Our Father | Prayer Outline By Jesus

In the first two parts we learned what prayer is not supposed to be and now we’re going to look at the outline Jesus gives us for effective prayer. So what is it we can do that is effective ? Jesus begins by saying:

Our father in heaven hallowed be thy name

We need to lift our prayer to the father in heaven. We’re later told by Jesus that we are to bring prayer to the father in his name, see JOHN 16: 23-2. So we are to offer prayer to God the father in the name of Jesus because everything flows from the father.

• Jesus prayed to God the father
• He has taught us that we could be on intimate terms with God
• So much so that he said God is our “daddy”

God is our loving and caring father

Now that very phrase often helps me get started in prayer because it shifts my attention from myself to the heavenly father. I now have a wonderful relationship with God because of the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross. I put my trust in him and his death and resurrection – that makes God my father, and it is a wonderful thing to know that I have this relationship.

Now, I know some people when they hear the term father that they don’t have a good memory of their earthly fathers. I happened to have had very wonderfull earthly father, but regardless of whatever someone’s experience was with their earthly father, you can be assured that our heavenly father truly loves us. Loves us so much that he sent Jesus Christ to die for All of our sins so we woould not perish but have eternal life is our father.

We’re part of a great family and we’re part of the gathered group the very word church means gathered ones. So we start off a reminding ourselves that we’re talking to our loving heavenly father who wants to hear from us who knows our needs, and He wants us to first understand that he will meet them.

Hallowed Be Thy Name

In the past few years of my life as I go to pray that phrase really helps me get my mind off my worries and temporal anxieties. It reminds me of the great holiness of wonder and majesty of God as He has revealed Himself.

• He is unlike anything here in our world
• He is not like our petty selfish celebrities or national or international leaders.
• He is the key to all things that are wonderful and glorious
• He is not corrupt
• He’s above all this and in all of his triune glory and
• He dwells in unimaginable light and splendor and purity

 ALL of that is given to us in Jesus Christ

In short we start by sanctifying His name. His name is holy so that in this sorded awful world with so many terrible things happening by the billions it is refreshing to know that God is hallowed and holy and perfect and that the heavenly reality is someday going to be our living destiny. So, just as prayer should be addressed to God our father which shows our relationship, now we remind ourselves of his Holiness.

We’re to lift our minds and hearts, need and concerns into the heavenly realm and to look at things from that perspective not just the situation we are in down here.

It starts off the conversation with love and praise.

The first part of the outline tells us to start the conversation thanking the Father for our relationship with Him and to spend some moments praising His glory. We are talking with He who is in charge of it all. And He wants to hear from us! And that’s just the beginning – join us for part 4 of our bible study on the Lords prayer at hungryfortheword.com

Christian Prayer Outline From Jesus

Last time, in part 1 of our study of the Lord’s prayer: Bible Study on The Lords Prayer, we began in Matthew 5: verses 5-7 where Jesus is telling people what daily prayers should not be like. So now we’re going to get to how to pray to God as Jesus says Christian prayer should be. Matthew chapter 6:8 reads this way:

and therefore do not be like them for your father knows the things you have need of before you ask.

We looked at those two kinds of bad prayer in part 1

• Religious attention grabbing

• Vain repetition

Jesus says to distance yourself from both of those types of prayer, and goes on to say those are of no use because: God knows what we need before we ask. That leads some people to ask:

Why does he need us to ask if the already knows what we need?

It’s that God needs us to – but we need to

• We have to understand that every blessing we have
• Everything we have in life
• Comes from him

It is in this active way that we are reminded that God is in control and that we are not. Everything comes from him and it even though God knows what we need He doesn’t respond to all those needs unless we ask. He wants us to be engaged in trusting him, and asking him, and receiving from him, the things that we need.

After all – we’re going to spend eternity in that kind of fellowship relationship. So it is important that we begin to practice that kind of living in the full resources of God in the here and now on earth.

Here’s what we’ve learned so far:

1. God knows what we need
2. We’re not to use vain repetitions
3. We’re to come to him
4. and have a coherent conversation

in Matthew chapter 6:9-13 , and in Luke chapter 11:2-4 Jesus gives us what is called the Lord’s prayer.”

Jesus didn't pray this prayer
and it isn't not a prayer that we are to use in a rote fashion
it is an outline of how to pray

Here is what Jesus said:

“In this manner therefore pray,
Our father in heaven, hallowed be your name,
your Kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread
and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors
and do not lead us into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.
For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, amen.”

Luke’s passage leaves off the benediction “for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever” and we’ll get to that discussion in part 8; but what we have here are the elements of prayer as an outline – when we go to pray in our private room and where you will bring to God your needs and engage with God in the spiritual warfare of our day.

By this time we’ve got a pretty good grip on what prayer is NOT supposed to be, as well as WHERE. We also now know WHY we need to pray and ask God for what we need – even though He already knows. So in part three we’ll get to the first part of that outline for effective prayer Jesus gives us – and I want you to join me next time for part 3 of the Lord’s prayer – here at hungryfortheword.

Positive Point Mutations Never Happen

Part 2: Before we get back to the positive point mutation I need to point out that this whole idea comes from the magnificent, must-read book by Lee Spetner. It is a must-have for anyone serious about framing a fantastic set of arguments against evolution. Oddly enough, there is another book with the same title which covers a similar sort of idea on a larger scale. You can grab either of these awesome books from the amazon widget at the bottom of this post.

So where were we?

Freddy the frog.

He needs some eyes to help him with a marital dispute. Yes, that’s just silly, he’s in a fix with or without the eyes. But you may also recall that we were discussing that in order for Freddy to get eyes he needs a whole bunch of changes in his DNA. Those changes in DNA – and again this is from the Wiki – can happen in two ways:

• Spontaneous mutations
• Induced mutations

Spontaneous mutations happen with genetic decay, just like we would expect in a universe ruled by the 2nd law of thermodynamics. And induced mutations come from chemicals, radiation and infection.

Incredible Hulk aside, induced mutations are bad stuff, so no new eyes for Freddy yet.

Spontaneous mutations are described as:

• Tautomerism – incorrect base pairing during replication
• Depurination – Loss of a purine base
• Deamination – changes a normal base to an atypical base
• Slipped strand mispairing – can lead to insertions or deletions.

Not much help, but we have to go with it. Trust me, just a little further.

In the slipped strand category you finally get to point mutations where you can have three results:

1. Silent mutations: which code for the same amino acid.
2. Missense mutations: which code for a different amino acid.
3. Nonsense mutations: which code for a stop and can truncate the protein.

Freddy is in trouble.

It helps a bit that Lilly doesn’t know what fat is, but she still FEELS fat, even if she doesn’t have a brain to think it.

Here's the Point: 

Point Mutations happen - No Problem. 

The Problem Is: They Are ALL Bad. 

In the last full century almost all of the scientific world has been dead set on proving biological evolution – elevating it from theory to law. Which means almost every genetic scientist has been looking for these things. But in over 100 years there has never been a single POSITIVE point mutation ever recorded in nature.

Not ONE

Thousands of species, especially humans, being studied genetically to the tune of billions of dollars and never a single shred of evidence of even one naturally occurring point mutation that added a beneficial, survival boosting, my daddy can whip you daddy, Darwinian evolution benefit to the genetic code of a single species on the planet. In order for these mutations to breed into a population they would need to occur at a pace of at least several per breeding pair. Heck – they at least need to OCCUR AT ALL!

I threw this at a young man a few years ago. He was born and raised in a family of educators, his dad was a biology teacher. He scoffed when I challenged him to find me:

• even ONE documented example
• of a positive point mutation
• that had been scientifically studied.
• A mutation that happened on its own,
• with no prompting from the scientist.

People fiddle with genomes all the time, but all that does is prove that an intelligent being can design a better brand of corn. Corn doesn’t redesign itself, and people can’t turn corn into apple trees or make corn that can talk . . .

Only God Can

So he laughed at my challenge thinking it would take him all of ten minutes web search to bury me in research papers. Days passed, then a week. Near the end of the month he returned triumphantly with a study from Japan concerning the positive point mutations in the evolution of . . .

Rice

I chuckled this time, knowing it was silly before I even read it. First of all, what did the rice evolve from? I knew I was, at best, looking at micro-evolution (which isn’t evolution at all really) and that deep in the report – somewhere – was going to be a cheat.

All evolutionists cheat.

Sure enough, it turns out that the whole study was a COMPUTER SIMULATION. I laugh about it every time I remember it. It cost several hundred thousand dollars, by the way.

Do you get what that means?

It means that in order to study something that doesn’t exist, you have to make it up.

1. Humans,
2. with God-given intelligence,
3. designed a miniature little universe
4. with one form of life – rice.
5. They didn’t start at the beginning from nothing,
6. or even some kind of POOF of previous everything.
7. No swirling balls of hot universe flatulence -
8. just straight to rice.

Not only that, they controlled how the rice mutated and defined the mutations. Oh, and they just gave the mutation the entire new gene, not bothering to code in the thousands of base pairs. Just a brand new gene for this and that here and there. they also made sure that every mutation bred itself into the population (which doesn’t happen). All in all it was a death stroke to the belief system of this young man.

He didn’t ever recant his belief in evolution. And apparently his dad the science teacher was no help – I got no further rebuttals. But he never laughed at me when I made theological statements again. He went from sniggering at my position to respecting it. And that’s what everyone in the world needs – to respect the fact that God’s word is truth.

John 18:37 (NLT)

“. . . All who love the truth recognize that what I say is true.”

We’re going to do a lot of exploring on this issue of creation vs. evolution here at hungryfortheword, and I want you to join us. Just as Paul says in Colossians 2:2(b) – 4

. . . have complete confidence that they understand God’s mysterious plan, which is Christ himself. In him lie hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I am telling you this so no one will deceive you with well-crafted arguments.

Without understanding the mysteries of God

- Jesus Christ -

you can have no real wisdom or knowledge.

Armed with the Word of God you cannot be deceived.

wiki pages referenced in this post:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muller%27s_morphs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA

The “Our Father” Prayer

Today I want to take you with me into the gospels for an in-depth bible study on prayer – the Lord’s prayer. The Lord’s prayer is a very interesting subject to explore like John 3:16 and other passages that are very familiar to a very large audience. But even though it is familiar, it has a tendency to be misunderstood. So let’s take a really close look at what Jesus is teaching in these passages. We’re going to break this up into eight distinct parts so that we can really master each concept about prayer that Christ presents.

1. Hypocrisy
2. Vain Repetition
3. Our Father in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy name
4. Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done
5. Give us this day our daily bread
6. Forgive us our debts
7. Deliver us from the Evil one
8. For thine is the kingdom

So – if we really want to understand the Lord’s prayer we need to go back to the two occasions in the Gospels where it is referred to and let Jesus himself explain what the Our Father prayer is really all about. The first of these occasions is found in Matthew Chapter 6 and is part of the sermon on the Mount which is covered in Matthew chapters five, six and seven; which is in the sermon on the mount.

In the sermon on the Mount Jesus is addressing a number of topics where he is contrasting what true righteousness is like in comparison to what the religious leaders of that day were teaching. Understand that this sermon is a direct challenge to their authority and Jesus is teaching as one with authority.

• He’s not teaching with footnotes
• He’s not referring to various rabbis
• or rabbinical traditions

He just flat out saying:

 this is what I say it is

and what I say it is is the truth.

And then he brings up the subject of prayer.

Prayer was a very important part of Judaism in that day and it is still a very important part of Judaism today. The question is: “how does God want us to pray.” Obviously, God does want us to pray. God wants us to talk to him and he wants to answer us.

In Matthew 6:5-7 he tells us what christian prayer is not supposed to be. We read these words:

“When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. “But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words.”

The prayer that is to form a the core of your spiritual growth is supposed to be:

A Conscious Conversation with God

and this conversation should be held in a Private Place

Obviously, the first kind of prayers to master are personal, private daily prayers. This is between you and God – no one else is listening in and the answers are completely up to Him. There are occasions in the christian life for public prayer, but that is not the topic Jesus is sharing here. Apparently, unless we have engaged in a life of effective, truthful, private prayer, any public praying we do really is just a show. This is obvious from the fact that Jesus condemned the religious leaders of his day in this passage. They were called hypocrites because they basically prayed to be seen praying whether it  was in the synagogue are even out in the street

Hypocrites means – “play actors”

The term comes from the Greek stage. In Greek theater they didn’t wear makeup – they wore a mask to indicate what role they were playing. Even today the symbol of the theater is two masks – one frowning mask and one smiling mask; that all comes from the Greek theater. The frowning mask was for dramas or tragedies the smiling mask for comedies. Everyone in the first century world of the Mediterranean was familiar with the Greek theater. Alexander the great had spread Hellenism and Greek culture all over that part of the Mediterranean world and the near East

So it was quite a put down to say that the Pharisees were actually playacting – that they weren’t doing anything any more religious than an actor on the stage playing out a role.

They were just putting on a show and Jesus warned people that if that’s what you’re doing in prayer then all the reward you’re gonna get is the fact that people see you doing it. They were deceiving others and they were deceiving themselves. Jesus said when you pray go into your secret prayer room and pray to God and have a real conversation with God

Vain Repetition

Jesus then says that the prayer is not supposed to be a vain repetition. He points out that pagan prayer of that day and most of the pharisaic praying of that day was basically a long recitation of written or formal prayers that are said over and over again. This is still true of non-biblical prayer today – it’s not how to pray to God. There are many extemporaneous and spontaneous prayers in the Old Testament. But by the time of Jesus the rabbis had many written prayers that were supposed to be followed that’s what the most devout religious people used for prayer.

One of the tragedies of the Lord’s prayer is that it has become a kind of vain repetition

People use it in a rote fashion and that’s exactly what Jesus said not to do.One of the hallmarks of pagan religion to this very day is repetitious prayer that is not really a conversation with God. Even in Islam with its emphasis on praying five times a day toward Mecca:

• those are memorized prayers
• spoken in Arabic language
• which many of the prayers don’t even understand

In fact, it’s immaterial whether they understand what they are saying or not. It is just a prayer ritual to be performed. Jesus said that is vain repetition

in Christian history over the centuries prayer books have been developed and I suppose it’s fine to use a written prayer if you’re actually thinking about what you’re saying and transforming it into your own words. But just talking through religious words even the words recorded here in what we call the Lord’s prayer is not really effective prayer. In the church tradition that I grew up in we had a form of lowbrow rote prayer: certain phrases that are reused when praying for the offering or praying in public and you hear these phrases over and over again. Even those become a sort of vain repetition it really isn’t praying to God in the sense that Jesus indicated.

• We’re supposed to really talk to God
• and think about what we’re saying
• the pharisees were just going through a religious exercise

Jesus then points out that prayer is not supposed to be haphazard

When we go to God in our private prayer time we’re to think about what we’re saying. It’s not to be a “stream of consciousness” prayer – not something merely haphazard. God said we are to worship Him with all of our heart and soul and mind and the greatest of these gifts is our ability to think – the mind. So Jesus says that were not supposed to be like the heathen during prayer – a kind of unthinking process.

we have a great privilege we get to talk with the Lord of all creation it should not be random on the other hand it should be a real conversation from our soul and our heart to Him. We’re not to use prayer as an occasion to show off publicly, although there is a place in the church for public prayer.But the sort of prayer Jesus is talking about here is in our private prayer life where we talk to God -

• it is to be sincere
• a real conversation
• organized and not just haphazard

And with this understanding of the difference between how God wants us to pray and how religions typically turn prayer into self promotion or a worthless babble of words – we can now dive into what Jesus says prayer SHOULD be.

I hope you’ll Join me again at hungryfortheword for “the Lords Prayer” Part 2

Who was Cain’s Wife?

Answers from the scriptures at hungryfortheword.

At the top of the screen you’ll see a tab named “Ask Dr. Mathis.” I know that many Christians come across questions that might seem to be a little tricky on the surface. We’re here to help.

The scriptures have all the answers, and it’s our job to “Do your best to present yourself to God as an approved worker who has nothing to be ashamed of, handling the word of truth with precision.” (2 Timothy 2:15) We are to study the bible until we can answer everyone, as Peter commands in 1 Peter 3:15: “but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence;”

So as we work together on discipleship and explaining to you “the way of God more accurately,” we hope you will send us those questions to feedme@hungryfortheword.com.

Our question for today is from Mr. Rick Schaap in Hobbs New Mexico – he asks:

In Genesis 4:14 it talks about God’s punishment to Cain for killing his brother and Cain responds that the punishment is greater that he can bear – that he is a fugitive and everyone who sees him will want to kill him.  My question is: who else is  alive at that time who could kill him? Another question I have is later in the passage it talks of him settling in Nod and his wife bears a son named Enoch so where did she come from?

Thank you Rick. It turns out that this one has been around for quite a while. We must remember that Adam and Eve were genetically perfect at creation. Molecular decay took several centuries to claim their lives physically. In fact Genesis 5:5 states:

Altogether, Adam lived 930 years, and then he died.

Genesis 5:4 states that Adam had other sons besides those named in the text

• Cain in Genesis 4:1
• Able in Genesis 4:2
• Seth in Genesis 5:3

Then the Bible tells us Adam had “other sons and daughters” besides these three. As a genetically perfect woman Eve could have borne well over 30 children! Genesis 5:3 it states that Adam was 130 years old when Seth was born, and Seth becomes the patriarch of the godly line of believers from Adam to Noah. The timeline of Genesis 4 and 5 shows that the episode of Cain and Abel took place after they were fully grown men with adult occupations. It is probable that both were already married because we know that Cain was – see Genesis 4:17

With near-perfect genetics it was perfectly reasonable that they ( Cain AND Able ) either married a sister or a near relative like a niece. Also, there is plenty of time for there to be adult female companions for Cain to choose from.

Remember that some 400 years after the flood Abraham married his half-sister with no ill effects. It is only in the Mosaic code some 400 years after Abraham that God prohibits marriage to near relatives. This is because the curse and, consequently, rapidly increasing genetic decay had so ravaged the genetic code that it was no longer safe to marry a close relative.

As to who would be around to want to slay Cain -

It is likely that there were several thousand people alive within the 130 years mentioned – none of whom would take kindly to Cain killing their relative.

Interestingly enough – every person alive is STILL a relative – although very much removed.

Now, these days we’re being told that mankind evolved from lower forms

The Opposite Is True

The human race God created is DEvolving from genetically perfect parents.

Thank you Rick, for taking the time to send us your question, and remember, all you have to do to get your question answered is send us an email to feedme@hungryfortheword.com.  For more reading on this topic you can check out the fantastic treatments of the subject at Answers in Genesis and the Institute for Creation Research listed below.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/who-was-cains-wife

http://www.icr.org/article/cains-wife-it-really-does-matter/

Evolution Is Ridiculously Impossible – Part 1

It always astonishes me when an evolutionist treats any other position regarding origins as silly. The primary reason it never ceases to shock us when they wave off alternative hypothesis with a roll of the eyes is that evolution theory is in such a state of flux itself. In little more than a single century evolution itself has gone through no less than five or six major evolutions (I couldn’t resist).

• Darwinism
• Neutral Theory
• Neo Darwinism
• Punctuated Equilibrium
• Modern synthesis
• Hopeful Monsters

In other words, even staunch evolutionists know that there are some VERY unscientific tenets in their position and they have constantly and aggressively attempted to weed out the incongruities of thought involved in a theory which is not science or even scientific in any way.

So what IS evolution?

___________

Philosophy.

It deals with ideals about how life began that they are trying to “prove” by the use of empirical evidence.

At hungryfortheword we are going to spend a lot of time dissecting evolution. It’s fun, it’s easy and leads to no end of mirth and hilarity. The sheer enormity of the absurdity of both the theory and its supports are wildly entertaining. There are so many good places to attack evolution, but this is one of our favorites.

Positive Point Mutations

In order for any part of the “fungus to fred” routine to be plausible – you have to begin with the positive point mutation. Without them a species cannot become another species by blind chance. Remember, the evolutionary formula is:

• Time
• Matter
• Chance

Time + Matter + Chance gave us:

• the Bogus Boom
• Organization of all Matter in the Cosmos
• Water on a planet with a molten core
• Antecedent Potpouri
• Life
• organisms
• swimmy things
• crawly things
• fly-ingy things
• and your mother
• and trees and fruit and clouds and somehow still bugs and monkeys and swimmy things.

• AMAZING!

The Big Bad 2nd Law of Thermodynamics

Now this all flies in the face of the laws of thermodynamics, especially the second. Here are some of the main points about this from the wiki:

spontaneous natural processes increase entropy overall. heat can spontaneously be conducted or radiated only from a higher-temperature region to a lower-temperature region, but not the other way around. The second law refers to a wide variety of processes, reversible and irreversible. Its main import is to tell about irreversibility.

Now remember we’re talking about the second LAW of thermodynamics against the THEORY of evolution via survival of the fittest through propogation of the species. Oh, in case you missed it, the second law says that you can NEVER go higher up the scale, that all systems will become MORE random and NOT more organized – this process is an irreversible law of the entire cosmos.

But, just like the evolutionist we’ll just ignore that like it doesn’t exist.

So let’s just make another galaxy sized leap and crack logic in half to say that we can IMAGINE a system becoming gradually more organized. No matter if you are talking about a bush or a brontosaurus, it all has to happen on the DNA level.

So now we get to this weak link in the evolutionary theory chain. Actually they are all weak links if you take the chain out of the fancy looking plastic coating. In order for a frog to grow – say – an eyeball, the DNA recipe would have to GAIN a number of highly specific coding sequences. A frog with a couple of blobs of new jelly thingies on it’s head would hardly have a competitive advantage over the non jelly sack frogs, even if those new proto gummy future eyeball nuggets will eventually see.

As a matter of fact it’s hard to imagine any real biological function arising bit by bit. But again, we’ll faith ourselves through that too. The code for an eyeball is a simply gargantuan amount of information.

For instance -  the human genome contains:

1. 3 BILLION base pairs of DNA
2. 20,000 genes
3. 46 chromosomes

Surely you’ve seen the new stadium for the Dallas Cowboys. It is nothing short of gargantuan. 106 MILLION cubic feet of big. Now take an apple – heck take a billion apples. Take SIX billion of them. If you had 3 billion pairs of apples you could fill Dallas stadium completely full of apples and have a couple hundred dumptruck loads full leftover. BUT, before we get lost in the magnitude of this whole deal let’s wash away those monumental hurdles.

Just ignore all that; again.

To go from freddy the frog with no eyes at all to the kind of frog who can answer his wife Lilly when she asks: “does this primordial soup lip gloss make my face look fat?” we now know the DNA chain has to add at couple of thousand apples worth of information changes to include eyes in the freddy frog recipe.

Unfortunately, you’ll have to come back for part two of this discussion. But believe me, you’ll want to – once you hear how devastating this is to evolution, you’ll be amazed. So join us again for part 2 and more about creation vs. evolution – at HFTW.com.

Thank You!

We want to thank everyone who has joined us so far at HFTW. Today I want to cover a couple of technical tidbits.

First of all

a hearty thanks to all those who have joined us on facebook and twitter, those social media things I don’t quite grasp yet, which makes it even more of a blessing to me.

Second

I want to introduce you to some new material we are going to begin incorporating at the site. From time to timne you’ll hear from other authors about our core topics. An undertaking like this is never a solitary project. We hope in the future to incorporate other language versions and engage  a number of guest authors so that we can cover the broadest areas of the world and biblical thought.

Speaking of which, we encourage you to partner with us while we bring this disciplship ministry up to speed. The newly installed widget on the right sidebar should make that easy to do.

With that in mind, our editor is going to begin by presenting a new topic area – creation vs evolution – which grew out of a real life encoiunter he had in cyberspace. We had a great deal of fun reviewing this material and I predict you’ll enjoy it too. Even if you’re an evolutionary fundamentalist.

Thank you for joining us – Enjoy!

Bible Prophecies Fulfilled In My Lifetime

Eschatology is the term used in the field of systematic theology for the study of last things or things that will occur in the future. Since no one knows the future, and if study of this subject is to be anything more that educated guess work, we need to find a source that has shown that it can be trusted to give us accurate information about the future.

Does such a source exist?

In a word – YES. It is the Bible, the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments of the Jewish and Christian faith systems. What we are looking for in these writings considered Divinely inspired by the Orthodox members of those traditions are examples of fulfilled prophecies. Rather than tear off into a long winded survey of things, let’s zero in on two verses of prophecy that have been fulfilled in my lifetime. They are found in Isaiah 19: 16-17.

“In that day Egypt will be like women, and will be afraid and fear because of the waving of the hand of the LORD of hosts, which He waves over it. And the land of Judah will be a terror to Egypt; everyone who makes mention of it will be afraid in himself, because of the counsel of theLORD of hosts which He has determined against it.” (NKJV)

This chapter in Isaiah written roughly seven centuries before Christ speaks of a day when the rulers and citizens of Egypt would be afraid of the Jewish nation. The one we today call Israel. It would be twenty six centuries before anything resembling this state of affairs would happen. In the day time of Isaiah, Egypt had never ever been afraid of Israel.

Even during the days of David and Solomon the armies and chariots of Egypt could cross the Israeli frontier without fear of annihilation. Egypt was so powerful that Solomon married pharaoh’s daughter and housed her in palatial splendor to secure a treaty with Egypt. Let the centuries roll by and Egyptians still never feared Israel as a fighting force to be reckoned with.

That all changed in 1948

when Israel was established as a nation and recognized by the United States followed quickly by the then Soviet Union. Five nations surrounding Israel declared war on her and the foe to the south was Egypt. Egypt held the Sinai peninsula and part of the Mediterranean coast and supposedly had a capable army, but as the campaign unfolded internal corruption, military incompetence, and even stolen provisions for the Egyptian army lead to a humiliating defeat at the hand of the ragtag forces of the tiny new nation.

Again in the 1960s and 70s:

• Israel handed Egypt defeat after defeat
• destroying its air force in just thirty minutes
• taking the entire Sinai peninsula with relative ease.

Egypt today fears Israel. Furthermore these two verses give us a time frame for the rest of the material in Isaiah 19. The time being spoken about is now. There are many other examples of clearly fulfilled prophecy in Isaiah, so, it means that those things spoken of that have not yet transpired will most certainly happen.

With a source like the Bible we can with certainty construct a literal history of the future. That’s important to each of us, because the Bible tells me that decisions I make today about what is revealed in its pages will determine what that future will look like for me.

Curious?

Good.

There’s more to come.

Until This Issue Is Settled

The media is incessant with issues that we must solve – now. We are forever on the brink of disaster. The issues can be physical, or emotional, most are economic and political, some are financial – and on and on. All driven by people who want to make a very good living telling the rest of us what to do, where to spend our time and money, and how to run our lives.

However, until this issue is settled it doesn’t make any difference in the long run about what you do with any other issue in life – none.

Here is the issue

“He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’”. Mt. 16:13 (NASB)

The issue for you and me and the whole human race is who is Jesus of Nazareth presented in the New Testament? The Bible teaches that a correct answer to that question puts everything right in your life. A wrong answer means ultimate disaster that has no end.

The Bible from beginning to end says:

• Every problem
• in any realm of reality
• has no solution
• apart from Jesus of Nazareth called Jesus Christ, or Jesus the Messiah.

For example, let’s take the current mess in the Middle East. This situation is due directly to the fact that both Jews and Gentiles have by in large refused to respond correctly to the person of Jesus of the New Testament.

Wow – that’s quite a claim.

So, who is this Jesus?

According to the New Testament he is:

1. the fulfillment of prophecies made in the Old Testament that
2. God
3. the Creator
4. would become a man
5. live a sinless life
6. die an atoning death
7. that would pay for
8. and remove our sins
9. against that very God.

The New Testament goes on to reveal that Jesus, the second Person of the Trinity, is the agent of creation and the universe will not be put back right until He is acknowledged as God by all men. That does’t mean that all men will spend eternity in heavenly union with God – many will not. Human beings who refuse to acknowledge or trust in Jesus for salvation will spend eternity with fallen angels (the devil and his demons) in a place called the lake of fire. But at the final judgment before the exalted Messiah Jesus all men will bow the knee before Him.

So, from time to time amidst the noise you need to go back to the main issue. Who is Jesus of Nazareth presented in the New Testament.

“If you confess with you mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in you heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved;” Romans 10:9 (NASB)

What does confess Jesus as “Lord” mean?

“In view of the fact that “Lord” (Greek Kyrios) is used over 6000 times in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the OT) to translate the name of Israel’s God (Yehweh), it is clear that Paul, when using the word of Jesus, is ascribing deity to him.”
NIV Study Bible, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1985, p.s 1721.

Dr. Charles Ryrie puts it this way, “To believe that Jesus (the man) is Lord (God) and that He is alive (which means He died) results in righteousness and salvation.” SO GREAT SALVATION, Victor Books, p. 73

So, back to our original text in Matthew 16. How did the disciples answer the question?

Peter, speaking we are told later for himself and ten other in the group, said,

“Thou are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Matthew 16:16 (NASB)

Jesus then answered in verses 17-20 that his life (and by implication all who had a similar faith) was permanently altered. Death would not stop this new group of believing men. He and they were part of a victorious new world and that eventually heaven would triumph over evil, and he and they would be a part of it.

Have you settled this issue for yourself?

Will you?

The Disappearing United States

Ezekiel 38:1-6, 13

And the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face toward Gog, of the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal, and prophesy against him, and say, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal: and I will turn thee about, and put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed in full armor, a great company with buckler and shield, all them handling swords; Persia, Cush, and Put with them with shield and helmet; Gomer, and all his hordes; the house of Togarmah in the uttermost parts of the north, and all his hordes; even many peoples with thee…Sheba, and Dedan, and the merchants of Tarshish, with all the young lions thereof, shall say unto thee, Art thous come to take the spoil? hast thou assembled thy company to take the prey? to carry away silver and gold, and to take away cattle and goods, to take great spoil? (ASV)

No doubt you have heard the term, “the elephant in the living room.” It comes from 12 step recovery programs like AA. It means if there is an addiction issue in a family causing havoc (which it always does), that issue is the “elephant in the living room.” The addict gets furious if anyone tries to address the issue, so, everyone has to tip-toe around the problem and the gigantic mess it creates. Just like an elephant in your living room would.

However, I want to talk about an “elephant” that isn’t there. In Ezekiel 38:1-6,13, we read about a great future invasion of Israel that will have cataclysmic implications for the world and everything that happens afterward.

Here are the nations named and their current modern equivalents:

• Rosh, Meschech and Tubal – Russia and Moscow and Tubolsk
• Persia – Iran
• Cush – Ethiopia
• Put – Somalia
• Gomer – Germany
• Togarmah – Armenia

Protesting the invasion (and that’s all they do) is:

• Sheba and Dedan – countries in current northern Arabia
• Tarshich and the young lions thereof – Spain and the Spanish speaking world.

The point of the invasion is spelled out in Ezekiel 38: 12

“to take the spoil and to take the prey; to turn thy hand against the waste places that are now inhabited, and against the people that are gathered out of the nations, that have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the middle of the earth.”

Israel, it seems, will become massively wealthy, and at that time a worthy prize to invade and loot.

I know that all that needs a lot of exegetical proof (long winded theological/historical verification of all of the above), but just humor me. These identifications are based on solid scholarship.

So, who’s missing? The biggest player in the Middle East right now that’s who. It’s US – the good old USA. We aren’t in this prophecy – period.

Question? – Where’d we go?

The infallible, inerrant text doesn’t say, so the following are educated guesses.

One

The rapture of the church would hit the United States harder than any other nation on earth right now. If Jesus tarries another two or more decades, that may not be as big a factor, but now born again Christians make up a sizable minority of the culture. But the key thing to remember is they hold the nation together morally with a number key leaders in politics, business, and media, not to mention being the backbone of religion in the nation.

With real Christians gone this nation would rapidly descend into a looney tune leftist, socialistic mess and collapse economically, politically, and culturally.

Two

The cultural collapse we are currently experiencing just keeps going. We go bankrupt and can no longer finance a global military presence. The world will have no super power, and we’ll be doing good to handle our own problems.

It could be a combination of the two.

One thing is crystal clear:

Sometime in the future the United States will no longer be a dominate power in world affairs. The elephant will be gone.

This is not meant to discourage believers. It just shows how important we are to the greater scheme of things. Let’s keep at it, and be really conspicuous by our absence.