In this world, we:
“Man born of woman” is indeed of few days and full of trouble” Job 14:1. Nevertheless, we have within us what’s denied every other form of life:
That’s why, though we historically, and presently, see that humanity dies while:
Christians hope in confidence that:
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Friends, I don’t believe the words in this series of blogs have ever seen the light of day. They’re from a message I wrote years ago and filed for future use. I found it while looking for something else. Hooray for serendipity!
Please read Job 14:1-2, 10, 14 and Ecclesiastes 3:19-21 as introduction to this blog. Then be thankful that the book Revelation, not Ecclesiastes, is the last book of the Bible. As Billy Graham said the day a Senator asked him if he were an Optimist or a Pessimistic. He was an Optimist because “he believed the last chapter of Revelation.” Job spoke from pain that tormented his brain. Solomon from a lifetime of at least tasting every desire, only to discover they left his life full of gravel, grinding his soul away. All the while unsuccessfully longing for the spiritual values he had once known as essential to him. At least Job, some 1200 years before Solomon, declared his intention to “wait for renewal”, while Solomon lost his former faith in God. Both men carefully surveyed their historic life and contemplated a future life. And decided: since this life had often been problematical, and as often disappointing, would the NEXT be an improvement? End Part I Summarizing and concluding this brief series.
First, any use of the intellect to exalt the human ego above God’s Word:
Second, Satan cleverly deceives intellectuals by assuring them they:
BECAUSE:
Third, and you need to read Isaiah 11:2-3a to understand that Isaiah predicted Christ as the fulfillment of which he wrote. Jesus personified the ONE way that God accepts the validity of pursuing knowledge:
That guarantees the wisdom Paul declares we naturally possess by the Holy Spirit’s direction, I Corinthians 2:1-16. A wisdom that anchors our life in the Past, Gears it to the Present and Focuses it on the Future. And all made possible by God in Christ. Our education:
HAVE NO impact on that Life. God originated it in the Past, now sustains it daily and Perfects it in the Future. Fini Looking past some interesting points of reference, see the example of Simon Peter to Christ’s instructions in Luke 5:1-11. Jesus:
Simon saw two faults with that instruction:
Then, completely overcoming his ego, and proving that the 7-9 month Early Judean Ministry has convinced Simon of Christ’s authority, he concluded, “But because you say so, I will let down the nets” 5:5. Had Eve replied to Satan-via-serpent as Simon-to-Jesus, she would have said to the tempter:
Because no better reason exists to obey God than HE SAYS SO! From Simon Peter we learn what Eve should have taught us, but didn’t. If God says it:
God rules by his word, not
Not fooled by the devil, as she claimed, Eve became his ally, believing his lie that acquiring enough knowledge would allow her to improve her status from mortal to goddess. Instead, she became only a knowledgeable SINNER:
Obviously, God shredded her deceived explanation into a useless excuse. A man named George Fabyan once said we can’t ever lose by too much knowledge. Woman Who Smashed Codes, p. 24. Yes, we can. A little knowledge, deprived of God’s word, corrupts. A great knowledge minus his word corrupts entirely. Surely the perfect example is baseless organic evolution spouted as science now accepted by unconverted minds as Fact. Since their common consent led:
How can our MINDS NOW,
Faced with one Test – don’t eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil—Eve, then Adam with her, failed. When God called them to account, Adam rejected responsibility by blaming Eve. Eve accepted partial responsibility by blaming the serpent who deceived her. Consider her claim: does it fit or deny the rules of evidence?
My trusty Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition, defines deception as the “act of misleading someone”. And misleading implies:
With that definition, and its corollaries, read Genesis 2:15-17 and 3:1-7. The individual and combined texts leave no doubt:
Leaving us with this question: if, at the beginning of human history Adam and Eve would pit their intellect against God’s Word, bringing disaster on humanity, WHY would using it against God now bring us benefits? Therefore, a definition of the word deceived doesn’t fit Eve’s experience in Eden. Since she knew the conditions of their stay in Paradise; and knew the result if they disobeyed God; if she wasn’t a woman deceived, what kind of woman was she? End Part I WHY was Exodus 19:16-19 essential to Exodus 20?
COULD it be that God wanted to impress his Awesome Nature on Israel before they would take his Ten Words seriously? Remember that the Israelites’ long stay in Egypt had fatally compromised their understanding of God’s:
IN the year preceding the Exodus God had expressed his control of the spiritual and natural world:
Israel had to understand:
THEN…eclipsing ALL THAT, God expressed his Almighty control over meteorological forces. The entire Mt. Sinai area became his Holy Ground, as on its summit:
COULD it be that only that FINAL MAJESTY, releasing atmospheric disturbances as a symbol that united his NAME with his NATURE, prepared Israel for the LAW that controlled behavior for the next 1500 years, until Christ released the world to live forgiven under GRACE? Fini WHY do we educate our God-given MIND to THINK – then teach it to THINK God doesn’t exist? WHY would we ignore the very distinctives that grant us a higher life, the absence of which in animals leaves them in a lower?
And WHY, when God made us sons and daughters in HIS image, would we want to be mom and dad to animals that God NEVER SAID were made in OURS? COULD we possibly be so spiritually insane that we would forfeit being servants of our God in his kingdom to rule as lesser masters in a lower? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . WHY do we want to live a long time, yet regret growing older? COULD it be that our plans to live longer here, and failing to increase the Biblical time span Psalm 90:10 reveals, decrease our desire to live forever in God’s New World? That we can be so captivated by our failure to substantially prolong life here that we think not even God has the means to prolong it eternally? That our very experiences with sorrows, defeats, diseases and limitations make us more determined than ever to FIND A WAY to reverse our aging here, no matter what God offers? COULD it be that we are so physically earth-bound that we can’t conceive of a spiritual world of perfection in every thought, deed and relationship? All of which proves HOW FAR from God we have drifted! End Part III WHY do we have selective memories?
COULD our Eve-based sin in putting faith in our reason/intellect above faith in God in his word be the evil Jesus crucifies in us prior to accepting our discipleship? For nothing more quickly distances us from God than thinking WE don’t need him. WHY is it that seeds die in the ground
COULD it be that God allowed that fate for decaying mortal beings to warn us of our failure to reverse it UNTIL he sent to earth the SINGLE PERSON ever to live who
Because THAT MAN died on Friday and ROSE bodily from the dead on Sunday! Because that MAN, alone of all mortals born, had in him as his nature DEITY that couldn’t die and stirred the mortal who did into NEW, EVERLASTING LIFE, eliminating the mortal as he did. In doing so, giving promise to all mortals who must die, or be called home, to become changed into the likeness of THAT MAN who himself since his Resurrection is ONLY ALMIGHTY GOD the SON. End Part II Questions and possible answers in no particular order.
WHY do we have such interest in novels and mythical Greek and Roman pagan religions, and so little in God’s Biblical, historical truth? COULD it be, we know:
WHY, betraying clear scriptural teaching, do Christians mimic secularists, who have a need of celebrities, to compensate for our frailties and failures? As J.P. Moreland correctly said, Christian celebrity is an oxymoron. And I add the scriptural reason in Colossians 3:1. We are to be “hidden with God in Christ.” How can we be invisible and be a celebrity? COULD it be, we have too little depth of scripture in our personal lives that we PREFER mortals like us shining to the GLORIOUS, BLINDING LIGHT of Jesus Christ illuminating our lives? Could we profit as Christians by going back to century ONE, “when not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth?” I Corinthians 7:26. At least then we have as our only celebrity Jesus the Christ! WHY do so many Americans, and not a few of them apparently religious, allow all non-Christian religions public recognition while:
COULD it be that America has plunged so deeply into ecumenicity, secularism and materialism that we have LOST our spiritual integrity—and don’t even realize it? End Part I |
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