Harshness to Holiness

From the books of “Leviticus” and “Numbers” one gets a picture of the Holiness of God, from the book of “Deuteronomy” [all books from the “Torah”] one get a picture of the character of God.  There is a harshness [an uncompromising rigidity] that appears to attach itself to God’s requirements.  But God was working with the Children of Israel, so long in the Egyptian atmosphere of paganism and idolatry, to get them to understand that not only was He the only One and true God, He is also a “holy” God.  “Holy”, yes, but as revealed in “Deuteronomy” a very loving God.  But we learn in order for God to be loving He had to be harsh.  That’s simply in part because to transgress God’s holiness was to invite death.

God wanted the Children of Israel “to come unto Him” but there was a very prescribed way in which they were to approach Him as witnessed by the governances surrounding Tabernacle [later, the Temple] operation where His shekinah glory dwelt between the cherubim, over the Ark of the Covenant, in the holy of holies.  Only once a year, on the Day of Atonement, could the High Priest enter into the holy of holies, to make atonement for the sins of the people, and that only after very rigid and meticulous preparation.  In a word, the “holiness” of God was so overwhelming the unprepared priest could well be struck dead.

Fast forward to the “Cross of Calvary”.  What happened with all the events surrounding the Crucifixion saw Jesus offering up Himself, paying a terrible physical price, rendered all the more harsh, because he was without sin, to satisfy the requirements of God’s holiness.  When Jesus said from the Cross, “It is finished” (John 19:30), hell rejoiced with glee; Temple authorities were smugly pleased; Jesus’ small company of followers, a few present, most having fled, were broken-hearted; all that the prophets had proclaimed concerning Him and all that God required of Him--“was finished”!  The offering of His blood as a sacrifice for the sins of men for all time was done—immediately symbolized by the veil of the Temple [separating the holy place from the most holy place] being “. . .torn in two from top to bottom” (Mark 15:38).  With this awful death God is reconciled to man, so that His kingdom is now open to all who will enter in.

God had to be very harsh to His Son [see Isaiah 53:10-12), in order that He could be very gentle with all His other sons and daughters.  But God’s gentleness and kindness is not to be presumed upon.  He is still holy and all those who would draw near to Him must also be holy.  In fact the Scripture plainly states, “Pursue peace with all men and holiness without which no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14).

A clear and present call to the church now is to walk in holiness (being separated unto God for His purposes) before God and with our fellow man.  This is what the whole world is longing to see and needs to have happen.

 

 

 

 

Isaac & Ishmael, a Reciprocal Relationship

For starters Isaac and Ishmael were half-brothers whose father, Abraham, had a covenant relationship with Jehovah God which had, has and will have consequences for Isaac and Ishmael for all time.  The brother’s treatment of each other, past, present and future will determine how God’s mercies unfold toward each of them (and their descendants).

There is common understanding that Israel’s disobedience and rebellion would result in her expulsion from the land (Deuteronomy, Chapter 28).  What’s not so commonly known is the descendants of Ishmael and Esau would suffer a common fate for disobedience and rebellion; with the warning that should they mistreat the descendants of Isaac, their judgment would be swift and sure (see Isaiah 21:1-17).  This judgment would be seen, not in expulsion from their land, but in devastation and desolation of the land.

From Israel’s expulsion from the land under the Romans in 70 AD with the destruction of the Temple, until about 1917 when the Jews started coming back to the land, the land was devastated and the Arab people living in the land suffered accordingly.

All lovers of Israel need to understand that present-day Arabs have a right to dwell in the land of Israel.  Here’s what God had to say about it long ago:  “You shall not abhor an Edomite, for he is your brother; you shall not abhor an Egyptian, because you were an alien in his land.  The children of the third generation born to them may enter the congregation of the Lord” (Deuteronomy 23:7-89).  This was an appeal to break down a wall of exclusivity between Israel and at least certain of her neighbors.  Later the Prophet Isaiah would take this concept to its ultimate conclusion:  acceptance of all nations.  In this Israel was to be a “light to the nations”.

This responsibility was to be exercised first among her immediate neighbors, even the Arabs but in this she failed.  Consequently, deprived of the knowledge of the blessing of a support role, which through faith would ultimately allow them to be fully integrated into the life and worship of Jehovah, and by the on-rush of the Muslim religion begun by Mohammed in 611 A.D., with his twisting of the Scriptures switching the roles of Isaac and Ishmael, the truth of Ishmael’s covenant relationship with God (and between Jew and Gentile) has been lost.

So, with understanding lost, Arabs, particularly Muslim Arabs, have set themselves against Israel thereby incurring the wrath of Jehovah God.  Ezekiel chapter 35, fearful in its scope, is wholly given to the wrath God has stored up for this people for the hundreds of years they have set themselves against the sons of Isaac.

Of course, God does not want to destroy the sons of Ishmael, no more than He has wanted to destroy the sons of Isaac, which He has, but unless they repent of their present hatred of Israel, they will be utterly destroyed.

Perhaps the prospect of the future, wide-spread destruction of the sons of Ishmael, is why God in various and sundry ways is making imself known (as Jesus the Christ—Himself known as Jesus the Christ, the “Anointed One”, even the Messiah) to a great many, individual Muslim Arabs.

Christians everywhere should pray the veil be lifted from the eyes of Muslim Arabs that they may turn in true repentance to the God of their father, Abraham, and His Son, Jesus the Christ.  Similarly, prayer must be lifted for Jews in every place that the veil may be lifted from their eyes to the reality of the fact that Jesus is the “Messiah” for whom they have longed.

 

God's Awesome Plan--Israel's Fall & Restoration

 At times attempts to describe a certain kind of beauty are irreverent, so desperately missing the mark.  Whether it be a scene from nature, the heavens, the interaction of human beings, there are times when words absolutely fail.  Such is the case of the agony of the Apostle Paul in company with Barnabas, when he said, “It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken to you (the Jews) first; but since you reject it, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, behold we turn to the Gentiles.  For so the Lord has commanded us: ‘I have set you to be a light to the Gentiles.  That you should be for salvation to the ends of the earth’” (Acts 13:46 & 47).  How painful, how absolutely and utterly painful this must have been for Paul.

What brought Paul and Barnabas to this position?  Here’s Paul’s explanation, “Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.  Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes” (Romans 10:3, 4).

Yes, the Jews have failed, but not ultimately so.  Paul puts it this way, “I ask then, did God reject his people?  By no means!  I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin” (Romans 11:1).  Paul, in effect is saying, “Because some of we Jews have believed on Jesus as the Messiah, proves that many more can be and will.”  This same principle can be applied to the Church with all its problems; many regard Jesus as Savior and Lord and walk in obedience to His Word, thus giving a certain sense of legitimacy to the whole of the Church.

God did not arbitrarily turn away from the Jews, He turned in response to their hardness of heart.  They rejected their Messiah.  What more could the Father do?  He will do more, much more to draw them to Himself again.  A significant part of this is for the Church to rise up and become a glorious Church—provoking the Jews to jealousy.  That is, by seeing the glory of God upon the Church (demonstrating the power of God) and realizing historically that glory should be theirs, their leadership at a point yet future will say, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord”.

Resurrection power will begin to flow.  Many Jews will be saved, getting the whole package, meaning the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, and come into unity with believers in the Church, paving the way for some mighty powerful things to happen.

Presently the Church needs to magnify its Kingdom of God ministry in the same way Paul did, “I magnify my ministry (publish it abroad by every means possible) in the hope that I may somehow arouse my own people to envy and save some of them” (Romans 11:4).

Ultimately Israel will be saved, but you might be surprised to realize the part God is giving you to play in this whole process.

 

A Counsellor to God?

“Surely the Lord God does nothing, unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets” (Amos 3:7).  Was God’s sharing with Abraham His intention to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah an outworking of this principle?  If so, the practical result was that Abraham was given opportunity to intercede on behalf of  Sodom.

If intercession is the privilege of the prophets, consider Moses.  “And the Lord said to Moses: ‘How long will these people reject Me?  And how long will they not believe Me, with all the signs which I have performed among them?  I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make you a nation greater and mightier than they” (Numbers 14:11, 12).  But Moses resisted and God relented, after hearing Moses rationale for sparing Israel, saying, “I have pardoned according to your word;…” (Numbers 14:20).

Similarly, did God’s bringing it to Daniel attention that the time of Israel’s 70-year captivity in Babylon was at an end represent an outworking of this same principle?  If so, this gave Daniel an opportunity to mid-wife this concern into reality by prayer and intercession.

If these three incidents reveal a principle with God, what might be said of believers “. . . looking for and hastening the coming of the day of the Lord” (II Peter 3:12)?  Here might it not be said that believers have something to do with “hastening the coming of the day of the Lord”?  Grant it, the “day of the Lord” is a complex of many things, still it involves the coming of the Lord.  That being true, would not the Lord want to invite His followers into His counsel for intercession and proclamation?

Let me point out two verses with some specificity about end-time events, but at the same time reveal a certain amount of open-endedness.  The first is, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14).  The second is, “Therefore … they asked Him saying, ‘Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel’” (Acts 1:6)?  Both verses deal with separate events, albeit connected.  When that last convert is made, be sure it is registered in heaven.  When Jesus establishes His throne in Israel, that, too, will be a most notable and specific event.  But the question needs to be posed:  “Are these fixed events, or, is there wiggle room for their fulfillment allowing for prophetic intercession and proclamation?

Can it be that as walk in closest obedience to God and His Word that He will see fit to include us in those matters He has ordained to come to pass?  Those things He has ordained do not happen in a vacuum, they require the cooperation of His people to pray them in and proclaim them.

 

 

 

History's Aristocracy--The Jews

The Egyptians were mysterious; the Assyrians fierce; the Babylonians religious; the Greeks “thinkers”; the Romans “builders”—all shaped history for a season, but now are gone.  There was one people contemporary to all these and only this people remains—historically they were known as the Hebrews, then the people of Israel, and now, the Jews.

From the human perspective two things seemed to distinguish them as a peoples for about four millennia: keeping the Sabbath (Saturday as a day of rest and worship) and observing the Torah (the first 5 books of the Bible).  This evaluation is looking from the outside in.  Looking from the other direction, the picture is much different.  The Jews are a people who have a special relationship with the one, true God.  In a way history books acknowledge this fact saying that their contribution to the religious scene is mono-theism, belief in one God.

This relationship with their God is expressed in “covenant” an unbreakable relationship, sort of like the marriage contract but so much more.  The terms of this “contract” are spelled out in the Torah, most notably in the fifth book, “Deuteronomy”—regarded by many as the most profound book in the Bible.  God promises to do certain things and the Children of Israel (the Jews) are to do certain things, which responsibilities are summed up this way:  “And what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8)?

A novel thing about this relationship is that Jehovah God initiated it and the Children of Israel agreed to it.  Yes, this relationship gave them certain privileges, but also exacted awesome responsibilities.  Perhaps the greatest of these was to reveal to non-Jews, the nature and character of God which had been revealed to them through the Torah.  In a word, in their national character they were to become like God.  With such winsome and loving lives through righteousness and justice, they were to draw all the peoples of the world to their God.

How miserably they failed in this!  Yes, there were brief and infrequent seasons when God was pleased with His people Israel and the way they lived their lives, but more often than not He wasn’t.  When He was not pleased, He would chastise them, sometimes very severely.

Where the Jews failed in developing God-likeness in their national character, they were charged with a responsibility which they really have not understood to this day—that being to bring forth a Messiah who would reveal clearly what God was like and would indeed draw all persons unto Himself, all the while reigning over Israel.  (The facet of reigning over Israel is yet future.)  This Messiah would make it possible for all those who received Him, to have a “covenant” relationship with God far superior to the one the Jews had with God, but it was personal, not national as with the Jews.

Sad beyond measure is that the Jews, as a people, have not realized their Messiah came 2,000 years ago.  When He came they did not discern His character (because they were looking for a king) and to this day they will not read one of their greatest prophets (Isaiah, chapter 53) telling precisely what would happen to Him. He would experience momentary defeat, in order that all those who put their confidence and trust in Him would never have to be defeated again—particularly in death.  Soberly, it must be added, Jehovah God has drawn a veil across their minds that they cannot see and understand (John 12:L37-40; Romans 11:8-10; II Corinthians 3:14 & 15).

Still, what a debt we owe the Jews in being History’s Aristocracy.  And what have they done?   They have given us the Patriarchs, the Law, the Prophets, the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, and finally and supremely, the Savior of the world. Should we not bow before them?

From Personal Anguish to the Sublime Purposes of God

What is the ideal life?  One lived without heartache, difficulty, and a variety of personal defeats?  If so, who has lived such a life?  And were such possible where would come those graces that attach themselves to those who bow before life’s reverses?  Even Jesus, who by virtue of lack of personal sin, became one acquainted with sorrow and grief (Isaiah 52:3) and “though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered” (Hebrews 5:8). 

The issue then is not that we don’t have difficulties, but what do we do with them.  Let me tell you of an Old Testament woman, Hannah, one of two wives of Elkanah, desperately longing for a “male child”, and was anguished by the fact that to a certain point she was childless and was ridiculed by her “fellow wife” for her barrenness.  This condition persisted for any number of years.  At one point while praying in the Tabernacle, with bitterness and anguish of soul, she made a vow, “O Lord of hosts, if You will indeed look on the affliction of your maidservant and remember me, and not forget your maidservant, but will give your maidservant a male child, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and no razor shall come upon his head” (I Samuel 1:11).

As she prayed she moved her lips but made no sound.  Observing her, Eli the chief priest wondered if she were not “drunk”.  She assured him she was not and told him of her plight.  “Then Eli answered and said, ‘Go in peace, and the God of Israel grant your petition which you have asked of Him’” (I Samuel 1:17).

In time God gave her a son whom she named Samuel, “Because I have asked for him from the Lord” (I Samuel 1:20b).

After Hannah weaned Samuel she took him to the Tabernacle and presented him to Eli for the Lord’s service.  Before long the Lord spoke to Samuel, speaking a word of judgment God was going to bring on Eli and his household.  That was a “heavy word” for a little boy and Eli forced Samuel to divulge it.  Eli acquiesced to the harsh word.

Later we have this account of Samuel.  “So Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall (fail) to the ground.  And all Israel from Dan to Beersheba knew that Samuel had been established as a prophet of the Lord” (I Samuel 3:19, 20).

That Samuel should come on the scene at this point was critical in Israel’s history because the judgment of the Lord fell upon Eli, the Chief Priest and his sons, cutting them off from ministry, and the Ark of the Covenant had been captured by the Philistines in battle.  Samuel was left alone to judge Israel.

Through Samuel the monarchy would be established, raising up first Saul as King, and, because of Saul’s rebellion, then David.

This whole sequence of events followed from the anguished prayer of a mother, fitting in with the purposes of God.

Are you troubled, even anguished in soul, because of some circumstance?  Give it to the Lord and see what He will do with it.