Year: 2016 (Page 5 of 6)

The Gospel Observer

March 20, 2016 / Tom Edwards

“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations…teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:19-20, NASB).
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Contents:

1) The Christian’s GPS Guide (Steve Locklair)
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The Christian’s GPS Guide

Steve Locklair

Most people are familiar with the GPS, a global navigation satellite system developed by the Department of Defense which transmits precise signals allowing receivers to calculate and display accurate location, speed, and time information to the user. These global positioning systems work in most weather conditions, day or night, 24 hours a day, around the globe, and we can use them to help us get to our destinations. You simply put in your destination address, and it will tell you turn by turn directions for the roads you need to travel to get you there. Some models will even alert you to traffic and construction delays that you might encounter and will allow you to avoid them. Using the acronym GPS, let us consider a few comparisons between this man-made GPS and God, and how we should use our spiritual GPS. First, we should recognize God’s Powerful Sight. God is like the man-made GPS in that He knows exactly where you are at and where you are going, both physically and spiritually, just as he did with Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:9-13, 17ff). But while the man-made GPS makes mistakes and is dependent on the accuracy of the installed map, God is infallible, inerrant, and eternal, which all men should realize or they are without excuse (Romans 1:20; Proverbs 15:3). God has given us an inspired, infallible, and inerrant word to correct us when we are wrong and instruct us in doing what is right in His sight so that we will have the wisdom to get to our eternal destination through Christ (2 Timothy 3:14-17; John 14:1-6). Are you doing what is right in your own eyes or the eyes of the Lord (Judges 17:6; 21:25)?

In addition, we should follow God’s Powerful Standard. Just as the GPS has to make choices as to which road to go on, we also make decisions as to our eternal destination. God has created us in His image without sin when we are born, but at some point in our youth we choose to sin (Ezekiel 18:20; Jeremiah 3:25; James 1:13-16; Romans 3:23; 1 John 3:4). When we make choices based upon our feelings without divine revelation, the GPS tells us that it will eventually lead to eternal condemnation (Proverbs 14: 12; Revelation 21:8). We cannot guide our own footsteps in righteousness (Jeremiah 10:23). Thankfully, through the power of His blood and resurrection from the dead, we can be born again to a living hope through the reliable standard of the Scriptures (John 11: 25-26; 1 Peter 1:3-5, 19, 22- 25). If you are not on the right road that leads to heaven (through God’s Powerful Standard), you will not escape the righteous judgment of God (Hebrews 4:12-13).

We must also avoid the Great Prowling Schemer (Satan). Realizing God’s Powerful Sight and following God’s Powerful Standard will put us on the right road, but through our journey, we will encounter many traffic snares, construction delays, and road blocks that we must detour around or persevere through. We also can be honestly and sincerely thinking we’re going the right way but still be wrong. An example of this is following a man-made GPS and taking the wrong turn. Satan disguises himself as an angel of light and uses those who appear to be righteous in order to deceive others (2 Corinthians 11:14-15).

Even though he appears innocent, we must not let our guard down, because the Bible describes Satan as a roaring lion seeking to devour souls (1 Peter 5:8). Satan is always scheming in order to get people to curse God and disobey Him (Job 1:11). But how does he get people to do that?

Satan can use families.

Satan took away everything Job had but allowed his wife to live so that she would do Satan’s bidding when she told Job to “curse God and die” (Job 2:9). What if your loved one told you to quit serving God when you were suffering through trials? Would you do it? Job overcame the great prowling schemer and did not curse God (Job 1:22; 2:10). You must love Jesus more than any other family member and not give in when they tell you to sin; discourage you from doing what is right; or become your enemy; otherwise you are not worthy of Him (Matthew 10:34ff; Luke 6:46). Will you put on the whole armor of God so that you will be able to stand firm and overcome the schemes of Satan (Ephesians 6:10ff)?

Satan can use friendships.

The Bible warns about bad company corrupting good morals (1 Corinthians 15:33). But in an attempt to be popular, or get along with others in order to avoid persecution, many will decide to hang out with the wrong crowd. If you do this and continue to be their friends, ultimately, you will think, talk, dress and act like them. But if you delight in God’s word, you will overcome the GPS (Satan) by saying no to their enticements to sin (Psalms 1:1ff; Proverbs 1:10ff). Even if you have faithful friends, Satan can use them to lead you astray. They may judge you by appearance, traditions, or assumptions (Job 4:8; 8:8; 11:5-6; 19:14; 32:3; 42:7). Will you say no when your friends entice you to sin or will you give in to the great prowling schemer?

Satan can use ministers.

Satan disguises himself as a minister of righteousness so that he can deceive people into believing a lie. “No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their deeds” (2 Corinthians 11:14-15). Satan can use his ministers to tell people… that “all roads lead to heaven”; “just accept Christ as your personal Savior and you will be saved”; “once you’re saved, you’re always saved”; “it doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you are honest and sincere”; etc. We must not think of any man above that which is written (1 Corinthians 4:6), and we must test the spirits to see whether they are from God (1 John 4:1) so that we will not fall victim to the deceptions of the Great Prowling Schemer.

Finally, we must obey God’s Plan of Salvation. With the man-made GPS, the mileage will change as you get closer to your destination. Even though there are different answers along the way, it is still accurate (unless it has malfunctioned). It is the same way concerning God’s plan of salvation. In the book of Acts, different answers are given to people depending on where they are at spiritually. They are not told everything they need to do at one time. Remember that the sum of God’s word is truth (Psalms 119:160).

An unbeliever should examine the facts of the gospel so that he might believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God or he will die in his sins (John 20:30-31; 8:24). The only way anyone can have faith is by hearing God’s Powerful Standard (Romans 10:17), not by a vision, miracle, feeling, or strong conviction.

A person who believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God must have the conviction to obey everything Jesus commanded (Matthew 28:19-20; John 14:15; Hebrews 5:8). A person who does not obey God’s plan of salvation will be punished forever in torment (2 Thessalonians 1:7ff).

The Ethiopian eunuch heard preaching about Jesus and asked what hindered him from being baptized. He was told if he believed with all his heart he could. Then he said, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God” (Acts 8:37). This was in accordance with Jesus’ command to believe and be baptized in order to be saved (Mark 16:15-16).

Those who were pricked in their heart that Jesus is Christ and Lord on the Day of Pentecost were told to repent and be baptized. Why? So that they could have the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38). A penitent believer was told to “arise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord” (Acts 22:16). Why was he baptized? So that his sins would be washed away. Then a Christian is told to learn to obey everything Jesus commanded and grow in the grace and knowledge of His will (Matthew 28:20; 2 Peter 3:18).

In conclusion, you will need to use your spiritual GPS (God’s Powerful Standard) everyday of your life so that you will be able to overcome the Great Prowling Schemer and obey God’s Plan of Salvation so that you can eventually go to heaven. Satan is trying to deceive people into believing that the way to heaven is broad and easy and many will go there. Do not be deceived! God’s Powerful Standard is narrow, difficult, and few will actually go to heaven. “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matthew 7:13-14).

— Via The Watchman Magazine, January 26, 2010
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The Steps That Lead to Eternal Salvation

1) Hear the gospel, for that is how faith comes (Rom. 10:17; John 20:30,31).
2) Believe in the deity of Christ (John 8:24; John 3:18).
3) Repent of sins (Luke 13:5; Acts 17:30).
4) Confess faith in Christ (Rom. 10:9,10; Acts 8:36-38).
5) Be baptized in water for the remission of sins (Mark 16:16; Acts 2:38; 22:16; Rom. 6:3,4; Gal. 3:26,27; 1 Pet. 3:21).
6) Continue in the faith; for, if not, salvation can be lost (Heb. 10:36-39; Rev. 2:10; 2 Pet. 2:20-22).
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Tebeau Street
CHURCH OF CHRIST
1402 Tebeau Street, Waycross, GA 31501
Sunday services: 9:00 AM (Bible class); 10 AM & 5 PM (worship)
Wednesday: 7 PM (Bible class)
evangelist/editor: Tom Edwards (912) 281-9917
Tom@ThomasTEdwards.com
http://ThomasTEdwards.com/audioser.html (audio sermons)

The Gospel Observer

March 13, 2016 / Tom Edwards

Contents:

1) Evidences of Faith: A Prophet Like Moses (Jim Robson)
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Evidences of Faith:
A Prophet Like Moses

Jim Robson

The book of Deuteronomy, which was written somewhere around 1450 BC, records the final words of Moses to the nation of Israel, before their long-awaited entry into the promised land of Canaan. One of the things Moses told the people was this:

“The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren” (Deuteronomy 18:15).

At first blush, this may not seem very exceptional; throughout the long history of the Israelites, God sent many prophets to them. However, God did not send many prophets like Moses.

On the contrary, God Himself made a distinction between Moses and all of the other prophets:

“Hear now My words: If there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, make Myself known to him in a vision; I speak to him in a dream. Not so with My servant Moses; he is faithful in all My house. I speak with him plainly, and not in dark sayings; and he sees the form of the Lord” (Numbers 12:6-8).

Even among the prophets, Moses was exceptional. God spoke of him in a way that set him, as it were, in a class by himself. So, when Moses indicated that God would at some point raise up another prophet like him, he was saying something truly extraordinary.

And, when we consider Moses’ life as a whole, it was indeed most extraordinary. At his birth, Moses narrowly escaped death: the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt, and Pharaoh had ordered all of the male Hebrew babies killed (Exodus 1:15-22). Moses’ mother hid her newborn son as long as she could, then placed him in a waterproofed basket in the reeds at the bank of the river, where Pharaoh’s own daughter found him, had compassion on him, and raised him as her own son (Exodus 2:1-10). Thus, the baby Moses was saved from the king’s decree.

Later in his life, Moses was sent by God to lead His people out of their Egyptian slavery (Exodus 3:9-10). After the people were out of the land of Egypt, they became trapped between the Egyptian army and the Red Sea:

“Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea into dry land, and the waters were divided” (Exodus 14:21).

Thus, God effectively gave Moses power over the sea. Moreover, Moses freed the people from their enslavement to the Egyptians: for the Egyptians were driven back into the sea, and Moses closed it on them, drowning every man (Exodus 14:27-28).

To commemorate the people’s deliverance from bondage, Moses established the Passover and the feast of unleavened bread:

“So you shall observe the feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this same day I will have brought your armies out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day throughout your generations as an everlasting ordinance” (Exodus 12:17).

This feast would serve as a reminder of how the people were in bondage in Egypt and were freed by God through Moses. It reminded them how they went from being slaves, to being God’s chosen people.

As we noted earlier, God spoke to Moses, giving him laws to deliver to the people. Moses then told the people all the words of the Lord and all His judgments (Exodus 24:3). Moses spoke whatever God told him to say (Exodus 4:12). But when Moses was on Mount Sinai, and God was speaking to him, he did something else impressive:

“So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread nor drank water…” (Exodus 34:28).

Forty days is a long time to go without food or drink. And that is still not all; as a result of his meetings with God, Moses’ appearance changed:

“Now it was so, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai (and the two tablets of the Testimony were in Moses’ hand when he came down from the mountain), that the skin of his face shone while he talked with Him. So when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him” (Exodus 34:29-30).

As a result of the meeting with God on the mountain, Moses’ face glowed. No wonder the people feared him!

Because of the people’s continual complaining, Moses came to realize that the responsibility of leading them was too much for him to handle on his own. So, like all men of faith, he brought his concerns to God in prayer:

So the Lord said to Moses: “Gather to Me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and officers over them; bring them to the tabernacle of meeting, that they may stand there with you” (Numbers 11:16).

God answered Moses’ prayer by providing him with seventy men who could help him accomplish his mission.

One of the most impressive things about Moses’ character is that, in spite of the repeated complaints and rebellions of the people, he never stopped caring for them. In fact, Moses continually interceded for the people with God:

“Yet now, if You will forgive their sin — but if not, I pray, blot me out of Your book which You have written” (Exodus 32:32).

In his prayer, Moses reveals a deep concern for the people, that he cared for them every bit as much as he cared for himself: even to the point of being willing to suffer the condemnation they incurred with their sins.

At this point, you may begin to think of someone else in the Bible who was willing to suffer for the sins of His people. You may think of Jesus, “who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness…” (I Peter 2:24). Interestingly, on the night He was betrayed, Jesus even prayed for His people in such a way that revealed His deep concern for them:

“Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24).

Jesus prayed that His people share in His rightful place in heaven, thus showing that He cared for them every bit as much as He did for Himself.

It is also interesting to note that, during His ministry on earth, Jesus had seventy men to work with Him:

“After these things the Lord appointed seventy others also, and sent them two by two before His face into every city and place where He Himself was about to go” (Luke 10:1).

You will recall that this is the same as the number of elders who were appointed to help Moses in his work.

You will also recall that Moses’ face glowed while he was on the mountain with God:

“Now after six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother, led them up on a high mountain by themselves; and He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light” (Matthew 17:1-2).

Nor was Moses the only one to fast for forty days:

“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He became hungry” (Matthew 4:1-2).

Nor indeed was Moses the only one to speak what God told him:

“For I have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak. And I know that His command is everlasting life. Therefore, whatever I speak, just as the Father has told Me, so I speak” (John 12:49-50).

Thus Jesus related the commands of God the Father to His people, just as Moses had done for the Israelites.

Moreover, Moses was not the only one who was involved in freeing slaves. As Jesus said, “…whoever commits sin is a slave of sin” (John 8:34). By giving Himself on the cross, Jesus paid the price for sins, thus setting His people — His disciples — free (John 8:31-36). Not only that, He provided them with a way to remember the event that brought them from slavery to freedom:

“And He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me’” (Luke 22:19).

Jesus established this memorial at His last meal with the apostles before His crucifixion. This meal was a Passover meal (Luke 22:7), and so there would be no bread available except unleavened bread. Thus the commemoration established by Jesus, like the one established by Moses, was a feast of unleavened bread.

And, of course, we all remember what happened when Jesus and His disciples were at sea, and a storm arose that threatened the boat and their lives:

“Then He arose and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace, be still!’ And the wind ceased and there was a great calm” (Mark 4:39).

Jesus evidently had inherent authority over the sea and the wind, whereas Moses could not have parted the Red Sea without God’s direct intervention. And no doubt, Jesus freed His people from a spiritual bondage that has eternal consequences, whereas the deliverance accomplished by Moses was physical and temporal. And while Moses expressed a willingness to die with his people, Jesus actually died for His. In short, Jesus was, in point after point, greater than Moses. Nonetheless, the parallels are striking.

We have yet one more parallel to mention. When Moses was born, Pharaoh had ordered all the male Hebrew babies to be killed, as a security measure. When Jesus was born, it was King Herod’s turn:

“Then Herod, when he saw that he was deceived by the wise men, was exceedingly angry; and he sent forth and put to death all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its districts, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the wise men” (Matthew 2:16).

Of course, Herod did not succeed in killing the newborn King, because Joseph had been warned by an angel to flee to Egypt. Thus both Jesus and Moses narrowly escaped death as babies.

Having considered all of these things, it is important to remember that at the time of Jesus’ transfiguration on the mountain, two of the greatest prophets of all time appeared with Him: Moses and Elijah. When Peter wanted to erect tabernacles for the three of them, God said:

“This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!” (Matthew 17:5)

When the apostles opened their eyes, Jesus was the only one of the three still there. Thus God spoke of Jesus in such a way as to separate Him from all other prophets, as He had once done for Moses. Jesus is indeed in a class by Himself.

Not surprisingly, in Acts 3:22-26, the apostle Peter identifies Jesus as the Prophet whom God had promised, the Prophet like Moses. When we consider that Moses had so many points in common with Jesus, it is difficult to regard them all as nothing more than coincidences. Moreover, Moses was by no means the only foreshadow of Christ in the Old Testament: there are many of them. The various foreshadows do not appear very similar to each other, and yet each and every one points to Jesus. It is simply not within the realm of reason to take all of these as mere coincidence. The Bible is the product of One who cannot only foresee the future, but who can even orchestrate events in such a way as to illustrate what is going to happen hundreds or even thousands of years later. He is a truly mighty God.

— Via The Watchman Magazine, October 1, 1988
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The Steps That Lead to Eternal Salvation

The Gospel Observer

March 6, 2016 / Tom Edwards

Contents:

1) Evidences of Faith: Eyewitness Testimony (Jim Robson)
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Acts4_33

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Evidences of Faith:
Eyewitness Testimony

Jim Robson

“And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up — if in fact the dead do not rise” (1 Corinthians 15:14-15). The conviction that Jesus rose from the dead lies at the very heart of the Christian’s faith. Therefore, if we can be certain that He did rise, then we can be certain that we are correct in following Him. Likewise, if we cannot be certain that He rose, then our faith as Christians is without a substantial foundation. It is of the utmost importance, then, that we can be completely certain of Jesus’ resurrection. But, how can we be certain, seeing that we were not present to witness it for ourselves?

This question can be addressed in a number of ways. One way to approach this question is to take a hard look at those who claimed to see the risen Christ: are they reliable witnesses, or a bunch of charlatans? If they are frauds, then there is no reason to follow Christ over any other philosopher or religious figure — for example, Gandhi or Buddha or Muhammad. However, if the individuals who testified of Jesus’ resurrection prove to be reliable witnesses, then we have solid reason to place our faith squarely in Him. Paul indicated that hundreds of individuals saw the risen Christ (1 Corinthians 15:6), but for our purposes we will focus on the handful of witness who knew Him best: the apostles.

In order to determine whether we can believe their testimony, we may start with the question, “What did the apostles have to gain?” If we are going to believe that these men fabricated the resurrection story, then we ought to be able to determine a motive. In point of fact, however, they did not have much of anything to gain. They did not attain wealth for their efforts, nor is there any evidence that they tried to. They did not achieve any political power; in fact, all of their efforts at preaching were focused on the spiritual well-being of the hearers, and no attempt was made to form any kind of political or social movement. Indeed, so far from gaining anything, the apostles suffered grievously for their teaching. They were arrested, imprisoned, and beaten. They were ostracized by the rulers of their own people. Some of them were even killed for their beliefs. These things being so, there is no apparent reason for them to conjure up such a lie. The necessary conclusion, then, is that they were honest men.

To see this point even more clearly, consider in particular the apostle Peter. On the night Jesus was arrested, Peter was so afraid of punishment that he denied knowing Jesus not once, but three times (Matthew 26:69-75). After seeing the resurrected Jesus, and watching Him ascend to heaven, this same Peter began publicly preaching that Jesus is the Christ, and that he himself was a witness (Acts 2:32-36). In fact, Peter had grown so bold that, when he was arrested for preaching Jesus, he proceeded to preach Jesus to those who had arrested him (Acts 4:8-13)! It is difficult to explain such a drastic change in Peter’s character, unless he truly believed that Jesus had risen from the dead: the fabrication of a lie would never transform a coward into a hero, but witnessing a Man risen from the dead could.

Another question that may be asked is, “Were the apostles just a bunch of dupes?” This is a fair question. It is not enough to know that they were honest men; there is, after all, such a thing as an honest mistake. Perhaps they so badly wanted to believe that Jesus had risen, that they were easily convinced. To answer this, we may begin with Mark’s account:

“Now when He rose early on the first day of the week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom He had cast seven demons. She went and told those who had been with Him, as they mourned and wept. And when they heard that He was alive and had been seen by her, they did not believe” (Mark 16:11).

Far from being easily persuaded, these men appear to be downright skeptical. And the account continues:

“After that, he appeared in another form to two of them as they walked and went into the country. And they went and told it to the rest, but they did not believe them either. Later He appeared to the eleven as they sat at the table; and He rebuked their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who had seen Him after He had risen” (vs. 12-14).

The apostles seem to have been reluctant to believe that Jesus had risen, rather than eager to believe it.

Most famous in this regard, of course, was the man from whom we derive the expression, “doubting Thomas”:

“Now Thomas, called the Twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said to him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’ So he said to them, ‘Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe’” (John 20:24-25).

Clearly, these men were not easily persuaded of the resurrection. Therefore, the fact that they became so thoroughly convinced of it that they were willing to suffer and die in order to preach it to others, gives us compelling reason to believe their testimony.

A Hostile Witness

So far, we have looked at the apostles who traveled with Jesus while He was on earth in order to establish the reliability of their testimony, and we have found them to be credible witnesses. Now, let us look at another individual who claimed to see the risen Christ, and examine his credibility as a witness. Let us look at Saul of Tarsus. When we first encounter Saul of Tarsus, he is guarding the clothes of those who are stoning Stephen to death (Acts 7:58). Stephen was put to death because he was proclaiming Jesus as the Christ, and rebuking those of his countrymen who refused to believe in Him. We are told that “Saul was consenting to his death” (Acts 8:1). Moreover, Saul was not content with the death of one disciple. On the contrary, “he made havoc of the church, entering every house, and dragging off men and women, committing them to prison” (8:3). When many of the disciples fled from Jerusalem, Saul was not content to let them go:

“Then Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, so that if he found any who were of the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem…” (Acts 9:1-2).

Clearly, Saul was vehemently opposed to the notion that Jesus was the Messiah. It did not seem likely that he would ever become a believer.

When we consider Saul’s training, and his place in the Jewish society of that day, it is not surprising that he was opposed to the gospel of Christ. Saul was a Pharisee, and the Pharisees were one of the more powerful sects among the Jews. The Pharisees regarded the gospel as a threat to their position and their nation (John 11:47-48). Not only that, they constituted the strictest sect among the Jews (Acts 26:5): they were determined to preserve the precepts of the Old Testament, the law of Moses (Acts 15:5). The disciples of Jesus Christ, of course, were preaching that God had made a new covenant with mankind through the blood of Christ, and therefore the law of Moses was no longer in effect (Hebrews 8:7-13). Such teaching would seem like blasphemy to a Pharisee: and Saul, being a very zealous young Pharisee, was determined to see this teaching stamped out.

So then, let us consider Saul of Tarsus. As any Pharisee, he was a well-educated and well-respected member of his society. His position in life appeared to be secure and comfortable. To him, the gospel of Christ appeared to be blasphemy, and repugnant to everything he stood for. His zealous opposition to the gospel caused him to ruthlessly persecute those who believed and taught it. It would seem abundantly evident that such a man would never become a disciple of Jesus Christ.

Yet, he did become a disciple: and not only a disciple, one of the most energetic and well-known gospel preachers of all time. As you may already know, Saul of Tarsus is the man who is better known to history as the apostle Paul. The question is, what made him change? What could convince such a hostile opponent of Jesus to become one of His most ardent followers? According to Paul, it was the fact that he saw the risen Christ:

“I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women, as also the high priest bears me witness, and all the council of the elders, from whom I also received letters to the brethren, and went to Damascus to bring in chains even those who were there to Jerusalem to be punished. Now it happened, as I journeyed and came near Damascus at about noon, suddenly a great light shone around me, and I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, `Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?’ So I answered, `Who are You, Lord?’ And He said to me, `I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting’” (Acts 22:4-8).

The result of this vision was that Paul believed in Jesus, was baptized, and immediately began preaching the gospel to others (Acts 9:10-22).

If there ever was a man who was unlikely to admit to seeing Jesus risen from the dead, that man was Saul of Tarsus. And yet, he not only admitted it, he boldly proclaimed it throughout the Roman Empire. Our next question might be, what did Saul have to gain by becoming a preacher of the gospel? The answer is that, like the other apostles, his efforts to spread the gospel resulted in persecution and suffering, as he wrote to the church at Corinth:

“From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren…” (2 Corinthians 11:24-26).

In exchange for his life of security and comfort, Paul received a life of suffering and danger. Clearly, he did not claim to have seen Jesus for the sake of personal gain. Paul must have truly believed that he had seen the risen Christ.

So then, the question that remains is whether Paul had the mental stability to make him a believable witness. We may begin to answer this by noting that he appears to have had the respect of the rulers of his people. As mentioned above, when Saul went to the chief priest and asked for letters to the synagogues of Damascus, he was given them. He even called upon the high priest and the council of elders as his witnesses, when defending himself before the mob in Jerusalem (Acts 22:5). It is not likely that the rulers of the nation would have placed such trust in a man whom they regarded as unstable. Moreover, when we read Paul’s writings (Romans through Philemon), it appears that he was a highly intelligent man who had a completely rational mind: his method of argumentation is thoroughly logical. It is reasonable to conclude, based upon the available evidence, that Paul was in his right mind.

We have every reason, therefore, to regard Paul as a reliable witness. He had nothing to gain by his testimony, and much to lose. He had every reason to deny that Jesus had risen from the dead. He gave every appearance of being a sane and rational man. So then, we may add Paul’s testimony to our long list of reasons to believe. And, we may ask those who do not believe this question: why not? As Jesus said to Saul, “It is hard for you to kick against the goads” (Acts 26:14).

— Via Watchman Magazine, July 1, 1998
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The Steps That Lead to Eternal Salvation

The Gospel Observer

February 28, 2016 / Tom Edwards

Contents:

1) Evidences of Faith: The Blood of the Lamb (Jim Robson)
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Exodus12_13

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Evidences of Faith:
The Blood of the Lamb

Jim Robson

In the May installment of Evidences, we looked at the exodus of the Israelites from the land of Egypt. In particular, we focused on the crossing of the Red Sea, and how that crossing foreshadowed the New Testament concept of baptism. This month, we will focus on another event which God brought about in the course of freeing His people from their slavery: the tenth plague.

In order to convince the Egyptians of His deity, engrave the fear of Himself on their hearts, make Himself known to all peoples, and to convince Pharaoh to let Israel go, God sent a series of plagues upon the Egyptians. The tenth — and final — of these plagues was the most terrible of all:

Then Moses said, “Thus says the Lord: ‘About midnight I will go out into the midst of Egypt; and all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the maidservant who is behind the handmill, and all the firstborn of the beasts’” (Exodus 11:4,5).

This would be the plague to end the plagues, the one that would finally cause Pharaoh to send Israel out of Egypt. Moreover, it was yet one more instance where God showed that He had chosen a specific people to be His own:

“But against none of the children of Israel shall a dog move His tongue, against man or beast, that you may know that the Lord does make a difference between the Egyptians and Israel” (Exodus 11:7).

God had determined that He would shield His people from the death of their firstborn. However, the Israelites would have to do something in order to avail themselves of this protection.

In chapter twelve of Exodus, God instructed the Israelites to conduct a special sacrifice. On the tenth day of that month, which was henceforth to be the first month in their calendar, each household was to choose a lamb. If the household was too small to eat the whole lamb, then two neighbors could share a lamb. It could not be just any lamb, however:

“Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats” (Ex. 12:5).

While it could be either sheep or goat, it had to be without spot. They were to keep this lamb for four days:

“Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight. And they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two door-posts and on the lintel of the houses where they eat it” (Ex. 12:6,7).

It is interesting to note the phrasing of verse six; it is as if the entire people Israel were coming together to kill one lamb. We know from what has already been said that many lambs were to be sacrificed, and so to say that “the whole assembly…shall kill it” seems enigmatic. It is also interesting to note the time of day. If your Bible has marginal notes, it may point out that the ancient Hebrew expression rendered twilight literally means, “between the two evenings.” But more importantly, there is the blood: why put it around the door?

“For I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord. Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt” (Ex. 12:12,13).

This is why the meal is called the Lord’s Passover (verse 11). God did not enter the houses where the lamb’s blood was on the doorposts and lintel to destroy their firstborn, but passed over them. Thus God’s people would be saved from the death of their firstborn children by the blood of the lamb.

God commanded the people to observe the Passover perpetually, year after year, to remind themselves that it was He who had freed them from slavery and made them into a nation. Along with the Passover, there was also to be a week-long feast. As you recall, the Passover was sacrificed on the fourteenth day of the first month. This day would also mark the beginning of the Feast of Unleavened Bread:

“In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread, until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. For seven days no leaven shall be found in your houses, since whoever eats what is leavened, that same person shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a stranger or a native of the land” (Ex. 12:18,19).

So, no leavened bread could be eaten with the Passover lamb, or for a week thereafter. The Israelites, God’s first covenant people, were to keep this feast perpetually. Thus it would be an ongoing reminder to them that God had saved them from their bondage to the Egyptians.

While there are many instances of God saving His people from various kinds of predicaments recorded in the Bible, the central problem is always sin. This is a problem we all face, for all have sinned (Romans 3:23). And it is a very serious problem, “For the wages of sin is death…” (Romans 6:23). Moreover, it is a problem which we are helpless to rectify on our own, since everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin (John 8:34). In the first epistle of John, we are told that God is all light, purely good, with no darkness, or evil, in Him. Therefore, we who have sinned cannot have any part with Him, because we walk in darkness. Our sins separate us from God, and therefore also from heaven and eternal life, and there is nothing we can do on our own that can take those sins away:

“But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from sin” (1 John 1:7).

If we believe in Jesus, and thereby live according to the example He set for us, God will call us His people, and deliver us from the greatest predicament of all:

“For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life” (Romans 5:6-10).

So, by the resurrection of Christ, by His victory over death, we have hope of everlasting life: if we have first been reconciled to God by His blood. It is the blood of Christ that frees us from our bondage to sin, and saves us from the death that results.

So then, just as the blood of the unblemished lamb saved the Israelites from the death of their firstborn, so also the blood of Christ saves all of His disciples from the consequence of their own sin: death. The sacrifice of Christ is what allows the just God to pass over His people when He executes judgment upon mankind for their innumerable sins…

“…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth to be a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:23-26).

Because of the blood shed on the cross, those who are accounted faithful in Jesus Christ will not receive the punishment for their sins, but will receive life by the grace of God. Thus God has delivered us by a truly great deliverance.

Just as we saw that Exodus 12:6 is written as though there was only one lamb for the entire people of Israel, so we truly have only one Lamb who was sacrificed for us. We also noted that the original Passover was sacrificed at twilight, and that the Hebrew expression literally means “between the evenings.” With that in mind, consider what happened when Jesus was on the cross:

“Now when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama Sabachthani?’ which is translated, ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?’ Some of those who stood by, when they heard it, said, ‘Look, He is calling for Elijah!’ Then someone ran and filled a sponge full of sour wine, put it on a reed, and offered it to Him to drink, saying, ‘Let Him alone; let us see if Elijah will come take Him down.’ And Jesus cried out with a loud voice, and breathed His last’ (Mark 15:33-37).

The ‘sixth hour’ would have been about twelve noon, and the ‘ninth hour’ about three p.m. So, there were three hours of darkness before Jesus’ death, but normal evening did not begin until about three hours after His death. There were, in effect, two ‘evenings’ that day, and Jesus died between them. The Passover is a vivid foreshadow of the sacrifice of Christ.

The apostle Paul refers to this in the context of instructing the church at Corinth to put away from themselves a man who, though called a Christian, would not repent of his sin. The Corinthian brethren, rather than feeling pain when considering the spiritual state of their fallen brother, were evidently proud of their capacity to embrace him even in his sin, and so Paul rebukes them:

“Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Corinthians 5:6-8).

Remember the Feast of Unleavened Bread? Just as God’s first covenant people kept that feast beginning with their Passover sacrifice, so also do we. They kept their Passover by killing a lamb; our Lamb has been sacrificed for us once and for all. They kept their Feast of Unleavened Bread by eating that bread; we keep ours by being that bread: by purging out the leaven of sinful attitudes, and living with pure hearts before God.

We have, then, yet another clear example of how the books of the Old Testament anticipate the events and truths recorded in the New Testament. In this present case, the book of Exodus was written about fifteen hundred years before the New Testament was begun, yet somehow the author could foreshadow the cross of Christ. Sure, one may dismiss this as mere coincidence, but then what about the prophecy of Moses, discussed in last month’s issue of the Watchman? Or the bronze serpent (June issue)? Or the crossing of the Red Sea (May issue)? Or the near-sacrifice of Isaac (February)? At some point, we must reject the notion that this is all chance, and admit that there is a pattern. And that pattern leads us to the inescapable conclusion that the Bible is indeed from God.

— Via The Watchman Magazine, November 1, 1998
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The Steps That Lead to Eternal Salvation

The Gospel Observer

February 21, 2016 / Tom Edwards

Contents:

1) Evidences of Faith: The Suffering Servant (part 2 of 2, Jim Robson)
2) John 6:26-29 (NASB)
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Evidences of Faith
The Suffering Servant (part 2 of 2)

Jim Robson

III. And By His Stripes We Are Healed

When we return to the passage in Isaiah, we find many more remarkable things. In order to fully appreciate how remarkable Isaiah’s prophecies are, we must remember that he wrote more than seven hundred years before Jesus came to earth. Moreover, we must imagine ourselves to be living before the gospel had been preached all over the world. Let us pretend that we never heard of Jesus Christ, and pick up reading where we left off:

“Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:4-6).

How can we explain such a passage? Who is Isaiah talking about? How could someone else’s suffering help to heal you or me? How can God lay my iniquities on someone else? It is a truly puzzling message.

Of course, if we stop pretending, the answers are easy. For those of us who have heard the gospel message, it is obvious that Isaiah is referring to Jesus. We know this because the New Testament teaches that all have sinned, and that the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 3:23, 6:23). It is through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross that sinners have the opportunity to be forgiven, and to be granted eternal life:

“And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation” (Hebrews 9:27-28).

It is only through the atoning death of Jesus Christ that we have hope of everlasting life, for all “we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”

There is yet another point to be observed in these verses. Isaiah indicated that people would think that the Servant had been smitten by God. Rather than seeing that He was suffering willingly, in obedience to God, the people would think that He was being punished by God. And, in fact, that is what happened to Jesus as He hung on the cross:

“And those who passed by blasphemed Him, wagging their heads and saying, ‘You who destroy the temple and build it in three days, save Yourself! If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross.’ Likewise the chief priests also, mocking with the scribes and elders, said, ‘He saved others; Himself He cannot save. If He is the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him. He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now if He will have Him; for He said, “I am the Son of God”‘” (Matthew 27:39-43).

We can see in the sarcastic taunts of these men that they felt Jesus was lying when He claimed to be the Son of God. Thus, from their point of view, His suffering was what He deserved, being a blasphemous heretic. They felt that He had been smitten by God.

IV. As A Lamb to the Slaughter

You will recall that we were led to this study of the suffering Servant by the eighth chapter of the book of Acts, where Philip the evangelist met the Ethiopian eunuch on the deserted road from Jerusalem to Gaza. The eunuch was reading from the prophet Isaiah, and Philip was able to preach Jesus to him beginning with that passage. Let us now turn to the verses which the eunuch was reading when Philip approached his chariot:

“He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgressions of My people He was stricken” (Isaiah 53:7-8).

Isaiah asserted that the Servant of God would accept His suffering without complaining or defending Himself — even though He was innocent. His suffering, after all, was not for the sake of His own sins, but for the sins of God’s people.

We see here that Isaiah again prophesied about the redemptive nature of Jesus’ sacrifice. Somehow, Isaiah — who wrote more than seven hundred years before Jesus — knew that a Man would give His life to pay for the sins of others — as he wrote a few verses later, the Servant would be an offering for sin (Isaiah 53:10). When considering such a passage, we can see how this would indeed be a perfect place for Philip to begin telling the eunuch about Jesus. On the other hand, if we put ourselves in the place of the eunuch, who had not yet heard of Jesus, we can see why he had trouble understanding these verses. Why would God’s Servant be stricken for the sins of His people?

Of course, it is only in the teaching of Jesus and His apostles that we find the answer to this question. Jesus’ sacrifice was an expression of God’s love for mankind (John 3:16). It was the way of bringing men and women from all nations into one people (Ephesians 2:14-18). It was the only way for God to be just — that is, to punish sin — and also merciful — to forgive the sinner (Romans 3:21-26). Jesus’ sacrifice and resurrection were the fulfillment of God’s ultimate plan of redemption, whereby He bought back people from the clutches of sin, and gained the eternal victory over Satan (I Peter 1:17-19; Hebrews 2:14). It is in Jesus that God accomplished the plan of salvation He had announced in the garden of Eden, wherein the Seed of the woman triumphed over the serpent (Genesis 3:15). Once again, we are brought face to face with the fact that the books of the Bible, though penned by some 40 human authors over a period of 1500 years, work in harmony to present one coherent message.

But there is something else about these verses in Isaiah that is striking. Notice that it is prophesied that this Servant, although He did not deserve the punishment inflicted upon Him, would accept it quietly. And, in fact, when we read the passages that describe Jesus’ final hours, we find that He made no attempt to defend Himself, and that He offered no complaints (Matthew 26:47-27:50; Mark 14:43-15:37; Luke 22:47-23:46; John 18 & 19). Although He possessed the ability to eliminate His tormentors in an instant, He accepted their abuse with all the meekness of a sheep before its shearers. Indeed, He is the Lamb of God, the pure and perfect sacrifice for sin (John 1:29).

Again, we need to ask ourselves, why would Isaiah, in the eighth century BC, think to write about these things? What would make him imagine a Servant of God who would suffer for the sins of the people? What would make him think that this Servant would suffer quietly, without defending Himself or complaining? Where would Isaiah get such ideas? It is difficult to explain in naturalistic terms.

In this article, we have looked at eleven verses of Isaiah’s prophecies of the Suffering Servant. We have seen that, in point after point, Isaiah’s predictions were fulfilled in Jesus. The skeptic may suggest that the New Testament writers somehow manipulated their accounts to give the impression that Jesus fulfilled Isaiah’s prophesies, but this assertion is without any factual basis. On the contrary, many of the instances where the New Testament describes how Jesus fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecy make no mention at all of Isaiah. If they were frauds trying to deceive people into believing that Isaiah’s prophecies were fulfilled in Jesus, they would certainly point out the correlation between their own stories and Isaiah’s prophecies. Moreover, we cannot go to any one book of the Bible to see all of these connections; the passages which show the connections between the Suffering Servant and Jesus are scattered throughout the New Testament. It is simply not within the realm of reason to suppose that all of the men who wrote these books, being in different parts of the world as they wrote, somehow collaborated to produce such a perfectly harmonious correlation between Jesus and Isaiah’s Suffering Servant. Furthermore, when we consider that all of the various passages we have cited blend seamlessly in their context, we conclude that they could not have been fraudulently inserted.

In other words, the passages we have considered are genuine, authentic, and honest. That being the case, we cannot escape the conclusion that Isaiah foretold of a Person and events more than seven hundred years beforehand. That is powerful evidence of the inspiration of the Bible.

— Via The Watchman Magazine, September 1, 1999
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John 6:26-29

“Jesus answered them and said, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves, and were filled. Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man shall give to you, for on Him the Father, even God, has set His seal.’ They said therefore to Him, ‘What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?’ Jesus answered and said to them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent’” (NASB).
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The Steps That Lead to Eternal Salvation

The Gospel Observer

February 14, 2016 / Tom Edwards

Contents:

1) Evidences of Faith: The Suffering Servant (part 1 of 2, Jim Robson)
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Evidences of Faith:
The Suffering Servant

Jim Robson

In the eighth chapter of the book of Acts, we find Philip the evangelist being sent by God to the deserted road that led from Jerusalem to Gaza. Once there, Philip saw the chariot belonging to the eunuch who was treasurer to the queen of Ethiopia. The Spirit told Philip to overtake the chariot. When he did so, he found the eunuch reading from the book of Isaiah. Specifically, he was reading the passage known to us as Isaiah 53:7-8. Philip established that the eunuch did not understand the prophecy he was reading, and the eunuch asked Philip for help. “Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at this Scripture, preached Jesus to him” (Acts 8:35).

This is an amazing thing. Philip began preaching Jesus from the book of Isaiah, which was written more than seven hundred years before Jesus’ birth. How could this be? How could a book written centuries before Jesus was born be used to teach someone about Him? If we go to the passage that the eunuch was reading, we will see that, on its own, it is indeed difficult to understand. However, when we view it through the lens of the New Testament, we can get a glimpse of how Philip could have used this passage to lead the eunuch to Christ. We will also see that it becomes very difficult to explain how or why Isaiah wrote such a passage — unless he was truly inspired by God.

Before we look at the passage in Isaiah, it is important to keep a couple of things in mind. For example, remember that the chapter and verse divisions in our modern Bibles were added almost 2,000 years after Isaiah wrote. These divisions are for ease of reference, and do not necessarily reflect a logical division in the author’s line of thought. Also, you will notice that Isaiah, like other prophetic writers, frequently shifts verb tense. He goes from past to present to future tenses while talking about the same events. This may be to emphasize that, whereas the prophet was writing about things that had not yet occurred, God had decided that they would happen, and therefore they were as good as done. Whatever the reason, however, we do not need to be distracted by these things; for our current purposes, we simply need to be aware of them.

I. Exalted, Extolled, and Marred?

Let us turn now to the fifty-second chapter of Isaiah. In the midst of prophecies concerning God’s promise to redeem His people, we find descriptions of a very special Person:

“Behold, My Servant shall deal prudently; He shall be exalted and extolled and be very high” (Isaiah 52:13).

This picture of a Servant of God who would be characterized by wisdom and be held in honor is consistent with other prophecies of the coming Messiah (for example, Psalm 110). From here, however, Isaiah goes in a direction that we would not expect:

“Just as many were astonished at you, so His visage was marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men” (Isaiah 52:14).

Why would God’s Servant be marred? Moreover, how does this fit with the idea of Him being exalted and extolled and very high? Already, we can begin to see why the eunuch might have difficulty understanding Isaiah’s prophecies concerning the Servant. We can also begin to see that it is difficult to explain why Isaiah would write in this manner, if he were merely writing of his own initiative. If his goal were to comfort the people with promises of a great and powerful Messiah, why would he say that God’s Servant would be marred? On the other hand, if he were trying to frighten the people into obedience, he would not be writing promises of a wise and glorious leader. If we try to explain Isaiah’s words in purely naturalistic terms, we will keep running into problems.

If we try to imagine ourselves living before the time when the gospel had been preached all over the world, we can see that Isaiah’s words would be very difficult to understand, even if we believed that he was a true prophet, and his book inspired by God. How could it be, that God’s anointed King would be wise and exalted, and yet be marred more than any man? For one who is acquainted with the gospel, however, Isaiah’s message is perfectly clear. Consider the apostle Paul’s words:

“Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:5-11).

Jesus was God in the flesh, and He never did anything but good, yet He was subjected to the form of execution reserved for the most despicable criminals: clearly, His visage was marred more than any man. Yet, as Isaiah prophesied, Jesus was subsequently exalted and extolled above all others.

So then, Isaiah 52:13-14 is a passage that is difficult to explain in naturalistic terms. Moreover, even a believer would have difficulty explaining its meaning — if it were not for the gospel. We see then, that the gospel of Jesus Christ, as recorded in the New Testament more than seven hundred years after Isaiah, provides the explanation for Isaiah’s writing. To look at it another way, Jesus fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecy. If this were an isolated Old Testament passage torn from its context and made to conform to a preconceived idea, then it would not be very compelling. But is that what we have done? Let us return to Isaiah and see.

II. The Mouths of Kings Shut by the Man of Low Esteem

If we pick up the reading in Isaiah where we left off, we find that the prophet had much more to say about God’s coming Servant:

“So shall He sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths at Him; for what had not been told them they shall see, and what they had not heard they shall consider. Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, And as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him” (Isaiah 52:15-53:3).

Where the New King James reads, “sprinkle,” your Bible may say, “startle.” Either way, the prophet is telling us that this Servant of God would have such an impact on the world as to affect many nations. In fact, He would even shut the mouths of kings! And yet, Isaiah tells us that He would not be respected, but rather would be despised and rejected by men. How could both of these things be true?

Once again, we can turn to Jesus to find our answers. In His life as a man, Jesus was indeed despised by the religious leaders of His day (for example, see Mark 12:13,18,28; John 9). Moreover, at the end, multitudes of His own people gathered together and demanded that He be subjected to an excruciatingly painful and disgraceful death:

“Now at the feast the governor was accustomed to releasing to the multitude one prisoner whom they wished. And at that time they had a notorious prisoner called Barabbas. Therefore, when they had gathered together, Pilate said to them, ‘Whom do you want me to release to you? Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?’ For he knew that they had handed Him over because of envy. While he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent to him, saying, ‘Have nothing to do with that just Man, for I have suffered many things today in a dream because of Him.’ But the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitudes that they should ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus. The governor answered and said to them, ‘Which of the two do you want me to release to you?’ They said, ‘Barabbas!’ Pilate said to them, ‘What then shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?’ They all said to him, ‘Let Him be crucified!’ Then the governor said, ‘Why, what evil has He done?’ But they cried out all the more, saying, ‘Let Him be crucified!’ (Matthew 27:15-23)

But the Jews were not the only ones to show contempt for Jesus. The Romans, too, treated Him as though He were utterly despicable:

“Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole garrison around Him. And they stripped Him and put a scarlet robe on Him. When they had twisted a crown of thorns, they put it on His head, and a reed in His right hand. And they bowed the knee before Him and mocked Him, saying, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’ Then they spat on Him, and took the reed and struck Him on the head. And when they had mocked Him, they took the robe off Him, put His own clothes on Him, and led Him away to be crucified” (Matthew 27:27-31).

Remember that all of this was done after they had beaten Jesus with a scourge, which was a whip with many thongs (verse 26). So, Jesus was treated with the utmost contempt by both Jews and Gentiles. All are guilty of His suffering and death; no one is innocent. When we meditate upon these things, we see that Jesus thoroughly fulfilled the words of Isaiah, “He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.”

But Jesus also shut the mouths of kings, even after His crucifixion. Consider, for example, the emperors of Rome. The Roman Empire covered an enormous territory and encompassed many nations. For centuries, Roman emperors persecuted Christians. Their goal was to put an end to the religion of Jesus Christ and preserve their empire by turning the people back to the state religion. In 311 AD, the emperor Galerius, an ardent persecutor of Jesus’ followers, was struck with an incurable illness that caused him intense pain. Realizing he was near death, he reversed his stance, and issued an order that Christianity should be tolerated. Might we not say, insofar as his attack on Jesus was concerned, that his mouth was shut? Of course, his nephew, Maximin II, disregarded the order, and instead increased the severity of his persecutions. But Maximin was defeated by Licinius in battle, and fled. In 313 AD, co-emperors Licinius and Constantine issued the Edict of Milan, which required that Christianity be tolerated. As for Maximin, he died of poisoning that same year.

Of course, the Roman Empire slowly crumbled, and its emperors have long been silent. However, the kingdom of Jesus Christ, which they fought so tenaciously to destroy, continues to thrive. Indeed, no other person has had as much of an effect on human history as Jesus, yet the secular historians of His own time considered Him to be of little significance: they did not esteem Him. Having said all of that, though, we need to recognize that Jesus’ influence on the affairs of this life is as nothing when compared to His influence in eternity. Jesus has gained the eternal victory for His followers. He has gained the ultimate victory over every attempt of man or Satan to establish a lasting religious or political system. In the end, there will be no pretending to resist Him:

“But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming. Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power” (I Corinthians 15:20-24).

On the day when God calls all mankind to account, there will be no king, emperor, philosopher, scientist, “pastor,” or “reverend,” who will be able to open his mouth in the presence of the glorified Jesus Christ. However, His faithful servants, though lightly esteemed in this life, will shout and sing with triumph and joy.

— Via The Watchman, September 1, 1999
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The Steps That Lead to Eternal Salvation

The Gospel Observer

February 7, 2016 / Tom Edwards

Contents:

1) Evidences of Faith: Many Books, One God (Jim Robson)
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Evidences of Faith:
Many Books, One God

Jim Robson

Those who claim that the Bible is merely the work of human beings, without God’s guidance or inspiration, will also speak of the evolution of the writers’ concept of God. They claim that the earlier writers had a primitive idea of who God is, whereas the later writers had a more sophisticated notion. Indeed, this is what we would expect from a collection of books written over a span of some 1500 years. But, is it really the case? Did the picture of God change from Genesis to Revelation, or is it truly the same God described throughout? The way to answer this is to look at some specific aspects of God’s character, and see whether the early writers had a different notion of God than the later ones did. For reasons of space, we cannot look at all of the different characteristics of God in this issue. However, we can take a good look at two of them.

Let us start with God’s judgment. This is one of the areas where folks most often insist that the God of the New Testament is different than the God of the Old Testament. The claim is that the God of the New Testament is a God of love and mercy, whereas the God of the Old Testament is a God of wrath and justice. (Keep in mind that “justice” means “fairness”; a judge who is just, therefore, must acquit the innocent and punish the guilty.) Let us now turn to the Bible, and see whether there is indeed a difference between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament, in regard to judgment.

If we start in the book of Genesis, we see that Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden of Eden and condemned to death because of their sin (Genesis 3:22-24). In the time of Noah, the entire earth was destroyed by a flood, because mankind had become so completely sinful (Genesis 6:5, 7:23-24). The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because of their utter sinfulness (Genesis 19:1-24). God is consistently just throughout the Old Testament. Solomon sums it up this way:

“A good man obtains favor from the Lord, but a man of wicked intentions He will condemn” (Proverbs 12:2).

There is no question but that the God of the Old Testament is a just God, and therefore He punishes those who do evil.

But, what about the God of the New Testament? Is He different? Well, Ananias and Sapphira probably don’t think so: they were struck dead instantly for lying to the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:1-11). King Herod was struck dead because he did not correct those who called him a god (Acts 12:20-24). Elymas the sorcerer was struck with blindness for opposing the teaching of the gospel (Acts 13:8-11). Throughout the book of Revelation, there are promises of God’s wrath upon those who reject Him:

“But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death” (Revelation 21:8).

The New Testament tells us that our God is a consuming fire (Hebrews 12:29).

Furthermore, consider Jesus’ words to those who heard His preaching but did not repent:

“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, who are exalted to heaven, will be brought down to Hades; for if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say to you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you” (Matthew 11:21-24).

“The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and indeed a greater than Jonah is here” (Matthew 12:41).

Finally, consider the judgment scene which Jesus describes in Matthew 25:31-46. In the last verse of this passage, Jesus says that those who did not serve Him would go away into everlasting punishment. Clearly, the God of the New Testament is One who punishes evildoers, just as surely as the God of the Old Testament is.

In this regard, then, there is no difference. The Bible is consistent in its portrayal of a just God. If the Bible is a purely human invention, then we would expect to see the identity of its God develop over time. The God of the oldest books (Genesis through Deuteronomy) should be the most primitive. The God of the later Old Testament books should become more fully defined, more sophisticated, and the God of the New Testament should be even more refined. However, we have seen that, in terms of His justice in judgment, God remains unchanged from Genesis through Revelation. This leads to the conclusion that God revealed Himself to the writers of the Bible, rather than the notion that the writers described God according to their own understanding.

Now let us look at the other side of the coin: God’s love and mercy. Let us go back to the beginning. In the first chapter of Genesis, we see the account of creation laid out for us in order. In this account, we find only one creature made in the image of God: man. Moreover, it becomes evident that everything else was created for the man. Even the heavenly bodies were created for mankind:

“Then God said, ‘Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons and days and years’” (Genesis 1:14).

What other creature besides man uses the sun, moon, and stars to gauge time? What other creature uses the heavenly bodies as signs for navigation? If God created something as vast and magnificent as the heavens for mankind, then surely this is evidence that He loves us.

As we noted last month, Adam and Eve were punished for their sin. We did not take time to consider, however, the fact that God allowed them to live for some time. He did not obliterate them on the spot; He gave them opportunity to learn from their error, and change their ways. In fact, their punishments seem to be calculated to teach them (Genesis 3:16-19). This shows mercy.

Several generations later, we find that mankind had become so utterly wicked that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually (Genesis 6:5). Again, God does not destroy mankind instantly, but gives him 120 years to repent. Moreover, there is a man named Noah, who found grace in the eyes of the Lord (Genesis 6:8). God tells Noah that He will be destroying the earth by means of a flood, and instructs Noah to build the ark for his family and a large group of animals. Noah’s response shows that he believed God:

“Thus Noah did; according to all that God commanded him, so he did” (Genesis 6:22).

Noah, a man who believed in God, and demonstrated his faith through obedience, was saved by God. It is not that Noah was himself sinless; on the contrary, we find him in a drunken stupor after the flood (Genesis 9:21). Therefore, God would have been justified in destroying Noah along with the rest of mankind. However, God had mercy upon him.

Again, in the case of Abraham, we see incidents where he exhibited striking dishonesty and cowardice (Genesis 12:10-20, 20:1-13). On the other hand, we also see that whenever God told Abraham to do something, he obeyed: even to the point of sacrificing his son (Genesis 22:1-13). For His part, God bestowed very special blessings upon Abraham. God’s criterion for doing so appears to be summed up in this verse:

“And [Abraham] believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness” (Genesis 15:6).

In spite of Abraham’s failings, he was faithful — believed in God — and for this very reason God considered Abraham righteous. In other words, Abraham’s sins were forgiven because of his faithfulness.

We can see, then, that the God of Genesis is a God of love and mercy. Truly, He only extends mercy on His own terms: but this is what we would expect from a God who is just. In a court of law, we might expect a judge to extend some leniency toward a criminal who expresses deep regret for his actions, and who promises not to repeat his offense; on the other hand, we see that the judge is justified in “throwing the book at” the criminal who shows no signs of remorse whatsoever. Mercy is tempered by justice.

Throughout the Old Testament, God’s character does not vary on this point: there are numerous examples of God’s love and mercy, and yet He never loses sight of justice. And when we get to the New Testament, we find that God is still concerned with justice; He does not ignore the problem of sin. In fact, it is because of the seriousness of sin, that He pays such a high price to punish it. On the other hand, in His loving mercy, God formulated a way to punish the sin while simultaneously offering forgiveness to the sinner — although forgiveness is still on God’s terms:

“He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned” (Mark 16:16).

God’s terms have not changed. He still offers forgiveness and eternal salvation to any and all who will be faithful to Him.

Have you made that commitment to be faithful to God? Have you been baptized into Christ for the remission of your sins? If not, why are you waiting (Acts 22:16)?

— Via The Watchman Magazine, March 1, 1999
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The Steps That Lead to Eternal Salvation

1) Hear the gospel, for that is how faith comes (Rom. 10:17; John 20:30,31).
2) Believe in the deity of Christ (John 8:24; John 3:18).
3) Repent of sins (Luke 13:5; Acts 17:30).
4) Confess faith in Christ (Rom. 10:9,10; Acts 8:36-38).
5) Be baptized in water for the remission of sins (Mark 16:16; Acts 2:38; 22:16; Rom. 6:3,4; Gal. 3:26,27; 1 Pet. 3:21).
6) Continue in the faith; for, if not, salvation can be lost (Heb. 10:36-39; Rev. 2:10; 2 Pet. 2:20-22).
——————–

Tebeau Street
CHURCH OF CHRIST
1402 Tebeau Street, Waycross, GA 31501
Sunday services: 9:00 AM (Bible class); 10 AM & 5 PM (worship)
Wednesday: 7 PM (Bible class)
evangelist/editor: Tom Edwards (912) 614-8593
Tom@ThomasTEdwards.com
http://ThomasTEdwards.com/go (The old Gospel Observer website with bulletins going back to March 4, 1990)
http://ThomasTEdwards.com/audioser.html (audio sermons)

The Gospel Observer

January 31, 2016 / Tom Edwards

Contents:

1) Evidences of Faith: The Walls of Jericho (Jim Robson)
2) Exalting Christ (Bill Hall)
3) You’re Satisfied? (Jere E. Frost)
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Evidences of Faith:

The Walls of Jericho

Jim Robson

On the cover of the December 18, 1995 issue of Time magazine is an artist’s rendition of Moses about to break the tablets of stone on which God had written the Ten Commandments. In bold letters is the question: “Is the Bible Fact or Fiction?” Under this eye-catching headline, we are informed that “Archaeologists in the Holy Land are shedding new light on what did — and didn’t — occur in the greatest stories ever told.” The article which underlies this cover has some interesting information, but also some inconsistencies and misleading statements. I am not in the business of criticizing journalists or their work, so I do not intend to pick out all of the various problems in the piece, nor indeed would there be space to do so in this paper. However, the assertions made regarding the fall of Jericho are particularly interesting, and also perhaps most damaging to anyone seeking the truth. We would do well, therefore, to examine these a little more closely.

On pages 68-69 of the magazine in question is a large black section entitled, “Tales from The Bible That Are in Doubt.” Around this title are arrayed some more artistic renditions of biblical events, each one with a question: “Was Abraham a Myth?,” “Did the Exodus Happen?,” “Was There a Moses?,” and “Did Joshua Conquer the City of Jericho?” In the cases of Abraham, Moses, and the Exodus, the point is that no direct archaeological evidence has yet been found to prove any of these. In typical fashion, “most scholars” agree that these things never happened, simply because there has not been found any direct proof of their existence outside of the Bible! This is nothing new; for generations, scholars have consistently refused to believe anything the Bible says until such time as some extra-biblical evidence forces them to admit that it happened. And even then they insist that the details of the biblical account are full of errors, whether or not they have any evidence to back up their assertions. But the claims Time makes regarding Jericho are somewhat bolder. In this instance, the claim is that the archaeological evidence actually contradicts the scriptural record:

“Historians generally agree that Joshua’s conquest would have taken place in the thirteenth century B.C. But British researcher Kathleen Kenyon, who excavated at Jericho for six years, found no evidence of destruction at that time” (page 68, center column).

This is interesting on at least two levels. First, if there is no archaeological evidence of Joshua’s campaign, and indeed historians don’t even believe it ever occurred, how can they all agree on when it would have happened? Secondly, it is interesting that this article, which repeatedly claims to be talking about new discoveries, cites Kathleen Kenyon’s research. Dame Kenyon excavated in Jericho from 1952 to 1958, and she died in 1978.

Kathleen Kenyon concluded that Jericho’s walls fell around 1550 B.C., some 150 years before the Bible has Joshua coming to the city. According to an article by Dr. Bryant Wood in the March/April 1990 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, her conclusion was apparently based solely on the lack of pottery from Cyprus in her sites. It seems that certain Cyprian pottery was common in the 1400s B.C., and since she didn’t find any, she decided that the city must have been uninhabited during that time. But John Garstang, who excavated at Jericho from 1930 to 1936, had discovered some of this very pottery! Moreover, some of the local pottery which Dame Kenyon did find is unique to the period 1400-1450 B.C., when she said the city was unoccupied. So, the ceramic evidence actually confirms that the city was occupied until approximately 1400 B.C.

In addition to the ceramic evidence, there is much more archaeological evidence to show that the walls of Jericho fell somewhere around 1400 B.C. For a discussion of this evidence, see Dr. Wood’s article noted above. As to the Bible, I Kings 6:1 states that King Solomon began building the temple in Jerusalem in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel had come out of the land of Egypt. Construction of the temple began in 966 B.C., so this places the exodus from Egypt at 1446 B.C. When we consider the forty years of wandering in the wilderness, this puts Joshua at Jericho pretty close to 1400 B.C. Furthermore, in spite of the fact that the authors cite Dame Kenyon’s conclusions, the time line on pages 66-67 of the Time article shows the destruction of Jericho at 1400 B.C.! If you ask me, things are looking pretty good for the biblical account so far as the date is concerned, “most historians” notwithstanding.

But Dr. Wood points out that the archaeological evidence indicates more than just the date of the destruction. For example, unusually large stores of grain were found in the ruins. The portions of the city which were excavated were fairly poor, and grain was quite valuable in those days, so there are several conclusions which may be drawn from the fact that the stores of grain were intact: 1. Since grain was stored after harvest, the people ate from the stored grain until the next harvest. Therefore, Jericho must have been destroyed fairly soon after harvest, which would be in the spring. According to scripture, the Israelites crossed over the Jordan during the harvest (Joshua 3:15), then observed the Passover (5:10), and then took Jericho according to the Lord’s command. 2. The city was not taken by means of a long siege, which would have been typical in that time. If it had, the food would have been depleted. Joshua only needed to surround Jericho for seven days (6:3-5, 8-20). 3. Because grain was so valuable to the point of being used as currency, most conquerors would take any grain stored in a vanquished city. The large intact stores of grain in Jericho are therefore an anomaly. But this again is consistent with scripture, which states that the Israelites took only silver, gold, bronze, and iron for the treasury of the Lord (6:24). They took no other plunder.

In addition to the grain, the archaeologists also determined that the walls of the city collapsed. They were not broken by some kind of battering ram, they fell down. Here, of course, is a part of the scriptural account with which many are familiar:

“And it happened when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat” (Joshua 6:20).

Finally, after destroying the city with the sword, the Israelites burned the city and all that was in it with fire (6:24). This again is consistent with the archaeologists’ findings which indicate that after the walls fell down, the city was burned.

So then, we see that in point after point, the archaeology of the city of Jericho agrees perfectly with scripture. And this is not surprising. In fact, the same issue of Time which we have been discussing has an article on page 70 entitled, “The New Testament’s Unsolved Mysteries,” which states:

“Time and again, archaeological finds have validated scriptural references.”

This being the case, why do scholars still insist on doubting the historical accuracy of the scriptural accounts? That may be the real unsolved mystery of the Bible! However, regardless of its detractors, scripture continues to prove itself to be reliable and true. And those of us who put our trust in God’s word continue to find ourselves on solid ground.

— via The Watchman Magazine, March 1, 1998
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Exalting Christ

Bill Hall

How do we exalt Christ? We exalt Christ when we preach His word, when we follow His teaching, when we do only that which He authorizes, when we wear only His name, when we make Him the center of our affection and adoration, when we recognize Him as our only Head, Lord, and King. To do otherwise is to fail to exalt Him.

— Via bulletin articles of the Collegevue church of Christ, January 10, 2016
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Prov14_12

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You’re Satisfied?

Jere E. Frost

So what?

The rich man was satisfied, but God called him a fool and took his life and condemned his soul. (Luke 12:20)

The whole church at Laodicea was satisfied, but Jesus said they did not know that they were actually wretched, and miserable and poor and blind and naked (Revelation 3:16-22).

That’s about how wrong a “satisfied” person can be.

Satisfied? Are you, now? The Pharisee that went into the temple to pray was satisfied with himself, and even glad he was not as the Publican (Luke 18:10-14). But Jesus said that the satisfied Pharisee was not justified like the sin-conscious Publican was!

The wise man warned: “There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death” (Proverbs 14:12).

— Via The Beacon, January 19, 2016
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“Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving” (Colossian 2:6,7).
——————–

The Steps That Lead to Eternal Salvation

The Gospel Observer

January 24, 2016 / Tom Edwards

Contents:

1) Parallel Offerings (Jim Robson)
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Genesis22_2

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Parallel Offerings

Jim Robson

In the twelfth chapter of Genesis, God makes some promises to Abraham (whose name was still Abram at this point), including the promise that he would become “a great nation” (verse 2). This is a remarkable promise, since Abraham is seventy-five years old, and as yet has no children since his wife is barren (11:30). Eleven years later, Abraham has a son by his wife’s maid, and names him Ishmael (chapter 16). In 17:19, God reveals to Abraham that Ishmael is not the descendant through whom the promises would be realized, but that Abraham’s wife Sarah would bear him a son, and God would establish His covenant with him. This son, the son of promise, was to be named Isaac. Finally, we find in chapter 21, Isaac is born when Abraham is one hundred years old, and Sarah is ninety. This brings us to chapter 22:

“Now it came to pass after these things, that God tested Abraham, and said to him, ‘Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ And He said, ‘Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah; and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you.’ So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son; and he split wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. On the third day Abraham raised his eyes and saw the place from a distance. And Abraham said to his young men, ‘Stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go up yonder; and we will worship and return to you.’ And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son, and he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together” (Genesis 22:1-6).

As you may already know, God did not let Abraham kill his son, but stopped him in the nick of time. Of course, Abraham fully intended to carry out the Lord’s instructions, and so Isaac was as good as dead in his mind up until the moment the angel’s voice restrained his hand. It is a remarkable account of faith, but there are other lessons we can learn from this event.

In II Chronicles chapter 2, King Solomon began making preparations to build a palace for himself, and a temple for God. Chapter 3 opens by telling us where the temple was built, “Then Solomon began to build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah” (II Chronicles 3:1). Abraham was instructed to sacrifice Isaac in Moriah, and we find that Mount Moriah is in Jerusalem. This calls to mind another sacrifice which was made in Jerusalem roughly two thousand years later: the sacrifice of Christ.

Remember that, although Abraham’s firstborn son was Ishmael, God referred to Isaac as his only son. This expression emphasizes Isaac’s preeminence; remember that it was Isaac through whom God would bring about His promises to Abraham, and so Isaac the one and only son of promise. Now, consider John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” Here the same expression is used to express Jesus’ preeminence among God’s children: Jesus is the One through whom God ultimately fulfilled His greatest promises to Abraham and accomplished His plan of salvation for all mankind; and Jesus is the One who most perfectly displayed the image of God in which Adam was created. So, both Jesus and Isaac were preeminent among their respective fathers’ children to such an extent that both are referred to as only sons.

But God had also made a point of the fact that Abraham loved Isaac. Likewise, He made a similar point regarding Jesus at His baptism, “And behold, a voice out of the heavens, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased” (Matthew 3:17). It is no great coincidence that both Abraham and God loved their sons. However, it is interesting that God specifically pointed out this fact in each case. And, since the writers of scripture were generally selective about which details they included in their accounts, it is interesting that both Matthew and Moses included this one. But there is more.

Abraham fully intended to kill his son at God’s command, and so far as he was concerned, Isaac was as good as dead until he got to the mountain and the angel spoke from heaven, which was on the third day from when God had issued the command. Similarly, consider the length of time Jesus was among the dead, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” (I Corinthians 15:3,4). So, just as Isaac was as good as dead until the third day, so also Christ was in the grave until the third day from His crucifixion.

Again, remember that Isaac bore the wood for the burnt offering. Likewise, Jesus bore the cross, “They took Jesus therefore, and He went out, bearing His own cross, to the place called the Place of a Skull, which is called in Hebrew, Golgotha” (John 19:17). Therefore, just as Isaac carried the wood upon which he was to be burned, so also Jesus carried the wooden cross upon which He was to be hung.

Further, Abraham carried the fire and the knife; he was to be the one to perform the sacrifice of his only son whom he loved. That being the case, consider that Jesus was delivered up by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God (Acts 2:23). Thus, the sacrifice of Christ was ultimately God’s doing, and the men who physically performed the crucifixion were in essence God’s tools. God, knowing their hearts, was able to use their evil inclinations to achieve His purpose. In both sacrifices, then, the father was to execute the sacrifice of the son.

All of these parallels might be relegated to the realm of striking coincidence, except for the consideration that the book of Genesis was written some 1400 years before Jesus was born, and the authors of the various books of the Bible were all selective about the details they recorded. Many details which are ordinarily included in other literary works are generally left out of scripture. That being the case, we need to satisfy the question of how the author of Genesis knew which details to include in his story in order to bring out these parallels: unless he had divine guidance.

To say that the New Testament authors contrived their histories to fit the account in Genesis, does not fit the facts. For example, all four gospel accounts were recorded independently, yet all four describe details of Christ’s sacrifice that correspond to Isaac’s. Also, none of the gospels make any mention of parallels between the two sacrifices, whereas they certainly would have had the details been so contrived. In fact, we need to look at several different books in order to see all the parallels, which shows that the writers of the gospel accounts did not have these parallels in mind when they wrote; otherwise they would have been sure to include all of them and draw them out. Further, none of the gospel accounts even note the connection of the location of the two sacrifices: we need to go to the seemingly unrelated book of II Chronicles to find that both occurred in the same area. So then we are left with the fact that the author of Genesis, who was very selective as to which details he included in the various accounts, somehow managed to include several details of the sacrifice of Isaac which closely parallel the sacrifice of Christ: 1400 years before Jesus was born as a man!

In the New Testament book of Hebrews (which was not written by any of the authors of the gospel accounts), we find that God indeed had Jesus in mind when He told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, “By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac; and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son; it was he to whom it was said, ‘In Isaac your descendants shall be called.’ He considered that God is able to raise men even from the dead; from which he received him back as a type” (Hebrews 11:17-19).

The word rendered “type” in this passage is the same word often translated “parable”: it refers to a story which is intended to symbolize something else. Jesus often used parables in His teaching in order to help make spiritual concepts more understandable. In this case, God orchestrated an event in Abraham’s life to symbolize what He intended to do with His own Son some two thousand years later: He created a living parable. He then saw to it that this event was recorded in writing, so that we could look back and see that what He accomplished in Christ, He had planned all along. “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!” (Romans 11:33). Amen.

For those who still insist that all of this is nothing more than mere coincidence, there is yet one more fact to consider. The “coincidences” mentioned here are just a drop in the bucket. There are many such parallels in scripture. For now, however, these parallels between Isaac and Jesus will suffice as our first discussion of the evidence which God has provided to show that He did indeed guide the writing of scripture.

— Via Watchman Magazine, February 1998, Volume 1, Number 2
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The Steps That Lead to Eternal Salvation

1) Hear the gospel, for that is how faith comes (Rom. 10:17; John 20:30,31).
2) Believe in the deity of Christ (John 8:24; John 3:18).
3) Repent of sins (Luke 13:5; Acts 17:30).
4) Confess faith in Christ (Rom. 10:9,10; Acts 8:36-38).
5) Be baptized in water for the remission of sins (Mark 16:16; Acts 2:38; 22:16; Rom. 6:3,4; Gal. 3:26,27; 1 Pet. 3:21).
6) Continue in the faith; for, if not, salvation can be lost (Heb. 10:36-39; Rev. 2:10; 2 Pet. 2:20-22).
——————–

Tebeau Street
CHURCH OF CHRIST
1402 Tebeau Street, Waycross, GA 31501
Sunday services: 9:00 AM (Bible class); 10 AM & 5 PM (worship)
Wednesday: 7 PM (Bible class)
evangelist/editor: Tom Edwards (912) 614-8593
Tom@ThomasTEdwards.com
http://ThomasTEdwards.com/go (The old Gospel Observer website with bulletins going back to March 4, 1990)
http://ThomasTEdwards.com/audioser.html (audio sermons)

The Gospel Observer

January 17, 2016 / Tom Edwards

Contents:

1) Job — A Real Humanitarian (Tom Edwards)
2) The Blessings of Forgetting (Robert F. Turner)
3) Why the Conscience? (William V. Beasley)
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Job — A Real Humanitarian

Tom Edwards

Thinking of Job probably first evokes the wonderful example he has long been as a man of great patient endurance when undergoing even the most difficult hardships and sufferings, yet still maintaining his integrity through it all. But there is also more about him that can be said with regard to the godly person that he was, as we shall soon see.

It was to Satan, that “accuser of the brethren” (Rev. 12:10), to whom God had declared Job’s righteousness. Not only did He speak highly of him as being “…a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil,” but also as being the most righteous person at that time: “…For there is no one like him on the earth” (Job 1:8). And his outstanding godliness is also implied in Ezekiel 14:13-16.

But just as Satan, that evil foe, had falsely charged Job, even so did Job’s own friends who were certain that all of his tragic loss and adversity was due to sin in which he was guilty. Eliphaz, for example, wrongfully accused Job by saying, “Is not your wickedness great, And your iniquities without end? For you have taken pledges of your brothers without cause, And stripped men naked. To the weary you have given no water to drink, And from the hungry you have withheld bread” (Job 22:5-7). “You have sent widows away empty, And the strength of the orphans has been crushed. Therefore snares surround you, And sudden dread terrifies you” (vv. 9,10).

But isn’t that just the way of a false accuser — to paint a distorted or an untrue picture of someone that portrays the exact opposite? For Job was not guilty of any of these charges that Eliphaz had made against him.

To the contrary, note what kind of person Job really was: “For when the ear heard, it called me blessed, And when the eye saw, it gave witness of me, Because I delivered the poor who cried for help, And the orphan who had no helper. The blessing of the one ready to perish came upon me, And I made the widow’s heart sing for joy. I put on righteousness, and it clothed me; My justice was like a robe and a turban. I was eyes to the blind And feet to the lame. I was a father to the needy, And I investigated the case which I did not know. I broke the jaws of the wicked And snatched the prey from his teeth” (Job 29:11-17).

Yes, as the above passage shows, Job truly was a real humanitarian, bearing the burdens of others! He was concerned for their well- being. He was kind and benevolent toward them in doing what he could to help out. And, perhaps, these are characteristics he possessed that we had not known or have overlooked, but well- worth in now seeing or in seeing again to refresh our minds.

His concern for others is initially seen in that toward his own children, in the very first chapter of the book of Job. For they were often in each other’s homes for days of feasting (v. 4). But when that feasting was over, “…Job would send and consecrate them, rising up early in the morning and offering burnt offerings according to the number of them all; for Job said, ‘Perhaps my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.’ Thus Job did continually” (v. 5).

So in addition to helping others with their physical needs, Job was also continually concerned about the spiritual welfare of his family. He desired each of them to be in a right relationship with God, and sought to do what he could in regard to that as well.

Though we find the book of Job right before the book of Psalms, and many of those Psalms written by David who was born during the Mosaical Period about 1085 B.C., yet Job actually lived during the Patriarchal Age, many centuries prior to the time of David. In the Chronological Bible, the book of Job is placed between Genesis 11 and Genesis 12.

But what I want us to primarily remember from this article is that Job was not only a man of great patient endurance, but also a righteous man who bore the burdens of others and showed kindness toward them. Of course, we would think that for one to be righteous, it would also involve one’s relationship with others in treating and helping them the right way. But it is good to see of these specified means in which Job demonstrated that kind of righteousness in his own life. As we saw earlier, Job helped the poor, the orphan, the widow, the blind, the lame, and he rescued the helpless from the wicked. What a great blessing and comfort he must have been to all of these people, and a good example, influence, and encouragement to those who knew him.

May these thoughts of Job as a true humanitarian, and these specific ways in which he was, be also added to our knowledge of him, if they haven’t been already. And may we, too, be encouraged, influenced, and motivated by his good example in helping others.
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The Blessings Of Forgetting

Robert F. Turner

Are you proud of your memory? Are you anxious to show folk how you can recall the little details of long ago? Not me! Maybe I’m seeking justification for my weak mind, but I find reason to be proud of my forgettery. I believe there are blessings in forgetting — and my wife says I am of all men most blessed.

The Preacher said to remember the Creator in youth — before the evil days come — when the clouds return after the rain (Eccl.12:1-2). In good days the clouds appear, it rains, and it is all over. But there comes a day when “the clouds return after the rain.” Our troubles will not depart. And sometimes they stay because we will not let them depart — we recall, and relive them, over and over. It is a wise, and happier man, who knows when and how to forget.

Joseph had been ill-treated by his brothers — sold into slavery. He could have dwelt upon this injustice, growing more and more bitter — and finally have allowed it to wreck his own life and that of his people. But when his first-born, Manasseh, came, Joseph said, “God hath made me forget all my toil, and all my father’s house” (Gen. 41:51).

“Forgiving” contains that sort of forgetting. Jesus said, “If ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” When Peter asked how often he should forgive his brother, Jesus gave the indeterminate number, “Until seventy times seven” (Matt. 6:15 18:22). One has not truly forgiven who buries the hatchet, but sets up a marker so that it may be easily exhumed. The facts of the past may remain, as they did for Paul, but the bitterness, and any desire for vengeance we may have felt, must vanish.

Paul said, “…forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:13-f). No one can build a glorious future by wallowing in a sordid past. God forgives — and He calls it “remission” (Acts 2:38) or cancellation. “Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more” (Heb. 10:17). God has a good forgettery when such is in order. Do we propose to know more than He about these matters? Oh ye of little faith!!

Many years ago I knew a couple who were deeply hurt by the indiscretion of one. The man, in the wrong, pled for forgiveness — to no avail. The woman freely acknowledged, “My pride has been wounded — I can not forget.” I fully believe this was a case where a sharp memory was a curse — and a forgettery would have been a blessing.

God has endowed us with the capacity to forget. A hot, dusty, insect-filled, flat-tire, hard-work fishing trip soon boils down to the fun we had catching that bass — the hardship part is forgotten. Wouldn’t life be more fruitful if we would apply our forgettery to personal bitterness, little “digs” and “slights” that begin with pride, and feed on acid rehearsals? Christ died to give us a way to get rid of sin. Must we live trying to find a way to keep it??

— via Plain Talk, Vol. IV, No. 2, Pg. 5, April 1967
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Why the Conscience?

William V. Beasley

For years we have opposed the false standard of those who say, “Just let your conscience be your guide!” We have pointed out that Saul of Tarsus (Paul) “lived before God in all good conscience” (Acts 23:1) while he was “breathing threatening and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord” (Acts 9:1). We read verses like Jer. 10:23 to show that man cannot guide himself. We turn to 2 John 9 and show the word of God is the proper standard for our lives. We do all of these things but to no avail. Men still cry “just let your conscience be your guide.”

Interestingly, letting one’s conscience be one’s guide would in many cases be an improvement. This is true because most men do not live as good as they know to live. They steal, lie, and cheat — even when they ‘know better.’

In fact, even many Christians would be improved if they “just let your Biblically educated conscience be your guide.” They know they should be giving liberally (2 Cor. 9:6), studying more (2 Tim. 2:15), telling others the good news (Mark 16:15; Acts 8:4; 2 Tim. 2:2), joining with the saints every time they assemble (Heb. 10:25), etc. Yes, “just let your conscience be your guide” would be an improvement for many folks.

— Via The Beacon, February 24, 2015
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