Introduction: The mysterious missing water

1)      Attitude is everything

2)      The story behind the story

a)      In the beginning God

b)     Once upon a time

c)      A brief note on Satan

3)      THE Truth

a)      The existence of evil and questions of God’s love and justice

b)     Understanding God’s judgment / The course of a river

4)      The story begins to unfold

a)      A guy named Abraham

b)     The Trinity

c)      Repentance

d)     Jumping ahead a little

e)      Summing it up so far

5)      Tracking a nation through Man’s experiment

a)      Israel enters the picture

b)     The journey from slavery to freedom

c)      The 10 commandments

6)      The concept of a Priesthood

a)      What is a Priest?

b)     The Tabernacle and Arc of the Covenant

c)      The Way, the Truth, The life

7)      Between Slavery in Egypt and the Promised land

a)      We each have our own ‘Egypt’

b)     Facing enemies and battles along the way

 

8)      Judges and Kings

a)      Learning to be Salt and Light

b)     The people demand a King

c)      The model of a true covenant

9)      The Prophets / Poetry Books

10)  Between the Old and New Testaments

11)  Now enters the Savior

12)  The New Testament conflict

a)      The right time and place in history

b)     Getting the future church leaders ready for the mission

13) The mission and ministry of Jesus

a)      The word became flesh

b)     The real nature of sin- Two dogs and a pile of money

c)      Dealing with prejudice in the future missionaries.

d)     Removing forms and molds

e)      Prayer, Jesus style

14) Baptism and the Lord’s Supper (Communion)

15) The church Begins

a)      The Church is commissioned and empowered

     16) Experiment Over!

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   Once upon a time there was an elderly man in a remote village. He was very wise and observant and often made interesting discoveries, which he then would bring up for discussion with the village elders in their gatherings.

 

   One day, he noticed that the water level in a bowl was only half what it was the day before. He wasn’t sure how he even noticed or why it interested him but he couldn’t stop thinking about it. He decided to put out several bowls full of water and observe them over the next few days. He was surprised to see that the water level went down in all of them.

 

   He made sure he could rule out water being spilled. He made sure there was no way an animal could drink the water. After several days he had finally reached a conclusion, “The Spirits of the ancestors must be drinking the water!”

 

   He called a meeting of the village elders and explained his observations and conclusions. He invited the others to test his observations for themselves. After several days they met again. The consensus was that the conclusion was indisputable. The spirits of the ancestors were drinking the water. One of the elders had noticed that the spirits apparently liked wine better because it disappeared faster than the water did.

 

   From that time they insisted that all the families of the village prepare an altar and offer water and wine for the spirits of the ancestors in their homes. This was done and it remained the custom for several generations.

 

   That is until one day, a young man from the village returned from the big city where he had been going to school. He came back and began talking about something he called the evaporation cycle. He explained how water evaporates and how alcohol evaporates even faster. He then announced that the ancestors were not in fact drinking the water and wine. It was evaporating into the air and would eventually come back down to the earth as rain.

 

   Many of the people thought the idea sounded very reasonable and intelligent. They recalled their own observations over the years and it all seemed to make sense. Others however were very upset that this young whippersnapper was upsetting their customs and traditions. So, by the end of the day, the young man was taken to the outskirts of town where he was beaten and stoned to death. ---The end.

 

 

 

   When we consider the story, it is important to know that God would not be too unhappy or upset with the elderly scientist or the village elders at the beginning of the story. Their desire was to find truth. They wanted answers to their questions. There is nothing wrong with seeking answers. There is nothing wrong with true scientific research from a pure heart. God actually invites us to seek earnestly for truth. (Click on Why is there oil in Alaska)

 

   The problem arose because the elders started with false premises. They had inadequate knowledge of the facts and therefore jumped to wrong conclusions. This is generally what initiates and then perpetuates superstition- observing a phenomenon and connecting the dots in a way that on the surface seems to make sense. The problem is that we often leave some really important ‘dots’ out of the equation. God would not scold them or be angry with them for that so much. Their hearts were in the right place, they simply made a mistake. Sometimes however, people die from making simple mistakes. They may drink poison when they honestly think they are drinking water. Their error would produce tragic consequences even resulting in death but it would not be a direct judgment from God. We will see more about this concept later on.

 

   The thing that actually makes God angry is when we have been shown where we are in error and we still cling to our ‘Old ways’ because change can be inconvenient. Change can upset the status quo. Truth can sometimes force us to be intellectually honest and consistent with ourselves and in so doing there may arise certain ramifications that may ‘rock the boat’ in our relationships with others due to the upsetting of established traditions.

 

   The key to understanding the Bible and more importantly, getting to know God, is to approach the search for truth with the right attitude. God is not obligated to answer us in our arrogance. But on the other hand, He loves to teach the teachable.

 

   The following is a brief overview of the entire Bible from cover to cover as one story. I invite you to read it with the attitude of someone interested to know whether these things are true or not. This writing will not answer every question a person may have about God and the Bible but it will give one the proper approach or way of seeking whereby all of their questions can be addressed and even answered. The way- is to walk in real relationship with the Almighty, the questions will at that point be answered or for some reason will not matter so much anymore. As with most of life, attitude is everything.

 

 

      

 

 

   The Bible comes to us in two major sections, The Old and the New Testaments. These are in turn, comprised of smaller individual sections or books. Some of these ‘books’ are as short as 1 page and others much longer. The Old Testament serves many valuable purposes but chiefly it is the backdrop and framework, which helps us to understand the person and message of Jesus in the New Testament. We actually cannot fully grasp the significance of the New Testament without the Old Testament as our focusing lens and vice versa.

 

   The Old Testament begins with the story of Creation. This is an extremely important beginning point because it defines what we mean when we say- ‘God’. God is the creator of the universe. God is Almighty and He is the designer and sustainer of all life. God is personal. God has the ability to feel, to react, to make decisions, and to make judgments.

 

   God defined in this way, means that God also has authority as the creator. He is the one who makes the laws that govern the universe. God is not an impersonal energy force. He is not a celestial blob. He is our creator and as such, we are responsible to relate to God in a manner that respects that fundamental truth as we interact with Him. (Click on the entry in the Bible Ya but… section and scroll down to the section explaining why we refer to God as a male entity or ‘He’.)

In the beginning, God…

 

   Adam and Eve were created as the first humans. The Bible begins with the words, “In the beginning God created…”, then continues on in one continuous storyline through the entire Bible to the end of the book of Revelation. As I tell the story, keep in mind that I am abbreviating a book of over a thousand total pages down to just a few. In order to accomplish this I have taken certain liberties for the sake of being as brief as possible. I am giving just enough detail to provide the overall gist of the Bible story. With this bit of background to work with I hope you will seriously read the whole Bible for yourself (many times!)

 

 

   We pick up the story at the point where mankind first enters the picture. Adam and Eve are in the garden and everything is fine. God has told them that they may eat of any tree there except the one in the middle called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God told the couple that if they were to eat of that fruit they would certainly die. In other words, they would be cut off from relationship with God as if a branch were being severed from a tree. The branch may still look alive, but it is as good as dead because its life source has been removed. It cannot sustain itself and will soon wither as the life within it slowly ebbs away.

 

    The wording of Satan’s temptation is very important. He says this, “You will not surely die if you eat the fruit. God knows that the day you eat of the fruit, your eyes shall be opened and You shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:4,5)

 

   The temptation went far beyond the level of sneaking a cookie from the cookie jar when mom said no cookies before dinner. It was not about God missing a piece of fruit from His precious tree. It had to do with the most basic and fundamental truth in the universe. The significance of the temptation of Adam and Eve lies in understanding what they were really being tempted to do. With this understanding we can better grasp the real ramifications and implications of their eating of the fruit.

 

   If we get right down to where the rubber meets the road, the temptation by Satan actually goes more along these lines, “Come on!, God is lying when He tells you that you will die if you eat the fruit. He is actually afraid that you will eat it and discover the truth for yourselves! If you eat of the fruit, you will be able to decide for yourselves what is good and what is evil. You will be as gods yourselves! You won’t need God telling you what to do or where to go or what to eat or not eat! Come on, try it.” In other words, Adam and Eve were being tempted to declare independence from God and in so doing, seeking to be self-sufficient and basically BE gods themselves.

 

 

   Satan is a name, which means adversary or enemy. The Bible also refers to this real entity or being as the devil or Lucifer among a few other biblical terms. The situation facing mankind and this particular temptation had in fact occurred once before. Lucifer was at one point a very powerful angelic being in heaven. The Bible describes how Lucifer became lifted up in his own arrogance and pride and formed a rebellion in heaven. In this conspiracy he was able to convince one third of the angles to join him. His goal was to dethrone the Lord and set himself up as God. They were kicked out of heaven and are there after referred to as fallen angels or demons. God has allowed Satan and his hordes to exist and do what they do for now because the eventual end of the story will prove that it was the best course for the ultimate good of the entire creation. Much more could be said on this point but I will let it go at that for now.

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   Adam and Eve of course do go on to eat the fruit. They suddenly realize that they are naked and feel ashamed. They then cover themselves with fig leaves and hide from God. We usually think of Adam and Eve as kind of cartoonish characters and with their fig leaves covering the essentials but in reality this part of the story should be taken very seriously.

 

   I don’t know if the tree in the middle of the garden had any special qualities that made it special in some way. God may have simply randomly selected it because the true change occurred, not from the nature of the fruit, but by the attitude of their hearts, which opens the door to change human nature from that point on. I personally favor the latter but can’t really say one way or the other. To me the fruit didn’t necessarily have to be special in any way at all. God could reveal the same truth whether the tree actually had unique characteristics or not.

 

   God was now in the position of responding to their choice. See, Adam and Eve had made a choice. They could have continued in the garden and then allow God’s design and plan for them and their future children to take shape as God intended. The other choice was to declare independence. They wanted to decide for themselves what is good and evil, right or wrong, acceptable or unacceptable. Mankind wanted to experiment with the idea of being his own god and the ruler of his own destiny.

 

   God of course already knew that the couple would go that route. It broke God’s heart to know where their experiment would ultimately lead but they would have to see for themselves. God knew that the highest good of the universe would best be served by giving mankind a few thousand years of history in order for them to fully play the experiment out and see it’s final end result.

 

   God could see down through the corridors of time where mankind’s experiment would lead to indescribable suffering, death and destruction. He could have made mankind as robots, programmed to do only what they were told. But He really wanted to see mankind in His own image, with free moral agency, and the ability to love and relate without preprogrammed compulsion. Man created in the image of God meant that man was created with characteristics differing from mere animals. Some of these characteristics include; Awareness of concepts like justice-righteous government-purpose-meaning, Love, Mercy, Forgiveness, Compassion, a love for creative beauty in music-art-home decoration, Complex Problem solving, etc. Animals operate with few exceptions on the basis of pre-programmed instincts. These instincts center around self-and species preservation. God lamented the fact that as time went on in the course of Man’s experiment, man’s basic nature would be more and more instinct driven and would resemble the nature of our creator less and less and mere animals more and more.

 

   God confronted Adam and Eve regarding their ‘nakedness’. The first response Adam and Eve had after eating the fruit was to cover up. They attempted to cover the shame they felt in their hearts by covering themselves from the outside. They wanted to run from God. They wanted to hide. They felt exposed before God. They made their own solution to the problem by quickly reaching for external coverings. 

 

   The Bible says that God provided animal skin coverings for them before he sent them out of the garden. This was a prophetic statement. Mankind was now becoming aware of the problem, but God was planting the first seeds of the future solution. They didn’t have the understanding and depth of insight yet to know that the real issue was not external but it was truly a matter of the heart. That understanding would come much later. A man would one day come who would show us that we really need to be ‘born again’ not just covered. God promises that one day a savior would be born as a descendent from the woman who would eventually rise up and crush Satan’s head. Later on, way down the road, when the time was right, God would provide salvation for fallen mankind.

 

   While they were not ready for the ultimate answer, God was going to make two things clear even at the very beginning of the experiment. First, mankind cannot cover up his shame and sin by anything he can do of his own accord. God is the only one who can cover man’s sin and take away shame of his exposed heart before God. God sees right past man’s outer coverings directly into the heart.

 

   Secondly, mankind’s declaration of independence and utter defiance of God the creator’s rule and reign as Lord over His creation, including mankind, is not a light and trivial matter. God had pronounced a death sentence if they should defy Him and eat of the fruit. God would make it clear how ugly and destructive sin is. God’s law must communicate these truths and thus God’s word declares, “Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin.” God clothed Adam and Eve with the skins of animals. God Himself made the first life exchange sacrifice and Himself covered them. This was a 'temporary fix' until mankind would far into the future be able to take in the full significance of His ultimate solution.

 

 

 

 

   God then drove them out of the garden to begin their experiment. It was as if God were saying in essence, “Go ahead, go out and be gods for a few thousand years. Go make your philosophies, your governments, your countries and empires. Go make your wars, your plagues and diseases. You don’t know yet what murder, corruption, greed, hatred, lying cheating, slavery, prostitution, rape, envy, and warfare are. Don’t worry, you will! You will eventually understand words like genocide, weapons of mass destruction, nuclear fallout, abortion, embryonic research, cloning for spare body parts, and birth defects. Eventually there will be millions and millions of people angry with ME because of YOUR own experiment. They will wonder why God would let these bad things happen. They will wonder why I let innocent children die. They will wonder why I let people starve and suffer every form of disease imaginable. They will shake their fist at me but they will not look first into their own heart. I long for the day when mankind will give up the experiment and declare that they now understand the truth. “

 

   The truth is not hard! The truth is not complicated! The truth is not deep and philosophical. The truth is not mystical and esoterical. The truth is so simple a child can understand it. The truth is simply this, ‘Mankind cannot live independent from God- If he attempts to do so, he will utterly destroy himself and all that is good.’ Simply stated, ‘Man needs God.’  (All that build up to 3 simple words!) The universal Truth of mankind’s existence is found in re-entering and maintaining proper relationship with our creator.

 

 

   When we shake our fist at God today and wonder why, why, why? God simply replies,” It is your experiment, not mine.” God takes no pleasure in watching it play out. He needs no personal validation or justification. He already knows the end from the beginning of all things. As painful and incredibly unpleasant as it is for God, He in His wisdom allows the experiment to continue for the eventual ultimate good of the universe. We will never be able to wonder what would have happened if God had stopped it earlier.

 

   If God were to stop the experiment somewhere in the middle, Mankind, in our arrogance would surely say that we would have eventually made the perfect world and governmental system if we had not been stopped- If we had only been given enough time! We would have cured all the diseases! We would have cleaned up all the pollution! We would have stopped all the wars! We would have learned how to genetically engineer perfect humans! We would have perhaps made Mars a colony and populated it with those perfect people and perfect government and perfect technology! We would have created a much better world on Mars that the creator did here on earth! There is no end to mankind’s collective arrogance.

 

 

 

   When we think about God’s evaluation of each as individuals on judgment day, we often have a bit of misunderstanding regarding the way God looks at our lives. We tend to think of God’s judgment purely based on what I call 'direct judgment'. In other words, we see God sending us to heaven if we were good enough and to hell if we were bad enough for that. When we look at it this way, we tend to think of punishment fitting or not fitting an individual crime. We look at our lives and generally figure that God has some basis for scolding us a bit and maybe not giving us the shiniest halo or best harp. We certainly don’t think that we are so bad that we deserve to be treated in the same way in which God would deal with violent criminals or ‘really’ bad people!

 

   There is a lot that could be said here in regard to our arrogance in this department as well. God certainly has enough reason to send any one of us to hell even if he were to judge us purely on a direct judgment basis. The standard of heaven is absolute perfect purity. The holiness and purity of God is beyond our comprehension. We have ‘dumbed down’ the idea of what we think of as pure and good to mere human terms. But aside from that there is a huge component in the judgment department that we tend to leave out. That is the distinction between ‘direct’ and ‘consequential’ judgment.

 

   Consequential judgment is not God pointing a finger and specifically and deliberately or intentionally damning the individual person and ordering them to hell on the basis of a particular bad deed. That is ‘direct’ judgment. Consequential judgment is when God simply withdraws His hand of protection and allows an individual to follow their course to it’s own natural conclusion. One does not go to hell for a specific act of sin. It is more like being caught up in the natural flow of a powerful raging river. The river flows following its course and ends up finally at a certain destination. Whatever is in the river goes where the river goes. The point here is that because of Adam and Eve’s declaration of independence from God and their ‘experiment’, all of their descendants from then on have been born ‘in the river’ as it were. It is now ‘OUR’ experiment, until we make the conscious decision and choose to opt out. The judgment in other words is that God ‘Allows’ mankind to end up at the natural end of whatever road he is on. Jesus said that hell was never created for mankind. It was created for the devil and his angels. When mankind plunged himself  into the ‘devil’s river’ the ‘natural’ course is to end up where that river goes- eternal destruction.

 

    Some of us are like our first parents Adam and Eve in that we sense our shame and feel our guilt. Such people know they are cut off from God and know that something is not right. But like Adam and Eve, they cover their guilty feelings with their own self-invented coverings. These are religious works. They sit under cold waterfalls and chant long prayers. They poke themselves through with sharp needles. They burn themselves with hot coals. They starve themselves in long periods of fasting. They bind themselves with oaths. They offer sacrifices. They do endless ceremonies and rituals. They travel to holy places. They cut themselves with knives. They memorize books. They pray on their knees for countless hours all in the HOPE of freeing themselves from the guilt of their sin.

 

   The truth does not change. Man cannot cover his own sin. None of these things can graft a severed branch back into the tree. The relationship or connection remains broken. Good works, kind deeds, pleasant meditation, and religious mumbo jumbo can make people feel good about themselves but feel good or not, ‘they are still in the river’! The river itself is heading straight over a huge cliff, falling into the pit of eternal destruction.

 

    That is the bad news. It is the course that man’s experiment has put us on. The question that remains is twofold, “Do I want to get out of the river? And if so, how do I get out of the river?” The Old Testament serves as kind of a microcosm for us to see how mankind in his ‘experiment’ has concocted at least 5 false approaches aimed at fixing the sin problem and all can be found at the heart of false regions in our modern times as well. All five of these can be seen in one way or another either in the actions of the people of Israel or in the nations around them that they interacted with.

 

1---Religion by works-formula-ritual- and ceremony

2---Religion by superstition and demon appeasement

3---Religion of denial i.e., atheism-agnosticism-evolution (perfecting the flesh)

4---Religion by fear, control and intimidation

5---The religion of ‘self-deification-self improvement- and self-everything else’

 

   The key thing to note in all religions however is that ‘Religion’ is mankind’s attempts at either working toward ‘self improvement’ (which is self-centered by definition) or reaching up toward God through various means, usually through ceremony, ritual or ‘good deeds’. The main point of Christianity is that God reached down to us. He does not desire ‘religion’ He wants us to know Him in a real, vibrant, eternal relationship. 

 

 

   The story of the fall of mankind in the Garden of Eden is the backdrop in front of which the story of God bringing salvation and redemption to mankind unfolds. As mankind begins to live out his experiment of living independent from his creator, it does not take long before the first murder occurs. The corruption of the heart of mankind soon fills the world with violence and treachery to the point where God sends a great flood to destroy all but the best of mankind alive at the time. This is essential for us to understand that God knew the experiment would have to be fully played out in the full history of mankind over a few thousand years.

 

   Things got so evil and corrupt that God sent a flood to basically ‘squash the clay’ like a potter would do with a vase that wasn’t turning out the way he wanted. The flood and subsequent rebuilding of mankind from the survivors representing the purest and least sin tainted of all people before the flood, helped God to demonstrate another key point. The corruption of mankind was absolute and completely pervasive. Yes, a potter can simply squash his clay pot and start over if it is not pleasing to him. But God showed that even if the ‘clay’ of mankind were squashed, it would still rise up again as a corrupt ‘vessel’ because the clay itself is corrupted. Even by starting over with the best (Noah and his family), it was not long before it became evident that mankind would bring about a world full of evil and wickedness. God in His wisdom knew that mankind would have to see this for themselves. God knew the arrogance that mankind was capable of and allowed this historical record to be included for all time as the proof that mankind could not simply be reformed or purged of it’s evil ‘segment’. The corrupt heart of man must be ‘born again’. Sin had entered into the very heart makeup of mankind at his core. 

 

   Eventually, mankind began to separate themselves as clans into distinct families or nations. The pride of mankind was still of course bent on making himself to be God. The people gathered at a place called Shinar at what we now know as Babylon in the area known as Iraq. They built a tremendous tower and were extremely proud of themselves. God observed the tower and saw the stubbornness of their hearts, knowing that if the people were united in one spirit and purpose, they would never give up their self-sufficiency and seek after relationship with their creator. He determined then to confuse their speech so that they could not understand one another. He then scattered them to various places in the earth.

 

   Acts chapter 17 explains this even further, “God who made the heavens and the earth does not dwell in temples made by human hands. He is neither worshipped through men’s hands as though he needed anything considering that it is He that gives life to all and breath and all things to mankind. He has made of one blood all the nations (ethnic groups) to inhabit the earth and determined their times and where they will be scattered in order that they would grope after God and find Him even though He is not far from anyone who seriously seeks to find Him. (Acts 17: 24-27 my paraphrase)

 

   The historical canvas that God was painting on still needed more details before mankind would be able to see the whole picture and grasp it’s meaning. The time was not right to introduce Jesus the savior, just yet.

 

 

   Abraham is one of the most significant figures in all history. Born in what is known today as northern Iraq, he is a key Father of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths. It is essential that you know a bit of his background in order to follow the overall story of the whole Bible.

 

   Here it is in a nutshell. God called a man named Abram to leave his family and travel from his homeland to the land we now call Israel. The name Abram means, blessed father. His name was later changed by God to be, Abraham, which means father of a multitude.

 

   The Bible tells us that God communicated with Abram. We don’t know by what means, whether it was by a direct voice or dreams or visions. We just know God told him to get up and go. The command for Abram to go is really the true beginning of the Bible story; everything else prior was setting the stage. The story is about the redemption of mankind but we had to first layout what we were to be redeemed from. God’s call to this man is what is known as the ‘Abrahamic Covenant’. In other words, it was God’s Solemn promise to Abraham and the very foundation of the message of God’s plan to bring salvation to the entire earth.

    (Note: A covenant or Testament is a sacred promise, sometimes in the form of a legal contract. Marriage, for example, is a covenant relationship. God has structured His relationship with mankind in the form of a covenant both to communicate how seriously He views the relationship and so that mankind can know what God expects from us and what we can expect from God.)

 

   The promise to Abram goes like this, “Get up and go from your father’s house to a land that I will show you. I will make from you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great and you will BE a blessing. I will bless those that bless you and curse those that curse you and through you all the nations (all ethnic groups) will be blessed.” (Genesis 12:2-3)

 

   During his travels to the new land, Abram was shown to have some character flaws as any other man does. His wife Sarai (later changed to Sarah) was very beautiful. He was afraid that the rulers he encountered on the way would kill him and then steal his wife for themselves. He lied and told them that she was his sister and not his wife. The lies got him into some big trouble along the way.

 

   He learned to confront his own corrupted nature and self-hypocrisy. He had heard God tell him to go to the distant land but he was not able to trust God and believe that God would take care of him and see him through. He was following the normal human pattern. He was fearful and unbelieving so he devised his own schemes to get himself out of jams rather than learning to trust and depend on God.

 

   Eventually, Abram was told that he would have a son. This really surprised him because by this time he was ninety-nine years old and his wife was ninety years old. They were childless and saw no way that they could ever have God’s promise literally fulfilled in their old age. They did what many do with God’s promises; they just took God’s word to be symbolic and explained it away with more ‘rational’ interpretations. But God really meant what he said. They would have a son , born the natural way through them as a couple, within a year’s time.

 

   Sarah had a maidservant named Hagar. She was younger and of child bearing age. Sarah volunteered to let Abraham have a child through Hagar. She rationalized that if the servant girl was working for Sarah and if Abraham her husband were able to make her pregnant, the child would then in a way be theirs with Hagar merely a surrogate mother.

   Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar would thus provide their own solution to ‘God’s promise’ and make everything work out ‘logically’. Hagar did have a son and they named him Ishmael. It seemed like a really good solution but it was not the promised child that God had told Abraham to expect.

 

   When we read the Bible, these stories tell us about real people and historical events, but the stories are intended for us to look into our own hearts and see how we may be doing similar things. If we know that God is leading us in a particular direction and we are stepping out in faith to do his will, we must not ‘make Ishmaels’ by doing our own thing in the name of ‘following God’.

 

   God of course loved Ishmael and Hagar as individual souls and God did in fact bless them and do good things in their lives. That said, the plan was manmade and all manmade plans aimed at ‘helping God out’ always end in disaster. God does not need our assistance! Ishmael eventually became the father of the people known today as the Arabians. The troubles of the Middle East today that we read about in the newspapers, all stem from this root. Again, God loved Ishmael and Hagar and He loves all the Arabian people as precious souls, however, the manmade interference with God’s perfect plans and purposes have resulted in thousands of years worth of incalculable suffering and misery for all the people's of the Middle East and as a result, instability in the whole world.

 

   Eventually, the true promised child, Isaac is born. The boy grows up and the parents are very happy. Then one day, Abraham hears from God again. He is told to go to a place in the regions of Mt. Mariah. This is located in present day Jerusalem. God tells Abraham to offer his son as a sacrifice at a certain place that God would show him.

 

   Abraham obeys God and takes his son on the trip up to the place where he was to offer the sacrifice. As Abraham is about to plunge the knife into his son’s chest, God speaks to him and tells him to stop.

 

   The Bible tells us that Abraham by this time had learned total and complete dependence upon God. He knew that if God were to instruct him to do such a thing, God was certainly planning to bring him back from the dead or prevent the knife from harming the boy. He knew this because, God had told him before that he would be the father of a great multitude and all the nations of the earth would be blessed through him via that very child. Abraham reasoned that this very uncharacteristic request by God was a test and he would obey God fully trusting that God would fulfill his promise whether he understood the way or not.

 

   God told Abraham to let the boy go and that HE had provided the sacrifice. Abraham looked over to find a ram caught by its horns in the brush. This story is the foundation of the Bible message. Abraham finally got it! Adam and Eve had declared independence from God way back in the garden. Now finally, God had a man that had truly discovered that the ultimate truth of the universe is that we can only really find the meaning of life itself by ‘declaring our utter Dependence’ upon God.

 

   Even more significant was the fact that God set up this whole test and revelation in a very particular place. The Lord gave Abraham back his only true son of the promise who was as good as dead. The Lord Himself provided the sacrifice of the ram. You may have guessed by now what picture God was painting. Another 1,500 years in the future, God, the creator of the entire universe would allow himself to be impregnated by miraculous means into the womb of a virgin. The child named Jesus would grow up and himself one day go to a place in the regions of Mt. Mariah to a place called Calvary. At that place he would be crucified and suffer the cruelest and most humiliating death that mankind could devise. Isaac was in a figure raised from the dead but Jesus was raised from the dead as the real thing! He was the Lamb of God, provided by God Himself to take away the sin of the world.

(Some people are confused as to the meaning and significance of the ritual of circumcision that was introduced with Abraham's son Isaac. Come back to this point later and click on 'The mystery of the circumcision' for an an explaination of why theis ceremony came to actually define the people of Israel.)

 

The Trinity

 

   There is a tremendous mystery in the Bible shown in both the Old and New Testaments. It is what is commonly called the trinity. The word trinity is found nowhere in the Bible but the concept is demonstrated in many places. It is an idea that is impossible to fully grasp with our puny mortal minds but in essence it boils down to God existing as one God and only one God comprised of three total and complete personages. The three known as The Father, The son and the Holy Spirit and not three personalities of God but three distinct and separate persons which all together constitute the one God.

 

   This is demonstrated in various places in that God the Father is called God. Jesus the Son is called God. The Holy Spirit is likewise called God but the Bible emphatically declares that there is one and only one God.

 

   Some people liken the idea to water, which can exist simultaneously as vapor, liquid and solid ice at exactly 32 degrees Fahrenheit or 0 degrees Centigrade. This is called the triple point. The molecular structure is the same but it is manifested in three completely different representations.

 

   Jesus is called God with us or Emmanuel. Jesus is also said to have lived a life of total, absolute and utter dependence on God the Father. Jesus said that he would always be with those who believe him and follow him in the person of the Holy Spirit. We can never fully grasp all of this in its fullness however; we can grasp the key point of the message. Jesus came as God in human flesh to live out in his own life the antidote to the poison and cancer that has corrupted mankind since Adam and Eve. Their declaration of independence was the entry vehicle for death to enter the human race as the spiritual connection between mankind and the creator was severed. Jesus is the vehicle for the spiritual connection and right relationship with God to be restored.

 

   God calls and invites all mankind from every nation, language, social class, race, ethnic distinction, and background to be saved from the destruction and judgment that the world is heading toward. Adam and Eve’s experiment put all mankind, you and I included into a river that is bound toward eternal destruction. Jesus puts on back on the ‘narrow road’ that leads to eternal life. Souls are created by God as eternal beings. They will exist forever either with God as part of His eternal universe or they will exist forever in the only place in the universe that will be disconnected and permanently separated from his presence, in hell.   

 

 

   When we realize that we each have our own place of participation in mankind’s declaration of independence, we can then do what the Bible calls repentance. To repent means to turn around and walk in the opposite direction. It is like a man walking with the sunlight at his back. With the light at his back, he is walking into his own shadow and thus walking in darkness. If he walks in darkness he is apt to stumble and fall. If the man turns around and walks into the light, he leaves darkness behind him and his vision will be clear to avoid the obstacles and pitfalls that may otherwise trip him up.

 

 

 

   I have intentionally jumped ahead in the story for two reasons. First, I don’t want you to wait until the end to realize the truth itself. Mankind desperately needs God and cannot function apart from the creator. We bring ourselves to ruin and destruction at every point where we depart from dependence on God. We can sometimes realize this for mankind generally and corporately but we often fail to bring it down to the point of accepting this as a truth for our own lives individually. My prayer is that you will see that this is more than just a story but as The Truth that can change your life this very day as it has for countless millions of others through the ages. Please, don’t wait until you have fully read and understand the whole Bible. You have seen enough by this time to know if it rings true in your heart or not. Remember, you don’t need to fully understand how a cell phone works in order to use one!

 

   Secondly, I jump ahead here to demonstrate that the Bible is loaded from cover to cover with stories about lives and situations that often have a lot more message behind them than first meets the eye. I recently saw a TIME magazine story about Abraham that attempted to dig into the man’s story and explain the modern troubles in the Middle East through his life. The article was interesting in that they read the story without even coming close to the meaning and message it was intended to convey.

 

   Many people wonder and often ask how we can know which religious group or organization is rightly or wrongly interpreting scripture and whether it is all just up to each individual to find out what it means for him or herself.

 

 The answer is simple, we must remember to follow the whole drama as a single story. If we do, it will all stay in context and we can easily see if we are off course. Errors in interpretation occur when we isolate a piece and make it in and unto itself. The story of the Bible is an absolute miracle.

 

   It was written over a period of about 1,500 years. It has contributions by about 40 people from several countries and even 3 continents. It is amazing because the whole Bible with all 66 separate books all join together in one continuous drama or story line.

  

 

   Let’s sum up where we have been so far. Adam and Eve declare independence in the garden. God as a potter smashes the clay and rebuilds his ‘vessel’ again through Noah and his family in the story of the ‘Great Flood’. The point of this story is to show that even though all of mankind was wiped out and God started over with the very best, the cancer of sin still existed down in the heart of even the best of mankind. It doesn’t take long for corruption to reappear and evil to abound again.

 

    The people gather together in a heart of defiance and self-exaltation. They determine to build a tower to reach the heavens. God knows that they are determined to continue in their stubborn rebellion. Man’s experiment would need to be given an even bigger boost. God scattered the people into various languages and they set out to try hundreds and thousands of variations of their attempts to be God. In Genesis 9 God squashes the clay and reshapes it. In Genesis 10 the clay rises up again and begins to take shape as various clans and divisions or nations. In Genesis 11 the people rise up in unified defiance against God and self-promotion. God divides the unified heart of the people and scatters them over the face of the earth.

 

   God scatters the people all over the globe and determines the boundaries of their habitation. To this day, Eskimos are drawn to the arctic. They could go wherever they choose but they do not feel truly at home unless they are in freezing cold and winter darkness! Bedouin nomads travel the desert wastelands of the Arab peninsula and cannot imagine living anywhere else. God scattered the people to the ends of the earth that they may give up the futility of trying to be god in and of themselves and instead seek after their creator and find him.

 

  In Genesis 12 God calls a man named Abram and tells him to go to a land chosen by God. It is directly in the center of all the earth’s landmasses. It is a little bit Asian, a little bit African, and a little bit European. The people are darker than some and lighter than others. From this place in the center of all mankind, God would reach out to the people that were scattered over the face of the earth and begin to bring them back to Himself.

 

   Not all the people would repent and come back to God but a representative number from each people group would. This representation would comprise at least a few from every single people group on the earth.

 

   A man would eventually be born in the land where Abraham went in obedience to God. He would come from Abraham’s line. He was the one God promised to provide all the way back in the Garden of Eden when God said one day a child would be born as the seed of the woman who would rise up to crush Satan’s head.

 

 

 

   God used Abraham and his descendants as a starting point. He made it clear even at the very beginning of the call to his chosen man that the blessing would flow out from him to reach all the people groups of the entire world. God started with this one man and built up a particular nation that would serve a unique purpose in the earth. 

 

   There are as many as 23,000 distinct people groups in the world today. There are thousands of languages, customs and cultures. God knew it would be completely impractical to track the ups and downs, successes and failures, of all the nations of the earth and expect mankind to process it all. God instead selected this one group in the center of all the world’s people whom he would work with in a particularly close way. He would communicate with this people through prophets. He would guide them with detailed instructions. He would interact with them and reveal his power on their behalf. The world would then, through the Bible, be able to track along with that nation and see both their progress as a people when they related properly to God and their failure as a nation when they do not.

 

   God would see to it that a detailed record would be available for all mankind to see of His interactions with this particular nation. The people who read these accounts would be able to know what they did right as well as what they did wrong. They would see how mankind’s experiment was going as far as this people were concerned and in turn see themselves in it.

 

    When we read the Old Testament record of the people of Israel we find a few things really jump out. First, God clearly did not choose Israel because they were a superior people by nature. A very significant part of the Old Testament is about Israel’s failures, stubbornness, and spiritual blindness as a people. We read about God’s Holy and Special mountain in Jerusalem called Mt. Zion. I have been there and seen it myself. It is nothing more than a little hill! If God were going to choose a mountain based on greatness, he would have chosen Mt. Hermon in northern Israel or Mt. Everest or even Mt. McKinley here in Alaska where I live! God deliberately chose the smaller, insignificant little hill as a way of showing us that he wants to dwell within each of us no matter how insignificant or unworthy we are in the sight of the world around us. Remember, Jesus, God Almighty in human flesh, deliberately and intentionally chose to be born in an animal stable and not in a palace! He entered Jerusalem on a lowly donkey not a great stallion!

 

   The point of Israel being God’s chosen people was itself a deliberate attempt by God to demonstrate his heart and plans for all the nations of the earth. We see Israel rise up from the line of Abraham. We see Abraham’s son Isaac have two twin son’s Jacob and Esau. Of the two twins, Esau is born first. By custom and tradition, the first son was to receive certain rights and privileges. God reverses this in their case by saying that the younger son would rise up and rule over the older son.

 

   This is a powerful illustration in itself. God was communicating that even though our old nature or the older twin of our self was born first, the new ‘born again’ nature would rule and subdue the older and we would live in victory over our old sinful nature. This was a message for the nation of Israel and the world corporately but it also filters down to us as individuals IF we learn how to accept the truth and appropriate it in our lives.

 

   Another recurring theme from the story of these two brothers in the Bible is that of Esau making a deal with his brother for his birthright. In those days the first-born son was given special inheritance rights and privileges, not to mention responsibilities. In Esau’s case, he was a man of the moment and didn’t care much about things, which he deemed to be matters of the future. One day Esau was incredibly hungry and asked Jacob for some soup that he had just prepared. Jacob told him that he could have the soup IF he promised to give his birth right to him. Esau swore an oath and thus traded his birth right for a bowl of soup.

 

   This story is used in scripture to illustrate the folly of short sightedness when it comes to the temptations of sin. The key to living a life of victory and power over sin and effectiveness in God’s service is to have vision to see beyond the moment as it applies both to this life and eternity as well. No one would even think of destroying their lungs with cigarettes if they could really see what it does inside, but because they can’t see the immediate affects, and it is something that in hidden and takes place over time, people just figure that they will deal with it later. They are in essence selling something MORE valuable for something much less valuable like a bowl of soup for a birthright. This idea can be seen in a multitude of examples. The bottom line is that when the devil says, “Deal or no deal?” We should say, “No deal!”

 

   Eventually God changes Jacob’s name to Israel. As we have already seen, God often changes people’s names in the Bible. This is significant because God changes OUR names also when we repent from our part in man’s experiment and put our trust and dependency upon Him. Revelation chapter 2 tells us that all faithful believers will be given a stone in heaven with a new name on it. This is the name God calls us by right from the beginning of our relationship with Him. The name does not reflect who we are but what God is making us to become.

 

   I used to do missionary work in Japan many years ago. There, when people die, the family pays money to have a priest come and give the deceased person a ‘new name’. The more the family pays-the more prestigious the new name!

 

   Jacob’s name means trickster or deceiver. Israel means ‘prince with God’. Israel did not immediately act like a prince with God but the process had begun. He was well on his way and by the time his days were finished he had become what God had been calling him all along.

 

   In the New Testament one of Jesus’ disciples is named Simon. Simon means ‘reed’. A reed is a water plant. It bends and sways whichever way the current is going. Jesus changed his name to Peter or ‘rock’. It was a long time before Peter began to show characteristics in keeping with a ‘rock’ personality. He acted very much like a reed for a long time. But the longer he kept trusting in God, confessing his sins, realizing his failures, and continuing in fellowship with God, ‘The younger twin of himself rose up to rule over his older nature’. Are you getting a hold on this!?

 

   Eventually, Israel had 12 sons who in turn had families and became the twelve tribes of Israel. The Bible tracks particularly with one of these sons named, Joseph. As a young boy he had dreams and visions that foretold of his eventual rise to a place of high honor and power. His brothers were very jealous of him and they sold him into slavery in Egypt. They told their father that the boy had been herding sheep and was killed by wild animals.

 

   Joseph however, does indeed rise to a place of honor and power in Egypt and eventually becomes the second highest ruler in the land under the Pharaoh himself. Joseph is very wise and helps the people of Egypt through a prolonged season of intense famine. He is eventually reconciled with his brothers and serves as another veiled or shadowed prophetic picture of Jesus in the future.

 

 

   After about 400 years, the people of Israel find themselves in Egypt under much different circumstances. They are now slaves working under a new Pharaoh. God raises up a man named Moses to deliver them. It was time for the next phase of Israel’s education as a nation but again, the purpose of God’s dealings with Egypt and Israel were not merely for their own benefit but for ours as well as enduring principles of spiritual law.

 

   The Pharaoh of Egypt refuses to let the people of Israel go back to the land of Israel. God works through Moses to bring about 10 powerful plagues intended to demonstrate to the Pharaoh as well as all the surrounding nations that the God of Israel was God Almighty and not just an idol or creation of man’s own devising. The miracles do two things. First, the hardhearted Pharaoh is forced to see the truth of who he was really dealing with and lets the people go. The second thing the miracles did was to reveal in fact who the really hardhearted people were. God demonstrated His love for the people and His compassion by bringing them out of slavery. Yet, in just a few short days, they had forgotten everything they had seen and began to grumble. They even wished to return to the land of slavery rather than trust God to lead them through the desert. The ones with the most stubborn hearts were the people who had been freed from slavery in their old way of living! Again, we are to see that it is really we ourselves and not just THEM that the lesson is intended for.

 

   Their stubbornness eventually resulted in their not being allowed to enter the promised land of Israel for another 40 years. They were made to wander in the desert until a new ‘believing’ generation was ready to go in.

 

  This story is used as a metaphor for our own lives. Before we turn away from our self-sufficiency and desire to be God in our own way and on our own terms, we are slaves to a cruel taskmaster called sin. We then come to the place where God opens the eyes of our understanding and we call out to God as our savior and deliverer. But many times we find ourselves tempted by the old land of slavery. We cannot see the place God is taking us and we deceive ourselves into imagining the old land of slavery to sin somehow was better. Some do not make it through this desert. Some do go back into Egypt. But you are smart enough to be one of the people who make it on through to the Promised Land!

 

 

   In the desert, God gives Moses the ten commandments. He also gave very detailed and precise instructions about every little aspect of daily life. God did this so that it would help the people to see their own heart attitudes more clearly but it also serves as a record for all the world to see. We can see how the people faired under the ‘law of God’. We generally feel that we are pretty good people and imagine we are in a good place with God until we really examine the Ten-Commandments and realize how far we fall short of the heavenly standard.

 

1)      You shall worship nothing or no one above your creator.

2)      Do not make or worship idols.

3)      Do not use the Holy name of God in an irreverent or trivial manner.

4)      You shall set aside a day or rest to honor the Lord and trust He will provide your financial needs in six days instead of making money seven days per week.

5)      Honor you mother and father.

6)      You shall not murder.

7)      You shall not be sexually immoral, especially as a covenant breaker.

8)      You shall not steal.

9)      You shall not lie especially to make another person look bad.

10) You shall not long after things that belong to others (You shall not covet.)

Exodus 20: 1-17 (my paraphrase)

 

  The most important part of this lesson was to reveal the truth of how pervasive sin is in the heart of man and how impossible it is for man to cleanse himself no matter how hard he tries. God’s hope was for the people to ‘get the message’. The message was really not that hard to understand. God was waiting for people to stand up and say, “Lord, we cannot make ourselves clean through ceremony and ritual. We see that you are Holy and separate from us but we desire to be close to you. We see our sinfulness and ask that you would cleanse our hearts from the effects of our sin and show us how to follow after you in truth.”

 

 

 

 

   A priest is a person that stands in the middle between sinful man and Holy God, or an intermediary. Man’s great experiment had created a gulf between God and mankind and the only bridge of communication between God and mankind was through priests set apart for this service who ministered at very specific locations as directed by God. The whole set-up was extremely elaborate and complex, yet as with most of the Bible, it was a way for God to paint a picture with historical events to communicate spiritual concepts.

 

 

   One of the pictures God provided in the Old Testament was the tabernacle which was mobile and temporary, and later the temple which was ‘more permanent’ in Jerusalem. It was basically a large tent. Inside the tent was a special room called the Holy of Holies. No one was permitted in that room except the High Priest and even he could only enter once each year. Every aspect of the tabernacle’s construction has deeper meaning and valuable lessons for further instruction however, I will not go into all the details here. My aim here is to provide the bare essentials in order to track with the basic story line of the Bible.

 

   Again, the key truth being conveyed behind the concept of a priest is that there is a wall or state of division. God is on one side and we are on the other. The people on this side cannot directly approach God. God is absolutely sinless and pure. He is Holy and separate from anything corrupt or defiled in any way. If mankind is to meet with God it must be through a representative that has gone through a very complex series of steps to prepare himself for this encounter. These rituals were designed to make it abundantly clear that meeting with God was not a light matter. If the steps were not followed precisely, the priest would not be accepted in God’s presence. The collision between God’s Holiness and the priest’s impurity would be like the collision of matter and antimatter resulting in the priest’s death.

 

   The priest would offer the blood of a sacrificial lamb upon a special seat located on top of 'The Arc of the Covenant'. This was a special box that was carried with the people everywhere they traveled. The box contained three things. God selected these three objects because they were themselves reminders of key concepts that God wanted the people to understand and remember.

 

   First was a walking stick that had belonged to Aaron, Moses’ brother and assistant. Aaron was selected to be the first priest. Many individuals were put forth as candidates to serve in a priest role. God made his selection known by causing one of the walking sticks to grow fresh leaves and almond blossoms. It was another picture of the future Jesus. The stick was dead but came to life again. Jesus would be the eventual high priest of our salvation and the stick representing the cross of wood which would bloom and bring forth life.

 

   The second was a jar of manna. This was a bread like substance that God provided for the people to eat in the middle of the desert. After leaving Egypt, the people complained that they would die in the desert of starvation. They doubted God’s love for them and His ability to provide for them. Again, it is a picture of Jesus who would appear many years in the future at that time. Jesus said, “I am the bread of life. Whoever eats of my flesh and drink my blood will never die.” He was speaking of us personally receiving in our own heart the gift of Jesus taking the death penalty for mankind’s declaration of independence by laying down his own life in complete dependence in God the Father. He also said, “My bread is to do the will of my Father in heaven.” He was demonstrating the opposite of Adam and Eve. He was showing that the way to life was to completely and totally through our whole dependency upon God. This is why Christians take communion even to this day. Each time we take it we are recalling to our conscious understanding that Jesus provided the true manna from heaven for our eternal life and spiritual nourishment.

 

 

   This is what Jesus meant when he called himself the light of the world and the true bread from heaven and when He said, "I am the way, the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me." Jesus is The way- A life in total cooperation with God and not in independence from God. The truth- Jesus demonstrated in His own relationship to the Father that mankind absolutely needs God and cannot function apart from Him without eventually ending up in ruin. But living in right relationship with the Father results in fruitful living that will impact the world forever and ipact every language, tribe and people group. The life- Jesus is the main vine and we are the branches. A branch cannot make fruit by itself. It must be joined into the main trunk and supported by the roots. We cannot make fruit in our lives through religious rituals, ceremonies and good deeds in and of themselves. Bearing fruit is as natural to the branch and effortless as breathing is to a healthy branch if it is attached to the main vine. Likewise, Christians do not produce fruit for God and good works by hard efforts and striving. We just live in Jesus and stay close to Him, the fruit in our lives naturally follows. The key is to make sure nothing blocks the free flow of the life giving sap into our spiritual lives. That is the life giving power of the person of the Holy Spirit.

 

   The third thing in the box was the Stone tablets containing the 10 commandments. These commandments summarized all the detailed instructions contained in the first 5 books of the Bible called the Pentateuch. These 5 books contained the ceremonies, the rituals, and the chronicles of the history of the Jewish people. God basically was saying, “I said all of that to say this”, and he boiled it all down to the 10 commandments. If you set your mind to doing these you will find God and will then find life in Him. Jesus broke it down even further by condensing it down to just 2. He said, “Love the Lord your God (creator) with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and your neighbor as yourself.

 

   We in our modern day culture tend to think of these as warm fuzzy sentiments without really giving them much thought. The words sound loving and sweet but Jesus meant what He said. To find eternal life we must love God with our whole being. Any person who sets his mind to truly and totally obeying just the first commandment of Jesus will see how truly self centered, corrupted and vile his own heart is and how truly far from God he lives in his daily life. He should then come to a place of crying out to God that he sees the truth, “God, I see it now, I now understand that I as an individual have my own part in Adam and Eve’s experiment. I have never once really considered living my life in connection with you. Please forgive me and show me how to be saved. I know I need your mercy. I don’t want to live independent from you anymore. Show me the way!”

 

   The Holy of Holies was off limits. Mankind was not permitted to have fellowship with God. A thick curtain was constructed between the people and the meeting place where one representative of mankind was permitted in. The one representative could come in, once a year and if he was very careful he would be accepted, but just barely. An innocent lamb would have to die. Its blood would be symbolically placed on the mercy seat on top of the special box. Innocent blood being spilled for the guilty, this was the picture God was painting on the canvass of history. Sin was ugly. Sin was a divider between the creator and mankind. Sin caused death. Sin boiled all the way down to its most basic reality was a declaration of independence from God and an embracing of the pride of Satan himself.

 

   The blood of animals was a temporary fix as a way of illustration but eventually the time would be right to bring in the real cure. Eventually we would no longer need to have priests going to God on our behalf-we can go to God directly because Jesus is our eternal and perpetual priest. He has made the way, not by the blood of animals but by His own precious blood.

 

 

 

 

   As we continue to track with the people of Israel, we should see a model that we can check against our own experience. In their case, they went as a nation through a period of slavery in Egypt. They were brought out of slavery by the miraculous power of God working on their behalf. They came to a place in the wilderness where they were tested and purified before they could eventually enter the Promised Land.

 

   In our case, we find that our life before coming to faith in Christ is the biblical equivalent to the slavery in Egypt. Jesus said that anyone who sins is a slave to sin. The Bible also makes it clear that all have sinned and there is no one who does right and is naturally pleasing to the Lord since the fall of man in the garden. When we come to faith in Christ and realize that we need to repent of our part in man’s experiment and depend on the Lord for our deliverance from our ‘Egypt’, we also will find that we must pass through our own season in the ‘wilderness’ on the way to the Promised Land. In the wilderness we learn that we may indeed be out of Egypt, but it may take a while before Egypt is purged out of us!

 

    We also find that the model of the nation of Israel has other pictures and parallels that correspond to our ‘faith life’ as well. Many of the lessons go directly in the face of the way we generally think about faith in God. Here are three basic ideas that this portion of scripture tries to impart which go against the way we generally think about things.

 

   First, walking with God is intentional and calculated it is NOT a matter of birth or circumstance. Many believe they are Christians because they are born in a ‘Christian’ family or a predominantly ‘Christian’ country. There is a saying, which goes, “God has no grandchildren-only children.” The meaning is simply that each individual must deliberately and intentionally ‘choose’ to follow God. The parents or nation can help make things easier for them and give them a head start with a good heritage and foundation to build upon but there comes a time when the individual must make that decision for him or herself to connect with God or not.

 

   Secondly, the key word in the paragraph above is ‘connect’. We must realize as Israel did that God is going to lead us on a journey of restoration. God will lead us through deserts and valleys and there will be times that we may long for the life we had back in Egypt, not because it was easier but because it was familiar. A life of slavery is nothing if not predictable. However, by connecting with the Lord we will learn to trust God’s leading and grow to maturity in our faith and understanding. It takes time. Jacob was the younger twin yet it was foretold that the younger would rule over his older twin. Even though that was the promise, Jacob still had a process to go through on the way to that becoming a reality in his life. Jacob’s name was still ‘deceiver’. It took some time in his own ‘wilderness’ before he ‘entered the Promised Land’ and his name was changed to Israel or Prince with God. Even when his name was changed he was well on the way, but not fully and completely ‘there’. Our walk with God is a journey not an ‘event’ but the journey starts at a decision to begin walking with the Lord and then sticking with Him.

 

 

   Finally, we will face enemies. Israel was coming into possess a land that was already occupied by other inhabitants. Israel was told that they had to uproot these people groups and take the land as their own. These people kind of liked being on that land and were not that inclined to leave peacefully. Israel was forced to learn how to fight a determined enemy and win.

 

   While Israel fought physical wars with physical enemies, the lessons of their physical warfare are there as a record for the all of the other people groups of the world to read and understand on a spiritual level. In the same way, Israel dealt with a ‘real physical Pharaoh in Egypt, we are to see that as a picture of the devil holding souls in captivity to sin. We learn from the model of Israel then to deal with the devil in our lives as they dealt with Pharaoh back then. Pharaoh had to be confronted with the authority of God and ordered to let God’s people go. Moses realized that it was not his own righteousness, or ability, or strength, or wisdom that would bring deliverance to the people. It was only his authority as an ambassador in right relationship with God that gave him the power to do what he did and deal with the tyrant. As we understand this in the Old Testament, it helps us to later grasp that this is the main message to the church in the New Testament.

 

   The New Testament book of Ephesians gives us a glimpse into the unseen spiritual warfare being waged behind the scenes that most human beings are oblivious to. The lessons of a battle mindset found in the Old Testament stories of Israel wresting control of the land from demonic inhabitants, is our model in wresting souls from Satanic control and delivering them into freedom in Christ. The battles were real events involving real people but the lessons are real for us in a spiritual application against real spiritual enemies today.

   Christians are admonished in the New Testament to engage in ‘Spiritual Warfare’. This means that we aggressively make war on what Christians call the ‘forces of darkness’. 2 Corinthians chapter 10 verses 4 and 5 say this, “The weapons of our warfare are not of this world but they are mighty through God for the purpose of tearing down strongholds (castles-fortresses): Tearing down imaginations, and every high thing that raises itself up against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.”

 

   The New Testament book of Ephesians Chapter 6 verses 11-12 says this, “Put on the whole armor of God so that you will be able to stand against all the trickeries of the devil. We do not fight against flesh and blood but against spiritual powers, against spiritual rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

   It boils down to Christians fighting spiritual battles against spiritual enemies with the same fervor and intensity that the people in the Old Testament did in dealing with physical opponents.

 

   When we see individuals, neighborhoods, cities even nations, bound up in slavery to tyrannical spiritual rulers, we want to DO something about it! We want to see the captives set free. As born again men and women of God, we have given up our place in the great experiment. We have turned our back on our ‘Old life’. We now have declared our ‘utter Dependence on God. We then go to God who is the source of our life and seek Him for the wisdom, power, and strategy to seek and save the lost and destroy the works of the devil.

   We war against blind superstition. We war against the ravages of poverty and disease. If the cause is ignorance, we bring education. If the cause is lack of resources, we bring in supply. If the problem is demonic interference, we exercise authority as God’s emissaries and drive back the devil in the name of Jesus. There is no shortage of enemies to war against and no lack of battles to wage. The follower of Jesus is duty bound to be part of the army of God when they claim citizenship in His kingdom.

 

   It is for this reason that God’s ‘soldiers’ have built thousands or schools, thousands of orphanages, thousands of hospitals, and supplied countless millions with food, medicine, shelter and clean water. It is for this reason that they go into war zones, and other hostile regions to bring; The love of God, Forgiveness of Sins, Power over fear and superstition, Freedom from addiction, Freedom from slavery, Justice mixed with mercy and compassion.

 

   I warn you now, do not even consider following Jesus, if you are not ready to enlist in His army. You may be called by God to go to a distant jungle and eat bugs. You may be called to go to a hostile war zone armed only with the love of God and a bible to share the gospel (good-news) to people armed with guns, spears, machetes, or poison gas. There are thousand of ‘soldiers of Jesus’, in prison today. Thousands are killed each year just for showing love in a world of hate, just for bring light to a world of darkness. He may call you to share the light of the gospel to friends, family, co-workers or neighbors who may react in anger and despise you because you represent light coming into the darkness in which they have become accustomed and comfortable.

 

   Jesus said this; “The kingdom of God allows for violence and the violent advance it by force. (Matthew 11:12) Obviously, Jesus does not endorse physical violence to advance the kingdom of God. He means that we get serious about praying for those we are concerned about. We are aggressive in going out and bringing the light of Jesus OUTSIDE of the 4 walls of the church to the people where they live and into the market place.

 

   Not everyone will appreciate the call to give up the experiment of man. Not everyone will wish to hear about the love of God, the forgiveness of sin, and new life in Christ. We will have to fight through opposition of fear within our selves to step out of our comfort zones. We will have to fight through demonic opposition. We will have to fight through opposition from a hostile world by continuing to love, serve and pray ANYWAY.

 

   As you slog through the battles and blood and guts of the Old Testament, keep in mind the battle mentality we are to develop through those accounts and see how we are to apply that mindset against the devil, and our own self-centeredness today. A great deal of the warfare will be directed at our own selfishness. Jesus said that if we were going to follow Him it would require that we would have to take up our cross and crucify our selves. Christians call that that ‘Crucifying the Flesh’.

 

   The key to remember here is that we fight with God’s power working in us and through us in love. We do not do good works and kind things so that it will somehow offset our bad and give us better points with God. We do good works as a natural overflow of our relationship with God. He is the tree. We are the branches. The sap from the tree flows through us and we bear good fruit. The key is to keep the relationship strong so that nothing hinders that flow. Sometimes our ‘warfare’ is to fight against anything that will block that relationship and thus block the flow of ‘sap’ through the tree through us. Sometimes that means we have to aggressively take action. When Sunday rolls around and your spirit is thirsty to be in fellowship with other Christians and to get a fresh spiritual meal, you must ‘fight’ the flesh and beat it into submission. Sometimes you have to treat the ‘Old man’ or ‘Old self’ like a child. Your new born again self is the parent. Your childish old nature wants to eat only deserts. As the parent, you sometimes have to say, “Sorry, you have to eat your veggies!” 

 

   Have you every the experience of telling a kid something like this? “Johnny, Don’t jump on the furniture.” Johnny looks up and says, “Why not?” The correct response should simply be for him to simply say yes and not jump on the furniture. Yet, human nature is such that he wants to know, why. He is prepared to comply, IF the reason is good enough for him. He will disobey when you are not looking, IF he thinks his reason is better than yours.

 

   God says; “No sex outside of marriage, No homosexual relationships, No murder (even inconvenient babies or ‘useless’ invalids), show love to the unlovely, forgive even when someone has hurt you badly, if you want to be great become the servant of all…” If we have truly given up our part in the experiment, we simply say yes Lord, even when we don’t get it. If we are God’s children, we need to realize that sometime the answer to our question is simply, “Cuz God said so”. It is a hard thing for us to do violence against our old self-centered sin nature! But we are called upon to crucify the old nature by determining to walk in the new nature. This requires a moment by moment relationship with the Lord in order for us to have victory in our lives.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Various people groups or mini-nations, collectively known as the Canaanites, inhabited the land where God was sending them. These people had many practices that were evil in the sight of God including the sacrifice of children by forcing them to pass through fire in certain ceremonial rituals that focused on the worship of various idols.

 

   The ‘Children of Israel’ were not to intermingle with these people. They were not to hangout with them. They were not to inter-marry with them. They were not to imitate their customs. God’s plan to be a blessing to all nations in the long run, first entailed establishing a starting point to reach out from. If the nation of Israel were to be effective it would have to stand out as a stark contrast to the nations around them.

 

   Jesus called his followers, “Salt and Light”. Salt is useful in that it helps to facilitate healing, cleansing, and preservation. It is also used as a spice to bring out a strong contrast in flavor to bland food. Light also brings about contrast and drives away darkness. God wanted the people of Israel, to become a salt and light contrast to the nations around them. He had not forgotten the promise to Abraham that through him all the people groups of the earth would be blessed. God looked at the earth as a physician looks at a patient. All the nations are like the thousands of ‘types’ of cells in a single body. God’s big plan is to create one body with ‘representative cells’ from ALL of these types from the various nations. But at that particular time and place, there were major cancer cells that were threatening to spread to the medicinal cells that God was injecting into the infected area. The cancer cells had to be dealt with in order for the healthy cells to take root and flourish..

 

   Over time, the nation of Israel did take root and healthy ‘God cells’ were beginning to have their good influence on the surrounding body of nations. The light was indeed beginning to shine. Satan of course could see what was happening and worked very hard to sabotage the work by fanning the old flame left lingering in the heart of man from way back in the Garden of Eden. Man’s experiment was still at work even in the hearts of some of the descendants of Israel. The Bible clearly states, “Not all who are descendants of Israel really are Israel.” From within the nation there were some who began to stir up confusion and descent.

 

 

   They looked around them and saw that all the other nations had Kings to lead them. They wanted to have a King too. Up until that time, they had leadership from Prophets such as Moses, Joshua, and Samuel. They also had Judges who would listen to the disputes and situations that arose amongst the people and would arbitrate between the individuals. It was a system where the people considered God to be their King and the part of the Bible available to them at that time to be their ‘Constitution’ as it were. The Prophets helped them as a nation to stay on track as a nation and provide guidance, instruction, and if necessary correction and discipline.

 

   The system worked pretty well for the most part but it was effective only as far as individuals were willing to cooperate and participate in it. The people somehow felt that they were being looked down on by the nations around them. They all had kings that they could rally behind as their champion in battle. They wanted someone that they could rally behind as well.

 

   The idea grieved the Prophet Samuel very much at the time because he could see the spiritual ramifications that would eventually come about. The people as a whole still wanted to participate in man’s experiment and did not want God as their King. God told Samuel not to worry because it was not Samuel that the people were rejecting but rather, it was God Himself. Remember, in all these things, there is a story line that serves as a kind of mirror for us to hold up and see ourselves in. God was always using these situations to send his people to school to learn lessons both for them and for the whole world as we track with their progress through the whole Bible story.

 

   Long story short, God gave them a King. His name was Saul. He started off all right but soon used his power and authority for his own self-centered ends. He was eventually replaced by David. He is the one who killed the great giant Goliath. David was not a perfect man. He struggled and made many stupid mistakes. He had a hard time crucifying his flesh or saying, ‘No to himself’, but his heart was deep at its core sold out to God. Whenever he did something stupid, he was broken hearted in a way that God wants us all to get to. He was not worried about being punished. He was not worried about losing out on reward. He was worried that his failures would cut off his intimate relationship with God, which he cherished more than anything in the universe. It was not the fear of Hell or the longing for heaven, it was the desire to be close with God that motivated him.

 

   It became clear to the first king Saul that this up and coming David would eventually rise up through the ranks and become king in his place. He therefore was intensely jealous of the young man and tried several times to kill him. He also feared that his own son Jonathan’s future kingship was in danger because it was clear that the people would rather have David as king that Jonathan.

  

 

 

    Jonathan and David however were the best of friends and Jonathan actually felt that David would be a better king than himself. The two even went so far as to make a blood brother covenant between them.

 

   Eventually, both Saul and Jonathan were killed in a battle. David in fact did become king. When the word got out that David was the new king, the people of Saul’s household ran for their lives thinking that David would come and wipe them out to secure his kingship. David of course had absolutely no such intentions.

 

   David’s blood brother Jonathan had a son named Mephebosheth. In all the commotion of Saul’s family running for their lives, the nursemaid taking care of Mephebosheth fell down while running and landed on the boy’s legs, severely crippling him. He was taken to a cave and hidden for several years because they mistakenly thought David would do the boy harm as a rival for the throne.

 

   Years later, David came to learn about the young man and sent for him. Mephebosheth certainly thought his life was over. All these years he had been hiding in a cave. His legs were crippled. He undoubtedly blamed David in his heart every day for his circumstances and despised him.

 

   David looked at the young man and spoke along these lines, “All this time, I thought there was no one left from Saul’s family that I could show kindness to for Jonathan’s sake. I pledged my very heart to your father as my dearest and closest friend. I told him that every thing I have is his. His enemies were my enemies. We even cut our arms with a knife and tied our arms together so that we could become blood brothers. From now on Mephebosheth, you will live here in the palace and eat at the king’s table every day. I will treat you as if you were my own son.”

 

   Mephebosheth was shocked! He said, “What do you want with a dead dog like me?” But this was the picture that God was painting. It is the message of the gospel of Jesus. Mephebosheth was not treated that way because he earned it, or even deserved it. It had nothing to do with Mephebosheth either good or bad. It had to do with David honoring a covenant made in his own blood!

 

   When we come to Christ and recognize that he intentionally left the Father’s side in heaven and allowed himself to be born in the middle of broken humanity, confused and messed up by the millions of variations that man’s experiment had gone, He was on a mission. The mission was to bring the restoration promised in the garden. He was honoring the covenant made with Abraham. By offering himself up on the cross for our sins, he was offering a covenant with us as well. He and the Father had this covenant thing worked out long before.

 

   It goes like this, Jesus, The Father and the Holy Spirit are in absolutely pure and perfect covenant agreement with each other. Jesus died on the cross to open the covenant to us in that when we make the decision to receive the gift of Christ’s blood to be payment for our part in the treason and rebellion of mankind’s great experiment, the Father receives us ON JESUS’ behalf.

 

   In other words God says, if you are good enough to be connected to my son by entering into covenant with him by accepting his gift, then you are good enough for me too welcome to the kingdom. This of course implies that you truly recognize your part in the experiment and are disgusted by it and really get it and want to truly live for God.

 

   Mephebosheth was never able to approach David and make a case for WHY he should be allowed in the palace and be privileged to eat at the king’s table. He recognized it was only by grace and mercy that he was so blessed. It is in Jesus’ faithfulness to God the Father and not our own, that we are saved. When Christians pray, they usually end the prayer to the Father by saying, “In Jesus name.” We petition God always recognizing that it is not based on OUR deservedness but on our CONNECTEDNESS to Jesus, and HIS connectedness to the Father.

 

   In the same way, Christians understand that we can never claim citizenship in heaven because we were ‘basically good’, or our ‘good outweighs our bad’. We never can claim that we are saved from this corrupted world and the judgment to come because we prayed enough prayers, gave enough money, did enough good deeds, went to church enough times or any such thing. All we can do is say, I am saved because I recognized the truth that I was lost in man’s great experiment and thus guilty of treason, revolt, rebellion, and ingratitude toward my creator. I was born into a river whose strong current is rushing forward day by day toward eternal destruction.

 

   Jesus took the death penalty for our sin as mankind but even more so, he took MY INDIVIDUAL sin upon himself. He sacrificed his sinless life for my sinful life. He offered an exchange, my fig leaves for a real robe of righteousness. I know longer approach God with ‘religion, ceremony, customs, traditions, and ritual’. I come to God as a child of God just like Mephebosheth.

 

   Mephebosheth had a choice. He could have blamed David for his crippled condition. He could have blamed David for his years of living in the cave. We too can curse God for our own ignorance, even though the truth is never far from those who really seek to know it. We can blame God for the failure of our manmade covering and fig leaves. We can substitute religion on our own terms but only the Way, the truth and the life and restore the broken relationship. Fortunately, Mephebosheth had sense enough to come in out of the rain. How about you?

 

 

 

   We now have the background to be able to track with the Bible story and take in some of the many spiritual jewels that God has left for the spiritual miner to find. Some of these jewels and gold nuggets are close to the surface, others require some digging. But the gist of the story flows through every page and chapter written through over 40 individuals over 1,500 years on three different continents! The story is continuous and flows fluently in all of the over 5,700 languages and dialects where it has been translated.

 

   It is now time to move past the rest of the Old Testament, which is largely a record of God’s dealing with the nation of Israel. Remember the story of Israel is provided so that we can keep track of the successes and failures of one nation located in the center of us all. Some of the people of Israel make the effort to do things God’s way and are blessed and rewarded. Others, are stubborn and hard-hearted. They have a series of Kings. Some of the Kings are good, others are bad. They have prophets who warn them and seek to guide and correct them. Some listen, others don’t. There are good examples, bad examples, and man’s experiment is displayed in a wide variety of forms.

 

   The first five books of the Bible are basically history and get us acquainted with God and the story of how mankind’s fellowship with God is broken. The story moves to the scattering of the nations in hopes that the people would give up self-sufficiency and the desire to be independent from God. The story continues with the formation of one nation in the center of the earth’s landmasses from which