Spring, Passover, Ester, and Easter

The thing that man does most efficiently is argue, not only about everything under the sun, but over it, around it and everything else imaginable. Even concerning the Bible, there’s very little that someone doesn’t misunderstand, misinterpret, and try to cast doubt upon. The same holds true (John 1:14) of opinions regarding Jesus; the “Word (that) became flesh and dwelt among us.”

Time doesn’t permit me to present the evidence defending my statements at this moment, but I’m convinced of the truth in what I’m saying (ref. my “Easter” folder under “Categories” at my Home Page). Since God created the heavens and the earth, and since he is actually God, I’m going to say that he is, therefore, the king of Spring.

He said of the lights that he set in the heavens (Genesis 1:14), “Let them be for signs and for seasons, for days and years.” The witness of nature, along with his words spoken to the prophets, his interventions in history, and the life of his only begotten son, all tell the same story if we’re observant. We should celebrate the coming of Spring for he created it.

The celebration of Passover began with God’s deliverance of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt. They had been enslaved there for around four hundred years. Centuries later, after a period of captivity and slavery under the Persian Empire, their very existence was threatened by the plot of a government official named “Haman.” Countless Jewish lives were saved by the intervention of Queen Ester, the Jewish wife of King Ahasuerus (Xerxes). This deliverance of Ester occurred near the time of the Passover, and is celebrated today as “Purim.”

This very day, there are Jewish people suffering in captivity, and I am praying for God to deliver them as he did in the days of Pharaoh, and from Haman, and from Hitler and others down through history.

Under Roman rule, the failure of Jewish leaders to accept Jesus Christ as the Messiah led to his crucifixion. This event was prophetically depicted in the ancient Passover, and also in the later intervention of Ester for her people. The crucifixion took place close enough to Passover for him to be the Lamb, and there were some hours of mysterious darkness on that Spring day, just before the time of his death. This darkness in some way corresponds to the darkness that fell upon the land of Egypt (Exodus 10:21-23) prior to the institution of the Passover.

We can’t pin the suffering of Jesus on any particular person or people. We are all responsible. We all have reason to repent. Jesus said (Matthew 18:7, Luke 17:1), “It is impossible but that offences will come; but woe unto him, through whom they come.” Our offences all reached to him in Heaven, and they all brought him down to his death on Earth (John 1:29-34). His mission was to die for us.

The argument of mankind over what became of the body of Jesus began the Sunday morning following his crucifixion. The date of the beginning of that argument is a matter of recorded history and actually establishes the fact that the body had disappeared. Jesus was gone, in spite of the fact that Guards had been posted. Reports of the appearance of the resurrected Jesus to his followers began to surface.

Passover and Purim celebrate historical events, just as we in the USA celebrate the Fourth of July. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is also an actual event in history. Easter is vindication of the Bible’s claims about him. It was fulfilment of Old Testament prophecies. It is verification of his identity as the Messiah. Easter Sunday also heralds the coming resurrection and deliverance of those who will believe in him, and especially of his people, the Jews.

Easter is not only the fulfilment of the words of Old Testament prophets, but a prophecy itself of a future event that words cannot describe. How could we ever describe all that is meant by the word “resurrection?” It is celebrated yearly in the occurrence of Spring, the deliverance of the earth from Winter.

Various cultures use different calendar systems in attempting to track the complex movements of Earth within the solar system. The result is some fluctuation of the celebration dates of holidays. God himself has had a hand in the timing of the Spring Equinox, Purim, Passover, and Easter. All of these celebrations center around the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God.

Christmas (Let It Be)

In this world, we can seldom anticipate how much it may hurt us to love someone. Romantic love, love of family, brotherly love for neighbors, and love of God; all of it can sometimes become painful, but it is God himself who convinces our heart that love will be worth it. I think that much of our life is spent wavering between the fear of loving and of not being loved.

Love often moves people to make painful sacrifices for the sake of others. There is no way that Mary, the mother of Jesus, could have fully comprehended how much hurt would befall her for her love of God. She probably would have understood some bit of it. She could have chosen to reject it, but she knew the prophecies of good that the Jewish Messiah, the Earth’s Messiah, would ultimately usher in.

She probably trembled at the prophetic words of an old man named Simeon when he first saw her baby. He said to her, “A sword will pierce through your own soul also, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed” (NKJV Luke 2:25-35). The thoughts of many hearts; everything negative that could be imagined has been spoken against the Child of Christmas, against his words and teaching, against the truth of his death and resurrection.

To experience Herod’s attempt upon her child’s life; to see Jesus ridiculed and opposed by figures in authority, mocked, and cruelly crucified by the powers that be; all of that would indeed “pierce her soul.” But she also saw him after he had risen from the dead. She knew who her son was; that Jesus was Immanuel, God with us. I have written several posts in answer to many of the negative views concerning the Christian celebration of Christmas (see under Catagories, in my “Christmas” folder).

“Let it be.” Those were Mary’s words in reply to the proclamation of the angel, that she would become the mother of the Christ (NKJV Luke 1:26-38). Her complete sentence was, “Let it be to me according to your word.” That is a little harder saying than a simple, “Let it be.” Though translations of the verse vary somewhat, those were her words of wisdom.

Her advice on another occasion (John 2:5) in speaking of Jesus was, “Whatever he says to you, do it.” Those are words of wisdom also. Be careful of whatever someone else says to you, whether in his name, or in the name of whatever. He has said that his sheep will recognize his voice, so search the record of his words. Do some soul searching as you do, and whatever Jesus says to you, let it be. Find the true word of God, and you can trust it. Don’t hesitate to pray in Jesus name for strength in following him.

One of the stories of the origin of the Paul McCartney song, “Let It Be,” is that he had a dream of his mother, whose name was also Mary, repeating those words to him. If that is true, and his mother is said to have been Roman Catholic, then the song may actually be more religious than Paul has wanted to admit. Perhaps the dream may even have been a message to him from God. Other stories of the song’s origin may have been efforts to shift our thoughts away from underlying meanings that the writer may not be totally comfortable with. Love lingers on in memory, and sometimes old grief returns if we drift a little too deep into thought.

The celebration of the Christ’s birth can lead to a rebirth of hope in the promise of God. People who are parted will meet again. The celebration of Christ will one day last forever. I’m not Catholic, but I can begin to understand the angel’s salutation to Mary (KJV Luke 1:28), ” Hail, thou that art highly favored, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.”

Mary was a brave young girl through the love of God, and for the love for her child; the Son of God. In some magnificent way that I can sense but can’t express very well, Jesus completes all of life. He gives a beauty and meaning to life that we never knew existed until we believed in him. Merry Christmas! Let it be!

You and YHWH (Freedom From God)

Man became alienated from God in the garden of Eden, and for the moment God is staying in the background. He lets us deny his existence if that’s what we desire. In our present emotional condition, awareness of God permeating all of space could have an adverse affect upon our sense of freedom. Our true self would not show, or perhaps we would beat ourselves to death fighting the light as does a pitiful moth.

Science is correct in saying that light fills all of space, but that very little of it is actually visible to our eyes (ref. My page “Trinity” from my Home page). That same thing is true of God, so there is a reason why God remains invisible to us. In this environment we can experience a greater sense of freedom, and our freedom is very important to him. It is also important for us, of our own freewill, to come to agree with him that freedom must be governed by personal responsibility. We must learn to care for others.

We each need to understand that in unique and individual ways, we are all our “brother’s keeper.” As individuals, all of us have a much greater awareness of our own self than of any other being. Next in line would be those that we are close to, loved ones and family, friends. Anyone can claim an awareness of God, but a true consciousness would permit God to be his own self, whether we see him visibly or not.

As it is today, if one of us simply tries to exhibit the evidence for God’s existence, that person is often met by ridicule or even violence. We must become aware of the need for accepting God’s influence in our life. That event must eventually embody an acceptance of Jesus. Earth’s reaction to the advent of Jesus into this world is actually its response to God. It would actually be simple for God to subdue the earth, but it is not so easy to change rebellious hearts. Rather than to intimidate us by appearing in his power, he came as one of us. He came as one of you.

You may be at war with God at this stage of your life, but God is fighting for you, not against you. I now want to use the word “we,” because I am one of you. God is for us. If we lose, it will be because we continue hiding from the truth, fearing that it will hurt us, perhaps even kill us. But it is the truth that will set us free, and God is fighting to give us life forever, not to harm us.

Take another look at the world’s rejection and crucifixion of Jesus. Those are the wounds he received in his battle to win our hearts. There is a question in Zechariah 13:6, a prophecy from around 500 years prior to the advent of Jesus; “What are these wounds in your hands?” And the answer is, “These are the wounds I received in the house of my friends.” Though he was fighting for us, we resisted, and it brought about his suffering and death. Our ability to change our mind may seem to grow weaker as time passes, but Jesus can yet free us (John 8:36) , and only he can. Exercise faith in him and keep calling on him as long as it takes.

The serpent’s lie to Adam and Eve was that we could be like gods (Genesis 3:1-5). God wants you to be you, and me to be me, but a paradise cannot exist where every living being is behaving as if it were an autonomous god, fighting over every concept of right and wrong. Even if an Antichrist forced all humanity into agreement, as some tyrants have attempted to do, that wouldn’t make us right, and it wouldn’t make us into God.

…I have said before that I believe the personal Hebrew name for God (YHWH) is the origin of our English word “you.” One Hebrew symbol represents our letters v,w,u, sometimes o, and ou. The Hebrew symbol for “Y” becomes an “I” when transliterated into Greek, and a “J” in modern English. Hence, “YHWH” sometimes appears as “JHVH,” and is written out as Jehovah. The Hebrew “H,” sometimes becomes an “E” in words transliterated into Greek. So “YH” could become “You,” or “Ye.” An “H” at the end of names and such sometimes becomes an “S” when transliterated into Greek, and is also one of those letters that can become silent in English.

As the word “you” is probably derived from “YHWH,” so it is in a fashion that your life also comes from his. As I’m using the word “you,” I’m trying to make a point and not excluding myself; I am one of you. As is the case for each of us, one day you must meet YHWH, and the mystery of both you and YHWH will be solved. God has come into our world as Jesus, and our first reaction to him wasn’t positive, but his mission was to create peace between man and God. We all need forgiven and now is the time to ask of him.

We would probably feel compelled to beg forgiveness upon suddenly coming face to face with God; but would repentance under such circumstances be real? Would that really be our desire and our will? Receiving Jesus here and now, is receiving God (John 14:6,7) of our own freewill. The world is flaunting its freedom from God, reveling in its belief that we are free to remake God in our image. But saying “freedom from God” is like saying “freedom from freedom,” for it cannot exist outside of God.

When we declare our independence from light and proclaim our own concepts of love and truth above that of God, we are enslaving our hearts to darkness. Now you can be you, but you can’t be YHWH; neither can I, but God can be a part of us. He must be if we are to live forever, and that’s a good thing, whether we realize it or not.

The Sacrifice Of Christmas

None of us are perfect, which is why Jesus came to this world to begin with. He also knew that “Christmas” would not make our world perfect overnight. Some ancient prophecies heralded his advent into this world (Isaiah 9:6 and 7:14 KJV), but others foretold his suffering and sacrifice (Isaiah 52:13-53:12). Biblical prophecies of lasting peace on Earth are yet beyond the immediate future (Isaiah 11:6-9).

How long can God let this hurtful world go on? Yet to stop rebellious man by force would be the last resort for God. God doesn’t desire the sacrifice of something else (Hebrews 10:5-10), but rather gives us his own self. Immanuel! What has this world cost God? It isn’t just the suffering and death of the only begotten Son of God; it is Christ’s living, his existence, and all that he has created.

It is also the sum of all the selfless acts of love by our fellow creatures, much of it entirely thankless. It is the work of every caring responsible person, each loving parent, and of every such kindness throughout all generations. God has inspired it, and much of it is done without a second thought. The sum includes all things done to preserve neighborliness, life, truth and goodness. It includes every mercy, every forgiveness, and we tend to think a little more on these things in the season of Christmas.

Never forget that someone who forgives another has often paid a heavy price for loving that person. Jesus said that the greatest commandments are to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves (Luke 10:25-28). Wherever we fall short of this, we then become dependent upon God’s forgiveness and sacrifice. If we cannot love God, then our love for those around us can become little more than a bargaining tool, an “I will love you if…,” rather than an act of giving. The price of sacrificial love may be great, and but for one thing the rewards might seem pitifully small; this kind of love is actually life-giving and makes life worth living.

Jesus is the greatest gift that God could ever have given our world but he is certainly not the most appreciated, not yet anyway. God counted us worth it, and the real value of something is whatever it is worth to the one who desires it. This world isn’t heaven, far, far from it; but here is where the hard work of love must be done. Thank you God. Sorry for our excess in so many things and sorry for our lack of selfless love.

What is the sum of the sacrifice of God? It is God himself, who came down to this world to become one of us, one with us. Immanuel! The atonement is in Christ’s sacrifice. It is enough to bring peace with God, at-one-ment with God. It will one day bring peace on Earth. The cost may seem far “too much,” but sometimes it takes too much to bring us to our senses. I am certain that nothing less than the blood of Jesus could ever hold us strongly enough.

None of us are perfect, and we know it; these things hurt everyone around us, and God most of all. Nevertheless, God loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should never perish but have everlasting life. Christ’s birth (Christmas) means life need never end.

God’s great desire is to give us eternal life, and this gift is in his son (1st John 5:11). The Christmas message from the angel in Luke 2:10-14 is “good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.” Dear God, when we say “Merry Christmas,” let that truly be our meaning. The price is paid, let the gift be joyfully received.

The Things

If the things that have befallen us in the last while were nothing more than drops of rain, our lives would be a flood. The rain on the parade is more than simple raindrops, yet not so much as we see in the lives of others around us. Because of these troublesome things, my wife posted some cards with Bible verses on a wall of our house. At first I was a bit adverse toward this, but she was just more aware of the gathering storm than I. Now I have committed much of her posts to memory. That which I consider to be the most important lines of Romans 8:31-39, and Psalm 91 often come to the rescue of my mind.

As we have struggled with so many vexing things recently, I’ve begun to wonder at how appropriate the verses chosen by my wife have turned out to be. “What shall we say to these things?” This question in Romans 8:31 is answered; “If God be for us, who can be against us? He who gave his own son for our ransom, will he not also with him graciously give us all good gifts?”

Nagging doubts that may creep into the mind are answered in Romans 8:33, “Who shall bring any charge against God’s forgiven (his elect)? It is God who will justify.” Of course, I can always find plenty of personal failures to condemn myself over. We know that human beings sometimes must also answer to others, but there is a final authority greater than that of man. His greatest desire is to help us, change us, and convert us.

Romans 8:34, “Who is to condemn us? Christ has died for us, and is risen again, and intercedes for us at the right hand of God.” Jesus died to bring about the greatest conceivable changes to our world, and into the lives of as many individuals as possible. That is not saying that he is to blame for our misunderstanding and failures. He is not to be blamed for anything. He had to die to live with us, but the hard work of love that he did will have its effect.

Christ’s sacrifice is enough. The blood and the suffering of Jesus will ultimately answer for all the weakness, sin, and shame of those who will turn to him for forgiveness. God’s promise of mercy is dependent upon our turning to him however, and the farther we get from God, the harder it is to believe in his mercy. There is the danger of rejecting the Lord to the point where we have left behind our power to choose.

Never give up hope. For those touched by his love, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” “In all these things we are more than triumphant through him that loved us (Romans 8:35,37).” “I am sure that neither death nor life, nor beings from beyond our realm (angels) nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other creature, will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:38,39).” In spite of the troublesome things of this world that demand our attention and attempt to take control of our lives, we must “think on the good things (Philippians 4:8).” There are yet things to be thankful for.

(Psalm 91:1-4) He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, he is my refuge and my fortress:my God; in him will I trust. Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.

Nothing can separate us from the love of God, which is in Jesus the Christ, our Lord. It was foretold that God would visit us, that he would come to us as a son (KJV, Isaiah 7:14, 9:6,7) . Jesus is the Christ, the only begotten (John 1:14) son of the living God, the secret place of the most high.

Nothing (part 2)

If nothing existed outside of you, and it was within your power to create something, would you? Scientifically speaking, as I said in a post in my July 2018 archives called “Nothing,” absolutely nothing should exist; not one thing and not one thought. If you were to exist, which you do by the way, would you choose to create a world around you? Do we not each attempt that very thing?

Thinking on a strange dream that I experienced as a boy has inspired these questions. I dreamed that I was floating happily along inside an empty egg-like structure. After awhile I thought that I would like a blue sky above me, and as soon as that thought came to me, the sky was there. I went on to think of an earth under me with beautiful plants, and they appeared. It was a very pleasant dream, but I awoke before any thought of living beings came to my mind.

Would you give life to something if you could? Would you create robots or a world of slaves to serve you? Some people would. You could create beings without giving them freedom of will, so that they would obey without giving it a thought. Would you give them freedom to think for themselves, even if this meant that they could come to doubt you? Maybe they would rather that you served them. One thought leads to another doesn’t it?

Would you warn your creations of the danger of a lack of faith in you concerning this tree of knowledge? Would you create copies of yourself but with distinct attributes? You might, but would you form a being equal to yourself with an entirely separate personality? You probably would not go quite that far. Wouldn’t it be better to carefully limit the power of such a being? Such a creature might choose to enslave you.

If you created individual living beings, would you expect them to treat each other fairly? Would it not concern you if you had to enforce these issues? Wouldn’t you rather that your “children” love one another of their own freewill? Even if some of them were greater in power than others, would you not want respect and equality to be the standard? Would you desire them to be guided by your word and your thought? For the sake of convenience, let’s call these children man, or mankind. Would you expect “man” to exhibit qualities of mercy and forgiveness?

By answering these questions honestly, we can easily understand why trust in the creator would be crucial for paradise and eternal life. Is such trust in God justified? Look back upon the cross, and look into the empty tomb; look into the ancient Old Testament prophecies foretelling these things and the New Testament history of their fulfillment; the answer is yes, Jesus (“Yes-hua” in the Hebrew Language). Everything that God made was good (Genesis 1:31). Nothing could have been created any more perfectly than God made it.

It is our abuse of God-given freedom of will that has brought about the deterioration and downfall of our world. But God has a plan that could save us all if we would agree to it. God’s plan called for him to come to Earth, become one of us submitting even to the suffering and injustice of the cross. Jesus said (John 14:1-9), “He that has seen me has seen the Father.” If we want to understand what God is like, we need to study Jesus. On that cross, he was reaching farther than from the earth to Heaven. He reached from Heaven all the way down to the depths of our hearts.

If we could actually observe God observing us, that would greatly inhibit our freedom of will. That is exactly why we don’t see God. Even our beliefs about God can moderate our behavior, but that is a little different thing because we have choices concerning the things we desire to believe. Long ago in the garden of Eden, our ancestors chose to trust our own interpretation of morality and “scientific” knowledge, rather than God’s revelation concerning his creation. That often leaves us uncomfortable within ourselves over our pitiful choices.

Is it not very strange to be alive? If we ask the right questions, sometimes they will lead us to the correct answer. According to the logic of science, neither energy nor matter should arise out of nowhere and nothing. Science cannot explain how anything existed to begin with, nor can they explain how all of the observable universe came from nothing.

Nothing would exist without God. We exist because God desired it to be so. We can live forever because of that very same being. It’s the time of the year when we celebrate the resurrection. Jesus is the bright and morning star (Revelation 22:16, “aster” in the Greek New Testament). Jesus is the star of Easter, believe in him, and live forever.

Merry Christmas From God

What has God given us for Christmas? What is the meaning of the miraculous secret? What a strange place to find it, wrapped up and lying in a manger. Mary believed in that secret. No doubt her experience was bewildering, but she knew that her baby was the Messiah, promised to mankind from the beginning of the world (Genesis 3:15). She remembered the words of an angel she had seen with her own eyes (Luke 1:26-35). Because she was yet a virgin, she understood that her child was the fulfilment of the centuries old prophecy of a virgin birth (Isaiah 7:14).

The prophecy in Genesis, from the lips of the Lord himself, was more specific than simply a prediction of a virgin birth. The reference to the “seed” of a woman rules out artificial insemination or any other interference by science. Merry Christmas, God has given himself to us, in the form of a child in a manger. He lived life as a man and suffered death to destroy the separation between man and God. His death and resurrection will ultimately destroy death itself. What we do with God’s gift is largely up to us.

It’s a secret that shouldn’t be kept. The world has purposely confused the history, and the church has made a mess of communicating the truth of the Christ. In spite of all this, the existence and content of the Bible is tangible evidence for this intervention of God. The Bible is the ancient Birth Certificate of Earth’s Messiah (Christ). It is also his death certificate and the chronicle of his resurrection.

The Old Testament, much of it written and predating the events of Christ’s life by thousands of years, was translated into the “Greek Septuagint” hundreds of years before the events occurred. The place and circumstances of his birth (Bethlehem, ref. the ruler from “old, even from everlasting” Micah 5:2) were recorded in the Old Testament and its translations long before he was born. Many major identifying factors of his life, death and resurrection are there.

The fulfilment of countless ancient prophecies proves the Old Testament and verifies that Jesus Christ is the real thing. The closer it is studied, the more ridiculous it becomes to doubt it. Most people who happen to read this have never met me. If I were to tell you that I would meet you at a particular time and place, describe myself in detail and tell what I would be doing, you would then be able to identify me upon sight. That’s what God has done in both the Old and New Testaments concerning the Messiah.

The primary birthmarks of the Christ are his scars. The problem with this, besides the suffering, is that the scars wouldn’t be visible until we put them there. The primary purpose of the Bible is to provide a historical record of the interaction of God with man before his advent as the Messiah, to predict man’s rejection of him, and his future return as Lord of heaven and earth. From Genesis to Revelation, the main theme of the Bible is the foretelling and revelation of the Messiah (or the “Christ” in the Greek language).

The translation known as the Septuagint is a version of the Old Testament that the disciples of Jesus often quoted in their witness for him. Afterward, the historical written testimony of these disciples has become our New Testament. The Bible, in its historical forms and translations, is first rate evidence for the truth of its own story. Just as you or I are leaving a story behind us as we pass through life, so did Christ, only none of us have had our whole lives predicted in such detail as was his. The Bible could have been named “The Mission of the Messiah.”

Another Christmas is nearly here. Who knows if Earth will celebrate another before his return. But in the midst of the tumult and uproar of this world, some will hear the message of Christmas, learn of the mission of the Christ and receive the gift of God. What has God given us for Christmas? He has given us Christmas itself, and every good gift associated with it. He has given us himself in the form of his son (Isaiah 9:6). The receiving of this gift of forgiveness means eternal life.

This is hope for the future that is based upon the proven fulfilment of historical prophecies. God told us where he would meet us. He kept that promise in his only begotten son. God meets man in Immanuel (Isaiah 7:14, Immanuel, meaning God with us). Christmas means hope for today also, in spite of the unpredictable world that we live in.

Open that gift and believe. To quote the pre-incarnate Christ, “Then I said, Behold, I come: in the volume of the Book it is written concerning me…” (Septuagint, Psalm 39-40:6,7, note this quote in the New Testament, Hebrews 10:5-10) To avoid some confusion, note that Psalm 39 in the Septuagint is numbered Psalm 40 in other Old Testaments. As Isaiah 9:6 (KJV) clearly states, “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given…and his name shall be called…the mighty God.” Come what may this Christmas, God has given us the miracle of the Christ. Love and Merry Christmas to all.

Keeper Of The Truth

God, as we travel through this threatening world, help us yet to see the wonder of your creation. We can’t take our eyes off the road, but help us not fail to see the beauty. A “falling away” is predicted for the church, and for the world (2nd Thessalonians 2:3,4). Don’t let us ever turn away from you.

In the last few weeks I think I’ve seen enough ugliness for a lifetime, but I’m afraid I’ll see more. In that evil I plainly see our need for God, and our need for love. In our scars left upon Christ and in the suffering of others around us, I better see the necessity of Christ’s mission. I see our need for forgiveness. The crude babel of this world is all noise that covers the “still, small, voice of God,” but if we listen closely we can yet hear it.

Let us see the good Lord in the good things, and that the devil is in the bad. Don’t let man’s theology get those things turned around in our mind. The cross of Jesus isn’t only the physical cross. It is all the cruelty and injustice done to every creature. It is all the personal rejection of God. Love is wounded in the rejection; love hurts when we hurt.

We live in dangerous times. It is very likely that “science,” in its experiments with germ warfare, will inadvertently loose the plagues upon the world that are foretold in the Bible. There are those who would do so purposely. There are those who would withhold a cure in order to possess power to achieve some twisted goal.

An antichrist could create disease and riots threatening all our lives, and release the cure at just the right time to appear to be a savior. People would be easily deceived by someone holding the world’s purse strings. If all money was digital and all people were chipped and their movement tracked, then whoever controls the keyboard controls the world. The stage would be set for Antichrist to claim to be God, and exalt himself above every thing that is called god.

Dear God, I am asking for a lot in this prayer; help us even in the face of all these things to go on with life. Help us to be thankful for the blessings of God that remain, and to not be deceived by the trouble that we will see around us. God is good, though the world disputes all truth, and vandalizes all beauty. Truth is important in every experience of life, not something that we have a right to manipulate to suit our every cause.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. …That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.

He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. …And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth (excerpts from the first chapter of John).”

Scientists could never determine the truth of everything by experimental trial and error. They are too biased in their interpretation of what they’re seeing. John 14:6 records that Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

The antichrist is not the personification of truth, nor is any other human being. None of us would have a prayer if it were not for the intervention of Jesus. The world would never be safe for man. The whole universe would be at risk. Dear God, protect us from deception and Antichrist’s control, in Jesus name, amen. A prayer that Jesus prayed was (John 17:5); Render me you, Father, with yourself with the glory which I had with you before the world was.

We of this world are only human, but though he became one of us, Jesus was different. He is the Word that John spoke of. He is the Lord (KJV Psalm 146:6), “which made heaven, and earth, the sea, and all that therein is: which keepeth truth for ever.” Jesus Christ is the Keeper of the Truth.

Easter and Eden

In the highlands of the vast garden were the fountains of a great river. Meandering over the high plateau and gathering force along the way, it parted into four streams. Descending from the highlands these rivers traversed several thousand miles around the earth. The garden paradise was created by an artistic being of elements he had formed for this purpose. It was an infinitely great work of art as well as a wonder of science.

From inorganic matter the Being fashioned beautiful living plants. He then formed complex living creatures of all sorts. He made creatures to swim in the waters, and others to fly in the face of the heavens. He created all kinds of animals, imparting to them beauty of form and differing levels of intelligence. He gave the creatures the ability to reproduce miniature forms of themselves, and to care for their young as they grew.

The ancestors of carnivores and herbivores played together like their cubs and calves sometimes do even today. They would never have grown out of it if something had not significantly changed. The Being designed all life with potential to adapt to its environment. This soon resulted in a world of inexpressible beauty, meeting the senses in all the panorama of life. In this time of beginnings, the Being’s creatures did not prey upon one another, and the world was a picture of harmony.

Last of all the Being made creatures in his own image; intelligent, independent creatures with great potential. The first of two such creatures was a male, formed from earth, and the second was female. In a scientific sense, it might be correct to say that the Creator cloned the female from a rib taken from the male, but such a new and wonderful creature as the first woman, the mother of the whole human family (from the Latin “humus,” “soil”), cannot be considered a clone.

The first man considered her a part of himself, “…bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh,” and they were created as equals. If “Adam” ever had a thought of superiority arising from the fact that his mate was created from his rib, she could have said, “Ha, God made you of plain old dirt.” But there was no contention between male and female in the beginning. They were indeed “one flesh.”

They lived in a utopia, in the midst of a world that the creator had called “very good.” If only they had understood the meaning of “very good,” but they were sheltered, and nothing in their experience provided any sort of contrast. If only they had always believed their creator, anything else they wanted to know would eventually have been shown to them. I have called the creator “the Being,” because that is how a name he called himself by in Exodus 3:14 is translated in the Greek Septuagint.

The Garden of Eden, as it has come to be called, was created to be the home of Adam and Eve. They lived for some time in a perfect paradise with no need of shelter from the elements. They could make their bed in the giant leaves of exotic plants. The Being who created them and their perfect environment visited often. I wish we knew more of what they talked about in those days. We actually know very little. We can deduce that man’s freedom was very important to the creator, and that along with freewill and freedom of thought comes the potential for danger.

Things that were “very good” could be altered for the worse, and for paradise to exist, trust and responsibility must always exist. Coiled in the branches of experimental knowledge lay the potential for the misuse and abuse of that science, and virtually every byte of the fruit of knowledge can lead to some moral dilemma.

We know that the Being warned our ancestors to leave moral decisions to him. That warning was recorded in the very first, most ancient pages of the documents now known as the book of Genesis. Dangerous misunderstandings and outright lies could arise from partial truths. Death would come into existence, not as an extreme retaliation for disobedience, but as the natural consequence of life becoming estranged from God.

Estrangement creates its own negative effects, and something like a paranoia develops, similar to the fear that wild creatures have of man. The fruit of “knowledge” that Adam and Eve ate was a deadly poison that slowly worked its evil in the earth. Everything became subject to experiment and degeneration. It wasn’t an evolution that occurred, but devolution.

From that day until now, there has been endless argument over right and wrong. Arguments arise between man and wife, between parents and children, between neighbors, politicians, church members, no one is immune. We debate everything under the sun, and everything hidden from the sun. I often wish that we could skip many pages of this story. Sometimes I would like to go straight from the garden to the new and final creation promised by our maker without taking the roundabout journey, but here we are.

We have been born somewhere in the middle of the story. But because of all this, the greatest thing that could ever be done has happened somewhere in the midst of time; something that makes a new paradise possible for us. It is a miracle of the highest love and forgiveness. It is the miracle of “Good Friday” and “Easter,” the promise of a new creation. The choice is ours.

I once dreamed that my wife and I were at the crucifixion of Jesus. In the dream, I knew he submitted to that horrible ordeal for the sake of all humanity, that it was the only way to touch us and to salvage all that could be saved. I knew he would be resurrected, but that didn’t change my emotional turmoil.

In the dream, I was too weak to move closer to his suffering. I felt utterly helpless. I was angry with his persecutors, and I hated myself. I knew he was there because of all of us. Certainly, those who hate him put him there, but so did those who ignored him, and even those who claimed to love him. Those who loved him best were guilty.

This was the being who created the first man and woman, when he existed as God (John 1:1-5,&10-14) long before he himself was born into the human family as one of us. This was the being that in sayings scattered throughout the collection of books that we now call the Old Testament, predicted exactly what we would do to him.

I must make a short story of this, and not dig too deep into the ancient ruins of Eden. As everyone does, my wife and I have tried to build our own little utopia. We didn’t have much to begin with, and our garden is small. Our hopes are yet high, but our walls are crumbling. The longer we live, the more vulnerable we have become. Only the grace of God can defend us from the disintegration of time and the elements. Mankind cannot build a lasting paradise, and can only be allowed access to the tree of everlasting life by returning to the creator and savior. He has been seeking us ever since the Garden of Eden.

Read the twentieth chapter of John in the New Testament: Not expecting to see Jesus back alive, Mary Magdalene at first mistook him for a gardener. But he really is the gardener. East of Eden is a world of sorrow and pain, but our creator has not yet abandoned us, for Easter is also east of Eden. Christ is risen. All in spite of the fears of the night, it’s the dawn of the risen Son.

The Compatriot

If I were to tell you that Jesus Christ died fighting for the people of your country, that might make him sound more heroic to you. You might wonder how that statement could be true, but it is. Jesus died for every man, woman, and child of your country.

Something that might confuse you is that it’s also true that Jesus died fighting for the people of my country, and of every other country. He recognizes the need for governments, of the people and by the people, for the betterment of them all.

He recognizes that no one government could serve all people fairly, and that a central world government would eventually come to demand that it be served instead. He knows that a central world government would turn out to be an Antichrist enslaving all people. Jesus Christ died fighting to free all people from such enslavement, from all deception, and from personal bondage to all things hurtful.

He was not violent in his fight; which may seem confusing to you also. When his enemies surrounded him in the darkness, one of his early followers cut off a man’s ear with a sword, but Jesus reattached the ear healing the man. You see, Jesus was also fighting for the heart and soul of that man.

On an earlier occasion, Jesus made a little whip of cords, overturned some tables, and chased some swindlers out of a building. No one seems to have really been hurt in the altercation. Their pride was probably wounded more than anything else. Jesus was fighting for their souls. Even when Jesus suffered a violent death by crucifixion, he didn’t summon help to destroy his enemies (Matthew 26:53-54).

He could have done so, but he was fighting for his enemies, not only for the people who would claim to be his friends. He was fighting to make friends of those who mistakenly were his enemies. He was defending all the people of the earth, not just from hostile forces from outside, but also from danger from within. He died fighting for the whole world, for every nation, tribe, and tongue (Rev. 7:9-10 ).

If you doubt the historical records of his life contained within the Bible and other records from the time, then you should go back, and carefully reevaluate them. You should honestly take a close look at your own reasons for opposing Jesus. Millions upon millions of people have done this very thing and their hearts have been won over to him. Jesus loved and died for each of us, and he came back to life again for the same reason. He came back to life to build a paradise for every heart that he can win.

Sooner or later, we will each meet him personally. When we each go before him, and we are confronted with the truth, no lie will stand. When we see his wounds from his battles, we cannot rise from our knees against him. We can only rise up to embrace him, our compatriot Jesus Christ, the servant and the master of every world (Philippians 2:5-11).