In the Proverbs of Solomon the
following nugget of wisdom appears:
The application of a Proverb such as
this to our national life, and the times we live in, should be self-evident. We
happen to be living late in world history,
late in the history of the church of
Jesus Christ, and late in our
nation's history. It seems to me very likely that a long-delayed series of judgments
on America has already begun. What remains to be seen is how closely a judgment
of our nation may coincide with the end-of-the-age judgment of all the nations.
Many passages in the Bible talk
about the coming judgment of all the nations.
"The great day of the LORD is
near; It is near and hastens quickly. The noise of the day of the LORD is
bitter; There the mighty men shall cry out. That day is a day of wrath, A day
of trouble and distress, A day of devastation and desolation, A day of darkness
and gloominess, A day of clouds and thick darkness, A day of trumpet and alarm
Against the fortified cities And against the high towers. I will bring distress
upon men, And they shall walk like blind men, Because they have sinned against
the LORD; Their blood shall be poured out like dust, And their flesh like
refuse. Neither their silver nor their gold Shall be able to deliver them In
the day of the LORDÕS wrath; But the whole land shall be devoured By the fire
of His jealousy, For He will make speedy riddance Of all those who dwell in the
land." (Zephaniah 1:14-18)
In the Old Testament, one sees that
the spiritual life of God's chosen, representative nation Israel declined
almost continually from the time of the Exodus (c. 1500 BC) -- to the time
Jesus Christ was born. When Jesus appeared on the world stage that first time his
own people were in a very low state. They soon rejected him as their King in spite
of his impeccable credentials. Nevertheless Old Testament and New alike testify
that God will keep His promises to Israel through Jesus -- because of the godly
faith of the patriarchs of Israel.
The
course of mankindÕs entire history in
every nation has been downhill ever since the Fall. The notion of the upward
progress of "civilization" is an illusion; the death rate is still
100%; the course of history continues to be war, violence, deterioration and
decay.
One
sees in the Bible that man's repentance delays God's judgments--that God much
prefers mercy to judgment. In addition, God holds back the decay of a nation
through men and women of faith in that nation who take God's grace and mercy
and love seriously.
Under
a newer and better covenant, the church which Jesus founded was intended to
spread the knowledge of the true and living God to all peoples, everywhere. The
church is a holy nation in her own right, but that body of believers in Jesus
and the God of Israel, has also become largely decadent, powerless, and
irrelevant, especially in Europe and in the U.S. Jesus himself posed the question about the condition of the
world when he returned, "And shall God not
avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him, though He bears long
with them? I tell you that He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the
Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?" (Luke 18:7,8)
In
the wonderfully helpful parable of the lowly mustard seed, Jesus pictured the
final state of His church as like a great, ungainly useless tree filled with
carrion eating birds, (http://www.raystedman.org/new-testament/matthew/the-case-of-the-ambitious-seed). The writers of the New Testament also
tell us that the "church age" will end with the coming of a false
messiah and a corrupt one-world government -- before Jesus comes a second time.
(For a summary on the end of the age we live in, see The Fate of the Earth, http://www.ldolphin.org/fate.html).
If
you've not done so lately, may I suggest that everyone reads through the Major
and Minor Prophets in the Old Testament. I find it difficult to ignore these
ancient prophets -- it seems to they are more relevant now than ever. While the
United States does not have a covenant relationship with God as Israel does, Israel
is there for us to learn from. Her final triumph on the stage of history is
already starting to unfold in the daily news.
The church of
Jesus Christ, on the other hand, is multi-ethnic, having "cells"
imbedded in virtually every nation.
"But you are a chosen
generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you
may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His
marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who
had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy. Beloved, I beg you as
sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul,
having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, that when they speak against
you as evildoers, they may, by your good works which they observe, glorify God
in the day of visitation." (1 Peter 2:9-12)
Though true Christians are few in
number today, that remnant group is considered to be "God's secret
government on the earth." (see Sovereign
God/Sovereign Nation, by Ted Wise, http://ldolphin.org/wise/wise.html).
All Christians are not equal. In
some sense God withholds judgment on a decadent, decaying nation according to
the number of "righteous" men (and women) in that nation. An example
of this can be seen in the days of Ezekiel. This young priest of Israel was
taken captive from Jerusalem to Babylon by King Nebuchadnezzar in 597 BC, during
God's first wave of judgment on Judea. The judgment of all of Israel for her centuries
of indifference, hypocrisy, and ungodly living was already well underway when
God gave the following message to his servant Ezekiel.
The word of the LORD came again to
me, saying: ÒSon of man, when a land sins against Me by persistent
unfaithfulness, I will stretch out My hand against it; I will cut off its
supply of bread, send famine on it, and cut off man and beast from it. ÒEven if
these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they would deliver only
themselves by their righteousness,Ó says the Lord GOD. ÒIf I cause wild beasts
to pass through the land, and they empty it, and make it so desolate that no
man may pass through because of the beasts, Òeven though these three men were
in it, as I live,Ó says the Lord GOD, Òthey would deliver neither sons nor
daughters; only they would be delivered, and the land would be desolate.
ÒOr if I bring a sword on that land,
and say, ÔSword, go through the land,Õ and I cut off man and beast from it,
Òeven though these three men were in it, as I live,Ó says the Lord GOD, Òthey
would deliver neither sons nor daughters, but only they themselves would be
delivered.
ÒOr if I send a pestilence into that
land and pour out My fury on it in blood, and cut off from it man and beast, Òeven
though Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, as I live,Ó says the Lord GOD, Òthey
would deliver neither son nor daughter; they would deliver only themselves by
their righteousness.Ó For thus says the Lord GOD: ÒHow much more it shall be
when I send My four severe judgments on Jerusalem—the sword and famine
and wild beasts and pestilence—to cut off man and beast from it?
ÒYet behold, there shall be left in
it a remnant who will be brought out, both sons and daughters; surely they will
come out to you, and you will see their ways and their doings. Then you will be
comforted concerning the disaster that I have brought upon Jerusalem, all that
I have brought upon it. ÒAnd they will comfort you, when you see their ways and
their doings; and you shall know that I have done nothing without cause that I
have done in it,Ó says the Lord GOD." (Ezekiel 14:12-23)
Most
of us will recall God's judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah and the Cities of the
Plain, recorded in Genesis 18. Abraham bargained with the Lord until God agreed
not to destroy these cities if ten or more righteous men lived there. But only
Lot and his two daughters escaped. Lot's wife died on the way out of town,
encrusted in a pillar of salt. The five Cities of the Plain were destroyed.
Key
to understanding how the presence of "righteous" believers can help
preserve a city or a nation from divine judgment, lies in the meaning of the Biblical
word "righteous." When
anyone of us places his or her faith in Jesus Christ as Lord, that person
experiences the immediate removal of all charges against him in God's High Court
of Justice. The individual's sins are all "imputed" (or credited) to
Jesus' account, and the righteousness of Jesus is imputed (or credited) to the sinner's
account. From that moment on, God treats us as if we had never sinned. (That is, we are "justified by
faith.") Of course we all do sin after we are spiritually reborn, but sin
in us Christians is now dealt with by God's correcting, Fatherly discipline or
chastening.
The
opposite of the righteousness which comes from God is self-righteousness. Needless to say, fake and phony righteousness
is everywhere today. It was, and still is, Israel's main stumbling block, "Brothers, my heartÕs desire and prayer to God for Israel is
that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God,
but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of GodÕs righteousness,
and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the
righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to
everyone who believes." (Romans 10:1-4)
So
much for "imputed righteousness." The long road Christians embark on,
when we allow Jesus Christ into our lives as Lord, is called
"sanctification." Sadly, many Christians settle for only a nominal
Christian life. Only a few pursue
righteousness. We usually think of men and women who have pursued righteousness
all their lives as godly, weighty, impeccable people. We all know that a few
take their faith seriously even if we do not.
A
key question for us in America today ought to be, "where are our righteous
men?" Is a new generation of men and women of godly stature showing up in
universities, in government, in business, in media services? Probably not.
What
God said to Ezekiel in effect was that the presence of three well-known righteous
men, Noah, Daniel, and Job in Israel would not be enough to avert God's
judgment on Israel--judgment was already underway. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Righteousness).
Solomon
says that "righteousness exalts a nation." He surely had in mind
honest government, justice in the courts, stable family life, care of widows
and orphans, and respect for the things that God values in any society. In
modern terms, a righteous nation will be noted for its fine statesmen who openly
engage in building better government. Bankers and financial leaders will be
found striving for honesty and sound ethics in business. Godly scholars, each
having high integrity in his or her own field, will be found occupying chairs
in the leading institutions of higher learning. Correctional instructions will
strive for the healing of habitual lawbreakers, not merely with their
incarceration. Christian leaders in churches will be found devoting themselves
to teaching "the whole counsel of God."
Sadly,
in America today very few truly righteous persons of stature and depth can be
found. Our choices for leaders these days are often not about "good,
better, best," but about "poor" versus "very poor." Surely
we are a nation ripe for judgment. Yet
as a people we are amazingly apathetic and indifferent at a time when only
repentance can make a real difference!
In
his first Epistle the Apostle Peter reminds us that God first judges His own
people before He judges the nation where they live:
But the end of all
things is at hand; therefore be serious and watchful in your prayers. And above
all things have fervent love for one another, for Òlove will cover a multitude
of sins.Ó Be hospitable to one another without grumbling. As each one has
received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold
grace of God. If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. If anyone
ministers, let him do it as with the ability which God supplies, that in all
things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and
the dominion forever and ever. Amen.
Beloved, do not think it
strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange
thing happened to you; but rejoice to the extent that you partake of ChristÕs
sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with
exceeding joy. If you are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you,
for the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. On their part He is blasphemed,
but on your part He is glorified. But let none of you suffer as a murderer, a
thief, an evildoer, or as a busybody in other peopleÕs matters. Yet if anyone
suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this
matter.
For the time has come
for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what
will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God? Now ÒIf the
righteous one is scarcely saved, Where will the ungodly and the sinner appear?Ó
Therefore let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls
to Him in doing good, as to a faithful Creator." (1 Peter 4:7-19)
God promises that His people will not be judged along with the rest of the
world--that is, at the end of the age. But there is no easy way out here and
now. The prophet Amos reminded his generation:
"Woe to you who desire the day of the LORD! For what good is
the day of the LORD to you? It will be darkness, and not light. It will be as
though a man fled from a lion, And a bear met him! Or as though he went into
the house, Leaned his hand on the wall, And a serpent bit him! Is not the day
of the LORD darkness, and not light? Is it not very dark, with no brightness in
it? I hate, I despise your feast days, And I do not savor your sacred
assemblies. Though you offer Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings, I
will not accept them, Nor will I regard your fattened peace offerings. Take
away from Me the noise of your songs, For I will not hear the melody of your
stringed instruments. But let justice run down like water, And righteousness
like a mighty stream." (Amos 5:18-24)
We
Christians in America surely deserve to be judged for our compromised
life-styles, our love of the things of this world, our self-indulgent ways, our
gross immoralities. Wide scale, deep repentance across our land might well
allow God to give us a temporary reprieve. Yet, national remorse and repentance
was short-lived and shallow after the 9/11 destruction of the Twin Towers in
New York. This tragedy was only the first of a number of wake up calls to
Christ's church in America. The
more we ignore God, the harder our hearts become! The Bible gives us few
reasons to believe that our nation will recover from the many overwhelming
problems about to descend upon us -- apart from full scale national repentance.
Christians
in other parts of the world know all about persecution, hardship, and
suffering. We are not better than they by any means -- God is not a
"respecter of persons."
The
writer of the letter to the Hebrews tells us that our repentance needs to be
thorough; that we should overlook nothing.
"Therefore we must give the more earnest heed to the things
we have heard, lest we drift away. For if the word spoken through angels proved
steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just reward, how
shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation, which at the first began to
be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him, God also
bearing witness both with signs and wonders, with various miracles, and gifts
of the Holy Spirit, according to His own will?" (Hebrews 2:1-4)
Thankfully,
Peter tells us that the extra grace we need for the days ahead has already been
stored up for us:
Therefore gird up the
loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is
to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; as obedient children,
not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance; but as He
who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is
written, ÒBe holy, for I am holy.Ó And if you call on the Father, who without
partiality judges according to each oneÕs work, conduct yourselves throughout
the time of your stay here in fear; knowing that you were not redeemed with
corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by
tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a
lamb without blemish and without spot. He indeed was foreordained before the
foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you who
through Him believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so
that your faith and hope are in God. Since you have purified your souls in
obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one
another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible
seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever,
because ÒAll flesh is as grass, And all the glory of man as the flower of the
grass. The grass withers, And its flower falls away, But the word of the LORD
endures forever.Ó Now this is the word which by the gospel was preached to you.
Therefore, laying aside
all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn
babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed
you have tasted that the Lord is gracious. Coming to Him as to a living stone,
rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living
stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up
spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Therefore it is
also contained in the Scripture, ÒBehold, I lay in Zion A chief cornerstone,
elect, precious, And he who believes on Him will by no means be put to shame.Ó
Therefore, to you who believe, He is precious; but to those who are
disobedient, ÒThe stone which the builders rejected Has become the chief
cornerstone,Ó and ÒA stone of stumbling And a rock of offense.Ó They stumble,
being disobedient to the word, to which they also were appointed. But you are a
chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people,
that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into
His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God,
who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy." (1 Peter
1:13-2:10)
Way back in 1650 the Archbishop of
Ireland, James Ussher, calculated the date of the Creation to have
been nightfall preceding 23 October 4004 BC. Often ridiculed today, Ussher
represented the best of scholarship in his time. He was part of a substantial
research tradition, a large community of intellectuals working toward a common
goal under an accepted methodology. It is interesting to revisit Ussher and to
update his analysis of the time interval between Adam and Jesus according to
the Bible.
Ussher's chronology represented a
considerable feat of literary scholarship: it demanded great depth of learning
in what was then known of ancient history, including the rise of the Persians,
Greeks and Romans, as well as expertise in biblical languages and an intimate
knowledge of the Bible itself. Ussher's account of
historical events, for which he had multiple sources other than the Bible, is
usually in close agreement with modern accounts -- for example, he placed the
death of Alexander in 323 BC and that of Julius
Caesar
in 44 BC.
But Ussher's last extra-biblical
coordinate was the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar, and beyond this point he had
to rely on other considerations. Faced with inconsistent texts of the Torah,
each with a different number of years between Flood and Creation, Ussher chose
the Masoretic version. Partly his reasons were sound scholarly ones --the
Masoretic text claims an unbroken history of careful transcription stretching
back centuries -- but his choice was confirmed for him because it placed
Creation exactly four thousand years before 4 BC, the generally accepted date
for the birth of Christ; moreover, he calculated, SolomonÕs temple was
completed in the year 3000 from creation, so that there were exactly 1000 years
from the temple to Christ, who was the fulfillment of the Temple. (adapted from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ussher_chronology, also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masoretic_Text).
In retracing Ussher's footsteps back
through time today, we probably ought not to rely on the Masoretic text (MT) of
the Hebrew Bible. Intuitively, 4004 BC is surely a tad too recent for many of
us students of the Bible. The oldest extant manuscripts of the Masoretic Text
date from approximately the ninth century AD. We do not have a copy of the
Hebrew Bible used by Jesus Christ and His Apostles, but it was probably a
version of the Greek Septuagint, (the LXX). (See http://www.setterfield.org/Septuagint_History.html). Dates derived from the LXX are
invariably older that the dates given in the MT! Our preoccupation today with
exact dates and precise times is part of our Western heritage handed down to us
from the Greeks. The Semitic peoples of the Middle East considered the quality of time to be more important than
the exactness of calendar dating, (http://ldolphin.org/time.html). The authors of the Old Testament
were not especially interested in exact dating. But let's see if we can update
Ussher, preferring the LXX to the MT when possible.
The late Curt Sewell, a scientist at
Lawrence Livermore Labs, compared various Bible chronologies used today, (http://ldolphin.org/sewell/sewellchron.html). His helpful paper shows that
building a genealogy or a history time line from the Old Testament is a fairly complex
process.
Arthur Custance has shown that there
are probably no gaps in the genealogical record of the Bible connecting the
first man, Adam, with the "Last Adam," Jesus Christ. For a chart of
this lineage, with notes added from Custance, see http://ldolphin.org/2adams.html. In summary, I believe the Old
Testament writers, as well as the New, have shown that the Two Adams are
connected. "And so it is written, 'The first man
Adam became a living being.' The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the
spiritual. The first man was of the earth, made of dust; the second Man is the
Lord from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are made of
dust; and as is the heavenly Man, so also are those who are heavenly. And as we
have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the
heavenly Man." (1 Corinthians 15:45-49)
All said and done, the time period
between the first human, Adam, and Jesus, the "second" or last Adam,
lies somewhere between about 4000 to 8000 years. There is enough uncertainty in
some of the dates to be a bit tentative on this, however tens of thousands or millions of years, is not reasonable at all for the date of Adam. Adam did not live very
long ago -- and we humans are all the sons of daughters of Adam.
On the other hand, secular
scientists today insist that the universe is several billion years old. The paradigm
of a very old universe, which is almost universally accepted today, came about during
the Age of Enlightenment, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment). See my earlier discussion of the
age of the universe, http://ldolphin.org/Uage.html.
I am fascinated at how well the
results of analyzing data on the speed of light, c, have held up for more than
two decades now. It is not generally recognized that dating methods in
astronomy have historically been linked to dating methods in geology, and tied
to various radiometric dating methods. Just as the speed of light was assumed
to be a fixed constant of nature until fairly recently, so also all of the
various radiometric decay rates were at first thought to be invariant with
time. It turns out, however, that the speed of light, c, occurs in the
numerator of each equation (whether empirical or analytical) used for
calculating rates of radioactive decay. It is therefore now possible to compare
radiometric dates for events in history back to Adam with ordinary calendar
time.
For my everyday Bible study I use
Barry Setterfield's chronology. It is based on adjustments in an ordinary OT
chronology in dynamical or clock time from the Septuagint. The corresponding
"atomic time" date is shown in the far-right column. (Table Two in http://ldolphin.org/barrychron.html, see http://www.setterfield.org/ for details). I believe we can now begin
to correlate the known geological record with a reasonable time scale of ordinary
earth history, see http://setterfield.org/Bibleandgeology.html.
Why all the fuss? I believe there is
no need for us to make vague and nebulous statements about human history as if
it has all taken place over a time spans of millions of years. To my way of
thinking, human history encompasses less than 10,000 years in "real" clock
time. The homework assignment I leave for you, the reader, is to develop your
own Old Testament chronology starting with Jesus and going back to Adam. Do
your homework and tell me what you've found.
Consider how human history would
look if we could time travel back to Adam's time, and then step into the past just
a little bit further. We would encounter a major space-time disconnect at the
time of the Fall. Before the Fall (recorded in Genesis 3), Adam and Eve lived
in "eternity." So also, during creation week (Genesis One), time as
we know it now was not defined. The clocks which record real time did not start
until the work of creation was finished.
Construction sites are often
surrounded by a tall wooden fence for safety and security reasons. Sometimes
the contractor will leave open knot holes in the fence for passersby to peek at
what is going on inside. Genesis One resembles a peep hole in the fence of
creation so we can (as it were) watch God creating the universe outside of time
-- in six days. (See the following
short essays, http://ldolphin.org/approach.html, http://ldolphin.org/Unique.html, http://ldolphin.org/creationphysics.html, http://ldolphin.org/Introgen.html, http://ldolphin.org/genesis1.html).
I
am not overly interested in "proving" that the universe was created
recently. It all depends on the clock one uses. But I do suggest that we all
should know the Old Testament as well as the New. Consider the above study an
extra-credit exercise for students of the Bible.
An Internet Bible Study: A Skype Bible Study with Glenn Miller, http://www.christian-thinktank.com/. Recently my close friend Glenn
Miller, who now lives in Mississippi, taught a "home Bible study
group" for us out West in Palo Alto, using an audio/video link called
"Skype." Take a listen, http://www.christian-thinktank.com/audio/skype1.html. On May 23rd Glenn plans to lead us
through the Acts of the Apostles also using Skype.
Dave Roper has been a dear friend for more
than 40 years. May I urge you to make use of his sermons and essays. They are
currently located on my web site, http://ldolphin.org/roper/
Recommended Book: Against
All Gods: What's Right and Wrong about the New Atheism, by Phillip E.
Johnson and John Mark Reynolds, (c2010, IVP).
Financial Crisis: Bankruptcy? Last week I had the opportunity
of meeting an attorney who specializes in bankruptcy. After looking over
my notes he told me I wasn't quite there yet. But, this year has already been disastrous for me financially, with large
increases in my medical insurance premium, and my out-of-pocket share of prescription
drugs. This coincides with a 30% drop in income from my retirement annuity. I
am very grateful for the support our Lord has been giving me through
so many wonderful friends for a number of years now. Since I am
not part of an organization, but just one individual, I can't reduce
my staff size. I retired from my career in science back in 1988, in order
to teach the Bible and to be actively involved in the advancement of
the message of Jesus Christ. I have never regretted this decision. Today
I need your ongoing gifts now more than ever. Funds may be sent directly
to me through PayPal, or by mail to Ray Stedman Ministries (Attn:
Lambert Dolphin Ministries), P.O. Box 413, Mount Hermon, CA 95041
(Please note: checks
should no longer be sent through Peninsula Bible Church). Be sure to mark your
check, "Lambert Dolphin Ministries." All gifts to RSM are tax
deductible and will be receipted. Thank you all.
I
answer all of my email personally, mailto:lambert@ldolphin.org. Recent articles on my web site are
posted at the top of the list in my web site library, http://ldolphin.org/asstbib.shtml. The Paraclete Forum is our team of volunteers at Ray Stedman
Ministries who address Bible questions and apologetics issues, mailto:inquiry@paracleteforum.org.
Lambert
Dolphin, May 14, 2010