Month: September 2024

For the LORD Most High is awesome;
He is a great King over all the earth.
Psalm 47:2

Scary! That’s what it felt like to grow up in the early 1960s. The Cold War was at its height; the media focused on nuclear annihilation, and Communism seemed to be an unstoppable force. Cuba exported revolution to every country in South America, and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev vowed to take over the world.

That, of course, never happened. Sometime in the early 1990s, the Soviet Union quietly dried up and blew away. Today, there are whispers about the Illuminati clandestinely taking over the planet, and radical Islam would also like to take a stab at world domination. Just like emperors and despots of the past, there is no end of candidates who want to attain the status of king over all the Earth.

The book of Revelation does foresee that this New World Order is coming, but it won’t be the utopia that many people are hoping for. A terrible and cruel world leader that the Bible labels as “the Beast” will control the wealth and souls of the planet and witness the death of three-fourths of the human population in a seven-year period.

All opposition to the Beast will be crushed and world religions extinguished, because the Antichrist will become king over all the earth. The good news to this is that the downfall of this evil world leader is just as sure as his ascension to power. When all human resistance is gone, and hopelessness grows to record proportions, the Lord of Hosts will descend from heaven with a huge army of warrior angels to defeat forever the Beast.

The real New World Order will begin. King Jesus will reign in Jerusalem and all creation will acknowledge Him as King over All the Earth.

 February 20 

“Behold, the days are coming,” says the LORD, ”
That I will raise to David a Branch of righteousness;
A King shall reign and prosper, And execute
judgment and righteousness in the earth.”
Jeremiah 23:5

Branches are supposed to produce fruit, but crabapples are a big disappointment for someone longing for a Red Delicious. However, horticulture has solved this problem with various grafting techniques. Hearty crabapple root stock is used to support various branches from commercial apple varieties that by themselves don’t flourish well in certain environments. The top and bottom of the tree have different DNA, but the quality of fruit is what people care about.

David was a man after God’s own heart who did His will (1 Samuel 13:14), so God promised that the Messiah would come through him. Yet, most of the descendants that came from the “root of David” missed the mark concerning holiness. Even David, who wrote beautiful psalms of praise to God, turned out to be a murderer, deceiver, and adulterer.

The anointed of the Lord had to be not only a descendant of David but also a Branch of Righteousness that would bring back holiness to the Davidic dynasty. Since Mary, the mother of Christ, was of David’s bloodline, connection with the root was established. Being conceived of the Holy Spirit without a human father, the Righteous branch was grafted into the character of the Savior. All the promises given both to the Jewish people and to the Christian church have certainly been fulfilled. The Lord Jesus is not only David’s kin; He is God’s Branch of Righteousness.

 February 19 

 

When Jesus heard it, He said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”
Mark 2:17*

Cancer, heart disease, and aging are as much a part of the human condition as are sin, suffering, and self-destruction. That certainly wasn’t God’s original plan for creation, but sin and sickness escalated through the years, causing the misery index to soar. Life expectancy dropped from over 900 years before the flood to somewhere between 30-40 years during the first century. It is no wonder that when the Sun of Righteousness finally arose over planet Earth that He had “healing in His wings” (Malachi 4:2). The Lord Jesus was moved with compassion and healed multitudes.

Christ was able to do things that modern medicine can’t come close to achieving. Lepers were instantly healed with a touch, and high fever disappeared at His command. Muscles that had wasted away through atrophy in the body of paralytics were immediately restored. Even the dead came back to life. Such healings were proof that Christ was the Son of God and had power over the consequences of sin.

Although not officially in scripture, for centuries, His people have referred to Him as the “Great Physician.” The Lord still heals through answered prayer, and it’s always exciting to see the modern medical profession hard-pressed to give an answer for an unexplained recovery of a terminal patient.

However, this sin-cursed world continues to be in rebellion against its Creator and previously unknown diseases seem to appear every year. Sickness and death are the direct result of the human sin nature, and the main objective of Christ is (and has always been) to bring sinners to repentance. His death on the cross enables each believer to have eternal life and dwell forever with Him, free from disease and disability. He is both the Christian’s Savior and Physician.

*also see Matthew 9:12; Luke 4:23, 5:31-32

 February 18 

For such a High Priest was fitting for us, who
is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners,
and has become higher than the heavens;
Hebrews 7:26

Astronomy as a science has greatly developed since the time the New Testament was written. Back then, nothing was known about galaxies, quasars, or black holes, so everything was based on what could be seen with the unaided eye.

First-century conventional wisdom divided all that is celestial into three levels. The first heaven included everything within the earth’s atmosphere. Clouds, mountain tops, and the realm of birds all fell within this level.

Beyond that was the second heaven. This included the sun, moon, and stars. Technically, it would have been the visible stars of the night sky, but the category would also include everything else that could be seen with a telescope.

Above the known universe, one could encounter the third heaven, which is the throne of God (2 Corinthians 12:2). Both the Apostles John and Paul were elevated to that level, either in a vision or teleportation (they weren’t really sure how they got there). In any case, they were overwhelmed by the reality of its existence.

The Lord Jesus Christ is Higher than the Heavens. The position of Christ is exalted, elevated, and superior to everything else in both the known and unknown universes, in outer space, and even the throne of God.

It’s hard, if not impossible, to go past the limits of human knowledge and imagination, yet that’s where believers are called to spend eternity. They – and we – will enter the third heaven and gaze upward at the Savior who is Higher than the Heavens.

 February 17 

Then fear came upon all, and they glorified God, saying, “A great
prophet has risen up among us”; and, “God has visited His people.”
Luke 7:16

When Jesus and His disciples came to the town of Nain, a funeral procession passed by. The dead man was the only son of a poor widow and the Lord had compassion on her. He touched the open coffin and said, “Young man, I say to you, arise” (Luke 7:12-14). Christ then presented him alive and well to his mother.

Impressive? I should say so. A miracle of this magnitude hadn’t occurred in Israel for almost 900 years, going back to the time that Elisha raised another young man from the dead. The crowd concluded that Jesus of Nazareth was no ordinary rabbi; He was a great prophet.

Clearly Christ was a prophet, because He said the boy would come back to life and it happened exactly as He said it would. The greatness of the miracle put him up with two of the greatest prophets of Israel, but the Savior was much more than that.

Old Testament prophets saw visions of things in the future that they neither recognized nor understood. Often, short-term prophecies were superimposed on other similar prophecies that would be hundreds of years in the future. It’s common to find descriptions of Christ’s first and second comings in the same passage. Chronological order seems to be lacking with most of the major prophets, so seeing things in light of the New Testament sorts out the context and makes it understandable.

The Lord Jesus’ prophecies are not like that. He who knows the beginning from the end has given clear and understandable explanations of heaven and hell that were incomplete in Old Testament scripture. Christ’s predictions of the end times are unmistakably fulfilling themselves in the present. The last book of the Bible calls itself the Revelation of Jesus Christ. Although symbols and types are used as in all prophecy, there is a clarity and order of progression unlike anything in the Old Testament.

Elijah, Isaiah, and Jeremiah were excellent men of God, but only Christ Jesus was the really Great Prophet.

 February 16 

Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the commandment of God our Savior and the Lord Jesus Christ, our hope.
1 Timothy 1:1

Words, like automobiles, seem to wear out and lose their value over time. The modern definition of “hope” is very different from what it used to mean when the Bible was being written. Today, the term conveys wishful thinking, the desire for a certain thing to happen or wanting circumstances to change. One could say “I hope I win the lottery” or “Let’s hope that no one is hurt in the tornado.” People today hope for things that have no guarantee and usually the odds are greatly against getting what is hoped for.

Biblical hope is practically the opposite of contemporary hope, because it’s a sure thing. It is a feeling of trust based on the promises of God and is the object of long term faith. True hope is extreme confidence that everything God said will happen, will happen. This hope allows a Christian to remain strong in his faith, even though some promises are not fulfilled in his lifetime.

“Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance” (Romans 8:23-25).

Jesus Christ is Our Hope and all His promises are good as gold. Salvation from the power of sin and immediate self-destruction begins now, but much of what we have to look forward to is future (i.e. home in heaven, glorified body, beholding the glory of God, etc.). Jesus said that there will be trials and persecutions and they certainly have come and they give credence that the rest of His promises will also be fulfilled. If Christ came to this world to die in our place, all the other promises are not that hard for Him to perform (Romans 8:32), so the Lord becomes  Our Hope of glory (Colossians 1:27). 

November 28

The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer…
Psalm 18:2*

Cowboys, such a big part of my childhood in the 1950’s, have almost disappeared from the American entertainment culture. If I mention such cowboy icons as Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, and Hoppalong Cassidy to a young person today, I just get stares. Back then, television and movies were all family oriented and all the best programs were westerns.

One theme that I’ve seen repeated many times in “cowboy pictures” is the last minute rescue by the army. Story lines would vary slightly, but towards the end of the episode, the hero with a small band of companions would be surrounded and outnumbered 100 to 1 by a tribe of renegade Indians. When things were hopeless and the movie star had only two bullets in his gun, you’d hear a bugle call and hundreds of blue-shirted soldiers would ride over the hill on their horses to save the day. That led to the expression “Here comes the cavalry!” which was commonly used to apply to any unexpected solution to a difficult problem.

King David was a warrior and he could defend himself well from the top of a mighty rock or a strong fortress, but he also knew that sometimes the battle became so overwhelming that the only thing that could help was reinforcements. God was not only David’s strength and shield, He was his Deliverer.

Life gets rough and often nothing seems to go right. Smart people have insurance policies for those hard times. However, experienced people also know that sometimes even the best contingency plans don’t work and things can still continue to fall apart. It’s at those times you feel helpless and say “Lord, please help me out of this mess! –Just one more time!” The only thing that can turn hopelessness around is a Deliverer.

The Apostle Paul was referring to Christ while he was quoting from the Old Testament: “The Deliverer will come out of Zion, And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; For this is My covenant with them, When I take away their sins“ (Romans 11:26-27). When troubles look their darkest, we can cry out to God and Jesus will come charging down from heaven to deliver us one more time.

*see also Psalm 40:17, 70:5, 144:2 plus five other verses

November 26

You watched while a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image
on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces.
Daniel 2:34

King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon struck terror in the hearts of his subjects and all those in the neighboring countries around him. His word was law and his laws weren’t always rational. One night the king had a disturbing dream, but by morning he couldn’t remember a thing, so he called all his wise men and magicians. “You guys are supposed to be smart,” Nebu said, “Tell me what my dream was!”

When no one in the national think tank could do what the king commanded, he went into a rage and ordered the execution of all his advisers. A young, Jewish captive, named Daniel, had just started interning for the wise men when he found out that he was also scheduled to die. Concerned about his future, Daniel asked God to fill him in on the dream, so that night, the Lord gave him the same vision He had given to the king.

Daniel then related to Nebuchadnezzar what he saw in his dream. There was a huge statue made with parts of gold, silver, bronze, iron, and clay, but an even greater stone cut out without hands fell from heaven and ground down the awesome image into powder.

The king also heard the interpretation of the dream. Babylon was the golden head of the statue, which meant it was the richest and greatest. Lesser kingdoms would follow one after another and each would have less glory than the one it replaced. The young eunuch then explained the pulverizing stone: “Inasmuch as you saw that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold [—] the great God has made known to the king what will come to pass after this” (Daniel 2:45). All the great empires of the world will come to nothing by the power of God.

Egypt once ruled the world. now it’s a big sand box. Babylon the Great lies desolate and uninhabited in the desert. Greece is bankrupt, Rome is a tourist trap, and the Soviet Union has ceased to exist. Even the greatness and power of the United Sates is waning in the shadow of the Stone cut Out Without Hands, the Lord Jesus Christ.

November 15

By so much more Jesus has become a surety of a better covenant.
Hebrews 7:22

“Better” is a key word in understanding the Epistle to the Hebrews. Although the words appear a total of 34 times in ten different New Testament books, it occurs 13 times in 12 verses in Hebrews. Here, Christ is presented as better than the angels and offers us a better hope, better promises, a better sacrifice, and a better resurrection. The Savior is also a Surety of a Better Covenant, whatever that means.

Let’s start with a better known word, covenant. The idea is an agreement or contract. The Old Testament was a pact between God and the descendants of Israel. In the arrangement, God would provide a land for their inheritance, protect them from their enemies, and bless them with prosperity. The Jewish people, for their part, promised to obey God’s law and worship Him at a designated place. However, in the end, they refused to do their part, so the whole agreement broke down.

That’s when Christ came offering a better covenant based on better promises. This new deal was for everyone, not just the Jewish people. It allowed God to unilaterally take care of the sin problem by transforming the sinner into a child of God with changed actions and attitudes. People had to simply believe that Christ conquered sin by dying on the cross. They needed to sign the contract by agreeing with God that what He said was true.

Now comes the part that few people understand. Jesus is the Surety of a Better Covenant. He’s the guarantee that the deal is going to go through. He’s the signing bonus, the proof that everything in the rest of the contract (i.e. eternal life, home in heaven, spiritual blessing, etc.) will be honored. The Savior already died on the cross for mankind’s sin; that was the hard part; all the rest is easy by comparison. “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:32). Christ is faithful and true, because He is the Surety of a Better Covenant.

November 14

The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.
Psalm 118:22*

Builders are professionals who make their living putting houses and other structures together, so they are confident in their abilities and know-how. Once a contractor has built over one hundred homes, an architect’s blueprint can tend to be treated more like a guideline rather than a rigid plan of action. Some new innovation or out of the ordinary design might be overlooked or even rejected outright.

When Christ began His public ministry, the religious establishment of His day was well entrenched. They built the spiritual temple of God in the minds and lives of the Jewish people by using their own tradition and interpretations for mortar. The Lord Jesus challenged the status quo, and those in charge felt threatened. The rabbi from Nazareth was first ignored and then criticized; they debated and than threatened Him. When that didn’t make Him go away, they conspired to murder Him by falsely accusing Him of a capital crime. However, even after His death, He didn’t go away. Christ rose from the grave and became the Stone which the Builders Rejected.

This was certainly part of God’s plan all along to build a new spiritual temple made up of both Jews and Gentiles that are bonded together with the cement of grace and truth. Those religious master builders rejected and cast aside the most important piece of God’s design for the salvation of Adam’s race.

Among my collection of science toys is a set of 25 hardwood blocks that demonstrate the principle of the Roman arch. When properly assembled, it makes a bridge that can hold the weight of a 200 lb. man. There are six different shapes in the model but only one stands out as unique from the rest: the keystone, which is wider on top than the bottom. When the piece is put in its proper place, it becomes an architectural marvel. When taken away, everything falls apart, because it becomes the Stone which the Builders Rejected.

*see also Matthew 21:42; Mark 12:10; Luke 20:17; Acts 4:11; 1 Peter 2:7

November 13