Category: The Nation Israel

The Great Things The Lord Jesus Hath Done #2

Monday, October 7, 2013

“And he departed, and began to publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him: and all men did marvel” (Mark 5:20 KJV).

Who is this man, and what “great things” hath the Lord Jesus done for him?

Read an excerpt from the companion passage of the context of today’s Scripture: “And when he [Jesus] went forth to land, there met him out of the city a certain man, which had devils long time, and ware no clothes, neither abode in any house, but in the tombs. When he saw Jesus he cried out, and fell down before him, and with a loud voice said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God most high? I beseech thee, torment me not. (For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. For oftentimes it had caught him: and he was kept bound with chains and in fetters; and he brake the bands, and was driven of the devil into the wilderness.)” (Luke 8:27-29).

Jesus and His disciples meet this Gadarene (an inhabitant of Gadara, in northern Israel). Being possessed with many devils, this man acts very strangely—he howls, lives among tombs, cuts himself with stones, wears no clothes, and has bursts of amazing strength that enables him to break chains (Mark 5:1-5)!

Notice, the Lord Jesus says: “Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit” (verse 8). When the unclean spirit in the man sees Jesus, the spirit replies: “What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not” (verse 7). The evil spirit audaciously commands Jesus “by God” not to “torment” him: the spirit does not want Jesus to cast him into hell. Instead, the evil spirit and the other unclean spirits want Jesus to allow them to possess a herd of swine grazing nearby (verses 11,12; Luke 8:32).

Why do these unclean spirits not want to leave the land of Israel? Let us see what will happen to the Gadarene, and what God is trying to teach Israel with this miracle….

The Great Things The Lord Jesus Hath Done #1

Sunday, October 6, 2013

“And he departed, and began to publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him: and all men did marvel” (Mark 5:20 KJV).

Who is this man, and what “great things” hath the Lord Jesus done for him?

In the context of today’s Scripture, Jesus and His disciples are sailing to the eastern edge of the Sea of Galilee, and they make their way into the country of the Gadarenes (verse 1). Once they leave the ship, a devil-possessed man who lives in the tombs comes out to meet them (verse 2). The following will be an experience that none of them will ever forget!

This Gadarene vexed with the devil is in a most pathetic state, and he has been in such a condition for quite some time. He is literally a wild man, one whom no one can control or arrest. He often breaks the chains and shackles meant to bind him, and day and night, he lives among the tombs and in the mountains, crying (shouting) and cutting his flesh with sharp stones (verses 3-5). In fact, as we will learn later on, this man was probably completely naked! (The many devils that possess him cause his odd behavior.)

“But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him, and cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God, thou torment me not. For he said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit. And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many” (verses 6-9).

Notice this conversation Jesus is having is not with the man per se, but with the devils inside of the man. As we will see later on, actually, there may be as many as 2,000 evil spirits within him!

Let us see how Jesus Christ will handle the situation, thus observing some interesting parallels that teach Israel a lesson she will not forget, either….

Consider Your Ways, Saints! #5

Saturday, October 5, 2013

“I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto thy testimonies” (Psalm 119:59 KJV).

Oftentimes, the Christian is apathetic to JEHOVAH’S desire to build a temple… using him….

The Christian—the one who is trusted alone in Jesus Christ’s finished crosswork as sufficient payment for his or her sins—is to allow the life of that Saviour to live in and through him or her. This is only possible if the Christian is primarily focusing on the part of the Bible written to and about us in the Dispensation of the Grace of God (which the Holy Spirit gave to the Apostle Paul; Ephesians 3:2).

Many true believers in Jesus Christ often struggle to do right and yet still fail. They have not learned the most basic principle of the Dispensation of Grace: “For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace” (Romans 6:14). Unquestionably, sin will triumph over us every time when we walk in our own strength, relying on our own resources, our own intellect, our own efforts (this is the system of Law, the enemy of God’s grace). Our works and our performance cannot save us from hell, so they certainly cannot save us from misery either!

Romans chapter 12, Ephesians chapter 4, and Colossians chapter 3 are great passages that deal specifically with daily Christian living. We read these verses, and most importantly, believe them, applying them to our lives by faith. God the Holy Spirit will then take those words and work mightily in and through us to accomplish those attitudes and actions, and it will literally be the life of Jesus Christ. It will be the same life that He lived on earth, and it will be the life He still lives today. This is the grace life that God wants for us Christians!

“For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world” (Titus 2:11,12).

May we, by faith, submit to the Lord Jesus Christ’s desire to build a temple, a dwellingplace—using us! 🙂

Consider Your Ways, Saints! #3

Thursday, October 3, 2013

“I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto thy testimonies” (Psalm 119:59 KJV).

Oftentimes, the Christian is apathetic to JEHOVAH’S desire to build a temple… using him….

In what the Bible calls “time past,” God dealt with mankind on the basis of “circumcision” (Jew) and “uncircumcision” (Gentile). While God was forming the nation Israel to establish His temple in the earth, we Gentiles “were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:11,12).

When no one else in Israel’s program wanted to trust Jesus as Messiah, the ascended Lord Jesus paused Israel’s program, opened our Dispensation of Grace, reached down from heaven, and miraculously saved the person leading Israel’s rebellion against Him—Saul of Tarsus! Paul, divinely commissioned to be a new apostle, received directly from the glorified Lord Jesus Christ a ministry, a dispensation, and a gospel that were separate from Israel’s program. God would now form a new agency, the Church the Body of Christ, using Jews and Gentiles. This “one new man” (Ephesians 2:15) would be God’s temple, which He would use forever in the heavens.

The “but now,” the present-day operation of God, is described in Ephesians 2:13,19-22: “But now in Christ Jesus ye [Gentiles] who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: in whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.”

As people who have trusted the Lord Jesus Christ alone as our personal Saviour, we are “an habitation of God”—the Holy Ghost indwells us! If He is to accomplish His will in and through us, we must consider our ways in light of what the Holy Scriptures say (today’s Scripture) and by faith, apply that doctrine to life….

Consider Your Ways, Mankind! #5

Monday, September 30, 2013

“Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:29,30 KJV).

Mankind, in his natural state, is apathetic to JEHOVAH’S desire to build a temple… using him….

Ephesians 6:12 talks about “spiritual wickedness in high places” (the Greek word here rendered “high” is translated “heavenly” in Ephesians 1:3 and Ephesians 2:6). “Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints; yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight” (Job 15:15; cf. Job 25:5). Satan has corrupted the heavens (outer space) with sin, and he will not be banished from there and cast down to earth until a future date (Revelation 12:7-10).

“The heaven, even the heavens, are the LORD’S: but the earth hath he given to the children of men” (Psalm 115:16). God had given the earth to man in order to keep earth out of Satan’s hands, but Adam sinned and Satan’s policy of evil, which rebellion started in heaven, infiltrated earth. Both the heavens and earth are corrupted by sin. Until we come to the salvation and ministry of the Apostle Paul in Scripture, we only read about God’s purpose and plan for the earth. God, until revealing it to and through the Apostle Paul, was silent about how he would restore the heavens unto Himself (Colossians 1:16-21).

Through Paul’s epistles, Romans through Philemon, alone, we learn God’s purpose and plan regarding the heavenly restoration. The ascended Lord Jesus Christ will use the same pagan Gentiles He had given over to Satan back in Genesis chapter 11, He will save them from their sins and give them a place in heaven (Ephesians 1:3; Ephesians 2:6,7), even giving them bodies to function in outer space and replace Satan’s minions (2 Corinthians 5:1). This is the story of the pagan Greeks to whom Paul spoke (today’s Scripture)—it is our story, too!

No one would have guessed that God would use formerly idolatrous Gentiles such as us to be His vessels, His temple, to glorify Himself in the heavens forever…!

Consider Your Ways, Mankind! #4

Sunday, September 29, 2013

“Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:29,30 KJV).

Mankind, in his natural state, is apathetic to JEHOVAH’S desire to build a temple… using him….

Satan’s rebellion against God, which started in heaven, then infiltrated the earth with the fall of man. Adam—actually all of mankind—was to be God’s vessel in fulfilling His will in the earth (Genesis 1:26,28), but Adam sinned and failed (Romans 5:12). God then created the nation Israel to do in the earth what Adam failed to do (Exodus 19:5,6), but Israel also sinned and failed (Jeremiah 31:32).

Once Israel reached the point where she adamantly and continually rejected God’s will for her—the culmination of her unbelief was Acts chapter 7 with the stoning of the prophet Stephen—God set into motion a plan for the heavenly places, a plan that He had kept secret during the entire time He was revealing to man His purpose and plan for earth (Romans 16:25 cf. Acts 3:21).

In today’s Scripture, the Apostle Paul is preaching in Athens to remind these lost pagans that their idols of silver, gold, and stone that they have invented and carved and molded, are the results of their spiritual blindness. God, having given these Gentiles over to Satan in Genesis chapter 11 (so He could form the nation Israel in Genesis chapter 12 with Abraham), is now reaching out to them through the fall of Israel and through Paul’s ministry (Romans 11:11-13).

Paul urged these Gentiles, whose spirits were dead in their trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1-3) and whose souls were darkened by Satan the god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:3,4), to receive the light of God’s Word that he is preaching to them. They are to recognize their error, change their mind (repent), and start thinking of the triune God as the living and true God, not as some worthless, inanimate idol.

By faith, they are to submit to the construction of JEHOVAH’S new temple….

Consider Your Ways, Mankind! #3

Saturday, September 28, 2013

“Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:29,30 KJV).

Mankind, in his natural state, is apathetic to JEHOVAH’S desire to build a temple… using him….

When preaching about Jesus Christ returning to earth one day and bringing “the times of restitution [restoration] of all things,” the Apostle Peter confessed that this coming of God to establish an earthly kingdom was what “God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began” (Acts 3:19-21). From the time the Lord Jesus put man on the earth until the salvation and ministry of the Apostle Paul, the Bible’s focus is God’s purpose and plan for the earth. God wanted the earth to be His “temple,” His dwelling place!

In the book of the Revelation, the Apostle John wrote about the future: “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God” (Revelation 21:1-3). This will be the fulfillment of Messiah’s title “Immanuel,” “God with us” (Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:23). Again, the hope of believers in Israel’s program was not dying and going to be with God in heaven, but being resurrected to have God come down to earth and live with them (Job 19:25-27)!

Daniel 2:35,44 speak of Jesus Christ’s kingdom as one that will “fill the whole earth” and will last forever and ever. Exodus 19:3-6, Isaiah 2:1-3, and Zechariah 8:20-23 demonstrate the earthly nature of Israel’s kingdom. Sin has continually delayed the establishment of this “temple” of God….

Consider Your Ways, Mankind! #2

Friday, September 27, 2013

“Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:29,30 KJV).

Mankind, in his natural state, is apathetic to JEHOVAH’S desire to build a temple… using him….

“For by him [the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ] were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him” (Colossians 1:16). God created and placed angels in heaven to serve Him there, and He created and placed man on earth to serve Him there.

Man was to govern earth for God’s glory as Genesis 1:26,28 explain: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. And God blessed them [Adam and Eve], and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish [fill up] the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”

Psalm 8:4,7-9 elaborate: “What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet: all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas. O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!”

Adam was to prepare earth for God to come down and dwell on, but Adam sinned, delaying the construction of that “temple….”

Consider Your Ways, Mankind! #1

Thursday, September 26, 2013

“Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:29,30 KJV).

Mankind, in his natural state, is apathetic to JEHOVAH’S desire to build a temple… using him….

Job, the oldest Bible book (predating Moses and his books of Genesis to Deuteronomy), summarizes the hope of every believer who lived in the “Old Testament” economy (although, technically, this was also the hope of believers in Christ’s earthly ministry and the early Acts period):

“For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me” (Job 19:25-27).

As a representative of the believers living in Israel’s program, Job shows us that the hope the believer in the God of the Bible had was not to go to heaven, but rather to be resurrected bodily to live forever in an earthly kingdom with that God reigning. As opposed to them expecting to go to heaven upon death, these saints expected heaven to come down to earth (literally, “heaven on earth”)! This was the hope believers had prior to the salvation and ministry of the Apostle Paul.

In early Acts, the Apostle Peter offered to Israel that earthly kingdom which was “spoken by the mouth of all [God’s] holy prophets since the world began” (Acts 3:21). That earthly kingdom was the heart of “the Gospel of the Kingdom” that John the Baptist preached, that Jesus Christ Himself preached in His earthly ministry, and the Gospel that He commissioned Israel’s 12 apostles to preach (Matthew 3:2; Matthew 4:17; Matthew 9:35; Matthew 10:7; Matthew 24:14; Mark 1:14; et al.).

Note how Peter says that God’s promise of that earthly kingdom goes right back to Adam, the first man. That kingdom prophesied “since the world began” is still postponed.…

Consider Your Ways, Israel! #5

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

“Now therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways. Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes” (Haggai 1:5,6 KJV).

The Jews have built their houses, but they are apathetic that they have not finished JEHOVAH’S….

Thus far, we have seen the Scriptures that demonstrate the complacency of the post-exilic Jews living in Jerusalem and Judaea. They had forgotten about JEHOVAH’S unfinished Temple because they had forgotten about JEHOVAH. In His mercy, grace, and longsuffering, He sent prophets to preach His Word to those Jews, to the intent that they would see their error and turn to Him.

The Jews considered their ways, and they believed the Word of God that Haggai and Zechariah the prophets preached to them. “And the elders of the Jews builded, and they prospered through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo. And they builded, and finished it, according to the commandment of the God of Israel…” (Ezra 6:14; cf. Ezra 5:1,2; Haggai 1:12-15). God’s Word encouraged them and, by faith, they finished the Temple about four years after construction resumed under Darius the Persian king (Ezra 4:24 cf. Ezra 6:15). As an interesting historical side note, circa 500 years later, Herod the Great refurbished that Temple, which Temple existed during Christ’s earthly ministry, and which Temple the Romans destroyed in A.D. 70.

Although these Scriptures were not written to us or about us, we can appreciate them in their rightful place in God’s inspired Word. Moreover, there are parallels to these Scriptures regarding the Bible books written to us and about us—Paul’s epistles, Romans through Philemon. In the next 10 studies, two companion devotional arcs, we will look at how these Scriptures from the books of Ezra and Haggai help us to better understand and appreciate the purpose and plan that the Lord Jesus Christ has for us….