Questions and Answers, Part 9

Transcript

GRM 1205
11/11/2018
Question and Answer, Part 9
Selected Verses
Gil Rugh

Last time we didn’t take time for questions with communion. And then some things I shared with you, we didn’t have time for that. So, I’m going to spend more time on the questions tonight. But I do want to just touch on some things we talked about last time. We didn’t cover the last few points I want to draw to your attention. So, we put up the Abrahamic Covenant here. We’re talking about the covenants that we believe, as we call ourselves dispensationalists, taking the bible literally. We believe that the covenants ought to be what the bible calls them, covenants. We looked at the covenants of those who are called covenant theologians, often identified with reform theologians, where they have three covenants, but they are covenants that are not called covenants in the bible. The covenant of grace, the covenant of redemption, the covenant of works. Referring to a covenant, supposedly made with Adam in the garden. And I want to say something about a connection to that with a question I have this week.

But those aren’t called covenants, and so I think we ought to limit our covenants to what the bible calls covenants. The first use of the word covenant, remember in the bible in the Old Testament, is with Noah. God made a covenant with Noah in Genesis 9. We looked at that. And that is a universal covenant. It’s a covenant with mankind, the descendants of Noah, which includes everyone. Because, remember we’re all descendants of Adam, but through Noah, because the whole earth was destroyed and all the people except Noah and his family. So, all of us became descendants of Noah. That covenant was with all creation really. It’s a universal covenant. It’s called a nonredemptive covenant, because it doesn’t include information about salvation, redemption.

Whereas, when we get to the Abrahamic covenant, the major covenant of Scripture, foundational, made with Abraham repeatedly. First record of it is in Geneses 12 and on other occasions we’ve looked at the details, as it’s repeated with his son Isaac. Repeated with his grandson Jacob. So, it comes Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Three parts to it: land, seed and blessing. The land is expanded in the land covenant, sometimes called the Palestinian Covenant. So, I’ve used that name here, although it’s somewhat of a misnomer, but it elaborates like Deuteronomy 29 and 30 talks about a covenant. God makes clear in Deuteronomy 29 that this is different than the Mosaic covenant established at Horeb. Now He’s making a covenant to particularly develop the land promise. Then there is the seed. It gets elaborated in the Davidic covenant in Second Samuel 7 with David.

And then the new covenant. With this there are three areas of promises to Abraham. There are individual promises to Abraham personally. He’ll be the father of a great nation, he will experience God’s blessing, he’ll have a great name, he’ll be a blessing. Those are personal promises to Abraham that are included in this covenant. Then there are the national promises to Israel. That Abraham’s descendants would be a great nation, be an innumerable people, possess the land permanently. Those who don’t take Old Testament promises and covenants literally, end up spiritualizing away what are such precious promises. I don’t know how! We’ve been through this on other occasions where we’ve spent more time. God couldn’t have been more specific about the land. He even tells Abraham to walk through the land and everywhere the soles of his sandals touch will belong to him and his descendants. I mean it is concrete land. So, these are national promises to Israel. They pertain to the nation, not to the nations. There’s only one nation God has chosen, so this is the promises to them.

Then there are universal promises to all the nations. All the nations of the earth will be blessed in Abraham. That would include Jews, but it also includes Gentiles. This is where the new covenant comes in. We talked about it in Ezekiel 36 and Jeremiah 31. Jeremiah 31 calls it the new covenant. I will make a new covenant with Israel and with Judah, but in that new covenant is provision for salvation. And with the coming of Christ, we find that that provision of salvation encompasses the Gentiles in a greater way than the Old Testament Jews had any comprehension. They knew that Gentiles could be saved. There were some Gentiles saved in the Old Testament. But for the Gentiles to become the focal point of God’s work of salvation is something revealed in the New Testament, with the establishing of the Church. Following the death and resurrection of Christ, the church was established in Acts 2.

When we partook of the communion service earlier this evening, we said, this is the new covenant in my blood. This is what Jesus said. He established the new covenant with His death. That’s what it took to bring redemption. It included placing the Holy Spirit within the person. Remember Jesus told His disciples while He was on earth, the Holy Spirit is with you, He will be in you. And that’s part of the provision with the covenant. So, we are the beneficiaries of the provision of salvation in the new covenant, but the new covenant has also provisions for Israel, uniquely. So, the fact that Jeremiah 31 says He’ll make the new covenant with Israel and Judah, combining the nation again, is not surprising because there’s no revelation of the church in the Old Testament.

But there is the provision in the Abrahamic covenant for all the nations to be blessed in Abraham. It’s through the descendant of Abraham, the Messiah of Israel, who provided salvation. And it is a salvation that is being carried to us as Gentiles. There will come a time as we have talked about, as we move through Revelation, God will again resume the focus of His work in the world in the nation Israel, after the church is raptured. And that’s the seven-year tribulation that culminates in the national salvation of Israel. That does not mean every Jew will be saved. But Israel as a nation will experience God’s salvation as multitudes of Jews turn to Him.

I just wanted to be sure we had more of the complete picture of the view of the biblical covenants. And the new covenant, when we studied Hebrews, is elaborated in the book of Hebrews. It’s contrasted with the provisions of the Abrahamic covenant, in particularly the Mosaic Law, that is not part of the Abrahamic covenant. So, remember when we diagramed it, we put a little dotted side box out under the new covenant. Because when you talk about the new covenant, it’s being contrasted, not with the Abrahamic covenant, but with the Mosaic covenant, that was added over 400 years after God’s covenant with Abraham, to be a guide to keep Israel on the track, govern their life as a nation in all aspects, until their Messiah would come and establish the new covenant. With the coming of Christ, the establishing of the new covenant, the old covenant has served its purpose. It’s no longer operative. That doesn’t mean there aren’t things to be learned from it. It doesn’t mean that there aren’t things in it that are true for us today. But as a covenant, it’s no longer operative. Mosaic law has fulfilled its purpose as a covenant. So, we are under the new covenant.

Alright. I had a question and it relates to the covenants. It relates to the possibility of a covenant in the book of Hosea. So, you might turn to Hosea 6. Hosea is one of the beginning of what we call minor prophets; not minor in importance, but in size. So, it’s just after the book Daniel. And we’re going to look at Hosea 6, because there is something here that relates to covenants, as we’ve talked about.

***The question I have, do I see Hosea 6:7 as an implied covenant between God and Adam? And in Hosea 6, verse 7, “But like Adam they have transgressed the covenant; there they have dealt treacherously against Me.” There is some discussion about what covenant are we talking about here? Now when you read the English translation in our New American Standard Bible, we say, well, it’s solved, it was the covenant with Adam. You have this in the margin of your bible, if you’re using the New American Standard, where it says ‘men’. Because the name Adam is just the Hebrew name for man.
Keep your finger in Hosea and come back to Genesis 1, verse 26. “Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness….” Verse 27, “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” But when it says in verse 26, “‘Let Us make man in Our image…’” verse 27, “God created man…” the word for ‘man’ is Adam. So, you could translate it, “‘Let Us make Adam in Our image...’” Verse 27, “God created Adam in His own image…male and female He created them.” Well, we know in the context here, God is talking about mankind. Man, because it includes male and female. So, He’s not talking about the individual particularly, the man Adam. But when He created the first man, He called him man, Adam. So, that’s where there can be some confusion.

The New American Standard translators just decided to put it in here as Adam. Come back to Hosea 6, verse 7. It could be translated here, “But like men they have transgressed the covenant…” And I think that’s the better view here. He’s not talking about a covenant with Adam. There is no covenant, called a covenant, with Adam. Hosea was a prophet, contemporary of Isaiah and Amos, and Hosea’s ministry was to the northern 10 tribes. And they are obviously, going to be carried away in the Assyrian captivity. They are guilty of gross sin, idolatry, unfaithfulness to Jehovah. And so, I think what Hosea is saying here, “But like men they have transgressed the covenant…” They ought to be unique. God entered a covenant relationship with Israel, both northern and southern parts of the nation, because it was one nation when He gave them His covenant. Particularly the Mosaic covenant. That was the covenant governing them as a nation.

Remember when they came out of Egypt. After the exodus, God met with them and established the Mosaic covenant with them to govern their life as His nation. But they’ve been like men dealing with covenants, they just break them. They ignore them. It’s like Israel today. They’ll claim a possession of the land as rightfully theirs, yet at the same time, they don’t believe their bible. There is an inconsistency there. They want to have it both ways. They want to be recognized as a special people. In one sense, God’s people. But they really don’t believe their Scriptures by in large. There are some Jews that would adhere in some ways to Old Testament law, but by in large, they don’t. So, I think the contrast is drawn here, “But like men they have transgressed the covenant; there they have dealt treacherously against Me.” So, the covenant that He had made with Israel at Mt Sinai, the Mosaic law, they’ve transgressed it. They’re just like men, they treated it as just a piece of paper. And they wanted to claim certain things of it when they needed God to deliver them when they called upon Him to deliver them.

But other than that, they wanted to do things their own way. Do their own thing. “…there they have dealt treacherously against Me.” And he gives some examples here. Gilead was the land east of the Jordan, given to the two and a half tribes as they prepared to conquer the land promised. Come over to chapter 8, verse 1, “Put the trumpet to your lips! Like an eagle the enemy comes against the house of the Lord, because they have transgressed My covenant...” Saying the same thing as we had in chapter 6, verse 7, “…like men they have transgressed the covenant…” Here in chapter 8, verse 1, “…they have transgressed My covenant and rebelled against My law.” So, the issue He’s dealing with here is, the northern 10 tribes, their unfaithfulness to the law that God gave them. The Mosaic law with all its provisions. Remember, Hosea is a contemporary of Isaiah.

What did Isaiah say representing God? Isaiah chapter 1, don’t bring your sacrifices to Me any longer, it’s a “trampling of My courts”. It’s a sacrilege. You go through the motions of this when you defy Me, when you disobey Me, when you worship your idols and all this. So, that’s the context of Hosea. The judgment that is going to come on the northern 10 tribes, sometimes called Ephraim, one of the prominent of the 10 northern tribes, like we call the southern 2 tribes, Judah. So, you’ll see the prophecies concerning Ephraim here in Hosea chapter 7, verse 1. “When I would heal Israel, the iniquity of Ephraim is uncovered, and the evil deeds of Samaria…” Remember Samaria, the worship capitol of the northern 10 tribes, with its idolatrous center, in all their sin.

I think chapter 6, verse 7, “…they have transgressed the covenant…dealt treacherously against Me” is basically just talking about their dealing like with every other man. They disregard the covenant that God has established. It’s nothing to them except for when they want to use it. It’s like people today, religious people. Religious of one brand or another. They might call themselves Christians, might be part of one of the cults that will use the bible, but really, they have no interest in being conformed to it. And when you share portions out of the bible with them, it becomes offensive to them. But they’ll quote scripture when it seems to suit their purposes. So, I think that’s the context of the covenant that he’s talking about. So, if you keep in mind, Adam simply means man, or men, they are like men. They transgress covenants; “…they have dealt treacherously against Me.”

And when he uses that same language in chapter 8:1, he parallels it with not keeping the law. “…because they have transgressed My covenant and rebelled against My law.” Keeping the law didn’t save them, but if you had a heart of faith in the God of Israel, you desired to be obedient to Him, be cleansed. Remember Ezekiel the prophet? God told him to do something in preparing meals with animal dung, and that would have been defiling. And Ezekiel says, Lord I’ve never defiled myself. How would he defile himself? In going contrary to what God instructed him to do. It was out of a heart of a desire to be obedient to Him, and God made provision and said, here you can do this instead. It was a heart of belief that moved believing Israelites to want to honor God. Just like we’re not saved by trying to keep some of the commandments of the New Testament. But because we’re saved, we want to keep them. It comes from inner motivation. Alright, that on the covenant in Hosea 6:7. Sometimes that is used as support that there wasn’t an Adamic covenant, a covenant of works in the Garden of Eden. But even some Covenant Theologians don’t see Hosea 6 as referring to that. So, it’s not limited to our view.

Alright, we have some other questions, but let me open to you since I didn’t open for questions last week. Anybody have anything you would want to bring up? Okay.


***I know I’m asking you to speculate a little bit, but this morning you went over the passage that talks about, God will wipe away all of our tears, which would kind of indicate to me that there will be tears for a short time in heaven. Will we remember loved ones, family members that aren’t there and know that they are in hell or will we be sad because of our failures in this life?

That’s a good question. Some of you are familiar with the televangelist Jack Van Impe and I believe I’m representing him correctly. It’s been awhile since I heard him on this, but he believes that a believer during the thousand years will suffer remorse and sorrow over their unfaithfulness even as God’s children, and those are the tears that are wiped away. I just use him as an example because he comes to mind every time, I think of that. I think when it says in Revelation chapter 21, verse 4, “…and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death…” and so on. “…the first things have passed away.” That’s not indicating that we as believers will have that sadness over anything, but all the things associated with this earth will be gone, things that would cause sorrow, crying. But I don’t know that there’s any indication that God’s people will suffer sadness, sorrow, death, pain in the Kingdom. But during the Kingdom those things will go on because there will be unbelievers who die. There is rebellion even in that first thousand years. Zechariah talks about the judgment of withholding the rain if nations will not come up to celebrate the appointed feasts. So, remember people have fallen natures. Overt sin is restrained, but there is some manifestation of it in those acts of disobedience. But, evidently, things like murder, rape, and those kinds of crimes will not be tolerated and will be prevented before they can be carried out. That a child that dies before 100, will be thought to be accursed, because they wouldn’t have died if it wasn’t for a specific judgment coming from God. But I don’t think that he’s talking about that believers will experience these things. He’s talking about the things that we would associate with this life and this earth are gone for good. We see it around us even though it’s not pressing in on us maybe at this moment. But we are surrounded by death, by dying, by sorrow even if we’re not personally experiencing that right now. I may not have a loved one going through a difficult time or experiencing the loss of someone close to me, but I see pain and suffering and death and crying and sickness. You just can’t escape it in this world, but it’s not my personal experience right now, so to speak. I don’t think he’s indicating here that believers will experience this until this point, if that makes sense or answers the question. I think he’s just talking about the things that have characterized the earth even in the first thousand years because sinners will experience suffering of one kind or another. It’s a perfect environment, but it’s not a perfect world yet. There will be people seething on the inside under the authority of Christ, and there evidently will be, like I said, these kinds of things going on in the kingdom. It’s not until the book of Revelation we realize that they are restricted to the first thousand years. They will not go on in eternity. Far as what we’ll remember, the Bible says there will not be the remembrance of these things any longer. You know some things we just don’t know. What will we remember? Well, we’ll have to remember something of the wonder of redemption and salvation. The marks of our redemption are permanently inscribed in Christ’s resurrected body. He can show them the nail prints. He could show them the wound in His side. So that will be there, but the negative, if I can put it that way, things. What about the loved ones that we have that are not there? We won’t miss them because our relationship as believers is a deeper, stronger, longer relationship. That’s why Christ could say in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage. That’s hard for us to think. Marilyn’s going to pass me on the streets of gold and not want to run up and give me a kiss? Well maybe she’ll give me a kiss, but she’s probably giving a lot of other people a kiss too, because we’re all redeemed. We’re one big family and the depths of the relationship we have supersede any other relationships we’ve had. Indicated when Christ said, “…he who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me.” So, while some of these things are hard for us to grasp, I don’t think the fact that I may have loved ones that are not there will be causing me sorrow. I will see it from God’s perspective. They deserve… Boy, it seems like that’s harsh! That’s hard! It’s reality! You know the awfulness of being lost is more awful than we can comprehend. They won’t be missed. There won’t be sorrow over them, but we’ll have to appreciate the wonder of God’s grace. How that carries out through eternity, in a hundred billion years won’t this grow old? We have a hard time keeping our relationship with the Lord fresh today and we’ve only been saved for a few years relatively speaking. In a hundred million…some of these things my mind cannot move into eternity. I’m bound by the beginning and the end. You know, I have questions. Will this go on and on and on? Some of these things? But as far as I can tell from Scripture there’ll be no sorrow over that. I can’t imagine that now, because those closest to me in many ways are physically connected to me. You love your children with the love that you can’t imagine not loving them. But if they’re not saved and they’re lost, our love for the Lord and for other believers will be so much deeper, greater, stronger. That relationship is over at death, whereas for believers we anticipate being reunited with fellow believers. We’ll be caught up to meet those believers in the air at the rapture, but there’s no indication that there’s any remorse or that kind of thing as far as I can tell, for us in the glory of the future. Some of the details will have to be filled in when we get there. I think the tears here are indication the things associated with the first earth are gone and anything that would cause that are gone. For believers that would have a beginning, if you will, in the Millennium, the first phase of the eternal kingdom. But the finality of the removal of all these things and all the causes, will await the new heaven and the new earth, the second earth. That’s why we say whether it’s a totally new creation or a renovated one, the fire is a cleansing, in 2 Peter. So, everything down, the elemental things burn up so we can have a new, not defiled in any way, not corrupted, creation.


***Pastor Gil, in the Abrahamic covenant with the land promised to Abraham, has it been partially or somewhat fulfilled when Israel was recognized as a nation in 1947?

You know, I wouldn’t say that is a fulfillment. Now sometimes the coming back into the land of Israel is perhaps a preliminary and it may well be. When you think that they were exiled and finally from the land in what, 130 under Hadrian? And really having their land as their land brings us down to, I would say is our lifetime. What 1947? So, if we are moved close to the Tribulation, the coming back of Israel to the land is one of those indicators, because Israel has to be in the land when the Tribulation begins because the covenant is signed with Israel by the leader of the revived Roman empire. But I wouldn’t say that is the specific fulfillment of the land promised. It may be a preliminary preparation like the Tribulation is, but the land promise itself won’t be realized until we get to the Kingdom. There Israel will still be under the domination of Gentiles so their coming back may be a preliminary step and I think it may well be as we look at other things. Some of you see the news here now. The Prime Minister of France is saying Europe ought to have its own army. Well, isn’t that amazing since the anti-christ is going to be part of the revived Roman Empire and it will have the army that rules the world. You look where the revived Roman Empire is, we talk about globalism. So, I see some of these things may be preliminary steps, but I remember John Walvoord lecturing at the seminary I was attending, as the guest lecturer for a week. But in a similar question he said, I think we need to be careful about saying this is a fulfillment of that, but it maybe we see the preliminary steps leading to that being accomplished. Israel has to be back in the land for the Tribulation. They have to own the temple site for the Temple to be rebuilt. So, we see the news. The Roman Empire has to come together so the European Union being reunited and wanting to have a nation that’s bound together like the United States with our individuality but under one ruler. All these things I would see as preliminary, but not direct fulfillment of it. So, we are really looking. That’s why there’s nothing between us and the Rapture. The Rapture can occur at any time and that’s why it could have occurred a hundred years ago as far as we knew from Scripture. What we now talk about, why we see perhaps it’s getting close, is we see things that will happen that are said to happen in the Tribulation, the seven years. We see things that seem to be preliminary to that. But we need to be careful. World War II and Hitler, some prophetic scholars got carried away and said well, this is whether it’s Mussolini or Hitler, we’re having the rise of the anti-christ. Well, it didn’t turn out that way. We have seen maybe a type of what will happen with a Mussolini coming out of Italy or a Hitler coming out of Germany, but that wasn’t. That’s not the anti-christ. So, we need to be careful about making too direct a fulfillment, I think. I know several good men who say that what happened with Israel being established as a nation is the fulfillment of Ezekiel. Well, I don’t know if I can say that for sure. Israel will be back in the land. I can’t say that is the fulfillment of that because all I know is, they’ll be back in the land. I don’t think everything is going to unravel again and Israel will be removed from the land and we’ll go backwards again for another thousand years. I want to be careful in handling Scripture, so I’m comfortable in saying that could be the preliminary, especially when I put it with other things, a revived Roman Empire. But I’m not comfortable saying specifically that is the fulfillment that is promised, although they are being brought from every nation. It surely could be just like the nations that formed the Roman Empire coming together. That could be. These seem to be fulfillments when they all come together at one time. I wouldn’t probably go so far to say that is the fulfillment myself. Now if the Rapture occurs tomorrow, I’ll probably be in heaven talking with you saying, that was the fulfillment! I just want to be sure we don’t get ahead of ourselves.


***I have a question I love here. I think Marilyn submitted it, my wife. How do you teach your children to not complain and grumble when a spouse does otherwise?

You can’t fix your spouse. I’ll tell you how it was done when I was growing up and what we did in our family. That has nothing to do with you. Whatever your Mother does, whatever your Father does, you’re the child, you’re going to do what I tell you to do. I can’t tell my wife, or the wife can’t tell her husband, you’re not allowed to grumble anymore. You can’t complain or the kids will do it. Kids can’t do a lot of things I do. I realize it weakens your position to say, you do what I say, not what I do, but that’s the way it is. We live in a day where we have to handle children with kid gloves. I read this article, I almost said stupid article, but I’ll use a biblical word, morons, fools. But all these doctors and pediatricians saying how spanking children could cause aggressiveness in their adulthood and all kinds of problems. You know, sin does make you stupid. When I was going to school, I realize, they would take me in a horse and buggy, but we got spanked in school. It was humiliating. You had to come up in front of the class. You bent over and grabbed your ankles with your rear quarters elevated, and then the teacher pretended she was on the Pittsburg Pirates baseball team. Whack, whack! We didn’t have kids going out and shooting other kids. We didn’t have fist fights in the hall. We didn’t have any of that. We had black kids in our school. We had poor whites of which I was one. Then we had those who were a little better off. Everyone was at attention. Everybody walked in the school and said, “Good Morning, Miss McConnell.” The one time I turned around and instead of saying “Good Morning, Miss McConnell,” said something to my friend, the next thing I knew I was going down the hall by my collar. Turned me into an aggressive fighter. I learned from that you have to be aggressive and fight. I mean, it makes you stupid. You ever think back in the days when they were spanking kids, when there was a separation of authority between parents and children and teachers, that we didn’t have the same problems we have today? Nobody makes the connection. All of that to say, parents are parents. It never crossed my mind when I was told not to do something, to not do it. It crossed my mind what my Dad did, and what might have been what he’s telling me not to do, that I would tell him, you do that. It would have not been wise! Some things the pain is not worth the pleasure. I mean, what happened? I think here, it makes it more difficult. You’d like parents to be on the same page, but if you have a spouse that complains and grumbles and the kids know it, you just have to tell them, that has nothing to do with you. You’re not your mother. You’re not your father. You will do what you’re told. I guess that’s the way we need to do it. I say that not to excuse a spouse being a grumbling complainer. The Bible says we shouldn’t. We’re not to grumble. We’re not to complain. We’re not justifying it, but the fact that someone does the wrong things doesn’t justify my doing the wrong thing, and that includes a parent. And the one parent still has authority as a parent. It’s good when both parents can be on the same page, but if they can’t then you do what the one parent should. That parent can still say to the child, it doesn’t matter what your mother does, what your father does. You’re not your mother. You’re not your father. You will do what you are told. You will not complain and here are the consequences if you do. You will not grumble. And if they start to say, well Dad…you shut them up. This idea that children have been elevated to equality with the parents is contrary to Scripture. Parents are to paddle disobedient children. Children aren’t to paddle disobedient parents. I mean there’s just a distinction. There’s a line drawn. That would be my answer. You might talk to your spouse and say, you know, it’s difficult. Now, if they’re believers, you can share with the Word. We want to set, you have to be careful, but you want to tell them, you want to set an example. We know the Bible says we shouldn’t complain and grumble, and I know I’m not perfect in it. I haven’t lived a life without complaining or grumbling, and I know you’re under pressure sometimes. But we do want to be careful what we model with our kids. It may be possible to talk about that, but you may have an unbelieving spouse and they’re not open to what the Scripture says, and you can’t tell them what to do. You can’t change your spouse. You can’t change someone else. But you can set the discipline of authority in your home for your children, and you’d like to support your spouse, but they’ll have to know that at least with you, there’ll be no complaining. There’ll be no grumbling. If the spouse wants to sit down and have a grumble session, complaining session with the kids, you probably can’t do anything about that. But you can make clear that with me there’ll be no complaining, there’ll be no grumbling. We as parents need to realize the biblical position we have. The psychologizing of the family has been an undermining of the Scripture. So now it’s going to become more difficult. Now it’s child abuse to spank your child. The thing I was afraid of when I got spanked, and I never got spanked, but if I had gotten spanked at school, I’d be afraid my dad found out about it because…what did I do? Well, that teacher…no, no, no, what did you do? Did everybody in the class get spanked? Well, no. What did you do that deserved spanking that nobody in the class did? That’s the way parents were then. There was authority. We think we’ve helped the situation. Now kids don’t know what to do with themselves because they start at an early age throwing a tantrum. Marilyn is reading one of my old books. It’s in the 1800’s, talking about the children. It said you should start giving them a swat, on the bottom, when you’re carrying them around if they do what they shouldn’t. There is no fussing. There is no carrying on allowed. They weren’t having kids committing that kind of crimes we have going on today. You have kids coming into school and they’re already out of control. So, we as Christians live in this environment. If we’re not careful we begin to adopt it. We go to the Scriptures. We go to Proverbs every day. One Proverb every day. The book of Proverbs, one chapter every day. Thirty-one chapters, every month. Go through Proverbs and you’ll cover so many of the problems we’ll face, how they’re to be dealt with. That’s what I have to say about grumbling. Just a word, I think one of the most important things we do in the home as believing parents is model consistency. Primarily, what I’m teaching in my home is as much what I’m modeling, what is being taught. They’re getting input in Sunday School, on Sunday morning, and classes Sunday night, and all the other activities going on. It’s not that we don’t talk about the Word and teach the Word, but primarily we’re modeling so they see it in us. Yeah, my parents, they carry this out. That’s why I think coming to church is important. You know, my parents don’t seem to be that interested in going. I want to model that this is what we build our life around. This day I remember, after my family got saved and my parents were saved as adults, we started going to a Bible-believing church. Baseball was the thing then. And my Dad said you can do that. You can be in all those activities. You cannot do that on this night, Wednesday night, because we go to church. You cannot do that on this night, because that’s Youth night. We do this and this, that’s the priorities of our family. Not to be mean, but what is important? The world sets its priorities and we think now we have to set ours. We want to model it. It’s important to us, but I can’t talk to my children about how important it is to go to church and I go as little as I can, because I’ve got a lot of other things. People, kids see through that. Oh yeah, my parents talk about it being important, but I don’t think it’s very important to them. Everything that comes up under the sun seems to take precedence over it. So, we model it. The way we treat our spouses, that is. I don’t want to be having an argument, a fight with my wife. What do we fight about? We’re supposed to get along. We talk about things. We agree. So, our homes are key things. There are pressure points and the pressure of the world is to move away. One of you were sharing with me about sport activities. They said we’re going to be practicing on Sunday morning. If your child can’t come on Sunday morning, they can’t be a part of the team. Well, pressure is there. Well, then I guess we’ll say being on the team is more important than what? The pressure of the world is there. I mean, what can you do? Somethings we can’t change, but we need to be careful that we don’t just jump into the boat of the world and let ourselves be carried along.
***I do have a question. More on this morning’s lesson, actually the last couple Sunday mornings when you were talking about the renovation of the earth or complete destruction of the earth. That sparked some interest in my mind, and I got to thinking through that a little bit. You know, in Second Peter when he says, “the elements will be destroyed” my mind kind of goes to the idea that “elements” are atoms with a periodic table of elements, and so when you destroy an atom then you have nothing left. You don’t have anything. Protons and neutrons and electrons maybe, so to me that’s sounds like oblivion. But then it talks about the heavens being melted, which then I’m thinking heavens are more like the universe, right? The galaxies in the universe and really most of that is made up of stars and stars are technically already melted, they are melting. So, I’m kind of thinking are those going to be destroyed? What’s happening with the heavens? Is that going to be rearranged and renovated too, maybe, or is there a new universe? And then when He talks about in John 14 where He says, “I’m going to prepare a place for you” has He done that or is He still kind of in the process of doing that? How can He prepare a place if we’re here? I guess my mind is kind of wondering about these type of questions.

Answer – Yes. Well, my mind wanders like yours does. There are a lot of things we know. We’re told what’s going to happen. The details, we almost have to wait to see. How is this to be taken when you have the heavens and the earth doing a meltdown down to the elemental things? What does that mean? That’s part of the structure when you’re trying to decide is this the old earth renovated or is this a totally new earth? You can get some works that have done on this and they’ll list all the reasons why it might be a renovated earth. Then you can list all the reasons why it might be a totally new earth. Then, when all is said and done, you say well, this could be a stand-off. And somewhat it is. That’s why I say the important thing is, it is new. Now what all that newness entails, it is a second earth because the first earth passes away. So, it can be called a new earth, a second earth, what everything goes because part of it, why do you melt down the heavens? Have they been impacted by the fall? It seems the fall is limited to our earth and God created them originally to be lights like the sun and the moon and the stars. Yeah, I don’t know. God tells us a certain amount, but you think, what He’s going to do He compresses into a relatively small amount. He just tells us the heavens will melt with a fervent heat, the earth. You think, well fill in the details. Well, you’re going to get a new heaven and a new earth. I know there’s a connection then, but beyond that the only description we have of the new earth is what we’re going to pick up with in Revelation 21 and into the first part of 22. So, some of those details I don’t think it’s possible to fill in. That’s why I say I can tilt one way or another. Is it a totally new earth or is it a renovated earth? Whichever it is, if it is totally new it has a connection to this one because it’s an earth. It’s called a new “earth,” it’s just not called a new “something” that we wouldn’t connect to. It has some connection to this earth because it doesn’t have a sea. Well, the only reason to say it doesn’t have a sea is because it’s something like the earth we can identify with without a sea. So, there’s these connections, but it’s going to be a drastic making new and God says I make all things new, whatever that means. They get into discussions about the word ‘make’ and I don’t think anything is resolved by that, because it’s used in connection with the same word ‘create,’ poieo, ktizo. They are used interchangeably in passages, so all He says when He says I make all things new, whatever that entails it’s going to be something new! Renovated, a totally new creation. I say well, we’ll know for sure when we get there. One thing we know, it’s going to be a new creation. If it’s this old one, it’s being taken down to the bare basics. But if it’s even totally new it has a connection with this world because it’s a new “earth.” It’s not a new entity, that’s not been the earth. So, that’s a little bit where I am with that, doesn’t help a lot. I’m like you, all we have is the brevity of what He said, the working out of it will come. I think what is resolved is the order like Peter puts it in the same order as Isaiah because that’s all Peter had. He puts the new heaven and the new earth, and then he goes on to talk about the kingdom and things that will happen in the millennium. But God hadn’t revealed anything about a first phase of a thousand years of the Kingdom, so Peter is dealing, and he doesn’t do anything wrong, he just puts it as Isaiah puts it. A new heaven and a new earth and part of the kingdom will include this. When we get to John, he sort of now puts it in its place. And now I can say, yeah, I see how that is and there’s not the final removal of all sin, all traces and the melting down of the world and the heavens, the earth and the heavens until after the thousand years because we have to have that total complete cleansing. So to me that’s what Revelation brings and then the description we have of the New Jerusalem that we don’t have anywhere else. Even there, it’s not much of a description of the new earth. It’s a description of the New Jerusalem that resides on the new earth so we don’t get much elaboration on the earth outside the New Jerusalem except there’s no sea. Does that mean it’s going to be basically like the earth is now? Will it have any mountains? If Morris and Whitcomb are correct, the mountains and others were created out of the geological changes that occurred with the worldwide flood but it doesn’t say there are not mountains. It just says there is no sea. It’s amazing how little we think about it. You know, we ought to think about and dwell on the New Jerusalem. I try to picture twelve gates, each one a pearl. But then you think, if the world’s population explodes and there are people born in the millennium, and we’re going to talk about this when we get to chapter 22, there are people born in the kingdom after the millennium particularly. And there’s only twelve gates into the city, it could get crowded. Everybody coming up to the New Jerusalem where God can be seen on His throne and you can partake freely of the water of life and the tree of life and there’s twelve month seasons. In eternity there is a connection to the old life. Our cycles, you know, there’s going to be twelve months with a new fruit each month. Well, how many millions, billions of people can get into the New Jerusalem every month? There’s only twelve gates. Some of these things my mind, when I get there, I’ll think there’s no problem here. God had all this all worked out. But some of those things you let your mind wander and run. You know the question comes, what do we do? Won’t we run out of room? If there’s no pain in childbirth and there are people in physical bodies in eternity and they’re going to have kids and the pleasure of the sexual relationship without having pain in having kids, and without having kids that are a pain, where’s this going to stop? But that’s the same problem we had before the fall. God said be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. Did He create a problem for Himself He couldn’t have solved? Thankfully Satan intervened and you know we have to have death? I don’t have an answer. You know, I can’t wait to get there. There’s going to be so much to learn that in a hundred trillion years we won’t have learned it all. And I think we’ll be able to talk that way in time because when we get to chapter 22, we are going to find there are twelve months. Well, that means one follows another. I’m going to raise more questions for you than I give you answers when we move through here. So a little bit, I guess that’s where we sort of are. Keep thinking about it. Keep coming up with possibilities.


***I had a question. The person who wrote it and I have talked some about it. The area with human government, I sometimes say we obey the government. Romans 13 says the authorities appointed are appointed by God. When you rebel against the appointed authority, you rebel against God. That’s all over the line. We don’t take it seriously, but it’s true. We don’t take it seriously in the church. People don’t like what the elders do, they just decide they don’t have to listen to them. And we sometimes carry that out in our country. But it does become a question. When do you cross the line? And the person brought up, for example, when our country was breaking away from the rule of another country. There was a rebellion fomented. There was a war fought. What was a Christian’s role in that? When did our loyalty transition? You know, do we start out that we’re going to join the rebellion against the Crown because we disagree with the Crown? The Crown, they had legitimate authority at that point. But we’re going to break free from that authority. Well, where am I as a Christian in this? I joined the rebellion. Does that put me in conflict with Scripture? There comes a point when the war has been won and we have a new authority. Now, it’s clearer if I’m going to live in this country, I’ll live under the authority of this country, however it came to power. Jeremiah told the Jews, you submit to the Babylonians, you live in exile under their authority, you build houses, plant fields, you submit to that authority. Well, wait a minute, they came in and conquered Israel. Israel was God’s people in God’s land, I don’t have to submit to this rouge government. Yes, you do. So, some of those things God uses and there will be those, can I call them in between times? It seems to me the way the Scripture deals with it, particularly the New Testament for the church, is we stay out of the political issues. You know, there’s political intrigue going on during the time our New Testament is written. There are Roman rulers who come and go, but you don’t find, we don’t even know about it reading Paul’s letters or other letters in the New Testament, it’s not particularly an issue. If you take a literal interpretation of Revelation, it’s not an issue. Some try to read into Revelation a spiritualizing that talk about things going on in Romans at that time. So, I think by in large we are not political, that’s my personal opinion on it. And there’s a subjectivity to it, where I am at this point. But as much as possible, I want to be disengaged. That doesn’t mean personally I don’t have the right to vote. I don’t have the right to have an opinion. But, I want to be careful. We’re a divided country now, just to simplify it, democrats and republicans, conservatives and liberals, or progressives or whatever names we want to use. Well, we might find ourselves in agreement with certain principles, but when we have a President that is the duly appointed authority, I submit to him and the other leaders. The prior President may have been a different side. One might have been a liberal, the next one is a conservative. I submit to that person and show him respect. One thing we do find, a consistency of respect, like with Paul to Roman authorities. I mean they’re godless men. Peter writes, showing respect to the man who is going to have him executed, Nero. Nobody respected Nero! But, believers, you show respect. You honor the king and Paul wrote the same thing. So, I think we want to be careful in the way we conduct ourselves. It’s sort of what we talked about with the family. You have a parent grumbling or complaining, what do you do with the kids. We want to be careful that we don’t get caught up in that environment, we’re just as vehement about this and that and the other thing. I understand the hand of God is at work. When we talked about prophecy, our country may be in the process of unraveling and deteriorating. I don’t know. If we break down, if a large portion of the country determines they will not submit to the dully appointed authorities, then we will begin to have rebellion, disintegration like this happens to other countries. That may explain why the United States will not be. Where is it in prophecy? When I hear one of the leaders in Europe talking about creating their own army, I say, well I can see that fits biblical. The anti-Christ comes out of a revived Roman Empire, a ten nation confederacy and he needs an army for his power. He’s going to rule the world. I could see that, a united Europe as a united Roman Empire, I could see that. Where is the United States? I don’t know, maybe the rim of fire, all the volcanos will go off. Maybe we’ll have earthquakes, I don’t know. Maybe we will disintegrate internally like the Roman Empire did. It just got so weak, so convoluted within. You know, it disintegrates. Maybe we’re in the process of disintegration. That’s why I don’t want to get caught up in that. I can say, the Lord is sovereign. We have elections, we have a lot of battles over elections and this and that. I accept whoever gets into power. I may vote, I may not vote, I’m not caught up into that. We have the right to vote. We have the right not to vote. So, in these political things, I think we as believers have to keep in mind, I want to see the liberals hear the gospel and be saved, I want to see the conservatives. Want to be careful, we don’t begin to equate a conservative politician doesn’t need salvation like a liberal politician. And I don’t want in the battle on either side. They all need salvation like we all do. So we don’t want to lose sight. When Paul comes he doesn’t give the Roman ruler that he is addressing a lecture on correct politics and conducting himself in more a way that he should. He talks to him about coming judgment until Felix trembled. Why? This is my chance to address him. I better tell him that God expects you to be a ruler like – no! He wants to tell him about his spiritual condition and his eternal destiny. That’s what we have to bring to the table so to speak. What we bring to the world that no one else can. It doesn’t mean I don’t have things, convictions about this and that, but I don’t see the big issue facing the world as homosexual marriage or no homosexual marriage. The Bible says that marriage is between a man and a woman. Any sex outside of that is sin. Here’s what the Bible says. But people who are against homosexual marriage may be as far from heaven as those who are involved in homosexuality. I try to turn the conversation if I have opportunity to talk to people and say, that’s not really the basic issue. You know it’s not really that important. What’s really important here is where you’re going to spend eternity. Have you given any thought to that? What are you going to do about your sin before a holy God? We don’t want to lose perspective on who we are. We belong to God. We are His children. We are here to bring truth, to shine as lights in darkness. We are so bombarded twenty-four hours a day with incessant “news” and this information. Pretty soon we are getting stirred up about these things. We get rather calm about the lost and sharing the gospel, but you can create some excitement by talking about what’s going on in politics today and what’s happening here. You know what? It doesn’t really matter. But it does matter whether people hear the gospel and have opportunity to believe. And who’s going to bring that message to them if we don’t? Lots of unbelievers can engage the political issues and we’re worried about that we’ll lose our freedom. Well, we’re not using it very wisely anyway. It’s hard to keep Christians, evangelicals interested in the Word, interested in sharing the gospel. We worry about there may come a day when we won’t have the opportunity. Is that driving us to share the gospel with everyone we can, every place we go? Well, no. What do we care about if we lose the opportunity? We’re not using the opportunity when we have it. So it won’t be much of a loss when we don’t have it, will it? People act like, well boy, this is crucial. We’ll lose our freedom. Well, then we ought to really be motivated like Peter said, if this whole world is going to be consumed by fire, “what kind of people ought we to be in holy conduct?” Totally disengaged from the world. Paul used the example “no one on active duty as a soldier entangles himself in the affairs of this life” and we lose that narrow focus. This is who we are. This is why we’re here. People want to draw us into who they are. No, we want to bring them to where we are. They want to talk about what’s important to them. We want to talk about what is important to God for them. You know, that keeps the clutter out of our lives. That’s going on there, but our citizenship is in heaven. If our country disintegrates, goes to pot, if Christians become the subject of persecution… When I was in China they thought persecution was the best thing that happened to the Church. They said it purified us. I talked to pastors in churches that had been in prison for twenty years. You know their biggest concern? You’re going to bring western Christianity to China and its corruption that will weaken us. So all of that out of where we are in the political situation. We want to keep focused.

Let’s pray together. Thank You Lord, for Your truth, the Word. Lord, how blessed we are to be able to come and freely talk about it, study it, stir our thinking. We want to continue to grow, mature. Lord, we live in this world but we don’t belong to this world. This world is not our home. The things of this world don’t have a hold on us. They are not to have a hold on us. You’ve given us all good things to enjoy but Lord, we don’t want to become controlled by the good things of this world. We are here as Your children, called by Your grace for a specific purpose. To be lights in the darkness to make known the Savior that loved us, died for us, who has transformed us. You’ve entrusted to us the treasure of the gospel, that the world wherever they are politically, whatever positions they have on different issues, whatever sin they’re involved in or not involved in, there is one truth. All have sinned and come short of Your glory. There is none righteous. There is none that does good. Everyone has turned aside. Lord, we were part of that group until we heard and by Your grace believed the gospel. Lord, we want to keep that narrow, sharp focus to be Your servants carrying out Your will, representing You with a clarity, a firmness, a boldness wherever we are with whomever we are with. I pray that might be true of us in the week before us. We pray in Christ’s name, amen.