It's Me Standing in the Need

2 Samuel 12:1-14.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on the Sunday preceding Dependence on King Jesus Day, July 2, 2023.

The story of David's sin with Bathsheba can be found in 2 Samuel 11.  It is a dark stain upon the otherwise righteous life and impeccable character of David.  I mean a stain so dark that it causes many to balk at how he could have done these things without having been like this all the time before it.  Chapter 11 ends with the statement that is translated in many versions as saying that David was "displeasing to the Lord."  It literally says that "it was evil in the eyes of the Lord."

Temptation is a powerful thing.  It started with David walking on his rooftop in the cool of the evening.  From his vantage point, he happened to see a woman bathing who was a striking beauty.  He should have walked away at that point.  One cannot control that first moment of seeing something that you were not attempting to see.  However, lust took root in David's heart.  He had "beheld" her too long with his eyes.

The Bible speaks of  making provision for the flesh.  In this case, David did not know who this woman was.  He could have left it at that, but his desire pushed him to inquire about the identity of this woman.  It was then that he found out that it was Bathsheba, the wife of one of his elite warriors, Uriah the Hittite.  He should have immediately walked away.  She was the wife of another man, and thus, not a potential prospect for him (even though he had plenty of wives at this point). 

Now that he knew her identity, David's lust pushed him further.  He sends for Bathsheba to come to the palace.  It is not clear how she is talked into coming to the palace, but it appears she was as willing as he to commit adultery. 

It is not clear if David intended to continue meeting with her, but she later sends back word to David that she was pregnant.  During this story, her husband Uriah has been with the army of Israel across the Jordan.  They were battling against the Ammonite city, Rabbah (the modern city of Amman).  We don't know how long they had been away, but Uriah's absence made it easier to commit the adultery.

David had a problem.  Uriah would know that the baby could not be his.  David had no doubt made some promises to Bathsheba.  To solve his problem, David calls for Uriah to come back to Jerusalem under the guise of quizzing him about how the war was going.  After this debriefing, David tells him to go home, even sending food to his house as a reward for all his faithful service.  Of course, David believes that a man who has been away to war for months would immediately jump on a chance to be intimate with his wife.  Thus, Uriah would never know that the child was not really his.

However, Uriah did not comply.  He was too noble to sleep with his wife while his brothers in arms were still at war and perhaps dying on the field.  They couldn't sleep with their wives, and neither would he take advantage of his trip home. 

David finds out the next day that Uriah did not go home, but slept in the servants quarters of the palace.  He tried one more trick by having Uriah eat with him and attempting to make him drunk so that he would lose his inhibitions and go home.  Still, Uriah exercised restraint (unlike David) and again slept in the servants quarters of the palace.

David had to send him back, and so he sends him back to the battle with a letter for Joab the General.  It basically told Joab to put Uriah in the front of the battle and then have the men pull back so that Uriah would die.  Joab complied, and Uriah died at the hands of the Ammonites.

How could David have done such a horrible thing to anyone, much less a man who had been faithful to him during the many years of running from Saul?  David had chosen to act like the very man he had replaced, abusing his power, and unrighteously seeking the life of a just man.  He did all of this to satisfy his lust.

This brings us to our passage today.

Nathans story (v. 1-6)

One has to believe that the Spirit of God had been convicting David all along the sordid path of his sin.  At the moment of seeing her, it would have been there.  "Walk away!"  But, David didn't listen and pressed on.  "Don't ask who she is!"  However, David did it anyway.  "Don't send that servant to fetch her!"  Yet, he did.  "Don't take her into your bedroom!"  "Don't call for Uriah!"  "Don't send him home."  "Don't get him drunk."  "Don't write that letter!"  "Don't give it to him!"  All along the way, David trampled the warnings of his conscience and of the Spirit of God, letting his lusts drag him away.

Sin often creates problems and we see David scrambling to cover up his sin.  However, he reached a point where he was no longer scrambling and it appeared that he had gotten away with it.  Yet, when we refuse to listen to God, He has ways of getting our attention.

Let's recognize that David did not just commit two sins, adultery and murder.  He was daily sinning against the Lord who had loved him, protected him, and raised him up to be king of Israel.  He was sinning against God every day he hardened his heart.  David was trapped in his sin.

However, God cared about Uriah's family.  He cared about Israel, and about what David would become if he was allowed to get away with this sin.  God cared how David's actions would affect the strategic position that he had within God's plan of redemption for Israel and the nations.

In 2 Samuel, God had promised David that the Messiah would come through his line, and that he would sit upon the throne of David forever.  This sin was an obstacle to the work of God through David and so God steps in by sending Nathan the prophet to David.

Speaking truth to power can be a dicey prospect even when God sends you.  God can protect you, but He can also be testing the authority to see if they will abuse his servant.  Think about it.  What happened to most of the prophets?  They were killed by the powers to whom they spoke the truth. 

Today, in America, people are slobbering at becoming a prophet.  They are going to schools, and studying the lives of "prophets," so that they can learn to be one.  However, becoming a true prophet of God is akin to receiving a death sentence in this world.  It is heartaches and humiliations galore, not a giddy event.

Telling David a story allows Nathan to slip the truth in before David spits it out.  You remember the song.  "Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down..."  There is a lot of medicine that we need, but we don't want to swallow it.  We don't want to hear it.  We are sick and tired of hearing it.  We put our fingers in our ears and then angrily go away so that we won't have to hear it.  Of course, in doing so, we have just testified against ourselves.  On the day that we stand before God, He will ask us why we didn't listen.  We may then reply that we couldn't have known.  Yet, God will play that moment back to us, and we will be silenced.

Nathan's story is a classic rich man versus poor man plot.  David would quickly empathize with the powerless poor man, having been the youngest of a lot of brothers.  Also, he had been falsely accused by Saul who was the previous king.  Saul had hunted him like a deer throughout Israel, seeking to put him to death unjustly.

The story is very straight forward.  A rich man who has plenty of lambs to slaughter, and plenty of money with which to buy a lamb if he needed, is contrasted with a poor man who had nothing but a ewe lamb that he had purchased.  It was a family pet, much like we would keep a pet dog.  Like any pet, this lamb had become very dear to the poor man and his children.

One day a traveler came and stayed with the rich man.  Instead of feeding him from his own flock, or buying a lamb from the market, he takes the lamb of the poor man and feeds it to his visitor.  Though nothing is mentioned, the poor man would have never agreed to this.  So, we are left to imagine what the rich man did to take the lamb, no doubt a group of his hired hands roughed the poor man up.  Of course, such details are irrelevant.  How does a person come to a point of such gross sin?

Of course, this is an analogy.  The traveler represents the temptation and the lust of David being stirred up.  Like a traveler from afar, lust shows up and asks for lodging for the night.  He should have told it to go lodge somewhere else.  However, David wished to entertain this traveler.

Though Nathan did not ask for a decision, David explodes with great anger.  He is quite passionate in declaring judgment against the rich man.  He calls upon the Lord as a witness, "As the Lord lives!"  He then declares that the man will die.

Now theft was not a capital crime in Israel, just as it isn't in our Republic.  His statement that the lamb will be paid back four times shows that David is quite aware of Exodus 22:1 and its prescription.  However, because the rich man did this thing "without pity," David wants him to die.

Mitigating factors are things that lessen the gravity of a crime.  Perhaps a man was an orphan, very poor, and had no food.  Such a person who steals a lamb in order to keep from starving is not going to be judged so harshly.  However, the rich man has aggravating factors.  David thinks that his riches and insensibility requires death.

It is an interesting dynamic that people who are overly harsh in their judgments are often hiding sin of their own.  They refuse to repent, and thereby punish themselves, so they take it out on others.  David himself is guilty of several capital crimes.  You might think he would be adverse to capital punishment.  Instead, he insulates himself by becoming overly righteous.  Sometimes people can become so bad that they lie to themselves.  "I'm okay, and it is everyone else who is wrong!"

Jesus alludes to this in Matthew 7:5 when he talks about judging.  "Hypocrite!  First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."  When you have fought against sin in your own heart and mind, you tend to be more compassionate without excusing the sin.  You know that fighting sin is hard, so you work hard to help your brother come clean before God without crushing him with harsh words.

Every son is disciplined by their fathers.  As earthly fathers, none of us are perfect in our discipline.  If you have any kind of heart for them at all, you try to do your best.  Of course, no kid likes the discipline they receive at the time.  However, discipline doesn't have to be perfect to do a good work in us.  By its very nature, being disciplined to do anything in life builds strength and tempers a person.  It can be directed in better paths latter, but the foundational skill is there.

This is why many in our society enter the work force and cannot keep a job.  They were never disciplined, and taught how to discipline themselves at home.  Parents know that life is tough, and if a person is not disciplined, it is even tougher.

The same thing is true spiritually.  Let's get real.  The effects of sin are devastating, and harsh.  If you are not disciplined, get ready for a lot of lumps.  Of course, there isn't a one of us who hasn't received their fair share of lumps from sin.  However, God is gracious to keep reaching out to us.

Nathan waits until David's response is made, and then, he masterfully reveals that the story was a picture of his actions with Bathsheba.

The meaning of Nathan's story (v. 7-14)

"You are the man!"  With this simple sentence, David quickly sees that Nathan knows everything, and that God is not going to let him get away with it.  You are the man in this story David.  And, this time, you are not the poor, persecuted man.  You are the abusive, rich man.

Nathan quickly moves to the judgment that God has given.  Notice that God is not as harsh in His judgment as David was in his.  You could say that God didn't keep the Law of Moses.  I remember a Jewish man asking me a gotcha question.  "Is there grace in the Law of Moses?"  I told him that there was grace all through the Law of Moses.  He was surprised that this would be my answer as a Christian.

The prophets of Israel understood that the Law could not save them in and of itself.  David himself got it.  In Psalm 51, which he wrote following this event, he writes that if God really wanted the blood of bulls and goats that he would give it.  Instead, what God really wanted was a broken and contrite heart.  Such a man God would not turn away.

Have you noticed that our society seems to be exalting a principle of not having to pay the consequences of sin.  However, mercy is not mercy unless sin is sin.  What I mean is this.  If we detach sin from its natural consequences, then we are no longer being merciful.  We diminish sin to something that isn't your fault, poor you.  We enlist the taxes of the rest of society to mitigate, and even erase as much of the consequences as we can.  This is not mercy; it is insanity.  It creates a society of thankless, entitled brats who have lost connection with reality.  It also creates an elitist class that grifts off of the tax pools that are enlisted to "help these poor people."  Yes, they are poor, and yes they need help.  But, this is the last thing these grifters would ever hope to happen.  Thus, every year the helpless and hopeless pool grows larger, and the pot of money needed to "help them" grows larger, and the amount of money that ends up in the pockets of the elite and their cronies grows exponentially. 

This is why God designed homes to be a protected environment for kids to learn about the consequences of sin.  Parents are not perfect, but they have the greatest interest in this child maturing into a man or woman that is able to discipline themselves for their good, and the good of society.  Believe me, when you leave home and go out into the world, the stakes become much higher, and the consequences of a poor choice can mean your life, and much more, your eternity.

We should see consequences as the grace of God that tell us that we can't ignore and run from sin.  It tells us that it is better to nip it in the bud because the effects of sin grow exponentially the longer we cling to it.

David was running from his sins, and it needed to be nipped in the bud.  God had staked a lot on David, but he doesn't hide his sin.  He makes him face it publicly.  In fact, God knew what David would do when He removed Saul and placed David in his place.

It is important to recognize that the Bible does not present King Saul as all wicked, and King David as all righteous.  They both are raised to power as good men, and they both end up in a place of abusing their power and being rebuked by God.  So, what is the difference between Saul and David?

The difference is this.  When confronted with their sin by the Lord, David repented, but Saul blamed it on everyone but himself (including God).  David turned away from a heart that is hardened against the ways of God with a broken and contrite heart, but Saul hardened his heart and persisted in his ways of wickedness.

This has always been the difference between the righteous and the wicked.  It is not that the righteous have never sinned, or haven't sinned as much as the wicked.  It is that they repent when God sends the message, "You are the man!"  Of course, we need to walk repentance daily.  It is a trap to think that you no longer have to worry about repentance because you did it already.

Two thousand years ago, Jesus identified with His Church knowing what a mess we would make of it.  Jesus is not for our sin as a Church.  He despises what it does to us and to a fallen world.  Don't be deceived.  He will always rebuke and discipline the ones He loves.  He will not walk arm and arm with us and pretend like our sin is no big deal.

However, God is not afraid to be connected to us and our sin.  We are His Church. He is faithful to do the work of purifying His children, and His Church as a whole.  Ultimately, the end times will bring forth a polarization of the external Church into a false church vs. a True Church.  Christ will allow the Beast to destroy one and will stand in defense of the other.

An aggravating factor is that David sinned in the face of great blessing from God.  David had difficult times during the years of King Saul.  Yet, God protected him, and sent men to rally around him.  God gave him victory over Goliath when no one else had the faith to stand against him.  God blessed him as a victorious general in Saul's army.  God blessed him with a family, and ultimately that his dynasty would last forever.  Verse 8 shows us God's heart.  "If that had been too little, I also would have given you much more!"

We should note that it was normal for kings throughout the world to have whatever women they desired under their rule.  In fact, it is even still normal for presidents today to send word to a woman, married or not, that the president is interested.  Power goes to people's heads, and people will protect and feed the lust of an individual simply to stay close to the levers of power.  No one would have batted an eye at what David did if he were in a nation other than Israel.  However, this was Yahweh's land.  The God of Truth, who raised up kings and put them down at His leisure, made this a different story.  The God of Israel would not countenance such a thing without repercussions.

However, I am talking about America today!  We have been so blessed, and we have been gobbling up blessing after blessing, to the left and to the right, just shoving it into our mouths like a bunch of porky pigs.  Still, we just don't have enough.  We have to go out and straddle the planet with our military and global corporations, taking as we please and cloaking it in a deceptive cloak of morality.

We do similar things in our cities and towns.  Family members do it to family members.  In so many ways, we are gobbling up the grace of God, and we are taking it for granted.  You can't do that for very long and survive the wrath of God.

Yet, God in His great grace is faithful to send voices out of the wilderness to tell us a story, to try and get our attention.  I believe that God is greatly displeased with these united States of America.  I think that He is trying to get some Nathan's to rise up and confront the people of this Republic.  Yes, truth must be spoken to our government officials, but the President, Congress, and the Supreme Court are not the highest human authorities in this land.  No.  The highest human authority in this land is We the People who ordained and set in order the highest human law of this Republic, the Constitution of these united States.  The rebuke must first be heard by We the People, and a response of repentance must first be walked out by We the People before God will hold our criminal servants in government accountable.

Ours is not a message of destruction.  God gives grace to David.  He deserved a death sentence, but God actually wanted a repentant heart that would quite the lawlessness.  There is hope in repentance.  God hasn't cast you off yet.  He is not calling for your death!

David  is told that he has despised God's commands (v. 9), and then later that he has despised God Himself (v. 10).  David knew the truth of God, but in this moment he wanted to sin.

It is a great blessing to know the heart and commands of God.  Many people in this world don't know their right hand from their left hand.  It doesn't excuse their sin, but it does mitigate their guilt before God in comparison to ours.  Some might say that no sin can be mitigated, but our sin can be done with aggravating factors that make it even worse.

Yet, over the top of this, David did his sin anyways.  He then continued to sin in order to cover up his previous sin.  Temptation and sin is precisely a trap.  The bait may be delicious, but now Satan has you in his hands.  He will manipulate you into more and more sin, worse and worse sin, in order to defeat the work of God in your life and sphere of influence.  Sin knows no boundaries, and there is no "bottom of the barrel."  There is only a descent into the abyss, into the bottomless pit of degradation and wickedness.

The word "despised" has the sense of lifting your head disdainfully against God and His Word.  Is this not a picture of our Republic today?  Is this not a picture of many Christians who give lip service to God, but despise His Words in their hearts and actions?  Let not a man bound by sin think that he can have freedom.  God will be faithful to send gracious rebukes, but if we do not repent, we will continue in slavery to sin and the powers that He places over us.

Nathan tells David that his actions had given the enemies of the LORD occasion to blaspheme (v. 14).  There were those in Israel who refused to serve Yahweh in their hearts.  There were also some who refused to believe that God had removed Saul and placed David on the throne.  They hated the ways and decisions of Yahweh.  To blaspheme is to declare things as true that are not true of Yahweh and His work. 

This is happening all across our land today.  Some of it is the fault of the Church.  We give ammunition to the enemies of God when we hide sin and refuse to deal with it.  This also gives ammunition to the spiritual powers to keep them from coming to see the truth of God and switching allegiance.

In this case, it is most likely that the blasphemy would not be centered on the idea that there is no Yahweh, or that He is not really about righteousness.  They would speak out against the decisions of Yahweh that were pronounced by prophets like Samuel and Nathan.  They could even reject the idea that a Messiah figure would come from the line of David.  How can a righteous man come from such a line?  One can't in the flesh, but by the Spirit of God, all things are possible!

It is one thing for people to despise God and His ways when Christians do what is righteous.  Jesus said in Matthew 11:6, "Blessed is he who does not stumble because of me."  Jesus had done nothing wrong, but he knew many people would not understand what He was doing.  However, the American Church is not pure.  We have become like David in many ways.  Have we also insulated ourselves so that we don't have to hear the voice of the Nathan's in our land?

Let me end with talking about God's mercy on David.  David would not be executed, and God would not cancel the covenant promise that He had made concerning Messiah.  Furthermore, God would remove David's sin from him. 

This is not favoritism.  This is about God's love for all sinners of the earth, and grace for those who will turn from their sin, repent, and turn towards Him and His righteousness.  Messiah would not come from a perfect family of a perfect tribe of a perfect nation.  God's work within all of us is at its best mercy upon a sinner who deserves death.  Even the people that He uses in our lives are merely sinners saved by the grace of God.

In the midst of God's grace is also chastisement.  The child would die, and David would continually have trouble with "the sword" among his family.  On top of this, God would raise up one who would sleep with David's wives in the full view of all of Jerusalem.  This was done during the rebellion of his son Absolom.  God sends a signal to Israel and to the nations that no man, no matter how much authority God has given him, is above the Word of God and the call to repentance by anyone in society.

America has been sinning for a very long time, but the greatest problem is those who claim to know Jesus who are refusing to repent.  They don't want to give up their authority and will not be held accountable to any religious notions.  Do you remember the phrase, "No king, but King Jesus!"?  Just like God knew Israel would fail from the beginning, so God was quite aware of the faithlessness of this nation that would grow through the centuries.  Yet, He decided in our favor during the War for Independence.

We must quit looking at the nations when God is saying, "You are the people!"  We must quit looking at the sin of others when God is saying "You are the person!"  We must once again become a repenting people, even as we pay a chastising price for past sin.

I believe that God can and will give mercy to this Republic if we will humble ourselves and turn away from our wicked ways.  We have to quit excusing sexual immorality in the Church.  We have to quit excusing the sacrifice of our children for a better life.  We have to quit eating, drinking, and being merry in our own houses while the rest of the Republic goes to hell in a hand basket.

Let me close by reminding us of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  Eric Metaxas talks about this in his book, Letter to the American Church.  Adolph Hitler became chancellor of Germany in January of 1933.  November 6, 1932, on Reformation Sunday, Dietrich was preaching from Revelation 2 in the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin.  All the bigwigs of society were there with many pastors in attendance.  This prophetic message focused on the message to the Ephesian Church.  "I have this against you, that you have left your first love."  They were celebrating the work of Martin Luther and that they were the spiritual descendants of him, the Lutherans.  Yet, the harsh pill, the medicine, you are not at all like Martin Luther.  He stood against every demon of hell in order to follow the Spirit of God in obedience to Jesus.  Yet, this group would not take a stand against the Nazi Party's racist policies.  The Church of Jesus could never compromise with such ideologies.

Dietrich was pushed off as a young man who was just looking for a fight.  Years of experience would tame him.  This is often true, but Dietrich was not looking for a fight.  He was simply seeing that they were already in a fight that precious few could see, a fight for the soul of Germany.

Metaxas says that there were 18,000 pastors in Germany at the time.  Three thousand were like Dietrich and stood steadfast against the Nazis from the beginning.  Another three thousand were Nazi lovers who had no problem with the invectives and signaled threats against the Jews.  That left twelve thousand (2/3rds) in the middle.  The problem for Germany was not the 3,000 Nazi-loving pastors, but the impotent two-thirds in the middle.  Some of the 12,000 eventually woke up, but after it was far too late to save their society from the great evil that was threatening it and the world.

Metaxas mentions that Hitler took power in January of 1933.  Bonhoeffer was already scheduled to make a speech via radio address in February 1933.  His topic was servant leadership.  As Bonhoeffer described the kind of leadership that Christians must exhibit and require of their leaders, the power to the whole radio station was shut down.  It had become to late to make a difference as Hitler quickly began to flex his power and take control of the media in Germany.

We can point to lost people who are doing lost things as the problem in our society.  They are a problem, but they are not the problem.  The problem is not even those lost pastors, bishops, and denominations that embrace wickedness in the name of love and tolerance.  No. The problem in these united States of America is the two-thirds of pastors, elders, and Christians who are on the fence about how to move forward.  The enemy does not care if you don't embrace wickedness, as long as you are feckless and afraid to take a stand exactly where the Holy Spirit is calling us to take a stand today (like Dietrich against Hitler, and David against Goliath).  God is looking for people in His Church who love truth more than their reputation, or a nice cushy position.  Martin Luther lost his place in the Roman Catholic Church.  He was hunted by the powers that be.

God will be gracious if enough of us wake up, and say yes to the Spirit of God.  Our actions right now actually say that we are just here for the American Dream.  But, have you ever considered what Jesus' Dream for America is?  We can stiff arm the Spirit and try to get back to "normal," having a good Church service with wonderful music, happy family, happy BBQ in the afternoon while watching sports.  It is not that these things are wrong and bad, but that they become all that we are living for while people are dying in a lost state, going to hell, and  we are losing our Republic.

Perhaps you are of the ilk to simply give up.  Yes, that's what happens when people sin.  Que sera, sera.  O, friend, you don't want to go through what can be next, and how bad things can get. God is removing the middle ground because it always belonged to Satan in the first place.  We must choose this day whose side we are on.  And, the only way to stop it is to repent and follow Jesus. 

Pick up your cross and let's follow him!

It's Me audio

Such Love-Part 1

Subtitle: He Became One of Us

John 1:14-18; Philippians 2:5-11.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Palm Sunday, April 2, 2023.

Today we begin a 6-part series about God's love, and how we should respond to it.

Love is a matter of call and response, or action and response.  In a way, God is always the initiator of love because of His eternal nature.  We are always the responders.

I want to refresh our memories of just how much God loved us in the coming of the one we know as Jesus, or in Hebrew, Yeshua.  On top of His love 2,000 years ago, we have His great love for us today, for you, and for others.  Do you not realize that God's amazing love will be embracing you even unto your last breath?  His amazing love will even be with humanity to the end of this age, and into eternity.

Let's look at our passage today, and remind ourselves of God's great love.

The Word became flesh (John 1:14)

In this chapter, John speaks of the One called "the Word" who is identified in verse 17 as Jesus Christ.  The Word becoming flesh points back to that moment in time when Mary first conceived.

The miracle of the incarnation is often doubted.  It is believed that Mary clearly made up the story.  However, does this square with all of the evidence?

Let's just go with the cynic on this one and assume that Mary did make it up.  Her pregnancy would have either been by Joseph, or some other man that she is unwilling to name.  Modern man may scoff that they didn't know science like we do today.  Thus, the people of Nazareth were easily duped.

Of course, this is not what happened and is very snobbish towards that generation.  They knew exactly how a woman became pregnant.  No one believed Mary's story at first, not even Joseph.  He was going to put her away silently.  However, Joseph changed his mind and married Mary.  They lived their lives with the stigma hanging over their heads that they had not waited for the proper moment to be intimate.  No one would have bought their story.

Here is the rub.  If Mary was lying, then Jesus should have fallen within the range of the Judeans of his day.  He might be a little smarter or not, but we would not expect him to stick out among the greats of Israel, much less all mankind.  The miracles of Jesus, his death and resurrection, are not explainable by a natural conception.  Of course, the skeptic continues to deny everything.  None of the miracles happened.  The resurrection didn't happen.  Over the top of all the eye witness testimony, the skeptic's biases reign supreme.   There is just too much evidence that something strange was going on with this Jesus of Nazareth.

In the opening verses of this chapter, it is clear that John is using language from Genesis chapter 1, "In the beginning..."  The apostles of Jesus had come to see the reality of who Jesus really was.  He is the Son of the Most High God, but not in the way that humans would understand sonship.  Even before anything was created, the eternal Son existed as the eternal Word of God.  How does John come up with the idea that there was a "Word" of God in the Genesis 1?  Well, primarily he doesn't "come up with it."  He understands it by the revelation of Jesus and the Spirit of God.  However, it is important to see that Genesis 1 describes the Father saying, "Let there be light,"  When we speak, words go forth from us.  Of course, God is not flesh and blood and there is no air around Him to propagate sound waves.  However, something greater is being revealed.  The One who created man, with the ability to speak and send powerful ideas out into the world around him, is able to "speak" and send forth "word" in a greater way.  What is not made clear in the text of Genesis 1 is explained in John 1.  The eternal Word was the eternal Son who went forth to accomplish what the Father desired.  John is also probably looking at Proverbs 8, in which wisdom is personified and depicted as working with God at Creation.  In a sense, John is saying that Proverbs 8 is not just poetry.  It is revelation that is not clear until the Wisdom of God, the Word of God, took on flesh.

This is the amazing part.  This One who has eternally existed not only with God, but as divine, became human.  This speaks to the depths that God was willing to go in order to save us, to show His love for us.  Yes, God is good and therefore He will do good things, but He doesn't have to be that good!  This call and response of love cannot be broken down into "laws."  Anyone who says, "This is what you have to do in order to love me," has something wrong in their heart.  They are not speaking with love themselves.  Love must be free to act and to respond.  Love must not be controlled and manipulated; true love will not dictate to other how they "must" show love.

This brings us to Philippians 2:5-11.  It uses language from Genesis 1 as well (verse 26).  In Genesis, man is made in the "likeness" of God.  He is not God, but is like Him enough that a personal relationship can develop between them.  We see this in Genesis 3 when it tells us that God would come down in the cool of the day to meet with Adam and Eve.  In Philippians, something is happening in the opposite direction.  Though man is made in God's likeness, through Jesus, God has taken on the nature and form of a man.  The Word didn't just become like a man.  Rather, He became a man.

This begs the question, "What was He thinking?"  The context of Philippians 2 is the kind of mind that Christians need to have.  Thus, Paul points back to the incarnation, taking on of flesh, of the Word of God in Jesus.  We need the same kind of mind that Jesus had when he agreed to such a plan.

Of course, becoming human is nothing to us because we are human.  Jesus was divine and the creator of all mankind.  Taking on the nature of a human is a big deal.  In fact, Paul parallels the act of Jesus taking on the likeness of humans with him taking on the form of a slave.  He didn't just become human.  He became a human slave for God the Father. 

Again, what was the eternal Son thinking?  What is this love of God that would go to such lengths, to such depths, in order to save us?  As humbling as becoming human is for God, this was not the depths of his love.

The Philippians passage uses three verbal phrases to describe the depths of God's love for us.

First, he "emptied himself."  It doesn't say exactly what he emptied himself of.  In the context, the mind of Christ is in view.  Thus, we might ask ourselves this question.  What would I have to empty myself of in order to do something like that?  Of course, Jesus is not proud and arrogant.  However, he did create all things, and has dwelled in eternal glory with the Father.  He would have to empty himself of all the reasons and thinking that would object to such a plan of salvation.  It would be an attitude that says, "I am this (a glorious God); I shouldn't have to do that (become human, etc.). 

As humans, we are altogether too familiar with that attitude.  It is not an attitude of love.  This is why Paul is pointing us back to the incarnation.  We need to first understand just how amazing it is that the Word would do this for us, and then make the leap to the fact that we should do the same for others.

Second, Philippians 2 tells us that Jesus "humbled himself."  At its root this word speaks of a lowering of position.  The eternal Son abased himself in taking on human flesh.  Yet, as a man, we see him washing the feet of his disciples.  He wasn't just becoming a great king of the earth that everyone would serve.  Instead, he was a slave of God to serve us.  He lived without purpose and will of his own, and instead, lived out only the will and purpose of the Father in heaven.  Since the men whose feet he washed were his disciples, they would then have to figure out how to lower themselves even lower than their master.  How is that possible?  Only by the grace and help of God's Holy Spirit; that's how.

Palm Sunday is all about the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem.  It represents all that we want in the natural.  Jesus presents himself to Jerusalem as her awaited Anointed King from God.  We do not object to God coming down and becoming human in order to conquer our foes and lay them at our feet.  However, we do balk because we do not know what our true enemy is.  One day we are saying yeah for team Jesus, and then he does something we don't understand and we are ready to crucify him.

Just as Israel was looking for Messiah to show up and conquer the Romans, so we do today.  The Ukrainians hope for God to show up and crush the Russians.  Americans may complain that if God would just show up and destroy those who are taxing us to death, then we would be good.  Really?  The truth is that Israel's problem was not actually the Romans, and the problem for American's is not your tax-happy State capital, or Washington D.C.  Our problem is sin that is entrenched in our own hearts.  We will point out every sin, but our own.  This is our greatest problem: we are in bondage to sin.

The Word dwelt among us

Back in John 1:14, we are told that the Word became flesh and then dwelt among us.  John again uses language from the Old Testament, this time from Exodus 25-40.  The word for "dwelt" connects back to the animal skins of the tent, or tabernacle, God had Israel build in the desert.  This verb could be translated as "and tented among us."

Yeshua is literally God,  Yahweh, tenting among us.  Remember, the whole purpose of the tabernacle was to create a place that God could dwell in among the people of Israel.  As they camped in the wilderness, the tabernacle was there in the center of their camp.  The presence of God was visible in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.

This visible presence of the Lord had become a thing of the past by the first century.  However, it is important to understand this picture of God dwelling among His people within a structure of animal skins.

This brings up the age old contention between Christians and Judaism, the idea of the Messiah being divine.  Is this just a Christian perversion?  Are Christians teaching things that are not in the Old Testament, either because they don't understand Hebrew, or they are purposefully twisting the Scriptures?

The presence of God was always understood to be a mystery in ancient Israelite worship.  If one pays careful attention to the text, you might accuse the writer of contradicting themselves.  On one hand, the Scriptures pound home the idea that mortal humans cannot see God without dying, and yet God is able to reveal Himself in lesser, or mediated forms.  The bush that Moses sees is somehow Yahweh, and yet it is not fully Yahweh.  The fire and smoke on Mt. Sinai is somehow Yahweh, and yet not fully Yahweh.  The same scary manifestation of fire and smoke on the mountain, then moves to the tabernacle as a less scary pillar of cloud (a somewhat different manifestation, yet of the same).  We see Moses speaking with God in the tabernacle, but at the same time he asks God to look down from heaven (Deuteronomy 26:15).  Moses was not contradicting himself.  He simply knew that God was capable of manifesting in a mediated form on the earth, while still being God in heaven.

This is the mystery of the presence of God.  It is never fully explained.  It is simply revealed and discovered by Moses and Israel.  Even the New Testament does not completely demystify this mystery of the person and presence of God.  Yet, Moses had no problem accepting that God could be "tenting" among His people within animal skins (the tabernacle) while still being resident in heaven.  Thus, before the first century, rabbis would speak of the Invisible Yahweh and the Visible Yahweh (a mediated form of the invisible God).  God is One, and yet He can somehow localize without leaving heaven.

This comes to a head in Exodus 33 to 34.  There Moses is talking with God.  He is asking God to go with them, even though Israel has been sinful and rebellious.  God promises to send His Presence with them.  At this point, Moses asks God to see His glory.  God agrees to let him see His receding glory, that is, not its fullness, because Moses could not handle it. 

The even is described in chapter 33, but happens in chapter 34.  God tells Moses to stand on a certain rock.  God would then come down and pass before Moses.  God's hand would simultaneously place Moses in a cleft of the rock, and shield him from seeing God's face.  Yet, as God passes by, He removes His hand so that Moses can see His back as He goes away from him.  Meanwhile, God is "declaring" the name of the Lord.  I will come back to this declaration of the name of the Lord in a moment.

Notice that in this passage God is spoken of in human terms: face, hand, and back.  This is a mediated human form, yet not a human.  Thus, we can see that there is no great leap to understand that just as Yahweh could tent among His people in animal skins, appear to Moses in human form, all while being resident in the heavens, so in Jesus, Yahweh could tent among His people in human skin, while still being resident in the heavens.

Why would He do this?  What love is this?

We beheld His glory

Finally, John 1:14 tells us that they beheld his glory.  Just as Israel saw God's glory come down upon the mountain, then onto the tabernacle, so God's glory was made visible in the person and work of Jesus.

I would like to point out that God's glory is not just one thing in the Old Testament.  There are many different expressions, forms, and even layers to the manifest glory of God.  No human has ever seen the unmitigated glory of God.  We cannot handle it.  Then, we see the powerful glory that scares people like at Mt. Sinai: smoking fire, Loud voice, trumpet blasts, shakings, etcetera. 

Then, there is the kind of glory that Moses saw that is a human like figure.  This connects with the Angel of Yahweh passages as well.  This Angel is more than a created spiritual messenger for God.  God's Name is somehow in Him, and he forgives sins (Exodus 23:21).  Moses saw this human form of God's glory declaring the "Name of the Lord."  What was the declaration?  Exodus 34:6-7, "And the LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.”  God's glory is displayed in God allowing Moses to glimpse what He could of Him, but it is also wrapped up in the truth about God's nature.  He is Mercy, Grace, Patience, Goodness, Truth, Forgiveness, and the fear of the guilty.  Thus, John alludes to this passage as well when he says of Jesus in John 1:14 that Jesus is full of grace and truth.  In Jesus, Israel receives a greater glimpse of what Moses saw on the mountain. 

Of course, some of Israel saw a greater glory in Jesus than the others similar to Moses seeing God's glory greater than Israel did.  The disciples saw Jesus do things that others didn't, like walk on water and calm a storm with just the words, "Peace, be still."  However, James, John, and Peter saw the Lord's face transfigured into a glorious brightness that the other nine did not see.

Yet, the miracles and such demonstrations were probably not the greatest glory that Jesus expressed.  A case can be made that his death on the cross was the greatest display of the glory of God.  On that day, he fully revealed the heart and nature of God the Father, not only to Israel, but also to the Gentiles.  The heart of God is full of Grace, and yet also full of Truth.  He will bend over backwards to save us, even to the point of dying for us, but we must turn to Him in truth.

Today, I want us to understand what it says about the love of God that He would even come down and take on the nature of a human.  The heart of God has always been about relationship with us, and to dwell with us.  Revelation ends with us dwelling with God and the statement, "They shall see His face."  We will have been fitted to not only dwell in His presence, but also to look into the face of the full glory of God without dying!  This relationship has always been His goal.  It was there in the Garden of Eden until the serpent and sin broke that fellowship.  It was there with Israel in the wilderness, until sin and rebellion broke it.

All humanity is full of rebellion against God, and against His Anointed King, Jesus.  Yet, even now He holds out His hand in an offer of peace.  He offers the joy of dwelling with Him throughout eternity.  This is the love of God.  How can I say no to such love?

Such Love 1 audio

The Acts of the Apostles 16

Subtitle: They Had All Things In Common

Acts 4:32-37.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, September 4, 2022.

Today, our passage deals with a theme that we saw back in chapter 2, verses 44-45.  There Luke was giving a summary of the daily life of those who believed in Jesus, and how they took care of one another.

Essentially, Luke is showing that they took care of one another like family.  Yet, it was more than that.

This was a special time in the Church in which the Messiah had come and the promised Holy Spirit was being poured out.  This Holy Spirit was moving powerfully among God’s people.  It was quite common for people to stay in Jerusalem even though they lived somewhere else.  They did not want to miss out on the almost incredible things that God was doing.  Similarly, they were gathering every day in the temple where the apostles preached Jesus and encouraged the believers.  This dynamic led to a period of time where there were many reasons why people would put off normal matters of business, work.

How we need to once again become a people who are led and impassioned by what the Holy Spirit is doing.  Don’t be so sure that you have the same kind of heart.  The Holy Spirit is not inactive in our day and age, and yet many act as if He is.  Only through prayer can we get to a place where we recognize what the Holy Spirit is doing, and where He is leading.  God help us not to settle for a good life that is ignorant of what the Holy Spirit is doing in our day and age.

Let’s get into our passage.

The believers care for one another (vs. 32-37)

The issue of lacking what one needs from day to day is front and center in this passage.  Jesus spoke about this in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 6:25-34.  He basically tells believers not to be anxious about their daily food, clothing, or shelter.  If they would seek the Kingdom of God first in their life, then they would find God supplying these things as needed. 

Notice that the emphasis is on our primary focus.  Of course, we will need to work, budget, and buy food.  However, we should never let this become our priority.  Jesus is speaking to people who often found themselves in poor circumstances.  They could have all kinds of reasons to become anxious and then be led into complaining against God (remember Israel in the wilderness).

In desperation, we can often live life at a very surface level that is focused upon survival and our fleshly needs.  Don’t get me wrong.  A person needs to eat, and be clothed, and have shelter.  Yet, when our life first worries about these things and then becomes consumed with them, then we are never happy.  People, who are eating and dressing quite luxuriously, people who are living in houses, or apartments, that are orders of magnitude higher than kings in the past had, can still find themselves anxious about that stuff because it has come to mean more to them than God and His kingdom.

Only Jesus and his purposes can satisfy our inner needs.  We have a promise from him that we don’t need to worry; we just need to put his kingdom first.

In this passage, we have a practical expression of how the early Church was making sure that no one among them fell into circumstances where they were going hungry, without proper clothing, or without shelter from the elements.

We should also note that there are two sides to this issue.  In Matthew 6, Jesus was speaking to the needy (really all of us).  The person in need is not told that they shouldn’t worry because the Church will cover all their needs.  They are told to make the Kingdom of God their focus, and then God would make sure that they had enough to eat, etc.  However, God wants to help us is His business.  Our job is to refrain from worry, and trust God to provide, as we do our best.

However, the other side of the issue is about those whom God wants to use to meet those needs.  God is amazing.  Whenever somebody lacks anything, God always makes sure that there is somebody who has plenty enough to meet that need.  This is not a matter of law or commandment.  God’s people are called to be volunteers out of love for Christ.  We give as the Lord Jesus puts it on our heart.  That said, this can become a cop-out for the person who is greedy and doesn’t want to give.  We can say that God hasn’t told us to help anyone, all the while our fingers are deep in our ears.  God is calling us to maturity.  If God has blessed you with anything, then you need to be asking for what purpose has He done this?  Only for you to consume?  This is more than unlikely.  We will be accountable for how we have used God’s things that He has entrusted to us, within this life that He has given to us.

Lastly in this matter, a person who lacks financially still has areas in their life where they can be used of God to help others.  Also, a person who is financially wealthy still has areas in their life where they have needs that only others can meet.  No one is wholly in one category or another.  This takes spending time in prayer in order to understand the ways in which we can meet others needs, and the ways in which we are still quite needy ourselves.

In verse 32, Luke says that the believers were of one heart and one soul.  This is similar to the phrase “in one accord,” which focuses on having a singular passion for God’s purposes.  The words heart and soul have lots of overlap and basically point to that inner life as opposed to our body.  The heart is pictured as a kind of control center of our thoughts on one hand, and of our desires on the other.  In essence, the believers were living in a way that was as if one person was doing all of the thinking and desiring.

The only way that a group of people can have one heart and one soul is by the help of the Holy Spirit.  Tyrants will use brute force and manipulation to control the people, but God doesn’t operate in this way, and neither should the leaders of the Church.  This can’t be done in the flesh.  Paul tells us to let the mind of Christ be in us (Philippians 2).  With this in mind, we can see our need as believers is to let the Holy Spirit direct our heart and soul to be like that of Christ.  He needs to direct our heart.  We need to have our thoughts conformed and our desires conformed to those of Jesus daily.  This is not an internal taking over by God, but a cooperation.  The only way this can successfully be done is through reading the Word of God, daily times of prayer, and walking with Jesus in obedience.  This is where we fight the giants internally in our soul.

Let’s look at verse 33 before we talk about the way the early Church dealt with financial needs in their midst.  It is pretty common in Acts to have a specific story about something that happened, and then follow it up with a general summation of what God was doing in the Church.  This verse is one of those summary style verses that lets us know that God was answering the prayer of the early Church.  We are once again reminded that God was working powerfully through the apostles as they preached about the resurrection of Jesus.  The great power is the dunamis power of God’s amazing work.  It is literally mega-dunamis.  God did extraordinary things through these apostles.  Just like the man lame from birth being healed in his 40’s, we are going to see more amazing miracles in the book of Acts.  These powerful demonstrations would not only let the leaders of Israel know that Jesus was multiplied in his followers, but it would also let Israel know that God had not abandoned them.  He was still pouring out His mercy and grace upon them.

This is an amazing thought.  They had taken the greatest gift of grace possible, God’s only Son, and crucified him.  Yet, here is God; here is Jesus showing them great and powerful signs and wonders.  He was essentially saying, “Even now, I will forgive.  Simply put your faith in my Son, Jesus!”

Just as there was great power through the apostles, so too, there was great grace upon the believers.  This is literally saying that grace, and that greatly (mega grace) was upon them.  It is easy to only think of grace in terms of salvation, but this term is broader than just salvation here.  It speaks to the favor, or good-will, of God resting upon them.  Jesus was not only dispensing mega powerful works by the disciples, but he was also pouring out mega grace upon his Church.  Jesus by his Spirit is the source of this overall atmosphere of God’s favor upon these believers.  This would be a supply in which they would display God’s grace among themselves, and it would then overflow into the larger community around them.

The early Christians were a people marked by the favor of God.  We can be mistaken in such judgments.  Perhaps, we may believe that the American Church is the most favored of God in every generation.  If we use the mind of the flesh to determine God’s favor, then we are guilty of the same sin of Job’s comforters, and the disciples themselves who thought wealth was a sign of God’s favor.  This was not the case with the early Christians.  The favor of God was upon them as obviously as the pillar of fire was to Pharoah that day.

Now let’s talk about the fact that the early Church took care of those who were needy in their midst.  When verse 34 says, “Nor was there anyone among them who lacked,” it does not mean no one ever had a need.  This is not some declaration that you will never have a need if you really trust Jesus.  No, many of them did have a need, a lacking.  However, those needs were being met by other brothers and sisters in the faith of Jesus.  Just like an adult son would take care of his aged mother when she is widowed, so they took care of those who encountered difficulties in life.  Most likely, they saw this number increase as persecutions led to many being arrested, imprisoned, and even executed. 

Down through the ages, the righteous have always wrestled with such things.  We are told that John Bunyan (author of The Pilgrim’s Progress, and The Holy War) spent years in the Bedford County Jail.  It bothered him that his wife and child were home penniless.  However, God used believers to care for them during this time.  It was humbling, but John knew that he was doing God’s work.  So, his family lacked in the sense of having need, but they didn’t lack because God laid it on the hearts of believers to supply their needs.

Luke describes further why these needs would be taken care of.  In Acts 6, we are going to see that they had a daily distribution of food for widows, for example.  Verse 32 says that their attitude towards their possessions was not a selfish one.  Instead, they had all things in common.  This doesn’t mean that they liquidated everything and joined a commune as some cults promote today.  It doesn’t even mean that they treated all their property as belonging to the poor.  In truth, they knew that their wealth was God’s in every way.  Therefore, they were merely stewards of God’s stuff in this life that He had given them.  It is much easier to give when your heart is not stingily clinging to the things “you have amassed by your hard work.”

In verse 34-35, we see how they were covering the needs.  When it says, “all who were possessors of lands or houses sold them,” it does not mean that no one had houses anymore.  It simply means that, as it was needed, those who had an excess of possessions would sell them from time to time.  This money was then given to the apostles, and they distributed it to those in need.  This was all done voluntarily and as God moved on their hearts.

Luke gives an example of a man named Joses.  This is not the ½ brother of Jesus mentioned in Matthew 13:55. This man is a Levite who was from the Island of Cyprus.  The name Joses is a diminutive form of Joseph.  Clearly, Joses had been in Jerusalem early on.  Was he one of those people in the crowd hearing Peter’s sermon on the Day of Pentecost?  Or was he one of the 120 who were filled with the Holy Spirit in the upper room?  Some even speculate that he was one of the 70 sent out by Jesus.  Of course, those possibilities are merely conjecture.  Yet, Joses became a very influential person in the early Church. 

We are told that the apostles called him “Barnabas.”  In fact, this is the name that will be used of him from here on in the New Testament.  Barnabas is Aramaic and means “Son of Encouragement.”  Interestingly, the term encouragement is from the same root as the term Paraclete that is used of Jesus to refer to the Holy Spirit.  It is essentially one who comes alongside of another to help in whatever manner that will help.  It is a very broad term.  In this passage, Barnabas encourages people by giving money to the apostles so that no one in the Jerusalem Church will lack what they need.  Later, we are going to see Barnabas standing alongside of Saul of Tarsus when he believes on Jesus.  Barnabas came alongside of Saul, who came to be known as Paul, and helped the apostles to accept Paul into their fellowship.

Just as there are cautionary tales in the Bible (think of Cain, King Saul, Nebuchadnezzar, Judas, and many others), so there are many who are encouraging examples to us, even exemplars of what we should aspire to be.  Clearly, Jesus is the Exemplar of exemplars, but it is good to see righteous individuals who do particular exploits in the name of Jesus.  Pay attention to the negative examples in Scripture that we should avoid becoming, and the positive examples that we should allow to inspire us to follow Jesus more avidly.

So, what about us today?  Our culture is not as conducive to being aware of everyone’s needs.  In fact, 1^st century Jerusalem was a far different culture than 1^st century Rome, or Thessalonica.  Paul actually tells the Thessalonians that some of their people were being lazy, not working, going from house to house eating food, and being busybodies.  Paul said that such people need to work hard and eat their own food in quietness.  This corrective teaching has a fine edge put on it in the statement, “If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat.”  (2 Thessalonians 3:10 NKJV).

Our culture loves to give lip-service to concepts like love and grace.  However, it often becomes perverted and twisted into something that is contrary to what God calls us to do.  It is not the Church’s job to make sure that no one ever goes hungry.  Sometimes a person has to experience powerful hunger pains in the natural before they ever come awake to the powerful, spiritual hunger pains that they have been running from.  It is our job to follow Jesus in truth.  It is our job to be led by the Spirit of Christ as we minister to and care for those who are believers and those who are lost.

May God help us to be open enough that others in the body would know if we are hurting.  This is nothing to be ashamed of.  It is an opportunity for Christ to demonstrate his compassion in us and through others.

All Things In Common audio

Where Are We Headed? Part 2

Subtitle: Stuck in a Fallen World

Colossians 1:16-17; 1 Peter 5:8; Exodus 34:6. This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on March 20, 2022.

Last week, we talked about the delusion that humanity has embraced that we do not need God, or a god, to accomplish what the Bible says God has promised.  So, we talked about how we double down on intervention, treating society like a social experiment.  The biblical framework does not have a problem with intervention so long as it is surrendered to the sovereignty of God.

Today, we can see that the world as a whole is moving towards either thinking there is no God, or gods even.  Yet, we will posit that, if there are “gods,” they are merely a part of the universe and only more advanced than us.

Regardless of this, we are refusing to listen to God’s King, Jesus, who has revealed truth to us personally and through his apostles.  In a sense, we want there to be no God, or at least for Him to leave us alone and cede the universe.

Problems with God ceding the universe

There are some big problems with this idea that God could abdicate His authority over the universe, that is, for Him to act as if He doesn’t exist and let us do what we want.  Look at Colossians 1:16-17.

When we read this, we run first into the fact that everything was made through Jesus, and it was made for him.  The whole purpose of the universe was to be for Jesus, so Christ would have to be giving it up even after having died for it.  It seems that this is not an option, since He went through such great lengths to redeem it.

Yet, we run into another problem at the end of verse 17.  It says that “in Him all things consist.”  The word “consist” has the idea of being set, or established, together.  It is a picture of the many complex systems that exist and are even inter-related.  It is not entirely clear that all things would continue to stay together if God completely ceded His authority.  Thus, we would need God to keep everything in the universe running for us, and yet stay out of our affairs.

There is another problem with God ceding the universe that we can see in 1 Peter 5:8. Even if God agreed to keep the universe running, and give up His claim on it, we are not alone in this universe.  There are interdimensional beings who have already shown a penchant for enslaving and abusing humanity.  They are light-years beyond us in abilities and knowledge, and they have the character of a hungry lion towards us.  The devil and his angels want to devour us, metaphorically speaking, and perhaps literally for that matter.

The only way that we can win against them is to resist them “steadfast in the faith.”  This is the same faith that Jude spoke of in his letter, verse 3.  “…[C]ontend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.”  To stand against them, one needs to do so with complete confidence in the God that we don’t want to believe in.  This is a big problem.

Now, we would need God to keep everything running, and we would need Him to keep any higher powers from messing with us, all while acting as if He doesn’t exist.

Finally, let’s look at Exodus 34:6. Several times, we see God proclaiming to Moses His own character, specifically, that He is gracious and has a steadfast love- this includes the notion of mercy.  If God really is gracious and loves steadfastly, could He agree to what we are asking Him to do?

Let us explore an illustration from the family.  Let’s say that your adult son loves to game with his buddies all of the time.  Sometimes they even come over and eat a bunch of food while networking their systems together to play.  Let’s say that your son comes to you and asks you to provide for the house to be used by him and his buddies, as well as keep it fully stocked with food, water, power, etc.  Similarly, they ask you to provide 24/7 security so that they can be safe.  And, they want to pretend that you don’t exist.  In fact, you should just move out and expect no more communication from them ever.

I’ve taken some time to put the picture on the table.  Now, put aside the fact that all parents would be highly offended at such a plan.  Could a good parent go along with such demands?  And, if they did, would this be good for their son and his buddies?  What kind of people would they become under such circumstances?  Perhaps, we should recognize that God is often the counter-balance to our wickedness.  A good God could not go along with this idea and still remain good.

Where would we end up if God allowed us to have it to ourselves?

If there was some way that God could agree to all of the above, where would we end up?  There are several possibilities of which I do not believe any of them end well.

First, we could destroy ourselves, which is most likely.  Even secular prognosticators of the future warn that we are most likely going to destroy the whole human race before we develop the technology to spread out.  This is what drives guys like Elon Musk.  We have to get some humans off of this rock before we destroy the whole planet and the humans on it.  Yes, many governments have continuity of government bunkers and seed vaults, etc.  However, that is a big risk to gamble that you can ride out any storm that humanity will be able to devise in 50, 100, or 1000 years.

Whether through war, or some other mechanism, our technology is at a level that such things are not so far-fetched.  If by some grace of God- irony intended- we were able to keep from annihilating all humanity, then we could only succeed to a degree far short of what we will want.

Do you remember the statements made as we entered the 1800s with the discovery of a small pox vaccine?  It was projected that science would vanquish all sickness and disease by the end of the century.  Needless to say, our gusto is somewhat tempered today.  In fact, we are seeing old “conquered” diseases come back as super strains due to the pressures that antibiotics have put on their reduplication over the years.  However, let’s say that we were able to fix our DNA, and genetically conquer all disease?  Well, we would need to fix the problem of aging.  What if we were able to fix that?  Eventually, our physical bodies would be the weak link.  Our quest to become ever more god-like in our powers would lead us to leave our biology behind and become machine, or we could attempt to go the Eastern Mysticism route and try to become pure spiritual beings.  Regardless, no matter how high we “ascended,” we could never be God, who is beyond this universe by definition and by logic.

Read this article by Eric Betz that was published on September 10, 2020, and is called The Big Freeze: How The Universe Will Die. 

“The comos may never end.  But if you were immortal, you’d probably wish it would.  Our comos’ final fate is a long and frigid affair that astronomers call the Big Freeze, or Big Chill.

“It’s a fitting description for the day when all heat and energy is evenly spread over incomprehensibly vast distances.  At this point, the universe’s final temperature will hover just above absolute zero…

“No normal matter will remain in this final “Dark Era” of the universe, which will last far longer than everything that came before it.  And the second law of thermodynamics tells us that in this time frame, all energy will ultimately be evenly distributed.  The cosmos will settle at its final resting temperature, just above absolute zero, the coldest temperature possible.”

We would always fall short, and we would turn ourselves into an unrecognizable, freakish shadow of what we once were.  What would we do when we hit the limits of the universe?  Would there be more than one of us?  Is this universe big enough for so many little gods?

Ultimately, our greatest problem is unsolvable by science.  The moral problem of man has its roots in a spiritual problem.  We are not in right relationship with God, and we are wicked.  Jeremiah 13:23 says, “Can an Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots?  Then you could do good who are accustomed to doing evil.”  God is not being bitter here.  He is putting His finger on the problem.

1 Corinthians 15:50 says, “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.”  Truth cannot be redefined to our liking.  Only truth can fix our moral problem, and without God, we are woefully short in that department.

If we do not have God, then the best we can do is become stuck in a material universe as fallen beings with no way out, that is, a prison universe, and waiting for an inevitable end of all things.  Who wants to be an immortal sinner who has ceased to enjoy life a 1,000 years ago, or a billion?  Who wants to be in the vice of the Big Freeze, unable to do anything but exist?

God loves us, God loves you, too much to leave us to ourselves.  He has promised to bring us to immortality and a perfect society in the way that is best for us, and in a way that works.  Perhaps, hell is best thought of as what this universe will become when God takes whosoever believes in Him into the Final State of the New Heavens and New Earth.  Or, perhaps, that is only wishful thinking.  Perhaps, we should turn back now and take His hand, and His offer to become a part of His family.

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