Bible Study on Romans 1, verses 19 to 32, part 7, the perversion of ancient religions

 

Exodus 32:25  And when Moses saw that the people were naked; (for Aaron had made them naked unto their shame among their enemies:)

 

To explain further, in ancient Greece and Rome orgia was a sacred word denoting worship in the mystery cults such as that devoted to Dionysus. It included dancing, singing, and drinking as well as promiscuous sexual behavior. You cannot underestimate the sexual perversion of ancient religion after the Flood. The ancient Egyptians practiced every kind of perversion in their religion.”

 

In ancient Near Eastern religion the sex act was important to the worship of heathen gods. Temples were attended by heterosexual and homosexual prostitutes. Throughout the Bible this was condemned and amazingly this behavior was brought into God’s temple, making it a house of prostitution like the pagan world around them.

 

Deuteronomy 23:17  There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel.18  Thou shalt not bring the hire of a whore, or the price of a dog, into the house of the LORD thy God for any vow: for even both these are abomination unto the LORD thy God. [dog in this context is slang for a homosexual temple prostitute or sodomite]

 

God gave mankind over to this perversion because of the wickedness of their hearts. Do you see how we in America are returning to that?

With regard to idolatry please note the warning Moses gave in Deuteronomy, chapter 4.

Deuteronomy 4:1 ¶  Now therefore hearken, O Israel, unto the statutes and unto the judgments, which I teach you, for to do them, that ye may live, and go in and possess the land which the LORD God of your fathers giveth you. 2  Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you. 3  Your eyes have seen what the LORD did because of Baalpeor: for all the men that followed Baalpeor, the LORD thy God hath destroyed them from among you. 4  But ye that did cleave unto the LORD your God are alive every one of you this day. 5  Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the LORD my God commanded me, that ye should do so in the land whither ye go to possess it. 6  Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. 7  For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the LORD our God is in all things

that we call upon him for? 8  And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day? 9  Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life: but teach them thy sons, and thy sons’ sons; 10  Specially the day that thou stoodest before the LORD thy God in Horeb, when the LORD said unto me, Gather me the people together, and I will make them hear my words, that they may learn to fear me all the days that they shall live upon the earth, and that they may teach their children. 11  And ye came near and stood under the mountain; and the mountain burned with fire unto the midst of heaven, with darkness, clouds, and thick darkness. 12  And the LORD spake unto you out of the midst of the fire: ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude; only ye heard a voice. 13  And he declared unto you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even ten commandments; and he wrote them upon two tables of

stone. 14  And the LORD commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go over to possess it. 15  Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves; for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the LORD spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire: 16  Lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female, 17  The likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged fowl that flieth in the air, 18  The likeness of any thing that creepeth on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the waters beneath the earth: 19 

And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the LORD thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven. 20  But the LORD hath taken you, and brought you forth out of the iron furnace, even out of Egypt, to be unto him a people of inheritance, as ye are this day.

 

You remember discussing Baalpeor, don’t you? The entire incident suggested the degradation of the Israelites downward into the prevalent religious impulses of the day.

 

A Psalm for Sunday, Psalm 81, verses 8 to 16, they walked in their own counsels

 

Psalm 81:8 ¶  Hear, O my people, and I will testify unto thee: O Israel, if thou wilt hearken unto me; 9  There shall no strange god be in thee; neither shalt thou worship any strange god. 10  I am the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt: open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it. 11  But my people would not hearken to my voice; and Israel would none of me. 12  So I gave them up unto their own hearts’ lust: and they walked in their own counsels. 13  Oh that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways! 14  I should soon have subdued their enemies, and turned my hand against their adversaries. 15  The haters of the LORD should have submitted themselves unto him: but their time should have endured for ever. 16  He should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat: and with honey out of the rock should I have satisfied thee.

 

If the Israelites will just listen to God, if they will just listen. They were told not to worship foreign gods, but the God who led them out of Egypt. For strange as foreign see;

The word stranger is used to denote a foreigner, an alien to a people, who lives among that people.

Genesis 15:13  And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years;

Genesis 17:12  And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not of thy seed.

Leviticus 24:22  Ye shall have one manner of law, as well for the stranger, as for one of your own country: for I am the LORD your God.

Jacob put away his strange gods.

Genesis 35:1 ¶  And God said unto Jacob, Arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell there: and make there an altar unto God, that appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from the face of Esau thy brother. 2  Then Jacob said unto his household, and to all that were with him, Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean, and change your garments: 3  And let us arise, and go up to Bethel; and I will make there an altar unto God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went. 4  And they gave unto Jacob all the strange gods which were in their hand, and all their earrings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem. 5  And they journeyed: and the terror of God was upon the cities that were round about them, and they did not pursue after the sons of Jacob.

Remember the Law given to Moses;

Exodus 20:3  Thou shalt have no other gods before me. 4  Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: 5  Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; 6  And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

See verse 12 and how God will give people over to their own delusions. See the religious history of mankind summarized by Paul in Romans.

Romans 1:16 ¶  For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. 17  For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. 18  For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;

    19 ¶  Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. 20  For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: 21  Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22  Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, 23  And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. 24  Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: 25  Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. 26  For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: 27  And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. 28  And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; 29  Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, 30  Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 31  Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: 32  Who knowing the

 

judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

If the Israelites had obeyed God would have done good things for them as He says here in this Psalm. Let this be a warning to you that your life will go much better, even though you will have persecution and tribulation just by virtue of living in a fallen world in a fallen body, but life will go much better and the Lord God will bless you if you obey Him and stay close. Let God speak to you through His word daily and often and do what you understand from the Bible what God wants you to do. Praise God and don’t make the mistake of the Israelites in ignoring His admonitions and commands on your life.

Bible Study on Romans 1, verses 19 to 32, part 6, the degraded vision of God's glory

 

But, for verse 23 let’s go back to the beginning of mankind’s history after the Flood. Man degraded their own vision of God’s glory and began to worship representations of created beings.  

Genesis 3:6 ¶  And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

There were things that were pleasant to the eyes to mankind that he grew to worship in place of God.

Exodus 20:4  Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: 5  Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; 6  And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

 

Exodus 32:8  They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them: they have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.

 

Numbers 33:52   Then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their pictures, and destroy all their molten images, and quite pluck down all their high places:

 

You had gods like the Philistine Dagon, which some authorities link to the Assyrian art of a merman; half man, half fish. The Egyptians were known for gods that were manifested by animals, according to some authorities, like Thoth’s dog-headed baboon, or Isis, Hethor, or Nut’s cow. The giving of the tablets of the Ten Commandments in Exodus may be the beginning of the alphabet that we use, the precursor to it. God created the writing that contrasted with the pictograms of hieroglyphics and cuneiform writing that dominated the ancient world. From China, Sumeria, and Egypt to the civilizations of the ancient Americas pictures were used to convey ideas and history and as representations of things worshipped. The basic units of writing, the letters, become symbols for ideas rather than pictures representing things to be worshipped as idols. ‘A’, instead of a symbol for a bull or an ox, is Aleph in Hebrew and Alpha in Greek, and ‘A’ for modern purposes. A good study for this is Marc A. Ouaknin’s Mysteries of the Alphabet. This could be part of God drawing a people out of a world of idolatrous pictures or creatures to be adored and turning their writing into ideas to be expressed by symbols.

What came along with this idolatry was a peculiar form of worship involving sexual acts. Returning to comments I originally made in Exodus.

“Exodus 32:1 ¶  And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him. 2  And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me. 3  And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron. 4  And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. 5  And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, To morrow is a feast to the LORD. 6  And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.

 

These people who have spent so long in Egypt with the worship of heathen gods want Aaron to make gods for them to worship. That is what they have known for hundreds of years and they are quick to abandon the singular devotion to the magnificent God who created them and called them out of Egypt with such mighty signs. This is a problem for Christians as we are often not willing to wait for God to do something in our lives and rather quickly began looking backwards into the things that we leaned on before we came to Christ.

 

As far as they were concerned, Moses might have died on the mountain. Aaron is either a creature of public opinion, maybe afraid of the masses, or he also doubts whether Moses will return. So, he calls for their earrings.

Earrings had a special significance, which I pointed out in Genesis. Jewelry played a part in ancient worship. Earrings were not merely ornamentation for both men and women but were, scholars tell us, sometimes amulets and charms to protect the openings of the face and head from entry by evil spirits. They were clearly part of the idol worship of the ancient world, the spiritual system that developed after the Flood.  If you have difficulty seeing that side of facial jewelry just look at the hundreds of occult earrings on a website like Etsy.com. Some verses of note regarding men and women wearing earrings and of a possible link to their occultic practices are;

Genesis 35:4  And they gave unto Jacob all the strange gods which were in their hand, and all their earrings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem.

Judges 8:24  And Gideon said unto them, I would desire a request of you, that ye would give me every man the earrings of his prey. (For they had golden earrings, because they were Ishmaelites.) 25  And they answered, We will willingly give them. And they spread a garment, and did cast therein every man the earrings of his prey.

In the passage in Genesis, chapter 35, and here in Exodus we have a very clear indication that something linked earrings to the spirit world.

Verse 4 is an astounding statement that makes Aaron worthy of death. Of course, if you think about it, we do very much the same thing when we say, “good luck!” or, “oh, how lucky you were.” When we, even absent-mindedly, attribute our good fortune or our trouble to something or someone other than God we do blaspheme His name and diminish the glory due Him.

Malachi 2:2  If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, saith the LORD of hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings: yea, I have cursed them already, because ye do not lay it to heart.

Aaron made a molten calf. The calf/bull was a commonly worshipped as a god in the Ancient Near East and in Egypt. While Moses was receiving what may have been the introduction of the alphabet over pictographic writing the Hebrews were falling down to worship the object symbolized by the pictographic rendering of a calf, a young bull. Aleph, the first letter of Hebrew, is derived from the pictographic representation of the young bull. Alpha, the Greek letter, was derived from Aleph. With the ‘alpha-bet’ God removed the pictures that were worshipped to letters that represented thoughts and ideas only rather than sacred objects representing thoughts and ideas.

 

This is a return to Egypt in a religious sense. The ensuing nudity and orgy was in keeping with the sexual aspects of Ancient Near Eastern religion. See verse 25 in this chapter coming up.

 

Exodus 32:25  And when Moses saw that the people were naked; (for Aaron had made them naked unto their shame among their enemies:)

Bible Study on Isaiah 8, verses 1 to 15, broken in pieces

 

Isaiah 8:1 ¶  Moreover the LORD said unto me, Take thee a great roll, and write in it with a man’s pen concerning Mahershalalhashbaz. 2  And I took unto me faithful witnesses to record, Uriah the priest, and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah. 3  And I went unto the prophetess; and she conceived, and bare a son. Then said the LORD to me, Call his name Mahershalalhashbaz. 4  For before the child shall have knowledge to cry, My father, and my mother, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be taken away before the king of Assyria. 5  The LORD spake also unto me again, saying, 6  Forasmuch as this people refuseth the waters of Shiloah that go softly, and rejoice in Rezin and Remaliah’s son; 7  Now therefore, behold, the Lord bringeth up upon them the waters of the river, strong and many, even the king of Assyria, and all his glory: and he shall come up over all his channels, and go over all his banks: 8  And he shall pass through Judah; he shall overflow and go over, he shall reach even to the neck; and the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel.

 

Let’s do a comparison between Isaiah, chapter 8, and the 8^th book of the Bible for those who believe that the chapters in Isaiah match a book of the Bible. Those who believe in the comparison, calling Isaiah a mini-Bible, refer to the 8^th book called Ruth They both contain themes of a witness, a conception, and baring a son.

 

2  And I took unto me faithful witnesses to record, Uriah the priest, and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah. . 3  And I went unto the prophetess; and she conceived, and bare a son. Then said the LORD to me, Call his name Mahershalalhashbaz.

 

Ruth 4:11a  And all the people that were in the gate, and the elders, said, We are witnesses…13 ¶  So Boaz took Ruth, and she was his wife: and when he went in unto her, the LORD gave her conception, and she bare a son.

 

Isaiah is told to prophesy that he will have a son and before the son can even so much as cry out and say father and mother these enemies, Israel and Syria, spoken of in chapter 7, will be spoiled by the Assyrians. This puts events as being very close.

 

Assyria will even invade Judah because they have, as ancient Jewish sources are reported by Gill to have interpreted, refused the gentle rule of the house of David. They will get the oppression and destruction of Assyria. This is what the reference to the waters of Shiloah is about. Israel might have rejected the harshness of Rehoboam but it was nothing compared to what is going to come upon them.

 

Strong’s says that Mahershalalhashbaz means, “swift is the booty, speedy is the prey,” referring to the imminency of the Assyrian oppression.

 

Isaiah 8:9 ¶  Associate yourselves, O ye people, and ye shall be broken in pieces; and give ear, all ye of far countries: gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces; gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces. 10  Take counsel together, and it shall come to nought; speak the word, and it shall not stand: for God is with us. 11  For the LORD spake thus to me with a strong hand, and instructed me that I should not walk in the way of this people, saying, 12  Say ye not, A confederacy, to all them to whom this people shall say, A confederacy; neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid. 13  Sanctify the LORD of hosts himself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. 14  And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 15  And many among them shall stumble, and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken.

 

Another note of significance is the Jewish understanding of Isaiah, chapter 8, in regard to the Messiah to come. The Targums were the Second Temple Period, the time of Jesus, and their interpretation in Aramaic of the Hebrew scriptures so the Jews taught this at the time of Jesus’ ministry.

 

Verse 14 regarding a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense is spoken of as a Messianic stone in certain Jewish Targums and we will see soon how this is applied in the Christian New Testament.

 

First, from Paul;

 

Romans 9:30 ¶  What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith. 31  But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness. 32  Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumblingstone; 33  As it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion a stumblingstone and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.

 

Then from Peter;

 

1Peter 2:7  Unto you therefore which believe he is precious: but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner,

8  And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed.

 

Isaiah prophecies in verse 9 of chapter 8 that the confederacy against Judah will be broken. He says not to fear Israel and Syria but to only fear God, the only one you should truly be afraid of.

 

Syria was taken by Assyria.

 

2Kings 16:9  And the king of Assyria hearkened unto him: for the king of Assyria went up against Damascus, and took it, and carried the people of it captive to Kir, and slew Rezin.

 

Then, Assyria took Ephraim and Israel.

 

2Kings 17:6  In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

 

Remember in verse 10, the sign of Immanuel promising the defeat of the confederacy against Judah from;

 

Isaiah 7:14  Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

 

Defined for us in the text from;

 

Matthew 1:23  Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.

 

Here is the statement that the Messiah, Jesus Christ, identified by cross-referencing, is God. There is a striking and definitive doctrinal statement that we should acknowledge.

Bible Study on Romans 1, verses 19 to 32, part 5, the Biology of Belief

 

Finally, evolutionary biologists admit an astounding thing. Belief in God, according to some of them, is hard-wired into the human brain. A neuroscientist and the author of several books, Andrew Newberg, wrote a book entitled Why God Won’t Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief. He is called a neurotheologist, studying how religious belief and prayer affect the brain.

 

On page 129 he wrote, ‘…evolution has adopted this machinery, and has favored the religious capabilities of the religious brain because religious belief and behaviors turn out to be good for us in profound and pragmatic ways.’

 

As evolutionists often do he refers to evolution as he does in other places with natural selection almost as a god in itself rather than just a process or a mechanism by which new species of dog, cat, or deer are produced by environmental stresses or opportunities or human cross-breeding efforts (There are more than two dozen scientific definitions of species.) The fact is that all of the genetic information necessary for a creature to adapt to its environment are present within the creature’s DNA and no dog ever became a cat and no alligator ever became a trout. But, Newberg, like other of his ilk, refer to evolution as a sort of inert god who unfeelingly adopts and favors in the passage I quoted. In a preceding page he refers to natural selection as not tolerating something. So, it is almost humorous to see how these kinds of scientists use language, at the least, very interesting.

 

Susan Mazur, a science writer and journalist who doesn’t appear to be a fundamental Baptist (said in a tongue-in-cheek manner), wrote in her book The Altenberg 16: An Expose’ of the Evolution Industry that, “Evolutionary science is as much about posturing, salesmanship, stonewalling and bullying as it is about actual scientific theory.” (v)

 

In any event, this is not a sermon about comparative religions so we’ll leave the religion of evolution alone for now. Let us keep in mind that for the atheist, communist revolutionaries that run the world’s science, academic, and political establishments ideology has replaced God as religious faith as that word ideology became used for that secular religion in 1796 during the French Revolution. My point is now that even an important atheist, evolutionary biologist like Richard Lewontin is not ashamed to write a book entitled Biology as Ideology: The Doctrine of DNA. It is their religion, not unlike the heathens in the Bible of whom one is said that he will worship the god of forces, which was Albert Einstein’s understanding of the god he knew. Shameless they are.

 

Daniel 11:38  But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces: and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honour with gold, and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things.

 

So, to summarize, if you want to look outside of your own experience for proof that God exists I suggest starting with life. There are many other topics we could talk about that prove or at least suggest His existence but let’s stick with the ones I’ve brought up.

 

One, there is something rather than nothing and since space dust did not create itself then something or someone did. Two, life could not have begun here on earth and probably not on some distant planet by chance. Some intelligent being had to create it. Three, self-awareness and consciousness imply a reality greater than the physical universe. Four, we are apparently “hard-wired” to believe in God. It is part of our make-up.

 

We believe in God because He has communed with our spirit so that we can. We experience Him in our prayer and in the answers to it, the way the Bible speaks to us, in the truth found in it, the way He molds and changes us by our reading and hearing it read, by the reality arounds us that is confirmed in the Bible, and by His miraculous intervention in our lives.’

 

So, we can throw the modern religion of atheistic determinism, that there is no God and that everything exists by random events in the same basket as the ancient idolaters who worshipped gods of wood and stone.

 

Daniel 11:38a  But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces…

Bible Study on Exodus 29, verses 38 to 46, I am the LORD their God

 

Exodus 29:38 ¶  Now this is that which thou shalt offer upon the altar; two lambs of the first year day by day continually. 39  The one lamb thou shalt offer in the morning; and the other lamb thou shalt offer at even: 40  And with the one lamb a tenth deal of flour mingled with the fourth part of an hin of beaten oil; and the fourth part of an hin of wine for a drink offering. 41  And the other lamb thou shalt offer at even, and shalt do thereto according to the meat offering of the morning, and according to the drink offering thereof, for a sweet savour, an offering made by fire unto the LORD. 42  This shall be a continual burnt offering throughout your generations at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the LORD: where I will meet you, to speak there unto thee. 43  And there I will meet with the children of Israel, and the tabernacle shall be sanctified by my glory. 44  And I will sanctify the tabernacle of the congregation, and the altar: I will sanctify also both Aaron and his sons, to minister to me in the priest’s office. 45  And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God. 46  And they shall know that I am the LORD their God, that brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, that I may dwell among them: I am the LORD their God.

 

Here is an important point to be made in verse 43. The tabernacle is sanctified or set apart for God’s service by God’s glory present within it.

 

We are sanctified, as the living temple of the Holy Ghost, by God’s presence inside of us. I think it would not hurt to review some facts again that I’ve touched on before.

First, understand that Satan is the god, little ‘g’, of this fallen world.

 

2Corinthians 4:4  In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

 

The Kingdom of God, our Creator, is not visible to the world like human kingdoms. It is within the believers making all state-churches and so-called Christian nations of history counterfeit works of Satan.

 

John 18:36  Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.

 

Luke 17:21  Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.

 

We have the Spirit of God, which is the Holy Spirit, which is also called the Spirit of Christ, living inside of us.

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.

 

    10 ¶  And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11  But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.

 

We are the temple of God, if we belong to Him.

 

1Corinthians 3:16 ¶  Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?

 

1Corinthians 6:19  What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?

 

2Corinthians 6:16  And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

 

You and I have seen previously that we can neither pray nor worship in a way that is pleasing to God without His involvement, cleansing our prayer and our worship to make it suitable to Him. We do not save ourselves nor do we keep ourselves saved. It is God who makes us presentable to Him. It is Christ, the Son, who makes us acceptable to God the Father by means of the Holy Ghost, all three parts of the Godhead, working in us by the agency of the Holy Spirit.

And so here, it is God’s presence in the tabernacle that sanctifies the tabernacle, with God willing to enter into it when obedience is satisfied by what He has commanded. In the case of the Christian, whether he be Jew or non-Jew, a Gentile this is what is required.

John 6:28 ¶  Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? 29  Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.

 

God did not want to just carve out a people from the mass of humanity through Abraham and his descendants, the Hebrews. He wanted to live among them, to move about in the place where they moved. He wanted to experience them close up and personal, not just in the way He does as He directs every cell function and heartbeat and all reality but also in the reality that they experienced. It is important to God to experience our reality and to live in the space in which we live. He wants to know His people intimately, not just as a distant figure, untouchable and unapproachable.

Revelation 21:3  And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.

 

The institutional church of history whether it be Roman Catholic, Anglican, or Baptist has tried to restrict this desire of God to have a relationship with His people. They tried and try to restrict access to God, to the people experiencing the presence of God, to the church organization only whether it be a catechism of the Roman Catholic Church insisting that the Holy Spirit only operates within the church organization not the individual believer or a Baptist saying that God only speaks to his people through the sermon on Sunday morning. God indwells you for a reason and He wants to experience you without the restraint of a go-between which is why He provided Himself as the go-between, the mediator.

With regard to measurements a hin is, according to Strong’s, about 5 quarts to 1.5 gallons or roughly 6 liters. Some authorities say a tenth deal of flour was the equivalent of 6 pints. I’m sure we cannot be certain with these measurements and would expect to find conflicting statements, much as we would in trying to understand what a cubit was.

Bible Study on Romans 1, verses 19 to 32, part 4, the universe is fine-tuned

 

Ask yourself, if there was no God, then why is there something rather than nothing? Why is something as complex as life here in this space of earth?  If God doesn’t exist why do I know that I am? Where did that come from, o’ wise one? How can we have this conversation?

The universe is finely tuned, so finely tuned that something as rare and fragile as life can live in it. Things like the ratio of the strength of electromagnetism to the strength of gravity for a pair of protons, nuclear efficiency of fusion from hydrogen to helium, the density parameter, the cosmological constant, and a bunch of other intelligent sounding stuff make many scientists insist that the universe is just so and because of that you, me, and that little chipmunk you saw on your deck this morning can exist.

Other scientists invent all sorts of nonsensical things to counteract this belief. They will resurrect the multidimensions of the occult of the late 1800s which impacted theoretical physics then and say there is a multiverse, many universes where things are different and anything is possible. I might even be handsomer, wealthier, and smarter on one of them, in their imagination only of course.

But, the universe is fine-tuned. Now, how does something get tuned? Have you ever seen a radio tune itself? Never mind. In today’s world I suppose that is possible. But, at some point a person was involved; an engineer or someone to tune that radio. How do you think the universe was tuned so close and exact? Who did it? Who maintains it? We all know that if you leave your car in the driveway without maintaining it for thirty years the tires will rot and it will become undriveable. The Second Law of Thermodynamics says that all things fall apart. Oh, and there is this;

Colossians 1:17  And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.

Hebrews 1:3  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;

In a couple of my Sunday School classes I present some scientific studies that express alarm at the harmful mutations produced in each generation of people. One of them was entitled, “Contamination of the Genome by Very Slightly Deleterious Mutations: Why Have We Not Died 100 Times Over?” But, we’re here, our biology is preserved, life goes on and the planet is not yet cold and dead.

Again, I say ask yourself, if there was no God, then why is there something rather than nothing? Why is something as complex as life here in this space of earth?  If God doesn’t exist why do I know that I am? Why is the universe so finely tuned as to permit us to exist?

You know, our government has spent millions of dollars searching for extraterrestrials, life on other planets, even microbial. They will continue to do so but will probably never find it. The scientific community has a hunger, a lust, to overthrow God. They are searching for microbes and water on Mars.

In the Rosetta Mission they recently learned that water in space can be vastly different than water on earth so they feel confident in at least admitting that our water didn’t come from comets. Recent research on earth has shown that water alone will not be the cause of life if other conditions aren’t right. But, they will keep searching, hoping to be able to drive the nail in the coffin for belief in the God of the Bible.

There are two other things that scream the truth of the existence of God. One is the very desperate desire to prove beyond all doubt that He does not. See the passage I just read in Romans.

And in another context an ancient warning;

 

Isaiah 66:4  I also will choose their delusions, and will bring their fears upon them; because when I called, none did answer; when I spake, they did not hear: but they did evil before mine eyes, and chose that in which I delighted not.

 

Remember what King David thought of atheists in about 1000 BC.

 

Psalm 14:1  « To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. » The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.