Reaping the Whirlwind

I wrote in “Today’s Chaldean Chastisement” that I thought it possible that God was using Iran (modern-day Chaldeans) to punish America for her sins. Later, in “Who are the Other Gods” I explained that God has been dealing with other nations besides Israel since the beginning. Because of God’s obvious global interest, I can’t help but wonder how America plays in the grand scheme of things. I know that God’s chosen people are no longer a national entity; they are a spiritual congregation from all nations. Yet what would God think of a nation so clearly founded on His biblical principles going the way of ancient Israel?

These passages from Hosea struck me as particularly pertinent:

Indeed, they sow the wind

and reap the whirlwind. (8:7)

 

The days of punishment have come;

the days of retribution have come.

Let [God’s people] recognize it!

The prophet is a fool,

and the inspired man is insane,

because of the magnitude

of your iniquity and hostility. (9:7)

 

You have plowed wickedness and reaped injustice;

you have eaten the fruit of lies

Because you have trusted in your own way. (10:13)

 

But you must return to your God.

Maintain love and justice,

and always put your hope in God. (12:6)

 

The book of Hosea closes with these words:

 

Let whoever is wise understand these things,

and whoever is insightful recognize them.

For the ways of the Lord are right,

and the righteous walk in them,

but the rebellious stumble in them. (14:9)

 

I am not suggesting that the judgment God brought on the nations in Old Testament times is directly applicable to America. However, we hear the Lord say, “I am Yahweh; I do not change.” In the fourth chapter of Amos, God lists all the disasters He brought on Israel; He ends each with the line: “Yet you did not return to me.” The implication is obvious yet chilling. God wreaked havoc to cause Israel to repent. The prophets assure God’s unrepentant people that He will show mercy if they return to Him. They did not. They paid the price He promised.

 

R.C. Sproul writes in The Holiness of God: “Far from being a history of a harsh God, the Old Testament is the record of a God who is patient in the extreme. The Old Testament is the history of a persistently hard-necked people who rebel time after time against God. The people became slaves in a foreign land. They cried out to God. God heard their groans and moved to redeem them. He parted the Red Sea to let them out of bondage. They responded by worshiping a gold cow.”

Summing up God’s plans for the infant nation of Israel, Moses warned: “After the Lord your God has driven [the nations] out before you, do not say to yourself, ‘The Lord has brought me here to take possession of this land because of my righteousness.’ No, it is on account of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is going to drive them out before you. It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity that you are going in to take possession of their land.”

Commenting on this passage Sproul writes: “God reminds Israel that it is not because of their righteousness that He will defeat the Canaanites. He wanted to make that point clear. Israel might have been tempted to jump to the conclusion that God was ‘on their side’ because they were better than pagan nations. God’s announcement made that inference impossible. Since it is our tendency to take grace for granted, my guess is that God found it necessary from time to time to remind Israel that grace must never be assumed. On rare but dramatic occasions He showed the dreadful power of His justice. He killed Nadab and Abihu. He killed Uzzah. He commanded the slaughter of the Canaanites. It is like He was saying, ‘Be careful. While you enjoy the benefits of my grace, don’t forget my justice. Don’t forget the gravity of sin. Remember that I am holy.’”

It is not unusual to hear someone suggest that God has blessed America uniquely because of her initial founding on biblical principles. Like Sproul says of ancient Israel, we too might imagine God is “on our side” because of a special relationship. I don’t pretend to know what God’s mind is toward America. I do know without doubt what His mind is toward evil, and America is descending further and further into a dark abyss of immorality. I am certain the principle of reaping what you sow is universal. I would not be surprised to learn that God applies it to nations as well as individuals.

Someone might be tempted to say that all this “Bible stuff” is irrelevant to the present world situation. I disagree. C. S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity, “[those] who did the most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next.” Thinking of the next world (the new earth where righteousness dwells), setting our minds on things above (where Christ sits enthroned above the nations), praying that God’s will be done on earth as it is in Heaven – these are the actions that are most needful. We are ambassadors from another kingdom, the Kingdom of the Holy God; let’s be about the King’s business.

Related posts: Bringing the Kingdom; Today’s Chaldean Chastisement; Who Are the Other Gods?; Light Shining in Darkness; Read This or Die

Another Jewish Temple?

In recent months, my readership in Israel has spiked dramatically. I suspect interest in the “Holy Land” has increased worldwide due to the heightened conflict with Palestinians. I have expressed my opinion about the future of Israel as a nation previously. Everyone agrees that God dealt a serious blow to Old Testament Judaism when the Messiah was crucified, and the temple veil was torn. Then, seventy years later, the Romans completed the act of God’s judgment by destroying the Jerusalem temple. One might expect that would have signaled the end of the Jewish people. Yet here they are making news today. Ever since Israel became a nation again in 1948, speculation has continued regarding their place in God’s plan.

The centerpiece of this speculation revolves around the rebuilding of a Jewish temple. I have often questioned the need for a temple in the millennial kingdom imagined by the followers of Darby and Schofield. (I have discussed this previously as the dispensational/millennial view – abbreviated as DM.) Typical of the DM view and most who believe there will be another temple on earth, John MacArthur suggests that there will be unresurrected people in the millennial kingdom, and they will worship in the temple described by Ezekiel. Although he admits that Christ’s sacrifice was the “final” one, MacArthur insists continual earthly sacrifices will be performed. The purpose of the sacrifices would be retrospective rather than prospective according to MacArthur. Possibly.

If I dismiss the DM view, I can think of two possible explanations for the revelation of a temple that Ezekiel saw. Because the vision was given during the period when Israel was in captivity in Babylon, and because the temple of Solomon had been destroyed, God may have been giving instructions for the rebuilding of the temple that would eventually take place under Zerubbabel. That would explain the minute physical detail of the construction and the attendant regulations. However, there are several factors that argue against a physical building. The fact that neither Zerubbabel’s nor Herod’s temple met these specifications is noteworthy. Also, the land was never allotted by tribes during the remainder of the nation’s history as Ezekiel envisioned. It also seems significant that the nation of Israel was overrun by Muslims, and the temple mount became the site of an Islamic Mosque.

Another possible reason that the temple was revealed to Ezekiel is wholly symbolic. Ezekiel 47:6-12 supports this idea. The prophet is shown a river that flows from the temple to the Dead Sea. It starts as a trickle and gradually becomes a flood. It “heals” the sea so that freshwater fish become abundant. There are trees that bear fruit each month with leaves that are for healing. This scenario bears a striking resemblance to what John describes in the heavenly scene from Revelation. Naturally, those who hold to the teachings of Darby and Schofield believe this proves the existence of an earthly temple during the millennial kingdom. Those of us who understand apocalyptic literature as symbolic do not expect to find a physical reality drawn from the vision any more than we expect a literal thousand-year kingdom.

If we assume that Ezekiel’s temple was symbolic, it is easy to explain its tremendous size, the miraculous water, the healing trees, and the strict regulations for temple personnel. The purpose of the earthly temple was always to display God’s holiness and to provide for His prescribed worship. The architecture, the utensils, even the clothing of the priests each have symbolic meanings. By showing Ezekiel a perfect temple, God was reestablishing His call for perfect obedience. Had Israel done that, the miraculous river would have become a metaphor for the grace and healing of God that would have flowed from proper worship and obedience. Indeed, the world might have been healed/saved had the Israelites understood their divine responsibility.

My biggest problem with the DM position requiring another physical temple is that it seems to completely ignore what Jesus the Messiah, Paul the Apostle, and John the Revelator said about a temple. When Jesus spoke to His disciples about his immanent departure, He promised that they would become the home of God on earth: “Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and will take up residence with him.” That promise is echoed in John’s Revelation: “Behold, the dwelling of God is with humanity, and he will take up residence with them, and they will be his people and God himself will be with them.” Paul makes numerous clear statements that the church corporately and the Christian individually are the New Testament temple.

According to John’s vision, God’s throne is in the heavenly Jerusalem to which we have all come as Christ’s followers as the writer of Hebrews explains. John says plainly, “And I did not see a temple in it, for the Lord God All-Powerful is its temple.” God doesn’t need a building in earthly Jerusalem for His residence on earth; we are His residence. I am not a pre- mid- or post-millennial believer. I am pro-millennial; whatever God chooses to do in the end times, I am for it. I am humble enough to admit that if John Nelson Darby and C.I. Schofield were right, the continued existence of the nation of Israel and her biblical enemies may mean something. But I am not holding my breath waiting for a red heifer and another Jerusalem temple. Jesus could come today; He doesn’t need another temple.

Related posts: America is Not the Promised Land; Canaan Cannot Be Heaven; Binding Satan; Why Heaven Matters

Who Are the Other Gods?

In my last post, Questions, Questions, Questions, I raised the issue of what happened to all the nations dispersed at the Tower of Babel. We know that immediately after Babel, God began to build His chosen nation, Israel, and we learn about the surrounding nations that have parts to play in the biblical narrative. But what of all the others? What about the large populations of India and China which have recorded histories that predate the formation of Israel? I wonder if the Bible doesn’t have something to say about them.

In my first novel, Wings of Mentridar, through fantasy with Bible roots I depicted what I believe is the proper worldview of ancient peoples, including the people of the Bible. In their minds, all things physical and spiritual were connected. They believed gods were everywhere intimately involved in their daily lives. I was excited to discover Michael S. Heiser after finishing my book because in The Unseen Realm: Recovering the supernatural worldview of the Bible, Heiser confirmed by scholarly study what I had imagined.

In The Unseen Realm, Heiser gives indisputable proof through painstaking linguistic research into ancient Mesopotamian languages that the people we read about in the pages of Scripture had an understanding of the unseen realm, the spirit world, that we have gradually lost over the centuries. The belief that the Jews were fiercely monotheistic has led modern thinkers to assume that meant they did not believe that other gods existed. As we became “enlightened” through science, we lost touch with the unseen realm. Heiser believes these factors have created a veil over the true supernatural character of the biblical record. (For more details see “The Heiser Effect.”)

Rereading various passages with Heiser’s point of view reveals many instances where the other gods of the unseen realm are depicted. As the subtitle of his book suggests, we can recover a proper biblical worldview – one that recognizes the importance of “other gods.” Psalm 82 provides an open window into the unseen realm. When read properly, we see God speaking to a group, a council if you will, made up of other supernatural beings. In the psalm, God is chiding the beings for not managing their assigned nations properly.

That simple shift in viewpoint makes numerous other passages become clear. Throughout the major prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, God promises to execute judgment on the nations surrounding Israel. Some were literal enemies who fought against them; some such as Moab and Edom were branches of the Abrahamic line, but they refused to help Israel when she needed it. All alike come under the judgment of God. The prophets almost always use metaphors when addressing the errant nations. The actual language they use is interesting.

In Ezekiel 31 there is a curious allegory. The prophet is told by God to share a story about the cedar of Lebanon with Pharoah as a word of warning. In the story, Assyria is called a cedar tree, but the language belies a much deeper truth. The tree is assigned human characteristics, the worst being pride. Because of that, God condemned the “tree” to destruction. Surely this can only be interpreted as God’s judgment against a sentient being. Trees don’t have pride (As far as I know.) Further, the tree is said to have been admired by the other trees in the Garden of Eden. Because of its wickedness, God, “gave it into the hand of the leader of nations; he dealt thoroughly with it according to its wickedness.” I believe the leader of nations is another of God’s ruling council who was given the task of punishing a fellow member for his transgression, fulfilling God’s promise of judgment.

The same kind of mysterious reference is made to the prince of Tyre in Ezekiel 28. One moment the prophet is being told about an earthly ruler, then suddenly God is referring to his existence in the beginning of time. I am suggesting that the human ruler was under the sway of a supernatural being under God’s command. When an angel came to Daniel to answer his prayer, the angel said he had been delayed because of a battle with “the prince of Persia.” Surely, he was not referring to an earthly prince. The only logical meaning is that the country was controlled by another supernatural being with whom the messenger had to fight.

Ezekiel’s warning to Pharoah continues with a second allegory in chapter 32. Pharoah likes to think of himself as a lion among nations, but God calls him a monster from the river. The imagery is of God taking the creature from its vaunted home in the river and dealing harshly with by consigning to the underworld just like Assyria. The same fate is assigned to Meshech, Tubal, Edom, and “the princes of the north.” All are called “the uncircumcised.” This draws a clear contrast between God’s nation and all others. Importantly, though, only those nations who troubled Israel, God’s people, were sentenced this way.

There are numerous other metaphorical references throughout the prophets. Sometimes they become mixed as in Ezekiel 36 when mountains (another reference to supernatural beings) are said to grow branches and bear fruit. In Ezekiel 35, Mount Seir is judged for failing to support Israel when she was in need. Mount Seir is how the prophets regularly refer to Edom, the descendants of Esau. One theme is repeated throughout all the prophets’ warnings. God says that His judgment will make it clear to all that, “I am the Lord.”

Some of God’s ways are less mysterious. In Ezekiel 33, The prophet is called a watchman who is responsible to warn people and nations of their sin. If they are warned, and they turn back from their sin, they will be saved. If they do not repent, they will be judged accordingly. This is where the well-known verse comes from: “Surely, I have no delight in the death of the wicked.” In chapter 37, following the various metaphors of God’s judgment, Ezekiel records the prediction that David’s throne will be reinstated by God, and One of His own would be seated on it. There is no doubt this refers to the coming of Messiah, so we have a clear timeline of when the judgment of the nations and the giving of Israel’s new heart will be completed.

Generally speaking, we assume that the physical destruction of the nations mentioned in the prophecies and the return of Israel from exile fulfilled the word to Ezekiel. However, the final culmination of the prophecy was to come centuries later. Specifically, it happened at the Cross of Calvary. Paul explained that when Christ died, he took captives as He triumphed over the “rulers and authorities” by nailing our certificate of indebtedness to the Cross. Our indebtedness, our slavery was to the “god of this age,” aka Satan. This message of the prophets makes it abundantly clear that throughout human history, humans have been players in God’s plan to defeat Satan and the “other gods.”

You may not like the insinuation, but we humans are mere pawns in a cosmic battle that has been raging since before the creation of our world. (See It’s Not All About You.) Paul says in Ephesians 3 that the great mystery of His will is being revealed by the church, “to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places." Yahweh God, the One True God is making a point to the “other gods.” I said we are pawns, but when properly played, even pawns can dramatically affect the game. My question is whether you are willing to get in the game. Believe me; it’s supernatural!

 Related posts: Why Witness?; What Happens to People Who Never Hear About Jesus?; Election: God’s Choice

Imaginary Money

After the debacle that was the 2020 presidential selection episode, I swore off political commentary almost completely. Almost. Something has come to my attention that I cannot pass up. I will admit here and now that my tie to Scripture will be tenuous at best, but I am going to post it anyway. Forgive me if you feel it is necessary.

Kamala Harris has floated a plan to tax the unrealized gains of very rich persons at a rate of 25% annually. Let my break that down. Unrealized gains represent the growth in an investment. Imagine you buy a stock for $10 and it grows in value to $20; you have a gain of $10 per share. It remains “unrealized” as long as you don’t sell it. Under the current tax code, you would pay a tax on the gain if you sold. The remarkable thing about Harris’ plan is that she would tax it even if you don’t sell it. The same rule would apply to real estate. If your home increases in value above what you paid for it, that gain would be taxed every year.

The Harris plan would combine the very rich person’s income and gains and tax them both. Every year. At this time, her plan defines very rich as a person having a net worth of over $100 million. There are fewer than 3,000 people in that very rich category in America, so it would be easy to ignore the subject for most of us. However, the concept of taxing the increased value of something you own even if you don’t sell it is too radical to let pass.

We long ago started down this slippery slope by allowing municipalities to reassess real property and tax the value even if it is not sold for a profit. That is a kind of tax on unrealized gain. The practice rankles more than a few property owners, but we have let it continue. Where the Harris plan ventures into new territory is taxing gains as income and using a much higher rate than property taxes. States tax property for at most  2.23% (New Jersey) to the least 0.32% (Hawaii). This means that you would pay between a couple of dollars to a few cents per thousand dollars of preperty value. If your property has increased in value when you sell it, then you pay a tax on the gain.

If we open the door to taxing imaginary gain, one wonders what will be taxed next. The motivation for this proposal is understandable, maybe even fitting. The pols – D’s and R’s – in Washington have been spending imaginary money for years to pay for the unbridled growth of government. The practice of borrowing to spend began in the very beginning of our history as a country. We borrowed from France and the Netherlands to pay for the Revolutionary War. For some time, it was only emergencies that warranted spending money we didn’t have. That changed in the 20^th century when the nanny state was born. It’s no surprise that the income tax was begun at the same time.

Another move to imaginary money was taken in the 1970’s. President Nixon severed the tie between  the dollar and our gold reserves which backed our currency. That began the practice of printing money that had no real value other than the “faith and credit of the US government.” As it stands today, faith in our government is at an all-time low, and the US credit rating is in the tank. We now owe so much to so many that the interest we pay on our debt is 17% of our budget. That is second only to what we spend on Social Security. National debt interest eats almost 25% of federal revenue.

The sad fact is that we are essentially borrowing money to pay the interest on our debt. Read that again. We are not paying off the debt; we can’t even afford to pay the interest. As the natonal debt approaches $4 trillion, it becomes unlikely that we will ever be in a position to pay on the principle. Here is where the Bible comes in – barely: “The borrower is a slave to the lender.” I realize that was meant to apply to people and not governments, but how can it not apply. It surely does. We were established as a government of the people and by the people.

Is there a Christian, biblical view of this? Jeremiah counselled Israel in her hard times: “It is good to wait quietly for salvation from the Lord.” I suggest that while we are quietly waiting, we go to the voting booth and speak loudly. (See Liars Figure) We need to elect people who will stop taxing and spending imaginary money. We are saddling our children and grandchildren with a burden that is not imaginary; it is unimaginable.

Related posts: Anybody Hear a Fiddle?; Liars Figure; Christians are Responsible to be Politically Engaged; Christian Responsibility; America Held Captive

Questions, Questions, Questions

Some years ago, there was a newspaper sold at the grocery check-out lanes that used the tagline, “Inquiring minds want to know.” The paper was filled with stories about paranormal subjects and gossip about famous people. It did a better job of raising questions than answers. I don’t think I ever bought a single copy of the rag, but I still use the tagline on occasion. I have the curiosity of a cat, I suppose. I realize not everyone does, as my wife often points out. However, I think it is good for Christians to have a healthy curiosity about some things.

I usually save my WHAMM for the end of these articles, but I am going to explain it up front this time so I don’t lose readers in the weeds where I am going. Being curious about things that are “unknown” will often help to bolster our faith and give us ammunition for its defense. Unbelievers will often throw unanswered questions at us to challenge us. Of course, it is unfair of them to suppose we know everything, but they think pointing out something we don’t know will diminish our trust in what we do know. This is why I think giving some thought to things that Scripture does not give clear answers to is worth doing.

There is nothing wrong with thinking outside the box, the box being what we know to be true from the Bible. It is unreasonable to imagine that God has revealed everything about Himself and the universe He created in His Word. In fact, God said through Isaiah that His ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts. What is true, as Peter points out, is that Scripture includes, “Everything necessary for life and godliness.” In other words, the biblical record contains everything we need to know to obtain salvation.

The category of “unknown things” has been rapidly shrinking since the advent of the scientific age. Granted, some of what has come of scientific thinking has challenged faith for a time, but eventually, what we know from the Bible is being proven by what we learn from science. Questions about the origin of the human race provide a perfect example. Charles Darwin famously questioned the reality of divine creation by suggesting that human life evolved from lower life forms through natural selection. Darwin himself admitted his theory would be untenable if we found that the inner workings of a living cell were more complicated than he believed. The invention of ultra high-powered microscopes has dashed Darwin’s argument on the rocks of scientific fact. (See Think About It)

Another scientific question as yet unanswered is whether there is sentient life on some other planet in the universe. Science has shown that there are indeed other planetary possibilities, perhaps numbering in the billions. While it is true that Earth is a unique planet as regards its suitability for human life (See The Privileged Planet), there is no good reason, biblically speaking, to assume God could not have created sentient beings on one of the other planets. C.S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy does a masterful job of imagining what unfallen beings might be like on other planets.

There is a principle of logic here that needs to be applied to our biblical understanding. Failure to mention something in a text, biblical or otherwise, does not preclude the possibility of its existence unless said existence would contradict something known to be true from the text in question. For example, an elementary text on photosynthesis may not mention the effect of ultraviolet rays on the process. This does not exclude the possibility of the ray’s existence or how it might change the process. Similarly, just because the Bible does not mention life on other planets or explain how God might have dealt with life there does not exclude the possibility of its existence.

Some Christians worry that if SETI ever does discover proof of sentient life outside our galaxy, the message of the Bible will be weakened somehow. This is nonsense. The Bible doesn’t mention gamma radiation, black holes, dark matter, DNA, viral infections, cancer, and countless other things that we know exist. My faith is actually strengthened when I read about new discoveries because I allow my “inquiring mind” to consider how the new facts fit in with the oldest body of truth I know: Scripture.

This entire train of thought was set rolling when I began to wonder about God’s relationship with all the nations not mentioned in the Scripture. The major prophets contain numerous words of judgment on the nations surrounding Israel. The future revealed to Daniel covered most of the events pertaining to the Mediterranean world, aka Israel’s neighborhood. And yet, historical and archeological records prove there were ancient civilizations in Asia that coexisted with the biblical nations of the Mediterranean area mentioned in the Bible. Other than some apocryphal notes that the Apostle Thomas may have evangelized Southeast Asia, there is no mention of these millions of people.

I find myself asking what to make of that fact. My inquiring mind asks questions, but there is nothing in my thoughts that undermines my faith. My best guess is that when God separated the nations at the tower of Babel and then called Abraham aside for His chosen work, He left the other nations in the hands of the other “gods” alluded to in Psalm 82. In that Psalm, Yahweh God, the One True God, chides His subordinates for doing badly in their oversight of the nations under their purview. My highest thought, though not as high as God’s thought, is that He was waiting for the Messiah to bring His love to whosoever would believe in Him. No matter where they lived.

If your brain is tired at this point, join the crowd. An inquiring mind exercises the senses in a way that can be exhausting. I find it to be a good kind of tired though, like the kind you get after a strenuous physical workout. Just as the muscles are strengthened by hard work, the soul is built up by chewing on the meat of God’s Word instead of lapping up only the milk. The writer of Hebrews says, “Solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have trained their faculties for the distinguishing of both good and evil.” Any questions?

Related posts: The Hidden Things; Bible Trivia; Understanding the Book of Job: The Heiser Effect; What’s the Deal With Ninevah