Tim Hayes – Page 53

Precious Promises

YHWH has given us exceedingly great and precious promises so that we might partake of and participate in His divine nature. (2Pe 1:4) What are His promises, and how does receiving them enable us to cleanse ourselves, following after Him, perfecting holiness in the fear of God? (2Co 7:1)

God promises that if we’ll separate ourselves from all uncleanness unto Him that He’ll receive us as His children. (2Co 6:17-18) Knowing He’ll never leave us nor forsake us enables us to be content, freeing us of covetousness. (He 13:5) Knowing God is just, that He’ll judge all according to truth, heals resentment and bitterness. (Ro 2:2) Knowing we’re God’s workmanship (Ep 2:10), that He will complete what He’s begun in us (Php 1:6), gives us confidence and hope. Knowing He’s given us power, love and a sound mind gives us courage and boldness to walk shamelessly in our gifts and calling. (2Ti 1:6-8)

God is able to make all grace abound toward us, to always give us the strength to abound in serving Him and glorifying Him in every circumstance of life (2Co 9:8); He is able to keep us from falling, and to and present us faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. (Jude 24) God is able to sanctify us entirely, spirit, soul and body, and to preserve us blameless unto the coming of His Son. (1Th 5:23) God is able to do this, and He will, because He is faithful to His calling in us. (vs 24)

These are but a sampling of His awesome promises! Each one we internalize strengthens us in the nature of God, enabling us to walk more freely of sin, filled with more light and joy, in closer fellowship with Him. (1Jn 1:3) Look for more, contemplating them, feasting on the divine nature. O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him! (Ps 34:8) As we behold Him we become more like Him. (2Co 3:18)

Rejoicing in and counting on God’s promises honors Him by proclaiming God is faithful; it quickens us to live in strength and power according to His design in us. (Ps 119:93)

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Emulations

After calling out variance as a work of the flesh, YHWH continues with emulations. (Ga 5:19-21). The enemy often tempts in extremes; we need balance to avoid the one while evading the other.

As variance is unholy glorying in differentness, emulation is an effort to match or surpass a person or achievement, typically by imitation. Is it unholy competition, ungodly sameness.

How then do godly men encourage us to emulate them (Ro 11:14), begging us to follow their example? (1Co 4:16) Imitating the godly helps ensure our own walk with God. (Php 4:9) How is this supposed to work?

The difference between holy and unholy emulation is evidently in our motivation. As we follow after God (Ep 5:1) good role models are invaluable; we’re not trying to outdo each other, but being discipled, coached and motivated through wholesome example. As long as we’re rejoicing in the godliness of others and enjoying our own unique design and gifting in God, emulating Christ in others, where ever and whenever we can find Him, we’re walking in love.

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A Prating Fool

Twice in a 3-verse passage, God repeats a unique, obscure warning: “a prating fool shall fall.” (Pr 10:8) (Pr 10:10) What’s He telling us? Definitions help.

Prate: to talk idly and at length, foolishly or tediously; chatter.
Fool: One deficient in judgment, sense, or understanding.
Prating Fool: one who jabbers on and on without making sense.

A prating fool shall fall. God evidently wants us to steer clear of fools and the inevitable collateral damage surrounding them, and to company with the wise. (Pr 13:20) He’s dedicated an entire book of the Bible to help us distinguish between them.

Wise men spare words (Pr 10:19); God exhorts us to measure each one, speaking only as necessary. (Ja 1:19) This is both for our protection (Pr 13:3) and our promotion. (Pr 17:28). Wisdom walks carefully and thoughtfully, aware that missteps are costly.

Life is tough, but it’s tougher when we’re stupid. Let’s not play the fool, or hang out with fools. Let’s enjoy God and His ways, being careful to heed all His warnings.

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Variance

As we make our election sure, examining ourselves and proving we’re in the faith (2Co 13:5), consider a vice that God calls variance: enjoying, as an end in itself, being peculiar, divergent, unusual, at odds, estranged, antagonistic, non-conforming, disagreeable, contentious or quarrelsome. Those enjoying living this way as a manner of life have no part in God’s kingdom. (Ga 5:19-21)

In cleansing our selves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God (2Co 7:1), we depart the mainstream; in living truth we expose the world’s lies; as we align more and more with God we find ourselves increasingly opposed to an ungodly culture; in pursuing God we find ourselves in rare and precious company; in finding light and life we inevitably abandon the madding crowd to its love of death and darkness. (Pr 8:36)

Yet deriving significance or importance in being outside the mainstream, in belonging to an elite, exclusive club, delighting in finding others in the wrong, exalting ourselves with superior knowledge or beliefs, disdaining those who haven’t found what we have, is in itself death and darkness. (1Jn_3:14b) How easy it is to be immersed in truth while living a lie! (1Jn 4:20)

Finding our significance in the design of God (Ep 2:10), our comfort in the lovingkindness of God (2Co 1:3-4), our hope in the faithfulness of God, our pleasure in pleasing Him, our delight in enjoying Him and His provision, and our passion in helping others find the Way, this is light and life and love. (1Jn_3:14a)

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Lord Knows

Back in the late 80’s Bo Knows ads featured my favorite athlete, Bo Jackson, whose seemingly superhuman feats awed both baseball and football fans for years: Bo could do anything.

But saying “Lord knows” (2Pe 2:9) seems like such an understatement … His understanding is infinite. (Ps 147:5)

YHWH is omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient: infinitely present in all places at all times, infinitely powerful, infinite in knowledge and wisdom. (Is 40:28) How can He try? or learn, or hope or grow? We can’t measure anything about Him. Saying He “knows how” suggests He developed a capability or acquired a challenging skill … an anthropomorphism that just won’t fly; He’s infinitely infinite.

God has always known everything about everything (Ac 15:18), so saying “the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished” (2Pe 2:9) is indeed stating the obvious. But it’s evidently an obviousness worth pondering.

God knows how … knows how to deliver the godly, those that are becoming more and more like Himself, out of temptations: He doesn’t spare us life’s trials and testings but forms us into His likeness through them. God knows how … and He does it with style. We count it all joy to be His workmanship (Ep 2:10), growing stronger under His loving hand and watchful eye through all our difficulties. (Ja 1:2-3)

But this omniscient, omnipotent God also knows how to reserve … to preserve, keep in store … the unjust, the biased, who judge inconsistently and selfishly … setting them aside unto the Day of judgment when He will expose all wickedness for what it is, and deliver them over to be punished. God knows how … and He’ll do it in righteous vengeance. (He 10:30-31)

God is good; God is just; God is faithful: I rest in His perfect knowing, in His faithful timing, in His awesome, righteous power.

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Perfecting Holiness

Holiness isn’t popular, yet only the holy will see God (He 12:14): He calls us to godly fear in perfecting it (2Co 7:1), continually cleansing ourselves of all uncleanness, all filthiness of the flesh and spirit. What does this mean? How do we do it?

Holiness is about our heart’s alignment with God’s Law, Torah, the law of love (Mt 22:37-40); it’s God’s measure of how disposed we are to seek His pleasure, of our inclination and tendency to love others as ourselves in deed and in truth.

So how would we live if we cared deeply for God and others? Perfecting holiness is striving every day to live out our answer to this question, exercising our inner selves, training our souls in godliness, purifying our spirits in seeking and obeying the truth through the Spirit unto authenticity and love (1Pe 1:22), seeking the pleasure of God and the good of others in every thought and choice. It’s continuous improvement for life. (Php 3:14)

Thankfully, the pursuit of holiness is itself the work of God, to make us increase and abound in love toward others, so that He may stablish us unblamable in holiness before Himself. (1Th 3:12) As we wrestle this out in daily life He strives in and through our striving (Col 1:29), ensuring our victory (1Co 15:57): He will be glorified in and through us. (2Th 1:10)

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The End of All Things

God says to us, “But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.” (1Pe 4:7) If God was exhorting saints to prepare for the end of the world two millennia ago, then we are at a loss; the world didn’t end then and it hasn’t since. Immediate context provides precious little help in interpreting, so we turn to the broader context of Scripture for insight.

The fact that God pleads with us to not expect Messiah’s return before the time (2Th 2:1-2), suggests God isn’t warning us that the end of the world is upon us; there must first come a falling away, which we still have not seen. (2Th 2:3)

The key here appears to lie in the word end, which may convey the idea of a goal, purpose or final result. (Ja 5:11) If we understand it this way, God is telling us that the goal or purpose of all things, the reason everything happens, is at hand, or obvious, or readily perceived. This divine purpose is repeated in many places, as in the immediate context, “that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ.” (1Pe 4:11)

God is evidently telling us that we should be sober, prayerful, thoughtful, deliberate in our actions because He intends to glorify His Son Jesus Christ in and through everything. Though sin should grieve us (Php 3:18-19), we need not fret and worry and stew over rebellion, blindness and brokenness all around us, or try in any way to control any of it; God will glorify Himself in and through it all. (Ro 11:36)

Rather than letting corruption steal our joy, we should be thankful in and for all things (Ep 5:20), knowing that our God works all things together for good to those who love Him (Ro 8:28), and allows all for a perfect purpose: to glorify Himself. (Ps 46:10)

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The Circle of the Earth

In the Bible it is written, “It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in.” (Is 40:22) Some site this verse as evidence that Earth is flat and not a ball (sphere), since a different Hebrew word would be used here if the author wanted to describe a ball rather than a circle.

However, if we read the text carefully, it does not say that Earth is a circle, but it implies that Earth has a circle. The Hebrew word circle is also translated circuit (Job 22:14) and compass. (Pr 8:27) The Scripture appears to teach that both Earth and its Heaven (atmosphere) have a circuit, or a circular route they travel together … an orbit if you will … an idea consistent with our modern heliocentric model, which long preceded its discovery.

This should come as no surprise since there can be no real conflict between Science and Scripture if God is the Author of both. (1Ti 6:20) Only a Spherical Earth model accounts for the sun actually rising and setting from an earthly perspective while also providing for time zones, for each hour of our 24 hour day always occurring somewhere on Earth, disproving all Flat Earth models by contradiction.

Here is a video (9 min) demonstrating this fact in an experiment we can do at home which 3rd graders should easily understand. In a more in-depth article, we use this same approach to disprove all Flat Earth models mathematically, as well as provide direct proof of the size and shape of Earth by considering the consistent behavior of the stars, which demonstrates that Earth is a sphere about 25 thousand miles in circumference.

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Oppositions of Science

One of the most important tools God gives us in our search for truth is the scientific method: observing natural events, looking for causal relationships by creating models or ideas about how and why things are the way they are, and testing these models rigorously to see if they adequately describe reality. He tells us that real science will never oppose His truth, since He’s the Author of it all, and that if we accept any kind of false science we err in our faith. (1Ti 6:20-21)

OrionNebula — Orion Nebula: César Blanco González

Yet too many of us are content to believe whatever we’re told, afraid to question and explore. It leaves us prone to error and superstition, and moves those who do intelligently explore our world to dismiss our witness of the rest of God’s truth and promote a false science.

False science is rooted in lies; it’s promoted by those who oppose the truth through bias and dishonesty, dismissing facts which don’t align with their view. Rather than considering all facts with integrity, the wicked blindly assert their view and deny the facts, only looking for explanations which suit their bias, no matter how ridiculous.

Freedom from false science is found only in the love of truth. (2Th 2:10) Whether challenging evolution (finding it void of scientific foundation), atheism, climate change, sexual perversion, or the shape of our Earth (it can’t be flat), we need to do our homework and be honest. We should always be ready to give a humble, informed, confident answer to anyone who asks us why we believe the way we do. (1Pe 3:15) It’s the only way to maintain a sound mind, and walk with God.

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He Shall Rule the Nations

In the midst of arguably the most interesting election year in history, what principles should guide our voting? What is government’s role, and what types of laws are pleasing to God? Should we try to legislate morality, or let people do what they want in their personal lives so long as they aren’t harming others?

When Messiah returns He will institute holy government: He Himself will rule the nations from Jerusalem … with a rod of iron. (Re 19:15) It seems to me unlikely that He will enforce a different Law than Torah; He delights in it and expects us all to do the same. (De 4:5-6, 8)

Torah is God’s plumb line, our metric for evaluating moral goodness. The fact that many resist and rebel against God’s Law didn’t keep Him from requiring Israel to obey it, nor will this keep Him from imposing it on the rest of Mankind. (Re 2:26-27) Whether we like it or not, Torah will eventually be the law of the land. (Mi 4:2)

It would appear then that laws are good or bad based on how well they align with God’s law, and governments are good or bad according to how they represent God’s holy standard of righteousness. (Ro 13:3-4)

The only real question then seems to be whether it makes sense for us to try to influence our culture and society to accept and conform to this standard or not. If “righteousness exalts a nation,” if “sin is a reproach to any people” (Pr 14:34), if we delight in God’s laws (Ro 7:22) and believe they are good (1Ti 1:8), and that anyone who breaks them is harming God, themselves and others (Ma 22:40), then the answer would appear to be “Yes.”

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