“but”—No.3

24 Saturday Mar 2012

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Christian gathering, Deluge, Flood, Grace, Jesus, Noah's ark, Satan, Second Coming

Well, I am back from vacation and writing another post on the word “but.” Although there are numerous other “buts” in the Bible, this will be the last one for now. After this I’ll move on to other interesting words that can change everything.

Genesis 6:5-7 says, “And Jehovah saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And Jehovah repented that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him in His heart. And Jehovah said, I will blot out the man whom I have created from the surface of the ground, from man to beast to creeping things to the birds of heaven; for I repent that I have made them.” Then verse 8 begins with the word BUT—“But Noah found grace”! Satan, the evil serpent back in Genesis 3, had corrupted man to the extent that God had determined to utterly destroy the whole inhabited earth, including the very people that He had created in His image for His purpose. “But Noah found favor [(or grace)] in the sight of Jehovah” (v.8). Thus, there was a man whose life and work provided a way for God to gain the victory over Satan and to change the age (the flood terminated one age and inaugurated another). This is huge!

Simply put, grace is God coming to us to be our supply. Noah was enabled to walk in that crooked and perverted generation because he found a strength and supply in his relationship with God. The age that we live in today is not that different from the age in which Noah lived. It is an age of immorality, depravity, violence, and darkness. And, concerning His second coming, the Lord Jesus told us, “For just as the days of Noah were, so will the coming of the Son of Man be. For as they were in those days before the flood, eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day in which Noah entered into the ark, And they did not know that judgment was coming until the flood came and took all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be” (Matt. 24:37-39). May we all, in the midst of this dark age, find grace. May we find a strength and supply in our relationship with the Lord that would enable us to be instrumental in changing the age and bringing the Lord back! By the way, one of the most practical places to find this wonderful grace is in the Christian gatherings. There God comes to us to be our supply!

“but”—No.2

11 Sunday Mar 2012

Posted by Paul Joseph in Bible study

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But God, Dead in our offenses, Ephesians, gift of God, God's Purpose, Grace, Love, Satan, Saved

In the New Testament book of Ephesians, chapter two, we catch a glimpse in the first three verses of our fallen condition: dead in our offenses and sins, walking according to the age of this world, according to the ruler of the authority of the air, of the spirit which is now operating in the sons of disobedience, conducting ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the thoughts, and by nature being children of wrath. This is quite a bleak picture as a background displaying the damage caused by God’s enemy Satan to us, the vessels originally made in the image and likeness of God for His purpose (Genesis 1:26). However, the next two words, which begin verse four, change the entire negative scene into a gloriously positive scene—“But God!” Verses four through nine say, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,/ Even when we were dead in offenses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)/ And raised us up together with Him and seated us together with Him in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus,/ That He might display in the ages to come the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus./ For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not of yourselves; it is the gift of God;/ Not of works that no one should boast.” Although Satan did step in to damage God’s work (so he thought), his interference only provided more opportunity for God to display His multifarious wisdom. To Satan and to us these two words change everything—But God!