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Jesus Christ - sermon notes (given at Lake Marburg Baptist Church today)
Let me ramble a little before I get started.
Hebrews 1:1 ¶ God, who at
sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the
prophets, 2 Hath in these last days
spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom
also he made the worlds; 3 Who being the
brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all
things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat
down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;
Buddha, Lao-tse the accepted founder of Taoism, Muhammed, Socrates
the Greek philosopher, Mahavira of Jainism, Joseph Smith of the Mormons, Guru
Nanak of the Sikhs, and all other founders of world religions are long dead.
Only Jesus arose from the dead never to die again. Only Jesus was the physical
image of the invisible God who created all things.
Jesus Himself is spoken of as the Word, capital W, by which all
things were created.
John 1:1 ¶ In the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 The same was in the
beginning with God. 3 All things were
made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life; and the life was the light
of men.
The Apostle John, writer of the Gospel According to John, used a
Greek word that was understood by people of that time, the word Logos, from
which is translated Word with a capital W.
To the Greeks the Logos was a sort of divine consciousness
ordering the universe and giving it meaning. John underscored that it was not
an impersonal force but an actual eternally living God, creator of all things,
its full expression being the Lord – Jesus – Christ.
The Stoics regarded the Logos as the creative impulse of the
universe but they did not know Christ by whom all things were begotten, the
firstborn of every creature, or every created thing’s beginning.
The Lord Jesus Christ as is underscored by the verses in Hebrews 1
I mentioned earlier was not merely the express image of God, He is the visible
image of the invisible God.
He told one of His apostles;
John 14:9 Jesus saith unto
him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip?
he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us
the Father?
And said that;
John 10:30 I and my Father
are one.
As John stated and Paul would confirm, it was by Him that all
things were created and by Him, not non-existent, unproveable, never seen Dark
Matter or Dark Energy, that all things are held together. Philosophers of
Science called anti-realists will say that theoretical entities like Dark
Matter and Energy have explanatory power but no real existence in our physical
reality. I would add that they can only explain or attempt to explain something
without God. Because it is by Christ that all things are held together.
Colossians 1:12 ¶ Giving
thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the
inheritance of the saints in light:13
Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us
into the kingdom of his dear Son:14 In
whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:15 Who is the image of the invisible God, the
firstborn of every creature:16 For by
him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible
and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or
powers: all things were created by him, and for him: 17 And he is before all things, and by him all
things consist.
Atheistic materialists, scientists who study the origins of
things, will not accept this in spite of all the evidence to the contrary to
their beliefs. Why? Not because of any understanding of the truth. They
champion the cause of a godless universe because to consider the alternative
would make them subject to the judgment of a righteous and angry God.
John 3:36 He that believeth
on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not
see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.
In addition, scientists have big questions that they cannot
answer. “How did a once barren terrestrial environment give rise to life forms?
How did the resources deemed necessary to this process—self-replicating
molecules bearing genetic information—arise in the first place? What is the
ultimate origin of the genetic code, and who or what directed it to produce
plant and animal species? Why are we safely cocooned in a cosmic Goldilocks
zone when so many parts of the universe are more reminiscent of Dante’s
Inferno? Where do the laws of physics come from? What was before the Big Bang?
Why is there something rather than nothing?
The laws of nature do not, alas, answer any of the above. Physics
can explain much of the physical universe but not the laws of physics
themselves. In fact, scientific laws do not explain the world to us even to the
degree one might imagine; they merely describe certain regularities in
mathematical terms, and are often referred to for that reason as secondary
causes, in contradistinction to the first cause—historically referred to as the
causa causarum, the ultimate cause of all things.”
Thomas, Neil. Taking Leave of Darwin: A Longtime Agnostic
Discovers the Case for Design . Discovery Institute. Kindle Edition.
In fact, though, science cannot ever answer those questions
definitively. It is too self-limiting to fill that void and answering those
questions is beyond its capacity. And science can never honestly deny God’s
place. They shouldn’t even attempt to do that although many militant atheists
among them try.
“Scientists should never present themselves as certain when there
is doubt. The very success and truthfulness of science is founded on doubt and
scepticism. It moves forward by continually rethinking, reobserving and
rechecking against reality again and again to expose the flaws in current
ideas. —Philosopher of evolutionary science Fern Elsdon-Baker”
Let’s go back to John 3:36, to the last part and the beginning of
what I want to say. Why is God angry with mankind? Humankind?
In the last 4000 years of recorded history there has only been
about 300 without war, probably just so combatants could reload. Is that why
God is furious with mankind? In the 20th century we slaughtered a
hundred million of our own kind and made homeless another couple of dozen
million more. Is THAT why God is furious with mankind?
In every economic system from capitalism to communism there are
significant numbers of people who simply can’t make it, lack the will, the
capacity, the drive, have been oppressed and denied opportunity, whatever, and
are hungry, without a roof over their head, and lacking in all other
necessities of life. Is that why God is furious with mankind?
All over the world the powerful prey, P-R-E-Y, on the weak,
oppress and abuse them, and deny them resources they need to survive. Is that
why God is furious with mankind?
There are perverts everywhere doing everything that God has said
not to do, even Christians who shack up with their partners, produce children
out of wedlock, and still go to church on Sunday and feel all smug and
self-righteous that they are not gay or trans. Is that why God is furious with
mankind?
In America we have murdered 50 million unborn babies, a huge
amount of them Black in what some Black commentators have called racial
genocide. Is that why God is furious with mankind?
Maybe, but those things aren’t why, as bad as they are, billions
of people are going to be in an agony of endless tomorrows without God or mercy
in eternity. Those things I mentioned are symptoms of a condition we inherited
and that each person attempts to improve upon in their own depravity most of their
lives.
Jeremiah 10:23 O LORD, I
know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to
direct his steps.
Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is
deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
The first man and woman had one rule. Something they were not to
do. It doesn’t matter whether it was an apple, a grape, or a pomegranate, or
something we’ve not seen since. It was the disobedience that ensured that dying
would begin.
Genesis
2:16 ¶ And the LORD God commanded the
man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: 17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou
shalt surely die.
This barrier, so
to speak, of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, a real literal, tree,
is very important. Mankind was not to reach beyond that barrier. Obedience to
God presents earthly blessings and eternal life. Disobedience was a barrier to
the fellowship with God that eternal life depended on. God told mankind’s first
representative, Adam, not to eat of it. God would grant all things to him and,
by extension, to us but we were to obey. There was no law, no rules, no
restrictions, no commandments, save this one thing, along with being fruitful
and multiplying which seems more of a permission as it carries more obvious
benefits, joys, and pleasures.
For a Christian to
obey God requires belief, faith, and an expectation of things to come, which
benefits are not always apparent. Our choices, our pleasures and
entertainments, our professions, and those things and people we surround
ourselves with often appear to us to be simply a matter of our own will.
However, if we do not choose based on our obedience to God, if our free will is
not harnessed to what God has ordained, then we will give the illusion of the
goodness of our own will power over us. The end result of our own will, being
corrupted by sin, is more sin, and disaster. Of course, this can be complicated
by a so-called man of God dictating his will to a congregation as a substitute
for God’s, even saying that the so-called man of God is repeating something
that God has laid on his heart when it is his own prejudices, bigotry, fear,
and self-righteousness that is being expressed. This is done for the purposes
of control and self-justification. It is very important, therefore, to know
what the Bible says so you can compare everything said to God’s word. Be
assured if you delight in sin, you will reap a bitter harvest in your life and
in the lives of others who come after you.
God said that Adam
would die if he ate of the tree and he began dying that very moment he ate of
it. The penalty for his disobedience was death. Dying is a process. In a way,
we begin dying as soon as we are born. With each cell
division and in each generation mankind passes on more and more deleterious
mutations, so much so that some researchers into genetics have been alarmed at
the accumulated damage and amazed that human beings have not become extinct
because of it.[1] A few verses later in Genesis we are
shown that future generations have the image or appearance of God that Adam had
lacking in respects in them.
First, there was
Adam and Eve that God said He; that would be His soul, God the Father, His
body, the Son of God, the Word, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost,
aka the Holy Spirit, the very mind of God, soul, body, and spirit, those two
people that God said He created. This is the reason for using our image
in the following.
Genesis
1:26 And God said, Let us make man in
our image, after our likeness: 27 So God created man in his own image, in the
image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
But,
after their Fall from grace the image was marred;
Genesis
5:3 And Adam lived an hundred and thirty
years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his
name Seth:
The process of dying, mutations, decay, old
age, disease, and death are the profound consequences of this disobedience.
Death is the great plague of life.
Hebrews
2:15 And deliver them who through fear
of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
To eat of this
particular tree was disobedience to God. Disobedience to God is sin. Death is
the result of sin.
Romans
6:23 For the wages of sin is death; but
the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Mankind is
devolving, not evolving. With many more generations we will become extinct. You
can review some of the studies I mentioned just a minute ago. Alexey
S. Kondrashov, “Contamination of the Genome by Very Slightly Deleterious
Mutations: Why Have We Not Died 100 Times Over?” Journal of Theoretical Biology, (1995) vol. 175, pp. 583-594. James F. Crow, “The High Spontaneous Mutation
Rate: Is it a Health Risk?” Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences, (Aug 1997) vol. 94, pp. 8380-8386.
One
of these guys, Crow, even thinks the government should get involved. Imagine
the ridiculous belief that government can do anything about sin or would if it
could. No, there is only one cure for mankind’s fall.
Then,
we know what happened to Adam and Eve. They began dying that very moment, among
other things, and that process finally killed them years later. They also
suffered and doomed their future offspring to suffer under difficult conditions
from which to try to eke out an existence and the oppression of the stronger
over the weaker, the very reason why women have been physically and legally
dependent upon men for thousands of years, the result of a curse. Man’s
fellowship, his intimate fellowship with the Almighty God walking in the garden
in the form of the Lord Jesus Christ, was lost and had to be regained. But it
was going to take a lot to make that possible.
It is not what would Jesus do
but what DID Jesus do? He, God, came in the form of a human being subject to
all of the perils and physical trials of a human being. He lived, sweated, ate,
excreted, slept, cried, hungered, suffered cold and heat, and finally allowed
human beings to execute him like a common criminal. He was God paying the price
for mankind’s continual rebellion against Him.
He paid a ransom to God, to Himself, not to Satan you
fundamentalists who mistakenly think a ransom was paid to Satan, of all things.
He paid a ransom for us to God the Father.
Exodus 30:12 When thou
takest the sum of the children of Israel after their number, then shall they
give every man a ransom for his soul unto the LORD, when thou numberest them;
that there be no plague among them, when thou numberest them.
Psalms 49:7 None of them
can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him:
Mark 10:45 For even the Son
of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a
ransom for many.
1Timothy 2:6 Who gave
himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.
Christ, the Son of God, as in God-in-the-flesh, like any son of
any ancient king or emperor came in the authority of His father and indeed by
obedience and worship to Him was the same as His father, to be obeyed.
By faith in Christ and by trusting in Christ we have eternal life.
John 10:28 And I give unto
them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck
them out of my hand.
He is preparing a place for us.
John 14:1 ¶ Let not your
heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.
2 In my Father’s house are many
mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for
you.3 And if I go and prepare a place
for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there
ye may be also.
Through Christ we have equality and the elimination of
distinctions that led to domination and oppression of one over the other.
Galatians 3:28 There is
neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male
nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
We have immediate access to the very throne of God.
Hebrews 4:16 Let us
therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and
find grace to help in time of need.
On top of that the Godhead indwells each believer and we have
access to the very mind of God if we can push self aside.
John 14:23 Jesus answered
and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will
love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.
Romans 8:9 But ye are not
in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you.
Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.
I’ve pointed out before how Christ promised to never leave or
forsake us. We are incredibly, wonderfully, and permanently saved no matter how
stupid, self-righteous, sinful, bigoted, or unreasonable our human spirit is.
But He has also promised to remove that garbage from us if we would confess our
sins to Him.
1John 1:9 If we confess our
sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from
all unrighteousness.
So, considering all of that, why wouldn’t anyone want to get saved
by the Creator of the Universe?
Why wouldn’t anyone want to spend eternity with their Creator, the
God who has declared that He loves them and loved them enough to die for them,
to pay any price that Creator would demand for rebellion against Him, and paid
the price Himself?
There are several choices people have to make in life regarding
God. One is what is offered to us in public education, that the universe is
dead and ruled by blind, pitiless chance. In this view you are an accident of
nature and you have no special purpose, no value, and you have no reason to
live other than that you enjoy living and if you don’t then there is nothing
wrong particularly with ending your existence. You are not going to be judged.
No one out there gives one care if you die or live. The only thing you have to
lose is your pain.
The greatest good you can expect in life is to find pleasure and
happiness because nothing you do matters in the long run. You are a non-verbal,
unfeeling, event in space-time and within a relatively very short period of
time, all things considered, your body will die and go back into the
constituent elements from which it just randomly accidentally came about. Your
consciousness in this view is merely a byproduct of your neurons firing off. I
guess, if that’s true, since there are more neurons in your digestive system
than in your brain that explains why most people think with their stomach. And,
of course, if thoughts are the result of neurons firing off how many have to
fire off to make a thought? Five? Ten thousand?
Who knows? But anyway if you believe this you are no more
important than a garden slug or a piece of grass. Life’s only meaning is what
you give to it and then you’re gone.
Then, there is the view that there is a god or even gods but they
don’t love mankind, that means you, have never loved mankind, and truly are
just oblivious to your existence unless you make them mad.
Allah doesn’t love mankind. He doesn’t promise them anything.. He
certainly wouldn’t be caught living as one of them, suffering what they suffer,
and Allah forbid, letting them kill him if he had condescended so low.
As Muslim scholars would argue against Christ, why not become a
dog? Could the Messiah come as a sheep?
Did Buddha love mankind? He never said he did. The gods and
goddesses of the Hindus or Greeks might take on human bodies to play but that
wasn’t out of a concern or a desire to communicate with them but to exploit
them. Plus, these gods are so weak, even Allah, that they need men to kill for
them. Unlike the God of the Bible they don’t seem to have control over every
moment of your existence. No, the gods of this earth are pretty lacking when it
comes to someone worthy to be worshipped.
Then there is the God of the Bible; His soul, God the Father; His body,
the Son of God, the Word, and the Lord Jesus Christ; and the Holy Ghost, aka
the Holy Spirit, the very mind of God, soul, body, and spirit. We rebelled
against He who created us. We began dying as He removed His hand of mercy and protection
from us and gave us over to our worship of Self, the origin of virtually all
evil.
Just
read Romans 1:16 to 2:1 for a religious history of mankind in short.
God
came in the form of a man, a humble carpenter’s stepson, a humble Jewish
maiden’s child, lived as we do only without sin, and was murdered by the lawful
authorities, innocent of all charges, taking on the punishment we deserved for
our rebellion against our Creator. He loved mankind at the Cross.
John 3:16 For God so loved
the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
17 For God sent not his Son into the
world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
18 He that believeth on him is not
condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not
believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 And this is the condemnation, that light is
come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their
deeds were evil. 20 For every one that
doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should
be reproved. 21 But he that doeth truth
cometh to the light, that his
deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.
He then went to Hell where He preached to the
lost spirits and then ascended in triumph to Heaven, the abode of God the
Father, with Paradise and the redeemed that came before His incarnation. He
then rose bodily from the dead. It is by faith that He was God in the flesh and
was the first man who rose from the dead by His own power, faith in His
resurrection, that gives us access to eternal life.
John 10:17 Therefore doth
my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.18 No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of
myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This
commandment have I received of my Father.
He will never leave us or forsake us and we
will live in eternity with the One who created us. Believe on that and be
saved.
But you say, “I don’t like Christians. They’re hypocrites. They
say one thing and do another.” I tell you that is a good thing. When I was in college I took a philosophy
class and learned that every healthy culture has ethics to which they aspire
but rarely reach and morals by which they live and those morals are typically
inconsistent, often uncertain, and usually pretty sorry. It is when your
standard of ethics you pull down to match your morals that you become
incorrigible and useless.
We are hypocrites. Paul himself said;
Romans 7:14 ¶ For we know
that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. 15 For that which I do I allow not: for what I
would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. 16 If then I do that which I would not, I
consent unto the law that it is good. 17
Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
18 For I know that in me (that is, in my
flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to
perform that which is good I find not. 19
For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that
I do. 20 Now if I do that I would not,
it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. 21 I find then a law, that, when I
would do good, evil is present with me. 22 For I delight in the law of God after the
inward man: 23 But I see another law in
my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity
to the law of sin which is in my members. 24
O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this
death? 25 I thank God through Jesus
Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with
the flesh the law of sin.
So, you have no excuse to reject Christ because I am a hypocrite.
So, I tell you, you need to be saved from your natural destination
as a human being, something that only humans have to face. Death is bad enough
but an eternity of agony in pain with no possibility of parole or the
alleviation of your suffering? If you think things are bad now!
Romans 10:9 That if thou
shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart
that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. 10 For with the heart man believeth unto
righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
How is one saved? Believe in Christ’s resurrection from the dead.
Believe what Christ said about Himself.
John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
Invitation.
[1]
Alexey S. Kondrashov, “Contamination of the Genome by Very Slightly Deleterious
Mutations: Why Have We Not Died 100 Times Over?” Journal of Theoretical Biology, (1995) vol. 175, pp. 583-594. James F. Crow, “The High Spontaneous Mutation
Rate: Is it a Health Risk?” Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences, (Aug 1997) vol. 94, pp. 8380-8386.
Saturday, November 13, 2021
Friday, November 12, 2021
Thursday, November 11, 2021
Wednesday, November 10, 2021
Psalm, chapter 2, comments
Psalm 2:1 ¶ Why do the
heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? 2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and
the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying,
3 Let us break their bands asunder, and
cast away their cords from us. 4 He that
sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.
5 Then shall he speak unto them in his
wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. 6
Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.
David is clearly here talking in direct context about the ancient
world in which he lived. The kings of the earth were the enemies of God
supporting pagan, highly sexualized religions and standing against the God who
created them. Notice how Samuel speaks of rebellion.
1Samuel 15:23 For rebellion
is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.
Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee
from being king.
Notice the literal statement of David that this is a condemnation
of heathen kings. In this context David would be talking about himself as God’s
king on earth, God’s anointed. In Christendom of the Middle Ages in Europe
before the rise of the modern nation-state where the land and the people of the
land were considered to be property of the king, the king was considered often
to be divinely appointed. He was the special representative of God on earth,
God’s anointed. Here, David is referring to himself as such.
2Samuel 23:1 Now these be
the last words of David. David the son of Jesse said, and the man who was
raised up on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of
Israel, said,
David is God’s king on God’s holy hill of Zion which is Jerusalem.
Psalm 51:18 Do good in thy
good pleasure unto Zion: build thou the walls of Jerusalem.
Isaiah 10:32 As yet shall
he remain at Nob that day: he shall shake his hand against the mount of the
daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem.
Isaiah 31:4 For thus hath
the LORD spoken unto me, Like as the lion and the young lion roaring on his
prey, when a multitude of shepherds is called forth against him, he will not be
afraid of their voice, nor abase himself for the noise of them: so shall the
LORD of hosts come down to fight for mount Zion, and for the hill thereof.
David’s prayer leads us right into the future prophetic
fulfillment of this prophecy. In the millennial reign of Christ on earth for a
thousand years the kings of the earth prompted by Satan will rise up against Him
and be destroyed. Let’s start with Revelation, chapter 20.
Revelation 20:1 ¶ And I saw
an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a
great chain in his hand. 2 And he laid
hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound
him a thousand years, 3 And cast him
into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he
should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be
fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season. 4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them,
and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were
beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not
worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon
their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a
thousand years. 5 But the rest of the
dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first
resurrection. 6 Blessed and holy is he
that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no
power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him
a thousand years. 7 And when the
thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, 8 And shall go out to deceive the nations which
are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together
to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. 9 And they went up on the breadth of the earth,
and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came
down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. 10 And the devil that deceived them was cast
into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are,
and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
Here we see the fate of the kings of the earth and their king,
Satan, when they stand against the Almighty God. I’m not sure about applying
Ezekiel 39 to this event as it could be talking about the wars around Christ’s
taking control of the kingdoms of the earth as per Revelation 15. But, read
Ezekiel 38 and 39 for yourself.
Applying this passage to us personally now is very easy as it has
always been the case that power on earth has risen its puny hand against God.
We can see in this age in our own country a government that assumes control over
our very bodies, that promotes the massacre of the innocent unborn and every
sort of perversion imaginable practically and engages in all sorts of treachery
around the world. It stands against God in defiance and although aspects of
judgment have been visited on the country as, for instance, the events of
September 11, 2001, the pride and sinful state of the government and the people
it represents is unyielding and even unaware of their peril.
America’s political religion that has so long guided our dealings
with the world has placed the flag, the government, and the country in the
place of God. As the famous Johns Hopkins professor, Richard Ely, mentor to
President Woodrow Wilson, said in that he denied the divine right of kings but
applauded the divine right of the state. Even to Christians, when America does
certain things they are right simply because America does them even though the
same actions on the part of any other country would be regarded as evil and
worthy of punishment. It is God who will have the last laugh.
Psalm 2:7 ¶ I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. 8 Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. 9 Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.
David’s understanding of the sonship of Israel would have been
learned from the writings of Moses.
Exodus 4:22 And thou shalt
say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD, Israel is my son, even my firstborn:
This idea of the sonship of Israel would be carried on into the words
of Agur, the son of Jakeh given to Ithiel and Ucal;
Proverbs 30:4 Who hath
ascended up into heaven, or descended? who hath gathered the wind in his fists?
who hath bound the waters in a garment? who hath established all the ends of
the earth? what is his name, and what is his son’s name, if thou canst tell?
And the prophet Hosea;
Hosea 11:1 ¶ When Israel
was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.
I’ve already referred to the promises to Israel of total victory
over the heathen nations around them if they had obeyed and how the reference
to the earth in ancient writings included typically only the regions with which
they were familiar and not, for instance, South America.
David in his wars, as was Joshua, very brutal. In fact, it was so
that God would not permit him to build the Temple.
1Chronicles 28:2 Then David
the king stood up upon his feet, and said, Hear me, my brethren, and my people:
As for me, I had in mine heart to build an house of rest for the ark of the
covenant of the LORD, and for the footstool of our God, and had made ready for
the building: 3 But God said unto me,
Thou shalt not build an house for my name, because thou hast been a man of war,
and hast shed blood.
From a prophetic viewpoint this passage is amazing. David has
written here a prophecy of Christ, the Son of God, which is God in the flesh,
understanding that in the ancient world the son of a king came in the name of
the king and with the same authority as the king. As noted in previous studies
in the ancient world also the firstborn son would inherit all that belonged to
the father and all the father had was indeed the son’s even though the father
directed its use in his lifetime. Verse 7 is applied to Christ as follows by
the Holy Spirit speaking through Paul on two occasions.
Acts 13:33 God hath
fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus
again; as it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my Son, this day
have I begotten thee.
Hebrews 1:5 For unto which
of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten
thee? And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son?
Verse 8 is linked, I believe to the end when Christ is said to
take over the kingdoms of the earth.
Revelation 11:15 And the
seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The
kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ;
and he shall reign for ever and ever.
Christ’s absolute authority over the kingdoms of this world is
established, even repeated using this Psalm’s phrasing.
Revelation 2:27 And he
shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be
broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father.
Revelation 12:5 And she
brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and
her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.
As a personal application I
see this as comforting in that it tells us that Christ will be triumphant in
the end times and that there is nothing these wicked world leaders with their
global taxes, global vaccine mandates, lockdowns, and business crushing carbon
taxes etc. etc. can do to stand up against Him. We must have faith and
confidence in the Lord God to straighten this mess out.
Psalm 2:10 ¶ Be wise now
therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth. 11 Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with
trembling. 12 Kiss the Son, lest he be
angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a
little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.
Here, strictly from David’s context, there is a warning to the
heathen nations of the Ancient Near East of his time of the power of Israel. In
his son’s reign Israel will be a very powerful kingdom in this world. David is
speaking from a position of success and conquest against his enemies and
Solomon’s reign will be verified by Josephus quoting Tyrian court records,
Greek playwright Menander, giving the specific year of King Hiram’s visit to
Solomon, and archaeological evidence.
But we find this passage best fulfilled to us and understandable
to us in prophecy. For battlefield victories over the kings of the earth look
at Ezekiel, chapters 38-39, not taking into consideration a more immediate
context for Ezekiel which would have been after David’s time. Let’s view this
as an end of time prophecy either for the end of the Tribulation or the end of
Christ’s Millennial Reign.
Ezekiel 38: 1 ¶ And the word of the LORD came unto me,
saying, 2 Son of man, set thy face
against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him, 3 And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I
am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal: 4 And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into
thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen,
all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with
bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords: 5 Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of
them with shield and helmet: 6 Gomer,
and all his bands; the house of Togarmah of the north quarters, and all his
bands: and many people with thee. 7 Be
thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are
assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them. 8 After many days thou shalt be visited: in the
latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword,
and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have
been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall
dwell safely all of them. 9 Thou shalt
ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land,
thou, and all thy bands, and many people
with thee. 10 Thus saith
the Lord GOD; It shall also come to pass, that at the same time shall things
come into thy mind, and thou shalt think an evil thought: 11 And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land
of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely,
all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates, 12 To take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn
thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people
that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that
dwell in the midst of the land. 13
Sheba, and Dedan, and the merchants of Tarshish, with all the young
lions
thereof, shall say unto thee, Art thou come to take a spoil? hast
thou gathered thy company to take a prey? to carry away silver and gold, to
take away cattle and goods, to take a great spoil?
14 ¶ Therefore, son of man, prophesy and say unto
Gog, Thus saith the Lord GOD; In that day when my people of Israel dwelleth
safely, shalt thou not know it? 15 And
thou shalt come from thy place out of the north parts, thou, and many people
with thee, all of them riding upon horses, a great company, and a mighty army:
16 And thou shalt come up against my
people of Israel, as a cloud to cover the land; it shall be in the latter days,
and I will bring thee against my land, that the heathen may know me, when I
shall be sanctified in thee, O Gog, before their eyes. 17 Thus saith the Lord GOD; Art thou he of whom
I have spoken in old time by my servants
the prophets of Israel, which prophesied in those days many years
that I would bring thee against them? 18
And it shall come to pass at the same time when Gog shall come against
the land of Israel, saith the Lord GOD, that my fury shall come up in my face.
19 For in my jealousy and in the fire of
my wrath have I spoken, Surely in that day there shall be a great shaking in
the land of Israel; 20 So that the
fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the field,
and all creeping things that creep upon the earth, and all the men that are
upon the face of the earth, shall shake at my presence, and the mountains shall
be thrown down, and the steep places shall fall, and every wall shall fall to
the ground. 21 And I will call for a
sword against him throughout all my mountains, saith the Lord GOD: every man’s
sword shall be against his brother. 22
And I will plead against him with pestilence and with blood; and I will
rain upon him, and upon his bands, and upon the many people that are with him,
an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire, and brimstone. 23 Thus will I magnify myself, and sanctify
myself; and I will be known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know
that I am the LORD.
Ezekiel 39:1 ¶ Therefore,
thou son of man, prophesy against Gog, and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD;
Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal: 2 And I will turn thee back, and leave but the
sixth part of thee, and will cause thee to come up from the north parts, and
will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel: 3
And I will smite thy bow out of thy left hand, and will cause thine
arrows to fall out of thy right hand. 4
Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy bands,
and the people that is with thee: I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of
every sort, and to the beasts of the field to be devoured. 5 Thou shalt
fall upon the open field: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord
GOD. 6 And I will send a fire on Magog,
and among them that dwell carelessly in the isles: and they shall know that I
am the LORD. 7 So will I make my holy
name known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not let them pollute my
holy name any more: and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, the Holy One
in Israel.
8 ¶ Behold, it is come, and it is done, saith the
Lord GOD; this is the day whereof I have spoken. 9 And they that dwell in the cities of Israel
shall go forth, and shall set on fire and burn the weapons, both the shields
and the bucklers, the bows and the arrows, and the handstaves, and the spears,
and they shall burn them with fire seven years: 10 So that they shall take no wood out of the
field, neither cut down any out of the forests; for they shall burn the weapons
with fire: and they shall spoil those that spoiled them, and rob those that
robbed them, saith the Lord GOD. 11 And
it shall come to pass in that day, that I will give unto Gog a place there of
graves in Israel, the valley of the passengers on the east of the
sea: and it shall stop the noses of the passengers: and there shall they bury
Gog and all his multitude: and they shall call it The valley of Hamongog.
12 And seven months shall the house of
Israel be burying of them, that they may cleanse the land. 13 Yea, all the people of the land shall bury
them; and it shall be to them a renown the day that I shall be glorified, saith
the Lord GOD. 14 And they shall sever
out men of continual employment, passing through the land to bury with the
passengers those that remain upon the face of the earth, to cleanse it: after
the end of seven months shall they search. 15
And the passengers that pass through the land, when any seeth a man’s
bone, then shall he set up a sign by it, till the buriers have buried it in the
valley of Hamongog. 16 And also the name
of the city shall be Hamonah. Thus shall they cleanse the land. 17 And, thou son of man, thus saith the
Lord GOD; Speak unto every feathered fowl, and to every beast of
the field, Assemble yourselves, and come; gather yourselves on every side to my
sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you, even a great sacrifice upon the
mountains of Israel, that ye may eat flesh, and drink blood. 18 Ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and
drink the blood of the princes of the earth, of rams, of lambs, and of goats,
of bullocks, all of them fatlings of Bashan. 19
And ye shall eat fat till ye be full, and drink blood till ye be
drunken, of my sacrifice which I have sacrificed for you. 20 Thus ye shall be filled at my table with
horses and chariots, with mighty men, and with all men of
war, saith the Lord GOD. 21
And I will set my glory among the heathen, and all the heathen shall see
my judgment that I have executed, and my hand that I have laid upon them.
22 So the house of Israel shall know
that I am the LORD their God from that day and forward.
23 ¶ And the heathen shall know that the house of
Israel went into captivity for their iniquity: because they trespassed against
me, therefore hid I my face from them, and gave them into the hand of their
enemies: so fell they all by the sword. 24
According to their uncleanness and according to their transgressions
have I done unto them, and hid my face from them. 25 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Now will I
bring again the captivity of Jacob, and have mercy upon the whole house of
Israel, and will be jealous for my holy name; 26 After that they have borne their shame, and
all their trespasses whereby they have trespassed against me,
when they dwelt safely in their land, and none made them afraid.
27 When I have brought them again from
the people, and gathered them out of their enemies’ lands, and am sanctified in
them in the sight of many nations; 28
Then shall they know that I am the LORD their God, which caused them to
be led into captivity among the heathen: but I have gathered them unto their
own land, and have left none of them any more there. 29 Neither will I hide my face any more from
them: for I have poured out my spirit upon the house of Israel, saith the Lord
GOD.
Notice also the prophesies in all three chapters of Joel
and then read Zechariah, chapter 12 to 14.
For the end of the Tribulation see Revelation 11:15
and then read Revelation 14:6 onward but paying particular attention to
Revelation 18 and onward to see Christ’s triumph over the world’s kingdoms and
systems.
Also, read this reference from Paul’s writings which
is not 100% clear as to which event it is referring to so it might be combining
both together;
2Thessalonians 1:5 ¶ Which
is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that ye may be counted
worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer:6 Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to
recompense tribulation to them that trouble you; 7 And to you who are troubled rest with us,
when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels,
8 In flaming fire taking
vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord
Jesus Christ:9 Who shall be punished
with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory
of his power; 10 When he shall come to
be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because
our testimony among you was believed) in that day.
One might have considered the passage from
2Thessalonians as suggesting these events are one event at the end of the
millennium were it not for the fact of Christ’s physical millennial reign on
earth. For the end of Christ’s millennial reign see;
Revelation 20:7 And when
the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, 8 And shall go out to deceive the nations which
are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together
to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.
9 And they went up on the breadth of the earth,
and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came
down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.
For our own personal interpretation we can easily
apply this, as well, to events today. Remember what David said about a king.
2Samuel 23:3 The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel
spake to me, He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God.
We don’t have a lack of material when discussing how
our political leadership falls far short of this doctrine.