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Tag: John

  • WE do not presume

    God’s Righteous Judgment

    Romans 2:

    .. do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? 5 But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.

    So I ask you: are you repentant? Are you sorry for your sins? Shouldn’t we confess our sins against God? Yet repentance demands both confession and turning back to the way of righteousness.

    The LORD is God and we are not! Bow down, o man of dust, to the One Who IS and was and will be forever, the LORD!

    WE seem to have forgotten

    Listen to the lyrics of our music. Much ado about ‘us,’ or ‘me,’ some about ‘you’ and even a little about God. Not so surprising in our worldly wireless abyss of media, but subtly self-centered in an emotional entertainment of worship music. Paul cautions the church at Rome in the preceding verse:,

    3 Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? 

    Who are we to claim Christ with words rarely mentioning Jesus by Name?

    While we rail against the outside world, ‘christians’ claim WE are a people favored by God. Was fallen Israel so different after Solomon? A fallen nation abandons God’s favor for freedoms of over-expression. We accuse each other of forgetting our roots, never once claiming that we have forgotten the Lord.

    Prayer of Humble Access

    We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies.  …

    What presumption that the Lord God should accept our everyday sin without just punishment or consequence. Most certainly this age-old problem of sin confronts every created being of every generation.

    13 For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.

    Regardless of your church traditions of worship and the law, the Lord must judge rightly. Listen to law or ordinance with indifference or never consider it, yet the Lord must judge sinners.

    Lord have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this Law.

    God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus. – Romans 2:16b ESV

    Presumption

    Look to today’s news  (or news of any era); presumptuous leaders rise to prominence, replacing our presumptions of yesterday. I speak not only of a president, leader or another country or political party, but of all ambitious men and women. 

    Can any stand before the Throne of the Almighty with a claim of innocence? The time of their judgment will soon enough be at hand, as it has been in every generation.

    Ecclesiastes 1(ESV)

    All Is Vanity
    1 The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.

    We hear accusations and counter-claims from the rich and powerful. Yet even Solomon recognized the inevitable fall of a mighty kingdom given to his leadership. Solomon advised:

    Let not your mouth lead you into sin, and do not say before the messenger that it was a mistake…

    [to the messenger of the media, if you prefer]

    For when dreams increase and words grow many, there is vanity; but God is the one you must fear. – Ecclesiastes 5:6a,7

    WE presume much in the contention of carefully-crafted words and excesses of mistaken condemnations. Agendas of man will fail without the purpose of the Lord.

    The antonyms of presumption are knowledge, truth and humility.

    God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance.

    psalm 5:

    Lead me, O LORD, in your righteousness
    because of my enemies;
    make your way straight before me.

    For there is no truth in their mouth;
    their inmost self is destruction;
    their throat is an open grave;
    they flatter with their tongue.

    Make them bear their guilt, O God;
    let them fall by their own counsels;
    because of the abundance of their transgressions cast them out,
    for they have rebelled against you.

    Truth

    Who can we believe?

    Only God; only the humble. (May the Lord make us humble before Him.)

    John 1:

    14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

    17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

    Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. – John 14:6

    And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted. Matthew 23:12 KJV

    Confession of the humble before God

    Prior to communion with our Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus; prior to our confession: “We do not presume…” Our hearts ought to have come to a more complete acknowledgement of our sin.

    Almighty God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, maker of all things, judge of all men; We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness..

    Have mercy upon us, have mercy upon us, most merciful Father; for thy Son our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake…

    The simplicity of Christ’s Sacrifice for us: humility on a cross does not presume forgiveness, but the love of God for repentant sinners.

    Father, forgive us, for we do not know the Sacrifice of Your love.

     

  • 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.

    ἄλφα - Alpha first letter of Greek alphabet - Christ is the Alpha to indicate that he is the beginning and the end
    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.

    apokalypsis the Gospel of Jesus Christ unsealed
    — 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

    LATER in Scripture - from a conversation of a righteous man.
    Although Job appears later in the Bible his place in the timeline of history is closer to Abraham than to David.
    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.

    17 What is man, that you make so much of him,
        and that you set your heart on him,
    18 visit 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

    apokalypsis the Gospel of Jesus Christ unsealed
    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.

  • Time Beyond Years – Alpha

    Time before the beginning

    ‘I AM the alpha and the omega,” says the LORD!

    What can it mean? Can you, o man, measure the time before the beginning?

    The alpha of man’s measurement of days and years:

    Consider generations, centuries, the millennia of temporal days beginning with the creation of man. How can the created explain the ways of our Creator beyond the alpha or our temporal days? Can we know the ceasing of man’s measurable time?

    Surely the Lord will bring to completion all He has created and man’s will be marked by the omega of time.

    Revelation 1:

    The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place…

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

    Yet prior to the Apostle John’s interment on Patmos and prior to his revelation from the risen Christ Jesus, John had written the Good News of the place of Jesus in creation.

    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.

    The logos λόγος was God θεός !

    Time of the Beginning

    Therefore He spoke all things into existence and He created life and light, shining through the darkness and void.

    You have heard it, as the story of creation unfolds as revealed by the LORD to Moses. And in the Pentateuch (five books) Moses reveals a history of man peering back beyond our own sin, even into the depths of nothingness and dark skies of chaos and emptiness void of the LORD.

    Genesis 1:

    In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

    And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

    The LORD spoke the heavens and the earth into existence, then began the measurement of days – temporal, created days – for the heavens, for the earth, and finally for the creation of the first man until the last.

    And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.. – Gen. 1:26a

    The LORD creates the heavens and the earth in His unmeasured time explained in simplicity to Moses as days. Then the LORD creates ‘man’ (actually, man and woman) ‘in our image, after our likeness.’ God gives us a glimpse of time beyond our understanding, the Creator revealing what was to be measured my man as the alpha of all time and beginning of creation.

    Jesus reveals His timeless Presence

    Christ, Son of Man, born of a virgin, revealed to those with ears to hear the divinity of His own presence and relationship to God our Father.

    John 3:

    2 This man came to Jesus by night and said to him,

    “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.”

    3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

    And if you listen carefully to Jesus in the ensuing conversation you will hear with certainty the divinity of the life-giving Spirit required of all those who will receive life eternal, life with resurrection from certain death by sin.

    5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit…

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

    13 No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.

    Is Jesus telling the learned Pharisee Nicodemus that He IS descended from heaven into the flesh of a son of man?

    Yes. And Jesus further confirms His eternal status before the alpha of time.

    John 8:

    12 Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

    Debate ensues between pharisees and the rabbi Jesus.

     14 Jesus answered, “Even if I do bear witness about myself, my testimony is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going, but you do not know where I come from or where I am going. 15 You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one.

    19 They said to him therefore, “Where is your Father?” Jesus answered, “You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also.”

    The pharisees accuse Jesus of being illegitimately born to Mary, who by the Lord had born a child as a virgin. Jesus later replies:

    56 Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.”

    57 So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?”

    58 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”

    Only the LORD God could have claimed to have lived before Abraham. Jesus answers with the LORD’s words to Moses’ question after the LORD appeared to him in a burning bush. 

    Exodus 3:13-14 KJV

    And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?

    And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.

    Jesus: He IS before David, before Moses, before Abraham; yes, even before Adam. The Lord God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, before time and before creation.

    Revelation 1:8

    “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

    If Christ Jesus IS the beginning and the end, what must you do?

    To be continued…