Obama's 'values' evaluated

As I mentioned in my last post, President Obama used his national Christmas Day address to say his “family celebrates the birth of Jesus and the values He lived in his own life.”

Earlier this month, at the lighting of the Christmas tree in Washington, Obama formally declared the values of Jesus Christ “are also the bedrock values of all faiths--values to be cherished and embraced not only during the holidays, but to be practiced in our daily lives.”

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Throughout Christ’s earthly life, His top “value” was to relinquish anything and everything calculated to stand in the way of accomplishing the will of His Father.

Christ valued and cherished His Father’s plan so much He couldn’t fathom ever being separate from it. He says in John 6:38, “For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.”

In John 5:30, Christ states, “I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.”

Paul makes it clear that God’s will is for “all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”

The reality is Christ came for the express purpose of NOT doing His own will. When He prayed in the garden, “Not my will but thine be done,” that “sound bite” represented the whole tenor of His administration—THAT’S what He trusted!

Christ says in John 8:26, “I have many things to say and to judge of you: but he that sent me is true; and I speak to the world those things which I have heard of him.”

He goes on in chapter 15:15, “Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.”

Christ confirms in John 8:29, “And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him.”

From John 17, we know that the disciples were sent out with the same commission Christ received from the Father: To go live exactly the way He lived.

*****

In a sermon about the current “winter period” our country is enduring (expected to last until 2020 or so) Jordan lamented, “We who are Americans are extremely fortunate to have a heritage. But it’s all over with, folks, I’m sorry. When the toothpaste is out of the tube, it’s gone. The foundations that built that are not in our country anymore.”

“Saved or lost, religion is the most dangerous battle you’ll ever face. This is where the real big game is. People like to argue about politics and all the rest of the stuff, but this is the BIG stuff.

“You can worry about the politics and what they’re doing in Washington and the economy and all these other things, but the real battle today in the Dispensation of Grace is in the area of spiritual issues. 

“Religion is simply a way for man to put confidence in himself, in his own flesh.

“Paul says in Philippians 3 he counted his religious self-righteousness as dung. He’s saying, ‘I thoroughly understand what it is to have confidence in your flesh—I had religious flesh.’ And he said, ‘What I found is it’s worthless!’

*****

“Notice Paul calls Satan the ‘god of the world.’ He didn’t say the king of the world, the political leader of the world, the economic force of the world.

“Satan has a religion and he seeks to propagate it. And the great battle today is not fighting the social battles and the cultural wars; it’s fighting the religious front. Until you understand that, you’re not going to be in the real battle.

“I’m not saying the other battles aren’t important; I’m saying the real battle, when you want to get down to what the core source of the real issues are, it’s the issue about a person’s relationship with his Creator or lack thereof. Religion is designed to substitute confidence in your flesh for trust in Christ.

“When Paul says ‘have no confidence in the flesh,’ your flesh is a way the Bible, especially with the Apostle Paul, describes you, yourself and your self-life independent of God.

“Romans 7:18 says, ‘For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing.’

“Our resources are not God’s resources; our identity is not the identity and purpose He gives us. Paul’s talking about trusting and valuing and treasuring who he is in himself and his ability to perform; he’s talking about pride and self-satisfaction in yourself.

“Proverbs says, ‘Every man does that which is right in his own eyes.’ Can you relate to that? We do what WE think is right. It says, ‘There’s a way that seemeth right to a man; the end thereof is death.’

“Man says, ‘Makes no difference, I’m doin’ what’s right in my mind…’ and there’s a pride in that! There’s a self-satisfaction in that and that’s what religion is all about!

*****

“Paul says in Philippians 3:7, ‘But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.’ All these things in verses 4-6 he says were valuable to him.

“Gain is the idea of wealth, treasure. Notice he says, ‘I wasted it and profited in the Jews’ religion above many mine equals in my own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of traditions of my fathers.’

“You see he profited? Paul’s saying, ‘Those things that brought profit to me in my thinking. Those things I treasured and adored and thought were the most wonderful, solid, enriching things in my life.’

“What were they? There are a number of things but they divide into two categories. He’s going to list some ethnic and racial things—some pride of race and pride of place kinds of things. And then he’s going to list some religious things. Distinctions. Some performance things.

*****

“Can I tell you those are the two things most people . . . those are the two things your flesh wants to glory in. It wants to glory in your race, which is another way of saying the place that you have, and then it wants to glory in religion—the performance; the achievements that it can make.

“And flesh has a tendency toward good and evil. By the way, with the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, both were bad. Your flesh has a tendency toward the lascivious, the earthy; the lust and the pull to be run by the desires that drag you downward into the earth.

“But you also have a bent toward aestheticism, toward the human good; toward the ability to pride yourself and satisfy yourself in doing what’s right.

“It’s to do good and feel good about doing it. Your flesh is such a deceiver. ‘The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.’

 

"And the moment you think you’ve done something good, and the moment you sit in relaxation and your satisfaction about what you’ve performed, ‘Let him who thinketh he stand take heed lest he fall.’ ”

(new article tomorrow on new year’s day advice)

Obama a low-information Christian?

Although no sound came out thanks to a holiday attack of laryngitis, I had to laugh out loud when I heard a brief radio-news clip of President Obama opening his annual Christmas Day address to the nation with, “Today, like millions of Americans and Christians around the world, our family celebrates the birth of Jesus and the values He lived in his own life.”

In one of the most famous verses in all the Bible, Jesus Christ tells us about Himself, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” He then assures, “I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.”

Conversely, the Muslim faith says Mohammed is the “last and greatest of God’s prophets” and that his revelation supersedes that of Jesus Christ. It says the Old and New Testaments were “inspired,” but were both replaced by the Koran.

Earlier this month at the annual lighting the National Christmas Tree in Washington, D.C., Obama stressed to us Americans that the “lessons of Jesus Christ” are not just in the lessons of the Christian faith, but are, in fact, “the bedrock values of all faiths.”

In his usual self-confident tone, Obama instructed, “The message of the child whose birth families like mine celebrate on Christmas–a prince born in a stable who taught us that we should love our neighbors as ourselves; and that we are our brothers’ keeper and our sisters’ keepers; that we should feed the hungry, visit the sick, welcome the stranger. These are the lessons of Jesus Christ, but they’re also the bedrock values of all faiths–values to be cherished and embraced not only during the holidays, but to be practiced in our daily lives.”

*****

Regarding the everyday values Christ lived by, here is an article posted to my old website LisaLeland.com:

In Matthew 23, Jesus Christ rattles off a series of stinging rebukes directed at the Pharisees, calling them everything from blind fools and hypocrites to serpents and vipers.

He says in part, “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.
[15] Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.
[16] Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor!”

*****

Jordan explains, “Christ just peels the hide off their bark. He skins them good! Down South they used to say about someone, ‘He peeled their hide off, tacked it on the wall and packed it down with salt.’ This is a scathing denunciation of the Pharisees and their external religious activity and their internal absence of any faith.

“If you start reading in verses 6-7 and read down through the end of the chapter … if you’ve ever thought that you heard a preacher be unkind to other people in his discussion of them . . .  The Lord Jesus Christ was never unkind to anyone but, boy, when you go through this chapter, if you’d have been the guy He’s talking about, you’d of sure felt that He was nailing you good because He was! And the reaction to Him was the reaction of the unbelieving religionists getting nailed.”

*****

Later in the same chapter, Christ warns the Pharisees, “Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city:
[35] That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.”

Jordan explains, “When Jesus talks all the righteous blood from Abel to Zacharias, He’s saying from Genesis to II Chronicles—all the Old Testament up to the point He’s at right there. It would be like, ‘Now that we have a whole Bible . . .’

“What I want you to see is at the end of the verse, He says, ‘Whom ye slew.’ Who does He say slew Zacharias, and by implication, Abel? Who’s He talking to? He’s talking to the Pharisees. He says, ‘You guys slew him!’ Who slew Abel? Cain. Then who was the first Pharisee? You follow that?!

“The things the Pharisees represented at the time of Christ really began with Cain. Something important began with Cain and it’s called in the Book of Jude ‘the way of Cain.’

“In fact, the Book of Jude is a book written to the tribulation saints out future from where we are today and when it talks about ‘woe unto them that follow the way of Cain,’ Cain is being preached in the future tribulation.

“What started with Cain in Genesis 4 extends all the way out to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.”

*****

When you study the Book of the Revelation, you notice over and over again that things started in Genesis conclude in Revelation.

For example, the expression “without form and void” is found only one other time exactly that way and it’s in a passage in Jeremiah 4:23 describing the judgment in the land of Palestine after the event known as “the battle of Armageddon,” which is when Jesus Christ comes and destroys Satan, throwing him into the bottomless pit, thereby putting an end to the satanic policy of evil as it functions in the earth. Again, it begins in Genesis and concludes with Christ’s Second Coming.

“Something began in Genesis 4 with the first Pharisee that developed into a line of people,” says Jordan. “When you say somebody’s first and there’s a whole bunch of people following them you know the Pharisees in Jesus’ day, and in Paul’s day, didn’t just come up then. They’re promoting a system that began with Cain!”

*****

Talking to the Pharisees in Luke 11, Christ warns that “the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation;
[51] From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation.”

Jordan explains, “When the Bible talks about a generation, it’s not talking about how long it lasts, it’s talking about where’d it come from. When you generate something, you originate it. It’s this spiritual lineage that is the idea. It’s the pattern that’s being established there.

“Psalms talks about this ‘generation of the righteous,’ for example. It’s this lineage of people who have similar thoughts, similar behavior, similar actions. They’re related to one another. They really come from the same source.

“When Jesus says ‘ye generation of serpents,’ who do you think originated that crowd? Satan did. It’s about, ‘Who did this crowd come from?’ and notice that these people…there’s a LONG lineage here. It starts with Cain.

“In fact, Jude 11 calls it ‘the way of Cain.’ Now you know in the Bible there’s a ‘way.’ Jesus said ‘I am the way.’ In Acts 16, the one who pointed at Paul says ‘he showed unto us the way of salvation.’ That term ‘the way’ is used to describe a pathway.

“In Matthew 13, Jesus says, ‘Straight is the way.’ Then He says, ‘Broad is the way that leads to destruction.’ The word ‘straight’ means narrow—it’s like the strait of Gibraltar. The way that leads to righteousness and to life is narrow.

“Broad is the idea that if you walk down a path by yourself, you just kind of cut a little swath, but if 50 people go with you, it makes a bigger path. Cain started this way. He took the machete and cut the trail. A whole lot more people go the way of Cain than they do salvation.”

 (new article tomorrow)

Comic swapping takes on whole new meaning

I am now in the second day of my first-ever bout of laryngitis. It is a very weird experience and makes me so grateful for the ability to relate to the world with a voice unlike those who are deaf and dumb.

I slowly lost my voice on Christmas Day as I spent the afternoon and evening nursing a head cold in the company of a few friends, sitting around a backyard fire, eating a huge prime rib dinner and then watching “It’s a Wonderful Life” on TV.

On Christmas Eve, when I thought I was in recovery mode from this particularly nasty bug, I treated myself to a latte at Starbucks. Somebody left behind a copy of the day’s New York Times and in perusing its sections, I came across this startling headline from the cover of Thursday Styles: “Diversity Comes to Superheroes; Creators explore gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender narratives.”  

The article informed that in recent Marvel comics “a transgender friend of Batgirl, and her girlfriend Jo were married in a simple ceremony unmarred by super-villainy. Peter Parker, perhaps better known as Spider-Man, attended the wedding of Max Modell, his scientific mentor and gay colleague. Wiccan and Hulkling, a superpowered gay couple, joined a division of the Avengers along with Hawkeye and Songbird. In August, Wonder Woman officiated a lesbian wedding.

NYT writer George Gustines reasoned, “The growing depiction of L.G.B.T. characters comes at a crossroads of passionate fandom and concentrated efforts by publishers to attract broader audiences. Gay fans have long admired the impossibly perfect bodies and chiseled features of their heroes and felt a kinship with some like the X-Men, who fought for acceptance in a world that feared and hated them simply for being mutants.

“And publishers, in an attempt to reflect modern times, have introduced a plethora of champions who are no longer primarily straight, white and male under their masks. They include the teenage Muslim Ms. Marvel and Thor, a lesbian Batwoman, a Mexican-American Blue Beetle and many more.

“This quest for diversity has not gone without some missteps. Last December, the creative team of Batgirl apologized for how it revealed that a villain impersonating the heroine was male. Some readers found the depiction, and Batgirl’s reaction, transphobic. Reprints of the story have softened her dialogue.

“In July, there was a dust-up concerning the sexuality of the Marvel hero Hercules. Some fans believe he is bisexual and were put off when it was not confirmed. (Hercules had a relationship with Wolverine in an alternate-reality story; there was also some innuendo about a dalliance with Northstar, the mutant hero who came out in 1992.)

“Iceman was certainly not known for being gay when he first appeared in 1963, but that is true for most superheroes back then. But what will come next?

“Every character has to carry the weight of everyone’s expectations, because there just aren’t enough characters to represent a diverse range of desires and experiences,” wrote Andrew Wheeler, the editor in chief of Comics Alliance, a website that covers the comic book industry. “We need to get from some to enough. And really, we’ll know we’ve achieved success when Captain America can have a boyfriend, and Wonder Woman can have a girlfriend. For queer representation in superhero comics, that’s what success looks like.”

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Also left behind at the Starbucks was a copy of the Chicago Tribune. Check out this passage from the page 2 opinion column by prominent Tribune writer Dahleen Glanton:

While Wheaton (College) might have had a legal right to suspend Hawkins, it cast the liberal arts college in a bad light in the midst of a heated national debate over how Muslims should be treated in America. Instead of opening the door to an exchange of ideas, the college slammed it shut on any meaningful discussion.

We are used to Trump's coalition of anti-Muslim crusaders spewing hatred and painting anyone who follows Islam as a potential terrorist. Most Americans loathe their loud, ruthless rhetoric and reject their mission to cultivate fear.

But when bigotry comes disguised as theology, it can throw us off guard.

It reminds us, though, that there is a quiet undercurrent of anti-Muslim sentiment operating in some religious circles, one that rejects any reference to similarities between Islam and Christianity. It places Islam, the fastest-growing religion in the world, in a cultlike realm and admonishes anyone who dares to refer to God as Allah.

To accept it as a religion of equal standing would mean those who want to paint all Muslims as terrorists would be forced to acknowledge that Islam isn't the real problem. It's the extremists who have hijacked the religion.

These extremists are no different than so-called Christians who use religion as an excuse to burn down black churches in the South, shoot victims outside a Jewish community center in Kansas or plant a fake bomb inside a Virginia mosque.

I asked a theologian at Yale University what he thought about what happened at Wheaton. Miroslav Volf, an author and founder of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture, says a great many theologians agree that God and Allah are different names for the same Supreme Being. Arabic-speaking Christians, he pointed out, also use "Allah" to refer to God.

What happened at Wheaton College, he said, was not about theology and orthodoxy; it was about enmity toward Muslims.

He explained it this way: "Christians and Muslims disagree about immensely important things about God, but they are disagreeing about 'God,' not between 'gods,' so to speak."

It's interesting that in the midst of bitter debate over whether America should welcome Muslim refugees fleeing war-torn Syria or ban every Muslim from the Middle East from crossing our borders, an unusual image of Jesus is circulating around the world.

According to scientists who used forensics to reconstruct his face, Jesus looked like a typical Middle Easterner with brown skin and short, curly black hair.

Of course, no one knows what Jesus looked like. There are no pictures and no human remains to test for DNA. For centuries, all we have had to go on are illustrations derived from the vivid imaginations of artists. In the West, that was enough to convince the masses that Jesus was a white man, with light-colored eyes and long, straight brown hair.

According to a 2002 article republished this month in Esquire Magazine, British researchers used forensic anthropology — similar to techniques used by police to solve crimes — to recreate what some experts say is the most accurate image of Christ.

Some cannot fathom that Jesus might have looked more like a Syrian refugee than Jim Caviezel in "The Passion of the Christ." For them, a Middle Eastern Jesus is as implausible as the 20-foot tall black Jesus sporting a big Afro and a dashiki depicted on a mural in the sanctuary of St. Sabina Catholic Church on the South Side.

Indeed, we are living in a difficult time when terrorism poses a real threat. But a very important element of the Christmas story is that Jesus was born in the midst of political strife.

Embracing solidarity with Islam as Hawkins tried to do on Facebook might be America's best weapon against the army of bigots that has formed under Trump's tutelage.

If we can focus on our commonalities, it might not be so difficult to accept the idea that Jesus could have looked entirely different than we imagined.

The Bible says that Jesus, a man born in the Middle East, is coming back one day. Let's pray that some folks don't mistake him for a terrorist.

(Editor’s note: new article tomorrow)

ABCs on Abe essential

“I can honestly confess that growing up in church I never heard a sermon or a lesson expounding the content and meaning of the Abrahamic Covenant,” writes R. Dawson Barlow, Bible scholar and long-term China missionary, in his book The Two Gospels.

“I dare to say that as long as Believers remain ignorant of the message—the merit and unconditional nature of the promises of God to Abraham and his posterity—they will never be clear in their understanding of the Bible . . .

“God made it clear that throughout the Old Testament He would be dealing with Israel (the Jewish people, the Hebrews, i.e., the physical descendants of Abraham) on the basis of that great Abrahamic Covenant.”

*****

When Abraham goes into the land of Canaan and sees it for the first time, “the stage for the conflict of the ages” is set.

In Genesis 6, it was the whole human race that was the object of the satanic policy of evil because God’s purpose was to have a “seed of the woman” come out of the human race.
 

But in Genesis 12 the seed line’s reduced down to the seed of Abraham and it becomes the point of attack. That line results in the royal seed of David, and when Jesus Christ shows up in the genetic line, He is the object of the Adversary’s ire.

*****

“When God called Abraham out, he wasn’t just calling out another man to do another job; He was calling somebody special who was going to change the course of all of human history,” explains Jordan.

“God was changing His dealings with men in a very special way and there’s something doctrinally going on with Abraham; when you’re studying Abraham, you’re not just studying Daniel in the Lion’s den, or David fighting Goliath.

 

"It’s not just another Bible story; this is something that radically changes God’s dealings with men.

“If you’re ever going to understand the Word of God you’ve got to understand what God does and establishes with Abraham.

“Without understanding Abraham and the seed, and the nation that comes from him, you'll never understand God’s Word and what will happen is what Peter told people in his day (II Peter 3)--the Word of God will become destructive in your life.

"It will actually become something where he says the unlearned 'twist Scripture to their own destruction.' It will cause your Christian life to be an absolute frustration to you."

*****

Lot was Abraham’s nephew and the last one of Abraham’s kindred to hang on. Once Abraham finally separates himself from Lot, though, and he’s out all by himself with wife Sarah, the Lord comes and renews the promise, showing Abraham the land He’s going to give him.

“He shows Abraham the inheritance he’s going to have and tells him, ‘Go out and walk around in it and get to know it. Go out and enjoy it and see what it’s like,’ ” says Jordan. “Later, in Genesis 15, God actually makes a covenant; a written contractual agreement to give Abraham. First, there’s the promise, then there’s the details of the promise, and then finally there’s the covenant.”

*****

(Editor’s note: Below are a couple of old articles posted to this site that further expound on the topic):

Unbelievably, the Koran says Abraham took his son Ishmael, not Isaac, for the sacrifice. Just as bad, it says Abraham was thrown into a fire by Nimrod when Abraham wasn’t even born until centuries after Nimrod’s death!

The events of the life of Nimrod, grandson of Ham, are recorded in Genesis 10, where it says he established an empire in Shinar and then spread his rule northward along the Tigris over Assyria.

 “Nimrod took over that whole Mesopotamian basin and all of that area we call Iraq, and Palestine, and Jordan, and Israel, and Saudi Arabia—all of that area,” confirms Jordan. “You see, though, the descendants of Ham (after the Flood) were to go south, and the descendants of Japheth to go up, and the descendants of Shem out that way (to the east). You say, ‘But who was to take this middle ground?’ God had a people for that.

“God raised them up; that’s what he’s doing with Abraham! You see, there’s a satanic policy of evil designed against God’s purpose in that part of the land and it’s a satanic policy to contest the occupancy of the Promised Land. Satan’s policy was to occupy the land in advance of Abraham coming into it in order to contest Abraham’s seed taking it over.”

“Satan understood from the very beginning the importance of that piece of real estate over there—that part of the earth from the edge of Egypt over to the Persian Gulf, up to the apex over there; what we call that the Fertile Crescent.”

*****

In Genesis 12:1, God appears to Abraham in Mesopotamia and utters the famous lines, “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee.”

As Jordan explains, “That’s the first time God has appeared in Genesis since the Garden of Eden. He appears personally to Abraham to call him out. It was at a time when the world deserved absolutely nothing but judgment and wrath.

“Do you know another time in your Bible where the world deserved nothing but wrath and judgment and the Lord Jesus Christ appears (from heaven) and calls out one man to send salvation and blessing to all men?

“In Acts 7, the whole world is guilty before God and the nation Israel strikes out and sends the message back, ‘We’ll not have this man reign over us,’ and Stephen looks up and sees Christ standing at the ‘right hand of the Father.’

“Stephen sees Jesus (ready) to come back and pour His wrath out, and just as the time is ripe in Acts 7, a man by the name of Saul of Tarsus—a blasphemer against God who had joined the world’s rebellion against the Savior—is made Paul the Apostle and through him forms a new agency—the Church the Body of Christ.

“You have to come all the way over to Acts to get to another crisis point like you have in Genesis 12 where God chooses one man out to send salvation to the nations. It’s a wonderful parallel there.”

*****

Stephen actually makes reference to Abraham at the beginning of Acts 7 when he pleads with the Jews ready to kill him, “Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken; The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran,
[3] And said unto him, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall shew thee.
[4] Then came he out of the land of the Chaldaeans, and dwelt in Charran: and from thence, when his father was dead, he removed him into this land, wherein ye now dwell.”

What is often not realized about Abraham is that when God deals with him in Ur of the Chaldees and tells him to flee, Abraham is a sophisticated city-dweller in the midst of a tremendously advanced civilization.

Jordan explains, “We get the idea that all these cities back there in time past—well, they were all headhunters and cave-dwellers. That just isn’t true, though. Ur of the Chaldees has been extensively excavated and they had running water, indoor plumbing and all kind of things in their homes—things we only had in this country as a general rule everywhere in the last 80 years. And yet in 2,000 B.C., Ur was a prosperous, advanced technological city and Abraham was urbane and he leaves there to go across the Arabian dessert to Palestine.”

*****

It was only after the death of his father, Terah, that Abraham, then 75 years old, “took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came.” (Gen. 12:5)

Jordan says, “It took death to sever the natural link that bound Abraham to Haran (the name actually means ‘barren’ or ‘parts’) and Abraham was never going to go into the fullness of the blessings God had for him, and He was never going to go in and occupy and have the land until he had completely severed his ties with his family back there.

“Note that when God first told Abraham to go out, he didn’t do that. His obedience was very partial and it wasn’t complete obedience. It wasn’t something where he just did exactly what God said. God gave him about three things to do and he did one of them and two of them he didn’t do.

“God is separating Israel away and God is waiting until Abraham is separated alone—out here by himself—and Abraham had to take that step of faith to step out and be what God called him to be in order to look for the program to operate. That’s what circumcision is about!

“Later on, when God gives Abraham the covenant, He gives him the sign of circumcision, which is the seal of righteousness Abraham had by faith. Circumcision in your Bible speaks to death—death of the flesh; death to man’s ability to produce a work that God would accept.”

*****

“Calling one of us to, ‘Move to Chicago!’ well, God wouldn’t do that to anybody,” says Jordan in an old study from Hebrews, “But He did to Abram. He took Abraham and said, ‘Get out of thy kindred from thy house to a land that I’ll show you,’ but didn’t tell him where it was going to be.

“Abraham’s over in that land some time before God shows him the perimeters of it. Now God took him and walked him around in the land that later on He’s going to give him and his seed forever. But when Abraham first started out he didn’t know what was what and where was what and what was where or anything else.

“Abraham just took God at His Word in spite the lack of details involved. Isaiah 51 says, 1] Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the LORD: look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged.
[2] Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you: for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him.
[3] For the LORD shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.

“That hole and that rock . . . it was a pit of idolatry that God reached down in there and saw a man and called him out of.

“God called him, underline the next word—ALONE. God took Abraham and set him apart from all the other families of the earth and all the other kindred of the earth and set him alone.

“He sends him off, saying, ‘I’m going to separate you from everybody else and I’m going to put you over in that land over there and you’re going to be MINE!’ You know, you think about loneliness—whew! That’s something.

“He doesn’t say, ‘C’mon, let’s go down here and I’m going to make you a part of a great big influential movement of people.’ He said, ‘C’mon, Abraham, I’m going to sit you out here where there isn’t anybody else but just you and me.’

"Hebrews 11:9 says, ‘By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise.’

“By faith, he didn’t only obey in going out, but he sojourned in the land of promise. By the way, that’s what that land ought to be called. The land over there in Palestine is not the Holy Land. Ezekiel says it will be holy one day but it will be holy because God is going to dwell in it and sanctify it and He’s going to put His presence in it.

“Abraham sojourned in the land and they lived in tents and tabernacles. He was by faith saying, ‘This is MY country! This is MY land! God gave me this!’

“God said, ‘Don’t worry about the details. Forget all the details. Just trust me. Go out here and enjoy it!’ So he does. Well, how can he do that?

“Hebrews 11:10 says, ‘For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.’

“Abraham says, ‘I’m not going to be satisfied until I get the city God’s going to build. I’m not going to build me a city. I’m going to let God build it! He said He would. I’m going to trust Him.’ ”

Allah's Ishmael vs. Jehovah's Israel

The Wheaton College professor suspended for announcing on Facebook she was donning an Arab headscarf (the hijab) to show support for Muslims, gave as her motivation, "I stand in religious solidarity with Muslims because they, like me, a Christian, are people of the book. And as Pope Francis stated last week, we worship the same God."

According to yesterday’s Chicago Tribune, the 43-year-old instructor of political science at the Protestant Evangelical Christian school said “she affirms the college's statement of faith and was simply reiterating that there is common ground among the monotheistic Abrahamic faiths, which many theologians have said for centuries. She already has submitted a theological statement requested by the college as part of her review.”

The “calling card” Bible verse for Muslims vowing to “wipe Israel off the map,” is Psalms 83:4: "They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance."

God says to His Prophet Jeremiah in Jeremiah 33:23-24, "Considerest thou not what this people have spoken, saying, The two families which the LORD hath chosen, he hath even cast them off? thus they have despised my people, that they should be no more a nation before them.

Both Old Testament passages are references to the coming tribulation period and the rise of the Antichrist government intent on eliminating Israel from the earth.

Verse 5 and 6 of Psalms 83 inform, "For they have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee: The tabernacles of Edom, and the Ishmaelites; of Moab, and the Hagarenes."

What's being talked about are the families from which the Arab nations come from. They are the descendants of Ishmael and of Lot through his daughters.

"It's what we call the Arab nations," explains Jordan. "And by the way, those nations that are confederated together there, there are 10 of them listed in verses 6-9, just like there are 10 nations that gather together under the authority to form the kingdom of the Antichrist."

In Psalms 83:9, the saint prays, "Do unto them as unto the Midianites" and then goes back and shows how the Old Testament is pre-written history of the "last days."

He prays in verse 17-18, "Let them be confounded and troubled for ever; yea, let them be put to shame, and perish: That men may know that thou, whose name alone is JEHOVAH, art the most high over all the earth."

In the coming tribulation period, Israel will be found poor, naked, hungry, jailed and persecuted.

During this time, the official foreign policy of the U.S. government, inside both houses of Congress, the State Department and in the White House, will be that of Jeremiah 33:23-24. We will be just like all the rest!

(to be continued tomorrow . . . )

It's that time of year . . .

The holidays are said to be a menacing time for those dealing with unresolved emotional conflicts, loneliness and isolation, sorrow over lost loved ones, financial trouble, etc. Also, once New Year's Day puts an official end to the season’s hoopla, people get depressed at the prospect of returning to work and starting another year of everyday life with all its hardships and uncertainty.

Just this past Monday in international headlines was news that suicide rates in Canada are souring in the wake of the country’s oil-industry market crash and subsequent rise in unemployment rates for places like Alberta, historically known as the “Texas of the North.”

“Between January and June, suicides spiked 30% compared to 2014,” reports England’s Guardian newspaper. “At this rate, 654 Albertans will have killed themselves this year, an unprecedented number for a region that already had the second highest suicide rates amongst the 10 provinces. Only Saskatchewan, another energy-dependent region, has a higher rate, and it’s seen 19% more suicides this year.

“Research says that for every 1% increase in unemployment, we will see a 0.79% increase in suicide rates, but it takes two years [for the data to come through],” says Mara Grunau of Canada’s Centre for Suicide Prevention director. Thus, she says, the real fallout of high unemployment is yet to come."

*****

I am working on a brand-new article to post tomorrow, but in the meantime here are a few old pieces dealing with sadness in all its forms:

It is amazing how many great hymns from history were born of sad things and accompanying intense emotions—the death of a loved one, personal tragedy, ailments and impairments, tremendous physical and/or mental hardships, on and on.

I was quite surprised to learn that the author of a very favorite hymn of mine since childhood, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” is speculated to have actually committed suicide!

“There are conflicting reports about the death of Joseph Scriven,” writes Helen Salem Rizk in her 1964 book, “Stories of the Christian Hymns.” “Some authorities say he died of natural causes; others that he took his life in a fit of melancholia. However, they all agree as to the humility and kindness that ruled his days from the great tragedy on the eve of his marriage, when his bride-to-be accidentally drowned, to the day of his death in 1886.”

Considered one of the ten most popular Christian hymns ever published, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” was discovered “in a very dramatic manner,” says Rizk. “When Scriven, who lived an extremely tragic life, was in his last days, a friend who was sitting with him during a time of severe illness came upon the manuscript.

"The friend was very impressed and wondered why it never had been published. Scriven replied, ‘What a Friend We Have in Jesus has been written by God and me to comfort my mother during a time of great sorrow.’

“He explained that he never intended that it be used by anyone else. Strange are the ways of fate; a song written only for the life and need of one person became the inspiration of millions!”

*****

The classic hymns, “O For a Closer Walk with God,” and “There is a Fountain Filled With Blood,” were written by the son of a clergyman, William Cowper (born in England in 1731), who four times in his life was committed to insane asylums and many times attempted suicide, says Rizk.

“His sixty-nine years of life were physical torture and mental anguish,” she writes. “The burden of his mental affliction and at times partial insanity was lightened by his desire and ability to write . . . This suffering man was loved by many and known to be a true Christian. He was able to produce some of our sweetest and most spiritual hymns.

Of “There is a Fountain Filled With Blood,” she noted, “People have sung this grand old favorite through the years. Probably unaware of the struggle Cowper had in his life, they see only the beauty and feeling reflected in this hymn.”

*****

For George Matheson’s “O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go,” Rizk summarizes, “This great hymn of courage and faith was written, strangely enough, under circumstances of tragic inner conflict and severe mental suffering as a release from personal tragedy . . .

"The courage and fortitude of Dr. Matheson (1842-1906) was evidenced by the dramatic fact that from this deep sorrow and heartache he could write: ‘O love that wilt not let me go, I rest my weary soul in thee.’ ”

*****

The classic of classics, “Sweet By and By,” is written by Sanford Filmore Bennett (1836-1898).  “It is said that this entire hymn, including words by S.F. Bennett and music by J.P. Webster, was written and composed in less than 30 minutes,” Rizk’s book confirms. “Webster, who was subject to moods of melancholy and depression, once visited his friend Bennett who was writing at his desk.

“Walking to the fire, Webster turned his back to his friend without a word. When Bennett asked him what the matter was, he received the curt reply that ‘it would be alright, by and by.’ Seizing upon the last three words, Bennett exclaimed, ‘The sweet by and by! That would make a good title for a hymn!’

“Whereupon, he wrote without stopping, covering the paper as fast as his pen could go. When he finished he handed the manuscript to Webster, who immediately sat down and composed a melody to fit the stirring words. From this union in the village of Elkhorn, Wisconsin, the gospel hymn was born: ‘There’s a land that is fairer than day, And by faith we can see it afar, For the Father waits, over the way, To prepare us a dwelling-place there.’ ”

*****

“We instinctively withdraw our hand if it’s getting burned, right? But when it comes to tribulation, God’s attitude and perspective is, ‘No, I don’t want you to behave like that,’ ” explains my pastor Alex Kurz.

“There’s a direct correlation with the activity of godliness and the sanctifying effect that tribulations now have in life.

"It isn’t something that we dread. It isn’t something we run away from. It’s something we cannot only welcome but recognize in it that we’re 'more than conquerors.'

"God says there is a specific provision He gives to us so we can triumph in life. Instead of looking at tribulation as something to avoid, we’re to see its value. It’s no longer an enemy. I don’t have to fear or dread. I now can welcome those tribulations.

*****

“Hebrews 5:7 is a powerful, powerful verse of our Lord Jesus Christ: ‘Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared.’

“He was a man of sorrows. Jesus was acquainted with grief. You don’t think He was touched by the effects of living in a sin-cursed world, or the emotional and psychological trauma; the rejection and alienation? He knows--He feels hurt. He feels pain.

“Verse 5:8 says, ‘Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered.’

“He didn’t succumb. While He’s in pain, while He’s in anguish, while He’s experiencing the trauma, you know what He chooses to do? ‘I’m going to learn.’ It’s a learning experience! When tribulations come our way, what a learning experience!

*****

“The theme of II Corinthians actually has to do with sufferings, tribulations and infirmities. It’s probably the darkest epistle the Apostle Paul wrote.

“He starts chapter 1 with, ‘Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.’

“Drop down to verse 9: ‘But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead:

[10] Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us.’

*****

“We’re going to learn to trust what God has to say about tribulations. Our flesh and our emotions, which are committed to avoiding all that . . . we now can tackle it with this renewed understanding; this renewed knowledge about it. Don’t fear it; don’t dread it.

“Paul says, ‘I’m now going to trust what God says.’ If He says tribulation is ordained to be a spiritual benefit and blessing, are we going to believe what He says about it? We have to readjust the way we think about the problems of life.

“God will not remove your affliction. That’s why when Paul said three times, ‘Lord Jesus, please,’ He responded, ‘Paul, you aren’t thinking about what’s happening in your life,’ and Christ reminds Paul about the available inner man capacity that he already had.

"Jesus didn’t say ‘no’ and He didn’t say ‘yes,’ He just said, ‘Paul, you’ve already got something. I don’t need to do any more.’

“God will not miraculously reach down into your life and remove your problem or shield you from the problem. He doesn’t give us immunity or a hedge of protection. God said, ‘It’s a blessing.’

“What do we KNOW? ‘Hey, it’s going to work something!’ When bad things happen in your life, it has absolutely nothing to do with God’s displeasure. It has everything to do with God’s delight in producing something in the core of your inner man.

“ ‘If I’m going to glory,’ Paul says, ‘I’m going to glory in the things concerning my infirmities. God’s not angry with me; He’s not angry with you.’

‘So wait a minute, Paul, why do you look like a physical mess?!’ Paul’s going to say, ‘You know what, that’s my certificate!’

“Acts 14:22 says, ‘Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.’

“It says, ‘We must.’ Is that optional? It’s a reality. The sooner we accept the fact that tribulation is part and parcel of our experience and edification, the sooner we can employ the very doctrines God says we need in order to glory in and see the value, worth, profit and advantage in it.”

*****

Proverbs 23 says, ‘For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.’

My pastor, Richard Jordan, explains, “Your heart has a mind to it. It has a capacity to think. Paul says in Romans 10:10: ‘For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.’

“So a part of your heart is the fact you have a will. You’re able to choose. You can will. Believing is to choose to accept and trust something. Your heart is where your will is, but your heart also has emotions. You can be 'exceedingly sorrowful.' Those three components make up your soul.

“Your constitution when God made you—the way He designed you, you have a spirit, soul and body. Your will takes the things in your mind and believes it, trusts it and depends on it.

"Your will, making a choice to depend on something, gives that thing you’re trusting control of your life. When your will makes the choice, your emotions can respond to your will and the action comes out of there.

“Take the 'E' off of emotion and what do you have? Motion. The connecting point between your soul, your mind, your inner man and your body, it’s sort of like the connection is involved in your emotions.

"What happens is your emotions are a function of your soul that can reach into your physical frame and stimulate it. It can shoot the adrenalin. You know, all the different emotions.

*****

“Love and fear are the two ultimate emotions. Every other emotion you have is a gradation of those two, and for some, a combination of them.

"Your emotions are designed to make you move, get you acting, because there’s something inside of you that’s working OUT of you.

“Your emotions are absolutely dumb. They have no intellect at all. The facts of life, of a situation, do not determine your experience. It’s how you THINK about those facts that determine your experience.

“If you were to get news that your family had been in a horrific accident and killed, how would you feel? You’d feel devastated because you believed a report.

"You have no factual evidence; all you’re doing is believing what someone told you. The facts may be entirely different. Somebody might be lying to you.

“When your mind is programmed by truth, then your will can take an action based on faith and truth. And when you trust God’s Word, what does it do? It works effectually in you that believe; having truth be what programs your mind …

“When your mind is programmed by error, what happens is it produces some predictable emotional responses because error always does that. And those predictable emotional responses and desires that error produce result in erroneous behavior.

*****

“Take Romans 7. We talk about addicts. They want that feeling so they depend on that pill (or whatever it is) to give it to them. The dependence on that pill is controlling them. You see, anything you depend on will control your life, so if you depend on truth, truth will control your life.

“When you sin, you’re going to respond to that sin in one of two ways. Your response to it is going to be based upon your flesh, your own resources. And that’s what you find in Romans—a law response. The law is simply a performance-based acceptance mentality: ‘I’ll be accepted based on my performance.’

“The law, the standard you’re performing by, might be God’s law, might be your wife’s law, might be your law, might be your company’s . . . It’s just, ‘I can live up to whatever it is.’

“The other way to respond is to respond in your identity in Christ. Respond in your spirit and on the basis of grace. Grace is all that God is free to do through the finished work of Jesus Christ. Grace is who I am in Christ, who He is and who God’s made me in Him.

“So when I sin I have a choice. I look at what’s happened and I say, ‘I can go into 'Operation Cover-up' or I can go into 'Operation Let’s- fix-this-thing.’ Every time sin is in your life, that’s the choice.”