June 30, 2006

With the end of the papal Dark Ages in 1798, the world entered into a new and hopefully glorious era. Little Mary Jones walked her weary trek to London to buy her fabulous prize of a Holy Bible; and lo, the British and Foreign Bible Society was formed, soon followed by the American.

Inventions began pouring out of fertile minds. The horror of slavery began to be abolished; the little nation of ex-British colonies began to prosper in the New World; Christian people awakened as from a long sleep—the second coming of Christ was near. The world had embarked on what the Bible describes as “the time of the end.” A preparation for the return of Jesus Christ became to intelligent people a reasonable “blessed hope.” Through unmistakably divine leading, the message began to go worldwide.

Hearts responded and capable people did things. Clearly blessed by the Holy Spirit, a message joining together the gospel of Jesus with the ideals of healthful living worked wonders in tired, sickly people; the world’s finest health institution (for then) was established in Battle Creek, Michigan, where even European royalty crossed the Atlantic to come. There the “West’s” finest Christian publishing house was established. What the apostles after Pentecost longed for seemed to be on the verge. A solemn but joyous sense that the world had entered into the cosmic Day of Atonement gripped hearts worldwide. The “blessed hope” of the imminent return of Christ made life here below a taste of heaven.

Then it was discovered that Christ’s message to the seventh church of history had become applicable: the church was “Laodicea,” the one whose worldly lukewarmness made the Lord so nauseous that He felt like throwing up (Rev. 3:14-21). Now a battle rages in people’s minds and hearts: is that last organization into a “body of Christ” doomed to eventual failure? Or is a corporate repentance possible (and sure)? Can the dream be recovered?

June 29, 2006

“The day of the Lord” is a day when truth comes into its own and is recognized by honest people all over the world. It’s the common possession of those who form a “body” of God’s people; it unites them and motivates them to action. The result: a “church” which is related to Christ as a “woman” whom He loves and wants to wed in His “marriage of the Lamb.”

Thoughtful followers of Jesus worldwide are coming together in a conviction: their understanding of Jesus Himself has been infantile, childish, immature, and it has blocked the way for the Holy Spirit to bless this dark world as the heavenly Father wants to do. His people have been content with the “former rain” gift of the Holy Spirit when the time has come instead for the “latter rain” gift. To delay the right thing at the right time is tragedy!

It’s the same as a girl whom a true man loves telling him, “I’m not ready; let’s wait until maybe we’re 90 years old.” It’s being content not to do the right thing at the right time. No wonder a very wise person said one critical time that in a cosmic sense “the disappointment of Christ is beyond description.”

That’s the problem that surfaces in Revelation 19—a worldwide church, the object of His nuptial love, in that capacity has rebuffed Him. She says, “I like you as long as you’re at arm’s length; but stay there.”

Could a man laugh and joke like nothing has happened if the one whom he loves treats him that way? Time means the world to him; “now” is it.

There’s a book in the Bible that tells exactly how such a true man would act: Song of Solomon 5:2-8. Jesus has read it and believed it, for He quoted it in His last words to the “angel of the church of the Laodiceans” (Rev. 3:20; He quoted the Greek translation which has “at the door”).

June 27, 2006

The Lord’s great cosmic Day of Atonement is NOW.

It’s the grand fulfillment of what ancient Israel were taught to observe in a typical way once a year when the people were commanded to fast on that one day—“the tenth day of the seventh month.” Their high priest risked his life in their behalf by going into the presence of God in the Most Holy part of the ancient sanctuary.

It was the one day of the year when the people were invited—summoned—to lift their thoughts and concerns above their earthly life to enter into the feelings of God on a personal level. Year after year this one great Day was observed, century after century, with the emphasis on personal and national judgment on themselves. It became the most egocentric Day of their year. Little did they actually enter into the feelings of God and share with Him His concern and His love for a world lost in sin. The “judgment” was a personal final exam; and if at its end they felt they had “passed,” great was the rejoicing that their day of atonement was over for another year.

But now since the world has passed the 2300 year prophecy of Daniel 8:14, “then shall the sanctuary be cleansed,” we as the world have entered into our great antitypical Day of Atonement. It’s beyond our own personal individual salvation. We have reached the time when Revelation 3:20 must reach its fulfillment by sensing a concern for Christ that He receive His reward!

The Lord says, “To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.” It’s time for more than a childish grasp; that’s an invitation to share with Him the government of God, to bring to a close the “great controversy” now raging between Christ and Satan, not perpetuating it for centuries more.

June 26, 2006

Our little “lesson book” on the Holy Spirit ended yesterday with #13. It’s been studied around the world by millions of people who want to follow Jesus. This deep question was asked:

“What evidence to you see of the influence of the Holy Spirit upon those who are not Christians?” What is the Holy Spirit doing for a world where Jesus is still being rejected and crucified, where His holy law is disregarded?

Think of the simplest little elementary blessing you enjoy—that is “evidence of the influence of the Holy Spirit.” You are thirsty, you turn the tap, there is water; thank the Source whence all your blessings flow. Water is great!

You hunger for some bread; it’s at hand; the market’s open.

You drive down the street to or from work; 99.9% plus of the drivers coming at you keep on their side. Thank God! Their motivation may be purely fear, but it’s a blessing that fear can keep some semblance of order in this world. Jesus said, “I have come that they [we] may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). All the labor-saving, comfort-giving securities of life are His gift, yes, all the medical skills of physicians and nurses and scientists who may not acknowledge Him are from Him who “gives life unto the world” (6:33).

The only decent thing we can do is to say “Thank You!” and stop resisting the constraint of His love that would motivate us to give our self-sacrificing service to Him and our fellow-men (2 Cor. 5:14, 15).

And oh yes, let’s read Revelation 7:1-4 and realize why World War III hasn’t come.... yet. There again is evidence of the Holy Spirit’s work. Rejoice!

June 25, 2006

Someone has asked the question, “Is everybody in the Laodicean Church (the 7th of Rev. 2, and 3:14-21), lukewarm?”

The actual text, the words of Jesus, do not make exceptions.

It’s like the ten “virgins” of the parable in Matthew 25; they “ALL slumbered and slept” (vs. 5; the original has it, they nodded and then they all sacked out in deep sleep). But five had prepared in advance by stocking a supply of oil, and at “midnight,” the hour when it is the hardest to awaken out of deep sleep, the cry went forth, “The Bridegroom comes!” The cry caught everybody asleep.

Yes, everybody in Laodicea is lukewarm, just as everybody in Elijah’s ancient Israel was either actively worshipping Baal or “answering not a word” in defense of truth when he challenged them on Mt. Carmel (1 Kings 18:21). “All have sinned [aorist tense, in one punctiliar point of time, Rom. 3:23), but “all” have been given the gift of justification “in Christ” (vs. 24; 5:15-18). In other words, all ten of the “virgins of Matthew 25 had been given equal access “to them that sell [so they could] buy for yourselves” (Matt. 25:9).

Has the “midnight” come when the cry goes forth?

The story in the Song of Solomon (5:2-8) has the woman snug in bed, warm and cozy, thinking only of her own comfort while her one true Lover out in the cold rain is banging on the door to be let in. She rebuffs Him.

Then realizing how wrong she was, she belatedly got up to let Him in, at last thinking of Him instead of herself, and by then He was.... GONE.

It’s time for some serious thinking.

June 24, 2006

“Our Father which art in heaven....” are the words Jesus told us to say when we kneel to pray. An infinite Father with billions of people to care for, He gives personal attention to each of us. And that’s what we must believe.

He gives personal love to each of us. He loves the man of whom He says “it is not good that [he] be alone” who does not have “an help meet for him” to share his loneliness (Gen. 2:18; the GNB says, “It is not good for the man to live alone. I will make a suitable companion to help him”). When Jesus had to go away He sent the Gift of the Holy Spirit to be the constant Companion of anyone who appreciates the “Para-Kletos,” the One who is called to sit down beside us and never leave us (John 14:16, 17). He permits all earthly support to go away so that we may learn to appreciate that He keeps His promise not to forsake us. (When some men become widowers they learn that.)

To the grieving widow who senses that her loneliness is peril-frought, He says: “Your Creator will be like a husband to you—the LORD Almighty is His name” (Isa. 54:5). All these many ministries are in that word “Father!”

It’s on purpose that so much of the Bible is taken up with our personal problem of fear, of alone-ness, of inadequacy. “Where could I go to escape from You,.... away from Your [loving] presence?.... Even the darkness is not dark to You, and the night is as bright as the day” (Psalm 139:7-12, GNB).

When He promised to send you the “Comforter,” the “Para-kletos,” He is faithful; don’t think you must endlessly beg Him to do what He promised, for that implies that you doubt His fidelity. Thank Him that He has kept the promise! You don’t want to keep saying “Father!” in tones of unbelief. Stay on your knees until you see what you would be like if He had indeed forsaken you! Then thank Him for saving you from hell itself!

June 23, 2006

Why does a man love a woman? The LORD God created him to do so: she is “an help meet for him” (Gen. 2:18, KJV), a person perfectly complementary to him, but female as he is male. The fact that he loves her has opened the secret of her heart-response in return; now she understands him and appreciates him for what he is. Heaven forbid that it is merely sexual lust on either side, for that is not “agape” and it always “fails” (cf. 1 Cor. 13:8).

And the woman whom the man loves is intellectually challenging to him in her way. He desperately needs her; and he appreciates her. Her judgment is what he needs throughout life. Their love is very deep and lasting.

Any church that Jesus loves as the Bridegroom-to-be is a corporate body of people who “believe in Jesus” in a non-superficial way. That means that their “faith” is not egocentric; they have outgrown their infantile search for a reward for themselves. They have come to the place where they have little time or inclination to dream of their “mansion” in the New Jerusalem. What prompts their thinking now is not what can Jesus do for them? but what can they do for Him? Some would say it’s a paradigm shift in heart dynamics; they have “come to.... the knowledge of the Son of God,.... to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,.... no longer children,.... but.... grow[n] up in all things into Him” (Eph. 4:13-15).

This means that as a church body they have outgrown the pagan-papal doctrine of natural immortality, and they are now capable of appreciating the sacrifice of Christ on His cross. The death He died is not our “sleep,” nor merely a foray into enduring our human physical pain (which of course He did endure!), but He endured “the curse of God,” the darkness of an eternal death, the pangs of hell in His great love for us (cf. Gal. 3:13).

Appreciating that stretches our little human hearts outsize (cf. Psalm 119:32).

June 21, 2006

It’s the one place where above all else we must “walk softly”: the holy Son of God who has become the new Head of the human race, intimately close to us in His humanity yet “in the beginning.... God” and forever will be God, He is in love.

In trying to understand, the only analogy we can turn to is our own human experience: a pure youth on the threshold of manhood has discovered a girl who answers to his heart longings. They are human longings but holy, even angels can’t know or understand; this youth has been created “in the image of God,” which even angels cannot claim to be.

His love for this girl (who is on the threshold of womanhood) is a faint intimation of the plight that Jesus the Son of God finds Himself in: He is in love with a “woman” and He is captive to that love. As true love always does, it possesses Him and drives Him. The old saying is that all the world loves two who are in love; all of God’s universe watches the unfolding of this love affair that the Son of God is caught up in.

The church is a human organism, a “body.” How can Christ love a church as a man loves a pure young woman, a virgin, who gives herself to him in answer to his love for her?

A hint is in Revelation 3: the sixth church of history, Philadelphia, has responded to Christ’s “wooing” in that she has been a “church” that has welcomed every ray of light brought to her by the Holy Spirit regardless of ostracism or persecution to suffer. Christ promises her that He will “make” her persecutors “to come and worship before your feet, and to know that I have loved you” in that rarest of heavenly intimacy (vs. 9).

Can the time ever come when that same “woman” resists and condemns “light” that Jesus brings her? Tomorrow, if the Lord wills.

June 20, 2006

A question arises: on what basis does the Lord Jesus Christ as Bridegroom-to-be fix His conjugal love on the corporate body of any church? There are many denominated ones of widely divergent beliefs; is that husbandly love imprecise and undirected specifically? Does a healthy bridegroom love a whole host of women indiscriminately or is his love fixed on a “one and only”? The Creator’s purpose in making the “alone” man “a helper comparable to him” was to give him a particular love for one woman, not to create a ménage a trois harem (Gen. 2:18; excuse me, I just had to use that one).

Our “knowledge” is “in part” and immature (1 Cor. 13:12); but an embryonic understanding must be that a love for truth is the characteristic of any church that Jesus can love in that “Bridegroom” way. “Open the gates, that the righteous nation which keeps the truth may enter in” (Isa. 26:2); there is a clear distinction on that basis.

If there is a hint in the message of the Song of Solomon, we know that such a church need not be impressive in a worldly way: the great king was fed up with the proud and arrogant ladies at the court, and sought love in an honest but lowly shepherd girl. Jesus quoted the “Song” in His capacity as “faithful and true Witness” to His hitherto unresponsive church at the end of time (Rev. 3:20; S. S. 5:2-8).

Revelation pictures that church as a “remnant” who “keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” (12:17, KJV). That is a very distinctive, impressive identity!  Such a “house.... is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15). Jesus tells such a church as a corporate “body”: “do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32).

Wherever in the world such a “church” may be found, “she” must “make herself ready” for “the marriage of the Lamb,” who is her crucified Lord, for whose sake she submits to be “crucified with Him” (Rev. 19:7, 8; Gal. 2:20).

June 18, 2006

The fear of the unpardonable sin has distressed many sincere people. It discourages some and keeps them away from the joyous eternal life that the Lord wants them to experience.

They are told repeatedly that the unpardonable sin is continued, persistent sinning, to the point that they can no longer hear the Voice of the Holy Spirit. But almost everybody in the world can realize that he/she has indeed sinned in one way or another, persistently, continually.

We must look again at the context of what Jesus Himself said about the unpardonable sin; it’s in Matthew 12:22-37:

(a) Jesus healed someone demon-possessed. “All the multitudes were amazed” and wondered positively if Jesus might be the long-awaited Messiah (as we today wonder if our long-awaited “Elijah” may have already begun his work of “turning hearts”). But “the Pharisees.... said, ‘This fellow.... casts out demons.... by the ruler of the demons,” Satan himself. They reacted negatively to the nth degree.

 

(b) This had already happened earlier, in 9:34; these leaders of the one true church of that day had already attributed the work of Jesus to Satan (which is the unpardonable sin) but now Jesus has given them another chance to repent; but they have repeated that awful sin. Jesus then goes on to tell the Pharisees that “if I cast out devils by the [Holy] Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” and you didn’t know it, or recognize the blessing!

 

(c) These church leaders went on and on in their way until they felt driven to cry out in Pilate’s presence “Crucify Him”! (It makes one want to hesitate before accepting any job as church pastor or leader—it’s a frightfully dangerous place to be in unless we walk “softly” as King Ahab did when he repented, 1 Kings 21:27-29.)

 

(d) The way Matthew (ch. 12) and Luke (ch. 11) tell the story about the Pharisees, the people would have been willing to believe the truth and repent, but their church leaders hindered them and “in a great degree” blocked the way.

 

(e) This action of the Pharisees was the Unpardonable Sin. Let’s not repeat it. But if you fear and tremble, there’s hope! Thank God.

June 17, 2006

There is a man in the Bible who could have committed the Unpardonable Sin, but thank God he did NOT. If he had, it would have been a very spectacular one, for it would have reduplicated on earth the “original” sin of Lucifer in heaven—jealousy of Christ.

“Jealousy [is] as cruel as the grave; its flames are flames of fire” (Song of Solomon 8:6); it was the sin of Lucifer against Christ, and it became for Satan the sin against the Holy Spirit (cf. Isa. 14:12-19; Eze. 28:12-19).

The man who was tempted but overcame was, of course, John the Baptist. He had known the thrill of preaching the true message under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit; but then it seemed the bottom fell out and the Holy Spirit left him for somebody else, as he saw the crowds abandon him and go over to the Man from Nazareth.

To make his heart burden more difficult, he found himself captured by Herod and thrust into a dungeon, and the weary days and weeks dragged by with no word from Jesus; it seemed that He had forgotten all about him in the euphoria of His happy ministry in the bright sunshine of success. John was abandoned, it seemed, in gloomy shadows.

He struggled with temptation, and Heaven looked on with concern, but the new “Elijah” stood the test. John’s disciples even taunted him, “‘Rabbi, He who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you testified—behold, He is baptizing, and all are coming to Him’”! But John replied: ‘ “he who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is fulfilled’” (John 3:26ff.).

Let’s say you love a one-and-only woman; but you end up as “best man” and watch her given to another man. How could “self” be more painfully crucified? But John was rewarded by a great report in the Bible; and a day yet to come.

June 16, 2006

The chosen people of God, the Jews, cruelly and mercilessly ridiculed and tortured the holy Son of God as He “poured out His soul unto death” on His cross (cf. Isa. 53:12). It was the most horrible miscarriage of justice the universe had ever witnessed. The sacrifice of Christ will never be repeated, but its horror and pain will be endured by His people in the closing days of world history, as a true wife shares her husband’s trials.

Thus they will “partake of Christ’s sufferings” and be fitted to “be glad with exceeding joy” (1 Peter 4:13). They will know that final intimacy that no other people can know; they will “sing a new song before the throne.... and no one [can] learn that song except” those people (Rev. 14: 3).

This simple little Bible study is not intended to unleash theological controversy; Heaven forbid that we should expend vital energy vainly (time is too short). We long for an understanding of the nearness of our Savior; we long to be aware of His heart needs; we plead with the Father that we may be saved from repeating the sin of the Jews in the time of the “remnant” church of Revelation 12:17, which conscience forces us to realize has taken place! We plead even with tears, O God, save us from any little tinge of fanaticism.

But do grant us to “follow the Lamb wherever He goes,” each of us in our little sphere where His providence has placed us (14:4). Grant us that repentant “broken and contrite heart” (Psalm 51:17).

Why can the Bridegroom/Lamb fix His love upon a church, any church? The Enemy in the great controversy between Christ and Satan has maintained that it’s impossible that any “body” of Christ—church—can “overcome” corporately as a body, even as He “overcame” (3:20). Let’s forget about ourselves and any possible “reward” we might imagine we deserve (perish the thought!): what kind of honor and vindication does the crucified and risen Son of God deserve in these last days?

June 15, 2006

We know that Jesus calls us to study the book of Daniel (Matt. 24:15), and He gives a special blessing to those who read the book of Revelation (1:1-3); but why does He call His last-days’ church to study the Song of Solomon? Or does He?

Yes, He does; it’s in His last words to the seventh church, “the Lukewarm Church,” Laodicea (there is no eighth): “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone [a certain one, tis, original] hears My voice....” It’s a Voice that has something arresting to say—quoted from this strange book.

For centuries, reverent scholars have seen that this is a quote from the Song of Solomon (5:2-8). It’s the sad story of a man deeply in love who gets his heart broken. In the beginning, the LORD God said it’s “not good for the man” to be “alone,” and that’s true especially after he falls in love (Gen. 2:18; a man is really the “weaker” sex). Jesus is a “man.” Why does He put Himself in the middle of that painful story?

In this story, shocking as it may seem, the Man who gets ditched is the Lord Jesus. The story is not about the cross—that happened long ago; it’s about the end of time, just before the second coming. Jesus is ready to be “married,” and the one “woman” whom He loves truly has rebuffed Him. “Women” figuratively (plural) don’t appeal to Him; there’s a one and only (Rev. 12:17).

There is something vastly heart-arresting in this story. It comes together in these two books—Song of Solomon and Revelation; they fit like a glove. The church is to be the Bride of Christ, and lukewarmness has led her to rebuff the only One who loves “her” truly.

His disappointment is beyond description. Can we understand it?

June 14, 2006

It has been a fascinating mystery for those who love the Bible: why is the Song of Solomon there? Is it just a personal love poem worthy to be forgotten? Or could it be buried truth yet to enlighten the world?

Now solid New Testament scholarship has discovered that none less than the Lord Jesus Christ has set our course in understanding. Contrary to the assumptions of theologians who have said that this book is never quoted in the New Testament, it is quoted by Jesus Himself; but the problem has been that He quoted the Septuagint version, the Greek translation that He and the apostles often used.

It’s especially in two prominent places:

“Jesus stood and cried out, saying, ‘If anyone thirsts let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water’” (John 7:38).

“The Scripture”? Where?

The only place one can find is S. S. 4:9-15, “You have ravished my heart,.... a garden enclosed,.... a spring shut up, a fountain sealed,.... a well of living waters.” This is the New Covenant joy that fulfills God’s promise to Abraham (and us) that wherever we go, “You shall be a blessing” (Gen. 12:2). A promise to redeem any life from boredom!

Again, in the words of Jesus to the leadership of the last-days’ remnant church Jesus quotes S. S. He says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone [tis, a certain one, Greek] hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in....” (Rev. 3:21). It’s the Greek of S. S. 5:2 (the Hebrew doesn’t have “at the door”): the unfeeling girl has gone to bed, is in that twilight zone between sleep and waking, “I sleep but my heart is awake; It is the voice of my beloved! He knocks....” And here the LXX adds, epi ten thuran, “at the door.” Jesus saw Himself there! (Time’s up; more tomorrow maybe.)

June 13, 2006

We humans build houses and then wait for people to buy them and move in. God does the opposite: He “builds” human characters of “righteousness” first and then creates “a new heaven and new earth” for them to move in to, and inhabit (2 Peter 3:13).

This “building” for them a new heaven and new earth is for Him a trifling accomplishment. He once “created.... the earth and the things that therein are” in a mere six days (Rev. 10:6; Ex. 20:11). His problem now is not creating a home for His people to live in forever; it’s getting them ready to move in, for only “righteousness” can “dwell there.” And He cannot create righteousness in any human heart without that person’s full consent; and again, in turn, that full consent is not forthcoming so long as (in any respect) “self” is still holding sway in that heart.

This involves a deeper heart-cleansing than we like to realize. Ever since the beginning of the great Day of Atonement there has been a constant effort on God’s part to lead His people to a heart-preparation for the return of Jesus. He is in earnest about that, not content for “world without end” to go on and on, generation after generation of saints going in the grave to join multitudes from Abel on. All of these wonderful saints are “guests” at the marriage supper of the Lamb (Rev. 19:9). Wonderful!

But there must also be a “Bride” or there can’t be a marriage. One “making herself ready” is the Heroine of this Day of Atonement. But for any bride to be happy in her marriage she must be totally at-one-with her Bridegroom.

But that’s impossible for any “woman” (even the figurative one, the church) unless she is totally convinced of the devoted love of her Bridegroom.

That brings us to our point: for the church to become so totally won will require the grandest revelations of “Christ and Him crucified” the church (and the world) have heard since Pentecost.

And that will be the message Elijah brings that “turns hearts” (Mal. 4:5, 6).

June 12, 2006

A couple of days ago I got this phone call from a stranger, 82; has read my little book The Nearness of the Savior, likes it, wants to talk with me. Hoping I could share a morsel of the bread of life with someone, I said, Come.

Turns out he wanted to inform me of the “science” of “Cryonics,” said scientists have proven they can make old rats be young rats again. So when you die, they inject some antifreeze in you, keep you frozen in a cold vault until such time as scientists perfect their technique, then they will thaw you out and make you a young person again.

My visitor said he wants to believe in Jesus but needs demonstrable scientific evidence that Christ’s method for eternal life is better than Cryonics. Kept saying he would listen, but it was difficult. I prayed for wisdom; what to say?

I do have urgent work to do; I couldn’t spend the day. I proceeded to explicate the love (agape) that is in John 3:16 which is ably demonstrated beyond “science” in the death to which Jesus gave Himself on His cross. I gave him my little book The Word that Turned the World Upside Down, and at the end asked him to kneel with me on the grass and let me pray.

At least I learned something in the visit. The dear Lord as Savior will save anyone who will let Him do it. But anyone who is not hungry and thirsty for the bread and the water of life, apparently can’t ingest it (Matt. 5:6). “Remember now your [Savior] in the days of your youth before the difficult days come, and the years draw near when you say, ‘I have no pleasure in them’” (cf. Eccl. 12:1). I learned yesterday to appreciate anew what Hebrews 3:7-15 says: when the Holy Spirit speaks to your young heart “today,” grab the opportunity now with all the energy you have!

June 11, 2006

After these two millennia, Jesus Christ continues to upset our assumptions and contradict them. We think that those who are always smiling are the happy ones, the self-esteemed, the purpose-driven saints, the always-on-top Christians, like corks that can’t sink. He says, “Blessed [happy] are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:3). Frankly, He sounds heretical!

Is something quiet and unobtrusive going on behind our backs—peopling the New Jerusalem with quiet, sober, even troubled people we haven’t thought will get through?

Then Jesus drives the thorn in deeper: “Blessed [happy] are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted” (vs. 4). He even sounds like disappointment and pain and heart-break are good experiences! How apparently backward can His thinking get?

He sounds like real lasting “comfort” can only follow being acquainted with grief first. The “mourning” He speaks of is not losing loved ones in death; it’s heart-sorrow for the sin that the Holy Spirit has convicted us is buried deep in our hearts. As the “Son of David” Jesus reveled in the psalms of David, learning as we must learn. Obviously He had read 126:5, 6: “those who weep as they plant their crops, gather the harvest with joy! Those who wept as they went out carrying the seed will come back singing for joy as they bring in the harvest.” Could this have inspired His Beatitude?

Another of our popular assumptions He pricks like a balloon: “Blessed are the meek [not the “success-stories”]: for they shall inherit the earth” (Matt. 5:5). The “meek” are those who always manage somehow to get trampled on, because they react to contingencies like the One who said He was “meek and lowly in heart” (Matt. 11:29) and ended up on a cross.

If you follow Him you get so you can’t even exist another day unless you believe what He says. That’s how “the just shall live by faith” (Hab. 2:4).

June 10, 2006

Is there a common denominator to all sin? The law of God would suggest that there are ten varieties for there are Ten Commandments; but is there one root beneath them all?

The classic definition of sin is: “the transgression of the law” (1 John 3:4, KJV). But the actual Greek word goes much deeper in concept—anomia, two words in one, “a” means against, and “nomos” means “law.” In physics, “anomia” would mean rebellion against gravity or against any of the natural laws that make life in a cosmos possible. Sin is therefore heart resistance to what is fundamentally righteous. And what is fundamentally right of course is God’s love, agape, demonstrated in Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.

Sin is therefore hatred of God and of all that He is; and “God is agape” (1 John 4:8). Sin loves to eradicate God by crucifying Him on a cross. Sin hates agape, and loves to hate anyone whom God loves and favors.

Total rebellion against God and life in general would permeate the world were it not for the presence of the Holy Spirit here. He is a gift by virtue of Christ leaving the world at His ascension, who said, “It is expedient for you that I go away:.... if I depart, I will send [the Holy Spirit] unto you. And when He is come, He will reprove [convict] the world of sin” (John 16:7-9). The “great controversy between Christ and Satan” would have been long ago finished with total victory for the Enemy if it were not for the presence of the Holy Spirit in the world. (Nobody would drive on the proper side of the road, for example; there’d be mayhem everywhere. We have a million reasons to say “Thank You!” to God that we seldom think of.)

The idea of “Elijah” being “sent” is a last-chance ministry of that Holy Spirit; “Elijah” is “turning hearts”—as miraculous as water running uphill (Mal. 4:5, 6). He will do it for you if you’ll cease your constant “a” resistance.

June 7, 2006

I never saw it until today—a precious story in the Bible! (Maybe you’ve known it all your life—I have just been slow.) It’s in the Good News version of Isaiah:

“The LORD said to me, ‘No matter how shepherds yell and shout, they can’t scare away a lion from an animal that it has killed [for food]; in the same way, there is nothing that can keep Me, the Lord Almighty, from protecting Mount Zion’” (31:4).

You don’t have to live in Africa to know this: when a hungry lion has run and run and finally caught its prey and sits down to enjoy his hard-earned meal, nothing can shy him away from it. Don’t you dare try to wrest it from him! You’ll see a lion ferocious at his worst.

So, says the LORD Almighty—(your personal Friend and Savior), will He protect you fiercely from anyone who might try to harm you!

I have often needed that encouragement.

But there’s a second story here:

“Just as a bird hovers over its nest to protect its young, so I, the LORD Almighty, will protect Jerusalem and defend it’” (vs. 5). Substitute your name for “Mt Zion” and for “Jerusalem,” and you have the New Covenant message the Lord wants you to grasp.

He is like a super-angry hungry lion and like a quiet mother bird, both. (He created them both so they could teach us a lesson about His character.)

The people in Isaiah’s day couldn’t forget that vivid lesson! Neither can we.

June 6, 2006

Under the New Covenant, everywhere we turn we face a happy thought: the gospel is better good news than we have assumed. It’s true even in the Lord’s Prayer that we re-prayed yesterday:

(a) “Our Father in heaven.” He loves us too much to coddle or encourage us in popular feelings of spiritual arrogance (the “rich and.... have need of nothing” complex, Rev. 3:17). “What son is there whom a father does not chasten?.... We have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live?” (Heb. 12:7, 9). If you pray the Lord’s Prayer, you thank Him for His discipline.

 

(b) Those times when we have imagined He was against us, when mysterious troubles and even heartaches overwhelmed us, were evidences of our Father’s special attentive love. Two of His New Covenant promises are: “I will.... make your name great; and you shall be a blessing” (Gen. 12:2). Our Father cannot give us those blessings unless He has disciplined us first! All this apparent punishment we have endured “yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Heb. 12:11). Yes, perk up! He leads you.

 

(Time out for a moment: in case anyone wonders, are those Genesis 12 promises actually the New Covenant? Read Galatians 3:8; 4:24-27.)

 

(c) “And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one” (Matt. 6:13). If you think you are not as pretty as someone else, or as super-manly, you are being “led” out of “temptation,” exactly as you have been praying for all along! The Lord can slow you down for a moment and flash into your memory when He has “delivered” you from stumbling into some “horrible pit” (Psalm 40:2). An example: the “pit” of entanglement with a “strange woman” [or strange man!] (Prov. 22:14; 23:27). Regarding that particular “pit,” we read, “He who is abhorred of the LORD will fall there.” We have enough to rejoice about to keep us smiling for many days! He loves us!

June 5, 2006

Suppose you don’t know what to do, you don’t even know how to pray. You can kneel, but you don’t even know what words to use.

Now’s the time to pray the Lord’s Prayer. It’s just inside the New Testament. Put it into the first person singular:

“My Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name” (Matt. 6:9; Jesus said, “In this manner,.... pray.” No matter who you are, or how unworthy you are, you are given the right to walk in past all the holy angels to the throne of God with these words). Save me from bringing disgrace on Your name.

“Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (vs. 10; let me do or say something today that is right).

“Give me this day my daily bread” (vs. 11; and the inexpressible joy of being satisfied with what my portion is of either the temporal or spiritual kind). Thank You for my portion!

“And forgive me my debts,” (vs. 12a; that is—my sins). This credit card debit is a constant load I can’t carry; oh, to breathe free again! Please teach me to say no next time I go to the mall; and yes, to say no to self all day.

“As I forgive my debtors” (vs. 12b; that means I practice self-denial until I pay my credit card balance; at the same time I pay my debt of forgiveness to those who have wronged me personally and painfully. It hurts, but yes, I do).

“And do not lead me into temptation, but deliver me from the evil one” (vs. 13a; any temptation to any sin is greater than I have the strength to endure, of myself. Thanks that at last I know the truth).

“For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen” (vs. 13b; thanks that at last I realize it’s not mine).

June 4, 2006

In many hearts around the world there is an interest in “the Elijah message” which is God’s promise in the last two verses of the Old Testament. He says, “I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord” (Mal. 4:5, 6).

That’s a clear-cut promise. God’s honor depends on its fulfillment.

We turn the page, and we’re into the New Testament. There immediately, before we are even introduced to Jesus the Messiah, we meet up with “Elijah” in the vision given to Zacharias. God is in a hurry to fulfill that promise! Zacharias’ son John the Baptist is to “go before [the Christ] in the spirit and power of Elijah, ‘to turn the hearts of.... the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord’” (Luke 1:13-17). Later Jesus tells His wondering disciples not to wait any longer for the promised “Elijah,” for he has already come in the message and ministry of John the Baptist (Matt. 11:7-14).

But conscience arrests us at that point: John the Baptist’s day was not “the great and dreadful day of the Lord.” That’s due now! Any lingering doubt we may have is removed by the realization that the “curse” the Lord alludes to in that last verse of Malachi hovers over us. Everything comes together: (a) the “Elijah message” is that of the great “other angel” of Revelation 18:1-4; (b) it’s the final “everlasting gospel” of 14:6-15; (c) it’s the powerful repetition of “the fall of Babylon” of vs. 8; (d) it’s the “witness” of the Lord Jesus to “the angel of the church of the Laodiceans,” the last of the seven churches of history (3:14-21); (e) it’s the call to “be zealous therefore and repent”; (f) finally, it’s the appeal of the Disappointed Lover in the Song of Solomon to His Bride-to-be to consummate the long-delayed “marriage of the Lamb” (19:7, 8). (g) And we add—Elijah reconciles her heart to Him!

It’s time for us, the “ten virgins,” to stay awake (Matt. 25:1-13), time to “follow the Lamb wherever He goes” (Rev. 14:4, 5), time for a new dimension of closeness to the Son of God.

June 3, 2006

The financial world has been jolted by the guilty verdicts handed down to the two top executives of the giant Enron Corporation. Unless their appeal changes the verdict, they are headed to prison for life. To simplify the case, they have been convicted of bearing false witness and of virtually stealing the livelihood of thousands.

It began as merely extra clever “business,” no intent to steal or lie. According to the court, it became a slippery slope.

But some related good news has evolved from the scholastic studies of some who have investigated the original Hebrew language of the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20. The familiar “thou shalt nots” are in fact the simple indicative future tense of the various Hebrew verbs; they are not imperatives; in the original, they are not “commands,” but simple promises.

But like all of God’s promises, there is the one fundamental fulcrum on which the promise turns—faith to believe the promise. God may give us a gigantic gift, but if we refuse it we deprive ourselves of the benefit. His giving us the gift does not force us to receive it! That’s up to us.

That fulcrum in Exodus 20 is the Preamble to the Ten Commandments: “I brought.... you out of.... the house of bondage” (vs. 2); that is, I saved you!

But the cost of His saving us was—His own death. Yes, our second death.

The cross of the Lord Jesus Christ is in that verse 2; let your proud, worldly heart be broken, melted, by that realization. Let your insensitive heart appreciate “the width and length and depth and height—to know the love [agape] of Christ which passes knowledge” (Eph. 3:18, 19); then God says, I promise—you will not fall down that slippery slope of stealing, or lying, or even to stumble into coveting your neighbor’s goods, or even his wife.

If prison eventuates for these two once-powerful corporation magnates, thank God it’s not the end of the road. The lesson of that grand Preamble is worth a lifetime’s learning, even in prison!

June 2, 2006

(a) The world is living in God’s grand Day of Atonement (Dan. 8:14, etc).

(b) There is danger that modern “Israel,” the Lord’s church, may repeat the history of ancient Israel’s Baal worship in the days of the prophet Elijah.  This would necessitate Elijah being “sent” to us again.

(c) The need for “Elijah” is unprecedented, for we are living in the time when the Lord Jesus Christ wants to come in His second coming.  He has to come for He promised to do so; but He doesn’t dare come personally until His people are ready lest they be consumed by the “brightness of His coming” (2 Thess. 2:8; sin cherished deep cannot endure His personal presence; those who cling to it perish with it).

(d) Now is the greatest problem the Lord has had since the flood of Noah. “As the days of Noah were,” says Christ, of today (Matt. 24:38, 39).

(e) Hence the need for “Elijah” to be “sent.... lest [the Lord] smite the earth with a curse”(Mal. 4:5, 6; in the Bible, God takes the blame for what He does not, or cannot, prevent). The “curse” would be the transformation of the planet into one vast “Baghdad” or “Darfur.” Continued moral degradation leads to something like that.

(f) “Elijah’s” work is to “turn hearts” of family members—miracles of much more abounding grace (cf. Rom. 5:20). Almost everywhere one turns there are divorces developing, even in the Lord’s church. Jesus asks a pathetic question, “When the Son of man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8). Well, yes, some....

(g) But how can a church proclaim a message that “lightens the earth with glory” (Rev 18:1-4) unless it demonstrates those miracles of grace in “turned hearts”?

(h) Elijah’s patience lasted three years and a half; then came the final test at Carmel and the Brook Kidron for those who persisted in unbelief.

(i) But oh, wait.... God will again send the “fire from heaven” at the new “Mt. Carmel,” unmistakable evidence of grace abounding.  The last thing God wants is another Brook Kidron!

(j) Thus He will hide “judgment,” lest the sound of its approaching footsteps may conquer by fear the heart that must be won only by love.

(k) That’s why Jesus says “they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day” their probation closed in Noah’s day (Matt. 24:38). “Good times” will continue alluring,  deceptive, right up to the day our probation ends. We must not expect the Lord to force us into His kingdom.

June 1, 2006

Queen Jezebel outright hated the prophet Elijah, but King Ahab probably feared him more than hated him. She was a non-Israelite; her hatred was that of the wicked world against Christ. Ahab was capable of feeling guilty for his fear. The mass of the people were bewildered; not one (with the possible exception of Obadiah who hid some of the Lord’s servants in a cave) had the courage to stand with the holy prophet of the Lord. Everybody except Elijah trembled on Mt. Carmel. The air was charged with tension.

Well might we all tremble today as we inexorably approach our rendezvous at our last-days “Mt. Carmel.” It will be a preview of the last day of Judgment, when the apostle John says we shall all be judged by the one indispensable question: “Have you learned how to love (with agape)?” (Yes, read 1 John 4:8: “He who does not love [with agape] does not know God.”) The newly-sent “Elijah’s” mission will be teaching God’s people how to love: “He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers” (Mal. 4:5, 6). That’s his primary task, not administering lethal judgment.

Elijah’s mission will be the greatest love-and-reconciliation-building ministry ever performed on earth since Pentecost. Satan can perform physical miracles (he is a very qualified orthopedic or cardiac surgeon), but reconciling alienated human hearts is a greater miracle (a five by-pass in the operating theater may not bring husband and wife together again. Only “Elijah” can do that one; but that’s what he has come to accomplish, and if we condemn him like Jezebel and Ahab did and stubbornly disregard the fire that falls at “Elijah’s” prayer, then must come the “Brook Kidron, 1 Kings 18:40).

Elijah was very patient for 3-1/2 years; then came Carmel and the end of patience forever. God is infinite, but His patience is not. Let the one who trembles find comfort in Psalm 130. What makes one really “fear” is the awareness of His forgiveness!