Saying you have a relationship with God because you read the Bible is like me saying I have a relationship with my fiancé because I read Messages to Young Lovers. The Bible was never meant to be a substitute for personal experience and personal thought, logic and exploration. There is only so much you can learn from a book before you must actually embark on a personal journey in discovery with your personal God.
At some point, all those things I have read about relationships must be put aside to allow for a real relationship with a real person, Morgan. The rules, the dos and donts and the ideals all of a sudden don't make a relationship, I must allow for new revelations and ideals to shape my thinking as Morgan begins to slowly change the way I see relationships. I remember my first relationship, I had read all the ideal books, Ellen White, I Kissed Dating Good Bye, etc etc, I knew exactly how it was supposed to go. Imagine my shock when I realized my relationship was failing. The rules and the ideals all of a sudden meant very little. Where was the room for adaptation and growth? It failed because I did not allow for personal experience and individual needs.
It is the same way with God. For so long I read the ideals and the rules, I expected God to be a certain way and do certain things. One day though, I realized I had not allowed for experience. I read other people's experiences found in the Bible and other Christian writers, I knew everything I needed to know, but suddenly, tragically, I watched my knowledge of God disintegrate under me and the relationship I thought I had was not enough. You see it is not enough to know and study and read. There is no substitute for personal experience. You must search for yourself, learn for yourself, and discover for yourself. The Bible cannot do that for you, nor can all the Christian writers in the world. Can your own mind and logic and experience discover truth, or have you surrendered your relationship with God to the theories and ideals of other men? Do you personally know God or do you only read stories about him?
Saturday, July 26, 2014
Saturday, July 19, 2014
Babylon Who?
Chapter 15
Babylon Who?
The mark of the beast, the dragon, Babylon, the harlot on
the beast, what do they mean? For centuries Christians have struggled with these
questions as they seek to piece together the meaning of prophecy. Many have
been the theories and predictions that have come from the study of Daniel and
Revelation. It has become a muddled mess with every denomination having their
own separate interpretation. Are any of them correct, or are they all false? I
am not going to cover all of prophecy in this chapter, I only wish to convey a
truth essential for these times we live in today. I am going to tell you for
certain who Babylon is and how you can avoid the mark of the beast and know for
certain that your salvation is secure and that you are following the
truth.
I want to start by looking at Babylon in history. There is a
reason why the bible latched on to this great nation as a symbol of the kingdom
of Satan. Babylon is situated in the Middle East in what used to be the land of
Mesopotamia the site where the first civilization is recorded for history. It
was here that the tower of babble was built and from here that, according to
the Bible, all languages of the earth were created and all nations began to
form. It is also the location of the very First Nation to misrepresent the
character of God to the entire world after the flood.
Let’s go way back, to the very beginning of the Bible, to
some of the first stories ever told. The flood. The world was destroyed by a
flood. As mankind began to multiply on the earth, they began to so distort the
character of God that his true character and love were totally lost sight of,
and the world was in danger of losing the knowledge of the one true God. If not
for the flood, it is likely that you and I would never have the opportunity to
know truth. In the entire world, only 7 people were left who knew and
understood the love and character of God and even they did not understand or
know who God truly was. God was seeking to win the Heart of man, but man was
ignoring the voice of God calling. The only man who listened was Noah, and He
was saved from the natural disaster that followed. God did not cause the flood
because He hated humanity, the flood was a natural occurrence and God has
allowed this natural flow of reality to reveal His true character to all things
living. It is love that drives God to allow free will, it is up to us whether
we will listen or not. How many more would have been saved if they had
developed a relationship with God?
So after the flood, Noah and his sons, and their wives
settled in the land of Shinar, otherwise known as Mesopotamia and later
Babylon. It was an extremely fertile land with the river Euphrates on one side
of the valley and the river Tigerus on the other. It was the land of promise,
the land God intended for his people. It had everything they needed, and God
sought to reveal to humanity his love and care for them in supplying every need.
God could not have done more for these people. God was seeking to reveal his
character of love to all living. But there arose a king in Babylon.
The Bible explains it like this,
"And the whole earth was of one language,
and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that
they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. And
they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly.
And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter. And they said, Go
to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we
be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth."[1]
And so the nation of Babylon was founded. So how did this
city go from being just a settlement of people, to this infamous institution of
the kingdom of the enemy?
You see, the main problem with babel was not that mankind
was gathering in one place, or that they were building a tower. There is
nothing wrong with those things. God did not just decide he didn't like it and
confused their language just to make life difficult. The Babylonians error was
that they misunderstood the character of a loving God. This is the error that
Satan fell in to when He was in heaven. Satan saw God as arbitrary, though
he had no reason to believe as he did, Satan twisted the character of God. This
is something that God cannot allow; the twisting of who He is destroys
existence itself, because the character of God is directly related to reality,
for reality and existence is the revelation of God.
The Babylonians saw God as vindictive, destroying the earth
arbitrarily with no purpose in mind, only because he was vengeful because of
the failure of mankind. So they sought to one-up God. They built a tower to
protect themselves against Him. They saw God as a force to be feared and
respected, and that man should do whatever is in their power to protect
themselves from this unpredictable God, and to find a way to control Him in
some way. They sought to harness the wild beast that they saw as God and use
Him to their own advantages, recognizing that they may fail and have to protect
themselves against their own failure.
This is why Babylon became the representation of the false
kingdom, antagonistic to God's kingdom. It was not chosen arbitrarily, or
because Babylon was just terribly wicked. It was chosen because Babylon was the
first kingdom to misrepresent the character of God, and it started a trend that
would last till the end of time.
You see, there is no single one Babylon in the world today.
Babylon is not that ancient city, it is not solely Rome, it is not that other
denomination, it is not the heathens in Africa, it is not the United States,
and it is not some Alain invasion. Babylon is any institution that misrepresents
the character of God and causes others to misunderstand God as well. It is
any institution given authority over man that misleads humanity into believing
God is what He is not.
God used Babylon many times throughout history, and many of
those times are recorded in the Bible. He used Babylon to wake Israel up to
their need of God. Under Nebuchadnezzar all the land controlled by Babylon was
instructed to worship the God of Heaven, and under Cyrus, Babylon gave
Jerusalem back to the Israelites and instructed them to rebuild the temple of
the Most High God. Not only did Cyrus instruct them to build the temple, but he
also gave them the money to do it. In fact, God said this of Cyrus,
"He is my shepherd, and shall
perform all my pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to
the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid."[2]
Then God goes on for another
chapter or two speaking of the blessings he will pour out on Cyrus. You see, it
is not the city of Babylon that is so bad; it is the beliefs that mimic that
original Babylon, the one that thought to protect themselves from a wrathful
God, these beliefs are those that give a nation, or an institution, the right
to be called Babylon
The next Kingdom to be called
Babylon was the Kingdom of Medo-Persia which was then conquered by Greece.
Greece carried this false representation of God to its highest point. As we
studied earlier, the Greeks believed that God was an obstacle to existence. God
needed to be appeased and then set aside so that humanity could continue to
exist. They sought to control God by their works and actions, thinking that God
was one of wrath, anger, and justice. At the slightest failure, he would strike
down the inhabitants of earth. This is Babylon. Even though Greece is a long
way from Babylon, it was considered the kingdom of the enemy, not because of
its position, but because if its beliefs. Then came the kingdom of Rome.
This procession of kingdoms can be confirmed in
history and was also prophesied by Daniel in Daniel chapter 2 and also in
Revelation 13. The prophet Daniel saw that there would be a procession of
kingdoms all taking the place of Babylon. Rome, represented in the dream that
King Nebuchadnezzar had as Iron that breaks in pieces and shatters all, was the
second to last kingdom to take over this position as the antagonist to the
people of God. Rome adopted the ideas and philosophy of the Greeks. Not only
did they adopt the beliefs but they led the entire world into this belief as
well. Hellenism was forcibly spread over the entire empire, which encompassed
the entire Mediterranean.
Rome eventually fell. That kingdom did not last, and Europe
split into multiple kingdoms as prophesied by Daniel and represented in the
kings dream by the feet and 10 toes made of iron and clay. Rome split into 10
factions that became the 10 kingdoms. Never again would the world be united
under one empire.
"And
whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves
with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is
not mixed with clay."[3]
Europe has never been united. In fact it has suffered tragic
war after tragic war as different leaders tried to unite Europe under one
empire and failed. Napoleon, Stalin, Hitler and many more world leaders,
all grasped for greatness, and a united Europe, but all failed. Millions upon
millions of people lost their lives in the quest for greatness, to reforge that
which was lost, but none succeeded.
Revelation continues this story as it describes ten of these
kingdoms making up the divided kingdom of Rome. Revelation 13 describes a great
beast rising up out of the sea, in other words, a Kingdom that would arise out
of many people, as represented often in the Bible by the sea. This beast had 10
horns. In Revelation 17 John reveals what those horns represent. They also
represent the 10 kingdoms of Europe. Going back to Daniel, He had almost the
exact same dream as John did 2,000 years later! In Daniel 7 Daniel describes 4
beasts representing the kingdoms that would arise after Babylon.
The dream progresses just as Nebuchadnezzar's dream had with
one kingdom arising after another. But then we come to the fourth kingdom, a
beast arising out if the sea, having 10 horns. Something happens though that
John in Revelation does not mention. A little horn arises, and as it takes
power it uproots 3 kingdoms. So did this happen in history?
We find it in the history of the Christian church itself, a
place you would not expect to find Babylon. For a long time, Christians were
persecuted for what they believed. Hated by the Jews because they followed
Jesus who taught contrary to the doctors of the law, and hated by the Romans
because their religion was seen as a destroyer of the piece. Christians were
not a legally recognized religion by the Roman government, and so they were
looked at as a superstitious lot, that upset the rocky piece between the Jewish
nation and the Roman Empire. This was all to change however.
Constantine, the emperor of Rome, was riding into Battle one
day, when He saw high in the sky a Cross, and a voice spoke to him and said,
“In this sign, conquer.” From this point on, Christianity began to gain
prominence, and peace came to the church for the first time since its birth,
Christianity was finally recognized by the public as a legitimate religion.
This wasn’t necessarily a good thing however. As the church gained power, they
began to compromise the teachings of Jesus. It was harmless at first. Declaring
that it was ok to worship on Sunday. Sunday was the day that the pagans
worshiped the sun, hence the name. It wasn’t out of an evil plot that the church
did this, they did it seeking unity and peace. After all, it was just a day,
and if they wanted to spend all of Sunday worshiping Jesus, why was it any
different than worshiping on Saturday, the day of Saturn?
It did not stop there however. The church gained more and
more power. Constantine gave the seat of authority to the Christian church, and
made them essentially more powerful than the entire Roman Empire. This changed Christianity. Politics started
to plague the church, and power hungry leaders sought the highest point of
rule. In order to gain popularity with the population at large, the statues of
the gods were incorporated into the worship of Jesus. They were just given
different names. Zeus became Peter, which now sits in the very heart of Christianity
in Rome, kissed by hundreds of thousands of visitors every year. Slowly, the
focus of worship, was taken off a loving God, and placed on many “demi” Gods if
you will. Peter, Mary, Jesus, what difference did it make? The character of God
was forgotten.
In this rise to power, something very interesting happened,
the church uprooted 3 kingdoms in their grab for power. The Heruli,
Vandals, and Ostrogoths were eliminated
by the year 538 AD. After this, the world fell into the dark ages, kingdoms
fell and arose, but Rome remained. The church ruled over the people with an
iron fist. They sought to hold God captive and use him to control the
population. God was taught to be an angry, vindictive, and merciless God,
sending his wrath down on all who failed Him. Good or bad, people burned in
purgatory until God felt that they had been tortured enough to enter heaven.
The Church, that once had so much light, destroyed the character of God, and
misled millions of people.
And so the church became the
next institution to represent Babylon. It is not only the Roman Catholic
Church, however that is Babylon today. Many look at the church expecting it to
be at the forefront of the persecution of God’s people because it bares the
characteristics of Babylon, but this is faulty logic. The church you currently
are in could just as easily be a part of Babylon, you in your personal belief,
or lack there of, could be a part of that system. Babylon is not just a single
institution, or kingdom, or church. Babylon is anyone that grossly
misrepresents the character of Jesus to others. The Catholic Church’s one main
fault is that they have made salvation something that can be bought and sold,
not only that, but they have made God out to be a tyrant. But is this any
different than most Christian churches today? Most Baptist churches teach that
God burns people in hell forever and ever. Even the most conservative on the
subject, Seventh-Day Adventists, teach that God, in His wrath, destroys the
wicked in the end because of His anger at their wickedness. That kind of
thinking is Babylon. Any gross misrepresentation of the character of God is
antichrist.
So what about 666, the mark
of the beast, and all of that stuff you may ask. It is true that the pope wears
a hat that is inscribed with the roman numerals 666, but this should not throw
people off too much. I think it is awesome that God would reveal to us so
clearly what He dislikes most, but the number should not be our focus, nor
should it be our focus that it happens to come from the catholic church. The
number stands for the name of the pope, as the Vicar of Christ. One who stands
in the place of God.
This is what is so wrong
about the number. It represents a complete misunderstanding of who God is. If
we think that a mere human being can stand in the place of Jesus Christ, than
we have a gross misunderstanding of the greatness and vastness of God. We have
a view of God just like the Greeks, and the Romans, and the Babylonians, and
all who proceeded us before, it is the view that god is an elevated human,
existent inside of reality and held captive by its physical laws. What a sad
deception.
The mark of the beast is
not a physical mark that you will receive. I remember once I was helping out at
an evangelistic series my church was hosting in the city hall. At opening night
we gave each person a card with a barcode on it so that we could record their
attendance and give out prizes at the end for those who had attended the most.
It was a simple tactic to keep people coming back. There were several people
who looked at me with distrusting eyes and told me they did not want my mark.
It took me a little bit to realize what they were saying. They thought that a
simple card could give them the mark of the beast and cause them to be forever
lost for attending an Adventist meeting.
The mark of the beast is
not like that at all. The mark of the beast is anyone who thinks in His heart
as Babylon thinks, who sees God as nothing more than a Roman God. This person
shows they have accepted the thinking of the beast power and have received his
“mark” in their mind. They truly believe God to be not much greater than human.
Then there is the person
who receives this mark in their hand. It is that person who not only thinks,
but acts as though God is not infinite. Their actions show that the power of
God has not taken root in their life and they have not beheld the character of
a God who is Love. Having the mark of the beast is simply thinking as Babylon
has always thought, and not only Babylon but the whole world. You see it has
always only been a small remnant of people that understood the character of
God, a small group of people against the population of the world. It has long
been a struggle for God to reveal himself to all of creation.
Jesus warned,
“For there shall arise false Christs, and
false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch, that if it
were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.”[4]
If
God’s own elect people could be deceived in the end, how strong a deception do
you think this is going to be? Many Christians, especially those members of my
own denomination, claim that they would never be deceived by false Christ’s
claiming to be God. They claim they know what the deception is and so will not
be deceived, but that is the problem, if we know what the deception is, it
isn’t much a deception is it? One of the founders of the Seventh-Day Adventist
church wrote the following:
“It
is a solemn statement that I make to the church that not one in twenty whose
names are registered upon the church books are prepared to close their earthly
history, and would be as verily without God and without hope in the world as
the common sinner.”[5]
If that
was the state of the church then, when it was a brand new faith with less than
eighty thousand members, you can only imagine what the state of the church is
now. I am tempted to claim myself that not one in a hundred will choose to be
saved. We also look to the future, thinking the great deception is soon to come
on the world, without realizing that the great deception has already taken root
in the hearts of almost all mankind. It is the deception of the character of
God.
I want to plead with you, as
God did in Revelation,
“Come
out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye
receive not of her plagues.”[6]
Please,
if you choose to believe in God, and understand that He is the creator of
everything, and holds existence in His hand, then come out of false ideas of
God. Put away the delusions that have crowded His Character. Get to know God
for who He is. Learn what it is to love and align your life with the flow of
existence. None will be lost who is truly seeking to understand the character
of God, but plenty will be lost who decide they already know and do not need
anything else. I do not ask you to leave your church, and join mine, I do not
ask you to leave mine and join another, I only ask that in your faith, you
reject the mentality and traditional thoughts of Babylon. Accept the truth that
God is Love. Do you remember the opening of this book as we expanded our
knowledge of who and what God is? God is more, and His existence is Love.
Saturday, June 28, 2014
In All Points
Chapter
13
In All Points
How can God expect us to desire to follow
Him? Have you ever really thought about it? God comes down to this earth from
His Universal view of reality. He sees all; He knows the end from the beginning
because He is not trapped by this reality, or any realty for that matter. God
can look down on all of space and time and see every possibility there is to be
had. He knows what is going to be right for the world and for the individual
because He has foreknowledge. He tells us what is right and what is wrong, not
because He is arbitrary, or because there is a higher law above him, but
because He can see where each decision leads, and where each action will end.
“ But what about us here on earth God?” I am often
tempted to ask this question. What are we to do? We cannot see the end from the
beginning, we don’t know that a certain action will lead to ruin or success. We
do not have the gift of being able to see into the future. Does God really
expect us to just take His word for it and obey deontologicaly, just because He
claims to have teleological ability? It doesn’t seem fair for us to just trust
a God who cannot really relate to our view of life and the universe.
That is the problem God face when He created living
things. How does God relate to a created being? That is why God revealed
himself to the angels as Michael, to know how they felt, to take part in their
limitations, and win their trust and friendship as an equal sharer in their
existence. God was faced with an even bigger problem when man fell. How does
the God of the universe now relate to a fallen creature? How are we to trust
that He knows best, seeing that He has never experienced the fall. He does not
know what it feels like to sin, to experience decay, and ultimately, certain
death. Enter Jesus.
Jesus, is God. Created in the likeness of
humanity, Jesus came to this earth to mingle with us as one who desired our
good, to win our confidence, and to direct us to eternal life. That was the
purpose of coming to this earth. Jesus did not only come to this earth to show
the universe what true love was all about and what the end result of sin would
be, He also came to this earth to win our trust and show us the character of a
loving, forgiving God.
Jesus was a man. Fully human He experienced life
like any of us would. He grow up from a toddler. He learned, and obtained
wisdom like any human would. He learned obedience. He had to eat and drink to
stay alive. He worked in a trade, because without work, He would have no money
to buy food, just like any of us today. His occupation was a very human
characteristic. Think of it, the God of the universe working for his own
existence.
Jesus grew up in the town of Nazareth. It was a
dirty town, with a population of around 100 people, maybe less. It was known as
a town of disrepute. So much so that when Nathanael was called to be a disciple
of Jesus he exclaimed, “Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?”[1] Jesus grew up in a
backwards, run down town, full of corruption and sin.
Jesus so engrossed himself in humanity that the
people he grew up with saw nothing but His humanity. It would be like finding
out that neighbor kid you know so well, is actually God all mighty. This is why
the people from his own village of Nazareth rejected Him. Mark 6:3 says,
“Is
not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and
of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were
offended at him.”[2]
You see, the people knew who Jesus was. He was
not some stranger come out of nowhere. They knew him. He grew up with their
kids, or he was their friend from childhood. Jesus was human. They had seen him
bleed, they had seen him instructed, and they had watched him grow up. This is
also why you see all throughout the New Testament that people called him Jesus
of Nazareth, because He was from Nazareth, and everybody knew it.
Jesus felt human emotions. He felt sadness at
the loss of a dear friend. When His friend Lazarus died, he wept. It is the shortest
verse in the Bible, but shows so powerfully the humanity of our savior. The
verse states,
“When
Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her,
he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled…Jesus wept. Then said the Jews,
Behold how he loved him! And some of them said, Could not this man, which
opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have
died? Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the grave…”[3]
Jesus wept for His friend. He was
troubled deeply. Not only that, but Jesus felt the blame placed on Him as His
friends accusingly looked on Him, knowing that He could have saved Lazarus had
He come sooner. Jesus knew He had the power to raise Lazarus to life, but even
so, the human emotion of feeling loss was overpowering and Jesus wept. God
cried.
Jesus experienced anguish again when
standing in the court of the temple, that beautiful symbol of the people of God,
His people. For thousands of years God had watched over His chosen people,
protecting them, guiding them, seeking to lead them to a true understanding of
His character. Yet as Jesus stood taking one last glance at that beautiful
temple built to honor him, Jesus wept. It was the tears of rejection Jesus
cried. Tears as a mother or father would cry as their child disowns them and
rejects their love. His children had rejected Him, killed those who taught the
truth and reviled the love of God, and in a few days time would succeed in
killing God himself. Tears streaming down His face Jesus exclaimed,
“O
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which
are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even
as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your
house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me
henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the
Lord.”[4]
Jesus was overcome by human emotion, but
not just human emotion, it was mixed with the infinite emotion of a passionate
God. God was forced to allow his people to leave Him as they made their final
decision to reject the revelation of God to them. In this rejection God saw a
foretaste of things as humanity made their final decision in the end. Forced by
the free agent, God would have to allow humanity to turn their backs on eternal
life and allow them to pass out of existence forever. The free will of man
would limit the savior of the world.
Jesus Experienced fear. In the
garden of Gethsemane, facing His own death and the uncertainty of the future,
Jesus feared. Fear is another very human emotion. Imagine how crazy this is!
Jesus, the creator of the universe, God himself, the inventor of space and
time, and existence itself, the creator of emotions, Jesus was scared! Yet
again, not only did Jesus experience the very human fear of death, but the
supernatural fear of the weight of the world placed on one man. Jesus was to
feel accountable for every wrong ever committed. The guilt of every sin placed
on the lamb of God. Jesus bore our guilt, so that we don’t have to feel the
guilt of our wrong doing! As that weight was placed upon him, it sought to
crush out His life, and God Himself in Jesus Christ, feared! Sweating great
drops of blood, a condition found in extreme stress, only recorded a handful of
times in human history, Jesus exclaimed, “…O my Father, if it be possible, let
this cup pass from me!”[5]
Jesus would experience the sentiment of
rejection again at the cross as the ones He came to save rejected and crucified
their creator and savior. Yet, not only would Jesus experience the rejection of
man, but He felt the withdrawal of himself from God, His father, His friend,
and a part of himself. Jesus experienced what it is to pass out of existence as
the walls of death began to close in around Him. His heart broke for mankind,
and for the utter rejection He felt from both God and man. God had not rejected
Him, yet in Order for Jesus to experience the utter darkness of those who
refuse life, Jesus withdrew from the presence of God. As the darkness, or the
absence of light, closed in around the creator, Jesus exclaimed, “My God, my
God! Why hast thou Forsaken me?”[6] as He not only quoted the
22 Psalm, but lived the entire thing! As the Bible says in one of my favorite
verses,
“He
is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief:
and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him
not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did
esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our
transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our
peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.”[7]
You see, Jesus was like you. Jesus experienced
things like you do. Jesus was human, and yet, He was God. This brings a whole
new meaning to the next verse from which the title of this chapter was taken,
“For
we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our
infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.”[8]
What is the first thing that comes
to mind when you hear this verse? I’ll tell you what first came to my mind, I
thought to myself, “That’s not true.” There is no way that Jesus experienced
everything like I have. Think of it, if it is true for me, then it must be true
for everyone else, and that is a lot of experiences to go through for one man.
I thought to myself, “Jesus must have experienced similar things of equal
temptation but there is no way that Jesus experienced my life, because I have
sinned, I bear the guilt of knowing I am a sinner, and I bear the weakness of
having fallen already. I go into temptation addicted to sin already, but Jesus
never sinned, so He physically could not experience the magnitude of my sins.
But he Bible goes on with even more
details on this subject,
“For
verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of
Abraham. Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his
brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things
pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in
that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that
are tempted.”[9]
As the wealth of evidence began to
stack up it became increasingly hard to believe as I had previously believed. I
began to ask myself another question, “Is Paul just over generalizing here?
Maybe He doesn’t really mean what it sounds like He is meaning.” I was so set
in this belief that I wrote in another little book I was writing at the time, “Jesus
did not experience everything I have, He sympathizes with me, but He has not
experienced it like me.” Yet, Paul goes on in Hebrews to state
“The
high priest has his own weaknesses. So he is able to be gentle with those who
do wrong out of ignorance.”[10]
This verse shocked me! Surely Paul
is talking about the human high priest and not Jesus! Jesus could not have his
own temptations and weaknesses. Jesus never sinned! How could He offer Himself
as a perfect example of love to humanity if He himself was a sinner? Those are
pertinent questions to be sure. Yet Paul doesn’t stop there, he says something
even more astounding in verse 8.
“Jesus
was the Son of God, but he still suffered, and through his sufferings he
learned to obey whatever God says.”[11]
What!?
Jesus had to learn obedience? I used to just push these passages away out of my
mind and just continue believing what I have always believed that Jesus was
perfect, and that’s that. Here is the conclusion I have finally come to after
years of believing the wrong thing. Through a sermon by a dear friend of mine,
Pastor Dale Leamon, God revealed something to me that I had never comprehended
before.
Jesus was tempted supernaturally. When you or I
are tempted, we are tempted by things around us, the direct result of things we
have done or experienced in our lives. We are tempted to drink because we have sinned
before in that we became addicted to a substance. When we are tempted to lust,
we are because we have lusted in the past, or because we have our human nature
that is constantly at war with our frontal lobes. Rarely is our temptation
actually truly supernatural. Satan only has as much power over you as you give
him. Most of the time, we are tempted by our own lusts and desires, we don’t
even need satan in order to do wrong. This was not the case for Jesus.
“For
he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the
righteousness of God in him.”[12]
Jesus became sin, not just that He
was tempted, but Jesus actually became sinful in order to experience the weight
of my guilt and temptation. Centuries before Christ, Isaiah the Prophet wrote
of the coming Messiah in one of the most moving passages of scripture. In this
chapter Isaiah states,
“Surely
he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him
stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our
transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace
was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone
astray; we have turned everyone to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him
the iniquity of us all.”[13]
God laid on Jesus all our
iniquities, every last one! Even though Jesus lived a sinless life, He felt the
guilt of trillions of sins as though He had committed every sin that I have
ever done, not just my sins, but the sins of every person on this planet. Just
think of the guilt some people struggle with. Some drink themselves to death to
cover their shame and guilt. Jesus Felt that Guilt. He knows and understands
our life intimately, because He has felt it. Don’t you see, Jesus was not tempted
by man or by human nature so much as He was tempted by God in that Jesus faced every
temptation this world and Satan himself could muster with the knowledge that He
was already guilty for what He had not yet committed. Think of it, if you knew
that you were guilty for the sin you were being tempted to commit, how strong
would your resolve be to not do it?
When my nephew died, Jesus
experienced that loss, not because He literally lost a nephew, but because He
faced every temptation to doubt God with the pain of loss such as I have never
experienced. Jesus was in ALL points tempted like as we are. He was tempted as
though he had failed every time I have failed. When Jesus was tempted, He was
tempted as though He had never gained the victory! So all though Jesus lived a
perfect life openly, in His heart He felt the overwhelming feeling of guilt and
depression, that failure brings. What most men would drink themselves to death
for, Jesus endured knowing full well that not only did He have the guilt but
that He would have to pay for it without ever knowing if one such as Him could
be saved.
Jesus died the second death, the
death of someone who never accepts the life God offers. God died a sinner!
Jesus did not die with the knowledge he had concurred, Jesus died thinking He
had miserably failed! Why did He then not give up? He had failed, and was dying
for His own sin and for His guilt, yet He went to the cross anyway, and did not
give in to Satan. Divinity flashed through humanity at the cross as God
revealed to the watching universe the extent to which He would go to reveal His
character of love. Jesus suffered the agony of the wicked, so that He could
show that His dealings with the wicked are just, fair, and loving, and indeed
are not arbitrary but rather He obeys the free will of the sinner to choose
life or death.
God does not hate the wicked, He
understands them because He felt what they feel. He was tempted in every point
like they were, as though He was them. No God does not hate the wicked, but
just as Jesus’ human body could not survive the weight of sin, in the end, the
wicked will not be able to exist outside of the existence of God. Jesus did not
die of the great pain inflicted on Him at the cross, He died, because He chose
to be outside the presence of God. And outside of God, there is nothing. Jesus’
heart crushed. It literally ripped open spilling his blood into his chest
cavity. The agony of guilt, the crushing realization of love rejected but the
unwillingness to repent, these are what destroy the wicked, and these are what
destroyed Jesus as well as He took part in all of humanity so that character
could be revealed.
You and I can be saved! Not because we have any
ability to be perfect or overcome, but because Jesus overcame for us. He
trusted His father to the very end. He sweated blood and His heart literally
burst from the stress guilt brought to His body. His heart was torn in two and
his blood poured into the pericardium. No human has ever experienced enough
stress to raise their heart rate that high from pure stress. Jesus conquered.
He paid the price for you and me, His character was revealed, and God was shown
to be Love itself.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)