The Coming Blood Moons II

Today we will finish up this two part series on the blood moons and look at exactly what should we do with this information.   So first let’s just review what is being said.

Bible prophecy refers to the fact that God will use the sun and the moon to signal people on the earth that He is getting ready to bring judgment.  In these descriptions we see evidence that eclipses and or atmospheric disturbances will cause the sun to be dark and the moon to appear blood red.

In looking at the scientific data of when eclipses have happened in the past and will happen in the future, a pattern has emerged.  It is rare for four total lunar eclipses, called tetrads, to happen in a row (54 times in 2,000 years or less than 3 times per century).  But it is even rarer for these “tetrads” to land on the biblical feast days (7 times in 2,000 years or 1 every 300 years).  The last two tetrads that landed on biblical feast days happened within 19 years of each other in 1949 and 1967.  Both these dates happen to be significant events in the life of modern Israel and the next one will begin in April 2014.  Is something significant on the horizon?  Is God signaling believers that He is about to make a change in the status quo?  It sure seems that way.  On top of all this is the fact that there will be a solar eclipse as the religious New Year begins.  Here are the dates:

2014 Apr 14  Passover—Total Lunar Eclipse

2014 Oct 08  Tabernacles—Total Lunar Eclipse

2015 Mar 20  Religious New Year—Solar Eclipse

2015 Apr 04  Passover—Total Lunar Eclipse

2015 Sep 28  Tabernacles—Total Lunar Eclipse

Times of the Gentiles

In Luke 21:24-28, Jesus warned His disciples to be alert and recognize the prophetic times.  He also gives a rough outline of the events leading up to His second coming.  They are: Israel defeated and led captive into all the nations, The Times of the Gentiles, Signs in the heavens and on the earth, The Second coming.  Now it is a no brainer that the first two have happened.  Israel was destroyed along with the temple of the Lord.  They were scattered to the nations as God’s grace turned towards the Gentiles.  This times of the Gentiles will continue until it is fulfilled.   Thus as the times of the Gentiles come to a close, God gives signals in the heavens and on the earth that He is getting ready to come back.  So how will we know when the Times of the Gentiles is over?

In Romans 11:11-12, 25-28 we are told that during this time of the Gentiles Israel as a whole would be blind to salvation and the true messiah.  However, when the full number of Gentiles has been brought in then God will turn back to Israel and draw them to a salvation experience.  Thus, as the times of the Gentiles draws to a close, so the time of Israel’s national salvation is drawing near.  God’s turning back to Israel is not a rejection of the church.  Rather, it is an emphatic exclamation point on God’s heart for the lost.  Israel rejects the messiah and God’s riches are given to the Gentiles.  But even more riches will be given to the Gentiles through the drawing of Israel back to God.  Israel’s salvation will be proof that what God did in sending His Gospels to the Gentiles was indeed righteous.  So a dark time of tribulation detailed in the book of Revelation will come upon the unbelieving world and in this dark time Israel will come to see its sin and turn in repentance to Jesus.  This is spoken of in Zechariah 12:10.  Here the prophet says that Israel will look upon the one whom they pierced and a spirit of grace and repentance will be poured out upon them.  They will mourn  over what they did to Jesus Christ the Firstborn of the Sons of God.

Now in Luke 21:36 Jesus told His disciples to watch and pray that they would be counted worthy to escape this time of Great Tribulation.  The key is not to be so fascinated with blood moons, the nation of Israel, or weather anomalies that we lose sight of the other things we should be doing.  We should be praying for ourselves, for each other as believers, and for the salvation of the lost around us.  We should also be an active witness of the salvation of Jesus to those who are lost.  The blood moons should only add another signal to us from our Lord to be even more confident in our prayers and in our witness.  It should cause us to separate ourselves even more from the temptations and seductions of this age.

So let me encourage you, these dates are not important in and of themselves.  Historically it has been either before, in the middle or after the tetrads that something has happened.  These are not predictions of the rapture or the second coming.  They are simply signals from our Lord to not be asleep spiritually and to be about His business.

Yet, just as the spring Feasts of the Lord prophetically pointed to the first Coming of Christ, so the Fall feasts prophetically point to His second.  The first coming events happened on the very feast days: Jesus, the Lamb of God, was slain on Passover.  He was then buried and became our heavenly bread on Unleaved Bread.  He was resurrected along with a select group of saints on the feast of Firstfruits.  And, He poured out the Holy Spirit to enable a global harvest on the feast of Pentecost or Weeks.  Now Christians have debated for years whether the Rapture is actually going to happen on one of these Fall feasts.  I am of the opinion that our Lord wanted us to understand the times without being focused on figuring out what day He will come.  Thus I encourage you, keep your eye on Jesus and the duties that He has given you.  Keep sowing the seed, watering it, and harvesting as the Lord provides.  When it is time to go He will let you know.  Maranatha!

Blood Moons II Audio

The Sign of the Blood Moons

Today we are going to take a break from the Gospel of Luke and spend the next two weeks looking at the latest issue that has surfaced among prophecy circles.  I am talking about the Blood Moons.  Over the last 6 or more years there has been increasing chatter about the coming blood moons of 2014 and 2015.  Mark Biltz of El Shaddai Ministries in Bonney Lake, WA is one of the first to point out this phenomenon.  It was later picked up by John Hagee who has recently written a book called, “Four Blood Moons: Something is about to change.”

You may notice by such a title that there are no specific predictions being made.  Rather, it is pointing to something that is occurring and explaining why we should pay attention to it.  So let’s first look at what these blood moons are and why many are starting to talk about them.

What Are Blood Moons?

Prophecy scholars like Mark Biltz and John Hagee are looking to two passages in the Bible that refer to the moon being turned into blood before the Day of the Lord.  Generally scholars take such language to be speaking of what the phenomenon will look like rather than being literal.  So the moon will not literally turn into blood.  But rather, it will look blood red.  The biblical passages are Joel 2:30-31 and Revelation 6:12, 17.

Joel – “And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth: blood and fire and pillars of smoke.  The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and awesome Day of the Lord.” (NKJV)

Revelation—“I looked when He opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became like blood…the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?” (NKJV)

This has been generally interpreted as references to eclipses or atmospheric dust, smoke, and particulate.  It could also be a combination of both.  If you have been in areas where there are forest fires you have probably seen the moon and sun both look blood red as well as many other colors.  In these two passages we are warned that such visuals will be connected to the 2^nd Coming of Christ.  Thus the term blood moon is used to refer to the above situations.

From the scientific angle there is no technical term: blood moon.  Scientists have explained why the moon can appear to be red during a total eclipse.  But they do not use the term “blood moon” for this.  Depending on the makeup of any particulate in the atmosphere, the moon can be anywhere from brown to orange to red to black.  Thus blood moon is a description rather than a technical term.  However, scientists have determined that eclipses, both solar and lunar, follow cycles that can be mapped out with a computer.  In fact, NASA has done this on their website; figuring out the eclipses back to 2,000 BC and forward to AD 3,000.  In this mapping they have noticed that it is rare for 4 Total lunar eclipses to happen in a row.  They have called this phenomenon a tetrad.  Now April 2014 through September of 2015 we are going to have a tetrad of Total Lunar Eclipses.  This has happened 54 times since the days of Christ (that is less than 3 per century). 

Mark Biltz was following up his interest in the coming eclipses and noticed that a rare tetrad was coming up in 2014.  But when he looked at the dates he noticed something else.  All four eclipses landed on biblical feast days.  Here they are:

2014   Apr 15  Passover   Total Lunar Eclipse

2014   Oct 18  Passover   Total Lunar Eclipse 

2015   Mar 20 Religious New Year   Solar Eclipse 

2015   Apr 04  Passover   Total Lunar Eclipse 

2015   Sep 28  Passover   Total Lunar Eclipse

So What Are People Saying?

Mark Biltz is a pastor within the messianic community.  So he already is sensitive to the biblical calendar in ways that most Christians are not.  He followed up the other tetrads back to Christ and even forward and what he found shocked Him.  Of the 54 tetrads only 7 have all aligned with the feast days.  The tetrad in 2014-2015 would be the 8^th.  Before we go any further it is important to look at some biblical background to the moon and biblical feast days.  In Genesis 1:14 it says, “Then God said, ‘Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years;’” (NKJV)  Now at the creation of the sun and moon we are told their purpose.  The word for signs is like the idea of a signal.  It points you towards something, whether to pay attention to it or avoid it.  Now Joel and John made it clear that God was not just signaling when months or days begin by these celestial objects.  He also would use them to signal the Day of the Lord.  Similarly there is more to the word “seasons.”  It does not just mean spring, summer, fall, or winter.  It literally means an appointed time or scheduled event.  This same word translated “seasons” is the word translated feasts in “The Feasts of The Lord.”  The feasts were the appointed times or scheduled events that had been made by God Himself.  Leviticus 23:2 says, “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘The feasts of the Lord, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, these are My feasts.’” (NKJV)  Now these divine appointments, in which Israel re-enacted past events in ceremonial form, were prophetically pointing forward to future events.  Without even knowing it, Israel had been performing “dress rehearsals” of coming divine appointments.  Thus Passover, Unleavened Bread, First Fruits, and Passover were all fulfilled at Christ’s first coming in the year of His death and resurrection.  The death of the Lamb of God, the provision it would release, His resurrection, and the consequent World Harvest of the Gentiles, were all divine appointments scheduled by God.  However, there are 3 more “feasts” or divine appointments to come at His Second Coming. 

Now when Mark Biltz looked back at the tetrads to see that only 8 coincided with biblical feasts this is what he found.  The dates are all AD.

1. 1.    162
2. 2.    795
3. 3.    842
4. 4.    860
5. 5.    1492
6. 6.    1949
7. 7.    1967

Now the last two really jumped out to him.  These tetrads that landed on biblical feasts were at significant dates for Israel.  In #6 Israel had just become a state.  In #7 Israel had just taken Jerusalem and the Temple Mount.  The year 1492 sticks out because of Columbus.  However, it was also a year that King Ferdinand of Spain kicked out any Jews who refused to convert to Christianity.  While he increases persecution of the Jews, his support of Columbus would pave the way for a place of great refuge for Jews, i.e. America.  So is something going to happen?  What could it be?  Should we be worried?  We will look at these questions more next week.

Let me just close with this.  God has said over and over again in His Word that He has set a time to judge the nations of the world, and that He would do that through Jesus.  Whether Mark Biltz is on to something or not, you need to have made your peace with God while it is still possible.  No one likes to get caught, put in jail or punished for wrong-doing.  However, the whole world has a date on which it will be brought before Heaven’s court.  Are you ready?  Confess your sins, believe on Jesus, turn from your sins, and become a disciple of Jesus today.

Blood Moons Audio

Encouragements And Warnings

~We apologize.  The audio of this week’s sermon is unavailable.~ 

The world is often divided into the “Haves” and the “Have-nots.”  Now there is a real distinction in these words, but the exact dividing line is often very subjective.  Part of the problem is the envy that is in the heart of every man.  In fact the real problem of having and not having is continuing to live with faith as we encounter them both in a multitude of ways and measures.  Even when we know the Words of God and believe they are true, this life will test our ability to trust Him.

On one hand we can see that God Himself has scattered and spread gifts in such a fashion that they are not equally distributed.  Yet, on the other hand, we see God giving a two-pronged challenge to mankind in His Word.  To the “Haves” is the challenge to be a blessing to the “Have-nots.”  But, to the “Have-nots” is the challenge to trust God and His care above and beyond the care of mankind.  In His desire to cast off God, modern man has severed one side of this prong and has instead stoked the fires of envy as an engine of social transformation.  The question we are left with is this: If such men are successful what will become of the envious masses on the other side of the Equation?  Will mankind have been made better or trapped within a net of his own making?

The words of Jesus in this passage stand as an eternal encouragement to those who do not have and an eternal warning to those who do.  Yet, it does so in a masterful way that does not reduce the “have-nots” into a raving mob seeking to “get theirs.” These very words douse the fires of envy and yet stir a very different kind of fire altogether, a fire of faith in the God of Heaven and the Day of Judgment.  Let’s look at Luke 6:20-26.

Encouraging The “Have-nots”

These instructions are basically the same as Matthew’s “Sermon on the Mount” in Matt. 5-7.  There are some differences in wording and in some content.  Yet, the overall meaning is the same and it is clearly a synopsis.  In Matthew, Jesus encourages people who are in 8 or 9 different kinds of situations.  But in Luke, we have less encouraging and an additional warning to those who are in the opposite situation.  The masterful touch of Jesus lies not in encouraging some and warning others.  Rather, it lies in exactly whom He calls blessed and to whom He pronounces woe.  He calls blessed and happy people that all of mankind would call cursed.  And, in the same way, He calls cursed those whom most of us would envy and think of as happy and blessed.  This strange inversion calls for deeper thinking than just following your instincts, gut, and heart.  It calls us to see things from God’s eternal perspective.  Is it possible you have envied people whom God warns of coming woe?  And is it possible you have cursed situations that God says is a blessing?  Try to actually hear what Jesus is saying rather than looking for ways to manipulate what He says in order to get “social justice.”

Jesus starts by stating that the poor are blessed because the Kingdom of God is being given to them.  Now in Matthew is qualified as the poor in spirit.  Thus it is most likely that Jesus uses the simple form her in Luke to get attention.  Blessed are those with no wealth because God is even now giving them His kingdom.  Yet, it is clear that Jesus means us to questioningly dissect such a statement.  Would God really give His kingdom to a person solely because they are poor?  What if they are a poor scoundrel who steals from all around him?  Is such a person to be given God’s kingdom?  Clearly Jesus went into further elaboration and so we find Matthew’s phrase, “poor in spirit.”  Now Poor in spirit may sound like a bad thing.  So to help us understand one might ask what spirit is in question?  It is not The Holy Spirit of God that He is pointing to.  Rather, it is a man’s own spirit.  In our modern vernacular it would be close to the phrase, “full of himself.”  It is one thing to be lacking in wealth of this world.  But it is quite another to be empty of spirit.  A poor man who rages against the rich with billows of envy surging within is not a blessed man.  We would agree, but for the wrong reasons.  He is not blessed because he is not poor enough.  God is not looking only for men who are poor in material things, but those who know and accept that their very spirit is poor and a beggar before God and fellow men.  These are the ones who were in the middle of receiving the Kingdom of God in the days of Jesus.  In fact if a man who is rich in material things of this world recognizes his poverty of spirit, he too can be blessed with this kingdom.  Later Jesus will give a warning to the rich, so let’s move on.

The second is this, Happy and blessed are those who are hungry now because they are going to be filled.  Now the first blessing had a present aspect only.  But these that follow have a present and future aspect.  Those who are hungry now are promised a future filling.  That may seem to be an empty promise, but it is one that is made by the Creator Himself.  Thus you despise it at your own peril.  Life is not about how much money you have or if you have gone hungry.  Rather, life is about where you are headed.  What you do today impacts where you end up tomorrow.  Many in this world are headed towards great hunger and they don’t even know it.  Others who despair of life today are headed towards great satisfaction.  The question is which are you headed towards?  Similar to poverty, Jesus speaks to those who are often going hungry.  This begs the same questions.  Is hunger the key to getting something from God?  Matthew lets us in on the deeper aspect of what Jesus is getting at.  Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.  It is a horrible thing to have no food and go hungry for days on end, while others have so much they waste it.  However, there are greater things we should “hunger” for that are just as much absent from our lives.  Are you not just hungry for physical food, but for the greater things of life like righteousness, truth, and real love?  If you only labor and hunger for food then you will only find a temporary satisfaction.  But, if you hunger and thirst for the greater things that God is concerned about then you will have a great day of satisfaction ahead.  Again, this blessing may seem like a platitude that doesn’t put food in your belly now.  But then isn’t that the rub?  Can you go hungry of material things now for the greater food that God has promised to give?  Do you trust Him?

The third category is mourning.  Blessed are those who are weeping now because they will laugh in the future.  Life has a certain measure of grief for all of us, but some get much more than others.  For the grieving of this world God promises a future time of laughter ahead.  Now when you are in the midst of weeping you may not want to think of such things.  But it is not intended to make you quit weeping.  Rather it is intended to give you hope in the midst of darkest despair.  I will laugh again.  It is promised by God Himself.  In Revelation 21:4 it says, “And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying.  There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”  Though we wish he would deal with these things today, and though we may wish to labor all day long to quash those things that make us hurt, God asks us to trust Him.  He will make it right.  He will heal the hurt.  And, He will fill our heart with laughter.  Solomon warned that the heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.  He was not saying that God despises laughter.  Rather the point is where their heart wants to be.  The fool is willing to do anything to have a party and laugh.  But he often does so ignoring very sober things.  Whereas the wise recognize that this life has much grief to it and that often the laughter of fools is like the noise of wood that is in the fire.  Instead of embracing bitterness, hatred and anger, we are given the hope that God can heal even this thing that wounds us so.

Lastly, Jesus deals with the situation of being hated, excluded, or excommunicated by others.  He describes it further as being faulted and blamed, to the point that they “cast out your name as evil.”  Now here Luke adds the key phrase “for Christ’s sake.”  Thus the oppressed and outcasts of this world are not rewarded by God simply for being outcasts.  At some point this world rose up and cast out Hitler and his armies but that does not mean they will be rewarded by God.  Rather when such happens because we stand with Christ.  If you stand with God, His Word, and His commands, this world will hate you in one form or another.  The trying of your faith will be tempted to leave His side.  Whether you do so in bold rebellion or you do so in seductive twisting of His words both are leaving His side.  If you stand with Christ you will have great reward in heaven.  Notice the future is the key.  This coming day of Judgment in which God sets all things right is easy to dismiss.  Mankind has lived for thousands of years and no such day has come.  First, none of us can know exactly what each who has left this world encountered on the other side.  We can take God’s word for it or we can claim ignorance.  Second, we do so over the top of the evidence of Judgment in the past.  There is much evidence for the global flood if one has eyes to see.  There is also much history of great kingdoms and nations warned by God that they would be destroyed.  All of these have entered the dustbin of history as God said they would.  Thus, it is easy to once again dismiss these future promises as a religious means to pacify the weak.  But the truth is that such statements give us insight into the dragon that speaks them.  If I am weak and believing something that is a fairy tale, what is that to you?  Why must you ridicule my faith rather than just dismiss it?  Why must you eradicate those who believe rather than just ignore them?  Why must you silence the promises of hope rather than disbelieve them?  It is because there is a spiritual enemy that seeks to rob the world of such precious promises.  Manipulation is used precisely because they are valuable.  Will you stand with Christ, whether it is a day when the world pretends favor, or, when it rails against Christ Himself?

Warning the “Haves”

Matthew does not give this “flip side of the coin,” although it is implied.  Those who are rich, well-fed, living to party, and popular are all headed for a difficult future.  The very thing that most clamor for are the very things that lead to Judgment.  Why do we clamor so?

Jesus says, woe to the rich for they have no future help.  A time will come when they call for help but none will come.  The story of the Rich man and Lazarus is a perfect backdrop for these statements.  After death the rich man begs for help, but none is given.  In this life his wealth itself gave him power to command such things to himself.  But such things cannot help you in the life to come.  So how is the poor man better than the rich if they both can recognize these things and escape destruction?  The poor man is blessed because he sees that he is in poverty.  Life has forced him to accept that he has nothing.  He is only half way to true riches.  Once he sees that even he himself is found wanting before God, he can cry out for mercy and be saved.  But riches blind a man to his true poverty.  They surround him with a false sense of security that cannot help in the day of Judgment.  Is it possible that in this modern world those who clamor to have the wealth of the rich are clamoring for a curse?  Is it possible that even as the wealth is being taken from the rich that they are receiving a blessing?  It is high time to wake up because the Dragon is loose upon the earth and deceiving us quite skillfully.  Those who know God’s Word have no excuse.  Riches cannot save us only true poverty before God.  Is there hope for the rich?  If they recognize their true poverty and come to God as a beggar who is destitute, then yes.  James 2:5 says, “has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love him?”  What riches do you seek?

Jesus warns those who are full now because they are headed to great hunger.  In the story of the rich man thirst is the picture.  Here it is hunger.  Like a thirsty man in hell, so a time of insatiable appetite is ahead for those consumed with consuming in the here and now.  Yet, the spiritual application goes deeper.  Those who are satisfied with their own righteousness will find themselves falling short on the day of Judgment and it will be too late to plead for grace.  What are you hungry for?  Yet another question is this, What satisfies me?  Be careful because in the answers of these questions lies blessing and cursing, life and death.

Jesus moves to warn those who laugh now.  You will mourn.  Those who have laughed it up in the pleasures of this life without thought for the judgment to come will mourn on that day.  Christ is not against riches, food, and laughter.  He is warning against man’s tendency to seek such things and be satisfied with them at the expense of Truth.  The truth is that none of these things satisfy beyond a small moment of time.  They testify of themselves that they are not eternal.  Yet, men allow themselves to be blinded to the greater things that satisfy for eternity.  No matter how good your life is, you are in danger of judgment and should not let the abundance of such things blind you to this reality.

Lastly Jesus warns those who are accepted by all men.  Woe to you when all men speak well of you because they spoke well of the false prophets.  This proverbial statement is not meant to cause us to try and make sure no one speaks well of us.  Rather it is warning us of putting any trust in such well speaking.  There is a day when the righteous are spoken well of, but it is rare and short lived.  Furthermore, we are not in such a day.  The key to this is the phrase, “for Christ’s sake.”

Each of these four categories require us to use wisdom and discern the heart of God.  Thus we should be accepted among the righteous, but we should expect rejection from this world.  Jesus said elsewhere that this world would hate his true disciples because it also hated Him.  This has never changed.  Sure the world is not always directly opposed to Christ.  In fact, Scripture warns that in the last days, it will promote a false Christ through false prophets. Thus the seductive twisting of the truths of God will be used to promote an anti-christ.  The deception of the end times is even now upon us.  The antichrist is truly against Christ.  But he seductively puts himself in the place of Christ; the True Christ.  If you have ears to hear then you will hear in these words of Jesus, not a call to arms against the rich of the world.  But, rather, you will hear a call to arms against how easily your very heart is manipulated against the things of God.  You will hear the poverty of your own soul and see how desperate you are without His Grace.  Come to the True Jesus today, learn of Him, and you will have true blessing.

Critical Choices

Note:  We apologize that there is no audio for this sermon.

Earlier in the book of Luke we have seen where Jesus called different ones to follow Him and become disciples.  Here we see another aspect to this, as Jesus now picks 12 of the disciples to become His “apostles.”  We will talk more about this word.  But, suffice it to say that Jesus needed 12 men who would serve as His inner group and become the foundation of the Church once He ascended into heaven.  This is a critical choice.  Now let’s look how Jesus makes it here in Luke 6:12-18.

Taking Time To Pray

Jesus truly is a marvel when you study his life and deeds.  To those who accept Him as a real person from history, it is a marvel to understand the amazingly divine things that He did.  On the other hand, for those who find it easier to see Jesus as divine, it is amazing to see the very human things that He did.  Jesus is at a big transitional point in His life and ministry.  He has some critical decisions before Him.  The 12 men He picks will play a critical role in the plan of God.  In fact, to the uninformed person looking on, the choice of Judas Iscariot may appear to have been a bad one.  But we will come back to that in a moment.

The key at this point is to first see that Jesus spends all night praying about this decision.  Why would Jesus pray?  Doesn’t He know all things?  Isn’t He God?  Part of the mystery is solved in seeing the importance of relationship to God.  Throughout eternity past the Son has always existed in a unique unity with the Father and Spirit.  Even though the incarnation has switched things up a bit, the Son still is motivated by relationship.  In fact the glimpse we have of His time in the Garden of Gethsemane may help us to see that perhaps one of the things Jesus was doing that night was agonizing over the choice of Judas.  Here is the good news.  In Christ, we are invited to enter into this eternal, relationship of God.  Sometimes in our rush to get results we can miss the importance of the process.  In fact, we can forget that of the results God desires in life, relationship is the most important. So why should we pray?

First of all, Jesus sets the example here.  Relationship with God is important.  Even if we can handle “it,” God wants us to spend time talking things through with Him.  If He “needed” to talk with His Father then how much more do we?  Are we greater than our master?  To follow the example of Jesus is to say, “I trust your way rather than mine.”  Of course, prayer is cumbersome and difficult at first.  But over time all relationships become more natural and the communication becomes easier.

Another reason to pray is that we are told to pray throughout the Bible.  Philippians 4:6-7 says, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God;  and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”  In this passage we are told to not let ourselves be distracted by the multitude of cares and concerns we face in this life.  Rather, we are to turn to God in prayer.  The end result of this process is God’s peace.  This is different from having peace with God.  A believer can be at peace with God in the sense of not being His enemy any more, but still lack the inner serenity that God wants us to find in times of relationship with Him.  In fact this verse may seem to be stating that God’s peace surpasses all understanding.  This is definitely true, but not the point of the verse.  It is actually saying that having the peace of God is something far greater than having perfect understanding.  Think about it.  Most of the time, we want God to make everything perfectly clear.  But God is saying that He wants us to have something better.  But doesn’t lack of understanding cause lack of peace?  It definitely contributes to it.  But it is not the cause.  The cause is a broken relationship between man and God.  The more we go to God in prayer and agonize over our decisions and life, the more we will sense His peace in our hearts.  Having the peace of knowing our Father has heard us and has everything worked out is superior to having full understanding.  It is what protects our hearts from doubts and making decisions based on fear and fleshly desires.

Why pray?  Prayer is me saying, “God, you are my answer.”  It declares what your source of wisdom is.  If I never pray about my decisions than I am revealing that He is not the source of my decisions.  What is your source?  I am able to make all my decisions without God’s input, whether in prayer or reading the Word.  But is this wise?  It clearly is not.  Prayer is that means by which I move the source of my decision making from my flesh (my understanding, desires, fears, etc…) to God Himself.  My source of wisdom becomes a spiritual source.  But not just any spiritual source (e.g. demonic or satanic).  The very same mind that created all the cosmos calls me into relationship and is the source of my decisions.  Wow!

Lastly, prayer exercises our faith.  Like a muscle, our faith can atrophy from lack of use.  The more we learn to turn quickly to God in prayer, the stronger we become in our faith.  But do not confuse faith with presumptuous choices.   Thus Jesus, who of all people could have presumed that He could make a good decision, goes to His Father in prayer.  I don’t pretend to know what that night’s prayer looked like exactly.  But I do know that we would be wise to follow Jesus in this.

Calling His Apostles

Now Jesus had many people who wanted to learn of Him and were His disciples.  But He needed 12 men into whom He would reproduce Himself.  Just as God is working to help us become like Jesus, so Jesus took time to reproduce Himself into these men.  Thus the choice involves discerning who would serve Him best from among a larger pool of disciples.  This reminds me of being picked in grade school games.  However, it is clear that Jesus wasn’t picking like we tend to do.  He wasn’t picking His best friends, or the ones who were the studs.  Rather He picked some people that many would scratch their heads over.

Now, the word “apostle” literally means “sent one.”  The person sent was commissioned to be a representative of the one sending.  Thus the apostles are authorized to speak on behalf of Jesus in the years after His death, resurrection, and ascension.  They are enlisted to become the ambassadors of a heavenly King. 

They would also become part of the foundation of the Church.  Scripture gives us this picture of a foundation being laid in several ways.  On one hand Jesus is the ultimate foundation on which everything else that hopes to stand must be built.  In this sense Jesus is the only foundation.  However, another picture that is used would be more like an arch.  Ephesians 2:19-20 says, “Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone.  Here the importance of the prophets and apostles is underlined.  But the uniqueness of Jesus is upheld by referring to Him as the chief cornerstone.   It is the critical stone that holds the others in place much like the wedge at the top of an archway.  Leaning upon each other these stones become the strength that holds up everything above it.  In fact, Revelation 21 points out that the New Jerusalem that comes down from heaven will have 12 foundations named after each apostle.

Another aspect of the people Jesus picks that day is the diversity of the group.  One one hand you have some who are brothers and therefore very close (Peter & Andrew, James & John).  Also these four worked together in the fishing business.  Thus they had learned to work together and appreciate each other.  You have some who were blue collar workers and others who were white collar workers (Matthew the tax collector).  Then we have differing political views.  Matthew as a tax collector was clearly not a rebel.  Yet, we also have Simon who was a Zealot.  This group was a “freedom fighting” group that often operated in terrorist-type ways.

Lastly, we have the one who would betray Jesus in the end.  It has been noted that Judas seems to be the only one from Judea.  Why would Jesus pick Judas?  Was it a mistake?

Clearly it was not a mistake from God’s perspective.  However, it has been noted that the real question is not, “Why did God pick Judas?”  But, rather, “Why did God pick me?”  Don’t we all have the wavering faithfulness inherent in our heart?  Haven’t we all betrayed the Truth of Jesus at one time or another?

Verses 17-18 do not show any great ceremony.  One moment Jesus is calling 12 men to be His apostles and the next minute He is knee deep in ministry.  These apostles go from being a part of the crowd to being with Jesus.  This “one the job” training may not be what they expected that morning.  Any new job is cumbersome at first because you are clueless.  However, I’m sure these guys felt worse than clueless that day.  Yet note the words “with them.”  Jesus, who is Immanuel “God with Us,” comes with His apostles and ministers with them by His side.  Couldn’t He do it all by Himself?  If by “it” you mean heal people then, “yes, he could.”  But God wanted to minister to man in the face of man’s spiritual enemy with 12 weak individuals whom He was turning into Christ-like warriors.  They would participate in His glory and be exalted to a high position within God’s Kingdom.

When we do have a sense of what God wants us to do, we are going to have to learn to trust Him.  We don’t have perfect knowledge of how things will end up.  So why not choose to have perfect peace instead?  Relationship.  Trust.  Peace.  God’s choices for us personally or for us as mankind can be trusted as He wraps up this stage of History and brings in His millennial kingdom.