Bible Study on Exodus 23, verses 20 to 33, part 4, America is being judged

 

World War One, the Jazz Age, the automobile, the sexual revolt of the 1920s, the triumph of evolution in science, the growing importance of the Entertainment industry all figured in to God’s judgment on the nation for its idolatry. As an example, where women who wore makeup were derided as ‘painted city women’ before the war, with strong suggestions of immorality, the demands by boys returning home that their women look like French girls has resulted in the fact that Christian women wouldn’t dare leave home without makeup on today. In addition, the lax morals produced by boys and girls being able to go off alone in a car and listening to Ragtime and Jazz watching Hollywood movies glorifying decadence was a chilling reminder that something was very wrong in America. We had the Great Depression, remember? Then, another devastating war and a so-called Cold War for 50 years pounded away at our families and our institutions. Look at today. Do you not doubt we are under God’s judgment? Look at Israel in Kings and Chronicles. Don’t you see America in every page? Ancient Israelites, like Americans, believed that they were special and by virtue of their exceptional place in God’s ordained world they deserved peace and prosperity, both of which were taken away over time for their idolatry.

Fundamentalism came about in the early 1900s because America, under God’s judgment, appeared to be descending into chaos and darkness. The King James-only movement came about in 1964 because fundamentalism had gone crazy with regard to its denial of the Bible we had in front of us. The problem, fundamentalists wrongly assumed, was non-Christians polluting God’s country. The actual problem was Christian idolatry and not venerating God’s word above our ambitions. This is how idolatry, in this case, worship of one’s country as a god on earth, can do horrible damage.

We are held to the same standard as everyone else and we have been found wanting. I refer you to the passage I quoted earlier from Romans, chapter one, again to find out why things are the way they are.

But, it must be said, unlike the Hebrews assuming control over an area of land the promise to Christians is an eternal inheritance. We don’t get a utopia here, a millennium without Christ’s physical presence, but we can get an awful mess.

It is interesting in Verse 28 how God promises to use creatures to drive out the inhabitants of the land He has promised to the Hebrews slowly. God has used many naturally occurring events as weapons. Remember the plagues of Egypt?

Compare what ancient Israel was to be with what America was to be to see a difference dispensationally. Israel was not to permit idolatry in its borders and was to drive out the idol-worshippers lest they pollute the Hebrew religion, which their existence did, as we can see by reading the Bible. America is a pluralistic nation with many different religious traditions or no religion at all. We cannot remove everyone from the land who does not believe exactly what we believe or how we believe, no matter how much you would like to do that. The Hebrews didn’t do that either, but it was their apostasy that garnered them God’s wrath.

I think it is important to realize that every Christian now is a type of the nation of Israel then, as the children of Israel then were a type of every Christian today. Our land is a spiritual land and our Canaanites are our sins. God promises us that He will drive out our sins if we obey Him as He promised the Hebrews He would drive out the wicked, child-sacrificing, bestiality practicing, temple-prostitute patronizing Canaanites if the Hebrews obeyed.

But, having said all that, I would go on to say that if Christians themselves would repent and turn from their sins and obey God in the best way they know how, believing His word, they would not be deceived by lying, gutless, and corrupt politicians and their land would not be given over to the perversion, violence, and decay that is so prevalent. God honors obedience, not obedience as defined by some fundamentalist whack-job preacher or evangelist who just wants to control them but obedience and righteousness as defined by the Bible. The problem with America is not homosexuals, left-wing demagogues, drug-dealers, or liberal judges. The problem with America is the faithlessness of Christians who regard the Bible as a type of Emily Post’s book on etiquette to be observed if convenient and who regard God as more of a concept or idea than a real, living entity who controls every aspect of reality from their living room to the edges of the universe.

Bible Study on Acts 21, verses 1 to 7, Paul is warned not to go to Jerusalem

 

Acts 21:1 ¶  And it came to pass, that after we were gotten from them, and had launched, we came with a straight course unto Coos, and the day following unto Rhodes, and from thence unto Patara: 2  And finding a ship sailing over unto Phenicia, we went aboard, and set forth. 3  Now when we had discovered Cyprus, we left it on the left hand, and sailed into Syria, and landed at Tyre: for there the ship was to unlade her burden. 4  And finding disciples, we tarried there seven days: who said to Paul through the Spirit, that he should not go up to Jerusalem. 5  And when we had accomplished those days, we departed and went our way; and they all brought us on our way, with wives and children, till we were out of the city: and we kneeled down on the shore, and prayed. 6  And when we had taken our leave one of another, we took ship; and they returned home again. 7  And when we had finished our course from Tyre, we came to Ptolemais, and saluted the brethren, and abode with them one day.

 

Coos is a long and narrow island close to Asia Minor, known as the home of Hippocrates the physician. You have heard of the Hippocratic Oath I am sure. It is a code of ethics traditionally regarded as important by physicians. Coos is the second largest island in a chain called the Dodecanese with Rhodes as the largest.

 

Speaking of Rhodes I am sure you have read about the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Patara was an important sea-going and commercial city on the coast of today’s Turkey. Moving southward Phenicia was a coastal part of the province of Syria that corresponded to modern-day Lebanon.  I’m sure you know about the island of Cyprus and opposite of that the company landed at Tyre, once the capital of the ancient merchant kingdom of Phoenicia. Ancient Tyre hundreds of years before figured in prophecy with a proud king likened to Satan in Ezekiel 28 and a message about its fate in Ezekiel 26.

 

Ezekiel 26:14  And I will make thee like the top of a rock: thou shalt be a place to spread nets upon; thou shalt be built no more: for I the LORD have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.

 

The golden age of Tyre or Tyrus in the Old Testament was a thousand years before Christ and it was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar and by Alexander the Great who obliterated it’s island fortress. The Tyre of Paul’s time had been rebuilt by Rome.

 

Most importantly in this passage in verse 4 it is clear that the Holy Spirit speaking through disciples ordered Paul NOT to go to Jerusalem.

 

Ptolemais was an important coastal city at the time and is associated with ancient Phoenicia before this.

 

Finally, the word discovered being used in verse 3 shows that in early modern English to discover something did not necessarily mean to find something no one else knew about. So, when someone would say Columbus discovered America it is buffoonery to mockingly say, “oh, like it was lost or no one lived there.” Cyprus was seen, was made apparent, was viewed and then they kept it on the left and sailed to Syria just like America was known not only by the people who lived there but by fisherman and explorers and adventurers before Columbus.

 

A Psalm for Sunday, Psalm 79, verses 6 to 13, tender mercies

 

Psalm 79:6 ¶  Pour out thy wrath upon the heathen that have not known thee, and upon the kingdoms that have not called upon thy name. 7  For they have devoured Jacob, and laid waste his dwelling place. 8  O remember not against us former iniquities: let thy tender mercies speedily prevent us: for we are brought very low. 9  Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of thy name: and deliver us, and purge away our sins, for thy name’s sake. 10  Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is their God? let him be known among the heathen in our sight by the revenging of the blood of thy servants which is shed. 11  Let the sighing of the prisoner come before thee; according to the greatness of thy power preserve thou those that are appointed to die; 12  And render unto our neighbours sevenfold into their bosom their reproach, wherewith they have reproached thee, O Lord. 13  So we thy people and sheep of thy pasture will give thee thanks for ever: we will shew forth thy praise to all generations.

 

Psalm 69:24  Pour out thine indignation upon them, and let thy wrathful anger take hold of them.

 

Jeremiah 10:25  Pour out thy fury upon the heathen that know thee not, and upon the families that call not on thy name: for they have eaten up Jacob, and devoured him, and consumed him, and have made his habitation desolate.

 

The Psalmist cries out for God’s vengeance on the heathen in the time of the destruction he is prophesying about. He pleads for God’s tender mercies on the Israelites, God’s tender mercies being the subject of songs and even a 1983 movie starring Robert Duvall.

 

God will indeed purge away the sins of many in Christ.

 

Isaiah 43:25  I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.

 

Psalm 65:3  Iniquities prevail against me: as for our transgressions, thou shalt purge them away.

 

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;

 

Hebrews 9:14  How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

 

The time that the Psalmist is speaking of is a very low point and there are many of us who can remember such low points in our own lives when we cried out for help from our Creator. I can also see this as a plea made by the tormented Jews in the Tribulation at the end of human history as they face the wrath of the Beast. See Revelation, chapter 12.

 

So in conclusion, this Psalm as a prayer for us in our lowest times can be a template we might use making it apply to us.

Bible Study on Acts 20, verses 17 to 37, part 2, a warning from Paul

 

Verse 29 is a warning and a prophecy combined. Jesus would warn about this same thing.

 

Matthew 7:15 ¶  Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

 

Paul will have something to say of this in Romans.

 

Romans 16:17 ¶  Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. 18  For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.

 

And Peter and Jude will warn…

 

2Peter 2:1  But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.

 

Jude 1:4  For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Notice from verse 30 some of Paul’s words to Timothy.

 

1Timothy 1:18 ¶  This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good warfare; 19  Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck;

20  Of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander; whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.

 

2Timothy 2:14 ¶  Of these things put them in remembrance, charging them before the Lord that they strive not about words to no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers. 15  Study to

shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. 16  But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness. 17  And their word will eat as doth a canker: of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus; 18  Who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some.

 

2Timothy 4:3  For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; 4  And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

 

And John also gave warnings.

 

1John 2:18 ¶  Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time. 19  They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.

 

Paul stresses his own faithfulness to the gospel in this passage and how he took nothing from them but supported himself.

 

Acts 18:2  And found a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, lately come from Italy, with his wife Priscilla; (because that Claudius had commanded all Jews to depart from Rome:) and came unto them. 3  And because he was of the same craft, he abode with them, and wrought: for by their occupation they were tentmakers.

 

And his declarations of his own standards and admonitions regarding laboring.

 

1Corinthians 9:6  Or I only and Barnabas, have not we power to forbear working? 7  Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? 8  Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? 9  For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? 10  Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. 11  If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal things? 12  If others be partakers of this power over you, are not we rather? Nevertheless we have not used this power; but suffer all things, lest we should hinder the gospel of Christ. 13  Do ye not know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the temple? and they which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar? 14  Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel. 15 ¶  But I have used none of these things: neither have I written these things, that it should be so done unto me: for it were better for me to die, than that any man should make my glorying void.

 

2Thessalonians 3:10  For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.

 

See his urging these Christians to support, as he has done with his own hands as he has supported those workers with him, the infirm, weak of body and, perhaps, by extrapolation the poor among them who were truly poor as opposed to citizens of semi-socialist democracies today. These poor were more like what you would find in Africa, Asia, and South America today where the social safety net is either non-existent or weak to say the least. There is no Medicare in these places as there was none then, no Medicaid, or Social Security, or unemployment benefits, and if your family couldn’t help you if a sickness kept you from supporting yourself or circumstances were hard then you were likely to starve to death or die from an opportunistic disease that took advantage of your weakened condition.

 

Acts 20:36 ¶  And when he had thus spoken, he kneeled down, and prayed with them all. 37  And they all wept sore, and fell on Paul’s neck, and kissed him, 38  Sorrowing most of all for the words which he spake, that they should see his face no more. And they accompanied him unto the ship.

 

This is truly a sad parting for the elders of the Ephesian church, and an ominous one.

 

Bible Study on Isaiah 6, verses 9 to 13, Go, and tell this people

 

Isaiah 6:9 ¶  And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. 10  Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed. 11  Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate, 12  And the LORD have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land. 13  But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten: as a teil tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them, when they cast their leaves: so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof.

 

We can relate verse 9 to the Gospel of Jesus Christ in that the Christian tells people about Him and they hear but don’t get it, don’t understand or see the need for salvation or just regard themselves as good people anyway without the saving work of God.

 

God through Isaiah is going to speak to the people of Judah and Jerusalem and they are not going to understand or perceive what he is saying. Keep in mind Jesus speaking in parables.

 

Matthew 13:13  Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. 14  And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: 15  For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. 16  But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear. 17  For verily I say unto you, That many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them.

 

How long does this go on, Isaiah asks, and God responds that until the kingdom is utterly destroyed. Notice how Jesus will foretell of Jerusalem’s fall in 70AD.

 

Luke 19:42  Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. 43  For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, 44  And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.

 

However, He promises that a small portion will remain. Notice how Paul promises such a thing for the end of human history.

 

Romans 11:25  For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. 26  And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: 27  For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.

 

He defined how the Jews were blinded to the light of Christ.

 

2Corinthians 3:14  But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ. 15  But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart. 16  Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away.

 

Some interpreters see the holy seed as a reference to the Messiah to come, to the Lord Jesus Christ with hope of restoration to fellowship with God.

Bible Study on Acts 20, verses 17 to 35, Paul bids them all goodbye

 

Acts 20:17 ¶  And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and called the elders of the church. 18  And when they were come to him, he said unto them, Ye know, from the first day that I came into Asia, after what manner I have been with you at all seasons, 19  Serving the Lord with all humility of mind, and with many tears, and temptations, which befell me by the lying in wait of the Jews: 20  And how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have shewed you, and have taught you publickly, and from house to house, 21  Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. 22  And now, behold, I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there: 23  Save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me. 24  But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God. 25  And now, behold, I know that ye all, among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God, shall see my face no more. 26  Wherefore I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men. 27  For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. 28  Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. 29  For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. 30  Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. 31  Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears. 32  And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified. 33  I have coveted no man’s silver, or gold, or apparel. 34  Yea, ye yourselves know, that these hands have ministered unto my necessities, and to them that were with me. 35  I have shewed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.

 

Paul declares to the elders from Ephesus that he is bound in the spirit, feels compelled and led to go to Jerusalem. It would be easy to criticize Paul for making his journey to Rome more difficult by going to Jews he had already said he was not going to but he is bound in the spirit, let us remember. He doesn’t know what will happen although the Holy Ghost has shown him it will not be pleasant. He is ready to die for Christ, though.

 

Verse 28 brings to mind what Peter would say;

 

 1Peter 5:2  Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; 3  Neither as being lords over God’s heritage, but being ensamples to the flock.

Bible Study on Exodus 23, verses 20 to 33, part 3, bringing in the kingdom

 

Millenial ideals were also preached during the time of and after the American Revolution pointing more and more to America’s God-chosen role in the bringing in of Christ’s Kingdom, linked to evolutionary progress. President of Yale College Ezra Stiles said;

It may have been of the Lord that Christianity is to be found in such greater purity in this church exiled into the wilderness of America, and that its purest body should be evidently advancing forward, by an augmented natural increase and spiritual edification, into a singular superiority, with the ultimate subserviency to the glory of God to converting the world.[1]

The nineteenth century was an era in secular and religious thought of a progress that was inevitable.[2] In Protestant evangelical faith, Postmillennialism, that mankind would create a millennial kingdom without Christ’s physical presence, was, “the commonly received doctrine,” of the century.[3] The documents, the speeches, the sermons are available for you to read, mostly free. Don’t take my word for it. During this period this doctrine was the intellectual compromise between the devastation of God’s judgment on the world portrayed in the book of Revelation in the Bible and the evolutionary theory of constant movement upward to better and better times, and a utopia.[4] Liberal religious thought in collusion with the growing atheism of science brought about a weakening of the hopeful, religious viewpoint of a coming golden age created by Christians dependent upon their own righteousness but it was the nightmare of the Civil War and the calamity of World War One that drove the nail into the coffin and, “it became a relic of a lost world.”[5]

But, at the time of the Civil War’s commencement most evangelical Christians in America believed that the United States was God’s Promised Land and white, Anglo-Saxon Americans His chosen people, destined to bring in a ‘golden age’ of peace, prosperity, and righteousness as Christ ruled the earth for either a literal thousand years or for just a long period of time, represented by the word millennium, through His church. Lincoln himself referred to America, not Christ, as the last best hope of earth.[6]

It was not unusual for nations with a state church to view themselves as God’s chosen people. England, Russia, and Germany were notorious for this view. German sermons during World War One even likened the German Army to the Holy Spirit moving in the world and ‘God With Us’ in German was on the belt buckles of soldiers. Glorification and even deification of the state was one prime motivator in the half-century of war.

President Woodrow Wilson’s mentor at Johns Hopkins University, Richard Ely, put the thought of the elite and great planners whose government was God’s agent on earth or His replacement even like this;

Now, it may rationally be maintained that, if there is anything divine on earth, it is the State, the product of the same God-given instincts which led to the establishment of the Church and of the Family. It was once held that kings ruled by right divine, and in any widely accepted belief, though it be afterwards discredited, there is generally found a kernel of truth. In this case it was the divine right of the state.[7]

But worshipping the state as a “Christnation,” as the Redeemer Nation of the world, was America’s undoing. With the leadership making government God’s agent on earth rather than God’s people and with the common Christian expecting that we could create a perfect world without Christ physically present we had this great religious expectation that was blatantly false.

That’s why today so many think that they are electing a pastor or a messiah when they vote for a president and then try to Christianize their candidate if elected to make him look like something he is not. It all boils down to state-worship.

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[1] Ezra Stiles, “The United States Elevated to Glory and Honor,” in The Pulpit of the American Revolution, or, The Political Sermons of the Period of 1776, John Wingate Thornton, ed., (Boston: D. Lothrop & Publishers, 1876), 405, 472.

[2] Tuveson, Redeemer Nation, 52.

[3] Henry Boynton Smith,”History of Opinions Respecting the Millennium,” The American Theological Review (Boston: Charles Scribner & Son, 1859), 642. https://books.google.com/books?id=hWrUAAAAMAAJ&vq=millennium&pg=PA642#v=snippet&q=millennium&f=false (accessed 11.14.2015).

[4] James H. Moorhead, “The Erosion of Postmillennialism in American Religious Thought, 1865-1925,” Church History Vol. 53, No. 1 (Mar. 1984), 61. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3165956 (accessed 11.14.2015).

[5] Ibid., 77.

[6] Jean H. Baker, “Lincoln’s Narrative of American Exceptionalism,” in We Cannot Escape History: Lincoln and the Last Best Hope of Earth, James McPherson, ed., (Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1995), 42.

 

                     [7] Gary M. Pequet and Clifford M. Thies, “The Shaping of a Future President’s Economic Thought: Richard T. Ely and Woodrow Wilson at “The Hopkins,” The Independent Review: A Journal of Political Economy 15, no. 2 (Fall 2010): 262, 266.