Puny God

I have a favourite scene in the Marvel Avengers movie. It is in the battle for New York and the Hulk is dealing to Loki in Stark Tower. Loki says some annoying and demeaning things to the Hulk. Hulk then grabs Loke and uses him to beat up the building finally leaving him lying in a semi conscious state in a hole in the concrete floor (Loki is is immortal so this is routine stuff for him). Hulk stomps off muttering Puny God

 

I know you good Christian folk will think badly of me for watching this rubbish. However, this scene so defines the way many Christians view Jehovah Elohim. They limit God with their own small minded view of what he can do. I was at a bible study recently and found myself walking on egg shells because of the threat of disturbing the viewpoints of the people there. While discussing Genesis One and what would have happened if man had not fallen. It was mentioned that man might have gone onto colonize other worlds. We then came to the question of how many humans could the Earth sustain. I proposed as many as God wanted (infinite numbers), I touched on the huge beasts that the pre-flood Earth had sustained. Things went a little quiet.

 

We live in a mine field of Christian compromise. You know, Jehovah didn’t create the Earth in six days. He set things up to evolve over millions of years. There were no dinosaurs in pre-flood Earth because these Christians don’t believe in a flood nor in the inerrancy of the bible. We’ve only had modern science for five hundred years and most of the dating methods for less than a century but we talk a big game about an Earth that is beyond question 4.5 billion years old. Really? There are only two tests that bring out large figures interpreted as length of time that support millions of years. Potassium Argon and Radio Carbon. The rest lend support to much shorter time periods but are ignored by those endeavouring to portray Christianity as a crutch for people following a puny God.

 

There is also a tendency to describe God in non judgemental and overtly positive terms. For instance many Christians believe in the doctrine of predestination but don’t really understand it. Predestination is not so much about God selecting you as a believer. It is about you choosing God and because you chose him. He chose you. Jehovah is timeless and he sees his chosen ones across time and so he describes us a predestined. 

 

The Law of Moses says this when giving the command not to worship idols:

Exodus chapter 20: 5 You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing loving kindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

 

Note what the Law says about those who choose not to follow God. He visits the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations. But on those who choose God he shows loving kindness to the thousands. 

 

Hosea brings the word of the Lord in these terms in chapter four verse six:

 

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.
Because you have rejected knowledge,
I also will reject you from being My priest.
Since you have forgotten the law of your God,
I also will forget your children.

 

To reject the wisdom and knowledge of Jehovah is therefore to choose not to follow God. So, if you reject God he then rejects you and your children. This speaks of the Jewish priesthood but is applied by Hosea to the priests and the nation of Israel. So it is not too great a stretch to apply this scripture to the Christian Church and the believers today. It may also be applied to the nations as a whole in our time. 

 

My take on predestination is that if you accept the wisdom of God and believe on his only Son. Then you will not perish but will inherit eternal life. If you choose God who has known you through eternity then he most definitely chooses you, and as it says in the Law in Exodus chapter twenty verse 6 but showing loving kindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. This thinking underpins all of the scriptures on predestination in the New Testament. If you choose God He chooses you and if you reject God then you are rejected and the consequences are on the children of the father unto third and fourth generation. This is the tension or the balance between those who love Jehovah and those who hate Him. God is going to judge the world and we reject Him at our peril for He is not a puny god. 

 

Jehovah is the creator God and is not constrained by the thoughts of man or mankind. He is a universal God who creates universes and makes universal physical laws and alters and fine tunes them to bring about his purposes. We on the other hand are tiny little creatures living on a tiny little world circling a purpose built sun in an amazing solar system within an amazing Galaxy within an extraordinary Cosmos. We have no ability to function on a planetary scale, let alone a cosmic scale and yet we who live for an instant have opinions about Jehovah and His creation. Talk about delusions of grandeur? 

 

Yet God loves us and despite our inherent in-consequence he has looked upon us with the heart of a father. He created a universe and mankind are his crowning accomplishment in that creation because we are created in His own image. 

 

Genesis 1: 26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” We are in turn creators and seek to consider problems and create things as Jehovah has created things.

 

But inherent in this situation is the need for us to seek God and to love him and when he finds us doing that he loves us so much in return that to His mind we are predestined to be His in eternity.

 

Isaiah 55: 6 Seek the Lord while He may be found; Call upon Him while He is near. 

 

Ephesians 1: 7-12 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory. 

 

Jehovah is not a puny God. He is the Almighty God, Creator of the Heavens and the Earth, the Lord of Lords, the King of Kings, Immanuel – God who is with us, Our risen Lord and Saviour – Jesus Christ -The first risen from the dead. That we might believe on Him and be resurrected in Him. The bible is the word of God and the Sword of the Holy Spirit. Thousands of years old it may be but is made relevant in the purposes and will of God the Father, though his only begotten Son – Jesus Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit. Inerrant and inexorable the perfect weapon against evil.

 

Friends I want you to know that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, that whosoever believes on him shall not perish but inherit eternal life. You need to understand that you are not alone in needing his forgiveness. Romans 3:10 “There is none righteous, not even one.” Romans 3:23 “For all have sinned and all fall short of the glory of God.” Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” So won’t you believe on him that your sins may be forgiven and that you may receive the free gift of God which is eternal life Christ Jesus our Lord?

 

Reference List

 

All Scriptures reproduced from http://www.biblegateway.com and http://www.biblehub.com from the NASB

Israel Folau: Flash Point The Rise of Paganism in Western Democracy

Love him or hate him Issey’s comments from a Christian perspective touched off a fire storm of controversy in the secular media of both Australia and New Zealand and to a lesser extent across the West. Coming on the heals of the Christchurch Mosque Shootings emotions were already running high so when Issey was tempted into make a controversial post on Twitter about the types of sin that are out there and the need for repentance. That tore it in the eyes of the secularists. This type of hate speech is not acceptable they railed at him. “Fire him!” “Tear up his contract.” “We need stronger laws on hate speech.” and even “Parts of the bible should be labelled hate speech.”

 

As to the later they can do what they want to the bible, and have done, including burn it. The fact is that God will always ensure his people have his word. Ask any bible believing Christian anywhere in the world. The Lord will provide for his people including making sure his word is available in one form or other. The enemy has endeavoured to rid the world of the Word of God for the last twenty centuries and doubtless the Torah and the prophets were on the hit list for more than a thousand years before the coming of Jesus of Nazareth. God looks after his people.

 

Actually, the main reason for this piece is not to support or detract from what Israel Folau has said or done in regard to calling people to repentance. He has called people to repent and follow Jesus Christ and in doing so has taken up his cross and will receive the rewards of heaven and this world for his efforts. No indeed, I simply want to point to the out that underpinning the fabulous rise of secularism that we in the West have witnessed over the last five or six decades is Paganism as described in the Old Testament in the bible.

 

Throughout the centuries and even within the Christian Church herself those who practice idolatry and the worship of pagan deities worked studiously and insidiously to enact the plans of the devil. The Mystery of Iniquity has progressed beyond the light of day among some of the most powerful families on Earth. In fact the enemy has aimed for the best and most successful to garner power over the fate of the nations. Today they have absolute power over almost the entire world and plans so shrewd that they have enclosed the very sins the bible rails against in the normality of secular living. If it were possible beyond the scrutiny of moral conviction and the outrage of the righteous while at the same time educating our young to believe evil is good and good is evil. From a Christian perspective a tragic joke.

 

Secular society though is not a new creation. The Roman Empire was a pagan culture and functioned under what were to all intents and purposes secular tenants. What your neighbour did in his life, house or bedroom was up to him provided that he didn’t break the laws or interfere with anyone else. There were temples to various deities across the empire and they had their own practices and again provided they paid taxes and behaved themselves that was fine by Rome. 

 

In the context that slavery was condoned and women had no real legal rights. If the temple of Aphrodite had large teams of bisexual prostitutes, both men and women, or the if Baal had a temple in Pergamum where children were sacrificed to that deity, then all kudos to them as long as they were loyal to Rome and the Emperor. Isn’t this what secularists are demanding in Western Culture today?

 

Doubtless, there are immense spiritual forces of darkness underpinning secularism in our Western Democracies. I think it is fair to argue that paganism and the worship of the Satanic deities may have gone underground but never even came close to dying out. Rather, they became an anti-christian movement infiltrating the upper echelons of the Church, changing the emphasis from the bible to church tradition and creating huge empires of wealth and power to influence the world when the conditions allowed. They even created other movements similar to Christianity to compete with, attack and destroy the Church in the form of Islam, the Latter Day Saints, the Jehovah’s Witness and even the Seventh Day Adventists. All of which are heavily influenced by pagan thinking and linked to the pagan community in the upper echelons of their leadership. 

 

So as we look at secular New Zealand and hear the mantra of “Let your neighbour do what is good in their own sight.” In fact, we see that mantra legislated into a powerful force to muzzle the Christian Church in the attempt to restrain the work of the Holy Spirit from spreading the gospel. Meanwhile simultaneously reversing five hundred years of Christian Reformation once and for all. We can know with certainty that homosexuality, idolatry, fornication and the many other sins of those who oppose and hate Jehovah and his only Son, Yeshua (Jesus Christ), are enshrined in this secularism but have deep roots in paganism and spiritual darkness.

 

Therefore, we as Christians can only follow Israel Folau’s lead in proclaiming a warning to these peoples “Repent and turn back from this wickedness you peoples of the West, for the Day of the Lord is at hand and your sins are piled high as an affront before Jehovah, the Lord of Hosts. Repent for His judgement is upon you.” There is little doubt that there are hard times ahead of us as this time of falling away from the truth of Jesus Christ unfolds. I believe we Christians will be singled out for intense persecution as we were in Roman times. As the re paganisation of our culture unfolds and those adhering to righteousness and the gospel of salvation in Christ Jesus are targeted for pagan retribution.

 

Friends I want you to know that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, that whosoever believes on him shall not perish but inherit eternal life. You need to understand that you are not alone in needing his forgiveness. Romans 3:10 “There is none righteous, not even one.” Romans 3:23 “For all have sinned and all fall short of the glory of God.” Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” So won’t you believe on him that your sins may be forgiven and that you may receive the free gift of God which is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord? 

 

Reference List

 

Social Media

 

The Holy Bible

 

Personal Opinion

Where does the Law fit: A Seamless Integration into the Spirit Filled Life

It interests me that the Law of Moses has taken up the position of a virtual pariah in the minds of many Christians. It indicates a woeful lack of understanding of the scriptures in regard to the position of the Law in the hearts and minds of the of those who follow Jesus Christ. In part I think that this happened in the first century AD., when the apostle Paul was protecting gentile believers from being forced to convert to Judaism by Christian Jews. In an attempt to thwart this he moved further toward a Grace alone theology whereby gentile Christians need only believe on the redemptive work of Jesus Christ on the Cross for Salvation and the remission of sins. In his later years Paul seems to have almost totally rejected any reference to the Law as a part of the Christian life. But I am not convinced this is what he really believed at a personal level.

In the following scripture quotes I will elaborate on the theory that Paul understood the true purpose of the law in relation to the life of the New Covenant Christian and that while he was theologically cautious about allowing the Jewish Christians to seduce gentile Christians into the fold. He understood the place of the Christ fulfilled Law in the life of the New Testament saint.

Jeremiah 31: 31 Surely, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. 32 It will not be according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, because they broke My covenant, although I was a husband to them, says the Lord.
33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law within them and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34 They shall teach no more every man his neighbour and every man his brother, saying, “Know the Lord,” for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

This scripture is repeated and reiterated, almost word for word, by Paul in Hebrews chapter 8 verses 6 through 12. It was then discussed in Hebrews chapter 10 starting at verse 15 The Holy Spirit also witnesses to us about this. For after saying, 16 “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them,” 17 then He adds, “Their sins and lawless deeds will I remember no more.” 18 Now where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer an offering for sin.

So Paul states that where there is forgiveness of sins their in no longer a need for sacrifice. Hebrews chapter 9 elaborates on this statement starting at verse 11 But Christ, when He came as a High Priest of the good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation, 12 neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood, He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. 13 For if the blood of bulls and goats, and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies so that the flesh is purified, 14 how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

I wish to emphasise two points from these scriptures. Firstly, there is no longer a need for sacrifice of the blood and flesh of animals for our sins. Christ has paid once and for all as both sacrifice and as our High Priest in the temple in heaven. Hebrews chapter 9 states from verse 24 For Christ did not enter holy places made with hands, which are patterned after the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us. 25 Nor did He enter to offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. 26 For then He would have had to suffer repeatedly since the world was created, but now He has appeared once at the end of the ages to put away sin by sacrificing Himself. 27 As it is appointed for men to die once, but after this comes the judgement, 28 so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many, and He will appear a second time, not to bear sin but to save those who eagerly wait for Him.

Secondly, that the Law is put in us and written on our hearts. If then the law is put in us and written on our hearts, how can we say that the Law is done away with? It is fulfilled in Jesus Christ through his redemptive work on the cross and brought to fruition as the fruit of the Spirit in the transformative purpose of the indwelling Holy Spirit as he reveals Christ Jesus within each of us.

Would it not be fair to say that the Holy Spirit enacts obedience to the Law within us as individual Christians in a seamless manner. We don’t even have to give it a moments thought. We don’t have to study the Law and we have proven by asserting the Law is destroyed that even when we deliberately ignore the existence of the Law. That our Lord and Saviour enacts the abeyance of the Law and obedience to His commandments in every way in the power of the Holy Spirit within us. What I mean by this is that we keep the Law as Christians without knowing or realising it.

Of Course, trying to practise the law in our own right is the equivalent of salvation by works which is as filthy rags before God. However, in Christ we obtain a righteousness, justification and salvation before God. Just so as the Holy Spirit writes the Law on our hearts and puts it in us so, it is only through the fulfilment of the Law in the life of Jesus Christ that the Law is thus perfected within us as the works of the Holy Spirit. So we are not bound by a Law that we can never obey but are set free from the Law by Jesus Christ. Who is the perfecter of our faith and enables us to keep the Law because in Him we are free of sin which is the breaking of the Law.

I believe there is a misunderstanding in the hearts of many believers as to the nature of sin and its relationship to the Law. Sin is the breaking of God’s Law. So as sin still exists so does the Law. To state that the Law is destroyed or done away with is at odds with what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 5 verse 18 For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one dot or one mark will pass from the law until all be fulfilled. So the law will be in effect until the heaven and Earth are passed away.

In the gospel of Mark a scribe came to Jesus and asked him which is the first commandment of all. The conversation is reproduced as follows in Mark chapter 12 starting at verse 28 One of the scribes came and heard them reasoning together. Perceiving that Jesus had answered them well, he asked Him, “Which is the first commandment of all?” 29 Jesus answered him, “The first of all the commandments is, ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. 30 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” This is the first commandment. 31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

In this scripture Jesus points to the two greatest commandments and these two commandments not only describe the in condensed form the Ten Commandments. They actually underpin the the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. His first action in the heart of the believer is to establish a relationship with God and to fulfil the first great commandment within us. His second action is to fulfil the second commandment that in loving our neighbour as we love ourselves we bring forth the fruit of the Spirit. Galatians chapter 5 says starting at verse 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23 meekness, and self-control; against such there is no law.

One final argument for the fulfilled law being integral in the works of the Holy Spirit in the heart of the New Testament saint. The law covers every area of human life and the correct way of living in the sight of God. If we make the bible based assumption that the opinions of Jehovah have not changed because we know that God is the same yesterday, today and forever. Why then would the Law be abolished.

Just as God has stated in Isaiah chapter 55 starting at verse 8 For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways, says the Lord. 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts. Using this scripture I believe it is fair to contrast the walk of the Old Testament Saints struggling in the flesh to obey Law of Moses with the walk of the New Testament Saint walking in the Spirit in communion with God and hidden in Christ. Through the power of the Holy Spirit the Christian is able to obey the commandments of God through Christ Jesus who fulfilled the Law in His sinless life and paid the price for our sin through the shedding of His blood on the Cross. So as the Old Testament Saint was trapped under the law separated from the holiness of God. The Christian under the New Covenant is set free from sin through Christ Jesus and the indwelling Holy Spirit. We are lifted into communion with God and abeyance of the Law which is written in our hearts and put in us. (Hebrews 8: 8-12)

My dear friends, God blesses those who keep his commandments. John 15:10 tells us ‘If you keep My commandments, you will remain in My love, even as I have kept My Father’s commandments and remain in His love.’ while Revelation 14:12 says .....'Here is the patience of the saints; here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus..' What I am saying in this article is that the Law has not been abolished but is, rather, integrated into the life of the Spirit filled believer. God has done this in a seamless and almost undetectable manner which establishes our relationship with him and produces the fruit of the Spirit. Rather than being enslaved to the Law in the flesh we are set free from the Law in the Spirit because in Christ Jesus the Law is fulfilled.

Reference List

All Scripture reproduced from http://www.biblegateway.com