If you are like me, you may be for the death penalty and believe that the Bible not only authorizes it but commands it. Nevertheless we should inject a word of caution here as we review the biblical evidence for the death penalty. The first mention of the death penalty is in Genesis 9:6, “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God He made man”. This is backed up by the Mosaic Law in Leviticus 24:17. The general principle then is that premeditated murder, and Moses made the distinction in Exodus 21, is generally punishable by death. Since man was made in the image of God it is a special offense against God that was in force before and after the laws of Moses were given to govern Israel. The New Testament verse usually used to prove that the death penalty was still in affect even after Jesus is Romans 13:4, “the government does not bear the sword for nothing”. In addition to this Paul, while under arrest in Acts 25:10-12, said that if he had committed the crime they accused him of he would be willing to die, thus Paul recognized the governments authority to execute criminals.

                                                   Other Offenses

 There are a large number of offenses in the Mosaic Law which were applicable specifically to the nation of Israel and punishable by death in Exodus and Leviticus. Crimes like adultery, bestiality, kidnapping, smiting or cursing your parents, blasphemy, perjury in a murder trial, and even excessive eating and drinking in Deut. 21:20-21. (I wonder how they decided what excessive is?) Again, most theologians consider these commands as given to the nation of Israel and not necessarily for us today. Therefore, the one command that we can consider to be timelessly before Israel and after Christ ushered in the New Covenant would be the death penalty for premeditated murder given in Genesis 9:6 to Noah.

                                                 Not So Fast

 Before you rush to agree with me, there are a few considerations. First the death penalty in the Bible itself is not consistently carried out. Consider that the very first murder was recorded in Genesis 4 when Cain slew Able. God punished him by banishment and exile only. King David committed adultery and premeditated mass murder in 2 Samuel 11, but God forgave him and let him continue on as king. Secondly, as Jesus is approaching His crucifixion in Luke 23:34, He says, “Father forgive them”. Jesus forgave the very men who were responsible for His murder.

My conclusion is that the death penalty for premeditated murder is allowed, but not necessarily required by the Bible.

                           What About The Ten Commandments ?

 In Exodus 20:13, the King James Version (translated in 1611), read, “Thou shalt not kill”. Virtually all experts in Hebrew now say that the proper translation of the original Hebrew word is “murder” not kill. Therefore a distinction is made between legal execution and premeditated murder.

                       In Defending Capital Punishment Should We Use the Mosaic Law ?

 I believe the provisions given by Moses were specifically for Israel, and were unique to them because they were a new nation that God was setting apart from all other nations. Their law especially set them apart from the Canaanites that they were dispossessing, and many of the offenses listed like infant sacrifice to Molech were Canaanite abominations. Infant sacrifice, incest, and beastiality were normal activities for the Canaanites that God wanted to particularly separate Israel from and thus Moses gave the death penalty as a deterrent to Israel joining in Canaanite lifestyle. The death penalty was given for a wide variety of offenses that we would not be interested in today. The method commanded to carry out the death penalty would also present a problem for most of us—stoning. The whole community would gather and stone the offender to death. In our culture today, if adultery, blasphemy, and sodomy were punishable by stoning, we would run out of rocks.

Consider Lev. 24:14, a man was stoned to death by all the congregation for cursing. Imagine your regular golf foursome on Saturday morning—Joe Blow misses a putt and curses his bad luck. According to the Law of Moses you would bind him and all the club members would gather to stone him to death. Now Joe may deserve it but it is not going to happen even by the Mosaic Law because: 1. The law did not apply to outsiders, 2. In Israel there was no separation between church and state but in America there is. These laws against cursing in Israel were as much religious laws as they were national laws, but we have a Constitution forbidding that.

                                              Conclusion

 My conclusion is that the biblical principle that applies to us regarding capital punishment comes from Gen. 9:6. The government’s right to legislate and enforce it comes from Romans 13. Nevertheless, it is not mandatory, and it should be limited to premeditated murder.

                                                             CHARLIE TAYLOR

One of the age old questions that Romans 13 deals with is the Christian’s relationship to governing authorities. Romans 13:1-5 says, “Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities…if you do what is evil, be afraid for it does not bear the sword for nothing”. In Jesus’ day, none of the Jewish people thought they should have to pay taxes to Rome, yet Jesus said, “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.” When Pilate told Jesus that he had the authority to execute Him, Jesus said, “you would have no authority over Me unless it had been granted you from above (by God)”. In the same way Romans 13:1 says, “there is no authority except that which God has established.” The governing authorities, whether we deem them good or bad, exist and rule under the authority of and at the pleasure of the Lord God Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. The theme therefore of Romans 13 is that Christians are to live in peace underneath whatever governing authority they find themselves. Christians are obligated to be the very best citizens possible. God has sovereignly appointed governments and given them the power of the sword to maintain order.

If you are like me, you have already been wondering what the loopholes are in this passage. Surely we are not expected to submit to evil tyrannical governments. Paul can not be telling us that we should obey madmen like Nero, Hitler, or Stalin !

I Agree With John Knox

The conflict in the sixteenth century between the Protestant reformer John Knox and Mary Queen of Scots, may give us valuable insight into this matter. John Knox was a disciple of John Calvin. He joined other Protestants in Scotland who were trying to forcefully establish Protestantism. He was captured by French Catholic forces in 1547 and spent 19 months as a galley slave. After his release, he studied in Geneva under Calvin from 1553 to 1559. He returned to Scotland in 1559 to help the Protestant cause and organized the Scottish Reformed Church.

Mary became the infant queen of Scotland in 1543, but lived in France until 1561 where she lived through a series of disastrous marriages, murder, and war. Mary, a Catholic, returned to Scotland to find a Protestant nation. She ordered them to return to the Roman Catholic Church. Not only did they decline, but they banned public mass. What followed in 1561 was an historic meeting and dialogue between an inept unknowledgeable monarch, and a devout biblically based follower of Christ.

The Argument Was Recorded for History

Queen Mary referred to Romans 13:1, and told Knox that he had no right to teach the people to receive a different religion than their queen should allow. She told him that God commands her subjects to obey her. The following is a slightly edited version:
KNOX: Madam, as the true religion took neither its origin nor its authority from worldly princes, but from the eternal God alone, so are not subjects bound to frame their religion according to the appetites of their princes. Princes are often the most ignorant of all others in God’s true religion. In the Bible, Daniel did pray publicly unto God against the command of the king, and so Madam you may perceive that subjects are not bound to the religion of their princes, although they are commanded to give them audience in other matters.
MARY: Think you that subjects may resist their princes?
KNOX: If their princes exceed their bounds, Madam, no doubt they may be resisted

What Happened to Mary Queen of Scots ?

Mary’s latest husband was murdered by her lover who then became her husband. The Scottish leaders rose up against her so she foolishly fled to her cousin, Queen Elizabeth of England who promptly imprisoned her for 18 years and then beheaded her.

So What Are the Loopholes ?

I think Paul and the other Apostles would have applauded John Knox’s reasoning. In the areas of civil and criminal laws, Romans 13 is telling us to obey our government and be good citizens. When it comes to God’s truth, He alone is our authority. In Acts 4, Peter and John had been arrested for preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They were brought before the authorities and commanded “not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered and said, ‘Whether it is right in the sight of God to give heed to you rather than to God, you be the judge, for we cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard”. In other words, when it comes to paying taxes, or which side of the road to drive the chariot, or what the speed limit is, we will obey the government; but when their commands try to overrule the Word of God, we will not obey.
CHARLIE TAYLOR

                                          Top Ten C’mon Man’s of 2011

Everybody has their favorites, but here are mine, and remember this is just an opinion:

10. The Kardashian wedding—never have I seen such a big deal made by the media over a non-event. Those two no talent dummies spent millions on some lavish wedding that the Kardashians obviously staged to put millions in their pocket, and a couple months later they were divorced. She can’t understand why he was upset that she was doing yoga with a totally nude yoga instructor—C’mon Man!

9. Republican debates—I can’t watch anymore of this rogue’s gallery of shmoes. Surely they can come up with a decent candidate for 2012—C’mon Man!

8. Greece (the country not the musical)—according to the best seller BOOMERANG by Mike Lewis, Greece totally tricked Germany back around the year 2001 with fake financials so it could get into the European Monetary Union. They swapped the dogmeat drachma for the Eurodollar, and Greece acquired for its debt an implicit European guarantee. Now they could borrow at the same rate as Germany, and they racked up about $ 1.2 trillion euros indebtedness which they can’t pay. That figures to about $250,000 euros owed for every working Greek person. In order to understand how inefficient the Greek government is consider that the national railway system has annual revenues of $ 100 million, but salaries and expenses of $700 million euros—C’MON MAN!

7. Goldman Sachs—as if their role in the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis was not bad enough, according to Michael Lewis they also played a role in helping Greece pull off this scam of the century. Goldman reportedly “engaged in a series of legal but nonetheless repellant deals designed to hide the Greek government’s true level of indebtedness.” These trades handed Greece a $1 billion dollar loan, and $300 million in fees for Goldman. They also taught the Greeks how to securitize receipts from the national lottery, tollway system, airports, etc. Any future stream of income was sold for cash up front and then immediately spent. There were no whistle blowers because everyone was in on the scam—C’MON MAN! You have messed up the economy of all of Europe and hurt the whole world.

6. Phone hacking by reporters of the newspaper News of the World whose office is in New York and is owned by Rupert Murdoch. Police report bribery used to hack into celebrities and politicians as well as the Royal family of England. They even went so far as to hack into British soldiers’ families who were killed in action, victims of the bombings in London, and the families of those killed on 9/11—C’mon Man

5. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act replaced the Glass Steagall Act that was repealed in 1999. The Glass Steagall Act was 35 pages of regulations that prevented the kind of fragrant fraud that caused the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis, but our geniuses in D.C. saw fit to repeal it even though it worked for 70 years. They have now replaced it with the 850 pages of the Dodd Frank bill that nobody has read or understands. Already the red tape of this stupid bill that cannot be enforced has caused banks to lose money and start charging fees for debit cards, and other services—C’mon Man

4. The current Presidential administration’s $535 million loan guarantee for Solyndra, a now broke and worthless “alternative energy” company. The Government Accountability Office reported that the loan was made without any due diligence. It has also divulged that Solyndra spent $1.8 million in “lobbying”, I wonder who got that money? The FBI is now investigating the whole sordid affair—C’mon Man

3. John Corzine, the past Governor of New Jersey and former CEO of Goldman Sachs is now the CEO of MF Global (just sounds profane already). The commodities trading company is “missing” over 1.2 billion dollars of customer’s money and the company filed for bankruptcy. A large number of farmers used the company to hedge their crops, but now all their collateral is just gone. In testimony before the U.S. Senate, Corzine said “I have no idea where the missing money is.” Another executive said the funds were “re-hypothecated” to Canada. C’MON MAN!

2. Standard and Poors rating agency downgraded our U.S. Treasury debt last August which caused a bit of a panic for the stock market. Afterwards S&P admitted it made a $2 trillion mistake on its figures. These are the same guys who rated all the subprime mortgages as AAA, so are they telling us the subprime garbage deserves the highest rating but U.S. Treasury bonds do not?    C’MON MAN !

1. My number one C’mon Man goes to our Congress and President. Everyone knows we must cut spending by about $4 trillion over the next 10 years but nobody has the guts to go against all their constituents, lobbyists, and benefactors to do the right thing—C’MON MAN

                                    The Apostle Paul’s Top Two C’mon Man’s

1. Please read Ephesians 2:8-9, and Galatians 1:6-12. In Eph.2:8-9, Paul gave the truth of the gospel concerning our salvation from the penalty of sin. We are saved by the grace of God, and not by any works that we do, and this salvation is received by us only by our faith. Yet the churches in Galatia were deserting the gospel for “a different gospel” even though in God’s eyes there is no such thing. It has always appealed to people to add their works to the salvation process because we want to feel that we are worthy and significant and better than others. This definitely appeals to our vanity to feel that we do more than others, and we are special. Paul was outraged at their possible desertion from grace, and he let them know in the strongest terms possible by writing, “if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to that which you received (from Paul), let him be accursed.”

Every time I see one of those polls about what professing Christians believe in America I am shocked. Today, in our country, the majority of professing Christians still believe they are saved by works or by some combination of grace and works. I think Paul would say, C’mon Man! How can we diminish the atoning work of Christ on the cross?

2. Read Romans 6:1-14, and 12:1-2. In Romans 6 through chapter 8, Paul explains the believer’s relationship to the moral law of God and also to good works that God expects us to do. The idea in these passages is that when we believe in Christ as our Savior we become new people with a new spiritual perspective. We logically obey God and do good works because we no longer live for ourselves, but we now live for God. Paul said it well in Gal.2:20, “it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me.” This concept is simple, but following through was very difficult for the churches that Paul wrote to as witnessed by his letters he wrote that admonished them for moral failures and being influenced by false teachers. In Romans 8:4-11, Paul wrote that God has not left us alone in our current life, but He has given us His Spirit to lead us, convict us, and teach us. Our struggle is now between our fleshly bodies with all their desires and the Holy Spirit who is trying to help us live the moral life, have the spiritual attitudes, and do the good works. We are obedient, do good works, and please God only to the extent that we “walk by the Spirit” as Paul encourages us to do in Gal.5:16. Unfortunately, it seems that the majority of Christians are still living their own lives, according to their own ambitions and desires, and I think Paul might tell us—C’MON MAN!

                                            What does Jesus Love and Hate about the Churches?

In Revelation 1, John sees a vision of the glorified Christ. Jesus is right in the middle of the churches in the sense that He is totally aware of everything going on with each individual geographic church and the people who belong to those churches. Jesus is scrutinizing, examining, assessing, and evaluating the churches. In Revelation chapters 2 and 3, Jesus tells us what He loves and hates about each church. The seven churches in the area of Asia Minor (modern day Turkey) that the Apostle John ministered to are specifically mentioned, but it is generally believed by theologians that these seven churches are representative of the churches as a whole throughout the church age.

Jesus loves good works, a good witness for Christ, correct Biblical teaching, love, faith, and service. Most churches have some of these, but only a few have all of these. Jesus gave “attaboys” to the churches at Smyrna and Philadelphia. The church that we can relate to was at Ephesus. Ephesus had plenty of good works, correct teaching of the Bible, and did not tolerate false teachers, but Jesus had something major against them. In Rev.2:4, Jesus said they “have left their first love”. By this I think He meant that they started well with all the right motivations of loving God and His Son Jesus Christ, but over the years they had become complacent, mechanical, and had no passion for Christ. In John’s Gospel, he had written that before Jesus ascended to heaven He told Peter and the other Apostles, “If you love Me feed my lambs” (Jn.21:15-17). The Ephesians had fallen into the trap of just going through the motions and “playing at church”. Jesus desires our love and passion to serve Him first of all. I think He might have said to them, C’mon Man!

The churches at Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, and Laodicea had even more serious problems. They did some good works, but they allowed false teaching, immorality, materialism, and religious forms without spiritual reality—C’mon Man!

Perhaps the church with the strongest rebuke from Jesus was Laodicea. This church was complacent, self reliant, and not loving towards God or people. They cared only about their own materialism. They thought they were wealthy, but Jesus said they were “wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.” A strong C’mon Man was too good for this bunch, so Jesus said “I will spit you out of my mouth”.

How should we respond today both personally and in our local churches? Let’s examine ourselves as Paul commanded in 2 Cor.13:5 and Peter commanded in 2 Peter 1:10 to see if we are “in the faith”. We should also react positively when someone says to us C’MON MAN!

CHARLIE TAYLOR

Most people look at the new year as a new beginning, and a time for New Year’s resolutions. They are going to lose weight, stop drinking or smoking, and just generally get rid of all their bad habits. Some denominations practice Lent which is the 40 day period before Easter. Because it usually falls early in the year, many link it with new year’s resolutions. It is a time of soul searching and repentance, reflection, and taking stock. It is supposed to prepare you for Easter. The 40 day period commemorates Jesus’40 days in the wilderness before His temptation by the devil. Almost everybody celebrates the New Year as if it is a new lease on life or a second chance.

New Beginnings in Christ

When Christ was born into the world it meant a new deal from God, or as the Bible calls it a New Covenant. The Old Covenant of Law was good, but it was meant to be only temporary, and could never produce forgiveness or salvation for a sinner. The Old Testament prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel had predicted and promised that the Messiah would bring something new and better in the way of salvation. Jeremiah quoted God saying, “Behold, days are coming…when I will make a new covenant…not like the (old) covenant…which they broke…I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it…I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” Ezekiel wrote, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you…and I will put My Spirit within you.” The idea here is that in the Old Testament, the people had no heart for keeping the law. The law was good and right, but they could not keep it because it was external only, and they had no heartfelt desire to keep it. We should definitely relate to this as we also constantly break rules we disagree with, and laws that we don’t think will be enforced (meaning what we think we can get away with). Why do you occasionally break the speed limit, coast through stop signs, or walk across the grass? You have no heartfelt desire to keep these laws. Thus, the Old Testament is a history lesson of man failing to live up to God’s perfect standard.

Jesus brought us a new beginning. In His Last Supper in Luke 22:20, Jesus took the cup of wine that they normally passed around for the old Passover ceremony, and announced that something new was coming. Jesus was saying that He was inaugurating the New Covenant when He would voluntarily be crucified as their substitutionary sacrifice for their sins when He said, “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.” Jesus’ blood was shed for them in order to bring in the new and better deal. At that same supper Jesus promised them a new Helper (Jn.14:16) which He identified as the Spirit of God who would indwell them just as Jeremiah and Ezekiel had said. Jesus had been planning this from the beginning as He had taught early in His ministry the parable of the new wine in the old wineskin in Matt.9:17. They had asked Him why He did not follow the old traditions like fasting, and Jesus explained, “No one puts new wine in old wineskins; otherwise the wineskins will burst, but they put new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved.” The idea is that the old traditions are incompatible with the new deal that Jesus made possible—thus new beginnings.

New Spiritual Birth

In John 3, a Pharisee (the sect steeped in the old traditions of religion) named Nicodemus slipped in under cover of darkness to interview Jesus. He had seen the miracles that Jesus did, and heard Jesus teach the Word of God in an authoritative way. He came looking for answers from the one man that had them. Jesus told him that he must be born again, meaning spiritually born. This was in keeping with the prophecies of Jeremiah and Ezekiel that God would give them a new heart, and He would give them His Spirit. Jesus said that he was born physically, but now he must be born spiritually through belief in Jesus as his Savior. When a person believes in Jesus and commits their life to Him, then God will cause this new birth to happen. It is a work of God as Jesus taught Nicodemus when he asked “How can a man be born when he is old?” John 3:8 says that you can’t understand what God does anymore than you can know where the wind comes from or where it is going—it just happens to you. You get a new beginning.

Other passages like 1 Peter 1:3,23, Titus 3:5, 2 Cor.5:17 confirm and expand on this new beginning. In 2 Cor.5:17, Paul wrote that any person who was now joined to Christ was a new creature. The old life had passed away, and the person now had a new life. He went on to say that that new life would no longer consist of living for himself. The new person is an ambassador for Christ, an instrument of God who lived to serve God, and as such God would use him to entreat people to be reconciled to God. Hopefully people will see the change in you and be drawn to Christ, and we are to tell people that, “God made Him (Jesus) who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” In this new relationship with Jesus we actually are righteous in God’s eyes—now that’s a new beginning.

At a Point in Time

What all actually happened to you at the point in time that you believed? Keep in mind that it doesn’t matter if you don’t know exactly when that exact time was, God knows and God began the process. Positionally, you were justified, forgiven, redeemed, reconciled to God, and God’s wrath against sin was propitiated (appeased)—see Romans 3:21-26. You also were inducted into the citizenship of heaven (Phil.3:20).

Unfortunately, we still have to live here for a while even though our citizenship in heaven is a done deal. That is why we are now in the world, but not of the world. Nevertheless, true to Christ’s word, the Holy Spirit now indwells us. Don’t worry if you can’t feel any of this, remember it is the work of God that is beyond your understanding. Just know that the Spirit of God is trying to very quietly lead you, guide you, teach you, and convict you. In time He will change your desires and the direction of your life. It will seem natural, but when you start enjoying Bible study, serving others, and a host of other matters of the heart, you will realize what Paul said in Romans 8:16, “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God”.

Spiritual Life

Do we have it made now? Can we now live a perfect life free of problems? Get real, because Paul wrote of the difficult battle we will have with the physical desires of our flesh throughout his letters. In Romans 6, he wrote about why we should live a new sinless life since we are new people in Christ, but in Romans 7 he presents us with a major problem. We still inhabit these sinful fleshly bodies with all their sinful desires like greed, sexual lust, envy, and the love of stuff. Paul said that he knows what he wants to do, but the doing of the good is very hard. Paul also wrote in Galatians 5:17 the nature of this battle, “For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.” So what’s the answer to this dilemma?

Romans 8 answers the questions that Paul asked in ch.7. What just having the law could not do (enabling you to keep it), God did. God not only sent His Son to save us from the penalty of sin, but God sent His Spirit to save us from the power of sin in our flesh. If we follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, we will not carry out the desire of the flesh. Romans 8:5 says, “For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit…because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not able to do so.” Therefore we need a spiritual mindset, a focus on the things of the Spirit. Paul returns to this concept in Rom.12:1-2. He urges us to present our physical bodies as a living sacrifice acceptable to God. The image here is of the O.T. animal sacrifices. We put these physical lustful materialistic bodies on the altar metaphorically, because of the grace of God that we have received. We give up our desires and ambitions for His, and become His ambassadors. Romans 12:2 gives us that first step toward that by saying, “And do not be (any longer) conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is.”

The rule of life of this New Covenant, this life in Christ is called by Paul “being filled by the Spirit” in Ephesians 5:18, and walking in the Spirit in Gal.5:16. It is a life of faith in being controlled by the Holy Spirit as we develop a spiritual mindset by reprogramming our minds with the things of God, and allowing Christ to live His life through us. I like the way Gal.2:20 says it, “it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” or Rom.13 “put on the Lord Jesus and make no provision for the flesh”
Happy New Year, CHARLIE TAYLOR

Lesson 1:  Spring_12_Lesson_1 ;  MARK—Introduction ;  Mark-the_Beginning_of_the_Gospel

Podcast Lesson 1: 

Jesus had begun His active ministry after the age of 30 primarily in the area on the northwest side of the Sea of Galilee in and around Capernaum.  After He had amazed everyone with His authoritative teaching of the Word of God, He proved He had the power of God by doing many impressive miracles.  In Mark 2:13, Jesus began a practice of calling and appealing to known sinners, as well as contradicting the traditions of the religious leaders by “working” on the Sabbath.  These two practices greatly offended the religious leaders, and together with Christ’s rebukes of their unbelief, caused them to conspire against Jesus.

Lesson 2:  Spring_12_Lesson_2 ;  Steve_Jobs_and_the_Reality_Distortion_Field

Podcast Lesson 2: 

Jesus did everything that should be expected of the promised Messiah.  He fulfilled the O.T. prophecies, He taught with great authority, and He did the signs and wonders that only God can do.  Nevertheless, the religious establishment was not believing in Him, and we find that even His own brothers and sisters were not believing in Him (John 7:5).  Therefore Jesus explained to His disciples the importance of His spiritual family, and He began teaching in parables that unbelievers didn’t understand.

Lesson 3:  Spring_12_Lesson_3 ;  Mark_3-Pursuit_of_Self_Interest

Podcast Lesson 3:  

Although Jesus did a great many miracles, the four Gospels record about 35 for our study.  Although we naturally think Jesus did miracles out of people’s need and His compassion, the primary purpose seems to be a teaching tool for His disciples and a revelation about who He is.  In the miracle recorded in Mark 4:35-41, the disciples were obeying and following Jesus when they found themselves in a great deal of trouble.  The early church saw this story as a sign of the presence of Jesus in the midst of the trouble that was threatening to overwhelm the church.  The storms of life are meant to reveal something new about Jesus.

Lesson 4:  Spring_12_Lesson_4 ; Linmania,Tebowtime,_Superman_and_Jesus

Podcast Lesson 4:  

Jesus had just healed the Gerasene demoniac, and now He returned to the west side of the Sea of Galilee, and was met by a crowd expecting more miracles.  An important synagogue official begged Him to heal his daughter who was laying in his house and near death.  As He made His way through the crowd to get to the man’s house, a poor woman suffering from a hemorrhage came up to touch Jesus.  According to Leviticus 15, the bleeding made her ceremonially unclean and an outcast.  Now that all other hope was lost, she turned to Jesus for help.

Lesson 5:  Spring_12_Lesson_5

Podcast Lesson 5:  

After Jesus was kicked out of His hometown of Nazareth, He continued to travel to all the other villages in the area of Galilee teaching the gospel.  In Mark 6:7-13, He multiplied His ministry by sending the twelve disciples out in pairs.  In Mark 6:14-29, the author pivoted to the demise of John the Baptist at the hands of Herod Antipas, and then Mark recorded a series of well known miracles that Jesus did that proved who Jesus is.

Lesson 6:  Spring_12_Lesson_6 ;  Like Sheep Without a Shepherd Mark6

In Mark 8:27, Jesus and His disciples were as far north in Israel as they could go, and as far away from Jerusalem as He ever got. At this late point in His ministry, Jesus began teaching that He must journey to Jerusalem to be falsely accused, arrested, crucified, and resurrected. Therefore, it was all the more important that Jesus’ identity and purpose be understood by His disciples.

Lesson 7:  Spring 12 Lesson 7 ;  Mark 8

As Jesus continued toward Jerusalem, He continued to teach His disciples about His upcoming crucifixion and resurrection, but Mark writes that “they did not understand this statement” (9:32). Instead, they were more interested in Jesus setting up the kingdom of God, and who would be the most important of them in the kingdom (9:34). As they ascended up to Jerusalem (10:32), Jesus again taught them about His crucifixion adding more details of how He would be mocked, spit on, and scourged (10:34); yet still James and John could only selfishly request that they sit at His right and left in the kingdom (10:35-38).

Lesson 8:  Spring 12 Lesson 8  ;  Palm Sunday

Jesus and His disciples had come to Jerusalem for the Passover and Unleavened Bread feasts as they did every year.  The difference in Mark 14-15 was that this wouild be their last Passover with Jesus until they celebrate it in the kingdom of God.  Jesus gave instructions to His disciples to procure the meal in a large upper room in which they would all meet for the last time before His arrest.

Lesson 9:  Spring 12 Lesson 9 ;  The Final Four-objections to the resurrection

Novelists and poets have always delved into the mystery of love. Why are people attracted to one another? Why do people become best friends? A comedian described love as a sea of emotions entirely surrounded by expenses. Plato described love as “a grave mental disease”. Someone else said love is blind, it’s marriage that is the real eye opener. It is the only fire for which there is no insurance. It is something which combines the two greatest powers on earth—war and peace. Love is the crocodile in the river of desire. Whatever it is, the love spouses have for one another transcends their differences, and the love parents have for their children is a powerful force. Still, these types of love have their limitations. Divorce, family squabbles, and wayward children are a reality. In English, there is just one word we use for every facet of love; whether we speak of brotherly love, romantic love, sexual love, or even the passion for things, we use the one word—love. In the original language of the New Testament which was Greek, there were many different words for love. “phileo” was usually used for brotherly love, and “eros” was used for romantic or sexual love. “Agape” love is a love unnatural to human nature. It is a godly love that loves undeserving and unlovable people. This is the way Jesus loved us. We all know John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son…”, but did you ever stop to analyze what kind of love this was? We tend to want to think the best about ourselves therefore our inclination is to think, “Yes I can understand why God did this because His lovable children here on earth needed some help. It is only to be expected that since He created us, He would want to help us”. Wrong, this is not at all the way the Bible explains it, and not at all the way of agape love. Paul said in Romans 5:8, “God demonstrates His love for us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”. Again in Ephesians 2:1-3 we are told of our spiritual condition without Christ, “you were dead in your sins” without any hope at all, “indulging in the desires of the flesh, but God because of His great love even when we were dead spiritually, made us alive in Christ.”

If you still cling to any prideful hope in the human condition before Christ, it is crushed by Rom. 3:10, “There is none righteous, not even one…there is none who does good, not even one”. Keep in mind the Bible’s definition of good is different from man’s. If Jack the Ripper or anybody gave me the winning lottery ticket, I would call that a truly good deed; but good and righteous is here defined as doing things that are good within the created purpose of God. God created us to have a loving relationship with Him and to serve and glorify Him. Anything outside of that or independent of that may please other men greatly, but not God. That is why Jesus said of the Pharisees’ gifts in Matt.6:2 that they have their only reward here now from men, because they gave “that they may be honored by men”.

The fact is that Jesus’ only motivation to sacrifice for us was pure agape love, because there was nothing in us that merited His favor. If we are to properly respond to this love of God, we need to fully understand the richness and fullness of it as well as our own undeserving lack of merit. Otherwise we will not fully appreciate what has been done for us, and we will not respond as we should.

                                                 A New Command

Jesus had previously given teaching about the importance of love, so when at the very end in the Upper Room Discourse He said, “a new command I give you that you love one another as I loved you”, they may have been perplexed by why it was “new”. What Jesus meant was that it had never been practiced before. To love with a godly love would be to love unlovable people. They had loved friends and family, but when they came into contact with unlovable Samaritans their response was, “shall we call fire down from Heaven on them?” It is unnatural to love undeserving, ugly, unlovable enemies. All the contemporary teachers had taught the disciples previously to love your friends and hate your enemies, so Jesus’ teaching was new and revolutionary. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus told them, “you have heard it said (taught), love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I say to you (a new teaching), love your enemies”.

In fact, the Bible depicts all people as being enemies of God, alienated by sin. Therefore Jesus is the perfect example of God loving His enemies by being born in humiliation, and raised in a humble state. His ministry was to sinners, “I have come to save sinners, not the righteous (self righteous)”. Falsely accused and convicted, while being led to the worst kind of death, Jesus said, “Father forgive them”. This kind of love is unnatural to the human race, it is godly love.

                                              The New Love Ethic

This new love was declared by Jesus in Luke 6:27-31. Some people think this sermon was the same as the Sermon on the Mount in Matt.5, but it was given at a different time and place. All preachers repeat themselves in different sermons, often given for different purposes to different audiences and occasions. This sermon is similar to Matt.5, but it was taught “on a level place”, not a mount. Jesus looked at His newly called disciples and said, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you”. Of course the word for love Jesus used here was “agape”. Brotherly and romantic love does not love enemies, and does not do good to those who hate you—only God can do this.

God’s love supersedes what people deserve, and exists in spite of people’s selfishness, pride, and hate. It is deliberate love rooted in God’s will, God simply chooses to love rebellious sinners.

                                            What Should We Then Do ?

There are four commands here in Luke 6:27-31. First, we are called to do unnatural deeds, “do good to those who hate you”. When confronted with a nasty person who dislikes us, our natural inclination is to attack, criticize, or get revenge. Jesus is commanding the unnatural godly reaction of doing something nice to them.

Secondly, we are to speak unnatural words, “bless those who curse you”. I remember in my early days of real estate a confrontation between two other principals in which I was an interested bystander (as a broker). One of the men said, “You no good dirty liar, I hope you bleeping bleep bleep bleep (words omitted to protect the innocent)”. The other guy responded, “I appreciate your candor. I’m sorry you are unhappy and I would like to do anything I can to repair the situation.” The angry guy’s countenance changed to embarrassment and shame. He unclenched his fists, and at that moment realized his part in this misunderstanding. That was the first time I ever witnessed the possible effect of Jesus’ teaching.

Thirdly, we are to make unnatural prayers, “pray for those who mistreat you”. Can you pray for someone and hate them at the same time? No, if you do you are not actually praying “for” them. Again, this love requires an act of your will to lay aside your grievances and sincerely pray for them. In time we will realize they are sinners in need of God’s grace just as we are, and our natural anger will be softened by God’s unnatural love.

                                               Unnatural Response

In Luke 6:29-31 Jesus taught what our response should be to insults, challenges, and indignities. These are particularly difficult since they involve basic human pride which wants to manifest itself by a punch in the mouth or some kind of response in kind. Historically for Israel, the response had been limited by the Mosaic law of lex talionis. This law limited retaliation to a punishment that matched the crime. This is why Jesus quoted Exodus 21:24 in the Sermon on the Mount, “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth”. This was a fair penalty that kept the peace and limited revenge and feuds. Nevertheless, Jesus went way beyond this in His call to turn the other cheek and give to people in need. Jesus was not calling us to give up self defense or our rights to private property. Jesus was calling for a loving attitude towards rude insulting people, and an attitude of generosity even to people we don’t like. A slap to the cheek was an insult and a provocation to fight. Jesus was saying to not be provoked into a fight, but instead have a loving attitude. Agape love is unconditional so it is ready to give and it is ready to have things taken away, yet still love.

                                          The Ultimate Expression of Love

The ultimate expression of these four commands is called the GOLDEN RULE—“Do unto others as you would have them do to you (v.31). Is this agape love which is unnatural, unconventional, and unconditional even possible? If you are wise you are admitting that it is not possible without God’s help. This is why God gave us the inspired revelation, this is why God gave us the perfect example in His Son, and this is why God gave us His Spirit to indwell us so that He might “give spiritual life to our mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you”.

                                                                                     CHARLIE TAYLOR

Someone told me that the great philosopher, Plato, said that as one goes through life, he must find the opinions of great men unless he can receive a word from God. If he did say that, he is even smarter than I thought (of course he doesn’t know that). We all need an answer to the great and important questions of life—What am I doing here? What is my purpose? What is meaning? What does the future hold? Now you can try the Psychic Hotline, or palm readers, or spirits, or astrologers, or divination, but I strongly advise against it based on many biblical passages such as Deut.18:9-12, “There shall not be one found among you who uses witchcraft, or divination, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For whoever does these things is detestable to the Lord.” Again in Lev.20:6, “As for the person who turns to mediums and spiritists..I will be against them..and will cut them off”. Don’t forget that no psychic has ever won the lottery. As Israel was going into the promised land, God spoke to the people through Moses about who not to listen to. Who then is left to help us with these all important questions?

The fact is that we do need a word from God on these great issues. Unless God speaks, we can’t know ultimate truth. Unless God speaks we can’t know Him or anything about Him. Unless God takes the initiative to reveal the answers to these great questions, along with questions we haven’t even asked, we can’t possibly know why He created us or what plans He has for us. It doesn’t matter what opinions men have, be they scholars or morons. They can’t answer transcendent questions that are beyond them without a word from God.

The popular opinion today is that there is no real truth, or that truth is relative, just make truth whatever you want it to be. Frankly, I have never met a person that has been to heaven or been entrusted with all the answers from God. Does truth matter? Can we just make up what is appealing? In matters of taste, like colors or flavors, opinions are fine. You like green, and I like blue. You like Coke, and I like Pepsi. But in matters of truth, 2+2 always equals 4. When you go to the doctor for treatment you don’t want just any medicine, you want the one that works to cure your specific ailment. When you give a dying guy directions to the Emergency Room of the hospital, you don’t say it’s somewhere in that direction, or it might be on such and such a street. No, you give only correct exact directions because his life is at stake. In the same way, on the manner in which you approach God, you can’t afford to make a mistake. There is no margin of error. If you make a mistake you die.

The people of this world we live in make a huge mistake by thinking that they are living in the land of the living. Actually we are living in the land of the dying. The Bible is addressed to dying people in a world that is doomed, passing away. The instructions then on how to receive eternal life and survive this world must be exact, precise, and must be listened to carefully. The source of these instructions must be none other than God Himself, nothing else may suffice. We are not going to listen to spooks nor scholars who operate apart from God. There is only one human being who has come from heaven with directions on how to get to heaven, so we can’t afford to miss that guy. Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3:13, “No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven is the Son of Man (Jesus)”.

                                               LISTEN TO HIM

In Deuteronomy 18:15-22, Moses told Israel before they entered the promised land, “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you (a Jew), you shall LISTEN to Him…I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you (Moses), and I will put My words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command him. It shall come about that whoever will not LISTEN to My words which He shall speak in My name, I Myself will require it of him.” Moses can only have been speaking of Jesus. The crowd at the feeding of the five thousand in John 6:14 certainly understood this because they said, “This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world.” Later it is evident they meant the prophet like Moses because they likened Jesus’ miracle to Moses giving them the bread from heaven in the wilderness (v.31). Peter later confirmed to the church in Jerusalem in Acts 3:22 that Jesus was the fulfillment of that final prophet that we must LISTEN to, “and it shall be that every soul that does not heed that prophet (Jesus) shall be utterly destroyed”.

                                        A Prophet Like Moses

The people of Israel asked Moses to beg God to never again speak directly to them as He did in Exodus 20. When God appeared in an awesome theophany and gave them the Ten Commandments directly, it scared them so bad they lost control of their bodily function. Once they recovered, they asked Moses to speak to God and then report to them what God had said. This was the beginning of a procession of prophets that God would send to Israel. Moses gave the qualifications or the tests of a true prophet in Deut.18. First a true prophet’s message had to be consistent with God’s previous word. There could be no contradictory message. Secondly, the prophecy must come true. We can check the examples of the prophets who came after Moses like Isaiah and see that his messages were consistent and everything he said came true. Isaiah’s prophecies on the first coming of the Messiah in Isaiah 53 are uncanny, and all of them were fulfilled in Jesus.

The people were to listen to God’s prophets because their message was true, but also because it prepared them to listen to the FINAL messenger, the final prophet that Moses spoke of in Deut.18., the Lord Jesus Christ. People always ask if there is any new revelation from God today. The answer was given in the prophecy of Moses that there would be a final prophet that they must listen to because their eternal souls would be judged on how they responded to Him. In the person of the Lord Jesus, God put the period at the end of the sentence. God has said everything He has to say to us in Jesus.

How do we know Jesus is the final prophet that Moses spoke of? Peter confirmed it in Acts 3 and God confirmed it in the transfiguration of Matthew 17. Remember that in Matt. 16 Jesus had told the disciples that He must be arrested and crucified, but Peter and the boys said “no way”. They did not want to listen to such talk because they had given up everything for Him. Following this event, Jesus took Peter, James, and John up on the mountain, and they witnessed Jesus in all His glory. Even more important was they heard God’s confirming Word, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; LISTEN TO HIM.” Does that sound familiar? This is what Moses said about the final prophet in Deut.18, “LISTEN to Him”. Jesus is the final prophet, He has the truth, He has the answers, and He has the way to eternal life. The author of Hebrews said it well in Heb.1:2-3, “in these last days God has spoken to us in His Son whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world, and Jesus is the exact representation of His nature”. Therefore, listen to Him.

                                           Moses Was a Type of Christ

In Deut.18 when Moses predicted that God would raise up this final prophet that we must listen to, Moses said the final prophet would be like him, but have the final Word. In what ways was Jesus like Moses? First of all they both spoke God’s words, and secondly they both provided deliverance for the people. Moses delivered them from slavery in Egypt, but Jesus delivered us from slavery to sin. Jesus delivered us from condemnation to salvation. Next, both did great miracles. Moses also was a type in that they were both Jews, both had lived in obscurity before their ministry, both were protected as a baby, both were rejected by the nation, both were humble, both were intercessors for the people, and both were mediators of a covenant. Moses mediated the Old Covenant of law, and Jesus mediated the New Covenant of grace.

                                                   Christmas

Every year on December 25, we celebrate the birth of Christ which was prophesied in the Old Testament going all the way back to Abraham. In Genesis 22:18, God promised Abraham that He would bless all the people on earth through Abraham’s descendent. He meant that He would send Jesus into the world as a baby to live a perfect life, speak the Word of God, and die a substitutionary death for people’s sins. This is confirmed by Paul in Galatians 3:16 that the promise was about Jesus Christ and His atoning work on the cross on our behalf. Moses later spoke of Jesus as the ultimate prophet that people must listen to in order to be saved. A successive line of prophets spoke of the coming Messiah, and of course Isaiah is the clearest and most comprehensive prophet of Jesus. Isaiah said He would be born of a virgin, be called “God with us”, Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, and Prince of Peace. In Isaiah 53, the prophet said that from the cradle to the grave He would live a life of humility. He would be misunderstood and rejected. He would bear our sorrows and griefs, but by the will of God He would be pierced through for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities. Everything we deserved would fall on Him. All of us have turned away from God and wandered off like lost sheep, but the Lord has caused our iniquity to fall on Jesus. He would be falsely accused and killed, and then be buried in a rich man’s tomb. As Isaiah put it, “He Himself bore the sin of many, and interceded for the transgressors.”

There is one man speaking to us from the Bible, one man speaking to our hearts who alone has all the answers to all the important questions—LISTEN TO HIM. Rev.3:20 says that Jesus is knocking on the door of our heart, if anyone hears Him and opens the door, He will come in to them and have a relationship with them.    CHARLIE TAYLOR

Just suppose that there was a personal good God, and within Him were three distinct beings, and they lived in a perfect blessed communion. God created human beings to experience a loving relationship with this Trinity, and God created man in His own image. This began a “drama” with a surprise twist (the fall of mankind), but a happy ending (the kingdom of God). These human beings and the play they would act out would reveal all the attributes of God by the final curtain. God created a wonderful world for those created in His image to dwell in, and have dominion over in His name and by His authority. This created world was full of incredible creatures and plants that were all complex and interdependent. God first created a man, and then a complimentary human being to be his partner and counterpart, the woman. God had previously created a myriad of wonderful spirit beings to be His messengers. Because God created these beings with a free will to love Him and serve Him, they had the power to choose to not serve Him as well. The most beautiful and powerful one, Lucifer, chose to rebel against God and lead one third of the angels in rebellion. The rebellion was also part of God’s plan to reveal Himself in eternity as the gracious, loving, and forgiving God. Before the play would be over, all creation would witness both the grace and justice of God through this rebellion, and God’s resulting plan of redemption.

The Fall of the Human Race

The rebellion of the angels spilled over into the corresponding enticement to human beings to “know what God knows” and to be like God; and so the human race joined in living independently from God. Therefore God in His eternal wisdom, determined to rig the world in such a way that none of His creatures could find fulfillment, meaning, or purpose in the world apart from their Creator. That which was created in perfection and with meaning and purpose, became fallen and corrupted, and because of the rebellion, EVIL entered into the world. Thus all beings became separated from the very source of their life and being—the eternal self existent God. This began the futility of living on planet earth along with man’s greatest enemy, DEATH, which ultimately returned him to dirt.

From this point on, man’s basic problem became his STEADFAST DETERMINATION TO REMAIN INDEPENDENT FROM GOD AND STILL MAKE LIFE WORK IN A WORLD RIGGED BY GOD SO THAT IT WILL NOT WORK. At this point it looked hopeless and bleak, but God had a plan formulated around His attributes of love, mercy, and forgiveness. How could God be righteous, holy, and just, but at the same time be loving to a people in rebellion against Him? God determined to defeat death, and reverse death through HIS OWN INTERVENTION. For sin, a man must die in order for justice to be served, but it had to be a man who was perfect and sinless who didn’t deserve to die for his own sins. No such man was found in creation, therefore God became man so that a perfect man could make a substitutionary sacrifice of infinite value, sufficient to forgive the sins of the many.

Abraham

God began His redemptive plan by choosing a man named Abram. God gave him many promises, the most important of which was that he would have a descendant who would bless the whole world. Abram believed God even though the descendant had not appeared in his lifetime. Because of Abram’s belief, God reckoned it to him as righteousness. In Abram, God revealed to the human race that all who believed God’s promises and entrusted their life to Him would be saved. Out of this chosen one, God created a nation through which He would reveal Himself to the world and from which the coming Deliverer, the Christ would be born. Every step of the way, God’s adversary tried to thwart God’s plan. The adversary raised up Pharoah in Egypt and then in every era a successive tyrant would try to stamp out God’s people to thwart God’s plan. The Egyptians couldn’t do it, neither could the Canaanites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, or Nazis. They are all gone, and Abraham’s descendants, Israel are still here.

The Promised One, the Christ

In spite of all attempts to stop God’s plan to redeem people, the promised Christ was born into the dark world. At birth, they tried to kill Him, but it was God’s plan that the Christ would be born and live a normal, humble life. By experiencing all the pain of the human race from child birth, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, He fully experienced all the difficulty, suffering, humiliation, rejection, and even the worst kind of death so that we could have the perfect, merciful, and faithful high priest to be our intercessor to God. He even experienced all the temptations we are subject to so He was able to come to the aid of all of us who are tempted. Mankind was given the perfect high priest who could sympathize with our weaknesses.

As God’s prophets predicted, this humble Christ was not recognized by the many, because He had no stately appearance, He led no army, and had no academic degrees. He took a humble common job as a carpenter, and He took a common name, Jesus. At the appointed time of God, the Christ was introduced as the Lamb of God, the ultimate sacrifice who would take away the sin of the world. God spoke from heaven and said, “This is my Son, in whom I am well pleased”, and the people saw the Spirit of God descend on Him. Over a 3-4 year period, He revealed who He was by teaching the truth from God, doing the works of God, and fulfilling all the prophecies that God’s prophets had spoken hundreds of years before. At the end of His ministry, the leaders rejected Him and preferred Caesar as king, and asked that the Christ be crucified. Even His followers betrayed Him and left Him. He was falsely accused, convicted, beaten, and crucified; all because of the love of God poured out in Christ’s blood for us who would believe. His enemies believed they had triumphed, yet this was all according to God’s plan to redeem mankind. Therefore, on the third day, God raised His Son, the Christ in the resurrection. Death was defeated, sin was overcome, and salvation was accomplished. The resurrection proved all of this. Jesus then gave all of His followers a wonderful stewardship to represent Him on earth as His ambassadors until that day when He would return to set up His kingdom. He did not leave His followers alone, but sent His Holy Spirit to indwell them so they would be enabled to follow and represent Him until then.
God’s Holy Spirit inspired Jesus’ closest followers to write all that God wanted people to know about God, God’s plan, and what He expected us to do until the Christ would return. We call it the New Testament.

Let’s Remember and Celebrate

Could this story really happen? It did, and this Christmas we remember and celebrate the birth of the Christ, the son of God who came into the world as a baby according to the plan of God to save us from our sin. In Him, sin was forgiven, death was defeated, and all who would believe look forward to a glorious future in heaven with Him for eternity. Amen.

Merry Christmas

CHARLIE TAYLOR

I was recently in China, and we drank hot tea at every meal, and it was quite good. The Chinese believe that their tea is the best in the world, and that it has definite health benefits. One of our hosts gave me a present of a can of green tea that she said was very special, and she said, “You can’t buy that outside of China”. The history of the growing and manufacturing of tea for consumption goes back about 4000 years in China, and the first written history of drinking tea was in 10th century BC China. It became the common drink of China during the Qin dynasty about 200 BC. Tea was first imported to Europe by the Portuguese in the 16th century AD. Tea first came to Britain about 1660, but it did not become the leading beverage in England until the early 1800s. At that time, almost all of the tea imported to Europe came from China, and it had to be paid for in silver. Since the Chinese had very little demand for European products, this caused a huge trade imbalance with a massive amount of silver moving into Chinese hands. The primary company involved in this trade was the British East India Company. Their solution was to invest heavily in the production of opium to sell in China and redress the trade balance. In the 18th century the East India Company brought huge quantities of opium to the coast of China where they hired Chinese smugglers to distribute the drug in defiance of Chinese law. Aware of the addictive quality of opium and its appeal, the British East India Company, using Chinese nationals did a huge business in China, thus restoring the trade balance. Britain was exporting opium from India to China and importing tea from China to England. By 1820, China was importing 900 tons of opium every year. It is no exaggeration to say that the trade in botanical products was powering the economy of England. They were selling poppies from India and camellias from China in huge volume with a large cut of each for Britain.

In 1838, the British were selling 1400 tons of opium per year to China, and the Emperor of China recognized they had a huge drug problem and moved to stop it. They arrested the opium dealers, and forced all the foreign firms to surrender their stocks of opium to be destroyed. The British government sent expeditionary forces from India to attack the Chinese ports. The two empires of China and Britain went to war over two flowers-the poppy and the camellia. The Chinese were no match for the modern European navy and army, and were forced to seek a settlement. In the Treaty of Nanking in 1843, the first “Opium War” was ended with the Chinese agreeing to open four additional ports to the British and cede Hong Kong over to Queen Victoria. In the House of Commons in England, a member of Parliament named William Gladstone said, “I wonder if there has ever been a war more unjust in its origin!” At this point it is interesting to note that the sale of opium was strictly forbidden in England, and this law was obeyed within the British Islands.

The Great British Tea Heist

If you thought that wasn’t bad enough then guess what our British cousins did next. In 1848-1850, England was importing about 50 million pounds of tea per year. It occurred to the British East India Company that the reason all the tea flowing to Europe was coming from China was that the best tea crop was in China, and all the secrets of manufacturing tea were closely held by the Chinese. A new concern was raised after the Opium War that since China could not prevent the British from distributing opium in China, they would change the law and begin growing it in China. This would break the East India Company’s monopoly on selling opium. Therefore it became all the more important to gain all the Chinese secrets on growing and manufacturing tea. The interior of China was closed to foreigners so it was illegal for the English to go and observe the process. The British East India Company did what all civilized businessmen do when they are faced with a dilemma—they lie, cheat, and steal. The British governor of India made it known to the British government and the executives of the East India Co. that there was a large area of India perfectly suitable to grow the camellia plant. All that was necessary was to acquire the best seed and secrets of manufacturing tea. This task required a great plant expert and a great gardener, but mostly a thief and a spy. In 1848, the British East India Co. hired a botanist named Robert Fortune to make a clandestine trip into the interior of China in order to steal the closely guarded secrets of tea horticulture and manufacturing.

Robert Fortune was a very underpaid botanist in England who had previously taken a trip to China to observe, and take Chinese plant specimens back to England. He was very ambitious for fame and fortune, and saw this offer by the East India Co. as an opportunity to make some money, but also a chance to attach his name to the discovery of all the new plant life that might be in the interior of China. He first found a Chinese national who was from the tea growing and manufacturing area of the Wu Yi Shan hills to guide him. This guy named Wang was easily bought and corrupted for personal gain. Fortune then had to shave his head and wear a Chinese wig with a pony tail, and disguise himself in mandarin robes. They ventured deep into China, braving pirates, bad weather, and treachery from his own hired men. They finally arrived at the epicenter of Chinese tea production. Wang introduced Robert Fortune (in disguise) as an honored and wise official from a distant province to inspect a tea factory. The ruse worked with Wang doing all the talking. Fortune discovered that tea is a highly processed product. They dried it, fired it, dried it again, rolled it, and fermented it. The quality of tea came from oils that give the flavor and the caffeine to hot water. Before Robert Fortune’s discovery, it was thought that black tea and green tea came from different plants, but he saw here that the difference was that black tea was fermented and green tea is not.

Fortune also discovered that for the tea to be exported to Europe, they added a dye and some gypsum to make it look greener because foreigners preferred the way it looked. Chinese themselves would never dream of drinking colored tea, and large quantities of the dye could actually be poisonous. Later, English officials would use this as an argument to justify British manufactured tea. Travelling further, Robert Fortune was able through bribes and deceit to steel 20,000 tea plants and great quantities of seeds. He was able to sneak these out of the country, and send them to the Darjeeling region of India. It was the greatest act of corporate espionage in history, and contributed greatly to the riches and fate of the British Empire. Large scale plantations grew up in India, and it became the largest producer of tea in the world, as India still is today. It became known as “the Great British Tea Heist”.

Not For All the Tea in China

In the nineteenth century the phrase was coined, “I wouldn’t do that for all the tea in China”. I think originally this was derived from the fact that a man like Fortune was willing to give up all his principles of right and wrong, and also be willing to face the hardship and possible consequence of death if caught, in order to obtain the tea trade from China. Therefore to decline an offer to do something “for all the tea in China” is to be determined not to do it no matter what inducement is offered. Clearly what was done by England in its dealings with China in the 19th century was wrong by any standards as confessed by William Gladstone, but from a biblical standpoint, what caused a man who had been raised according to the Judeo-Christian ethic to do what he knew was wrong? England was a supposedly Christian nation, yet the leadership all applauded their victories in the Opium Wars, and their success in “obtaining” the secrets of tea manufacturing.

Paul gave the answer to all our moral failures in Galatians 5:16-17, where he commanded the church to let their lives be controlled by the Spirit of God instead of their own fleshly desires, “for the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.” Consider Robert Fortune, who believed himself under appreciated and unrewarded for his knowledge and ability. He had the chance to vindicate himself, be famous, and make his fortune. The temptation of all his desires met the great opportunity offered by the British East India Co., and he was overwhelmed. Of course this is the way of the world to compromise and buy into all the lies that “the ends justify the means”. Let’s reap the gains by any means necessary, and then rationalize and justify it later. John wrote something very convicting in his first epistle, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with all its lusts, but the one who does the will of God abides forever.” (I Jn.2:15-17) Our problem is that the stuff in the world, our pursuit of pleasure, and our physical desires cause us to lose our spiritual focus. We know what is right, but we get distracted and don’t focus on God, and thus we are driven by selfish desires that are not from God.
Matthew 16:26

I’m sure most of us have heard Jesus’ words, “What will a man be profited, if he gains the whole world, and forfeits his soul?”, but did you know that Jesus said this in the context of Peter trying to talk Him out of the crucifixion? In v.21, Jesus told the disciples He must go to Jerusalem to be crucified, and Peter rebuked Him saying “This shall never happen to you.” Peter selfishly did not want to give up His leader and friend, so Jesus said, “If anyone wishes to follow Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.” If your focus is on preserving this life and the stuff of the world, you must lose it, but what Jesus is offering is eternal life that cannot be lost. CHARLIE TAYLOR

Can You Sing Lamentations on Thanksgiving ?

No doubt on the Sunday before or after Thanksgiving you sing the hymn, “Great is Thy Faithfulness”, but did you know where it came from? The prophet Jeremiah wrote it as he was weeping and lamenting over the fate of his city and his people of Jerusalem. He was sitting in the smoldering ruins of a destroyed city when he wrote this as a funeral dirge to his once proud city of God. This dirge, written as Hebrew poetry originally, is called Lamentations in our Old Testament. “Great is Thy Faithfulness” is taken from Lamentations 3:22-23.

In order to understand the lamentations of Jeremiah, it is necessary to understand the man and his circumstances. God called and commissioned Jeremiah to speak the Word of God to the nation of Judah in about 627—586 BC. For more than 40 years Jeremiah warned Jerusalem and a succession of kings of the impending judgment of God. He begged his people to repent, turn from their idolatry, and submit to the one true God of Israel. The kings and the people would not listen, and grew increasingly antagonistic to Jeremiah and his message. He was arrested repeatedly and punished. His written predictions of the coming destruction of Jerusalem were destroyed by King Jehoiakim. Jeremiah was put in the “stocks” at the city gate—a painful and humiliating experience.

Jeremiah was called the “reluctant prophet” because of his response when God called him to deliver God‟s message of coming judgment in Jer. 1:5-6, “I don‟t know how to speak and I am too young.” God reassured him with, “I am with you to deliver you”, and “I have put My words in your mouth”; but my favorite call of God to Jeremiah was, “gird up your loins and arise, and speak to them all which I command you” (Jer.1:17). What was Judah‟s crime against God? It was essentially breaking all of the 10 Commandments of Exodus 20, especially the first two. God put it well in Jer.2:13, “They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, to hew out for themselves man made cisterns, broken cisterns that leak, that can hold no water”. What was the punishment that Jeremiah predicted? “Behold, I am bringing a nation against you from afar…mighty men who will devour your harvest and your food. They will devour your sons and daughters, and your flocks and herds…They will demolish your fortified cities in which you trust…As you have forsaken Me and served foreign gods in your land, so you shall serve strangers in a land that is not yours”(Jer.5:15-19). Through Jeremiah, God predicted that the Chaldeans of Babylon would come soon and destroy Judah, Jerusalem, and the Temple of Solomon. Jeremiah even predicted the man who would be the king of Babylon at the time—Nebuchadnezzer.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

What was their response to Jeremiah‟s message? “The people seized him, saying, „You must die!” Later, just before Jerusalem‟s destruction, the leaders were so angry at him they threw him into a cistern which had no water—only mud, and he sank down deep

into the mud and stayed there in the dark for several days until the king had him pulled out.

Prophecy Fulfilled

The siege of Jerusalem began in 588 BC and lasted about 30 months. Jerusalem‟s walls were knocked down, the city was destroyed, and the Temple was looted and destroyed in 586 BC.

Lamentations is the writing of Jeremiah as he sat in the smoldering ruins of the once proud city of Jerusalem. It is his lament over his people, his city, and his nation. His circumstances are unimaginable. It is hard to imagine a worse predicament. For 40 years he had tried to warn Judah of what was coming, but they would not listen. He had been ignored, imprisoned, beaten, and nearly killed. Now there was nothing left. His home, his family, and his people were either destroyed or carried away into servitude. This is the setting for his Thanksgiving in Lamentations 3:22-23, “The Lord‟s lovingkindnesses never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great is Thy faithfulness.” How could he be so optimistic and give such thanks in light of his circumstances?

Take a minute and open your Bible to Lam. 3, and you will see a wonderful contrast between the terrible pain and suffering of Jeremiah in a physical, emotional, and material sense, versus the great comfort, peace, and love he experienced from God in a spiritual, eternal sense.

The Lament of the Prophet

The first section of ch.3 uses wonderful imagery to express his emotional and physical suffering. In v.1-3, using a list of metaphors, he expresses the suffering at the hand of God‟s wrath. He had expected light but got darkness, and expected God‟s favor but God‟s hand was turned against him. In v.4-6, God‟s afflictions caused physical problems—he grew old and his bones were broken. These external changes were matched by inner bitterness. Have you ever felt like there was no way out, like you were trapped? This is what he expressed in v.7-9, “walled me in”, “He shuts out my prayer”, “He has blocked my ways”. My personal favorite and one I can relate to is v.12, “He set me as a target for His arrows”. Have you ever felt like you have a bull‟s eye painted on you and circumstances are using you for target practice? As if physical and emotional pain aren‟t enough, how about some humiliation thrown in like v.14, “I have become a laughingstock to all people”. In v.15-18, he is filled with bitterness and deprived of peace and strength.

The Hope and Belief of the Prophet

The circumstances afflicting Jeremiah serve up a remarkable contrast to his spiritual perspective. In his mind and his soul he remembers the truth about God. No matter how bad things seem, we know that God has a faithful love for us. Just because things are

temporarily bad, God still has a wonderful plan for us. God still has unconditional and sacrificial love for us. The attributes of God never change, therefore God‟s compassion and deliverance are on the way. Jeremiah expresses this eternal perspective well in verses 21-24, “This I recall to my mind, Therefore I have hope. The Lord‟s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; GREAT IS YOUR FAITHFULNESS. Therefore I have hope in Him. The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the person who seeks Him.”

This supernatural perspective was just like that of the Apostle Paul in the New Testament. Paul had been opposed and rejected wherever he went. He had been arrested and beaten times without number. The threat of death hounded him wherever he went yet he told the church at Corinth, “we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed…but having the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, „I believed, therefore I spoke‟, we also believe, knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus.”

How about you and I? Can we praise God in spite of our circumstances? Can we look beyond our circumstances to the promise of the resurrection? The authors of the Bible had that unique perspective that whether circumstances were good or bad—God never changes and God‟s love never changes. You may have had the best year ever, you may be the picture of perfect health, and everyone may be treating you wonderfully. If so, praise the Lord and sing “Great is Thy Faithfulness” as loud as you can. But you may also be in a situation of great despair like Jeremiah was. If so, take heart in what he said in Lam.3, remember that God loves you and has a wonderful future for you, “His compassions never fail”. Therefore, be comforted and praise God for who He is and what He is doing. God wants to bless you even in the midst of difficult circumstances.

CHARLIE TAYLOR