Bible

God’s Covenant and Law

by

People get the idea that the Law of God is unimportant. However, it is so important that rather than change it, God sent His Son to die. How can anything be more important than that?

There has been a lot of interest in the Ten Commandments the last few years in the public. But, what concerns me is that I have not seen the Ten Commandments in very many churches. In fact, it is the churches that have said it is really not important. Speaking of the Sabbath, the Catholics simply say, that is what the Bible says, but we changed it to Sunday. They admit this, claiming to have the authority to do so.

We do not believe that God has given anybody the authority to change this law. There are certain groups, rather than admitting that it has been changed by man, will try to twist their theology with certain Bible texts to make it look like God’s Law has been done away with. When you go through the Ten Commandments with them, you realize that there is only one law they are trying to get rid of and the other nine are okay. The only one they want to get rid of is the one that He wrote with His own finger and said remember. To think that the Fourth Commandment is not important should not even enter our minds.

“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears.” II Timothy 4:3. In other words, teachers wanting to tell people what they want to hear rather than what God said. People want their Certified Public Accountant or attorney to tell them the truth; but they want preachers to tell them what they want to hear rather than what the Bible says.

What does the Bible really say? It says, “Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” Revelation 14:12. The Commandments of God and the faith of Jesus are together and should always be together. There is no conflict between God and Jesus. Some people think that when Jesus came to this earth, He was a rebel and that He stood up against God’s law. Jesus not only taught the Law but He magnified God’s law.

In Luke 2:49 when his parents found Him in the temple, He said, “Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?” He said, “I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.” John 5:30. This is the will that He seeks, not His own will. Jesus is not in conflict with the Fourth Commandment because it refers to creation. This is right in the heart of the Ten Commandments and here is the Creator.

“All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.” John 1:3. “All things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him.” Colossians 1:16. He created all things. Then speaking of Jesus Christ, it says, “There is one lawgiver.” James 4:12.

When Moses brought the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt, there was a cloud protecting them by day and the pillar of fire by night. That was Jesus. “And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.” I Corinthians 10:4.

If Jesus were in conflict He would be in conflict with Himself. The Bible was given to us by God through His prophets. One part of it He wrote with His own hand and amazingly that is the part that some people want to say is no longer in effect.

He is so clear in Matthew 5:17: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.” People have said that means to destroy. Does that say: Think not that I have come to destroy the law; I have not come to destroy but to fulfil? Jesus uses the word to fulfill in Matthew 3:15. When Jesus was baptized, John the Baptist said that he was not worthy to baptize Jesus. “And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness.”

Did Jesus do away with righteousness when He was baptized? Did He do away with baptism? No, remember His great commission in Matthew 28:19, 20: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” In other words, go and teach and baptize continually. The word fulfill means that He was bringing about a fulfillment of understanding and of knowledge.

Jesus said, “Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” Matthew 5:18. Take your right foot and stomp on the ground. Is the earth still there? Has heaven and earth passed away? Jesus says not one jot or one tittle, until all pass away. Jesus said as long as it is still here, the law will not pass away.

Jesus talked about those people who teach that the commandments have been done away with in Matthew 5:19, first part: “Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven.” Being called least in the kingdom of heaven means you are not going to be there. Being called least means that you are the least regarded which means that you are not going to be there.

Jesus said whosoever shall do. I am glad He added the word do because we could teach it but not do it. The talk and the walk must line up together. He says, “But whosoever shall do and teach them the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven” (verse 19, last part) which means they will be in the kingdom of heaven. God is so very clear. He continues to amplify this: “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment.” He does not say that you can kill all you want to. He says, “But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother.” Matthew 5:21. That really makes it serious.

He is talking about our heart, our response and how important that is. Jesus said, “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” Matthew 27, 28. Did He tell the woman caught in adultery that it was all right now to go ahead and keep doing it? No. He said, “That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” That should convict each and every one of us, if not on that particular subject, but it shows that the heart is what God is after. He does not want us to be able to simply quote the Ten Commandments or to just memorize them. He does not want us even to try in our human power to perform them. God wants a change in the spirit.

What is the purpose of God’s law? The Bible is clear that the law does not save us. But it tells us what the function of the law is. In James 1:23–25 it tells us, “For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.”

We all have mirrors at home. When I get up in the morning I wish I did not have a mirror. I drag myself in and I look and I start laughing. I have about 20 minutes to become a dynamic, enthusiastic individual and it is hopeless. The mirror tells me what kind of problems I have. I have another mirror also and she will tell me if this tie is perfect or if it goes with this suit. The law shows me that there is something wrong. The mirror can’t clean me up. The mirror can’t straighten me up. The mirror can’t tell me one thing. I can get rid of that mirror, but I am still as bad off. The law is how we know that there is sin. Roman 3:20 says, “Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.” Romans 7:7 says, “I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except through the law.” Verse 12: “Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.” “Sin is the transgression of the law.” 1 John 3:4.

People will say that the law was done away with 2,000 years ago. If you will stop and think about it, here we have the law and sin is the transgression of the law. Jesus is the One who brings us cleansing, forgiveness and grace. If the law was done away with 2,000 years ago, then nobody has sinned in the last 2,000 years. If the law is gone, there is no sin. Look around and you will see a lot of sin going on. The law is still being broken. If you get rid of the law, you have gotten rid of sin. You get rid of sin; you don’t need sin. Do you see how it breaks down when you take away God’s law?

The Bible tells me that there was something that was nailed to the cross. What was that?

One night I was in Washington D.C with a fairly well-known preacher who was preaching that the law had been done away with. We were talking and he asked me if I would attend a function with him on a specific date which happened to be on the Sabbath. I told him I would not be there and he asked me why not. I said because I keep the seventh day Sabbath. He said, “Oh, you do that?” I said, “Yes I do.” He said, “Don’t you know you do not need to do that?” I said to him, “I really do not want to be out of harmony with everybody. Why don’t you show me where I don’t have to do this.” I knew he could not do this. He had some new text that was in the Bible and I knew there was no new text because I had been all through the Bible. He asked me to come over to his hotel room because he had his Bible there and he was going to show me a text.

We got to his room and he read Colossians 2:14 to me. I said to him “Do you mean you brought me over here to read that text to me? That is not what that text says.” Let me read it: “Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross.” What is this talking about—the handwriting of ordinances? Remember God’s law was written with his finger. There has to be two laws. “Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances.” There are no ordinances in the Ten Commandments. There is nothing about washing or certain feast days or things of that nature.

In verses 15, 16 it says, “Having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it. Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days.” There is nothing about meat in the Ten Commandments. There is nothing about drink in the Ten Commandments or respect of a holyday. It is not talking about the seventh day Sabbath. There is nothing about the new moon or of the sabbath days, those ceremonial sabbaths, that happen during those feast days, “which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.” Verse 17.

We went back through and looked at all of the scriptures. He said, “You just can’t get around this, can you.” I said, “No, you can’t.” He told me that in 1949 H.M.S. Richards held a crusade at Fort Worth, Texas, and he went and was convicted that he should keep the seventh day Sabbath. He went home and his family opposed him. He said he just did not have the courage to stand up to them and so he decided not to do it. I told him it was not too late. You can do it now. We had prayer together. After I left his room that night I tried to call him, and he never accepted my phone calls again.

You can turn your back on truth. You can take subjects and you can twist them so they seem to say something they don’t say. My friend, who I thought an awful lot of, had done just that. It is dangerous. He had encountered truth the first time and then God gave him another opportunity and he encountered it again. I am just praying that God gives him another opportunity.

James 2:10 says, “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.” If we break the law we are guilty. In other words, if you keep nine of them and you don’t keep that fourth one, then you are guilty of not keeping them all. “For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty.” Verses 11, 12.

Another text about abolishing is found in Ephesians 2:15: “Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances.” All those ordinances were beautiful and wonderful but they did not save you. This was a big problem because people began to put emphasis on all of the to dos to be saved. Paul talks about them as the school teacher or the school master that brings you to the cross. “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.” Matthew 5:17.

Isn’t there a text that says we are not under the law but under grace? Yes, Romans 6:14, 15 says, “For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.” God forbid. We are not under the penalty of the law if we have accepted Jesus Christ and He has come into our lives. We are not under that penalty.

When you read the Ten Commandments, it makes you wonder why anybody would want to get rid of them. In the Old Testament, sin was the transgression of the law. What is it in the New Testament?—the transgression of the law. There is absolutely no doubt that it is still the transgression of the law. God said, “Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.” 1 John 3:4. “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Romans 6:23. When God has saved you, you want to be loyal to Him. You want to be His. “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.” John 15:10.

The Ten Commandments are written in stone but God wants to write them in our hearts and in our minds. He is going to change me and I really need changing. Hebrews 8:10 says, “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people.” Jesus desires a loving spiritual relationship. He wants to change us so effectively that we really have a relationship with Him.

“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.” John 15:4. Abiding in Him and receiving the gift. It changes our behavior and we become more like our indwelling Jesus. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” Ephesians 2:8–10. He wants to change us.

I met a young man who was telling me that nothing needs to happen when you accept the Lord. There will not be any change in your behavior. I told him if you accept the Lord, there will be a change. God wants to take us and change us. I don’t want my same habits. I don’t want these same problems that I have. I want to be changed. He says, I will change you. In Ephesians 2:10: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” That is how we walk.

He loves you and cares about you. We are not under law but under grace. We are not under the penalty of the law. We are not standing with the law on the outside; we are standing with the law on the inside because we have been born again. It is written in our hearts. As it was taken from the tables of stone to these tablets of our hearts and flesh, it did not drop one or two commandments on the way. All ten came to be written upon our hearts.

Paul says, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20. We are His workmanship.

Pastor Jim Gilley’s sermon was taken from the Ten Commandments Weekend, 2008 series aired on 3ABN. For more information contact www.3ABN.org.

Wisdom

by

Wisdom is “the quality or state of being wise; knowledge of what is true or right coupled with just judgment as to action; sagacity, discernment, or insight.” www.dictionary.com. Wisdom goes beyond knowing all the options available; it provides the ability to differentiate between the options and pick the best solution. In the Bible there are many things written about wisdom. In my personal study I have been looking at the books of Daniel and Proverbs which actually have a bit to say about wisdom.

Daniel and Wisdom

God gave Daniel wisdom.

“As for these four young men, God gave them knowledge and skill in all literature and wisdom and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams.

Now at the end of the days, when the king had said that they should be brought in, the chief of the eunuchs brought them in before Nebuchadnezzar. Then the king interviewed them, and among them all none was found like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah; therefore they served before the king. And in all matters of wisdom and understanding about which the king examined them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and astrologers who were in all his realm.” Daniel 1:17–20.

Again, when Daniel was older, we read how the people in the kingdom of Babylon remembered his wisdom. “The queen, because of the words of the king and his lords, came to the banquet hall. The queen spoke, saying, ‘O king, live forever! Do not let your thoughts trouble you, nor let your countenance change. There is a man in your kingdom in whom is the Spirit of the Holy God. And in the days of your father, light and understanding and wisdom, like the wisdom of the gods, were found in him; and King Nebuchadnezzar your father—your father the king—made him chief of the magicians, astrologers, Chaldeans, and soothsayers. Inasmuch as an excellent spirit, knowledge, understanding, interpreting dreams, solving riddles, and explaining enigmas were found in this Daniel, whom the king named Belteshazzar, now let Daniel be called, and he will give the interpretation.’ ” Daniel 5:10–12.

Did Daniel’s wisdom and intelligence come by chance? Daniel was not only wise in the things of God, he was wiser than all the wise men in Babylon. At this time Babylon was a world empire with the best and smartest people from all over the world. It is quite something that Daniel was wiser in all aspects of life than the wisest people on earth in the biggest empire at that time. This was because of God’s blessing.

“The case of Daniel was presented before me. Although he was a man of like passions with ourselves, the pen of inspiration presents him as a faultless character. His life is given us as a bright example of what man may become, even in this life, if he will make God his strength and wisely improve the opportunities and privileges within his reach. Daniel was an intellectual giant; yet he was continually seeking for greater knowledge, for higher attainments. Other young men had the same advantages; but they did not, like him, bend all their energies to seek wisdom—the knowledge of God as revealed in His word and in His works.” Testimonies, vol. 4, 569.

God wants people in the world today like Daniel who are wise and intelligent. “Many of our young men might today be intellectual giants, had they not been content to reach a low level. Those who do not love to study, are ever in great danger of becoming dwarfs in spiritual and mental growth. They consider that they have a moderate understanding of Scripture subjects, and they cease to investigate, cease to plow deep that they may obtain all the treasures of knowledge possible. Instead of cultivating studious habits, they yield to inclination, and are content to skim the surface, without going with energy to the bottom of the question under consideration. Those who have this superficial manner of study would not be prepared to meet an opponent in discussion should one oppose them. They penetrate only deep enough into a subject to meet the present emergency, and to conceal the real ignorance of their lazy minds. Gradually this course causes hesitancy, dwarfs the comprehension, and bars the way to successful effort.” The Review and Herald, April 6, 1886.

“But few reach what they might in excellence of character, because they do not make their aim high. Prosperity and happiness will never grow of their own accord. They are the acquisition of labor, the fruit of long cultivation.” This Day With God, 190.

“The Bible is the best book in the world for intellectual culture.” Reflecting Christ, 163.

“It is a law of the mind, that it will narrow or expand to the dimensions of the things with which it becomes familiar. The mental powers will surely become contracted, and will lose their ability to grasp the deep meanings of the word of God, unless they are put vigorously and persistently to the task of searching for truth. The mind will enlarge, if it is employed in tracing out the relation of the subjects of the Bible, comparing scripture with scripture, and spiritual things with spiritual. Go below the surface; the richest treasures of thought are waiting for the skillful and diligent student.” The Review and Herald, July 17, 1888.

So many times when we look at the life of Daniel we focus on the fact that he ate good food. That is part of it and that is good. As you read the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy you realize that it was more than just eating right; it was God’s blessing and a balance of physical and mental work that enabled Daniel to have the wisdom that he did. There has to be balance in the physical, mental and spiritual in our lives. Daniel had this balance in his life which put him in a place where God could use him.

“Daniel and his companions had been faithfully instructed in the principles of the word of God. They had learned to sacrifice the earthly to the spiritual, to seek the highest good. And they reaped the reward. Their habits of temperance and their sense of responsibility as representatives of God called to noblest development the powers of body, mind, and soul. At the end of their training, in their examination with other candidates for the honors of the kingdom, there was ‘found none like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.’ Daniel 1:19.” Education, 55. [Emphasis supplied.]

If you want to be balanced mentally, you need to be balanced spiritually and physically. One cannot just work the mind. The body also needs exercise and communion with our Father in Heaven.

“We are to learn how to equalize the labor done by brain, bone, and muscle. If you put to task the faculties of the mind, loading them with heavy burdens, while you leave the muscles unexercised, this course will tell its story just as surely as the wise course of the Hebrew youth told its story. Parents should follow a consistent course in the education of their children. Our youth should be taught from their very childhood how to exercise the body and the mind proportionately. It is not wise to send the children to schools where they are subject to long hours of confinement and where they will gain no knowledge of what healthful living means. Place them under the tuition of those who respect the body and treat it with consideration.” The Review and Herald, February 10, 1910. [Emphasis supplied.]

“Right physical habits promote mental superiority. Intellectual power, physical strength, and longevity, depend upon immutable laws.” Our High Calling, 269.

God gave Daniel wisdom, but Daniel put effort into gaining wisdom. Daniel had a balance in his life between the mental and physical.

The Book of Proverbs and Wisdom

Proverbs tells us where wisdom comes from. It says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. See Proverbs 1:7; 2:6; 9:10, 11.

Solomon tells us that wisdom is a valuable thing to have. “Happy is the man who finds wisdom, And the man who gains understanding; For her proceeds are better than the profits of silver, And her gain than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies, And all the things you may desire cannot compare with her. Length of days is in her right hand, In her left hand riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, And all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who take hold of her, And happy are all who retain her.” Proverbs 3:13–18.

The book of Proverbs gives us lots of characteristics of wise people. Here are a few:

  • Wise people receive instruction and reproof—Proverbs 9:8, 9; 10:8; 15:31–33.
  • Wise people listen to counsel—Proverbs 12:15; 13:10.
  • Wise people are humble—Proverbs 11:2.
  • Winning a soul is wise—Proverbs 11:30.
  • Wise people study how to speak to others wisely—Proverbs 12:18; 14:3; 16:23; Ecclesiastes 10:12.
  • Wise people speak of knowledge—Proverbs 10:31; 15:2, 7.
  • If you associate with the wise you will be wise—Proverbs 13:20.
  • Wise people seek knowledge and understanding—Proverbs 14:33; 18:15; 22:17.
  • Reproof gives wisdom to a child—Proverbs 29:15–17.

Worldly Wisdom vs. God’s Wisdom

Paul talks about wisdom of this world versus God’s wisdom. “Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence. But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.” I Corinthians 1:20–30.

“Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.” I Corinthians 3:18, 19. To the world, Christianity is not wise but foolishness. The things that God tells us to do in the Bible sound crazy from a worldly point of view. I mean, give up everything to gain everything sounds pretty strange by worldly standards. As humans we have a tendency to think that we are wise. The wise, men in Daniel’s day claimed to be wise but when it came down to it, the God in Heaven had all the wisdom and the wise men didn’t have answers.

Human wisdom and engineering is not always wisdom. Sometimes the greatest achievements that man in his wisdom thinks are wise, turn out to be disastrous. I took a class when I was going to the University about engineering ethics. In this class we had many examples of engineering mistakes that had cost the lives of a lot of people. We think that we are so smart with all of our technology but, in fact, we make many mistakes in judgment before we get things engineered right. We need to realize that the only true wisdom comes from the Source of wisdom, and that is God. The wisdom of this world has many times turned out to be false.

When I was in college a teacher asked the question, “How do you know what is right or wrong? Who defines what is right or wrong?” He had a point that if you don’t believe in a God of all wisdom who has defined right and wrong, how do you know what is right? In the Bible there is wisdom that tells us what is right and what is wrong. Today, society really doesn’t know the difference. The other day I heard someone who was a polygamist saying that if a homosexual person can be married, why is it illegal for a polygamist to be married to more than one person? If you don’t have a Bible that tells you what is right and wrong in regard to marriage, that man would have a point. Worldly wisdom does not have the answers for hard moral questions, but the Bible does.

“However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” I Corinthians 2:6–8. The Christian religion is the wisest religion to be a part of because we serve the God of all wisdom.

Wisdom is something that we all need to know to deal with people, problems, situations, and to know what is the right moral thing to do in a situation. Wisdom will keep us from evil. The Bible is full of wisdom. The book with special tips on wisdom is Proverbs. God’s wisdom sounds like foolishness to the world, just like it did in Noah’s day. God needs wise people who are willing to expand their intellect as Daniel did. Wisdom can also help to exert a powerful influence in the world as Daniel and his friends were able to in the kingdom of Babylon.

A network engineer, Jana Grosboll lives in Derby, Kansas. She may be contacted by email at: janawwjd@yahoo.com.

I am a Jealous God

by

The second commandment is a very powerful commandment.

It says, “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: You shall not worship them, or serve them: for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquities of the fathers on the children, to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me; But showing loving kindness to thousands, to those who love me, and keep my commandments.” Exodus 20:4–6 (NAS).

There are negative consequences to idol worship that not only affect you, but generations that come after you. To those who are faithful to God He blesses with loving kindness for thousands of generations.

The heart of this commandment is that God is a jealous God (Deuteronomy 5:9).

We usually think of jealousy in negative terms, but there is also a good jealousy. Jealousy is defined in the dictionary as being intolerant of a rival or unfaithfulness; hostile toward a rival or one believed to enjoy certain advantages. An example of bad jealousy would include King Saul toward David (I Samuel 18:5–9) and the elder brother, in the parable of the prodigal son, who did not want to share because of jealousy of his younger brother (Luke 15:11–32). It would be a good thing to guard jealously the nation’s freedom. It is also good to be jealous for your health and integrity. The Bible says, “Contend for the faith that was once delivered to the saints.” Jude 1:3. It is a good thing to be jealous for the truth and for marriage. Marriage is a covenant between two people, an emotional attachment and commitment to one another that should never be stolen. It is right to be jealous over that covenant of love.

Often in both the Old and New Testament, God relates to His church as a husband relates to his wife. God has the exclusive right to His church which He will not give up without a fight.

Contrary to popular opinion, God does have a holy anger. When Elijah confronted wicked Ahab and Jezebel who had taken young men and young women of the nation, causing them to be temple prostitutes in the name of worshipping God by means of Bel, Elijah said God is not happy, and He is turning off the rain. The rain turned off for three and a half years (I Kings 17:1)! This caused great suffering to the people because of the effects of the famine; however, I would like to suggest to you that the horrible effects of famine were more merciful than what the continued idolatry of Ahab and Jezebel had on the nation.

God destroyed a whole nation, Pharaoh and his army, and all the first born in Egypt in the midst of the siege at the exodus. Lives were sacrificed to deliver Israel.

Herod also, who took the head of John the Baptist and the life of the apostle James, was eaten by worms. See Mark 6:21–27; Acts 12:1, 2, 21–23.

Jesus, speaking to the church of Thyatira under the symbol of Jezebel, says that you have this wicked woman and I am telling you what I am going to do with her. I am going to throw her on a bed of suffering and I am going to destroy her children with pestilence. See Revelation 2:20–23. God has a jealous anger for His church!

My wife and I have a Chihuahua named Tori. Chihuahuas see themselves as German Shepherds. A few years ago we moved out into the country and right across from our property is a big field which is dangerous to get to because of the busy highway between. One day as we got out of the car, Tori spotted a big reaping machine, a big combine. Having never seen one before, Tori decided she would get that thing, but between her and the combine was the road. I watched as Tori, with all of her energy, headed out towards that combine, at the same time watching a big Mack truck coming down the road. My sense told me that I was not going to catch that dog. I love my wife and I knew that if the dog got hurt, she was really going to be hurt so I knew I had to act immediately, so with all the strength I had and everything in me I screamed at that dog. It was powerful enough that it terrorized the dog, causing it to stop. With two big emotions I picked it up and was so glad it was not crushed but also mad that it could have been killed. I screamed at my dog; it was a jealous response to save the dog’s life and I was so happy to be able to give it back to my wife because I loved her.

The first commandment points out whom to worship, the second tells how to worship God, the third explains the name and its sacredness and the fourth tells when to worship. The result of violating that second commandment caused great trouble for Israel and also for the Christian church. In the wilderness thousands of people died because of building the golden calf (Exodus 32) and the book of Deuteronomy records many more instances where the Jewish people were cursed because of idolatry. In Jesus’ day some people actually made an idol out of their temple.

Jesus said to the woman at the well in John 4:23, 24: “The hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.” There are great mysteries that surround God that are not understood and never will be, but God does have a throne of fire and when He has been seen, He seems to have the form of a man but the Bible says He is also spirit; He is everywhere. There is nowhere you can run from the presence of God. He must be worshipped in spirit and in truth.

Worship is a big issue which is found in Genesis, Exodus and also in Revelation. The second commandment says that you shall not make to yourselves an idol. You shall not means no!

What is an idol? It is an image that is worshipped as a god. The ancient sanctuary had angels embroidered on the curtain and other illustrations but you will never find the Israelites bowing down to the angels. They were illustrations. God does not prohibit illustrations. He does prohibit taking some object and using it to venerate Him. An idol can be any object that becomes a person’s compassionate devotion. Some people make idols out of their children and some men make goddesses out of their wives. Some worship their automobiles and lots of others worship their homes or even themselves.

The Scripture continues in Exodus 20:4–6, “or any likeness of what is in heaven above, or the earth beneath, or in the water under the earth.” No fish gods, no flying bird gods, nothing in the earth beneath, or on the earth or in heaven. Some different translations say, “You shall not worship or serve them.” NASB. “You shall not bow down [submit or yield, bend the head or body in submission, to give an act of service, to obey] yourselves to them.” KJV. “You shall not bow down or worship [to honor or reverence a divine being] them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous [demanding complete devotion] God.” NIV.

Why is God jealous? Is it just arbitrary or does He have a reason? Deuteronomy 4:39 says, “Know therefore today and take it to your heart that the Lord He is God in heaven above and the earth below and there is no other.” The truth is, there is no other God. God is not going to share with anything or let you embrace some false god. Our very life is dependent upon being unified with the One who created us. The devil, wanting to be God, has caused the mess in this world. This will only be resolved at the final judgment.

Jesus had something to say about this when the devil came to him with the three temptations in the wilderness. At the last temptation, the devil said that all these things I will give you and bypass the cross, if you will fall down and worship me. Jesus said to him to go Satan, for it is written that you should worship the Lord your God and serve Him only (Matthew 4:9, 10).

Paul said, “But I say that the things that the Gentiles sacrificed, they sacrificed to demons, and I do not want you to become sharers with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord with the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord at the table of demons.” I Corinthians 10:20, 21. Then he says in verse 22, “Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy?” So what he is saying is that all of this idol worship is really backed up by demonic forces. The Bible does talk about the things they can’t see, can’t hear and also the images which proves that there are unseen powers. God is not going to share His church with these demons. God does have a righteous indignation, but you do not want to arouse God’s jealous righteous indignation. God’s jealous love and jealous anger come out of His great love for us.

What if God said it doesn’t matter; go ahead and bow down to anything you want to and worship nothing. What would that say about Him? The fact that He is passionate about us tells us that He loves us. The greater the love, the greater the anger when it is violated. All this flows from God’s love, and His love for us is birth to his jealousy. His jealousy gives birth to His holy anger and His holy anger gives birth to His mercy because He is not willing for any to perish. God looks at His anger and says it is justified, but I cannot let them go, so I bring in mercy. He brings in His grace, all of which is the result of His love.

The apostle John revealed in the book Revelation what the Christian church would go through as a result of idolatry: “And the rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues did not repent of the works of their hands.” Revelation 9:20.

This idolatry all came from the Tower of Babel. Nimrod died and Semaramis marvelously gets impregnated by a beam of light from the sun. This is what she told everybody and her baby was a miraculous baby, Tamuz. She soon had everybody worshipping her and, of course, Nimrod was in the sun. We have this mother/son cult which was an attempt to counterfeit the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. This idol worship spread all over the world and Semaramis took the name, the Queen of Heaven. The Bible has something to say about this. Abraham was called out of that mess in order to preserve the truths about God and his method of worship.

We find that in Jeremiah 7:18, 19 it says, “The children gather wood, and the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings to other gods, that they may provoke me to anger. Do they provoke me to anger? declares the Lord: but are they not harming themselves to their own shame?” Yes, it provokes the Lord, but here it says they are really doing themselves the disservice.

Ezekiel, a contemporary of Jeremiah, said that Israel was about to go down the tube. Babylon surrounds Jerusalem and Ezekiel is taken in vision on a tour of the temple where the God of heaven should be worshipped, but where Israel, with their backs toward the temple of the Lord and their faces toward the east, were worshipping the sun. “Yet you will see greater abominations which they are committing. Then He brought me to the entrance of the gate of the Lord’s house which is towards the north and behold women were sitting there weeping for Tamuz.” Ezekiel 8:13–16.

Would the New Testament church succumb to idolatry? In the book of Revelation two women are represented. In Revelation 12 one woman is chased by a dragon. She represents God’s church. She is clothed with the sun, standing on the moon, a crown of 12 stars on her head. The church represented here keeps the commandments of God and has the faith of Jesus. These commandments are those which were given at Sinai and they are described here in the context of the heavenly sanctuary and the Ark of the Covenant.

The other woman presented in Revelation 17 is described as the harlot. She is called Babylon; she has great mysteries and a cup full of fornication which she has with the kings of the earth. She is called an adulterer because she was supposed to be the bride of Christ but has prostituted herself to the world. Just so in the Christian community there will be those who are faithfully keeping God’s commandments and having the faith of Jesus, as well as those who are unfaithful and who made their league with the world. Both of these will call themselves Christian.

In the United States of America we have seen a huge shift towards idolatry. Evangelicals and Protestants and some Sabbath keepers have shifted from God centered worship to human centered worship, and the very essence of Christianity is being sacrificed in order to gain numbers.

Some mainline Protestant churches are basically abandoning the Bible for humanistic teaching, philosophy and psychology, which has caused their numbers to go down because there was not anything there. If you take the Bible out of the church, you do not have anything to keep the people.

Some of these mega churches began to say, “We think we can get crowds if we do this right.” They set out to do it. In fact, one of the large churches was the Mecca of thousands of Protestant Evangelical ministers across the United States, including many Sabbath keeping ministers, who said they are going to teach us how to do evangelism. Recently this large church, to their credit, said that, “We are telling you we were wrong; it doesn’t work; we did get a crowd but our people are not growing spiritually.”

One writer said concerning this particular church that it has been one of the most influential churches in America for the last 30 years. Hanging outside the pastor’s door was this sign: What is our business? Who is our customer? What does the customer consider of value? What about this customer driven method? This changes Jesus’ directions to His disciples from teaching them to obey all that He had commanded them, to find out what they want. That is a major shift!

To human centered worship, I ask if this is like Aaron and the golden calf all over again? The impact has been astounding. Everywhere you go you see the Protestant, Evangelical churches and some Sabbath keeping churches absorbed in drama, disco music, clowns and puppets and anything else Madison Avenue and Hollywood have to offer become the cutting edge. Church growth has become the in, and whirly methods have become the means. However, the truth is that God demands to be worshipped on His own agenda and not ours. Church was not created for us to have a party; it was created for people to hear the Word of God so that their lives would be transformed.

There are many people who love Mary and there is no doubt that she was a godly woman and we are grateful that God chose her, but we have never ever seen such veneration of Mary as we have seen today. People are seeing images of Mary on garage doors and underpasses and people are going there by the thousands to kiss whatever looks like her. They are sincere and they mean well. This practice has been given great support from Pope John, who believed he owed his life to Mary for saving him from the bullet that was fired at him; however, the Bible does not teach that Mary is to be venerated or worshipped.

I love the apostles and I praise God for saints, but when it comes down to my theology I want to hear what Jesus has to say and not the councils of the church, or the opinion of the learned, but give me the Word of God. Luke 11:27, 28 tells when Jesus was teaching and a woman thought this was just marvelous: “And it came about, while He said those things, one of the women in the crowd raised her voice, and she said to him, Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you were nursed.” Jesus did not hesitate but immediately responded and would not accept it. He said just because Mary bore me and just because I nursed at her breasts does not make her something special. On the contrary, Blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe. None of us, including Mary, are blessed unless we do the will of God.

The Council of Trent shaped the modern Roman Church. To the Virgin Mary, they pray in these words, “Oh Mother of God, queen of heaven, command thy son to have mercy on us.” The right use of images, says the Council of Trent, is to honor them by bowing down before them even though the Bible says do not bow down before them (Exodus 20:4, 5). The Bible portrays Mary as being humble and obedient, even calling herself the handmaid of the Lord (Luke 1:38); however, the Pope officially gave Mary the title, Queen of Heaven, and established a feast day honoring her. The Bible says that Mary knew she needed a Savior: “My spirit has rejoiced in God my Saviour.” Luke 1:47. The papacy says no, she was immaculately conceived, meaning she was conceived sinless, without original sin, and that she is all holy, meaning she lived a sinless life. You see, goddesses do not need salvation!

Cardinal Gibbons said, quoting Isaiah 49:15, “Can a woman forget her infant so as not to have pity on the fruit of her womb; even so Mary will not forget us.” The actual text says in the Catholic New Jerusalem Bible, “Can a woman forget her suckling child that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yes, these may forget but yet I [the Lord talking about Himself] will not forget you. Behold I have engraved you on the palms of my hand.” Verse 16.

Many religions scoff at the idea of idol worship, but the Hindu religion, which is a classic example of pagan religion, blatantly admits that they worship idols, believing it to be a good thing. They accept it with open arms as a simple way of expressing one’s devotion and love to God, but that is exactly what the second commandment forbids. God commands that you do not use an idol or an image to express your worship to Him. God responds personally to those who are devoted to Him.

A huge phenomenon occurred in 1995 when one night a man had an idea. He was impressed that he should go to his idol and give it some milk. When he did, the milk disappeared and pretty soon people everywhere were giving their idols milk, and milk was drying up all over India. People thought it was a hoax and some reporters out of New York said, “On Thursday, September 1, 1995, the news swept around the world of extraordinary miracles of milk drinking Hindu statues. Never before in history had a simultaneous miracle occurred on such a global scale. Television, radio, newspapers eagerly covered this unique phenomenon and even skeptical journalists held their milk filled spoons to the gods and watched humbly as the milk disappeared.”

You can bring any image you want in here made of plaster of Paris and plastic and take a hammer and knock them down and they will fall down. You can take a piece of wood and carve it up and everybody knows that these things cannot see or hear, but there is another supernatural force that you cannot see that surrounds these things. I was listening to Catholic Radio in Lansing, Michigan, discussing this incident and how wonderful Mary was. They talked about the statues of Mary crying tears and bleeding and were so excited about this. Every time I turn around there is a new miracle of weeping, crying, bleeding or something coming from a statue of Mary. Catholics call them miracles, and many people are coming to see.

The Hindu teaching is that the idols are not just a symbol, but the belief is that the idol represents something, a form with which the mind can be connected and concentrated upon. The ultimate reality is beyond the senses; it is what you cannot see.

The Roman Catholic teaching is: “That the honor which is given them (the images of saints and relics) is referred to the objects which they represent so that through the images which we kiss and which we uncover our heads and kneel, we adore Christ and venerate the saints whose likeness they are.” This is the same concept as the Hindus. We know this image is not Jesus; this is not a saint; we know that, but we are doing this in order to venerate Christ.

The second command says do not use images in the act of worship. We have a jealous God and He demands exclusive rights to your worship. You can say you will worship any way you want; go ahead, but that does not mean God will accept your worship. Worshipping God is about His agenda and not yours or mine. The Israelites thought they could worship the way they liked but God will not share His church with anyone or anything in heaven above or earth beneath.

What would happen if after your honeymoon your wife comes in with a picture of your wedding and says, That is so beautiful! You know, I have decided what I will do. I have three old boyfriends and we had great times together and those are memories I don’t want to give up. I have three pictures that are smaller and I will set them over here. I am sure you won’t mind. Will you mind?

This did not happen, but just suppose I walked into my house one day and there was my lovely wife with my picture and she was looking at my picture and kissing it saying, I love you so much! I walked in and I saw this and felt pretty good and said, Honey, your prince is home. She said, Oh yeah; I really love you and then she continues kissing my picture. I said, Honey, it is me, in the flesh, but she keeps kissing my picture and saying, Oh, I just love you so much! What would I do with that picture?

Our God is a jealous God and He is not going to put up with you just kissing His picture. He wants you to worship Him in spirit and in truth.

Pastor Jay Gallimore’s sermon was taken from the Ten Commandment Weekend, 2008 series aired on 3ABN.org. For more information contact www.3ABN.org.

Are You Wise?

by

“There is a time to weep, And a time to laugh; A time to mourn, And a time to dance.”

Ecclesiastes 3:4

There is a time for everything. The devil has been very successful at this present time in getting people so confused that they laugh when they should cry, and they cry when they should laugh. This is very common in our society.

When I was a child, everybody understood that when you went to a funeral, that was the time to mourn. Today, it is announced at funerals that those attending are there to have a celebration, which is completely out of context. A funeral is not the time to have a celebration. The Bible speaks of death as an enemy, of which Jesus came to destroy and there is no Biblical record of anybody having a celebration at a funeral. When Jesus attended Lazarus’ funeral, Jesus did not laugh; He wept. People in this generation today are very confused—a funeral is not a time to laugh; it is a time to weep.

Consider the situation written about in Isaiah 22:12, 13: “In that day the Lord God of Hosts called for weeping and for mourning, For baldness and for girding with sackcloth. But instead, joy and gladness, Slaying oxen and killing sheep, Eating meat and drinking wine: Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”

The Lord said for that situation it is time to be mourning but the people said we are going to have a celebration. And the Lord said to go ahead. Then He said, “That your iniquity will not be forgiven until the day of your death.” Verse 14. In other words, you just passed sentence on yourselves.

There is a time for joy and gladness but there is also a time to mourn. We have just read how dangerous it is when people decide they are going to laugh when God says it is time to mourn.

If God were to make a lament, would it be time to mourn or to laugh? It would be time to mourn, because God always does the right thing at the right time.

Matthew 23:33–39 describes God lamenting. Jesus, speaking to the leaders of the Jewish church, says, “Serpents, and brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell? Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, Then on you will come all of the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zacharias, son of Barachias, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar [II Chronicles 24]. Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you are not willing! See! Your house is left to you desolate [spoken as He departed from the temple for the last time]; for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord [after the millennium at the resurrection of the wicked]!”

Another example of God’s lament is found in Luke 19:41–44: “Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, ‘If you had known, even you, especially this in your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you do not know the times of your visitation.’ ”

It says there that as Jesus saw the city, He wept over it. Looking into the future He saw the destruction of Jerusalem, but that was not all He saw. The destruction of Jerusalem was a type of the end of the world.

In The Review and Herald, October 8, 1901, Ellen White wrote: “When the Saviour saw in the Jewish people a nation divorced from God, He saw also a professed Christian Church united to the world and the papacy. And as He stood upon Olivet, weeping over Jerusalem till the sun sank behind the western hills, so He is weeping over and pleading with sinners in these last moments of time. Soon He will say to the angels who are holding the four winds, ‘Let the plagues loose; let darkness, destruction, and death come upon the transgressors of my law.’ Will He be obliged to say to those who have had great light and knowledge, as He said to the Jews, ‘If thou hadst known, even thou at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes’ [Luke 19:42]?”

As Jesus wept over Jerusalem, “He saw also a professed Christian Church united to the world and the papacy.” It is alarming to look around and see how Seventh-day Adventists are becoming afraid to be different. We want to be accepted so much that we are willing to do anything to be accepted by the World Council of Churches, by the government, or by other churches. The danger of this is that just as all of the other churches are becoming united with the papacy, eventually, so will we be united.

Ellen White, in vision, saw what was going to happen in Adventism in the last years of this world’s history. “In His Word the Lord declared what He would do for Israel if they would obey His voice. But the leaders of the people yielded to the temptations of Satan, and God could not give them the blessings He designed them to have, because they did not obey His voice but listened to the voice and policy of Lucifer.” Manuscript Releases, vol. 13, 379.

God promised Israel many blessings if they would obey His voice. Ellen White said the leaders, instead of obeying God, listened to the voice and policy of Lucifer. Because the leaders in the past were listening to the voice and policy of Lucifer, God could not do for them all that He wanted to.

This is what is going to happen in the future. “This experience, [the leaders of God’s people not obeying His voice but listening to the voice and policy of Lucifer] will be repeated in the last years of the history of the people of God, who have been established by His grace and power.” Ibid.

Remember what happened to them? Because God could not do for them what He wanted to because the leaders listened to the voice and policy of Lucifer and did not obey, they had to go into captivity. This experience is going to be repeated in the last years of the history of the people of God who have been established by His grace and power.

These people are Seventh-day Adventists. She goes on to say, “Men whom He has greatly honored will in the closing scenes of this earth’s history pattern after ancient Israel.” Ibid. Then is quoted Hebrews 3:7–13 and Mrs. White continues saying, “Bear this in mind. History is being repeated. The perils that God’s people encountered in past ages, they will encounter again, intensified. Satan has obtained influence over men whom God has honored above all human intelligence, as He honored Solomon.” Ibid., 380. Then she quotes Hebrews 2:1–3.

God’s lament in the Old Testament is found in Deuteronomy 5:29. God is speaking to Moses and He says, “Oh, that they had such a heart in them that they would fear Me and always keep all of My commandments, that it might be well with them and with their children forever!” God lamented that if they would only have listened, they would have been spared what they ultimately had to go through. Moses saw the children of Israel being taken into captivity. The Lord did not want that to happen but they would not listen. Moses also saw in vision before he died the children of Israel being brought under the power of Rome.

In Deuteronomy 32:29 God says, “Oh, that they were wise, that they understood this, That they would consider their latter end!” In verse 28 God laments that His people do not understand. He says, “Oh, I wish they were wise.”

The wise are going to shine as the stars forever. The children of Israel went out of Egypt with 600,000 men. Of those men, only two were wise and went into the land of Canaan. Noah prayed and preached for 120 years, but only eight people entered into the ark. In all of history, the wise have always been few in number. When the world comes to an end, are you going to be one of those who are wise and heed the warnings, or are you going to be part of the big majority? This is a question we all must ask ourselves. Am I one of the few wise ones? The Bible says that great men are not always wise (Job 32:9).

Some Principles of Wisdom

“Who is wise? Let him understand these things. Who is prudent? Let him know them. For the ways of the Lord are right; The righteous walk in them, But transgressors stumble in them.” Hosea 14:9.

If you are wise, you already know that the ways of God are right. Foolish people do not know that.

Job 28:12–28 asks this question: Where can you find wisdom? It seems to be hidden from everybody. You cannot buy it and people do not have it. Death and destruction say they have heard a report about it. How are you going to get it? God knows what it is. If you want to get started it says, “ ‘The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, And to depart from evil is understanding.’ ” Verse 28. That expression is found in more than one place in the Bible. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. A good understanding have all those who do His commandments.” Psalm 111:10.

The fear of the Lord is wisdom. Moses taught the children of Israel the statutes and judgments in Deuteronomy 4:5. Then in verse 6 he says, “Therefore be careful to observe them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the people who will hear all these statutes, and will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’ ”

Moses said if you keep the statutes and the laws that the Lord has given me to give to you, the whole world will find out that you are a wise and understanding people. When you study history and compare the laws that Moses gave to the children of Israel with the laws of the other nations at that time, you will find out right away how superior were the Laws of God.

Wisdom is something that cries out to people. The Bible describes that in a number of different places. In Proverbs 8:1 it says, “Does not wisdom cry out, And understanding lift up her voice?” Verse 7: “My mouth will speak truth; Wickedness is an abomination to my lips.” Verse 8: “All the words of my mouth are with righteousness; Nothing crooked or perverse is in them.” Verse 11: “For wisdom is better than rubies, And all the things one can desire cannot be compared with her.” Verses 35, 36: “Whoever finds me finds life, And obtains favor from the Lord; But he who sins against me wrongs their own soul; All those who hate me love death.”

Wisdom was with God from the beginning. There never was a time when that wisdom did not exist [verses 22, 23]. Solomon says this same thing in Ecclesiastes 7:12, that if you get wisdom it will do something for you that riches will not do. It says, “For wisdom is a defense as money is a defense, But the excellence of knowledge is that wisdom gives life to those who have it.” If you get wisdom you will have life, eternal life.

Where is all wisdom? The Bible says wisdom is hidden. You cannot buy it. “The knowledge of the mystery of God, both of the Father and Christ, in whom are hidden all of the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Colossians 2:2, last part. Christ has been manifested to the people of this world, not only as the Son of God, but as the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:24, 30).

All the wisdom in the universe is hidden in the Father and the Son. Where and how do we get this wisdom?

Matthew 25:1–13 is a description of the experience of the church, God’s people, who are living in the evening of earth’s history. Here Jesus is talking about His church in the last days and He said that there were some who were wise and some who were foolish. These were all virgins and all had a pure faith and they all had a lamp which represents the Bible. In Psalm 119:105 it says, “Your word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” These virgins are all people who have a pure faith and they have the Bible and they know the truth. The difference was that the wise virgins took extra oil. The foolish virgins also had some oil but they did not take any extra and they were not prepared for an emergency.

There was a great delay. These virgins were not expecting the wedding to be between 12:00 and 1:00 in the morning; they were expecting it to be a lot sooner than that. The wise virgins were prepared for an emergency and had extra oil. Zechariah 4:1–14 tells us that the oil is a symbol of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the fuel, the power, which makes it possible for your light to shine.

The difference between those who were wise and those who were foolish is that the wise had the Holy Spirit and the foolish did not. Does that give you and me cause to pause?

The foolish virgins went to church and they were known as commandment keepers. They were known as people who had a pure faith. They were known as people who were waiting for the bridegroom to come but when He finally arrives they are not ready, because they do not have the Holy Spirit.

We need a wisdom that you cannot get from this world. The Bible says that the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. It is possible to get all the wisdom of this world and yet not be ready for Jesus to come. You can know Greek, Hebrew, church history and systematic theology and all about the Bible and still not be ready for Jesus to come. It is the presence of the Holy Spirit that makes faith real. A lamp with oil sheds light but if there is no oil, there is no light.

When the Holy Spirit dwells within, you will become wise; not necessarily what the world calls wise because the Lord says the world’s wisdom is foolishness with Him. If you want to be wise and understand what to do and when to do it in this, the most deceptive time in earth’s history, then you must have the Holy Spirit or you will be among the foolish virgins.

Paul says in I Corinthians 12:7, 8, “But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all: for to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit.” The Spirit ordains for certain people in the church to receive special gifts and the first gift that Paul mentions is the gift of wisdom.

This is a gift that everybody in the church can receive because it says, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.” James 1:5. The way to become wise is simply to ask.

As we are approaching the end of earth’s history, the whole universe is looking down at this world to find out something that God’s true church is going to reveal. What is it that God’s true church is going to reveal to the whole universe?

In Ephesians 3:8–11 Paul says,

“To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ; to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Paul said that the many sided (manifold) wisdom of God is going to be made known even to principalities and powers in heavenly places by the church.

Even though the early church, the Ephesians church, had all this information, they didn’t do it. The early church predicted it, the apostles predicted it and Jesus predicted it and as the apostles died away the early church tobogganed into apostasy. For ages, people in heaven and people on this earth in the church have asked the question, “How is this ever going to happen?”

In the time of the Protestant reformation, people looked around at the church and said, How is the manifold wisdom of God going to be revealed to the people in heaven through this? The people said that the church needs to be revived. Even the pope, bishops and theologians said it. In fact, at the Council of Constance in 1414 one of the major things of concern was to bring revival and reformation to the church because they said the church was in a terrible condition.

The best thing that Council could figure out to do was to burn John Huss at the stake, demonstrating the church’s method of trying to bring revival and reformation. They said that Huss was a troublemaker and when you study religious history, God has had this problem with His professed people over and over again.

In 1888 the leaders in the Adventist church looked for a way to have a revival and reformation. They said they had a couple of troublemakers named Jones and Waggoner. They decided not to let Jones preach in an Adventist church, but Ellen White said God had sent these men to the Adventist church with their message of reformation. Because the church would not let him speak in an Adventist church, when Jones was in Battle Creek Mrs. White and others had to rent a hall so he could speak.

Anywhere you go today and talk to God’s professed people they will tell you of the need for revival and reformation. When God sends somebody to bring it, they try to get rid of them. God’s professed people today are going through a terrible shaking and people are asking if the church will ever survive.

Only the wise will survive, and the wise are the people who know that God’s ways are right. If God says something, they will do it and if He says not to do something, they will not do it. The wise have that figured out. Are you one of the wise?

The wise have the Holy Spirit to interpret the Bible so are able to see the spiritual meanings. Other people read and do not understand. There are theologians all over the world, who have spent their whole lives studying church history, Hebrew, Greek and theology and do not even know that Jesus is coming again. It does not matter how much you study; if the Holy Spirit does not enlighten your mind, you will not be among the wise. Real wisdom comes from God through the enlightenment of His Holy Spirit. Will you be among the wise? At the end of this world’s history Ellen White says there is going to be a group of people who will reveal the character of Jesus Christ fully. This is an astonishing statement and it is possible to be one of those people. This group will be in the minority. Remember, Jesus said that in the end it will be like the days of Noah and the days of Lot, but there will be a group of people who will become like Jesus Christ. They will have that heavenly wisdom and will understand how to live.

Am I becoming wise? The Bible describes what wisdom is. Listed below are some characteristics of wisdom:

  • A person who is wise is humble (Proverbs 11:2).
  • A person who is really wise understands what to do (Proverbs 10:23; Proverbs 14:8; Proverbs 14:33).
  • A person who is really wise obtains counsel (Proverbs 13:10).
  • A person who is wise is a person who has experience. In Job 12:12 it says that wisdom is with aged people. Why? Because they have had more experience than the young people. There is no mechanism by which you can take the wisdom of age and put it into a young person.

In this world a lot of people think that if you are over 30 you are over the hill. If this world did not have some people who were over 30 for some advice and counsel and understanding, we would be a lot worse off than we are now.

Even now, some in the Adventist church think that you can put a young person in charge of anything and if anybody goes against that they are accused of opposing the young people. The Bible and Spirit of Prophecy are very clear that a more mature person is needed than those without experience. You cannot become wise when you are just 15 or 20 years old. To become wise it requires experience and experience takes time.

The children of Israel had rulers and they called them the elders and that term is still used today. The word elder means an old man.

A person who is really wise will build on the rock (Matthew 7:24). When the Lord tells a wise person something, he will realize that God has lived a lot longer than he has and so He has a lot more wisdom. If God tells him something he will listen even if he cannot figure it out. A wise child will realize that his/her parents have more experience and heed their counsel. A wise person builds on the rock and listens to what the Lord says and obeys. “The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; And he who wins souls is wise.” Proverbs 11:30. He who wins souls is wise. Nobody is going to heaven alone. If you are one of God’s children, God will use you to win at least one other person and most of the time He will use you to win many more than one. If you are not involved in doing anything for outreach to help other people or to help somebody else find salvation, Ellen White says you are not even written down in the book as a Christian. You may go to church but if you are not doing anything to win anybody to Christ, you are not a Christian. You are not wise at all.

There are people without any education or training and who are in obscure areas of the world who are reaching out. If you are wise you will be doing something to reach out to somebody.

  • The Bible says that the words of a wise person are gracious.
  • A wise person does not practice partiality. They do not treat rich people and poor people differently. Ellen White says that Jesus makes no difference between His friends and His enemies. To me that is one of the most astonishing statements in the Spirit of Prophecy. He will love you and try to appeal to you and try to win you (The Desire of Ages, 86).
  • A wise person will contend with foolishness. In the book of Proverbs there are many descriptions of what folly and foolishness is. A wise person will contend with foolishness and not just sit around and watch it (Proverbs 29:9). No practicing of partiality can be found in Proverbs 23.
  • A wise person holds his feelings back; he just does not tell you everything that is on his mind (Proverbs 29:11).

Pastor John Grosboll is Director of Steps to Life and pastors the Prairie Meadows Church in Wichita, Kansas. He may be contacted by e-mail at: historic@stepstolife.org, or by telephone at: (316) 788-5559.

Satan’s First Lie

by

Even before Eve ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Satan put forth his first lie. Moses recorded the event in Genesis 3.

“The woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ”

“ ‘You will not surely die,’ the serpent said to the woman. ‘For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ ” Genesis 3:2–5.

From that time on Satan has been promoting this lie, his favorite false doctrine. In the final struggle of the great controversy between Christ and Satan, this lie will be one of his most prominent deceptions. He will develop it in the form of spiritualism.

What is spiritualism? Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary says that spiritualism is “a belief that spirits of the dead communicate with the living, usually through a medium.”

Let us take notice how this error that “you will not surely die”—the immortality of the soul—plays out in last day events.

“Through the two great errors, the immortality of the soul and Sunday sacredness, Satan will bring the people under his deceptions. While the former lays the foundation of spiritualism, the latter creates a bond of sympathy with Rome. The Protestants of the United States will be foremost in stretching their hands across the gulf to grasp the hand of spiritualism; they will reach over the abyss to clasp hands with the Roman power; and under the influence of this threefold union, this country will follow in the steps of Rome in trampling on the rights of conscience.

“As spiritualism more closely imitates the nominal Christianity of the day, it has greater power to deceive and ensnare. Satan himself is converted, after the modern order of things. He will appear in the character of an angel of light. Through the agency of spiritualism, miracles will be wrought, the sick will be healed, and many undeniable wonders will be performed. And as the spirits will profess faith in the Bible, and manifest respect for the institutions of the church, their work will be accepted as a manifestation of divine power.” The Great Controversy, 588.

“Through spiritualism, Satan appears as a benefactor of the race, healing the diseases of the people, and professing to present a new and more exalted system of religious faith; but at the same time he works as a destroyer.” Ibid., 589.

“The miracle-working power manifested through spiritualism will exert its influence against those who choose to obey God rather than men. Communications from the spirits will declare that God has sent them to convince the rejecters of Sunday of their error, affirming that the laws of the land should be obeyed as the law of God. They will lament the great wickedness in the world and second the testimony of religious teachers that the degraded state of morals is caused by the desecration of Sunday.” Ibid., 590, 591.

It is through spiritualism that the crowning act of deception will come upon the people of the earth.

“Fearful sights of a supernatural character will soon be revealed in the heavens, in token of the power of miracle-working demons. The spirits of devils will go forth to the kings of the earth and to the whole world, to fasten them in deception, and urge them on to unite with Satan in his last struggle against the government of heaven. By these agencies, rulers and subjects will be alike deceived. Persons will arise pretending to be Christ Himself, and claiming the title and worship which belong to the world’s Redeemer. They will perform wonderful miracles of healing and will profess to have revelations from heaven contradicting the testimony of the Scriptures.

“As the crowning act in the great drama of deception, Satan himself will personate Christ. The church has long professed to look to the Saviour’s advent as the consummation of her hopes. Now the great deceiver will make it appear that Christ has come. In different parts of the earth, Satan will manifest himself among men as a majestic being of dazzling brightness, resembling the description of the Son of God given by John in the Revelation. Revelation 1:13–15. The glory that surrounds him is unsurpassed by anything that mortal eyes have yet beheld. The shout of triumph rings out upon the air: ‘Christ has come! Christ has come!’ The people prostrate themselves in adoration before him, while he lifts up his hands and pronounces a blessing upon them, as Christ blessed His disciples when He was upon the earth. His voice is soft and subdued, yet full of melody. In gentle, compassionate tones he presents some of the same gracious, heavenly truths which the Saviour uttered; he heals the diseases of the people, and then, in his assumed character of Christ, he claims to have changed the Sabbath to Sunday, and commands all to hallow the day which he has blessed. He declares that those who persist in keeping holy the seventh day are blaspheming his name by refusing to listen to his angels sent to them with light and truth. This is the strong, almost overmastering delusion. Like the Samaritans who were deceived by Simon Magus, the multitudes, from the least to the greatest, give heed to these sorceries, saying: This is ‘the great power of God.’ Acts 8:10.” Ibid., 624, 625.

A clear understanding of the state of the dead—the non-immortality of the soul—will be one of the individual’s major defenses against these powerful delusions of spiritualism.

The non-immortality of the soul is one of the great pillars or landmarks of the church. Let us consider the importance placed upon this doctrine in the following statement from the Spirit of Prophecy:

“The passing of the time in 1844 was a period of great events, opening to our astonished eyes the cleansing of the sanctuary transpiring in heaven, and having decided relation to God’s people upon the earth, [also] the first and second angels’ messages and the third, unfurling the banner on which was inscribed, ‘The commandments of God and the faith of Jesus’ [Revelation 14:12]. One of the landmarks under this message was the temple of God, seen by His truth-loving people in heaven, and the ark containing the law of God. The light of the Sabbath of the fourth commandment flashed its strong rays in the pathway of the transgressors of God’s law. The non-immortality of the wicked is an old landmark. I can call to mind nothing more that can come under the head of the old landmarks.” Counsels to Writers and Editors, 30, 31.

This statement places “the non-immortality of the wicked” along with “the cleansing of the sanctuary transpiring in heaven,” the Three Angels’ Messages, “the law of God,” and the Sabbath as one of “the old landmarks” of the advent faith.

In light of the importance of having a clear understanding of “the non-immortality of the wicked” let us turn to the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy for true instruction on this subject.

Let us first look at the origin of man. The word of God states that “the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” Genesis 2:7. Here we see that man became a living being when God gave him the breath of life. It was the combination of both the dust of the ground and the breath of God that made the man a living being or living soul.

Now let us see what happens to man when he dies. God said, “By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” Genesis 3:19. Solomon says that “the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit [the breath that God breathed into the body] returns to God who gave it.” Ecclesiastes 12:7. James says that “the body without the spirit is dead.” James 2:26. The body, without the breath that God breathed into it, is lifeless. From another point of view Moses, speaking of the experience of Job, wrote that “as long as I have life within me, the breath of God in my nostrils, my lips will not speak wickedness, and my tongue will utter no deceit.” Job 27:3, 4.

God says that when a man dies, he simply returns back to the ground—to the elements—from which he was created in the beginning and that the breath that God breathed into the body to make it a living soul simply returns back to God. The only evidence that remains that this person has ever lived is found in the books of record which are in the Most Holy Place of the sanctuary of the New Covenant in heaven. Of this record we read, “And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.” Revelation 20:12.

Solomon makes a very interesting observation concerning the dead. He says, “The living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no further reward, and even the memory of them is forgotten. Their love, their hate and their jealousy have long since vanished; never again will they have a part in anything that happens under the sun.” Ecclesiastes 9:5, 6.

Job made the following observation concerning the state of the dead: “So man lies down and does not rise; till the heavens are no more, men will not awake or be roused from their sleep.” Death is represented here as a sleep. “If his sons are honored, he does not know it; if they are brought low, he does not see it.” Job 14:12, 21.

Solomon says that we who are living know that we will die, but the dead are not aware of anything. They do not even know that they will be raised in the first or second resurrection. See Revelation 20:4–6. This may be an appropriate time to raise, or consider the question, How can there be resurrections if man does not die? If they are already living, how can they be raised from the dead? The Scripture is very clear that there are two major resurrections, one before the 1,000 years and one following.

In the book of Revelation we have this record of the two resurrections: “I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony for Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or his image and had not received his mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. … This is the first resurrection.” Revelation 20:4, 5.

These verses bring to light a group of people who were killed because of their faith in Jesus and the Bible. Then it clearly states that they came to life to reign with Christ. If they had not surely died, as Satan had said, how is it that they were called to life at the beginning of the 1,000 years? In that they were raised to life is evidence that they did not live on after they were martyred. In verse 6 this event is referred to as the first resurrection.

It is interesting to note that there is another resurrection at the end of the 1,000 years in which all who have ever lived, including those who killed the faithful people, are raised to life. This is evidence that this group of people also did not live on after they died. The Scripture simply states that “The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.” Revelation 20:5. (This is referring to the second resurrection.)

Paul wrote the following account of the first resurrection: “According to the Lord’s own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. [Notice that death is represented as a sleep.] For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.” I Thessalonians 4:15, 16.

When Paul wrote to the Corinthian church concerning this resurrection he said, “Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised.” I Corinthians 15:51, 52.

Jesus confirms the resurrection in His own words. “Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out.” John 5:28, 29.

Solomon goes on to say that they have no more rewards in life and furthermore, after a time the “memory of them is forgotten” (Ecclesiastes 9:5) by those who are still living. Then he says that their love, their hate and jealousy—their character—vanishes and will never again have any part in life on this earth.

The Bible plainly states that, “The soul who sins is the one who will die.” Ezekiel 18:20. And further it says, “No one remembers you [the Lord] when he is dead. Who praises you from the grave?” Psalm 6:5.

More evidence concerning the state of the dead is found in Luke’s account of the body of David. “Brothers, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day.” “For David did not ascend to heaven.” Acts 2:29, 34.

Let us refer to one more event that sheds light on the state of the individual who has died. We find the account in the Gospel of John.

“After he [Jesus] had said this, he went on to tell them, ‘Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.’ His disciples replied, ‘Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.’ Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep. So then he told them plainly, ‘Lazarus is dead.’ ” John 11:11–14.

In His statement Jesus uses sleep as a symbol of death. Now it is easy for us to understand the condition of the person who is dead. Just ask yourself the question, “What is the condition of my body when I am sound asleep?” The state of consciousness in sleep is the same for one who is dead.

The conclusion of this event is a wonderful encouragement to the faithful believer today. Here is the rest of the story. “Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. ‘Take away the stone,’ he said. ‘But, Lord,’ said Martha, the sister of the dead man, ‘by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.’ Then Jesus said, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?’ So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, ‘Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.’ When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, ‘Take off the grave clothes and let him go.’ ” John 11:38–43.

This is a wonderful truth for the righteous dead. In the near future Jesus is going to call them from their condition in death to give them immortality and eternal life in the kingdom of glory.

And in the closing scenes of the great controversy the true knowledge of the state of the dead will be as a bulwark protecting the faithful believers from the deceptions and miracle-working power of apparitions and spirits appearing to represent the dead.

“When men tell you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living?” Isaiah 8:19.

Maurice Hoppe is retired and volunteers at Steps to Life. His primary responsibility is working with the Training Program for Ministers and Church Leaders and the Training Program for Lay Workers. He also conducts a Bible Correspondence School from his home with emphasis on Bible prophecy. He can be contacted at: mauricehoppe@stepstolife.org.

Honor your Parents

by

The Ten Commandments are not a very popular topic these days. Judges get in trouble for trying to put the Ten Commandments in the courtroom. The Ten Commandments are not extremely popular. The truth is that the Ten Commandments are not a legalistic set of regulations for us. These commandments were written by the finger of God. He wrote them as an expression of His character so that we might know Him. It is more important to view the commandments in that way than any other.

What does this tell me about the Father? What does this tell me about God? I find that God is very interested in your relationship because the first four commandments have to do with your relationship with God. The fifth Commandment is where it turns. People say that the last six commandments have to do with our relationship with others. I would like to give a third division. The first four pertain to our relationship with God. The last five involve our relationships with others. But the fifth commandment is specifically focused on the home.

The fifth commandment is concerned with your relationship with father and mother, with children, with the family, because the family is the core of society. In fact, it is good to view this as concentric circles; it begins with our love for God in the inner circle. From there we expand to another circle which is family. We need to love God; we need to love family. Then we go one more circle and that is to love everyone else as well.

We see this same pattern in the gospel commission. Jesus told His disciples they were to start at Jerusalem (The Acts of the Apostles, 32) which is where they lived, where the first church was established. Start in Jerusalem and spread the word throughout the city. Then go to Judea, which is the country in which they live, and then to Samaria, their closest neighboring country, and then to the uttermost parts of the world. We start with God and then we move out like concentric circles. The gospel begins at home and then we move out. That seems to be God’s plan.

He asks how you could love others if you don’t even love the people He gave you to live with on a day-to-day basis. We have here God’s pattern for relationships. God says that good relationships have boundaries. A relationship without boundaries is codependent and extremely unhealthy. There are boundaries in my relationship with you.

All human relationships must have boundaries. My wife has commandments that I did not realize until I got married. One commandment is, Thou shalt have no other girlfriends before me. Another commandment is, Thou shalt not take my name in vain, either in my presence or away from me—talk nice about me is what she is saying. Those commandments are not a burden to me. I have more joy keeping those commandments because I love her and they are not a burden or a legalistic requirement of me at all.

Our relationship has boundaries. She has boundaries for me and I have boundaries for her and without those boundaries we would have an unhealthy relationship. There needs to be a set of expectations that we have in relationships. That is what the Ten Commandments are all about. God tells us that the Ten Commandments are boundaries for your relationship with me. There are boundaries for your family and boundaries for the rest of the world—it would be nice if you do not kill the people you love.

Don’t take from the people you love the things that belong to them; respect their property. These are boundaries for relationships. Don’t bear false witness; don’t trash their character. Every relationship must be governed by boundaries or the relationship becomes unhealthy. When you are raising children, you have boundaries for them. There are things you are trying to teach them because you want them to grow up and become responsible human beings. You want them to understand what a healthy relationship is all about.

One of those boundaries is found in Exodus 20:12. It says, “Honour your father and your mother so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God has given you.” One of the things God does is to put men and women on the same level. This was a new thought for that time because it was a very male dominated society.

In order to understand this passage better we need to understand a concept of the Eastern mind, especially the ancient Eastern mind, and it still exists today. This commandment could also be translated as, “Be sure you don’t shame your father and your mother.” A very strong motivating force in the Eastern mind is the idea of shame avoidance—saving face. It is difficult to understand any of the parables that Jesus taught without an understanding of this basic concept of shame avoidance. We will do anything to avoid shame personally and also collectively as a society. That was a key in the Eastern thought.

Remember the parable of the man who received guests into his home late, unexpectedly, and he had nothing in the house to feed them? He goes over to his neighbor and he bangs on the door and he says, “Give me some bread so I can feed my guests.” The man says, “Leave me alone; I am in bed; I have my children in bed with me” (Luke 11:5–7). We really don’t understand that parable here in the West. We think it means that God is reluctant to answer our prayers, but if we keep knocking on the door, eventually He will answer. That is not what the parable says.

In the East, when someone came to your home, not only were they the guests in your home but they were the guests in the entire community. It would be a point of shame, not just for the man who received him into his home, but for the entire community to not meet the needs of the guests. For this man to go to his neighbor and knock on the door and say I have a guest; I have nothing to feed him; help me out, Jesus was saying, Who would not get out of bed and give him the bread? After all, he would bring shame on himself, upon his neighbor and the entire community. Of course, he is going to defend his name; he is going to honor his reputation; he is going to honor his community by getting out of bed, getting the bread so that he will have something to feed his neighbor. By the way, what the man was asking for was primarily utensils. In those days the food was put into a common pot, usually a stew, and they would take flat bread and dip in the common pot, so the bread became the utensil. So for one man to refuse to do that would bring shame upon the entire community, and no one in their right mind would do that.

The point of Jesus’ parable was when you ask for something in His name, God will always honor His name. He would not think of doing otherwise because of the concept in the Eastern mind of shame avoidance. I am going to avoid shame. That is what the fifth Commandment is based on; do not allow your parents to experience shame. Do not shame your mother and your father.

One way in which your mother or father could be shamed in their old age is especially through poverty. Poverty was seen in that mindset as a point of shame. Don’t allow your mother or father to be impoverished in their old age; you take care of their needs. Do not bring shame upon their gray heads.

Do you remember when Saddam Hussein was captured? The allies understood the importance of villages, especially in the Eastern culture. They understood the importance of shame and shame avoidance. In the photographs we saw of him being examined by a doctor and checking his hair and beard for lice, he looked old and tired and he was opening his mouth as they peered in for opium. It was to make this god-like figure experience shame in the eyes of those people he ruled over. It was a mental image they wanted to place in the Eastern mind. They were very intentional about that because they understood the concept of shame avoidance because now he looked like an old, poor, haggard man, filled with vermin. It was all about shame avoidance.

How shameful would it be for your father or mother to not have enough food to eat or to live in poverty while you have enough to eat? The commandment is telling you that you have a responsibility for your father and mother. You are to take care of them in their old age and make sure they have exactly what they need. You do not shame them. Why do you do this? The family is the core of society, so that you may live long in the land that the Lord your God has given you. That promise does not mean that if you take care of them and be respectful to them that you will live to a ripe old age. It says that your community or your society will be established and you will keep the land that God has given you as a community. I will keep the core of your community strong as long as the family values are strong.

We see the disintegration of the family today. We can see that society is crumbling and standards are melting away. Anything seems to go and it starts with the home. This is why God said that the very first commandment that deals with human relationship is, “Honor your father and your mother.” Take care of the family relationships and make sure that they are in good shape and if you will do that, your society will remain strong. Your community will remain strong.

Another way in which we are to honor our father and our mother is by the way we talk to them. When our children were small, we wanted to make sure that we did not get any back talk. I have been to the store and I have seen children smart mouthing their mother and I want to go over and take the child by the nap of the neck. When our children were small, I remember one of them saying something smart to her mother and it was my job when I heard that to intervene and my wife would intervene when they spoke that way to me. When I heard her speak that way to her mother I told her to wait just a minute, that I would not allow any man on the street to speak to her mother in that way and why on earth would I allow my own daughter to speak that way. You will not speak to your mother in that way. We had no problems after that. I also spoke to her mother with gentleness and kindness and our children were respectful. They did not grow up with mother and father screaming at each other. We wanted our children to be able to emulate our response to each other. Everybody gets irritated but we need to choose our words well. Remember that every word you say trains someone else.

I wanted my children to learn to honor their mother, so I had to honor her. I wanted them to learn to honor their grandparents so I had to honor them. I wanted my children to honor men and women who are older than they and to treat them with gentleness and respect, which means that I have to model that. What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear a word you say. If you say one thing and do another, no one spots a hypocrite faster than a child. All of our children need to learn how to honor father and mother. That does not stop when they leave the house.

I have seen people treat their parents who are in their 50s, 60s and older as if they were children. I have seen them speak disrespectfully to them as if this was just a child with no sense. I have seen them roll their eyes when they take so long to get up or to move from one place to another. There was a time when you were pretty slow too. There was a time when you messed your britches and when you drooled and someone took care of you. We have a responsibility to care for father and mother and to show them dignity and respect regardless of their age.

A man and a woman live their lives searching for some manner of dignity and respect in the world. They do business, they hold a job, they raise a family, participate hopefully in church and at the end of their lives when they should have earned all of this respect, all of a sudden their children treat them as if they do not have a lick of sense. The parents have lost all of the respect they spent their lives trying to earn. This is a society that worships youth and hates old age.

I remember hearing an actor answer a question about who his hero was. He said his son, who was four years old, was his hero. His son had not battled some dread disease and survived or was not a child prodigy. He was just a normal four year old. He spoke of that child as being his ideal and he did not want to teach his child anything because he thought he might spoil that purity. He wanted to be like that child. This is life upside down. Your boy needs a hero and that should be you, dad, because you teach him values. You show him the way to live as a man. You show your daughter what it is to have a man love her appropriately. You don’t worship youth; you train youth.

We respect our elders by recognizing that they have something of value to give us. Honor your father and your mother.

We honor our father and mother by living lives of dignity, respect, purity, truth and honesty. When you are a man or woman of integrity, you give honor to your father and mother. I met a young man who was sharp, well-spoken and he seemed to live by good values. He seemed to have his head together and he seemed to know where he was going in this life. He knew what he wanted to do and what he wanted to accomplish. He knew who he was and what life was all about.

I was so impressed with him that I made a comment to my wife that someone had taught this young man well and that he must have come from a good home. When I had an opportunity to talk with this young man, particularly about his family, I found out just the opposite was true. His father, when he was a child, had been very abusive of the boy and before he had reached his teenage years, his father had abandoned him and he had not seen him in years. His mother was a drug addict and after his father left he saw a long procession of boyfriends move into the house and move out. They had taught him nothing but yet, somewhere along the line, someone had influenced him so that he had become a young man of integrity and dignity. Do you realize that the choices this young man made honored his father and mother who really did not deserve it or may not even be aware of it? And as you have chosen to live lives that honor God this will bring honor to your father and mother.

Honor comes from a root word for heavy or weighty, giving weight to. This can be taken in a positive way. When you consider a weighty matter, it would be something of significance, some substance or value. So when you add weight to this matter you are adding significance, substance and value. That is a positive way of looking at honor. The negative way of looking at honor is when it becomes a heavy burden to carry.

If you grew up in a home where father and mother did their best to care for you and raise you right and they made their mistakes along the way just like any other parent, then this matter of adding weightiness and substance to their lives is a positive command. Now you can respect them, their wisdom, their stories and their history and that becomes a part of your story and adds credence and value to your life, weight to your life. You are honored to give significance to their life at the time of anniversaries, birthdays, retirement and by visiting them. You are there to give honor to your father and your mother.

My family used to run a nursing home and there are a lot of people who were simply placed there and abandoned until they died. You never saw son or daughter or grandchildren; nobody came by until we sent the notice that they had died and they needed to pick up their things. To treat them positively is to add weight to their life and to show up, to be there and to love them and celebrate the moments with them and to thank them for what they have done for you. That is the positive way of looking at the commandment.

There is also a negative side to this. Not everybody grew up in a loving home. Many grew up in homes that were extremely abusive; they were abandoned or molested. This happens in American homes with far too great a frequency. What about those people whose lives have been negatively impacted by a dysfunctional family, a family that told them they were not good enough or abused them? What do you do with a father and mother in that circumstance? That is when the weight of honoring father and mother becomes heavy.

The commandment does not say to honor your father and mother unless your father was a louse, worthless or abusive. How do you honor that father? A work of reconciliation has to be done in your heart first. You need to not gloss over the pain in your life as though it never happened, but to acknowledge it. The only Christian option is to forgive. Forgiveness does not mean that what they did didn’t matter, or what they did was right, or that it did not hurt you. Forgiveness means that what you did was wrong, it hurt me and destroyed my life but I have chosen not to carry the resentment or anger around with me anymore. I lay it at the foot of the cross and I extend to you the same grace that was extended to me. I choose to forgive you. Forgiveness is not an emotion but a decision.

Ephesians 6:1–4 tells us that there is a second side to this: “Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honour thy father and mother (which is the first commandment with promise); That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”

Do you see the principle here? God never gives privilege without responsibility. Fathers and mothers have the privilege of having God command that our children honor us. The responsibility is that we live lives of integrity and be honorable people.

Jesus will give you the strength that is necessary to honor your father and your mother and to be a father or mother of integrity that your children can honor and love. This is God’s law, not a legalistic requirement. It is a glorious privilege that He wants us to have appropriate boundaries for healthy relationships, relationships with Himself, relationships with the greater community and relationships at home.

Michael Tucker’s sermon was taken from the Ten Commandment Weekend, 2008 series aired on 3ABN. For more information contact www.3ABN.org.

Thou Shalt Not Kill

by

God says that if you will obey my voice and keep my commandments you will be a special treasure to me above all of the people of the earth. He said if you would do those things, it will be well with you. He asks that you and I walk with Him, follow Him in all that we do.

The Ten Commandments are ten great eternal principles that never change. Those are principles that God gave to guide, direct and to lead your life. They must not be viewed as rules. They are laws, they are principles but they are not rules. Many people have a tendency to look upon the Law of God as rules. When you view God’s law as a rule, it causes you to become legalistic and you will always be looking at other people to see if they measure up to the rule. Jesus and the Pharisees had conflict because of their persistence in coming to Him with some rule that they had made up regarding one of the commandments. Jesus would then give a principle which made them so mad that eventually they figured out how they could kill Him.

The sixth Commandment is, “Thou shalt not kill.” Exodus 20:13.

Genesis 9:6 says, “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.” This tells us that God made man in His own image and that means that you are special. There is not another individual anywhere in the vast universe of God who is just like you. You are one of a kind, unique!

If the life of an individual who is not saved or does not know Jesus Christ is taken, then that person is eternally lost. Throughout eternity there will never be another person like that one. This is a tremendous loss. You should not take something that you cannot restore and you cannot restore a life.

God is not interested in cloning. He creates. Man clones because he cannot create. God is not interested in having a bunch of people running around that look alike, speak alike, or act alike. God is interested in you being a distinct, special individual just the way He made you. David talked about this in Psalm 139:16: “Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed; and in your book they were all written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there was none of them.” David said that God knew you before you were ever born. Life, for that reason, is special.

The last six commandments relate to loving your neighbor, whether it be your parents or the neighbor next door. In Romans 13:9 it says, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, You shall not covet; and if there is any other commandment, it is all summed up in this, namely, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

The neighbors next door, no matter how ornery or difficult they may be, are special and there is nobody else like them. God brought them into existence and therefore you and I need to treat them with respect and love because they are special.

The law was not given to give you power to overcome or to help you. It was given to show you a direction on how you should live and which way you should go. In Hebrews 7:19 it says, “For the law made nothing perfect, on the other hand, there is a beginning of a better hope, through which we draw near to God.” There is something to help you and me because the law was not given to make anything perfect. The law is going to tell you that you are guilty. There is a better hope offered to you and to me.

In Romans 5:20 it says, “Moreover the law entered that the offence might abound (in other words, it points out sin). But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more.” Unfortunately, many people do not understand grace or what is involved in grace. Remember the rich young ruler who came to Jesus? He said, “Good Master, what do I have to do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him: “If you would enter into life, keep the commandments.” And the young man responded saying that he had done that from his youth, “what lacketh I yet?” Jesus said if you want to be perfect, go and sell all that you have and give it to the poor and come and follow me (Luke 18:18-22).

What would you do if the Lord told you to go home and sell everything that you have and come and follow Him? Jesus was homeless, and did not know where the next meal was coming from and He said, I am not very well liked and the establishment would like to kill me, but sell everything you have and follow Me. How many of you would? Why would Christ ask that young man to do that? Because it was the only way that this young man would understand grace. All his life he had everything he wanted. He was not dependent on anybody. He was very wealthy and he turned away because he had great possessions. The only way he could understand grace was when he was totally dependent upon God. So with you and me; we have to be in a position where we are totally dependent upon the Lord.

What does the sixth Commandment mean when it says, “Thou shalt not kill”? In the original translation it says, “Thou shalt not murder.” The Hebrew meaning for the word kill or murder also means premeditated. That means I thought about it and then took that person’s life.

There are certain emotions that you and I have and if we do not take care of them they can cause us to commit murder. Let’s look at a few of these.

Envy—This can cause you to murder somebody. Do you remember the case in the Bible of Ahab? Right beside the palace was a vineyard owned by Naboth. Ahab was envious because he wanted that vineyard. He went to Naboth and told him that he would trade another piece of land for it, but he wanted that vineyard. Naboth told him that it had been in his family for many generations and that he did not want to sell. Ahab then offered him more than the vineyard was worth, but he would not sell it. He was so envious that he went home and moped and sulked and went on about it until Jezebel asked him what the problem was and then she took care of it. They murdered Naboth. Read about it in I Kings 21. Envy can cause murder. If you have a problem with envy, you need to look at it very, very carefully.

Hatred—If you hate your neighbor, if you hate your parents, or your brother or sister, you have an emotion that can get you into trouble and cause you to commit murder. Remember the experience of King Saul? He hated David. He did everything he could think of to take his life. Even when time and time again, it was shown him clearly that David was loyal and that he was not trying to take the kingdom, but Saul hated him so much that he continually attempted to take his life. If you hate, it can cause you to commit murder.

Anger—Uncontrolled anger can put you in situations where you will take a person’s life. If you cannot control getting angry, then you need to look at it and do something with that anger because that is dangerous. Cain killed his brother Abel because he was angry because God showed respect to Abel’s sacrifice but not his own. Anger must not be permitted to rule our lives.

Revenge—Revenge is wanting to get back for something that happened to me. I am not happy when hearing something on the news about somebody killing another person because others want to take revenge. When Samson’s wife was killed by the Philistines he said that he would go out and revenge himself and went out and killed over 1,000 of them. The spirit of revenge cannot be allowed to lead or guide the life.

I will never forget a time when I was holding a meeting and a lady atttended, with her was a young man, probably in his 30s. As we got acquainted one night I asked her about him. She said, “Brother Cox, that man killed my father. I went to the prison and told him I forgave him.” She told me she studied with him and brought him to Jesus Christ. When he got out of prison, he has been like a son to me ever since. This lady did not permit revenge to rule her life.

The Scripture does not tell us to be hateful, revengeful or angry. It says that you and I are to be kind, tenderhearted, loving one another (Ephesians 4:32).

Outside of shooting them or stabbing them, there are many different ways to kill people. In 1971 there was a song written called Killing Me Softly with His Song. Over the centuries, the preferred method for killing people was to poison them. Remember Nero who poisoned his mother who died rather quickly. Napoleon was poisoned for months before he died. In fact, poison still kills today and in many cases it is self-inflicted. What would you say to the Lord if He were to ask you, “Why did you commit murder?” You would say, “I did not murder anybody.” He would say, Yes, you committed suicide by slowly poisoning yourself by using tobacco. Every cigarette that you smoked took 11 minutes from your life. You committed suicide. How are you going to answer the Lord?

What about drugs? How do you answer the Lord when you are taking poisons and putting them into your body? The average age of a drug addict is 30 years of age. The same is true with alcohol—it does not kill you quickly; it just pickles you over time.

These poisons that are being used today we find almost acceptable and that it is all right to smoke and to chew and to use alcohol. This is not acceptable with God. To say that you just cannot quit, then you are saying that the grace of our Lord is not capable. Are you trying to say that if you turn your life over to God that He can’t take care of you and take you off those things? Would you tell God that, when He is there ready to help you?

We are talking about what God wants us to be and what we ought to be. There are some people who dig their grave with their teeth. There are women who are loving, kind and sweet wives who are absolutely fantastic cooks. The foods they fix are fabulous and they do that for their husbands, day in and day out. He sits and enjoys it and eats, not realizing that it is absolutely killing him. Look at 1 Corinthians 6:19, “Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, which you have of God, and you are not your own?” The statement is very true that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. But if you prepare a wonderful meal day in and day out, and set that before him, you are asking for real problems; you are going to kill him.

I was invited to speak at a retirees’ convention. When I got up to speak and looked out across the audience of about 200 to 300 people I couldn’t believe what I saw. Ninety percent of the people in that audience were women. All of the husbands were dead. When I went through school, I worked as an orderly in a hospital and I noticed a rather strange phenomenon because a day or two before Thanksgiving or a day or two before Christmas the patient load in that hospital was way down. You could walk down that hall and there was vacant room after vacant room. The evening of Thanksgiving Day or Christmas Day when you walked back through those halls every room was full and there were patients in the halls and it is because of what we eat. There has to be limits. The sin of this age is probably the gluttony of people. We need to stop that because it is killing us.

Cannibalism—When you come home from church and you sit down at the table for dinner and you eat roasted pastor or roasted brother or sister in the church you are practicing cannibalism, which is murder. Next time you think you are going to start in criticizing a pastor or a brother or sister, write down on a little pad that you just committed murder. You are not to kill. That is like that song Killing Me Softly with His Words. Step by step I put them to death. God simply says, “Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has inherited eternal life” (I John 3:15). It is impossible to hate a brother or a sister and still make it into God’s kingdom.

The Bible says that hate, anger, revenge and envy and all those emotions come out from your heart. In Matthew 15:19–21 it says, “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.” All of that comes out of the flesh. In order to keep from being that way, you cannot be on the throne. You do not have any choice about being on the throne because you were born there. Little babies can get on that throne quite easily; they are born that way. The choice to be made is whether or not you will get off it. God gave you a will so that makes it possible for you to make a decision that you will not ruin your life.

If you stay on the throne, then there are certain things that are inherited and called the works of flesh. Look in Galatians 5:19–21. It says, “Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousy, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, reveling, and such like: of the which I tell you before, just as I also told you in time past, that they who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” You are born into this world only flesh. You need to make a decision of whether you are going to stay on the throne or let Christ reign there. Each must make that decision.

God has given each person a mind that is very smart. Your mind is a big filing cabinet which takes everything in that you hear, taste, see or touch and files it away perfectly so that anytime you want to you can pull it out and think about it. There is a lot in there you have not thought about for a long time, but if the right word is said or the right thing is done, it is immediately brought forth.

I was born in Chicago and lived the first nine years of my life there. I had never been back as far as spending any time there. I wanted to go back to the community where I was raised. I just wanted to go back and see what was there. I could not believe it, but when I walked back into the community all of the sounds and smells just flooded my soul. They were there after all of these years. Your mind files everything away very carefully.

If you are on the throne and running your own life, then you will put things into your mind that should not be there. These are the works of the flesh. You will watch the television and watch programs that encourage violence, hatred, murder, pornography and all of that will be stored in your mind. Then, you can think about it any time you want to. That produces what the Scripture calls emotions. The Bible says that when it comes to the emotions, you and I have to be very careful because it says, “Out of the heart … [Mark 7:21-23].” Heart refers to the emotions. It says to, “Keep your heart with all diligence for out of it springs the issues of life” [Proverbs4:23]. What does that mean? It means that your emotions cause actions—cause you to do certain things. That is why it says to watch your emotions, take care of them because that will cause you to do certain things.

If you permit envy or anger or hatred or any of those things to dwell in your life, those emotions could cause you to commit murder. The only way you can take care of this is by making the decision to put Jesus Christ on the throne.

When you make the decision to put Jesus Christ on the throne, He then makes the decision as to what goes into your mind, because He is in control. Therefore, He is the One who is calling the shots and I am going to read those things that are good and right. The Scripture says that whatsoever things are lovely, pure and of a good report, think on these things and that produces the fruits of the Spirit (Philippians 4:8). It says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law” [Galatians 5:22, 23]. Those begin to operate in my life. That is how the Holy Spirit comes in and takes control of your life and changes it.

You must make the decision whether you are going to let the Lord run your life or you are going to run your own life. If you are going to run your own life, then I will assure you that the works of the flesh will be present, but if you turn it over to Christ, then the Holy Spirit will come into your life and He will do His work in your life. The only way that takes place is at the foot of the cross. Day by day I have to come to Him at the foot of the cross and turn my life over to Him and let Him work in my life.

Are you willing to put Christ on the throne and let Him control your life and let Him do His work in your life so that the fruits of His Spirit might be manifested in you?

Kenneth Cox’s sermon was taken from the Ten Commandment Weekend, 2008 series aired on 3ABN. For more information contact www.3ABN.org.

Joseph and Jehovah-Jirah

by

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. The ancient elders were commended for this (Hebrews 11:1, 2).

Joseph, one of my favorite Bible characters, I believe is one of the most remarkable characters in the Bible. I hope this sketch impels you to study and contemplate his life story, as the applications and lessons from his life are innumerable. My goal is to illustrate from the life of Joseph what a firm belief and obedience to the God he knew, Jehovah-Jirah, ultimately did for him and what that same belief can and will do for all who choose to believe as did Joseph.

Let’s begin by looking at the dizzying heights to which he suddenly ascended following his rather routine childhood and the inexplicably terrifying and difficult years of youth and young adulthood.

Joseph became nothing less than the second greatest person on the face of the earth. Egypt was the premier nation at this time, excelling in the arts, culture, architecture, writing, etc. And Joseph was the head, the leader, the one in power as it says in Genesis 41:41, 44. We read, “So Pharaoh said to Joseph, ‘I hereby put you in charge of the whole land of Egypt.’ … Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, ‘I am Pharaoh, but without your word no one will lift hand or foot in all Egypt.’ ” Now that is power. One person only, one human being had greater power than Joseph and that person was Pharaoh.

But what led up to this position of trust and power? Did Joseph have a smooth, gradual, typical rise? Did he have the usual grooming we would prescribe for one being prepared for this type of position? How did he come to possess the qualifications for the position that he came to occupy?

Let’s travel back in time about 18 years. The time is not given exactly, nor is Joseph’s age at this time precisely known. Jacob, Joseph’s father, had left his land of sojourn and had arrived back in Canaan along with his large family. Here Joseph meets for the first time his aged grandfather, Isaac, about whom he has undoubtedly heard so much. Without doubt Joseph is drawn to this patriarch and spends much time listening to the stories his grandfather has to relate. Remember, Joseph is the undisputed favorite of his father; the son of the only woman he truly loved who is now dead. Joseph has 10 older brothers to take care of the flocks and herds. Joseph has time on his hands, and I can imagine that Jacob would naturally encourage the attachment between his own aging and beloved father and this favored son. Let’s join as Joseph listens to these stories; imagine how he would relate to them and integrate them into his own life.

We read in Patriarchs and Prophets, 209 that Joseph was intelligent, kind, affectionate, thoughtful, and pure, with moral earnestness and firmness. He would have listened intently, engaging deeply in the stories of his illustrious ancestors and cherishing the lessons illustrated by them. There is one story in particular I would like to focus on that to me must have been a most powerful influence in Joseph’s coming years. But first some background.

The story begins with the first promise God made to Abram as he was called out of Ur. God said to Abram, “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you … .” Genesis 12:2. Then followed the long, the very long delay waiting for the birth of the promised heir. Joseph was told of the efforts of humans to help out God, with the utter chaos and pain that resulted. Then he was told of the miracle. Oh, the miracle of a tiny baby born to a woman of 90 and her husband of 100 years of age. We can’t truly comprehend the joy, the wonder, the awe they experienced, when after so long this yearning husband and wife, well beyond childbearing years, are granted this miracle.

Then there were many years of happiness, of training the child to worship, love, trust and fear the God who had the power to bring such a miracle to be. And Abraham had experiences to tell. And tell them he did. He was not too proud to admit his mistakes, to humbly share with this promised son what he had learned through such costly and painful lessons. And now is the story that grounded Joseph for his crucible, his trial, his time of preparation for the mighty role he was to play in the history of this world. Remember, the one relating the story is Isaac, the very Isaac involved in the story. As he relates the story, he relives it vividly, awestruck once again by the loving providences of the God he serves.

One night Abraham, now 120 years old, was peacefully sleeping, maybe dreaming of this promised son, and what a blessed young man God had given him. One night he was suddenly wakened by a voice. It was a voice he knew well. But the message was foreign, totally unexpected and totally shattered everything he knew of God. The voice said to him, “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.” Genesis 22:2.

It was crystal clear. There was no doubt. God said who? “Your son, your only son, Isaac.” God said where? “The region of Moriah.” God said what to do? “Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering.” Abraham was filled with doubt and anguish, yet he knew the voice, and he must obey. Joseph, listening, was on the edge of his seat. He knew that human sacrifices were condemned by God and even at his tender age in his early to mid teens he understood something of the great test before Abraham.

Isaac continued, “My father and I often sacrificed together so that morning when he woke me early, it was nothing unusual. However, as we traveled, I noticed my father’s silence, his introspection, his unusual demeanor. It took us three days to reach the region where we were to sacrifice and he hardly said a word; just looked at me, studied me. It was not until that third day that I asked a question that had been baffling me, ‘The fire and wood are here, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?’ Genesis 22:7. Do you know, Joseph, what my father said? He replied, ‘God Himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering.’ Verse 8.

“Joseph, God is Jehovah-jireh. Do you know what that name means? Jehovah-jireh, the Lord will provide. Joseph, God will see to it. My father understood and trusted.

“So we continued on, leaving the servants at the foot of the mountain. We built the altar, we arranged the wood, and then was the time. With intense emotion my father laid open to me the instruction God had given him. Remember, Joseph, my father was 120 years old. I was 20. I could have easily overcome him and prevented what God had told him to do. I knew and understood what he was saying, what he was proposing—death. I had seen it many times before. Sacrifices—I had participated in them for years. I knew what it meant to see the victim slain, had often seen it laying bleeding on the altar, the innocent suffering for the guilty.

“However, I saw the anguish of my father. I trusted my father. I trusted that this was God’s will and I trusted God, Jehovah-jirah. How I endeavored to lighten his grief and encourage him in what he must now do. Soon, I was tied and laid on the altar. The knife was raised. I was waiting for the lowering of the knife. Time hung in the balance. But the blow never came. An angel of God called Abraham and told him, ‘Do not lay a hand on the boy.’ Verse 12. And Joseph, God, Jehovah-jirah did provide. He did see to it. Caught in a thicket close by was a ram. God provided.”

As Joseph listened to this story related by the very one laid on the altar, the lesson sank deep into his soul and he knew without any doubt that God was Jehovah-jirah.

So, friends, when Joseph was thrown in the pit, he knew that God was Jehovah-jirah and would see to it. When he was sold as a slave he knew that God was Jehovah-jirah and He would see to it. When thrown in a dungeon for his stellar integrity he knew that God was Jehovah-jirah and He would see to it.

When you have experiences such as those that Joseph went through and face them with faith and courage, they change you. From the pen of inspiration: “God brings His people near Him by close, testing trials, by showing them their own weakness and inability, and by teaching them to lean upon Him as their only help and safeguard. Then His object is accomplished. They are prepared to be used in every emergency, to fill important positions of trust, and to accomplish the grand purposes for which their powers were given them.” Testimonies, vol. 4, 86. Would you not say that this was exemplified beautifully in the life of Joseph? I believe that those early stories played a significant role in preparing Joseph for facing and learning from his trials.

What is your pit, what is your trial in slavery or what is your dungeon? I would like to challenge you to put your trust in Jehovah-jirah, the God who will provide, the God who will see to it because He does and He will.

God is still Jehoveh-jireh, the God who will see to it. Remember it, know it, act on it. Jehoveh-jireh; God will provide!

Brenda Douay is a staff member at Steps to Life. She can be contacted by e-mail at: brendadouay@stepstolife.org.

What’s in a Name?

by

Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war. His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except Himself. He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The word of God. And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses. Now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations. And He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And He has on His robe and on His thigh a name written: King of Kings and Lord of Lords” (Revelation 19:11–16).

These texts contain much hidden treasure, but the ore that is to be mined in this article is the several references to a name. In the above quote, there are four references to Him who sat on the white horse.

First, we are told that He was called “faithful and true.” That probably does not need much explanation, especially considering who the rider was. The simple fact that “in righteousness He judges” clearly indicates the divine nature of the rider. He could not judge righteously were He not faithful and true.

Next there is a “name written that no one knew except Himself.” Third, we are told that “His name is called The word of God.” And fourth, we are told that “He has on His robe and on His thigh a name written: King of Kings and Lord of Lords.”

Let’s begin by looking at a “name written that no one knew except Himself.” There is similar wording in Revelation 2:17, where Christ is speaking to the overcomers in Pergamum: “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give some of the hidden manna to eat. And I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written which no one knows except him who receives it.”

“The names of the seven churches are symbolic of the church in different periods of the Christian Era. The number 7 indicates completeness, and is symbolic of the fact that the messages extend to the end of time, while the symbols used reveal the condition of the church at different periods in the history of the world.” The Acts of the Apostles, 585.

The church in Pergamum represents the period from approximately A.D. 313 to 538. The persecution of Christians had ceased and Christianity was declared “official’ by Constantine, who is called in history the first Christian emperor of Rome. He ruled from A.D. 306 to 337. Roman Catholics and most Protestant Christians regard his conversion as the turning point in the Christian church, the point at which the persecuted Christians gained the support of the state. As a result, the Christians, through the church, eventually became the persecutors, though for that to fully develop took several hundred years.

In reality, this “legitimizing” of Christianity was the beginning of Satan’s increasingly stronger grasp on what became the Roman Catholic church. And though the Reformation was a start in freeing Christianity from the grasp of the enemy, it eventually failed in obtaining a full release from Satan’s influence. Indeed, the majority of the Protestant churches have never yet achieved complete allegiance to the word of God.

Nevertheless, after the “conversion” of Constantine and the Roman nation, taking the name of Christ no longer resulted in guaranteed persecution by the state. Indeed, just the opposite happened. If you failed to take the name of Christ in the manner dictated by the church, you became the persecuted. Having lost the power of the Holy Spirit, the church turned to the state to enforce its dogmas.

So it seems from our historical perspective that assuming the Christian appellation—that is, calling yourself a Christian—resulted in a definite change from being the one who was persecuted to one who did the persecution.

It also seems from our reading in Revelation 19:12 that not only does Christ have a name that no one but He knows, so does each of His faithful saints (Revelation 2:17). Revelation 19:8 tells us that the fine linen, clean and bright that the saints are arrayed in is their righteous acts. We also know from the inspired writings of God’s prophet to the remnant that one’s acts are a reflection of one’s character. “Actions make habits, and habits, character.” Christian Education, 92. It is easy, therefore, to conclude that the fine linen that the saints are robed in is a reflection of their righteous character, which we know can only be acquired through faith in Jesus Christ.

We also know from inspired counsel that one’s name was of great importance to the children of Israel. In Prophets and Kings, 481, we read: “Great significance was attached to the names given by Hebrew parents to their children. Often these stood for traits of character that the parent desired to see developed in the child. The prince in whose charge the captive youth [in Babylon] were placed, ‘gave unto Daniel the name of Belteshazzar; and to Hananiah, of Shadrach; and to Mishael, of Meshach; and to Azariah, of Abednego’ (Daniel 1:7).

“The king did not compel the Hebrew youth to renounce their faith in favor of idolatry, but he hoped to bring this about gradually. By giving them names significant of idolatry, by bringing them daily into close association with idolatrous customs, and under the influence of the seductive rites of heathen worship, he hoped to induce them to renounce the religion of their nation and to unite with the worship of the Babylonians.”

Thus we see the significance that is sometimes placed on one’s name. So let’s continue looking at a few of the many names that Scripture gives to our Saviour and at the significance of those names.

Isaiah 7:14 is one of the early sources for the name of Jesus: “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.” The significance of that name cannot be underestimated. Literally, it means “God with us,” but do we fully understand the implication, the importance, the significance of the fact that the text clearly states God with us? We need to meditate on each of those three words: “God” “with” “us.” It is indeed humbling to realize that God Himself humbled Himself—He quit being solely God—to be with (alongside, accompany, next to, among) us, sinful, mortal human beings, living on the only planet in the universe that chose to rebel against His clearly stated, loving instructions. What an incredible act of self-sacrifice!

John 1:14 tells us, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”

This verse tells us far more than we might think on initial reading. Not only are we informed that Christ in His humanity was the fullness of grace and truth as the word of God became embodied in human flesh, but it also helps us to understand more clearly the “begotten-ness” of Christ.

Jesus Christ in His humanity was the only human being created by God through the human birth process—the “only begotten” of the Father, although in His divinity, He existed “from the beginning.”

Let’s look at a few texts that clarify Christ’s eternal existence.

In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, he wrote in Ephesians 3:9, “And to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ.”

There is nothing before the beginning, else it would not be “the beginning.”

Next, let’s look at John 1:15. The opening chapter of John is full of wonderful truths and is worthy of much study in addition to the perusal we are giving it here.

“John bore witness of Him and cried out, saying, ‘This was He of whom I said, “He who comes after me is preferred before me, for He was before me.” ’ ”

Have you ever contemplated what the Baptist meant when he said, “He was before me”?

When Gabriel spoke to Mary about her having a child, the chronology of the births of John the Baptist and Jesus is made clear. The exchange is detailed in Luke 1:26–37.

“Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And having come in, the angel said to her, ‘Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!’

“But when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and considered what manner of greeting this was. Then the angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive [future tense] in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.’

“Then Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I do not know a man?’

“And the angel answered and said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God. Now indeed, Elizabeth your relative has also conceived [past tense] a son in her old age; and this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren. For with God nothing will be impossible.’ ”

How much wonderful truth this passage contains! It is easy to get side-tracked here to dig into the treasured ore in these texts. However, we need to stick to our main subject.

Clearly, we see that John was at least six months older than Jesus, yet John himself stated that “He [referring to Christ] was before me.” In simple, unambiguous language, John is acknowledging that Christ existed before His incarnation as the Son of Mary.

For more Scriptural light on the eternal existence of Christ, see Ephesians 3:9, John 1:15, 1 John 1:1, and 1 John 2:14. Clearly it will take eternity to understand fully, if we ever can, the mystery of the incarnation and that mysterious blending of the divine with the human (1 Timothy 3:16).

Within the record of the conversation between Mary and the angel, we are given additional names for Christ. In Luke 1:31, He is called Jesus. Chronologically, this is the first time that name is given to the Lord and Saviour of mankind. As the conversation continues, Christ is referred to as the Son of the Highest, that Holy One, and the Son of God (verse 35). A bit of meditation on each of these titles will provide a deeper understanding of the divine nature of the Word Made Flesh.

In the uplifting prayer of Jesus recorded in John 17, Jesus makes another statement that deserves deep thought and analysis to fully comprehend. As He prays so fervently to His Father on behalf of His disciples—not only the eleven who were with Him, but “for those who will believe in Me through their word” (verse 20)—He concludes His prayer in verse 26 with these enlightening words: “And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” [Emphasis supplied.]

The Greek word translated declared means to make known or clarify. In some Bible versions it is translated manifested. This sublime truth should encourage us to make a deep study of the life of Christ to discern how He acted in the many and varied situations through which the providences of God led Him. Such a study will reveal to us not only His Holy character, but will be a wonderful lesson in righteous conduct in all situations and all circumstances.

As Peter wrote, “For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow His steps: Who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth: Who, when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered, He threatened not; but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously” (1 Peter 2:21–23 KJV).

More powerful truths here! Let’s ponder the several aspects of Jesus’ character that Peter highlights in these texts.

  • Suffered selflessly (“suffered for us”)
  • Sinless (“did no sin”)
  • Truthful (“no … guile found in His mouth”)
  • Patient and forgiving (“when He was reviled, reviled not again”)
  • Peaceful (“He threatened not”)
  • Faithful and trusting (“committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously”)

In summary, we can conclude that Christ was the embodiment of the purest love. Therefore, if I claim that I am a “Christian,” do I manifest each and all of these characteristics—at all times and under all circumstances?

Power in the Name of Christ

The power inherent in the name of Christ is made evident throughout the writings of Paul.

In Romans 10:13, Paul wrote, “For ‘whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ ” This reference by Paul to Joel 2:32 is erroneously and unfortunately used by many “broad-road” Christians today to claim that simply because they call themselves “Christian,” they are eternally saved—regardless of their conduct or character.

In 1 Corinthians 5:1-5, Paul counsels the Corinthian believers to deliver one ensnared by Satan in sexual immorality to deliver that soul “in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (verse 4). Clearly, Paul understands the power in that name.

In the very next chapter, Paul again refers to the power in that name when he lists the various sins in which the Corinthians had been engaging in when he states: “And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11).

When writing to the Ephesians, Paul notes the importance of “giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 5:20). What a powerful, powerful statement, stressing the importance of (1) giving thanks, (2) always, (3) for all things, (4) to God, (5) the Father, (6) in the name of our Lord, (7) Jesus Christ. Only through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit could Paul have packed so much truth into 18 words!

There are also references to the power inherit in Christ’s name and to the need of reverence for and giving thanks in the name of Christ in Philippians, Colossians, 1st Thessalonians, 1st and 2nd Timothy, and Hebrews. However, some of the most encouraging statements about the power of calling upon the name of Christ were spoken by Christ Himself.

In Jesus’ last interaction with His disciples, recorded in John, chapters 13 through 16, as He is providing His last words of inspiration to those who had been His most faithful followers, several times Jesus states plainly that in His name, their prayers will be answered. Interestingly, however, He does not make these statements until after Judas has left the gathering.

“And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son” (John 14:13).

“If you ask anything in My name, I will do it” (John 14:14).

“… whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you” (John 15:16).

“… Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you. Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full” (John 16:23, 24).
The Bible is clear. Indeed, “there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

May the peace and blessings of Jesus abide with us as we face the challenges of these last days, overcoming in the name of Jesus Christ.

All quotes NKJV unless otherwise noted.

John Pearson is the office manager and a board member of Steps to Life. After retiring as chief financial officer for the Grand Canyon Association, Grand Canyon, Arizona, he moved to Wichita, Kansas, to join the Steps team. He may be contacted by email at: johnpearson@stepstolife.org.