A Responsive Reading of Isaiah 40 (ESV)

[ From time to time as I have opportunity to teach a Sunday school class, I find myself dealing with a passage of Scripture that lends itself to being responsively read. The advantage of a responsive reading is it gets the whole class involved in the passage, and in a way that in itself can be instructive. Isaiah 40 is one of those passages. ]

Narrator: (1) Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. (2) Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins.

Men: (3) A voice cries:

All: "In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. (4) Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. (5) And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken."

Narrator: (6) A voice says,

Men: "Cry!"

Narrator: And I said, "What shall I cry?"

Ladies: All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. (7) The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the LORD blows on it; surely the people are grass.

All: (8) The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.

Narrator: (9) Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news; lift it up, fear not; say to the cities of Judah,

All: "Behold your God!"

Men: (10) Behold, the Lord GOD comes with might, and his arm rules for him; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.

Ladies: (11) He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.

Narrator: (12) Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance?

Men: (13) Who has measured the Spirit of the LORD, or what man shows him his counsel? (14) Whom did he consult, and who made him understand? Who taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding?

Ladies: (15) Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the scales; behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust. (16) Lebanon would not suffice for fuel, nor are its beasts enough for a burnt offering.

All: (17) All the nations are as nothing before him, they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.

Narrator: (18) To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him? (19) An idol!

All: A craftsman casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and casts for it silver chains. (20) He who is too impoverished for an offering chooses wood that will not rot; he seeks out a skillful craftsman to set up an idol that will not move.

Narrator: (21) Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?

Ladies: (22) It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in; (23) who brings princes to nothing, and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.

Men: (24) Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when he blows on them, and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble.

Narrator: (25) To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him? says the Holy One.

Ladies: (26) Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these?

All: He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name, by the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power not one is missing.

Narrator: (27) Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel,

All: “My way is hidden from the LORD, and my right is disregarded by my God"?

Narrator: (28) Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.

Ladies: He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. (29) He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength.

Men: (30) Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted;

All: (31) but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.

The Rapture" is not the issue.

I Thessalonians 4:

13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope.

14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.

15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.

16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

17 Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.

18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.

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Observations:

Both amillinalists and pre-millinialists agree that I Thessalonians 4: 13-18 is in the Bible and is a part of Holy Canon.

Both agree there will be a "coming of the Lord".

Both agree that at the time of the coming of the Lord, there will be beleivers alive upon the earth.

Both agree that those living believers that are upon the earth when the Lord comes will not experience death. That's the whole point of the above passage of Scripture.

In historical theology, the experience of those living believers in being "caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air," has been designated as the rapture, and "rapture" is a very appropriate term to describe that event.

There is nothing in the context of this passage that clearly indicates or demands that this rapture will be pre-tribulation, mid-tribulation, post-tribulation, pre-millennial, or post-millennial. Assertions from all views as to the timing are based on presuppositions brought to the passage, not from the passage itself.

Conclusion:

The eschatological debates between the different viewpoints do not have anything to do with the fact of the rapture, but they have everything to do with the timing of that rapture.

Applications:

My Dispensational Pre-millennial friends need to recognize and acknowledge that a pre-tribulation timing of the rapture is not a sine qua non of the Biblical doctrine of the rapture. It is not at all fair or true that a person does not believe in the rapture because they do not hold to a pre-tribulation timing of the rapture.

My Reformed A-millennial friends need to stop dissing the rapture concept just because of the extremes of the Hal Lindseys and Tim LaHays within the Dispensational pre-millennial school. What they need to do is affirm and acknowledge the Biblical concept and challenge our Dispensational friends when they make a pre-tribulation timing of the rapture a sin qua non of the Biblical doctrine.

Eschatological views need to be held with some what of a loose hand. One point of eschatology that I am firmly convinced of is that when all is said and done, though we will find we got some things right, none of us will have it all and totally right.

Shalom....

~ The Billy Goat ~

The Price of a Shave

I was out of razor blades. I tend to use a razor blade until it literally hurts. A box of 5 razor blade cartridges will last a long time.

While at the store to pick up a prescription refill at the pharmacy, I remembered I needed to get some more razor blades. I was hit with sticker shock. The package I usually get was priced almost $ 3.00 more then what I paid the last time. What's up with that???!!!

OK. The scrap metal yards have got to the point they need the security of a Fort Knox to keep the scrap metal thieves out. The scrap metal thieves are thriving because the price of metals is going up. So I reason I should expect the price of my razor blades will be going to go up. I get the blades, pick up my prescription, pay up, and head home.

But there is more.

In the morning I' reached that point in the morning ritual where it's time to shave. I take my trusty razor out, pop off the old razor cartridge and reach for a new one.

What in the world is this? My old cartridge has three small metal blades. The new cartridge has only two small metal blades. I check the rest of the blade cartridges in the new box. Two blades! That's all they had. What's up with that???!!!

There I am! Not only do I have to pay more for my razor blades, but I'm getting 1/3 less for my money. More for less!!! Bummer......

You've heard of booming economies in places like China and India and other countries clawing their way out of 3rd world status into the industrialized age. That's why metal prices are going up. The increasing demand in these industrializing countries is creating demand that is driving metal prices up, up, up.

And it's not just metals. Raw chemical materials used in the manufacturing process; soda ash, per-carbonate, enzymes, surfactants, and etc, all the different kinds of stuff going into the household products you take for granted. Worldwide demand is going up and so are prices.

The scramble is on to develop alternative sources, alternative materials, and alternative formulations. R&D is more vital then ever.

As I thought of this another thought came into my mind. Would it not indeed be ironic if capitalism and free enterprise ended up being the great leveler that Marx thought Communism would be? Would it not be ironic that as the poorer countries in the world move towards wealth and plenty, we in the developed countries found our standard of living actually lower because of the price pressures from a growing world wide marketplace?

Of course as prices escalate, market forces are suppose to find answers through innovation and all the other things free markets are suppose to do. And I believe for the most part that will happen, but there is in the back of my mind the idea that when you get to the bottom line, we who have much will be learning to get along with less. That’s not entirely bad. After all… “Man does not live by bread alone…”

Shaloam... ~ The Billy Goat ~

A Heart Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

Today I had an echo-cardiogram. Not becuse of anything life threatening, but because Doc wanted me to and said I should.

I've had several over the years, and each time I lay there on the table with the wires hooked up to me in several various places, and my eyes scrunched upwards to see the images on the screen.

There it is. My heart... Beating away, pulsating and when the doppler is on you hear the chug-a-chugging. It's absoulutly amazing!

You start doing the simple math. Fifty nine years plus some more months added for when that heart was beating while still in momma's womb.... I suppose someone who wanted to could calculate out the number of pulses this muscle has puulsed over all that time; all I know is it's a whole lot of steady un-ending beats. Of course we know that if the Lord should tarry, the day will come when that muscle called the heart will stop beating.

There is simply no way that this awesome muscle we call the heart came about by random chance over zillions of years. Just no way... What a marvel of God's creative design and power. Solo Deo gloria!!!



~ The Billy Goat ~

The Brian McClaren File

This Changes Everything: An Interview with Brian McLaren
posted by Melvin Bray @ 2/06/2008

"Q: Some might say that heretofore environmentalism, conservationism and other such movements have been very much focused on staving off the catastrophe that is our inevitable future. In this perhaps they find some small common ground with the predominant trends in eschatology. In what ways do you believe the way of Jesus speaks into these convergent themes of inevitable doom, transforming them into meaningful efforts of hope and sustainability?

A: Many Christians seem to believe that God’s relationship with the universe is deterministic, that God has already filmed the future in his mind, and what we’re seeing unfold in history is the showing of a movie that’s already “in the can” so to speak. I don’t believe that. I believe God’s relationship with creation—including us—is interactive. God gives us warnings, which are an invitation to change our ways. God gives us promises, which are an invitation to persevere when the going gets tough. A great example is the prophet Jonah. He was sent to Nineveh to prophesy doom, in hopes that the people would repent so the prophecy wouldn’t come true."

[Brian misses again.... For him God is not sovereign. What about all the prophecy that was fulfilled?]
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Interview with Author Brian McLaren
~ by Samir Selmanovic Sep 18, 2007


"This is really one of the key themes of my life – this belief that the issue isn’t Christianity, but Jesus. Depending on your background and what you’re exposed to, the Christian religion can have more or less credibility and appeal. But Jesus has an almost universal appeal. So that’s where I want to work from – not a “Christianity-centered” viewpoint, but from a Christ-centered viewpoint. In the book, I try to take Jesus’ teachings and example and show what resources they can bring to people today in grappling with global crises – whatever the religion of the people is who are getting involved. I don’t want to make the Christian religion the issue, or Western Civilization the issue, or whatever … I want to help people see the resources that Jesus offers to everybody as we and future generations face unprecedented global crises."

[ Is it just me, or is this another reiteration of the old quest for the "historical Jesus"?]
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Leaders call 'Emerging Church Movement' a threat to Gospel Posted on Mar 23, 2005 by David Roach

"When asked whether a person must trust Christ as dying to make atonement for sin in order to be a Christian, McLaren replied, "I want to help people understand everything they can about the cross. ... I wouldn't say that having that understanding (Jesus dying as a substitute for sinful humanity) is all that it means to be a Christian. I think that some people might have that understanding and not be interested in following Jesus. They want Jesus' blood to pay for their sins so they can go to heaven, but they aren't really interested in following Jesus in this life."..."

[So what if "some people might have that understanding and not be interested in following Jesus." What a few "might" do invalidates the doctrine? Maybe it is not all there is to being a Christian but the Apostle Paul makes it a pretty core and indispensable item in I Cor. 15.]

Leftovers...

We went into the restaurant and the hostess directed our group to a table. We sat down. A waitress came and took orders for drinks.

"Coffee with cream. Thank you."

I looked through the menu, There were the familiar items this particular restaurant chain always has, and there were a few new things I may have seen, but never tried.

Then I noticed the stir fry dishes. Stir fried veggies and your choice of meat over rice. OK... Sounds healthier then some of the usual stuff. Maybe I'll try it.

The waitress returned with our drinks and then proceeded to take our orders. I ordered the stir fry and choose chicken as the meat selection for the stir fry.

It was the banana bread, biscuits, and dinner rolls that did me in. The bread is always brought out first so you can munch on it while waiting for the main dish. Problem is it fills you up and then dinner is served and the portions are relatively large.

The stir fry was actually ok, though the seasoning sauce on the rice was a little to much. I ate the veggies and the chicken pieces, and even managed some of the rice, but finally came to the point where the adage to "clean your plate" has to give way to the concerns for un-necessary over-eating... I was plain stuffed, and made the decision to not finish the remaining rice that was still upon the plate.

I looked at that rice. There was more food left over on that plate then many people in this fallen world eat in a given day let alone at a single meal. In fact there are people in the world who would consider that amount of rice to be a real feast. I also sadly reflected on the fact I was not going to be able to package that leftover rice up and send it to those hungry people....

Yes, I could have asked for a box, and taken the leftovers home with me, but this particular time I chose not to.

What's the answer... Whatever it is, the answer is NOT socialism... Historically Socialism gets an "F" when it comes to feeding hungry people...

We were done eating. The waitress came and cleared the dishes. I doubt very much that my leftover rice was going to be "recycled". The Health Department would make sure of that.....

My leftover rice gets thrown out, and somewhere in this fallen world a child is literally starving to death... I utter the "D" word to myself....

Maybe next time, I'll make my choice from the senior citizen part of the menu... But even then someone will still go to bed without having had anything to eat that day... Again I utter the “D” word to myself.

Come quickly Lord Jesus....

No Place for Complacency
David Wells on The Courage to Be Protestant. Interview by Collin Hansen

During the last 15 years, David Wells has cried out like a voice in the wilderness against the ills of modern evangelicalism. His latest book, The Courage to Be Protestant, conveys the essence of his argument in four preceding books: No Place for Truth (1993), God in the Wasteland (1994), Losing Our Virtue (1998), and Above All Earthly Pow'rs (2005). Wells, the Andrew Mutch Distinguished Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, spoke with CT editor at large Collin Hansen about "truth-lovers, marketers, and Emergents in the postmodern world."

Click on link above for full article from Christianity Today.

Chicken/Road and Imperialistic Order

[Satire] To ask why the chicken crossed to road is to miss the point, and any answer given is an irrelevancy. The only truth-reality in the incident of the chicken crossing the road is that which the chicken constructed for itself. What comes to us from that reality-perception is colored and distorted becoming for us only narrative myth.

We have no way of knowing if the chicken ever really existed at all, let alone that it crossed a road; however, the narrative myth meets us and we encounter in that story not the reality-construct of the chicken, but our own encounter with the chicken/road concept colored by our own meaning and our own reality-perception.

Our imperialistic notions of "chicken" and "road" thus become exposed, and we can then reconstruct those concepts into a broader narrative-mythology that will meet the need for a chicken/road construct consistent with the demands of current post-modern thought patterens. [/Satire]

Step Into Eternity

I am walking home from work. I take a step, then another, then another. Each step takes x amount of time. Time from our mortal finite perspective only goes forward. A nano-second gone by can not be recovered.

Science can not explain why we die. It can observe we die from auto accidents, cancer, or by means of homicide, or what ever. Science can only observe that we die, but does not explain why we get older, weaker, slower, more and more feeble, and at some point or another we physically expire. Science can only observe and describe the process. It can not explain why the process happens.

So we step through this mortal life to the end, and then eternity. The same with breathing. Breath in. Breath out. Nano-seconds of our life flying by never to be recovered. In... Out... In... Out... Step. Step. Stepping towards eternity...

How many non-seconds are you closer to eternity since you first started to read this?

Some think eternity is oblivion. We die and that's it. Others see eternity as a cosmic Merry-go-round, as we take various forms and shapes whirling around on some great mandela. The Bible says it is appointed unto man once to die, then the judgment. The Bible points to the resurrection from the dead, and the new heavens and new earth. The Bible also talks about hell.

Step by step. Step by step. Step by step towards eternity, not knowing at what un-escapable moment we will take that last step... That last step into eternity. Are you ready?

~ The Billy Goat ~

Recognizing the Phenomena of Evangelical Commonality and Embracing It

A Reformed Christian hears a particular sermon by a Dispensatonal Preacher, and finds him or her self in substantial agreement with that sermon. A Dispensational Christian hears a particular sermon by a Reformed Preacher and finds him or her self in substantial agreement with that sermon. A Baptist happens to visit a Lutheran Church and hears a particular sermon, and says to himself that sounds pretty "Evangelical".

What's going on in each of these incidents?

The Dispensational Preacher is still a Dispensaionalist. The Reformed Preacher is still Reformed. The Lutheran Pastor is still Lutheran. What is happening in each of the above cases is the hearer is recognizing a certain degree of theological commonality with the Preacher.

This kind of reaction and response that can be observed among the differing Evangelical denominations, church groups, and Evangelical theological camps is what I have chosen to call the phenomena of "Evangelical Commonality". This commonality comes out of the fact that amidst the differences that define the various theological camps of the Evangelical world, there is to varying degrees a common shared theological consensus that gives common meeting ground between those various camps.

Case in point: Many Dispensationalists are very Calvinistic. More then a few might tell you they are a 4 point, or 4 1/2 point, or even a full blown 5 point Calvinist. That means that on the issue of soteriology, from 80 to 100% of what they say is in sync with what the Reformed Pastor down the street is saying about that subject. But when you get into issues of eschatology and the relation of the Old Testament to the New Testament, the issues that define each groups difference from one another are clear.

For the most part, much of the Evangelical world intuitively understands this phenomena of Evangelical commonality and embraces it, taking it for granted. They hear a radio preacher like Chuck Swindol or John MacArthur, or Allister Begg, and appreciate these men for upholding fundamental foundational evangelical truth. It is not a matter of these men being Baptist, or Presbyterian, or Methodist, or Calvinist, or any other name you want to use to describe your Church or theology. It is a recognition instead of shared beliefs that cut across the lines of those denominational and theological camps.

In a previous post I took our Reformed Baptist friends to task for a persistent nagging tendency on the part of of some of them to want to claim this preacher or that preacher for their "Reformed Baptist" camp. This is a failure to embrace the concept of Evangelical commonality. Part of the reason for this failure is the prevalent tendency in recent Reformed Baptist history (the past 30 some years) to define the RB movement by those things that distinguish RB's from the rest of the Evangelical world. This tendency, (which I personally observed over many years), feeds an "us verses them" mentality that focuses on separateness from the rest of the Evangelical world, instead of recognizing the Evangelical commonality the Reformed Baptist movement shares with the rest of the Evangelical world.

I am not asking RB's or anyone else to give up their distinctives. But I am asking RB's as well as all other Evangelical groups and theological camps to hold those distictives in balance with that Evangelical commonality that to some degree or another, we all share with one another.

To put it in other words, I am asking the Reformed Baptist movement to acknowledge and embrace that Evangelical commonality. Why? Because until they do, they will continue to remain on the outskirts of the Evangelical world in spite of the clear basic Evangelical character of the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith.

If you choose to remain on the outskirts, that is your choice, and it is an unfortunate choice. It is also unfortunate that you will have to live with the consequence of that choice. Based on the history of other groups and movements who made that same choice, those consequences are not very pretty.

"So and so" may not be a Reformed Baptist, but they are an Evangelical brother. Can you in Christian love accept and embrace that without giving them your particular label? May God Almighty help you to do so...

Shalom,

~ The Billy Goat ~