Day 9: God Cannot Coexist with Sin

Lamentations 2:15-17 :

All that pass by clap their hands at you.
They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying,
“Is this the city that men called ‘The perfection of beauty,
the joy of the whole earth’?”

All your enemies have opened their mouth wide against you.
They hiss and gnash their teeth.
They say, “We have swallowed her up.
Certainly this is the day that we looked for.
We have found it.
We have seen it.”

Yahweh has done that which he planned.
He has fulfilled his word that he commanded in the days of old.
He has thrown down,
and has not pitied.
He has caused the enemy to rejoice over you.
He has exalted the horn of your adversaries.

There was a time when Jerusalem was so wealthy that silver was as common as gravel. Foreigners would travel from far away to see it. It wasn’t just the beauty that they wanted to see. It was the wisdom that they longed to hear from the God of Israel. Jerusalem was a sign to the world that God was real and that He wanted a relationship with mankind, but now, after the exile and the destruction, the city became something else.

This passage reminds us that “Yahweh has done that which he planned.” As a reminder, let’s go look at those plans.

Deuteronomy 29:22-28 :

The generation to come—your children who will rise up after you, and the foreigner who will come from a far land—will say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses with which Yahweh has made it sick, that all of its land is sulfur, salt, and burning, that it is not sown, doesn’t produce, nor does any grass grow in it, like the overthrow of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, which Yahweh overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath. Even all the nations will say, “Why has Yahweh done this to this land? What does the heat of this great anger mean?”

Then men will say, “Because they abandoned the covenant of Yahweh, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt, and went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods that they didn’t know and that he had not given to them. Therefore Yahweh’s anger burned against this land, to bring on it all the curses that are written in this book. Yahweh rooted them out of their land in anger, in wrath, and in great indignation, and thrust them into another land, as it is today.”

Why would God plan such a beautiful thing, only to destroy it because of mankind’s failures? We now know that God did it to demonstrate the seriousness of our sin problem. The fact is that mankind has no hope in religion. There is no process by which we can make ourselves sinless. God used the history of Jerusalem to demonstrate that to us. When we try to be religious, we may start out well, but because sin is still living inside of our minds, it eventually works its way back out. God cannot coexist with sin and because of that, something had to be done about our sin before God could live with us.

Jerusalem was built back up but not with its original glory. Someday, it will be more glorious than it has ever been. That’s because mankind’s sin problem has been permanently removed by Jesus. When the time is right, He will return and restore Jerusalem and it will never be destroyed again.

Day 3: A Close Look at the Negative

Lamentations 1:10-14 :

The adversary has spread out his hand on all her pleasant things;
for she has seen that the nations have entered into her sanctuary,
concerning whom you commanded that they should not enter into your assembly.

All her people sigh.
They seek bread.
They have given their pleasant things for food to refresh their soul.
“Look, Yahweh, and see,
for I have become despised.”

“Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?
Look, and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow,
which is brought on me,
with which Yahweh has afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.

“From on high has he sent fire into my bones,
and it prevails against them.
He has spread a net for my feet.
He has turned me back.
He has made me desolate and I faint all day long.

“The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand.
They are knit together.
They have come up on my neck.
He made my strength fail.
The Lord has delivered me into their hands,
against whom I am not able to stand.

I have noticed that my culture has chosen to avoid anything negative. My perception is that this culture believes that there are no sins accept the sin of pointing out sin. Once again, this is irrational because they exempt themselves from their own rule. Passages like these remind us that sin is real, and as a result, the anger of God is justified.

In my culture, anger itself is negative. They must assume that the Christian God is wrong then because in this passage, God is said to have “fierce anger.” Whenever the world thinks that God is wrong, you can bet that the idea came from Satan. I believe that the underlying force behind avoiding negative things is Satan. He knows that the source of all of these negative things is the sin that he introduced into our world. In light of this, let’s consider what God is having us study here.

Much of this book is a close look at the negative. Here it teaches us that once we are subject to God’s fierce anger, we suffer greatly. We learn that we end up suffering all day long as we use up our nice things to simply buy food. We watch our strength waste away as we lose to our enemies. We watch as the good is overrun by evil right before our eyes. This reminds us that sin is real and it has real consequences that we will feel. If we avoid the negative, we fail to understand the seriousness of punishment which causes us to not see the seriousness of our sin. Sin is negative but the greatest negative is the fact that Jesus, who was perfect, was tortured to death. If we avoid that negative thing, we will live negatively for eternity in Hell. Let’s not be deceived by our culture. The only way for things to get positive, will be for every one of us to take a close look at the negative.

Day 202: All Nations are Guilty

Jeremiah 50:41-46

“Behold, a people comes from the north.
A great nation and many kings will be stirred up from the uttermost parts of the earth.
They take up bow and spear.
They are cruel, and have no mercy.
Their voice roars like the sea.
They ride on horses,
everyone set in array,
as a man to the battle,
against you, daughter of Babylon.
The king of Babylon has heard the news of them,
and his hands become feeble.
Anguish has taken hold of him,
pains as of a woman in labor.
Behold, the enemy will come up like a lion
from the thickets of the Jordan against the strong habitation;
for I will suddenly make them run away from it.
Whoever is chosen,
I will appoint him over it,
for who is like me?
Who will appoint me a time?
Who is the shepherd who can stand before me?”
Therefore hear the counsel of Yahweh
that he has taken against Babylon;
and his purposes
that he has purposed against the land of the Chaldeans:
Surely they will drag them away,
even the little ones of the flock.
Surely he will make their habitation desolate over them.
The earth trembles at the noise of the taking of Babylon.
The cry is heard among the nations.

As we read earlier, there were those who thought that Jeremiah was helping Babylon’s cause by discouraging the people with his words. It’s pretty clear that Jeremiah was simply speaking God’s words because God also had quite a few things to say against Babylon. I think that Jeremiah had something bad to say about all of the countries in the area. There’s a lesson for us even in these things.

Just because someone says something that sounds discouraging, doesn’t mean that it isn’t right. It’s easy for us to make the assumption that we are doing fine, when actually we have been sinning. It is discouraging to hear that we have been sinning, but it is very arrogant for us to pretend that we haven’t. When God warns us of the consequences of our sin, the most positive thing that we can do is repent. Attacking the messenger just makes our sin bigger.

The fact that Jeremiah had something bad to say about everyone, reminds us of another basic Gospel truth. One of the important purposes of God’s word, is to expose our sin. If our sin isn’t exposed, we can’t see that we are sinners that need saving. God’s word through Jeremiah informed all of the nations in the area that they were all guilty before God, including Israel. The fact that all have sinned, is foundational to the Gospel. Let’s look at what God told us through Paul:

Romans 3:23

for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God;

No nation is good enough to stand before God and that’s because no individual is good enough either, except for one. Jesus is the one who was good enough to stand before God and He spent His life in order to save us from the consequences of ours. Just as Jesus saves us individually, He will also be saving the nations of the world someday too because He is the only one who can stand before God without being judged by His word.

Day 181: A More Complete Picture of Jesus

Jeremiah 46:13-19

The word that Yahweh spoke to Jeremiah the prophet, how that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon should come and strike the land of Egypt:
“Declare in Egypt,
publish in Migdol,
and publish in Memphis and in Tahpanhes;
say, ‘Stand up, and prepare,
for the sword has devoured around you.’
Why are your strong ones swept away?
They didn’t stand, because Yahweh pushed them.
He made many to stumble.
Yes, they fell on one another.
They said, ‘Arise! Let’s go again to our own people,
and to the land of our birth,
from the oppressing sword.’
They cried there, ‘Pharaoh king of Egypt is but a noise;
he has let the appointed time pass by.’

“As I live,” says the King,
whose name is Yahweh of Armies,
“surely like Tabor among the mountains,
and like Carmel by the sea,
so he will come.
You daughter who dwells in Egypt,
furnish yourself to go into captivity;
for Memphis will become a desolation,
and will be burned up,
without inhabitant.

I don’t know the history about this time in Egypt, but I do know from this prophesy what happened. Egypt was defeated by Babylon and the cities of Memphis and Tahphanhes were destroyed. People were taken into captivity. We also know that God caused the soldiers to fall and stumble over each other. They lost heart and wanted to go back home. They came to the realization that Pharaoh’s chance to take over had already passed and they were doomed.

I have been told that God the Father never refers to Himself as “Yahweh of Armies.” This is a reference to the Messiah and we know who that is. Jesus is calling Himself the King here and makes it clear that Egypt will be destroyed and the people taken captive. I think it’s important for us to take a moment to think about Jesus in the light of these events.

When Jesus came the first time, He put asside His wrath. He didn’t act like the commander of an army at all. I think that this is one of the problems the Jewish leaders had with Him. He wasn’t the Messiah they were expecting. If we aren’t careful, we will not have the right ideas about Him either. It’s important for us to have a complete picture of Jesus. I believe that our enemy would love for us to assume that Jesus is just a weak push-over who walks around in sandals and turns the other cheek. The Bible actually says that He is an army commander and a warrior. He has destroyed many civilizations in the past, but the real destruction is coming in the future. We should love Jesus, but it’s also important that we fear Him. Jesus is our Savior, but He is also the commander of Heaven’s army and the Judge of the World. We are supposed to turn the other cheek but Jesus won’t be doing that. He will eventually destroy every person and nation that chooses to rebel against His kingdom just like He did to Egypt and Judah. It is a fearful thing for enemies of God to think of Jesus this way, but it is a comfort to us because we can be assured that He will set things strait when He returns.

Day 153: It’s Usually Better the Second Time

Jeremiah 36:27-32

Then Yahweh’s word came to Jeremiah, after the king had burned the scroll, and the words which Baruch wrote at the mouth of Jeremiah, saying, “Take again another scroll, and write in it all the former words that were in the first scroll, which Jehoiakim the king of Judah has burned. Concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah you shall say, ‘Yahweh says: “You have burned this scroll, saying, “Why have you written therein, saying, ‘The king of Babylon will certainly come and destroy this land, and will cause to cease from there man and animal?’ ” ’ Therefore Yahweh says concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah: “He will have no one to sit on David’s throne. His dead body will be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost. I will punish him, his offspring, and his servants for their iniquity. I will bring on them, on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and on the men of Judah, all the evil that I have pronounced against them, but they didn’t listen.” ’ ”

Then Jeremiah took another scroll, and gave it to Baruch the scribe, the son of Neriah, who wrote therein from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the book which Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire; and many similar words were added to them.

I believe that there is a very real possibility that Satan thought that he had won at this point. It appeared that he actually got God to curse the line of the Messiah. God had promised that there would always be a king on David’s throne, but here, God actually declares that Jehoiakim will never have a descendent on the throne. This actually became a very serious issue. How was God going to save Israel now?

There’s another issue that causes difficulties in the New Testament. Have you ever noticed that the genealogies for Jesus are different in Matthew and in Luke? It has been determined that the one in Matthew follows the genealogy of Joseph and the one in Luke follows Mary’s genealogy. Did you also notice that one of Joseph’s ancestors is none other than Jeconiah which was Jehoiakim’s son? Well, God walked around the problem with ease. He caused Mary, who was also a blood relative of David, to conceive without the help of Joseph and then had Joseph adopt Jesus. God left the genealogies in His word for us to figure out later. So Jesus was a blood relative of David and a rightful heir to the throne of Israel through Joseph! As you can see, God is in the details.

God also walked around the problem that Jehoiakim produced by burning God’s word. He simply had Jeremiah do it again, only this time, Jehoiakim was cursed and “many similar words were added” to the new book. The new edition was an expanded edition! As a side note, I discovered this principle as a software engineer. There were times when we had to re-make a software system and I don’t remember a time when the second system wasn’t an improvement on the first. God has a way of doing that through us. We don’t need to worry when it seems that all hope is lost. When God is in charge, it just means that something better is about to happen.

Day 145: A Difficult Verse

Jeremiah 33:17-18

For Yahweh says: “David will never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel. The Levitical priests won’t lack a man before me to offer burnt offerings, to burn meal offerings, and to do sacrifice continually.”

This can be a challenging passage. The Bible says that Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice and this passage appears to be talking about a time when Jesus, who is the Branch of David, will reign on earth in Jerusalem. It makes a lot of sense to us that because Jesus will reign forever after that point, that “David will never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel,” but what in the world does it mean that “the Levitical priests won’t lack a man before me to offer burnt offerings, to burn meal offerings, and to do sacrifice continually?”

I’ve read a few commentaries and talked to a few people at this point. Some of my most trusted commentaries actually skip verse 18 and only comment on the ones around it. God has shown me that this is usually a sign that there’s something very important that God wants us to know. What is it that God is telling us by making sure that we know this fact about the Levitical priests and offering sacrifices?

I need to discuss some of the things that it can’t mean. As we have been reading, we can’t say that this is all spiritual and it’s talking about the Church. Once you “spiritualize” a narrative, you can pretty much make it say anything. It leaves the interpretation up to the reader which would allow you to make the Bible say anything. So that’s not a good option. Another option I read from a prominent commentator was that this is referring to Jesus making intersession in Heaven. The problem with this is that it promotes the idea that Jesus suffers eternally for us. The Bible is clear that “it is finished.” It doesn’t solve the problem about having Levitical sacrifices after Jesus has already been the final sacrifice.

I want to make it clear that there’s only one thing I know at this point and that is that whatever God meant by this, will happen no matter how hard it seems to me. That’s the point God has been making to Jeremiah. With that being said, here’s what I believe it means. I think that when it says “never” in the passage above, that it’s not talking about eternity, but about the 1000 year reign of Jesus on earth. There are a couple of big reasons for this. First, it’s clear in the Old Testament that when you separate the terms burnt offerings from meal offerings, you are talking about both killing animals and burning grain. That means this will be a time on earth when animal death still exists. When death still exists, so does sin because death is sin’s punishment. We also know that Levitical practices were intended for formal temple worship. It’s easy to miss but in Revelation 21:22, the Bible tells us that the New Jerusalem won’t have a temple. My understanding is that without death and without a temple, Levitical sacrifice would have to stop. So, because God is logically consistent, it only makes sense to me that this is a comment about the Millennial kingdom of Jesus. That tells me that during that time there will be a temple and in that temple animal sacrifices will be burned for the sins of the Jews in recognition of what Jesus had already done for them. Sin will still exist among those born during the 1000 years by natural, unredeemed mankind that lasted through the tribulation.

Why would this be important? Well, it certainly throws out a lot of bad doctrine doesn’t it? There isn’t any perpetual death of Jesus. Israel isn’t just spiritual and the Millennium is a time on earth when death still exists. Jeremiah 33:18 appears to force us to have a better eschatology, or understanding of the end of things. It also produces hope in us. There will be a time when this old earth will be run by a new Administration that will correctly govern it for 1000 years. We will see the world work like it was supposed to before it is ultimately recycled.

The Most Important Message

For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
– The Bible (John 3:16)

God’s Message to Us

The Bible is not a normal book. It claims to contain a message that God wants man to know, and there is no reason to not believe what it says. It tells us that God created the universe, and when He did, He made it to be a perfect place. There was no death or suffering. All of the good things we see in nature and more existed at that time. On the new earth, God placed all kinds of the creatures as well as the first two humans. He made a garden for them to live in, but He also gave them a test. He put a tree in the middle of that garden and commanded them to never to eat from it.

Satan’s Story

God also created angels, and at one point, some of them rebelled against God. The leader of the rebellion was the most beautiful creation that God ever made named Lucifer. Not long after man was created, Lucifer, now called Satan, decided to see if he could convince man to go against God too.

Satan took on the form of a snake, and tempted Eve to eat from the forbidden tree by causing her to doubt God and think independently of Him. God had warned Adam and Eve that if they ever did choose to eat from the forbidden tree, they would die. Satan was successful in tricking Eve into eating from the tree. Even though Adam wasn’t tricked, when Eve ate it and gave it to him, he decided to go along with her and eat it too. The perfect world that God had created was then cursed by God because of what Adam and Eve did. That’s why things are so bad for us today.

Man’s Fall and Future Hope

God had put man in charge of the earth, but man decided to disobey God and as a result, God kept His word and brought death into it, but instead of killing Adam and Eve immediately, God killed an animal and gave Adam and Eve clothes and allowed them to die slowly. He said that even though Adam and Eve would get old and die, He was going to save mankind and heal the whole earth someday through one of their descendants. Adam and Eve believed and started having kids!

Our Separation from God

The Bible goes on to tell us that as the population of mankind grew, they began to sin so badly that God was disgusted and decided to destroyed the whole world with a flood, but, keeping His promise, He reserved one good man and his family alive to repopulate the earth. Even after that, their descendants kept disobeying God to such a degree that God forced them to separate from each other by confusing their languages. This divided the world into different cultures. The resulting genetic separation is probably what caused such widely different looking humans. In all of this, God was still following through on His promise to Adam and Eve, but the child who was to save mankind had not yet been born.

God’s Plan to Save Us Could Not Be Stopped

Satan, however, was doing whatever he could to stop God’s plan from happening. He may have thought he defeated God when Adam and Eve sinned, but God had a plan and went right around him. He may have thought he won when God decided to destroy the world with a flood, but God saved Noah. He may have even thought that he won when he made Noah’s descendants go against Him, but God still worked it out.

Then the Bible follows the history of Israel. God decided to pick out three men: Abraham, his son Isaac and his son Jacob. Out of these men, God literally generated a new country that He named after Jacob, whom He had renamed Israel. He also chose a piece of real estate in a land called Canaan, destroyed the existing evil descendants of Noah who lived there and put Israel’s descendants in their place, but Satan could see what was happening and got right to work. By his scheming, he tempted Israel to become just as evil, if not worse, than the Canaanites were before them. Once again, God punished them, but once again, God went right around the problem.

God’s Plan is Revealed

Unexpectedly, after Israel had been occupied by the oppressive government of Rome, God sent an angel named Gabriel to a poor Israeli girl named Mary, telling her that she was going to have the promised child. Gabriel explained to her that this was not to be a typical child, but would actually be God Himself, and to prove it, she would get pregnant without the help of a man. That’s exactly what happened, and she gave birth to Jesus. To spread the word, thousands of God’s Angels were sent to announce the coming to the most unlikely segment of Roman society, Jewish shepherds! God was aware of what they were capable of, however. They went and told everyone what they saw and didn’t rest until they found this promised child. God knew what He was doing. Satan, however, got the leader of the time to kill all of the Jewish children in the region, but God gave Mary’s husband, Joseph a dream, and they immediately left to Egypt, once again escaping Satan’s attempt to stop God’s plan.

What Jesus Did for Us

You can imagine the life that Jesus must have lived after that. He would do something, but Satan would try to kill it, only to have Jesus go right around it. The Book of John in the Bible is important reading at this point. It tells you some of the details of this time in history. The fight to secure the salvation of the human race was coming to a critical moment.

Jesus lived in a way that made every other human look bad. He followed God’s commands, the ones that He gave to Israel’s children when He formed their nation. Unlike all the rest of them, He didn’t fail and on top of that, He pointed out the failures of others. Jesus wasn’t trying to just make people feel bad, He just knew that a person who doesn’t want to be saved, can’t be saved. If you are happy with the fact that you are sinning and don’t care that you are going to be punished for it, you won’t be willing to accept your way out of punishment. God had given man free will up to this point and He continues to do that now. If you don’t admit that you do things that God hates, you won’t be thinking clear enough to accept your salvation!

Without really understanding what they were doing, the Romans and the Jewish leadership conspired to kill Jesus. I really think that Satan thought he did it this time. Not only did Jesus die, He was tortured to death by God’s own special people, along with the leadership of the Roman government. Once again, however, this was all part of God’s plan.

God Wins

Jesus did die and for three days He was put in a tomb in Israel, but on the third day, He resurrected Himself and walked out of His tomb, never to return. When you look back at the Bible, you discover that God had planned this from the very beginning. The concepts were symbolically placed in the history of the Bible. Israel had prophets that predicted it, and Jesus himself even predicted it. Jesus, by his obedience to God beat death itself by coming back from the dead.

The Bible says that it was God’s plan to win back all of mankind by taking the punishment for Adam and Eve’s sin Himself. He did that as Jesus. If you are willing to admit that you are part of the problems we have on earth and simply believe that Jesus has already paid the price to keep you from punishment, you will not suffer that punishment.

What Jesus Saves Us From

That brings up the issue of punishment. What is the punishment that Jesus was saving people from? For that I need to quote something that Jesus hasn’t said yet. You heard that right. The Bible speaks of things that haven’t happened yet. There are things in it that are still happening. Jesus is still getting around Satan and Satan is still trying to stop Him. You and I are now in the middle of this. This is what Jesus will say in the future:

He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” He said, “Write, for these words of God are faithful and true.” He said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give freely to him who is thirsty from the spring of the water of life. He who overcomes, I will give him these things. I will be his God, and he will be my son. But for the cowardly, unbelieving, sinners, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their part is in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”
– The Bible (Revelation 21:5-8)

That lake of fire that burns is what we call Hell. That’s God’s jail and it’s permanent. The death we usually talk about today is just the first one. After that, those who haven’t accepted Jesus will have to go to court and then it will be too late to change. This is why this message is so important.

Your Choice

If you will believe in Jesus now, before you die, you will be saved from the second death. The section of the Bible called “The Book of Revelation” that I just quoted from, also tells us that we aren’t at the end yet. When the end comes, God will change the whole earth, transforming it from what it is today. This world will contain only the good things again and none of the bad things. God will destroy all of the bad things. If we don’t accept God’s way for a human to become good, we will have to be destroyed with the rest of the bad from the old world. So, please take this seriously and choose to depend on Jesus now because you don’t know when you will die.

If you have chosen to trust in Jesus’ payment for your sin by his death, I encourage you to do these four things:

1) Tell God right now. Pray to Him by just talking and telling Him you accept what He has done for you. He is everywhere and can hear you.

2) Tell someone else that you believe. Start by just telling them, but I encourage you to make it “official” by getting baptized. Have another Christian perform this ceremony in order to show others that you have accepted this.

3) Read the Bible and pray as often as you can. God has provided us everything we need to grow as Christians in the Bible and Satan is here and he will be after you now. God’s message is like a weapon against Satan. Just like we need to believe the Bible about being saved from Hell, we need to believe it about everything God has said. Satan will try to stop that in order to keep you from influencing other people, so we need to stay focused on the truth. Get an e-copy of the Bible’s book of John right here.

4) Get together with other Christians on a regular basis. The Bible says that we were meant for each other. Although there are many troubles, even between Christians sometimes, a whole life of joy awaits us as we experience God’s love together. We will not accomplish God’s work alone.

If you trust in Jesus in this way, you are a Christian. You have nothing to worry about because God has forgiven you and you will be with me and all of the other Christians on the New Earth someday. Thank you for listening to this message.