NIGHT WRITING IN THE MORNING LIGHT

Psalm 9 There is but one way.

2018-10-24T09:23:00.005-04:00

17 The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.

The world may reflect itself as profitable, but only the Word is profitable. Judgement waits around the corner and there is one way to it, the Lord Jesus Christ. The oppressed, the poor, the down trodden, who find the hidden pearl, will be protected in the righteous hand of God, while those only on the worldly path will find only judgment.

Psalm 9

My photo.

Trials and Denials

2018-08-02T17:34:00.001-04:00

Friday 14 Nisan

before 1:00 AM

Remember, Jesus was betrayed by Judas and arrested by the Sanhedrin just after midnight of Friday, 14 Nisan, which had begun at the past sunset.

Jesus first brought to Annas

Luke 22:54a, John 18:12b-14

Then they seized him and led him away, bringing him first into the high priest's house, to Annas, for he was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, who was high priest that year. It was Caiaphas who had advised the Jews that it would be expedient that one man should die for the people.

It says Jesus was brought to the house of the Chief Priest Annas, but Caiaphas was the Chief Priest that year. How does that work? Very easily, actually. In 6 A.D., Annas had been installed as the first High priest by the Roman Publius Sulpicius Quirinius, who was the legate governor of Syria.

If the name Quirinius sound familiar it it because he was mentioned in Luke 2:1-2.

Now in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus to register all the empire for taxes. This was the first registration, taken when Quirinius was governor of Syria. Everyone went to his own town to be registered.

This was the census that forced Joseph and Mary to travel to Bethlehem, where Jesus was then born. Quirinius became the guy in charge of such censuses, which were highly resented by the Jews since they were forbidden under Jewish law. Quirinius gained power over Judea, Samaria and Iudaea. He served until 12 A.D. One of his last acts in this capacity of Legate was to access Judea for taxes. This census led to the revolt of Judas of Galilee and the formation of the Zealots, according to Josephus. Anyway, it was Quirinius who made Annas the High Priest in 6 A.D.

Annas served as High priest until 15 B.C., a period of ten years., when he was deposed by Procurator Gratius. Despite that he remained one of the most influential powers both socially and politically as well as Religeously. His son-in-law Caiaphas was named High priest in 18 B.C. by the then Prefect, Valerius Gratus, who immediately proceeded Pontius Pilate in the office. Caiaphus remained very much a puppet to his father-in-law Annas.

There is nothing odd that Annas was still called High Priest here. We still address people who held powerful positions this way, for instance, President Bush or President Obama, although they no longer hold the office.

The palatial home that Annas lived in was also residence to other of the Temple Priests and it is obvious a number were in attendance when Jesus was led there.

Jesus Before Annas

John 18: 19-24

The high priest then questioned Jesus about his disciples and his teaching.

Jesus answered him, “I have spoken openly to the world. I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all Jews come together. I have said nothing in secret. Why do you ask me? Ask those who have heard me what I said to them; they know what I said.”

When he had said these things, one of the officers standing by struck Jesus with his hand, saying, “Is that how you answer the high priest?”

Jesus answered him, “If what I said is wrong, bear witness about the wrong; but if what I said is right, why do you strike me?”

Annas then sent him bound to Caiaphas the high priest.

The arrest in the Garden came just a little past midnight. The soldiers, who accompanied the Priests and Officials were the Temple Guard, not Roman soldiers. It was not a long walk from the Mount of Olives to Annas’ palatial mansion located on the Temple Mount in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City.

Peter and John Follow to The High Priests Courtyard

Matthew 26:58, Mark 14:54, Luke 22: 54b—55, John 18:15-18

Then they seized him and led him away, bringing him into the high priest's house, and Peter was following at a distance and so did another disciple, as far as the courtyard of the high priest.

The Informal Trial by the Sandhedrin

Matthew 26:57, 59-68, Mark 14:53, 55-65, Luke 22:63-65, John 18:24

Then those who had seized Jesus led him to Caiaphas the high priest, where all the chief priests and the elders and the scribes came together.

Now the chief priests and the whole council were seeking false testimony against Jesus that they might put him to death, but they found none, though many false witnesses came forward. At last two came forward and said, “This man said, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to rebuild it in three days.’” Yet even about this their testimony did not agree.

And the high priest stood up and said, “Have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you?”

But Jesus remained silent and made no answer.

And the high priest said to him, “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of Blessed God.”

Jesus said to him, “I am. You have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.”

Then the high priest tore his robes and said, “He has uttered blasphemy. What further witnesses do we need? You have now heard his blasphemy. What is your judgment?”

And they all condemned him as deserving death. They answered, “He deserves death.” Then they spit on him to cover his face and struck him. And some slapped him, saying, “Prophesy to us, you Christ! Who is it that struck you?”

And the guards received him with blows.

Now the men who were holding Jesus in custody were mocking him as they beat him. They also blindfolded him and kept asking him, “Prophesy! Who is it that struck you?” And they said many other things against him, blaspheming him.

It says Annas sent him bound to Caiaphus, who was at the time the official High Priest. Caiaphus did not live far from Annas, both living on the Temple Mound. Caiaphus’ Palace was larger

than his father-in-laws. The picture on the right is the concept of what Caiaphus’ Residence looked like.

The Sanhedrin had quickly assembled here and they began questioning Jesus. The approach broke with the Jewish trial law, which provided safeguards for the accused. Like out law, the accused was not required to incriminate himself. Any case against the accused should have been shown by witness testimony with the witnesses for the defense going first and then those for the prosecution. There were no defense witnesses present here. Meanwhile, the prosecution desperately sought men who would give false testimony against Jesus. They had a hard time finding any and the couple they did present apparently had conflicting stories to tell. What they did say was obviously overheard as Jesus and his Disciples left the Temple for the last time.

Now we probably can assume that when it talked about John and Peter following to the High Priest’s house, it was probably to this home of Caiaphus.

When Caiaphus tore his robe he, himself, was breaking The Law. Leviticus 21:10 states:

The priest who is chief among his brothers, on whose head the anointing oil is poured and who has been consecrated to wear the garments, shall not let the hair of his head hang loose nor tear his clothes.

Matthew 26:58; 69-75, Mark 14:66-72, Luke 22:62, John 18:15-18; 25-27

Peter’s Denials

Courtyard of the High Priest’s Residence

Friday, between 3 and 4:30 AM

Since that disciple [The other disciple who followed with Peter, who was John] was known to the high priest, he entered with Jesus into the courtyard of the high priest, but Peter stood outside at the door. So the other disciple, who was known to the high priest, went out and spoke to the servant girl who kept watch at the door, and brought Peter in.

The servant girl at the door said to Peter, “You also are not one of this man's disciples, are you?”

He said, “I am not.

And going inside he sat with the guards to see the end.

Now the servants and officers had made a charcoal fire, because it was cold, and they were standing and warming themselves. Peter also was with them, standing and warming himself.

And when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat down among them

Now Peter was below sitting outside in the courtyard, one of the servant girls of the high priest came, and seeing Peter warming himself as he sat in the light and looking closely at him, she said, “You also were with the Nazarene, Jesus.

But he denied it before them all, saying, “I do not know nor understand what you mean.”

“This man also was with him.

“But he denied it, saying, “Woman, I do not know him.”

And when he went out to the entrance, another servant girl

saw him, and she said to the bystanders, “This man was with Jesus of Nazareth.”

And again he denied it with an oath: “I do not know the man.”

And a little later Simon Peter was standing and warming himself. someone else saw him and said, “You also are one of them.”

But Peter said, “Man, I am not.”

And after an interval of about an hour still another insisted, one of the servants of the high priest, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, asked, “Did I not see you in the garden with him? Certainly you too are one of them, for your accent betrays you. Certainly this man also was with him, for he too is a Galilean.”

But Peter said, “Man, I do not know what you are talking about.” Then he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, “I do not know the man.”

And immediately while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed.a second time and the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the saying of Jesus, “Before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times.”

And he went out and wept bitterly.

These are the denials of Peter that he knew Jesus. Being spread over four Gospels it is a little difficult to follow the exact sequence, so I did best I could with what seemed the most logical.

One of the things that can come into question here is where it says: “Immediately a rooster crowed the second time. The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter.”

If Peter was in the courtyard outside and Jesus was being

questioned by Caiaphus inside the house, how is it they could look at each other?

Simple. When you are in your house, don’t you sometimes notice what is in your backyard or on the street out front? In the sketch of Caiaphus’ palace you can see the courtyard to the front just inside a large entry gate. Beyond it is the area where Jesus was most likely questioned. This is inside on a floor above the courtyard and fronted by several windows. Jesus could have easily turned his head to look outside and see Peter from this advantage point and Peter could see Jesus standing there looking at him.

Sanhedrin’ Formal Condemnation

Somewhere before 5:00 A.M.

Matthew 27:1-2, Mark 15:1, Luke 22:66—23:1, John 18:28a

When morning came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people held a consultation with the scribes against Jesus to put him to death.

And they led him away to their council, and they said,,“If you are the Christ, tell us.

But he said to them, “If I tell you, you will not believe, and if I ask you, you will not answer. But from now on the Son of Man shall be seated at the right hand of the power of God.”

So they all said, “Are you the Son of God, then?”

And he said to them, “You say that I am.”

Then they said, “What further testimony do we need? We have heard it ourselves from his own lips.”

Then the whole company of them arose and they bound him.

Then they led Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the governor's headquarters. and delivered him over to Pilate the governor.

It was early morning.

Left: The Preatorium, the governor’s mansion of Pilate.

Here is the question, was this trial by the Sanhedrin of Jesus legal?

First, who were the Sanhedrin? They were a group of 71 men made up of the Pharisees, priests, Sadducees and scribes. They met in the Chamber of Hewn Stones inside the Temple daily to adjudicate both civil and penal crimes. This was the Great Sanhedrin, something akin to the Supreme Court. It’s decision was very final. Once made, anyone who went against the judgement was put to death as a zaken mamre, a rebellious elder. The Sanhedrin could accuse, but not initial arrests of lawbreakers.

They did not initiate Jesus arrest; although, some who served on this council probably were involved in that initiation.

The court only met during the day and adjourned at sunset. Proceedings were required to be concluded on that trial day. If the judgement might involve an execution, it could not be held on the eve of a Sabbath because an execution was forbidden on a Sabbath. Criminal proceedings began after the morning sacrifices and ended after the afternoon sacrifices; therefore, between 9:00 A.M. and 3:00 P.M. Generally verdicts and sentencing was not announced until the next day in case any of the judges changed his mind.

First of all, this trial occurred “very early in the morning, at daybreak”, not at all after the morning sacrifices had been held. It was also the eve of a Sabbath and so being a trial with the potential of an execution should not have occurred on the day it did.This trial was obviously a rush to judgement and also had been predetermined by the judges before any testimony was heard. All they needed were two witnesses to justify their decision.

Why”

Because under the law it required at least two witnesses for a conviction.

On the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses the one who is to die shall be put to death; a person shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness. Deuteronomy 18:6

Recall, when Jesus was brought to Annas immediately after his arrest, those there “were seeking false testimony against Jesus that they might put him to death, but they found none, For though many false witnesses came forward baring false witness against him, their testimony did not agree.” They needed two accusing witnesses in order to even consider trying Jesus and they had difficulty finding any.

The accused was entitled to testimony of defense witnesses, but there were none at Jesus’ trial.

The Sanhedrin got the sentence they wanted in what amounted to a Kangaroo Court, so why did they bind Jesus and send him to Pontius Pilate?

Because somewhere about 30 A.D. the Sanhedrin lost the right to execute anyone. People could only be put to death by the consent of the Roman Government.

Judas Iscariot Commits Suicide

Matthew 27:3-19, Acts 1:18

Then when Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he changed his mind and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders, saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.”

They said, “What is that to us? See to it yourself.”

And throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple, he departed, and he went and hanged himself.

But the chief priests, taking the pieces of silver, said, “It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, since it is blood money.”

So they took counsel and bought with them the potter's field as a burial place for strangers. Therefore that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day. Then was fulfilled what had been spoken by the prophet Jeremiah, saying, “And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him on whom a price had been set by some of the sons of Israel, and they gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord directed me

Matthew says he is quoting Jeremiah here and that has caused some problems for some scholars because no such quote is found in the books of Jeremiah.

It is much closer to what is written in verse 13 of Zechariah 11:

Then the Lord said to me, “Throw it to the potter”—the lordly price at which I was priced by them. So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the Lord, to the potter.

One of the possibilities here is the fact that Jeremiah was generally listed first in the rabbinical order of the prophetic books. This sometimes led to rabbis and others referring to the whole collection of the prophetic books with the term “as in Jeremiah.” I think a more likely explanation is Matthew says “what had been spoken by the prophet Jeremiah”. This prophesy may have been orally handed down from sayings of Jeremiah, rather than anything written.

As to Judas death, we will have more to say later, for some claim there is a contradiction concerning how he died given in Acts. So, maybe this is enough of a teaser to keep you coming back to find out what it was.

In those days Peter stood up among the brothers (the company of persons was in all about 120) and said, “Brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus. For he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry.”

(Now this man acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness, and falling headlong he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out. And it became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the field was called in their own language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.) “For it is written in the Book of Psalms,

“‘May his camp become desolate,

and let there be no one to dwell in it’;

and

“‘Let another take his office.’

First Time Jesus is Before Pilate

About 5:00 A. M.

Matthew 27:11-14, Mark15:2-5, Luke 23:2-7, John 18:28b-38

They themselves did not enter the governor's headquarters, so that they would not be defiled, but could eat the Passover. So Pilate went outside to them and said, “What accusation do you bring against this man?”

Now Jesus stood before the governor and they began to accuse him, saying, “If this man were not doing evil, we would not have delivered him over to you.

Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law.”

The Jews said to him, “It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death.”

This was to fulfill the word that Jesus had spoken to show by what kind of death he was going to die.

Death for blasphemy had been established in Leviticus 24:10-16:

Now an Israelite woman's son, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the people of Israel. And the Israelite woman's son and a man of Israel fought in the camp, and the Israelite woman's son blasphemed the Name, and cursed. Then they brought him to Moses. His mother's name was Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan. And they put him in custody, till the will of the Lord should be clear to them.

Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Bring out of the camp the one who cursed, and let all who heard him lay their hands on his head, and let all the congregation stone him. And speak to the people of Israel, saying, Whoever curses his God shall bear his sin. Whoever blasphemes the name of the Lord shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall stone him. The sojourner as well as the native, when he blasphemes the Name, shall be put to death.”

Remember that at the trials before the Sanhedrin Jesus had been found guilty of blasphemy for claiming to be the Son of God. The Jews would have taken him and stoned him to death under their law; however, they could not exercise their judgment under the current Roman Law at that time. There is data saying the Jews lost the right of execution in or around 30 A.D. This was later reinstated. More likely is in those years the execution of anyone needed the approval of the Roman government.

It appears that the Prefect of Judea would have been the person to grant the Jews a right of execution, which means Pontius Pilate would have had that authority. It appears the Sanhedrin never did the legal formalities to acquire the right in the case of Jesus. This is probably because the Jews wanted to put it all in the hands of the Roman, rather than themselves.

It actually came about this way because stoning was not the death prophesied for Jesus. Probably the clearest example is Psalm 22. Jesus said in John 12:30-33 that he would die by being lifted up. You are cast down, not lifted up for stoning:

Jesus said, “This voice was for your benefit, not mine. Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”

He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.

Now some might think he meant he would be lifted up to Heaven, but John makes it clear he is talking of the manner of his death in verse 33.

In Luke 9 Jesus says this in verses 21-22:

And he strictly charged and commanded them to tell this to no one, saying, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”

He predicted his death here I do not think the next verses 23-24 referring a cross was a coincidence or just an expression:

And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.

All this speaking of being lifted up alludes back to the scene in Numbers 21:4-9. The Hebrews were setting out in the wilderness and the people, as usual, got impatient and began complaining. God sent serpents against them and what happened next was a picture of Christ on the Cross paying for our sins.

4 From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to

go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way. 5 And the people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.” 6 Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. 7 And the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. 8 And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” 9 So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.

But the Jews now needed a reason why the Roman should execute Jesus, so they settled on treason. Thus, they took Jesus to Pontius Pilate.

Pilate was the prefect of Judea, that is the Governor, a position he got in 26 A.D. from the Emperor Tiberius as the result of favoritism. The chief administrator of the Roman Empire for Tiberius, one Sejanus, obtained the appointment for Pilate

His appointment proved very unpopular with the Jews. He was very insensitive to his Jewish subjects and insulted the Jewish religion. He did such unwise things as hang worship images of the emperor all over Jerusalem. The Jewish historian Josephus pictured Pilate as a stubborn, headstrong, strict and authoritarian leader, indicating, although both rational and practical, he never understood how far he could go. He caused both the Jews and the Samaritans to engage in riots and tried to abolish Jewish Laws and the privileges that the Jews had been allowed.

He was always protected by Sejanus until 31 A.D., when Sejanus was discovered having intrigues designed to overthrow the emperor. So, that year Tiberius had him executed and Pilate found himself on shaky grounds for his own behavior. This may be how the Jews took advantage of his vulnerabilities to achieve their wishes to have Jesus executed.

His own cruelty and lack of discipline eventually brought Pilate down. He attacked the Samaritans on Mount Gerizim in 36 A.D. and they in turn reported him to the Prefect of Syria, Vitellius. As a result, Pilate was ordered back to Rome and tried for cruelty and oppression, as well as executing men without proper trial. Found guilty, he was ordered at some point after 36 A.D. by the then emperor Caligula to commit suicide.

This was the man the Jews brought Jesus before with a charge of treason to Caesar.

”We found this man misleading our nation and forbidding us to give tribute to Caesar, and saying that he himself is Christ, a king.”

So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?”

Jesus said, “You have said so. Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?”

Pilate answered, “Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done?”

Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.”

Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?”

Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.”

Pilate said to him, “What is truth?”

This is the most honest thing spoken during all the trials. It is still a valid question for our own times. What is truth? There is much information flying back and forth in our times, more than ever before, and very few know what is true. The only truth is to be found in the Word of God. Truth stood before Pilate and he failed to recognize it.

But when he was accused of many things by the chief priests and elders, he gave no answer. Then Pilate said to him, “Have you no answer to make? Do you not hear how many things they testify against you?”

But he gave him no further answer, not even to a single charge, so that the governor was greatly amazed.

After he had said this, he went back outside to the Jews.

Then Pilate said to the chief priests and the crowds, “I find no guilt in this man.”

But they were urgent, saying, “He stirs up the people, teaching throughout all Judea, from Galilee even to this place.”

When Pilate heard this, he asked whether the man was a Galilean. And when he learned that he belonged to Herod's jurisdiction, he sent him over to Herod, who was himself in Jerusalem at that time.

This is called kicking the can down the street. Our politicians do it all the time.

Jesus before Herod Antipas

Before 6:00 A.M.

Luke 23:8-12

When Herod saw Jesus, he was very glad, for he had long desired to see him, because he had heard about him, and he was hoping to see some sign done by him. So he questioned him at some length, but he made no answer.

The chief priests and the scribes stood by, vehemently accusing him.

And Herod with his soldiers treated him with contempt and mocked him. Then, arraying him in splendid clothing, he sent him back to Pilate. And Herod and Pilate became friends with each other that very day, for before this they had been an enemy with each other.

Why in the world did Pilate send Jesus to Herod Antipas at this point? These two guys were not exactly bosom buddies at the time, and we’ll speak to that in a moment. When Pilate learned Jesus was from Galilee he saw an opportunity to extricate himself and put it all on someone else. Let Herod deal with it.

A little history is needed. Once upon a time, Herod the Great was the undisputed King of Judea and the surrounding providences. He ruled with an iron, and bloody, hand. He was King when Jesus was born and tried to wipe out Jesus then by killing all the boys two years old or younger in Bethlehem. Not long after that, Herod the Great died a pretty horrific death. Josephus wrote that Herod suffered from “a fever, and intolerable itching of the whole skin, continuous pains in the intestines, tumors of the feet as in dropsy, inflammation of the abdomen, and gangrene of the privy parts.”

Dropsy is an old fashion term for edema and privy parts referred to his genitals. It used to be thought he had gonorrhea, but more recent medical determinations point to the cause of death being chronic kidney disease accompanied by an infection of the male genitalia known as Fournier’s gangrene. This would have a bad odor, which most likely attracted flies to the dead or dying flesh. Flies would lay eggs and these would eventually hatch into maggots, which probably were the worms mentioned as eating his flesh before he died in Acts 12:23.

When Herod the Great died, his kingdom was divided among his three sons, Herod Archelaus, Philip and Herod Antipas. This didn’t sit well with Antipas, so he traveled to Rome and petitioned that he be named over the lands in toto, but his request was denied. Antipas was given rude only over Galilee and Perea. Philip got the land northeast of the Jordan and Herod Archelaus inherited the meat of the kingdom, Judea, Samaria and Idumea.

But Archelaus botched things so badly, that in 6 A.D. Augustus deposed him and banished him to Vienne in Gaul. Archelaus territory was made a Roman province and a Prefect was named to govern. Antipas felt he should have been given the area and he seethed and was an enemy of the Prefects there after. Pontius Pilate was the fifth Prefect of Judea. Antipas remained over Galilee and Perea, and he held more animosity toward Pilate than the four prelates before him.

Since Galilee was Antipas’ province and Jesus was considered a Galilean why not pass the buck on what to do with this itinerant minister to Herod Antipas.

As it turned out, Jesus didn’t perform any tricks for Herod, so he mocked him, put him in fancy clothes and sent him right back to Pilate like a bad penny.

Now, both Pilate and Herod didn’t find any guilt in Jesus and neither saw any reason to kill him. I think this agreement on these points is what characterized them as becoming friends that day.

Jesus Second Appearance before Pilate

About 6:00 A.M.

Matthew 27:15-31, Mark 15:6-20, Luke 23:13-25, John 18:39 —19:16a

Pilate then called together the chief priests and the rulers and the people, and said to them, “You brought me this man as one who was misleading the people. And after examining him before you, behold, I did not find this man guilty of any of your charges against him. Neither did Herod, for he sent him back to us. Look, nothing deserving death has been done by him. I will therefore punish and release him.”

But they all cried out together, “Away with this man, and release to us Barabbas”

Now at the feast the governor was accustomed to release for the crowd any one prisoner whom they wanted. And they had then a notorious prisoner among the rebels in prison who had committed murder in the insurrection started in the city, a man called Barabbas.

This is a passage the skeptics like to pounce upon and say there is nothing beyond these Scriptures which speaks of such a thing. So what does that prove? Absolutely nothing. If we look back on any ancient history and depend on a multitude of sources to verify it, we would have to dismiss much of what we claim to know about antiquity. The Bible is a reliable source in itself. It also contains more than one witnesses account to these events.

Besides, just because some one else didn’t pen a volume addressing this specific tradition concerning either Passover or Pilate does not mean that such prisoner releases or exchanges weren’t engaged in at the time.

The Mishnah recording Jewish oral traditions and collected in writing around 300 A.D. says, They may slaughter the passover lamb…whom they have promised to bring out of prison.” A portion of papyrus quotes a Roman governor of Egypt saying: “you were worthy of scourging, but I gave you to the crowds.

There is a parallel in Roman law which indicates an imperial magistrate could pardon and acquit individual prisoners in response to the shouts of the populace.

For comparison, criticism is heaped upon the Gospels because they were written a couple or so decades after the crucifixion, but the same scholars except the biographies of Alexander the Great which were written 500 or more years after he died, and to this day we actually don’t know how Alexander died.

When was Julius Caesar assassinated? History books, except for one (The Biblical Chronology that says it was in 49 B.C.) say it was on the Ides of March, 44 B.C. This comes from the writings of the ancient historian, Pliny, who said so. Pliny also said there was a solar eclipse that year. He quotes Augustus as saying soon after Caesar’s death a comet flew across the northern skies for seven days. Well, there was no solar eclipse nor comet in 44 B.C. There were both in 49 B.C. So was Caesar fatally stabbed in B.C. 44 or 49?

If you want something a bit closer, who can tell me when Shakespeare was born and when he died? After all, Shakespeare was penning his plays just about 400 years ago. If you look up these dates you will probably find he was born on April 23, 1564 and died on April 23, 1616. Quiet a coincidence that he died at age 52 on his birthday. Except nobody really knows the exact days. They have a baptismal certificate for William dated April 26, 1564, so they extrapolated he was born three days earlier because it was a tradition to be baptized three days after birth. But it wasn’t always the case, so it is a guess.

Not much is known about the circumstances of his death, such as how. he was reportedly in good health, yet he died relatively young. The exact day is also unknown, so they picked April 23, his birthday, and also because it was St George’s Day, the Patron Saint of Great Britain. It just felt appropriate.

So when the crowd came up and had gathered, and began to ask Pilate to do as he usually did for them. Pilate said to them, “But you have a custom that I should release one man for you at the Passover. So do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews?”

They cried out again, “Not this man, but Barabbas!”

Now Barabbas was a robber.

We do not know much of anything about the man Barabbas. From the few scriptures given, Barabbas may well have been an insurrectionist against Rome. Luke 23:19 says he was in prison for committing murder during the insurrection. We don’t know which insurrection, but uprisings against Roman rule had been flaring regularly for decades. Oddly enough, his name was Jesus Bar Abbas, meaning Jesus the son of the father, a name that could have easily been given to Jesus. However the first name of Jesus being given to Barabbas appears in very few manuscripts, so we can’t accept it as true.

If Barabbas was a notorious prisoner taken in an insurrection, which does seem to be the case, it may help explain the choice of the people beyond just the prodding and bribery of the Priests and Pharisees. Murderer or not, such a man might be viewed as a hero to the population for being involved in a insurrection against Rome. I would also still opine that people had given Jesus a hero’s welcome into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday because they viewed him as the warrior Messiah about to free them from Rome. Instead, he has been arrested and looks rather powerless. A number of people may have turned against him as a phony.

“Whom do you want me to release for you: Barabbas, or

Jesus who is called Christ, the King of the Jews?” For he knew that it was out of envy that the chief priests had delivered him up. Besides, while he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent word to him, “Have nothing to do with that righteous man, for I have suffered much because of him today in a dream.”

But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him release for them Barabbas instead.

Now the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus.

Pilate addressed them once more, desiring to release Jesus, “Which of the two do you want me to release for you?” but they kept shouting, “Crucify, crucify him!” And they said, “Barabbas.”

Pilate said to them, “Then what shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?”

They all said, “Let him be crucified!”

And he said, “Why? What evil has he done? I have found in him no guilt deserving death. I will therefore punish and release him.”

But they were urgent, demanding with loud cries that he should be crucified. They shouted all the more, “Let him be crucified!”

So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man's blood; see to it yourselves.”

And all the people answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!” And their voices prevailed.

So Pilate decided that their demand should be granted. Wishing to satisfy the crowd then, he released for them Barabbas, the man who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder, for whom they asked,

Talk about vacillating? Who did Pilate fear the most? Rome, the Jews or his wife? He certainly did not fear God. He is doing everything to escape responsibility for what he knows is wrong. He gives in because he fears not doing so could cause a riot, but a riot is not the problem. He certainly has the man power available to quell any riot. What he fears is censure from Rome if the Jews do riot. He has had enough criticism from his superiors. Yet, his wife’s dream also weighs on his mind, so he washes his hands as if this gesture absolves him of any guilt in the matter. He tries one more gamut.

Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor's headquarters, and they gathered the whole battalion before him. And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head and put a reed in his right hand.

Pilate went out again and said to them, “See, I am bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no guilt in him.”

So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Behold the man!”

When the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, “Crucify him, crucify him!”

Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him.”

The Jews answered him, “We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die because he has made himself the Son of God.”

When Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid.

He entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus, “Where are you from?” But Jesus gave him no answer. So Pilate said to him, “You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?”

Jesus answered him, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above. Therefore he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin.”

Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him. and having scourged Jesus, delivered him over to their will. to be crucified.

And kneeling before him, they [the soldiers] mocked him, and they began to salute him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” And they spit on him and took the reed and struck him on the head. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him and led him away to crucify him.

You don’t want to ever be scourged, certainly not the way the Roman’s did it. Here is a description of the practice:

The usual instrument was a short whip with several single or braided leather thongs of variable lengths, in which small iron balls or sharp pieces of sheep bones were tied at intervals. For scourging, the man was stripped of his clothing, and his hands were tied to an upright post. The back, buttocks, and legs were flogged either by two soldiers (lictors) or by one who alternated positions. The severity of the scourging depended on the disposition of the lictors and was intended to weaken the victim to a state just short of collapse or death. As the Roman soldiers repeatedly struck the victim’s back with full force, the iron balls would cause deep contusions, and the leather thongs and sheep bones would cut into the skin and subcutaneous tissues. Then, as the flogging continued, the lacerations would tear into the underlying skeletal muscles and produce quivering ribbons of bleeding flesh. Pain and blood loss generally set the stage for circulatory shock. The extent of blood loss may well have determined how long the victim would survive on the cross. After the scourging, the soldiers often taunted their victim.

At this point Jesus would have been a bloody mess. By this time he had been struck and or slapped , especially about the head on five occasions by multiple attackers; beaten once by soldiers and scourged, and the worse was yet to come.

Those who delivered Jesus over to Pilate were the Sanhedrin and the priests. They sat in Moses seat, as Jesus had said in Matthew 23:2. As was said in Verse 3 of the same passage, “So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.” Because they had the authority to claim death to Jesus then it is they who bare the greater sin. Of course, this doesn’t absolve Pilate or the people crying crucify him, for they should not practice what the Jewish authorities preached. The condemnation of Jesus does not fall upon the Jews or the Romans. It falls upon us all because it is our sins that made it necessary.

Pop Images of Spiritual Concepts

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Sing to God, sing praise to his name, extol him who rides on the clouds—his name is the LORD—and rejoice before him. A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. Psalm 68:4-5

Once a friend commented he didn't believe in some old man sitting on a cloud telling him how to live. Well, neither do I.

We've had thousands of years to study Scripture, yet for many there exist these erroneous ideas that remain pop images of spiritual things. Don't you sometimes wonder where they came from, especially when they get used to mock our beliefs?

A lot comes from honest mistakes or people intending to be helpful. An Artist will try to render the un-seeable as a picture the human eye can perceive. Thus the idea of God riding the clouds in Psalm 68 can becomes Michelangelo's Old Man poking through the clouds to point down at Adam. We can be grateful artists did not read the literal translation of Psalm 68:

Sing ye to God -- praise His name, Raise up a highway for Him who is riding in deserts, In Jah [is] His name, and exult before Him. Father of the fatherless, and judge of the widows, [Is] God in His holy habitation. (Young’s Literal Translation)

Otherwise, we may have had endless representations of God as an old man chasing us down on a Camel.

Much of what we think is real history comes from movies, much of what we accept as in the Bible just comes from popular media. When I was a child, I used to sing a sing called "I was Born About ten Thousand Years Ago". (It is also known as The Bragging Song.)

I saw Satan when he looked the garden o'er,

Then saw Adam and Eve driven from the door,

And behind the bushes peeping,

Saw the apple they were eating,

And I'll swear that I'm the guy what ate the core.

Obviously, the core got caught in his throat and we called it Adam's Apple.

Solomon's beloved may have envisioned him: "Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest is my lover among the young men" (Song of Solomon 2:3), but nowhere in Genesis when it speaks of the Garden of Eden does it mention apples.

Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. And the LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Genesis 2:8-9

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Genesis 3:6

We only know the tree had fruit pleasing to the eye and was good for food, but no description of exactly what the fruit looked like. Why someone somewhere at sometime tagged the fruit as an apple, I do not know. Since some try to turn the whole temptation and fall scene into some sort of repressed sexual myth, it might have been more apropos to make the fruit a pomegranate.

The next verse of "I Was Born About Ten Thousand Years Ago" touches on another misconception:

I saw Jonah when he embarked within the whale,

And thought that he'd never live to tell the tale.

But old Jonah'd eaten garlic

And he gave the whale a colic,

So he coughed him up and let him out o' jail.

Here is a case of an error by earlier Bible translators, most notably in the King James Version. Out of the choices for the Greek, ketos -- sea monster, whale or huge fish -- they choose whale. Perhaps the translators thought only a whale was large enough to swallow a man whole, but this was not consistent with the Hebrew in the book of Jonah, which meant big fish. They should have chosen the word that matched the book being quoted in Matthew.

This simple wrong choice has caused some sniping at Scripture by critics ever since. I recall reading many years ago an attack on the story of Jonah in which the writer stated whales really had small or restrictive throats for their size and would not be able to swallow a man. I don't know if this is fact or not, any more than stories I have read about people who were swallowed whole by such fish as Great White Sharks and lived to tell the tale. I remember one such story told of a sailor so gulped down. His shipmates managed to capture the shark and sliced it open to free the man and he survived the experience. I also read of supposed experts who said a person might survive a period of time in the stomach of a large fish, but would be bleached white by the digestive juices. No wonder the Ninevehians repented. Imagine the appearance of a ghost before them shouting their doom!

One thing sometimes overlooked is we can't approach such events purely from a human perspective. There is no need to feel we must provide some scientific or natural explanation to miraculous events. Scripture describes God as providing or producing a huge fish to swallow Jonah. This fish may have been a one-time deal, a creation of God's for this singular purpose; that is, an ability to swallow Jonah, hold him prisoner within it's belly for three days and three nights, and spew him out upon the beach unharmed, if somewhat shaken.

Is it important whether the popular images of these events are correct? Does it really matter if Jonah was swallowed by a whale or by a big fish? I suppose in some ways, not at all, as long as the story is understood to have happened and the significance of it is understood. Still, even if one small detail isn't of much import on the surface, I think the correct version should be emphasized. Some of these misconceptions do make a difference and some distract from the truth.

And certainly the truth of Jonah in the belly of a wh...uh...big fish is important. Maybe we should take a look at why.

WHAT’S SO IMPORTANT ABOUT A BIG FISH STORY?

Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, "Teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you." (Matthew 12:38)

He answered, "A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah". (NIV)

And he answering said to them, `A generation, evil and adulterous, doth seek a sign, and a sign shall not be given to it, except the sign of Jonah '. (Young's Literal Translation)

But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of Jonas. (King James Version)

But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given it but the sign of Jonah. (American Standard Version) [Matthew 12:39 from four translations]

Let's walk up to anyone at random on an American street.

"Excuse me for asking, but who was Jonah"

"He was the guy got swallowed by a whale."

"And then what?"

"Oh, it's a whale of a tale. He built a little fire on the raft he was on and when the whale sneezed he whooshed out on the wave."

"I believe you're thinking of Pinocchio. I'm talking about Jonah in the Bible."

"Oh, that old fish story."

"Well, you're getting warmer. He was swallowed by a big fish, not a whale."

"Okay, big whoop. So, how'd he get out?"

"The fish vomited him out onto the shore."

"EEEEouuuuu!"

"And if you don't understand the sign of Jonah, God might vomit you out, too!" (Well, I probably shouldn't actually say that, it might be considered offensive. I admit it sounds yucky. On the other hand, if it is an important point do we pull our punches; soften our blow, just because someone might find it a bit gross? If it does seem somewhat unscriptural to put it this indelicate way I suggest you read Revelation 3:15-16.))

Most people remember Jonah being swallowed because as children it was a popular Sunday school lesson or they have seen many illustrations of some bearded guy being gulped down by a whale. I don't know how many actually read Jonah. Perhaps they think he is a character in Moby Dick. Admittedly, Jonah can be a hard book to find in the Old Testament being so few pages long. If you haven't read it, go do so now. It shouldn't take more than five minutes once you find it. There are only 4 chapters, 33 paragraphs and 1,751 words in the NIV translation. It's tucked in there between Obadiah and Micah. (That makes it easier to find, right? I used to have a minister who every once in awhile would refer the congregation to a verse in Hezekiah. Boy, you should have heard all the pages turning and he'd just chuckle, hee hee hee!)

But why is this strange little story even there? And what's all this vine and worm stuff at the end? Why should we care about this guy Jonah at all?

Because there is a lot of important information compressed into this little story, ideas that should concern you and me.

First let's familiarize ourselves with the story.

We first hear of Jonah in 2 Kings 14:23-25 and learn he was the son of Amittai (name means My Truth). Jonah (whose name means Dove) was a prophet from Gath Hepher serving under King Jeroboam II of Israel. Jeroboam II ruled from 793 BC to 753 BC. Jonah's adventures with the big fish probably occurred around the year 785 BC. (As an aside, Jonah also appears in the Qur'an [Koran] in Sura X.)

One day "the word of God came to Jonah" with an assignment. Get up to Nineveh post haste, Jonah! (Nineveh was an important Assyrian city, one that would become the capital of the Assyrian Empire in about five decades after Jonah's trip. It was at the site of modern day Mosul, Iraq.) This wasn't a pleasure trip; it was all business. God was unhappy with the wickedness there and Jonah was to tell the people to straighten up and fly right or God was going to do a Sodom and Gomorrah on them.

Jonah packed his bag and jumped onto a boat at Joppa -- heading in the wrong direction. He had no intention of warning those people. They were ba-a-ad. What kind of bad? Nahum tells us they were making evil plots against God, were exploiting the helpless, exceedingly cruel in war and if that weren't enough, they were hip deep in prostitution, idol-worship and witchcraft. Jonah wasn't going to go one mile out of his way for such folk, let alone 500.

Jonah, as a paying passenger, went to his quarters and slept. While he was snoring, God hit the boat with a furious storm. The seaman were scared enough to start praying to their own gods, which didn't help at all. It got so bad the ship captain roused Jonah and told him to get up and pray to his God, too.

Meanwhile, the sailors were casting lots trying to figure out who might be responsible for what had befallen them and all signs pointed to Jonah. They already knew he was on their ship in disobedience to his God, because he had told them so when he bought his ticket. Figuring this might have something to do with the problem, they asked him what to do. Give Jonah some credit. He said, "Pick me up and throw me into the sea."

Give those sailors some credit, too. Bad as things were, they didn't really want to kill the guy. They did everything possible to row out of the storm, but realized it wasn't going to happen. After some heartfelt prayers to The God, they did toss Jonah overboard.

Soon as they did, the sea grew calm and you had a bunch of guys who recognized who the real God was.

This didn't help Jonah, though. He was sinking like a he had a heart of stone (which maybe he did). Looked pretty bad for Jonah, flailing around helplessly in open water, but God had a plan; God always has a plan. God had prepared a big fish to swallow him and for the next three days and three nights Jonah got to think hard about what he could have done and should of done and wished he would have done.

Jonah spent his time praying; always a good idea in tight situations, besides what else is there to do inside a fish? He prayed for forgiveness with thanksgiving and he promised to make good on his mission. With that, God caused the fish to throw up and Jonah found himself back on dry land. He must have been a mess.

Well to make a short story even shorter, Jonah went to Nineveh and spent the next three days telling them to repent or perish. Then he stood back to see what would happen.

What happened was the people of Nineveh did repent and turn to God for mercy and were spared destruction (at least for this time. They kind of backslid later and didn't fare so well as a result, but that's neither here or there.)

Jonah wasn't happy about this. He was angry. He wanted to see those Assyrians get theirs. He wanted the big pyrotectic ending. He didn't get it and just sat and mumbled about it. He was so mad he told God that was why he never wanted to come here, because he knew God was forgiving and merciful. Jonah was so absorbed in self-pity over not getting his own way he suggested God let him die. God simply asked him what right he had to be angry?

Jonah went off to brood. And what did God do? He provided a vine to shade the man so he'd sulk in comfort. Jonah was pretty happy about that. He adored that nice cooling vine, but then God had a worm chew down the vine at dawn and when the sun began beating down Jonah wanted to die again.

But God said to Jonah, "Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?"

"I do," he said. "I am angry enough to die."

But the LORD said, "You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?" Jonah 4:9-10

Who made the vine? God. Jonah had made a little shelter, but it was the cooling vine, which really provided him with protection from the heat. Who made the worm that chewed down the vine?
God.
Then the sun blazed down on Jonah because man is never as adequate in what he builds for his own salvation, as is what God provides. But did Jonah express appreciation for the time the vine did give him comfort? No, he felt he was entitled to that vine and he was angry and sulking again. Jonah was a pretty self-absorbed fellow. Here he was thinking only of himself, angry over a vine he had nothing to do with and not caring a fig about the fate of one hundred and twenty thousand people and their animals. And God had even told him those people were ignorant of right and wrong and needed guidance to know their right hand from their left. Jonah had a duty to try to show the people the way.

And what is God saying? You worry about your own comfort and things you didn't raise a hand to tend or make. God made and tended those people, all people. They may have been mean and nasty people, but despite that God cared about them. He wasn't going to wipe them out without giving them a chance to change. He made them, he tended them, he had a right, like the vine, to grow them or dispose of them as he saw fit. It wasn't what Jonah wanted; it was what God willed.

We're all a lot like Jonah if we're honest with ourselves. How many Ninevehians have you wanted to wipe out in your life?

"Hey, look at that fool drive. He cut me off. I hope he slams into a tree and kills himself."

"Man, those Wall Street guys don't deserve to make that much more money than me. I work hard. They probably got it by cheating or on whom they know. Look, they're taking that CEO out in handcuffs. Oh, I'm lovin' it. Hope he gets life at hard labor."

"Did you see that? That guy jumped the line and got the last Arianna Grande concert tickets. What'll I tell my kid, I promised her...hey buddy, drop dead!"

"I hate comedians making all those jokes about my faith. Using all those four-letter words to do it, too. I wish lightening would strike them."

"Those people over there, always trying to kill anyone who doesn't agree with them, even blowing themselves up to do it. I hope they all rot in hell!"

Are we any different than Jonah? Do we see beyond our own comfort zones? Do we look at what others do and stop and pray for them? Do we care about their life or soul? Can we get beyond our own hate to love those who hate us? Can we get beyond our own love of self to love others, for that matter?

Big funeral a few years back for Michael Jackson. A lot of people showed up expressing their love for the man. Really? Did they actually even care about the man? Perhaps if someone had really cared about the boy, he wouldn't have been so weird. If someone had really loved the man, perhaps he wouldn't be dead. Maybe he would have been happier being just another live local singer in a coffee shop than lying in a gold coffin. Did all those people come to say goodbye to someone they loved or did they come just to say they'd been there?

You don't want to leave this life just saying, "I been there". You want to leave saying, "I cared about those others who be there."

There is something else we need take note of in Jonah. If God has a purpose for you (and he does have a purpose for us all) you can't run away from it. He'll find a way to suggest you do it or...well, maybe you don't want to think about the "or". It'll be worse than a big fish and let m tell you, I am not fond of seafood. I'm even less fond of being seafood.

Right about now, you may be wondering why this post began with quotes from Matthew. Jonah was Old School, wasn't he? He was back in BC, right? Maybe I should care about people, but why the big production with giant fish and vicious storms and all the drama?

Another man died around the time Michael Jackson left us and he who was also only 50 years old. He didn't quite get the big splash Michael Jackson got (or that Jonah made either), but he was memorialized some. That was the pitchman Billy Mays. (Do you remember him?) Its time to quote Mr. Mays:

"But wait, there's even more!"

Yes, it'll have to wait until next time. It's an offer you don't want to pass up and operators are standing by. It isn't going to cost you $19.95 either. It's totally free, not even a small handling and shipping charge.

You be sure to come back now, you hear.

WHAT HAS 5 LETTERS AND STARTS WITH J?

JONAH OR JESUS, MAKE A CHOICE

You hurled me into the deep, into the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me; all your waves and breakers swept over me. I said, I have been banished from your sight; yet I will look again toward your holy temple. The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me; seaweed was wrapped around my head. To the roots of the mountains I sank down; the earth beneath barred me in forever. But you brought my life up from the pit, O LORD my God. Jonah 2:3-6

As the crowds increased, then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, "Teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you."

He answered.

Jesus said, "This is a wicked and adulterous generation. It asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so also will the Son of Man be to this generation, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them; for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon's wisdom, and now one greater than Solomon is here. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here. (Matthew 12:38-41 and Luke 11:29-32)

Can you imagine the faces of the Pharisees? This would be akin, I suppose, if someone stood in our church and said at the judgment Madelyn Murray O'Hair would rise up and condemn us. They must have been even more in a fury when Jesus told them He was greater than not only Jonah, but of Solomon. They probably couldn't even think about what the sign of Jonah meant. They didn't realize He was going to meet their demand for a miraculous sign, but most of them didn't recognize it when he did.

Why does Jonah get highlighted here? Was it because his name began with J and has five letters? No. Is it because his name means Dove, a bird often used to represent the Holy Spirit and peace? Not exactly. Does Jonah act exactly like Jesus? Hardly. It is because the prophet was an archetype of Christ in the Old Testament.

Let's look at Jonah's story a little closer.

Where was Jonah different? For one thing, Jesus set his sight on Jerusalem to fulfill his purpose and God's will. Jonah set his sight on Joppa and transportation to escape from his purpose. For another thing, when Jonah did actually complete what God's plan was for him, he sat around grumbling and griping about the outcome.

So what's the prototyping here?

Jonah is asleep on a ship during a terrible storm (not the only thing I think Jonah slept though). When he is awakened, he tells the sailors to throw him overboard. He willingly sacrifices himself for the saving of those men. They comply to his command that he must be sacrificed and toss him in the sea where a big fish swallows him. He is buried in the heart of the sea in a fish-tomb for three days and three nights and then he is thrown up upon the land. He is resurrected so to speak. The sailors have been saved from drowning and have begun praising and sacrificing to The God, so we could say they were resurrected as well.

Jonah now goes to Nineveh and preached salvation to them. They repented and their city isn't destroyed and so they too are saved out of Jonah's sacrifice and resurrection.

Jonah's similarities to Jesus don't continue after this point, however. Instead of rejoicing these sinners in Nineveh were rescued from destruction, he is upset by it and angry. Jesus' sacrifice was so all men would be saved who believed upon Him. Jonah felt his own sacrifice was wasted on people who didn't deserve any salvation and he wanted them dead.

If Jonah was a foreshadowing of Christ in his encounter with the fish, he seems to be a foreshadowing of the Pharisees, and of the Nation of Israel, to whom Jesus gives the sign of Jonah. As Christ is the Vine of Life, a vine grows up to give comfort to Jonah, but a worm eats it away much as hatred has eaten away any compassion or caring in the heart of Jonah. Jonah, who was a prophet, who knew the Law and heard the Word of God, did not grasp the Spirit of the Law, exactly like the teachers of the Law in Jesus' day. Jonah's comforting by the vine was only temporary. We could also say the Vine was like Christ in it was sent to comfort Jonah, but was cut off and because it was cut off Jonah was angry with it.

He probably resented the sparing of Nineveh even more because they weren't Hebrews or Jews, they were gentiles, "dogs", and an enemy of his nation. Yet, just as we find his nation rejecting Christ and salvation then salvation going out to the gentiles, we see it foreshadowed here.

However, this salvation of Nineveh did not last long, it was only temporary. Nineveh was to revert to evil and would perish in due time. The blood of lambs and goats is only sufficient to bring salvation for a short time. The sacrifice of any man, other than Christ, cannot bring lasting salvation either. The only lasting saving grace can be found in the Lord Jesus Christ, the last sacrifice, who like the sign of Jonah, was buried in a tomb for three days and three nights and resurrected to bring eternal life to everyone who is drawn to Him by God and believes. Who do you choose, Jonah or Jesus?

A Note About The Three Days and Three Nights

Jesus said he would be "three days and three nights in the heart of the earth". Some critics are happy to quote this as proof of an error. They point out if Jesus died on the cross at 3:00 PM on Friday and rose at dawn on Sunday, that is not three days and three nights. It is barely a day and a half.

Some defend this by claiming this is an expression, a colloquialism, and it was fulfilled by there being a portion of three days. Jesus died in the day on Friday (day 1), He was in the grave Friday night and all day Saturday (day 2) and he arose Sunday morning (day 3).

I have no problem with this as an explanation. We do the same thing ourselves. For instance my wife and I took a little mini-vacation during a Fourth of July weekend (although it got cut short when my wife fell in the shower at the hotel.) We told our kids we were going away for three days. We left late Thursday afternoon (4:00PM), stayed over Thursday night planning on going to several sites during the next day, then spending Friday night at the Hotel and coming home on Saturday. We counted Thursday, Friday and Saturday as three days, but in reality it would have been just somewhat over a day and a half (Thursday evening, All Day Friday, Saturday morning).

But in the case of Jesus, I believe in a different scenario. I don't think Jesus died on a Friday. I think this was a mistake made out of ignorance of Judaism. Scripture does not tell us on which day Jesus died. What do we know? We know Jesus died during Passover week. Have you wondered why it is that Passover and Easter never quite line up? Passover comes about the time of Easter, but it may fall on any day of the week, while Easter always falls on Sunday. Why should this be?

The Jewish calendar was based on moon phases. Passover came on a different day each year and when set in our modern calendars this was also on a different date, week and sometimes month each year. Easter is calculated similarly, so the two holidays always fall near each other, but not exactly because the early Christians decided to make Esther always be on a Sunday. It is sort of like our Memorial Day and Presidents Day. Originally these days were on a specific date, but some people wanted to have long weekends, so they were made a certain Monday of a certain month each year.

As we speak of an Easter week, with it's Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, Passover is a multi-day celebration as well. There is Erev Pesah followed by Pesah, or the First Day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which is a weeklong feast, in which the seventh day celebrates the crossing of the Red Sea. The day after the First Day of Unleavened Bread is called The Omar or First Fruits. The Omar runs for 50 days, ending on Pentecost.

The First day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread is a Sabbath Day.

Here is what Scripture tells us. Christ was crucified the day before a Sabbath and hurriedly buried. He died at 3:00 PM, which was the hour the lambs were traditionally slaughtered for the Pesah feast. His body was prepared and wrapped and buried before sundown because the Sabbath started then. The women observed this preparation and the laying of his body in the tomb. We are told the women then prepared spices, rested on the Sabbath and went to the tomb early on the first day of the week (Luke in 23 and 24). In Mark 16 we learn the women bought the spices after the Sabbath. These statements seem contradictory for how could they get the spices before they purchased them, but this isn't mystical at all and really helps explain the three days and three nights question.

Jesus died at 3:00 PM on Erev Pesah. Joseph of Arimathea took the body and prepared it for burial. The women followed along and observed this all the way to the laying of Jesus in the tomb, and then went home for the High Sabbath of Pesah. On the day after that Sabbath, the women purchased their spices and prepared them, then rested for the weekly Sabbath on Saturday. Early on the First day of the Week, they went to the tomb and found Jesus all ready risen.

If Erev Pesah fell on a Wednesday, then Jesus lay in the ground all Wednesday night and Thursday Day (1 night and 1 day), all Thursday night and Friday day (2 nights and 2 days) and all Friday night and Saturday day (3 nights and 3 days). Scripture does not tell us when Jesus rose. Considering bribes were given to the guards to lie and say they fell asleep (an absurd premise given the number of guards and the punishment for such dereliction of duty) it was probably in the night. We do know the women went to the tomb at daybreak on Sunday and He was already gone.

I don't want to get further into this, which would be a whole other essay. Whether "three days and three nights" was an expression meaning a portion of three days or whether (as I believe) a literal three days and three nights passed, it doesn't change the fact that Christ was crucified, buried and Resurrected. And that this was a final sacrifice and a permanent means of salvation for all people who come to Christ.

***

(Madelyn Murray O'Hair, if you didn't know, was brutally murdered by an office manager at her American Atheist organization. He did it to steal money from the organization and then he murdered her and some of her family, cutting their bodies into pieces with a saw and burying the remains on a Texas ranch. This is what William Murray, Madelyn's son, had to say about his mother, from whom he was estranged after being baptized a Baptist and becoming a preacher: "My mother was an evil person... Not for removing prayer from America's schools... No, she was just evil. She stole huge amounts of money. She misused the trust of people. She cheated children out of their parents' inheritance. She cheated on her taxes and even stole from her own organizations. She once printed up phony stock certificates on her own printing press to try to take over another atheist publishing company.... Regardless of how evil and lawless my mother was she did not deserve to die in the manner she did." [Wikipedia])

***

Seeing Through the Eyes of God: Part III of a Testimony and a Challenge

2017-08-12T12:54:00.001-04:00

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.' Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?' The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.' They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?' He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'

Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life." Matthew 5:31-46

(On the left, my daughter treating goats and sheep in Kenya. The Ethiopians lined up for medical examinations by her unit below is also from her photo collection.)

What does it mean to be "born again"? To have recognized our sin nature, confessed we are a sinner, believe Jesus died for those sins and rose from the grave, to ask him to forgive us and dwell in our heart?

Is it to have God's Grace, our sins forgiven and forgotten?

Is it to have the assurance of salvation and of Heaven?

Is that it?

I have heard analogies between being a new Christian and being a new baby, the Bible containing the nourishing milk of the Word. God is our Father in heaven. He will comfort us and meet our needs and prepare a place for us. All kinds of nice things done for us, is that it? Is there nothing we need do? No to-do lists to this new life?

True, we cannot earn this new birth, cannot do any works to gain it, can't buy it, bribe for it or steal it. But if we have it, what do we do with it?

(Left: Homeless man sleeping near Carpenter Hall, Philadelphia by L. E. Meredith 2005)

If you think about it, we couldn't earn our first birth either. We couldn't do any works to be born. It was a gift our parents gave us. What did we do with that gift?

Well, a lot we shouldn't have, but what is one of the first things you see a baby do?

It looks around. A baby's gaze will go to everything. It will stare at bright colors, follow every movement, it will begin to see the world through its eyes. When we are flesh and not spirit, we see through our eyes. WE see things WE want and things WE want to do, places WE want to go and homes WE want to live it.

But once we've seen the gift of new birth our focus should change. We need to see the world through God's eyes, not our own.

When I was erased from the rolls of that church and called a goat, I came to realize I had lost some vision. I had come to see church and Bible study as a cozy little escape from the world. It was a place for ME to be cozy and for ME to be safe. It was ME rationalizing this as MY just deserves for 30 years of actively serving. Let younger people do the heavy lifting now, I'm a senior citizen in the Body of Christ, let ME be carried to the finish line.

(Right: Spinal Bifida sufferer at the A. I. duPont Children's Hospital, Wilmington, DE by L. E. Meredith 1982)

After all, isn't that what Paul said in Acts 20: 24 -- However, I consider I've done much worth in my life, so you go ahead and finish the race and complete the task, the Lord Jesus has given me a time out.

No, it isn't.
Paul actually said; "However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace."

There are those who are hungry and thirsty, naked and sick and imprisoned. We need to see them. But it isn't as obvious as a photo. We can see the needing masses in Ethiopia lining up for medical attention, the homeless sleeping on the park grass in Philadelphia, the ill and the physically challenged in Delaware with OUR eyes. After all, even the Pagans treat the sick, feed the poor and visit the imprisoned of this world. And we should do all that as well, but we must see beyond the obvious. We need to see those hungry for the word of God, those thirsty for righteousness, those naked of spirit and sick of soul and imprisoned by sin. These can be found among the rich, famous, powerful and healthy, as well as the poor and broken, in people all around us. Yes, we must aid those who are suffering physically and emotionally, but if they know the Lord, then someday they will have gain. But if we treat the sick, feed the hungry, clothe the naked and visit the imprisoned, but don't see all who have souls in spiritual need and don't bring them the Bread of Life and the Living Water, then we haven't done what the Lord expects. And we can't see those needs unless we begin looking through the eyes of God.

I pray this is what I am about.

I would not want to be the Fig Tree giving the appearance of fullness, but bearing no fruit. And I sure don't want to be a goat.

Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.

Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. "If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. Isaiah 58:7-10

Schisms and an Invisible Man: Part 2 of a Testimony and a Challenge

2017-08-11T08:22:00.000-04:00

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Matthew 5:31-33

Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth; they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. Matthew 5:1-4

How did I come to believe there was a God and what led me to salvation?
After the lost of six children, it was listening to the heartbeat of the seventh struggling to live that convinced me there had to be a God. It was the despair and depression of that seventh baby's death which brought me to a Bible preaching church where a sermon brought me to my knees before the Lord. In a sense, the death of that child was the resurrection of me. That was in 1975 and I was 34 years old.
That was more than half my lifetime ago. I am 76 as I write this.

Life became quite different from what it had been. Much of my life had revolved around attacking churches, now it revolved around involvement within The Church. I don't want to list what all, but it ranged from simple chores to youth ministry to door-to-door evangelism.

In 1977, my wife was pregnant again (she being a very stubborn and determined woman). No doctor would take her case, calling her foolish and saying it was guarenteed impossible for her to have a baby. It would end wit the same result. She was insane to do this, insanity being doing something over and over and expecting a different result.
A Christian doctor came forward to tend to her and the church formed a prayer group. They prayed and they brought us meals, because my wife was confined to bed for her term. And yes, once again that term ended in the fifth month, yet this time the outcome was different.

In 1978, my first daughter was born. (We were to have two more children, another daughter and a son. Perhaps to medical science these were impossibilities, but to God anything is possible. )

Yet, also in 1978, I had to change jobs and this necessitated us moving. Several serious events happened over the next few years. In 1982, with two young girls and a newborn son, we moved to where we live today and I joined a church in the area.

In the course of the next twenty-plus years I remained active in church work at my new church, although to a lesser extent. Growing children and a more demanding job took up much of my time. I (and my wife) were involved in doing many things revolving around the activities of our children and in the community. We even attended another church for a couple years in the early 'nineties, where I taught Sunday School to teenagers, but we came back to that first church again.

Then in 2006 I found myself thrown off the rolls of that church, branded a "goat".
How did this happen?

A bit of background is necessary. The minister who had built that church and pastured it for 45 years retired and a new younger man took over the pulpit. I had been away from this particular church for a period because of something that had happened, but I began attending regular worship service there again and also joined a small Bible study group associated with the church. Things were fine for about a year, but then this new minister proposed radical changes that split the congregation.

I don't want to say what the difference was other than a matter of Scriptural misinterpretation. It did not involve any of the core beliefs of Christianity, only church organization. I had my doubts about the minister's stand when I went to the Congressional meeting where a vote was suppose to be taken on the changes.

The vote was never taken that night. Instead the meeting turned very ugly, angry and unchristian-like. I, frankly, stayed out of the fray. I was already stunned to have discovered I had been removed from the church rolls unknowingly.

Before the arguments started, before it got mean, a vote was taken on a procedural matter. It was done by roll call, and my name was skipped. I though it was an oversight, but others I knew were also skipped, people of long-standing and deep involvement in the ministries of the church. When one of these questioned why they were skipped, they were informed they had been removed from the membership rolls and had no right to vote. I was one of these. Those others removed were all members known to oppose the proposed change. When some of us protested, the pastor got up and said we were "goats" that needed to be separated from the "sheep". We were booed and attacked by newer members to the church at this point.

They justified my removal on the claim that I had failed to be in attendance and contact with the church, thus had failed to honor my commitment. Whether this was said of the others, I can't say, but it certainly wasn't true of me. I had been attending worship service each Sunday and the Bible study each Tuesday for the whole year. I also had not publicly made my views on the proposal known or actively campaigned for or against it.
How did I happen to be excommunicated?

Partially because I practiced Matthew 4. "Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven."

Jesus said: But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you -- But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen -- But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret.

Isn't it funny how the world and the church make it difficult to practice such acts? Oh, I suppose fasting secretly isn't much of a problem. You really don't have to tell anyone and I can't say anyone has ever asked me about my eating or not eating. I suppose if a person did a long fast they may get inquiries about their health, or more likely, asked if they were on a diet.

The world certainly doesn't care if you aren't praying publicly. The world would prefer you kept your prayers and the rest of your Christianity hidden away in a closet. The world doesn't want a show of prayer, they don't want prayer period. In the churches I have attended there are prayer meetings and prayer times when it is open to anyone to say an audible prayer. I haven't been to any Christian Church that criticize you for only praying silently.
I have been in secular places where you were banned from praying audibly and silently. No, the world would be perfectly happy to never see you praying.

Ah, but giving, money, that is the world's meat. Oh, you are supposed to flaunt your wealth in the world. Even if you prefer not to be a flaunter, the world doesn't make it easy to hide your giving. You have United Way drives in your places of business where you are asked to pledge some amount from your pay. You are assailed constantly by many charities for donations. You have a deduction on your income tax for what you give. But you have to have some proof you actually gave. This may be cancelled checks or receipts. Your church may provide giving envelopes and then a statement at tax time of what you gave the past year.

And if you don't show your giving, people think you are cheap and stingy. You may be chided by some for this. Everything is designed to make you want to scream, “I gave, I gave, I gave.”

But I try to give very anonymously. I don't give by check or envelop. I give cash, hidden away from all eyes as to the source. I don't claim donations on my tax form. My giving is between God and me.

Thus I was attending this church every week and I was putting into the collection plate each time, but there was no record. I was attending a Bible study every week, but no roll call was taken to be turned over to the church. I was there, but there was no official record to prove it.

Still, even if I had been absent from services, my blotting out of the church rolls was illegal under the church constitution. It stated any member who does not attend or have contact with the church for one year might be removed from membership. However, before such removal, a deacon, elder or the pastor must visit the member to inquire why they have stopped coming and attempt to bring them back into the fold. If after this, they still do not attend, they will be notified they have been removed from membership.

None of this happened. No one from the church visited or contacted me. I received no notification of my removal. Besides, I was not absent or out of contact with the church for a year.

Many of those discovering they were non-persons that night choose to appeal. Many also continued to fight the proposed changes. I wasn't among them. A schism had occurred. It was sad. There was no happy ending, no way back. Whichever side finally won this (and it was to be the pastor's); the other side would harbor hurt feelings and resentment. It was better to forgive and forget and move on than stay and be unwelcome or non-accepting of the new doctrine.

I won't, as I said, say what caused the schism, but I will tell you one thing I didn't agree with this pastor about it. There are Scripture passages that argue against his view.
There was something else. He didn't believe any non-believers should be in the church (with a small c, that is his church building and service). He taught church was an exclusive club for believers only. He didn't believe the church should waste a moment on evangelism. He taught that allowing the lost to come to church was detrimental to the saved Christians there.

Once upon a time I was lost and went into a church. If they had made me unwelcome in their house because I was lost, who knows, perhaps I would still be lost. I believe one of the purposes of the church (with a small c) is to be a bridge to the lost, to help them learn the truth and to come to know the Lord and join the Church (with a capital C). When the time comes, the Lord will separate the sheep from the goats, not I or you or some minister. I believe our duty as believers is to try to gather more sheep.

I admit to being angry after that night when I found myself cast aside and labeled a goat. But then I realized it was a good thing. Not for that church, because a year later that minister and his associate minister were gone and that church went without a pastor for almost two years, its numbers shrinking and its former members flung far and wide in other churches.

But why was this a good thing for me?
Because I realized I was becoming an invisible man. I was fading away as a "salty" Christian as much as the photograph accompanying this post. It was a wake up call that I needed to heed or I was in danger of becoming a goat after all.

Flocked Together Feeding...: Part 1 of a Testimony and a Challenge

2017-08-10T17:29:00.003-04:00

I am an older man with ALS. What of my age doesn't slow me down, the disease does. Physically I am somewhat limited and will grow worse. This may seem the time to kick back and rest on the sidelines, but truth be told, I'm in a race and this is part of what I can still do. I can tell my story and stories of Jesus and challenge you to stay in the race. If you haven't yet, don't hesitate to strap on your running shoes and join in, for the hour is getting late, I believe. This then is part one of three about sheep and goats.

(On the left, Goats in Ethiopia, 2006)

"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' Matthew 5:31-40

(My daughter doing for the least of these in Kenya, 2006)

Jesus was the "Good Shepherd". He knew the difference between sheep and goats, but many people outside of farmers don't. Driving through the countryside and seeing these animals, often mingled together, Urbanites might lump them together as one and the same. They have some similarities, but in fact are two distinct species. Both can be beneficial. Goats provide food and milk and sheep provide food and clothing.

A common expression is "they are just a herd of sheep". People say this derisively meaning people who blindly follow something with no mind of their own. Jesus often referred to His followers as sheep. Does this mean we Christians are a mindless flock?

Researchers at Babraham Institute in Cambridge have done testing on these animals. They found sheep to be very intelligent. Sheep, like humans, can recognize each other individually. "Sheep have highly developed social awareness and interactions." They can become agitated when separated from the flock, with good reason. The reason the sheep will follow their leader anywhere is protection from the predators waiting to devour them (much like Satan, that hungry lion, wishing to devour the Christian). The predators of the world will hone in on the individual sheep that strays from the flock.

The goat has some different characteristics. The goat is "very curious, intelligent, extroverted, flamboyant, and playful". The play of young kids develops their ability to escape predators, abilities to dodge, duck, leap, run and whirl. They don't think they need a leader or the flock, they can do it all on their own.

Goats have a characteristic that gives us another saying: "butting heads". If sheep will follow a trusted leader for their own protection, goats will compete for leadership by butting heads. They do this to establish dominance and the hierarchy of the herd. They get very aggressive during mating season. They may follow a dominate ram, but their individual will is to be that ram. A good shepherd will separate his sheep and goats during these aggressive times so the goats don't harm the sheep.

There is another interesting difference between sheep and goats, their eating choices. It is often said a goat will eat anything. This is a myth, still goats aren't overly selective either. Sheep are grazers and picky. According to North Carolina State University studies ("Production and Utilization of Pastures and Forages" - Technical Bulletin 305  North Carolina Agricultural Research Service, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC. 1998) sheep "are selective grazers, choosing plant parts which are of higher quality (and more digestible)."

Goats are browsers. Remember goats are very curious. "Because of their inquisitive nature and tolerance of 'bitter' or high tannin material goats may eat unpalatable weeds and wild shrubs that may be poisonous, such as cherry or milkweed." (N.C. State University, Ibid.)

So how do we apply this to the passage in Matthew about the separating of the sheep and goats, and why? Well, sheep and goats are often flocked together, like members of the church. They may look and behave similarly at times, but the sheep will be obedient to the leader, because this will protect them. The goat will try to usurp the leader if possible, or at least challenge and butt heads with each other. The goat will not choose the best food for its growth, (the Word of God), but will seek worldly ideas out of curiosity and devour them even when they are poisonous. The goat and the sheep may seem contented in the same pasture, but the goat will be eyeing the temptations elsewhere rather than keeping its eyes on the true leader.

And like the Urbanite driving through the countryside, we can't always tell the one from the other.

Tomorrow: Invisible Man

Christmas: Harmonized Birth of Christ Jesus

2016-12-18T07:03:00.003-05:00

Birth of Christ by Antoine Pesne, 1745

LUKE’S INTRODUCTION

Simone Martini, Circa 1330

Luke 1:1-4

Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things, which are most surely believed among us, even as they delivered them to us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word. It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write to you in order, most excellent Theophilus,that you might know the certainty of those things, wherein you have been instructed.

ETERNAL EXISTENCE OF CHRIST AS THE SECOND PERSON OF THE TRINITY

John 1:1-5; 9-13

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

And the light shined in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. That was the true Light, which lights every man that comes into the world. [The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. (NIV)]

He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came to his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

HISTORICAL GENEALOGY OF JESUS FROM ABRAHAM THROUGH JOSEPH

Matthew 1:1-17

The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren. And Judas begat Phares and Zara of Thamar; and Phares begat Esrom; and Esrom begat Aram And Aram begat Aminadab; and Aminadab begat Naasson; and Naasson begat Salmon And Salmon begat Booz of Rachab; and Booz begat Obed of Ruth; and Obed begat Jesse;

And Jesse begat David the king and David the king begat Solomon of her that had been the wife of Urias. And Solomon begat Roboam; and Roboam begat Abia; and Abia begat Asa. And Asa begat Josaphat; and Josaphat begat Joram; and Joram begat Ozias. And Ozias begat Joatham; and Joatham begat Achaz; and Achaz begat Ezekias. And Ezekias begat Manasses; and Manasses begat Amon; and Amon begat Josias. And Josias begat Jechonias and his brethren, about the time they were carried away to Babylon.

And after they were brought to Babylon, Jechonias begat Salathiel; and Salathiel begat Zorobabel. And Zorobabel begat Abiud; and Abiud begat Eliakim; and Eliakim begat Azor. And Azor begat Sadoc; and Sadoc begat Achim; and Achim begat Eliud. And Eliud begat Eleazar; and Eleazar begat Matthan; and Matthan begat Jacob. And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.

So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generation

LEGAL GENEALOGY OF MARY

Luke 3:23b-38

[Jesus] being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son [-in-law] of Heli. Which was the son of Matthat, which was the son of Levi, which was the son of Melchi, which was the son of Janna, which was the son of Joseph. Which was the son of Mattathias, which was the son of Amos, which was the son of Naum, which was the son of Esli, which was the son of Nagge. Which was the son of Maath, which was the son of Mattathias, which was the son of Semei, which was the son of Joseph, which was the son of Juda. Which was the son of Joanna, which was the son of Rhesa, which was the son of Zorobabel, which was the son of Salathiel, which was the son of Neri. Which was the son of Melchi, which was the son of Addi, which was the son of Cosam, which was the son of Elmodam, which was the son of Er. Which was the son of Jose, which was the son of Eliezer, which was the son of Jorim, which was the son of Matthat, which was the son of Levi. Which was the son of Simeon, which was the son of Juda, which was the son of Joseph, which was the son of Jonan, which was the son of Eliakim. Which was the son of Melea, which was the son of Menan, which was the son of Mattatha, which was the son of Nathan, which was the son of David. Which was the son of Jesse, which was the son of Obed, which was the son of Booz, which was the son of Salmon, which was the son of Naasson. Which was the son of Aminadab, which was the son of Aram, which was the son of Esrom, which was the son of Phares, which was the son of Juda. Which was the son of Jacob, which was the son of Isaac, which was the son of Abraham, which was the son of Thara, which was the son of Nachor. Which was the son of Saruch, which was the son of Ragau, which was the son of Phalec, which was the son of Heber, which was the son of Sala. Which was the son of Cainan, which was the son of Arphaxad, which was the son of Sem, which was the son of Noe, which was the son of Lamech. Which was the son of Mathusala, which was the son of Enoch, which was the son of Jared, which was the son of Maleleel, which was the son of Cainan. Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.

THE BIRTH OF JOHN THE BAPTIST FORETOLD

[The Temple in Jerusalem B.C. 6]

Luke 1:5-25

There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judaea, a certain priest named Zacharias [which means YAHWEH Remembers], of the course [priestly division] of Abia [or Abijah]: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth [Elisheva: meaning -My God is abundance]. And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. And they had no child, because that Elisabeth was barren, and they both were now well stricken in years.

And it came to pass, that while he executed the priest's office before God in the order of his course, according to the custom of the priest's office, his lot was to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord. And the whole multitude of the people was praying without at the time of incense.

And there appeared unto him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And when Zacharias saw him, he was troubled, and fear fell upon him. But the angel said to him, “Fear not, Zacharias: for your prayer is heard; and your wife Elisabeth shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name John [Yochanan: YAHWEH is gracious].

“And you shall have joy and gladness; and many shall rejoice at his birth. For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb. And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God. And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias [Elijah], to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

And Zacharias said to the angel, “Whereby shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife well stricken in years.”

And the angel answering said to him, “I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God; and am sent to speak to you, and to show you these glad tidings. And, behold, you shall be dumb, and not able to speak, until the day that these things shall be performed, because you believed not my words, which shall be fulfilled in their season.

And the people waited for Zacharias, and marveled that he tarried so long in the temple. And when he came out, he could not speak to them: and they perceived that he had seen a vision in the temple: for he beckoned to them, and remained speechless.

And it came to pass, that, as soon as the days of his ministration were accomplished, he departed to his own house. And after those days his wife Elisabeth conceived, and hid herself five months, saying, “Thus has the Lord dealt with me in the days wherein he looked on me, to take away my reproach among men.”

THE BIRTH OF JESUS FORETOLD

(Nazareth in Galilee Late B.C. 6 or early B.C 5)

Luke 1:26-38

And in the sixth month [referring to the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy] the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph [Yosef: meaning he will add], of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary [Miryam: Most likely is derived from Egyptian mry or beloved].

And the angel came to her, and said, “Hail, you that are highly favored, the Lord is with you: blessed are you among women.”

And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be.

And the angel said to her, “Fear not, Mary: for you have found favor with God. And, behold, you shall conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shall call his name JESUS. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give to him the throne of his father David: and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.”

Then said Mary unto the angel, “How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?”

And the angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Ghost shall come upon you, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow you: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of you shall be called the Son of God.”

MARY VISITS ELIZABETH

(Judea Early B.C. 5)

Luke 1:39-56

And Mary arose in those days, and went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Judea [a distance of 90 to 120 miles]; and entered into the house of Zacharias, and saluted Elisabeth.

And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost: and she spoke out with a loud voice, and said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And whence is this to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For, lo, as soon as the voice of your salutation sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy. And blessed is she that believed: for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord.”

Mary's Song

And Mary said, “My soul does magnify the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. For he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. For he that is mighty has done to me great things; and holy is his name. And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He has put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. He has filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he has sent empty away. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy; as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed for ever.”

And Mary abode with her about three months, and returned to her own house.

THE BIRTH OF JOHN THE BAPTIST

Luke 1:57-79

Now Elisabeth's full time came that she should be delivered; and she brought forth a son. And her neighbors and her cousins heard how the Lord had shown great mercy upon her; and they rejoiced with her.

And it came to pass, that on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child; and they called him Zacharias, after the name of his father. And his mother answered and said, “Not so; but he shall be called John.”

And they said to her, “There is none of your kindred that is called by this name.” And they made signs to his father, how he would have him called.

And he asked for a writing table, and wrote, saying, “His name is John.”

And they marveled all.

And his mouth was opened immediately, and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, and praised God.

And fear came on all that dwelt round about them: and all these sayings were noised abroad throughout all the hill country of Judaea. And all they that heard them laid them up in their hearts, saying, “What manner of child shall this be!”

And the hand of the Lord was with him.

Zechariah's Song

And his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Ghost, and prophesied, saying,

“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he has visited and redeemed his people, and has raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David; as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began: that we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us; to perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant; the oath which he swore to our father Abraham, that he would grant to us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life.

“And you, child, shall be called the prophet of the Highest: for you shall go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways; to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the remission of their sins, through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the dayspring from on high has visited us, to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

THE ANGEL’S APPEARANCE TO JOSEPH

(Nazareth B.C. 5)

Matthew 1:18-25a

Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.

Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily. [Secretly or privately. The NIV translates this as: “He had in mind to divorce her quietly.”]

But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, fear not to take to you Mary your wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and you shall call his name JESUS [Hebrew: Joshua, which means God is Salvation]: for he shall save his people from their sins.”

Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, “Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.” [Isaiah 7:14]

Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took to him his wife and knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name JESUS.

THE BIRTH OF JESUS

(Bethlehem Autumn of B.C. 5)

Luke 2:1-7 and John 1:14a

And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus [63 B.C – 14 A.D.] that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius [Quirinius, circa 51 B.C. – 21 A.D.] was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city..

And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem (because he was of the house and lineage of David [See the earlier genealogy given in Luke 3]) to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.

And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.

THE SHEPHERDS AND THE ANGELS

(Near Bethlehem)

Luke 2:8-20

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.

And the angel said to them, “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For to you is born this day, in the city of David, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign to you. You shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.”

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men”.

And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, “Let us now go even to Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us”.

And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child. And all they that heard it wondered at those things, which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them.

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about."

So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

JESUS PRESENTED IN THE TEMPLE

(Jerusalem, eight days after the birth; distance from Bethlehem to Jerusalem is 6 miles)

Matthew 1:25b and Luke 2:21

And when eight days had passed, before His circumcision, His name was then called Jesus, the name given by the angel before He was conceived in the womb and [Joseph] called his name JESUS.

PURIFICATION

(Jerusalem, 40 days after birth according to Jewish Law)

Luke 2:22-39a

And when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord; (As it is written in the law of the LORD, Every male that open the womb shall be called holy to the Lord [Exodus 13:2]) And to offer a sacrifice according to that which is said in the law of the Lord, A pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.

And, behold, there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon [which means “he heard” or “obedient”]; and the same man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel: and the Holy Ghost was upon him. And it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death, before he had seen the Lord's Christ. And he came by the Spirit into the temple: and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him after the custom of the law,

Then took he him up in his arms, and blessed God, and said, “Lord, now let me your servant depart in peace, according to thy word: For mine eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared before the face of all people; a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.”

And Joseph and his mother marveled at those things, which were spoken of him.

And Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against; (Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also) that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”

And there was one Anna [which means “Grace”], a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, [which means “Face of God”; the apocryphal Book of Enoch gives the name Phanuel to the fourth Archangel] of the tribe of Aser: she was of a great age, and had lived with an husband seven years from her virginity; and she was a widow of about fourscore and four years, which departed not from the temple, but served God with fasting and prayers night and day. And she coming in that instant gave thanks likewise to the Lord, and spoke of him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem. And … they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord.

THE VISIT OF THE MAGI

Matthew 2:1-12

Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod [the Great, 73 BC – 4 BC] the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, Saying, “Where is he that is born King of the Jews for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him?”

When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born.

And they said to him, “In Bethlehem of Judaea: for thus it is written by the prophet, ‘And you Bethlehem, in the land of Judea, are not the least among the princes of Judea: for out of you shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel’ [Micah 5:2].”

Then Herod, when he had privately called the wise men, enquired of them diligently what time the star appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, “Go and search diligently for the young child; and when you have found him, bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also.”

When they had heard the king, they departed; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was.

When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented to him gifts; gold, and frankincense and myrrh.

And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way.

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him." Matthew 2:1-2 (NIV)

When they had heard the king, they departed; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was.

When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.

And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense and myrrh.

And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way.

THE ESCAPE TO EGYPT

Matthew 2:13-18

And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, “Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be you there until I bring you word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.”

When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt and was there until the death of Herod that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, “Out of Egypt have I called my son”. [Hosea 11:1 (Greek: egontos, eks aiguptou ekalesa ton huion mou meaning, “Out of Egypt have I called the son of Me”.) Matthew was saying the statement was made perfect in Christ.]

Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, “In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not [Jeremiah 31:15]”.

THE RETURN TO NAZARETH

(4 B.C. – Year Herod the Great died)

Matthew 2:19-23 and Luke 2:39b; 1:80; 2:40

But when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, “Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel: for they are dead which sought the young child's life.”

And he arose, and took the young child and his mother, and came into the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus [Herod Archelaus, 23 BC – Circa 18 AD. Ruled 4 BC – 6AD] did reign in Judaea in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go toward that place: notwithstanding, being warned of God in a dream, he turned aside.

They returned into the parts of Galilee and he came to and dwelled in their own city, a city called Nazareth that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, “He shall be called a Nazarene”.

THE BOY JESUS AT THE TEMPLE

(Jerusalem 8 A.D.)

Luke 1:; 2:40-52

Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast. And when they had fulfilled the days, as they returned, the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem; and Joseph and his mother knew not of it. But they, supposing him to have been in the company, went a day's journey; and they sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance.

And when they found him not, they turned back again to Jerusalem, seeking him. And it came to pass, that after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions.

And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers. And when they saw him, they were amaze, and his mother said to him, “Son, why have you thus dealt with us? Behold, your father and I have sought you sorrowing.”

And he said to them, “How is it that you sought me? Wist [Knew] you not that I must be about my Father's business?”

And they understood not the saying that he spoke to them.

And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them, but his mother kept all these sayings in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.

And the child [John the Baptist] grew, and waxed strong in spirit and was in the deserts till the day of his showing unto Israel.

And the child [Jesus] grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.

Look at These Little Things

2015-11-10T14:44:00.001-05:00

I put this on a status in Facebook yesterday.

"As Christmas approaches we will hear the story of the birth of Christ again. We will hear that he was born to a Virgin, Mary, who had never known any man.

But have you noticed that in death Jesus' body was returned to a virgin, a virgin grave, that is? Yes, Jesus was placed in a new grave, which had never known any body.

A little fact seemingly mentioned in passing in Luke 23, generally skimmed over. But have you stopped to consider what importance this little factoid has in the Resurrection story? Give it some though and go ahead, make a comment of what you think."

Here is the passage in Luke that I am referencing:

Now there was a man named Joseph, from the Jewish town of Arimathea. He was a member of the council, a good and righteous man, who had not consented to their decision and action; and he was looking for the kingdom of God. This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then he took it down and wrapped it in a linen shroud and laid him in a tomb cut in stone, where no one had ever yet been laid. It was the day of Preparation, and the Sabbath was beginning. The women who had come with him from Galilee followed and saw the tomb and how his body was laid. Then they returned and prepared spices and ointments.

On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment. (Luke 23:50-56)

We here these passages over and over during the Easter season, but most of the attention goes to either the brutal beatings and cruel crucifixion or to the Sunday when the women discover the empty tomb. Not much, if any, time is given to Verse 53. I mean, really, they took the body, wrapped it up and laid it in a tomb where no one was ever placed before; so what's the big deal?

It is certainly something of a big deal that Jesus was placed in this tomb since it was a final resting placed newly cut out to eventually hold the corpse of Joseph, a wealthy and influential Jewish Sanhedrin member from the town of Arimathea. It fulfilled a 700 year old prophesy concerning the Messiah that was given by Isaiah.

9 And they made his grave with the wicked
and with a rich man in his death,
although he had done no violence,

and there was no deceit in his mouth. Isaiah 53:9 (ESV)

That Jesus' body was taken down by Joseph, with help from Nicodemus, and placed in this tomb is not what the people seeing him crucified would have expected. First of all, Romans were not just satisfied with the agony of a criminal's death on the cross; they wanted to inflict humiliation even after the demise. The body normally would have been left hanging there to rot and after it had it would be carried to a place outside of town and cast into a criminal grave.

So, one important thing in Joseph using his prestige and standing to obtain permission to remove the body and bury it (a very brave act on his part, by the way) is important because otherwise it is possible no one would have known exactly where he was buried. The women might not have been able to see where he was let alone return to anoint him later.

This preparation of the body is essential to know, too. Jesus was dead and the Jewish preparation was neither an embalming as we do today or a mummification as practiced by Egyptians. Jesus body would not be mutilated any more after his death, but simply wrapped in the grave rags and anointed with oils and perfumes to keep the smell down during decomposition. (Remember those gifts of the Wise Men, Frankincense and Myrrh? These are aromatic herbs often used in anointing oils.) Jesus was wrapped by Joseph and Nicodemus with some speed because Sundown was approaching, which would start a Sabbath. See how the woman hurried to buy the herbs to prepare the body, but had to wait to actually do it because of the Sabbath; thus they went to the tomb on a later day to discover the empty tomb.

This empty tomb remark brings us back to the end of Luke 9:53, "where no one had ever yet been laid". This little statement that is almost a throwaway line. But nothing in Scripture can ever be taken as a throwaway line. When you see something seemingly unimportant to the story or something a bit out of place you need stop and consider why is it there?

We can say it makes a neat little circle to say Jesus was delivered to earthy life out of a virgin and then removed in earthly death into a virgin, but that isn't the important thing here. Just as having it known exactly where Jesus' body was buried (and it was further clear because it was officially marked by Roman seals); it was also important to know whose body was missing from there three days later.

In those times in that place among these people a private grave was very uncommon. Think of the complications if the tomb had contained other bodies, some perhaps very recently placed there. No, there was no one else laying inside that tomb but Jesus. There was no miscounting, no mistaken identity possible when the ladies discovered the seals broken and the stone rolled away. It was clear that the tomb was once again as empty as before the men carried Jesus inside and the entrance closed.

Little things often have big meanings.

Illustration: "The Entombment of Christ" by Sisto Badalocchio, 1610.

TORN IN THE FLESH: Part XII of Why Not? - a Perspective on Suffering

2015-10-22T14:39:00.004-04:00

We wrote in our previous chapter about King Saul and how his pride brought him down; he needed to be humbled.

Pride goes before destruction,
a haughty spirit before a fall. Proverbs 16:18

But what about David? Did David also get a bit full of himself, too? Remember in an early part we looked at David and how he seduced Bathsheba and murdered Uriah the Hittite. David was severely punished for what he did as well, but God did not reject David from being King of Israel as He did Saul. What was the difference?

When we become full of our selves, we lead our selves into trouble and we may also decide we are better than others. We may even begin to abuse others. God may allow some suffering to remind us we are but humans and to keep us humble. We may suffer even greater outcomes if we refuse to be humbled.

The people we looked at so far were humbled because of some sin on their part or because they turned away from God and put themselves up on a pedicel. But what if someone has been forgiven by God, been saved, is putting God first and serving Him faithfully? We have said we all suffer in this world, God pours rain on all and the sun shines on all, the good and the bad. But can even the faithful Christian suffer for the reason of humbling?

Is there Scripture to support this? Did you ever consider the Apostle Paul? Look at Second Corinthians 12:7-10.

To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Who is saying this?

Paul, who had many reasons to brag. If Paul had to be given a thorn of suffering to keep him humble and focused, then how much more someone like me. I am far weaker than Paul. I dread to think of the monster I would have been if not for certain afflictions I have, weak eyes, psoriasis that mars my skin and many other failings of mind and body.

Sometimes asking the question, "Why me?" is something we should attempt seriously to answer. We may not have done anything to deserve it. It may be what we would do if it didn't happen. Like pain may be a warning to examine the body, suffering may be a warning to examine our faithfulness to God and not to our selves.

In 2012, I became caretaker to both my mom and dad over the last six months of their lives and there was a lot of suffering involved by a number of people, my parents, of course, and me and my wife, and a number of others. It was the Grace of God how things worked out through that ordeal that often seemed hopeless and impossible. It was also a very humbling experience for me and it brought home the passage about the farmer who stocked his barns to overflowing. It also directs us back to that Rich Young Ruler who couldn’t pass up his riches to follow Jesus and what his future really held, plus it made another bit of scripture very clear, real and meaningful to me. It is from the Sermon on the Mount: Matthew 6:19-21.

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

My mother was 92 and my father 94 when they died. Their house was full of all they had accumulated over the 72 years they had been married and individually over more than 90 years; I mean the rooms were full, the attic and the basement. But in the last days of their lives, as my mother died and then less than three weeks later, my dad, all of it was gone. Their car sold, their house sold, all the furnishing, knick knacks, pots and pans, old paint, tools, stored away mementos, everything hauled away. Only the clothes taken to the nursing home remained and after they died even these were gone, given to charity.

I saved only all the photographs and some important papers, and two of my father’s hat, one he wore often in age and his Sailor hat from World War II. Those things were of little value in the end, but what was of value is knowing they both knew the Lord and they were not gone like their possessions, but lived on in Heaven, where their real treasure is.

We begin this journey of life
Down a road we do not yet know.
We see the blossoms of the moment,
Costumed in dancing colors
That entices us like the bees,
To their perfumed petal traps
And we lust to gain their beauty,
To glisten like the rose after a rain.

We watch the sun rise upon the distance city,
Turning the towers of glass to gold,
Shimmering like a river of riches
And our eyes serve us our breakfast of wants
Sprinkled with the sweet sugar of excess.
We glutton for the fat of the land.
Our stressed hearts beat faster
As the grasp of our hands
Fills our veins with the empty
Calories of success.

We ignore the storms of warning
That dare darken our skies and the path
To our ever bigger car and grander house.
We fill our rooms with non-necessities
To gorge our obese egos
And we ignore the dust specks of reality
That swirl about the air to settle
Lightly upon our treasures
As if in echo of some ancient tome.
Not Home Sweet Home,
But ashes to ashes and
Dust to dust.

We do not see the light for the shimmer.
Our eyes are always to the rainbow,
An illusion of sun and water,
A trick of diffusion
And a lure to delusion.
We cannot own the colors,
But can we the Pot of Gold at its end?
But where the rainbow ends
Lies the mire of despair and truth.
When we reach the distance touchdown point
The rainbow fades away
With all we ever gathered
And we are left naked before the eyes of God.

"At the Rainbow's End", Written June 2012

We have looked at suffering for various reasons, because of sin and thus punishment, sometimes as a means of discipline and now to keep us humble. But can we suffer for other reasons? Can we suffer when we haven’t committed a sin, are not really in need of punishment, have been well disciplined and are humbly serving God? And if so, can such suffering serve a purpose or be fair? Or is such suffering a reason to disbelieve in God?

There was something else noted here that is a clue for the next post , but for homework discipline, read Psalm 19, Luke 13 and also find out what happened at Dunkirk and what Churchill said about it as more clues to another reason we suffer, which will be the next posts' lesson.

References: Proverbs 16:18, 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, Matthew 6:19-21

Illustration:

The photo at the top of this post is of my ankles taken by me in

August of 2013. During my daily morning as I circled the Kitchen Garden at Rockwood Museum Park a rose bush branch snagged my bare legs. I could not shake the branch. It dug in and slice up doth my lower extremities. It really hurt, too.

Even More what Scripture says about our suffering:
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:9

In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 1:6-7

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28
I will return again to my place, until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face, and in their distress earnestly seek me. “Come, let us return to the Lord; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him. Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.” Hosea 5:15-6:3

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end. Lamentations 3:22

SILOS AND TOWERS: Part XI of Why Not? - a Perspective on Suffering

2015-10-12T15:40:00.002-04:00

FULL BARNS

There is dust across the fields tonight.
The moon shines upon a forgotten plow.
Tomorrow in the dawn nothing changes.
The furrows remain unseeded, unattended.
The crop brought a banner yield at harvest
And the farmer took his rest.

He tore the old ones down and built anew.
Big sturdy silos and heavy wooded stalls
To hold all the grain and produce
Through the year and seasons to come.
He planned a banquet every day
And drank wine the very best.

He worked the summer long in the heat and dry,
Plowing in the spring and weeding through
Until the corn grew tall, the apples sweet,
For the cool crisp autumn harvest where
He took in his bounty of the labor.
And tore the old ones down and built anew.
“I’ll grow fat now”, was his jest.

So he filled the cribs to the breaking point,
He stacked the fruit up to the ceiling
And scattered wheat across the threshing floor.
“I’ll live a life of ease and merriment,”
And with that cry he challenged God.

Now these wait full for the burrower and thief,
Fine food to feed the pests.

by Larry Eugene Meredith, April 2012

Published "Poetry Vortex" 2012

Wilmington, Delaware

Dallas Kirk Gantt, editor

A quick review: Sin entered the world because Eve and Adam using the gift of free will were disobedient to God. Disobedience to God is the definition of sin. Commitment of a sin brought its own suffering in shame, mental anguish, regret and fear. However, man after a short time was able to rationalize his behavior and diminish the influence of conscience. As a result, punishment was needed to deter sin. Punishment, in whatever form, involves the infliction of some kind of suffering.

Sometimes people didn't commit a sin, but were making choices that could result in sin or less than the best for the people involved. These people needed some guidance. Guidance sometimes involved suffering to show their way wasn't the best way.

Sometimes suffering was brought on by folly, by our own stupidity or stubbornness. We decide we can beat the train to the crossing and end up with a smashed up car and an ambulance ride to the hospital, or perhaps to the morgue. It was foolish behavior and we suffered for it.

It is not always a clear-cut distinction between these reasons why we suffer. Any of them can involve a sin; some may not involve sin every time. Punishment may also be a form of guidance and discipline may or may not include punishment. We come to a fifth reason we may suffer and it could involve sin, but it ain’t necessarily so.

It is not at all unusual to see some person become so sure of their self they overreach their ability and fail miserably and come to ruin just like that particular farmer in my poem.

And he [Jesus] told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’Luke 12:16-21.

So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.

It didn’t take long after the Creation for man to become obsessed with his own powers. Remember the offspring of Cain. (Genesis 4:17-24) His descendents looked to success in earthly pursuits and turned away from God and what did that lead to? A big puddle of water that washed away all those people accomplished. Still, it didn’t take long after Noah landed up on Mount Ararat (Genesis 8:4) until we come to this in Genesis 11:

Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As men moved eastward, they found a

plain in Shinar and settled there. They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth." Genesis 11:1-4

What happened next?

God looked at what man was doing and put a stop to it. He caused the various people to begin speaking in different tongues so they couldn't understand each other and he scattered them over the whole world.

What are your thoughts about this?

Do you think God was afraid man would become more powerful than He when He said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them?"

What would have happened if God had left man finish that tower and not change the language?
I think men would have become so full of them selves they would went on disobeying God in a grand style until they brought it right back where it was before the flood. God stepped in to prevent this for the sake of mankind.

By the way, man's plan for Babel was already a grand sin of disobedience. God had ordered early man to fill the whole world, not consolidate in one place. This may be the reason he scattered them after confusing the language. God's creatures never usurp God’s plan.

Speaking of which, look at how certain people have usurped the rainbow. I saw this Twitter Tweet quoted on Facebook.

“Ireland got a double rainbow after legalizing same-sex marriage. Texas got a flood after banning it. God has spoken.”

This is what you get from those ignorant of Scripture.

Read Genesis 9:12-16:

And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”

So those Texans who suffered floods had the assurance that God would not destroy them while Ireland should have been grateful God put that reminder in their skies; in fact, had to double it up, for the same reason.

Look at Saul, the first Israel King. There is a lot we could say about this guy, but let's focus on a couple of passages:

1 Samuel 9:1-2
There was a man of Benjamin whose name was Kish, the son of Abiel, son of Zeror, son of Becorath, son of Aphiah, a Benjaminite, a man of wealth. And he had a son whose name was Saul, a handsome young man. There was not a man among the people of Israel more handsome than he. From his shoulders upward he was taller than any of the people.

1 Samuel 13:8-15
He (Saul) waited seven days, the time appointed by Samuel. But Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and the people were scattering from him. So Saul said, “Bring the burnt offering here to me, and the peace offerings.” And he offered the burnt offering. As soon as he had finished offering the burnt offering, behold, Samuel came. And Saul went out to meet him and greet him. Samuel said, “What have you done?” And Saul said, “When I saw that the people were scattering from me, and that you did not come within the days appointed, and that the Philistines had mustered at Michmash, I said, ‘Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the favor of the Lord.’ So I forced myself, and offered the burnt offering.” And Samuel said to Saul, “You have done foolishly. You have not kept the command of the Lord your God, with which he commanded you. For then the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. But now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be prince over his people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.” And Samuel arose and went up from Gilgal. The rest of the people went up after Saul to meet the army; they went up from Gilgal to Gibeah of Benjamin.

And Saul numbered the people who were present with him, about six hundred men. And Saul and Jonathan his son and the people who were present with them stayed in Geba of Benjamin, but the Philistines encamped in Michmash. And raiders came out of the camp of the Philistines in three companies. One company turned toward Ophrah, to the land of Shual; another company turned toward Beth-horon; and another company turned toward the border that looks down on the Valley of Zeboim toward the wilderness.

1 Samuel 15:1-30
And Samuel said to Saul, “The Lord sent me to anoint you king over his people Israel; now therefore listen to the words of the Lord. Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘I have noted what Amalek did to Israel in opposing them on the way when they came up out of Egypt. Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’”

So Saul summoned the people and numbered them in Telaim, two hundred thousand men on foot, and ten thousand men of Judah. And Saul came to the city of Amalek and lay in wait in the valley. Then Saul said to the Kenites, “Go, depart; go down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them. For you showed kindness to all the people of Israel when they came up out of Egypt.” So the Kenites departed from among the Amalekites. And Saul defeated the Amalekites from Havilah as far as Shur, which is east of Egypt. And he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive and devoted to destruction all the people with the edge of the sword. But Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep and of the oxen and of the fattened calves and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them. All that was despised and worthless they devoted to destruction.
The word of the Lord came to Samuel: “I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments.” And Samuel was angry, and he cried to the Lord all night. And Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning. And it was told Samuel, “Saul came to Carmel, and behold, he set up a monument for himself and turned and passed on and went down to Gilgal.” And Samuel came to Saul, and Saul said to him, “Blessed be you to the Lord. I have performed the commandment of the Lord.” And Samuel said, “What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears and the lowing of the oxen that I hear?” Saul said, “They have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen to sacrifice to the Lord your God, and the rest we have devoted to destruction.” Then Samuel said to Saul, “Stop! I will tell you what the Lord said to me this night.” And he said to him, “Speak.”

And Samuel said, “Though you are little in your own eyes, are you not the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel. And the Lord sent you on a mission and said, ‘Go, devote to destruction the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.’ Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you pounce on the spoil and do what was evil in the sight of the Lord?” And Saul said to Samuel, “I have obeyed the voice of the Lord. I have gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me. I have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and I have devoted the Amalekites to destruction. But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the best of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.” And Samuel said,
“Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king.”

Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice. Now therefore, please pardon my sin and return with me that I may bow before the Lord.” And Samuel said to Saul, “I will not return with you. For you have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel.” As Samuel turned to go away, Saul seized the skirt of his robe, and it tore. And Samuel said to him, “The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you this day and has given it to a neighbor of yours, who is better than you. And also the Glory of Israel will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man, that he should have regret.” Then he said, “I have sinned; yet honor me now before the elders of my people and before Israel, and return with me, that I may bow before the Lord your God.”

and 1 Samuel 18:6-16.
As they were coming home, when David returned from striking down the Philistine, the women came out of all the cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet King Saul, with tambourines, with songs of joy, and with musical instruments. And the women sang to one another as they celebrated,
“Saul has struck down his thousands, and David his ten thousands.”

And Saul was very angry, and this saying displeased him. He said, “They have ascribed to David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed thousands, and what more can he have but the kingdom?” And Saul eyed David from that day on.

The next day a harmful spirit from God rushed upon Saul, and he raved within his house while David was playing the lyre, as he did day by day. Saul had his spear in his hand. And Saul hurled the spear, for he thought, “I will pin David to the wall.” But David evaded him twice.

Saul was afraid of David because the Lord was with him but had departed from Saul. So Saul removed him from his presence and made him a commander of a thousand. And he went out and came in before the people. And David had success in all his undertakings, for the Lord was with him. And when Saul saw that he had great success, he stood in fearful awe of him. But all Israel and Judah loved David, for he went out and came in before them.

Saul’s leadership and life basically falls apart from this point on as he becomes more concerned about his own status than his people or with God’s will.

Pride can be a sin. Pride can be our idol; in fact, it can turn us into the object of our own worship. We get so high on our own ability, beauty, talent, gift or success that we puff up our chests and brag we did it all our selves. We forget about God in our belief in our powers, but…

Pride goes before destruction,
a haughty spirit before a fall. Proverbs 16:18

References: Luke 12:16-21, Genesis 4:17-24, Genesis 8:4, Genesis 11:1-4, Genesis 9:12-16, 1 Samuel 9:1-2, 1 Samuel 13:8-15, 1 Samuel 15:1-30, 1 Samuel 18:6-16, Proverbs 16:18

NEXT: A THORN IN THE FLESH

Illustrations:

1 . Photo of a small silo at Landis Valley Village by Larry Meredith, July 2014.

2. "The Building of the Tower of Babel" by Henrick van Cleve, year unknown.

3. "Saul Tears Samuel's Robe", artist and date unknown.

RIDDLE ME THIS: Part X of Why Not? - a Perspective on Suffering

2015-10-02T16:23:00.001-04:00

Let’s move on to another reason we may gain suffering.

From the Darwin Awards for 2008:

"(January 2008, Pennsylvania) A 23-year-old man with various body piercings wondered what it would feel like to connect his workplace test equipment to his chest piercings. Several co-workers tried to convince him that it was a bad idea to wire himself up to the electronic control tester, but he ignored their pleas.

"He proceeded to connect two alligator clips to his piercings and hit the test button... When the police and rescue personnel arrived, his co-workers were still trying to revive him with CPR and rescue breathing. They were not successful."

Why does God allow such suffering?

God gave us a brain, now you want God to think for you?

God has given us common sense. Believe it or not if we use it we avoid a lot of suffering, but the videos on “World’s Dumbest…” and “20 Most Shocking” and others all over YouTube show us how often we skip right over common sense to folly.

Yes, we can suffer because of folly.

Folly can be tied to a sin, but just as often may not be. It may be nothing more than plain stupidity. We have a lot of labels on products that state the obvious, such as "remove baby from stroller before folding", because someone did something stupid and suffered for it.

So let's look at another famous Bible character, this one in the Old Testament and he is pretty famous, especially his romance, but boy he could have used more discipline to avoid folly. Unfortunately he didn’t act very prudently at times and his suffering was very harsh indeed.

Do you all get this was Samson?

Samson is one of the heroes of the Bible. He is probably the best known of the Judges of Israel. He was given the gift of supernatural strength. He may have had big biceps, but his brain wasn't the biggest bulge of his body. He actually liked to play mind games, but he couldn't keep his mouth shut about his cleverness and he couldn't keep secrets if a pretty woman was involved. He was strong physically, but he was weak in his morals.

One day Samson killed a lion. A bit later he saw the carcass of the beast with bees and honey in it and he ate some of the honey. (I'm not big on eating something out of a dead animal, which strikes me as a bit of folly in itself, but maybe people were less fussy back then.) He came up with a riddle from this, "Out of the eater, something to eat; out of the strong, something sweet." He made a big bet with some fellows they couldn't guess the riddle's answer. And they couldn't and they wouldn't. Samson's wife, however, begged him for a week to tell her the answer and when he told her, she told them, and he lost his bet, and eventually lost his wife. (See Judges 14 – 15:1-6).

Samson didn’t seem to learn any lessons from this; he just couldn’t seem to resist women.

In Judges 16:1-3, he follows a prostitute in Gaza and became surrounded by Philistines. His strength saved him from this situation his lust had placed him in, but he still didn’t learn that he was relying on his God given power wrongly in the folly of his behavior.

This folly was a pattern that repeated itself and led to great suffering for Samson. He later met another pretty woman, not his wife by the way, named Delilah (Judges 16 4-22) and she asked him to tell her why he was so strong. Now to show you how dimwitted Samson was and why this was folly, she didn't stop there. She added to her question: "Tell me the secret of your great strength and how you can be tied up and subdued."

Do you think he might have thought that last part through?

He decided to have some fun with her and told her a lie about seven thongs that haven't been dried. So she tied him with seven such thongs as he slept, then let in a bunch of thugs who tried to subdue him.

They failed.

You'd think he had the picture by now, but then she asked again and he lied again about rope and she tied him with rope as he slept and thugs came again and they got dispatched again. And of course then he woke up to just what Delilah was doing.

No-o-o-o.

She asked again and he lied again about braiding his hair on a loom and she braided his hair as he
slept and thugs came again and they got dispatched again. Well, three times is the charm it is said, so naturally this time the light bulb went on in Samson's head, right?

No-o-o-o.

Then she said to him, "How can you say, 'I love you,' when you won't confide in me? This is the third time you have made a fool of me and haven't told me the secret of your great strength."

With such nagging she prodded him day after day until he was tired to death. So he told her everything.

"No razor has ever been used on my head," he said, "because I have been a Nazirite set apart to God since birth. If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me, and I would become as weak as any other man."

When Delilah saw that he had told her everything, she sent word to the rulers of the Philistines, "Come back once more; he has told me everything."

So the rulers of the Philistines returned with silver in their hands. Having put him to sleep on her lap, she called a man to shave off the seven braids of his hair, and so began to subdue him. And his strength left him. Then she called, "Samson, the Philistines are upon you!" He awoke from his sleep and thought, "I'll go out as before and shake myself free." But he did not know that the LORD had left him. Then the Philistines seized him, gouged out his eyes and took him down to Gaza. Binding him with bronze shackles, they set him to grinding in the prison. (Judges 16: 15-21)

Samson was often a fool for pretty women. Delilah wasn't his first dalliance, but it was his last. His commitments of adultery were sins, but he suffered his fate through folly.

Folly may not be so obviously a sin as Samson committed. Folly can be simply ignoring what is best for us in pursuing our pleasures. It may not be a sin to go Base Jumping off a high building or a cliff, but if the jumper one day goes splat they will list the cause of death as “death by misadventure” or folly.

If one does a wheelie on a motorcycle, flips over and breaks their back, they will suffer from an act of folly and do we blame God?

When I go walking up in Brandywine Creek State Park, on narrow high paths, sometimes on mud or

snow, with no cell phone and having not told anyone where I was going to walk that day, I am indulging in folly. Should it be God’s responsibility to see that I don’t fall down a ravine?

Okay, for next time I am suggesting a couple more Bible Characters, but you don’t have to guess.

One is named Saul, not the Saul who became Paul, but the Old Testament King Saul and the other is the Paul, who was once called Saul, the New Testament Apostle Paul. Take a look at something in these men’s lives that points to another reason we may suffer.

References: Judges 14, Judges 15:1-6, Judges 16:1-22

NEXT TIME: FULL BARNS

More what Scripture says about our suffering:

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Jeremiah 29:11

Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. James 1:12

I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. Yet it was kind of you to share my trouble. Philippians 4:12-14

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:35-39

For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. Hebrews 10:36

ILLUSTRATIONS:

Picture of a jar of Lion Kashmir Honey

"Samson Carries the gates of Gaza " by Henri Paul Motte, 1908

“Samson and Delilah” by Matthias Stom, 1630s.

The author walking the trails, 2014

JESUS, MOSES AND PETER, TOO: Part IX of Why Not? - a Perspective on Suffering

2015-09-28T15:26:00.004-04:00

There is one infinite reference point and this is God.

If we have that vertical relationship with God, then we not only have our conscience whispering in our ear, we have a standard, God’s Word, to guide our morality. In this world, even when we follow that standard, we still have suffering we must endure, but we are upheld by our hope in God’s promises.

However, if we turn from God, disbelieve in Him, then we still have sufferings to endure, but no hope.

When we choose to ignore God’s will in our life we sin and sin can bring suffering by the mere act or can bring punishment for our actions. We may also suffer from discipline, used by a loving God to direct us back to the proper path or to strengthen us for the endurance we will need in this life. So reasons we suffer include sin, punishment and discipline.

Before we look at another reason, let’s think about the Israelites wandering for all those years in the wilderness and what their journey might tell us about our own journey in these times.

What is similar between our own plight before we were Christians and that of the Hebrews before they left Egypt?

Bondage to Egypt; bondage to sin. (Exodus 6:6) (John 8:34)

The Passover, of course, points toward Christ. What similarities do we see between Moses and Jesus? (Acts 7:35) (Luke 1:68) (Colossians 1:13-14)

See the list at the end of this post.

How might we compare the Israelites to ourselves once they have crossed the Red Sea that may indicate how our lives will be?

We still want more. We get what we need and are quickly complaining it isn’t enough. Manna, meat, water, law.

What could we face that might be fearful to us if we aren’t strong in our faith?

Like the Israelites, although we probably hate to admit it, we sometimes forget what God has promised and we try to take matters in our own hands, or complain about conditions or fear others because they are bigger or smarter, or so we think. Other times we jump in with both feet without fully thinking things through. Often we fail.

Last time I suggested finding a specific Bible character of import in the Bible who failed more than once, was disciplined more than once as well, and yet we certainly look toward him today as a rock of our faith. Anyone come up with the fellow?

Simon Peter, the Apostle.

Name some things where he kind of failed.

Luke 5:1-9 Reaction to the great catch of fish.
Matthew 14:22-31 Jesus walks on water and Peter tries, but loses faith.
Matthew 16:13-23 Peter’s recognition of Jesus as Son of God, followed by his rebuking Jesus claim that he would die.
John 13:3-9 Peter refusing to have his feet washed by Jesus at first.
John 18: 1-11 Jesus draws a sword at the arrest of Jesus.

We have a man who swore his allegiance to his leader, insisted he will never betray or desert him. His leader tells him he certainly will do just those things and that very day. The man dismisses such a thought; he is a strong man and a man of his word. But then his leader is arrested and come morning the man denies he even knew his leader. He tries to hide who he is, but then he sees his leader, who gives him a knowing look. The man is shattered inside

Then they seized him and led him away, bringing him into the high priest's house, and Peter was

following at a distance. And when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat down among them. Then a servant girl, seeing him as he sat in the light and looking closely at him, said, “This man also was with him.” But he denied it, saying, “Woman, I do not know him.” And a little later someone else saw him and said, “You also are one of them.” But Peter said, “Man, I am not.” And after an interval of about an hour still another insisted, saying, “Certainly this man also was with him, for he too is a Galilean.” But Peter said, “Man, I do not know what you are talking about.” And immediately, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed. And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the saying of the Lord, how he had said to him, “Before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly. (Luke 22:54-62)

This wasn't the first time Simon Peter failed and was rebuked. He needed a lot of guidance in his discipleship. This was probably the time he finally accepted what he was, a weak and vacillating man, often impulsive, but more bluster than conviction.

Was he perfect after that or were there other miscues?

John 21: 15-23 Feed my sheep and question about the fate of John.
Acts 10:9-23 also Acts 11:1-18 The vision of various food and told to eat, followed by the gentile Cornelius family being Baptized.
Galatians 2:11-14 Paul confronts Peter’s hypocrisy.

The Apostles who followed Jesus were not perfect, were they? I think we can find some comfort in knowing the vacillations of Peter, because we are also often vacillators in our walk with Jesus, too, but this tells us we can learn and overcome our weaknesses of faith, if we just keep our eyes on the Lord. We also have to remember we can be prone toward denying we know him or we can be hypocritical if we let the world prevail too often in our lives.

This is why we sometimes need and suffer from discipline.

So, we have talked about three reasons we suffer so far. We sin and suffer mentally and emotionally because of conscience or fear, even if we escape detection. We sin, are detected and suffer some form of punishment inflicted upon us either as retribution or discouragement to repeat our deed. We suffer in some way that guides us toward being a better person or to protect us from a worse harm and worse suffering. 

The first comes directly from sin, the second is the result of sin if it is not a result of an injustice against the one punished, but in that case it is the result of the sin of another. The third may or may not involve sin, but most likely does protect us from committing one. There is a riddle, for you.

NEXT TIME: RIDDLE ME THIS

References: Exodus 6:6, John 8:34, Acts 7:35, Luke 1:68, Colossians 1:13-14, Luke 5:1-9, Matthew 14:22-31, Matthew 16:13-23, John 13:3-9, John 18:1-11, Luke 22:54-62, John 21:15-23, Acts 10:9-23, Galatians 2:11-14

SOME COMPARISONS OF MOSES TO JESUS

MOSES JESUS
The first mediator The final mediator
Born a Hebrew Born a Hebrew
Chosen to lead by God Chosen to lead by god
Born when his people suffered Born when his people suffered
under a cruel leader (Pharaoh) under a cruel leader (Herod)

Hid in Egypt as a child Hid in Egypt as a child
Leader ordered all babies killed Leader ordered all babies killed
Turned water into blood Turned water into wine
Died on a hill Died on a hill
Fasted 40 days, then faced a spiritual Fasted 40 days, then faced a spiritual
crisis on a mountain crisis on a mountain

Told people of the Passover Lamb Became the Passover lamb

Communicated directly with God Communicated directly with God
Performed miracles Performed miracles
Revised an existing religion Revised an existing religion
Gave the Ten Commandments Gave the Great Commandment
Hated by the ruling party Hated by the ruling Party
Brothers and sisters misunderstood him Brothers and sisters misunderstood him
Chose 12 leaders to follow Choose 12 leaders to follow
Had followers who strayed from his Had followers who strayed from his teaching teaching
Lead figure in Old Testament Lead figure in New Testament
Taught his followers how to pray Taught his followers how to pray
Choose people to carry on when he Choose people to carry on when he was leaving was leaving
Led his people to the promised Leads his people to the promised land land
People picked up stones to stone him People picked up stones to stone him
Controlled the waters of the Red Sea Controlled the Sea of Galilee
Face shown on Mount Sinai Face shown at the Transfiguration
Was a Shepherd Is the Good Shepard
Fed thousands supernaturally with
bread (manna) Fed thousands supernaturally with bread
Showed compassion to a woman at a Showed compassion to a woman at a well
well
Mission was to redeem Israel from Mission was to redeem people from slavery to
slavery to Egypt sin
Loved and supported by his sister Loved and supported by his mother
Miriam (Miryam in Hebrew) Mary (Miryam in hebrew)
Gave God’s law on a mountain Gave a new law on the Mount
Offered his life for the salvation Offered his life for the salvation of
of his people all people
Washed Aaron and his sons with water Washed the feet of the disciples

Illustrations:

1. Could not identify the artist or date.

2. "Peter's Denial" by Carl Bloch, 1865-79

...NOR BE WEARY: Part VIII of Why Not? - a Perspective on Suffering

2015-09-22T21:50:00.002-04:00

A man builds his house on sand. A storm comes with heavy rain and high winds and the house crashes down. (See Matthew 7:24-27) The man has suffered the lost of his house, perhaps the loss of a family member. He also learns a lesson to build his next house on a solid foundation. Out of some suffering comes discipline. If we are willing to recognize it as such, there can then come growth.

But often we refuse to recognize discipline, don’t we? We go our merry way and we get smacked upside the head for it, but instead of changing our ways, we ignore the discipline over and over again. And the smacks get harder trying to knock some sense into us.

Remember that little boy who stole the coins from his mom’s purse. He had a bad case of conscience and threw away the money and worried each day that he would be punished further. He wasn’t and a

few years later he was stealing again, this time shoplifting “girlie” magazines from a store. This time he wasn’t conscience stricken. But it was their fault he had to steal, because they wouldn’t sell to him; he was too young for such thing. He rationalized his guilt away in order to gain his end desires, but he did get caught this time and he was publicly humiliated, but no further punishment came. He stopped stealing out of fear of being caught again, but he didn’t stop pursuing his lust.

I will tell you that one day someone saw him engaging in something bad and he was called from class at school and confronted by the police, who threatened him with reform school. He was scared again, tossing in his bed at night again, waiting for his parents to come and punish him again and expecting to go to jail. But none of that happened. He felt guilty and fearful for a while, but them he was drawn right back after his lusts because nothing really bad happened to him. He was just more careful when he did bad things now.

Yeah, sometimes we need a lot of discipline.

So, look at your life and think hard about what is happening when you have to suffer in some way. It may not be some obvious sin you committed and it may not be punishment, it may simply be a nudge in another direction, something strengthening you through discipline.

When we read Genesis 37:12-28 we find a teenager named Joseph out looking for his brothers. They see him before he sees them and what happens? They pounce upon him, planning to kill him, but Reuben says, “Wait a minute, let’s not be hasty here”, so they strip him and toss him in a pit. Next thing you know they sell him as a slave to some Ismaelites and Joseph heads down a long road of suffering, doesn’t he?

Now there was a reason for Joseph’s suffering that we won’t get to for a couple weeks, but sometimes our suffering has more than one reason behind it.

Let’s back up a little and read Genesis 37:2-11. Maybe there is something there that tells so not only how his brothers could have rationalized their actions, but something else as well.

These are the generations of Jacob.

Joseph, being seventeen years old, was pasturing the flock with his brothers. He was a boy with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father's wives. And Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father. Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his sons, because he was the son of his old age. And he made him a robe of many colors] But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peacefully to him.

Now Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers they hated him even more. He said to them, “Hear this dream that I have dreamed: Behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and behold, my sheaf arose and stood upright. And behold, your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheaf.” His brothers said to him, “Are you indeed to reign over us? Or are you indeed to rule over us?” So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words.

Then he dreamed another dream and told it to his brothers and said, “Behold, I have dreamed another dream. Behold, the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” But when he told it to his father and to his brothers, his father rebuked him and said to him, “What is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow ourselves to the ground before you?” And his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the saying in mind.

Did you ever stop and think that Joseph might have been a little bit spoiled? Perhaps something of a brat? Someone with a haughty attitude and little full of himself at times? Certainy a bit immature. Maybe Joseph needed a bit of discipline in his life that he wasn’t getting at home. Just sayin’.

What about that kid that stole from his mother’s purse and the newsstand and did other things that got

the police’s attention? Did he get enough discipline? He didn’t get spanked for stealing by his parents. He didn’t get magazines put in an uncomfortable place as threatened by the news dealer. He didn’t actually get put in reform school. No, he went through some periods of doubt, shame, guilt and fear, but these faded over time and by the time he was in his late twenties he was deep into occultism and Satanism, as well as Adult Bookstores.

Then one week he got very sick. He had never felt so ill before. He really thought he was going to die. He was frightened enough to pray, not to Satan, but to God. He shouldn't have gotten through because he had torn down those communication lines years before, but when he opened his eyes there was a cross on the wall. Not a physical cross, just an image of one. At that moment his fever broke and he got well rapidly. He assumed the cross was a trick of light through the window blind, but had never seen it do that before. He looked for that cross to appear again for several nights in a row after getting well. It never did. It was a guidepost that came in the midst of his suffering and he should have recognized that, but after a while he put the cross on the wall out of mind and continued his hedonistic ways. In fact, he even became an Atheist, an activist Atheist.

On the positive side, Atheists don’t believe in the Devil either, so he threw away his satanic bible, but

on the negative he turned to pure pleasure seeking. He needed a stronger dose of discipline to get his full attention. It took another decade before he got it and it came with a high cost.

Oh, did somebody notice we didn’t say how discipline fit those Hebrews wandering about in the wilderness for another 38 years, did we?

Well, by now you should know that besides punishment of those adults that wouldn’t cross over to Canaan the first time and now never would, the other thing must be discipline. Discipline for who and for what?

So think about your life and the times discipline may have played a part in your suffering or even now is that what is occurring?

We can fail more than one time, but receiving discipline may straighten us out. There is someone of import in the Bible who failed more than once, was disciplined more than once as well, and yet we certainly look toward him today as a rock of our faith. He is in the New Testament, which may make it easier for you to guess who he is before my next post, no denying that.

There is also one to judge in the Old Testament and he is pretty famous, especially his romance, but boy did he need discipline. Unfortunately he didn’t act very prudently at times and his suffering was very harsh indeed. But beyond his fate, his deeds are a clue to the next reason we may suffer.

NEXT TIME: JESUS, MOSES AND PETER, TOO

References: Matthew 7:24-27, Genesis 37:1-28,

More what Scripture says about our suffering:

For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Hebrews 12:11

For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. Hebrews 12:10

For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning. Psalm 30:5

And if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.Romans 8:17-18

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. James 1:2-4

ILLUSTRATIONS:

1. Fallen House on Ortley Beach, NJ after Hurricane Sandy by L. E. Meredith, 2012

2. The Author at age 13, photo by Ronald Tipton, 1954

3. "Joseph Thrown Into a Pit" by David Colyn, 1644

4. The Author at age 33, self-portrait by L. E. Meredith, 1974

5. Cover of the The Santanic Bible, photo by L. E. Meredith, 1969

DO NOT REGARD LIGHTLY...: Part VII of Why Not? - a Perspective on Suffering

2015-09-20T21:53:00.002-04:00

Sin brings its own immediate suffering of guilt, fear and shame, which we call conscience. But sin also causes suffering for others. Cain sinned by killing his brother. Abel suffered a short period of pain before he suffered death. Adam and Eve suffered the consequence of losing their sons, one to death and the other to banishment, plus the agony of one child harming another. Then man grew immune to conscience and built up defenses to justify sin. Conscience didn't constrain Cain nor did it make him regretful after the deed.

Then the LORD said to Cain, "Where is your brother Abel?"

"I don't know," he replied. "Am I my brother's keeper?" Genesis 4:9

Punishment was needed and punishment entails suffering. Cain was driven away from his home and family to become a wanderer (what the Land of Nod means) and he suffered a life of instability.

Sometimes the punishment was swift and fatal, such as it was for Ananias and Sapphira. Punishment may be a discouragement to others not to commit like sins. It may dissuade the sinner from repeating what they did. Or it may simply put an end to the person's ability to commit a sin through death or imprisonment. Punishment may be an end in itself, but sometimes something else may be in play.
I gave you this passage from Numbers 14:20-38 last time. I will tell you that it added around 38 years of additional suffering to the lives of the Israelites.

Then the Lord said, “I have pardoned, according to your word. But truly, as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord, none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have put me to the test these ten times and have not obeyed my voice, shall see the land that I swore to give to their fathers. And none of those who despised me shall see it. But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me fully, I will bring into the land into which he went, and his descendants shall possess it. Now, since the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwell in the valleys, turn tomorrow and set out for the wilderness by the way to the Red Sea.”

And the Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, “How long shall this wicked congregation grumble against me? I have heard the grumblings of the people of Israel, which they grumble against me. Say to them, ‘As I live, declares the Lord, what you have said in my hearing I will do to you: your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness, and of all your number, listed in the census from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me, not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. But your little ones, who you said would become a prey, I will bring in, and they shall know the land that you have rejected. But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness. And your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years and shall suffer for your faithlessness, until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness. According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, a year for each day, you shall bear your iniquity forty years, and you shall know my displeasure.’ I, the Lord, have spoken. Surely this will I do to all this wicked congregation who are gathered together against me: in this wilderness they shall come to a full end, and there they shall die.”

And the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, who returned and made all the congregation grumble against him by bringing up a bad report about the land— the men who brought up a bad report of the land—died by plague before the Lord. Of those men who went to spy out the land, only Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh remained alive.

We hear about the Jews wandering through the wilderness for 40 years, but what is so often glossed over is they could have entered “The promised land” a lot sooner, 38 years sooner, if they hadn’t disobeyed God and brought punishment upon themselves.

Now, did you figure out what the companion to this punishment was; this other thing that also caused suffering over those 38 years?

Will this help?

When my three children were still very young, we began taking them out to restaurants. Most of the

time we took them to a place just east of West Chester called The Ground Round. It doesn’t exist anymore. It was ‘kid friendly” and it was pretty friendly to my wallet as well because they charged a penny a pound for children under 12; so if my child weighted 50 pounds, they got a meal for fifty cents. Obviously this made it a place crowded with families with young children and it tended to be noisy. This was fine with us because if one of ours did act up with all the other distractions no one would be bothered. And there were distractions because in the back was an alcove of arcade games and there were kids wandering about or yelling or standing up in the booths and generally misbehaving.

But not our three, because even though others were allowed to behave in ways you were not supposed to in a restaurant, ours were not allowed to wander around or go play those games. We were employing something so that eventually we could take our children to nice eateries and they would know how to behave. I’m sure sometimes they suffered from our restrictions.

We also made them eat their vegetables, even though sometimes they had to sit at the table for a long time staring at green beans or some other dreaded vegetable. I’m certain that caused them some suffering. (It certainly did Lois and I waiting for them to finish.)

So what is this other reason for suffering we are addressing?

Discipline your son, and he will give you rest; he will give delight to your heart. Proverbs 29:17

Sometimes we suffer discipline for our own good.

“And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?

“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.”

"It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it." Hebrews 12:5-11

Suffering from discipline can be minor or great. It may be mild, such as being forced to eat your vegetables as a child, even if you sat at the table for a long time missing your favorite TV show.

It could be much more dramatic.

The word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai: "Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me." But Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the LORD. Then the LORD sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship. But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. The captain went to him and said, "How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us, and we will not perish." Then the sailors said to each other, "Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity." They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. So they asked him, "Tell us, who is responsible for making all this trouble for us? What do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?"

He answered, "I am a Hebrew and I worship the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land." This terrified them and they asked, "What have you done?" (They knew he was running away from the LORD, because he had already told them so.) The sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him, "What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?" "Pick me up and throw me into the sea," he replied, "and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you." Jonah 1:1-12

Then it gets worse for Jonah. He is eventually tossed into the sea and swallowed by a fish (not a whale). Seems he needed a lot of discipline to get him to do what he should have done in the first place.

Discipline doesn't always entail suffering, but sometimes it does. Good parents guide their children. It may be by example. It might be by explanation. Sometimes it is by inflicting suffering. The child is denied a favorite desert for not eating the vegetables. The child is guided to eat a proper diet. There is mild suffering from a mild punishment, but maybe next time the child eats some of those beans.

Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6

References: Genesis 4, Acts 5:1-11 Numbers 14:20-38, Proverbs 29:17, Hebrews 12:5-11, Jonah 1:1-17, Jonah 2:1-10, Proverbs 22:6

NEXT TIME: NOR BE WEARY

Illustrations:

1. "Moses and the Messengers from Canaan" by Giovanni Lanfranco. 1621-24

2. My three children in 1987.

3. "After Eden: A School of One Fish" by Dan Lietha, 2003 AIG

DEGREES: Part VI of Why Not? - a Perspective on Suffering

2015-09-16T14:38:00.001-04:00

There are degrees of punishment. Some are mild, yet suffice to end bad behavior.

When I was around 13 or 14 I noticed there was something different between boys and girls. I really didn't know exactly what this was, but I knew when girls were around my body felt different and the feeling was both pleasurable and anxious. I was very curious about this and though it had something to do with the way girls’ bodies were changing. They didn’t look like just a boy with long hair anymore.

Down at the local newsstand they sold all kinds of magazines. One section of the magazine racks said no one under twenty-one could buy the items on display. These items were known as "girlie" magazines. I knew what was in them, the secrets I was curious about. I wanted to see these secrets, but was far from being 21. I really wanted to buy the things, but being barred from that opportunity, I began stuffing two or three inside my shirt. This is called stealing.

I shoplifted for quite a while and it was their fault I had to steal. I rationalized I was just trying to satisfy my natural curiosity and would gladly pay for the magazines, but they wouldn’t let me.

Actually, I wasn’t accomplishing anything except more frustration. Most of the women in these magazines were wearing bathing suits or some other brief costume (this was the early 'fifties remember and Playboy wasn't even around yet). Occasionally a model posed in the buff, but the "dirty bits" as Monty Python called them, were somehow always hidden behind a potted plant or fence post or vase or some other oddly placed object. Still I pursued the secret, stealing more, stuffing perhaps four magazines in my shirt at a time.

Then Mr. Charles, who owned the newsstand, caught me. Oh man, right there in public in front of everybody he told me where he was going to put those magazines if he ever caught me stealing again. It was not a place anyone would want a magazine put. I never stole anything after that. It was the end of my criminal career. It only took a punishment of public humiliation and a threat that certainly would not have been carried out literally, but still it was enough to stop my stealing. (I am not counting the cars my friend Richard and I "borrowed" for joyrides a couple years later That'll be our little secret for now.)

Of course, punishment doesn't always deter, (as I said, the cars we "borrowed...) and then a harsher punishment is needed to end such behavior.

Although Mr. Charles' actions stopped me from any future shoplifting, they did not end my lustful desires for those magazines. Not too many years later I found another source for that sin, but that’s a tale for another time.

We find this term throughout the Bible. “Remove this evil from among you.” ( Deuteronomy 13:5; 17:7; 17:12; 19:19; 21:21; 22:21-24; 23:9; 24:7) Often the removal involved the execution of the guilty party. Why? It is because “a little leaven leavens the whole lump” as Paul puts it in Galatians 5:9.

Other punishments are harsh, but not fatal. Adam and Eve were banished from the garden and Cain spend the rest of his life as an outcast and wanderer.

If the punishment is coming from God, then it is just and will fit the crime or the nature of the person being punished. If punishment is being doled out by our fellow man it is not always perfect. Sometimes it is very unfair and even cruel, even illegal. But we must remember sin begets sin. The blame for such injustice should not be aimed at God, because it is the result of the free will we have to reject the will of God. Unjust men reject the guidelines of God through their free will for their own gain and purpose.

Although we all recognize there is much injustice in our world, we also recognize that punishments are often deserved. When our child does something against our will, we punish them in some way, whether this is grounding them, spanking them or taking away a privilege. It is very hard to punish our children, but we would be wrong if we neglected to do it when they stray. It is truly for their own good. In the same way, God would be neglectful if he didn't punish us for our sins. And punishment must involve suffering. We would simply ignore punishment that caused us no pain. In fact, we all measure our committing a "crime" against the possible punishment. If we feel we can bear the suffering more than we can bear not doing what we wish, we will do what we wish.

Most sins cause suffering for others. We have plenty of people committing sins that we suffer for, but how much worse would be the suffering we would be subjected to if there were no punishment inflicting suffering on those who commit such sins? How many sins might we commit ourselves if not for the swords of punishment dangling over our heads? When I hear people say, “Well, they’ll do it anyway”, I cringe. Yes, some will do it anyway, but many will not because the consequences outweigh the desire.

We all need punishment now and again. It always comes as suffering, but if we take heed to its purpose it will work for our betterment.

However, like Ananias and Sapphira, sometimes punishment is harsher and very final. To our human mind some suffering can't be fully understood. It appears extreme and unfair to us, but we don't have the full picture that God sees. Someday we may learn the why of such punishment. In the meantime, we can only accept that punishment is a necessity resulting from our free will to choose sin over God. We must also recognize that all suffering isn't punishment.

There is another reason for suffering somewhat akin to punishment. In some Bible passages we can see it and punishment working side by side. Here is what you should read, Numbers 14:20-38, and decide what was punishment and what was this other thing.

Then the Lord said, “I have pardoned, according to your word. But truly, as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord, none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have put me to the test these ten times and have not obeyed my voice, shall see the land that I swore to give to their fathers. And none of those who despised me shall see it. But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me fully, I will bring into the land into which he went, and his descendants shall possess it. Now, since the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwell in the valleys, turn tomorrow and set out for the wilderness by the way to the Red Sea.”

And the Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, “How long shall this wicked congregation grumble against me? I have heard the grumblings of the people of Israel, which they grumble against me. Say to them, ‘As I live, declares the Lord, what you have said in my hearing I will do to you: your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness, and of all your number, listed in the census from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me, not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. But your little ones, who you said would become a prey, I will bring in, and they shall know the land that you have rejected. But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness. And your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years and shall suffer for your faithlessness, until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness. According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, a year for each day, you shall bear your iniquity forty years, and you shall know my displeasure.’ I, the Lord, have spoken. Surely this will I do to all this wicked congregation who are gathered together against me: in this wilderness they shall come to a full end, and there they shall die.”

And the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, who returned and made all the congregation grumble against him by bringing up a bad report about the land— the men who brought up a bad report of the land—died by plague before the Lord. Of those men who went to spy out the land, only Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh remained alive.

There is punishment in these verses, but something else. What?

References: Deuteronomy 13:5; 17:7; 17:12; 19:19; 21:21; 22:21-24; 23:9; 24:7, Numbers 14:20-38

NEXT TIME: DO NOT REGARD LIGHTLY

More what Scripture says about our suffering:

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. 1 Peter 4:12

It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes. Psalm 119:71

As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful. James 5:10-11

In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him. Ecclesiastes 7:14

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7

YES, THAT IS THE PRICE: Part V of Why Not? - a Perspective on Suffering

2015-09-15T10:07:00.000-04:00

Did you ever try to squeeze the juice back into the orange? It is no easier doing that than finding a rhyme for the word orange. It is impossible. Once Adam and Eve let sin into this world, there was no getting it out through human effort. Humans just added to and compounded sin. There was suffering associated with sin itself, guilt, shame and fear.

And last time, when we wrote about how sin rippled out to cause suffering beyond just the

sinner, we didn’t even mention the animals. They suffered from Adam and Eve’s sin as well. When God sacrificed that first animal to provide covering for Adam and Eve how do you think they felt?  

But if man felt suffering from just doing the deed, man also has a great capacity for rationalizing his guilt and shame. Thus even “moral reasoning” started with Adam and Eve. Adam tried to put it all on Eve and she tried to put it all on the serpent.

“Moral reasoning is a thinking process with the objective of determining whether an idea is right or wrong. To know whether something is "right" or "wrong" one must first know what that something is intended to accomplish.” When we have an infinite reference point, God and Scripture, we have an absolute standard that makes knowing right from wrong easier.

Most of the world today rejects God as the authority and so moral reasoning is not based on a standard of right and wrong, but on the subjective and the people’s desires and we end up with “situation ethics” – It is okay to have sex without marriage when all parties agree and the object is mutual pleasure. It does not matter if there are two, three, four or more parties involved; whether men and women or all the same gender, but it is okay because the desire is mutual pleasure. When you have no infinite reference point, then nothing is immoral.

But when the pregnancies result or the venereal diseases or the broken homes or the arrests because someone feels slighted and yells rape, then the suffering begins and whom do we blame then?

Do we blame God?

If people had accepted the infinite reference point they would have avoided such suffering.

Did you think about any suffering in your own life that was the result of sin? If it was your own sin, did you try and justify it in some way? Did you blame God or someone else for any consequences you suffered because of what you did?

Anyone come up with any Bible character that suffered consequences because of their sin?

How about Moses?

Numbers 20:2-12 Now there was no water for the congregation. And they assembled

themselves together against Moses and against Aaron. And the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Would that we had perished when our brothers perished before the Lord! Why have you brought the assembly of the Lord into this wilderness, that we should die here, both we and our cattle? And why have you made us come up out of Egypt to bring us to this evil place? It is no place for grain or figs or vines or pomegranates, and there is no water to drink.” Then Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly to the entrance of the tent of meeting and fell on their faces. And the glory of the Lord appeared to them, and the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Take the staff, and assemble the congregation, you and Aaron your brother, and tell the rock before their eyes to yield its water. So you shall bring water out of the rock for them and give drink to the congregation and their cattle.” And Moses took the staff from before the Lord, as he commanded him.

Then Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said to them, “Hear now, you rebels: shall we bring water for you out of this rock?” And Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock with his staff twice, and water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their livestock. And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not believe in me, to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.”

How about David?

2 Samuel 11:1-15 In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel. And they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.

It happened, late one afternoon, when David arose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king's house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful. And David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, “Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” So David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she had been purifying herself from her uncleanness.) Then she returned to her house. And the woman conceived, and she sent and told David, “I am pregnant.”

So David sent word to Joab, “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent Uriah to David. When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab was doing and how the people were doing and how the war was going. Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” And Uriah went out of the king's house, and there followed him a present from the king. But Uriah slept at the door of the king's house with all the servants of his lord, and did not go down to his house. When they told David, “Uriah did not go down to his house,” David said to Uriah, “Have you not come from a journey? Why did you not go down to your house?” Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah dwell in booths, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are camping in the open field. Shall I then go to my house, to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing.” Then David said to Uriah, “Remain here today also, and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. And David invited him, and he ate in his presence and drank, so that he made him drunk. And in the evening he went out to lie on his couch with the servants of his lord, but he did not go down to his house.

In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah. In the letter he wrote, “Set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from him, that he may be struck down, and die.”

Uriah, by the way, was one of David’s staunches allies, one of his Mighty Men. (1 Chronicles 11:41)

David certainly knew right from wrong, but still choose wrong. Conscience wasn't going to do the trick after a while. Jump ahead a few centuries and look at a married couple named Ananias and Sapphira. These were two early disciples of The Way. In those early days after the crucifixion, Christians depended on each other for survival. They often lived in communes and they did a lot of sharing of what they had. Members often sold property they owned and gave the cash to the community for support. It wasn't a forced thing, but a voluntary sacrifice for the common good. Ananias had some means and owned property. He sold some lots for the stated purpose of giving the proceeds to the church, but his wife and he decided to keep some of this money for themselves and only give a portion to the church.

When Ananias handed over the donation, Peter confronted him about it being only a portion of the proceeds, and Ananias immediately dropped dead. Three hours later Sapphira, his wife shows up and Peter asks, "Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?"

"Yes," she said, "that is the price."

Peter said to her, "How could you agree to test the Spirit of the Lord? Look! The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also."

Then she dropped dead. (Acts 5:1-11)

Considering these, as well as what happened to Adam and Eve and to Cain, can you figure out another reason we sometimes suffer?

Punishment.

Was this punishment because Ananias and Sapphira didn't give money to the church? No, it was their land and they could have sold it for the full value and that would have been fine. They could have sold it and given a portion to the church and kept the rest as well, except they had vowed to God to give all the proceeds to the church and when they held back a portion they were in essence stealing from God. They probably rationalized no one would ever know and everyone would think they gave the full amount. In other words, they expected to be credited by the others for their generosity. It is obvious they didn't suffer purely from their sin; they showed no shame, no guilt. Apparently no fear either. Ananias boldly went to Peter and handed over the funds and Sapphira came later with no apparent qualms and lied.

Yes, the punishment was pretty final. Sometimes punishments are abrupt and extreme, but these serve as warnings to others who might consider repeating such offences. It is also a reason why some Christians suffer, because they become not an honor to God, but a determent.

The warning given in 1 Corinthians 11:27-32 should be considered in all our behavior as Christians, not just Communion.

Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.

References: Genesis 3:21, Numbers 20:2-12, 2 Samuel 11:1-15, 1 Chronicles 11:41, Acts 5:1-11, 1 Corinthians 11:27-32

NEXT TIME: DEGREES

ILLUSTRATIONS:

"The Death of Ananias" by Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino), 1519

"The Rebuke of Adam and Eve" by Domenichino Zamvieri, 1626
“Moses Beholding the Promised Land” by Walter Rane, 1949

Once again, my disclaimer:

Keep in mine, this is my study, thus my interpretation and opinion of what Scripture says. You should study and confirm it for yourselves and not just take my word for anything. This is how you should approach the teachings of any man or woman, pray for guidance and enlightenment, read their references, study the text, confirm they are being true to The Word, ask questions and pray again.

WHEN DID SUFFERING START?: Part IV of Why Not? - a Perspective on Suffering

2015-09-12T15:16:00.001-04:00

As God created the heavens and the earth each completed phase was good. Each day prepared the way for the next. First an atmosphere and water, both conducive to life, were formed. Then came the dry land for the plants and vegetation to grow, which would be the food for the creatures that would follow. There was no killing, no bloodshed in these early times. Animals, including man, were vegetarians.

Adam and Eve had it made. There were no storms, not even a mild rain. There was a mist that arose in the night to provide moisture. The climate was mild enough these early people didn't even need clothing for protection, and there was no thought of lust, so they didn't need covering for modesty either.

They had a job to occupy their time so they would not be bored. They tended the garden and the animals. Food was plentiful and for the taking. They had each other to take pleasure in and enjoy. And they had a direct relationship with God. I don't know if they sometimes stumped a toe or cut themselves on a branch or fell and bruised a knee. I would imagine they might have, but God had probably provided protection from serious injury or cured them on the spot. I am certain they understood physical pain at some level. But pain in itself is not suffering, but a blessing, for it tells us when something is wrong and guides us in finding the problem. They were probably spared from the prolonged and sever pains we can experience today that turn into suffering.

One indication that pain existed was after they fell when God told Eve in Genesis 3:16, "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children." You can't greatly increase what doesn't exist. It sounds as if women would experience some pain or discomfort as their bodies changed to accommodate the growing baby, but did not experience the pain associated now with delivery, but after the fall that pain came as well. Although these added pains were a result of sinning, they were not the suffering of sin.

God had given Adam and Eve a paradise of pleasure and reasonable responsibility, food and companionship, comfort and joy. He also gave them one other thing, free will. Was this a flaw, a mistake? No, for without it man would have been nothing but a robotic toy and you cannot show love to anyone, even God, if you cannot also choose to withhold it. You cannot know love from another for the same reason. Adam and Eve seemingly had no limits and no need for sacrifice. Without limits and no alternatives to choose, free will is meaningless. Without some self-sacrifice, love is meaningless.

Without the free will to make a choice, there would be no sin. After all, what is sin? Sin is disobeying the will of God. Not being able to sin may sound great, but consider how you would feel about your child if they could only do what you allow as opposed to choosing to do what you wish?

Adam and Eve had only one item on the don't list. They choose to do it. At that moment, not just sin entered the world, but immediate suffering as well.

I don't mean being banished from the garden and what came along with that, I mean suffering caused directly as a result of sin. What happened? They ate the fruit and immediately realized they were naked.

Was this a sexual thing? No, this was shame and a feeling of vulnerability.

Next came fear, something new to their experience. They heard God and tried to hide. They didn't want to be accountable for what they choose to do. They were suffering mental anguish. They were suffering for the first time.

When I was a child, probably 9 or 10, I wanted something from the

Five 'n' Dime. I had no money of my own and it wasn't time for my quarter allowance, which wouldn't have been enough anyway. So I sneaked into my parent's room and stole a fistful of change from my mother's purse.

I set off downtown, anticipating getting the toy I desired, having chosen to steal from my mom to get it. By the time I reached the edge of the shopping area the money was slippery in my hand. My mind was in agony, warring between my greed and my guilt. As I passed a small side street, I turned and I flung the coins down that alley, turned and ran home in tears.

I had committed a sin and I was suffering. I felt bad for betraying my mother's trust and I feared her finding out. I guess She never did. I was never confronted, never punished, never brought to account by my parents. But I worried about it for a long time. Not just punishment, but that I was a bad person. I had trouble sleeping. I have never forgotten it, as you can see.

But why did I react that way?

It was this funny little thing called a conscience.

The conscience is really quite amazing, but what is it? I ask that with all seriousness, because scientists, psychologists and evolutionists can’t really tell us. It’s a problem for them, especially the evolutionists, since based on the Theory of Evolution it shouldn’t exist. You see, a very basic plank of evolution is survival of the individual and “only the fittest survive”. When you read or see films on evolution there is usually an example of a creature changing [evolving] because food has become scarse or to fool an enemy or due to a sudden change in the environment.

Take the cuttlefish, which evolutionists say developed the ability to change colors and patterns because it had little protection from its enemies. They also explain how many, many, many years, like a million or so, it takes for such changes to occur, not explaining why the creature doesn’t starve or be eaten by it’s enemy in the meantime. Nonetheless, the point is, there is no room in evolutionary theory for altruism or empathy or guilt; a conscience should not have developed.

Here is how it should be. If food was scarce and you were starving and I was starving and we came around a bend in the road and there was a

Happy meal sitting on the macadam ahead, what would happen? Well, if you were weaker from hunger than I was and needed food more, here is what would happen according to evolution. I’d grab that Happy meal and gobble it down because I had more strength and could beat you to it. I wouldn’t offer you so much as a French Fry either and I wouldn’t feel an ounce of regret. If there were two Happy meals in the road, same result.

There is no room in evolution for conscience. Evolutionists have worked hard to explain this, starting with the idea of “group selection”, which gave way to George C. Williams idea of “gene selection”, which Richard Dawkins expanded to the idea of the “selfish gene”.

This did not quite solve the problem and so W. D. Hamilton came up with “kin selection” and then David Sloan Wilson and Stephen Jay Gould tossed all that aside and proposed “levels selection”, proposing that evolution must have occurred on different levels with different species and it all gets a bit convoluted and confusing. But it wouldn’t include any one laying their life down for a friend.

I kind of follow Occam’s Razor, which states that the simplest explanation is most likely the correct one. What is the simplest explanation for conscience?

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” Genesis 2:15-17

Conscience began when Adam and Eve ate that fruit. It was not the Fruit of Doing Bad, the Fruit of Sin or the Fruit of Evil Deeds. It was the Fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. What is conscience, but the knowledge of what is good and what is bad.

So we suffer when we commit a sin because we know we committed a bad.

We do have an ability to rationalize our behavior when confronted by our conscience and this falls under the term “moral reasoning”.

But a sin committed isn’t in a vacuum. Sin is like a stone dropped in a still pond of water. It ripples and expands. Even if we think we got away with it, we really don’t. Truth will out, as an old saying goes and if that truth doesn’t come out in this world, it will at the judgment.

Sin also is responsible for the suffering of others. There were two brothers. One made the sacrifice God called for, the other didn’t and instead of reforming and doing the right thing, he built resentment against his brother to the point Cain killed Abel.

Who all suffered?

Abel obviously, he might have experienced physical pain, but he was also now dead.

Cain, who tried to lie himself out of it, suffered banishment and was cut off from God (Verse 14: “and from your face I shall be hidden” – like the psalmist of Psalm 88). Note the mercy of God, though, that He didn’t kill Cain and not only allowed him to live, but put a mark of protection on him so others wouldn’t harm him.

Adam and Eve suffered lose of both their children, one murdered and the other sent away.

This one sin devastated a family, but the suffering doesn’t stop there. Just as the sin of Adam and Eve affected all mankind afterward, so does Cain’s sin. Notice after Cain is punished we are given his genealogy in Genesis 4:17-24:

Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. When he built a city, he called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch. To Enoch was born Irad, and Irad fathered Mehujael, and Mehujael fathered Methushael, and Methushael fathered Lamech. And Lamech took two wives. The name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah. Adah bore Jabal; he was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. His brother's name was Jubal; he was the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe. Zillah also bore Tubal-cain; he was the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron. The sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah.

Lamech said to his wives:

“Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;
    you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say:
I have killed a man for wounding me,
    a young man for striking me.

If Cain's revenge is sevenfold,
    then Lamech's is seventy-sevenfold.”

His descendents are listed as accomplishing worldly success, “inhabiting tents and purchased possessions”, “father of every one handling harp and organ”, “instructor of every artificer in brass and iron”, the beginning of business, industry, music. And then another sin, Lamech becomes a bigamist, and then a murderer.

I’m not saying starting a business or playing music, etc. are sins in themselves, but I think it is important that we are shown Cain’s descendents were worldly, not Godly. I think this is emphasized when Seth (the son Eve had after Abel) fathered a son named Enos and it says, “then a beginning was made of preaching in the name of Jehovah.” Genesis 4:26 (YLT)

Now what I am about to say is my interpretation. Others have different viewpoints, but I think these passages in Genesis 4, 5 and 6 have a logical progression. In Genesis 5, we are given the descendents of Adam and Eve through Seth up to the birth of Noah.

Then abruptly, in Verse 6:1 we are told “When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose…”and skipping down to verse 4 we read, “The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them...” and in verse 5, “the Lord saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth…”

Some think this is talking about the fallen angels, whom went into the daughters. The Nephilim is sometimes translated as giants, but in the literal translation this reads, “The fallen ones were in the earth in those days.” Yes, this could refer to the demons being on earth, but the sentence goes on to say, “And afterwards” [after these Nephilim], “when the sons of God came into the daughters of men.” This sounds as if the fallen angels could have been enticing the Sons of God to sin, not that they were the ones engaging with the daughters of men. I believe the sons of men, the Mighty Ones of old, the men of renown, were the descendents of Cain and the daughters of the sons of God were the descendents of Seth and now the whole world became corrupted because of sin of Cain.

[A bit more on the idea that fallen angels had offspring by these daughters of men. First, the Angels are not presented as creatures that reproduce through sex nor have sex. Jesus tells his questioners the risen in Heaven will be like the Angels, neither male or female (Matthew 22:30). Some then point to Job where it says in Chapter 1:6 (as well as similarly in Job 2:1 and also Job 38:7) “Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them,” claiming the Angels were referred to here as sons of God. However, if we look at the literal translation of the verse, it reads: “And the day is, that sons of God come in to station themselves by Jehovah, and there doth come also the Adversary in their midst.” This does not indicate that Satan was considered as one of the sons of God, but as an opponent.

Still, are the sons of God Angels?

Yes and no.

Who are the sons of God? They are those who put their faith in God. John 1:12-13, “but as many as did receive him to them he gave authority to become sons of God -- to those believing in his name, who -- not of blood nor of a will of flesh, nor of a will of man but -- of God were begotten.” Or Romans 8:14: “For as many as are led by the spirit of God, these are the sons of God.” Or Galatians 2:26, “For ye are all sons of God through the faith in Christ Jesus.” There are other verses as well, so how could Satan or the Fallen Angels be called the sons of God? The Angels who stayed faithful and the humans who put their faith in God are sons of God. The humans who put their faith in themselves are the sons of Man, which here I believe are the sons of Cain. Notice after describing the descendents of Cain inventing worldly pursuits, Scripture in describing the offspring of Seth states, “then a beginning was made of preaching in the name of Jehovah. Or in the ESV, ”At that time people began to call upon the name of the Lord.”

Anyway, one of the greatest reasons for suffering in this world is sin.

So think about your own life and about how some of your suffering might have resulted from your sins…or even from the sins of others. If a person should hit me over the head and steal my wallet (hardly worth the effort) I, though innocent, would still suffer because of sin.

Also, think about what happened to Adam and Eve and to Cain, which might hint of another reason we suffer that we will deal with next.

And if you guess, think about some Bible characters that may have suffered for that reason.

References: Genesis Chapters 1 through 6, Matthew 22:30, Job 1:6, Job 2:1, Job 38:7, John1:12-13, Romans 8:14, Galatians 2:26.

Also Martha Stout, PH.D, The Sociopath Next Door , Chapter 9 – “The Origins of Conscience”, MJF Books, New York 2005 for the scientists and evolutions views on Conscience.

Next time, “Yes, That Is the Price.” What could that mean?

BECAUSE YOU HAVE DONE THIS: Part III of Why Not? - a Perspe

2015-09-11T14:48:00.001-04:00

We established there is an infinite reference point that we should measure everything against.

What is it?

God.

But it’s more than just having God as a guide; it is love of God that is the purpose of life. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Deuteronomy 6:5, Matthew 22:37-39, Mark 12:30-31, Luke 10:27)

We also said that everyone suffers in this world, the good and the bad, but those who dismiss God from their lives because of bad happenings are left with nothing but the suffering and no hope.

"But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust." (Matthew 5:44-45)

But as to we who believe: “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” Romans 8:18

Now let's deal with the reasons for suffering.

In my prior posting I suggested this assignment, find a major Bible character who didn't suffer.

Pretty difficult to find any, isn’t it, especially among some of the most devout and heroic followers of God. Maybe that should tell us something and we will talk about that as we go through these sessions.

I can think of a couple possibilities.

There is the Israel Judge, Gideon, but he did do some things that he may have come to regret, such as making an ephod out of the earrings of the

Ishmaelites and displaying it in his city. We are told in Judges 8:27 that “All Israel whored after it and it became a snare to Gideon and his family.” I’m sure Gideon suffered some troubles we just don’t know what because of that.

Although an ephod is usually thought of as a sleeveless over garment for a priest, it also can be an object to be revered; in other words, Gideon made himself an idol and Israel ended up worshiping this idol and falling from grace with God once more.

The other one who comes to my mind is Enoch. Enoch was Noah’s great grandfather and

had a short life on Earth compared to those other early patriarchs, especially Enoch’s son Methuselah, who lived to be 969 years.

Genesis 5:23 says, “And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years.”

There are three words missing from this statement about Enoch’s age that appear in all the other of the begat statements, these are –“And he died.”

Verse 24 tells us, “And Enoch walked with God, and he was not; for God took him.” Enoch did not die. Hebrews 11:5 informs us, “By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God.”

Perhaps, if the Lord comes soon, we’ll be taken like Enoch, but for now we are left here in a world full of suffering and testing. That is something else I believe is part of the purpose of life, a testing. The people in the Bible went through a lot of testing, didn’t they? Why should we expect any less?

But concerning our testing here is God’s promise:

No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. 1 Corinthians 10:13

In light of that passage, what is going on with the psalmist of Psalm 88? If he is being tested, why can’t he find escape?

1 O Lord, God of my salvation;

I cry out day and night before you.

Let my prayer come before you;

incline your ear to my cry!

For my soul is full of troubles,

and my life draws near to Sheol.

I am counted among those who go down to the pit;

I am a man who has no strength,

like one set loose among the dead,

like the slain that lie in the grave,

like those whom you remember no more,

for they are cut off from your hand.

You have put me in the depths of the pit,

in the regions dark and deep.

Your wrath lies heavy upon me,

and you overwhelm me with all your waves. Selah

You have caused my companions to shun me;

you have made me a horror to them.

I am shut in so that I cannot escape;

my eye grows dim through sorrow.

Every day I call upon you, O Lord;

I spread out my hands to you.

Do you work wonders for the dead?

Do the departed rise up to praise you? Selah

Is your steadfast love declared in the grave,

or your faithfulness in Abaddon?

Are your wonders known in the darkness,

or your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?

But I, O Lord, cry to you;

in the morning my prayer comes before you.

O Lord, why do you cast my soul away?

Why do you hide your face from me?

Afflicted and close to death from my youth up,

I suffer your terrors; I am helpless.

Your wrath has swept over me;

your dreadful assaults destroy me.

They surround me like a flood all day long;

they close in on me together.

You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me;

my companions have become darkness.

It sort of sounds like Job could have written it, until the Psalmist

tells us he suffered from his youth. Besides, the author’s name is given, one Heman. No, not the comic book superhero, but one Heman the Ezrahite.

Heman the Ezrahite was sort of a super hero of his day, at least he was super good at certain accomplishments, such as musician, psalmist, minister of prophesying and seer to the king. He is described in several passages of Chronicles and Kings (Kings 4:31, 1 Chronicles Chapters 2, 6, 15,16,25, 2 Chronicles Chapters 5, 29, 35) as “wiser than anyone else”, with the exception of Solomon of course. He was given great responsibilities and was looked up to by everyone. His name means faithful.

Because he was so venerated, we find people have interpreted from Psalm 88 that he must have suffered from clinical depression. How else to explain this unusually downcast psalm that has been called “a wintry landscape of unrelieved bleakness” (Professor Martin Marty, University of Chicago) or “The darkest, saddest psalm of all the psalms, with no relief and no hope as other melancholy psalm give."

Yes, it is easy to dismiss this as a depressed person, but we have to approach passages in Scripture from the context of the Bible as a whole. So think about these clues.

In verse 3 the writer cries, “My soul is full of troubles.” What kind of troubles? These are not arthritis pains or any physical ailment. These are in his soul. The literal translation of verse 3 is, “For my soul hath been full of evils…”

He tells us several things. He feels “set apart with the dead,” “cut off” from God’s care and that God’s “wrath lies heavily upon him.”

Wow! What is going on?

I thought God would be there for us, never desert us and never let us face tests beyond our abilities to endure…unless the writer was “dead in the trespasses and sins” mentioned in Ephesians 2:1 and as explained in Habakkuk 1:13, God is one “of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong.” The writer’s soul hath been full of evils, he says, so why else would God “hide [his] face from [him]?”

Here from Isaiah 59:1-2, "Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear."

What these tell us about Psalm 88 is the writer is lost in sin. He has a long history of his sin and he has not repented and thus he has cut himself off from God.

But is the psalm really without hope?

No, because the psalmist recognizes that, “Lord, you are the God who saves me; day and night I cry out to you. But I cry to you for help, Lord; in the morning my prayer comes before you.” He has not stopped trying to reach God, and if this is Heman, then at some point he repented and found grace and became wise.

References: Deuteronomy 6:5, Matthew 22:37-39, Mark 12:30-31, Luke 10:27, Matthew 5:44-45, Romans 8:18, Judges 6, 7 & 8, especially 8:22-28, Genesis 5:22-24, Hebrews 11:5, 1 Corinthians 10:13, Psalm 88, Ephesians 2:1, Habakkuk 1:13, Isaiah 59:1-2, 1 Kings 4:31, 1 Chronicles Chapters 2, 6, 15,16,25, 2 Chronicles Chapters 5, 29, 35.

NEXT TIME: WHEN DID SUFFERING START?

More of what Scripture says about our suffering:

He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him. Psalm 126:6

Say to them, As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel? Ezekiel 33:11

For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil. 1 Peter 3:17

I know, O Lord, that your rules are righteous, and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me. Psalm 119:75

But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.” Revelation 21:8

ILLUSTRATIONS:

"Heman the Ezrahite", artist and date unknown.

"Jewish Priest wearing an Ephod", from the History of Costume by Braun & Schneider

"Enoch Taken by God", by Gerard Hoet, 1728

"He-Man" copyright by Mattel 1983, created by Roger Sweet

ONE INFINITE REFERENCE POINT: Part II of Why Not? - a Perspective on Suffering

2015-09-09T15:11:00.001-04:00

Existentialism is a philosophy that emphasizes individual existence, freedom and choice. It is the view that humans define their own meaning in life, and try to make rational decisions despite existing in an irrational universe; in other words, an existence without God.

Existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) said, "No finite point has meaning without an infinite reference point.”

Albert Camus (1913-1960) summed up Sartre and Existentialism this way, “The only really serious question is whether or not to commit suicide.”

Philosopher-Mathematician Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) concluded, “Atheists must build their lives on unyielding despair.”

Three Existential Atheists, all Nobel Prize Winners, by the way, who were active in promoting the non-existence of God. (They now know different since they are all dead.) They also had a great deal of influence on modern thought and many in the world today accept that if there is no infinite reference point then “there is no solid basis for meaning, dignity or morality.” As a result we live in a world of unyielding despair indeed.

I agree that what they say is true, except they were wrong about one thing. There is an infinite reference point.

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

John 1:1-5 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Revelation 22:12-15 “Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates. Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.

God is the infinite reference point.

So, the Atheists answer the “Why me?” question with no answer at all, except despair and suicide.

When it comes to suffering, there is a second common question and it arises as a reason either for someone’s disbelief or for their losing their faith.

It is put as either, “How can God let this happen?” and/or “I can’t believe in a God who would let this happen?”

In 2008, Bart Ehrman, a University professor considered a top expert on New Testament Scripture,

wrote a book called God's Problem. The theme is how Dr. Ehrman lost his faith because he could not

come to terms with the various reasons he perceived in the Bible for why there is suffering. The Old Testament prophets said this and Jesus said that and Paul said something else and so on and so forth. I don't think it is God's problem; it is Dr. Ehrman's problem. He subtitled the book, “How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question – Why We Suffer.” I feel bad for him because by removing his once and future infinite reference point, God, he is left with nothing but the suffering. Without God suffering becomes the infinite reference point just going on and on.

At Iron Faith we often use verse 24 from Psalm 118: “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” There are other verses in this Psalm giving this one power because they indicate the Psalmist life wasn’t always joyful.

Verse 5, for instance, “Out of my distress I called on the Lord; the Lord answered me and set me free.”

Or verse 13: “I was pushed hard, so that I was falling, but the Lord helped me.

And verse 18: The Lord has disciplined me severely, but he has not given me over to death.

A man in distress, falling and being severely disciplined; what is there to rejoice in there?

Because he endured through these sufferings by keeping his eye and heart on the one infinite reference point, knowing that God would save him in the end.

Consider these, because these are the type of things where people ask, “How can God allow it?”

China has an earthquake--32,477 dead. Myanmar has a cyclone--78,000 dead.

How could God allow this amount of suffering? Isn't God in control, if there is a God?

But you know something, one of those disaster figures is above the weekly average and the other well under the weekly average for deaths, which are 54,982 per week or 2,859,055 deaths a year. Yes, on average a person dies every 11 seconds. That means there are families and friends who suffer a loss every 11 seconds. You must remember this is the world. Nobody gets out alive. It isn’t how many die in a given moment, it is we all die and it is just a matter of when and how.

This is Earth, not Heaven. Heaven is perfect. Earth is not, here everybody gets hurt.

So again, is God in control?

Absolutely.

He created this world and the universe and because he was an intelligent designer, his design has rules and laws. For instance, the earth is wrapped with a bunch of plates. The tectonics of these plates, caused by the flow of rock within the earth, causes rubbing and bumps and occasional overlapping, which we call earthquakes. There are scientific reasons for cyclones and typhoons and other rages of nature as well. We people build and live in areas prone to such things. When they happen people get hurt. Once there were less people living on a fault line or along the shore or other places where harsh weather can be common, so less people died, less damage occurred. More people live in these danger zones now, thus more deaths, more damage.

Other deaths and tragedies happen because of peoples’ behavior. If I were a bus driver who got drunk and ran my bus full of passengers into a bridge abutment at 80 miles an hour, should we blame God?

He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. --Matthew 5:45

We all suffer hurt, the good and the bad, the believer and the skeptic, the churchgoer and the Atheist. When God created the earth it was good, but he allowed his creatures free will. He did not create us as empty-headed robots. God did not cause sin or death. He allowed the possibility of sin and death and put the decision in our hands. Even when God brings Discipline upon us, it is often the result of a decision we made, and usually opposite of what God has told us. And if you trust humankind to end all this and make the Earth better, then you aren't reading the daily newspapers, or your Bibles either. No, things in this world will not get better, they will get worse. That means a lot of suffering to be endured.

So instead of running from God when bad things happen, we should run to him. When we shut God out all we are left with are the bad things. And if someone dies and you are grieving and ask where is God; he is at the same place he was when his son died on the cross. He is grieving too.

We will end this post with another Jean-Paul Sartre bromide: "That God does not exist, I cannot deny, that my whole being cries out for God I cannot forget."

God does exist, which I am sure Jean-Paul knows now, and his whole being cried out for God because it has been built into our DNA to cry out for God. [Romans 2:11-16, Ecclesiastes 3:11] My prayer is that we all could believe so God could wipe away our tears. And you remember what was echoed in Matthew 22 was first found in Deuteronomy 6:4-8, because the New Testament did not replace the Old Testament, it fulfilled it.

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.”

I will give you two things to consider before my next post:

One, see if you can think of a major character in the Bible who didn’t suffer.

Two, below is Psalm 88 and it is a clue to the first reason for suffering, which we will deal with next. I want you to try and figure out what that reason is. I think this is a tough one because this is a very unusual psalm and the reason for the psalmist’s suffering isn’t immediately obvious.

PSALM 88 (ESV)

1 O Lord, God of my salvation;

I cry out day and night before you.

Let my prayer come before you;

incline your ear to my cry!

For my soul is full of troubles,

and my life draws near to Sheol.

I am counted among those who go down to the pit;

I am a man who has no strength,

like one set loose among the dead,

like the slain that lie in the grave,

like those whom you remember no more,

for they are cut off from your hand.

You have put me in the depths of the pit,

in the regions dark and deep.

Your wrath lies heavy upon me,

and you overwhelm me with all your waves. Selah

You have caused my companions to shun me;

you have made me a horror to them.

I am shut in so that I cannot escape;

my eye grows dim through sorrow.

Every day I call upon you, O Lord;

I spread out my hands to you.

Do you work wonders for the dead?

Do the departed rise up to praise you? Selah

Is your steadfast love declared in the grave,

or your faithfulness in Abaddon?

Are your wonders known in the darkness,

or your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?

But I, O Lord, cry to you;

in the morning my prayer comes before you.

O Lord, why do you cast my soul away?

Why do you hide your face from me?

Afflicted and close to death from my youth up,

I suffer your terrors; I am helpless.

Your wrath has swept over me;

your dreadful assaults destroy me.

They surround me like a flood all day long;

they close in on me together.

You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me;

my companions have become darkness.

References: John 1:1-5, Revelation 22:12-15, Psalm 118, Matthew 5:45, 1 Corinthians 10:13, Romans 2:11-16, Ecclesiastes 3:11, Deuteronomy 6:4-8, Psalm 88
NEXT TIME: BECAUSE YOU HAVE DONE THIS
Illustration at the top of this post"

"God the Father" by Leon Frederic, date unknown.

A PURPOSE TO LIFE: Part I of Why Not? - a Perspective on Suffering

2015-09-08T15:28:00.000-04:00

You out there, how are you? You feeling well, no problems? Have you lived a life that is suffering free?

I doubt it.

Everyday when I go on Facebook I see a lot of jokes and joy, parties and trips and Bar-b-cues, quizzes and gossip, kids and kittens, but I see a lot of suffering, too. People having pain, losing a love one, looking for a job, confused about life, upset with a friend. Even among those who are Christian, devout and devoted, it seems no day goes by without a string of prayer requests, the vast majority of which are asking to ease a pain, cure an illness, mend the body, provide strength in a time of trouble or remove the sorrow of grief.

And throughout my life I have heard people ask two questions over and over. The first is, “Why me?” The answer may be, “Why not?”

We’re going to look at that why not, but first another question that’s asked over and over with many a different answer.

What is the purpose of life?

What do you say?

Once upon a time I said the purpose of life was to have as much pleasure as you could find, party hardy, wine, women and wild whatever.

Now I say the purpose of life is found in this combined passage of Matthew 19:16-22 and Luke 18:18-29.

And behold, a man, a ruler, came up to [and] asked him [Jesus], saying, “Good Teacher, what good deed must I do to inherit eternal life?” And he, Jesus, said to him, “Why do you call me good? Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.”

He said to him, “Which ones?”

And Jesus said, “You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

And he, the young man, said to him, “All these I have kept from my youth. What do I still lack?”

When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “One thing you still lack. If you would be perfect, go, sell all what you possess that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”

But when the young man heard these things, he became very sad. He went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions, he was extremely rich.

Jesus, seeing that he had become sad, said, “How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!.

What do you think it was he lacked that might also be understood as the purpose of life?

In Matthew 22:34-40 another man asks Jesus about commandments.

But when the Pharisees heard that he [Jesus] had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer (wouldn’t you just know it), asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

That then is the purpose of life, to love the Lord, our God, with all our heart, soul and mind and our neighbor as our selves.

So, when we look back at the conversation between Jesus and the Young Ruler, what is left out?

The Young Ruler lacked understanding of The Great Commandment, for the he claims he kept, since he was a child, all the commandments Jesus listed. But Jesus didn’t mention these first three of the Ten Commandments to the Young Ruler, did he?

“You shall have no other gods before me.

“You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of

anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain."

The Young Ruler had made himself a graven image, his wealth and that was the god he bowed down before and he couldn't bring himself to place God ahead of it, and he couldn’t share his wealth because he didn’t love his neighbor as much as what he had.

Is there suffering in this? Yes, the young ruler went away sad; in fact, sorrowful, and if he never changed his ways he came to even greater suffering later. Also, I believe Jesus suffered for this man’s soul as well. Remember, God would have none perish.

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. 2 Peter 3:9

If we recognize what the purpose of life is and keep our hope in God’s promises, we can find a way to endure our suffering, but what if we don’t accept either the purpose or the promises?

COMING NEXT TIME: AN INFINITE REFERENCE POINT

References: Matthew 19: 16-22, Luke 18:18-29, Matthew 22:34-40, Deuteronomy 5:6-11, Genesis 1:1, 2 Peter 3:9

The illustration at the top of this post is "Christ and the Rich Young Ruler" by Heinrich Hofmann, 1889.

What Scripture says about our suffering:

And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. 1 Peter 5:10

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. Romans 8:18

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” Revelation 21:4

Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all. Psalm 34:19

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Psalm 73:26

WHY NOT? A PERSPECTIVE ON SUFFERING

2015-09-05T08:57:00.000-04:00

And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.

-- 1 PETER 5:10

I Recently conducted a Bible Study for members of Iron Faith Fellowship on the subject of suffering. This was not a guidebook on how to avoid suffering. That guidebook would be The Bible. The truth is in this world you can't avoid suffering; in fact, the Bible would confirm this, but if you followed the Commandments of God and believe in t\His saving grace through Jesus Christ, you could lessen that suffering while you were on Planet Earth and definitely avoid any suffering in the afterlife.

However, while here, it might help in dealing with any suffering that comes your way if you understand the reasons why sufferings exists. Therefore, I am going to post my lessons over the next several days.

Here is the synopsis:

SYNOPSIS

Part 1 An Infinite Reference Point

Part 2 Because You Have Done This

Part 3 Yes that Is the Price

Part 4 Do Not Regard Lightly; Nor Be Weary

Part 5 Riddle Me This

Part 6 A Thorn in the Flesh

Part 7 It’s Not in the Hands of Al

Part 8. Heart, Soul and Mind and Your Little Neighbor, Too

Keep in mine, this is my study, thus my interpretation and opinion of what Scripture says. You should study and confirm it for yourselves and not just take my word for anything. This is how you should approach the teachings of any man or woman, pray for guidance and enlightenment, read their references, study the text, confirm they are being true to The Word, ask questions and pray again.
I have spend a lot of days preparing this study and I think I got most of it right, but I am not an Apostle or a Prophet and make no claim of perfection for freedom from error. Again, this is from my studying. I do not consult commentaries, because I believe the Bible is sufficient for its own understanding. I do look into the history of the times it was written or to biographies of certain characters, as well as history so that I can understand the context.

We will begin with my next post with Part 1: An Infinite Reference Point.

The photo at the top was taken by me in 1981. It shows my wife holding our second child, Noelle, not long after discovering the destruction by water of the home we were just preparing to move into. I was only saved six years before this photo and it was part of a series of disasters that befell us in this period. Do not think that being Born Again protects you from the sorrows of this world. Suffering falls upon everyone, good or bad, but God will provide the strength and comfort for His people to endure. We will talk more about what happened during those years in this study.

COMING THIS SUMMER - BAPTISMS IN THE BRANDYWINE

2014-08-11T21:21:00.004-04:00

Iron faith will be doing Baptisms in the Brandywine on August 17, 2014 after the regular service, Come see the excitement as these people profess their faith in Jesus publicly.

Driving directions to Baptism Site On the Brandywine.
Via Ramsey Rd
From Iron Faith Fellowship (Bellevue Community Center)
500 Duncan Rd
Wilmington, DE 19809
1. Head northwest on Duncan Rd toward Phila. Pike
0.2 mi
2. Turn right onto US-13 BUS N/Philadelphia Pike
1.1 mi
3. Turn left onto Silverside Rd
4.6 mi
4. Turn right onto US-202 N/Concord Pike
1.4 mi
5. Turn left onto DE-92 W/Beaver Valley Rd
0.3 mi
6. Turn left onto DE-92 W/Tompkins Bridge Rd
0.4 mi
7. Take the 1st right onto Ramsey Rd
1.0 mi
8. Turn right onto Brandywine Creek Rd
0.4 mi
Parking lot is on left just before intersecting with Beaver Dam Road.

Bloody Moon Madness

2014-04-11T00:24:00.000-04:00

They call it a "Blood Moon". It sounds pretty ominous and from some of the pictures of this phenomena, it looks it too. Right now it has been getting some play in the media and some claim it is a sign.

I am sure most of us have seen a "Blood Moon" at one time or other in our lives, or at least, a red moon. Back in the 1970s I outlined and started writing a novel entitled, "Night of the Red Moon". There had been one in the sky when I got the idea for the plot. They are not new, then, so why the sudden interest.

It is because we are on the verge of a tetrad. Oh, I see, a tetrad.

Huh?

Well, a tetrad could be "a four-part structure that forms during the prophase of meiosis and consists of two homologous chromosomes, each composed of two sister chromatids". It could be, but fortunately the tetrad of concern tonight isn't that because I don't have time to learn that much biology right now.

Basic definition of a tetrad is a group of four. Wow, that's much simpler. The specific group of four that is raising some eyebrows now is not so much in the astronomy world as the religious sphere. It is a tetrad of solar eclipses (or is it eclipsi? Apparently not, my spellcheck doesn't like this word.) The hubbub hasn't really centered on the eclipses, but on what is being referred to as a tetrad of "blood moons". It is also important to note that for eclipses to be considered a tetrad they must come six months apart with no partial eclipses between them.)

Okay, blood moons do go with eclipses and we are about to have a tetrad of eclipses beginning very shortly. Some tie significant events to such things. Yet this is not really so rare. We will have eight such events in this century alone. We had the first in 2001. (Hmm, that is when Wilmington Trust forced me to retire. Maybe there is something to this significant event stuff after all.) Anyway, if Tetrad Eclipses are not all that rare, why a fuss about this particular group?

It is because of when the "Blood Moons" will appear (see chart below).

You see two will appear on sequential Passovers and two on sequential Sukkots (Feast of Tabernacles), important days on the Jewish Calendar.

Some are always looking to predict the time when Christ will return and when God will bring judgment on the world. They pull lone verses out of Scripture sometimes and come up with a theory that "now is the hour". In this case they pulled three references to what might be "Blood Moons".

1. Joel 2:31 The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. 

2. Acts 2:20 the sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day. 

3. Revelation 6:12 When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood… (All verses from the English Standard version.)

Certainly these prophesies describe whet could be an eclipse situation, the darkness of the sun accompanied by a blood red moon. We may see just this occurs next week on the 15th. After all, what is a total eclipse? It is when the moon comes between the earth and the sun so that the sunlight is for a bit completely blocked from view and we are thrown into darkness during the midst of the day.

The difficulty with all this is "Blood Moons" are only light being reflected off the moon surface that is turned to the reddish hue by the earth's atmosphere in the same manner as we have sunsets and sunrises that are red. One cannot really predict that there will be four blood moons just because there will be four total eclipses. Even if there should be, they may not be visible or only visible in limited parts of the world.

There have also been eight such known tetrads all ready since the time of Christ.

Now, I don't want to downplay that someday the Lord will return. I believe myself that the Day of the Lord is not so far off in the future now. There are many things happening now fulfilling the prophesies about the end times; however, I say look to Israel and what is happening around it rather than to the moon.

I also do not wish to ignore the significance of the Jewish Holy Days, they do point to events. After all, Jesus died at Passover, rose on First Fruits and the Holy Spirit came on Pentecost. Surely the fall Holy Days harbor things yet to come.

It is possible these eclipses will mean something, but maybe not. And what does it do for us if we did know the exact date of these things? It is more pressing we spread the Gospel to others whether the end of the world at hand or not, people die every day in many ways and their eternal fate is no different if they are run over by a bus than if they die in Armageddon. And we don't know when a bus might hit us either or when a mudslide will come or when a hurricane will drown us.

We have certainly been admonished to know what is coming, to read Revelation, but we haven't been told the date. Some would be wise when they start trying to pinpoint our deadline to pull these verses first:

Matthew 24:36 “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. 

Mark 13:32 “But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.

One must tread carefully. We do not need another Harold Camping style media story. We have been warned to be ever ready. Why? Because we know not what hour the bridegroom comes. Let's be busy about sowing seed rather than sowing speculation.

I know, of course, many who read this neither give stock to Blood Moons or to the salvation offered through Jesus Christ. You'll just have to accept that I do believe in the meaning of the Cross and the Resurrection and the Easter soon upon us. You must allow me that belief and what you do with it is the chance you take.

Come to the Little Church that Could through the Grace of Jesus Christ

2014-02-23T17:16:00.002-05:00

I attend, in fact, sit on the board of this small church just outside Wilmington, Delaware. That is the board to the left and I am in the middle pounding a ketchup bottle above the heads of our Associate Pastor and his wife. Despite what may appear to be a silly bunch of fools, we take our job very seriously and if we be fools, we are fools for Christ.

We love each other and I suppose because we love God, some would call us religious fanatics…or religious nuts. But that's okay, because even if you don't believe in what we do, we love you too anyway.

I would say this is the most loving church I've ever been in and I've been in a lot, not always willingly and not always lovingly. I was forced to go to church as a child, even though no one else in the family went; at least, not until I was fifteen. Then everybody went, but I was secretly revolting underneath. I was a very active Methodist in my late teen years, but also subversive. Just because I was President of the Methodist Youth Fellowship didn't mean I was a Christian. When I got married I fled that church.

A decade later, after a eclectic mix of churches in our lives, my wife and I, I was a confirmed atheist; not just an Atheist, either, but an active, proselytizing one. I was beating people over the head with a Bible certainly, trying to knock God out of them.

Then one day during a decreasingly tattered and sinful life a funny thing happened. I met Jesus down on my knees.

Then there were a series a churches because I wanted to be there, but we moved about a lot. Somehow though I did end up without a pew to sit in and was suffering from some disillusionment and sorrow when this tiny little church appeared. It was started a year-and-a-half ago by six people, but oh the things it has done in that time from helping the victims of Sandy to reaching out to those sometimes shunned by others.

I write this to ask my friends to come visit us sometimes. If you can drive to Wilmington, Delaware come and get a hug, get a praise, get the spirit, feel the love. We welcome anyone as you are. We were you. We are a church of once broken people. We've been through the fire. We are here to understand, not to judge.

We will tell you our secret, though. The way to true change in your life is through Jesus Christ.

Here is my little montage of our little church over the past year and a half:

Purpose of Life and God's Plan

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All my life I have heard this question asked. "What is the purpose of life?" When asked that question thirty-eight years ago, my answer was "pleasure". I was an Atheist and believed there was no real meaning to life. Our being here was purely a series of accidental events over a vast continuum of time and our existence amounted to little more than a hiccough, a mere moment in eternity. We came, we saw, we died and then we were nothing but someone else's memory and even that would eventually fade. Therefore, as a beer commercial once touted, we should grab all the gusto we could and have fun. I believed in the mantra of the time, "If it feels good, do it".

And to that end is how I lived. I didn't live to work, I worked to live and my definition of living was wine, women and song. I didn't see the illogic of that saying because I didn't like wine and I didn't grab the gusto of that beer, because I didn't like beer, and I was true to only one woman and I can't carry a tune. My motto then was whiskey, rum, vodka, bourbon and gin, sex-sex-sex and whistling a happy song even if the key shifted often. The real illogic was it didn't bring me joy nor keep the sorrow away. It did not matter how franticly I practiced pleasure in my nights and on my weekends, death, disaster and disease remained a reality.

But thirty-nine years ago all that changed. I got salvation, not in bars or bedrooms, but in the quiet of an evening on my knees. Now, as a Christian, if you ask that question I can tell you with absolute faith what is the purpose of life. "And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength."

That particular quote comes from Mark 12:30, but it is not just a Christian bromide; it is the over riding command of God known to Christian, Jew and Muslim for it first appears in the Books of Moses such as Deuteronomy 6:4, as well as throughout like in Joshua 22:5 - "But take diligent heed to do the commandment and the law, which Moses the servant of the Lord charged you, to love the Lord your God, and to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, and to cleave unto him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul."

Now the cynic will ask does this fidelity to God and following Christ prevent death, disaster and disease? No, of course not, but those things are not from God, but because of human will turned away from God. The troubles of this world are due to sin, not necessarily our own in every case, but both the good and bad among us must share in the consequences. Being Christian does not shield me from moments of sadness or tragedy, but it takes away the constant sorrow and replaces it with continuous joy because my eyes are on Jesus and my heart on God's promises. The endurance to the end of the slings and arrows of a cursed and sinful world is the proof of our love for God and that we can endure it to the end is the proof of his love of us.

If you think the Christian lives in a La-la Land where birds always sing and lightning never strikes, then you haven't read the Bible. Point me to a faithful follower of God who lived a life of ease never touched by stress or pain. Our life is not never to suffer, but to experience that inner joy of knowing God has us in his hands even when we hurt.

But what of God's plan for us. Isn't that the other thing we often hear, especially if you are a Christian? God has a purpose and plan for every person. You begin to ask, what is God's purpose and plan for my life? Perhaps, as I once did, you begin to worry that you missed it or you somehow rejected it.

Oh, can you refuse God? The obvious answer is, yes, you do so when you reject Christ, but I believe you can also reject God's call to a purpose in his plan. It will not stop God's plan, don't flatter yourself in thinking that, but it will certainly bring you sorrow. I cite Esther 4:13-14 for my opinion: "Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not think to yourself that in the king's palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”

And do not worry that you have missed God's purpose and plan for your life somehow. See, here is the problem of why we get to thinking that. We want to be another Moses or Ruth or Mary or Paul or Billy Graham of even another Esther. Wanting to be those things is not God, it is ambition and ego. We do not choose how God uses us, we can only be willing to be used. I believe the reality is that God might be using me in someway right now and I don't even know it. Our purpose is not to obtain glory, but to reflect the glory of God. If you think this must be by some great achievement, effort or leading accomplished by you, then think upon this in John 9:

As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him."

But you do have a command to keep you busy in the meantime so you don't fret about how God will use you. You are to tell others the Gospel, and who knows, maybe that is your purpose.

You also have another command second only to loving God, "The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:31. Do these two things and you'll not have to worry about being used by God and what your purpose is in life.