Last Sunday evening after a brief rain shower just about sundown, a beautiful rainbow appeared right in our back yard! Many times over the years I have marveled at this miraculous display of God’s handiwork as he repeatedly offers His credentials as a “promise–keeper,” but this time I saw something that I have never seen before. In fact I thought that it wasn’t even possible! (Of course, isn’t that kind of the definition of a miracle?) I saw the end of the rainbow! You know, that place where the pot of gold is supposed to be! Right there in my back yard the end the rainbow came down and I got to see the very bottom where it touched down! You could actually look right through the translucent colors and see the trees on the other side! So that got me thinking about rainbows. How many colors? Seven. Hmmm. God is light. In Him is no darkness at all and He dwells in unapproachable light! The apostle John saw the throne of God in heaven and he described it in Rev. 4:3 as being encircled by a rainbow! Normally, all the visible colors are contained invisibly cloaked in what we call “white light.” Sometimes, after a rain shower the light breaks apart in the prisms of suspended atmospheric water vapor and we can see all the beauty of a rainbow - beauty that is always there, just unseen until there is a storm. Faith is being sure of what we can’t see... God’s invisible qualities can be clearly seen through his creation… Lots of sermons in rainbows!
When did the first rainbow appear? God set his rainbow in the sky as the sign of his covenant with Noah (and with all life on earth) to never again destroy the earth with a flood. (Gen. 8:11-17) Why did the flood come? Death and destruction came because of man’s wickedness. (Gen 6:5-7) But God made a way of escape, an ark of deliverance which would save all who were inside. The day came when God himself shut the door and afterward, His wrath and judgment were poured out. Was God looking forward to this punishment of evil-doers? No! The Word says he was “grieved.” God is not willing that any should perish but that all come to repentance! (2Pet. 3:9) Noah’s grandfather was a man named Methuselah. Remember him? He was the oldest man who ever lived. Why do you suppose he lived so long? When Methuselah was born God told his father Enoch, a man who truly walked with God, to give him that name which means: “After him, judgment!” So God already knew what he was going to have to do, yet he allowed Methuselah to live 969 years and the year he died the flood came! Can you see the mercy and grace and long-suffering patience of God? He gives chance after chance for men to turn from their wickedness… but eventually he will always bring judgment on sin. God’s rainbow reminds us that he will never again destroy the earth … by flood. But the earth is slated for demolition, although the next time won’t be with water but with fire! (2Pet. 3:10) Man’s wickedness must be dealt with once again. And once again, God has made a way of escape, an ark of deliverance – Jesus Christ! There is no other name under heaven by which man may be saved! For He said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me!” All who are “in Him” will be saved, but those outside will be lost forever. Today, the door to the ark stands wide open! Whosoever will may come! But there is coming a day when God will shut the door and what God shuts, no man can open! The Day of Grace will soon be over and when grace comes to an end, the Day of Judgment will be violently upon the earth.
Some people scoff at God’s coming wrath and judgment. Others wonder, why is it taking God so long? God is not slow in keeping his promise - He keeps them all! Remember the rainbow? God is patient with us, just like he was in Methuselah’s time. He is giving people (maybe you?) a chance to get right before they get left. “Because of our stubbornness and our unrepentant hearts, we are storing up judgment against ourselves for the Day of God’s wrath.” (Rom. 2:5) “Since everything will be destroyed in this way…. What kind of people ought we be?” (2Pet. 3:11) Ark- dwellers with a rainbow connection. Saved covenant people who are trying as best we can to get more folks in the ark before the door shuts.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Thursday, August 12, 2010
From Bad to Worse
Those of you who have been reading my column for several years know that for some time I have predicted a coming confrontation between Israel and Iran. Today, I looked back though the archives and noted that I have written about this 19 times over the past five years! Some would say I am beating a dead horse! But I say, I am beating a drum and sounding a trumpet! I want to wake up the sleepers out there who are oblivious to the coming events that are about to overtake the world like a thief in the night. I believe this confrontation will happen - and when it does, it may very well bring about unpredictable consequences, which like rapidly falling dominoes, will propel the world towards the coming of the anti-Christ and the second coming of Christ. I read a very interesting article this week in the Atlantic magazine entitled “The Point Of No Return” about the probability of this coming conflict. I do not have space to reprint it, but for those of you who are awake enough to care about such things you can read it here: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2010/09/the-point-of-no-return/8186/
Perhaps nothing in this article was more profound than the recent words of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s father, Ben-Zion Netanyahu on the occasion of his 100th birthday. (Think for a moment about what this Jewish centenarian has witnessed in his lifetime!) Ben-Zion is a noted historian and the father of both the current Prime Minister and another son who died in a fire-fight while freeing the Jewish hostages during the 1978 “Raid on Entebbe.” Here is a portion of his remarks that night: “Our party this evening compels me to speak of recent comments made about the continued existence of the nation of Israel and the new threats by its enemies depicting its upcoming destruction. From the Iranian side, we hear pledges that soon—in a matter of days, even—the Zionist movement will be put to an end and there will be no more Zionists in the world. One is supposed to conclude from this that the Jews of the Land of Israel will be annihilated, while the Jews of America, whose leaders refuse to pressure Iran, are being fed a lie - that the annihilation of the Jews will not include them! The Jewish people are making their position clear and putting faith in their military power. The nation of Israel is showing the world today how a state should behave when it stands before an existential threat: by looking danger in the eye and calmly considering what should be done and what can be done. And to be ready to enter the fray at the moment there is a reasonable chance of success.”
Now read these words spoken by Iranian President Ahmadinejad about a month ago: “Sixty years ago, by means of an artificial and false pretext, and by fabricating information and inventing stories, they gathered the filthiest, most criminal people, who only appear to be human, from all corners of the world. They organized and armed them, and provided them with media and military backing. Thus, they occupied the Palestinian lands, and displaced the Palestinian people.” The “invented story” is, of course, the Holocaust. Ahmadinejad’s efforts to deny the historical truth of the Holocaust reflect the official position of the Iranian government. Iranian foreign minister, Mottaki said in 2005, “The words of Ahmadinejad on the Holocaust and on Israel are not personal opinion, nor isolated statements, but they express the view of the government.” The Iranian leadership’s own view of nuclear war is perhaps best exemplified by a comment made in 2001 by the former Iranian president Rafsanjani, who entertained the idea that Israel’s demise could be brought about in a relatively pain-free manner for the Muslim world. “The use of an atomic bomb against Israel would destroy Israel completely while a nuclear attack against the Islamic countries would only cause damages.” This is the thinking that has the Israeli government on a knife’s edge.
Following his father’s birthday speech, Prime Minister Netanyahu was asked to comment on the Iranian threat, “Iran has threatened to annihilate a state. In historical terms, this is an astounding thing. It’s a monumental outrage that goes effectively unchallenged in the court of public opinion. Sure, there is perfunctory condemnation, but there is no shock.” And then, as if he were channeling is father’s historian persona, he warned, “A crucial lesson of history is that bad things tend to get worse if they are not challenged.”
Friends, his words are true, whether you are talking about a death-cult dictator like Ahmadinejad, bad policy right here in America, or our own personal sin. Chew on that for a while.
Perhaps nothing in this article was more profound than the recent words of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s father, Ben-Zion Netanyahu on the occasion of his 100th birthday. (Think for a moment about what this Jewish centenarian has witnessed in his lifetime!) Ben-Zion is a noted historian and the father of both the current Prime Minister and another son who died in a fire-fight while freeing the Jewish hostages during the 1978 “Raid on Entebbe.” Here is a portion of his remarks that night: “Our party this evening compels me to speak of recent comments made about the continued existence of the nation of Israel and the new threats by its enemies depicting its upcoming destruction. From the Iranian side, we hear pledges that soon—in a matter of days, even—the Zionist movement will be put to an end and there will be no more Zionists in the world. One is supposed to conclude from this that the Jews of the Land of Israel will be annihilated, while the Jews of America, whose leaders refuse to pressure Iran, are being fed a lie - that the annihilation of the Jews will not include them! The Jewish people are making their position clear and putting faith in their military power. The nation of Israel is showing the world today how a state should behave when it stands before an existential threat: by looking danger in the eye and calmly considering what should be done and what can be done. And to be ready to enter the fray at the moment there is a reasonable chance of success.”
Now read these words spoken by Iranian President Ahmadinejad about a month ago: “Sixty years ago, by means of an artificial and false pretext, and by fabricating information and inventing stories, they gathered the filthiest, most criminal people, who only appear to be human, from all corners of the world. They organized and armed them, and provided them with media and military backing. Thus, they occupied the Palestinian lands, and displaced the Palestinian people.” The “invented story” is, of course, the Holocaust. Ahmadinejad’s efforts to deny the historical truth of the Holocaust reflect the official position of the Iranian government. Iranian foreign minister, Mottaki said in 2005, “The words of Ahmadinejad on the Holocaust and on Israel are not personal opinion, nor isolated statements, but they express the view of the government.” The Iranian leadership’s own view of nuclear war is perhaps best exemplified by a comment made in 2001 by the former Iranian president Rafsanjani, who entertained the idea that Israel’s demise could be brought about in a relatively pain-free manner for the Muslim world. “The use of an atomic bomb against Israel would destroy Israel completely while a nuclear attack against the Islamic countries would only cause damages.” This is the thinking that has the Israeli government on a knife’s edge.
Following his father’s birthday speech, Prime Minister Netanyahu was asked to comment on the Iranian threat, “Iran has threatened to annihilate a state. In historical terms, this is an astounding thing. It’s a monumental outrage that goes effectively unchallenged in the court of public opinion. Sure, there is perfunctory condemnation, but there is no shock.” And then, as if he were channeling is father’s historian persona, he warned, “A crucial lesson of history is that bad things tend to get worse if they are not challenged.”
Friends, his words are true, whether you are talking about a death-cult dictator like Ahmadinejad, bad policy right here in America, or our own personal sin. Chew on that for a while.
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