10/12/2023 Yesterday Tomorrow
Matthew 24 - 25
Matthew 24
Jesus Foretells Destruction of the Temple
Matthew 24:1 Jesus left the temple and was going away, when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. 2 But he answered them, “You see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”Signs of the End of the Age
3 As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” 4 And Jesus answered them, “See that no one leads you astray. 5 For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray. 6 And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. 7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.labor pains, that means more frequent and more intense9 “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. 10 And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. 11 And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. 12 And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. 13 But the one who endures to the end will be saved. 14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
Luke 21:25 “And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, 26 people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world. For the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 27 And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. 28 Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”
1 John 2:18 Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour.
Note in 1 John 2:18 it says anti-christs, plural. In the Greek it means in place of Christ. Consider the explosion of denominations and the explosion of Islam.
The Abomination of Desolation
15 “So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), 16 then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. 17 Let the one who is on the housetop not go down to take what is in his house, 18 and let the one who is in the field not turn back to take his cloak. 19 And alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days! 20 Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a Sabbath. 21 For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. 22 And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short. 23 Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. 24 For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. 25 See, I have told you beforehand. 26 So, if they say to you, ‘Look, he is in the wilderness,’ do not go out. If they say, ‘Look, he is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. 27 For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 28 Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.The Coming of the Son of Man
29 “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 30 Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 31 And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.The Lesson of the Fig Tree
32 “From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near. 33 So also, when you see all these things, you know that he is near, at the very gates. 34 Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. 35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.No One Knows That Day and Hour
36 “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. 37 For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, 39 and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 40 Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. 41 Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left. 42 Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. 43 But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.45 “Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time? 46 Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. 47 Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. 48 But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed,’ 49 and begins to beat his fellow servants and eats and drinks with drunkards, 50 the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know 51 and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Matthew 25
The Parable of the Ten Virgins
Matthew 25:1 “Then the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. 2 Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. 3 For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, 4 but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. 5 As the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept. 6 But at midnight there was a cry, ‘Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ 7 Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. 8 And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ 9 But the wise answered, saying, ‘Since there will not be enough for us and for you, go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves.’ 10 And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut. 11 Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ 12 But he answered, ‘Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.’ 13 Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.The Parable of the Talents
14 “For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. 15 To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. 16 He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. 17 So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. 18 But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master’s money. 19 Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. 20 And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here, I have made five talents more.’ 21 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ 22 And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me two talents; here, I have made two talents more.’ 23 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ 24 He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, 25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours.’ 26 But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? 27 Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. 28 So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. 29 For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. 30 And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’The Final Judgment
31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. 34 Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38 And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39 And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ 40 And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. (See Hell was not prepared for people in article section on side.) 42 For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44 Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ 45 Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
What I'm Reading
Christ In Me
By James S. Stewart
(Php 3:13–16) Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. 15 Let those of us then who are mature be of the same mind; and if you think differently about anything, this too God will reveal to you. 16 Only let us hold fast to what we have attained. NRSV(Php 1:21) For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain. NRSV
It is when we have learnt to cease to look for this superficial consistency in Paul, this standardized, rigid system of thought and doctrine, that we begin to discover in him what is far more important—the deep, inner consistency of the man's religion, and the fundamental unity of all he wrote and taught. "Paul and Plato," says T. R. Glover, "had this in common: neither sought to develop a Paulinism or a Platonism; they both pursued Truth; and to keep abreast of Truth leaves a man little time to be consistent with himself, and little wish for it." Paul can contradict himself, can land himself at times in hopeless antinomy, can leap without warning from one point of view to another totally different, can say in the same breath "Work out your own salvation" and "It is God which worketh in you"; but through it all and beneath it all there is a living unity and a supreme consistency—the unity, not of logic, but of downright spiritual conviction, the consistency of a life utterly and at every point filled and flooded with the redeeming love of God. "Christ in me"—this overmastering experience which was "unquestionably the core of his religion," "der eine Brennpunkt," as Johannes Weiss expresses it, gives to everything he wrote, even in the midst of his most startling antitheses and wildest tangents of thought, a unity far deeper than that of any logical or dogmatic system. "By the good faith of God," he declared emphatically to the Corinthians, "my word to you was not 'yes and no'"; and in an even deeper sense than the words in their original context held, he had a right to say it. In the last resort, his life and work and preaching and writing and witness were all utterly consistent, for they were all Christ. "To me to live is Christ," he said: "life means Christ to me," as Dr. Moffatt translates it. "I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ." It was the very voice of the apostle that was speaking through Luther, when he declared "We preach always Him, the true God and man. . . . This may seem a limited and monotonous subject, likely to be soon exhausted, but we are never at the end of it." "He is Alpha and Omega," said the early Church; Christ, as we should say, is simply everything in life from A to Z: that was literally Paul's experience. He spoke of "the simplicity that is toward Christ," * meaning that in this difficult, complex, and often incoherent world the life of a true Christian would always be conspicuous for a deep, inner coherence and unity, an integration of experience, a simplicity of which the secret was a single-hearted devotion and loyalty to one Master, an undivided heart laid at Jesus' feet. And if ever a man had a right to speak thus, Paul had: for that undivided heart was his.
Hence we might take his own confession to the Philippians and set it as the motto of his life, "This one thing I do." The quest for a doctrinal system, the search for a unified Paulinism, ceases when you have heard that. "If he had been this (a system-maker)," declares Bishop Gore, "he would have saved the controversial and critical world a great deal of trouble, but he would not have been St. Paul." No, and he would not have been the flaming, royal spirit to whom all generations of Christians look back with gratitude to God. He would not have been the mighty instrument he proved himself in God's hand for the converting of the world. He would not have been the man who shines as a beacon for ever because he had one master-passion, Christ. Herein lies the true unity, deeper than all logical precision, more enduring than all imposing systems. With utter clearness, the great day of Damascus had revealed to him Christ as the sole meaning of his own life and of all life, and the very centre of the universe of God; and all the days since then had verified and confirmed the revelation. Possessed, from that first glorious hour of discovery, with an overmastering gratitude to the Lord to whom he owed it, with an utter conviction that what had then happened to himself could happen to everyone, and with a consuming passion to see it happening all over the earth and to share his Christ with all mankind, he threw everything he had, everything he was, into his response to the Gospel challenge. "This one thing I do "—that is the final, the only real, consistency. Systems, dogmatisms, Paulinisms have no more unity than the shifting sands; but Paul's Gospel, spoken and written, stands on solid rock. And that Rock is Christ.
(Php 2:12–13) Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; 13 for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. NRSV
(2 Co 1:18–22) As surely as God is faithful, our word to you has not been “Yes and No.” 19 For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not “Yes and No”; but in him it is always “Yes.” 20 For in him every one of God’s promises is a “Yes.” For this reason it is through him that we say the “Amen,” to the glory of God. 21 But it is God who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us, 22 by putting his seal on us and giving us his Spirit in our hearts as a first installment. NRSV
(1 Co 2:2) For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. NRSV
(2 Co 11:3–6) But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by its cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. 4 For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you submit to it readily enough. 5 I think that I am not in the least inferior to these super-apostles. 6 I may be untrained in speech, but not in knowledge; certainly in every way and in all things we have made this evident to you. NRSV
By John Stott
Deny Ourselves
... it is impossible for God to do what Christ commanded us to do. He told us to ‘deny ourselves’, but ‘God cannot deny himself’. ( Mark 8:34; 2 Tim. 2:13, RSV. ) Why is that? Why is it that God will not do, indeed cannot do, what he tells us to do? It is because God is God and not man, let alone fallen man. We have to deny or disown everything within us which is false to our true humanity. But there is nothing in God which is incompatible with his true deity, and therefore nothing to deny. It is in order to be our true selves that we have to deny ourselves; it is because God is never other than his true self that he cannot and will not deny himself. He can empty himself of his rightful glory and humble himself to serve. Indeed, it is precisely this that he has done in Christ (Phil. 2:7–8). But he cannot repudiate any part of himself, because he is perfect. He cannot contradict himself. This is his integrity. As for us, we are constantly aware of our human inconsistencies; they usually arouse a comment. ‘It’s so uncharacteristic of him’, we say, or ‘you are not yourself today’, or ‘I’ve come to expect something better from you’. But can you imagine saying such things to or about God? He is always himself and never inconsistent. If he were ever to behave ‘uncharacteristically’, in a way that is out of character with himself, he would cease to be God, and the world would be thrown into moral confusion. No, God is God; he never deviates one iota, even one tiny hair’s breadth, from being entirely himself.( The Cross of Christ )
Why Did Jesus Sleep During the Storm?
By Scott Redd 1/08/2019
The story of the sea storm in the Gospel of Mark picks up right after Jesus has given a series of sermons. He’s preached to a crowd so large that he had to speak from a boat pushed a short distance into the water.
Mark 4:35–41 tells the story of Jesus calming the storm — but, curiously, we find the Lord asleep as the chaos breaks out around him:
And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. (Mark 4:37–39)
Why was Jesus asleep in the boat?
There are a few possible explanations. Mark, as well as most of the other biblical authors, is spare with his details — including only those elements necessary to the author’s agenda — so we could assume it’s a salient element to the story. There are three possibilities.
1. A Link to Jonah
Perhaps Mark tells us Jesus is sleeping in order to link the account to Jonah. The story of Jonah shares similar elements and language (in its Greek translation) to the one in Mark 4, which suggests Mark is evoking the story. One is the idea of the main character sleeping in the bottom of the boat during the storm, though the language used to describe Jonah is more vivid and possibly pejorative.2. A Clue about Jesus’s Humanity
Jesus is fully human: He works hard, does much public speaking, and deals with many different people, all of whom want something from him. Given the strains ordinary ministers experience in their daily work, the fully human Jesus must have suffered from exhaustion during his earthly ministry.3. A Clue about Jesus’s Divinity
Though Jesus is a human, he also has full confidence in his divine identity. As only the second person of the Trinity can, Jesus sleeps like a baby amid the chaos, secure in the realization that he is one with the Creator, and his time has not come. His sleep signals divine insight: Jesus knows he’s not going to die tonight.Of course, all three of these explanations are possible at the same time, because human language in the hands of a skilled author can convey multiple complex ideas at once.
Why These Three Options?
Surely, the sleeping Jesus is supposed to make you think about Jonah’s story (the first option), where a suspicious storm develops and is quieted by God and all the witnesses are left terrified. Remember when the sailors cast lots, asking, “Who has brought this storm on us?” The lot falls on Jonah. They begrudgingly throw the prophet overboard, and the storm immediately dissipates. The emphasis is on who calms the storm. The Lord, Creator of heaven and earth, stills it, and the sailors know they have just witnessed God’s hand and his complete authority over the forces of creation. In Jonah 1:16, “the men feared the LORD exceedingly.” The Greek translation of this passage emphasizes the great fear the sailors experience when they see God’s power on display. It’s even greater than their fear of the storm (1:5). It’s fear - inducing to know that the cosmic God who calms the storm also cares about the rebellion of a single man.In Mark, Jesus also sleeps. The disciples wake him for fear of their lives (as in Jonah, the sleeper is roused with a rhetorical question), and the wind and waves are calmed. Mark seems to be drawing our attention to the agent who calms the storm. In Jonah, the agent is the Lord, but in Mark 4 it is Jesus. Jesus is to the storm in Mark 4 what God is to the wind and waves in Jonah 1.
Jesus is to the storm in Mark 4 what God is to the wind and waves in Jonah 1.
And as if to drive the point home, the disciples who bear witness to all of this are described in virtually the same phraseology used in the Greek translation of Jonah. They are “exceedingly afraid” (Mark 4:41). The storm was terrifying, but this prophet in the boat with the power to speak truth to the weather presents an entirely new source of fear. The authority of God inspires such fear in those who see it firsthand.
But the second option works as well. Jesus’s sleep in the boat is a reminder of his humanity. It’s a fascinating idea that there were regular moments when the God-man, the Lord of the universe, may have laid down and pondered some random thoughts before sleep overtook him. As a human, he could grow tired, even to a point of exhaustion. So he gets in the boat and lies back like a business traveler on a red-eye flight, trying to fit in sleep wherever he can. Mark’s audience could readily identify with Jesus’s humanity.
The third option is also compelling. Just the fact that Jesus sleeps is a clue to his divinity. How? Jesus didn’t fear the wind and waves or anything they could do to him. The Creator need not be restless in the face of a dangerous creation. When Jonah secretly sleeps below the decks, he does so in a spirit of fatalism and dread. When Jesus sleeps in the hull of the boat, he does so in confidence. He doesn’t lose sleep on account of weather patterns.
Jesus is more than a teacher; he’s a miracle-worker. Once the reader absorbs that point, Mark ups the ante.
Jesus is more than a teacher and more than a miracle-worker. He has the authority of the Creator himself. Click here to go to source
Scott Redd is president and associate professor of Old Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C. He is the author of The Wholeness Imperative: How Christ Unifies our Desires, Identity, and Impact in the World (Christian Focus, 2018) and Wholehearted: A Biblical Look at the Greatest Commandment and Personal Wealth(Institute for Faith, Work, & Economics, 2016), and he regularly blogs at sunergoi.com.
God’s Dupes?
By Ravi Zacharias
Is the Christian faith intellectual nonsense? Are Christians deluded?
“If God exists and takes an interest in the affairs of human beings, his will is not inscrutable,” writes Sam Harris about the 2004 tsunami in Letter to a Christian Nation. “The only thing inscrutable here is that so many otherwise rational men and women can deny the unmitigated horror of these events and think this is the height of moral wisdom” (p. 48). In his article “God’s Dupes,” Harris argues, “Everything of value that people get from religion can be had more honestly, without presuming anything on insufficient evidence. The rest is self-deception, set to music” (The Los Angeles Times, March 15, 2007). Ironically, Harris’ first book is entitled The End of Faith, but it should really be called “The End of Reason,” as it demonstrates again that the mind that is alienated from God in the name of reason can become totally irrational.
Oxford zoologist Richard Dawkins suggests that the idea of God is a virus, and we need to find software to eradicate it. Somehow, if we can expunge the virus that led us to think this way, we will be purified and rid of this bedeviling notion of God, good, and evil (“Viruses of the Mind,” 1992). Along with Christopher Hitchens and a few others, these atheists are calling for the banishment of all religious belief. “Away with this nonsense!” is their battle cry. In return, they promise a world of new hope and unlimited horizons once we have shed this delusion of God.
I have news for them — news to the contrary. The reality is that the emptiness that results from the loss of the transcendent is stark and devastating, philosophically and existentially. Indeed, the denial of an objective moral law, based on the compulsion to deny the existence of God, results ultimately in the denial of evil itself. Furthermore, one would like to ask Dawkins, are we morally bound to remove that virus? Somehow he himself is, of course, free from the virus and can therefore input our moral data.
In an attempt to escape what they call the contradiction between a good God and a world of evil, atheists try to dance around the reality of a moral law (and hence, a moral lawgiver) by introducing terms like “evolutionary ethics.” The one who raises the question against God in effect plays God while denying He exists. Now, one may wonder: Why do you actually need a moral lawgiver if you have a moral law? The answer is because the questioner and the issue he or she questions always involve the essential value of a person. You can never talk of morality in abstraction. Persons are implicit to the question and the object of the question. In a nutshell, positing a moral law without a moral lawgiver would be equivalent to raising the question of evil without a questioner. So you cannot have a moral law unless the moral law itself is intrinsically woven into personhood. This means that an intrinsically worthy person must exist if the moral law itself is to be valued. And that person can only be God.
Ravi Zacharias is Founder and President of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Zacharias has spoken all over the world for 45 years in scores of universities, notably Harvard, Dartmouth, Johns Hopkins, and Cambridge. He has addressed writers of the peace accord in South Africa and military officers at the Lenin Military Academy and the Center for Geopolitical Strategy in Moscow. At the invitation of the President of Nigeria, he addressed delegates at the First Annual Prayer Breakfast for African Leaders held in Mozambique.
Zacharias has direct contact with key leaders, senators, congressmen, and governors who consult him on an ongoing basis. He has addressed the Florida Legislature and the Governor’s Prayer Breakfast in Texas and Louisiana, and has twice spoken at the Annual Prayer Breakfast at the United Nations in New York, which marks the beginning of the UN General Assembly each year. As the 2008 Honorary Chairman of the National Day of Prayer, he gave addresses at the White House, the Pentagon, and The Cannon House. He has had the privilege of addressing the National Prayer Breakfasts in the seats of government in Ottawa, Canada, and London, England, and speaking at the CIA in Washington, DC.
Born in India in 1946, Zacharias immigrated to Canada with his family twenty years later. While pursuing a career in business management, his interest in theology grew; subsequently, he pursued this study during his undergraduate education. He received his Master of Divinity from Trinity International University in Deerfield, Illinois. Well-versed in the disciplines of comparative religions, cults, and philosophy, he held the chair of Evangelism and Contemporary Thought at Alliance Theological Seminary for three and a half years. Zacharias has been a visiting scholar at Ridley Hall, Cambridge (then affiliated with Cambridge University, now more recently allied with Cambridge and affiliated with Durham University) where he studied moralist philosophers and literature of the Romantic era. He has been conferred ten honorary doctorates, including a Doctor of Laws and a Doctor of Sacred Theology.
Zacharias has authored or edited over 25 books including the Gold Medallion winner Can Man Live Without God (Word, 1994), Walking from East to West (Zondervan, 2006), The Grand Weaver (Zondervan, 2007), Has Christianity Failed You? (Zondervan, 2010), Why Jesus, (FaithWords, 2012), and Beyond Opinion (Thomas Nelson, 2007), which includes contributions from RZIM’s global team. His latest books are Jesus Among Secular Gods (2017) and Why Suffering? (2014), both coauthored with Vince Vitale and released by FaithWords. Several of his books have been translated into Russian, Chinese, Korean, Thai, Spanish, and other languages.
Zacharias has appeared on CNN, Fox, and other international broadcasts. His weekly radio program, “Let My People Think,” airs on 2337 outlets worldwide, his weekday program, “Just Thinking,” on 721, and his one-minute, “Just a Thought,” on 488. Various broadcasts are also translated into Romanian and Turkish, and “Let My People Think” airs as the Spanish-language program “Pensemos” on over 250 outlets in sixteen countries. Additionally, his television program, “Let My People Think,” is broadcast internationally in several countries including Indonesia. RZIM is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, with additional offices in Canada, India, Singapore, the United Kingdom, the Middle East, Hong Kong, Romania, Turkey, Austria, Spain, Latin America, and South Africa. Zacharias and his wife, Margie, have three grown children. They reside in Atlanta.
A Catechism on the Heart
By Sinclair Ferguson 1/1/1989
Sometimes people ask authors, “Which of your books is your favorite?” The first time the question is asked, the response is likely to be “I am not sure; I have never really thought about it.” But forced to think about it, my own standard response has become, “I am not sure what my favorite book is; but my favorite title is A Heart for God.” I am rarely asked, “Why?” but (in case you ask) the title simply expresses what I want to be: a Christian with a heart for God.
Perhaps that is in part a reflection of the fact that we sit on the shoulders of the giants of the past. Think of John Calvin’s seal and motto: a heart held out in the palm of a hand and the words “I offer my heart to you, Lord, readily and sincerely.” Or consider Charles Wesley’s hymn:
O for a heart to praise my God! A heart from sin set free.
Some hymnbooks don’t include Wesley’s hymn, presumably in part because it is read as an expression of his doctrine of perfect love and entire sanctification. (He thought it possible to have his longing for sinless perfection fulfilled in this world.) But the sentiment itself is surely biblical.
But behind the giants of church history stands the testimony of Scripture. The first and greatest commandment is to love the Lord our God with all our heart (Deut. 6:5). That is why, in replacing Saul as king, God “sought out a man after his own heart” (1 Sam. 13:14), for “the Lord looks on the heart” (16:7). It is a truism to say that, in terms of our response to the gospel, the heart of the matter is a matter of the heart. But truism or not, it is true.
What Do Manuscripts Tell Us About the Origins of the NT Canon? A Response to John Meade
By Michael J. Kruger 10/10/2017
Over at Evangelical Textual Criticism, John Meade has posted an article reviewing chapter seven of my book, Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books. In particular, he challenges a number of the arguments I use to show how NT manuscripts may illumine our understanding of the development of the NT canon.
Meade focuses his comments on two issues, namely the number of manuscripts and the use of the codex. Before offering a response to those issues below, let me begin by making a simple observation about the purpose of this chapter. If one understands the flow of the argument in the book, and sets chapter seven in the larger context of the prior chapters, it will become clear that the exploration of these manuscripts is not intended to provide a definitive answer to which books are in the canon. Nowhere do I argue that we know which books are in the canon simply be looking at the features of early Christian manuscripts.
Indeed, the prior six chapters are making a very different argument about how we know which books are in and which books are out (an argument I will not rehearse here). The discussion of manuscripts, then, is provided simply as something that further illumines the history of the canon. It provides a general (but not absolute) confirmation of what we see from other kinds of evidence (patristic and otherwise).
Quantity of Manuscripts | There are few things more frustrating for an author than to make an argument, follow it up with an important qualification, and then have someone critique you as if that qualification were never made.
When it comes to the quantity of NT manuscripts, this seems to be what Meade has done. I was very clear in chapter seven that there is not a one-to-one correspondence between the number of manuscripts of a book and that book’s place in the NT canon. Nowhere do I argue that we know which books are in the canon simply by looking at which books left behind the most manuscripts. Indeed, I expressly state, “the relative popularity of books (on the basis of extant manuscripts) is not the whole story” (239). And one example is that we have only one copy of Mark from this time period.
Meade acknowledges that I made this qualification but seems unsatisfied. He complains, “[Kruger] should contrast the one MS of Mark with the three of the Gospel of Thomas, but he does not do so.” I am baffled by this complaint because this is exactly what I was doing! In this very section of the chapter, just a couple pages before, I mentioned that Thomas had three manuscripts. And then, at the end of this same section, I expressly point out that this is not the whole story because Mark has only one. Obviously, I am acknowledging that Mark has less than Thomas. Is it just that Meade wants me to say it in the very same sentence? It seems any thoughtful reader would easily get my point.
And then again, as if I never made the qualification above, Meade simply repeats his argument at the end: “But the Gospel of Thomas has more early evidence than the Gospel according to Mark and many other books were written onto the codex form, and yet, early Christians do not describe these other books as canonical.”
But this point only holds if I were arguing there is a one-to-one relationship between manuscripts and the canon. I definitively said I was not making that argument! But Meade just barrels on as if I was.
By focusing solely on exceptions like the Gospel of Mark, Meade seems to be missing the forest for the trees. He seems hesitant to acknowledge that there does seem to be a general trend in our manuscript numbers that are relevant for the emergence of the canon. And that trend suggests “apocryphal” material was not as popular as what we would call “canonical.” Yes, there are exceptions to the trend. But there is still a trend! And the significance of that fact for the canon seems unacknowledged by Meade.
Put differently, just because the quantity of manuscripts doesn’t tell us everything about the canon, does not mean it tells us nothing about the canon. It’s almost as if Meade has an all-or-nothing approach–either the manuscripts provide exact boundaries or maybe they are not that valuable after all.
But, why must it be either-or?
Moreover, the idea that the quantity of manuscripts can illumine our understanding of canonical history is certainly not a new idea . In Canon Revisited, I cite several other scholars that share the same approach:
C.H. Roberts, “Once the evidence of the papyri is available, indisputably Gnostic texts are conspicuous by their rarity” (Manuscript, 52). Would this not be relevant for our understanding of how the canon formed?
Larry Hurtado, “[low numbers of apocryphal manuscripts] do not justify any notion that these writings were particularly favored” (Artifacts, 22). Again, would the relative popularity of a writing not be a relevant consideration (though not an absolute one) for understanding canon?
Scott Charlesworth, “If the ‘heterodox’ were in the majority for so long, the non-canonical gospels should have been preserved in greater numbers in Egypt. But the early papyri provide no support for Bauer’s view” (“Indicators of Catholicity,” 47). Given the relevance of Bauer’s claims on the development of the canon, Charlesworth’s point seems particularly relevant.
Use of the Codex
Secondly, Meade rehearses my observations that the codex was used very early by Christians and that virtually all known NT manuscripts are in the form of a codex. Moreover, there seems to be some connection between the codex and the development of the canon. None of these observations are really new, and most are widely acknowledged.
Meade doesn’t really contest any of these observations, but simply points out the difficult case of codex Sinaiticus which contains the Shepherd of Hermas and the Epistle of Barnabas at the end (Meade only mentions the Shepherd). What should we think of the inclusion of these books? Scholars have had different answers. And Meade objects to my proposed solution to that conundrum.
I will say a word about my solution in a moment. For now, let me just observe that however one solves the odd place of the Shepherd in Siniaticus, it doesn’t change the overall importance of the codex for the formation of the canon. None of the points I made about the codex (which, again, are not new) are affected. After all, are we really to think that all other scholars making these same points about the codex (Stanton, Skeat, Hurtado, even Elliott) had never noticed the Shepherd at the end of Sinaiticus?
I mention this only to point out that Meade’s objection is a bit off the point. The way he presents his objection implies (perhaps unintentionally) that it calls into question my overall conclusions. But I am not seeing how it does so. He may not agree with my proposed solution about Sinaiticus (and that’s fine), but what does it materially change about the significance of the codex?
Moreover, Meade makes it sound like my proposed solution about codex Sinaiticus was a significant part of my argument. Instead it was merely one sentence (!) in an entirely different chapter (276). Obviously, I had no time to develop it (nor did I think it necessary to do so). It’s a bit disingenuous for Meade to pick up a single line like this and then present it as a substantive basis for rejecting my position.
The quick overview of my proposed solution is that I think it is significant where the Shepherd appears in codex Sinaiticus–at the very end, even after Revelation. If one can see an analogy between the order of books in a codex and the order of books in canonical lists (a connection that is not hard to make, in my opinion, but something Meade rejects), then we may learn something from the way disputed books appeared at the end of canonical lists (like the Muratorian fragment). Horbury makes a similar argument about the Wisdom of Solomon.
Now, the paragraph above is not a developed argument (though I am sure it will be critiqued as if it was one), and merely makes the point that there may be multiple ways to understand the presence of the Shepherd at the end of this codex.
For the record, I think it is also very possible that the producers of Sinaiticus thought the Shepherd was Scripture. I am not ruling that out. But, I also don’t think there is anything in my argument about the codex that requires it. The only way it would require it is if I were making the argument that all books on codices were automatically Scripture (something that I am clearly not arguing).
Conclusion
At the end of Meade’s piece, he sums up his main complaint:
“But my critique is that [Kruger] and others should describe what early Christians actually thought about these books according to their clearest statements on the subject before turning to material evidence, which is not self-interpreting.”
In other words, I should have covered patristic evidence first and then looked at the manuscripts. The irony, of course, is that is exactly what I did. In the prior chapter (6), I argue for a “core” canon of books present very early within the Christian movement. And I do so primarily on the basis of patristic evidence. Then at the end of chapter seven, I make this statement,
“All of these factors [concerning manuscripts] provide remarkable confirmation of the Patristic evidence surveyed in the prior chapter”.
It is hard to know how I could have said it any clearer.
In the end, I think Meade and I probably agree more than we disagree. And I appreciate his interaction with my chapter. But I think many of his concerns could’ve been answered with a more careful reading of my arguments.
Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books
The Question of Canon: Challenging the Status Quo in the New Testament Debate
A Biblical-Theological Introduction to the New Testament: The Gospel Realized
The Heresy of Orthodoxy: How Contemporary Culture's Fascination with Diversity Has Reshaped Our Understanding of Early Christianity
The Early Text of the New Testament
Why Did A “Good” God Create Hell?
By Al Serrato 10/10/2017
Many people today accuse God of unfairness. Since God can foresee the future, they ask, why didn’t He simply never create all those he knows to be destined to spend eternity in Hell? One skeptic I know put the question like this:
God supposedly knows everything that will happen before you are ever born, so if all your choices are set beforehand, how can they possibly matter? Furthermore, if God knows you will “choose” Hell before he creates you, why does he simply not create you? Personally, I would much prefer nonexistence to eternal torment. Is God deliberately creating people knowing they will end up in Hell? Then I would call him evil. Is he compelled to create people regardless of what he sees in their future? Then he doesn’t have free will, which would certainly be an interesting interpretation, but one I doubt many people share. Is there some other explanation? If so, I can’t think of it.
This challenge has a bit of intuitive appeal. It seems to put God in a box, as it were, trapped between being “evil” for choosing to create rebellious creatures or lacking free will, by being unable to do otherwise. Let’s take a closer look at the two horns of this apparent dilemma.
To the Christian, “evil” is the label we give to words, thoughts or actions that deviate from God’s perfect will. If we were created robots, there would be no evil in the world; we would operate exactly in accordance with God’s desires. But in creating man, God did something quite different. He gave us “free will,” the capacity to rebel against him in our thoughts, words and actions. And rebel we did. God “foresaw” this development, but only in a manner of speaking – a manner focused upon the way we think. This is because God is not bound by time. For him, there is no future to “foresee.” There is only an eternal present. All times – whether past, present or future – are accessible to him in this eternal present. Thus, at the moment of creation, God was aware that man would rebel, that he was rebelling, and that he had rebelled. He was aware of the acts and the consequences, the motivations and the ultimate end, of everyone. Consistent with his nature for perfect fairness, he created a means by which man – though in rebellion and deserving punishment – could nonetheless find reunification with him. But in implementing this scheme, he did not force this choice upon us. He gives us the means to salvation, but remains content in allowing us to choose which path we will follow.
Those who use their free will to turn toward him – more precisely, to accept his free gift of salvation – will find a welcoming father, ready to do the work needed to restore us. Those who use their free will to turn away from God – to reject his gift – will find that this choice too is honored. Expecting God not to create those in this latter category would have two significant effects: it would show that God’s provision of free will is really a fiction, since only those who choose to do his will are actually created, and two, it would mean that Hell is a place of evil. But Hell is a place – or perhaps more precisely a condition – which was created by God to serve a purpose. Since God does not create evil – i.e. he does not act against his own nature – then Hell cannot be a place of evil. Like a human prison, it may be inhabited by those bent on doing evil, but the place itself – and the confinement it effectuates – is actually a good, just as separating hardened criminals from society is a net positive for both the evil-doer and the society that is victimized.
Read The Psalms In "1" Year
Psalm 109
Sit at My Right Hand110 A Psalm Of David.
110:1 The LORD says to my Lord:
“Sit at my right hand,
until I make your enemies your footstool.”
2 The LORD sends forth from Zion
your mighty scepter.
Rule in the midst of your enemies!
3 Your people will offer themselves freely
on the day of your power,
in holy garments;
from the womb of the morning,
the dew of your youth will be yours.
4 The LORD has sworn
and will not change his mind,
“You are a priest forever
after the order of Melchizedek.”
5 The Lord is at your right hand;
he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath.
6 He will execute judgment among the nations,
filling them with corpses;
he will shatter chiefs
over the wide earth.
7 He will drink from the brook by the way;
therefore he will lift up his head.
Chapter 3 | Persecutions of the Christians in Persia
The Gospel having spread itself into Persia, the pagan priests, who worshipped the sun, were greatly alarmed, and dreaded the loss of that influence they had hitherto maintained over the people's minds and properties. Hence they thought it expedient to complain to the emperor that the Christians were enemies to the state, and held a treasonable correspondence with the Romans, the great enemies of Persia.The emperor Sapores, being naturally averse to Christianity, easily believed what was said against the Christians, and gave orders to persecute them in all parts of his empire. On account of this mandate, many eminent persons in the church and state fell martyrs to the ignorance and ferocity of the pagans.
Constantine the Great being informed of the persecutions in Persia, wrote a long letter to the Persian monarch, in which he recounts the vengeance that had fallen on persecutors, and the great success that had attended those who had refrained from persecuting the Christians.
Speaking of his victories over rival emperors of his own time, he said, "I subdued these solely by faith in Christ; for which God was my helper, who gave me victory in battle, and made me triumph over my enemies. He hath likewise so enlarged to me the bounds of the Roman Empire, that it extends from the Western Ocean almost to the uttermost parts of the East: for this domain I neither offered sacrifices to the ancient deities, nor made use of charm or divination; but only offered up prayers to the Almighty God, and followed the cross of Christ. Rejoiced should I be if the throne of Persia found glory also, by embracing the Christians: that so you with me, and they with you, may enjoy all happiness.
In consequence of this appeal, the persecution ended for the time, but it was renewed in later years when another king succeeded to the throne of Persia.
Persecutions Under the Arian Heretics
The author of the Arian heresy was Arius, a native of Lybia, and a priest of Alexandria, who, in A.D. 318, began to publish his errors. He was condemned by a council of Lybian and Egyptian bishops, and that sentence was confirmed by the Council of Nice, A.D. 325. After the death of Constantine the Great, the Arians found means to ingratiate themselves into the favor of the emperor Constantinus, his son and successor in the east; and hence a persecution was raised against the orthodox bishops and clergy. The celebrated Athanasius, and other bishops, were banished, and their sees filled with Arians.In Egypt and Lybia, thirty bishops were martyred, and many other Christians cruelly tormented; and, A.D. 386, George, the Arian bishop of Alexandria, under the authority of the emperor, began a persecution in that city and its environs, and carried it on with the most infernal severity. He was assisted in his diabolical malice by Catophonius, governor of Egypt; Sebastian, general of the Egyptian forces;
Faustinus, the treasurer; and Heraclius, a Roman officer.
The persecutions now raged in such a manner that the clergy were driven from Alexandria, their churches were shut, and the severities practiced by the Arian heretics were as great as those that had been practiced by the pagan idolaters. If a man, accused of being a Christian, made his escape, then his whole family were massacred, and his effects confiscated.
Persecution Under Julian the Apostate
This emperor was the son of Julius Constantius, and the nephew of Constantine the Great. He studied the rudiments of grammar under the inspection of Mardonius, a eunuch, and a heathen of Constantinople. His father sent him some time after to Nicomedia, to be instructed in the Christian religion, by the bishop of Eusebius, his kinsman, but his principles were corrupted by the pernicious doctrines of Ecebolius the rhetorician, and Maximus the magician.Constantius, dying the year 361, Julian succeeded him, and had no sooner attained the imperial dignity than he renounced Christianity and embraced paganism, which had for some years fallen into great disrepute. Though he restored the idolatrous worship, he made no public edicts against Christianity. He recalled all banished pagans, allowed the free exercise of religion to every sect, but deprived all Christians of offices at court, in the magistracy, or in the army. He was chaste, temperate, vigilant, laborious, and pious; yet he prohibited any Christian from keeping a school or public seminary of learning, and deprived all the Christian clergy of the privileges granted them by Constantine the Great.
Biship Basil made himself first famous by his opposition to Arianism, which brought upon him the vengeance of the Arian bishop of Constantinople; he equally opposed paganism. The emperor's agents in vain tampered with Basil by means of promises, threats, and racks, he was firm in the faith, and remained in prison to undergo some other sufferings, when the emperor came accidentally to Ancyra. Julian determined to examine Basil himself, when that holy man being brought before him, the emperor did every thing in his power to dissuade him from persevering in the faith. Basil not only continued as firm as ever, but, with a prophetic spirit foretold the death of the emperor, and that he should be tormented in the other life. Enraged at what he heard, Julian commanded that the body of Basil should be torn every day in seven different parts, until his skin and flesh were entirely mangled. This inhuman sentence was executed with rigor, and the martyr expired under its severities, on June 28, A.D. 362.
Donatus, bishop of Arezzo, and Hilarinus, a hermit, suffered about the same time; also Gordian, a Roman magistrate. Artemius, commander in chief of the Roman forces in Egypt, being a Christian, was deprived of his commission, then of his estate, and lastly of his head.
The persecution raged dreadfully about the latter end of the year 363; but, as many of the particulars have not been handed down to us, it is necessary to remark in general, that in Palestine many were burnt alive, others were dragged by their feet through the streets naked until they expired; some were scalded to death, many stoned, and great numbers had their brains beaten out with clubs. In Alexandria, innumerable were the martyrs who suffered by the sword, burning, crucifixion and stoning. In Arethusa, several were ripped open, and corn being put into their bellies, swine were brought to feed therein, which, in devouring the grain, likewise devoured the entrails of the martyrs, and in Thrace, Emilianus was burnt at a stake; and Domitius murdered in a cave, whither he had fled for refuge.
The emperor, Julian the apostate, died of a wound which he received in his Persian expedition, A.D. 363, and even while expiring, uttered the most horrid blasphemies. He was succeeded by Jovian, who restored peace to the Church.
After the decease of Jovian, Valentinian succeeded to the empire, and associated to himself Valens, who had the command in the east, and was an Arian and of an unrelenting and persecuting disposition.
Foxe's Book of Martyrs
The Continual Burnt Offering (2 Corinthians 12:9)
By H.A. Ironside - 1941
October 12
2 Corinthians 12:9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. ESVPaul pleaded three times for deliverance from the sharp thorn that caused such suffering. But at last the answer came in a way he had not looked for. The Lord said, as it were, “No, Paul; I will not remove the thorn, but I will give you grace to endure.” This moved the apostle to glory in his very infirmities that the power of Christ might rest upon him. Happy is the soul that has learned the folly of striving against the permissive will of God, and can receive all from His hand and look to Him for strength to endure. It was this that enabled Job to triumph as he cried, “Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” (Job 2:10).
Job 2:9 Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die.” 10 But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips. ESV
With eager heart and will on fire
I fought to win my great desire:
“Peace shall be mine,” I said, but life
Grew bitter in the endless strife.
My soul was weary, and my pride
Was wounded deep. To heav’n I cried,
“God grant me peace, or I must die!”
The dumb stars glittered no reply.
Broken at last, I bowed my head,
Forgetting all myself, and said,
“Whatever comes His will be done.”
And in that moment, peace was won.
By John Walvoord (1990)
The Great Tribulation Continued: The Seventh Bowl of Divine Wrath and the Great Earthquake
Revelation 16:17–18. With the announcement of the seventh bowl, the final judgments on the earth preceding the second coming are revealed, “The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and out of the temple came a loud voice from the throne, saying, ‘It is done!’ Then there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder and a severe earthquake. No earthquake like it has ever occurred since man has been on earth, so tremendous was the quake” (vv. 17–18 ).
Earthquakes have plagued the world throughout history. With increased population and building of cities, earthquakes now affect populous areas with increased casualties and destruction of property. This final earthquake that occurs before the second coming of Christ eclipses all that has gone before.
Destruction of the Great City
Revelation 16:19. John goes on to describe the destruction of the great city. “The great city split into three parts, and the cities of the nations collapsed. God remembered Babylon the Great and gave her the cup filled with the wine of the fury of his wrath” (v. 19 ).
The Scriptures declare that the great city split into three parts and that throughout the world the cities of the Gentiles would be shaken to pieces and collapse. The text does not indicate what great city is in view though Jerusalem is mentioned as a great city in 11:8. The Bible indicates that there will be tremendous changes in the land surrounding Jerusalem (cf. Zech. 14:4 ).
The problem that occurs with identifying Jerusalem as a city destroyed is that in Zechariah 14 at the time of the second coming, Jerusalem is still a city intact in spite of the earthquake that destroyed the other cities of the world. If Jerusalem had been destroyed by an earthquake, the house-to-house fighting and other aspects of the final war, as recorded in Zechariah 14, could not have taken place.
Some expositors relate this to the city of Babylon on the Euphrates, and there are many indications in Scripture that this will be rebuilt and possibly made the capital city of the world empire. This seems to be confirmed by chapter 18. If Babylon is the city in view, the fact that it is divided into three parts is what happens according to Revelation 18, and the prophecy could be literally fulfilled in this way. This would be the climax of a long history of judgment on Babylon.
Destruction of Islands, Mountains, and the Plague of Hail
Revelation 16:20–21. The destruction of the world was further described by John, “Every island fled away and the mountains could not be found. From the sky huge hailstones of about a hundred pounds each fell upon men. And they cursed God on account of the plague of hail, because the plague was so terrible” (vv. 20–21 ). The topographical nature of the world will be dramatically changed probably as a result of the aftermath of the earthquake with islands and mountains disappearing with resultant loss of life and property. Huge waves in the ocean created by these changes will bring total destruction that is beyond description.
In addition to the earthquake, however, there will be a tremendous supernatural hailstorm with huge hailstones, weighing approximately one hundred pounds each. Whatever is left from the earthquake in terms of building monuments of men will be beaten to pulp by these huge blocks of ice. As in previous judgments of God, however, it does not bring repentance or confession of sin, but instead, men, recognizing that the judgments came from God, curse God because of it (v. 21 ).
The world is now set for the second coming of Christ, but before this occurs, a parenthetic section dealing with Babylon is introduced.
Parenthetic Revelation V: The Destruction of Ecclesiastical Babylon
Revelation 17:1–18. The book of Revelation was written in the order in which the truth was revealed to John, but the events described are not necessarily in chronological order. This is especially true of Revelation 17, which probably occurs during the first half of the last seven years. Much confusion is manifested in interpretations of chapters 17–18, and there is some obscurity in the revelation itself. Probably the best solution is to regard chapter 17 as the destruction of ecclesiastical Babylon, or Babylon as a religion, and chapter 18, the destruction of Babylon as a city and an empire.
John was invited by one of the angels who had the bowls of divine judgment to witness the punishment of ecclesiastical Babylon. By using the term ecclesiastical, it is not meant that Babylon is the true church in any sense of the term, but it is Babylon from a religious standpoint. An extensive study of the religions of Babylon demonstrates that many of them were carried over in part into Roman Catholicism and formed the background for some of the ceremonies. The Babylonian influence, however, is always contrary to the truth, and her final hour is described in this chapter.
John recorded his introduction to the judgment of the woman: “One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, ‘Come, I will show you the punishment of the great prostitute, who sits on many waters. With her kings of the earth committed adultery and the inhabitants of the earth were intoxicated with the wine of her adulteries.’ Then the angel carried me away in the Spirit into a desert. There I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and was glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls. She held a golden cup in her hand, filled with abominable things and the filth of her adulteries. This title was written on her forehead:
MYSTERY
BABYLON THE GREAT
THE MOTHER OF PROSTITUTES
AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of those who bore testimony to Jesus” (vv. 1–6 ).
The great prostitute described in these verses is a portrayal of apostate Christendom in the end time. When the rapture occurs, all true believers are caught up to be with the Lord, but left behind are many thousands of those who made some profession of faith in Christ and claimed to be Christians who were not born again. These constitute the apostate church, which will dominate the scene politically and religiously up to the midpoint of the last seven years before the second coming.
The apostasy, called adultery and fornication here, of course refers to spiritual unfaithfulness, not to physical adultery. The church devoid of any redeeming influence is now completely united with the world and as the passage indicates, is working hand in glove with the political powers.
John saw a woman on a scarlet-colored beast with seven heads and ten horns. The beast is obviously the political empire described in 13:1–10. The fact that she is seated on the beast indicates that she is working with the beasts to attain common ends, that is, the subjugation of the entire world to their authority, and that the political power is supporting the apostate church. The woman wears the trappings of ceremonial religion in which purple and scarlet are prominent and which are often enhanced with precious stones. From the title written on her forehead, she is linked with the mystery of Babylon the Great. In referring to this identification as a mystery, because its ultimate truth is learned only by divine revelation, the influence of Babylon for evil is supported in Scripture from as early as Genesis 11 and continues through the revelation of the destruction of the city in Revelation 18.
Babylon is the title that covers all false religions that claim to be Christian in their content. Babylonian influence clearly crept into the church, and much of its ritual is similar to the Babylonian religious rites.
When Babylon was introduced in Genesis 11, her true character was revealed as rebelling against God and attempting to build a tower in recognition of worship of heathen deities. Because this was contrary to the will of God, He confounded the language the people were using at that time so that they could not understand each other; hence, the term Babel, meaning confusion, applies to the subsequent history of Babylon (cf. Gen. 11:9 ).
It should be borne in mind that the term Babylon applies to Babylonian religion; it also applies to the city of Babylon; and it applies to the empire of Babylon.
Babylon had a long history and rose to considerable prominence in the time of Hammurabi (1726–1686 BC). She reached her height of glory under Nebuchadnezzar who lived in what is known as the Neo-Babylonian period, beginning six hundred years before Christ. It was in this period that Daniel wrote the book of Daniel. Archeologists have uncovered much of the detail of this city, having been able to decipher the thousands of cuneiform tablets that were found in Babylon.
In this section, however, the revelation concentrates on the influence of Babylon religiously. Because the religion of Babylon was in the form of a secret religious rite in which they worshipped certain idols, it requires divine revelation to understand completely what they held. The wife of Nimrod, who was the founder of Babylon, headed up the mystery religion that characterized Babylon. She was given the name Semiramis, and according to the adherents’ belief, she had a son conceived miraculously whose name was Tammuz. He was portrayed as a savior who fulfills the promise of deliverance given to Eve. This was, of course, a satanic description that permeates pagan religions.
The concept of woman and child was incorporated in various religious rites that were conducted by a priestly order that worshipped the woman and the child.
Throughout Scripture references are found concerning Babylonian worship, such as Ezekiel’s protest against weeping for Tammuz ( Ezek. 8:14–15 ). Jeremiah objects to the heathen practice of offering cakes to Semiramis as the queen of heaven ( Jer. 7:18 ). Offering of incense was also made to her as the queen of heaven ( 44:17–19, 25 ). An offshoot of this was the worship of Baal, which was one of the pagan religions of Canaan, and Baal is often identified as the same person as Tammuz.
The mystery religions of Babylon permeated the ancient world, and with the decline of Babylon as a city and as an empire, Babylonian religion found its way to Pergamum, the city in which one of the seven churches of Asia was located. Those who served as chief priests of the Babylonian cult were often related to Dagon the fish god and the “Keeper of the Bridge,” that is the bridge between man and Satan; and in recognition of this, the priests wore crowns in the form of a head of fish.
As Christianity came in contact with the Babylonian religion, it created turmoil and confusion for the church. Through the centuries there has been a tendency for the church to be anchored in the world instead of in God, and modern liberalism has gone even further in departing from the Scriptures. The prophecy concerning Babylon here as well as other allusions to religion in the book of Revelation demonstrate that apostasy will have its final form in the great tribulation in the worship of the world ruler and Satan.
In the period of the first half of the seven years leading up to the second coming of Christ, Babylon combined with Romanism becomes a world religion — Christian in name, but not in content. Those who do come to Christ will be subject to her persecution of those who have a true faith in Christ. Those who come to Christ in the end time will have the double problem of avoiding martyrdom at the hands of the political rulers and at the hands of the apostate church.
John was overwhelmed by this revelation and only partially understood it, and it was explained to him. He wrote, “When I saw her, I was greatly astonished. Then the angel said to me: ‘Why are you astonished? I will explain to you the mystery of the woman and of the beast she rides, which has the seven heads and ten horns. The beast, which you saw, once was, now is not, and will come up out of the Abyss and go to his destruction. The inhabitants of the earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the creation of the world will be astonished when they see the beast, because he once was, now is not, and yet will come’” (vv. 6–8 ).
One of the outstanding, convincing arguments for worshipping the beast is the fact that he comes back from apparent death to life, as recorded in 13:3. The reference to the Abyss identifies the home of Satan and the demon world. The whole false religion found in Babylon is satanic in its origin and therefore is closely related to the demon world.
The purpose of the alliance between the woman and the beast is that both are seeking world domination. When this is finally achieved, as the end of this chapter indicates, the political power will no longer need the religious power to support it.
As previously discussed, the references to the beast as one who “once was, now is not, and yet will come” ( 17:8 ) has been taken as proof that the world leader is one who was resurrected from an earlier time on earth, including such possibilities as Judas Iscariot, Nero, and other world rulers. The preferable interpretation, however, is either to regard the resurrection of the beast as the resurrection of the Roman Empire or to consider the possibility of a deadly wound suffered in the assassination attempt from which he is miraculously healed by Satan. In either case, the world ruler comes on the scene as a miraculous person.
Because of the seemingly miraculous qualities that enter into the world ruler, the unsaved, not in the Book of Life, will be astonished and will put their trust in this beast as God.
The angel goes on to refer to the seven heads as referring to seven kings, “This calls for a mind with wisdom. The seven heads are seven hills on which the woman sits. They are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; but when he does come, he must remain for a little while. The beast who once was, and now is not, is an eighth king. He belongs to the seven and is going to his destruction” (vv. 9–11 ).
This passage has caused great confusion among expositors who have had difficulty understanding what it means when it says that the seven heads are seven hills and that the woman sits on them. The statement, “This calls for a mind with wisdom” (v. 9 ) is clearly indicated by the history of interpretation of this passage.
One of the common explanations is to refer to the seven hills as the city of Rome, which is known as “the city of seven hills.” The ancient city of Rome was located on the left bank of the Tiber, and seven hills were named: Palatine, Aventine, Caelian, Esquiline, Viminal, Quirinal, and Capitoline. As Rome grew in power and in size, it took in another hill, Janiculum, which was also numbered among the seven hills, and the hill Capitoline was omitted. Still later another hill, Pincian, north of ancient Rome, was added, requiring subtraction of one of the other hills.
The confusion of the seven heads of the beast with the seven hills of Rome, however, arises from inattention to what the passage states. John was informed, “They are also seven kings” (v. 10 ). If the hills represent kings, then they do not refer to the seven hills of Rome, and the whole conclusion that Rome is the capital of ecclesiastical Babylon is brought into question. Further, a statement is made, “Five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; but when he does come, he must remain for a little while” (v. 10 ). This could not refer to hills. How can the five that are fallen and the one that is and the one not yet to come be identified?
Some have identified the five as some of the more prominent rulers of ancient Rome, but it is difficult to select five who deserve this prominence. Accordingly, scholars have suggested that instead of the five referring to individual kings, they refer to the great nations of the past that were empires. This would include Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and ancient Rome. As John viewed it, ancient Rome would be the sixth king, but later in history Rome would be revived and would be considered a seventh king. This is what John referred to when he stated, “the other has not yet come” (v. 10 ). This view at least is a possibility.
As the years progress leading up to the second coming of Christ, however, the ten-nation kingdom ( Rev. 13 ), which was Rome revived, becomes a world empire that, with its ruler, is the eighth king. This is stated, “The beast who once was, and now is not, is an eighth king” ( 17:11 ).
This identification is a plausible explanation, though not all expositors would agree. Important, however, to conclusions about this prophecy is that it eliminates the concept that Rome geographically is involved as the headquarters of political Babylon. It leaves open the question as to where ecclesiastical Babylon will have its seat of power. Perhaps more important, it opens the way for the possibility that political Babylon (revived Rome) will have its center of power in the rebuilt city of Babylon during the last three and a half years leading up to the second coming of Christ. This would have its climax in Revelation 18 where the city is destroyed.
If the explanation of the seven heads of the beast is accepted, the question remains as to what the ten horns are.
The angel declared, “The ten horns you saw are ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom, but who for one hour will receive authority as kings along with the beast. They have one purpose and will give their power and authority to the beast” (vv. 12–13 ).
Based on a study of Daniel 7 and Revelation 13, the ten horns represent ten kingdoms that were banded together to form the nucleus of the revived Roman Empire which had power during the first half of the last seven years. Many have attempted to find ten kings in history that corresponded to these ten horns, but the quest is futile because, as a matter of fact, the ten horns do not exist until the revived Roman Empire, comes about and will not have fulfillment until the first half of the last seven years is fulfilled. Further, it is clear that they are simultaneous in their rule, not successive. They are always viewed as ten kings in a unit rather than successive monarchs. They act unitedly as illustrated later in this chapter ( 17:16–17 ). As stated in verse 13, their purpose and place is to honor the world ruler.
The angel continues in his prediction, “They will make war against the Lamb, but the Lamb will overcome them because he is Lord of lords and King of kings — and with him will be his called, chosen and faithful followers” (v. 14 ). Both the woman and the beast, the ecclesiastical and the political, are utterly opposed to God and those who put their trust in the Lord at this time.
The woman is described as one “who sits on many waters” (v. 1 ). This is now interpreted by the angel, “Then the angel said to me, ‘The waters you saw, where the prostitute sits, are peoples, multitudes, nations and languages’” (v. 15 ). This indicates that the false religion promoted by the woman as well as the political power promoted by the beast are worldwide.
The next development, however, is a tremendous additional revelation, “The beast and the ten horns you saw will hate the prostitute. They will bring her to ruin and leave her naked; they will eat her flesh and burn her with fire. For God has put it into their hearts to accomplish his purpose by agreeing to give the beast their power to rule, until God’s words are fulfilled” (vv. 16–17 ).
The same ecclesiastical apostate church, typified by the woman who was supported and brought into being with the help of the political ruler, the scarlet beast, is now destroyed. The question is a natural one of how this fits into the sequence of events.
In the overall picture of the last seven years leading up to the second coming of Christ, this passage indicates that in the first half of the seven years, this woman, representing the world religion, will have power, but probably will be a continuation of the world church movement in the present world from which the true church was raptured earlier in the sequence of events. Now having come to the midpoint of the seven years when the head of the ten nations takes over as world ruler, the apostate church is no longer useful and as a matter of fact, is in the way. Accordingly, the ten nations destroy the woman and terminate her power and position.
The purpose behind this is that the world ruler will claim to be God Himself, and for the final three and a half years, the world religion will consist of the worship of the world ruler and the worship of Satan, who is recognized as the power behind the world ruler. This was stated in Revelation 13:4. “Men worshiped the dragon because he had given authority to the beast, and they also worshiped the beast and asked, ‘Who is like the beast? Who can make war against him?’” The whole religious system having its source in ancient Babylon is brought to its close because the final form of religion, the worship of the world ruler, is atheism and does not need this support.
The final verse of the chapter brings in another concept: “The woman you saw is the great city that rules over the kings of the earth” ( 17:18 ).
This statement must be taken as representative of the religious character of Babylon depicted by the prostitute but also as a great city, possibly referring to the Vatican, which in history had ruled over the earth. The power of the Roman Catholic Church to some extent was the extension of the influence of ancient Babylon throughout history, particularly in the period before the Protestant Reformation. The city here must be taken in less than a literal sense because it refers to the church, which by its nature is not a city any more than it is a prostitute. The chapter that follows will deal with Roman power as centered in the city of Babylon.
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Devotionals, notes, poetry and more
Change your thinking
(Oct 12) Bob Gass
‘Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.’
(Php 4:8) 8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. ESV
In order to change your life, you must first change your thinking. And that’s not easy when you’ve spent your life thinking a certain way. Minister and columnist Dr Frank Crane said, ‘Our best friends and our worst enemies are our thoughts.’ King Solomon put it this way: ‘As [a man] thinks within himself, so he is’ (Proverbs 23:7 NASB). To change your thinking, you must do it - one thought at a time. That calls for discipline and determination. But it’s worth it. If you wanted to compete in a marathon you wouldn’t go on an all-sugar diet, would you? The fuel you put into something determines its performance. Yet we disregard this basic piece of wisdom: what you feed everything else is nothing compared to what you feed your mind! Here’s a truth that will transform you: think excellent thoughts! What enters your mind repeatedly, occupies it, shapes it, controls it, and in the end expresses itself in what you do and who you become. Your mind will absorb and reflect whatever it’s exposed to. The events you attend, the relationships you build, the materials you read or don’t read, the music you listen to, the media images you’re exposed to, the conversations you engage in, and the thoughts you entertain all shape your mind, and eventually your character and your destiny. So, what should you do? Start each day by praying: ‘Lord, I want the kind of mind Your Word describes. One that’s filled with excellent, admirable, honourable, praiseworthy thoughts’ (see Philippians 4:8). Can you imagine what your life would be like if you constantly prayed that way and programmed your thinking accordingly?
Jer 18-19
1 Tim 2
UCB The Word For Today
by Bill Federer
October 12, 1492, two hours after midnight, Columbus sighted land. He named the first island San Salvador, meaning "Holy Saviour." After meeting the natives, Columbus wrote: "So that they might be well-disposed towards us, for I knew that they were a people to be… converted to our Holy Faith rather by love than by force, I gave to some red caps and to others glass beads… They… became so entirely our friends that it was a wonder to see…. I believe that they would easily be made Christians, for it seemed to me that they had no religion of their own."
American Minuteby P.T. Forsyth, (1848-1921)
And its great object is to get home as we are to God as He is, and to win response even when we get no compliance. The prayer of faith does not mean a prayer absolutely sure that it will receive what it asks. That is not faith. Faith is that attitude of soul and self to God which is the root and reservoir of prayer apart from all answer. It is what turns need into request. It is what moves your need to need God. It is what makes you sure your prayer is heard and stored, whether granted or not. “He putteth all my tears in His bottle.” God has old prayers of yours long maturing by Him. What wine you will drink with Him in His kingdom! Faith is sure that God refuses with a smile; that He says No in the spirit of Yes, and He gives or refuses always in Christ, our Great Amen. And better prayers are stirred by the presence of the Deliverer than even by the need of deliverance.
It is not sufficiently remembered that before prayer can expect an answer it must be itself an answer. That is what is meant by prayer in the name of Christ. It is prayer which answers God’s gift in Christ, with Whom are already given us all things. And that is why we must pray without ceasing, because in Christ God speaks without ceasing. Natural or instinctive prayer is one thing; supernatural prayer is another; it is the prayer not of instinct but of faith. It is our word answering God’s. It is more the prayer of fullness even than of need, of strength than of weakness—though it be “a strength girt round with weakness.” Prayer which arises from mere need is flung out to a power which is only remembered, or surmised, or unknown. It is flung into darkness and uncertainty. But in Christian prayer we ask for what we need because we are full of faith in God’s power and word, because need becomes petition at the touch of His word. (I always feel that in the order of our public worship prayer should immediately follow the lesson, without the intrusion on an anthem. And for the reason I name—that Christian prayer is our word answering God’s). We pray, therefore, in Christ’s name, or for His sake, because we pray as answering the gift in Christ. Our prayer is the note the tremulous soul utters when its chords are smitten by Him. We then answer above all things God’s prayer to us in His cross that we would be reconciled. God so beseeches us in Christ. So that, if we put it strongly, we may say that our prayer to God in Christ is our answer to God’s prayer to us there. “The best thing in prayer is faith,” says Luther.
And the spirit of prayer in Christ’s name is the true child-spirit. A certain type of religion is fond of dwelling on faith as the spirit of divine childhood; and its affinities are all with the tender and touching element in childhood. But one does not always get from the prophets of such piety the impression of a life breathed in prayer. And the notion is not the New Testament sense of being children of God. That is a manlier, a maturer thing. It is being sons of God by faith, and by faith’s energy of prayer. It is not the sense of being as helpless as a child that clings, not the sense of weakness, ignorance, gentleness, and all that side of things. But it is the spirit of a prayer which is a great act of faith, and therefore a power. Faith is not simply surrender, but adoring surrender, not a mere sense of dependence, but an act of intelligent committal, and the confession of a holiness which is able to save, keep, and bless for ever.
How is it that the experience of life is so often barren of spiritual culture for religious people? They become stoic and stalwart, but not humble; they have been sight, but no insight. Yet it is not the stalwarts but the saints that judge the world, i.e. that ake the true divine measure of the world and get to its subtle, silent, and final powers. Whole sections of our Protestantism have lost the virtue of humility or the understanding of it. It means for them no more than modesty or diffidence. It is the humility of weakness, not of power. To many useful, and even strong, people no experience seems to bring this subtle, spiritual intelligence, this finer discipline of the moral man. No rebukes, no rebuffs, no humiliations, no sorrows, seem to bring it to them. They have no spiritual history. Their spiritual biography not even an angel could write. There is no romance in their soul’s story. At sixty they are, spiritually, much where they were at twenty-six. To calamity, to discipline of any kind, they are simply resilient. Their religion is simply elasticity. It is but lusty life. They rise up after the smart is over, or the darkness fades away, as self-confident as if they were but seasoned politicians beaten at one election, but sure of doing better at the next. They are to the end just irrepressible, or persevering, or dogged. And they are as juvenile in moral insight, as boyish in spiritual perception, as ever.
--- Forsyth, P. T. (1848-1921).
Compiled by Richard S. Adams
"Having, First, gained all you can, and,
Secondly saved all you can,
Then give all you can."
--- from a sermon in the Works of John Wesley
God's promises are like the stars;
the darker the night
the brighter they shine.
--- David Nicholas
Religion in so far as it is a source of consolation is a hindrance to true faith; and in this sense atheism is a purification. I have to be an atheist with that part of myself which is not made for God. Among those in whom the supernatural part of themselves has not been awakened, the atheists are right and the believers wrong.
--- Simone Weil "Faiths of Meditation; Contemplation of the divine" as translated in The Simone Weil Reader (1957) edited by George A. Panichas, p. 417
... from here, there and everywhere
Thanks to Meir Yona
7. Now two days afterward twelve of those men that were on the forefront, and kept watch upon the banks, got together, and called to them the standard-bearer of the fifth legion, and two others of a troop of horsemen, and one trumpeter; these went without noise, about the ninth hour of the night, through the ruins, to the tower of Antonia; and when they had cut the throats of the first guards of the place, as they were asleep, they got possession of the wall, and ordered the trumpeter to sound his trumpet. Upon which the rest of the guard got up on the sudden, and ran away, before any body could see how many they were that were gotten up; for, partly from the fear they were in, and partly from the sound of the trumpet which they heard, they imagined a great number of the enemy were gotten up. But as soon as Caesar heard the signal, he ordered the army to put on their armor immediately, and came thither with his commanders, and first of all ascended, as did the chosen men that were with him. And as the Jews were flying away to the temple, they fell into that mine which John had dug under the Roman banks. Then did the seditious of both the bodies of the Jewish army, as well that belonging to John as that belonging to Simon, drive them away; and indeed were no way wanting as to the highest degree of force and alacrity; for they esteemed themselves entirely ruined if once the Romans got into the temple, as did the Romans look upon the same thing as the beginning of their entire conquest. So a terrible battle was fought at the entrance of the temple, while the Romans were forcing their way, in order to get possession of that temple, and the Jews were driving them back to the tower of Antonia; in which battle the darts were on both sides useless, as well as the spears, and both sides drew their swords, and fought it out hand to hand. Now during this struggle the positions of the men were undistinguished on both sides, and they fought at random, the men being intermixed one with another, and confounded, by reason of the narrowness of the place; while the noise that was made fell on the ear after an indistinct manner, because it was so very loud. Great slaughter was now made on both sides, and the combatants trod upon the bodies and the armor of those that were dead, and dashed them to pieces. Accordingly, to which side soever the battle inclined, those that had the advantage exhorted one another to go on, as did those that were beaten make great lamentation. But still there was no room for flight, nor for pursuit, but disorderly revolutions and retreats, while the armies were intermixed one with another; but those that were in the first ranks were under the necessity of killing or being killed, without any way for escaping; for those on both sides that came behind forced those before them to go on, without leaving any space between the armies. At length the Jews' violent zeal was too hard for the Romans' skill, and the battle already inclined entirely that way; for the fight had lasted from the ninth hour of the night till the seventh hour of the day, While the Jews came on in crowds, and had the danger the temple was in for their motive; the Romans having no more here than a part of their army; for those legions, on which the soldiers on that side depended, were not come up to them. So it was at present thought sufficient by the Romans to take possession of the tower of Antonia.
8. But there was one Julian, a centurion, that came from Bithynia, a man he was of great reputation, whom I had formerly seen in that war, and one of the highest fame, both for his skill in war, his strength of body, and the courage of his soul. This man, seeing the Romans giving ground, and in a sad condition, [for he stood by Titus at the tower of Antonia,] leaped out, and of himself alone put the Jews to flight, when they were already conquerors, and made them retire as far as the corner of the inner court of the temple; from him the multitude fled away in crowds, as supposing that neither his strength nor his violent attacks could be those of a mere man. Accordingly, he rushed through the midst of the Jews, as they were dispersed all abroad, and killed those that he caught. Nor, indeed, was there any sight that appeared more wonderful in the eyes of Caesar, or more terrible to others, than this. However, he was himself pursued by fate, which it was not possible that he, who was but a mortal man, should escape; for as he had shoes all full of thick and sharp nails 4 as had every one of the other soldiers, so when he ran on the pavement of the temple, he slipped, and fell down upon his back with a very great noise, which was made by his armor. This made those that were running away to turn back; whereupon those Romans that were in the tower of Antonia set up a great shout, as they were in fear for the man. But the Jews got about him in crowds, and struck at him with their spears and with their swords on all sides. Now he received a great many of the strokes of these iron weapons upon his shield, and often attempted to get up again, but was thrown down by those that struck at him; yet did he, as he lay along, stab many of them with his sword. Nor was he soon killed, as being covered with his helmet and his breastplate in all those parts of his body where he might be mortally wounded; he also pulled his neck close to his body, till all his other limbs were shattered, and nobody durst come to defend him, and then he yielded to his fate. Now Caesar was deeply affected on account of this man of so great fortitude, and especially as he was killed in the sight of so many people; he was desirous himself to come to his assistance, but the place would not give him leave, while such as could have done it were too much terrified to attempt it. Thus when Julian had struggled with death a great while, and had let but few of those that had given him his mortal wound go off unhurt, he had at last his throat cut, though not without some difficulty, and left behind him a very great fame, not only among the Romans, and with Caesar himself, but among his enemies also; then did the Jews catch up his dead body, and put the Romans to flight again, and shut them up in the tower of Antonia. Now those that most signalized themselves, and fought most zealously in this battle of the Jewish side, were one Alexas and Gyphtheus, of John's party, and of Simon's party were Malachias, and Judas the son of Merto, and James the son of Sosas, the commander of the Idumeans; and of the zealots, two brethren, Simon and Judas, the sons of Jairus.
The War of the Jews: The History of the Destruction of Jerusalem (complete edition, 7 books)
by D.H. Stern
a stranger and not your own lips.
Complete Jewish Bible : An English Version of the Tanakh (Old Testament) and B'Rit Hadashah (New Testament)
Getting into God's stride
Enoch walked with God. --- Genesis 5:24.
The test of a man's religious life and character is not what he does in the exceptional moments of life, but what he does in the ordinary times, when there is nothing tremendous or exciting on. The worth of a man is revealed in his attitude to ordinary things when he is not before the footlights.
(Cf. John 1:36.) It is a painful business to get through into the stride of God, it means getting your 'second wind' spiritually. In learning to walk with God there is always the difficulty of getting into His stride; but when we have got into it, the only characteristic that manifests itself is the life of God. The individual man is lost sight of in his personal union with God, and the stride and the power of God alone are manifested.
It is difficult to get into stride with God, because when we start walking with Him we find He has outstripped us before we have taken three steps. He has different ways of doing things, and we have to be trained and disciplined into His ways. It was said of Jesus-"He shall not fail nor be discouraged," because He never worked from His own individual standpoint but always from the standpoint of His Father, and we have to learn to do the same. Spiritual truth is learned by atmosphere, not by intellectual reasoning. God's Spirit alters the atmosphere of our way of looking at things, and things begin to be possible which never were possible before. Getting into the stride of God means nothing less than union with Himself. It takes a long time to get there, but keep at it. Don't give in because the pain is bad just now, get on with it, and before long you will find you have a new vision and a new purpose.
the Poetry of R.S. Thomas
The Word
A pen appeared, and the god said:
'Write what it is to be
man.' And my hand hovered
long over the bare page.
until there, like footprints
of the lost traveller, letters
took shape on the page's
blankness, and I spelled out
the word 'lonely'. And my hand moved
to erase it; but the voices
of all those waiting at life's
window cried out loud: 'It is true.'
Maimonides: Torah and Philosophic Quest
Against this approach Maimonides appeals to the Torah, arguing that the Torah itself indicates the existence and legitimacy of universal criteria of truth:
For this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations which shall hear all these statutes and say, "Surely, that great nation is a wise and discerning people" (Deut. 4:6).
If there are specific Jewish criteria of truth, how could this promise be realized? If what counts for truth in this community is to be based exclusively upon rabbinic authority, how can the Torah expect those who are not bound by that authority to marvel and appreciate the wisdom of the community? There must exist, then, independent criteria of truth which neither Jew nor non Jew can ignore. (Makes me think of Roman 1:20.)
A careful reader of Maimonides' proof-text would immediately discover that the wisdom which the world appreciates includes the laws of Judaism:
See, I have imparted to you laws and rules, as the Lord my God has commanded me, for you to abide by in the land which you are about to invade and occupy. Observe them faithfully, for that will be proof of your wisdom and discernment to other peoples, who on hearing of all these laws will say, "Surely that great nation is a wise and discerning people." For what great nation is there that has a god so close at hand as is the Lord our God whenever we call upon Him? Or what great nation has laws and as perfect as all this Teaching that I set before you this day? (Deut. 4:5–8).
The student must await The Guide of the Perplexed for a full explication of how Judaism as a whole—its Aggadah and Halakhah—can be seen as worthy and capable of universal appreciation. In his commentary to Ḥelek Maimonides deals only with Aggadah. He informs his reader that the literalistic approach which leads to insulation "robs our religion of its beauties, darkens its brilliance and makes the Law of God convey meanings quite contrary to those it was intended to convey."
A second group of readers accepts a literalistic reading of Aggadah which leads, however, not to submission, but to derision and rejection:
The second class of reasoners is also numerous. They see and hear the words of the Sages and accept them in their literal significations, thinking that the Sages meant nothing but what the literal interpretation indicates. They consequently apply themselves to showing the weakness of the Rabbinical statements and their objectionable character, and to slandering that which is free from reproach. They make sport of the words of the Sages from time to time and imagine themselves more intellectually gifted and possessed of more penetrating minds, whereas they, peace to them, are deceived, shortsighted, ignorant of all existing things, and consequently unable to comprehend anything.… They are more stupid than the first class, of which we have spoken, and more steeped in folly! They are an accursed class, because they put themselves in opposition to men of great worth, whose learning is manifest to scholars. If only they trained themselves in knowledge so as to know how necessary it is to use the appropriate speech in theology, and in like subjects.
Since this group views the rabbis as fools and simpletons, one may infer rejection of rabbinic legislative authority as well. Maimonides' statement that "they are an accursed class" seems to suggest this. The fundamentalist understanding of Aggadah by a person unable to disassociate his thinking from the way he acts results either in total obedience to tradition, the way of insulation of the first class, or in abandonment of the tradition, the way of rejection of the second class.
Maimonides offers a third approach:
The third class of thinkers is, as God lives, so very small in numbers that one would only call it a class in the sense that the sun is termed a species although it is a single object. They are the men who accept as established facts the greatness of the Sages and the excellence of their thoughts, as found in the generality of their remarks, where each word points a very true theme.… The members of this class are convinced also of the impossibility of the impossible and the necessary existence of what must exist. For they know that they, peace to them, would not talk absurdities to one another. And they are convinced beyond doubt that their words have both an outer and an inner meaning, and that in all that they say of things impossible, their discourses were in the form of riddle and parable.
Maimonides' reader is an observant Jew who fully accepts the Halakhah as a self-contained system with a specific logic of legal interpretation and development. Yet, Maimonides' point here is that this need not prevent one from recognizing that aggadic discourse can be understood in a manner different from the way in which one understands halakhic discourse. The halakhic Jew can approach the Aggadah with knowledge gained from sources independent of the tradition; when Aggadah violates reason's understanding of the necessary or the impossible, he recognizes that Aggadah must be understood symbolically. The reader who is a member of this group (the reader whom Maimonides wants to cultivate) manifests his reverence for the tradition by his painstaking attempts to uncover hidden meanings in the Aggadah. By recognizing that one must discover the point of a statement before one can judge it to be true or false, one can combine a serious allegiance to the tradition with a commitment to universal criteria of knowledge. To reject a rabbinic or biblical statement whose literal reading contradicts accepted truths is to misunderstand the meaning of that which one purports to evaluate.
Maimonides supports his approach to Aggadah by showing that a symbolic understanding of Torah texts is a traditional mode of understanding:
And how can we disapprove of their literary productions being in the manner of proverb and simile of a lowly and popular kind, seeing that the wisest of men did the same "by holy inspiration" i.e., Solomon, in the books of Proverbs, Song of Songs, and parts of Ecclesiastes? How can we disapprove of the method of placing interpretations on the words of Sages, and drawing them out of their literalness to adjust them to reason and make them accord with truth and the books of Scripture, seeing that the Sages themselves place their interpretations on the words of the text and, by bringing them out of their literal meaning, present them as parable?
One does not, therefore, distort the tradition when one applies an approach toward understanding Aggadah that differs from the method used to understand Halakhah.
The acceptance of the symbolic approach to aggadic language immediately raises a question: Why did the tradition choose to speak in parables when it could have been explicit and literal? Maimonides offers the following explanation in his introduction to the Commentary to the Mishnah:
And they did this to marvelous issues, i.e., wrote in parables whose literal meaning may be contrary to reason; first, to awaken the understanding of students, and also to blind the eyes of fools whose hearts will never be enlightened, and even if the truth were presented before them they would turn away from it according to the deficiency of their natures, as it is [written] said regarding those like them, "One does not reveal to them the secret" (T.B. Kedushin 71a), for their intellect is not perfect to the extent required to receive the truth as it is.… And, thus, it is improper for the man of knowledge [perfect man] to publicize what he knows of the secret teachings other than to one who is greater than he or like him. Because if he would present it before a fool, if [the latter] would not deprecate it to his face, surely the matter will not find favor in his eyes. Therefore, the wise man said: "Speak not in the ears of a fool; for he will despise the wisdom of thy words" (Prov. 23:9). And also, it is not correct to teach the public but by the way of riddle and parable in order to include women, young men, and children, so that when their intellects reach perfection they will know the meanings [matter] of those parables. To this issue Solomon alluded in his saying, "To understand a proverb, and a figure; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings" (Prov. 1:6), and because of this our Sages, peace to them, spoke about Divine matters in riddle form.
Thus it is proper for a person who happens to come across one of their statements, which he thinks is opposed to reason, not to attribute the deficiency to those statements, but to attribute the deficiency to his own intellect. And when he sees one of their parables whose literal meaning is far from his understanding, it is proper for him to be much grieved that he did not understand the issue so that all true statements became extremely distant [to his understanding]. For the intellects of men are as different as differences of temperament, and as the temperament of one man is better and closer to the mean than the temperament of another man, so too will the intellect of one man be more perfect and complete than the intellect of another man. There is no doubt that the intellect of one who knows a sublime matter is not as the intellect of one who does not know that matter, for the one is like an intellect in actu and the other an intellect in potentia. Therefore, there are matters [issues] which to a specific person are perfectly clear and correct, while to another person they are in the domain of the impossible, according to the extent of their level of wisdom.
The tradition spoke exactly and explicitly when it legislated norms. However it spoke symbolically when it was guiding the individual toward higher spiritual achievements. The ambiguity and obscurity of the parables is a challenge to the wise and a veil to the unlearned. When the tradition elaborated norms for the community it addressed itself not to the elite few but to the total community. Moses as well as every other member of the community is expected to obey the same law.
The democratization of the spiritual which is the hallmark of the Halakhah is not, however, the complete picture of Judaism. For those individuals capable of deeper spirituality it provides an Aggadah:
For these matters are not among those that can be taught, and are not interpreted in public, rather they [rabbis] allude to them in books by hidden allusions. And if God removes the screens from the heart of one who is pleasing before Him, after he has prepared himself through study, [such a person] will understand of them according to his intellect.… And when God reveals to such a man whatever He reveals, he should hide [such knowledge] as we said, and if he alludes to something [of them] behold [he should do so] only to one whose intellect is perfected and whose righteousness is known as we have explained and clarified in many stories of the Talmud.
October 12
And Mary said: “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” --- Luke 1:46–47.
Let us think of his greatness; it will be really praising him if we thus think of him. Spurgeon's Sermons on Old Testament Women, Vol. 1: (C. H. Spurgeon Sermon Series) You need not speak, but just ponder, weigh, consider, contemplate, meditate on the character of the Most High. Begin with his mercy if you cannot begin with his holiness, but take his attributes one by one and think about them. As you think of any one of them, it will delight you and carry you away. You will be lost in wonder, love, and praise as you consider it; you will be astonished and amazed as you plunge into its wondrous depths, and everything else will vanish from your vision. That is one way of making God great—by often thinking about him.
The next way to make God great is by often drinking him into yourself. The lilies stand and worship God simply by being beautiful—by drinking in the sunlight and the dewdrops. Stand before the Lord and drink him in; do you understand what I mean by this expression? You go down to the seaside when you are sickly; there is a delightful breeze coming up from the sea; you feel as if it came in at every pore of your body and you seem to be drinking in health at every breath you breathe. Do just like that in a spiritual sense with God; go down to the great sea of Godhead; magnify it by thinking how great it is, and then take it into your very soul. God cannot be greater than he is, but he can be greater in you than he is at present. He cannot increase; there cannot be more of God than there is, but there may be more of God in you. More of his great love, more of his perfect holiness, more of his divine power may be manifested in you, and more of his likeness and light may be revealed through you. Therefore, make him great in that respect.
And when you have done that, by his help, then try to make him great by what you give forth, even as the rose: when it has satisfied itself with the sweet shower, no sooner does the clear shining come after the rain than it deluges the garden all around with its delicious perfume. Do the same; first drink in all you can of the deity, and then exhale him; breathe out again in your praise, in your holy living, in your prayers, in your earnest zeal, and in your devout spirit the God whom you have breathed in. You cannot make more of God than he is, but you can make God more consciously present to the minds of others and make them think more highly of God by what you say and what you do.
--- C. H. Spurgeon
A Pinch of Poison
Luke, who bolted New Testament events into world history, refers to Roman emperor Claudius in Acts 11 and 18.
Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, born shortly before Christ, became Roman emperor in 41 at age 50. As a young man he had suffered infantile paralysis, and his long, spindly legs barely supported his stout frame. His head wobbled when he walked, he stuttered, and he laughed in outbursts. When angered, he foamed at the mouth and trickled at the nose.
But when he became emperor, he surprised everyone by showing promise. He lowered taxes, extended the empire into Britain and Mauritania, and refused to be worshiped as a god. Many were granted Roman citizenship under his rule. Civil service was expanded, the legal system was reformed, and public works grew.
It didn't last. The latter years of Claudius were marred by intrigue, much of it centered around his wife, Agrippina. The emperor's first wife had died on their wedding day. Others had been divorced or slain. Then he met and married the wily Agrippina.
The empress, 32, had but one aim—to secure the throne for her own son. To do that, she had to dispatch both Claudius and his son Britannicus. As she assumed more and more power, she plotted the deaths of her enemies and unleashed a reign of terror. It took Claudius five years to realize what was happening, and by then it was too late. On October 12, 54 she fed him mushrooms well seasoned with a potent pinch of poison. He suffered 12 agonizing hours, unable to speak a word, before dying. Britannicus eventually tasted poison as well.
Agrippina's son became emperor. He thanked her by plotting her murder. First he tried poisoning her, but she knew all the tricks. He next tried drowning her, but she swam to safety from the prearranged shipwreck. Finally, paid assassins plunged swords into her womb. Viewing her uncovered corpse, the young emperor remarked, "I did not know I had so beautiful a mother."
His name? Nero.
During this time some prophets from Jerusalem came to Antioch. One of them was Agabus. Then with the help of the Spirit, he told that there would be a terrible famine everywhere in the world. And it happened when Claudius was Emperor.
--- Acts 11:27,28.
Daily Readings / CHARLES H. SPURGEON
Morning - October 12
“I will meditate in thy precepts.” --- Psalm 119:15.
There are times when solitude is better than society, and silence is wiser than speech. We should be better Christians if we were more alone, waiting upon God, and gathering through meditation on his Word spiritual strength for labour in his service. We ought to muse upon the things of God, because we thus get the real nutriment out of them. Truth is something like the cluster of the vine: if we would have wine from it, we must bruise it; we must press and squeeze it many times. The bruiser’s feet must come down joyfully upon the bunches, or else the juice will not flow; and they must well tread the grapes, or else much of the precious liquid will be wasted. So we must, by meditation, tread the clusters of truth, if we would get the wine of consolation therefrom. Our bodies are not supported by merely taking food into the mouth, but the process which really supplies the muscle, and the nerve, and the sinew, and the bone, is the process of digestion. It is by digestion that the outward food becomes assimilated with the inner life. Our souls are not nourished merely by listening awhile to this, and then to that, and then to the other part of divine truth. Hearing, reading, marking, and learning, all require inwardly digesting to complete their usefulness, and the inward digesting of the truth lies for the most part in meditating upon it. Why is it that some Christians, although they hear many sermons, make but slow advances in the divine life? Because they neglect their closets, and do not thoughtfully meditate on God’s Word. They love the wheat, but they do not grind it; they would have the corn, but they will not go forth into the fields to gather it; the fruit hangs upon the tree, but they will not pluck it; the water flows at their feet, but they will not stoop to drink it. From such folly deliver us, O Lord, and be this our resolve this Morning, “I will meditate in thy precepts.”
Evening - October 12
“The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost.” --- John 14:26.
This age is peculiarly the dispensation of the Holy Spirit, in which Jesus cheers us, not by his personal presence, as he shall do by-and-by, but by the indwelling and constant abiding of the Holy Ghost, who is evermore the Comforter of the church. It is his office to console the hearts of God’s people. He convinces of sin; he illuminates and instructs; but still the main part of his work lies in making glad the hearts of the renewed, in confirming the weak, and lifting up all those that be bowed down. He does this by revealing Jesus to them. The Holy Spirit consoles, but Christ is the consolation. If we may use the figure, the Holy Spirit is the Physician, but Jesus is the medicine. He heals the wound, but it is by applying the holy ointment of Christ’s name and grace. He takes not of his own things, but of the things of Christ. So if we give to the Holy Spirit the Greek name of Paraclete, as we sometimes do, then our heart confers on our blessed Lord Jesus the title of Paraclesis. If the one be the Comforter, the other is the Comfort. Now, with such rich provision for his need, why should the Christian be sad and desponding? The Holy Spirit has graciously engaged to be thy Comforter: dost thou imagine, O thou weak and trembling believer, that he will be negligent of his sacred trust? Canst thou suppose that he has undertaken what he cannot or will not perform? If it be his especial work to strengthen thee, and to comfort thee, dost thou suppose he has forgotten his business, or that he will fail in the loving office which he sustains towards thee? Nay, think not so hardly of the tender and blessed Spirit whose name is “the Comforter.” He delights to give the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. Trust thou in him, and he will surely comfort thee till the house of mourning is closed for ever, and the marriage feast has begun.
October 12
LEAD ON, O KING ETERNAL
Ernest W. Shurtleff, 1862–1917
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for His appearing. (2 Timothy 4:7, 8)
One of the thrilling experiences in life is to watch a loved one or friend walk across a stage in cap and gown and receive that long awaited diploma. Today’s hymn was written for just such an event.
Ernest Shurtleff, author of this text, was about to graduate from Andover Seminary in 1887. His classmates at the seminary, recognizing the poetic ability of their colleague, shortly before graduation one day approached Shurtleff with this request:
“Ernest, why don’t you write our class poem. After all, you have already published two volumes of poetry—What’s the use of having a distinguished author in the class if he cannot rise to the occasion and do his class the honor of writing a good poem just for them?”
“Let’s make it a hymn that we can all sing,” replied Shurtleff, “We’ve been spending days of preparation here at seminary. Now the day of march has come and we must go out to follow the leadership of the King of kings, to conquer the world under His banner.”
Although the metaphors and expressions in this hymn were intended to challenge the graduating class of 1887 at Andover Seminary, the truths of this text can be applied to our lives today. This is not the time for any of us to slacken our efforts in the service of our Lord. The crown awaits the conquest— “Lead on, O God of Might!”
Lead on, O King Eternal, the day of march has come! Henceforth in fields of conquest Thy tents shall be our home. Thru days of preparation Thy grace has made us strong, and now, O King Eternal, we lift our battle song.
Lead on, O King Eternal, till sin’s fierce war shall cease; and holiness shall whisper the sweet Amen of peace; for not with swords loud clashing nor roll of stirring drums, with deeds of love and mercy the heav’nly kingdom comes.
Lead on, O King Eternal, we follow, not with fears; for gladness breaks like Morning where’er Thy face appears. Thy cross is lifted o’er us; we journey in its light: The crown awaits the conquest—lead on, O God of might.
For Today: Psalm 25:4, 9, 10; Isaiah 48:17; 1 Corinthians 16:13; Philippians 1:27–30
Ask God to lead you to greater spiritual conquests than you have yet known and to enable you to win the victory “with deeds of love and mercy.” Carry these musical truths with you ---
Max Lucado
Excerpt from No Wonder They Call Him the Savior/Six Hours One Friday/And the ANgels Were Silent
Hell was not prepared for people. Hell “was prepared for the devil and his angels.” (Matthew 25:41) For a person to go to hell, then, is for a person to go against God’s intended destiny. “God has not destined us to the terrors of judgment, but to the full attainment of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Thessalonians 5:9)
Hell is man’s choice, not God’s choice.
Consider, then, this explanation of hell: Hell is the chosen place of the person who loves self more than God, who loves sin more than his Savior, who loves this world more than God’s world. Judgment is that moment when God looks at the rebellious and says, “Your choice will be honored.”
To reject the dualistic outcome of history and say there is no hell leaves gaping holes in any banner of a just God. To say there is no hell is to say God condones the rebellious, unrepentant heart. To say there is no hell is to portray God with eyes blind to the hunger and evil in the world. To say there is no hell is to say that God doesn’t care that people are beaten and massacred, that he doesn’t care that women are raped or families wrecked. To say there is no hell is to say God has no justice, no sense of right and wrong, and eventually to say God has no love. For true love hates what is evil.
Hell is the ultimate expression of a just Creator.
The parables of the wise and loyal servant, the wise and foolish bridesmaids, and loyal and wicked servants, all point to the same conclusion: “Everyone must die once and be judged.” (Hebrews 9:27) Eternity is to be taken seriously. A judgment is coming.
Our task on earth is singular—to choose our eternal home. You can afford many wrong choices in life. You can choose the wrong career and survive, the wrong city and survive, the wrong house and survive. You can even choose the wrong mate and survive. But there is one choice that must be made correctly and that is your eternal destiny.
1 Thessalonians 5:9 For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,
Hebrews 9:27 And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,
Ezekiel 33:11 Say to them, As I live, declares the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel? ESV
No Wonder They Call Him the Savior/Six Hours One Friday/And the ANgels Were Silent
Stephen Charnock
In particular, this attribute is injured, by invading the peculiar rights of it, by presuming on it, and by a practical denial of it. First, By
invading the peculiar rights of it. 1. By invocation of creatures. Praying to saints, by the Romanists, is a disparagement to this divine
excellency; he that knows all things, is only fit to have the petitions of men presented to him; prayer supposeth an omniscient Being,
as the object of it; no other being but God ought to have that honor acknowledged to it; no understanding but his is infinite; no other
presence but his is everywhere; to implore any deceased creature for a supply of our wants, is to own in them a property of the Deity,
and make them deities that were but men, and increase their glory by a diminution of God’s honor, in ascribing that perfection to
creatures which belongs only to God. Alas! they are so far from understanding the desires of our souls, that they know not the words
of our lips: it is against reason to address our supplications to them that neither understand us nor discern us (Isa. 63:16), “Abraham is
ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledges us not” The Jews never called upon Abraham, though the covenant was made with him for
the whole seed; not one departed saint for the whole four thousand years, between the creation of the world, and the coming of Christ,
was ever prayed to by the Israelites, or ever imagined to have a share in God’s omniscience: so that to pray to St. Peter, St. Paul, much
less to St. Roch, St Swithin, St. Martin, St. Francis, &c. is such a superstition, that hath no footing in the Scripture. To desire the
prayers of the living, with whom we have a communion, who can understand and grant our desires, is founded upon a mutual
charity; but to implore persons that are absent, at a great distance from us, with whom we have not, nor know how to have, any
commerce, supposeth them, in their departure, to have put off humanity, and commenced gods, and endued with some part of the
Divinity to understand our petitions; we are, indeed, to cherish their memories, consider their examples, imitate their graces, and
observe their doctrines; we are to follow them as saints, but not elevate them as gods, in ascribing to them such a knowledge, which is
the only necessary right of their and our common Creator. As the invocation of saints mingles them with Christ, in the exercise of his
office, so it sets them equal with God in the throne of his omniscience, as if they had as much credit with God as Christ, by way of
mediation, and as much knowledge of men’s affairs as God himself. Omniscience is peculiar to God, and incommunicable to any
creature; it is the foundation of all religion, and therefore one of the choicest acts of it; viz. prayer and invocation. To direct our vows
and petitions to any one else, is to invade the peculiarity of this perfection in God, and to rank some creatures in a partnership with him in it.
2. This attribute is injured by curiosity of knowledge; especially of future things, which God hath not discovered in natural causes,
or supernatural revelation. It is a common error of men’s spirits to aspire to know what God would have hidden, and to pry into
Divine secrets; and many men are more willing to remain without the knowledge of those things which may, with a little industry, be
attained, than be divested of the curiosity of inquiring into those things which are above their reach; it is hence that some have laid
aside the study of the common remedies of nature to find out the philosopher’s stone, which scarce any ever yet attempted but sunk in
the enterprise. From this inclination to know the most abstruse and difficult things, it is that the horrors of magic and vanities of
astrology have sprung, whereby men have thought to find, in a commerce with devils and the jurisdiction of the stars, the events of
their lives, and the disposal of states and kingdoms. Hence, also, arose those multitudes of ways of divination, invented among the
heathen, and practised too commonly in these ages of the world. This is an invasion of God’s prerogative, to whom secret things
belong (Deut. 29:29); “Secret things belong unto the Lord our God, but revealed things belong to us and our children.” It is an
intolerable boldness to attempt to fathom those, the knowledge whereof God hath reserved to himself, and to search that which God
will have to surpass our understandings, whereby we more truly envy God a knowledge superior to our own, than we, in Adam,
imagined that he envied us. Ambition is the greatest cause of this; ambition to be accounted some great thing among men, by reason
of a knowledge estranged from the common mass of mankind, but more especially that soaring pride to be equal with God, which
lurks in our nature ever since the fall of our first parents: this is not yet laid aside by men, though it was the first thing that embroiled
the world with the wrath of God. Some think a curiosity of knowledge was the cause of the fall of devils; I am sure it was the fall of
Adam, and is yet the crime of his posterity; had he been contented to know what God had furnished him with, neither he nor his
posterity had smarted under the venom of the serpent’s breath. All curious and bold inquiries into things not revealed are an attempt
upon the throne of God, and are both sinful and pernicious, like to glaring upon the sun, where, instead of a greater acuteness, we
meet with blindness, and too dearly buy our ignorance in attempting a superfluous knowledge. As God’s knowledge is destined to the
government of the world, so should ours be to the advantage of the world, and not degenerate into vain speculations.
3. This attribute is injured by swearing by creatures. To swear by the name of God, in a righteous cause, when we are lawfully
called to it by a superior power, or for the necessary decision of some controversy, for the ends of charity and justice, is an act of
religion, and a part of worship, founded upon, and directed to, the honor of this attribute; by it we acknowledge the glory of his
infallible knowledge of all things; but to swear by false gods, or by any creature, is blasphemous; it sets the creature in the place of
God, and invests it in that which is the peculiar honor of the Divinity; for when any swear truly, they intend the invocation of an
infallible Witness, and the bringing an undoubted testimony for what they do assert: while, any, therefore, swear by a creature, or a
false god, they profess that that creature, or that which they esteem to be a god is an infallible witness, which to be is only the right of
God; they attribute to the creature that which is the property of God alone, to know the heart, and to be a witness whether they speak
true or no: and this was accounted, by all nations, the true design of an oath. As to swear falsely is a plain denial of the all-knowledge
of God, so to swear by any creature is to set the creature upon the throne of God, in ascribing that perfection to the creature which
sovereignly belongs to the Creator; for it is not in the power of any to witness to the truth of the heart, but of him that is the searcher
of hearts.
4. We sin against this attribute by censuring the hearts of others. An open crime, indeed, falls under our cognizance, and therefore
under our judgment; for whatsoever falls under the authority of man to be punished, falls under the judgment of man to be censured,
as an act contrary to the law of God; yet, when a censure is built upon the evil of the act which is obvious to the view, if we take a step
farther to judge the heart and state, we leave the revealed rule of the law, and ambitiously erect a tribunal equal with God’s, and usurp
a judicial power, pertaining only to the Supreme Governor of the world, and consequently pretend to be possessed of the perfection of
omniscience, which is necessary to render him capable of the exercise of that sovereign authority: for it is in respect of his dominion
that God hath the supreme right to judge; and in respect of his knowledge that he hath an incommunicable capacity to judge. In an
action that is doubtful, the good or evil whereof depends only upon God’s determination, and wherein much of the judgment depends
upon the discerning the intention of the agent, we cannot judge any man without a manifest invasion of God’s peculiar right such
actions are to be tried by God’s knowledge, not by our surmises; God only is the master in such cases, to whom a person stands or falls
(Rom. 14:4). ’Till the true principle and ends of an action be known by the confession of the party acting it, a true judgment of it is not
in our power. Principles and ends lie deep and hid from us; and it is intolerable pride to pretend to have a joint key with God to open
that cabinet which he hath reserved to himself: Besides the violation of the rule of charity in misconstruing actions which may be
great and generous in their root and principle, we invade God’s right, as if our ungrounded imaginations and conjectures were in joint
commission with this sovereign perfection; and thereby we become usurping judges of evil thoughts (James 2:4). It is, therefore, a
boldness worthy to be punished by the judge, to assume to ourselves the capacity and authority of him who is the only Judge: for as
the execution of the Divine law, for the inward violation of it, belongs only to God, so is the right of judging a prerogative belonging
only to his omniscience; his right is, therefore, invaded, if we pretend to a knowledge of it. This humor of men the apostle checks,
when he saifh (1 Cor. 4:5), “He that judgeth me is the Lord; therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who will
manifest the counsels of all hearts.” It is not the time yet for God to erect the tribunal for the trial of men’s hearts, and the principles of
their actions; he hath reserved the glorious discovery of this attribute for another season: we must not, therefore, presume to judge of
the counsels of men’s hearts till God hath revealed them by opening the treasures of his own knowledge; much less are we to judge
any man’s final condition. Manasseh may sacrifice to devils, and unconverted Paul tear the church in pieces; but God had mercy on
them, and called them. The actions may be censured, not the state, for we know not whom God may call. In censuring men, we may
doubly imitate the devil, in a false accusation of the brethren, as well as in an ambitious usurpation of the rights of God.
Secondly, This perfection is injured by presuming upon it, or making an ill use of it. As in the neglect of prayer for the supply of men’s
wants, because God knows them already, so that that which is an encouragement to prayer, they make the reason of restraining it
before God. Prayer is not to administer knowledge to God, but to acknowledge this admirable perfection of the Divine nature. If God
did not know, there were indeed no use of prayer; it would be as vain a thing to send up our prayers to heaven, as to implore the
senseless statue, or picture of a prince, for a protection. We pray because God knows: for though he knows our wants with a
knowledge of vision, yet he will not know them with a knowledge of supply, till he be sought unto (Matt. 6:32, 33; 7:11.) All the
excellencies of God are ground of adoration; and this excellency is the ground of that part of worship we call prayer. If God be to be
worshipped, he is to be called upon: invocations of his name in our necessities is a chief act of worship; whence the temple, the place
of solemn worship, was not called the house of sacrifice, but the house of prayer. Prayer was not appointed for God’s information, as if
he were ignorant, but for the expression of our desires; not to furnish him with a knowledge of what we want, but to manifest to him,
by some rational sign convenient to our nature, our sense of that want, which he knows by himself. So that prayer is not designed to
acquaint God with our wants, but to express the desire of a remedy of our wants. God knows our wants, but hath not made promises
barely to our wants, but to our asking, that his omniscience in hearing, as well as his sufficiency in supplying, many have a sensible
honor in our acknowledgments and receipts. It is therefore an ill use of this excellency of God to neglect prayer to him as needless,
because he knows already.
Thirdly. This perfection of God is wronged by a practical denial of it. It is the language of every sin, and so God takes it when he
comes to reckon with men for their impieties. Upon this he charges the greatness of the iniquity of Israel, the overflowing of blood in
the land, and the perverseness of the city: “They say, the Lord hath forsaken the earth, and the Lord sees not” (Ezek. 9:9): they deny
his ayes to see, and his resolution to punish.
1. It will appear, in forbearing sin from a sense of man’s knowledge, not of God’s. Open impieties are refrained because of the eye of
man, but secret sins are not checked because of the eye of God. Wickedness is committed in darkness, that is restrained in light, as if
darkness were as great a clog to God’s eyes as it is to ours; as though his eyes were muffled with the curtains of the night (Job 22:14.)
This, it is likely, was at the root of Jonah’s flight; he might have some secret thought that his Master’s eye could not follow him, as
though the close hatches of a ship could secure him from the knowledge of God, as well as the sides of a ship could from the dashing
of the waves. What lies most upon the conscience when it is graciously wounded, is least regarded or contemned when it is basely
inclined. David’s heart smote him not only for his sin in the gross, but as particularly cirumstantiated by the commission of it in the
sight of God (Psalm 1:4): “Against thee, thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight.” None knew the reason of Uriah’s
death but myself, and because others knew it not, I neglected any regard to this Divine eye. When Jacob’s sons used their brother
Joseph so barbarously, they took care to hide it from their father, but cast away all thoughts of God, from whom it could not be
concealed. Doth not the presence of a child bridle a man from the act of a longed-for sin, when the eye of God is of no force to restrain
him, as if God’s knowledge were of less value than the sight of a little boy or girl, as if a child only, could see, and God were blind? He
that will forbear an unworthy action for fear of an informer, will not forbear it for God; as if God’s omniscience were not as full an
intelligencer to him, as man can be an informer to a magistrate. As we acknowledge the power of men seeing us when we are
ashamed to commit a filthy action in their view, so we discover the power of God seeing us, when we regard not what we do before
the light of his eyes. Secret sins are more against God than open: open sins are against the law; secret sins are against the law, and this
prime perfection of his nature. The majesty of God is not only violated, but the omniscience of God disowned, who is the only witness;
we must, in all of them, either imagine him to be without eyes to behold us, or without an arm of justice to punish us. And often it is,
I believe, in such cases, that if any thoughts of God’s knowledge strike upon men, they quickly damp them, lest they should begin to
know what they fear, and fear that they might not eat their pleasant sinful morsels.
2. It appears in partial confessions of sin before God. As by a free, full, and ingenious confession, we offer a due glory to this
attribute, so by a feigned and curtailed confession, we deny him the honor of it: for, though by any confession we in part own him to
be a Sovereign and Judge, yet by a half and pared acknowledgment, we own him to be no more than a humane and ignorant one.
Achan’s full confession gave God the glory of his omniscience, manifested in the discovery of his secret crime. “And Joshua said unto
Achan, My son, give, I pray thee, glory to the Lord God of Israel, and take confession unto him” (Joshua 7:19.) And so (Psalm
50:23) “Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me,” or confession, as the word signifieth, in which sense I would rather take it, referring to
this attribute, which God seems to tax sinners with the denial of (ver. 21), telling them that he would open the records of their sins
before them, and indict them particularly for every one. If, therefore, you would glorify this attribute, which shall one day break open
your consciences, offer to me a sincere confession. When David speaks of the happiness of a pardoned man, he adds, “in whose spirit
there is no guile,” not meaning a sincerity in general, but an ingenuity in confessing. To excuse, or extenuate sin, is to deny God the
knowledge of the depths of our deceitful hearts: when we will mince it rather than aggravate it; lay it upon the inducements of others,
when it was the free act of our own wills, study shifts to deceive our Judge; this is to speak lies of him, as the expression is (Hos. 7:13),
as though he were a God easy to be cheated, and knew no more than we were willing to declare. What did Saul’s transferring his sin
from himself to the people (1 Sam. 14:15), but charge God with a defect in this attribute? When man could not be like God, in his
knowledge, he would fancy a God like to him in his ignorance, and imagine a possibility of hiding himself from his knowledge. And all
men tread, more or less, in their father’s steps, and are fruitful to devise distinctions to disguise errors in doctrine, and excuses to
palliate errors in practice: this crime Job removes from himself, when he speaks of several acts of his sincerity (Job 31:33): “If I
covered my transgressions as Adam, by hiding my iniquity in my bosom:” I hid not any of my sins in my own conscience, but
acknowledged God a witness to them, and gave him the glory of his knowledge by a free confession. I did not conceal it from God as
Adam did, or as men ordinarily do; as if God could understand no more of their secret crimes than they will let him, and had no more
sense of their faults than they would furnish him with. As the first rise of confession is the owning of this attribute (for the justice of
God would not scare men, nor the holiness of God awe them, without a sense of his knowledge of their iniquities), so to drop out some
fragments of confession, discover some sins, and conceal others, is a plain denial of the extensiveness of the Divine knowledge.
3. It is discovered by putting God off with an outside worship. Men are often flatterers of God, and think to bend him by formal
glavering devotions, without the concurrence of their hearts; as though he could not pierce into the darkness of the mind, but did as
little know us as one man knows another. There are such things as feigned lips (Psalm 17:1), a contradiction between the heart and
the tongue, a clamor in the voice, and scoffing in the soul; a crying out to God, thou art my Father, the guide of my youth, and yet
speaking and doing evil to the utmost of our power (Jer. 3:4, 5). As if God could be imposed upon by fawning pretences; and like old
Isaac, take Jacob for Esau, and be cozened by the smell of his garments: as if he could not discern the negro heart under an angel’s
garb. Thus Ephraim, the ten tribes, apostatized from the true religion, would go with their flocks and their herds to seek the Lord (Hos. 5:6), would sacrifice multitudes of sheep and heifers, which was the main outside of the Jewish religion; only with their flocks and
their herds, not with their hearts, with those inward qualifications of deep humiliation and repentance for sin; as though outside
appearances limited God’s observation, whereas God had told them before (ver. 3), that he “knew Ephraim, and Israel was not hid
from him.” Thus to do is to put a cheat upon God, and think to blind his all-seeing eye, and therefore it is called deceit (Psalm 78:36).
They did flatter him with their mouths. The word התּפ signifies to deceive, as well as to flatter; not that they or any else, can deceive
God, but it implies an endeavor to deceive him, by a few dissembling words and gestures, or an imagination that God was satisfied
with bare professions, and would not concern himself in a further inquisition. This is an unworthy conceit of God, to fancy that we
can satisfy for inward sins, and avert approaching judgments, by external offerings, by a loud voice with a false heart, as if God (like
children) would be pleased with the glittering of an empty shell, or the rattling of stones, the chinkling of money, a mere voice and
crying, without inward frames and intentions of service.
4. In cherishing multitudes of evil thoughts. No man but would blush for shame, if the base, impure, slovenly thoughts, either in or
out of duties of worship, were visible to the understanding of man; how diligent would he be to curb his luxuriant and unworthy
fancies, as well as bite in his words! but when we give the reins to the motions of our hearts, and suffer them to run at random
without a curb, it is an evidence we are not concerned for their falling under the notice of the eye of God; and it argues a very weak
belief of this perfection, or scarce any belief at all. Who can think any man’s heart, possessed with a sense of this infinite excellency,
that suffers his mind, in his meditations on God, to wander into every sty, and be picking up stones upon a dunghill? What doth it
intimate, but that those thoughts are as invisible, or unaudible to God, as they are to men without the garments of words? When a
man thinks of obscene things, his own natural notions, if revived, would tell him that God discerns what he thinks, that the depths of
his heart are open to him: and the voice of those notions are — deface those vain imaginations out of your minds. But what is done?
Men cast away rational light, muster up conceits that God sees them not, knows them not, and so sink into the puddle of their sordid
imaginations, as though they remained in darkness to God. I might further instance. In omissions of prayer, which arise sometimes
from a flat atheism: who will call upon a God, that believes no such Being? or from partial atheism, either a denial of God’s
sufficiency to help, or of his omniscience to know, as if God were like the statue of Jupiter in Crete, framed without ears. In the
hypocritical pretences of men, to exempt them from the service God calls them to. When men pretend one thing and intend another:
this lurks in the veins sometimes of the best men; sometimes it ariseth from the fear of man; when men are more afraid of the power
of man, than of dissembling with the Almighty, it will pretend a virtue to cover a secret wile, and choose the tongue of the crafty as
the expression in Job (ch. 15:5). The case is plain in Moses, who, when ordered to undertake an eminent service, pretends a want of eloquence, and an ungrateful “slowness of speech” (Exod. 4:10).
The Existence and Attributes of God
Jon Courson
Matthew 24:32-35
The Final Generation
Jon Courson
click here
01-21-1990
Matthew 24:1-21
Jon Courson
click here
01-24-1990
Matthew 24:3-13
Enduring Through Tribulation
Jon Courson
click here
01-28-1990
Matthew 24:15-36
Jon Courson
click here
02-07-1990
Matthew 24:42-51
Being Watchful . . . Wise . . . Warned
Jon Courson
click here
02-11-1990
Matthew 24-25
Jon Courson
click here
02-14-1990
Matthew 23-24
Being Watchful . . . Wise . . . Warned
Jon Courson
click here
12-16-09
Matthew 25
Jon Courson
click here
12-30-09
Matthew 24:32-34
Last Man Standing
Jon Courson
click here
05-06-09
Matthew 25:1-13
The Parable Of The Virgins
Jon Courson
click here
02-04-2009
Matthew 24
Prophecy Update
Jon Courson
click here
Dec 31, 2001
Skip Heitzig
Matthew 24
The Problem Of Christ's Return
Calvary Chapel NM
February 20, 2023
Matthew 24:1-30
Calvary Chapel NM
Matthew 24:31-25:46
Calvary Chapel NM
Skip Heitzig | Calvary Chapel NM
Paul LeBoutillier
Matthew 24:1-22
Jesus Predicts the
Destruction of the Temple
Paul LeBoutillier
Matthew 24:2
The Olivet Discourse
End Times Prophecies
My People Have Forgotten Me
Paul LeBoutillier
Matthew 25:1-30
Olivet Parables
Paul LeBoutillier
Matthew 25:31-26:1-16
The Sheep and the Goats
Paul LeBoutillier
Paul LeBoutillier | Calvary Chapel Ontario, Oregon
Gary Hamrick
Matthew 24
Signs of the Times
Gary Hamrick
Matthew 24:45-51
Get Ready ‘cause Here I Come
Gary Hamrick
Matthew 25:14-30
Get Ready ‘cause Here I Come 2
Gary Hamrick
Matthew 25:14-30
Get Ready ‘cause Here I Come 3
Gary Hamrick
Gary Hamrick | Cornerstone Chapel
Brett Meador | Athey Creek
Matthew 24:1-3
Introduction To The Olivet Discourse
s2-422
01-29-2023
Matthew 24:1-14
m2-432
02-01-2023
Matthew 24:44
Olivet Discourse: Eschatology
s2-423
02-05-2023
Matthew 24:15-31
m2-433
02-08-2023
Matthew 24:44
Olivet Discourse; Days Of Noah
s2-424
02-12-2023
Matthew 24:32-51
m2-434
02-15-2023
Matthew 25
Parable of the Talents
s2-425
02-19-2023
Matthew 25
m2-435
02-22-2023
Brett Meador | Athey Creek
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