Tag: hebrews

  • 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?


     

  • Beyond Nations and Coastlands

    Beyond Nations and Coastlands

    The Servant of the Lord

    Is Jesus Savior of the nations, good news to the coastlands and Messiah of the elect?

    Prophets and kings of Israel have looked forward to the incarnate Son of Man. Yet the Messiah of Israel did not suffer, die and rise to glory only for Jacob. The Lord is lord of all the earth, the heavens and mankind. He IS the hope of the nations, Redeemer of Israel and God incarnate now and forever!

    Isaiah 49

    Listen to me, O coastlands,
        and give attention, you peoples from afar.
    The Lord called me from the womb,
        from the body of my mother he named my name.
    He made my mouth like a sharp sword;
        in the shadow of his hand he hid me;
    he made me a polished arrow;
        in his quiver he hid me away.
    And he said to me, “You are my servant,
        Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”

    Listen, you unbelievers of every nation

    The Messiah of God predicted by Isaiah will have to deal with a number of challenges, not least among these understanding mortality.

    [ctt title=”How does an eternal, immortal, timeless One experience life as man?” tweet=”https://ctt.ec/3d2V2+ Read John 1″ coverup=”3d2V2″]

    No man may stand before Almighty God face to Face, yet the LORD has dwelt in the womb of a virgin and endured the suffering of death on a Cross for our sake.

    If the Lord rejected all except Noah long ago, will the Lord not reject even the wicked of Israel along with those beyond the coastlands at the day of reckoning? [Matthew 24:37-38]

    John 4:22

    [ctt title=”4:22 ὑμεῖς προσκυνεῖτε ὃ οὐκ οἴδατε ἡμεῖς προσκυνοῦμεν ὃ οἴδαμεν ὅτι ἡ σωτηρία ἐκ τῶν Ἰουδαίων ἐστίν” tweet=”.. we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. – John 4:22″ coverup=”mHlMU”]

    Even the chosen needed witness that the LORD chose Abraham and Jacob, Moses and David for their faith. For the LORD destroyed and damned those who turned from righteousness. “Before Abraham was, I AM;” says the Lord, the God of Israel!

    Not only Messiah of Israel, but Savior of the Nations

    Isaiah 49:6

    he says:
    “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
    to raise up the tribes of Jacob
    and to bring back the preserved of Israel;
    I will make you as a light for the nations,
    that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

    So difficult for a man of flesh and bone to think in terms of timeless soul and Savior before time. Moses witnessed judgment on the land and redemption of a people for the Lord’s own purpose. Yet even in one hundred twenty years Moses could not claim the covenant of Abraham. Moses led a chosen nation through the sea. He and leaders of an elect people bowed before the Lord on a mountain where we would receive the Law of God. Yet Moses who had parted the sea and brought water from the parched wilderness could not cross the Jordan into Israel.

    Judges and Kings could not rule over a stiff-necked people who believed that Abraham’s promise is fulfilled in their land land and success for their generation. From Elijah to Isaiah the elect continued in the sins of their fathers, while worshiping their ancestry over the LORD! Isaiah and Prophets of the LORD would eventually come to an end of their time, yet anticipating the lasting Redeemer the LORD did promise.

    7 Thus says the Lord,
    the Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One,
    to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nation,
    the servant of rulers:
    “Kings shall see and arise;
    princes, and they shall prostrate themselves;
    because of the Lord, who is faithful,
    the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.”

    Who IS the Holy One of Israel?

    The Redeemer of Israel IS and was and will be Lord over those who love Him.

    Isaiah tells the chosen: 50 Thus says the Lord:

    “Where is your mother’s certificate of divorce,
        with which I sent her away?
    Or which of my creditors is it
        to whom I have sold you?
    Behold, for your iniquities you were sold,
        and for your transgressions your mother was sent away.
    Why, when I came, was there no man;
        why, when I called, was there no one to answer?
    Is my hand shortened, that it cannot redeem?

    Isaiah foretells of a great Teacher of Israel

    Isaiah, the prophet of God tells of the Redeemer of man’s slavery to sin, a Savior sent beyond nations and coastlands; the Lord who is risen after the love of His own Sacrifice. Isaiah speaks next of the wise and loving teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Can you hear His voice?

    The Lord God has given me
        the tongue of those who are taught,
    that I may know how to sustain with a word
        him who is weary.

    [ctt title=”If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.”” tweet=”Jesus speaks truth, love and the words of eternal life.” coverup=”f5KGc”]

    Recalling the crowds who followed and foreshadowing of a trial long past the days of Isaiah:

    Morning by morning he awakens;
    he awakens my ear
    to hear as those who are taught.
    5 The Lord God has opened my ear,
    and I was not rebellious;
    I turned not backward.

    6 I gave my back to those who strike,
    and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard;
    I hid not my face
    from disgrace and spitting.


    The suffering servant will rise to outlive His accusers

    9 Behold, the Lord God helps me;
    who will declare me guilty?
    Behold, all of them will wear out like a garment;
    the moth will eat them up.
    10 Who among you fears the Lord
    and obeys the voice of his servant?
    Let him who walks in darkness
    and has no light
    trust in the name of the Lord
    and rely on his God.

    Has Caesar prevailed? Pilate? Does one High Priest yet live?

    Do the kings who did what was evil in the sight of the Lord live? Have the false prophets of hatred risen to take the lands they plunders?

    Only Christ, Holy One, Son of the Living Father and One with the Holy Spirit rises from the Cross of sacrifice to preach once more to Israel and the Nations – His redemption for those who believe in every nation beyond time and circumstance: Jesus IS Lord!

    The Promised Messiah, Jesus

    Acts 26:22b-23

    I stand here testifying both to small and great, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would come to pass: that the Christ must suffer and that, by being the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light both to our people and to the Gentiles.

    John 1:

    In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

    [ctt title=”“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! ” tweet=”Messiah, Christ Jesus, the pure blood sacrifice on the Cross of perfect redemption.” coverup=”GSa8o”]

    Hebrews 9:27-28

    And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

    “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” – Revelation 1:8

    Surely the Lord created the heavens and the earth and man in the beginning. The Shepherd gathers every faithful follower from every nation and generation. In these last days the Lord will count the elect and the adopted, fulfilling all prophesy. He will form the old creation into a new heaven and a new earth where the LORD will dwell among us. The faithful will rise to His glorious love and embrace a overflowing joy we have not known because of sin.

    Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit

    As it was in the beginning, it will be once more and forever.

    Amen.

     

     

     

  • The Curse of Disease and Death – 2

    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. תּוֹרָה‎Today 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.

    Egypt of MosesMoses, 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

    11 One 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

    23 During 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. And 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 2:23 During 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. You 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. But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt,Pharaoh 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.

    Now 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…