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  • That you may have Certainty – 6 – Gentiles

    That you may have Certainty – 6 – Gentiles

    “I, the LORD, have called You in righteousness,
    And will hold Your hand;
    I will keep You and give You as a covenant to the people,
    As a light to the Gentiles…

    Behold, the former things have come to pass,
    And new things I declare;
    Before they spring forth I tell you of them.”

    Isaiah 42:6,9 NKJV

    What is a Gentile?

    The NLT Study Bible’s introduction to the Gospel of Luke summarizes the perspective of Gentiles to the Jewish mind in this way:

    “The ultimate outsiders were Gentiles, and Luke emphasizes that God’s salvation extends even to them.”

    Jewish daily practices had been refined into an exclusionary culture of separation from Gentiles who observed worship from a distance. Have you ever entered a worship service and felt like an outsider? I have.

    We'll address a first century meaning in our next post, but first Isaiah's context from seven centuries before Christ.

    What makes Gentiles different from Jews?

    גּוֹי – gowy from the Hebrew – nation or people, usually of non-Hebrew people

    Although used generically as description of people from any nation, Gentile may be used as an insult to a foreigner. (Of course, no one today would do that, would we?)

    Hear Isaiah’s tone with this word (גּוֹי) here translated, ‘nations.’

    Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the LORD, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged. Isaiah 1:4

    Which one of the Nations does Isaiah address, which people to which the LORD is foreign to their lives?

    Isaiah speaks specifically to Judah and Jerusalem!

    Faithfulness to the LORD is what is supposed to separate Jews from Gentiles. The Prophet of God warns that because of their sin (iniquity), these Jews are no different than other nations.

    Does any of this have a contemporary ring?

    Like ‘sin,’  ‘iniquity’ is accusation too intolerant for ears of leaders unwilling to obey the Lord God.

    Iniquity – עָוֹן – `avon – perversity, depravity, guilt or punishment of iniquity

    Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth;
    for the LORD has spoken:
    “Children have I reared and brought up,
    but they have rebelled against me. – Isaiah 1:2

    By the time of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, Isaiah’s rebuke from the LORD fell on deaf ears of a broken Israel. But God’s warnings had been constant for Israel, then neglected by generations even back to Moses.

    Deuteronomy 8:

    “The whole commandment that I command you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers…

    3 And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna… that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord… 19 And if you forget the Lord…

    20 Like the nations that the Lord makes to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God.

    Nations, Gentiles (the same word): make yourself like them by turning from the Lord and you shall perish. As Isaiah concluded more than six centuries later: they are utterly estranged.

    Why does a Jewish Messiah matter to the Nations (Gentiles)?

    Zechariah 2:
    [circa 5th Century Before Christ]

    10 Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion, for behold, I come and I will dwell in your midst, declares the Lord.

    Were these the songs of Palm Sunday, praise from Jews and the Gentiles?

    11 And many nations shall join themselves to the Lord in that day, and shall be my people. And I will dwell in your midst, and you shall know that the Lord of hosts has sent me to you.

    The Messiah, Jesus, Emmanuel, God With Us; here entering Zion (Jerusalem) and joining Himself also to the Gentiles. How will He do that? How will the Nations know that Jesus is sent also to them?

    12 And the Lord will inherit Judah as his portion in the holy land, and will again choose Jerusalem.”

    Here gathered the Jews for a Passover festival in a Zion ruled by Gentiles. Romans, Greeks, people of the Nations all present for an event of witness. Yet the witness would be of a New Covenant of Blood on a Cross. Their witness would be of a resurrection and a new hope. The Gentiles were now joined to God in the Blood of the Messiah!

    13 Be silent, all flesh, before the Lord, for he has roused himself from his holy dwelling.

    To be continued…

    That you may have Certainty – 7 – An outsider’s view from a Gentile

  • That you may have Certainty -3- Transitions

    That you may have Certainty -3- Transitions

    That you may have Certainty in these Uncertain Times

    Can you think of any transitions of our years more difficult than dealing with death? Any death of a loved one brings uncertainty for times ahead. 

    Luke and the other Gospel writers must have had second thoughts after the Cross, transitions of faith challenging the teachings of Jesus. “Did you know Him,” those who had witnessed His triumphant entrance into Jerusalem for the Passover festival would have asked?

    The Messiah of God: humiliated, tortured and executed as a spectacle on a Roman cross!

    How those leaving Jerusalem must have hung their heads during the transitions of these three days until certainty of the Resurrection. But then a risen Christ appears. 

    I have always wondered what stories from scripture Jesus must have told his disciples on the road to Emmaus. 

    Luke 24: 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

    יָדַע Certainty

    In Hebrew,-יָדַע yâdaʻ, yaw-dah’; a primitive root; to know (properly, to ascertain by seeing); used in a great variety of senses, figuratively, literally, euphemistically and inferentially (including observation, care, recognition; and causatively, instruction, designation, punishment..

    This is the certainty of which Luke, the gentile, speaks of in detailing the record of Jesus’ life. For a Hebrew people conquered by Rome and accustomed to a Greek culture, Jesus assures them of God’s unrelenting faithfulness.

    So what might Jesus have told these defeated Jews after His death and resurrection about Joshua? We might conjecture the inclusion of certainty [yâdaʻ], used roughly 900 times in Hebrew scripture 

    The Certainty of the Jews

    The impact of the resurrection of Jesus surpasses all transitions of history. Yet Jesus speaks first to followers of a past of promise, rather than this new transition for believers. Jesus had spoken often of Moses, but among transitions between Hebrew leaders few surpass the journey of Joshua.

    Moses, David and the Prophets had predicted a Messiah King. The LORD affirms the certainty of His covenant with Abraham through Moses. Yet Moses dies before crossing into the promised land. Transitions from a forty year leadership of the 120 year Moses to following his assistant, Joshua. He would command this untested Hebrew army crossing the Jordan into enemy lands.

    If ever a people journeyed into uncertain times, transitions from the wilderness into lands beyond the Jordan lay before the Hebrew people. Yet here rests faith in the certainty of God’s promise.

    נָגַד More Certainty 

    Another Hebrew root word translated as certainty is  nagad. Without getting into Hebrew and English parts of speech we find an additional 370 uses of this word for certainty.

    נָגַד – nagad – to be conspicuous, tell, make known, to tell, declare, announce, report, expound, to inform of, to publish, proclaim, to avow, acknowledge, confess, to be told, be announced, be reported.. plus a few additional definitions and ‘to bring to the light.’ 

    Luke 24:27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

    Just a reminder that Moses is synonymous with the Law, Torah and five Books of Moses, from which we will begin.

    From Moses to Joshua

    Deuteronomy 31:

    7 Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in the sight of all Israel, “Be strong and courageous, for you shall go with this people into the land that the Lord has sworn to their fathers to give them, and you shall put them in possession of it. 8 It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.”

    Do you know the meaning of Joshua’s name? יְהוֹשׁוּעַ The transliteration is: Yĕhowshuwa` from: יְהֹוָה Yĕhovah – The Existing One and יָשַׁע yasha` – savior.

    The LORD told Moses I AM THAT I AM! He IS The Existing One from whom the Savior is sent.

    14 And the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, the days approach when you must die. Call Joshua and present yourselves in the tent of meeting, that I may commission him.” And Moses and Joshua went and presented themselves in the tent of meeting. 15 And the Lord appeared in the tent in a pillar of cloud. And the pillar of cloud stood over the entrance of the tent.

    16 And the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, you are about to lie down with your fathers. Then this people will rise and whore after the foreign gods among them in the land that they are entering, and they will forsake me and break my covenant that I have made with them.

    Joshua Like Jesus

    Joshua 1:

    After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ assistant, 2 “Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I am giving to them, to the people of Israel. 3 Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, just as I promised to Moses.

    The LORD’s promise is a promise of certainty.

    … Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you. 6 Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them. 7 Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success[a] wherever you go.

    Yet as with Moses and later, Jesus, the followers of God fail in their faith. We love to sing of our victories in the Lord [Joshua 6 video], but in these transitions of faith watch what happens next.

    Joshua 7:

    But the people of Israel broke faith… 2 Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai… 

    5 and the men of Ai killed about thirty-six of their men and chased them before the gate as far as Shebarim and struck them at the descent. And the hearts of the people melted and became as water.

    6 Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell to the earth on his face before the ark of the Lord until the evening, he and the elders of Israel. And they put dust on their heads. 7 And Joshua said, “Alas, O Lord God, why have you brought this people over the Jordan at all, to give us into the hands of the Amorites, to destroy us?

    Uncertain times, then Certainty from the Lord

    And so it goes in difficult transitions. Men (and women) will sin. The Lord must draw us back to faith.

    • Jesus, Savior of sinners, tells His faithful why the Messiah must die. He is resurrected and becomes our resurrection and our life!
    • Joshua, Jehovah is Salvation, appeals to Jehovah God for mercy and the Lord speaks certainty of deliverance.

    Joshua 8:

    And the Lord said to Joshua, “Do not fear and do not be dismayed…

    Following the defeat of Ai, hear this explanation of the certainty of the power of Almighty God.

    Joshua 9:

    3 But when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and to Ai, 4 they on their part acted with cunning… 8 They said to Joshua, “We are your servants.” And Joshua said to them, “Who are you? … because of the name of the Lord your God. For we have heard a report of him, and all that he did in Egypt, 10 and all that he did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan…

    They go on with their deception of Joshua, but they praise the Lord. 

    15 And Joshua made peace with them and made a covenant with them, to let them live, and the leaders of the congregation swore to them.

    16 At the end of three days after they had made a covenant with them, they heard that they were their neighbors and that they lived among them. 

    Now comes the assurance of certainty from the Lord. נָגַד

    24 They answered Joshua,

    “Because it was told to your servants for a certainty that the Lord your God had commanded his servant Moses to give you all the land and to destroy all the inhabitants of the land from before you—

    so we feared greatly for our lives because of you and did this thing. 25 And now, behold, we are in your hand. Whatever seems good and right in your sight to do to us, do it.”

    Are you a King?

    What did these kings, destined to fail before the Lord think of Joshua? Surely they feared the anointed of the Lord (though at that time they were not named king).

    Pilate, Governor of Judea had asked the accused Jesus, “Are you the King of the Jews?”  For the Jews had accused Jesus of blasphemy, for He had said: “Before Abraham was, I AM.” Then they crucified Jesus on a Cross and buried our Lord in a grave. Now, in the greatest of transitions ever, the risen Christ tells His followers why He had to be crucified for our sins. He IS and was and is to be, the Lord! He is the redeemer of those facing certain death and inevitable judgement. 

    For fifty days a risen Jesus will once again lead disciples into the uncertainty of a new and everlasting covenant. Like followers of Joshua, these disciples must have had times of uncertainty turn into a certain faith in the Lord. 

    Whether forty years, fifty days, two millennia or a few moments of transitions of this life, certainty remains in Christ the Lord.

    To be continued…

  • You’re a Damn Sinner

    Sinners and Damn Sinners

    Are you offended by me calling you a damn sinner? I must confess: I’m also a sinner every day; in thoughts, words and deeds. In that sense I’m just like you.

    Lord, forgive us our treapasses.

    For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God… – Romans 3:23  (but read further for understanding the Sacrifice of Christ)

    “And if a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God. – Deuteronomy 21:22-23a ESV

    Damn; Damnation; Damnable:

    I was somewhat shocked to read in a definition that these words have changed meaning.  Yet I acknowledge a contemporary preaching trend toward not offending the hearers of God’s word.  A brief look at the definition of ‘damn, damnation and damnable’ reads:

    These words have undergone a change of meaning since the King James Version was made. They are derived from Latin damnare = ” to inflict a loss,” “to condemn,” and that was their original meaning in English.

    Now they denote exclusively the idea of everlasting punishment in hell. It is often difficult to determine which meaning was intended by the translators in the King James Version. They have been excluded altogether from the Revised Version (British and American).

    Damnation invades the guilty minds of the wicked.  They then accuse the Christian of morality irrelevant to their own demise. Hell for so many revelers is their daily entertainment of self-indulgence. Raising hell becomes their goal of response to a life without meaning and a death without consequence.

    A further defining of the concept of damnation will include uncomfortable synonyms given infrequent consideration by most men of dust. These include:

    condemn, damn, judgment, avenge, accusation, go to law, pernicious, perdition, destruction, waste, die and to perish.

    Not a list of well-used words in our 21st century lexicon or smiling solicitations from some pulpits.

    Hellfire and Brimstone!

    Not to dwell too long in these hell-pointing descriptions above for damnation, but here would be the time to mention that other contemporarily offensive word: sin.

    Sin, damnation and other uncomfortable, almost archaic words like judgement point to man’s accountability to God.

    Jesus, the Messiah, perfect and sinless, became substitution for my sins and for yours. God therefore sacrificed His righteousness, undeserving of death, as redemption from the damnation you and I deserve.

    The sin of man and love of God led to the Cross.

    Jesus and Judgment

    For the LORD is our judge; the LORD is our lawgiver;
    the LORD is our king; he will save us. – Isaiah 33:22

    John 8:

    31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples… 

    42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. 43 Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. 44 You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. 45 But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. 46 Which one of you convicts me of sin?

    No, they could not convict the Son of Man of sin. The accusers of Jesus could only bring the righteous Messiah to the Cross by bribery and lies.

    51 Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.”

    A King’s Condemnation for the Sins of His Subjects

    Matthew 26:

    .. Judas came, one of the twelve, and with him a great crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and the elders of the people…

    55 At that hour Jesus said to the crowds, “Have you come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs to capture me? Day after day I sat in the temple teaching, and you did not seize me. But all this has taken place that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled.”

    Then all the disciples left him and fled.

    57 Then those who had seized Jesus led him to Caiaphas the high priest, where the scribes and the elders had gathered…

    59 Now the chief priests and the whole council were seeking false testimony against Jesus that they might put him to death, but they found none, though many false witnesses came forward. At last two came forward and said, “This man said, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to rebuild it in three days.’”

    62 And the high priest stood up and said, “Have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you?”

    63 But Jesus remained silent.

    And the high priest said to him, “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.”

    Jesus said to him, “You have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.”

    65 Then the high priest tore his robes and said, “He has uttered blasphemy. What further witnesses do we need? You have now heard his blasphemy. What is your judgment?”

    They answered, “He deserves death.”

    67 Then they spit in his face and struck him. And some slapped him, saying, “Prophesy to us, you Christ! Who is it that struck you?”

    The Damn Shall Hang on a Cross, Yet this Passover Sacrifice is Pure

    Isaiah 42:

    Behold my servant, whom I uphold,
    my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
    I have put my Spirit upon him;
    he will bring forth justice to the nations.
    2 He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice,
    or make it heard in the street;
    3 a bruised reed he will not break,
    and a faintly burning wick he will not quench;
    he will faithfully bring forth justice.
    4 He will not grow faint or be discouraged
    till he has established justice in the earth;
    and the coastlands wait for his law…

    9 Behold, the former things have come to pass,
    and new things I now declare;
    before they spring forth
    I tell you of them.”

    … he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him… – Hebrews 5:8b-9

    Only two mortal choices: judgement or grace.

    Are you a damn sinner? Or are you a forgiven sinner In Christ?