Category Archives: Salvation

September 15, 2013 · 14:45

A Loving God

Bible-God Is Love

And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. (1 John 4:16)

In my last post, “An Angry God,” I tried to perhaps shock readers back into an awareness of the awesomeness of God, by calling attention to the wrath He is capable of displaying. However, He more often restrains His anger because of His mercy.

It is said that familiarity breeds contempt, and that is exactly what happens when all we consider is the kinder, longsuffering, patient and loving side of God. We put Him on a shelf until we need something from Him, and then we plead with all of our heart for Him to answer our prayers. We live our lives no differently than the rest of the world so that an uninterested observer can see no difference between the Christian and the pagan.

God is not someone to be trifled with. Indeed, if He were to confront us, we would be overcome with fear, and we would shake and fall down as dead men (Matthew 28:4). The prophet Isaiah came face to face with the living God (Isaiah 6:1-5). He saw Him high, and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. He was surrounded by angels who continually chanted, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory.” At the sight of it all, Isaiah’s strength departed, and he cried out, “Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts” (v. 5). When Peter recognized the power of Christ “he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord” (Luke 5:8). When John saw Jesus in all of His Glory, he said, “when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead” (Revelation 1:17). God should not be taken lightly or taken for granted. He is GOD!

creating_adamThat said, God is a loving God. It is no accident that we find his first loving acts in the creation account in the book of Genesis. In the process of creation, Genesis records that He called all things into being only by His spoken Word. But when He created man, He made him in His own image. Not only that, but Chapter Two provides added detail telling us that “the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7). The English word “formed” is the Hebrew word yâtsar which means to mold as a potter might mold a lump of clay to his liking. God took extra care in designing a body like the one He would one day inhabit.

ExpulsionFromEden

Later after the man sinned by disobeying God’s only prohibition, instead of carrying out the prescribed sentence – “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Genesis 2:17, emphasis added) – God spared their lives and provided for future redemption: “And I will put enmity between thee [Satan] and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:15).

When Cain murdered his brother Abel (Genesis 4), instead of killing him on the spot, God put a mark on Cain to protect him from a vendetta that might have been raised against him.

ark2Almost 1600 years later (Genesis 6-9) mankind had become so wicked and violent that God was ready to end it all. “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD” (Genesis 6:8), and God saved His prized creation in saving Noah and his family.

God is often criticized for His order to the Israelites to wipe out the Canaanites including men, women, children and their animals. The Canaanites were vile, wicked people who practiced child sacrifice and included all kinds of sexual perversions including the use of animals (bestiality) in the worship of the demonic gods – all of which is abhorrent to God. But God did not destroy them all at once as He did Sodom and Gomorrah. Instead, he gave opportunity for the witness of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to have an effect as they sojourned in their land. God spoke to Abraham, “And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years … But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full” (Genesis 15:13, 16, emphasis added). God allowed for the repentance of these pagans during the time that the Patriarchs were in the land, plus 430 years that Israel was in Egyptian captivity, and 40 more years as Israel wandered the wilderness. That was a total of around 600 years that they had to repent. It may be worth noting, that while God commanded that they wipe them all out to purge the land of their wickedness, Israel did not fully obey God in killing them all. Consequently, they continually struggled with the lure of idolatry, which eventually destroyed the nation. God demonstrates His love through the patience He shows toward sinners in giving them every opportunity to repent, but His patience has limits.

Much more could be said about the love of God, but in the words of the old hymn:

Could we with ink the ocean fill, and were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill, and every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above, would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole, though stretched from sky to sky.
(“The Love of God,” Frederick M. Lehman, 1917.)

The greatest act of God’s love was demonstrated when He took upon Himself the form of man, “And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:8). God’s love is so great that He paid the death penalty in His own flesh to save us from the wrath to come. The wrath of God is nothing to be trifled with, but His love is extended to anyone who is willing to receive it.

 

1 Comment

Filed under Apologetics, Christianity, Creation, Evangelism, Gospel, Religion, Salvation, Theology

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

September 10, 2013 · 12:22

What A Difference A Day Can Make

What A Difference A Day Can Make.

Comments Off on What A Difference A Day Can Make

Filed under Christianity, Current Events, Evangelism, Gospel, Religion, Salvation, Theology

September 9, 2013 · 00:32

An Angry God

Angry God

Thou, even thou, art to be feared: and who may stand in thy sight when once thou art angry?  (Psalm 76:7)

When we think of God, we do not like to think of Him as angry; rather, we want to think of Him as loving, kind, merciful and patient. We want a “nice” God, not an angry one. But when we read the Old Testament Scriptures, we can come away with a very different perspective on God. Indeed, many atheists readily see this in the pages of the Bible, and are quick to point this out as they self-righteously boast that they could never believe in a God that acts so “irrationally” against people who do not wish to follow Him. They make a valid, albeit uniformed, point.

The English word “anger” appears 229 times in the Old Testament of the King James Bible compared to only five times in the New Testament. The Hebrew word most often translated as “anger” is ‘aph and it literally means “nose, nostril, or ire.” It describes an angry person who is breathing so heavily that his nostrils flare with rage. This Hebrew word appears 276 in the Old Testament, and with regard to God, it is translated as “anger” 198 times. Second to that is the Hebrew word chêmâh which means “heat, fury, passion or anger.” In relation to God, this word is used 94 times. Another frequently used Hebrew word is chârâh which means to “glow or grow warm, or to blaze up” with anger, zeal or jealousy. This word describes God’s anger 54 times. There are other Hebrew words that describe God’s anger as an outburst of passion, vexation, indignation, provocation or froth-at-the-mouth fury.  This is certainly not the kind of God we like to think about.

Why is God so angry, and what is it that provokes Him to anger? We see the first occurrence of English word “anger” applied to God in Exodus 4 when God assigned Moses the task of bringing His “people the children of Israel out of Egypt” (Exodus 3:10). Moses gave God one excuse after another as to why he was not the right man for the job until “the anger of the LORD was kindled against Moses” (Exodus 4:14). So reluctance to do God’s will angers God. The next instance where the word “anger” is applied to God is found in Numbers 11, where the children of Israel complained: “And when the people complained, it displeased the LORD: and the LORD heard it; and his anger was kindled; and the fire of the LORD burnt among them, and consumed them that were in the uttermost parts of the camp” (Numbers 11:1). God, Who provides everything for us, meets all of our needs and protects us from danger, is angry when we complain about our circumstances rather than respond to Him with a heart of gratitude.

On another occasion, Balak, the Moabite king, went to the prophet Balaam requesting that he curse the children of Israel. Balaam understood that these people were under God’s protection and was at first unwilling to accept the task. Balak persisted offering Balaam anything he wanted to do the job. At this second request, Balaam responded against God’s will, “And God’s anger was kindled because he went” (Numbers 22:22). Deliberately going against God’s will angers God. Since God would not permit him to curse Israel, Balaam devised a plan that would cause God to curse His own people.  “Balaam … taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication” (Revelation 2:14). “And Israel abode in Shittim, and the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab. And they called the people unto the sacrifices of their gods: and the people did eat, and bowed down to their gods. And Israel joined himself unto Baalpeor: and the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel And the LORD said unto Moses, Take all the heads of the people, and hang them up before the LORD against the sun, that the fierce anger of the LORD may be turned away from Israel.” (Numbers 25:1-4, emphasis added). This may sound extreme, but it shows how God feels about the practice of idolatry – allowing anything else to take the place of God (Exodus 20:3). Idolatry makes God angry.

Later, as the children of Israel were preparing to enter the Promised Land, the tribes of Ruben and Gad requested to stay on the east bank of the Jordan because of its good grazing lands (Numbers 32). Moses feared that the remaining ten tribes might become discouraged, if Ruben and Gad did not join in the fight. He reminded them of another time when the people were discouraged by a bad report by 10 of the 12 spies (Numbers 14), “And the LORD’S anger was kindled the same time” (Numbers 32:10). God was so angry at that time that He was ready to wipe out the whole nation and start over with Moses (Numbers 14:12). Lack of trust or faith in God makes Him angry. Indeed, “without faith it is impossible to please him” (Hebrews 11:6).

God demonstrates His anger in many ways throughout the Old Testament. The global flood of Noah’s day (Genesis 6-9) is an extreme example of God’s wrath poured out on billions of wicked, violent people who had total disregard for God. At the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11), God expressed His anger by confusing the languages of the people and scattering them throughout the world. Later, God evinced His anger on Sodom and Gomorrah for their sin of homosexuality, violence and all forms of wickedness (Genesis 19).

There are abundant examples of God displaying His anger throughout the Old Testament, but strangely enough, the New Testament mostly speaks of God’s “wrath” in terms of end times, otherwise known as “the day of wrath,” or with regard to an individual’s lost condition: “he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:36, emphasis added). “[T]he wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness” (Romans 1:18). Perhaps the reason for this is that God discharged the full measure of His anger and wrath on His Son, Jesus, at the cross. When Jesus cried out “τετελεσται” (it is finished!), God’s wrath was satisfied.

There is still the wrath to come, but from the cross to the present, God has withheld His anger for the coming judgment. It would behoove us, Christian and non-Christian alike, not to take this reprieve too lightly. God is love (1 John 4:8), but God is equally anger. Many Christians today reject the Old Testament teachings and want to hold only to what is taught in the New Testament. That is to reject a very fundamental truth: God is immutable, i.e., He does not change: “I am the LORD, I change not” (Malachi 3:6). James reminds us that all good things come “from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17, emphasis added). So why should we think that God’s anger has ceased simply because we turned the page from Malachi 4:6 to Matthew 1:1? We need to revere God and hold Him in awe for Who He is. We should have a healthy “fear” of God and strive to please Him with the way we conduct our lives. “Sanctify yourselves therefore, and be ye holy: for I am the LORD your God” (Leviticus 20:7, emphasis added). “As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance: But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation [life conduct]; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:14-16, emphasis added). God still gets angry. Let us not make Him angry with us by living our lives in a manner that reflects poorly or negatively on Him.

2 Comments

Filed under Apologetics, Atheism, Christianity, End Times, Evangelism, Gospel, Religion, Salvation, Theology

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

September 1, 2013 · 21:06

Fear the Lord

14348690_l Destroyed With Fire_123_dot_com

…fools despise wisdom and instruction. (Proverbs 1:7)

Reading often serves to feed the thought processes that inspire writing, but that has not been the case for me this past week. Instead, reading seems to have quenched the motivating fire to express in words ideas or thoughts that might encourage others. Indeed, what I have read combined with what I have witnessed in current events, have left me sapped and hopeless. I see no escape out of the tightening vortex that plunges our society, our nation and our world into greater and greater darkness.

I have been reading Mark R. Levin’s new book, The Liberty Amendments. I have no criticism of Dr. Levin’s work. He presents what to me seem to be some very rational and well thought out ideas for amending the United States Constitution to bring it back to the original intent of the framers. Dr. Levin proposes ten amendments and follows each with a detailed history of the debates of the framers contained in both the Federalist and Anti-federalist papers. Something that stands out to me and something that Dr. Levin overlooks, or for whatever reason fails to stress, is the fact that many of the framers looked to the Bible and to God’s direction in setting down what would become the law of the land. Dr. Levin takes the thoughts of these men, even though they themselves confessed their fallibility, to support the rationale for his proposed amendments. 

I am a supporter of the TEA Party movement. I am in agreement with their basic tenets; however their proposals for reform are flawed in the same way Mark Levin’s are. They propose rational enough changes, yet in every point they exclude God from any part of the movement. Nowhere is it suggested that any of the changes they are seeking are right because God says they are right. So, the effort becomes a total humanistic and secular exercise that is doomed to failure. Even if it manages to take hold, even for a short time, it will soon crumble on its foundation of sand – the dust of human frailty. The psalmist wrote, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance” (Psalm 33:12). Even Benjamin Franklin, a deist, understood this. He said, “[T]he longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth—that God governs in the affairs of men.” Prior to the signing of the Declaration of Independence, James Madison, one of the framers and fourth president of the United States, warned, “A watchful eye must be kept on ourselves lest while we are building ideal monuments of renown and bliss here we neglect to have our names enrolled in the Annals of Heaven.” His words ring true today. It really does not matter how well thought out our plans for restoring our nation may be, if God is excluded from our plans, it is all for naught. In the words of the psalmist, “Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain” (Psalm 127:1).

Mark Levin, the TEA Party, and all who are concerned with the direction our nation is going are fervently seeking reform without consulting the Author of Liberty. They have become “fools [who] despise wisdom and instruction [from the Lord].” I omitted the first half of that proverb to make this very point. The alternative is to heed the beginning of that proverb that instructs us that “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7). The word “fear” (Hebrew: yir’âh) means “fear.” It is not “reverence” (although that is a necessary part), nor it is a healthy “respect” (although that plays a part as well). Fear is “fear.” If the Almighty Creator can bring worlds into existence simply by His spoken word, should that not strike fear and awe into our hearts who are microbes in comparison to His vast created universe? If the Giver of Life breathed His breath of life into our nostrils and has the right and the ability to withhold that breath at His will, should that not bring us to our knees in thanksgiving for the life He has granted only by His mercy? If “He increaseth the nations, and destroyeth them: he enlargeth the nations, and straiteneth them again” (Job 12:23), should we not go to Him for counsel in restoring our fractured foundations? Should we not include Him in our plans?

As long as God’s voice is silenced, as long as His counsel is excluded, all efforts to change the course of this nation are doomed to failure. Frankly, I have no hope for the future of this nation – not as long as it is driven by the “wisdom” of frail and fallible men, and it really pains me to say that. There are many that suggest that we may be on the road to a new spiritual awakening – a great national revival; but my fear is that we have gone too far down the Romans 1 road. “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools … Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts” (Romans 1:21-22, 24).  But in the words of the hymnist, “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness … on Christ the solid Rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.” Without the fear of the Lord, there is no hope for this nation.

 

1 Comment

Filed under Christianity, Current Events, End Times, Politics, Religion, Salvation, Theology

Tagged as , , , , ,

August 11, 2013 · 18:04

Big Dâg!- A Fish Story

Jonah and the Whale by Pieter Lastman

Jonah and the Whale by Pieter Lastman

Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. (Jonah 1:17)

One of the strangest stories in the Bible is that of “Jonah and the whale.” In fact, the story is so incredible that even some Bible scholars have tried to invent alternative renditions to make the story more believable. Some suppose that the “great fish” that swallowed Jonah may have been something like a whale shark, or a sea monster like leviathan (thought by some to be a mosasaur), or a whale. The suggestion that the creature was a whale probably comes from the King James reference in Matthew 12:40 where it describes Jonah as being in “the whale’s belly.” However, the Greek word translated “whale” is kētos, which could be understood as “sea monster” as it is translated by the Revise Standard Version and the New American Standard Version Bibles. But kētos can also be translated as “a huge fish.” This understanding is more in keeping with the Hebrew of Jonah 1:17 which literally translates the Hebrew dâg gâdôl as “great fish.” What the great fish was, is up for speculation. It certainly could have been a whale shark, which is a “great fish,” but it certainly was not a whale or “sea monster,” otherwise the Hebrew word tannıyn would have been used (Job 7:12; Ezekiel 32:2).

Whether the “great fish” was a whale shark or some other variety of large fish is irrelevant. What should be noted is that “the LORD had prepared” the fish “to swallow up Jonah.” It is not impossible to understand this as a new creation miracle of God so that it was something totally new created just for this purpose. It is also reasonable to believe that God used a dâg gâdôl that was already in existence to be called upon do to the LORD’s bidding. God is not limited in His options.

The other point of contention in this story is that Jonah survives inside the belly of this great fish for three days. That is truly incredible! One would think that the digestive acids in the fish’s belly would have been enough to kill Jonah. Well, perhaps Jonah actually did die! Listen to Jonah’s words: “I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the LORD, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice” (Jonah 2:2, emphasis added). The Hebrew word translated “hell” is she’ôl – the abode of the dead – translated “Hades” in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures). He describes himself as going to the depths of the sea. “I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever: yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O LORD my God” (Jonah 2:6, emphasis added). That sounds dead. But some may challenge, “How can a dead man be aware of his condition?” Others may reasonably suggest: “This is Hebrew poetry; Jonah is speaking metaphorically.” For that, I would remind the reader of Jesus’ account of the death of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31). When the rich man died, he was aware of the flames of his new environment, he was aware of his thirst, he was aware of Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom, he was aware of the lost condition of his five brothers, and he was able to converse with Abraham. If this was true of the rich man – and Jesus relayed this as a factual account, not as one of His parables – then it certainly can be true of Jonah.

This understanding makes Jesus’ analogy in Matthew 12:40 even more poignant. “For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the [belly of the kētos]; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” Jesus died an actual death. He was in the “belly of Hades” for three days. “And the LORD spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land” (Jonah 2:10). In the same way, after three days in the tomb, God raised Jesus from the dead. For this reason, I believe Jonah actually died and was revived to accomplish the will of God. That is why Jesus could point to Jonah as the example of His death, burial and resurrection.

2 Comments

Filed under Apologetics, Christianity, Creation, Evangelism, Religion, Salvation, Theology

Tagged as , , ,