Bible Study Seattle

“Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” Ephesians 6:4

“Fathers, do not exasperate your children, so that they will not lose heart.” Colossians 3:21

When fathers push their children too hard, they can embitter them. This can also be true with a husband or a boss. I have seen parents with ridiculous expectations for their children. The kids will often develop apathy to get out of an impossible situation. Or how about an exasperating boss. No matter what You do, it’s never good enough. You cannot win. They are constantly looking for something to be disappointed in you, always waiting for you to fall. They might even get frustrated that you do something too well, and give you a backhanded compliment about it! And this is among Christians! Christians? We will see. But how do we deal with exasperating people? We can only take the high ground, and not return evil for evil. Joseph must have known this thoroughly:

“Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance. It came about after these events that his master’s wife looked with desire at Joseph, and she said, “Lie with me.” But he refused and said to his master’s wife, “Behold, with me here, my master does not concern himself with anything in the house, and he has put all that he owns in my charge. There is no one greater in this house than I, and he has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do this great evil and sin against God?” As she spoke to Joseph day after day, he did not listen to her to lie beside her or be with her. Now it happened one day that he went into the house to do his work, and none of the men of the household was there inside. She caught him by his garment, saying, “Lie with me!” And he left his garment in her hand and fled, and went outside. When she saw that he had left his garment in her hand and had fled outside, she called to the men of her household and said to them, “See, he has brought in a Hebrew to us to make sport of us; he came in to me to lie with me, and I screamed. When he heard that I raised my voice and screamed, he left his garment beside me and fled and went outside.” So she left his garment beside her until his master came home. Then she spoke to him with these words, “The Hebrew slave, whom you brought to us, came in to me to make sport of me; and as I raised my voice and screamed, he left his garment beside me and fled outside.” Genesis 39:6-18

“Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy place.  So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress. Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and havenothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined.  And he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering; and on the wing ofabominations will come one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who makes desolate.”  Daniel 9:24-27

Much has been speculated about this passage, particularly regarding the seventieth week.  I conjunction with this passage, I’d like to add another to make a speculation:

“that you [Nebuchadnezzar] be driven away from mankind and your dwelling place be with the beasts of the field, and you be given grass to eat like cattle and be drenched with the dew of heaven; and seven periods of time will pass over you, until you recognize that the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind and bestows it on whomever He wishes.” Daniel 4:25

Some understand these periods of time to be 7 X 360.  360 years at a day for year.  Or 2520 years.  From Nebuchadnezzar’s initial attack on Israel in 607BC to the start of WWI in 1914AD.  World War I destroyed much of the church-state system in Europe.  But notice that Noah’s 370 days are just over 360 years.  Could these also be a seventieth week?  There are probably multiple fulfillments to this prophecy, some of which are more major in importance.  As Jesus was cut off half way (three and a half years) into the seventieth week, could likewise the bride of Christ be completed half way through these 360-370 years?  That is this author’s belief.  Time will tell.  It is merely speculation and nothing more.

“I know that my redeemer lives,
and that in the end he will stand on the earth.
And after my skin has been destroyed,
yet in my flesh I will see God;
I myself will see him
with my own eyes—I, and not another.
How my heart yearns within me!” Job 19:25-27

Jesus will stand on the earth? Will he be spirit or flesh? How can a man see God and live? Is Job talking about the Eighth Day? 7,000-8,000 years after Adam’s fall?

“For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand—
when I awake, I am still with you.” Psalm 139:13-18

It is no mystery that we were woven in our mother’s womb. But “woven together in the depths of the earth”? What is David saying? Is he hinting at our second birth? That we will be resurrected out of the earth? We get some hints:

“Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. “Take away the stone,” he said. “But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.” Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.” John 11:38-44

Lazarus came out of the tomb exactly as he went in. Nicodemus also questions the mechanics of second birth. “Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.” Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!” Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” John 3:1-8

Jesus is here talking about heavenly second birth as opposed to earthly rebirth.

The contemporary idea of the rapture (does this word derive from rupture? Is it a rupture combined with a raptor?) is that God will supernaturally fly away Christians just before He fries that bad guys with lots of lightning and massive zappage. Jesus mentions it and Paul expounds on it also:

“It was the same as happened in the days of Lot: they were eating, they were drinking, they were buying, they were selling, they were planting, they were building; but on the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. It will be just the same on the day that the Son of Man is revealed. On that day, the one who is on the housetop and whose goods are in the house must not go down to take them out; and likewise the one who is in the field must not turn back. Remember Lot’s wife. Whoever seeks to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it. I tell you, on that night there will be two in one bed; one will be taken and the other will be left. There will be two women grinding at the same place; one will be taken and the other will be left.” Luke 17:28-35

These ‘one taken and the other left’ verses might just be a whisking away. Or it may be something more mundane. Lot was warned by the angel to flee to safer ground before The Lord roasted Sodom. Lot here represents the bridesmaid class of Christians still alive right before the battle of Armegeddon. This battle is still about 200+ years away. Actually there may be no battle at all. It’s unclear; the battle may be at the end of the Millennium. God may just supernaturally roast the unrepentant as in the days of King Hezekiah:

“Then the angel of the Lord went out and struck 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians; and when men arose early in the morning, behold, all of these were dead. So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and returned home and lived at Nineveh.” Isaiah 37:36-37

Even if this rapture occurs as is currently imagined, it will not exempt those Christians completely the evil of that time. It isn’t going to happen in the next twenty years. Remember Lot. He lived among very corrupt men.