Rapture smapture!

OH NO...only 2 more days! They say he's coming back on May 21.

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/18/tick-tock-goes-the-doomsday-clock/

Aside from the obvious . . . that Jesus said "But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only" (Matt 24:36), does this match your own conception of The Day? Apart from setting a calendar day, I think Evangelical Christianity is all too prone to jump on this same "rapture bandwagon." Here are a couple of passages typically used to support "rapture":

1 Thessalonians 4:13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. 14 For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. 15 For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, [4] that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.

What if this is a triumphal entry that mimics a Roman triumphal entry, or one similar to Jesus' entry into Jerusalem on a donkey? The kind where people run out to meet the conqueror and usher him back into the city . . . not the kind where everybody leaves.

Matthew 24:40 Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. 41 Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left. 42 Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.

To be sure, there's a separation happening here. Some will go and some will stay, but who's leaving and who's staying? This text doesn't specify. Matthew 13 specifies:

41 The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, 42 and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.

&

49 So it will be at the close of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous 50 and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

The way I read . . . it's the lawbreakers who will go. In this, the Romans 8 promise of the renewal of all things finds it's fulfillment. And, the Ephesians 1:10 promise of the reunion of heaven (God's presence) and earth finds its fulfillment.  And, the Revelations 21 promise of God coming "down" with the bride to dwell with men finds its fulfillment.

I wonder what all the rapture believing folks will do with their prepaid "after the rapture pet care" when the find themselves happily residing in a renewed creation with God.

Seek the Lord and Live (Amos 5)

This is my last Amos post. The majority of Amos hits us pretty hard and leaves us asking the question, "so what can we do about it?" In chapter 5, we find the answer to this question. Chapter 5 is presented in two sections, each of them a chiastic structure. The first looks like this:

 a. Judgment described (5:1-3)

  b.  Seek the Lord (5:4-6)

  c. Injustice described (5:7)

  d.  Hear a sovereign God (5:8-9)

  c’. Injustice described (5:10-13)

  b.’  Seek the Lord (5:14-15)

 a’. Judgment described (5:16-17)

This chiasm describes the coming judgment, the prescribed repentance (i.e., Seek the Lord), and the injustices that provoked the curses of Deuteronomy 28:15 ff. Who has the authority to call out against the standard (remember the plumb line of 7:7-9)? It is God. Of course people question God's judgments, but this chiasm brings the discussion to the sovereignty of God . . . he does not need to consult us.

In all of this, the Lord answers our "what can we do about it" question like this: "Seek the Lord and live." When we set our life's direction to seek the Lord, we will hate evil, love good, and establish justice (vss. 5, 6, 14, 15). We do not do these things to seek the Lord (though we might see him in spectacular ways while doing them), rather these are manifestations in our lives because we seek the Lord. (This is not an exact distinction, but helps us understand the primary pursuit, i.e., the Lord over the works.) Conversely, if we seek wealth, power, and self-gratification, then oppression, whether directly or indirectly, even if unintentionally, will be the manifestation.

Forgoing the layout of the second chiasm, the central point of the second section shows up as repentance, a command to turn away from religious hypocrisy (vss. 21-23, 25, 26) to justice and righteousness (vs. 24).

The answer "what can we do about it" the same today:

• SEEK first the kingdom of God and his righteousness (Matthew 6:33).
• Ask, and it will be given to you; SEEK, and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you (Matthew 7:7).

More about this SEEKING in ensuing blogs.

You Fat Cows (Amos 4)

Warning! The following language is exclusively reserved for use by prophets of old; don't try this at home. Chapter 4 of Amos begins thus:

   "Hear this word, you cows of Bashan . . ."

The grazing land at Bashan was as good as it got. The cattle found there were the fattest and sleekest in the land. Every Israelite understood what Amos was saying; they heard it like this, "Here this word, you fat cows . . . ." He had this to say specifically to the women of the elite families.


God hated Israel's consumerism and their methods for sustaining it. As Amos describes it, the women of the elite in Israel prodded their husbands to bring more and more home for their consumption. They lived an opulent lifestyle with beds of ivory, couches, a diet of red meat, entertainment, wine aplenty, the finest oils (6:4-6), and multiple houses (3:1). This indulgence in itself was bad enough, but how they acquired it made it all the worse.


Specifically, the Israeli elite acquired their disproportionate amount of consumer goods through these methods:

1. fines and debts (2:8).
2. taxation (5:11).
3. cheating the poor (8:4-6).

With this going on, any tithe, offering, thanksgiving, or worship of any kind was rejected and despised by God (4:4-5; 5:21-23).

I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies" (5:21).

We must check ourselves as a nation. Do we have consumption habits that affects the rest of the world? Check ourselves as individuals. Do we have consumption habits that make us unable to respond appropriately to the poor and the afflicted near us? We do not want to be included among . . .

". . . those who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth and turn aside the way of the afflicted . . ." (2:7).

Hang in there, the blog on chapter 5 will be more positive. Until then, here's a thought provoking accounting of consumption in our country, The Story of Stuff:

Violence and Robbery (Amos 3)

 “They do not know how to do right,” declares the Lord,
“those who store up violence and robbery in their strongholds” (Amos 3:10).

     Violence, robbery, quarrels, murder, war . . . these stem from wanting what we do not have (James 4:1, 2). Of course, there are appropriate ways to acquire what we do not have, but, unfortunately, Israel gave us the example of acquiring inappropriately. Israel resorted to violence and robbery. They had their winter houses and summer houses made of ivory that had to be maintained. It took massive resources to maintain lavish accommodations and those resources had to come from somewhere. The folks who could afford to have these types of homes were taxing, fining, oppressing and neglecting the poor to get what they needed to sustain their lifestyle. 
     So bad were conditions in Israel that the Lord called upon ungodly neighbors and the Mosaic Law to bear witness to judgment. He called upon Ashdod and Egypt to gather around and look at the confusion and the oppression (vs. 9). He also called attention to the Law to show that he was not responsible for the downfall; Israel herself was responsible. The Law stated that if livestock was put in the care of a neighbor that, in the case of losing the animal, the caretaker was responsible for the loss (supposing they may have eaten it themselves or sold it) unless he could produce a torn piece of the animal to prove that wild animals attacked it (Exodus 22:13).  Enough evidence would remain to prove that it was not God's neglect or injustice that led to Israel's downfall, but rather her violence and robbery.
     We've been laying alongside Israel some of our own country's involvement in parallel behaviors. We've actually seen that a few evil people with a lot of power, money and legal protection can cause a lot of violence and robbery. Here's another clip from John Perkins that shows how things escalate to violence and robbery.

You're the WORST!

Amos begins his message to Israel ensnaring them into understanding the same truth that the Lord had shown him against a plumb line. He leads up to Israel's sin with a 3-4 beat. Take a few moments to read Amos 1:3-2:5 noting both the redundancy of the 3-and-4  statements and the individual sins of the nations that surrounded Israel.

At each beat, Amos announces the sins of Israel's neighbors, some of which were transgressions against Israel herself. They would have remembered these transgressions and would have been in full agreement with God's pronouncements. Let's take a quick look at these sins:

1. Damascus: "threshed Gilead" . . . they cruelly crushed the Israelites.
2. Gaza (i.e., Philistia): "exiled a whole people" . . . they sold them into slavery.
3. Tyre (i.e., Phoenicia): "delivered a whole people to Edom" . . . they sold them into slavery.
4. Edom: "pursued his brother with a sword" . . . these descendants of Esau, Israel's brother, fought against their own relatives.
5. Ammon: "ripped open pregnant women in Gilead" . . . these, more relatives of Israel, in war, greedy for territory, did heinous things to Israel.
6. Moab: "burned to lime the bones of the king of Edom" . . . these, again relatives of Israel, apparently desecrated the dead.
7. Judah: "rejected the law of the Lord."

Realize this, as Israel read or heard this prophecy, they would have been expecting the culmination of the 3-and-4 pattern to bring them to the point. They probably started off by agreeing with Amos . . . saying something like "yeah Lord, do what you gotta do to them." They might have become confused though, when he went beyond Edom, the 4th country listed. The prophecy didn't culminate with the 4 sins of one country of these neighbors. . . each of these countries had only one sin listed. It wasn't 4 countries . . . there were 7 listed before themselves. 


The Lord compared Israel to the nations around her essentially pointed out that she was worse than the rest. Israel had these four sins listed:

1. "trample the head of the poor" . . . exploit and abuse the poor.
2. "turn aside the way of the afflicted" . . . neglect the downtrodden and helpless.
3. "go into the same girl" . . . exploit women via prostitution. Poor women were likely forced to enter into prostitution at the temples for financial subsistence.
4. "lay themselves down beside every alter on garments taken in pledge" (see Ex 22:26) and "in the house of their God they drink the wine of those who have been fined" . . . both of these statements indicated the use ill-gotten gain in worship and self indulgence.

We know that the Lord hates these things, so we check ourself at how we treat the poor . . . at home and in neighboring nations.

Hear what this guy has to say about how Western corporations treat the poor:

A Plumb Line In Our Midst

Thursday night we began a series in Amos. We began in chapter seven. In chapter seven, God reveals his message for Israel to Amos.

And the Lord said to me, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A plumb line.” Then the Lord said,

“Behold, I am setting a plumb line
in the midst of my people Israel . . . (v.8)

God shows Amos Israel's faults against a true standard . . . God's own truth about social justice and righteousness. God's message is not to an individual, but to a nation. It's difficult for Westerners to view things apart from individuality. We are radically individualistic. In this study, we are going to compare ourselves as a nation to the nation of Israel. In Amos we can see what God loves and hates about national behaviors when it comes to social justice and righteousness. 


Israel, the northern ten tribes, at this time had several stark similarities to our present-day USA. She was just over 200 years old as a nation. She was at the height of her prosperity. And, surrounding countries had reasons to be displeased with her. 


In the coming weeks, we will look at the specific sins of Israel that brought the judgment of exile on her, and compare them to ourselves . . . Israel's experience with God will be our plumb line.
Christians often recognize national sin in abortion, pornography and homosexuality. We are going to take a look at two specific sins that we will recognize in Israel: 1) social injustice and 2) the idolatry of consumerism.


Here a few links to resources that we'll use to assess the condition of our nation:

• Story of Stuff
• Economic Hitman Video
• Confessions of an Economic Hitman

Promises Promises!

I do my Bible read-throughs slower than most people. The first time I did it, it took me five years. I'm attempting to accomplish my current read-through at a break-neck speed of two years in the Good News Bible. I typically intend to read several chapters in a sitting, but often am hindered. I'm presently in Jeremiah, and was making fairly good time, but then I hit chapter 31 yesterday. Chapter 31 gives me a lot to think about, so I only got through two chapters yesterday.

Today, I made it all the way to chapter 32 . . . so that's one more chapter. When I get to promises that God made to his people, it overwhelms me. Take these for instance from vss. 38-41:

38 Then they will be my people, and I will be their God. 39 I will give them a single purpose in life: to honor me for all time, for their own good and the good of their descendants. 40 I will make an eternal covenant with them. I will never stop doing good things for them, and I will make them fear me with all their heart, so that they will never turn away from me. 41 I will take pleasure in doing good things for them, and I will establish them permanently in this land (GNB).

• They will be my people.
• I will be their God.
• I will give them a single purpose in life.
• I will never stop doing good things for them.
• I will take pleasure in doing good things for them.

When I read these kinds of things, I have to stop and meditate on them. Do they apply to the church, God's people today? Does it apply to me? What is the evidence of their fulfillment in my life? What in my life hinderes the realization of experiencing God in these ways?

Has God given me a single purpose in life? That almost sounds too simple to be true and I like simple. The first core value of our church is "Simplicity." I think "yes, he has simplified my life down to a fairly simple pursuit with a promise that he'll take care of most of the stuff himself": But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things shall be added to you (Matthew 6:33, NASB).

Does God take pleasure in doing good for me? I needed to come to this one. Though I know, intellectually, that God's approval of me is not based on performance, I tend to be a performance based person. I tend too easily toward, "I" need to do this or that for his glory, or "I" need to do this for his name's sake, or its my duty to do this for him. How about just slowing down to meditate on the things that God delights to do . . . for me. Wow! Those things are there but are easily taken for granted if we're too busy doing, even if it's for him .

I admit it, I got distracted, I only made it through one chapter this morning. If this keeps up, I might have to consider a three-year read-through.