Antichrist: The Spirit of This Age

I know that many of you reading this blog may have been convinced, as I was, that the word "Antichrist" in the Bible simply referred to a person connected with what many Christians have called the "last days." This man, it is believed, will bring devastation unheard of to the ranks of Christians through a worldwide system of economic, military, and political control.

However, I would like to propose something to you that will, I think, open your eyes not only to the depth of scripture but to the ever-present reality of a spiritual warfare that is, I am afraid, far closer to home than you and I would like to admit.

Let me begin with a passage from Paul's letter to the Ephesians:

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Ephesians 6:10-12

This is a favorite passage on the Christian radio and in many Christian sermons, but sadly, it is rarely understood. What, for example, does Paul mean by "our struggle is not against flesh and blood?"

I think that we will find part of our answer in another passage that is often quoted amiss by the institutional church:

Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.

Romans 13:1-2

"Wait a minute," some of you may be saying. "Wasn't Paul saying in another letter that our struggle is against authorities?"

Yes--but if you reread the entire passage from Ephesians 6, you will find that Paul goes on to describe the authorities he is talking about as (v. 12) "the powers of this dark world" and "the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." You see, the "government" in Paul's time was not a democracy--it was military rule, a style of government that the Romans had established shortly before the birth of Christ in order to stabilize their society. Furthermore, this military rule was, in the eyes of Paul's people, an occupying regime since its soldiers had subjugated the land of Israel, relegating it to an outer province of the Roman Empire called "Judea" (or, as it should have been called by its own residents, "Judah").

This military regime punished its enemies by ruthless means. After all, the Cross, an instrument of death designed to prolong the life of its victim for days or sometimes weeks, was a unique invention of Rome--as was the Coliseum, and the deadly games that would seal the martyrdom of so many Christians in centuries to come. And yet Paul goes on in Romans 13:3-5 to say

For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. For he is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience.

How, indeed, could Paul say these things about an empire that had humiliated his people and subjugated the known world by inventing methods of cruelty formerly unknown to humankind? Because, as Ephesians 6:11 says, his battle was not "against flesh and blood."

I am afraid, ladies and gentlemen, that in its zeal to "reform" the rest of the world according to the principles of representative democracy, our society has lost any sense of a Christianity that could look a dictator squarely in the eyes and say, "I believe you are a servant of God to bring order to my nation." The United States goes to war these days, it seems, not out of concern for the welfare and defense of its people (a legitimate reason for any government to go to war) but out of a desire to "improve" the nations around her. The governments of Afghanistan, Iraq, North Korea, and Iran are "immoral" and "corrupt," and yet, except for Afghanistan (which was an anarchy that did strike first at the United States), all of these governments had, as their aim, to bring law and order to their people and to achieve some semblance of national cohesion and stability.

I realize that this is an unpopular assertion, given the times that we live in, but remember, ladies and gentlemen, that the body of Christ exists in more countries than the United States and its allies. There are Christians suffering and dying by the thousands in many nations around the world, including the Middle East, and I am sure that almost all of them would tell you that they are not dying for the benefit of a "free people" or "democracy" but simply because their allegiance to the Lord outweighs their allegiance to their governments.

Ladies and gentlemen, for 300 years Christianity was persecuted by the Roman Empire, and for 300 years, Christians submitted to the swords, axes, and fires of their executioners without duress--not because they were weak but because they knew that their bodies and souls belonged to another Ruler who would resurrect them, as He resurrected Himself . . .



It is my belief that postmodern Christians come to concepts such as "Antichrist" in the Bible with an understanding that is firmly rooted in the perspective of this world. Instead of understanding "Antichrist" as a spirit, a "power of this dark world" and a "spiritual force of evil in the heavenly realms," we instead understand him as some sort of evil dictator who rules the world in the same way that evil dictators in the movies do: through military force. And it is because of this understanding that we fail to see Antichrist at work in so many of our churches.

The first reference we see in the Bible to "Antichrist" appears in 1 John 2:18-19:

Dear children, this is the last hour, and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us, but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.

Note that John's main focus in this passage is not on the future but on the present. Antichrist "is coming," but "even now" Antichrist is active and at work--not in the military and political affairs of John's world but within the church.

John clearly identifies Antichrist as a spirit manifested in certain people, a spirit that is active within the church. He says that those who operated in the spirit of Antichrist "went out from us" but "did not really belong to us," signifying that one of the traits of this spirit is to do something "good" or "beneficial" in order to present itself as godly or God-driven. John says further that if they had been real Christians, they would have remained with John and the other apostles rather than going out on their own, but instead, they went out on their own, without the permission of the apostles.

1 John 20-25 outlines the specific qualities of Antichrist, and of the believer in Christ:

But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth. I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth. Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist—he denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.

See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. And this is what he promised us—even eternal life.

John says specifically here that those who deny that Jesus is the Christ (the Messiah) are "Antichrist"--but how do you deny that Jesus is the Christ? Not simply through words, it is clear from 1 John 2:18-19, but through lack of submission to His apostles.

You see, Christ submitted Himself to the Father, even unto death, as Paul so eloquently writes in Philippians 2, and hence, the mark of the believer in Christ is submission as well--to Christ and to the word of God.

Those who are not submitted to Christ and the word of God, we can infer from the above passage, do not have eternal life.

1 John 2:26-27 ends the discussion by articulating John's purpose in coining the term "Antichrist":

I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray. As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in him.

Again, John identifies representatives of "Antichrist" as operatives within the church--in his words "those who are trying to lead you astray."



I think that by now, ladies and gentlemen, you can see my point. It is the same one I have been making for several posts now: A believer in Christ does not long for anything in this world because he or she is a citizen of a better one. It only remains for believers to share with others the truth they themselves have received, and to win souls for Christ.

We live in a church culture today that would, I fear, prefer to win souls for itself. Pastors, radio talk show hosts, and televangelists center their sermons on non-confrontational topics such as grace or legalism (without defining very effectively what these terms mean) in order to attract more parishioners, more listeners, and more viewers. The result is a generation of people who have trouble seeing the difference between loyalty to their church and loyalty to Christ . . . and who are becoming increasingly apathetic toward both.



My wife and I are believers in Christ . . . but we do not attend church. We tried several churches in the Dallas-Fort Worth area before moving to Lancaster, South Carolina, but all of them exhibited the same spirit that John was describing in his letter--the unsubmissive spirit of Antichrist. The one congregation we found that evidenced the Spirit of Christ was, oddly enough, a small Orthodox Christian church--there were clear lines of authority, and it was obvious that the priest of that church was submitted in his heart to the Lord, Christ Jesus. It was the first time in a long while (years) that either one of us felt truly free inside a church building.

I know that some of you will read this and think I am endorsing Orthodox Christianity as the solution to America's spiritual problems. Unfortunately, it seems that Orthodox Christianity has its share of dead churches and equally dead parishioners as well (as my wife and I discovered when we researched the denomination further).

All I am saying is that the search for a real, vibrant group of believers in Christ who are really and truly born again is increasingly taking people like us in directions outside the realm of traditional Protestant Christianity. I wish I could say this was a good thing, but the fact is, it only evidences the sad reality that many, if not most, American churches are repositories of doctrines that John and the other apostles would have found dubious, if not repugnant.

There is a lot of bad teaching going on out there, just as there was in John's time, and believers in Christ need, more than ever, to find good resources. In the next few weeks, I will add a few that my wife and I found to the "links" section of this blog--and I would appreciate any feedback from other bloggers on Christian resources for new believers as well. Part of the reason I started this blog, after all, was so that other people wouldn't have to struggle quite as much as my wife and I did when we received Christ.

Our hope, ladies and gentlemen, is not in this world.

The life and possibilities we can have in Christ Jesus are truly endless.

Exodus 12:43-49: God's Warning to Those of Us Who Compromise

In this post, I'd like to focus on the last portion of Exodus 12 (yes, I know there was more on the Passover commandments than you anticipated), and while I think it would be sweet and somewhat soothing for my readers to look at verse 46 ("It must be eaten inside one house; take none of the meat outside the house. Do not break any of the bones.") and its relationship to the crucifixion of our Savior, the ultimate Passover Lamb whose bones were not broken as He gave Himself freely for our deliverance from sin, I will instead focus on the following, which begins the portion of scripture that will serve as our text:

No foreigner is to eat of it. Any slave you have bought may eat of it after you have circumcised him, but a temporary resident and a hired worker may not eat of it.

What does that mean?

Simply this: in order to partake of the Passover, you had to be consecrated, part of the Lord's elect, His chosen nation. Anyone who was not a part of the Lord's nation did not have the right--either in God's sight or in the sight of God's people--to engage in the celebration.

Ladies and gentlemen, we live in a society today in which churches regularly "water down" the Bible, Christ, and Christianity in order, so they say, to be "relevant"--in other words, to attract new parishioners who will, it is hoped, enlarge the church rosters, donate generously to church projects, and provide some semblance of legitimacy. Youth groups, even in many so-called conservative churches today, are little more than dating scenes with a few Bible verses, guitars, and "hallelujahs" thrown in. College ministries are, in many cases, pairing ministries, in which young men and women play a game of relational "musical chairs" until the odd man or woman out is forced to "live a life of chastity" as everyone else strolls off, arm in arm with his/her future spouse, into the sunset . . . and into a life of meaningless superchurch attendance, shallow faith, and a suburban pseudo-Christianity that looks an awful lot like the feckless materialism so endorsed by other, more pagan elements of our society.

It really is amazing to me that so many professing Christians in the United States fail to see the glaring inconsistencies of a religious culture that publishes a lot of books, music CD's, and even (it seems) special movies about Jesus but which also happily sends its children off to public schools, endorses a home life which forces the man to spend 8 or more hours a day away from his wife, and acquires every bit as many technological gadgets, entertainment devices, and other toys as its atheistic and/or pagan counterparts.

Worse, many of the very denizens of this church culture balk at basic ideas which are found in the Bible, such as the fact that sin is not only wrong but is not to be tolerated in those who would educate others in the way of Christ, the infallibility of scripture, and (yes, I know a lot of you will want to dispute me on this point) the premise that the Earth is, in fact, only 6000 years old. I can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that scripture supports, vigorously, each of these points, and I suppose that at some point the time will come when I will devote several posts to each of them, but for now, I would simply like to emphasize that there is a very sharp dividing line between those who have unflinchingly given their hearts, bodies, and souls to Christ and those who merely use Christ's name to gain for themselves good social standing.

The Lord was very serious about who could participate in the Passover celebration, and is even more serious about who can celebrate the resurrection of Christ Jesus. I believe two scripture passages from the New Testament will serve to illustrate this point:

For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me." In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me." For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. But if we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment. When we are judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be condemned with the world.

1 Corinthians 11:23-32, emphases mine

It is important to note that Paul meant "died" when he said "fallen asleep"--this is corroborated by other passages in the New Testament which phrase death as "sleep" or "falling asleep."

Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. With his wife's full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles' feet.

Then Peter said, "Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? 4Didn't it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn't the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied to men but to God."

When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened. Then the young men came forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him.

About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. Peter asked her, "Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?"

"Yes," she said, "that is the price."

Peter said to her, "How could you agree to test the Spirit of the Lord? Look! The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also."

At that moment she fell down at his feet and died. Then the young men came in and, finding her dead, carried her out and buried her beside her husband. Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.

Acts 5:1-11

I understand that the second passage I quoted does not specifically refer to the celebration of what we in the United States call communion, but think about it for a moment: Ananias and Sapphira lived in a community in which everyone shared everything in common, and in which believers in Christ were routinely ostracized. Don't you think that in this environment, Ananias and Sapphira probably celebrated the Passover and Christ's Last Supper along with the other believers? I think so, and I think this is why their sin was all the more grievous--it was a betrayal not only of finances but of heart and soul and blood, a stab in the back to friends, comrades, and to the very God whose Son they had so willingly accepted as their Savior.

I am afraid that the professionalization of most of America's seminaries has led to the rise of aliens and strangers not only in the body of Christianity but within its very leadership. I would like to be able to say that most of us do not know who these aliens and strangers are, but the sad fact is that all too many of us are well aware. And out of concern for popularity or fear or simple lack of determination, we just don't want to confront them.



At this point, I'm sure some of you are reading this post and thinking, "This guy is proposing that we engage in a postmodern spiritual witch hunt."

No.

That is not how you "confront" a leader within your church circles whom you know is not a real partaker of the body and blood of Christ.

What I am instead urging is that you treat such people within your denomination or home church the same way that you would treat anyone else who is not a believer in Christ: Lead them there, through prayers, through the winsomeness of Christ inside of you, and through the truth of God's Word, articulated in the power of unconditional love.

It works very well for the hard-core cocaine or pornography addict, and it has just as much power with a man or woman pretending to be a Christian. I know because I was such a man, and I was constantly driven to my knees by people around me who exemplified Christ and worshipped Him. I know now that to be a part of the body of Christ is more than to recite a prayer, attend church regularly, or even read my Bible--it is, in essence, to be a member of something beyond "cause" or "body" or "self." Believers in Christ--real believers--know instinctually who their brethren are, both past and present. It is as Paul wrote so many centuries ago:

There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to one hope when you were called—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

Ephesians 4:4-6

It follows, then, that those who are in the body of Christ have a bond with one another that goes beyond body and soul, and that each and every one of them would know, at least on a subconscious level, who is and is not a real Christian. (This verse, by the way, is not the only verse I can cite from the New Testament as either articulating or demonstrating this principle--for further information, I would encourage you to read the book of Acts and the Gospels of John and Luke.)



To those of you out there who are reading this post and are wondering, for whatever reason, if you are a real Christian or not, there is a very clear distinction between a "born again" (see John 3) believer in Christ and a non-believer who simply echoes the words and phrases of the Bible (and of the institutional church) without attaching any meaning or substance to them. It is my contention that anyone who is indeed a member of "the Lord's nation" as I phrased it at the beginning of this post already knows, even if only at a subconscious, instinctual level, who the real believers are . . . but we live in a world which has, for the most part, divested itself of any serious discussion of spiritual topics in relationship to religion in general (or Christianity in particular), so I would like to present a brief sequence of points at which you can see this divide between the Christian and the pseudo-Christian playing itself out:

1. Real Christians are holy.

I always heard, and from reputable as well as disreputable sources, that the word translated as "holy" in the Bible means "set apart," and this interpretation, I think, is borne out by the simple fact that in the Bible, anything that is holy is to be treated with great reverence and respect, over and above what one would do for objects that are common or ordinary. If a Christian is holy, then we must assume that Christians are (1) treated as if they are holy, even at an unconscious level, by those around them and (2) that they act, speak, think, and make decisions in ways that are different than those of their non-believing friends, relatives, or coworkers.

This second part is very important, because it is not a conscious or affected approach to life. Real Christians act, speak, think, and make decisions differently without even noticing, at times, that they are doing so--it is simply part of who they are.

2. Real Christians evangelize.

I understand that when most of you hear the word "evangelize," you think of those people who stand on street corners or who go door to door and pass out pamphlets--but this is not the essence of evangelism as it is presented in the Bible. You see, those who are part of the Lord's nation focus first on evangelizing their families.

1 Timothy 3:4-5, in the context of church leadership, articulates this principle very well:

He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect. (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God's church?)

In other words, what Paul was implying was that all Christians, regardless of whether or not they were bishops, deacons, elders, or simple laity, had, as first priority, the winning of their families to Christ. This will not be news to those of you who actually received Christ as your Lord and Savior and gave freely of your hearts, bodies, and souls to Him--after all, who were the first people you came to with your testimony? They were, of course, your family and closest friends.

Again, this is not a deliberate activity--it is, instead, an unconscious one. The first thing that a new believer with a broken family does is try to pray for that family, just as the first thing a new believer with an unbelieving family does is witness to his/her brothers, sisters, parents, and children. More often than not, real believers in Christ succeed in convincing their families to commit themselves to Christ as well.

3. Real Christians are Christ-like.

This is the one that is most evident to anyone who is "of the world." You see, people who are not in Christ lie, cheat, steal, and bulldoze their way through life, not because they necessarily mean to be evil most of the time but because this world is all they have and all they really know. It is a shock to them that someone would tell the truth, deal fairly with others, and share of themselves, even when it is not to their advantage--but you see, this is what Christ did even as a matter of course throughout His life.

You may say, "Well, Christ could afford to be a little lowly," and that is true . . . but it is also true of the believer in Christ.

I'll share an example from my own personal life: I tend to be a fairly "meek" person most of the time, and I don't always (or even sometimes) exhibit the "killer instinct" that a lot of people express in the workplace or in school in order to get ahead of others. I know this makes me vulnerable in the eyes of some, and yes, I have been taken advantage of, both personally and professionally, by people who have used what they saw as my "naivete" against me, but . . . I don't really care about this world. Its charms, its possessions, and its entertainments are nothing to me because I know that my life is going to end someday, and whatever the Lord has planned for me then will be far more beautiful, captivating, and mesmerizing than anything this pathetic excuse for an existence has to offer.

If you can't say in your heart that you love Christ more than you love the paltry things of this life, then you may be interested to know that even in the Old Testament, there was provision for those who were aliens and who wanted to participate in the Passover celebration.

Exodus 12:48 says

An alien living among you who wants to celebrate the LORD's Passover must have all the males in his household circumcised. Then he may take part like one born in the land. No uncircumcised male may eat of it.

Or, to put it in terms more applicable to the world we live in 2000 years after Christ's resurrection

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.

If you have been reading this post and know in your heart that you are not a real Christian, then you also know deep inside that you are a sinner. Romans 10:9 provides 2 preconditions for your salvation:

1. You must confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord."

2. You must believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead.

Paul goes on to say in the next verse that "it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved."

So I leave you with these questions:

Do you believe God raised Jesus from the dead?

Are you willing to allow Jesus to be Lord of your life?

Blood: The Essence of Salvation

Our text in this post will be Exodus 12:21-27, continuing the regulations for the celebration of the first Passover which are outlined in this chapter:

Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, "Go at once and select the animals for your families and slaughter the Passover lamb. Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin, and put some of the blood on the top and on both sides of the doorframe. Not one of you shall go out the door of his house until morning. When the LORD goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down.

"Obey these instructions as a lasting ordinance for you and your descendants. When you enter the land that the LORD will give you as he promised, observe this ceremony. And when your children ask you, 'What does this ceremony mean to you?' then tell them, 'It is the Passover sacrifice to the LORD, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians.' "

Blood.

It is a central, indeed critical, element of both Christianity and the ancient Israelite understanding of God, and I am afraid that in our culture, it has lost almost all of its meaning. Westerners--both "Christian" and Jew--revel in the fact that they do not have to kill innocent animals for the sake of pleasing their God, and yet look at how bloody human history has become in the wake of this "freedom." In the past 100 years alone, we have killed more of our brethren--soldier and civilian, male and female, born and unborn--than all of our ancestors put together, and the reckless abandon with which we approach murder has not shown any signs of abating.

What a sad commentary.

I'm not saying that we should reinstitute a system of animal sacrifice--the Bible is very clear that in the wake of Christ's atonement, such a reinstitution would be meaningless--but I am calling into question the extent to which we shy away from something that is very central to both the Christian and ancient Hebrew understandings of God.

Blood is real. It is a core part of any life--human or animal--and if you take away the blood of a human being or animal, you have destroyed life.

Leviticus 17:10-12 clearly articulates God's feelings on this matter:

Any Israelite or any alien living among them who eats any blood—I will set my face against that person who eats blood and will cut him off from his people. For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar. It is the blood that makes atonement for one's life. Therefore I say to the Israelites, "None of you may eat blood, nor may an alien living among you eat blood."

Blood is so important to God that innocent blood shed by another human being brings judgment from heaven. Genesis 4:10-12 says that, in answer to Cain's attempt to conceal his brother's murder in the face of an all-seeing God,

The LORD said, "What have you done? Listen! Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth."

And in Genesis 9:6, we hear the Lord saying that "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God has God made man."

Ladies and gentlemen, I wonder how meaningful all of this is in a world that represents the shedding of human blood in movies, television, and video games as a casual, even enjoyable, affair. Statistics tell us that, on average, a child in our entertainment saturated society will have witnessed thousands of murders by the time he or she reaches adulthood. In fact, it is even possible that a child in our videogame rich society will have, by simulation, engaged in thousands of murders by the time he or she reaches adulthood.

Do you think this bodes well for the future of the United States?

I know that, to some of you, those words may seem a bit extreme, but let me ask you this: If someone has been trained from childhood to look upon the shedding of virtual blood as a casual enterprise, do you think they will shrink from the prospect of shedding real blood if the occasion be desperate enough and the action suitable to their purposes? And even if they do not commit murder in the sense of sneaking up behind someone in the middle of the night and stabbing that person to death, do you think that they will shrink from doing other things that will be less gruesome in appearance, yet have the same effect?

I spent 4 years tutoring students in writing at Texas Christian University, and in that time, I saw a lot of people--most of whom were majors in business or some related field, but some of whom were majors in other disciplines--whose concern, or even attention, to the impact that their future decisions might have on others was sorely lacking. It seems that, to many of our nation's up and coming business professionals, slashing salaries and benefits, to say nothing of outsourcing and simple exploitation of Third World labor, have a legitimate role in what they would call "making a company more efficient." Building relationships with their co-workers, treating their employees as human beings, these are increasingly going by the wayside, lost to a decidedly hostile spirit of greed and self-service.

I'm sorry to say this, ladies and gentlemen, but shedding someone's blood through the stroke of a pen is still shedding someone's blood, even if you didn't use a hatchet or a knife.



The principle to be learned in the scripture from Exodus 12, indeed the principle that is articulated over and over again in both the Old and New Testaments is simply this:

Sin has consequences.

You may not agree with me on this point, and that's all right--after all, I would have laughed at someone saying the same thing a couple of years ago myself--but let's look at a few examples:

When I log onto the internet and surf around, looking for pornography, if I am married, I am betraying my spouse's trust in me, and if I am single, I am destroying any semblance of awe and wonder I would have taken into the marriage bed. Either way, I am not hurting only myself.

When I snort cocaine, looking for that next high, I am cutting myself off from my friends and saying that my finances are at the beck and call of the next pusher that comes my way. So what happens when I have a family or a loved one who is depending on me for some financial support--to say nothing of love, care, and energy? Yes, that's right--I have just hurt someone other than myself.

When I steal, even in order to shoplift, I may think I am "sticking it" to some faceless corporation, but in reality, I am preventing someone else from having whatever I stole. That's the principle of stealing, after all: I want no one else to have what I want, so I'm just going to take it. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that's hurting someone else.

When I lie, even to myself, I am hurting every man, woman, and child who puts their trust in me.

When I shirk my responsibilities, I make it that much harder for everyone else to fulfill theirs.

When I lust after a woman who does not belong to me, I am seeking to rob myself and her of a happy life with happy relationships so that I can enjoy a few moments of selfish pleasure.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, sin has consequences.

I didn't even talk about Hell, which is a subject we will cover later on, after we have finished tackling God's commandments in the Torah, but of course the Bible is clear that there is a final judgment, and all souls who have lived in sin throughout the number of their days will experience a torment far worse than any we can experience in this life.

But I wanted to indicate to you in this post very strongly that the consequences of sin affect others in this life. You may not want to accept that, you may want to switch to another blog after reading this, but the fact is that your sin hurts other people, indeed everyone around you, and that is why the God of the Bible is so adamantly against sin.

Ladies and gentlemen, that is why we have the ultimate sacrifice, the Cross of Christ Jesus. His blood, shed for the remission of sins, poured out in streams on that wooden crucifix, making pools in the ground for you and for your atonement. You don't have to suffer the weight of bloodguilt for all the wicked things you've ever done in your life--that's what the blood of the Cross is for.

In the New Testament, Christ Jesus is referred to over and over as "the Lamb," and this is something very meaningful when you consider the original Passover regulations, because a Passover lamb had to be eaten in one night, signifying a new life freed from bondage to slavery, and the blood of the Passover lamb was used to indicate that the owner of the house was a Hebrew and therefore not subject to judgment.



I took some time to research the hyssop plant, mentioned in Exodus 12:22,

Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin, and put some of the blood on the top and on both sides of the doorframe. Not one of you shall go out the door of his house until morning.

and what I found was very interesting. All of the websites I looked up, including several botanical sites, indicated that the plant has certain healing qualities as an herb.

I'm not a fan of Wikipedia--as a resource, it is fairly hit or miss--but the following paragraph from Wikipedia describes the healing qualities of the hyssop plant in a way that is somewhat easier for the layman to understand:

Hyssop also has medicinal properties which are listed as including expectorant, carminative, relaxes peripheral blood vessels, promotes sweating, anti-inflammatory, anti-catarrhal, antispasmodic. Its active constituents are volatile oil, flavonoids, tannins and bitter substance (marrubin). A strong tea made from the leaves and flowering tops is used in lung, nose and throat congestion and catarrhal complaints, and externally it can be applied to bruises, to reduce the swelling and discolouration. An old English country remedy for cuts and wounds suffered while working in the fields was to apply a poultice of bruised hyssop leaves and sugar in order to reduce the risk of tetanus infection. An essential oil made from hyssop increases alertness and is a gently relaxing nerve tonic suitable for treating nervous exhaustion, overwork, anxiety and depression. The Herb Society's "Complete Medicinal Herbal" cautions however that "the essential oil contains the ketone pino-camphone which in high doses can cause convulsions. Do not take more than the recommended dose."

Isn't it interesting, also, that hyssop became a part of Christ's crucifixion? In his account of Jesus' last moments on the Cross, John provides for us the following vivid portrait of a longsuffering, merciful Savior:

Later, knowing that all was now completed, and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, "I am thirsty." A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus' lips. When he had received the drink, Jesus said, "It is finished." With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. (John 19:28-30)

The very stick on which the sponge that the soldiers used to give Jesus something to drink rested was from the hyssop plant. It seems that on this Passover of Passovers, when the Lamb of lambs was sacrificed, hyssop was again dipped in blood, not only for the freedom of the Jews but for the freedom of every man, woman, and child on the Earth.

Yes, your sin hurts other people, but my friend, it doesn't have to go on that way. Through Christ Jesus, you can be freed. Through Christ Jesus, you can be brought into a new world. Through Christ Jesus, the incredible weight and bloodguilt of your sin can be atoned for.

I know these are ancient, meaningless words to a lot of you--I sat through sermons on the atoning sacrifice of Christ Jesus myself years ago and ignored every word I heard--but for some of you, they may be everything you needed. We hear so often on the conservative radio today that America is a Christian nation, but I think that if we examine our hearts and look at the Bible, we will find that we are far more lost than we ever could have imagined.

Don't rest on your church membership or your casual adoption of the name "Christian." The Lord whose name you invoke will not accept anything less than a soul willing to turn away from sin.

The blood of Christ is crying out for your soul.

Are you going to listen?

The Festival of Unleavened Bread: Testament to a Sick and Dying Church

Our text in this post shall be Exodus 12:14-20, and I'd like you to follow along very slowly (yes, even as a reader) because there is something here, I believe, of major importance for the majority of American Christians today.

This is a day you are to commemorate. For the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the LORD, a lasting ordinance. For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast. On the first day remove the yeast from your houses, for whoever eats anything with yeast in it from the first day through the seventh must be cut off from Israel. On the first day hold a sacred assembly, and another one on the seventh day. Do no work at all on these days, except to prepare food for everyone to eat—that is all you may do.

Celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread, because it was on this very day that I brought your divisions out of Egypt. Celebrate this day as a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. In the first month you are to eat bread made without yeast, from the evening of the fourteenth day until the evening of the twenty-first day. For seven days no yeast is to be found in your houses. And whoever eats anything with yeast in it must be cut off from the community of Israel, whether he is an alien or native-born. Eat nothing made with yeast. Wherever you live, you must eat unleavened bread.

Let me start, ladies and gentlemen, by calling our memories back to another verse from the same chapter, Exodus 12:11

This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste. It is the LORD's Passover.

On the night that the Israelites were freed from the bondage of Egyptian slavery, the Lord provided for them a way to leave the country with full stomachs--by eating the Passover lamb (which we will talk about more later) and by eating the Passover bread. The firstborn of all Egypt, from the firstborn of the domestic servant to the firstborn of Pharaoh, were all killed by the Lord in one night--but those Israelites who put hyssop (dipped in blood) on their doorposts were to stand out as a people whom the Lord chose for His good and holy purposes (see Exodus 12:1-10).

Now, let us go back to those words: "Eat it in haste."

What does that mean?

Well, the very next morning, all the neighbors of the Israelites, the Egyptians who had been holding them in bondage, were so anxious for them (and their God) to leave the country, and so despondent over the loss of so many dear children over Pharaoh's stubbornness, that they literally ushered them off their land, giving them whatever they wanted just so they would go. The Israelites, therefore, had to leave in haste--and the night before, as you can imagine, was one in which they knew the seriousness of what they were about to enter into as a people. From that night on, they would be uprooted, never again to know the predictable terrors and comforts of generational slavery.

Yes, you read that right. I said "terrors and comforts"--because the same generation that walked out of Egypt the next morning with their heads held high was the one that grumbled against Moses, and God, for taking them away from a life in which they had beds to lie in, houses to work in, and regular allotments of food.

What does that have to do with unleavened bread, you may ask?

Well, ladies and gentlemen, as all of us who grew up in country homes can tell you, the process of leavening bread--i.e. the process of putting in that wonderful yeast that makes dough rise and acquire that wonderful fluffy texture to which you and I are so accustomed--takes a lot of time. It takes several hours for "leaven" (or yeast) to do its work, and all of this must happen before the dough is baked (another hour). There is absolutely no way that a couple preparing to leave in haste would be able to allow themselves the luxury of waiting until a batch of dough had risen before baking it, particularly when one considers the other main element of the Passover meal: the lamb.

This scene was to be reenacted every year by each and every household in the community of Israel. Why? Because every year, it was to serve as a reminder that, while not always comfortable, their lives would be free. The Israelites were to have a living (or at least edible) testimony every year that the Lord knew what their needs would be before they even asked, and that He would always be there to provide for those needs.

What a wonderful picture this is of the Lord's goodness . . . and how little even those of us who call ourselves Christians grasp it today.

In Matthew 16:6, we read the following words of Jesus, which I'm afraid are often misunderstood in today's American Christian context:

Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

Later on, Jesus explains to the disciples that he is speaking metaphorically, since they at first assumed he was chiding them for not bringing any bread with them. (Ladies and gentlemen, we love to laugh at the disciples and their "tomfoolery," but we in the 21st century United States are no better.) However, the meaning and symbolism of Jesus' words are lost to us unless we first take the time to examine Exodus 12.

You see, the Pharisees had a very simple problem, one that every facet of American Christianity suffers from today: They assumed that the worldly systems and structures that kept them in place as respected members of their society would always remain, even unto the end of the age.

They were comfortable, they were complacent, and they had no inkling that the Roman system which allowed them to serve as honored men would only last as long as those in charge of that system wanted it to. Approximately 30-40 years after Jesus' resurrection, not only the priesthood but the nation of Judea itself were destroyed by the Roman emperors, resulting in what we have today come to call the Diaspora, or dispersal of Judeans (or "Jews") across Europe.

Much of American Christianity is in the same boat, ladies and gentlemen, and it pains me to watch people in conservative Christian circles talk as if the systems and structures of the United States are eternal, both in significance and longevity. Christian radio talk show hosts urge their listeners to vote, to write their congressmen, to march in political rallies, as if the American political system can always be trusted to serve Christian ends. They talk of supporting our troops and refer to military enterprises currently under way in the Middle East as if they were "our wars" fought by "our boys."

Ladies and gentlemen, I am all for loving our troops--as I am all for loving Osama bin Laden, Sheikh Nasrallah, and Iranian President Ahmadinejad. The Bible says, after all, that we are supposed to love our neighbors, and I believe Jesus' parable of the good Samaritan served as ample answer--then and now--of who our "neighbors" are.

I also believe in praying for our nation's leaders. Paul wrote in Romans 13:1 that "there is no authority except that which God has established," and this principle is clearly articulated throughout the Bible. I think it is also important for us to remember that Paul wrote those words in a world in which his own people were subjugated by a pagan empire that invented methods of torture and execution (including the cross) which were designed to prolong the victim's life as long as possible, with as much pain and suffering as possible. Whether the governing political authorities in a particular nation are "just" or "unjust" in the eyes of the world has no bearing on whether or not a Christian should submit to them--the Bible is very clear that to rise up in bloody rebellion is not only to disobey men but to disobey God.

No, ladies and gentlemen, what I object to is the whimsical attitude with which war and economic exploitation and, worst of all, nationalism are associated in the minds of most Americans with serving the Lord. Is this not the same Lord who, when His disciples attempted to strike his captors, rebuked them with the words "all who draw the sword will die by the sword" (Matthew 26:52)? Is this not the same Lord who reached out his hand to a Roman soldier--a member of the same army that would later crucify Him--and heal that soldier's slave (Matthew 8:5-13)? Is this not the same Lord who lifted up not one finger in anger against those who called him a servant of the devil, a drunkard, a glutton, and a madman?

Ladies and gentlemen, I submit to you that the life we are offered in Christ is more than a comfortable life in a suburb, surrounded by friends who vote the same way we do, wear the same clothes we wear, and (probably) attend the same church we do. Christ said "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God" (Matthew 19:24 and Mark 10:25), and that is as true today as it was 2000 years ago.

Are you willing to enter the alleyways and search out the homeless, the wanderers, the prostitutes, and the drug addicts in order to show them that there is a Savior and that, yes, they are worthy of love?

Are you willing to walk into a poor neighborhood in your city and share the same kind of warmth, smiles, and love that you share with your middle class neighbors in the cul-de-sac?

Are you willing to go to a country in which Islam is the main religion and risk life, fortune, and blood to win souls for the Lord, Christ Jesus?

Ladies and gentlemen, the American church today is full of leaven. We are too comfortable, too fat, too lazy to see a world of pain outside our doorstep, and the hurting souls that cry out day and night, "Where is the one who will tell me of a reason to go on living?" We don't want to leave our homes in haste, as the Israelites did for their Lord--in fact, we don't want to leave our homes at all.

A nation in which 80% of the people claim to be Christians while families and marriages are breaking apart in droves and children--born and unborn--are dying because of a pronounced lack of love in their culture is a nation which is an embarassment to Christ, not a testimony. We had better get on our knees, my friends, and beg the God of Heaven, and the Father of our Lord, Christ Jesus, to make us new creations and to spare our land from the measure of wrath which is assuredly being stored up against it. This land is bleeding--and the blood is crying out to God for vengeance, and the Lord is looking to us for answers (see Genesis 4:7-8)

We cannot afford to be complacent anymore. The system that has become so comfortable for us to live in is going to self-destruct in approximately 10-20 years, and the next generation, I'm afraid, is ill-equipped to take leadership in this country, either political or spiritual. We are simply out of room, ladies and gentlemen, and whether we like it or not, the Lord is going to call everyone who professes the name of Christ to take some steps into an economic and spiritual wilderness, just as the Lord called the Israelites to walk into a physical wilderness so many millennia ago.

It's time to separate the men from the boys (or the women from the girls, if you prefer). Are you willing to let go of the political and economic systems and structures of this world for the Lord, or is your allegiance to Christ only skin deep? You may think I'm harsh for asking this question in such blunt terms, and maybe I am, but my friend, it is better for you to find out where your loyalties really are here and now than for you to find out the hard way in a time when Christ and His people may not be so popular anymore.

Where is your loyalty?

Who (or what) does your heart really belong to?

Judas: Omen for the Last Days

Normally I would continue in my study of the Torah, since that is what I said I was going to do for the next several months, but this past week, the Lord has given me a word that I want to share because it affects the way we look at the society we live in today.

In many of today's churches, when we hear sermons from the Bible at all, we hear sermons on "good" figures, such as Peter, or David, or St. Paul--and we hear, in my experience, something like this: "Peter was a godly man, but he was not perfect. He was saved. In like manner, you and I are godly men (and women), but we are not perfect. We are instead saved."

This is small comfort to me, ladies and gentlemen. In a nation where 80% of respondents to recent surveys said they believed in an afterlife--and even believe in God--but 60% of Christian (that's right, Christian) marriages end in divorce, I find sermons like the one above, so commonly heard in our congregations today, to be not only foolish but even, in a culture that prizes Playstations, Nikes, and Magnavox DVD players over spirituality, enabling.

No, I think it is far more instructive--and timely--for our pew warmers to listen to an example from the Bible that isn't so pretty, and from a life that isn't very often preached about these days. The example I'm referring to, ladies and gentlemen, is the example of Judas Iscariot. Yes, that's right--the "evil" disciple, the one who betrayed Jesus, that is the Judas I will be talking about at great length in this post. What is so compelling about this man, you may ask, that I would devote an entire (lengthy) post to his life?

Let me answer that question by outlining first what we know about this man from the New Testament accounts:

1. We know that Judas was one of the twelve disciples, one of Jesus' inner circle (Matthew 10:4, Mark 3:19, Luke 6:16, and John 6:71).

2. We know that his father's name was Simon, and that "Iscariot" was a family name (John 6:71).

3. We know that Judas was greedy, to the extent that he would help himself to the disciples' common treasury when it suited him (John 12:6).

4. We know that Jesus sharply rebuked Judas for his attachment to money and things (John 12:1-8, corroborated in Matthew 26:8-13), and that immediately after that, Judas went to the chief priests of Judea with the intent to betray Jesus to them (Matthew 26:14).

5. We know that Judas asked the chief priests what they would pay him to betray Jesus, and they offered him thirty silver coins (Matthew 26:15), which he accepted (Matthew 26:15).

6. We know that even though the Holy Spirit had informed Jesus of the identity of his betrayer, and even though Jesus demonstrated this beyond doubt at the disciples' feast of Unleavened Bread (otherwise known as the Passover), Judas still attempted to claim innocence (Matthew 26:25).

7. We also know that even as Judas' act of betrayal reached its fruition, he still attempted to put on a show of innocence by kissing Jesus and calling him "rabbi" (Matthew 26:49, Mark 14:45, and Luke 22:47), and that Jesus, incredulous, said, "Are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?" (Luke 22:48).

8. We know that Judas was so stricken by what he was willing to do for thirty pieces of silver, even though he had been under the direct tutelage of the Lord for 3 years, that he committed suicide (Matthew 27:3-5).

9. Finally--and this is important, ladies and gentlemen--we know that at the moment that Judas got up from the feast of Unleavened Bread to betray Jesus, the motivating factor in his actions was that "Satan entered him" (Luke 22:3, corroborated in John 13:2).



We live in a land where people betray each other for money every day--some for millions of dollars, and others for twenty, but the principal is the same--and there are spiritual forces at work in this nation that would seek to reduce every man, woman, and child to a mere "consumer," an animal that pampers its own fleshly desires at the expense of not only its brethren but at the cost of everything good and noble.

We live in a land where the prevailing wisdom is "the Bible is boring, but my TiVo is more than I will ever need."

We live in a land where men who claim the passion of service as ministers of Christ to a lonely, hurting people are caught surfing the internet looking for porn, or embezzling money, or investing in questionable business ventures with equally questionable partners.

We live in a land where the words "abortion" and "divorce" and "adultery" are greeted, not with horror, but as a normal facet of everyday life, and we live in a land where "the home" is a place people run away from more often than they cherish it.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this land is a very sad land, and it is the one we live in--but I am not speaking today of America, or at least not the secular America of politics, public schools, and corporate-military power. No, I am speaking of the American church.

That's right. You and me--or at least those of us who profess to be Christians--we are the Judases.

You see, Judas was a disciple, just like Peter and John and James. He volunteered to live under the direct teaching of Christ Jesus himself, and continued to live under the Lord's guidance for 3 years. He was every bit as much a "Christian" (in the sense of being associated with Christ) as the other eleven were--but there was a difference:

Judas' number one priority was not Christ.

I want you to let that sink in for a moment.

There are a lot of you out there (I know because I was one of you not so long ago) who go to church regularly, listen to Christian radio, and play Christian music in your homes. You have family Bibles, you buy all the "right" devotionals, and you keep your television glued to "spiritual" programming (either the local TBN station or programs such as "Touched by an Angel" on other networks). You're against abortion, you vote Republican, and you accompany the thunderous statements of men such as James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson with enthusiastic applause and "amen"'s . . .

Inside, though, you don't have Christ in your heart as your number one priority. The Jesus who said "heal the sick" and "feed my lambs" is not on your radar, and when you hear the Holy Spirit saying to you, "You will always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me," just as Jesus said to Judas 2000 years ago in defense of the woman who poured a jar of perfume over his head worth a year's wages (John 12:8), you find yourself chafing at Jesus' apparent lack of concern for material things every bit as much as Judas did.

My heart grieves for you, my friend.

You see, we don't live in this world as residents and citizens but as strangers and aliens. The fundamental truth of the Christian walk in this world is that in Christ, our hope lies elsewhere--a future more bright, more hopeful, and more real than anything this ridiculous excuse for a world has to offer. Jesus himself even said that this world, as we know it, is passing away (Matthew 24:35, Mark 13:31, and Luke 21:33).

This world, and may I say it, this nation we call the United States, has no future. It will go the way of the dodo and probably before you and I expect it to . . . so, my friend, just what are you holding on to?

Do you think your retirement pension is going to help you? Ladies and gentlemen, you and I already know that most major corporations in the United States have found a way around allowing longtime employees to collect their pensions. It's called outsourcing, and companies all over the United States are using this concept to lay off men and women who have worked for them for 20 or 30 years in favor of "cheaper" labor overseas.

Do you think the welfare system is going to help you? It is well-known that the current entitlement spending system, coupled with the current crisis caused by millions of baby boomers all retiring at once, is going to go belly up in 10-15 years. And personally, I'm not going to put my trust in the warm feelings and goodwill of a bunch of overpaid politicians and staff members in Washington D.C. to make sure that I get a social security check 40 years from now.

Do you think that the next generation is going to help you? Ladies and gentlemen, over the past 10-15 years, I have gotten a good look at what is coming out of our public schools, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist, in my opinion, to figure out that given the popularity of a teen and college culture that prizes hard drinking, partying, and illicit sex over responsibility and concern for others, we are going to have a real leadership vacuum in this country in 15-20 years. A nation in which a presidential candidate is rudely caricatured in a striptease video made by college chums for the sole purpose of airing fraternity-style jocularity on the internet is a nation that should fear for the integrity of its future leaders, to say nothing of its own future.

Maybe I'm coming on a little strong in this post, maybe you're sitting at your computer thinking "this guy is over the top, and a fanatic," but the point I'm making is very simple: You can't count on the material prosperity of this world.

Our nation is not invincible. Other nations have risen and fallen before us. Even Rome, that great empire whose remnants continued to exist for almost 1500 years after Christ's resurrection, is no longer with us.

Are you going to trust in the wealth of a world in which nothing is held to be lasting or permanent, or are you going to trust in the Lord, Christ Jesus?

We are all Judases, my friend, but we don't have to end up the same way Judas did. Jesus loved Judas just as much as he loved Peter and John and James, and he was trying to reach him, even at the Last Supper.

Are you going to listen?

Some Notes on Recent Personal Reading

Today, I read a chapter from Andrew Murray's book Full Life in Christ which focused on the importance of conforming to Christ's example in suffering wrong, and I wondered: Do people in America who take the name of Christ suffer wrong?

It seems that if they do, the wrong is of a far different sort than the kind that our Lord suffered 2000 years ago--no whippings, no remorseless jamming of razor sharp thorns into a man's skull, no hours of agonizing pain on a cross designed to extend the victim's life as long as possible, no spitting, no frenzied attempts by one's own townspeople to tear their victim to pieces with their bare hands, and absolutely, positively no homelessness.

I suppose that what goes for "persecution" today in the eyes of contemporary American evangelicals is name-calling, stereotyping, and the annual attempt by non-Christian groups to prevent the traditional display of the Nativity in the local town square during the Christmas holiday season. I wonder if the Jay Sekulows, the James Dobsons, and the Ralph Reeds of the world would be surprised to learn that even 400 years ago, Christians faced torture, mutilation, and fiery death--without complaint--as martyrs for Christ. I wonder if the same people within our nation's politico-religious establishment who regularly decry the evils of "Islamofascism" remember that the Christian-Muslim wars of today are simply skirmishes in a long (and equally sad) history of violence between brothers. I wonder if God is shedding tears over the malicious use of his Son's name (and sacrifice) for selfish human purposes, or if he has instead resolved to teach his so-called children a lesson . . .

Personally, I think that a nation with a 60% divorce rate in its churches, that kills 2 million babies (and then some) a year and that swallows the rest of us (born and unborn) in a tidal wave of materialism, substance abuse, and greed dares not invoke the name of the same God who destroyed the ancient Canaanites--as well as the nation of Israel--for engaging in similar practices. I think that a church which mobilizes against groups such as NOW and Planned Parenthood without addressing the very real vacuum it has created in an entire generation's sexual development dares not assume that Christ looks upon its disdain for young pregnant mothers with any less contempt than he would have looked upon those who scorned his mother Mary. And I think that a person who invokes the name of Christ in the cause of his own growing material prosperity without bothering to help those who are poor, blind, pitiful, and naked should read the Bible with a healthy dose of fear.

There are some within American Christendom today who would paint a nightmare scenario for us of Muslims slowly but surely infesting and taking over every formerly Christian institution, nation, and culture in the world--turning churches into mosques, forcing American women to wear burqas, and outlawing the use and/or dissemination of the Bible. Having known a few Muslims, I highly doubt that such a complex conspiracy is in the offing, but if it were, I will only say that I place more trust in the care of my beloved Savior than I do in my own life, and if my Lord were to require my life of me in His service, I would gladly give it, as so many generations of Christians have been called to give of themselves for the glory of the Cross, even unto death.

Those who so vigorously defend the institutions of American Christendom fail to consider that perhaps the Lord wishes sometimes to deal his self-proclaimed servants a few defeats in order to test how wide and how deep their loyalty really is. Christianity, from its origins to the present day, has not only thrived but rejoiced in its persecutions, and it seems that the purity of Christ's adherents shines the brightest when their lives are at stake. Is it so repugnant to the American psyche to lose one's life for Christ's sake (and the sake of the Gospel) that we cannot bring ourselves even to help the homeless, the widows, and the orphans in our own neighborhoods? Are Americans so ashamed of the Gospel their forbears held as sacred that their laptops, Gameboys, and satellite televisions mean more to them than the traditional family Bible once meant to generations that passed before us?

Herein is the mission of my blog: not to make you feel ashamed (after all, I am no less a failure in these matters than you are) but to call everyone--man, woman, and child--who invokes the name of Jesus the Christ to the standard this name implies.

Exodus 12

As promised (approximately a month ago--sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but taking care of my pregnant wife is far more important to me, and the Lord, than providing daily reading material for the blogging public), I am going to focus on those portions of scripture (namely Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) that many Protestant Christians, to be frank, find utterly boring and/or unworthy of their consideration. I think, however, that you will find those portions of scripture to be far more simple and applicable to your daily life--and more importantly, your spiritual life--than you had at first believed.

Rather than beginning with Exodus 1, as most Bible explicators would do, I have instead chosen to begin with Exodus 12 because it is my intention to focus our energy on the actual directives handed down to Moses, rather than the "cool," "neat," or "interesting" stories that most Sunday School teachers, to their shame, manage to pick out for their pupils. The Torah has never been designed to be merely a story book--it is instead the heart of the Old Testament, the very foundation without which none of the other books of the Bible (including Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) can stand.

Let me begin by clearing up one very common misconception: The "Law" that followers of Jesus such as Paul and Peter spoke against was not, repeat NOT, the Torah. They were, after all, Jews themselves, and holy men, not rabble-rousing revolutionaries bent on destroying faith and nation for self-perceived priorities. It would have been unthinkable for Paul, a former priest schooled under Gamaliel, to turn his back on the very scriptures he so often mentioned in his letters as proof of Jesus' divinity, and it would have been even more unthinkable for Peter, whose zeal for righteousness was such that he was unable to enter the courtyard of Cornelius, a Gentile, without great internal struggle and the direct intervention of God Himself, to turn his back on the teachings that shaped his nation and his identity.

Instead, what Paul and Peter were opposing was the institution of systems and structures that effectively created a new corpus of "laws" equivalent (in the minds of their adherents) to the Torah. The Judaean priesthood essentially created a "new" Bible of rituals, rules, and regulations, which blotted out the simplicity and love inherent in the original text of the Torah. This is ultimately what blinded their eyes to the truth of Jesus' divinity, and why Jesus said that though they "searched the scriptures" because in them they hoped to find eternal life, they failed to see the fulfillment of those same scriptures when he was walking in their midst.

Today, we live in a society in which the church says, effectively, that the Torah, the Nev'im, and the Ketuvim (otherwise known as the Torah, the Prophets, and the Other Writings that comprise the Old Testament) have no meaning in the believer's life. Since we are Gentiles, not Jews, we are told that those commandments back there in the Old Testament are not for us, and even if they were, we have been absolved from following them because of Christ's sacrifice. But you can't comprehend Christ's sacrifice without knowledge of the Torah and the commandments contained within it--what one is left with, without this knowledge, is simply a whitewashed version of paganism, in which Christ (like the gods of most religions, both new and old) is a sugar daddy who lets his children get awaqy with anything, including murder.



The main corpus of commandments in the book of Exodus begins in chapter 12, and those of you who are Jewish should at least have some passing familiarity with the words below:

This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year. Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb [a] for his family, one for each household. If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbor, having taken into account the number of people there are. You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat. The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats. Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the people of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight. Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs. That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with bitter herbs, and bread made without yeast. Do not eat the meat raw or cooked in water, but roast it over the fire—head, legs and inner parts. Do not leave any of it till morning--if some is left till morning, you must burn it. This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste. It is the LORD's Passover.

Yes, this is a bloody ceremony.

Then again, in our country (the United States), hundreds of thousands of cattle, pigs, sheep, and (yes) lambs are slaughtered, brutally, each year for a far less noble purpose. The Israelites were a nation of slaves, bound within the walls of Egypt, and even though the Lord had struck down the produce and vitality of that nation in order to convince its rulers to let them go free, Egypt's Pharoah still refused to listen. The Lord then had one more task, one that would ensure that the people of Egypt would not only let their slaves go free but send them off with their gold and silver, their jewels and their household possessions.

This act is summarized below:

On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn—both men and animals—and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the LORD. The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.

In order for the Israelites to be freed from slavery, an entire generation had to die--human blood, to atone for the human blood that was being kept in bondage. In the same way, Jesus (who was crucified during a celebration of Passover) bled white so that we who are so bound to the shackles of greed, hatred, and foolish arrogance may be free ourselves.

A Christian is more than merely a "Jesus worshipper"--a Christian is someone whose acceptance of Jesus' blood sacrifice is joyous, heartfelt, and transformational, not just in him-/herself but in others. Being Jewish is not a barrier to receiving Christ as your Lord and Savior--after all, the Jews were always intended to be God's priesthood to all the nations of the Earth--and being Christian, much as the American public seems to assume otherwise, is not equivalent with being a Gentile. It is one of the greatest tragedies in human history that the very people Jesus longed to see ushering souls by the thousands into the kingdom of God rejected the author and finisher of their faith. Those of us who are Gentiles should take a little more care, as Paul notes in Romans 11, to attach proper respect and reverence to a God whose chosen people our forefathers harassed, persecuted, and attempted to exterminate.