by David Scott Robertson
(Mat 1:18 NIV) This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.
(Mat 1:19 NIV) Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
(Mat 1:20 NIV) But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
(Mat 1:21 NIV) She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."
Can you imagine the inexpressible joy of being the adopted parent of Jesus Christ, the Messiah? That privilege fell to a man named Joseph.
In His wisdom, God the Father had chosen Joseph, a righteous man, to serve in the key position of earthly father to God's only begotten Son. Mary, Joseph's virgin fiancé, was of course selected by the Holy Spirit to be the human host to usher in the incarnation, that is, God becoming man in the person of Jesus the Christ. Joseph and Mary, although by no means a perfect couple, was the perfect couple chosen by Almighty God to entrust the care and nurture of His beloved Son.
So then, into the house of this humble Jewish carpenter, Jesus was carefully, lovingly, and providentially placed. What an honor! What a responsibility!
I'm curious, aren't you, if there ever was a time when Joseph had to speak sternly to Jesus as a toddler? "Don't go out in the road, son!" "Come over here and sit down." "Pick that up, Jesus."
When the Lord was 12 years old, He amazed the religious leaders with theological discussions over a three-day period in the temple while separated from His very worried parents oblivious of His whereabouts. Can you just imagine what must of have been running through Joseph's mind those three agonizing days? "Dear God, I'm supposed to be looking after your Son and I've lost Him!" The young lad Jesus calmly comforted His earthly parents when at last they located Him:
(Luke 2:49 NIV) "Why were you searching for me?" he asked. "Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house?"
So Jesus came home to His earthly father's house and continued to be obedient to them.
Throughout the remainder of His childhood, Joseph and Mary were there to provide for all the needs of the Savior of the world as He grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man (Luke 2:52).
As a young man growing up in a carpenter's house, there must have been many years of hard labor involved in doing His part to support the family and assist His dad, Joseph.
"Jesus, I need you to go down to Ezra's and pick up a load of wood."
"Son, can you finish this table for me?"
"We've nearly out of nails, Jesus, I want you and James and Simon to make the trip to get more."
In his heart Joseph knew all along that his firstborn Son would not be carrying on the family business.
The Bible doesn't give us many details about Joseph's life and is completely silent about his death. It seems apparent, though, that at some point before Jesus entered His public ministry that Joseph passed away. We can deduce this from the fact that at His crucifixion, Jesus commits the responsibility of the long-term care of His mother to John, the disciple whom Jesus loved (John 19:26-27). (It's interesting to me that Jesus did not assign this task to James, Simon, and Judas, his half-brothers or His earthly sisters. Evidently, Jesus discovered first hand that Proverbs 18:24 applied to his beloved and trustworthy friend, John, "…a friend who sticks closer than a brother.")
Most of us know the heartache and pain of losing a loved one, and losing a father, the head of the family, is most especially traumatic. I wonder how Jesus felt when this crisis visited His own home? I wonder about the reaction of Jesus' brothers and sisters. I wonder about the crushing anguish that Mary must have experienced.
"Can't you do something, my brother?"
"Why does he have to die now?"
"Is there any other way, Son? Please ask your Father to heal your father."
I'm curious if losing Joseph - and Jesus' apparent inability to do something about it - skewed his family's view of Jesus and His destiny. It seems so because the scriptures record subsequent doubt and unbelief manifesting in his family in bizarre ways such as this instance captured in Mark's gospel:
"Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, "He is out of his mind" (Mark 3:20-21).
Friends of the family, neighbors, and those they went to synagogue with were no less kind in their estimation of who Jesus was:
"Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother's name Mary, and aren't his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? Aren't all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?" And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, "Only in his hometown and in his own house is a prophet without honor'" (Matthew 13:55-57).
I wonder if some of the doubt and unbelief stemmed from a funeral many of them attended some time back, the funeral of Joseph, as they watched a nice family helplessly weep and grieve over their dead loved one.
But the Lord Jesus Christ would not be called to action ahead of God's timing. He would not be driven by emotions but by obedience to His Father's perfect will.
The time to unveil the miracle power of Jesus the Christ began not in a funeral parlor but oddly enough at a wedding feast. It seems the wedding party ran out of wine and Mary petitioned Jesus to do something about it. He responded:
"Dear woman, why do you involve me?" Jesus replied. "My time has not yet come" (John 2:4).
No doubt at this point Jesus calls upon His Father God in brief and perhaps silent prayer for direction and quite obviously received it. Because His next act was His first miracle, transforming the water of six stone water pots into 120-180 gallons of high quality wine.
"This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed at Cana in Galilee. He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him" (John 2:11)
The forgotten funeral of Joseph, the son of Jacob, the son of Matthan, may have faded into the pages of unwritten history, but history is not yet complete.
One fine day, ten thousand years from now in the New Jerusalem, Jesus Himself may be walking down the golden streets as millions of people out of every nation, people, tongue, and tribe worship Him in humble adoration saying, "behold, my Lord!" At that time, there will be only two in heaven that have the right to say of the King of kings and Lord of lords, "behold, my son!"
DSR
4/5/04
Monday, April 5, 2004
Monday, March 29, 2004
Don't Just Stand There, Do Something!
by David Scott Robertson
How often has the title of this thought been the cry of the world in your ears?
Is all inactivity bad? Is it a sign of weakness, laziness, or passivity? Can doing nothing actually accomplish something?
I suppose that "doing nothing" can be unproductive but I propose that "doing nothing with purpose" can be extremely productive.
There are times, more often than you might think, when the appropriate action might be: "Don't just do something, stand there!"
Haven't you noticed in the history of the world and in the history of your life that just "doing something" was very often the catalyst to your downfall? If your experience is anything like mine then you've discovered that very often taking matters into your own hands has gotten you into massive amounts of trouble. Or saying something stupid instead of holding your tongue has gotten you into incredibly complex situations. Later, in remorse, I have made statements like: "I wish I hadn't every said/done that!" In so doing, you and I have joined an elite club of wrongdoers - the human race! This is evident for the Bible declares:
"…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…" (Romans 3:23).
Wouldn't it have been better if Adam had paused before eating the forbidden fruit after Eve offered it to him and instead consulted with God later in the cool of the day?
Wouldn't it have been better if Abraham had paused to inquire of the Lord before sleeping with Hagar, the Egyptian slave, which resulted in the birth of "an Ishmael?"
The list of "what ifs?" is endless…
Science tells us that "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." Can this similarly apply to our personal lives as well?
Could it be just as true that:
- For every impulsively bad decision there is an equal and opposite well thought out good decision?
- For every negative word curse there is an equal and opposite positive word blessing?
- For every idle moment accelerating into fruitless activity there is an equal and opposite active moment decelerating into fruitful inactivity?
What if we were to take it on faith that our plan of action should be to stand still until we first find out what God's plan of action is for the situation? After all, isn't God the One that recommended that we…
"Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth" (Psalm 46:10).
Isn't God the One who instructed Moses to tell the children of Israel trapped in between the Red Sea and the murderous Egyptian army to:
"Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will show to you to day: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to day, ye shall see them again no more for ever. The LORD shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace" (Exodus 14:13-14 KJV).
Isn't God the One who instructed Samuel to tell a stubborn Israeli nation caught in the web of yet another self-inflicted dilemma when foolishly demanding a king:
"Now then, stand still and see this great thing the LORD is about to do before your eyes!" (1 Sam 12:16)
Isn't God the One that inspired Joshua to command that the sun to stand still so that a great victory could be won?
"On the day the LORD gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua said to the LORD in the presence of Israel: "O sun, stand still over Gibeon, O moon, over the Valley of Aijalon."
So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies, as it is written in the Book of Jashar. The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the LORD listened to a man. Surely the LORD was fighting for Israel!" (Joshua 10:12-14).
Perhaps in your own life there can dawn a day that has never been like it before when the Lord can intervene with miracles and signs and wonders but all He is waiting for is for you to quit striving, cease from your labors, enter His rest, and stand still and see the salvation of the Lord!
DSR
3/29/04
How often has the title of this thought been the cry of the world in your ears?
Is all inactivity bad? Is it a sign of weakness, laziness, or passivity? Can doing nothing actually accomplish something?
I suppose that "doing nothing" can be unproductive but I propose that "doing nothing with purpose" can be extremely productive.
There are times, more often than you might think, when the appropriate action might be: "Don't just do something, stand there!"
Haven't you noticed in the history of the world and in the history of your life that just "doing something" was very often the catalyst to your downfall? If your experience is anything like mine then you've discovered that very often taking matters into your own hands has gotten you into massive amounts of trouble. Or saying something stupid instead of holding your tongue has gotten you into incredibly complex situations. Later, in remorse, I have made statements like: "I wish I hadn't every said/done that!" In so doing, you and I have joined an elite club of wrongdoers - the human race! This is evident for the Bible declares:
"…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…" (Romans 3:23).
Wouldn't it have been better if Adam had paused before eating the forbidden fruit after Eve offered it to him and instead consulted with God later in the cool of the day?
Wouldn't it have been better if Abraham had paused to inquire of the Lord before sleeping with Hagar, the Egyptian slave, which resulted in the birth of "an Ishmael?"
The list of "what ifs?" is endless…
Science tells us that "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." Can this similarly apply to our personal lives as well?
Could it be just as true that:
- For every impulsively bad decision there is an equal and opposite well thought out good decision?
- For every negative word curse there is an equal and opposite positive word blessing?
- For every idle moment accelerating into fruitless activity there is an equal and opposite active moment decelerating into fruitful inactivity?
What if we were to take it on faith that our plan of action should be to stand still until we first find out what God's plan of action is for the situation? After all, isn't God the One that recommended that we…
"Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth" (Psalm 46:10).
Isn't God the One who instructed Moses to tell the children of Israel trapped in between the Red Sea and the murderous Egyptian army to:
"Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will show to you to day: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to day, ye shall see them again no more for ever. The LORD shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace" (Exodus 14:13-14 KJV).
Isn't God the One who instructed Samuel to tell a stubborn Israeli nation caught in the web of yet another self-inflicted dilemma when foolishly demanding a king:
"Now then, stand still and see this great thing the LORD is about to do before your eyes!" (1 Sam 12:16)
Isn't God the One that inspired Joshua to command that the sun to stand still so that a great victory could be won?
"On the day the LORD gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua said to the LORD in the presence of Israel: "O sun, stand still over Gibeon, O moon, over the Valley of Aijalon."
So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies, as it is written in the Book of Jashar. The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the LORD listened to a man. Surely the LORD was fighting for Israel!" (Joshua 10:12-14).
Perhaps in your own life there can dawn a day that has never been like it before when the Lord can intervene with miracles and signs and wonders but all He is waiting for is for you to quit striving, cease from your labors, enter His rest, and stand still and see the salvation of the Lord!
DSR
3/29/04
Monday, March 22, 2004
Passionate Zeal
by David Scott Robertson
"Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Phinehas son of Eleazar and grandson of Aaron the priest has turned my anger away from the Israelites by displaying passionate zeal among them on my behalf. So I have stopped destroying all Israel as I had intended to do in my anger. So tell him that I am making my special covenant of peace with him. In this covenant, he and his descendants will be priests for all time, because he was zealous for his God and made atonement for the people of Israel.'" - Numbers 25:10-13
God is a zealous God. One of His attributes most certainly is zeal. Zeal is a funny little word that basically describes an attitude of deep devotion or passionate commitment to something or someone.
If you take a few moments and track God's zeal through the scriptures, you'll find it surfacing again and again (Deuteronomy. 29:20; 2 Kings 19:31; Isaiah 26:11; Isaiah 37:32; Isaiah 42:13; Isaiah 59:17; Isaiah 63:15; Ezekiel 5:13; Ezekiel 36:5; Ezekiel 38:19).
It was the zeal of the Lord that accomplished the salvation of the world through the advent of the Messiah, Jesus the Christ:
"Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this" (Isaiah 9:7 NIV).
Jesus, the Son of God, carried on the family tradition by displaying His zeal as He was inaugurating the New Covenant between God and man:
"To those who sold doves he said, "Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father's house into a market!" His disciples remembered that it is written: 'Zeal for your house will consume me'" (John 2:16-17).
When Jesus was selecting His twelve, the inner circle of disciples that He would personally mentor and commission to carry on after His earthly departure, He selected a man named Simon, a zealot (Luke 6:15). Simon was a militant radical. According to Holman's Bible Dictionary, a zealot was "one who acted with great zeal. The term came to designate a particular segment of the Jewish population who continually tried to overthrow foreign oppression, especially the Roman rule in Palestine."
God exalted a man in the Old Testament named Jehu because this man had a passionate commitment to expunge Baal worship from the land (1 Kings 10:28), a practice that God detested:
"Jehu said, "Come with me and see my zeal for the LORD." Then he had him ride along in his chariot (2 Kings 10:16) en route to assemble and assassinate the priests of Baal.
You see it over and over again in the Bible text, men and women being zealous for the Lord and God exalting and promoting them because of it.
Zeal is good but it must be harnessed for the right cause or person. Proverbs 19:2 warns:
"It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way."
The religious leaders of Jesus' day were indeed zealous, but not for the things that God intended:
"Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness" (Romans 10:1-3).
In his zeal Saul (who later became the apostle Paul) persecuted the Christian church(Philippians 3:6).
The conclusion of the matter is that we can be sincere about something, but be sincerely wrong. Our sincerity, our passion, our commitment, our zeal must be channeled correctly under the guidance of the Holy Spirit to be credited to us as righteousness.
God is still looking for men and women today who possess the unusual quality of passionate zeal so that He can exalt them in due season.
How about it? Are you willing to ask the Lord for the "zeal of God" to consume you? Are you ready to move on to a place of passionate commitment to the cause of Christ? Are you willing to separate yourself from billions of unbelievers and millions of believers by allowing God's passionate zeal to course through your spirit uninhibited by your fleshly desires?
I can't answer for you, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord! We will love the Lord our God with all our heart and all our soul and all our strength and lean on God to help us love our neighbors as ourselves! I served the devil much when I was lost, now that I'm a Christian, I will serve God even more!
"Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord" (Romans 12:11).
DSR
3/22/04
"Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Phinehas son of Eleazar and grandson of Aaron the priest has turned my anger away from the Israelites by displaying passionate zeal among them on my behalf. So I have stopped destroying all Israel as I had intended to do in my anger. So tell him that I am making my special covenant of peace with him. In this covenant, he and his descendants will be priests for all time, because he was zealous for his God and made atonement for the people of Israel.'" - Numbers 25:10-13
God is a zealous God. One of His attributes most certainly is zeal. Zeal is a funny little word that basically describes an attitude of deep devotion or passionate commitment to something or someone.
If you take a few moments and track God's zeal through the scriptures, you'll find it surfacing again and again (Deuteronomy. 29:20; 2 Kings 19:31; Isaiah 26:11; Isaiah 37:32; Isaiah 42:13; Isaiah 59:17; Isaiah 63:15; Ezekiel 5:13; Ezekiel 36:5; Ezekiel 38:19).
It was the zeal of the Lord that accomplished the salvation of the world through the advent of the Messiah, Jesus the Christ:
"Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this" (Isaiah 9:7 NIV).
Jesus, the Son of God, carried on the family tradition by displaying His zeal as He was inaugurating the New Covenant between God and man:
"To those who sold doves he said, "Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father's house into a market!" His disciples remembered that it is written: 'Zeal for your house will consume me'" (John 2:16-17).
When Jesus was selecting His twelve, the inner circle of disciples that He would personally mentor and commission to carry on after His earthly departure, He selected a man named Simon, a zealot (Luke 6:15). Simon was a militant radical. According to Holman's Bible Dictionary, a zealot was "one who acted with great zeal. The term came to designate a particular segment of the Jewish population who continually tried to overthrow foreign oppression, especially the Roman rule in Palestine."
God exalted a man in the Old Testament named Jehu because this man had a passionate commitment to expunge Baal worship from the land (1 Kings 10:28), a practice that God detested:
"Jehu said, "Come with me and see my zeal for the LORD." Then he had him ride along in his chariot (2 Kings 10:16) en route to assemble and assassinate the priests of Baal.
You see it over and over again in the Bible text, men and women being zealous for the Lord and God exalting and promoting them because of it.
Zeal is good but it must be harnessed for the right cause or person. Proverbs 19:2 warns:
"It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way."
The religious leaders of Jesus' day were indeed zealous, but not for the things that God intended:
"Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness" (Romans 10:1-3).
In his zeal Saul (who later became the apostle Paul) persecuted the Christian church(Philippians 3:6).
The conclusion of the matter is that we can be sincere about something, but be sincerely wrong. Our sincerity, our passion, our commitment, our zeal must be channeled correctly under the guidance of the Holy Spirit to be credited to us as righteousness.
God is still looking for men and women today who possess the unusual quality of passionate zeal so that He can exalt them in due season.
How about it? Are you willing to ask the Lord for the "zeal of God" to consume you? Are you ready to move on to a place of passionate commitment to the cause of Christ? Are you willing to separate yourself from billions of unbelievers and millions of believers by allowing God's passionate zeal to course through your spirit uninhibited by your fleshly desires?
I can't answer for you, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord! We will love the Lord our God with all our heart and all our soul and all our strength and lean on God to help us love our neighbors as ourselves! I served the devil much when I was lost, now that I'm a Christian, I will serve God even more!
"Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord" (Romans 12:11).
DSR
3/22/04
Monday, March 15, 2004
The Mixed Multitude
by David Scott Robertson
"And the children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand on foot that were men, beside children. And a mixed multitude went up also with them; and flocks, and herds, even very much cattle" (Exodus 12:37-38 KJV).
When Moses led the children of Israel out of slavery in Egypt en route to the Promised Land, the Bible tells us that more than the children of Israel left Egypt that momentous day. A "mixed multitude" went with them. The New Living Translation says, "Many people who were not Israelites went with them, along with the many flocks and herds" (Exodus 12:38).
I don't know what it is about the "mixed multitude" that fascinates me, but it does.
The book of Exodus focuses on the mighty miracles that God performed to free His people from centuries of slavery in the idolatrous nation of Egypt but little is said about the mixed multitude that accompanied their hasty exit.
I hate to speculate, but I can't help but wonder about this non-Jewish people group who evacuated Egypt that apparently was so great in number that the Bible describes them as a "multitude."
Do you suppose some of them were slaves from other nations conscripted into hard labor along side of the Israelites? Were some, in fact, former Egyptian officials who defected because of their profound respect for Moses and a newfound faith in the great God Jehovah? This is not inconceivable since Exodus 11:3 tells us:
"The LORD made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people, and Moses himself was highly regarded in Egypt by Pharaoh's officials and by the people."
The influence of Moses transformed some of these pagans into God-fearing men as we discover in Exodus 9:20:
"Those officials of Pharaoh who feared the word of the LORD hurried to bring their slaves and their livestock inside [when Moses prophesied a plague of killer hail was coming]."
Perhaps they and their households and slaves comprised part of the mixed multitude. Maybe the mixed multitude were foreigners from other nations who had settled in Egypt for economic reasons. There they may have prospered and flourished. But ten devastating plagues later, they were broke with no livelihood, no source of income, no hope and future. Perhaps they were once "free" but now were "enslaved" by debt.
Maybe the mixed multitude contained many "curiosity-seekers," those who wanted to go see for themselves the much talked about sacrifice that the Israelites were commanded to perform to their God and expecting to see some glorious manifestation of Israel's God.
Many, if not most of the mixed multitude, may have been an unthinking mob who just "went along with the crowd" not really knowing why but joining in the mass exodus anyway.
I could go on but the established fact remains that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people blended into the departing Israelite community as they left Egypt in a mass exodus.
Having been sufficiently motivated by the awesome plagues God sent on Pharaoh and his nation, they were convinced in the reality of the God of Moses and Aaron.
Furthermore, they experienced deliverance from death from the pursuing army of Pharaoh with orders to kill all those that fled through the Red Sea (Pharaoh probably gave orders to indiscriminately kill any of the mixed multitude who fled through the Red Sea with Moses.)
Shoulder to shoulder with their Israelite traveling companions, the mixed multitude would experience God's miracle provision in a barren wilderness. They watched, with their own eyes, as God performed miracle after miracle - the Red Sea swallowing the entire army of Pharaoh in one fatal blow - they saw the awesome Tabernacle and sacrificial system - they saw the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night leading Israel - they heard God speak to Moses and through Moses - they tasted bitter waters made sweet and drinkable and on and on. The mixed multitude even had their very lives sustained through the miraculous food supply from heaven that came to be known as "manna."
So, here is what I think would naturally happen to the mixed multitude in the subsequent weeks and months that follow.
They would all, without exception, convert to the faith of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They would become obedient to the Old Covenant requirements of the Law to please the great God Jehovah who richly provided them with a hope and future, even though they were foreigners of mixed ancestry (Nehemiah 13:3). They would do all they could to encourage the Israelites to faithfully serve their powerful God because associating with them had saved their lives.
But tragically, that's not what happened.
"Then the foreign rabble who were traveling with the Israelites began to crave the good things of Egypt, and the people of Israel also began to complain. "Oh, for some meat!" they exclaimed. We remember all the fish we used to eat for free in Egypt. And we had all the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic that we wanted. But now our appetites are gone, and day after day we have nothing to eat but this manna!" (Numbers 11:4-6)
Their negative report apparently spread to every family in the twelve tribes of Israel for the scriptures say, "Moses heard the people of every family wailing, each at the entrance to his tent. The LORD became exceedingly angry, and Moses was troubled" (Numbers 11:10).
Where am I going with all this?
I suppose we who have been delivered from the slavery of sin can identify much with the children of Israel in the time of the Exodus. Before we are saved, Satan is our evil taskmaster. While in sin, we are doomed to a harsh existence with the devil desiring to keep us in bondage and destroy our children and fruitfulness.
But just like God sent Moses to deliver His people back then, so God sends a deliverer to us in our day bearing the authority of God and the good news of the gospel. Like Israel leaving Egypt, we leave sin and through the waters of baptism we experience our version of the Red Sea passage.
Then we begin to walk in a wilderness led by the Spirit en route to a land flowing with milk and honey, that is, heaven.
While we are walking through our modern world, we have as our traveling companions a mixed multitude. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people who seek to influence us to depart from the faith and go back to "Egypt", back to a life of sin.
To me, the message of the "mixed multitude" is that it is fine to associate with people of other cultures and even religious persuasions. We can work with them, walk with them, eat with them, play sports with them, and even live next door to them permitting our children to play with theirs. However, a line must be drawn when it comes to allowing them to negatively influence us or our children to compromise God's righteous requirements of our lives and lifestyles. Our belief system which is based on the living and proven Word of God cannot be undermined by those who have never read it, understand it, let alone obey it.
There can be no tolerance of a murmuring spirit that causes division among the brethren, something that made the list of seven things that God hates (Proverbs 6:19).
So how do we handle the mixed multitude in our present day and age?
I think first we should understand that Jesus died for the mixed multitude. Those of us who are Gentiles and not of Jewish descent are actually part of the natural mixed multitude. When we receive Christ as Savior and Lord, we are grafted into the family of God and become joint-heirs with Jesus, and this by the grace of God. We need to understand that God is not willing that any of the mixed multitude should perish but that all should come to repentance and experience eternal life.
Next, I think we should ask God for wisdom (James 1:5) in establishing good boundaries in which to conduct our lives as the mixed multitude live among us. We need to let the light of the gospel shine through our lives (Matthew 5:16) that all may know that God lives not only among us, but in us.
Finally, we must adopt Joshua and Caleb attitudes that are resistant to grumbling, complaining, and murmuring and energized with faith. We must understand that we are well able to possess the lands that God has set before us, lands filled with more of the mixed multitude.
DSR
3/15/04
"And the children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand on foot that were men, beside children. And a mixed multitude went up also with them; and flocks, and herds, even very much cattle" (Exodus 12:37-38 KJV).
When Moses led the children of Israel out of slavery in Egypt en route to the Promised Land, the Bible tells us that more than the children of Israel left Egypt that momentous day. A "mixed multitude" went with them. The New Living Translation says, "Many people who were not Israelites went with them, along with the many flocks and herds" (Exodus 12:38).
I don't know what it is about the "mixed multitude" that fascinates me, but it does.
The book of Exodus focuses on the mighty miracles that God performed to free His people from centuries of slavery in the idolatrous nation of Egypt but little is said about the mixed multitude that accompanied their hasty exit.
I hate to speculate, but I can't help but wonder about this non-Jewish people group who evacuated Egypt that apparently was so great in number that the Bible describes them as a "multitude."
Do you suppose some of them were slaves from other nations conscripted into hard labor along side of the Israelites? Were some, in fact, former Egyptian officials who defected because of their profound respect for Moses and a newfound faith in the great God Jehovah? This is not inconceivable since Exodus 11:3 tells us:
"The LORD made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people, and Moses himself was highly regarded in Egypt by Pharaoh's officials and by the people."
The influence of Moses transformed some of these pagans into God-fearing men as we discover in Exodus 9:20:
"Those officials of Pharaoh who feared the word of the LORD hurried to bring their slaves and their livestock inside [when Moses prophesied a plague of killer hail was coming]."
Perhaps they and their households and slaves comprised part of the mixed multitude. Maybe the mixed multitude were foreigners from other nations who had settled in Egypt for economic reasons. There they may have prospered and flourished. But ten devastating plagues later, they were broke with no livelihood, no source of income, no hope and future. Perhaps they were once "free" but now were "enslaved" by debt.
Maybe the mixed multitude contained many "curiosity-seekers," those who wanted to go see for themselves the much talked about sacrifice that the Israelites were commanded to perform to their God and expecting to see some glorious manifestation of Israel's God.
Many, if not most of the mixed multitude, may have been an unthinking mob who just "went along with the crowd" not really knowing why but joining in the mass exodus anyway.
I could go on but the established fact remains that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people blended into the departing Israelite community as they left Egypt in a mass exodus.
Having been sufficiently motivated by the awesome plagues God sent on Pharaoh and his nation, they were convinced in the reality of the God of Moses and Aaron.
Furthermore, they experienced deliverance from death from the pursuing army of Pharaoh with orders to kill all those that fled through the Red Sea (Pharaoh probably gave orders to indiscriminately kill any of the mixed multitude who fled through the Red Sea with Moses.)
Shoulder to shoulder with their Israelite traveling companions, the mixed multitude would experience God's miracle provision in a barren wilderness. They watched, with their own eyes, as God performed miracle after miracle - the Red Sea swallowing the entire army of Pharaoh in one fatal blow - they saw the awesome Tabernacle and sacrificial system - they saw the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night leading Israel - they heard God speak to Moses and through Moses - they tasted bitter waters made sweet and drinkable and on and on. The mixed multitude even had their very lives sustained through the miraculous food supply from heaven that came to be known as "manna."
So, here is what I think would naturally happen to the mixed multitude in the subsequent weeks and months that follow.
They would all, without exception, convert to the faith of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They would become obedient to the Old Covenant requirements of the Law to please the great God Jehovah who richly provided them with a hope and future, even though they were foreigners of mixed ancestry (Nehemiah 13:3). They would do all they could to encourage the Israelites to faithfully serve their powerful God because associating with them had saved their lives.
But tragically, that's not what happened.
"Then the foreign rabble who were traveling with the Israelites began to crave the good things of Egypt, and the people of Israel also began to complain. "Oh, for some meat!" they exclaimed. We remember all the fish we used to eat for free in Egypt. And we had all the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic that we wanted. But now our appetites are gone, and day after day we have nothing to eat but this manna!" (Numbers 11:4-6)
Their negative report apparently spread to every family in the twelve tribes of Israel for the scriptures say, "Moses heard the people of every family wailing, each at the entrance to his tent. The LORD became exceedingly angry, and Moses was troubled" (Numbers 11:10).
Where am I going with all this?
I suppose we who have been delivered from the slavery of sin can identify much with the children of Israel in the time of the Exodus. Before we are saved, Satan is our evil taskmaster. While in sin, we are doomed to a harsh existence with the devil desiring to keep us in bondage and destroy our children and fruitfulness.
But just like God sent Moses to deliver His people back then, so God sends a deliverer to us in our day bearing the authority of God and the good news of the gospel. Like Israel leaving Egypt, we leave sin and through the waters of baptism we experience our version of the Red Sea passage.
Then we begin to walk in a wilderness led by the Spirit en route to a land flowing with milk and honey, that is, heaven.
While we are walking through our modern world, we have as our traveling companions a mixed multitude. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people who seek to influence us to depart from the faith and go back to "Egypt", back to a life of sin.
To me, the message of the "mixed multitude" is that it is fine to associate with people of other cultures and even religious persuasions. We can work with them, walk with them, eat with them, play sports with them, and even live next door to them permitting our children to play with theirs. However, a line must be drawn when it comes to allowing them to negatively influence us or our children to compromise God's righteous requirements of our lives and lifestyles. Our belief system which is based on the living and proven Word of God cannot be undermined by those who have never read it, understand it, let alone obey it.
There can be no tolerance of a murmuring spirit that causes division among the brethren, something that made the list of seven things that God hates (Proverbs 6:19).
So how do we handle the mixed multitude in our present day and age?
I think first we should understand that Jesus died for the mixed multitude. Those of us who are Gentiles and not of Jewish descent are actually part of the natural mixed multitude. When we receive Christ as Savior and Lord, we are grafted into the family of God and become joint-heirs with Jesus, and this by the grace of God. We need to understand that God is not willing that any of the mixed multitude should perish but that all should come to repentance and experience eternal life.
Next, I think we should ask God for wisdom (James 1:5) in establishing good boundaries in which to conduct our lives as the mixed multitude live among us. We need to let the light of the gospel shine through our lives (Matthew 5:16) that all may know that God lives not only among us, but in us.
Finally, we must adopt Joshua and Caleb attitudes that are resistant to grumbling, complaining, and murmuring and energized with faith. We must understand that we are well able to possess the lands that God has set before us, lands filled with more of the mixed multitude.
DSR
3/15/04
Friday, February 27, 2004
The Unrecorded Sufferings of Christ
By David Scott Robertson
Last evening my wife and daughter and I saw Mel Gibson's movie, "The Passion of the Christ."
Our reaction to the film parallels many positive reports you may have already read or heard. It's difficult to put into words the profound impact the movie has already begun to make in the lives of my family.
An eight-year-old child that I was escorting to the R-rated movie (with permission from his mother) asked me as we were going in if we were going to get Cokes and popcorn. My reply was "No, son. This movie is not entertainment."
Perhaps my eleven-year-old daughter Abbey summarized it best when I asked her reaction on the drive home from the theater: "Daddy, until I saw this movie I never really understood what Jesus did for me. Now I'm glad that I'm a Christian." We had her sleep with her mother last night while I slept in another room.
Our family prayed before we viewed the film that the Holy Spirit would do in us what He wanted to accomplish. I believe God is answering that prayer.
As I write this, the Holy Spirit continues to massage deeper truths into my spirit. I can't speak for anybody else but me, but I suspect the effects of this movie on my life are going to be far-reaching and it may take some time to realize its full impact.
It's now the "day after," and I find myself sitting in my office with the lights off meditating on the movie. The graphic scenes of Jesus' profound suffering that justifiably earned an R-rating are being played and re-played through my mind and are being engraved on the tablet of my heart.
Still, I do not believe that Mel Gibson and his associates were able to capture the full measure of the sufferings of Christ. I believe that his team has done a more than satisfactory job, perhaps even the greatest job ever by a group of filmmakers, in bringing this true story to the screen without including excessive and unnecessary embellishments or detractions from the gospel text of the passion of the Christ.
Still, I don't believe that any human being or group of human beings will ever truly know the full extent of the outpouring of God's love through Jesus' sacrifice, nor the depths of His suffering and abuse during the last twelve hours of His life.
My thoughts today, oddly enough, drift to imaginary conversations of Roman soldiers re-uniting back at the barracks after an unusually difficult day at work.
"What just happened here?"
"I don't know what came over me. My lust for blood was insatiable today."
"I can't believe I said the things I said to Him. I don't know where I came up with the curses I cursed Him with."
"Did you see Him stand up after we whipped Him the first time?"
"I can't explain my irresistible urge to ram that crown of thorns on His head. I couldn't help myself."
"When I spit in His face, He looked at me. I'll never forget that look."
"Malchus! Malchus! What's up with you?"
"Truly this man was the Son of God."
It is my conviction, not in a dogmatic way, but firmly nonetheless, that Satan and his fallen angels were there en masse at the passion of the Christ.
I also believe that at least twelve legions of angels were there, hands on weapons, poised to strike immediately at a single command of their King, Jesus. Agonizingly, it never came.
But it's the demons' powerful influence over human beings at the passion of the Christ that my thoughts drifted to seated in the darkness of my office this morning.
I believe they played a key role, spurred on by their bloodthirsty master, Satan, to influence Roman solders to set new benchmarks in cruelty, to work a crowd into a murderous frenzy, to whisper key phrases into the ears of religious leaders who parroted the evil words out loud to an insecure Pontius Pilate persuading him to accept their unreasonable request to release Barrabas and permit the murder of Jesus of Nazareth.
The unconverted, unregenerate Roman soldiers that day were morbid puppets manipulated and guided into saying and doing things I believe even hardened soldiers didn't normally do. But this was not a normal day. And Jesus was no ordinary prisoner.
As the scriptures say, "…at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly" (Romans 5:6).
And at just the right time, the ex-archangel Lucifer and his demonic followers, who had been excommunicated from heaven along with their fallen leader, seized the opportunity to kill the Christ and orchestrate the greatest upset in the history of the world.
And Satan laughed in his arrogant pride.
Having said all that, I want to revisit a writing I released a long time ago called "The Unrecorded Sufferings of Christ." Perhaps it's time to think about such things. Perhaps it time for us to petition the Father not for a raise at work or another blessing to add to the list, but for a revelation of the cross; for a greater understanding of the passion of the Christ.
"The Unrecorded Sufferings of Christ - Revisited"
by David Scott Robertson
"He [Jesus Christ] was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not" -- Isaiah 53:3
Jesus Christ was familiar with the concept of suffering. You see, there's no teacher like experience. Jesus was well acquainted with the full range of pain that a human body can experience.
The climax, of course, the cataclysmic centerpiece of human history, culminated in the last twelve hours of the life of Jesus Christ. The bleeding began in the Garden of Gethsemane.
"And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground" (Luke 22:44).
And it did not stop until He was drained to the dregs on the cross. Much blood was sacrificed at the whipping post. The flogging, the flogging was horror and agony personified. The flogging scene from the movie "The Passion of the Christ" pushed me closer to the edge than I've ever been. As devastating as the flogging was, it was survivable. But the cross was fatal 100% of the time.
We read the Bible narrative about the horrors of crucifixion. And there is no short supply on the Internet of commentaries that add to our understanding of how death is achieved on a cross. Medical doctors have written detailed explanations of what physiologically happens to the human body during the actual process of dying in this brutal manner. Although history books can tell us about the particulars of a victim being nailed to a cross, they cannot adequately communicate the level of suffering that takes place upon it.
Here is what I want you to consider today: Were there other unrecorded sufferings of Christ? Could it be that the half has not yet been told? Is it possible that Jesus endured more, much more suffering than at first believed?
Perhaps additional sufferings took unorthodox and unaccounted for forms. It would be impossible to refer to these as "lesser" sufferings. God alone knows the full extent of the agony that took place that day. Point your attention, if only for a moment, to the subtle sufferings of Jesus the Christ…
Consider this one fact and ponder its profound implications: The hands of Jesus Christ were immobile while nailed to the cross. He was incapacitated. His hands could not perform routine duties that hands are designed to do.
I think about the flies that must have been drawn to Him by the smell of blood; biting flies with no way for Jesus to flick them off.
Have you ever had a broken arm or known someone in a cast? Have you watched a friend go crazy trying to scratch an itch they couldn't get to? Was this the case of our Lord?
Ever had a cramp or a "charley-horse" in your leg while in bed asleep and the only thing that brings relief is to jump out of bed immediately and walk it out? If Jesus had any cramps He could do nothing about it except grunt and bear it.
Do you think He had a headache that day? Have you ever had a head-on collision with something or somebody and knocked yourself silly? The Lord had several head-on collisions that day.
"…and they twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand and knelt in front of him and mocked him. 'Hail, king of the Jews!' they said.
They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again" (Matthew 27:29-30).
No aspirin or medication for Jesus. The ultimate Pain Reliever had no access whatsoever to any pain reliever.
Have you ever been so thirsty that all you can think of is getting a drink? We know He was thirsty because He said on the cross, "I thirst" (John 19:28). I'm sure Jesus' thirst was beyond anything you or I have ever experienced. Psalm 22:15 prophetically captures a few of Jesus' words on the cross:
"My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; you lay me in the dust of death."
Have you ever "pulled a muscle" during work or exercise? Torn a ligament? Strained a tendon and had to go to an orthopedic doctor to get it checked out? I cannot imagine that Jesus didn't suffer all sorts of muscle pulls, rips, tears, strains and tender tissues being forced out of joint.
If a chiropractor could have x-rayed Jesus' spine after His death, what story do you suppose the x-rays would tell? What problems would an MRI reveal? What would the cat scan say? Not a bone broken, but as the prophetic Psalm of Christ on the cross, Psalm 22 says: "I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint."
None of us enjoy being subject to outside weather and the elements without having the proper clothing to regulate our body temperature. Jesus was at the mercy of the weather that day with no ability to adjust for it. Chapped lips? Sun in His eyes? Sweat in the cuts? Salt in the wounds? Cold? Hot? Too bad.
Have you ever had the unfortunate experience of having a bug fly in your ear? What's the knee-jerk reaction of your body? A finger immediately goes to the ear to help dig the pest out!
What if Satan sent a bug? Or bugs? Demons entered pigs one time (Matthew 8:30-32) so why not control bugs? Did the devil have the power to arrange it? Even a gnat can be a nuisance when it keeps dive-bombing your face. Flies? Mosquitoes? Spiders? Ravens? Crows? Vultures? Were they present and accounted for on Golgotha's hill that day?
Have you ever had a stopped up nose and needed to "blow it?" You reach for a tissue and you blow your nose. Jesus had no tissue and no reach to blow his nose or wipe His brow and dry up salty sweat in His stinging wounds.
Have you noticed that most artwork of the crucifixion depicts Jesus wearing an undergarment? Or was He, in fact, crucified naked? Normal crucifixion protocol called for complete humiliation and degradation.
Now what I am about to say is almost unspeakable, but…did the Son of Man have to "go to the bathroom" that day while nailed to the cross? If He had to obviously He couldn't go anywhere but on Himself.
Ever had a blood test where they prick the end of your finger? For most people the jab of a lance or a sterile needle drawing blood is an unpleasant experience. What about hundreds of dirty splinters raking over a raw, bloody back as Jesus labored to breathe? Just dropping the cross into the hole and the sudden jolt at the end would have caused most men to faint in pain.
What about when they tore His clothing off prior to putting Him on the cross? The coagulated blood had caused His garment to be like an adhesive to His skin and the soldiers carelessly ripped it off re-opening the wounds. We don't read about it but I believe it may have happened just that way.
From the foul-smelling saliva that was spit upon Him to the foul words that were vomited on Him from the very "enemies" for whom He was dying, Jesus endured unimaginable, and I believe unrecorded, sufferings on the cross.
None could compare, I suppose, with what I'm about to say. Pain of the body is one thing, but pain of the heart can be unbearable. Jesus had to endure the worst of the worst of sufferings while on the cross:
"God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21).
As Jesus' life ebbed away, the Light of the World began to flicker. As Jesus became sin for us, His Father in heaven who in the beginning said "let there be light" withdrew. And the Bible records: "From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land" (Mat 27:45).
For three hours the same darkness that hovered over the face of the deep before the world began returned, and the earth, in a way, once again became without form and void.
For the first and only time, God the Father had to turn His back on His Son who bore the sins of the world and prompted an agony so deep, so intense, so immense, that Jesus cried out:
"…'Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?'--which means, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?'" (Matthew 27:46).
I write this thought today not to subject you to spurious thoughts carrying shock value, but to somehow try and wrap my own mind around the astonishing and lavish price that God paid for my sin and for your sin in order to adopt us into the family of God.
It's been said that the Son of God became the Son of Man so that the sons of men could become the sons of God.
Writing this thought today helps me focus a little bit more on the unimaginable horror of sin
and the incomprehensible price it cost God to redeem us from it.
Some have said that God paid much too high a price for us. Who can argue with that?
Nevertheless, Jesus paid a debt He did not owe, so we could gain a life we could not earn.
Given that, how can we doubt the love and caring concern of our living Savior? No matter what you face to today, consider the problem in light of the cross.
We've talked about the unrecorded sufferings of Christ, but we haven't even considered the unrecorded sufferings of God the Father who had to watch His Son, His only Son, suffer and die in such a shameful and painful manner. And all this for sinners, many of whom would never repent and embrace God's love at all despite knowing the facts of the passion of the Christ.
To my view, the only thing that could conceivably be worse than the last twelve hours of the life of Jesus Christ is for you and I to refuse to accept His sinless life and vicarious death as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
So then, let us take to heart God's passionate declaration of love forever settled in heaven, permanently written in His Holy Word, and infinitely memorialized as scars on the hands, feet, and side of His beloved Son.
The next time you are tempted to ask yourself, "where is God in all of this?" remember…
"He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?" (Romans 8:32)
DSR
2/27/04
Last evening my wife and daughter and I saw Mel Gibson's movie, "The Passion of the Christ."
Our reaction to the film parallels many positive reports you may have already read or heard. It's difficult to put into words the profound impact the movie has already begun to make in the lives of my family.
An eight-year-old child that I was escorting to the R-rated movie (with permission from his mother) asked me as we were going in if we were going to get Cokes and popcorn. My reply was "No, son. This movie is not entertainment."
Perhaps my eleven-year-old daughter Abbey summarized it best when I asked her reaction on the drive home from the theater: "Daddy, until I saw this movie I never really understood what Jesus did for me. Now I'm glad that I'm a Christian." We had her sleep with her mother last night while I slept in another room.
Our family prayed before we viewed the film that the Holy Spirit would do in us what He wanted to accomplish. I believe God is answering that prayer.
As I write this, the Holy Spirit continues to massage deeper truths into my spirit. I can't speak for anybody else but me, but I suspect the effects of this movie on my life are going to be far-reaching and it may take some time to realize its full impact.
It's now the "day after," and I find myself sitting in my office with the lights off meditating on the movie. The graphic scenes of Jesus' profound suffering that justifiably earned an R-rating are being played and re-played through my mind and are being engraved on the tablet of my heart.
Still, I do not believe that Mel Gibson and his associates were able to capture the full measure of the sufferings of Christ. I believe that his team has done a more than satisfactory job, perhaps even the greatest job ever by a group of filmmakers, in bringing this true story to the screen without including excessive and unnecessary embellishments or detractions from the gospel text of the passion of the Christ.
Still, I don't believe that any human being or group of human beings will ever truly know the full extent of the outpouring of God's love through Jesus' sacrifice, nor the depths of His suffering and abuse during the last twelve hours of His life.
My thoughts today, oddly enough, drift to imaginary conversations of Roman soldiers re-uniting back at the barracks after an unusually difficult day at work.
"What just happened here?"
"I don't know what came over me. My lust for blood was insatiable today."
"I can't believe I said the things I said to Him. I don't know where I came up with the curses I cursed Him with."
"Did you see Him stand up after we whipped Him the first time?"
"I can't explain my irresistible urge to ram that crown of thorns on His head. I couldn't help myself."
"When I spit in His face, He looked at me. I'll never forget that look."
"Malchus! Malchus! What's up with you?"
"Truly this man was the Son of God."
It is my conviction, not in a dogmatic way, but firmly nonetheless, that Satan and his fallen angels were there en masse at the passion of the Christ.
I also believe that at least twelve legions of angels were there, hands on weapons, poised to strike immediately at a single command of their King, Jesus. Agonizingly, it never came.
But it's the demons' powerful influence over human beings at the passion of the Christ that my thoughts drifted to seated in the darkness of my office this morning.
I believe they played a key role, spurred on by their bloodthirsty master, Satan, to influence Roman solders to set new benchmarks in cruelty, to work a crowd into a murderous frenzy, to whisper key phrases into the ears of religious leaders who parroted the evil words out loud to an insecure Pontius Pilate persuading him to accept their unreasonable request to release Barrabas and permit the murder of Jesus of Nazareth.
The unconverted, unregenerate Roman soldiers that day were morbid puppets manipulated and guided into saying and doing things I believe even hardened soldiers didn't normally do. But this was not a normal day. And Jesus was no ordinary prisoner.
As the scriptures say, "…at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly" (Romans 5:6).
And at just the right time, the ex-archangel Lucifer and his demonic followers, who had been excommunicated from heaven along with their fallen leader, seized the opportunity to kill the Christ and orchestrate the greatest upset in the history of the world.
And Satan laughed in his arrogant pride.
Having said all that, I want to revisit a writing I released a long time ago called "The Unrecorded Sufferings of Christ." Perhaps it's time to think about such things. Perhaps it time for us to petition the Father not for a raise at work or another blessing to add to the list, but for a revelation of the cross; for a greater understanding of the passion of the Christ.
"The Unrecorded Sufferings of Christ - Revisited"
by David Scott Robertson
"He [Jesus Christ] was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not" -- Isaiah 53:3
Jesus Christ was familiar with the concept of suffering. You see, there's no teacher like experience. Jesus was well acquainted with the full range of pain that a human body can experience.
The climax, of course, the cataclysmic centerpiece of human history, culminated in the last twelve hours of the life of Jesus Christ. The bleeding began in the Garden of Gethsemane.
"And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground" (Luke 22:44).
And it did not stop until He was drained to the dregs on the cross. Much blood was sacrificed at the whipping post. The flogging, the flogging was horror and agony personified. The flogging scene from the movie "The Passion of the Christ" pushed me closer to the edge than I've ever been. As devastating as the flogging was, it was survivable. But the cross was fatal 100% of the time.
We read the Bible narrative about the horrors of crucifixion. And there is no short supply on the Internet of commentaries that add to our understanding of how death is achieved on a cross. Medical doctors have written detailed explanations of what physiologically happens to the human body during the actual process of dying in this brutal manner. Although history books can tell us about the particulars of a victim being nailed to a cross, they cannot adequately communicate the level of suffering that takes place upon it.
Here is what I want you to consider today: Were there other unrecorded sufferings of Christ? Could it be that the half has not yet been told? Is it possible that Jesus endured more, much more suffering than at first believed?
Perhaps additional sufferings took unorthodox and unaccounted for forms. It would be impossible to refer to these as "lesser" sufferings. God alone knows the full extent of the agony that took place that day. Point your attention, if only for a moment, to the subtle sufferings of Jesus the Christ…
Consider this one fact and ponder its profound implications: The hands of Jesus Christ were immobile while nailed to the cross. He was incapacitated. His hands could not perform routine duties that hands are designed to do.
I think about the flies that must have been drawn to Him by the smell of blood; biting flies with no way for Jesus to flick them off.
Have you ever had a broken arm or known someone in a cast? Have you watched a friend go crazy trying to scratch an itch they couldn't get to? Was this the case of our Lord?
Ever had a cramp or a "charley-horse" in your leg while in bed asleep and the only thing that brings relief is to jump out of bed immediately and walk it out? If Jesus had any cramps He could do nothing about it except grunt and bear it.
Do you think He had a headache that day? Have you ever had a head-on collision with something or somebody and knocked yourself silly? The Lord had several head-on collisions that day.
"…and they twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand and knelt in front of him and mocked him. 'Hail, king of the Jews!' they said.
They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again" (Matthew 27:29-30).
No aspirin or medication for Jesus. The ultimate Pain Reliever had no access whatsoever to any pain reliever.
Have you ever been so thirsty that all you can think of is getting a drink? We know He was thirsty because He said on the cross, "I thirst" (John 19:28). I'm sure Jesus' thirst was beyond anything you or I have ever experienced. Psalm 22:15 prophetically captures a few of Jesus' words on the cross:
"My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; you lay me in the dust of death."
Have you ever "pulled a muscle" during work or exercise? Torn a ligament? Strained a tendon and had to go to an orthopedic doctor to get it checked out? I cannot imagine that Jesus didn't suffer all sorts of muscle pulls, rips, tears, strains and tender tissues being forced out of joint.
If a chiropractor could have x-rayed Jesus' spine after His death, what story do you suppose the x-rays would tell? What problems would an MRI reveal? What would the cat scan say? Not a bone broken, but as the prophetic Psalm of Christ on the cross, Psalm 22 says: "I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint."
None of us enjoy being subject to outside weather and the elements without having the proper clothing to regulate our body temperature. Jesus was at the mercy of the weather that day with no ability to adjust for it. Chapped lips? Sun in His eyes? Sweat in the cuts? Salt in the wounds? Cold? Hot? Too bad.
Have you ever had the unfortunate experience of having a bug fly in your ear? What's the knee-jerk reaction of your body? A finger immediately goes to the ear to help dig the pest out!
What if Satan sent a bug? Or bugs? Demons entered pigs one time (Matthew 8:30-32) so why not control bugs? Did the devil have the power to arrange it? Even a gnat can be a nuisance when it keeps dive-bombing your face. Flies? Mosquitoes? Spiders? Ravens? Crows? Vultures? Were they present and accounted for on Golgotha's hill that day?
Have you ever had a stopped up nose and needed to "blow it?" You reach for a tissue and you blow your nose. Jesus had no tissue and no reach to blow his nose or wipe His brow and dry up salty sweat in His stinging wounds.
Have you noticed that most artwork of the crucifixion depicts Jesus wearing an undergarment? Or was He, in fact, crucified naked? Normal crucifixion protocol called for complete humiliation and degradation.
Now what I am about to say is almost unspeakable, but…did the Son of Man have to "go to the bathroom" that day while nailed to the cross? If He had to obviously He couldn't go anywhere but on Himself.
Ever had a blood test where they prick the end of your finger? For most people the jab of a lance or a sterile needle drawing blood is an unpleasant experience. What about hundreds of dirty splinters raking over a raw, bloody back as Jesus labored to breathe? Just dropping the cross into the hole and the sudden jolt at the end would have caused most men to faint in pain.
What about when they tore His clothing off prior to putting Him on the cross? The coagulated blood had caused His garment to be like an adhesive to His skin and the soldiers carelessly ripped it off re-opening the wounds. We don't read about it but I believe it may have happened just that way.
From the foul-smelling saliva that was spit upon Him to the foul words that were vomited on Him from the very "enemies" for whom He was dying, Jesus endured unimaginable, and I believe unrecorded, sufferings on the cross.
None could compare, I suppose, with what I'm about to say. Pain of the body is one thing, but pain of the heart can be unbearable. Jesus had to endure the worst of the worst of sufferings while on the cross:
"God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21).
As Jesus' life ebbed away, the Light of the World began to flicker. As Jesus became sin for us, His Father in heaven who in the beginning said "let there be light" withdrew. And the Bible records: "From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land" (Mat 27:45).
For three hours the same darkness that hovered over the face of the deep before the world began returned, and the earth, in a way, once again became without form and void.
For the first and only time, God the Father had to turn His back on His Son who bore the sins of the world and prompted an agony so deep, so intense, so immense, that Jesus cried out:
"…'Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?'--which means, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?'" (Matthew 27:46).
I write this thought today not to subject you to spurious thoughts carrying shock value, but to somehow try and wrap my own mind around the astonishing and lavish price that God paid for my sin and for your sin in order to adopt us into the family of God.
It's been said that the Son of God became the Son of Man so that the sons of men could become the sons of God.
Writing this thought today helps me focus a little bit more on the unimaginable horror of sin
and the incomprehensible price it cost God to redeem us from it.
Some have said that God paid much too high a price for us. Who can argue with that?
Nevertheless, Jesus paid a debt He did not owe, so we could gain a life we could not earn.
Given that, how can we doubt the love and caring concern of our living Savior? No matter what you face to today, consider the problem in light of the cross.
We've talked about the unrecorded sufferings of Christ, but we haven't even considered the unrecorded sufferings of God the Father who had to watch His Son, His only Son, suffer and die in such a shameful and painful manner. And all this for sinners, many of whom would never repent and embrace God's love at all despite knowing the facts of the passion of the Christ.
To my view, the only thing that could conceivably be worse than the last twelve hours of the life of Jesus Christ is for you and I to refuse to accept His sinless life and vicarious death as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
So then, let us take to heart God's passionate declaration of love forever settled in heaven, permanently written in His Holy Word, and infinitely memorialized as scars on the hands, feet, and side of His beloved Son.
The next time you are tempted to ask yourself, "where is God in all of this?" remember…
"He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?" (Romans 8:32)
DSR
2/27/04
Monday, February 23, 2004
Anger Management
by David Scott Robertson
Exodus 31:18; 32:15-16; 19 (NLT)
"Then as the Lord finished speaking with Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave him the two stone tablets inscribed with the terms of the covenant, written by the finger of God. Then Moses turned and went down the mountain. He held in his hands the two stone tablets inscribed with the terms of the covenant. They were inscribed on both sides, front and back. [16] These stone tablets were God's work; the words on them were written by God himself. When they came near the camp, Moses saw the calf and the dancing. In terrible anger, he threw the stone tablets to the ground, smashing them at the foot of the mountain."
Moses had an anger problem. We see it surface time after time when pressure was applied to his life. When the going got tough, Moses got angry.
Our first glimpse of Moses' uncontrollable anger was when he was still a prince of Egypt. One day, while visiting the Hebrew slaves, he saw an Egyptian beating one of them. The sight made him so upset that his blood boiled to the point of actually committing murder (Exodus 2:11-12).
As we track along with Moses through his experience of leading the children of Israel out of bondage, we come to find out that Moses himself seems to be in bondage to anger. While it is true that by and large the children of Israel were a nation of stiff-necked and unruly people, Moses' fleshly response to them was often anger and resentment instead of the godly qualities of compassion and mercy.
Numbers 16:15 (NLT)
Then Moses became very angry and said to the Lord, "Do not accept their offerings! I have not taken so much as a donkey from them, and I have never hurt a single one of them."
Exodus 16:20 (NLT)
But, of course, some of them didn't listen and kept some of it [manna] until morning. By then it was full of maggots and had a terrible smell. And Moses was very angry with them.
The grand finale of Moses' anger problem manifest at a place called Meribah. It was here that the anger of Moses against the stubborn people apparently so distressed him that it caused him to sin against the Lord through disobedience.
Numbers 20:10-11 (NLT)
Then he and Aaron summoned the people to come and gather at the rock. "Listen, you rebels!" he shouted. "Must we bring you water from this rock?" [11] Then Moses raised his hand and struck the rock twice with the staff, and water gushed out. So all the people and their livestock drank their fill."
While not implicitly stated, we can glean from this passage that in his anger against the "rebels," Moses struck the rock in direct violation of God's command to speak to the rock (Numbers 20:8). In his rage, even his wording was presumptuous: "Must WE bring you water from this rock?" Was the "we" Moses and Aaron or Moses and God? At any rate, this one outburst of Moses caused God to disqualify him from entering the Promised Land.
Moses had a serious anger problem.
It is possible to be angry and not sin. Jesus demonstrated this when, in righteous indignation, He drove out those who were buying and selling in the temple and turned over the tables of the moneychangers and benches of those selling doves (Matthew 21:12-13).
How then, does God prescribe that we manage anger?
"And "don't sin by letting anger gain control over you." Don't let the sun go down while you are still angry, [27] for anger gives a mighty foothold to the Devil" (Ephesians 4:26-27).
And in another place the Bible says:
"Don't sin by letting anger gain control over you. Think about it overnight and remain silent. [5] Offer proper sacrifices, and trust in the Lord" (Psalm 4:4-5).
What are "proper sacrifices"?
"The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise" (Psalm 51:17).
Let's finish our discussion today with a final observation about Moses. God calls Moses a second time to the mountain to receive the Law - again. Only this time, God orders Moses to chisel out the stone tablets that he had broken in a fit of rage earlier!
"The Lord told Moses, "Prepare two stone tablets like the first ones. I will write on them the same words that were on the tablets you smashed. [2] Be ready in the morning to come up Mount Sinai and present yourself to me there on the top of the mountain. So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the first ones. Early in the morning he climbed Mount Sinai as the Lord had told him, carrying the two stone tablets in his hands" (Exodus 34:1-2; 4).
The first time God presented the Law to Moses, He provided the stone tablets. Now we see the Lord giving Moses the assignment of chiseling out tablets made of rock by his own hard labor! Furthermore, God's deadline was by morning! Obviously, Moses spent a sleepless night of hard labor chiseling rock and then he had to carry the heavy tablets up a mountain the next day!
Throughout the long night, perhaps he thought to himself, "Why did I smash the tablets in the first place?" Maybe it seemed like a good idea at the time but now he had to suffer the consequences of his rash behavior. Do you see the principle at work here?
In our anger, we can erupt like a volcano, spewing out hurtful words and committing harmful deeds that often come back to haunt us in the form of sleepless nights, hard labor, and heavy burdens to carry.
Let's learn the principle God is patiently trying to teach us: "in your anger do not sin!" If you allow your anger to go unchecked (or the politically correct terminology today would be, if you don't "manage your anger") you may find yourself disqualified from receiving something profound that God has promised you.
Fortunately, in spite of his anger problem, Moses continued to seek the Lord. In spite of being forced to chastise and discipline Moses, God continued to mold the character of His servant until before the great God Jehovah was through with him, the Bible reports that "…Moses was more humble than any other person on earth" (Numbers 12:3).
Let's determine today to not allow anger to disqualify us from the promises of God and make our way hard. Rather, allow the Holy Spirit to smooth off our rough edges with each encounter with anger until the character of Christ's humility be formed in us.
DSR
2/23/04
Exodus 31:18; 32:15-16; 19 (NLT)
"Then as the Lord finished speaking with Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave him the two stone tablets inscribed with the terms of the covenant, written by the finger of God. Then Moses turned and went down the mountain. He held in his hands the two stone tablets inscribed with the terms of the covenant. They were inscribed on both sides, front and back. [16] These stone tablets were God's work; the words on them were written by God himself. When they came near the camp, Moses saw the calf and the dancing. In terrible anger, he threw the stone tablets to the ground, smashing them at the foot of the mountain."
Moses had an anger problem. We see it surface time after time when pressure was applied to his life. When the going got tough, Moses got angry.
Our first glimpse of Moses' uncontrollable anger was when he was still a prince of Egypt. One day, while visiting the Hebrew slaves, he saw an Egyptian beating one of them. The sight made him so upset that his blood boiled to the point of actually committing murder (Exodus 2:11-12).
As we track along with Moses through his experience of leading the children of Israel out of bondage, we come to find out that Moses himself seems to be in bondage to anger. While it is true that by and large the children of Israel were a nation of stiff-necked and unruly people, Moses' fleshly response to them was often anger and resentment instead of the godly qualities of compassion and mercy.
Numbers 16:15 (NLT)
Then Moses became very angry and said to the Lord, "Do not accept their offerings! I have not taken so much as a donkey from them, and I have never hurt a single one of them."
Exodus 16:20 (NLT)
But, of course, some of them didn't listen and kept some of it [manna] until morning. By then it was full of maggots and had a terrible smell. And Moses was very angry with them.
The grand finale of Moses' anger problem manifest at a place called Meribah. It was here that the anger of Moses against the stubborn people apparently so distressed him that it caused him to sin against the Lord through disobedience.
Numbers 20:10-11 (NLT)
Then he and Aaron summoned the people to come and gather at the rock. "Listen, you rebels!" he shouted. "Must we bring you water from this rock?" [11] Then Moses raised his hand and struck the rock twice with the staff, and water gushed out. So all the people and their livestock drank their fill."
While not implicitly stated, we can glean from this passage that in his anger against the "rebels," Moses struck the rock in direct violation of God's command to speak to the rock (Numbers 20:8). In his rage, even his wording was presumptuous: "Must WE bring you water from this rock?" Was the "we" Moses and Aaron or Moses and God? At any rate, this one outburst of Moses caused God to disqualify him from entering the Promised Land.
Moses had a serious anger problem.
It is possible to be angry and not sin. Jesus demonstrated this when, in righteous indignation, He drove out those who were buying and selling in the temple and turned over the tables of the moneychangers and benches of those selling doves (Matthew 21:12-13).
How then, does God prescribe that we manage anger?
"And "don't sin by letting anger gain control over you." Don't let the sun go down while you are still angry, [27] for anger gives a mighty foothold to the Devil" (Ephesians 4:26-27).
And in another place the Bible says:
"Don't sin by letting anger gain control over you. Think about it overnight and remain silent. [5] Offer proper sacrifices, and trust in the Lord" (Psalm 4:4-5).
What are "proper sacrifices"?
"The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise" (Psalm 51:17).
Let's finish our discussion today with a final observation about Moses. God calls Moses a second time to the mountain to receive the Law - again. Only this time, God orders Moses to chisel out the stone tablets that he had broken in a fit of rage earlier!
"The Lord told Moses, "Prepare two stone tablets like the first ones. I will write on them the same words that were on the tablets you smashed. [2] Be ready in the morning to come up Mount Sinai and present yourself to me there on the top of the mountain. So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the first ones. Early in the morning he climbed Mount Sinai as the Lord had told him, carrying the two stone tablets in his hands" (Exodus 34:1-2; 4).
The first time God presented the Law to Moses, He provided the stone tablets. Now we see the Lord giving Moses the assignment of chiseling out tablets made of rock by his own hard labor! Furthermore, God's deadline was by morning! Obviously, Moses spent a sleepless night of hard labor chiseling rock and then he had to carry the heavy tablets up a mountain the next day!
Throughout the long night, perhaps he thought to himself, "Why did I smash the tablets in the first place?" Maybe it seemed like a good idea at the time but now he had to suffer the consequences of his rash behavior. Do you see the principle at work here?
In our anger, we can erupt like a volcano, spewing out hurtful words and committing harmful deeds that often come back to haunt us in the form of sleepless nights, hard labor, and heavy burdens to carry.
Let's learn the principle God is patiently trying to teach us: "in your anger do not sin!" If you allow your anger to go unchecked (or the politically correct terminology today would be, if you don't "manage your anger") you may find yourself disqualified from receiving something profound that God has promised you.
Fortunately, in spite of his anger problem, Moses continued to seek the Lord. In spite of being forced to chastise and discipline Moses, God continued to mold the character of His servant until before the great God Jehovah was through with him, the Bible reports that "…Moses was more humble than any other person on earth" (Numbers 12:3).
Let's determine today to not allow anger to disqualify us from the promises of God and make our way hard. Rather, allow the Holy Spirit to smooth off our rough edges with each encounter with anger until the character of Christ's humility be formed in us.
DSR
2/23/04
Saturday, February 14, 2004
Senator Robertson: America's Most Controversial Politician
by David Scott Robertson
If it had been in God's will and plan for my life to be a United States Senator instead of an ordained minister, I'll bet I would be one of America's most controversial politicians.
Let me give you just one scenario.
The big story in America as I write this is "same-sex marriages." While lawmakers continue to debate the issue, this particular weekend hundreds of homosexual and lesbian "couples" flocked to the city of San Francisco to obtain marriage licenses to sanction their gay union as legal. It remains uncertain whether or not the State of California will ratify the marriage licenses the city has issued. Our nation, once again, has found itself at a moral crossroad.
Now here's where I come in. The media contacts my office for an interview. I consent. The camera crew arrives. The red light comes on.
One question is asked and I give two separate responses.
"Senator Robertson, what do you think of the recent events in San Francisco involving hundreds of homosexuals and lesbians entering into gay marriage?"
Senator Robertson replies: "It's absurd. It's scandalous. It's tragic. It's an abomination. It's a perversion. It's unnatural. It's a direct attack on the American family and strikes at the very heart of our most basic core values, morals, and ethics. Make no mistake, I do not endorse, support, or even acknowledge the viability of same-sex marriage."
And the media takes it from there.
Wire services publish my quote in newspapers from sea to shining sea faster than you can say "right wing, dogmatic, narrow-minded, conservative Christian."
Over the next three days, my secretary walks in messages for me to return from the offices of Barbara Walters, Good Morning America, Larry King, David Letterman, and the O'Reilly Factor. Suddenly, a spot has opened up for me to appear on CNN, CBN, and TBN.
For the last two mornings, as millions of online subscribers logon to America Online to check their email, they see my picture posted on their splash page with the news story hyperlink reading: "Has Senator Robertson gone mad or is he just mad at the gay community?"
Comments begin to surface in various media from my fellow politicians:
Senator Smith, from the State of Confusion, comments while being interviewed in a Fox News exclusive story: "I cannot see eye-to-eye with Senator Robertson on this one. He has gone way over the edge and treats our civil liberties as if they were not important."
Senator Jones, representing the State of Lawlessness, appeared on Prime Time and remarked: "Senator Robertson's views are his own. He in no way represents my views, or indeed the views of the American people. This is why we hold public elections, so we can rid our country of constricting politicians like him."
Congressman Jane Doe, who serves her constituency in the State of Rebellion, in a hastily put together segment on 20/20, says: "I cannot believe Senator Robertson's intolerant viewpoint. It borders on bigotry. It's barbaric, antiquated, and obsolete. If he had his way he'd send us all back to the dark ages under the rule of a tyrant king with no personal freedoms of choice at all!"
Yes, many of my fellow political allies who told me privately that they were "behind me all the way" in my stand to allow the Bible to formulate our moral code on political issues are now publicly so far behind me that I need binoculars to see them!
The emotions and response in America concerning me range from love to hate, from support to threatened violence from radical feminist and gay organizations, from a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union to an offer to defend me in court from the America Center for Law and Justice. A comedy skit portraying me as a blithering idiot appears on Saturday Night Live the following weekend. The monologue writers have a field day with me as Jay Leno brings down the house.
What gets me is that how the media downplayed my second quote to their single question.
"You ask me what I think, but you know, what's more important is what God thinks. God loves the gay person but hates their sin. Jesus Christ, God's Son, died on a cross to free gay people from bondage to sin and prevent the scourge of AIDS from prematurely destroying many of their lives. It was God who invented marriage as the union of one man with one woman in holy matrimony enjoying the security, health, and blessings of a loving, monogamous relationship. To go against God's revealed will and original design is to invite disaster and destruction to a family and a nation."
I guess it was perhaps my third quote that I gave responding to the reporter's final question that got me labeled as one of "America's Most Controversial Politicians."
While the camera rolled, the reporter asked: "Senator Robertson, where do you stand on the topic of abortion?"
DSR
2/14/04
If it had been in God's will and plan for my life to be a United States Senator instead of an ordained minister, I'll bet I would be one of America's most controversial politicians.
Let me give you just one scenario.
The big story in America as I write this is "same-sex marriages." While lawmakers continue to debate the issue, this particular weekend hundreds of homosexual and lesbian "couples" flocked to the city of San Francisco to obtain marriage licenses to sanction their gay union as legal. It remains uncertain whether or not the State of California will ratify the marriage licenses the city has issued. Our nation, once again, has found itself at a moral crossroad.
Now here's where I come in. The media contacts my office for an interview. I consent. The camera crew arrives. The red light comes on.
One question is asked and I give two separate responses.
"Senator Robertson, what do you think of the recent events in San Francisco involving hundreds of homosexuals and lesbians entering into gay marriage?"
Senator Robertson replies: "It's absurd. It's scandalous. It's tragic. It's an abomination. It's a perversion. It's unnatural. It's a direct attack on the American family and strikes at the very heart of our most basic core values, morals, and ethics. Make no mistake, I do not endorse, support, or even acknowledge the viability of same-sex marriage."
And the media takes it from there.
Wire services publish my quote in newspapers from sea to shining sea faster than you can say "right wing, dogmatic, narrow-minded, conservative Christian."
Over the next three days, my secretary walks in messages for me to return from the offices of Barbara Walters, Good Morning America, Larry King, David Letterman, and the O'Reilly Factor. Suddenly, a spot has opened up for me to appear on CNN, CBN, and TBN.
For the last two mornings, as millions of online subscribers logon to America Online to check their email, they see my picture posted on their splash page with the news story hyperlink reading: "Has Senator Robertson gone mad or is he just mad at the gay community?"
Comments begin to surface in various media from my fellow politicians:
Senator Smith, from the State of Confusion, comments while being interviewed in a Fox News exclusive story: "I cannot see eye-to-eye with Senator Robertson on this one. He has gone way over the edge and treats our civil liberties as if they were not important."
Senator Jones, representing the State of Lawlessness, appeared on Prime Time and remarked: "Senator Robertson's views are his own. He in no way represents my views, or indeed the views of the American people. This is why we hold public elections, so we can rid our country of constricting politicians like him."
Congressman Jane Doe, who serves her constituency in the State of Rebellion, in a hastily put together segment on 20/20, says: "I cannot believe Senator Robertson's intolerant viewpoint. It borders on bigotry. It's barbaric, antiquated, and obsolete. If he had his way he'd send us all back to the dark ages under the rule of a tyrant king with no personal freedoms of choice at all!"
Yes, many of my fellow political allies who told me privately that they were "behind me all the way" in my stand to allow the Bible to formulate our moral code on political issues are now publicly so far behind me that I need binoculars to see them!
The emotions and response in America concerning me range from love to hate, from support to threatened violence from radical feminist and gay organizations, from a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union to an offer to defend me in court from the America Center for Law and Justice. A comedy skit portraying me as a blithering idiot appears on Saturday Night Live the following weekend. The monologue writers have a field day with me as Jay Leno brings down the house.
What gets me is that how the media downplayed my second quote to their single question.
"You ask me what I think, but you know, what's more important is what God thinks. God loves the gay person but hates their sin. Jesus Christ, God's Son, died on a cross to free gay people from bondage to sin and prevent the scourge of AIDS from prematurely destroying many of their lives. It was God who invented marriage as the union of one man with one woman in holy matrimony enjoying the security, health, and blessings of a loving, monogamous relationship. To go against God's revealed will and original design is to invite disaster and destruction to a family and a nation."
I guess it was perhaps my third quote that I gave responding to the reporter's final question that got me labeled as one of "America's Most Controversial Politicians."
While the camera rolled, the reporter asked: "Senator Robertson, where do you stand on the topic of abortion?"
DSR
2/14/04
Monday, February 9, 2004
Details, Details...
by David Scott Robertson
"Set up this Tabernacle according
to the design you were shown on the mountain….Be careful to build it just as you were shown on the mountain." (Exodus 28:30; 27:8)
I love my One-Year Bible. I usually read the Bible through each year and have done so for many years. (This year I'm reading the New Living Translation and it is wonderful!)
I'm making my way through Exodus and today's passage describes, in great detail, the dimensions of the tabernacle. On the surface, it may appear to be tedious reading.
Case in point is the book of Exodus which often reads like a technical manual listing exhaustive directions on precisely how to construct things, like the Tabernacle or the Ark of the Covenant.
As a modern-day Gentile reader, the temptation is to "scan" the text and dismiss it as meaningless detail. For example, how does a Christian in the year of our Lord 2004 benefit from knowing the following information:
"So the entire courtyard will be 150 feet long and 75 feet wide, with curtain walls 7 ½ feet high, made from fine linen. The bases supporting its walls will be made of bronze." (Exodus 27:18)
I think I have a hunch as to why this is relevant to you and me.
The overarching principle that I see in God revealing His plans for the Tabernacle (or the Ark of the Covenant, or the three annual Feasts of Israel, or the special clothing worn by Levitical priests, etc.) is that God reveals His plans to man!
This is a magnificent truth! When is the last time you got instructions from God on a project He wants you to work on as detailed as this:
"Across the inside of the Tabernacle hang a special curtain made of fine linen, with cherubim skillfully embroidered into the cloth using blue, purpose, and scarlet yarn." (Exodus 26:31).
The glory of God is embedded in the details! Aren't you glad He paid attention to details when He made your body?
King David knew about details.
"Then David gave his son Solomon the plans for the portico of the temple, its buildings, its storerooms, its upper parts, its inner rooms and the place of atonement. He gave him the plans of all that the Spirit had put in his mind for the courts of the temple of the LORD and all the surrounding rooms, for the treasuries of the temple of God and for the treasuries for the dedicated things. He gave him instructions for the divisions of the priests and Levites, and for all the work of serving in the temple of the LORD, as well as for all the articles to be used in its service." (1 Chronicles 28:11-13)
King David was inspired by God to provide the blueprint for God's temple precisely the way God intended.
Cornelius knew about details.
"Cornelius stared at him in fear. "What is it, Lord?" he asked. The angel answered, "Your prayers and gifts to the poor have come up as a memorial offering before God. Now send men to Joppa to bring back a man named Simon who is called Peter. He is staying with Simon the tanner, whose house is by the sea." (Acts 10:4-6)
Send who? Some of your servants.
To where? To Joppa.
To do what? Bring back a man.
What man? Simon, who by the way, is also known as Peter
He's staying where? With Simon (who by the way, is a tanner)
Where does Simon live? In a house by the sea.
Let me ask a key question again: When is the last time you got instructions from God on a project He wants you to work on as detailed as this?
If you want to undertake something great for God, don't you want details like Moses, David, and Cornelius received from the Spirit of the Lord?
Again, God's glory is revealed in the details! He is a great Architect. He is a Master Builder. He is an ingenious Planner.
"'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'" (Jeremiah 29:11)
Is God in the business of hiding His plans from hungry hearts desiring to know and do His will?
"Surely the Sovereign LORD does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets." (Amos 3:7)
How, then, do we receive plans from God like Moses, David, and Cornelius did?
"It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings." (Proverbs 25:2)
If we truly want to know the Lord's will concerning a matter, then we can surely obtain it by following the prophet Jeremiah's sound advice:
"Ask me and I will tell you some remarkable secrets about what is going to happen here." (Jeremiah 33:3 NLT)
Conclusion: As you read the Bible and start to get "bogged down" wading your way through descriptive passages about civil laws and dietary regulations and territorial boundaries and sacrificial rituals and so on…consider this:
- The details you are reading were extremely important for those whom God was directing to do it at the time to bring about God's will in heaven to the earth on a matter.
- The details provide necessary "types" and "foreshadows" representing things to come for New Testament believers like the "Passover Lamb" in the Old Testament (Exodus 12:21) being revealed as Jesus the Messiah in the New Testament as "the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world" (John 1:29).
- The details encourage us that God can and will give us explicit instructions of what and how to do something He desires in our lives if we will seek Him for the details.
Finally, and most importantly, know that no detail listed in the entirety of God's Word, no matter how insignificant it may appear, is insignificant. To be sure…
"All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It straightens us out and teaches us to do what is right." (2 Timothy 3:16 NLT)
DSR
2/9/04
"Set up this Tabernacle according
to the design you were shown on the mountain….Be careful to build it just as you were shown on the mountain." (Exodus 28:30; 27:8)
I love my One-Year Bible. I usually read the Bible through each year and have done so for many years. (This year I'm reading the New Living Translation and it is wonderful!)
I'm making my way through Exodus and today's passage describes, in great detail, the dimensions of the tabernacle. On the surface, it may appear to be tedious reading.
Case in point is the book of Exodus which often reads like a technical manual listing exhaustive directions on precisely how to construct things, like the Tabernacle or the Ark of the Covenant.
As a modern-day Gentile reader, the temptation is to "scan" the text and dismiss it as meaningless detail. For example, how does a Christian in the year of our Lord 2004 benefit from knowing the following information:
"So the entire courtyard will be 150 feet long and 75 feet wide, with curtain walls 7 ½ feet high, made from fine linen. The bases supporting its walls will be made of bronze." (Exodus 27:18)
I think I have a hunch as to why this is relevant to you and me.
The overarching principle that I see in God revealing His plans for the Tabernacle (or the Ark of the Covenant, or the three annual Feasts of Israel, or the special clothing worn by Levitical priests, etc.) is that God reveals His plans to man!
This is a magnificent truth! When is the last time you got instructions from God on a project He wants you to work on as detailed as this:
"Across the inside of the Tabernacle hang a special curtain made of fine linen, with cherubim skillfully embroidered into the cloth using blue, purpose, and scarlet yarn." (Exodus 26:31).
The glory of God is embedded in the details! Aren't you glad He paid attention to details when He made your body?
King David knew about details.
"Then David gave his son Solomon the plans for the portico of the temple, its buildings, its storerooms, its upper parts, its inner rooms and the place of atonement. He gave him the plans of all that the Spirit had put in his mind for the courts of the temple of the LORD and all the surrounding rooms, for the treasuries of the temple of God and for the treasuries for the dedicated things. He gave him instructions for the divisions of the priests and Levites, and for all the work of serving in the temple of the LORD, as well as for all the articles to be used in its service." (1 Chronicles 28:11-13)
King David was inspired by God to provide the blueprint for God's temple precisely the way God intended.
Cornelius knew about details.
"Cornelius stared at him in fear. "What is it, Lord?" he asked. The angel answered, "Your prayers and gifts to the poor have come up as a memorial offering before God. Now send men to Joppa to bring back a man named Simon who is called Peter. He is staying with Simon the tanner, whose house is by the sea." (Acts 10:4-6)
Send who? Some of your servants.
To where? To Joppa.
To do what? Bring back a man.
What man? Simon, who by the way, is also known as Peter
He's staying where? With Simon (who by the way, is a tanner)
Where does Simon live? In a house by the sea.
Let me ask a key question again: When is the last time you got instructions from God on a project He wants you to work on as detailed as this?
If you want to undertake something great for God, don't you want details like Moses, David, and Cornelius received from the Spirit of the Lord?
Again, God's glory is revealed in the details! He is a great Architect. He is a Master Builder. He is an ingenious Planner.
"'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'" (Jeremiah 29:11)
Is God in the business of hiding His plans from hungry hearts desiring to know and do His will?
"Surely the Sovereign LORD does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets." (Amos 3:7)
How, then, do we receive plans from God like Moses, David, and Cornelius did?
"It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings." (Proverbs 25:2)
If we truly want to know the Lord's will concerning a matter, then we can surely obtain it by following the prophet Jeremiah's sound advice:
"Ask me and I will tell you some remarkable secrets about what is going to happen here." (Jeremiah 33:3 NLT)
Conclusion: As you read the Bible and start to get "bogged down" wading your way through descriptive passages about civil laws and dietary regulations and territorial boundaries and sacrificial rituals and so on…consider this:
- The details you are reading were extremely important for those whom God was directing to do it at the time to bring about God's will in heaven to the earth on a matter.
- The details provide necessary "types" and "foreshadows" representing things to come for New Testament believers like the "Passover Lamb" in the Old Testament (Exodus 12:21) being revealed as Jesus the Messiah in the New Testament as "the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world" (John 1:29).
- The details encourage us that God can and will give us explicit instructions of what and how to do something He desires in our lives if we will seek Him for the details.
Finally, and most importantly, know that no detail listed in the entirety of God's Word, no matter how insignificant it may appear, is insignificant. To be sure…
"All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It straightens us out and teaches us to do what is right." (2 Timothy 3:16 NLT)
DSR
2/9/04
Monday, February 2, 2004
The Birth of Thoughts about God
by David Scott Robertson
The year was 1987. It was one of the greatest years of my life. That was the year I married my best friend, Monica Ann Lambert. Seventeen years later, we're still going strong.
Something else that's still going strong is my writing and sharing these "Thoughts About God." 1987 was the year that God used to form in me the desire and discipline to write "Thoughts" like those I share with hundreds on a weekly basis via the internet.
I have never put in writing what I am about to share right now.
It was in 1987 that I felt the irresistable tug of the Holy Spirit to embark on a writing project. In retrospect, I know now that the Lord was teaching me valuable lessons that would last the remainder of my life span. At the time, however, I was a bit overwhelmed at the assignment I felt the Lord had given me. But I did it anyway and God proved His faithfulness and resources are more than enough.
The assignment was to write a "Thought About God" every day for a year. Yes, 365 thoughts at the rate of one a day.
I wrote each day of my honeymoon on a cruise in the Bahamas. I wrote every day I went to work. I wrote one each Sunday I went to church. I wrote one every rainy, snowy, hot day in 1987. I wrote one "Thought About God" every single day without exception. New Year's Eve came and went and the mission was accomplished.
With God's help, we did it! But there's more...
God also impressed on me to do another writing project in 1987. More "thoughts." This time the assignment was to write 365 thoughts in a month's time. I did the math and it was about 12 thoughts per day.
But you know what? It happened! With God's help, we did it! But there's more...
Again God impressed on me to do another writing project in 1987. Still more "thoughts." This time the assignment was to write 365 thoughts in a week's time. I did the math and it was about 52 thoughts per day.
Gasp! Talk about overwhelmed! Talk about stretching your faith! But I know I heard the Lord on this one so I took a week's vacation from work, bought lots of groceries to tide me over and locked myself in my apartment for a week (this was before I married Monica) and began to type on my computer.
But you know what? It happened! With God's help, we did it! But there's more...
By the way, did I mention to you that all three of these assignments were to occur simultaneously?
Here was my writing quota:
January 1-7, 1987- God inspired and enabled me, by His divine power and through the wisdom of His Holy Spirit to write 52 + 12 + 1 = 65 "Thoughts About God" per day for a week.
January 8-31, 1987 - God inspired and enabled me, by His divine power and through the wisdom of His Holy Spirit to write 12 + 1 = 13 "Thoughts About God" per day for the remainder of the month.
February 1 - December 31, 1987- God inspired and enabled me, by His divine power and through the wisdom of His Holy Spirit to write a "Thought About God" per day for a year.
But you know what? It happened! With God's help, we did it! But there's more...
I'm just going to tell you straight out what happened. (I've never written this before nor shared this in a public forum like I'm about to do now.)
In September of 1986, God began dealing with me about writing 365 "Thoughts About God" in a single day. Impossible? It is with man but nothing is impossible with God. After the necessary confirmations that I needed and the word of the Lord on the matter solidly settled in my heart, on September 12, 1986, God walked with me through a miracle.
For 23 hours and 52 minutes straight I sat at the computer to write 365 thoughts about God. No food. No phone. I paused only to use the bathroom. About 10 hours into the writing assignment, I did the math and calculated that I could not possibly finish. I slumped back in my chair in front of the PC and quit. I told God it was too much. I alleged that He had commanded me to do something that was literally and physically impossible. I wouldn't blame God for my failure, I would reckon that I misheard His voice. But that's not what happened.
At the moment I quit and resigned to failure, it started. What "it" was felt like hot oil being poured on my head. It started at the crown of my head and flowed like warm honey down my entire body all the way to my feet. When it reached my feet I felt energy begin pumped into my body and I sat up with renewed strength and a renewed mind and a renewed heart and began to write for another 13 hours or so straight.
When I keyed in Thought #365, my time clock read 23 hours and 52 minutes. God helped me finish early!
That was the day I lived inside a miracle! Nobody and no thing can ever take that experience away from me.
Why did that all happen? Why did God orchestrate these bizarre series of writing assignments? Why am I sharing it with you seventeen years later?
I'm not exactly sure. I have a thought rising up from within my spirit on this subject though. I think that God used the year 1987 and especially 1986 to teach me about faith, discipline, anointing, and miracles. I think He set before me a task so large that both he and I knew it would take divine intervention to pull it off. And that's exactly what happened.
Some day, God willing, my dream is to publish all my thoughts in a book. Would you believe me if I told you that sometimes I have to cry out to God to help me write one unique and freshly inspired thought per week to share with you? Imagine that!
But I am never overwhelmed and never afraid that God won't come through. Why? Because I lived through 1986 and 1987 and God did extraordinary things in that season of my life.
For whatever reason, I share this part of my life with you to encourage you to reach for God always and never fear the impossible. God will always pick up where our strength leaves off.
In the weeks to come and from time to time, I will pull from my archives one of the 1,460 thoughts that I wrote during the '86-'87 season of miracles. It is my hope that they will bless you as much reading them as I was in writing them.
DSR
2/2/04
The year was 1987. It was one of the greatest years of my life. That was the year I married my best friend, Monica Ann Lambert. Seventeen years later, we're still going strong.
Something else that's still going strong is my writing and sharing these "Thoughts About God." 1987 was the year that God used to form in me the desire and discipline to write "Thoughts" like those I share with hundreds on a weekly basis via the internet.
I have never put in writing what I am about to share right now.
It was in 1987 that I felt the irresistable tug of the Holy Spirit to embark on a writing project. In retrospect, I know now that the Lord was teaching me valuable lessons that would last the remainder of my life span. At the time, however, I was a bit overwhelmed at the assignment I felt the Lord had given me. But I did it anyway and God proved His faithfulness and resources are more than enough.
The assignment was to write a "Thought About God" every day for a year. Yes, 365 thoughts at the rate of one a day.
I wrote each day of my honeymoon on a cruise in the Bahamas. I wrote every day I went to work. I wrote one each Sunday I went to church. I wrote one every rainy, snowy, hot day in 1987. I wrote one "Thought About God" every single day without exception. New Year's Eve came and went and the mission was accomplished.
With God's help, we did it! But there's more...
God also impressed on me to do another writing project in 1987. More "thoughts." This time the assignment was to write 365 thoughts in a month's time. I did the math and it was about 12 thoughts per day.
But you know what? It happened! With God's help, we did it! But there's more...
Again God impressed on me to do another writing project in 1987. Still more "thoughts." This time the assignment was to write 365 thoughts in a week's time. I did the math and it was about 52 thoughts per day.
Gasp! Talk about overwhelmed! Talk about stretching your faith! But I know I heard the Lord on this one so I took a week's vacation from work, bought lots of groceries to tide me over and locked myself in my apartment for a week (this was before I married Monica) and began to type on my computer.
But you know what? It happened! With God's help, we did it! But there's more...
By the way, did I mention to you that all three of these assignments were to occur simultaneously?
Here was my writing quota:
January 1-7, 1987- God inspired and enabled me, by His divine power and through the wisdom of His Holy Spirit to write 52 + 12 + 1 = 65 "Thoughts About God" per day for a week.
January 8-31, 1987 - God inspired and enabled me, by His divine power and through the wisdom of His Holy Spirit to write 12 + 1 = 13 "Thoughts About God" per day for the remainder of the month.
February 1 - December 31, 1987- God inspired and enabled me, by His divine power and through the wisdom of His Holy Spirit to write a "Thought About God" per day for a year.
But you know what? It happened! With God's help, we did it! But there's more...
I'm just going to tell you straight out what happened. (I've never written this before nor shared this in a public forum like I'm about to do now.)
In September of 1986, God began dealing with me about writing 365 "Thoughts About God" in a single day. Impossible? It is with man but nothing is impossible with God. After the necessary confirmations that I needed and the word of the Lord on the matter solidly settled in my heart, on September 12, 1986, God walked with me through a miracle.
For 23 hours and 52 minutes straight I sat at the computer to write 365 thoughts about God. No food. No phone. I paused only to use the bathroom. About 10 hours into the writing assignment, I did the math and calculated that I could not possibly finish. I slumped back in my chair in front of the PC and quit. I told God it was too much. I alleged that He had commanded me to do something that was literally and physically impossible. I wouldn't blame God for my failure, I would reckon that I misheard His voice. But that's not what happened.
At the moment I quit and resigned to failure, it started. What "it" was felt like hot oil being poured on my head. It started at the crown of my head and flowed like warm honey down my entire body all the way to my feet. When it reached my feet I felt energy begin pumped into my body and I sat up with renewed strength and a renewed mind and a renewed heart and began to write for another 13 hours or so straight.
When I keyed in Thought #365, my time clock read 23 hours and 52 minutes. God helped me finish early!
That was the day I lived inside a miracle! Nobody and no thing can ever take that experience away from me.
Why did that all happen? Why did God orchestrate these bizarre series of writing assignments? Why am I sharing it with you seventeen years later?
I'm not exactly sure. I have a thought rising up from within my spirit on this subject though. I think that God used the year 1987 and especially 1986 to teach me about faith, discipline, anointing, and miracles. I think He set before me a task so large that both he and I knew it would take divine intervention to pull it off. And that's exactly what happened.
Some day, God willing, my dream is to publish all my thoughts in a book. Would you believe me if I told you that sometimes I have to cry out to God to help me write one unique and freshly inspired thought per week to share with you? Imagine that!
But I am never overwhelmed and never afraid that God won't come through. Why? Because I lived through 1986 and 1987 and God did extraordinary things in that season of my life.
For whatever reason, I share this part of my life with you to encourage you to reach for God always and never fear the impossible. God will always pick up where our strength leaves off.
In the weeks to come and from time to time, I will pull from my archives one of the 1,460 thoughts that I wrote during the '86-'87 season of miracles. It is my hope that they will bless you as much reading them as I was in writing them.
DSR
2/2/04
Monday, January 26, 2004
As Different as Night and Day
by David Scott Robertson
"Then you will again see the difference between the righteous and the wicked, betwen those who serve God and those who do not" (Malachi 3:6).
The difference between the righteous and the wicked is as vast as the difference between daylight and dark. The difference is so profound, that it is almost indescribeable.
The fact that human beings are grouped into one of two camps is a theological certainty. We are not talking about Republican and Democract, conservative or liberal, pro-life or pro-choice, American or foreigner...no, we are talking about the righteous and the wicked, the saved and the lost, those who believe in Jesus Christ as God's remedy for sin and those who do not.
Those who choose to accept God's plan of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ inherit eternal life in heaven. Those who choose to reject God's plan of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ inherit eternal damnation in hell (the lake of fire). That's about as different as it gets.
The paradox here on earth in this present life is that while both the righteous and the wicked occupy the same planet, each live in opposite worlds. Let me explain.
In the world of the righteous, to acquire wealth you give what you have away. To gain a promotion, you humble yourself. To become an excellent leader, you learn to become an excellent servant. To live an abundant life, you deny selfish ambition and shoulder the burden and reproach of the cross. To gain your life, you lose it.
Indeed, the world of the righteous - its ideals, its philosphies, its theology - is catagorically opposite of the wicked person's world. They are as far apart as the east is from the west.
Spouses, children, friends, neighbors, and co-workers can share the same name, address, employer, email account, favorite football team and presidential candidate, but they can be as different as night and day when it comes to the issue of Christ Jesus as Messiah, Savior, Lord, and soon coming King.
Still, it is remarkably interesting that there are times when it seems difficult to distinguish between the righteous and the wicked. Jesus told a parable one time about an enemy sowing "weed seeds" into his wheat crop (Matthew 13:25-30). The farmer instructed his field hands to allow the weeds to grow up along side of the wheat and at harvest time the two would be separated with the wheat being brought into the barn and the weeds being thrown into the fire.
Sometimes in our present day, the lines get blurred a bit when we see the righteous suffer, when bad things happen to good people, when terrorists surface to destroy innocent lives. For those that occupy the place of the uninformed, this enigma breeds doubt, confusion, and an unhealthy and distorted view of God.
But for the righteous person caught up in sometimes impossibly difficult situations who nevertheless holds fast to the profession of their faith in Christ, the mystery of suffering breeds faith, purity, and a healthy and proper fear of God.
Perhaps the most amazing difference of all in the lives of the righteous and the wicked doesn't manifest in this life at all, but only after life on earth is over. Then, think of it you who are saints of God Most High, then comes to pass the saying...
"Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Corinthians 15:55-57).
Here, at the funeral, in the heart and mind of the persons standing over the casket in grief, grappling with sorrow and bereavement, here is the most astonishing difference between the righteous and the wicked; between those who fear God and those who do not.
It is here, at the point of death, that a believer can rejoice in hope! Hope that their dearly departed loved one has gone from life to greater life! They know in their heart of hearts that they have gone to a better place, safe in the very presence of God. What comfort!
Not so for the wicked! Their brief time on earth, to be sure, is the only taste of "heaven" that they will experience. Those from the camp of the wicked fear death and have no hope or assurance that they will be received into the loving arms of a living Savior when they exit this life.
So while there will always be things that both the righteous and the wicked have in common (like both love their children and can't stand hypocrites), the fact remains that the righteous and the wicked are as different from one another as night and day.
Living life apart from God is really not life at all. It is a poor substitute for what God intended a life span to be. It is a tragic mockery and nothing could be further from the truth.
DSR
1/26/04
"Then you will again see the difference between the righteous and the wicked, betwen those who serve God and those who do not" (Malachi 3:6).
The difference between the righteous and the wicked is as vast as the difference between daylight and dark. The difference is so profound, that it is almost indescribeable.
The fact that human beings are grouped into one of two camps is a theological certainty. We are not talking about Republican and Democract, conservative or liberal, pro-life or pro-choice, American or foreigner...no, we are talking about the righteous and the wicked, the saved and the lost, those who believe in Jesus Christ as God's remedy for sin and those who do not.
Those who choose to accept God's plan of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ inherit eternal life in heaven. Those who choose to reject God's plan of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ inherit eternal damnation in hell (the lake of fire). That's about as different as it gets.
The paradox here on earth in this present life is that while both the righteous and the wicked occupy the same planet, each live in opposite worlds. Let me explain.
In the world of the righteous, to acquire wealth you give what you have away. To gain a promotion, you humble yourself. To become an excellent leader, you learn to become an excellent servant. To live an abundant life, you deny selfish ambition and shoulder the burden and reproach of the cross. To gain your life, you lose it.
Indeed, the world of the righteous - its ideals, its philosphies, its theology - is catagorically opposite of the wicked person's world. They are as far apart as the east is from the west.
Spouses, children, friends, neighbors, and co-workers can share the same name, address, employer, email account, favorite football team and presidential candidate, but they can be as different as night and day when it comes to the issue of Christ Jesus as Messiah, Savior, Lord, and soon coming King.
Still, it is remarkably interesting that there are times when it seems difficult to distinguish between the righteous and the wicked. Jesus told a parable one time about an enemy sowing "weed seeds" into his wheat crop (Matthew 13:25-30). The farmer instructed his field hands to allow the weeds to grow up along side of the wheat and at harvest time the two would be separated with the wheat being brought into the barn and the weeds being thrown into the fire.
Sometimes in our present day, the lines get blurred a bit when we see the righteous suffer, when bad things happen to good people, when terrorists surface to destroy innocent lives. For those that occupy the place of the uninformed, this enigma breeds doubt, confusion, and an unhealthy and distorted view of God.
But for the righteous person caught up in sometimes impossibly difficult situations who nevertheless holds fast to the profession of their faith in Christ, the mystery of suffering breeds faith, purity, and a healthy and proper fear of God.
Perhaps the most amazing difference of all in the lives of the righteous and the wicked doesn't manifest in this life at all, but only after life on earth is over. Then, think of it you who are saints of God Most High, then comes to pass the saying...
"Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Corinthians 15:55-57).
Here, at the funeral, in the heart and mind of the persons standing over the casket in grief, grappling with sorrow and bereavement, here is the most astonishing difference between the righteous and the wicked; between those who fear God and those who do not.
It is here, at the point of death, that a believer can rejoice in hope! Hope that their dearly departed loved one has gone from life to greater life! They know in their heart of hearts that they have gone to a better place, safe in the very presence of God. What comfort!
Not so for the wicked! Their brief time on earth, to be sure, is the only taste of "heaven" that they will experience. Those from the camp of the wicked fear death and have no hope or assurance that they will be received into the loving arms of a living Savior when they exit this life.
So while there will always be things that both the righteous and the wicked have in common (like both love their children and can't stand hypocrites), the fact remains that the righteous and the wicked are as different from one another as night and day.
Living life apart from God is really not life at all. It is a poor substitute for what God intended a life span to be. It is a tragic mockery and nothing could be further from the truth.
DSR
1/26/04
Monday, January 19, 2004
Moving On With Jesus
by David Scott Robertson
Lord, I'm ready to MOVE ON!
To move on into the role that you have prepared for me to play in the end time harvest.
Lord, I'm ready to MOVE IN!
To move in the gifts of the Holy Spirit. To move in the direction of separation from wordly carnality and into personal holiness. To move in the power of the anointing of God's Spirit.
Lord, I'm ready to MOVE UP!
To move up from low living. To move up beyond mediocrity and compromise. To move up to the level of abundant life that you have orchestrated for me and my house to enjoy.
Lord, I'm ready to MOVE OVER!
To move over from the land of unfulfilled dreams to the a land flowing with milk and honey.
Lord, I'm ready to MOVE MOUNTAINS!
Mountains of procrastination - mountains of fear - mountains of anything that hinders God's will and plan from operating in my life. (Zec 4:7 NIV) "What are you, O mighty mountain? Before Zerubbabel [and David Scott Robertson] you will become level ground. Then he will bring out the capstone to shouts of 'God bless it! God bless it!'"
DSR
1/19/04
Lord, I'm ready to MOVE ON!
To move on into the role that you have prepared for me to play in the end time harvest.
Lord, I'm ready to MOVE IN!
To move in the gifts of the Holy Spirit. To move in the direction of separation from wordly carnality and into personal holiness. To move in the power of the anointing of God's Spirit.
Lord, I'm ready to MOVE UP!
To move up from low living. To move up beyond mediocrity and compromise. To move up to the level of abundant life that you have orchestrated for me and my house to enjoy.
Lord, I'm ready to MOVE OVER!
To move over from the land of unfulfilled dreams to the a land flowing with milk and honey.
Lord, I'm ready to MOVE MOUNTAINS!
Mountains of procrastination - mountains of fear - mountains of anything that hinders God's will and plan from operating in my life. (Zec 4:7 NIV) "What are you, O mighty mountain? Before Zerubbabel [and David Scott Robertson] you will become level ground. Then he will bring out the capstone to shouts of 'God bless it! God bless it!'"
DSR
1/19/04
Monday, January 5, 2004
The Fate of Satan
by David Scott Robertson
"Then I [John] saw an angel come down from heaven with the key to the bottomless pit and a heavy chain in his hand. He seized the dragon - that old serpent, the Devil, Satan - and bound him in chains for a thousand years. The angel threw him into the bottomless pit, which he then shut and locked so Satan could not deceive the nations anymore until the thousand years were finished" (Revelation 20:1-3).
One angel. One chain. One hand. That's how Almighty God has decreed that the Devil, Satan, that old serpent, should be bound and put away for a Millennium.
In this prophetic preview of coming attractions, we see the Devil put in his place - a place God has reserved for him from the foundation of the world.
Here the prideful arch angel who fell into God's disfavor, who was cast down from heaven to the earth, will eventually fall, fall, fall for a period of thousand years. How low can you go at that rate? Lower than any creature has been in the history of the world.
When a man dies, his physical body is buried "six feet under" ground while his spirit either ascends to heaven or descends to hell. But in this passage from Revelation we see Satan fall far below the underworld of hell. That's a long plunge from the highest place of honor in the angelic hierarchy as an arch angel to the lowest place in existence - the bottomless pit.
What rivets my attention, though, is the manner in which Satan is escorted from the earth. One angel. One chain. One hand. How completely humiliating this will be for the one who aspired to be God. Think of it! One angelic being, single-handedly (literally) takes him out! I can't help but wonder about the identity of this angel who gets to rid the earth of the father of lies. I wonder which angel is it whom God awards the unprecedented honor of binding the creature that bound billions of others created beings?
- Could it be the warrior arch angel, Michael, Lucifer's nemesis?
- Could it be the famous messenger angel, Gabriel, who makes some great announcement as he tosses the Devil into the Abyss?
- Could it be the same angel whom God sent to strengthen Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane as Christ faced the cross?
- Could it be the least senior angel (if that's how it works in heaven) and Satan knows all too well the significance of this particular angel doing the deed?
I suppose we could speculate long and hard on the matter but to no avail since the Bible is silent on the matter. All we do know for sure is that one angel with one chain uses one hand to bind the chief enemy of mankind and rid the earth of him for a thousand years. Very dramatic stuff!
I don't know about you, but if I were an angel, I'd want that job! I'd want to be the one responsible for working with God to render the devil harmless and remove his influence from the world.
I'm not an angel, I'm a man. A born again man. As a Christian believer, God has deputized me with authority to bind the devil here and now (Matthew 16:19; Luke 10:19)! As Christians, we don't have to wait for this epic future event to take place in order to see Satan's power bound and his overpowering influence mislead those we love.
Through faith in Jesus and His awesome Word we can wield spiritual power today to bind the Devil just like that one day, one angel, with one chain, will use one hand to put the Devil away!
DSR
1/5/04
"Then I [John] saw an angel come down from heaven with the key to the bottomless pit and a heavy chain in his hand. He seized the dragon - that old serpent, the Devil, Satan - and bound him in chains for a thousand years. The angel threw him into the bottomless pit, which he then shut and locked so Satan could not deceive the nations anymore until the thousand years were finished" (Revelation 20:1-3).
One angel. One chain. One hand. That's how Almighty God has decreed that the Devil, Satan, that old serpent, should be bound and put away for a Millennium.
In this prophetic preview of coming attractions, we see the Devil put in his place - a place God has reserved for him from the foundation of the world.
Here the prideful arch angel who fell into God's disfavor, who was cast down from heaven to the earth, will eventually fall, fall, fall for a period of thousand years. How low can you go at that rate? Lower than any creature has been in the history of the world.
When a man dies, his physical body is buried "six feet under" ground while his spirit either ascends to heaven or descends to hell. But in this passage from Revelation we see Satan fall far below the underworld of hell. That's a long plunge from the highest place of honor in the angelic hierarchy as an arch angel to the lowest place in existence - the bottomless pit.
What rivets my attention, though, is the manner in which Satan is escorted from the earth. One angel. One chain. One hand. How completely humiliating this will be for the one who aspired to be God. Think of it! One angelic being, single-handedly (literally) takes him out! I can't help but wonder about the identity of this angel who gets to rid the earth of the father of lies. I wonder which angel is it whom God awards the unprecedented honor of binding the creature that bound billions of others created beings?
- Could it be the warrior arch angel, Michael, Lucifer's nemesis?
- Could it be the famous messenger angel, Gabriel, who makes some great announcement as he tosses the Devil into the Abyss?
- Could it be the same angel whom God sent to strengthen Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane as Christ faced the cross?
- Could it be the least senior angel (if that's how it works in heaven) and Satan knows all too well the significance of this particular angel doing the deed?
I suppose we could speculate long and hard on the matter but to no avail since the Bible is silent on the matter. All we do know for sure is that one angel with one chain uses one hand to bind the chief enemy of mankind and rid the earth of him for a thousand years. Very dramatic stuff!
I don't know about you, but if I were an angel, I'd want that job! I'd want to be the one responsible for working with God to render the devil harmless and remove his influence from the world.
I'm not an angel, I'm a man. A born again man. As a Christian believer, God has deputized me with authority to bind the devil here and now (Matthew 16:19; Luke 10:19)! As Christians, we don't have to wait for this epic future event to take place in order to see Satan's power bound and his overpowering influence mislead those we love.
Through faith in Jesus and His awesome Word we can wield spiritual power today to bind the Devil just like that one day, one angel, with one chain, will use one hand to put the Devil away!
DSR
1/5/04
Sunday, December 28, 2003
Twas the Week After Christmas
by David Scott Robertson
Well, here we are...again.
Together we stand at the threshold of another new year.
For me, the week nestled between Christmas Day and New Year's Day has always been unique and special. Typically, I'm off work and on vacation, and this year is no exception. In my household and in my heart, these seven days have traditionally been a brief but important season of reflection and anticipation; an opportunity to evaluate what went right and what went wrong in the year prior - what worked and what didn't - and a chance to make adjustments and tweaks for a better tommorow. It reminds me of insects that hibernate all year and then come out for a week to lay eggs and then die. Then again, maybe that's not a good analogy!
It's the week after Christmas that I get caught up in all sorts of obscure projects. For example, today I cleaned out the glove compartment of my car. Now, it is immaculate. I have an envelope for each important category of paper in my glove compartment: emissions, warranties, insurance, and a miscellaneous envelope to stuff all the documents I didn't know what else to do with.
I polished a pair of boots today that had sat muddy in my garage for the last four months. This is the week I'll clean up my hard drive. I'll organize my closet, my chest and drawers, and I'll go through my junk drawer (you do have a junk drawer, don't you?) And so it goes.
It's funny, but I feel the urge to purge, the need to organize or agonize, and to sit down and "goal-set" so I can "goal-get" what I want to accomplish in the coming year.
Yes sir, the week after Christmas, for me, is an unusual time of organization and inspiration in preparation for the New Year.
As I ramp up for a new year, my excitement builds. It's like a football team starting out a new season with a perfect record with no losses. It's a chance to begin again with a clean slate - at least emotionally.
Although there are countless (unaswerable) questions that could cross my mind about what the future year holds, I balance these with those truths I know to be non-negotiable and firmly established. These rock-solid truths bring stability and courage into my life. For example...
...I know that my Redeemer lives.
...I know God is my Father.
...I know Jesus is my Lord.
...I know the Holy Spirit will be my faithful Guide to help me find my way.
...I know God's Word will not change.
...I know my eternal destination of heaven is settled and fixed.
...I even have my faith to hold on to concerning less stable truths in my life. For example...
...Faith that my marriage will endure another year.
...Faith that my career will continue to provide an income for my family.
...Faith that our health will hold up.
...Faith that my daughter Abigail will continue her trend of excellence.
...Faith that "there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways" (Psalm 91:10-11).
I know the scriptures say: "And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him" (Hebrews 11:6).
To be honest with you, God is not the only One that looks to faith as an indispensible commodity. I need it too. My faith in God, my faith in the love of my wife and family, my faith in the love of my church family and friends, my faith in my country and its ideals, all spur me on to face the New Year with hope.
I'm going to end this thought with a statement that I hope you can mentally and spiritually grab hold of and repeat it out loud as your own.
"THIS NEXT TWELVE MONTHS IS GOING TO BE THE GREATEST YEAR OF MY LIFE."
I dare to believe God for it. How about you? Do you dare? If yes, go ahead and say it out loud as a declaration to God, to the devil, and to yourself.
DSR
12/28/03
Well, here we are...again.
Together we stand at the threshold of another new year.
For me, the week nestled between Christmas Day and New Year's Day has always been unique and special. Typically, I'm off work and on vacation, and this year is no exception. In my household and in my heart, these seven days have traditionally been a brief but important season of reflection and anticipation; an opportunity to evaluate what went right and what went wrong in the year prior - what worked and what didn't - and a chance to make adjustments and tweaks for a better tommorow. It reminds me of insects that hibernate all year and then come out for a week to lay eggs and then die. Then again, maybe that's not a good analogy!
It's the week after Christmas that I get caught up in all sorts of obscure projects. For example, today I cleaned out the glove compartment of my car. Now, it is immaculate. I have an envelope for each important category of paper in my glove compartment: emissions, warranties, insurance, and a miscellaneous envelope to stuff all the documents I didn't know what else to do with.
I polished a pair of boots today that had sat muddy in my garage for the last four months. This is the week I'll clean up my hard drive. I'll organize my closet, my chest and drawers, and I'll go through my junk drawer (you do have a junk drawer, don't you?) And so it goes.
It's funny, but I feel the urge to purge, the need to organize or agonize, and to sit down and "goal-set" so I can "goal-get" what I want to accomplish in the coming year.
Yes sir, the week after Christmas, for me, is an unusual time of organization and inspiration in preparation for the New Year.
As I ramp up for a new year, my excitement builds. It's like a football team starting out a new season with a perfect record with no losses. It's a chance to begin again with a clean slate - at least emotionally.
Although there are countless (unaswerable) questions that could cross my mind about what the future year holds, I balance these with those truths I know to be non-negotiable and firmly established. These rock-solid truths bring stability and courage into my life. For example...
...I know that my Redeemer lives.
...I know God is my Father.
...I know Jesus is my Lord.
...I know the Holy Spirit will be my faithful Guide to help me find my way.
...I know God's Word will not change.
...I know my eternal destination of heaven is settled and fixed.
...I even have my faith to hold on to concerning less stable truths in my life. For example...
...Faith that my marriage will endure another year.
...Faith that my career will continue to provide an income for my family.
...Faith that our health will hold up.
...Faith that my daughter Abigail will continue her trend of excellence.
...Faith that "there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways" (Psalm 91:10-11).
I know the scriptures say: "And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him" (Hebrews 11:6).
To be honest with you, God is not the only One that looks to faith as an indispensible commodity. I need it too. My faith in God, my faith in the love of my wife and family, my faith in the love of my church family and friends, my faith in my country and its ideals, all spur me on to face the New Year with hope.
I'm going to end this thought with a statement that I hope you can mentally and spiritually grab hold of and repeat it out loud as your own.
"THIS NEXT TWELVE MONTHS IS GOING TO BE THE GREATEST YEAR OF MY LIFE."
I dare to believe God for it. How about you? Do you dare? If yes, go ahead and say it out loud as a declaration to God, to the devil, and to yourself.
DSR
12/28/03
Monday, December 22, 2003
Reading a Miracle Between the Lines
by David Scott Robertson
(Josh 2:1 NIV) Then Joshua son of Nun secretly sent two spies from Shittim. "Go, look over the land," he said, "especially Jericho." So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there.
I read something in God's Word the other day that leaped off the page into my heart! I had read the story of the fall of the city of Jericho many times and yet had never seen what I'm about to describe to you. What I discovered may be common knowledge to you, but it was a revelation to me. I believe the Lord opened my eyes to see a "miracle between the lines" in this familiar Old Testament passage.
As our opening verse reveals, Joshua had sent two spies into the land of Canaan to investigate it. Somehow (that's another story for another day) they wound up at the house of Rahab the prostitute, who lived in Jericho.
To be more precise, Rahab's house was located on the wall of the city of Jericho.
(Josh 2:15 NIV) So she let them down by a rope through the window, for the house she lived in was part of the city wall.
I don't exactly know if her house was on top of the wall or embedded into it, whatever the case it is a fact of biblical history that it was part of the wall and included a life-saving window through which the two spies escaped the grasp of the king of Jericho who had dispatched soldiers to find and kill them.
Before escaping to freedom to return to Joshua, the two spies made a covenant with Rahab to save her life and the lives of her family provided that she and her family stayed within the confines of her house when the Lord will have given them the city.
(Josh 2:18 NIV) unless, when we enter the land, you have tied this scarlet cord in the window through which you let us down, and unless you have brought your father and mother, your brothers and all your family into your house.
(Josh 2:19 NIV) If anyone goes outside your house into the street, his blood will be on his own head; we will not be responsible. As for anyone who is in the house with you, his blood will be on our head if a hand is laid on him.
Let's fast forward the story to the fall of Jericho and I'll show you the miracle between the lines.
Before beginning the conquest of Jericho and implementing the bizarre battle strategy that God had given Joshua of marching around the city day after day, Joshua makes this statement concerning Rahab:
(Josh 6:17 NIV) The city and all that is in it are to be devoted to the LORD. Only Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house shall be spared, because she hid the spies we sent.
Here it is again: The explicit statement that all who are in her house will be saved from certain death.
And now we come to "D-Day." God orders to army to march around the city seven times on the seventh day and then it happens - miracle upon miracle! Obvious miracles and hidden miracles! Miracles plainly stated and miracles between the lines!
(Josh 6:20 NIV) When the trumpets sounded, the people shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the people gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so every man charged straight in, and they took the city.
(Josh 6:21 NIV) They devoted the city to the LORD and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it--men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.
(Josh 6:22 NIV) Joshua said to the two men who had spied out the land, "Go into the prostitute's house and bring her out and all who belong to her, in accordance with your oath to her."
(Josh 6:23 NIV) So the young men who had done the spying went in and brought out Rahab, her father and mother and brothers and all who belonged to her. They brought out her entire family and put them in a place outside the camp of Israel.
We can plainly see that the walls of Jericho falling at the shout of the people was an undeniable miracle that left the city more or less defenseless against the invading Israeli army. But what is not so plain to see is the miracle of Rahab's house, which scripture says was part of the wall, remained completely intact despite every supporting structure above, beneath, and around it caving in! Can you just picture the sight?
We know that Rahab's house was not at the base of the wall for the two spies needed a rope to descend safely from it and besides the thick wall was there for defensive purposes and a low window would have compromised that objective.
What I think I am reading between the lines is an outstanding miracle of the walls of Jericho completely disintegrating at the shout of the Lord's command and the house of Rahab is supernaturally protected as it falls to the ground safely with its human cargo of Rahab's family!
Talk about a special effect! I'd like to see Hollywood try to portray that miracle in a film adaptation of the fall of Jericho!
But there's more. Joshua allowed Rahab to live outside the camp but that's just it, she was permitted TO LIVE outside the camp and to this day, the Bible says, her descendents live among the people of God.
(Josh 6:25 NIV) But Joshua spared Rahab the prostitute, with her family and all who belonged to her, because she hid the men Joshua had sent as spies to Jericho--and she lives among the Israelites to this day.
Well, this concludes my observation of the astonishing "miracle between the lines" concerning Rahab's house and family. But here's where the grace of God picks up where we leave off. God's kindness to Rahab continues as you can readily see as the great God Jehovah permits her to marry into the lineage of the Messiah, Christ Jesus Himself:
(Mat 1:5 NIV) Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse…
But God is still not done with miraculous kindness to Rahab. When the writer of Hebrews starts to walk the readers through the great "hall of faith," guess who shows up in the list? Rahab!
(Heb 11:31 NIV) By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient.
Finally, Jesus' half-brother James even mentions her in Holy Scripture:
(James 2:25 NIV) In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction?
So you see, there are many miracles between the lines of scripture that you can piece together with the help of the Holy Spirit!
DSR
12/22/03
(Josh 2:1 NIV) Then Joshua son of Nun secretly sent two spies from Shittim. "Go, look over the land," he said, "especially Jericho." So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there.
I read something in God's Word the other day that leaped off the page into my heart! I had read the story of the fall of the city of Jericho many times and yet had never seen what I'm about to describe to you. What I discovered may be common knowledge to you, but it was a revelation to me. I believe the Lord opened my eyes to see a "miracle between the lines" in this familiar Old Testament passage.
As our opening verse reveals, Joshua had sent two spies into the land of Canaan to investigate it. Somehow (that's another story for another day) they wound up at the house of Rahab the prostitute, who lived in Jericho.
To be more precise, Rahab's house was located on the wall of the city of Jericho.
(Josh 2:15 NIV) So she let them down by a rope through the window, for the house she lived in was part of the city wall.
I don't exactly know if her house was on top of the wall or embedded into it, whatever the case it is a fact of biblical history that it was part of the wall and included a life-saving window through which the two spies escaped the grasp of the king of Jericho who had dispatched soldiers to find and kill them.
Before escaping to freedom to return to Joshua, the two spies made a covenant with Rahab to save her life and the lives of her family provided that she and her family stayed within the confines of her house when the Lord will have given them the city.
(Josh 2:18 NIV) unless, when we enter the land, you have tied this scarlet cord in the window through which you let us down, and unless you have brought your father and mother, your brothers and all your family into your house.
(Josh 2:19 NIV) If anyone goes outside your house into the street, his blood will be on his own head; we will not be responsible. As for anyone who is in the house with you, his blood will be on our head if a hand is laid on him.
Let's fast forward the story to the fall of Jericho and I'll show you the miracle between the lines.
Before beginning the conquest of Jericho and implementing the bizarre battle strategy that God had given Joshua of marching around the city day after day, Joshua makes this statement concerning Rahab:
(Josh 6:17 NIV) The city and all that is in it are to be devoted to the LORD. Only Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house shall be spared, because she hid the spies we sent.
Here it is again: The explicit statement that all who are in her house will be saved from certain death.
And now we come to "D-Day." God orders to army to march around the city seven times on the seventh day and then it happens - miracle upon miracle! Obvious miracles and hidden miracles! Miracles plainly stated and miracles between the lines!
(Josh 6:20 NIV) When the trumpets sounded, the people shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the people gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so every man charged straight in, and they took the city.
(Josh 6:21 NIV) They devoted the city to the LORD and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it--men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.
(Josh 6:22 NIV) Joshua said to the two men who had spied out the land, "Go into the prostitute's house and bring her out and all who belong to her, in accordance with your oath to her."
(Josh 6:23 NIV) So the young men who had done the spying went in and brought out Rahab, her father and mother and brothers and all who belonged to her. They brought out her entire family and put them in a place outside the camp of Israel.
We can plainly see that the walls of Jericho falling at the shout of the people was an undeniable miracle that left the city more or less defenseless against the invading Israeli army. But what is not so plain to see is the miracle of Rahab's house, which scripture says was part of the wall, remained completely intact despite every supporting structure above, beneath, and around it caving in! Can you just picture the sight?
We know that Rahab's house was not at the base of the wall for the two spies needed a rope to descend safely from it and besides the thick wall was there for defensive purposes and a low window would have compromised that objective.
What I think I am reading between the lines is an outstanding miracle of the walls of Jericho completely disintegrating at the shout of the Lord's command and the house of Rahab is supernaturally protected as it falls to the ground safely with its human cargo of Rahab's family!
Talk about a special effect! I'd like to see Hollywood try to portray that miracle in a film adaptation of the fall of Jericho!
But there's more. Joshua allowed Rahab to live outside the camp but that's just it, she was permitted TO LIVE outside the camp and to this day, the Bible says, her descendents live among the people of God.
(Josh 6:25 NIV) But Joshua spared Rahab the prostitute, with her family and all who belonged to her, because she hid the men Joshua had sent as spies to Jericho--and she lives among the Israelites to this day.
Well, this concludes my observation of the astonishing "miracle between the lines" concerning Rahab's house and family. But here's where the grace of God picks up where we leave off. God's kindness to Rahab continues as you can readily see as the great God Jehovah permits her to marry into the lineage of the Messiah, Christ Jesus Himself:
(Mat 1:5 NIV) Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse…
But God is still not done with miraculous kindness to Rahab. When the writer of Hebrews starts to walk the readers through the great "hall of faith," guess who shows up in the list? Rahab!
(Heb 11:31 NIV) By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient.
Finally, Jesus' half-brother James even mentions her in Holy Scripture:
(James 2:25 NIV) In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction?
So you see, there are many miracles between the lines of scripture that you can piece together with the help of the Holy Spirit!
DSR
12/22/03
Monday, December 15, 2003
The Dynamic vs. the Demonic
by David Scott Robertson
There are two primary forces at work in our world today.
The DYNAMIC power of God and the DEMONIC power of the devil.
Each are diametrically opposed to the other having opposite objectives in mind for humanity.
God works in partnership with the human spirit while the devil strives to control the fleshly, carnal nature of man.
Capitalizing on man’s natural tendency to sin, the demonic power of the devil seeks to manipulate, control, and influence man to take the pathway of least resistance, the one that builds no spiritual muscle. Satan knows very well that…
> Flesh doesn’t want to read the Bible.
> Flesh doesn’t want to go to church.
> Flesh doesn’t want to pray.
> Flesh doesn’t want to enter into an accountability relationship with another person.
> Flesh doesn’t want to submit to authority.
> Flesh wants what it wants when it wants it and woe to the person who objects.
> Flesh is a self-serving, self-seeking, self-centered aspect of our humanity that the demonic power of the devil leverages to its maximum potential.
The dynamic power of God, on the other hand, works through the agency of His Holy Spirit to conform us into the image of Jesus, and bring us to maturity attaining the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. (Ephesians 4:13).
No surprises in what I’ve said thus far. But the real question is “Where are you in all of this? Where do you fall in the epic battle for your soul?”
Are you allowing the dynamic power of God to dominate your behavior and propel you further and deeper into God’s plan for your life? Or are you allowing the demonic power of the devil to influence you; however subtlety it may be, to drift away from God’s plan for your life?
This is a question that we must ask ourselves and respond to on a daily basis.
“Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test ourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you--unless, of course, you fail the test?” (2 Corinthians 13:5)
DSR
12/15/03
There are two primary forces at work in our world today.
The DYNAMIC power of God and the DEMONIC power of the devil.
Each are diametrically opposed to the other having opposite objectives in mind for humanity.
God works in partnership with the human spirit while the devil strives to control the fleshly, carnal nature of man.
Capitalizing on man’s natural tendency to sin, the demonic power of the devil seeks to manipulate, control, and influence man to take the pathway of least resistance, the one that builds no spiritual muscle. Satan knows very well that…
> Flesh doesn’t want to read the Bible.
> Flesh doesn’t want to go to church.
> Flesh doesn’t want to pray.
> Flesh doesn’t want to enter into an accountability relationship with another person.
> Flesh doesn’t want to submit to authority.
> Flesh wants what it wants when it wants it and woe to the person who objects.
> Flesh is a self-serving, self-seeking, self-centered aspect of our humanity that the demonic power of the devil leverages to its maximum potential.
The dynamic power of God, on the other hand, works through the agency of His Holy Spirit to conform us into the image of Jesus, and bring us to maturity attaining the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. (Ephesians 4:13).
No surprises in what I’ve said thus far. But the real question is “Where are you in all of this? Where do you fall in the epic battle for your soul?”
Are you allowing the dynamic power of God to dominate your behavior and propel you further and deeper into God’s plan for your life? Or are you allowing the demonic power of the devil to influence you; however subtlety it may be, to drift away from God’s plan for your life?
This is a question that we must ask ourselves and respond to on a daily basis.
“Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test ourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you--unless, of course, you fail the test?” (2 Corinthians 13:5)
DSR
12/15/03
Tuesday, December 2, 2003
A Message to Children and Teenagers
by David Scott Robertson
"Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem. And he did what was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the ways of his father David; he did not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. For in the eighth year of his reign [he was 16 years old at this time] while he was still young, he began to seek the God of his father David; and in the twelfth year [at this point he was 20 years old], he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the wooden images…he broke down the altars of the Baals…" (2 Chronicles 34:1-4)
And the Bible goes on to describe in detail the exploits and zeal for the Lord of young king Josiah.
My point and word of encouragement to children and teenagers today is this: God has historically used young people for His purpose and plan. I believe he often does this because their faith is so pure and has not yet been soiled by religion.
God will elevate a young person - an 8-year-old, a 16-year-old, a 20-year-old - to positions of influence, so that He can use them, often mightily. You don't have to wait to grow up to become a man or woman of God to be used powerfully by the Lord - you're already there; right now, today.
Young person, you might say, well, "I'm not a king" or "I'm not a queen", or "I'm not the president" or "I'm not a pastor" or "I'm not a whatever...."
That's OK! God is not looking for a person with a position to make an impact on the world, he's looking for a young man or a young woman who is available to stand up for Jesus Christ.
The boy Samuel was groomed to become one of Israel's greatest prophets. The shepherd boy David was used to kill a giant. Jesus Himself, at 12 years old, astonished the teachers of the law because of His wisdom. Even a superficial search of the scriptures would turn up many young people whom God used to advance His cause and kingdom.
If you are reading this and you are twenty years of age or younger, may I challenge you to think outside the box of your paradigm of age limitations? May I suggest that now is the acceptable time for you to seek the Lord and make an impact on your world. Even if you don't yet have a driver's license, still you are the perfect age right now to do exploits for God in your sphere of influence: at your gradeschool, your junior high, or your high school.
I want to share an incredible verse with you about another 8-year-old king. He's found in 2 Chronicles 36:9 - "Jehoiachin was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months and ten days. And he did evil in the sight of the Lord."
You see, it's NOT the position or the power you possess that makes you acceptable before God. I believe the key is your openness, willingness, and availability before the Lord that makes the difference between you earning the reputation as a good king or an evil king; a wise student or a foolish one; a good communicator for Christ or a secret agent Christian who barely confesses he or she knows Jesus at all.
The Apostle Paul wrote in his first letter to his young protégé Timothy: "Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity." (1 Tim 4:12)
When the young person Jeremiah protested to God about being too young to respond to God's call to be His prophet God replied:
"But the LORD said to me, "Do not say, 'I am only a child.' You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you," declares the LORD. Then the LORD reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, "Now, I have put my words in your mouth." (Jeremiah 1:7-9)
When children or teenagers receive Christ as Savior, they do not get indwelt by a miniature version of the Holy Spirit! No, they receive as much of the miracle of "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27) as an adult.
The main thing, like Jeremiah experienced, is to allow God to put His words in your mouth. Then regardless of your age you can speak with authority.
When that happens, an 8-year-old, 16-year-old, or 20-year-old can do exploits for God just like young king Josiah did. As a matter of fact, all that is necessary is "to believe," in other words, to exercise faith in Jesus and His power. Then any person, regardless of age, can demonstrate the power of Christ operating through them to the point that the following scripture applies to them:
"And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well." (Mark 16:17-18)
DSR
12/2/03
"Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem. And he did what was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the ways of his father David; he did not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. For in the eighth year of his reign [he was 16 years old at this time] while he was still young, he began to seek the God of his father David; and in the twelfth year [at this point he was 20 years old], he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the wooden images…he broke down the altars of the Baals…" (2 Chronicles 34:1-4)
And the Bible goes on to describe in detail the exploits and zeal for the Lord of young king Josiah.
My point and word of encouragement to children and teenagers today is this: God has historically used young people for His purpose and plan. I believe he often does this because their faith is so pure and has not yet been soiled by religion.
God will elevate a young person - an 8-year-old, a 16-year-old, a 20-year-old - to positions of influence, so that He can use them, often mightily. You don't have to wait to grow up to become a man or woman of God to be used powerfully by the Lord - you're already there; right now, today.
Young person, you might say, well, "I'm not a king" or "I'm not a queen", or "I'm not the president" or "I'm not a pastor" or "I'm not a whatever...."
That's OK! God is not looking for a person with a position to make an impact on the world, he's looking for a young man or a young woman who is available to stand up for Jesus Christ.
The boy Samuel was groomed to become one of Israel's greatest prophets. The shepherd boy David was used to kill a giant. Jesus Himself, at 12 years old, astonished the teachers of the law because of His wisdom. Even a superficial search of the scriptures would turn up many young people whom God used to advance His cause and kingdom.
If you are reading this and you are twenty years of age or younger, may I challenge you to think outside the box of your paradigm of age limitations? May I suggest that now is the acceptable time for you to seek the Lord and make an impact on your world. Even if you don't yet have a driver's license, still you are the perfect age right now to do exploits for God in your sphere of influence: at your gradeschool, your junior high, or your high school.
I want to share an incredible verse with you about another 8-year-old king. He's found in 2 Chronicles 36:9 - "Jehoiachin was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months and ten days. And he did evil in the sight of the Lord."
You see, it's NOT the position or the power you possess that makes you acceptable before God. I believe the key is your openness, willingness, and availability before the Lord that makes the difference between you earning the reputation as a good king or an evil king; a wise student or a foolish one; a good communicator for Christ or a secret agent Christian who barely confesses he or she knows Jesus at all.
The Apostle Paul wrote in his first letter to his young protégé Timothy: "Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity." (1 Tim 4:12)
When the young person Jeremiah protested to God about being too young to respond to God's call to be His prophet God replied:
"But the LORD said to me, "Do not say, 'I am only a child.' You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you," declares the LORD. Then the LORD reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, "Now, I have put my words in your mouth." (Jeremiah 1:7-9)
When children or teenagers receive Christ as Savior, they do not get indwelt by a miniature version of the Holy Spirit! No, they receive as much of the miracle of "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27) as an adult.
The main thing, like Jeremiah experienced, is to allow God to put His words in your mouth. Then regardless of your age you can speak with authority.
When that happens, an 8-year-old, 16-year-old, or 20-year-old can do exploits for God just like young king Josiah did. As a matter of fact, all that is necessary is "to believe," in other words, to exercise faith in Jesus and His power. Then any person, regardless of age, can demonstrate the power of Christ operating through them to the point that the following scripture applies to them:
"And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well." (Mark 16:17-18)
DSR
12/2/03
Monday, November 24, 2003
The Awesome Power of Choice
by David Scott Robertson
What to wear.
Where to live.
What to eat.
Whom to marry.
What to read.
What to watch.
What to drive.
What to buy.
Who to admire.
When to go.
When to return.
Go to heaven.
Go to hell.
The awesome power of choice.
DSR
11/24/03
What to wear.
Where to live.
What to eat.
Whom to marry.
What to read.
What to watch.
What to drive.
What to buy.
Who to admire.
When to go.
When to return.
Go to heaven.
Go to hell.
The awesome power of choice.
DSR
11/24/03
Monday, November 17, 2003
Here I Am
by David Scott Robertson
(Exo 3:4 NIV) When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, "Moses! Moses!" And Moses said, "Here I am."
(Gen 22:11 NIV) But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, "Abraham! Abraham!" "Here I am," he replied.
(Gen 31:11 NIV) The angel of God said to me in the dream, 'Jacob.' I answered, 'Here I am.'
Moses, Abraham, and Jacob, famous biblical and historical figures, each heard God calling their name. But this experience is not unique to biblical patriarchs. These are three among multitudes of people who have at various times heard God call their name throughout history.
What is the proper response when God calls your name? I believe the answer may be found in the responses of Moses, Abraham, and Jacob: "here I am."
You see, God is looking for a man or woman who is willing to be found. The Bible says that
"…the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him" (2 Chronicles 16:9 KJV).
God is on a "search and bless" mission. His desire is to bless and not curse, to build up and not tear down, to establish and not demolish, to freely give abundant life through Christ here and now and eternal life in the hereafter. All we have to do when the Lord calls our name is answer "here I am!"
Some might say: "Well, that was fine for Moses, Abraham, and Jacob but I haven't heard God call my name. He certainly hasn't appeared to me in a burning bush, I've not heard an audible voice from heaven or even had a dream or vision where God called my name. Since that's not the case, therefore I conclude that God may not be calling me at all."
Please note that there is Someone else that is saying "here I am." It's Jesus.
"Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me" (Revelation 3:20 NIV).
God, who is completely impartial and plays no favorites, extends His invitation and call to all men everywhere at all times.
"The Spirit and the bride say, "Come!" And let him who hears say, "Come!" WHOEVER is thirsty, let him come; and WHOEVER wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life" (Revelation 22:17).
God is calling your name today, are you listening?
Don't be like Adam and Eve when God called out to them in the Garden of Eden and because of sin in their life they tried to avoid God's call altogether:
"Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?" He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid" (Genesis 3:8-10).
You can run but you cannot hide from God. Don't let fear that you are sinful, unworthy, or unacceptable before God prevent you from answering God's call with "here I am!"
Jesus Christ has made a way for us to have confidence in responding to God's call on our life with "here I am!"
Let's purpose in our hearts, this very day, that the next time we hear God's voice calling to us, we will respond to Him like the prophet Isaiah did:
"Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!" (Isaiah 6:8).
DSR
11/17/03
Monday, November 3, 2003
A Matter of the Heart
by David Scott Robertson
“Does not my word burn like fire?” asks the Lord. “Is it not like a mighty hammer that smashes rock to pieces?” - Jeremiah 23:29
Have you ever heard the ridiculous question: “Is it possible for God to make a rock so big that He cannot move it?” I believe the answer to this question is “yes.”
God has crafted the human heart after His own heart - with the capacity to love and obey or hate and disobey.
Mankind, through disobedience and sin, has hardened his heart to such a degree that even God, who will not violate man's free will, cannot move it.
The only possible solution of the condition known as “hardness of heart” is the Word of God. “Is [not My word] like a mighty hammer that smashes rock to pieces?” God asked through the prophet Jeremiah.
God's Word to fallen mankind is Jesus.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1 NIV).
“He [Jesus] is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God” (Revelation 19:13 NIV).
Like “plaque” hardens a human body's arteries and constricts the normal flow of blood and leads to heart disease, so sin clogs up the pipeline through which the blood of Jesus flows to bring abundant and eternal life.
What is the solution to reverse the awful effects of sin?
“Come now, let us reason together," says the LORD. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool”
(Isaiah 1:18).
Today if you find yourself in a situation where your have discovered that you have a bad heart - you continually are failing the “stress tests” of life - the "rat race" has totally exasperated you and you are tired of living a poor quality of life - if this describes you, then may I recommend making an appointment with Dr. Jesus?
Jesus Christ can painlessly perform a “heart transplant” (for no cost) and give you a new heart fashioned after His own. He will gladly make you a man (or woman) after God's own heart. Suddenly, miraculously, you will find that your heart transplant was a success, and you have been transformed into a true worshipper, an obedient son or daughter, a healthy Christian.
DSR
11/3/03
“Does not my word burn like fire?” asks the Lord. “Is it not like a mighty hammer that smashes rock to pieces?” - Jeremiah 23:29
Have you ever heard the ridiculous question: “Is it possible for God to make a rock so big that He cannot move it?” I believe the answer to this question is “yes.”
God has crafted the human heart after His own heart - with the capacity to love and obey or hate and disobey.
Mankind, through disobedience and sin, has hardened his heart to such a degree that even God, who will not violate man's free will, cannot move it.
The only possible solution of the condition known as “hardness of heart” is the Word of God. “Is [not My word] like a mighty hammer that smashes rock to pieces?” God asked through the prophet Jeremiah.
God's Word to fallen mankind is Jesus.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1 NIV).
“He [Jesus] is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God” (Revelation 19:13 NIV).
Like “plaque” hardens a human body's arteries and constricts the normal flow of blood and leads to heart disease, so sin clogs up the pipeline through which the blood of Jesus flows to bring abundant and eternal life.
What is the solution to reverse the awful effects of sin?
“Come now, let us reason together," says the LORD. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool”
(Isaiah 1:18).
Today if you find yourself in a situation where your have discovered that you have a bad heart - you continually are failing the “stress tests” of life - the "rat race" has totally exasperated you and you are tired of living a poor quality of life - if this describes you, then may I recommend making an appointment with Dr. Jesus?
Jesus Christ can painlessly perform a “heart transplant” (for no cost) and give you a new heart fashioned after His own. He will gladly make you a man (or woman) after God's own heart. Suddenly, miraculously, you will find that your heart transplant was a success, and you have been transformed into a true worshipper, an obedient son or daughter, a healthy Christian.
DSR
11/3/03
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