The Wandering Shepherd

Reading the Map: “I Gotta Be ME!” - Genesis 10:1-11:9

How do you measure the significance of a man or woman? Is it wrong to desire to leave a mark in my job, in my family, and in my community? The struggle for significance is one that many of us face. We want to do something enduring. We want to be remembered. We don't have to be FAMOUS - but we want some part of the planet to miss us when we are gone. That desire can be used by God for good, but more often leaves us open to a legion of sins.

Joe Stowell, in his book Perilous Pursuits, tells of a college Sophomore named Barbara, who kept finding herself in one sexually compromised relationship after another. Even in the church she attended, men would ask her out, and invariably ask her for some sensual gratification. Struggling with a deep sense of disappointment and confusion, she felt her worth had been trampled. She wondered why so many men were so willing to abuse her, and see her only as an object of their personal gratification. It wasn’t until the next semester in college that she got an answer to her quest. It began the process of liberation in her… Barbara realized thatn she was being driven by an intense desire to find a sense of worth and affirmation in having the attention of men. If men were attracted to and interested in her, she sensed her own worth. She felt like she counted for something. She discovered the lie that was pulling her to unhealthy people and sinful patterns.

Finally she exposed the truth: Significance is secured, not through our efforts, but it had already been established by the work of Jesus on Calvary – making her position in God the basis of a new life on earth.

In Ephesians 6 terms, Barbara put the cleats on her shoes and stopped sliding around in the slippery mud of earth. Remember, Ephesians 6 offers six pieces of spiritual armor: Belt of truthfulness, breast plate of right choices, cleats on the sandals of the Gospel that keep us anchored and significant. Then, as the occasion demands, the team locks together in the “blocking shield of faith”, wearing the helmet of salvation and grasping the dagger of the Word. All this is done, praying always, and keeping the intimate relationship out front. Barbara found her cleats and quit sliding around.

Key Principle: Only when I find my significance in my relationship with Jesus and live for His glory and fame, I will make a true mark for eternity!

God offered the table of the Nations in Genesis 10 to set up the story of how the nations came to be scattered and divided by Him in Genesis 11. We would tell the story in reverse of that – but a typical Hebrew way of telling the story is in “flashback mode” offering the EFFECT before the CAUSE.

If you look closely at the text, you will see the division of the people was FOUR WAYS: land, language, family and nation. The proper progression based on the next chapter is nuclear and extended families that were given varying languages separated into different “nations” (ethnicities) that inhabited differing lands:

Genesis 10:1 Now these are the records of the generations of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah; and sons were born to them after the flood.

• EUROPE AND WESTERN ASIA: 10:2 The sons of Japheth were ... 5 From these the coastlands of the nations were separated into their lands, every one according to his language, according to their families, into their nations.
• AFRICA: 10:6 The sons of Ham were ... 20 These are the sons of Ham, according to their families, according to their languages, by their lands, by their nations.
• NEAR EAST TO FAR EAST: 10:21 Also to Shem, the father of all the children of Eber, and the older brother of Japheth, children were born. 22 The sons of Shem were ... 31 These are the sons of Shem, according to their families, according to their languages, by their lands, according to their nations. 32 These are the families of the sons of Noah, according to their genealogies, by their nations; and out of these the nations were separated on the earth after the flood.

How did the division of the earth come to be? Glad you asked! That is the story of Babel in 11:1-9. The story shows how God deliberately divided the people in many directions. Why would He do that? Were the people trying to “build a tower to reach God” as the Sunday School teacher I had years ago taught?

No, look more carefully and you will see the problem... The people wanted to build something significant, but they wanted THEIR STORY at the center of it all.

11:1 Now the whole earth used the same language and the same words. 2 It came about as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.

Shared experiences conveyed shared values:

The people came from the experience of the ark, and as they bore children over a few generations, they found on the plain where they were living all they needed to build a society. Don’t skip past too fast – We need to notice several important truths hinted at in verses one and two:

The knowledge of a HOLY GOD was never more effectively communicated than when fathers taught children from the experience of facing God, and knowing that He was both a Savior and a Judge. Shem, Ham and Japheth and their wives KNEW that God wasn’t kidding about judgment. Why didn’t their children’s children’s children? Because with time they removed themselves from an intimate knowledge of the Holy One. They slowly communicated through their lives that other things were more important than knowing, serving and loving God.

There is a big difference between the knowledge of the Bible, and having a heart for God. Princeton, Harvard and Yale all began as Christian learning centers. Harvard used to require daily Bible reading! What happened to turn them from vital places to hollow shells of the faith? Some of our country’s greatest seminaries now teach a cold theology, devoid of a passionate walk with God. How does this happen?

Year ago, AW Tozer wrote: ““So often we are like the man that has gone out into the field. He collects rocks and puts them together and builds an altar. He then goes out and cuts a log into wood for the fire of the altar. He kills the ox, flays the meat and lays it out upon the altar. He then walks around the altar and cleans the rocks, rearranges them. He sings hymns about the wood. He takes up an offering to keep the rocks clean and neat, and then we leave, knowing something is wrong. The FIRE of God on the altar is not there. We forget the point of it all, and we celebrate “altar worship”.

It has happened many times in the Bible, and it is something we have studied many times in the text, but we dare not EVER gloss over it! There are three generations of a message – sometimes called the teaching of the “three chairs”:

• In the first chair  is a vibrant believer that has encounterd God. Take, for example, Joshua, son of Nun, disciple of Moses. His faith was sold out. He saw God do great things – Jericho’s walls fell, the Jordan’s river was stopped. He was characterized by radical COMMITMENT of a God he had personally experienced.

• In the second chair was the generation of Joshua – the people that lived at the time Joshua was encountering God, but they were living life and observing God’s work. They knew ABOUT God (they were saved) and they knew ABOUT His works, but they were not walking in intimacy with God and did not experience God’s daily power. Their walk was a SOMETIMES power – a COMPROMISE of long stretches of SELF salted lightly with occasional “highs” with God.

• Into the world they brought the generation of the “third chair”, named in Judges 2 as the “generation after Joshua”. That group was describes as faithless. They did not know the mighty works of God personally (Judges 2:7 and 10) and did not walk with Him at all. Their values didn’t mesh with God’s purposes, and they DIDN’T FEAR GOD, so they lived in CONFLICT.

The story plays over and over in Scripture. Abraham was moved by God and his intimacy with Him. Wherever he went he built up altars – even before digging the wells that would make survival on this earth possible. He ALWAYS built first the  ALTAR – God first, no matter how many sheep died! Isaac was a step away from this passionate walk. He did not openly compromise, but was not consistent. It was not always altar before well. Sometimes he built an altar, but he could usually be found “meeting the needs of the flock” before that – and it seemed reasonable. By the third generation there came Jacob -  the man who cynically cheated his own father for selfish gain. He tried to cheat his mother, he cheated his brother, and later tried to cheat his wife.

The fact is the story after the ark isn’t that unique. The problem wasn’t the first generation. The problem wasn’t the ungodly generation. The REAL PROBLEM is always the one in the middle – the COMPROMISED and HALF BELIEVING generation. Remember: “When you grow up in a world in which values are spoken one way, yet lived another way, you will have tragedy on your hands!”

Whole churches are doing this! One generation starts a work for God on some corner, praying and struggling and believing God for every need they have. They have a living walk that is characterized by excitement. They don’t have the right room sizes or right programs. It is often a messy thing. Their needs are met by prayer and sacrifice one to another. They are stirred in powerful moments of worship and study of the Word.

Time passes in that church and it becomes more established. The more organizational oriented and program focused people take over. The needs are met by a capable staff that has far too little time to pray. The place is clean and the music is excellent. Prayer meeting shrinks because there is just too much “program” to keep the thing going. Workers get tired and go home tired – not reflecting the hot heart of a walk with God – but reflecting a cooled programmatic approach. Children observe and grow up in the mix. They see it all. The fights that happen when people are not praying and are working too many hours -- the idolatry of ministry before God. In a sobering way, they profess NO walk with God, and don’t seem to really care. “That’s your gig, mom!” they say.

We must deliberately work to tear down that false sense of “spiritual” or we will blind the eyes of the generation coming behind us. Only if we have a HOT HEART and intimacy in our walk will our kids have any chance of seeing the truth.

In addition to the COOLED COMMUNICATION, 11:1-2 TEACH US SOME OTHER THINGS.

•    THE NUCLEAR and EXTENDED FAMILY was the core of the society. It was designed that way, and no culture has been effectively able to thrive over the long haul while ignoring this basic unit established by God.

•    LANGUAGE and COMMUNICATION was at the heart of what built the unity and society. The settling and civility worked because they could effectively communicate with one another. We cannot underestimate the power of shared communication. What is essential in communication? Shared beliefs and core values communicated through strong family units. The homogenous culture was the beginning point. It wasn’t the color of their skin, it was the ability to share common values and common experiences. If the common values were allowed to be reversed or eroded too rapidly or dramatically, the cohesiveness of the society becomes suspect.

The implication is clear – diversity of views is not always a strength. I am not speaking of race, I am speaking of core values. When a society can no longer share a common “right” or “wrong” it imperils the whole society from growing together. It becomes a litany of causes and a scary collection of special interests. What pulls it together? A singular standard of right and wrong! For our founding fathers it was Biblical truth, assumed to be both TRUE and GOOD.

If half of the University is teaching that absolutes exist – as in math and some science departments – and the other half of the university is teaching that “there are no absolutes” and “all truth is relative” – the house of education will not hold together. I want to be clear: I don’t want to live in a home built by an architect’s plan that did not believe in absolute and consistent physical principles. I don’t even want to sit in a chair made by someone who doesn’t believe in consistent physical principles. Weight loads need to be absolute, unbending and consistent. How the architect feels about it isn’t relevant to me. Let’s move on…

11:3 They said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.” And they used brick for stone, and they used tar for mortar.

Shared values led to shared accomplishments:

The people saw the need to produce something. That wasn’t a bad thing – quite the opposite. They shared the advance of technology to the benefit of the community. Again, we are tempted to miss the richness of the verse. Look closer:

•    Communication led to community, and community led to advancement. We must understand that for a society to move forward, there must be a desire to do something that helps others get ahead, and not just myself. I am not against the growing welfare society because they take money from ME – I am against it because it demeans THEM. I believe in productivity. God started man off in the garden with duties. We need to DO something – not just get benefits from those who have done something. People of every race, color and creed need to accomplish something – it is inherent in our nature. Too much given too easily produces unhappy, yes, ANGRY children. Work is GOOD. Work is GODLY. 1 Thessalonians 4 and 5 reminds us that three things characterize a godly man or woman – sexual purity, a real work ethic, and a distinct view of life and death that shows the time outside of this body as the more “real” experience.

•    The verse says not only that they wanted to accomplish something, but that they wanted to benefit each other. Companies in our modern society must see more than profits. They have to be able to see that there is a benefit to giving help back to the society upon whom their profits were built. Employees need to be thankful to have jobs, and companies need to be deliberate in helping their workers have good lives – not just using them as machines for the profits of the investors. We have to SEE each other, and be deliberate about a society. When we cheat to get over on the man, we take from our brothers, our sisters, our communities, our nation. We are America, and we cannot afford to cheat our neighbor without cheating our own children.

11:4 They said, “Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”

Shared accomplishments exposed a shared need:

The people all wanted to accomplish something that would show how significant they were. They wanted to mark their time on this earth with a symbol of power. They wanted THEIR STORY to be the story of history. Herein is the problem: the people were desperate for SIGNIFICANCE. They became obsessed with it.

Joe Stowell said it right: “We were built for significance. Our problem is not that we search for it, but that we search for it in all the wrong places." We think it is what WE DO. What we LEAVE BEHIND. It isn’t… it is in what we allow God to do IN and THROUGH us. It is in how we walk with Him in the quiet places, after the lights are off… after no one is watching and the accolades are all given out.

11:5 The LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. 6 The LORD said, “Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them. 7 “Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.”  8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of the whole earth; and they stopped building the city. 9 Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of the whole earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth.

A Shared need led to God’s Answer:

God wasn’t going to be second in the story – because He is the highest and He is always truthful. Any other god is a false hope. Any other pursuit is a DEAD END. So He confounded them, broke up their union and sent them packing… It was the best thing He could do to stop them from all perishing together on the FOOL’S ERRAND OF SELF SIGNIFICANCE that gripped them.

Wait a minute, doc! What happens when I live so wrapped in HIS significance? How will my needs be met? If I surrender myself to Him, how will I feel what I long to feel. You will see… Mature believers have learned something about their own needs – they are only really satisfied fully when they live life focused on serving Jesus by serving others. Things done for SELF are short lived. Only when I find my significance in my relationship with Jesus and live for His glory and fame, I will make a true mark for eternity!

"What The Bible is all About” - The Letter of God

As my truck winded its way toward home from the church this afternoon, I heard a story on “This American Life” – an NPR radio program – about a Ph.D. researcher who got a brain infection while working in India. The infection was serious enough that he was flown back home to Ohio, where he stabilized with medication, but suffered catastrophic memory failure. His mind was wiped clean of personal memories. He was intelligent and could talk. He could add and subtract. He could get along in daily life, but every personal aspect of his life was wiped out of his mind. He shared the fear of entering rooms of people who shared life with you with no knowledge or recollection of them at all. In the years ahead, he regained his memory, but the struggle was heart breaking and yet fascinating to listen to.

In some ways, our whole society is going through a catastrophic memory failure. We have forgotten the story that led us to life. It was God’s story – and it was designed to give us all that we needed to traverse this world and make it joyfully to the next. It was the story that contained the keys to our ORIGIN, our PURPOSE, and our DESTINY. As our culture has sponged every part of the story out of public life, we have embarked on a bold and failing adventure to remake a morality without God, without an agreement on our purpose, and without any sense of where the future will lead us. In the process, we have forgotten the substance of much of the book of God – the Bible.

• The Bible was written over a 1,600 year span in the hands of men from some 40 generations.

• It was written down by more than 40 authors, from every walk of life-including kings, peasants.

• philosophers, fishermen, poets, statesmen, scholars, etc. Yet it claims a single author – the Spirit of the Creator God. It is called the “God breathed” word.

• It was written on three continents: Asia, Africa, and Europe

• It was recorded in three languages: Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek.

• Containing 1,189 chapters in 66 books, there is one unfolding story: “God’s love and redemption of man.”

The story began in poetry. The oldest writing we have comes from a wealthy man named Job, who went from a mere follower to an intimately personal lover of God from the ashes and pain of his broken life. The Bible began, not with the story of man, but with the story of God’s creation of another world – an angelic one. That world was made some time before man’s world. He created a chorus of angels – thousands and thousands of them – which he called “the morning stars”. One of the cherubim, the highest order of the angelic world, decided to rebel and take with him those who would follow. God decided to respond by creating a physical universe in which He would tell His story – the explanation of WHO HE IS.

He started by creating our physical world (Genesis 1-3), and then he placed man in it as His personal agent. Man was to care for the world within the rules God laid down for him. Very soon after his creation, man rebelled against God and allied with the enemy of God. Man’s rebellion caused the long, slow decline of the whole planet. Sin abounded and demonic hoards of the enemy worked to destroy God’s physical world. As man spread out, they used the unfamiliarity of the expanse to impregnate and pollute the genetic lines of man (Genesis 6 and 6). Nearly facing the collapse of His earthly work, God stepped in, found a man with clean blood and protected his family as He opened up the depths of the fountains of the earth within and poured down upon the earth from above, effectively eliminating the entire mongrelized population. A single family and a gathering of protected animals survived the deluge, and man was replanted on the earth for a second start, this time with men and women who were fallen, but not of impure demonic blood (Genesis 6-9). That returns us to our poem.

Job’s life was attacked by the enemy of God, and Job remained ever faithful to God –albeit completely discouraged at various times. God saw his faithfulness and restored him to greatness, keeping a record of his story for all our generations.

The population of the earth grew, as did the influence of the evil one on every aspect of life. Man was scattered about the earth (Genesis 10-11), as God selected from the peoples of the earth a single family to center His program upon as a light to rest of the world (Genesis 12-50). Abraham, a city dweller of the family of Terah heard the voice of God and followed Him in faith. God made a covenant to work through his family to proclaim His story to all the world.  Genesis ends with the sons of Abraham through Isaac and Jacob in captivity in Egypt, where they have a promise of God, but are away from home.

When the people of God were held in bondage for ten generations, God raised up a deliverer name Moses (Exodus 1-7) who challenged the Pharaoh of Egypt by showing God’s mighty power in a series of 10 plagues (Exodus 7-12) and eventually led them through the wilderness to a mountain to meet God in the wilderness desert (Exodus 12-19). At the mountain God gave to Moses a Legal Code that included the plans for a moveable sanctuary (Exodus 25-40). He also gave him the Laws regarding the Priests that would serve in it (Leviticus 1-9).

The arduous journey to freedom lasted nearly 39 years (Exodus 12-18; Numbers 1-36) and a generation was lost in wilderness in the death that followed stubborn unbelief. Before the death of Moses, he trained and appointed Joshua as his successor to lead the people, and compiled the last of the Constitutional Laws of Deuteronomy – a combination of ethical codes and technical instructions that was meant to define a nation from a rabble, and preserve them in the land they were entering – the long promised land bequeathed to Abraham their forefather and all his sons in perpetuity.

Joshua entered the Land (Joshua 1-4) with the obvious hand of the Lord upon him, conquered the land in accord with the Lord’s promises and instructions (Joshua 5-12) and then distributed the land (Joshua 13-24) to the tribal clans of Israel – a nick name they took from their father Jacob a generation before.

The tribes didn’t get along well, and didn’t maintain the ethical standards of the Law (Judges, Ruth) but rather found themselves forgetting God and making up their own way. Without moral clarity and barring any kind of larger unity, the tribes moved from disobedience, to defeat and disillusionment. Famines struck the land (Ruth) and disruptions and instability was a constant threatening reality.

Tribes about them periodically attacked, and the clans of Israel realized the need to unify under a king. The judges that took the words given to Moses and transmitted them to the people were becoming untrustworthy and the system was breaking down (1 Samuel 1-7). As a result, a king was selected from the tribes and anointed by the last judge. Saul became the chosen one (1 Samuel 8-15). Fear, jealousy and stubbornness made Saul an incorrigible king, and God replaced him with another – a shepherd of Bethlehem names David (1 Samuel 16 – 2 Samuel 24). 

David was an accomplished musician, a creative writer of songs (Psalms) and a wise ruler. Yet, for all of his exceptional talent and times of deep personal intimacy of worship to God, he strayed into adulterous lust, plots of intrigue and murder. He lived a long life, and was eventually succeeded by Solomon – a man endued with the greatest human wisdom the planet had ever encountered (Proverbs). He wrote over 1000 songs (Song of Solomon) and kept a royal diary of his quest to find and follow God (Ecclesiastes). He built the Great First Temple of Jerusalem to the God of Israel (1 Kings 1-8) and he reigned with wisdom and world envy for a time (1 Kings 9-11). Good at many things, Solomon showed the fatal flaw of thinking he would live too long, as he failed to properly train his successor son. Rehoboam lost the support of the northern ten tribes that sheered off from Judah in the south and came under the control of an insurrection leader named Jeroboam. The two kingdoms became rivals for a little over 200 years (1 Kings 12- 2 Kings 17).

Nineteen kings sat on the throne of the northern kingdom during its 206 years of separation, all of them in rebellion to God’s work through His declared Temple in Jerusalem. God raised up prominent speaking prophets to Israel like Elijah (1 Kings 16-20) the Tishbite who called on God to hold back the rain for seasons. Elisha, a follower of Elijah was also endowed with miraculous powers to show that God was working through him (2 Kings 1-7). 

Yet, not all the prophetic words of the God of the earth were given specifically to the people of Israel. God kept His promise to use them to reach into and bless nations. Obadiah may have been first, sent from God to tell Edom that God saw their treachery against Israel during a raid of Philistines and Arabs during the time of King Jehoram. The prophet warned them that trust in their defenses, allies and experts would not stave off destruction in light of their treacherous spirit.

Joel was probably next, written in the 800’s BCE in the wake of a national disaster. The prophet warned Judah that the vast destruction they had just come through was a portent of things to come in a time called the “Day of the Lord”.

A few years later, rising out of the edge of the Wilderness of Judah was a fig pincher named Amos, who in about 790 BCE  offered words from God on the judgment of six nations that bordered God’s people, before he bore down in focus on Israel and Judah.

About that time, the rising power of the east was the Neo-Assyrian Kingdom, with its mighty capitol at Nineveh was experiencing a renaissance of power. Because of their cruelty and hard heartedness, God sent a message to them through a reluctant and rebellious prophet named Jonah. The short hand memoirs of the journey of Jonah, first running from God and then following him record the days of Jeroboam II in about 780 BCE.

The Northern Kingdom would not return to God’s ethical standards, and each generation seemed to distance itself from Him and even from monotheism. As a result, the Assyrian Empire was used of God to take the northern kingdom’s wayward people into captivity. It was prophesied by Isaiah, Micah and Hosea – each offering significant details of God’s work and ending each with a promise of return, renewal, restoration and repentance.

The next 136 years were a time of oppression and transition for the people of Judah, the southland of the place of promise. Their northern cousins now lost to them in the distant Assyrian Kingdom, and Judah stripped of its wealth and prosperity, Jerusalem hung on and tried to recover (2 Kings 18-25). Nearly fifty years later at the time of the revivals of King Josiah in Judah, the prophet Habakkuk’s complaints were brought against God – that He wasn’t listening the cries of those who were unjustly treated by Judah’s elite. God promised to bring in the Chaldeans to fix the problem, and Habakkuk retreated to a position of seeking mercy for his people.

Zephaniah was also from the time of Josiah (620’s BCE), as he passed on messages from God against the peoples of five surrounding nations that affected Judah, and especially called on Judah to stop ignoring God’s serious warnings about their sin and unbelief. God was concerned with His people, but at the same time was sending Nahum the prophet to warn the Assyrians of the coming destruction of Nineveh for their failure to repent, an event that finally occurred a few years later in 612 BCE.

God’s people didn’t listen to His warnings. The kings of Judah were a mixed review, but the people were fairly consistent about rebellion. God sent Jeremiah to warn them that they were about to experience a shock – the destruction of God’s Temple. Beginning his prophetic ministry under King Josiah and contemporary with Habakkuk, Zephaniah and Nahum – Jeremiah’s writings detail the pain and anguish of a prophet’s diary as he sought to reflect God’s love and holiness to people. For an entire generation he warned, until he sat on the Mount of Olives and lamented the fall of his beloved city in 586 BCE (Lamentations).

Three waves of Jerusalemites were carted away by the Babylonians, the new world power that replaced the Assyrians. In the earliest wave (606 BCE), a young man named Daniel was swept into Babylon. In the second wave Ezekiel was swept into the foreign capital (597 BCE). Both of these men were given special opportunities by God to be a specific encouragement to the people of God in Exile, far from home. Daniel even rose to the status of Prime Minister!

Nearly seventy years passed from the first wave of captivity, when Daniel prayed asking God to send the people home as He promised (Daniel 9) and he was offered the clearest prophecy of the timing of the coming Messiah that would bring a final lasting peace to God’s people, Israel. With the rise of the Median king Cyrus and his subsequent takeover of the vast city of Babylon, God arranged the return of the people under Sheshbazaar and his nephew, Zerrubabel – men of the household of Jehoiachin – a late king of Judah from David’s line.

 

Ezra 1-6 records the story of the first return, along with the records of the prophet Haggai from 18 years later – sent to re-ignite the people’s desire to finish the rebuilding of the Second Temple.  A few years behind him was Zechariah, who offered a message that included great details of the prophetic coming importance of Jerusalem. 

Meanwhile, back in the Persia throne room King Ahaseures (also called Xerxes) plotted a return to Greece after early defeats were an embarrassment to his predecessor Darius I. He called all his army commanders and planned an assault, complete with an ill conceived pre-fight celebration which turned into a drunken brawl. Dismissing his beautiful queen named Vashti, God raised up Esther to the post and used her and her uncle Mordecai to foil a plot to destroy the Jewish people throughout the world in 483 BCE, just before Ahaseures sent the army that stood before Leonidas’ 300 betrayed Spartans, only to be humiliated as they lost again to Greece in the Battle of Thermopylae (480 BCE).

A generation later, God wanted the city of Jerusalem rebuilt. The Temple functioned, but He heard the cries of his returned but impoverished people. He raised up Nehemiah, a cupbearer servant to King Artaxerxes I, who followed the late husband of Queen Esther. By 444 BCE, Nehemiah led his first caravan to Jerusalem, where the walls were restored in 52 days (Nehemiah 6:15ff). The people were back in the land. The Temple was alive, and the city of Jerusalem was reasonably secure. A few years passed and God sent His final prophet to Judah before the coming of Messiah – Malachi. The prophet reminded the people of the ethical laws that they were to follow, and chastised priests for not caring for God’s work with integrity. The prophecy finished with the promise that an announcer was coming, and behind him  would come the CHOSEN ONE who would draw the people into a right relationship with God.

On the world stage  God raised up Alexander the Great, son of Philip of Macedon, and in the  breakup of his kingdom after his untimely death, God eventually supplanted all his former western lands under the hands first of the champions of the Senate of Rome – like Pompey Magnus (the Great), and then under the Emperors Julius and Caesar Augustus.

Into this world was born Jesus, the Messiah. God fulfilled His promise of the long awaited Messiah with the announcement of the Forerunner named John (The Gospels). At the same time as John’s mother was pregnant, an angel of God named Gabriel was dispatched form Heaven to share the news of the coming of the Promised One to Mary, a young virgin girl espoused to an older man who was a builder by the name of Joseph.

Messiah came, taught healed and trained a small corps of men – the Disciples. It began with just five followers of John the Baptizer, but in three years had swelled to crowds of thousands, with 12 close chosen disciples.

On the Thursday night of Passover week in about the year 33 CE, Jesus was arrested while privately praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. Bounced between Annas and Caiaphas of the Hannan family and eventually remanded into Roman custody for insurrection – Jesus was brutally Crucified between two thieves just outside Jerusalem’s walls. His disciples in hiding, His body was placed into a tomb of a rich man who loved Him. Early that Sunday morning, God raised up His Son, and renewed Him to a new ministry of preparation. 

Appearing twelve times over the next month, Jesus left from the Mount of Olives before a small crowd of His followers – ascending into Heaven. The followers were instructed to wait for the coming of the Spirit of God at Jerusalem – an event that Dr. Luke recorded in the Book of Acts - that happened less than a month after the Ascension at the time of Shavuot, or Pentecost.

The newly empowered church launched out, overcoming financial setbacks and internal disputes. The message that began in Jerusalem spread to many places in Judea, northward into Samaria, and even as far away as Africa – at the hands of government officials that encountered early evangelists of the church. The rising numbers put undue pressure on Jewish leadership in Jerusalem and caused a stir among the people.

A delegation was sent to Damascus, led by a young student of Tarsus named Saul, to cut down the fledgling movement called “The Way” by every means available. On the road to Damascus, Saul of Tarsus was struck down with a vision of the Risen Jesus that left him blind. Taken to a prophet of the early church named Ananias, he became a transformed follower and left the city in a basket under death threats of his former friends. Saul had changed sides in the effort to kill the new message. He slipped into the desert for a few years, gaining training from Jesus in private, and eventually made his way back to Tarsus.

The Jerusalem church was heavy hearted under persecution. The church continued to grow, and the believers were multiplying to the north in Antioch on the Orontes River, where the Gospel of Jesus – the message of His Resurrection and promised return was transforming many lives. Because of the growth, Joses of Cyprus (called Barnabas) was sent to Antioch where he encouraged the people and then went to seek Saul, who was called in the Gentile world by his other name – Paul.

Saul and Barnabas went to Antioch together, where in a prayer meeting, God called on the church to send the two of them out in a series of mission journeys. Initially they headed for Cyprus and then into cities now located in central Turkey. After disputes over the entry of so many uncircumcised Gentiles into the churches of Asia Minor. A delegation was sent from Antioch to Jerusalem for a Council on the Gentile question. Was a Gentile to become a Jew to become a follower of Messiah? A letter was written explaining the finding of the council, and Paul went out with Silas  to a second journey, while Barnabas and John Mark made their way to Cyprus.

During Paul’s second journey he began the writing career that God used to offer a corpus of epistles to the church for all the ages. His known thirteen Epistles became the foundation of both the ethical and institutional frame of the early church. Most of the epistles were written to churches, with the exception of a few that went to Pastors and even house church leaders.

Paul was not the only one to write such God breathed Epistles. Simon Peter of Galilee wrote a number of letters as he made a march toward Rome to lead the church there. Jude wrote a short one to warn people of the nature of the truth they were preaching. John the son of Zebedee, the youngest of the disciples also wrote a series of letter to warn churches about traveling teachers that were not authorized to teach the congregations.

Under the rule of Domitian (81-96 CE), John was exiled to the Aegean island Patmos – a penal colony on a small promontory with no internal source for water beside cisterns of rain water. While there, Jesus gave John a vision of the end of the world. 

Paul had already written about the temporary nature of the church before the return of God’s attention back to Israel. He said that on a day the church did not know, they would be instantly called out of the earth to stand before Jesus and be judged for the work He gave them to accomplish.

John was given the Revelation of Jesus Christ, where he saw the earth picture of the same period. With the coming snatching away of God’s church would move His Divine attention back to Israel. Surrounded by enemies and hated by the nations, God would not interfere as the enemy empowered a world leader that would offer a peace treaty to Israel. Desperate for peace and desiring to be loved of the nations, Israel was keen to accept. 

With the church suddenly gone and the world destabilized, a time of transition and peace eventually gave way to a reversal of fortune for the tiny nation Israel. Three pummeling rounds of judgment were directed to fall on the earth. By the last judgments, all the salt water of the earth is fouled, the fresh water sources are destroyed, the people of the earth are desperate, and one final attempt is made to destroy Israel, viewed as the source of the problems of all the earth.

As the nations rise to destroy Israel, Messiah breaks through the clouds and comes with a mighty power and protection for His people. Behind him are His followers through the ages of the church period. In majesty He comes to reign, and establishes the Kingdom promised long ago to King David, on the throne of Zion.

All the nations bow to Israel’s king. All the nations see Him as their king!

The demonic hoards are judged and tossed away. The enemy of the ages is humiliated, defeated and disposed of forever.

God writes His Holy Name – I AM –one the forehead of all those He saved. The signature of His grace becomes His eternal statement that is the message of the whole Bible – I AM the Lord – There is no other. 

One claims to be my equal, but he is the father of lies. Others claim to offer fortune, fame, power and pleasure, but all are fleeting. There is no other. You need look no more! My message brings freedom from sin, and power over the enemy. My words soothe the anguish of a mother whose arms are now empty and a man who has enemy guns perched against him. 

He signed His story, "I am the Alpha and Omega. I began all things, and I shall finish them."