God Means it!

Today, when we wish to add emphases to a word, we commonly place quotes before and after or we modify the text or underline it to attract attention to it. If we find a passage or a sentence of particular interest we might use a highlighter to mark it. In the scriptures God uses another method to mark the passages and things of great importance to Him, He repeats it and if it is of great importance for His people to take note of He will say it three times.

In these last days there are various heretical thoughts on the scripture that runs the entire spectrum. Of prominence we find folks that I call extreme liberals that believe that the Word of God can be found in the Bible but that most of it is not. Further along the spectrum we have New Testament Christians and these include a strange lot from The Sermon on The Mount only through The teachings of Jesus only. (The spectrum is greater than I have indicated and this list is incomplete.) The point is that there is a very large portion of the believing Christians that do not read their Bibles except for selected passages.

When the Fortune Five Hundred company CEO writes a letter he calls his secretary, Mary or Joe(?) and he speaks and the secretary writes and later types for him to sign before mailing or distributing. Absolutely not the same but in similar manor, God sent the Holy Spirit to inspire men to recored the Word of God so that you and I could know the heart of God.

The thing that troubles me the most is that in The Gospel of John, chapter one, verses one through three we find that Jesus is the Creator of everything that has been created. For me, that means that all of the Bible, from The Creation of Genesis through all of the Revelation of Jesus to John, are the teaching and acts of Jesus. Jesus is not the God of the New Testament, He is the God of the Bible, second person of the triune God, revealed in the flesh of man in these later days.

By now your asking where does this introduction take us? I stated in the beginning that God places emphases on some things that are very important. On my latest read through I am in the last book of the Pentateuch, Deuteronomy, and I am reading, for the third time in four books, all penned by Moses, of the Exodus of Israel from Egypt. God has had the Exodus recorded and then summarized twice in the first five books of the Bible. There is a passage I read this morning that is a restatement of what God has promised Israel. In Deuteronomy 11:24 there is the repeat of the promise of the land that belongs to Israel, from the wilderness on the south to Lebanon on the north.

That description will not be of to much concern to the world but God does not stop there, The western border of Israel is the Mediterranean Sea and the eastern border is the Euphrates River. Now, according to God, the southern tip of Syria, most of Iraq, the northern tip of Saudi Arabia and all of Jordan belong to Israel. At this point in time we have an Islamic raised president, whose citizenship has never been established, that demands Israel give part of the splinter she holds to a nation that never existed and many, calling themselves the followers of Christ, agree. Former Presidents Carter, Clinton and Bush have either agreed or made that same demand of Israel.

There is another promise from our LORD to the faithful remnant of true Israel. He promised never to abandon them for a thousand generations. (Exodus 20:6) this promise is repeated twice in the following three books. For anyone to believe the Christian has replaced the Jew is shear folly, God never breaks His promises. Some will cry out that this promise is conditional and they are correct but they ignore the fact that God has always held a remnant in the sons of Judah. There are even completed Jews living among us today, they are known as Messianic Jews, they follow the Messiah.

Israel holds to the promise that God made to them to be a great nation and some argue that this promise has been fulfilled through Kings David and Salomon. My problem with that statement is the borders of Israel, as given by our LORD. When the Messiah was here the first time it was to pay the sin debt for man, to reconcile man to his former position, the one held by man before Adam's sin in the garden. The next time the Messiah puts a foot on the Earth it will be as the King of the Earth and His throne will be seated in Israel. I do not for a moment believe that He will not claim the land He has given to the sons of Jacob for an everlasting possession. God does not reign in mediocrity.

I confess that I do not read through the Bible every year but I have done so a number of times and hope to do so several more times, to prepare myself for my arrival Home. The truth is that I might not read another paragraph before I am called to go Home, that is the truth about all of us. My prayer is that all of you will lust after the same thing that King David and I do. David sought after the heart of God and so do I but there is no way to know the heart of God if you fail to study to show yourself approved.