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The HOLY BIBLE IS: The written word of God from scripture.

The Multitudes He Did Not Serve
Sometimes we just don’t get it. We only want to see the nice things Jesus did. We only want to hear the nice things Jesus had say and even now speaks through Scripture and the Spirit.

In case you missed the beginning of this series, we are following the early days of Jesus’ public ministry. We have looked at His early calling of the people to repentance and followed Jesus to his rejection (and near murder) by the people of Nazareth.

Doctor Luke records in chapters 5 and 6 a list of some of Jesus’ early miracles. (How we use these all-too-frequently to attract the multitudes to our church buildings! The bigger the blessings for the multitudes, the bigger the building we need.)

I related an often used part of a favorite teaching of Jesus in an Advent preparation series on The Beatitudes. Oh how we love to point out the miracles of His feeding the 5000 and the feeding the 4000; while we forget that Jesus’ message is to REPENT! Turn back to God, our Father. He sends us the bread from Heaven. Jesus is the Bread of Heaven. His Word is what we MUST digest.

“Blessed are you… Happy are you: This we want to hear. 🙂

We turn now to Luke 6.

Jesus has been preaching repentance. He has performed many miracles. He has shown compassion for many individuals and even compassion for the hungry crowds.

People will follow Jesus anywhere, IF only He will keep performing miracles for them. (You remember, his own neighbors and friends in Nazareth were angry enough at Jesus to want to throw Jesus off the cliff to His death.) Why? We want to be entertained. We want blessings and not curses. We want proof. (Forget faith!) He would NOT perform for the multitudes of for even his hometown neighbors and family.

Jesus of Nazareth – Tyre to the N. – Israel, Judea map

Jesus Ministers to a Great Multitude

17 And he came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, 18 who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. And those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. 19 And all the crowd sought to touch him, for power came out from him and healed them all.

[Here is the nice part we all love:]

The Beatitudes

20 And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said:

“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.

21 “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.

“Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.

22 “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! 23 Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.

Amen! Yes, we need this Jesus.

(Lord bring us a miracle and bring us your reward. Prove you Power to us and we will follow You.)

Ah, but you with ears to hear, hear what Jesus says next:

Jesus Pronounces Woes

24 “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.

25 “Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry.

“Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.

26 “Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.

So you want to be rich, do you? You want Jesus to bless your house with plenty and laughter and good reputation for you and your family… Are you sure? Do you really want it all NOW?

Dear brothers and sisters of His church, of the multitudes of christians;

Hear what you do not recall (and I will shorten it for our short memories; but read it all, if you will:)

Love Your Enemies

27 “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.

Have you been abused? Sexually? Physically? Verbally? Financially? Emotionally?

Do some hate you? (Certainly a fellow believer or sister who claims Christ ought not?)

LOVE THEM.

Though they are your enemies, love them. That is what Christ Jesus commands. (Are you still with us, christian of the crowds and multitudes?)

What is this ‘love’ to which Jesus (IF He IS our Lord) calls us?
- Welcome them (perhaps into your homes, but certainly into your life. (How else will they see Christ in you?)
- Entertain them. No, not like TV or a sport or your cell phone; just do not ignore your enemies as if they are not real people created by God, perhaps for a later winning into His Kingdom.
- Be fond of them. Admit it; you know people who are enemies of Christ Jesus whom you admire and like. Are they not also deserving as you of His love as shown through you?
- Love them dearly. Yes, your enemy; that the love of Christ Jesus may shine into the darkness of their life.
Not only, “love them,” do good to them.

Sure, we all remember the story of the good Samaritan; but Jesus’ point was not so much that a hated man did good for a man, but that men (and women) who claim to be “good” do not often do the good act of mercy, as had the Samaritan unbeliever. Therefore Jesus continues in Luke 6:32

32 “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.

33 And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same… 35 But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.

36 Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.

Jesus’ personal love is also personal love for the unbeliever and for the unsaved, as you and I were once unsaved and an enemy of God (though our profession may have been false and our faith rebellious).

REPENT! Show mercy, as our Heavenly Father has shown us mercy.

and LOVE, as Christ Jesus has loved us.

For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. – Romans 5:10 KJV

No, repentance is not such a bad message for each of us; therefore, be reconciled to your brother in Christ. Be reconciled to your sister in Christ. Be reconciled even to your enemy! Love them.

And just two additional things (from Luke 6:27) added next in v. 28:

28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.

Abuse (of all kinds and of varying degrees) is a terrible thing, an offense between two human beings, both created by God. The word often translated ‘abused’ by this and other versions of the Bible in the KJV reads: “them which spitefully use (you).” It is a better translation (unencumbered by the world’s spin on the meaning). Listen to the meaning from Jesus’ words:

Outline of Biblical Usage
1. to insult
2. to treat abusively, use despitefully
3. to revile
4. in a forensic sense, to accuse falsely
5. to threaten
ALL of these are abuses of the enemy; and the enemy is Satan. Do you use these spitefully in retaliation against those who spitefully use you? Do you respond to your enemies (or even a brother or sister in Christ) in a spiteful way?
Stop it! Jesus commands us: LOVE them. DO good to them. BLESS them. (and here is the hard one for us:) PRAY for them.

–

Oh how I pray for enemies who have spitefully used me. One of them may be you… or your loved one.

–

I pray that they will repent.

I pray that they might confess their sin and turn back to God (that’s what repent means, you know; turn back).

I pray that they might be that lost sheep.

I pray that they might be that one you never believed would REPENT and hear the word of Jesus over the hatred and ways of the world and the sin of who we also once were before He also saved us.

Oh, dear one, REPENT of your sin. I pray for you.

Pray also for me.

Forgive us our trespasses,

As we forgive those who trespass against us.

Are our enemies not our worst offenders?

Forgive us, for the many times we, too have been an enemy of our Lord, Christ Jesus who teaches us:

Pray for our enemies.

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February 17, 2014
Who Welcomes His Ministry?

Luke 4:

Jesus Begins His Ministry

14 And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and a report about him went out through all the surrounding country. 15 And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all.

Jesus Rejected at Nazareth

16 And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up.

Generally, Doctor Luke provides us with great detail of proof from eye witness accounts of Jesus and the Acts of the Apostles; however in this chronological glance at the beginning of Jesus’ three-year ministry on earth after being led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit a look through the eyes of the Apostle Matthew is more helpful.

Matthew 4

English Standard Version (ESV)

Jesus Begins His Ministry

12 Now when he heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee. 13 And leaving Nazareth he went and lived in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali…

Jesus of Nazareth, as He was known, then moved to and lived in Capernaum by the sea of Galilee.

17 From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

Let us speak to the vocation and mission of the Prophet for a moment.

To begin, God appoints Prophets, generally separate of the Priestly office and official leadership of God’s own people. Prior to John the Baptist, the Prophet spoke and wrote to and of the fallen Nations: Israel, Judah and the gentile nations who God used to humble and punish His own people into repentance.

Isaiah was probably an aristocrat with influence of kings. He lived about 700 years before Christ.

Jeremiah and Daniel ( both about 600 B.C.) were both young when God used them as prophets to their own people and both older as God used them to show His glory to the rulers of conquering gentile nations. Ezekiel is also an exile around the same time.

These men are not in charge; yet all, through the voice and power of God, call men to repentance.

Amos is just a farmer and a shepherd in Judah (about 800 B.C.) who God uses to announce the fall of the northern Kingdom Israel. Micah was just a countryman in Israel who lived near the Philistine border about this same time.

Hosea gets his marriage advice from God who instructs him to marry a whore, as His people have become. Jonah did not even want to be God’s Prophet and ran away (though God pursued and saved him.) We know almost nothing about the Prophet Joel.

Although Zechariah and Haggai were connected to the office of Priest, it was at a time after repentance during the rebuilding of the Temple by Ezra and Nehemiah (about 500 B.C.). Malachi warns of too casual of an attitude toward worship of God (about 460-430 B.C.).

The Second Temple is destroyed. God keeps silent for over 400 years – 20 generations!

Herod the Great, by alliance with gentile Rome, builds yet another Temple in captured Jerusalem.

Along comes John the Baptist telling another Herod, Pharisees, Sadducees, Scribes, Temple authorities and the people everywhere: REPENT!

He dresses and acts like a madman and lives in the wilderness; but the people believe and follow John. He baptizes and witnesses that Jesus of Nazareth is the one on whom the Spirit of God descends. He IS the Promised One.

Now Jesus, who they all knew since boyhood, a man raised as a carpenter moves away from His hometown. He travels a few miles, moving His belongings to a little inland fishing village, Capernaum. And what was Jesus’ first message to his new hometown?

Matthew 4:17 From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

Jesus left His mother and brothers and family, their carpenter business and comes to a fishing village. Jesus doesn’t look like the wild Prophet John. He is gentle. He looks like his new neighbors. He dresses like them. He eats with them. And Jesus worships with them.

Why would Jesus have that same crazy message for these new neighbors and new friends as He had for his family back home in Nazareth? Repent, you of Capernaum (also known as Chorazin). Repent Bethsaida (a neighboring fishing town on Chinnereth (the Sea of Galilee.)

Jesus calls His Disciples to leave their fishing businesses to follow Him. They do. And among them another local resident, resented by almost every working man: Mathew Levi, a tax collector, who continues his narrative Gospel:

Jesus Ministers to Great Crowds

23 And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. 24 So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them. 25 And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.

We, too, focus on these wonderful miracles witnessed by many and refuted by none. We look to follow this Jesus;He IS the same Jesus who comes to us, as did John the Baptist, saying: Repent!

To be continued…

February 14, 2014
The Parable of Degenerate Sisters

A Parable from the Pre-incarnate Son of Man to the Prophet Ezekiel

23:4 Marriage is commonly used in the Bible as a symbol for the covenant relationship between God and his people (e.g. Isa 54:1-8; Eph 5:22-23).

Ezekiel 23

English Standard Version (ESV) (excerpted with literal & brief paraphrase)

2 “Son of man, there were two women, the daughters of one mother. 3 They played the whore… in their youth; there their breasts were pressed and their virgin nipples handled. 4 Oholah was the name of the elder and Oholibah the name of her sister. They became mine, and they bore sons and daughters…

5 “Oholah played the whore while she was mine, and she lusted after her lovers… 6 clothed in purple, governors and commanders, all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding on horses. 7 She bestowed her whoring upon them, the choicest men … and she defiled herself with all the idols of everyone after whom she lusted. 8 She did not give up her whoring that she had begun in Egypt; for in her youth men had lain with her and handled her virgin nipples and poured out their whoring lust upon her. 9 Therefore I delivered her into the hands of her lovers, into the hands … after whom she lusted. 10 These uncovered her nakedness;they seized her sons and her daughters; and as for her, they killed her with the sword; and she became a byword among women, when judgment had been executed on her.

11 “Her sister Oholibah saw this, and she became more corrupt than her sister in her lust and in her whoring, which was worse than that of her sister. 12 She lusted after the Assyrians (the same kind of men as her sister), all of them desirable young men. 13 And I saw that she was defiled; they both took the same way. 14 But she carried her whoring further. She saw men portrayed on the wall, the images of (evil enemies of God)… 16 When she saw them, she lusted after them and sent messengers to them in Chaldea. 17 And they came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their whoring lust. And after she was defiled by them, she turned from them in disgust. 18 When she carried on her whoring so openly and flaunted her nakedness, I turned in disgust from her, as I had turned in disgust from her sister. 19 Yet she increased her whoring, remembering the days of her youth, when she played the whore in the land of Egypt 20 and lusted after her lovers there, whose members were like those of donkeys, and whose issue was like that of horses. 21 Thus you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when the Egyptians handled your nipples and fondled your young breasts.”

22 Therefore, O Oholibah, thus says the Lord God: “Behold, I will stir up against you your lovers from whom you turned in disgust, and I will bring them against you from every side… 24 And they shall come against you… They shall set themselves against you on every side … and I will commit the judgment to them, and they shall judge you according to their judgments. 25 And I will direct my jealousy against you, that they may deal with you in fury. They shall cut off your nose and your ears, and your survivors shall fall by the sword. They shall seize your sons and your daughters, and your survivors shall be devoured by fire. 26 They shall also strip you of your clothes and take away your beautiful jewels. 27 Thus I will put an end to your lewdness and your whoring begun in the land of Egypt, so that you shall not lift up your eyes to them or remember Egypt anymore.

28 “For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will deliver you into the hands of those whom you hate, into the hands of those from whom you turned in disgust, 29 and they shall deal with you in hatred and take away all the fruit of your labor and leave you naked and bare, and the nakedness of your whoring shall be uncovered. Your lewdness and your whoring 30 have brought this upon you, because you played the whore with the nations and defiled yourself with their idols. 31 You have gone the way of your sister; therefore I will give her cup into your hand. 32 Thus says the Lord God:

“You shall drink your sister’s cup
that is deep and large;
you shall be laughed at and held in derision,
for it contains much;
33 you will be filled with drunkenness and sorrow.
A cup of horror and desolation,
the cup of your sister Samaria;
34 you shall drink it and drain it out,
and gnaw its shards,
and tear your breasts;

for I have spoken, declares the Lord God. 35 Therefore thus says the Lord God: Because you have forgotten me and cast me behind your back, you yourself must bear the consequences of your lewdness and whoring.”

36 The Lord said to me: “Son of man, will you judge Oholah and Oholibah? Declare to them their abominations. 37 For they have committed adultery, and blood is on their hands. With their idols they have committed adultery, and they have even offered up to them for food the children whom they had borne to me. 38 Moreover, this they have done to me: they have defiled my sanctuary on the same day and profaned my Sabbaths. 39 For when they had slaughtered their children in sacrifice to their idols, on the same day they came into my sanctuary to profane it. And behold, this is what they did in my house. 40 They even sent for men to come from afar, to whom a messenger was sent; and behold, they came. For them you bathed yourself, painted your eyes, and adorned yourself with ornaments. 41 You sat on a stately couch, with a table spread before it on which you had placed my incense and my oil. 42 The sound of a carefree multitude was with her; and with men of the common sort, drunkards were brought from the wilderness; and they put bracelets on the hands of the women, and beautiful crowns on their heads.

43 “Then I said of her who was worn out by adultery, Now they will continue to use her for a whore, even her! 44 For they have gone in to her, as men go in to a prostitute. Thus they went in to Oholah and to Oholibah, lewd women! 45 But righteous men shall pass judgment on them with the sentence of adulteresses, and with the sentence of women who shed blood, because they are adulteresses, and blood is on their hands.”

46 For thus says the Lord God: “Bring up a vast host against them, and make them an object of terror and a plunder. 47 And the host shall stone them and cut them down with their swords. They shall kill their sons and their daughters, and burn up their houses. 48 Thus will I put an end to lewdness in the land, that all women may take warning and not commit lewdness as you have done. 49 And they shall return your lewdness upon you, and you shall bear the penalty for your sinful idolatry, and you shall know that I am the Lord God.”

A wife, holy and pure, a virgin undefiled, loyal and faithful: is that not the desire of a man? And is this not the highest and holiest desire of the Living God, in whose image we are made man? Is a faithful bride not the desire of Christ Jesus, the returning Bridegroom of His Church?

Hebrews 13:4 Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.

Jeremiah 3:8-10 She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce. Yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but she too went and played the whore. Because she took her whoredom lightly, she polluted the land, committing adultery with stone and tree. Yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah did not return to me with her whole heart, but in pretense, declares the LORD.”

A history of divorce

The LORD GOD has married you and made you His own! It is a most serious matter that a woman would play the whore and give herself to any other. This is the setting of the parable of the two degenerate sisters in Ezekiel 23. It is the history of God’s chosen ones of Israel and Judah.

Christ Jesus is born a Son of Man, conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin. The teachers of the Law come to him and ask about a man divorcing a woman. A woman had no such right of divorce or anything else separate of the rights of her husband as a matter of the Law.

Matthew 19:3 And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?”

4 He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh.

What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

7 They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?”

8 He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. 9 And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”

“… “Because of your hardness of heart…”

Now the hardness of our hearts urges a wife to dismiss her husband!

To the parable of the two degenerate sisters, must we now add another who has called herself, ‘christian?’

Let Christ’s Church with ears to hear hear the distant trumpet announcing the returning Bridegroom of the Church, His Bride:

Revelation 19:6-10

English Standard Version (ESV)

The Marriage Supper of the Lamb

6 Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out,

“Hallelujah!
For the Lord our God
the Almighty reigns.
7 Let us rejoice and exult
and give him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
and his Bride has made herself ready;
8 it was granted her to clothe herself
with fine linen, bright and pure”—

for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.

9 And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.” 10 Then I fell down at his feet to worship him, but he said to me, “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God.” For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

Even so, come, Lord Jesus, to your beloved church, the faithful who have not put You away by a bill of divorce.

February 13, 2014