SIGNPOSTS TO GOD

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Another great article in Creation Magazine 2023, Vol 45, Issue 2, this time by Peter Howe Dip. Th., B.Th., M.A. A trained primary school teacher, Peter pastored several churches as an ordained minister in the Wesleyan Methodist Church of Australia.

Evidence of design

Flicking through a magazine one day as a child, I came across a photograph of Mount Rushmore, South Dakota, with the unmistakable likenesses of four American presidents carved into the rocks. Knowing nothing of how these came to be there, I remember thinking, “How strange! These can’t have happened by accident.”

Precisely! No one could seriously suggest that these shapes resulted from wind or rain or glacial erosion. These carved faces are clearly the result of creative design and effort.

Though not professing a commitment to anything like the God of the Bible, Paul Davies, former professor of theoretical physics at The University of Adelaide, writes in his book The Mind of God:

“Through my scientific work, I have come to believe more and more strongly that the physical universe is put together with an ingenuity so astonishing that I cannot accept it merely as a brute fact … I cannot believe that our existence in this universe is a mere quirk of fate, an accident of history, an incidental blip in the great cosmic drama.“

The humblest believer in God as Creator must exercise far less credulity, and has far less explaining to do, than the most ardent evolutionist materialist.

Of course, fallen humanity has devised many increasingly sophisticated speculations of how nature could nonetheless have made itself. Ministries like CMI provide people with specific answers to such challenges. Even so, it pays to step back and contemplate the ‘big picture’ of what is claimed, and its affront to common sense itself.

The evidence within

Another signpost is human nature. We have been made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). Thus, we have spiritual capacities that cannot be explained apart from God. Language, reason, ambition, creativity, humour, wonder, worship—all these have no counterpart in the natural world. These qualities mark us out as different from the rest of God’s handiwork. This is another way of saying that our Creator has endowed us with the capacity to relate to Him at a personal level.

Within human nature, conscience is another sign pointing to God. Proverbs 20:27 says of the human spirit that it is “the lamp of the Lord, searching all [man’s] innermost parts.”. Our conscience is responsible for our intuitive knowledge of right and wrong, good and evil. The Apostle Paul states that even those who don’t have God’s law in written form still have a conscience that commends them when they instinctively do what it commands and accuses them when they don’t (Romans 2:14–15).

An image of hand

Even without a ‘book of rules,’ we know it’s wrong to lie, steal, covet, and murder. Conscience ‘puts a pebble in our shoe’ whenever we violate it. The standard it sets and the guilt it inflicts point us to God—the Source of all good and the Judge of all evil.

Eternity in our hearts

Our longing for eternity is another pointer to God. Somehow, we know and feel that this life is not all that there is. Archaeologists have discovered how carefully and elaborately the ancient Egyptians prepared for the afterlife, and they had no Bible to tell them about a life to come. Where does this longing for eternity come from? Everything on Earth is subject to change and decay:

“Of old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you will remain; they will all wear out like a garment. You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away, but you are the same, and your years have no end.” Psalm 102:25–27

These ‘immortality longings’ we all feel at various moments are pointers to the God who created us in His own image.

Hunger of the soul

Another signpost to God is our longing for meaning and purpose. We always knew when our cat Simba was hungry and wanted to be fed. (Any cat owner knows that dogs have masters, but cats have staff!) He would eat his prescription dry food and go away content; his next meal seemed to be the limit of his horizon. But we can’t live at that bare, subsistence level—at least, not for long. We crave meaning and purpose in our lives; we long to enjoy significant and satisfying relationships.

This sense of longing is often called ‘the homesickness of the soul’—and rightly so, for that’s precisely what it is. The true object of our longing is God. The words of the psalmist reflect this truth:

“As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?” Psalm 42:1–2

Of all the signposts pointing to God, the Bible is by far the clearest. When a British monarch is crowned, he or she is given a copy of the Bible, and told, “This Book is the most valuable thing that this world affords. This is the royal law; these are the lively oracles of God.” When we read the Bible with a humble and teachable attitude, we find it to be a source of supernatural wisdom and power. The psalmist prayed: “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law” (Psalm 119:18). Paul reminded his young associate Timothy that Scripture provides the wisdom and instruction that leads to “salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 3:15).Scripture’s major theme is Jesus Christ, God’s only Son. As “image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15), Jesus is the clearest and most compelling witness to the existence and greatness of God the Father. Jesus Himself said: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). He is the perfect transcript of what God is like.

But the supreme demonstration of God’s love and care is the sending of His Son into the world to suffer death on the cross, to save us from our sins, and to reclaim us for Himself. The Cross is more than enough to convince us that God loves and cares for lost people (Romans 5:8). Jesus Himself said that He came “to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10).

To help us find our way to God, there are signposts everywhere, but the most vital one is Jesus. He said: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

GOD IS SOVEREIGN

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We know as Christians that God places rulers in power to accomplish His purposes, as difficult as that might seem for us.

“He changes times and seasons; He deposes kings and raises up others. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning. Daniel 2:21

“Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.” Romans 13:1

These verses and others like them are great reminders of God’s sovereignty in history. These are the kind of bedrock verses to meditate on when a new government arises headed by an Islamic leader, who seemingly will be big trouble for Christ-followers.

Our faith cannot be shaken by whoever is in the driver’s seat of any given government. God is in control and often we get the leader we deserve. In Australia, the Victorian people voted in the ungodly Daniel Andrews and they are now getting the anti-God legisation they deserve.

It is useful to reflect on how God uses kings for His purposes. For example, Divine judgment came against the Lord’s people by means of King Nebuchadnezzar and the nation of Babylon. God refers to Nebuchadnezzar as His servant, meaning that the king was doing the work of God in punishing the people of Judah.

The fact that Nebuchadnezzar was referred to as the Lord’s servant should not be interpreted to mean that he was a righteous king. It is also not an indication that Babylon was replacing Judah as God’s special people. This is made clear as God’s judgment would later be pronounced against Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon.

“‘Then it will be when seventy years are completed I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation,’ declares the Lord, ‘for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans; and I will make it an everlasting desolation. I will bring upon that land My words which I have pronounced against it, all that is written in this book which Jeremiah has prophesied against all the nations.’” Jeremiah 25:12-13

We must drill down into the Rock. Jesus and cling to Him as world events continue to mold a godless future at a faster rate than ever seen before. We must also use the many prophecies of these future events for what I call apocalyptic evangelism. They prove the inerrancy of the Bible and the fact God is in control of History. The Bible clearly indicates the world gets darker as the world comes under greater control of Satan and his demonic powers. God even allows Satan to install his Antichrist and prophet to rule for three and a half years prior to Jesus’ return to earth with the glorified Saints to rule and reign for 1000 years.

“They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.” Revelation 20:5-6

LOVING GOD WITH ALL YOUR MIND

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MANY PEOPLE, both inside and outside the church, think that Christianity means abandoning the mind. Nothing could be more wrong! Jesus’ “greatest commandment” is to love God with all your mind: our love for God must include our mind. Furthermore, the Apostle Peter told us, “always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15). So our hope has a reason, and we should be prepared. And the Apostle Paul instructed us: “We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). That sounds radical: destroying arguments (but not people) against Christianity and bringing people’s thoughts (not emotions) to follow Christ.

Jesus Himself is called the Logos (John 1:1–14), from which we derive the word ‘logic’. We are supposed to be imitators of Jesus (1 Corinthians 11:1); thus, loving God with our mind should be logical. Furthermore, it was by and through Him that all things, including mankind in His image and likeness, were created. This divine image must include being programmed with language and logic.

Such programming is clear from the creation of Adam, “the first man” (1 Corinthians 15:45):

And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Genesis 2:16).

The language was not just about things Adam could see but included abstract concepts such as logic. For example, Adam could eat the fruit of “every tree” but one—‘every’ is a logical concept called a universal quantifier. Adam didn’t need to see each tree to understand this concept. But there was one fruit Adam must “not” eat—‘not’ is a logical negation. And if he disobeyed God (sinned), then he would die. This command presupposed that God programmed Adam to understand logical implication.

This passage also logically links death to sin. Many Genesis compromisers deny this teaching by claiming that Adam could not understand death without seeing a dead animal. However, Adam didn’t need to see things to understand them. E.g., how could Adam have seen a ‘not’? But since God programmed Adam to understand negation, He also programmed Adam to know that death is a negation of life. God also programmed Adam (and Eve) as adults, ready to multiply and take dominion (Genesis 1:26–28).

Creation Ministries International (CMI), including their flagship Creation magazine, exists to help readers worldwide love God with their minds and imitate Christ in logical thinking. In every issue, They interview good examples of that; in the latest issue, geographer Dr Sarah Buckland from Jamaica (pp. 18–21) and biologist Dr KeeFui Kon from Singapore (pp. 36–39). They also show how biblical creation is logically illustrated by super designs, such as the golden plover (pp. 24–25) and even the air we breathe (pp. 50–52).

An important teaching is the Flood of Noah’s day, which must logically be global (Genesis 6–8). With an intense process like the Flood, we don’t need millions of years to form the geological strata that exist today. But millions of years are necessary for evolution from goo to you via the zoo. The Flood explains the spectacular ammolite (pp. 12–13) and the wide Nile valley (p. 56). But God rescued a remnant of people (such as Shem, pp. 46–48) and animals on a massive Ark (pp. 32–35). After the Flood, people and animals migrated around the world, such as rafting monkeys (pp. 14–17).

Another great article, by Jonathan Sarfati, from the latest issue of Creation magazine: http://www.creation.com. “LEAVING YOUR BRAINS AT THE CHURCH DOOR?” in the Editorial section

THE FEAR OF THE LORD: PART 2

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My first post on Fear of the Lord listed many Scriptures on the blessings we can expect if we fear the Lord. I was blown away by how many there are. Moreover, they are so important I decided to list them below this post just in case you missed reading them. Even if you did read them it is worth reading them again, they are so encouraging.

The Bible makes it clear we are all called to “Fear of the Lord“. As we are told in the Psalms the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.” Proverbs 9:10

“Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.” 2 Corinthians 7:1

What promises? In the preceding verses, we were told that when we repented of our sins and were baptized; dying to self, being born again by the Holy Spirit. we are now “the temple of the Holy Spirit“. It is the Holy Spirit that empowers us to live a holy life.

“Only fear the Lord and serve him faithfully with all your heart. For consider what great things he has done for you.” 1 Samuel 12:24

This scripture was spoken by Samuel to the people of Israel. Jesus had not paid the price for our sins back then so Samuel was speaking to people who had not received the Holy Spirit and yet expected the people to serve Him because of the miracles He had performed to establish them as His nation in the Promised Land.

“But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!” Luke 12:5

BLESSINGS FOR THOSE THAT FEAR THE LORD

Oh, fear the LORD, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack! Psalms 34:9 The friendship of the LORD is for those who fear him,” Psalms 25:14 “For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him.” Psalms 103:11
“The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy.” Psalms 147:11
“Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy.” Psalms 33:18
“Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.” Psalms 103:13
“And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation.” Luke 1:50 “O fear the Lord, ye his saints: for there is no want to them that fear him.” Psalms 34:9
“He will fulfil the desire of them that fear him: he also will hear their cry, and will save them.” Psalms 145:19
“Surely his salvation is near to them that fear him; that glory may dwell in our land.” Psalms 85:9
“The fear of the Lord leads to life: and he that has it shall abide satisfied; he shall not be visited with evil.” Proverbs 19:23
“The angel of the Lord encamps round about them that fear him, and delivers them.” Psalms 34:7
“You that fear the Lord, trust in the Lord: he is their help and their shield.” Psalms 115:11
“In the fear of the Lord is strong confidence: and his children shall have a place of refuge. The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, to depart from the snares of death.” Proverbs 14:26-27
“The fear of the Lord prolongs days: but the years of the wicked shall be shortened.” Proverbs 10:27
“By humility and the fear of the Lord are riches, and honour, and life.” Proverbs 22:4
“Better is little with the fear of the Lord than great treasure and trouble therewith.” Proverbs 15:16
“Oh, how great is your goodness, which you have laid up for them that fear you; which you have wrought for them that trust in you before the sons of men!” Psalms 31:19
“Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord; that walks in his ways. For you shall eat the labour of your hands: happy shall you be, and it shall be well with you. Your wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of your house: your children like olive plants round your table. Behold, thus shall the man be blessed that fears the Lord. The Lord shall bless you out of Zion: and you shall see the good of Jerusalem all the days of thy life. Yea, you shall see thy children’s children, and peace be upon Israel.” Psalms 128:1-6 My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding; yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.” Proverbs 2:2-5

Those that fear the Lord will be raptured, glorified and return with Jesus to rule and reign with Him during His Millenial reign on this earth.

DO YOU CARE ABOUT GOD?

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Watch Ray Comfort of Living Waters minister the Gospel to this young man. He had no concept of what God had done to secure His salvation and thereby eternal life. Watch the change as the truth slowly dawns on Him. This is evidence of how the Holy Spirit works in our lives to transform us. Only God could bring about the change we see in this young man.

EASTER – THE TIMING OF JESUS CRUCIFIXION, BURIAL, AND RESURRECTION

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We know that God chose the Feast Day of Passover for the time of Jesus’ Crucifixion as Jesus was the prophesied Passover Lamb.

“And on the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover lamb, his disciples said to him, “Where will you have us go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?” Mark 14:12

“For Christ, our Passover lamb has been sacrificed. Let us, therefore, celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” 1 Corinthians 5:7-8

Passover began at sundown and ended the following day at sundown. Jesus kept the Passover with his disciples and then was arrested later that night. After daybreak, the next morning he was questioned by Pontius Pilate, tortured, crucified, then hurriedly entombed just before the next sunset when the “high day” the Feast of Unleavened Bread began. It has been shown that in the year Jesus was crucified that the Passover Meal was eaten on a Tuesday night and that Wednesday sunset marked the beginning of the “high day”, the day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

Jesus, then, was crucified and entombed on Wednesday afternoon, Mark tells us that after the “high day” Sabbath, which that year began Wednesday evening at sundown and ended Thursday evening at sundown, the women bought spices to anoint Jesus’ body. Luke then tells us that the women prepared the spices on Friday and after that, they rested on the weekly Sabbath which was from Friday sundown to Saturday sundown. Matthew tells us that the women went to the tomb after the Sabbath.

Jesus was crucified and entombed on a Wednesday. Mary Magdalene went to the tomb on the first day of the week, Sunday, while it was still dark and she sees an empty tomb, so Jesus has risen before the start of the first day of the week as the day does not start until sunrise. As we are told Jesus was in the tomb for three days and three nights (Matthew 12:40) we can conclude that Jesus emerged from the tomb on Saturday at Sunset.

Let us worship God according to Biblical truth, not human tradition.

GOD PRESERVES HIS SERVANTS

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After 52 years of ministry, skydiving 98-year-old preacher, Roy Jernigan wants people to see Jesus in his life. I can relate to Roy’s testimony. I am 86 and I know God still has more for me to do specifically to alert the church to God’s soon-coming Millennial Kingdom on this earth. Checkout http://www.millennialkingdom.net

Asked to comment on the state of the American Church today:

Jernigan quickly explained that the main driver of his faith is the Bible without the trappings of denominational restrictions.

Jernigan has certainly got this right. The denominational church is not the church Jesus established as outlined in the Book of Acts. Jesus calls us all to be disciples who make more disciples. We all like the denominational church model as it removes this essential facet of the church. It is the pastor’s responsibility to grow the church so we can get on with our lives doing what we want to do.

“I’m not a denominational man. I don’t criticize the denominations but think about this: we have all kinds of denominations — Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, you name it, and every one of them has a different doctrine,” he explained. “They can’t all be right. And so, consequently, I don’t claim a denomination. I claim to be a Christian. And as a Christian, I follow the New Testament teachings on the Apostle Paul.”

And Jernigan’s nondenominational approach to ministry aligns with the direction of the American Church today. Data from the 2020 U.S. Religion Census show that in the last 10 years, the number of American Christian adherents in nondenominational churches nearly doubled in number and surpassed America’s largest Protestant denomination, Southern Baptist, by several million adherents.

Other recent studies also show that while America remains a highly religious nation, with seven in 10 claiming affiliation with some kind of organized religion, for the first time in nearly 80 years, fewer than half now say they have formal membership in a specific house of worship. Church attendance has also continued to decline in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.

While he admits that being a Christian today is much harder than it was 50 years ago when fewer distractions were competing for people’s attention, Jernigan believes that the model of many church ministries today is partly to blame for people deserting the pews.

“I’ll be honest with you, one of the biggest problems that pastors have today is trying to build a church on their own,” Jernigan told CP.

“Today, preachers have gotten themselves into such a rut by building big buildings with stained glass windows and everything. And the people have deserted them because they get tired of being bled to death [financially]. And hear the preacher say, ‘you got to give, you got to give, you got to give.’ My conviction is you don’t have to hound Christians to give. If they are saved, they love the Lord, they will give,” he said.

Jernigan also criticized preachers who treat their ministry as a business. “I think it’s the wrong approach. Commercial? You don’t commercialize God. I believe this is a gross mistake, that people, you see so much of this today, trying to commercialize and put things into a peaceful (more like bless me) type of thing rather than teaching the Bible,” he said. “I do believe if preachers would come down off the high horse, and quit preaching, what I call cotton candy messages, that’s all fluff and no substance, I believe there’d be a great difference in the world today.”

And as the church continues to compete for the attention of society today, Jernigan is worried that current social trends might lead to a point in society where Jesus is “completely rejected.”

“Today, there is much more to pull a person away than there was in my day,” he said. “It is much more difficult. And it does appear to me that as the time approaches (Jesus return to put things right), that things are going full circle to the extent that Christ … is going to be completely rejected.”

He urged Christians who left institutional churches but still want to maintain their Christian faith to keep reading the Bible and praying to God for direction.

“My heart goes out to so many people, it really does,” he said. “There are a lot of people out there that are hungry, and they’re thirsting for the Word of God, but they don’t have anyone to give it to them.” You be one of those Christians that does do what Jesus called us to do i.e. bring the good news of Jesus Christ to the lost.

NEVER TOO OLD TO GET RIGHT WITH GOD

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The video clip was first shared Sunday by Ryan Burton King, pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Wood Green, London.

King said his brother, Regan Burton King — also a preacher — is the man featured in the clip.

“It has been an excellent day, but this video of my brother [Regan Burton King] baptizing a frail and elderly woman who is newly trusting in Christ, then picking her up and carrying her out of the baptismal pool, has made it,” King wrote. “Blessed be the Lord!”

The video shows King speaking to the woman before gently dunking her under the water. The pastor then hugged her and helped lift her out of the baptismal pool.

In a separate tweet of his own, Regan Burton King, the preacher in the video, said the 77-year-old woman’s name is Susan.

This previously agnostic new believer has been struggling with Parkinson’s disease, among other issues, but is “now trusting Jesus as Messiah and Lord of her life,” according to King.

DO YOU REALLY KNOW THE GOD OF THE BIBLE?

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God is eternally perfect in every way. He is the single standard by which we understand all things to be good and true.

God is immutable (unchanging over time), omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. All powerful, all knowing, and ever-present.

God’s omnipotence describes His immeasurable power. He can do anything and everything. But, what should we do with this information? Simple. We are being told to keep calm and leave everything to the ever-powerful God we serve. He is all-powerful and He is in control.

God’s omniscience should remind us of how His Will is absolute. God knows you. He knows what’s going to hurt you, makes you smile, encourages you, heals you, and makes you more like Jesus. Because you committed your life to Jesus as your Lord and Saviour, God the Father has sent the Holy Spirit to indwell your spirit. He has given you everything you need to live a Christian life under His Grace and blessings. For your part, you only need to believe in the Will of God and know the Holy Spirit will guide your every step as long as you say, Lord, not my will but your will be done today. Humans can only predict but, the Lord can leap through time and He knows what good He is going to bring you. All you need to do is rest in that knowledge. No one except your deeds can take that away from you.

God’s omnipresence or “all-present” refers to how God is everywhere. He is not a material that is confined within time and space. God controls time and space. Psalm 139 shows us that He knows what we are going to do before we even do it. Jeremiah 1:5 says that God knew us before we were even formed in the womb of our mothers. Aside from this, God already has a purpose for us before we were even born! This is possible because of God’s omnipresence. He has already seen the future while being in the past.

For Christians, because we have accepted Jesus Christ as Our Lord and Saviour we have received the special privilege of the Holy Spirit indwelling our Spirit. As Proverbs states our spirit is the lamp of the Lord. The lamp requires oil (Holy Spirit) to function as God intended man to function.

“The spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord, searching all his innermost parts.” Proverbs 20:27

Consider these words by Reformed theologian Herman Bavinck on the errors of a relationship-driven human-god economy. He writes, “The difference between the creator and the creatures hinges on the contrast between being and becoming” (Reformed Dogmatics, 2:156).

God is “being” (eternal, unchanging, perfect, all-knowing) and we are always “becoming” something else based on our experiences.

There is a problem with Mutual Theism: “it’s a relationship, not a religion” mentality. We must not forget that when we misrepresent and misunderstand the God of scripture, we make an idol. Our sinful, finite minds are naturally opposed to the holy and exclusive. It makes us uneasy. So, we will ease our consciences and in sin, make Him more like us. Outside of biblical Christianity, almost every religion presents divinity as attainable. But there is only one God that is truly transcendent, divine, and holy. This is the God of the bible. Unlike other gods, His actions are not removed from His being. Rather, His will, His being, His essence, and His actions are eternally the same within God.

One might counter that God’s actions/responses are not connected to His being or essence. He is not becoming something else when He responds with a temporal action.  But, that draws out complications related to how Christians historically understand God’s ontology (study of God’s existence). Christians understand God to be absolute. He is self-sustaining. All wisdom and knowledge are complete and found in Him. More than that, God is the source of all knowledge. No one can know anything unless God has revealed it to them. To suggest that God can know or become something different (if even only for an instant) undermines what it means to be God. God does not change. He is not subject to mood swings; He is always God with perfect understanding, knowledge, and action in every situation.

Furthermore, we must not attempt to understand God through a lens of attributes or behavior, rather, we must understand these attributes through the lens of God. God is not made up of components – like the sum of many parts. He is not some complex mixture of love, wrath, grace, etc. He just is. He cannot become anything else because He has always been. For these reasons, we cannot separate God’s actions from His being. They’re unified; all in one. God just is and will forever be. His actions are always the perfect expressions of His being.

Most of us are just uninformed and unaware that their framework for understanding how we relate to the divine is substantially skewed. We have unknowingly adopted Theistic Mutualism (it’s a relationship, not a religion) as our theological framework.

We pray and petition because we desire other realities in our life. We want God to hear us, change His mind, and honor our requests. For reference, consider the following verses:

  • Psalm 106:23: “Therefore he said he would destroy them had not Moses, his chosen one, stood in the breach before him, to turn away his wrath from destroying them.”
  • Judges 2:18: “Whenever the Lord raised up a judge for them, he was with the judge and saved them out of the hands of their enemies as long as the judge lived; for the Lord relented because of their groaning under those who oppressed and afflicted them.”
  • Genesis 6:6: “And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart”

So how we do reconcile these emotionally-fueled responses from God with the fact that God is also immutable and impassable? The expressions from God we find in scripture are provided and written anthropomorphically. That is, they are written to give God human-like characteristics to help us better understand an aspect of God’s being or Law (the two can be separated). They are packaged in such a way that helps a finite being understand the behavior of an infinite one.

So, what’s so controversial? Well, the problem centers on how we understand the driving force of these responses from God. If it’s only us and prayer, then the economy of influence we have with God is not too dissimilar from that of the gods found within Greek Mythology. We possess the power to draw some alternate desired reality from God. God, the source of infinite power and knowledge, is ours to try and manipulate. Like Moses in the verse above, we act because we want to revise God’s position on a matter.

Peradventure, let’s pretend we think God to not be compassionate enough in a certain situation, but after intense prayer, fasting, and reasoning with God, He complies and divinely expresses the desired and proper compassion. Logically, this means the petitioner possesses some unique insight into the situation that God must not have. This person has enlightened God’s understanding and convinced Him that He ought to be more compassionate, given this and that. In this scenario, God is not immutable and certainly not omniscient. Instead, He is adapting and by way of outside influence, becoming a more enlightened version of Himself. Clearly, this is nonsense. God is eternally perfect in every way. He is the single standard by which we understand all things to be good and true. Yet, this is how many Christians practically carry out their relationship with God.

As an example, has there ever been a point in time when God did not hate sin? No, of course not – yet we find in scripture how God is enraged at sinful behavior. However, He didn’t start the day calmly and then become enraged once a sin was committed. No. His character and “being” has always hated that which is opposed to His righteousness. God is omniscient; He knows everything. He knew sin was going to happen. Nevertheless, scripture communicates God’s anger at sin to us in a way that is anthropomorphic and understandable. In fact, the only aspect of the human-divine “relationship”  that is subject to change is how we apply these eternal truths in our lives.

We must not forget that God created everything, even time. While God is eternal, He engages with us in the temporal. He meets us where we are. Bavinck helps us again when he explains, “He [God] remains eternal and inhabits eternity, but uses time with a view to manifesting His eternal thoughts and perfections” (Reformed Dogmatics, 2:164). It is as Reformed theologian Scott Clark once stated, “The historic Reformed view is that all of God’s revelation is accommodated. That is how it must be in the nature of divine-human relations.” The story of salvation is full of examples of God making Himself known to His people. This was perfectly manifested in the incarnation.

The problematic and prevalent relationship-first model of Christianity fails to paint the correct picture of the economy between God and man. God is God and we are not. We must not project a human relationship model onto the divine; this is precisely why Evangelicals need to abandon the, “It’s a relationship, not a religion” mentality.

That being said, none of what I have said means that we can’t know God and interact with Him. We absolutely can! Jesus has made this possible. But we must pursue a relationship that is honest to His being. Christianity is a religion, and it is the only religion that offers a covenantal relationship with the only true and living God.

In closing, I recommend reading James Dolezal’s book All That is in God. He deals with this topic in much more detail and effectiveness. It’s not an easy read, but it is rich in doctrine and thought and worthy of your time.

Adapted from the article “Why Evangelicals Need to Stop Saying ‘It’s a Relationship, Not a Religion” October 15, 2018, by Jack Lee published by Patheos.

IS WORLD HISTORY BUILT ON JUBILEE CYCLES?

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When God set up His own nation Israel, He codified as law the pattern of six days and six years of labour and one of rest. It is the reason God created the cosmos in six days and rested on the seventh it was the pattern for man’s working week. The seventh day (Sabbath) was a rest day and the seventh year (Shemitah) was also a rest year. The Jubilee is built upon the Shemitah cycle (7 x 7 = 49), the year following is the Jubilee year.

The Jubilee cycle begins and ends in the 50th year on the 10th day of the 7th month. The 50th year is also the first year of the next Shemitah cycle. The Jubilee Cycle is therefore 49 years.

Can we build a reasonable biblical case for the Jubilee cycles as the prophetic backbone of the Bible? A straightforward summation of early biblical patriarchal lineages, reveals there were 41 generations which also represent 41 Jubilee cycles between Adam and Abraham and 41 from Abraham to Yeshua. Further insight is added when we consider that the book of Revelation associates the New Jerusalem with the number 144 and that the 144th Jubilee begins the 8th Millennium (new heaven and new earth). The soon coming 7th Millennium is Jesus ruling and reigning with the resurrected Saints on this earth for 1000 years.

For more information on Jubilee Cycles can I suggest you download my free Powerpoint presentation – Jubilee Cycles – Provide prophetic milestones in God’s Redemptive Plan on http://www.millennialkingdom.net – Resources.

Out of Jonathan Cahn’s presentation, I have chosen just three of the Jubilee years that demonstrate that God is in control of history and that He established Israel as His nation for His purposes.

1917 Balfour Declaration, (November 2, 1917): Statement of British support for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”.

1967 Battle for Jerusalem: Jerusalem was reunified under Israeli rule as a result of the 1967 Six-Day War launched against Israel by the Arab world

2017 On December 6, 2017, President Donald Trump announced what no previous president had officially declared while in office: Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.