THE ENCOUNTER
There was a young man traveling down Main st. one summer evening, handing out Christian tracts to passers-by when he gave me one and said, ‘God bless you’, and walked on by. Interested, I said, ‘What’s this?’ – and he turned and said, ‘Jesus died for you!, read all about it”. ‘Jesus died for me? Why Jesus? And why for me?’, I retorted, yet knowingly, teasing him for an answer I already knew, but I just had to know if he did. I suspected he was shy and was out in the public helping his church not intending conversation, but he said to me anyhow, “Yes, Jesus, He sacrificed Himself so that you may Live! – The precious blood of Jesus washes away your sins, if you accept Him to be your Savior that is.”
I can see that I was about to invoke a string of Christian cliches if I asked more questions because, to me, this nice young man had a few stored up for such occasions. Yet, to someone with a very real desire to understand what ‘Jesus dying for you’ or what ‘His Blood’ means in real terms then a collection of clichés would answer very little. Many, many Christians have very little understanding on what their ‘religion’ actually requires of them, but at least they know to believe in Jesus because that’s the very start of their faith. One doesn’t need to be a university scholar in theology to understand what the Scriptures say but God does hope you have the sense to think on matters spiritual, to contemplate your future and to be obedient to the cause.
In our age, children are taught with calculators instead of mentally sweating out the math (even non-math personalities should have a basic knowledge). People use cake-in-a-box instead of scratch-made or instead use just-add-water pancake mix; and it’s understandably easier as well. Society is persuaded by every wind of thought that prevails without challenging the foundation it’s built on, and they are led away.
Are we lazy? Not necessarily, but we revel in conveniences and we happily embrace any innovations we have created since the beginning of time. There is a difference, though, between a convenience that can assist you or having them take over your way of life. When we begin to lose touch with simple basic skills whether it is in cooking, math, outdoor survival or bible study then we run the risk of raising a very incompetent generation.
Let me explain. When I was younger, I took up electronics as a career choice, never followed through sadly, but the hobby continues as I spent years studying the basics. Now, just recently, I met a young man who just received a diploma in electronics, so I started talking about technical stuff to see what he knew. I was astounded to find out that the basics I was taught – no, that I was drilled in, never graced his textbooks. He hasn't a clue about colour codes and components and the similar beginner basics. I was quite bothered about this until I visited his school.
The level of technical gizmos and fabricating materials were very high, he was taught that electronics is modular - meaning - you don’t worry about the part that’s broken because you replace the whole circuit board at once. He will not have to figure out the little stuff because the equipment he attaches to it will do his diagnostics. The basics, the background is lost on him because its not necessary and it’s not his fault – he was taught that the foundation of his work has already been laid out and he doesn't need to ‘understand’ the basics but only to apply that which he has been already taught. This is not necessarily wrong, but it is lacking. Thus is today’s society.
Similarly, in Christianity many congregations are taught to sit and listen and be persuaded by the minds of the shepherds behind the pulpits while the Book of their faith’s foundation sits unopened in their laps. Maybe a well known author will publish some book on spiritual understandings which then becomes dogma by those influenced by the words. If you have heard of the book ‘Purpose Driven Life’, it is a testimony of how someone’s ideology can influence a nation. There are lots of good points, obvious common sense, but those words go on unchallenged by Scripture – as Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 5:21 Test all things; hold fast what is good.
Good people, smart people study superficial ideas, memorize some key phrases and become influential to others around them. They are the only ‘light’ of spiritual knowledge that some people ever come across, those people who have never ‘thought’ spiritual thoughts. Yet, these good people are cake-in-a-box processed and have no real deeper understanding – because that’s how they’ve been educated. We have pamphlets and well written spiritual books that explain whatever it is you need to know. We have our hymnals projected on video screens – no need to hold one now. Satellite feeds, DVD sermons and audio tapes envelope us and the Book of our faith’s foundation is lost in its ‘archaic’ flavour; it sits unopened and misunderstood on the bookshelves of our homes.
Isaiah wrote 34:16 "Search from the book of the LORD, and read”
Cliché Busting
Let us go back to the start and answer our first question without cliché – Why did Jesus have to die? What could that possibly mean to me now almost 2000 years after the fact? As I said earlier, you don’t need a theology degree to understand the deeper things the Scriptures have stored in its pages. Salvation doesn’t come through spiritual SATs. The bigger reason I am a proponent of careful study is for your own discernment, to be able to distinguish between truth and deception. So that when someone presents you with a different idea or value, you will not be so easily persuaded to move unguardedly and possibly be moved from your salvation so freely offered to you.
Hosea mentions in 4:6 “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”
As much as you want to get into heaven and live life in eternal happiness and safety, there is someone whose best interest is to keep you out of heaven, at all costs. You see, Satan isn’t just some neurotic evil character in red tights, holding a trident, bent on your personal destruction just because he’s God’s nemesis. He wasn’t created evil to be a ‘balance’ to God’s good world, nor did he join the ‘dark side’. Satan, aka Lucifer was God’s first created angel full of wisdom and power to carry out God’s wishes. Sadly, Satan chose to challenge God’s authority which got him into a lot of trouble. This treason got him kicked out of heaven and he then was bent on usurping God’s government and destroying His creations.
Now, Satan will actually be paying personally for every sin you’ve committed once they have been forgiven you, and he knows that fully; in other words the pardon you get by God’s grace means that the book of all your badness, your sin you have committed, gets handed back to Satan (the source of your evil) and his angels. Sin or the record of your personal wrongdoings isn’t just erased, shredded or vaporized once you have been redeemed, they are ‘covered’ until the judgment day. Once you are forgiven your sins they are ‘transferred’ to Satan and he will have to personally pay for them as you have been freed from their cost, but I am getting ahead of myself.
Trust and Obey
The whole world and all that is in it, living or not, is subject to the Laws of God and the whole world and all that is in it, is obedient unto those laws. You can trust God’s Laws perfectly and you do all the time. You know that when you drop an apple it will fall, everytime, without fail. That’s the Law of Gravity and scientifically it’s a constant you can expect exact results. Never have you thrown something and it floated up slowly out of sight or suddenly sped up and exploded. Water flows downhill – always, rocks are hard, wood burns, metal shines, and on and on – these are all ‘natural’ laws – God’s Laws that are never broken or cannot be. You can’t make gold out of lead. Animals as well, follow instinctive, survival, built-in intuition and even though they seem to have traits of evil – they simply follow the laws that govern them – God’s Laws.
The mystery of sin started not in the Garden of Eden but in heaven much earlier on. Lucifer being very close in the confidence of God began to build within himself desires unbefitting to a created being. He was God’s first creation, His right hand angel – with all the powers given by God to carry out His plans. We read of Satan’s fall from grace here in Ezekiel 28:15 “You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, Till iniquity was found in you.” Isaiah 14:13-14 explains in detail - 13 For you have said in your heart: 'I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation On the farthest sides of the north; 14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.'
This pride was akin to treason against our Lord and was a sin and there was no place for Lucifer in heaven any longer. Before he was cast out he, unbelievably, seduced a third of God’s angels to take part in his treacherous ways and they too were also excluded from heaven. You can only wonder at Lucifer’s amazing arrogance and audacity of his desires to usurp God and believe he actually could succeed. He was upset at losing heaven; yet, if Lucifer could somehow find a loophole to regain entry into God’s kingdom, hmmmmmmm….
God’s New Creation
God’s crowning achievement was to create man in His image; and at the time of Adam’s introduction into this brave new ‘perfect’ world, Satan concocted a plan. If man will disobey God then in order to save man, God will have to bend or break His unbreakable law, then Lucifer will call foul so he himself can be re-instated. So, either God will lose His new, perfect creation due to His unbending law, or create a way to overlook Adam and Eve’s iniquity, something Lucifer may be able to apply to himself. Either way Lucifer forced God’s hand to action.
Now Adam and Eve were not without warning – Gen 2:16-17 “And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." This is a pretty strong statement but understanding that God’s Law cannot change lends credence. Jesus reinforced this in His words in Matthew 5:18 “For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.”
A great reason God’s Law’s are unwavering is simply about trust. How can you possibly trust in anything that wavers from one state to another. If you threw a stone at the window and it splat like a peach or if you hammered a nail that splintered like wood you wouldn’t ‘trust’ in the physical nature of things for very long. If God created Laws that were carelessly broken without consequence how could you put trust into Him. Anything that breaks God’s natural Laws simply cannot exist in God’s universe; so the consequence for His created humans to break the word and Law of God is death. God does not change and God does not lie.
Until Death Do We Part
Death, in our world, has quite a cultural context a preconceived notion – so to speak. Death for us, personally, is sadness that our loved one sleeps, gone from our days of living, the ultimate separation from the world, an ultimate separation from us and into some ‘unknown’. Ecclesiastes notes 9:5-6 “For the living know that they will die; But the dead know nothing, And they have no more reward, For the memory of them is forgotten. 6 Also their love, their hatred, and their envy have now perished; Nevermore will they have a share in anything done under the sun.”
Many different cultures define death differently as seen in the myriad of religions around the world. Atheists believe in nothingness, you live and you die – so be it. Budda’s believe in ascension to layers of heaven depending on your ‘goodness’. For Mormon's you get your own planet; a secular person may envision a sandy warm beach surrounded by servants and drinks. Your definition of the afterlife stems from what you’re willing to put your belief in, even those that wish upon a comet’s tail. And even though we honestly do not know what happens to us in the life after, we all have the hope that there is something. For those of us who experienced the loss of a loved one – it is still separation from us and they will ‘nevermore’ share in anything under the sun’. Yet, the Scriptures clearly speak as to what happens, if we allow ourselves to look.
Death, in God’s mind, is separation from Him – for eternity, not in the sense of writhing in hell for all eternity for that’s not death, that’s life, only in torment. Death as God explains is non-existence, forever. It is written in Malachi 4:1 "For behold, the day is coming, Burning like an oven, And all the proud, yes, all who do wickedly will be stubble. And the day which is coming shall burn them up," Says the LORD of hosts, "That will leave them neither root nor branch.” And here John the revelator shares in Revelation 20:13-15 “The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. 14 Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. 15 And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.”
The first death is our ‘sleep’, then we are awakened again by the trumpets of the angels for judgment, good or bad and if we are found wanting then we will experience the ‘second death’ which is forever separation from God. This is the wages of sin, and what happens when God’s law is broken.
The Way Out
The diabolical Satan disguised himself in the garden and waited for the right opportunity to spring his trap. Eve succumbed to the ideology of this strange serpent creature and took the bite – literally. She then enticed Adam who also was persuaded, and they fell, sadly into disobedience – the breaking of God’s instructions.
God had a plan after all. He anticipated the emergency that His beloved Adam and Eve could fall – the risk with love is a freewill choice after all. God could not just overlook the disobedience of His children, He knew that would allow Satan back into heaven and the sin he carried, and that could not be allowed – ever. So God instructed the pair that they would have to die (as He warned earlier for God doesn't lie) for their transaction OR interestingly enough, find a suitable substitute to take their place.
What genius, now instead of Adam facing imminent personal death, he can choose, with remorse and supplication to acknowledge his sin, and to have his wrongdoing transferred to another living being, thus sparing him to live another day. This is called Substitutionary sacrifice. Yet, who or what would be a suitable substitute that God would find acceptable. Angels were not of God’s new creation, they were messengers and workers for the Lord and didn't qualify. Plants and animals were simply ecological elements of the Earth and their innocence were noted as neither could sin, but were not equipped in the ‘understanding’ of the freewill choice between right and wrong. That is when Jesus stepped forward to offer Himself in place of the errant children. Literally the Creator of His creation is willing to offer Himself unto death to be the acceptable substitute for their iniquity. That is hard to wrap the mind around. God would accept the willful substitutionary sacrifice that Jesus was willing to make in place of humankind.
Satan was foiled again – that was not going to work for him because there was nothing that could be an angelic substitute, so the only thing he would have to do is thwart God’s efforts until he could figure something else out. Meanwhile, God instructed the couple about Jesus’ saving grace and taught them to look forward to His coming to redeem all with His personal sacrifice. God then explained that an unblemished firstborn animal as a lamb would be an accepted sacrifice as a symbolic gesture until Jesus actually came down to signify it through Himself once and for all. In fact, that very act of sacrificing an innocent creature would replay the very importance what sin has done and hoping that the revolting event would train the mind to look to good rather than be easily tempted to do wrong, thus requiring another sacrifice – taking another life, a life of innocence.
Most people have heard the story of Cain and Abel, in which one brother, Cain, rose up and murdered the other. The underlying theme of this event happens to be on the obedience of that sacrifice. Abel, a shepherd, takes one of his lambs and sacrifices it to the Lord and that sacrifice is accepted – as per instructed. Cain , being a farmer, takes his ‘wares’ and presents them to the Lord as an offering – yet the Lord did not accept the token of fruits and vegetables as a sacrifice and that displeased Cain deeply.
Cain misunderstood or blatantly didn’t want to take a life of an animal when his produce was just as good in his mind. Cain’s disobedience to God’s sacrificial object lesson could have been easily remedied, but he created a worse case scenario, became jealous and murdered Abel in a jealous rage. Interestingly, Cain and Abel’s division was due to a type of worship – do we know in which way God expects us to worship Him today? Or do we presume that our ‘offerings’ are automatically acceptable – can we find out? – of course.
Understand that Satan wants to ‘be like the Most High’ which means he wants our worship just as God receives our worship, so Satan will pervert and / or counterfeit a style of worship that’s acceptable to him. He is cunning and sly and will attempt to blind your reason to turn your head from the Lord, and all through the many centuries we have.
History has shown us in every culture there is religious significance taught to the people and spread out on the land. From the Aztec sacrificial pyramids to appease the gods to the Celtic shamans who created monolithic structures to the poor ignorant women of the Hindu culture who toss their first born into the Ganges, we are led in many directions - except what God has determined in truth. Sadly, Satan’s plans to pervert and destroy are very effective. Yet, amazingly, we still have God’s good Word before us to keep us on track, even in our day and age.
Paul shares with us in 2 Timothy 3:16 ‘All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.’
Seeds of Influence
Once Satan and his minions have set man in a direction he wants, all he has to do is maintain the destruction. He knows that when a man ‘buys’ a certain philosophy, that disagrees with God, then they walk a path unto their own doing. Pride, fear, coercion keeps the people following down their ‘traditional’ roads and Satan wins the round; from culture to culture, from generation to generation. Jesus tells us in Matthew 7:13-14 "Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. 14 Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.
Fortunately, there will always be people who stubbornly resist Satan and obey God. God tells us that He will always have a ‘people’ until the end, until Jesus comes again. Satan, for this cause, is beside himself working overtime to root them out and persuade them otherwise, by trial or temptation, whatever works – everyone has a price – or so it seems.
Before the flood, God called on Noah to preach the destruction of the world by a flood and build a boat big enough for the cause. Noah obediently warned the ‘world’ for 120 years as he built the ark, and even when mysterious events occurred before the peoples eyes, they still were too stiff necked+ to believe Noah’s dyer warning. And the flood carried them all away. Satan must have both rejoiced at God’s great loss and sighed as he had to start over again. Satan almost had it, if God didn’t intervene, had almost put every living soul under his evil influence. But like a skilled surgeon cutting out the gangrene, God’s intervention was perfectly timely, of course.
Not knowing the world before the flood, I can only speculate, but Satan’s job was probably made easier I’m sure, with the people being in one language and on one continent, persuasion would be ‘simple’. Noah probably looked like a crazy old man building an ark preaching about impending rain when there never has been rain before. So after the destruction by the flood, God mixed the world up and gave us separated continents, but the people, now repopulating the world, dwelled together still.
Crisis again, as the Tower of Babel was erected by the populace trying to defy God’s possible attempt at another flood – even though He had promised not to. So the Lord thwarted this evil generation’s defiance by creating mass confusion with a myriad ‘languages’ and they scattered in fear to the ends of the earth. Satan would have to work much harder now to gather them together so his influence would work in bringing the world unto destruction again. The plan is quite simple, if every inhabitant disobeys God and then the whole world would be lost; then he can use that against the Most High in declaring that His Law is impossible to keep, thus the rest of the universe would have to agree and God would have to lessen the reigns, change the rules – Satan could get his seat back again, no need for a ‘Savior’.
Enter the ‘Savoir’
God’s people were once again messed up, hedged in by oppressive forces; as for the rest of the world, the Roman rule was a tough one as they conquered and assimilated peoples of all cultures. A world rule getting closer all the time, every time another country got aggressive they took over more and more of the nations. First Babylon and then the Persians and Medes took over then the Greeks had a startling upset and conquered many nations very quickly. The Romans came along and usurped the Greeks and their borders spread wider. Maybe with a few more successions the world would be under one rule again.
The Hebrews, that silly tiny country was conquered by every faction that blew over its borders and they clung to a misrepresented understanding of their own God. Satan had it all tied up – conquering the Hebrews would end it all and that was close. Until….
Luke 2:11-14 For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger." 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: 14 "Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!"
Satan must have been absolutely incensed – just when his evil plans seemed to be coming together, Jesus couldn’t have come at a worse time. God has a way of mending a crisis before it gets out of hand. The Hebrews were at a disadvantage at the time of Jesus birth, besides being occupied by Roman forces. They had to contend with a paranoid murderous King Herod who slayed anyone who challenged his authority. Had the priests of the realm disclosed that the prophecy of the Messiah was being fulfilled to their King, they and the Messiah would have been slaughtered.
By fearing Herod, the priests inadvertently preserved themselves but more importantly let Jesus live low-key. Once the Wisemen from the east appeared and revealed the appearance of the Messiah in his midst, then Herod was satanically inspired to kill Jesus by slaughtering all the children two years and younger of that region. Jesus escaped.
Now that Jesus was grown and taking on His mission for the world, it was imperative that Satan remove this man without sin. For if Jesus succeeded in finishing His goal, Satan, in the eyes of the universe, wouldn't have a leg to stand on and would be forever doomed without any loopholes to content with concerning his own life. If Jesus would ‘slip’ and sin or die before he could accomplish anything then Satan would still have a chance to challenge God’s authority.
Jesus was baptized and fasted 40 days in the wilderness, a point to prove that the temptation of food brought down the first couple, but it wouldn't overcome Him. Satan with cunning wisdom approached Jesus after His fasting was complete and tempted Him to turn a stone to bread. A temptation I’m sure after that long without sustenance, yet, Jesus could see right through this ‘angel’ as Satan appeared to be. So Satan turned up the heat and twice more tempted Him and still nothing; Jesus wouldn't succumb. Well, if he couldn't ‘persuade’ Jesus then he would have to get to Him another way.
Time and time again Satan riled the people against Jesus, to stone Him when it seemed He blasphemed, to trip Him with twisted words, to charge Him when He challenged their laws. Jesus sidestepped them all with equally smart retorts and began re-acquainting the people on the true character of God the Father. Many were moved. Many inspired by Satan’s influence, saw Jesus as a possible threat to their livelihood, their own authority – and the conspiracy began. As the High priest at that time uttered - John 18:14 ‘Now it was Caiaphas who advised the Jews that it was expedient that one man should die for the people.’
In a last ditch effort, Satan’s tactics are blatantly obvious as Jesus gets arrested and the trial that ensues condemns Him to death even when His innocence is crystal clear. Jesus, like a lamb, is led to His impending doom with great courage and with the timing of prophecy, dies. Whether Satan knew it or not at the time he engineered God’s Substitutionary Sacrifice in which the world could be redeemed by. A completely innocent sinless person whose sacrifice was acceptable by God made the way for any human who in faith believed on the only begotten Son of God and be saved from their sins. Jesus proved to the world that a human, despite the temptations, can live a life free from sin; thus disputing Satan’s claim it couldn't be done – that the Law was too hard. Jesus justified the lives of His creation and left no avenue for Satan to reclaim his position in, near, or around heaven. Satan presented himself as the diabolical killer of God’s Son, he sealed his own fate. Satan lost.
As a madman with nothing left to lose, Satan re-enters the destruction mode with renewed fervor. He needs to be sure that Jesus has NO followers for every sin that’s pardon he will have to account for. Revelation exclaims 12:12
Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time."
After Jesus ascends into the heavens, He lends hope to the planet’s inhabitants. Like weeds in a garden, Satan contends with Christians popping up in every crevice. He tries to crucify, oppress, stamp down and send to the lions as many as he can. As fast he as does, more Christians convert due to the faith of those before them.
Then Satan has a brilliant tactic, if you can’t fight them, join them; and like the Israelites before, he inspires an emperor to assimilate his country folk to this new religion – Christianity. Now under the guise of God’s people, Satan can freely inflict and control and oppress his new group of converts.
Until the second coming of our Lord Jesus......
