Talk of JESUS . com

Tag: God

  • A River of Redemption Flowing from Eden – Commandment

    Master, which is the great commandment in the law? – Matthew 22:36 KJV

    Commandment

    צָוָה tsä·vä’ 

    • – to command, charge, give orders, lay charge, give charge to, order

    The King James Version of the Bible uses ‘Master,’ rather than teacher in this most important question. Our contemporary culture dilutes both the teaching component of leadership and the degree of its authoritarian necessity.

    A teacher, father, president or king may give a command, but obedience depends on a relationship between the master and one receiving the command.

    Commandment implies both authority and relationship.

    From before creation and man, God was and IS in charge. The Lord commanded Adam not to desire to know of good and evil; but now obedience to God requires discernment between good and evil. 

    Now command comes to man less directly through other men and women. Though implicit authority of command requires obedience, mortal men command those with whom we have relationship and assume responsibility. Ultimately, our authority relates to God, even when spoken through the command of others.

    Law and Scripture also imply the Authority of the Lord God. Obedience, however, will follow only out of our love of  God. Respect, honor and obedience to a ‘commander’ of mortals ultimately reflects their relationship with Almighty God.

    Although we will not examine it here, the Authority of God the Holy Spirit also commands those who accept the Lord as our loving Master.

    “Which is the greatest commandment…?”

    Christ Jesus answers quoting the law of Moses, who was given authority by God Almighty

    Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. – Deuteronomy 6:5

    Command: Love the Lord your God. What an appropriate answer for all of us. So simple.

    Jesus answers our question about obedience at the most personal level. Not a specific detail of law, but a relationship with God as our Lord. 

    Moses states God’s commandment reminding faithful servants to love THE EXISTING ONE, THE LORD.

    Returning to the LORD יְהֹוָה

    DEUTERONOMY 30:

    “When all these things happen to you—the blessings and curses I have set before you—and you come to your senses…

    Look back before the Law and you will discover that command was simple, specific, relational and purposeful. The LORD is our Maker and our Master.

    Yet Moses reminds the Lord’s followers:

    11 “This command that I give you today is certainly not too difficult or beyond your reach.

    12 It is not in heaven so that you have to ask, ‘Who will go up to heaven, get it for us, and proclaim it to us so that we may follow it?’ 13 And it is not across the sea so that you have to ask, ‘Who will cross the sea, get it for us, and proclaim it to us so that we may follow it?’

    14 But the message is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, so that you may follow it.

    The Relationship of Command to Obedience

    The Father-Son relationship provides a good illustration of the loving advocacy for the commanded son. The Hebrew followers of Moses viewed him as a father like Abraham, with the authority of God the Father.

    ‘Obey me: to be blessed, or safe, or that you (my children) might prosper.’

    Moses continues: 15 See, today I have set before you life and prosperity, death and adversity.

    16 For I am commanding you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commands, statutes, and ordinances, so that you may live and multiply, and the Lord your God may bless you in the land you are entering to possess.

    17 But if your heart turns away and you do not listen and you are led astray to bow down to other gods and worship them, 18 I tell you today that you will certainly perish and will not live long in the land you are entering to possess across the Jordan.

    19 I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse.

    Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, 20 love the Lord your God, obey Him, and remain faithful to Him.

    For He is your life, and He will prolong your life in the land the Lord swore to give to your fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”

    The Command of the LORD includes Commandments of the Law

    Moses had led the Hebrew people out of slavery in Egypt. Many credit him for saving Israel, but the Nations witnessed that their Savior IS the LORD.

    God gave this new nation a Commandment and Law through Moses. The LORD gave rules and regulations to be judged and administered by leaders; initially Moses, Aaron and God’s anointed elders. 

    Next, we will briefly examine the Commandments and the Law of Moses. 

    To be continued…

     

  • Disaster From Disobedience, A Savior From Before Eden – 7

    By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith. – Hebrews 11:7 KJV

    Godly Fear

    Most of us have a challenge to our faith in God from one of two extremes. Some fear God so much that they cannot relate to the Lord’s Fatherly love for those who love Him.

    Other believers assume an automatic entry into heaven because, they say, “I am a Christian,” or I was born into a godly family. They assume a personal acceptance by a loving God they do not know and fail to follow. May God have mercy on their souls.

    And of course in addition to believers in between these two extremes are those who have no fear of the Lord. These are godless fools turned toward evil with no desire for the wisdom of God or desire to do good in place of their evil.

    He said to mankind, “The fear of the Lord is this: wisdom. And to turn from evil is understanding.” – Job 28:8

    Adam and Eve and their early descendants had a personal relationship with the Living God even after the fall. They could ask God personally for the wisdom to do good rather than turning toward evil. Yet through the generations refusal of the Lord’s advice to choose good over evil has fallen on more and more deaf ears.

    Genesis 5:

    4 Adam lived 800 years after the birth of Seth, and he fathered other sons and daughters. 5 So Adam’s life lasted 930 years; then he died…

    23 So Enoch’s life lasted 365 years. 24 Enoch walked with God; then he was not there because God took him…

    32 Noah was 500 years old, and he fathered Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

    Time passes (hard to know how many score of generations by today’s lifetimes) and man forgets God. Almighty God our Creator becomes as irrelevant to their sin-filled lives as the Lord is to many in these last days.

    And the Lord said, “My Spirit will not remain with mankind forever, because they are corrupt. Their days will be 120 years.” – Genesis 6:3

    Apocalypse of Impending Disaster

    If you do not have a relationship with the all-knowing God, who will tell you with accuracy the disaster which draws near? And now that man has the discernment to judge between good and evil, how can you know what is good without listening to God?

    In fact, as it was in the later days of God’s true Prophets, no man listened to the Living God except one.

    Judgment Decreed

    5 When the Lord saw that man’s wickedness was widespread on the earth and that every scheme his mind thought of was nothing but evil all the time, 6 the Lord regretted that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. 7 Then the Lord said, “I will wipe off from the face of the earth mankind, whom I created, together with the animals, creatures that crawl, and birds of the sky—for I regret that I made them.” 8 Noah, however, found favor in the sight of the Lord.

    Man has not only disobeyed the Creator, but grieves the most loving heart of the Father of man created in His own image.

    Now a different relationship with the Living God will begin, one of fear.

    Genesis 6:17 “Understand that I am bringing a flood—floodwaters on the earth to destroy every creature under heaven with the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will die. 

    Of course for those who disdained God lost in the flood, fear was short-lived until their terrible deaths. But for all who would witness the great power of the LORD in the days since Noah, the Lord God Almighty evokes fear.

    Genesis 7:

    Then the Lord said to Noah, “Enter the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you alone are righteous before Me in this generation.

    You know the rest, or at least you think that you know the rest.

    6 Noah was 600 years old when the flood came and water covered the earth.

    It seems like a fearful children’s story. All the men and women and children of the earth were destroyed in the Lord’s cleansing flood. The potter has begun again with one man, Noah, from which He will reform the clay of His own creation.

    Are you like those who perished having no fear of the Lord or respect for the only man to hear God’s heart? (Read above of the potter and the clay, heading the fear of righteous men.)

    24 And the waters surged on the earth 150 days.

    Genesis 8:

    5 The waters continued to recede until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were visible.

    The Lord’s Promise
    15 Then God spoke to Noah, 16 “Come out of the ark, you, your wife, your sons, and your sons’ wives with you. 17 Bring out all the living creatures that are with you—

    20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord. He took some of every kind of clean animal and every kind of clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

    You and your family are the only living survivors of the earth’s worst disaster. And the Lord had warned the the evil of mankind had brought man to our own destruction. What does Noah then do? Worship! Noah thanks God for His great mercy.

    21 When the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, He said to Himself,

    “I will never again curse the ground because of man, even though man’s inclination is evil from his youth. And I will never again strike down every living thing as I have done…

    Thank God, I say; thank the Lord, re-formed clay of our Creator.

    To be continued…

  • Disaster From Disobedience, A Savior From Before Eden – 2

    Disaster – Why start with Eden?

    Why should a series whose subject is apocalypse and disaster begin with the paradise of Eden?

    The obvious answer may escape the eyes of a perishable mortal facing a life-ending disaster. In an instant we may wonder what’s next, yet in accelerated times we may not have considered what was before.

    What was before me, even before man? How did I get here? Even more importantly, why am I here? Why, and what does my life have to do with my death?

    Certainly disaster will ensnare many: accidents, seemingly random events which bring an unexpected end to an already brief life. That death should overtake a man or woman should not ambush any.

    Yet have you considered your death, the death of man, the death of the earth upon which we walk?

    If so, you may also have considered the beginnings of the same. Our hesitant conclusions about our beginnings may logically lead toward answers to our existence and inevitable conclusions. So from before Eden and paradise we begin.

    IN THE BEGINNING, GOD

    Genesis 1:1

    1:1 בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָֽרֶץ׃

    re’shiyth elohiym bara’eth

    In the beginning, God created …

    Before we move forward with creation let’s just take a minute to consider what we believe. Do you believe in God?

    Can you define God?  In fact, you may ask, ‘Why God?’

    In these last days man has observed both creation and destruction of distant universe of which we have but minuscule evidence.

    DNA strand & computer-sequenced 5.5 petabits of data [Harvard research]

    We have mapped mysteries of our flesh, split the stuff of our existence with fearful explosion of devastation. Yet our awestruck wonder of creation fails to comprehend —the impassable great divide

    –between the glory of God —

    and vulnerability of man.

    What is man that you remember him,

    or the son of man that you care for him?

    You made him lower than the angels

    for a short time;

    you crowned him with glory and honor

    and subjected everything under his feet.

    excerpt from Hebrews 2

    In beginning our series:

    We shall consider man next and even the angels and spirits, but first consider the primordial soup of stuff from which great power formed the beginnings of all.

    If you must ask what inertia from nothingness moved hydrogen twice into oxygen, then consider the power to bring both into existence. No logic states, ‘in the beginning was water’ or rock or atoms.

    Who created atoms and universe? In the beginning was… something: yes, One more powerful and more intelligent; yes, even One more wise and more good than all of which we wonder in awestruck human observation.

    If you must deny that things cannot create themselves, then you deny the very purpose for which God, Who IS and Was and Will BE forever, created you for this brief flash of life in our human flesh.

    You are not here for nothing any more than you were created by nothing from nothing. In the beginning, God created …

    From the beginning of the five books of Moses:

    Genesis 1:

    In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

    2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness covered the surface of the watery depths, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

    4 God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness.

    Let us confess that NO man or alien from planet yet uncreated from nothingness and NO mathematically improbable coincidental collision of primordial matter could possibly have done this!

    Do you see the the light is good and must be separated from the darkness to define the glory of the light? Will you consider separating darkness which brings disaster from that light with which your life is blessed?

    We with eyes to see know the glory of our creation and the defining darkness which beckons our countenance back toward the deep dark chaos opposing the light of of this life.

    The LORD speaks the beginning into existence 

    5 God called the light “day,” and He called the darkness “night.” Evening came and then morning: the first day.

    6 Then God said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters, separating water from water.” 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above the expanse. And it was so. 8 God called the expanse “sky.” Evening came and then morning: the second day.

    9 Then God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry land “earth,” and He called the gathering of the water “seas.”

    And God saw that it was good.

    11 Then God said, “Let the earth produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds.” And it was so. 12 The earth produced vegetation: seed-bearing plants according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds.

    And God saw that it was good.

    13 Evening came and then morning: the third day.

    Light separated from darkness to celebrate God

    14 Then God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night. They will serve as signs for festivals and for days and years. 15 They will be lights in the expanse of the sky to provide light on the earth.” And it was so. 16 God made the two great lights—the greater light to have dominion over the day and the lesser light to have dominion over the night—as well as the stars. 17 God placed them in the expanse of the sky to provide light on the earth, 18 to dominate the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 Evening came and then morning: the fourth day.

    The Beginning of Life on earth

    20 Then God said, “Let the water swarm with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.” 21 So God created the large sea-creatures and every living creature that moves and swarms in the water, according to their kinds. He also created every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 So God blessed them, “Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the waters of the seas, and let the birds multiply on the earth.” 23 Evening came and then morning: the fifth day.

    24 Then God said, “Let the earth produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that crawl, and the wildlife of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so. 25 So God made the wildlife of the earth according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and creatures that crawl on the ground according to their kinds.

    And God saw that it was good.

    To be continued…