Ecclesiastes 1:1-11
“Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.” With these words the Preacher in the Book of Ecclesiastes begins his journey of exploring all that is done under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:2, 13).
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Matthew 8:28-34
Jesus and his disciples encountered a severe case of demon possession on the other side of the sea of Galilee. No one could walk on the path because the demons possessing these two fellows would not let them.
The demons began to negotiate with Jesus, “What have you to do with us?” They know who he is, the “Son of God.” They want to know if Jesus has “come to torment” them “before the time.” They apparently know one day the Devil and all his minions, including them, will be thrown into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:10). However, they apparently did not know there would be a gap of time between the Son of God’s inauguration of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth and the consummation of that Kingdom. They are perplexed why Jesus has arrived soo seemingly early.
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Ephesians 6:12
I want to take a moment to talk about the demonic. That may not be a popular thing to do nowadays. Please do not think I lost it. In our day people feels uncomfortable talking about this, but we need to.
C.S. Lewis said in his preface to The Screwtape Letters: “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.”
We need to have a balanced, healthy appreciation for the demonic. Let me offer a few reasons why I think this.
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Matthew 8:19-20
Scribes, in antiquity, functioned as the human copy machines of the ancient world. They copied manuscripts for distribution and posterity. By the time of Jesus, the function of the scribe had developed into a social institution. They no longer just copied manuscripts, they also lectured, taught, and consulted on aspects of Jewish law. They lived relatively comfortable lives in one of the upper echelons of Jewish society.
One of these scribes jumped at Jesus’ command to go with him to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. He said, “I will follow you wherever you go, teacher (Matthew 8:19).”
This scribe probably thought he was giving Jesus a compliment. As accomplished as this man had become, he told Jesus he was willing to lay all aside to follow him. We can only imagine his surprise, when Jesus responded not with gratitude but a hard line.
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Matthew 8:5-13
Matthew originally wrote his Gospel Account primarily for the Jews of his day (in biblical studies we call this the author’s original intended audience). He fills his account with Old Testament citations and presumes an awareness of Jewish culture that other Gospel writers need to spell out for their original audiences.
For this reason, it may seem odd that Matthew, at times, seems to anathemize his fellow Jews. One startling example occurs in Matthew 8:5-13. There Matthew records Jesus saying that a Roman Centurion’s faith surpasses the faith of anyone in Israel. Then he tells us Jesus said: “I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
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Job 41:11
In H.G. Well’s novel The War of the Worlds, Martians invade the earth. Despite humanity’s greatest devices and efforts, it seems the Martians will win and ravage the earth and all humanity. However, at the eleventh hour, the unexpected happens. The Martians die, but not because of any effort of humanity. It turns out that the bacteria on earth that the Martians had been ingesting through their eating and drinking during their stay on earth wreaks havoc on their systems. The narrator goes on to say, “Martians—dead!—slain by the putrefactive and disease bacteria against which their systems were unprepared; […] slain, after all man’s devices had failed, by the humblest things that God, in his wisdom, has put upon this earth.” Then the narrator lifts his hands and gives thanks to God.
God’s wisdom exceeds our wisdom. Through science and discovery, humanity has learned much. Nevertheless, if you compared the mass of knowledge accumulated by humanity over the ages with God’s infinite knowledge, humanity’s knowledge, relatively speaking, could be stored on the head of a pin, with room to spare.
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Deuteronomy 32:35
Last week we looked at how God’s justice and love exist in perfect harmony within him. We then looked at some of the examples of God’s just judgements in both the Old and New Testaments. Here we turn to the question of what gives God the right to judge.
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Deuteronomy 32:35
If you want to know God as he has revealed himself to us in Scripture, you need to hold together his justice and his love. These are not two different sides of God, as if God is a split personality like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Nor are these two different ways that God has dealt with his people throughout history, so that in the Old Testament he was all fire and judgement but in the New he is all love.
God has always been and always will be both just and loving toward us. At best, we can say love and justice are two different aspects of the same God, but one aspect never exists apart from the other. God does not have good days and bad days like we do. He does not wake up on the wrong side of the bed some mornings. He does not get hangry.
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Matthew 1:18-25
Many people get hung up on the virgin birth of Jesus. It seems utterly impossible, because we observe no predictable pattern in nature that comes close to it. Yet is this not the point? If God wanted to get our attention, what better to grab it than through a virgin giving birth?
The word for “miracle” in the Bible literally means sign. God designed these events to grab our attention and point us to him. Like a road sign points to a destination, these miracles point us to the grandeur, power, and majesty of God. They come unexpectedly, because if they occurred with any greater frequency, they would cease to be what they are. They would become normals instead of miracles. God uses these to wow us to him.
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Deuteronomy 30:11-14
Let me test your Bible knowledge. This question ranks like a high cash-value question on Jeopardy. Did the law of Moses require the nation of Israel to be perfectly obedient to God? If you answered in the negative, you correctly answered this question.
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