A QUESTION OF POSSESSION
Over and over recently I have had certain topics come forth that
deal with the Evangelistic. The concept of being a "witness" to those
who are "good enough" is a frustrating topic of discussion and the
general consensus is to simply prejudge them as fodder for the wrath of
the Father and walk away.
But this goes against the scriptural grain doesn't it? What does it
say in Scripture? For God so loved the world that He gave His only
begotten son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have
everlasting life. Life that lasts forever. For God didn't send
His son into the world to condemn the world but rather that through Him
the world might be saved. Why? Because as it is written God is not
willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance
in Christ and have everlasting life. Yet, it is also written that Those
who do not believe on the Son of man are condemned already. This flies
right in the face of things and to the liberal mindset it becomes a
contradiction. Thank God for His Spirit who never stays quiet for ver
long and always has something to say. It is He that put this in my
heart and brought His answers to bear on this day.
When we take the gospel we take it in the premise that you are evil
and have lived wickedly and need forgiveness, which is often the case.
But how for the person who has kept the golden rule all their life do
we justify them as "evil"? In the Old Testament the wicked man was
classically defined as the unwashed Philistine or the pagan or the
enemy of the chosen. He was dead set against the agenda and life of the
chosen and seen to be a deadly force in the earth for the chosen. When
we look at the nation of Israel we are immediately struck with their
idea of choseness. When we talk to the modern day Jew we are struck by
the arrogance of their claim to choseness. Yes and they can be arrogant
in their claim. Yet they have a right, they are the first from Sinai.
But though we may choke on the issue of choseness we need to
consider the claim and the right of choseness. You see, it is God
Himself who started this whole issue with Israel on Sinai. I have
chosen you to be mine... hence you will be MY people and I will be your
God. Now we have a better idea of this choseness, for it has to do
with possession. It has been said that possession is nine tenths
of the Law. Well in Torah Law possession is ten tenths of the rule.
Torah for those who may not know is the Hebrew word for the first five
books of your Old Testament. These are the book that chronicle our
beginning as a planet and people and then chronicle the beginnings of a
lineage for the Savior. After all, everyone has to come from somewhere
and everyone has a ancestor or two in their past. Its called family
roots. So the Law or Torah stems from the tree trunk and root system of
possession and ownership by God for a reason. They were a vehicle to
display God's power and presence in the Earth. Everywhere they went
there was God and everything one around them could plainly see that God
was always up to something. Either it was a blessing, and it made the
nation a great terror in the night, and a nightmare to all invaders or
it was the curse and it made the nation the laughingstock of the
planet! Still haplessly caught in the Sinai covenant Israel was for
better or worse, God's to do with as He pleased. Happily we have a
benevolent God who would much rather take pleasure in this people than
be angry with them. But He did have a set of rules they had to live
with and when they didn't well....
Then came the only begotten the Son of man the LAMB. He sort of
shook things up and upset the status quo. He sort of made a few changes
on His resurrection day. The first change was in who became God's
possession. Anyone could now be God's possession. Proud Israel was not
the only way anymore. Another change was in how one became chosen. It
used to be you were proselytized and circumcised and put through
rituals and made to learn Torah and, and, and. It was a needful thing
to show the totality of separation from and consecration unto but it
also closed doors in many faces. Now one had only to believe, and
confess, and be immersed in water. That in the belief faith would be
imparted to receive that in the confession saving grace might begin His
work and that in the baptism an act like unto circumcision would take
place. Like unto circumcision in that it set the person apart from the
rest and demonstrated that they were now numbered among the chosen.
Finally, the LAMB changed the path of approach unto the Ancient of Days
for the original Sinai covenant chosen. For it was through the blood of
generation and the blood shedding of the foreskin and the blood of the
sacrificial animal that one came. But now having been circumcised,
having offered up Himself having been of the correct lineage of the
righteous and even of the actual royal house itself. The LAMB became
the sole provision and hence the only way to come to the Ancient of
days whom we call Father.
So now when we look again at the wicked we see that he is not of the
chosen or if of Abraham's seed He is not righteous. Chosen is the first
estate but as with any family the right to be "in the will" comes with
attendance to familial duty and allegiance to the family head. If one
behaves in such a manner so as to disgrace the family will one not
eventually be "cut out of the will"? Does not the family give long
gracious lenience? This is the same thing, the one who is chosen of God
will behave as one who is chosen of God and that is in a manner that
God Himself considers pleasing.
So now we have tow edges to this argument. On the one you must
become chosen and on the other you must live as chosen thereafter. But
what of the wicked man? What does it mean to perish for don't we live
on as spirit forever? Are we told that in this aspect we are gods? Is
not the soul of man immortal? Yes we do but here is the end of the
argument for choseness. There are three places that spirit may dwell
and only one of them has to do with life as you know it right now. The
other two have to do with where you live forever. Only the soul or
spirit of a man is eternal but the flesh passes away yet in this the
awake part of our consciousness we say we are alive. In truth once we
were born we became eternally alive having been created in the womb for
a destiny that should be pleasant but is often damnable.
In flesh the soul has an active life in what we call the real world
but in death of the flesh the spirit comes into it truest reality, one
that is fixed and unchanging and never ends. There are in this only two
places to dwell. One is in the presence of the person of the trinity.
Laughter is there and not weeping. Light is there and not darkness.
Love and companionship are there and not the lonely ball of self
loathing regrets and hatred. Others are there and one can be with them
and there is fellowship among the chosen and with the chooser of them
all and not separation from all others and loneliness and the memory of
what might have spared you this awful condition. There is no suffering
in the presence of the Almighty. But hell or Gehenna is a bit
different. Its dark and lonely. No one is there though you are
surrounded by fellow sufferers. Or have we forgotten what suffering and
soul wracking will do to our human spirit? It will insulate us until we believe we are alone in a shopping mall on Christmas Eve one hour
before closing! Now that's alone! This is the plight of the sufferer
here in Gehenna. Add to it the darkness and the regrets that forever
replay in your spiritman's memory. Then think of a coldness that is so
intense that it burns like fire. You burn not with flames as in a fire
but with cold. Then finally consider a Lake of fire and brimstone. Well
you say that will produce light and it will produce warmth.
Truly? But all light and warmth come from the presence of God in
creation and its presence in His plan called the kingdom. In that lake
there is the absence of God so now where is the warmth and the light?
Suffice it to say there is a darker side of reality to God's world than
the world we see around us and the things we think we understand from
scripture. Paul told us that our eye and ear and mind had not yet come
across the good things that God has in store for us who are the
chosen and heirs. If that argument is so then what of the things
that are stored up for the wicked?
Then the message should be not are you good enough, but are you His?
Why? Being His avoids being destined for His wrath. What about that
wrath? Is God a angry man having a temper tantrum at the end of the
age? Of course not but here is a illustration. We live in our homes and
we clean them out periodically. When we do we decide what to keep what
to throw. What we keep we have chosen to be ours what we throw we have
decided will not be ours and will not clutter up our living space any
longer. God is the master mold of our image so, what is His when He
cleans His house He will keep, what he decides He doesn't want He will
throw. Gehenna and the Lake are simply trash cans. Like is said the
spirit of man is eternal so with all these eternal "souls" about the
house of creation gets awful cluttered and after six or seven or eight
days even God wants to clean house. That is taking the young earth
theory and coupling it to the day equals one thousand years theory. OK
it is written that God made this in six days and rested on the seventh.
Then what? On the eighth He saw the fall of man and set about to
rectify the problem. The rectification process took another ,oh, five
days roughly? Then He enacted His correction to the problem Adam
created and well there is another day of rest. But well here's a new
day not of rest and in it Christ arises. The Father built the house but
it is the son He sent to clean it. In this day at the right hour the
son will come in His Spirit then in glorified person and the house will
be cleaned. The stuff Father doesn't want will be thrown away into an
incinerator that doesn't consume. The rest well when clean don't we
organize the things we want to keep? So will the Son.
So whose are you and what determines whether or not you are kept or
thrown? Are you His in LAMB's blood? Do you seek to please a Father who
you have discover through the Son? Then you are a chosen and a heir
apparent, congratulations! Otherwise best consider your ways. Don't you
think?