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Tag: death

Time Beyond Years – Omega
Revelation 1:8 KJV

I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.

Alpha

Briefly, we considered creation (day 1 before measurable time).

Look at the timeline of man’s history as if the mark on the left is creation. Suppose man (adam) is a second mark and Noah a third. Then Abraham and Moses followed by David, with generations and centuries unmarked.

In the middle of the line a notable mark of the division of time follows which we note as B.C. (or BCE) and A.D. (from the Latin: Anno Domini – ‘In the year of our Lord’).

Before this dividing mark of time between BC and AD, David has reigned and the Prophets have spoken.

THEN..

Jesus Christ is born, teaches, crucified and resurrected (a challenge to mortal time).

His life as God With Us (Immanuel) delineates a beginning to these last days.

Our timeline of these last days endures through persecution of the faithful while the Lord wins repentant sinners.

But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. – 2 Peter 3:9

Following the fall of Rome and rise of false prophets the church witnesses the way of Christ Jesus.

History records the printing of the Bible, reformation of the faith and enlightenment of mindful godlessness.

The nations learn of Christ, empires rise and fall toward an inevitable end, the omega of time. Christ IS near in the omega of these last days, the end of time measured by the created of the Lord God Almighty.

Ω Ō, o’-meg-ah; the last letter of the Greek alphabet, i.e. (figuratively) the finality:—Omega.

Observe any line, even a timeline of history.

It has a beginning (Α, ἄλφα) and it has an end (Ω, Omega).

Yet look beyond the visible beginning and visible end of the line and in your mind’s eye observe the infinite extension of that which is visible.

Look above (heavenward) and below: consider the expanse of so much which the line does not touch.

— Omega revealing the end

Our created living souls can barely grasp it!

The refracted light of our postmodern enlightenment clouds the clarity of the One true Light.

Time and creation have cause. The Lord will surely accomplish His purpose and the saving of His own at the end.

Before the Α, After the Ω

And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
Genesis 1:31

One commandment from God to man, a simple life in paradise:

“.. of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” – Genesis 2:17b

Yet man chooses trespass to just one simple command from God. A just and righteous LORD must punish sin.

The Lord God said.. to Adam he said: “.. for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.” – Genesis 3 excerpt

Living toward life’s end
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LATER in Scripture - from a conversation of a righteous man.
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Although Job appears later in the Bible his place in the timeline of history is closer to Abraham than to David.
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Job 7:

“Has not man a hard service on earth…?

… so I am allotted months of emptiness,
and nights of misery are apportioned to me.

When I lie down I say, ‘When shall I arise?’

But the night is long,
and I am full of tossing till the dawn.

5 My flesh is clothed with worms and dirt;
my skin hardens, then breaks out afresh.
6 My days are swifter.. and come to their end without hope.

7 “Remember that my life is a breath;
my eye will never again see good.
8 The eye of him who sees me will behold me no more;
while your eyes are on me, I shall be gone.

¹⁷What is man, that you make so much of him,
and that you set your heart on him,
¹⁸visit him every morning
and test him every moment?

Why do you not pardon my transgression
and take away my iniquity?
For now I shall lie in the earth;
you will seek me, but I shall not be.” – Job 7:21

The time and place of punishment

Luke 16:

… and in Hades, being in torment… And he called out, ‘… have mercy on me.., for I am in anguish in this flame.’

ᾅδης – hadēs
- What do you expect of inevitable death and deserved hell?
- (Or do you yet claim blemished goodness with eyes that will not see death?)
Hell [Hades] holds captive many living souls by the certainty of our own sins.

Roman, Hellenist and Hebrew understanding of Jesus’ mention of Hades fits the definition:
1. name Hades or Pluto, the god of the lower regions
2. Orcus, the nether world, the realm of the dead
3. later use of this word: the grave, death, hell
Yet note a subtlety of the root word of Hades:

From the negative participle of Alpha and εἴδω – eidō, a word meaning ‘to see’ or ‘to know.’

And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. – Revelation 20:1

Do you yet see our vulnerability to the punishment for sin after our end without Christ?

“Son of man, you dwell in the midst of a rebellious house, who have eyes to see, but see not, who have ears to hear, but hear not, for they are a rebellious house. – Ezekiel 12:2

After the Omega, saved in Christ

The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.. – 1 Timothy 1:15

The gospel εὐαγγέλιον of John:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God…

“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

.. and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!”

“We have found the Messiah” (which means Christ)...

Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

And this is the judgment:

the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.

Omega – for those with eyes to see

Omega revealing the end

Revelation 22:

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb…

“And behold, I am coming soon.

12 “Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done. 13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”

“Come.”

And let the one who hears say, “Come.”

And let the one who is thirsty come;

let the one who desires take the water of life without price.

20 He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.”

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!

21 The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all.

Amen.
January 9, 2018
The Curse of Disease and Death – 2

Moses, Privilege of the Wilderness

In part one of this series about our attitude toward disease and death we briefly examined a story from the oldest book of the Bible, Job. Job was well-to-do, he had then lost nearly everything including his health, yet he blessed the Lord. Today we examine part of a too-familiar story from the Pentateuch [Torah ], written by Moses. The Book of the Law, or the first five books of the Bible, are written about the Lord and relationship to man (adam), but within this story we find a man not unlike Job, a man of privilege and wealth, Moses.

Moses may have been the most learned man on earth in his day, raised as a prince of privilege in a palace of a most powerful man who accumulated wealth and knowledge from the many corners of the world he ruled, conquered or traded. The house of Pharaoh, a throne perhaps to which Moses could have ascended upon his death, was a Rome on the Nile to which the peoples of the land looked in worship.

Moses, Prince of Egypt, ruled over the important day-to-day projects in the extensive north-to-south agricultural empire whose glory was tied to management of the rich resources of the 4,160 mile [6670 km] long Nile River.

Moses gave up much, first in fleeing for his life at age forty and later in returning at age eighty to challenge Pharaoh at the urging of the Lord, only to be led to live in the wilderness of Sinai for forty more years.

The Torah breezes quickly over typically the most notable years of a man’s life to tell most about Moses’ life after age eighty.

[ctt title=”The Torah is five Books about the LORD, not a book about Moses.” tweet=”תּוֹרָה‎” coverup=”U9Qna”]

Exodus 2:

Moses Flees to Midian

¹¹One day, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens…

21 And Moses was content to dwell with the man [Jethro, Priest of Midian], and he gave Moses his daughter Zipporah. 22 She gave birth to a son, and he called his name Gershom, for he said, “I have been a sojourner in a foreign land.”

God Hears Israel’s Groaning

²³During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God…

Exodus 3

The Burning Bush

Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. ²And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed…

Most of us are fairly familiar with this part of Moses’ story, yet with minimal thought of his again comfortable life with a wife and children and a good job of shepherd. We fail to remember that much time has passed and Moses has survived his own flight from Pharaoh (father of his adoptive Egyptian mother) to establish a good life in the family of a Hebrew priest.

Now there is a new Pharaoh, perhaps a son who came to the throne of Egypt who would have grown up with Moses, a son perhaps even jealous of the many talents of the former Prince of Egypt who had fled to Midian so many years before. “Exodus 2:23During those many days the king of Egypt died…” Easy to have missed this. Time had passed in life as always it will.

Exodus 3:

10 “Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” 11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” 12 He said, “But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”

Moses is about to become (after a time) a man higher than the LORD’s High Priest, a mortal standing before the Lord as Adam had been in the very presence of the LORD! Yet first, much time would pass both in Egypt and in the wilderness.

Exodus 4:19-20

And the LORD said to Moses in Midian, “Go back to Egypt, for all the men who were seeking your life are dead.” So Moses took his wife and his sons and had them ride on a donkey, and went back to the land of Egypt. And Moses took the staff of God in his hand…

27 The Lord said to Aaron, “Go into the wilderness to meet Moses.” So he went and met him at the mountain of God and kissed him. 28 And Moses told Aaron all the words of the Lord with which he had sent him to speak, and all the signs that he had commanded him to do.

Exodus 7:

Moses and Aaron Before Pharaoh

And the Lord said to Moses, “See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet. ²You shall speak all that I command you, and your brother Aaron shall tell Pharaoh to let the people of Israel go out of his land. ³But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt,⁴Pharaoh will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring my hosts, my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment.

We know well the drama to follow: plagues and suffering of both Egyptian and Hebrew. What we may have missed in the big screen dramas is how the Lord used a now ordinary old man (Moses) to lead a suffering people to the promised land. We might not see the humble weakness of old Moses in light of the powerful work the Lord would do by his own hand.

⁷Now Moses was eighty years old, and Aaron eighty-three years old, when they spoke to Pharaoh.

This, of course, was prior to the suffering of the plagues to follow or forty more years of a most difficult life dependant on the manna of God in the wilderness of the Sinai.

Forty years of suffering

You’ve lived a good life, one longer than most in those days, eighty years. Would you now choose to go out into the desert as leader of a difficult people? Would you now choose to suffer the severe hard life of a nomad refugee in desperate need of water and food, a people without home or shelter?

Why would God allow this – yes, even command it?

Like Job, Moses believed the covenant promise of the Lord. God does not always call us to receive double blessing at the end of our life. The Lord does not call us to always extend our years to one hundred and twenty, with sight of the land promised to your sons and daughters.

If the Lord calls us to suffering, the loss of a child or loved one, the loss of city and home, the devastating loss of health; it is for His own righteous will and the redemption of His own worshipers.

Are you a worshiper of the Lord God? Would you humble your flesh, surrender your prideful ‘self?’

Would you sacrifice your home, your wealth and everything you have ever known before Almighty God? For the LORD IS, He will judge of our souls and redeems the lives of His own. The Lord IS and He has suffered in the flesh for your sins and for mine.

Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses—as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. – Hebrews 3:3

To be continued…

March 11, 2017
The Curse of Disease and Death

We don’t understand death. Illness, disease and all the relatives of pain. These challenge our sense of mortality and question our grasp of purpose.

Why did God make it this way?

Wrong question. God created mankind in his image. Sin brought forth death and suffering out of our disobedience to a Father’s command.

Just like understanding death, we cannot eat of the tree of all knowledge the fruit of what the spirit will endure. Death brings judgment of decay and suffering. But what of the spirit resting, the spirit awakened from death?

Why a man can hardly understand the fall of adam, let alone the fall of angels. Yet angels and adam rebel against the righteous authority of Almighty God. These fallen ones affect our lives in ways we cannot know. Yet unseen scores of angels answer the righteous beckoning of a loving heavenly Father, who looks upon the mortal and eternal lives of His own.

A Story of Suffering

We think we know this oldest of stories of a man whose final blessing we cherish. He received twice the blessing. Fair enough. That’s worth some time when God will not help. Right?

You don’t really believe that, do you? At least, not if you are the suffering one or the one living every minute with the anguishing pain of a dear loved one. This is the story of Job we quickly overlook on the way to the double-blessed ending.

Job 1:

There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.

Question #1

Would that be a man like you? Or a woman like you (if that is your gender)? Was Job a man like me?

Certainly not. I am a sinner time and time again, certainly not ‘blameless‘ nor upright before the Lord God.

[ctt title=”תָּם – täm – blameless: complete, perfect, sound, wholesome, morally innocent, having integrity” tweet=”How are you doing at ‘blameless’ minute by measured minute of your mortal life?” coverup=”jaG0i”]

The fallen angel of disobedience challenges God:

“Does Job fear God for no reason? 10 Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land…

Isn’t that how we pray to the Lord?

Hedge us in. Protect us. Give us those double blessings. It’s as if our mortal minutes were all about God giving us a gardens of blessings in all that we do.

Is that why the Lord created man?

Job’s Bad Day

Job didn’t bring on his own distress as we often do. Yet put yourself in this loving father’s place as he hears of the fates of the sons and daughters he has raised.

15 and the Sabeans fell upon them and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword..

… “Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house, 19 and behold, a great wind came across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young people, and they are dead, and I alone have escaped to tell you.”

… the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” – Job 1:21c

Would that have been your (blameless) reaction?

Me neither; but it gets worse. Once again, Satan challenges the Lord at the integrity of Job.

Job 2:

“Skin for skin! All that a man has he will give for his life. 5 But stretch out your hand and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face.”

7 So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and struck Job with loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head.

Can you imagine any righteous man suffering like this, though he is blameless? Image the constant suffering, the pain this man endured.

8 And he took a piece of broken pottery with which to scrape himself while he sat in the ashes.

11 Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that had come upon him, they came each from his own place…

12 And when they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him. And they raised their voices and wept, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads toward heaven.

13 And they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.

Tragic Suffering

Have you ever seen it? (Did you for a moment blame God?) Was it your wife, or a parent, perhaps even a child…

Why such suffering!?

Job’s friends came to him because of the report of the evil Job was suffering. The story of Job in the Bible clearly not only shows us the unseen origin of Job’s tormentor, the fallen angel Satan, but also describe Job’s suffering as evil.

רַע

[ctt title=”The evil of suffering sometimes seems larger than God.” tweet=”Remember, though, the Lord suffered for your sins and for mine.” coverup=”Sm646″]

Wickedness, mischief, hurt, trouble, affliction, ill, adversity, harm and other suffering often leading to death have nearly disappeared from our mortal consciousness.

For like good, evil has become a measure of no meaning in the minds of mankind.

Job goes on to lament his very life. Have we not done that when in great distress? Have we not questioned God’s motives in the suffering of man, especially those nearest our mortal hearts?

All the lessons of life taught from Moses to the Prophets to the Revelation of Jesus Christ to John show suffering – consequence of the disease of sin, yet a hope of redemption and cure of righteousness, resurrection from the suffering of this fragile flesh.

To be continued…

March 5, 2017