At Christ's coming (1 Th 4:v16) the trumpet will sound and the rapture will occur. As verses 16 and 17 say, "the dead in Christ will rise first" and then "we will be caught up together with them."

When a Roman army would return from victory, they would camp outside Rome and wait for the town to prepare for a triumphal entry. When the town was ready, the residents would go out to meet them and parade with them into town.

"We will be with the Lord forever." (v 17) We will be with Christ as he "rules with a rod of iron" and defeats his foes. As Christ approaches, (5:3) destruction will reign down on his adversaries.

This matches with the the passage from 1 Th. we looked at. Verse 9 is often used by Dispensationalists to argue for a pre-trib rapture since 'we aren't appointed to wrath' and the 7 year tribulation is full of wrath. However, if you read the full text for the context, it is clearly that "we aren't going to hell" "we're going to be with the Lord" Which means that the destruction which rains down on the unbelievers will not be on "us" (if we're alive at His coming).

Christ's return

Claim:
Every clear teaching regarding Christ's return shows that Jesus' return is the culmination of all things. There is no secret rapture and no millennial kingdom.

The three clear texts teaching about Christ's return are:
1 Thessalonians 4:16 - 5:3
2Thessalonians 2:7-8
2 Peter 3:10

1 Th. 4:16-5:3
16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. 18 Therefore encourage each other with these words. 5:1 Now, brothers, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, 2 for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. 3 While people are saying, "Peace and safety," destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.


2 Th 2:7-8
7 For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way. 8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming.

2 Peter 3:10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.

Jesus return ONCE
It is called "the day of the Lord"
That day will come as a surprise to unbelievers "like a thief"
And destruction will come upon Christ's enemies.

This sequence coincides with the return of Christ in Revelation 20:7-9
7 When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison
8 and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth--Gog and Magog--to gather them for battle. In number they are like the sand on the seashore.
9 They marched across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of God's people, the city he loves. But fire came down from heaven and devoured them.

May I recommend some John Piper videos?

Do you love Jesus Christ more than football?
http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=lPBCGMBmDHE

Let's not waste our lives
http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=DKNFbZa9cH4

What Christians need to remember about politics (especially the last 1/2)
http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=YGjGbZNyIBY

I am not surprised that Obama has won.
Unfortunately, he is ultra liberal

It would be depressing but my life is not wrapped up in the the country - rather it is wrapped up in the Lord.

A general question I have for any evangelical that voted for Obama is "is abortion wrong?"

Page 15 of the national Democratic platform endorses "reproductive health care" - - they consistently fight for any form of abortion and partial birth abortion and Obama voted against the giving of aid to children born alive after a failed abortion attempt.

The MN Family Council states that 39 abortions are performed in MN each day.
If that is carried out in each state, we have a 9/11 happening every day across America


Another question for an evangelical that tends to vote Democratic is "have you at LEAST gone to the caucus and submitted a resolution against those stances?"
"why not?"
These are clear-cut platform stances which need to change.

NEA - The National Education Assoc

the journal of Summit Ministries reported (October 2008):

[Delegates of the NEA met at their annual convention in July this year. they] sported buttons with provocative slogans such as "Gay marriage causes Global Warming only because we are so hot!:, "Hate is not a family value," " The 'Christian Right' is neither," and "Gay Rights are civil rights."

[They passed non-education related resolutions] such as supporting stat-hood for the District of Columbia, a 'single-payer heath care plan' (i.e., government-run), gun control, ratification of the International Criminal Court Treaty, and taking steps "to change activities that contribute to global climate change."

their source: Phyllis Schlafly, Human Events, July 28, 2008, pg. 10

When will these "teachers" teach?

Global Warming

The October 2008 issue of the journal (by Summit Ministries) states:

British archives contain more than 100,000 Royal Navy logbooks from around 1670 to 1850 ... They are a stunning resource.

The UK Met Office ... scoured more than 6,000 Royal Navy logs dating from the 1600s. 'Ships' officers recorded air pressure, wind strength, air and sea temperatures and other weather conditions. From these records, scientists can build a detailed picture of past weather and climate ... the findings show ... we went through a similar period of global warming in the 1730s that could not have been man-made.

the journal cites newstrackindia.com, August 4, 2008

Michael Ruse - Evolution is a Religion

Michael Ruse, in Saving Darwinism from the Darwinians, National Post, May 13, 2000, B-3, Ruse said:

"Evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science. Evolution is promulgated as an ideology, a secular religion - a full-fledged alternative to Christianity, with meaning and morality. I am an ardent evolutionist and an ex-Christian, but I must admit that in this one complaint ... the literalists are absolutely right. Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today."


Every worldview needs to explain how we got here.
Secular humanists need a creation story and they have developed Neo Darwinian Evolution to explain how we got here.

Global Warming

On 10/12, I reported on Dr. Larry Vardiman's article regarding climate change in the October issue of Acts & Facts.

His second article, in the November Acts & Facts at http://www.icr.org/article/4156/

There is a 0.92 correlation between cosmic ray strength / volume and cloud cover. fro (1983 to 2005) This correlation has been traced back to about 1600 AD.

"A potential change in cloud cover of 3-4 percent caused by changes in cosmic ray flux is sufficient to explain global temperature changes of several degrees due to the change in the reflectivity of clouds."

A significant amount of global warming is caused by the sun. Perhaps we should reduce its "carbon footprint"!

Superfaults

A year-long world-wide flood would significantly change the Earth's contours. Also, in the years immediately following the flood, there can be a lot of movement of the Earth as it regains equilibrium.

As reported in the Nov, 2008 Acts & Facts:
"The Heart Mountain detachment fault in northwestern Wyoming near Yellowstone National Park is the largest continental rockslide known on earth. this mass of rock, more than 400 square miles in area and over 1,000 feet thick, moved rapidly down a slope of less than 2 degrees at an estimated speed of 50 miles per hour."

The article discusses a possible way the immense friction of this rock formation could be reduced to allow the movement. You can read the article at http://www.icr.org/article/4154/

This is not an appeal to the "God of the gaps."
Rather, it is a phenomena more easily explained within the context of a major earth-wide catrastophe which saw the earth's tectonic plates move vast distances and had long-range effects, such as the movement of the Heart Mountain detachment fault.

Phlegon - regarding the darkness at Christ's crucifixion

Dr. Paul Maier mentioned Phlegon in an interview on IssuesEtc (June 16, 2006 3rd hour).
Phlegon is an extra Biblical historian that chronicled the darkness at the time of Christ's crucifixion.

I found his quotes and others which seem to be based on his text at http://www.textexcavation.com/phlegontestimonium.html

He wrote "In the fourth year, however, of Olympiad 202, an eclipse of the sun happened, greater and more excellent than any that had happened before it; at the sixth hour, day turned into dark night, so that the stars were seen in the sky, and an earthquake in Bithynia toppled many buildings of the city of Nicaea. These things [are according to] the aforementioned man."

Dr. Maier said that Phlegon's dating places this event in the 4th month of the 4th year of the 202nd Olympiad. This places it at April, 33 AD.

This fits well with the dating of Jesus' crucifixion.

another source which I'll investigate later:
http://www.classicapologetics.com/d/DawsHeathen.pdf
a negative response:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/thallus.html

"The (restored) Temple" and "all Israel" (will be saved)

I was just listening to Dr. Randall Price on KKMS radio.
He is a Dispensationalist and believes in a future, rebuilt, temple in which there will be a restored sacrificial system. He also believes that Romans 11 states that "all Israel will be saved".

I will briefly refute these or give "food for thought":

There are at least three relevant meanings to the word "temple" in the Bible.
1) the temple in Jerusalem where the sacrificial system was carried out
2) Jesus called himself the temple in John 2:19
Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days."
3) Believers are called the temple in several passages
3a) 1 Cor 3:16 "Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?"
3b) 1 Cor 6:19 "Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?"
3c) Eph 2:21 "in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord."
3d) Rev 3:21 Jesus says "Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my God."


Romans 11 does not say there will be a restored Israel, which is something Price just claimed.

Romans 11:25,26 says "Lest you be wise in your own sight, I want you to understand this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written,

FIRST
Verse 25 says there is a "partial hardening of Israel." Obviously, not all Israel had been hardened since Paul (the author) is of Israel and is saved.

SECOND
This period of history is characterized as a time where both Jews and Gentiles “coming in.”
And
“in this way” all Israel will be saved

"IN THIS WAY"
“in this way” DOES NOT SAY/MEAN “and then”
“and then” would indicate that “at a future time, the partial hardening will be removed and all Israel will be saved”

But the text says “in this way” or (in other translations) “thus”

The only clear message this gives is “by this method God is saving the Israel of faith” - - if there is a possible additional meaning, it is not stated here and must come from another text.

Earlier in Romans (ch 9:6,7) , Paul stated "But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring"

So the Israel that God is saving in Romans 11:26 only needs to be the subset of the full ethnic Israel.

How great is our problem?

if the problem is Adam's bad example
the solution is Christ's good example (or Buddha, or ...)

if we are dead in our sins
we solution is savior to revive us and rescue us

The creation WAS subjected to futility

Romans 8
17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs--heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.
18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.
19 The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.
20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope
21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.
23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

I read verse 20 to Hugh Ross (an old Earth creationist) and stressed that the creation WAS subjected to futility and asked him WHEN did this happen?

He said that it was created in futility!

In Genesis 3:17,18 God cursed the ground.
"To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,' "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field."

In Genesis 5:29 this curse is referred to as an historical event tied to the fall.
"He named him Noah and said, "He will comfort us in the labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the LORD has cursed."

The curse is tied to the fall. The Earth, as we see it today, is under the curse and is NOT the same as when Adam and Eve first walked upon it.

Hugh Ross performs eisigesis (reading his beliefs into the text) rather than exegesis (reading the text for what it says or means). The thrust of Romans 8 calls for an understanding of the Earth being "perfect" and then being "fallen" after the sin of Adam and Eve.

The age of Saturn's rings

The 1981 Voyager flybys astonished scientists with images of hundreds of individual ringlets and gaps. ... there was far more dynamism and structure than expecte, leading specialists at the time to conclude that the rings were young rather than primordial (i.e., formed along with Saturn). Upper limits were put at ~100 million years, only 2.2 percent of the assumed age of the solar system (4.5 billion years).

from the October 2008 Acts & Facts

by ICR - Institue for Creation Research

There are many "timepieces" in our solar system and on the earth which indicate a young earth.

Dinosaur Soft Tissue

Click on the title to this blog to go to an article from ICR's Acts & Facts on the Dinosaur Soft Tissue found about 10 years ago.

If the dinosaur was truly 63 million years old, the tissue and blood cells would not survived.

So, the atheistic naturalistic scientists have to come up with a theory of how blood cells can survive. "'Schweitzer's work is showing us we really don't understand decay', paleontologist Thomas Holtz said in Smithsonian magazine." (May 2006)

Perhaps the evolutionists need to re-examine their paradigm.

Global Warming and the Little Ice Age

Have you ever wondered why there were paintings of the canals of Holland frozen over and people skating on them? These scenes were popularized by Hans Christian Andersen and Danny Kaye.

I've wondered how a warm place like Holland could have frozen canals.

The October 2008 issue of Acts & Facts (by ICR - Institute for Creation Research) has an article "Does Carbon Dioxide Drive Global Warming?" by Larry Vardiman. (click on the heading to this blog to go the the article.)

If you follow my enclosed link to the article, you will see Figure 1 showing that there was a warm period in Europe from 1000 to 14000 AD. During this time, the "crops flourished, the economy boomed, and the Vikings settled parts of Greenland where the ice sheets had melted back.

From about 1400 to 1900 A.D. a 500 year cold period occurred. ... grapes could no longer be grown, the economy declined, and the Viking s were forced out of Greenland by the encroaching snow and ice. Sunspots were found to be fewer during this time period, ...The coldest center portion of this period with the fewest number of sunspots is called the Little Ice Age. The canals in Holland, unlike today, froze over each winter."

This answers my nagging question.
The article also states that global warming precedes the rise in Carbon Dioxide, not the other-way-around that Al Gore claims.

Messianic fevor before Christ's ministry

Dr. Michael Wise (famed translator of the Dead Sea Scrolls) taught a Sunday School class of mine about a decade ago. He had just written a book "The First Messiah: Investigating the Savior Before Jesus." In it he tells of The Teacher of Righteousness at the Qumran community. He was the first recorded Messianic figure.

The Sept/Oct 2008 BAR, (pp. 58-62) article The Messiah Son of Joseph (also called "Gabriel's Revelation") reports of a tablet from Jesus Christ's era, telling of a Son of Joseph that would be the suffering servant, would rise from the dead in 3 days, would institute righteousness and cause a general resurrection

----The following three quotes are from the above article -----------------------
'In "Gabriel's Revelation," the Lord addresses David, asking him to request of Ephraim that he place a sign: "My servant David, ask of Ephraim [that he p]lace the sign ..." (Line 16-17). ... the fact that David is sent by God to request Ephraim to place the sign may attest that Ephraim has superior rank. He, and not David, is the key person who is asked to place the sign; David is only the messenger!' (BAR p. 60)

"By three days you shall know that thus said the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, the evil has been broken by righteousness" (Lines 19-21) (BAR p. 60)

'"In three days, live, I, Gabriel, command you." ... Ada Yardeni has since agreed with this reading of hayeh and with the translation ... The archangel is ordering someone to rise from the dead within three days.'
-----------------------------------------------------------------
This is a link to another article about false messiahs
http://www.religiousstudies.uncc.edu/jdtabor/4Q521.html
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Daniel 7:13-14 predicted the Messiah would receive authority - and more importantly (reading this as a Christian) he would be worshiped (as part of the Trinity).
"In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

In Daniel 9, God gave a clear time indicator for the coming of the Messiah with the prophecy of the 70 7's (weeks) of years. The prophecy states that the Messiah would be cut off 69.5 "weeks" (486.5 years) after the command to rebuild Jerusalem. The Jews didn't have the meticulous calendar and dating system we have but they knew that the Messiah should appear near the time that Jesus did.

I heard in a lecture that, in the 1st century, about 16 people were held forth as Messiahs.

An atheist can claim that Jesus was just caught up in the Messianic fervor.
I would claim that SOMEONE was going to be the divinely sent Messiah, Jesus was the true Messiah and the "other Messiahs" are evidence of the trust the Jews had in the prophecy.

http://www.spiritus-temporis.com/messiah/other-historically-significant-jewish-messiah-claimants.html

Interesting quote from B.C.

This quote is from the Sept/Oct 2008 BAR, page 36:

Theophrastus (372-288 B.C) remarks that "being a race of philosophers, they converse with each other about divinity, and during the night they view the stars, turning their eyes to them and invoking their God with prayers."

On Piety, cited by Poryphry, third century A.D., in

On Abstinence, 2.26. Meyer Reinhold and Lousi Feldman,

Jewish Life and Thought Among Greeks and Romans

(Mpls: Fortress Press, 1996), primary readings, p.7.

In Exodus 19:6a, God says that Israel "will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation."

It is fun (a rejoicing kind) to see that the Jewish nation was known by others as a people interested in divinity.

In the New Testament, Peter states that those in Christ "are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. (1 Peter 2:9)

We are called to be declarers of God's excellencies to the world. Oh that modern historians could write of us, that we loved the [true] divinity!

Creation

"The energy budget of the universe is the total amount of energy and matter in the whole cosmos added up. ... the Universe is 72.1% dark energy, 23.3% dark matter, and 4.62% normal matter. ... everything you can see, taste, hear, touch, just sense in any way ... is less than 5% of the whole Universe.



In other words ... science and rational materialist philosophy is only relevant to five percent of what we currently consider to be all known Creation. Combined with its complete inapplicability to abstract concepts such as justice, equality, and freedom, this shows that even attempting to build a social order on a secular basis is not only doomed to failure, but is quite arguably insane."

Vox Day Website, Vox Popoli, March 8, 2008

from The Journal , by Summit Ministries, August 2008

Global Warming

"On May Day, Noah Keenlyside of Germany's Leipzig Institute of Marine Science, published a paper in Nature forecasting no additional global warming 'over the next decade.' ... that there has not been any since 1998."

Patrick J. Michaels, The Washington Times, May 16, 2008, P. A21

Folks, we've had one full decade with NO increase in global temperatures!

AND

They do not expect any increase over the next decade!

"Let me recommend Roy W. Spencer's, article "Global Warming and Nature's Thermostat" at http://www.weatherquestions.com/Roy-Spencer-on-global-warming.htm Spencer notes that Al Gore says humans put 70 million tons of carbon dioxide (humans breathe!) into the atmosphere every day. What Gore doesn't say is that mother nature puts 24,000 time that amount of grenhouse gases into the atmosphere every day as well!"

both quote are from The Journal , by Summit Ministries, August 2008

Opportunity

"Thomas Edison once said, 'Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.'"

National Review, June 30, 2008, p. 51

from The Journal , by Summit Ministries, August 2008

Inflation

"Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owner a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into its arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, baked by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it."

Ayn Rand

"By a continuous process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. The process engages all of the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner that not one man in a million can diagnose."

John Maynard Keynes

both from The Journal , by Summit Ministries, August 2008

Miracles

"No doubt most stories of Miracles are unreliable, but then, as anyone can see by reading the papers, so are most stories of all events. Each story must be taken on its merits: what one must not do is to rule out the supernatural as the one impossible explanation."

C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock, p. 27

from The Journal , by Summit Ministries, August 2008

A few good blog entries

Thomas Chalmers was a preacher in the 19th century. A famous sermon of his is "The Expulsive Power of a New Affection"
Here is a link to a blog on the sermon: http://www.christianity.com/blogs/pritchard/11581025/
And a link to the full sermon: http://www.parishpres.org/documents/The%20Expulsive%20Power%20of%20a%20New%20Affection.pdf

I recently read a book edited by Os Guiness which had a biography of Alexander Solzhenitsyn. I havn't read any of his books - to my detrimnet.
James Emery White has a recent blog entry about Solzhenitsyn: http://www.christianity.com/blogs/JWhite/11580222/

Secret Rapture Mania

"News of the Weird" is a weekly syndicated column by Chuck Shepherd. He reviews odd events and pokes fun at them. In his column for this week, Chuck discussed "You've Been Left Behind LLC". They are at http://youvebeenleftbehind.com/index.html

They charge $40 per user per year to store documents you want delivered via email to people after the rapture. They say:
We have set up a system to send documents by the email,
to the addresses you provide, 6 days after the "Rapture" of the Church.
This occurs when 3 of our 5 team members scattered around the U.S fail
to log in over a 3 day period. Another 3 days are given to fail safe any
false triggering of the system.

Folks - there is NO secret rapture.

1 Thessalonians 4:16a
"For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel"


THIS IS NOT SILENT!

the next verses are in chapter 5:1-3
"Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, "There is peace and security," then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape."

The day of the Lord COMES as a thief in the night, unannounced, but it brings swift and sudden destruction. A pregnant woman wants the "delivery" but does not know when it will come/happen. The birth process can begin at any time - sometimes at very inconvenient times.

2 Thessalonians 1:7-10
"and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed."


When Jesus appears, verse 7 says he will be revealed in flaming fire - not secret!Dispensationalists want this to apply to the end of their Tribulation period, but that is being imposed upon the text. You will not find that anywhere.


2 Thessalonians 2:1-3 and 8
"Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction ... And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming."


The "man of lawlessness" must be revealed first - before the coming of our Lord. And the Lord will kill him with the breath of his mouth.

AGAIN, as in 2 Th 1:7, fire is involved with Jesus' return.

This also corresponds to 2 Peter 3:9-10
"The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed."

Here we see that the long delay of Christ's return (corresponding to the long pregnancy) will be ended unannounced (like a thief that doesn't announce his coming) and the heavens will be consumed (the fire we've seen twice before).

There is a rapture. Believers are "caught up."
And then the fire consumes what remains.
"You've Been Left Behind LLC" will never send those emails and their subscribers will have spent $40 per year for nothing. They need to invest their time in being good ambassadors of Christ - pray for the unsaved, witness to them, show them Christ's love.

Dating the birth of Jesus

The following is from Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ by Harold W. Hoehner

According to Matthew 2:1 and Luke 1:5, Christ's birth came before Herod's death. ... According to Josephus, an eclipse of the moon occurred shortly before Herod's death. ... this occurred on March 12/13, 4 B.C. After his death there was the celebration of the Passover, the first day of which would have occurred on April 11, 4 B.C. Hence, his death occurred sometime between March 12th and April 11th. ... Christ could not have been born later than March/April of 4 B.C.

Pages 12,13

According to Luke 2:1-5 a census was taken just before Christ's birth. Thus, Christ could not have been born before the census. ... The critics say that Luke's dating of the birth of Christ with the census of Judea, which Josephus places after the deposition of Archelaus in A.D. 6, is a clear historical blunder. But certainly Luke was conscious of chronology in his works. This is seen, for example, in Luke 3:1 and 3:23. Luke was not ignorant of the census mentioned by Josephus which was conducted by Quirinius in A.D. 6-7 since he mentions it in Acts 5:37. He knew that Jesus was not born that late, for he states in Luke 1:5 that the births of John the Baptist and Jesus took place in the days of Herod.

Pages 13,18

Moving along the same line of argumentation [translating Luke 2:2, 'This census was before that census when Quirinius was governor of Syria'] a better solution is the one suggested by [A.J.B.] Higgins. ... Luke is not distinguishing an earlier census from one during the governorship of Quinirius, but is merely stating that the census at the time of the nativity took place some time before Quirinius held office.

Page 21

The above was excerpted from The Journal, December 2007

Comments: one of the added insights of this is that the text of Luke 2:2, which is often translated "was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria" but could be translated "was the first registration before Quirinius was governor of Syria." Given that Luke is a quality historian, this is a reasonable solution to the "dating" problem.

Evangelism Quotes

Someone asked "Will the heathen who have never heard the Gospel be saved?"
It is more a question with me whether we -- who have the Gospel and fail to give it to those who have not -- can be saved.

Charles Spurgeon

Tell the students to give up their small ambitions and come eastward to preach the gospel of Christ.

Francis Xavier, missionary to India, the Philippines, and Japan

Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin, and desire nothing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be clergymen or laymen; such alone will shake the gates of hell and set up the kingdom of heaven on earth.

John Wesley

Every man is a missionary, now and forever, for good or for evil, whether he intends or designs it or not. He may be a blot radiating his dark influence outward to the very circumference of society, or he may be a blessing spreading benediction over the length and breadth of the world. But a blank he cannot be: there are no moral blanks; there are no neutral characters.

Thomas Chalmers

Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn't.

John Piper

We shall have all eternity in which to celebrate our victories, but we have only one swift hour before the sunset in which to win them.

Robert Moffatt

Perhaps if there were more of that intense distress for souls that leads to tears, we should more frequently see the results we desire. Sometimes it may be that while we are complaining of the hardness of the hearts of those we are seeking to benefit, the hardness of our own hearts and our feeble apprehension of the solemn reality of ­eternal things may be the true cause of our want of success.

Hudson Taylor

If sinners be dammed, at least let them leap to Hell over our bodies. If they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees. Let no one GO there UNWARNED and UNPRAYED for.

Charles Spurgeon

I'd rather have people hate me with the knowledge that I tried to save them.

Keith Green

Preach abroad….It is the cooping yourselves up in rooms that has dampened the work of God, which never was and never will be carried out to any purpose without going into the highways and hedges and compelling men and women to come in.

Jonathan Edwards

Could a mariner sit idle if he heard the drowning cry?Could a doctor sit in comfort and just let his patients die?Could a fireman sit idle, let men burn and give no hand?Can you sit at ease in Zion with the world around you DAMNED?

Leonard Ravenhill

Survival of the fittest

The following are quoted from War Against The Weak by Edwin Black:

In the 1850s, agnostic English philosopher Herbert Spencer published Social Statics, asserting that man and society, in truth, followed the laws of cold science, not the will of a caring, almighty God. Spence popularized a powerful new term: 'survival of the fittest.'

page 12

In 1859, some years after Spencer began to use the term 'survival of the fittest,' the naturalist Charles Darwin summed up years of observation in a lengthy abstract entitled The Origin of Species. Darwin espoused 'natural selection' as the survival process governing most living things in a world of limited resources and changing environments. He confirmed that his theory 'is the doctrine of Malthus applied with manifold force to the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms ...

pages 12-13

[Margaret Sanger] became an outspoken social Darwinist, even looking beyond the ideas of Spencer. In her 1922 book, Pivot of Civilization, Sanger thoroughly condemned charitable action. .. Chapter 5, 'The Cruelty of Charity,' was prefaced by an epigraph from Spencer himself: 'Fostering the good-for-nothing at the expense of the good is an extreme cruelty. It is a deliberate storing up of miseries for future generations. There is no great curse to posterity than that of bequeathing them an increasing population of imbeciles.

... 'Organized charity itself,' she wrote, 'is the symptom of a malignant social disease.
... She condemned philanthropists and repeatedly referred to those needing help as little more than 'human waste.'

page 129

The above is excerpted from The Journal April 2008, (published monthly) by Summit Ministries. http://www.summit.org/

Religous wars

I've heard Marie Castle (a famous atheist in Minnesota) interviewed several times on the radio. Each time, she blurts out "religion is the cause of all wars".

A few years ago, I was doing street witnessing at the Minnesota State Fair and Marie Castle walked up to me and repeated her mantra, adding "atheists don't start wars".

I retorted "Stalin killed millions of Russians, Pol Pat killed millions of Cambodians. And how about Hitler and Mao?

In their book "Encyclopedia of Wars", Charles Phillips and Alan Axelrod catalog a history of warfare. They list 123 wars as "religious wars". That may add fuel to Marie Castle's claim - except that these 123 wars represent only 6.98 percent of all the wars recorded in the encyclopedia!

Baptism and church history

When preparing to teach about the errors in the book “The DaVinci Code” by Dan Brown, I learned that at the time of Constantine (325 AD) the church believed that baptism washed away sin. (sort of Roman Catholic and Lutheran). That is why Constantine didn’t want to get baptized until he was going to die – that way his sins would be washed away w/ the baptism.

The paedo Baptists argue their case from church history. However, as early as the 4th century, the teaching on baptism had been polluted.

The STATUS of NON-BELIEVERS

1 Peter 2:10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Ephesians 2:3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.


Unregenerate people are "not a people" and "objects of wrath". Paul applies this pre-conversion status to himself by saying "we". The newborn are “not a people” and are “children of wrath”.

At a recent infant dedication at Bethlehem Baptist Church (Minneapolis), the pastor quoted the Ephesians “object of wrath”, calling that child of a believing couple an child of wrath. This sounds strong, almost harsh, but it seems to be Biblically true.

Baptism

There are several signs which God instituted which, prior to their new significance as given by God, were "natural".



I would imagine that there were rainbows prior to the Noahic flood. At a minimum, any mist in the air may create a rainbow. But after the flood, God took the rainbow and gave it a new or additional meaning. (Genesis 9:8-17)



Prior to the Abrahamic covenant, circumcision was practiced by several tribes. In Jeremiah 9:25-26 five people groups (plus Israel) are listed as practicing circumcision. Yet God called them all "uncircumcised in heart."

"Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will punish all those who are circumcised merely in the flesh — Egypt, Judah, Edom, the sons of Ammon, Moab, and all who dwell in the desert who cut the corners of their hair, for all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart."

In instituting circumcision with Abraham and his descendants, God was giving a special meaning to the "sign" which was already practiced among the people.



The baptism of Christ is different than the baptism of John (as seen in Acts 18:24-28). The significance of Christian Baptism is given by Christ, his death and resurrection and the new covenant. It is BELIEVERS that are in the new covenant. Review the verses quoted in June 8. The unregenerate children of believers are not in the new covenant. They participate in the blessings but they are not born again.

Thus, it is appropriate to reserve baptism only for members of the new covenant.

Greg Bahnsen on baptism

In a paper on paedo baptism, Greg Bahnsen used the following two verses to argue that God’s principles do not change:

Psalm 89:34 I will not violate my covenant or alter what my lips have uttered.
James 1: 17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

Bahnsen argued that baptism is the New Covenant equivalent of circumcision. Therefore, since God doesn’t change his principles, baptism must be given to infants.

If we are to take Psalm 89:34 in a wooden / literal fashion, God’s covenant included circumcision and circumcision must be continued.

Bahnsen quoted numerous verses about the “sprinkling with water” and “sprinkling with a clean conscience”, both of which are arguments for believer baptism.

Acts 2:39 says that "The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off--for all whom the Lord our God will call."

However, it also says that the promise is for "all who are far off". Bahnsen correctly calls these "Gentiles". But Bahnsen does not apply it to "all" - he reserves baptism for believers and their children.

Given that Peter has said that the promise is to "all whom the Lord our God will call", he has qualified the scope of the promise. It is to "you" (who believe - not even all the hearers believed), "your children" and "gentiles" (people that were not at sermon and will be reached with the gospel ("God will call").

Since I am not strongly "covenantal", I like being challenged when covenantal NT texts are pointed out. One such verse that Bahnsen cited is 1 Cor 10:16:
The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?

This implies that the communion cup is more than just a memorial. It is a cup of blessing to the partaker.

The word translated "blessing" is eulogia. In the NIV it is translated "thanksgiving", which mitigates the covenantal implications.
The primary meaning of eulogia is "fine speaking". The gospel (the euaggelion [notice the similarity?]) is God speaking finely to us. In Christ, we are blessed.

Baptism

Its been about 10 days since I wrote about "washing by water" and "regeneration".

I've been reading articles about infant baptism (paedo baptism) versus believer baptism (credo baptism) and believe that most authors write from their prepositional stance.

Paedo baptists 1) are strongly covenantal in their exegesis and 2) view baptism as the substitute for circumcision.

Credo baptists see baptism as symbolizing entrance into the new covenant.

The texts from my prior two posts steer me towards this credo baptist stance. Those "born of water and the spirit", "sprinkled with clean water", who believes in Christ has "living water flowing from them" are all in the new covenant by faith.

I think it was Luther who said that infants have faith in their parents and parents have faith in Christ. So infants have faith in Christ (indirectly). Is this the "faith" described in the NT?

It seems to follow the paedo baptist logic to its end, they should view baptism like Lutherans or Roman Catholics.

A friend of mine that is in the Federal Vision camp calls the children of believers "saints". He says that these children are objectively under the covenant with their believing parents. A problem with this is that some of those children are not elect. Therefore, they cannot believe in the "perseverance of the saints" - I have not yet heard his response to this.

washed by water / regeneration

In my 6/7/08 post, I listed several verses about Living Water.
Jesus tells us that he is the Living Water of Zecheriah 14 and Jeremiah 2.
This Living Water cleanses us of our sins, regenerates, sanctifies, and justifies us.

Ephesians 5:26
25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,
26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,
27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.


Titus 3:5
4 But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared,
5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,
6 whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior


Hebrews 10:22
21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God,
22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.


John 15:3
1 "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.
2 Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.
3 Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.


1 Corinthians 6:11
9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality,
10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

River of Life

Two Sundays ago, Jon Piper's sermon was on Psalm 1 (an overview of the entire chapter)
http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByDate/2008/2785_Songs_That_Shape_the_Heart_and_Mind/
1 Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, ....
2 but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.
3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither.

Verse 3 had me ping-ponging mentally through the scriptures. I will list them off here and discuss them on other posts.

---

There is the River of Life and the Tree of Life in Revelation 22:1-3a:
1 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb
2 through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
3 No longer will there be anything accursed

This is a restoration of creation, an "uncursing" from the curse of the fall in Genesis 3.
In Genesis 2:
8 And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.
9 And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
10 A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers.

---

Ezekiel 47:1-9
1 Then he brought me back to the door of the temple, and behold, water was issuing from below the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east). The water was flowing down from below the south end of the threshold of the temple, south of the altar.
2 Then he brought me out by way of the north gate and led me around on the outside to the outer gate that faces toward the east; and behold, the water was trickling out on the south side.
3 Going on eastward with a measuring line in his hand, the man measured a thousand cubits, and then led me through the water, and it was ankle-deep.
4 Again he measured a thousand, and led me through the water, and it was knee-deep. Again he measured a thousand, and led me through the water, and it was waist-deep.
5 Again he measured a thousand, and it was a river that I could not pass through, for the water had risen. It was deep enough to swim in, a river that could not be passed through.
6 And he said to me, "Son of man, have you seen this?" Then he led me back to the bank of the river.
7 As I went back, I saw on the bank of the river very many trees on the one side and on the other.
8 And he said to me, "This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah, and enters the sea; when the water flows into the sea, the water will become fresh.
9 And wherever the river goes, every living creature that swarms will live, and there will be very any fish. For this water goes there, that the waters of the sea may become fresh; so everything will live here the river goes.

---

Zechariah 14:6-9
6 On that day there shall be no light, cold, or frost.
7 And there shall be a unique day, which is known to the LORD, neither day nor night, but at evening time there shall be light.
8 On that day living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem, half of them to the eastern sea and half of them to the western sea. It shall continue in summer as in winter.
9 And the LORD will be king over all the earth. On that day the LORD will be one and his name one.

---

Jeremiah 17:7-8
7 "Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD.
8 He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit."

---

Jeremiah 2:12-13
12 Be appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the LORD,
13 for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.

---

Jesus told Nicodemus that a person must be "born again" to enter the Kingdom of heaven.

John 3:5-6
5 Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.


This is a reference back to Ezekiel 36:25
I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.


John 7:37-39a
37 On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.
38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'"
39 Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive

---

Some important cross references:
Ephesians 5:26
Titus 3:5
Hebrews 10:22

One reason I am listing these verses is that the Reformed camp equates the water with baptism and they equate Jesus statement about eating his flesh in John 7 with commumion. I am investigating and evaluating this.

More reasons we can trust the Disciple's accounts

1) In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul says "not I, but the Lord" - they learned Jesus' message and quoted Him and distinguished between Jesus' teaching/words and their own.

2) "Son of Man" was a self designation of Jesus in the gospels. If the early church had made up that title, we would expect to see it throughout the rest of the New Testament writings.

3) The early church sprung up with THOUSANDS being added at the Day of Pentecost. They were witnesses to the events or had access to the facts that could have refuted the resurrection if they existed.

4) The disciples gave up their lives for their message. Would you expect someone to die for a message they KNEW was false? No.

Some reasons we can trust the Disciple's accounts (Gospels)

1) A Disciple's training WAS memory work. Disciples were ready to graduate from their rabbi when they could quote the rabbi verbatim.

2)It was acceptable to condense or summarize a story but not to add to it.

3) Students kept written records. Rabbi EE Ellis said "if your rabbi is teaching and you have no paper, write it on your sleeve."

4) Jesus spoke in poetry - the rhyming rabbi - making him easier to remember.

5) The events were memorable, making them stay fresh in the mind.

6) As an oral society, they were better at remembering spoken words.

7) The early church regarded the writings of the apostles as scripture and "protected" them.
Tertullian, when writing about baptism, said "if the writing that wrongly go under Paul's name" (The Acts of Paul)
[my apology for not knowing the following fellow's name - I got this item from a speech] Tekel (sp) wrote using Paul's name as author and was removed from church office - disciplined for fabricating the text.

Caring about TRUTH

"If God exists, then he is the measure of all things, and what he thinks about all things is the measure of what we should think. Not to care about truth is not to care about God. To love God passionately is to love truth passionately. Being God-centered in life means being truth-driven in ministry. What is not true is not of God. What is false is anti-God. Indifference to the truth is indifference to the mind of God. Pretense is rebellion against reality, and what makes reality reality is God. Or concern with truth is simply an echo of our concern with God. and all this is rooted in God's concern with God, or God's passion for the glory of God."

John Piper, "God's Passion..." p97

C.S. Lewis - our desires are too weak

C.S. Lewis, in The Weight of Glory wrote
If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. (p2, GPFHG 81)

Heady stuff from Jonathon Edwards on the Trinity and revelatin

I'll find longer/better quotes to flesh this out another day - may you be edified anyway :-)

Jonathon Edwards, in his "The Miscellanies" wrote:
God is glorified within Himself these two ways: 1. By appearing ... to Himself in His own perfect idea [of Himself], or in His Son, who is the brightness of His glory. 2. By enjoying and delighting in Himself, by flowing forth in infinite love and delight towards Himself, or in his Holy Spirit ... So God glorifies Himself toward the creatures also in two ways; 1. By appearing to ... their understanding. 2. In communicating Himself to their hearts, and in their rejoicing and delighting in, and enjoying, the manifestations which He made of Himself ... God is glorified not only by His glory's being seen, but by its being rejoiced in. When those that see it delight in it, God is more glorified than if they only see it. His glory is then received by the whole soul, both by the understanding and by the heart. God made the world that He might communicate, and the creature receive, His glory,; and that it might [be] received both by the mind and heart. He that testifies his idea of God's glory [doesn't] glorify God so much as he that testifies also his approbation of it and his delight in it. (GPFHG 79)

Later in "God's Passion for His Glory" (p84), John Piper wrote two paragraphs fleshing out Edwards discussion of the Trinity:

The Son of God is the eternal idea or image that God has of himself. And the image that he has of himself is so perfect and so complete and so full as to be the living, personal reproduction (or begetting) of God the Father. And this living , personal image or radiance or form of God is God, namely, God the Son. And therefore God the Son is coeternal with God the Father and equal in essence and glory.

And between the Son and the Father there arises eternally and infinitely holy personal communion of love. "The divine essence itself flows out and is, as it were, breathed forth in love and joy. So that the Godhead therein stands forth in yet another manner of subsistence, and there proceeds the third person in the Trinity, the Holy Spirit."

The Son is the standing forth of God knowing himself perfectly, and the Spirit is the standing forth of God loving himself perfectly. ... I saw a more profound unity in the nature of things than I had ever imagined.

The need for Theology and its goal (cont)

"the strong timber of the tree of evangelicalism has historically been the great doctrines of the Bible - God's glorious perfections, man's fallen nature, the wonders of redemptive history, the magnificent work of redemption in Christ, the saving and sanctifying work of grace in the soul, the great mission of the church in conflict with the world and the flesh and the devil, and the greatness of our hope in everlasting joy at God's right hand. These things once defined us and were the strong fiber and timber beneath the fragile leaves and fruit of our religious experiences. But this is the case less and less. And that is why the waving leaves of success and the sweet fruit of prosperity are not a auspicious to David Wells and Os Guinness as they are to many. It is a hollow triumph, and the tree is getting weaker and weaker while the branches are waving in the sun. (Piper, GPFHG 78)

The need for Theology and its goal

In "Fit Bodies Fat Minds, Os Guiness wrote:
the present state of American evangelicalism is appalling. As a spiritually and theologically defined community of faith, evangelicalism is weak or next to nonexistent; as a subculture, it is stronger but often embarrassing and downright offensive.

In "Losing our Virtue", David Wells wrote:
Twenty five years ago ... theology was a more honorable word, and there was a sense of mission that was infectious. That was the day when the trees that stood tall in this world were usually made so by their theological conviction and not simply by their money, size of their church, ... there has nevertheless come a hollowing out of evangelical conviction, a loss of the biblical Word in it authoritative function, and an erosion of character... (GPFHG 78)

Piper:The great end of all study - all theology - is a heart for God and a life of holiness. (GPFHG 75)

Worship

John Piper:
The basic movement of worship on Sunday morning is not to come with our hands full to give to God, as though he needed anything (Acts 17:25), but to come with our hands empty, to receive from God. And what we receive in worship is the fullness of God, not the feelings of entertainment. We ought to come hungry for God. We should come saying, "As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for You, O God. ...." (Ps. 42:1-2). God is mightily honored when a people know that they will die of hunger and thirst unless they have God.
.... If the focus in corporate worship shifts onto our giving to God, one result I have seen again and again is that subtly it is not God that remains at the center but the quality of our giving.
(GPFHG 41 bold added)

Hell

John Piper:
Hell is unspeakably real, conscious, horrible and eternal - the experience in which God vindicates the worth of his glory in holy wrath on those who would not delight in what is infinitely glorious. If infinitely valuable glory has been spurned, and the offer of eternal joy in God has been finally rejected, an indignity against God has been committed so despicable as to merit eternal suffering. (GPFHG 38)

Jonathon Edwards has a sermon dedicated to the justification of hell:
Wicked Men Useful in Their Destructin Only
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/edwards/sermons.destruction.html
Proverbs 16:4 "The LORD has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble." (ESV)




Footnote: GPFHG stands for God's Passion for His Glory. Any quote prior to page 125 is from the preface written by John Piper. Starting at page 125 is Edwards work " The End for Which God Created the World"

God's love for you

"The love of God for sinners is not his making much of them, but his graciously freeing and empowering them to enjoy making much of him." (Piper GPFHG 35)

"True saints have their minds, in the first place, inexpressibly pleased and delighted with ... the things of God. But the dependence of the affections of hypocrites in in a contrary order: they first rejoice ... that they are made so much of by God; and then on that ground, he seems in a sort, lovely to them." (Jonathon Edwards GPFHG 35)

Evan:
Do we love God as God or do we love Him as the one who "cares so much about ME"?
Do we see His infinite beauty or do we think we are beautifully and, so, he makes much of us?

Cosmic treason - the seriousness of sin

If I stomp on an ant, (most) people won’t care.
If I trap/kill a mouse, (most) people won’t care.
If I kick a pet dog, more people will be concerned. (Michael Vick got jail time.)
If I behave that way toward a child, I will be put in jail.
If I JUST PLAN to hurt the President of the US, I would be in BIG trouble.

The greater the stature of the creature, the greater the offense.
The perfect, glorious, creator God is INFINITELY holy. Therefore, rebellious activity (sin) against "that" God is correspondingly greatly offensive.

It is cosmic treason.
We underestimate God's glory and we overestimate our worth.

An atheist friend recently wrote, "If someone were to reject this perfect being, that would be no skin of its back. It would let them choose." He sees his sin as too small and he see God as too inconsequential.

God's glory shown in mercy

John Piper:
God's righteousness is his unwavering commitment to uphold and display the infinite worth of his glory in all that he does, which would seem to require punishment for all who have "fallen short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3:23). But since God's righteousness (his commitment to his glory) and his mercy (his commitment to our joy) are not ultimately at odds, he made a way to "be both just and the justifier of him who has faith in Jesus" (Rom. 3:26) GPFHG p. 33

Evan:
God created this universe and the angelic dimension to show forth (exhibit) all of His attributes.

As a Trinity, God already had/displayed love. This may be why the Bible says that “God is love”. However, there would be no display of judgment, wrath or mercy.

If the goal of creation is to display forth all of the attributes in their perfection, His numerous attributes WILL be shown in their perfection. Thus, there both heaven and hell, mercy and judgment.

Praising God

C.S. Lewis wrote
"I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation." (Reflections on the Psalms p.95 GPFHG)

We quickly and gladly tell people about a good restaurant we've eaten at.
We are excited to talk of a quality movie.

How much more should we be caught up in the joy of knowing the creator of the universe. The sustainer of all things. The savior of our souls who indwells us and promises an eternity with Him!
------------------------------------------------
I found this story among my father’s belongings:
Betty, aged four, was taken by her governess to have tea with an aunt.
Presently she began to eat a piece of very rich cake.

“Oh, I just love this chocolate cake!” she exclaimed. “It’s awfully nice.”

"Betty, dear” corrected her governess, “it is wrong to say you love cake,
and I’ve frequently pointed out that ‘just’ is wrongly used in such a sentence.
Again, ‘awfully’ is quite wrong, ‘very’ would be more correct, dear.
Now repeat your remark, please.”

Betty obediently repeated: “I like chocolate cake; it is very good.”
“That’s better, dear,” said the governess, approvingly.
“But it sounds as if I was talking about bread,” protested the little girl.


We have the treasure of God incarnate, the indwelling Holy Spirit, adoption as children of God – do we SHOW IT?