. Take the Bible out of history, and what would we have left? No Jews, no Christians, no Moslems—for remember, they built off of the tenets of the Bible. Though I realize we cannot know what the world would be like without the Bible, I do think I can say that western civilization would not have led the world to its present state.

No, the Bible stands all alone, by itself, and there is not one other book which could share its glory. It is a shimmering star, guiding those who will follow it to life, and condemning those who reject it. It alone winnows our people, the human race, into two separate and permanently hostile camps, with profoundly irreconcilable differences. Perhaps that is why it remains the unspoken number one bestseller, of all time, on all lists, in America. The Bible changes lives, has changed our history, and will change our future, if its message is to be believed. Nations which have forgotten its message, and rejected its truths, have themselves passed into the greying dust of history, to be almost forgotten by the nations who remember its importance. The Bible? Ask why it is important to me? You may as well ask me why I drink water.

Why is the Seventy Years So Central to the Old Testament?

The Seventy Years of captivity prophesied in the Old Testament acts as a major turning point. God, being gracious, has postponed judgment for years, but now the penance comes due. Just as today, scoffers are everywhere in our society, saying, “Where is the promise of his coming?” (2 Peter 3). They are going to see the ugly truth—justice postponed is not going to be justice denied, and the longsuffering and patience of God is eventually going to run out. Israel thought the same as our current scoffers, saying that God would never hold them accountable. When God at last sent Jeremiah to proclaim that judgment was nigh, the nation scoffed, and they even tried to extinguish the voice of Jeremiah, throwing him into the well, and later trying to charge him with being a spy. God protected Jeremiah through all that conflict, and twice proclaims that the time of Israel’s captivity will amount to seventy years.

Actually, the story of the infamous seventy years starts all the way back in Deuteronomy. Moses, through the LORD, foresaw that Israel would compound its unfaithfulness to the point of bringing judgment upon themselves. I will quote from Deuteronomy in a bit, but first I want to show that everything has come about that the LORD has planned, in exactly the way that has been foretold.

Deuteronomy gives us foresight into what was going to happen to Israel, and is thus the beginning of a “hinge” of Israel’s history. When Josiah became king, many hundreds of years after Moses, this forgotten book of Deuteronomy was found again (many Bible scholars suggest it was exactly this book, though we are not certain), and read to King Josiah, who promptly repented, and even had the book read to the nation as a whole. The nation’s repentance is famous, for they celebrated the Passover Feast to such a great extent that had never been equaled.


When the nation was finally judged for its rebellion against God, the book became even more important, especially as the scattered nation looked to the LORD for redemption. Listen now to the final words of Moses, just as he gave them to the Israelites:

However, if you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you:
Deuteronomy 28:15 (NIV)

So far the LORD has promised but a curse. Read now as we see some of the details of the curse, for it was quite involved:

The Lord will drive you and the king you set over you to a nation unknown to you or your ancestors. There you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone. You will become a thing of horror, a byword and an object of ridicule among all the peoples where the Lord will drive you.
Deuteronomy 28:36-37 (NIV)

Here, as we say, in black and white, is the whole crux of the message to Israel. The scattering of Israel is foretold, and would certainly come to pass. Interestingly, in the book of Leviticus, Moses tells us again more specifics about this curse that would befall Israel:

I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out my sword and pursue you. Your land will be laid waste, and your cities will lie in ruins. Then the land will enjoy its sabbath years all the time that it lies desolate and you are in the country of your enemies; then the land will rest and enjoy its sabbaths. All the time that it lies desolate, the land will have the rest it did not have during the sabbaths you lived in it.
Leviticus 26:33-35 (NIV)

Not only does the LORD foretell his intentions here, but he gives them the beginning of an actual time frame to fit their punishment. He says that the land will enjoy its Sabbath years, making up the time that the years were not observed.

In the writings of Moses, we are given many reasons to observe different Sabbath days and years. Chafer somewhere identifies 15 Sabbaths, and even a cursory study of the subject reveals at least ten different Sabbaths. Our culture today is remarkably akin to our history, and we pay little attention to the Sabbaths, except for the common one, the seventh day of the week. Read now what Moses wrote about the Sabbath year:

But in the seventh year the land is to have a year of sabbath rest, a sabbath to the Lord. Do not sow your fields or prune your vineyards. Do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the grapes of your untended vines. The land is to have a year of rest. Whatever the land yields during the sabbath year will be food for you—for yourself, your male and female servants, and the hired worker and temporary resident who live among you.
Leviticus 25:4-6 (NIV)

Please note that this year was to occur every seventh year, and there is no record in the Bible that Israel ever attempted to keep this Sabbath. The LORD has already declared what is to happen to them because of their failure to observe the Sabbath year. He will scatter them to another nation, and give the land the very Sabbaths the Israelites had skipped.
The alert reader might really question these verses, perhaps wondering if they were really that important. Yet the unknown writer of 2 Chronicles lets us know of its supreme importance:

The land enjoyed its sabbath rests; all the time of its desolation it rested, until the seventy years were completed in fulfillment of the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah.
2 Chronicles 36:21 (NIV)

We are given very specific information here. For 490 years Israel had failed to observe this Sabbath year, though they are commanded to observe it in both Exodus and Leviticus. By dividing by seven, we come to the all-important seventy years. Seventy years the land was to be given the rest the LORD had commanded, to make up for those 490 years that the Sabbath was not observed.

Second Chronicles mentions the prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah is told by the Lord that the captivity is to last exactly seventy years and he is told this twice that it might be more definite.

“But when the seventy years are fulfilled, I will punish the king of Babylon and his nation, the land of the Babylonians, for their guilt,” declares the Lord, “and will make it desolate forever.
Jeremiah 25:12 (NIV)

This is what the Lord says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place.
Jeremiah 29:10 (NIV)

These seventy years becomes very important. Remember when I listed the prophecy of the curses found in Deuteronomy? I call that the beginning of a great hinge on which the back part of the Old Testament hangs. But these seventy years that Jeremiah prophesies finishes the great hinge. Daniel refers to the seventy years, and bases his seventy weeks prophecy on it (Dan. 9:2). Ezra also relies on Jeremiah’s prophecy to write his own book (Ezra 1:1). I have already noted that it is mentioned in 2 Chronicles. And finally, Zechariah refers to it when he writes:

Then the angel of the Lord said, “Lord Almighty, how long will you withhold mercy from Jerusalem and from the towns of Judah, which you have been angry with these seventy years?”
Zechariah 1:12 (NIV)

It is no exaggeration to say that the whole of the back half of the Old Testament hinges on this great prophecy of Jeremiah. But what is the lesson that we can learn from it? First, we learn that God cannot tolerate sin, and that there are always consequences for sin. Second, we learn that God is fully sovereign, knowing all along that Israel was to prove herself as unfaithful, and yet his plan comes to fruition notwithstanding. Eventually the Son of Promise was to come from this regathered nation, just as God had foreordained. What a comfort it is to know that God is completely in charge! Finally, we learn the reliability of prophecy, and it should give us comfort when we study yet-to-be-fulfilled-prophecy. God has a plan for us, and nothing shall ever change that plan; rather it is our job to look at the prophecies and unfold their meaning as God intended.

Daniel uses the prophecy of Jeremiah in chapter nine, presenting what he knows already from reading the prophet. God takes the prophecy of seventy years, and turns it into a new prophecy—that of the seventy weeks. In my next piece, I will look at the seventy weeks, and we will ponder its meaning together, trying to figure out what God has told us.

What makes The Lord of the Rings such a story, that even after 70 years, still seems to dwarf all its competitors?

One of the gifts which has seemed to come my way in early retirement is all the time I could wish to read, something that has all too seldom happened in the life of this reader. It is one of the most delectable feasts of retirement! As I finished my annual reading of The Lord of the Rings, I found myself comparing it to the plethora of fantasy that has exploded in the years since the masters wrote, Tolkien and Lewis.


Last year, with time on my hands I wondered how many copies of The Lord of the Rings had been made, and I saw figures of many hundreds of millions sold, with Lewis himself following with about half the number of The Chronicles of Narnia. These past decades I have thirstily searched for more good fantasy and I found myself comparing Tolkien’s work with all the others, discovering some distinctive differences that possibly can separate it from all others.


It is a trek that I have long been on—that of searching for other works that compare to the greats, for I have been a lifelong reader who discovered The Lord of the Rings in 1969 and later, after I became a believer, The Chronicles of Narnia. I did not even consider Christian fiction until I was about 30, and having devoured all of Lewis that I could find (nonfiction), I finally discovered his fiction. In the decades since then, I have read (and reread) many good works, sometime well put together, but not even rising close to their masters. I cannot even begin to estimate how many forwards started with the author’s confession that he or she started at a very early age with devouring the works of Lewis and more often, Tolkien, and that reading gave them a lifelong impetuous towards writing fantasy.


The key to understanding Tolkien or Lewis is to note the basis of their starting premises. They both were highly trained professors in English literature, but more importantly, they viewed their world through the lens of being Christians. Grace reflected the beginning and ending of their world outlook, and that grace is transplanted throughout their writings. They, from different theological perspectives, one Catholic and the other the Church of England, but both knew absolutely that grace was given, and not to be earned. I will save Lewis’s writings for another time; there is more than enough evidence to cover in The Lord of the Rings.


But first let me broadly paint all the others, which seem to me to be always built on the foundation of works. Their plot shows a hero, gifted with some talent, usually magic, who acts more surprised about their discovery of their magical talent than seems to be warranted for such a tired theme. The character begins to work their talent, and often it works most dismally at first, erratically so that it cannot be trusted to be there when needed. Often the character is remonstrated to take training, which he or she finds frustrating. Eventually the character has to dig a little bit deeper, try a little harder, and the hero at last emerges.


While it follows the traditional Christian theme, it only does so in the “crucifixion- resurrection” sense that in its broadest themes but mimics the Greatest Story. Tolkien masters this plot idea magnificently, as more than one character is put under the cross, or crucified almost beyond repair, and then raised again. We see it most poignantly in the character of Gandalf, lost in the deepest abyss, but raised to be Gandalf the White. The problem of those lessor writers is that they have stopped with this basic plot.


They do not share the foundational beliefs of Tolkien and thus they cannot hope to emulate him. It is all about the main character trying a bit harder, and digging a bit deeper that finally resolve the climax. With Tolkien it is seldom about trying harder; rather it is a sense of every character (that is good) that they are part of something bigger than they are, that there is a sovereignty of which they are just a part, a piece in a mosaic that is beyond the character’s imagination. Indeed, it is meant to be bigger than even the reader can imagine, and it is not until we read The Silmarillion that we begin to see that sovereignty start to be unraveled.


I will give just a few examples, for the books contain entirely too many examples to be closely cited. First, when Frodo is first warned about the ring with Gandalf, Gandalf says, “Behind that there was something else at work, beyond any design of the Ring-maker. I can put it no plainer than by saying that Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and not by its maker. In which case you also were meant to have it. And that may be an encouraging thought.” Here the sovereignty of the unseen is declared, and no less than Elrond states this theme again, “If I understand aright all that I have heard,’ he said, ‘I think that this task is appointed for you, Frodo; and that if you do not find a way, no one will. This is the hour of the Shire-folk, when they arise from their quiet fields to shake the towers and counsels of the Great. Who of all the Wise could have foreseen it? Or, if they are wise, why should they expect to know it, until the hour has struck?”


Elrond’s comment is exactly what I think Tolkien wants you to believe—that the four most unlikely beings were chosen out of time for just such a time as this. Each of the four hobbits meets his tasks unfit, and apparently unable to complete them. Pippin acts like an immature teen, and Merry is little better, yet Merry is the one to kill the Captain of the Black Riders, and Pippin is at hand to stop the madness of the Steward, Denethor, and save the life of Faramir. Still more of this inability is present in Frodo, who gives in to the Black Riders at nearly every turn, and in the end puts on the Ring, declaring himself to be the Lord. He is only saved by the greed of Gollum, who manages to bite off his finger before falling into the abyss. Sam is perhaps the strongest character, faithful to his master albeit in his bumbling way. Still, Sam considers himself an unlikely hero, and is amazed that he is considered such in the end of the story.


Each of the four hobbits share this common trait. They are forced into a complex problem which the book suggests repeatedly that they do not understand, and each of them bumbles through their tasks, getting the “grace” at the last moment to successfully accomplish them. Contrast the normal fantasy as outlined above, with the main character digging a bit deeper, training a bit more, and reaching a new level of knowledge. It thus is not at all by grace; rather it is works which a better time is reached. Tolkien knew nothing of these works. In Tolkien’s thinking, the elves were themselves unable to produce good works. In fact, he introduces us to the hobbit-world with the reader learning that all of the elves themselves were under a terrible doom, and Sauron himself was just a remnant of that doom, with the whole world in danger of disappearing into a black abyss of darkness without end.


All of which brings me to the conclusion that Tolkien is great because his characters are almost without hope of success, and their triumph in the end is entirely due to grace—a message profoundly resembling that which is found in the Gospel. Christ came to the cross, dying for sins, that you and I, who are totally inept, might find grace to help in the hour of need. Most of the other authors are engaging in self-redemption, and their works suffer as a result. So there you have it. Tolkien is greater because of the grace in his story, and the other authors are lessor because their books are works-based, very comparable to those who would attempt to save themselves without grace.

1. Tolkien, J.R.R. (2012-02-15). The Lord of the Rings: One Volume (p. 56). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition.
2. Tolkien, J.R.R. (2012-02-15). The Lord of the Rings: One Volume (p. 270). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition.

The Second Coming in Genesis

Reading my way through Genesis this last time, I was surprised to find seven places in it that seemed to symbolize the coming of the Lord. Here I must be careful, because there are many places in Scripture where we might think we find a type, but we cannot be sure unless the Scripture itself points them out. Then and only then can we be sure that we are looking at a type. Scofield, famous for finding types all throughout the Bible, himself notes somewhere that the only true types are those that have the warrant of Scripture on them. Please notice that I am not going so far as to suggest these are even the lesser types of Scofield; rather I have deliberately chosen the words “seemed to symbolize”. It makes a rather delicious study anyway, and so in that spirit, I offer them for your consideration. Some of them I think you will find to be surely true; others may be harder to see, but I present to you the seven places where the Rapture, the Bride, or the coming of the Lord might be seen.

First, there is the obvious one. Enoch walked with God and was not, Scripture says, for God took him. I believe this one, of all seven is perhaps the strongest, and has been suggested by many Bible scholars over the years. Do we not have a picture of the church here, where the church is walking before God, and then God suddenly took it? The faithfulness of Enoch in walking with his God is compared to the church, which Revelation says is going to be dressed in the righteous acts of the saints. A beautiful picture of God’s deliverance from a coming wrath, for remember that the seventieth week of Daniel is what we are escaping from. In Enoch’s day, the wickedness of men abounded so much that eventually God was to destroy all of mankind except for Noah, which brings us to the next place.

Noah, being rescued from the judgment of the earth, becomes a picture of the saint of the last days, being saved from the coming judgment. God, being merciful, isolates his salvation down to only his chosen, in the flood to Noah and his family, in the seventieth week of Daniel to all his chosen saints. It is illuminating to think of Noah spending all of those years building his salvation according to the plan of God. Surely it is no accident that God has told us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, for it God within you working to his own good purpose. Rather than working on an ark, we are working and building the body of Christ (by the power of the Holy Spirit), and when it is finally completed, God will take that body out of judgment just as Noah was taken. Which takes us to another man famously taken out of judgment, Lot.

Lot appears to be at least a lessor creature to me when he appears in the Old Testament. Abraham takes Lot with him on the journey that God has given him. Commentators have long pointed out that Abraham was told “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.” Note that Abraham chose to leave his father’s household behind, but he took Lot. And Lot caused Abraham lots of grief. The herders of Lot and Abraham could not get along, so Abraham divides the land, lets Lot choose, and Lot chose the fairest plain which happened to include Sodom. Not a wise choice. When I first read this passage, my thinking was that Lot was not spiritual, that he allowed his base motives to direct his actions. Not exactly an evil character, but certainly not a good one. That is what I thought until I came across this verse from Peter, “For that righteous man [Lot] dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds.” God, through his apostle Peter, evidently weighed Lot in the balance scale a lot differently than I might have. He was a righteous soul, and not only a righteous soul, but a soul that was vexed day and night by the evil deeds of those around him.

God took Lot from that place. It corrupted his wife, who looked back and turned to a pillar of salt. It corrupted his children, who later got their father drunk to sire children. Thus were born the Moabites and the Ammonites, who later became no end of problem for Israel. But Lot himself was a righteous man, a picture of the church who will be taken out from the world before wrath is poured out upon it. More specifically, we see the Bride of Christ being taken home to be with the Lord, escaping the wrath that will be poured out on the earth.

The fourth place I see the Rapture is a bit harder to glimpse, yet I think if you ponder on it a bit, you will see the grace of God again showing that future age. Isaac was the child of promise, and very long in coming. Abraham was promised a child that would eventually make him to become the father of nations, yet at 99, still found himself without child. Sarah, at an anything but spry 86, no longer considered herself to be able to bear children. Yet the faithfulness of God was not yet complete, until the coming of the son, Isaac, the child of promise. With that coming, which can be compared not only the first coming of the Son, but also the Second Coming. It is a promised coming, just as the comings of our Savior are promised. It is much delayed, just as the comings of our Savior were delayed—the first coming not happening for almost 2,000 years after Isaac, and the second coming still being waited on.

Rebekah, the chosen bride of Isaac, can also be likened to the marriage of the church (the bride) to the Lord. The marriage supper of the Lamb is yet to take place, yet when it comes it will surely follow many of the same things that happened to Rebekah. The faithful servant of Abraham stands as a symbol of the Holy Spirit, something commentators have long noted. The servant goes out and finds the bride, just as the Holy Spirit finds us, convicting us both of our sin and the righteousness of God. The faithful servant puts a bracelet around the wrist of the bride, sealing her as the bride of Isaac. Similarly, the Holy Spirit seals us into the body of Christ, guaranteeing us to be part of the bride. The servant then removes her from her home, and she is taken to an exalted position as the bride of Isaac, the chosen seed. One day when the Spirit is taken out of the way, at the same time, He will remove us from the earth, and bring us at last to the place the Lord has prepared for us.

Sixth, the family of Jacob, and Jacob himself are taken out of the wrath which is to come, remarkably like we are promised in Thessalonians. They are removed from the danger of drought and starvation, and brought to an exalted position. Indeed, Joseph has been made second only to the Pharaoh in position. The Christian will be saved from the wrath to come in the coming seventieth week of Daniel when the world is judged, and exalted beyond all hope as we find our inheritance in heaven.

Lastly, I see the dream of Jacob as a sign of the faithfulness of God. Jacob dreams of a ladder going to heaven. Jacob is forced to be a sojourner in a foreign land, just as we Christians are sojourners in a foreign land. Yet, God gives to Jacob the promise that he will one day be brought back to the land of promise, and so we Christians look forward to the completion of God’s promises that he will, at long last, bring us to the home which he has prepared and promised us.

All seven are thus given, and certainly not all are equal. Some are more obviously hinting at the coming of our Lord, while others perhaps only become obvious as we willingly muse about them. But this we have as a certainty, that the Lord himself told us to search the Scriptures for they are they which testify of him (John 5:39). Is it any wonder, then, that we should find much of Christ and his comings in the very first book of Genesis?

End times

Everywhere I go lately, someone is talking about the end times and the disasters happening in our state and even the hurricanes hitting other countries and earthquakes. They are convinced it is the end times. I wanted to know your thoughts about this.

Denisa,
What a question! I was looking for something to do this morning anyway, so I will attempt to answer as briefly as I may. Hopefully it will not be too much answer for you. I would first recommend that you read a great book on the subject of the rapture, called The Rapture Question, by John Walvoord. I am reading it through for my third time right now. He thoroughly covers the topic from A to Z, presenting the literal viewpoint of a pretrib rapture, and why the post-tribulation positions are so much less literal. You note that “your take is that we might spend less time talking about it, and using more time to tell others about Jesus.” What a fine observation! But it still should be the driving force of our need to talk to others about it, for as the song wonderfully asks, “What if it were today?”

So no, we should not just sit around and talk about it, rather it should be our motive to push us to be found busy following our calling.

Jesus is very clear about his expectations for his saints. Jesus tells us in Matthew 24, “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” History is full of people who have erred grievously by trying to predict the day of his coming, and all have been wrong. But if we cannot know the day, Jesus does teach us that we will know the season, “Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door” (24:32, 33). He goes on to tell us, “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come” (24:45).

So when your friends note that the season is near, they are doing exactly that which Jesus commanded. They are watching. But, as you did suggest, they ought to be doing more than watching. The epistles to the Thessalonians were both written to clarify the incidents that happen around the Second Coming, particularly the Rapture. I am so glad the Thessalonians became confused about the details, because it caused Paul to stop and write down the prophecies clearly, so that you and I might understand more about what is to come. (In fact, every chapter in the epistles of Thessalonians, except for one, tells us something about the coming of our Lord. Can you find the chapter that does not talk about the coming of the Lord? It makes for a wonderful Bible study!) Did you know that church history teaches that some of the Thessalonians were parking themselves on rooftops, so sure were they that the coming was near? They did not want to miss a thing, and were watching. They might remind you of the friends you mentioned that want to talk about nothing else.

You are correct when you observe that we need to be busy telling others about Jesus, and if we are truly following the Lord, our watching for his return should make us realize that our time is indeed short, and we will need to be found busy following our calling when he does return. So end time sentiments should be motivating us to work harder, lest we be caught unaware. So there is a place for both, and we need to watch ourselves so that we are not found on the rooftops, but rather in the harvest where we have been placed.

Knowing him is a beautiful thing that ought to be shared in hopes that others might hear and begin watching with the rest of us. Hope this very short answer helps, and don’t forget to check the book out!
Pat

Two Apparently Opposing Ideas

Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.”
Luke 9:23 (NIV)
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Matt. 11:28-30 (NIV)

How is it that our Lord should say two such apparently contradictory things? In Luke, he tells us to take up the cross and follow him. Not once. But daily. The cross is a symbol of suffering, of the persecution of the righteous, and it is to the cross we must go if we are to follow Jesus.

I get that. So I bow my head, bare my shoulders, and prepare each day for the cross. I must grit my teeth, mutter to myself that I can handle it, and stagger forward. But wait! He also said in Matthew that he will give us rest. He tells us that he is gentle and humble in heart, and that learning about him will give us rest. For his yoke is easy and his burden is light. Which is it? One or the other, I think, in my fleshiness. It cannot be that I carry a cross across my shoulders, and find the yoke is easy and the burden is light. Can it?

Two such oppositional ideas cannot be both true, except in the providence of God. God, having made his plans before the foundation of the world, purposed to make both ideas to be the center of the Christian life. He fully intends for us to have both in our lives, as contradictory as they might seem to be at first.

There are two examples of this that I would like to remind you of, since they both are such excellent examples of lives carrying the contradictory truths. First, I will look at the example of Stephen, our first martyr, and then I will look at the example of the apostle Paul.

Stephen is chosen to be a deacon, an office which seems to be more than the apostles first intended, and resulted in a great circle of men of faith. Stephen, the Bible assures us, is “full of faith and the Holy Spirit”. His cross to bear, that the apostles bestowed upon him, was evidently to see that the Greek widows were not overlooked in their needs. Nothing more is ever said about the deacon’s service to the widows, but God takes Stephen and molds for him a great cross to bear: he becomes the first church martyr.

The cross, at that point, must have been insufferably heavy. The Jewish leaders took him captive, and all in his future must have been terribly dark. But, Stephen, filled with the Holy Spirit, begins to preach what is perhaps the most powerful sermon in the book of Acts. Please note that the Scripture does indeed refer to Stephen as being filled with the Spirit, and that is the key to understanding how to bear the cross that is given to us. We do not bear it under our own power, but with the very power and Spirit of God. Thus it becomes easy to bear. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Because it is God’s outworking of his Spirit within us.

Look at Stephen. Giving a powerful sermon, he only moved the haters to conspire to kill him. With practically his last breath, he looks toward heaven, asking for the Lord to receive his spirit. With his last breath, he mutters perhaps the most powerful prayer in all of Acts, saying, Father, do not hold this sin against them. Like his Lord’s cry from the cross, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. He faithfully took up his cross, and followed his Lord in death, but not in his own power, but with the very power of God to enable him. I submit to you that Stephen may have been a very good person, and probably was, but he was utterly dependent upon God to carry such a cross. And proving willing to bear it, he found to his delight that the yoke was indeed easy, and the burden was light. Therein is the secret of the apparent contradiction.

But I am not done, for Paul is yet unexamined, and I have yet to show his taking up the cross and following his Lord. Stephen’s last prayer was for those who were so dreadfully hating him, for the very people who had gnashed their teeth in fury, and could not throw the stones fast enough to kill Stephen. One young man in that crowd of haters, was diminutive, small in size, and perhaps with weak eyesight. Nevertheless, he utterly hated Stephen, and offered to hold the coats of those who were bigger, and more able to bring death quickly. Stephen prayed for that man, a man who was to change history. He prayed with the power of the Holy Spirit for God not to hold this vile deed against him. And God saw fit to answer that prayer, bringing salvation to Saul, the apostle who brought Christ to the Gentiles. To you and to me, as an answer to the very last prayer of the first martyr. Talk about drama!

Saul must have been haunted by that prayer. I have often wondered who it was that remembered that last prayer of Stephen. There is a case to speculate that it was Paul himself who later gave the gist of that powerful prayer to Luke, who went on to record it in the book of Acts. Perhaps it was, we may never know. But I do imagine that Saul heard those words that day, and that those words began to haunt him in all of his misdeeds. Everywhere he went, did he remember those words, that prayer for his forgiveness? How it must have tortured his soul to think of the young Stephen praying for Saul’s forgiveness even as they brought him death!

I do speculate here, but not so much that it might not have been true. When Christ at last appears to his last chosen apostle, is not the reaction of Saul quick and decisive? Does he not seem to capitulate very quickly, deciding that he was wrong? I do wonder if the prayer of Stephen had not eaten away at Saul’s heart, preparing him for the truth of his later vision, the vision of the living Christ, asking, Saul, Saul, why dost thou persecute me?

At any event, we have Saul being turned into Paul, who disdained all else, proclaiming the gospel to all who would listen boldly and without fear. Paul undergoes deprivations, shipwrecks, whippings, and even a stoning (Chafer suggests that stoning actually brought a temporary death). All of what he endured he counted as naught. Can we find a better example than Paul of carrying the cross of Christ? Yet, he found it true that his yoke was easy and his burden was light, not counting himself worthy to suffer for Christ, and finally telling us in 2 Timothy that he has fought the good fight and was looking forward to getting his crown of righteousness.

What is this amazing faith, this Christianity, that it should so radically change people? From the early years even until now it has always been this way, that Christians should disdain this world because of their vision of a better world to come. Throughout history the remarkable faithfulness of God is evident, teaching these words of Jesus. We are to take up his cross and find that it is not so heavy after all. Indeed, his yoke is easy and his burden is light, but only because of the great mystery, that Christ himself in the form of the Spirit, should be found in us.

Musings of a Reader

It seems to me that there are a set of fixed rules that are as of yet unseen by mankind. These rules must have in some sense been affixed by God, and evidently he respects those rules also. Those rules evidently include allowing Satan to run over this world, to and fro, as Job says, and to constantly accuse. What his province, or his job is, at current is hard to say. He is called the prince of the power of the air, which indicates that, at the least, he has the power to range over the earth. Perhaps he is allowed to accuse, and perhaps God listens with the heavenly host as witnesses to those accusations. But more unseen is the Devil’s control over the minds of men. Evidently he is allowed, at times, to incite violent awful episodes of derangement in our world, of course looking forward to the seventieth week of Daniel where he is allowed to wreak havoc upon the earth, and all them that dwell therein.

I think it makes sense, at least to me, that Satan was behind barbaric acts such as what happened on 9/11, where he was able to use a handful of fools to perform his will. It seems to me obvious from living through that day that great wickedness was given a way forward that seemed to be allowed to get over great hurdles. Of course, we know from Job that God himself is sovereign even over what the Devil might do. In that way, God is sovereign over all, just as we understand our Bibles to so plainly teach us. But just as in Job, we see God using agents to perform his will. Did he not use Satan to perform his will? It seems that both statements are true—that God is sovereign, and that Satan is performing at least some of his will. Trying to reconcile the two has proven to be a Sisyphean task for theologians; no matter how hard they try, the two do not seem to fit together. Yet, it is these opposing truths which God presents us with in Scripture. We are never quite told how they reconcile, but the safest course for the Christian is to simply believe and trust that one day it will work out as God has promised.

But I want to reflect on how we got here. Theologians cover in depth our depravity, and they have done an excellent job, as far as it goes. But actually it is revealed in Scripture that we (mankind) are almost the postscript in a story that has been going on for a very long time. There are other beings, called angels (it is a wonder to me, but if I called these angels aliens, many people would perk up, willing to believe in that which we have not been told about instead of that which we are told about) and these angels were involved in a struggle in heaven. God evidently sent mankind, that these insignificant beings should be, to the wonder of heaven, the very instrument to bring about the demise of Satan.

We are, as I have written elsewhere, the pawns on the chessboard of life. But the insignificant pawn suddenly becomes very important in the chess game when the pawn finds itself on the seventh rank. All of a sudden the game focus shifts totally to that pawn, as the mover tries to “queen” his pawn, and his opponent does everything possible to prevent that. We are the pawns, on the seventh rank. Suddenly the whole focus of heaven is upon us, waiting for the significant move that God is about to make.

But let’s look at things from the point of view of the pawn, who scarcely knows what is going on. All of the other pieces are suddenly focusing on his power, but he does not much understand how he, being so little and unimportant, has become the center of attention. So we little understand the rules of the game; we cannot see why God should suddenly make us so important. Yet, with the Incarnation, he did just exactly that, deciding to become flesh, reconciling the world to him, but also bruising the Serpent’s head. In the cross lies the chess move of God, if you will, making man to suddenly be on the seventh rank, and in lifting the Son up, pronounces simultaneously the bruising of the head of Satan, and the lifting up of men to become the Sons of God.

Remember that this lifting up of man in the incarnate man is a marvel in all of heaven—it is almost as if the rules of the chess game have changed, to the utter amazement of watchers. Now we await the final promotion, when the pawn is crowned and the new queen presents herself to the King. Rules that we cannot understand or begin to fathom, but why should we expect to understand? Has he not asked us to walk by faith?

Where are you going on your life-journey?

The most important question of your life. The problem is that many people deny what ought to be so obvious—that we are eternal creatures found in mortal bodies. Immortals bound with the decaying bodies of mortals. It should be self-evident to all of us, but strangely it is not.

By his word, he spoke the world into being, filled with animal diversity, and all the wondrous beauties of nature. The Bible teaches that it happened almost instantaneously; men have now stretched the life of the earth back to nearly 5 billion years, to try to make the impossible seem more likely with time, and still they find they have a monstrous task. But God says he did it, creating and making and fitting and designing all the things in the universe that would make the earth have life, and have it abundantly. But by their own designs, men have plotted to replace this work of God with a work of accident, time, and mutation. Still, the word of God rings for those who will listen: “Who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed for ever. Thou coveredst it with the deep as with a garment: the waters stood above the mountains. At thy rebuke they fled; at the voice of thy thunder they hasted away” (Psalm 102:25).

I understand on our life-journey, if we are lucky, we find animals to bond with. I have done that myself. But there is a great void of difference between us and the nearest animals. Perhaps Descartes came closer than he realized when he said I think therefore I am. Rationality is a great mark of difference, and though it appears in some of the higher animals, particularly the higher animals that spend time with man, it is not well formed. If man just fished, he would be like other animals. But man fishes with a hook and a pole, and there are fewer animals that can imitate that. How many animals take it a step further, and create a boat, that they might be more successful fishermen? Even if we find such an exception in the wonders of nature, how many of those boats are powered? And which animal cultivates and grows fish that he may eat? On every hand, man so far outstrips his fellow animals that there is a great divide between them than cannot be surpassed.

Men have thoughts—perhaps animals do some reasoning. I think I can see it in my dog at times. But man does not stop with reasoning. He writes. He collects ideas, and ruminates upon them. He puts them into books, and then builds libraries to hold the books. To make it yet easier on himself, he puts the books into electronic format, that he might literally have vast reservoirs of books at his whim. Animals never approach this standard. What does God say but that he breathed into man and he became a living soul? There is a vast ocean, broader than the Pacific itself, between man and animal.

All of this the tiniest child seems to intuit; it is only when we “grow up” that we forget our basic beginnings, our roots. For indeed, we are rooted in the image of our Creator, and stand in all our earth as something unique, the only animal, if you will, to receive the breath of God. Perhaps that is why Jesus directed us to be like the little children in coming to him. As a teacher, I saw young children all the time, and it greatly saddened my heart to see so many of them becoming captivated by the things of this world, instead of being opened to the Creator-God who makes all life possible. Their life journeys were being set in the wrong direction, a direction that leads them away from God.

Ezekiel, chapters 3, 18, and 33, all make it clear that the will of God is that the wicked should turn from their ways and find faith. I do not pretend to understand the sovereignty of God; in my morning prayers I see the hand of God as everything, all-powerful and everywhere present. And yet within God’s nature, as powerful as it is, he still commands us to turn from our self-centered lifestyles to one that is centered in him. Ezekiel makes it plain that it is not the will of God for men to perish; instead their plight remains upon their own heads as they careen their way through life, bashing their way through the stop signs of warning, never heeding those signs until their life ends in a stupendous crash. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

In the time of coming judgment, the prophet warned Israel, prepare to meet your God, Israel. That warning certainly applies to all of us today. As eternal creatures, created by God in his image, our journey is this lifetime is as but the first step. It might seem strange to consider it so, with all of our years’ of experiences behind us, but the time of our lives is frequently compared to grass and flowers, which are here today and gone tomorrow. Still, God gives us this first step that we might start correctly, with him leading us throughout the rest of the journey.

Therefore, all the other journeys that we would take are by definition wrong. There is one way, Jesus teaches, the narrow way, and few there are that find it. The blindness of our world as they plunge into darkness is amazing to this old man. The tolerance taught in my own country is so wrong—Jesus also taught that the way to Hell is broad, and that there are many who are treading its pathway. Every lifestyle apart from one of faith is doomed to destruction; it matters not how virtuous one may paint such a lifestyle.

“I am okay,” says the non-thinking person. “I will be alright when I face that last day.” After all, they reason, I am better than my neighbor who is a drunkard. I raise my kids carefully. I do my best, they say, and I will trust God with the rest. Their ill-measured idea of God is that he will overlook their faults, and see somehow inside their hearts, and know that they are really a decent sort, worthy of heaven. But the reality is so far from that picture. We are a woeful and sinful people, and when we compare ourselves to others, we are taking our eyes off of our needs, and pointing fingers at others. The truth is that God does see into our hearts, totally and completely. He knows you better than you know yourself, even when you are being candid with yourself, which if you are like me comes all too seldom. God knows that heart of yours, that it is fully disobedient, and in desperate need of a divine solution. It is no good saying that you are better than someone else—it may be true, but it belies your need, and God cannot “fudge” the scales in your favor, and overlook your sin.

But such people can go blithely on through their life-journey, never seeing themselves as God sees them. What a surprise it is to so many when they fail their expectations of a glorious afterlife based on their own deeds. God has given a divine solution in our trusting Jesus Christ. You see, God did not overlook sin—instead, he poured out all of his divine wrath upon his son, that by believing we might be saved. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, John tells us, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. Perhaps you are not familiar with the story. Poisonous vipers were loose and plentiful in the camp of the Israelites, biting and killing many of them. Moses, listening to God, took a pole, put one of the poisonous vipers on it, and commanded all who were bitten to look upon the serpent. Those who trusted Moses and looked upon the serpent were healed.

In a manner, the Son of God is like that serpent. He took upon himself all of your sins, indeed, the sins of the world, and in doing that, became a fiery serpent, drawing all the wrath of God. If you will look today and understand and have faith in what God did, you will be saved. But nothing less than divine wrath for your sins can get you out of judgment. What a folly it is to trust your own efforts, when provision has been made for you to escape the wrath of God. Yet, the blind go on, trusting themselves yet another day, and doom themselves to total and complete failure.

I know people who want so much to make it on their own; isn’t that the first cry of the infant who wants to do it for himself? But if you will not look to the cross, and see the provision that God has made, there remains no provision for you, and you doom yourself to perdition. How much better that the wicked man should turn from his way and live!

The classic definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. From the beginning of time, the pathway to Hell is paved with men and women who have tried it their way, presenting themselves to God, and expecting that to be merit enough. There is only one merit acceptable to God, and he had fully provided that in his divine solution, the only solution that will carry us on our life-journey to heaven. I close with something Tozer has to say about a man dying without Christ: “An old sinner is an awesome and frightening spectacle. One feels about him much as one feels about the condemned man on his way to the gallows. A sense of numb terror and shock fills the heart. The knowledge that the condemned man was once a redcheeked boy only heightens the feeling, and the knowledge that the aged rebel now beyond reclamation once went up to the house of God on a Sunday morning to the sweet sound of church bells makes even the trusting Christian humble and a little bit scared. There but for the grace of God goes he.”¹Is it not ironic that men go through all of their lives, somehow never having looked seriously at the claims of Christ? There is not a more tragic event than someone who spent their life not looking where they ought to—upon the Christ who has been lifted up that all men might have life, and have it abundantly.

1. Tozer, A.W.. Man - The Dwelling Place of God (Kindle Locations 554-557). . Kindle Edition.

What do Christians look forward to?

My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.
Song of Solomon 2:10

One of the most precious prayers of Jesus occurs near the end of what is properly called the Lord’s Prayer, in John 17. It is found in verse 24, “Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.” Some mistakenly interpret this verse to be talking about the death of the saints, but nowhere is death mentioned. Alliteration is totally in the mind of the interpreter, and he gives the text any meaning that he deems appropriate. That is why alliteration being used to finding meaning in the text of the Bible is so scary. The interpreter is allowed to bestow whatever fitting meaning he wants to on the text. One may look in vain for any mention of the doctrine of saint’s death and afterlife, and thus we ought to have confidence that whatever Jesus meant, he did not mean for us to be thinking about death and the afterlife. Instead, it is talking about the most beautiful love story of the universe. Jesus, the bridegroom, is so completely in love with his bride, the church. Over and again, he petitions the Father about the church, showing his love and steadfastness toward his bride. Can I prove this from the text? Very easily. Let’s look at the Lord’s Prayer and see evidences of his love for the church.

In verse nine Jesus prays, “I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine.” Looking forward, Jesus is actually praying for those the Father has given him, the church. In verse eleven, Jesus again prays for the church (specifically, those whom thou hast given me), “Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.” Again, in verse fifteen, Jesus prays, “I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.” In all these three instances (and there are more), Jesus is clearly praying for his followers, his chosen ones, and is looking forward to those that the Father has given him.

This high priestly and intercessory prayer is thus made on behalf of the bride of Christ, present and future, the seed of what would become the church. His love is apparent throughout the prayer, as he most carefully prays through for the church. Notice again the verse of my topic, v. 24, “Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.” Notice now in particular the petition part to the prayer, “I will that they. . .be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory.” Where was Jesus going? Of course, he ascends to the Father, and assumes his throne, where we see him in Acts. He is in heaven. This is referring to the translation, often called the Rapture, when Jesus will come and gather his church and take them to heaven, that they might behold all the fullness of his glory.

There are a great many arguments about exactly when in prophetic events this event takes place; there should be no argument about it actually taking place. There is a much more famous passage in John 14:2, 3, “In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” Again, there are commentators who wrest this Scripture to be talking about the dead, or when Christians die and go to heaven. There is absolutely no context to support such a contention, and allegory, it should be remembered is always in the mind of the interpreter.

I believe that the Bible clearly teaches the Rapture taking place before the Tribulation, or the last week of Daniel. In fact, most believers have acknowledged the imminence of his coming, even while they may not agree on the order of prophetic events. Perhaps it is because Jesus warns us over and again to be watchful for his coming, lest we be surprised. The apostles follow up with this warning. It is very difficult for those who would place the Rapture after the Tribulation to follow this doctrine, of his imminent coming, if events of the Tribulation have to come first. That would mean, that instead of looking for Christ, we should be looking instead for the beasts and the false prophet. Instead of Christ’s sudden appearance we should be looking for these rascals. In our history, hundreds of saints have identified hundreds of people who were to be the beasts or the false prophet, and history has proven all of them wrong. That should give a holy pause to the student of Scripture. Nonetheless, this doctrinal ground has been furrowed by others better than me, and ought not to be the subject of this peace. I instead, just want us to look at the beauty of what is happening.

The passage of John that I started with, that of Jesus praying for us that we might be with him is not just beautiful because of the words. It is an altogether fine thing that we are called to be with him, and that we will see him in his glory, but if we stop there we do not see the love story. This whole prayer is full of Jesus’ love for the church; he is praying his last words as a living man for us, but more than that, this is the love of a bridegroom being expressed for his bride. I am told that there were three great steps to a Jewish wedding. First, while yet children the two in question are betrothed. The church and Christ fulfill this picture as the Bride and the Bridegroom are bonded in the Holy Spirit, sealed unto the day of redemption. Second, the groom comes and retrieves his bride from the home of the bride. This will be fulfilled when Christ, the groom, comes and finds us at home here on earth. Third, the groom takes the bride to his home, where they have a marriage supper. This picture is represented when Christ, the groom, gets the church, his bride, and takes us to his family home, heaven, and there we have the marriage supper.

Jesus is dripping with love and concern for his bride in his last intercessory prayer. His is the love of a groom infatuated with his bride; he is concerned with her welfare above all else. How else will we explain this beautiful prayer of Christ, that we may be with him where he is, and that we may behold his glory?

I think of when I was courting my wife. I remember sharing things little by little with her, as she learned to do with me. The delightful thing about falling in love was that we learned to trust one another. I would share a peculiar taste, or a favorite of mine, and she would endeavor to remember it, and make it precious to her. I did the same for her. We endeared each other’s peculiarities to each other, and so we learned to trust. It is all part of falling in love, and is very evident here. Christ has a warm and passionate love for us. He wants what perhaps all good grooms would want.

First, he wants to show us off to the heavenly host. Ephesians 5:26 says, “That he might sanctify and cleanse it [the Bride] with the washing of water by the word.” He has cleaned us, put us in clothes that shall never be sullied or dirty again. He has washed us as white as snow. But Revelation 19:8 tells us, “And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.” In other words, there are two things here Christ finds wonderfully attractive in his bride, that attracts his full love and devotion. First, he washed us white as snow, and second, we are clothed in the fine linen of the righteous acts of the saints. Not that these are works originated by us; rather they are works that the Holy Spirit has done in and through us, so that in both senses, we are the product of Christ’s adornment.

The trouble with the church today is that we are not acting much like the beloved bride. We do not seem to realize the divine favor that has been poured out upon us, and we do anything except act like a bride in love. And, I fear there are many of us, who do not seem to realize we are getting ready for the event of the universe, and we are not busy about our Father’s business. We are like rats scurrying around and working, but we have forgotten our purpose—we are to be serving the Master. Some of us endeavor to become experts in theology rather than worrying about being a bride ready for her groom. We are ready to argue points of doctrine, and will do so very often, even to the point of offending our brothers and sisters in Christ. Yes, doctrine matters, but we have lost sight of the fact that our brothers and sisters matter more. Christ prayed in the Lord’s prayer over and again that we might be brought to unity, that we might be marked by his love. The least knowledgeable saint found busy for his Lord is going to be immeasurably and fantastically ahead of us, for he has taken his little mite of knowledge, and applied it vigorously toward the one he loves. It ought to teach us to stop and ponder, how much of our day is really spent getting ready for our Groom? If we are really in love, hadn’t we better act like it?