God Moments! Tuesday, Mar 23 2010 

Biblical history and Doctrine and Family and Motivational and New Testament kennethbow 8:14 am

A God moment……

While the Apostle Paul was on his 2nd missionary journey around 51ad, a woman

named Phoebe came and told him she was going to Rome.

Paul asked her if she would carry a letter to the church there

for him.  She agreed.   Paul set down to write a letter and what

resulted was the book in your bible called Romans.

It is a great treatise on Christianity.  The broad expanse of

the role of the Jew, and the new role of the Gentile.

In his opening introduction Paul says some things about humanity

in general.  He was at Corinth at the time, where he spent 18 months.

As he walked the streets of the second largest city of the Roman

Empire with its new shiny architecture, he saw the population, of

700,000 people.  There were soldiers, Roman officials, merchants, beggars, in fact the

whole composite of  Corinth.

He concluded several things he put in the letter to the Romans.

He concluded that all have sinned and come short of the

glory of God.  He concluded that the gentile world needed

God, and the Jewish world needed God.

He covered an interesting concept by asking what if some did not hear

the Gospel?  His answer was they are without excuse! Why?

He went on to say because there are different ways God speaks to

mankind.  God speaks through conscience, God speaks through

creation. That lets me know that God never leaves man anywhere, anyplace

without some kind of “God Moment”.

Somewhere, somehow, God confronts man and introduces himself, so

that no one will ever stand at the final tribunal of God and say I had no

Witness.

During the 35 years I have preached the gospel I have heard and seen

some of these “God Moments”.  I saw one a few days ago in a nursing

home down in Puyallup, Washington.

I went to the room of a lady who had told her daughter she wanted to pray, she was afraid she was nearing the end of her life’s journey. I went and joined the daughter, son, and two other people.  We prayed for that woman to be assured God was with her.  When we laid our hands on her to pray, it was a “God Moment”.

It was as if we had placed the shock paddles that EMTs use on her chest. She raised up off that bed and the spirit of God fell on her.

It was a supernatural moment.  We were all amazed and aware that this moment was a God thing.

Thirteen days later, death walked in that same room and claimed that woman.

That Woman was Phyllis Crandall.


Death came to claim her only to acknowledge that God arrived first, letting everyone know, that she was His child.

Thank you God for that incredible, unforgettable moment when you showed yourself as

God.

Thanks for reading today!

 

16 Men Who Changed the World! Monday, Mar 22 2010 

Biblical history and Biographical and Doctrine and Old Testament kennethbow 8:53 am

The Prophets.

When Israel left Egypt on that fateful night of the Exodus, they were ill equipped to be a world member in the family of nations.  Their centuries of slavery had left them without the basic skills to form a nation and function.

They needed laws and leadership.  God provided them with both.

While they made the transition from slavery to a warrior nation to conquer the Promised Land, they needed something to anchor them to their past, to their beliefs and their survival.  God gave them the Tabernacle as that anchor.  It was the central element that polarized them as a people.  It was the central purpose and function of their lives.

The Tabernacle eventually became the Temple and the Temple stood as their foundation and polarization for centuries. It was the central point and purpose of their lives.

After their conquest and several hundred years of judges and monarchy, they had become an urban people with need of a different anchor.  The nation had not become, or remained what God had intended!  They needed another anchor for a different environment of urban life.

God sent them their second anchor…the Prophets!

The first prophets were miracle workers.  Elijah and Elisha types.  They got the attention of the Nation at locals like Carmel when Elijah confronted the prophets of Baal.

When it was evident that the miracles alone would not  turn the nation back to God, God then sent them a whole new group of men.  The writing prophets!

About 40 years after Elisha, the first writing prophet appears on the national scene.  God introduced the second anchor for the nation!  His word!

From the moment the writing prophets arrived, all of history changed.

These prophets were diverse.

  • Some were highborn, educated and mixed with the highest echelons of society.
  • They were consults of Kings!
  • They were advisors of the highest decisions made in the world.
  • Others were simple country men.
  • They were ridiculed and scorned.
  • Their verbiage and illustrations were simple and homespun.
  • They preached messages,
  • Wrote poems,
  • Composed songs,
  • And condemned Kings.

They are without equal or comparison in any period of history or in any culture in the world.

The Eastern religions of Buddism, Hinduism, and Muslims, for all their lasting impact, have never produced the likes of the writing prophets!

The Prophets wrote their visions and conversations with the Almighty.  They left behind a glimpse into the mind and nature of God that became the mantle of all preachers for all time.  We would not have survived without their writings.  Simple or complicated, rich or poor, heard or rejected, to a man….

They were magnificent!

Thanks for reading today.

 

He was only 14 years old, he lived a lifelong nightmare! Saturday, Mar 20 2010 

Biblical history and Biographical and Doctrine and Motivational and Old Testament kennethbow 9:16 am

Jeremiah

Which fourteen-year-old boy in your church can you envision preaching and being God’s Mouthpiece?  That was the age Jeremiah began his prophetic work.  He then proceeded to speak to a nation who would not listen for the next 40 years.

He has been called the “weeping prophet” because of the times in his book he sheds tears.  Jeremiah prophesied while his nation tottered on the bring of captivity.

Jeremiah certainly lived one of the most dramatic lives in the Bible.  It appears he never learned to like his role.  He was reluctant and unhappy with the job God asked him to do.

God chose him before he was even born, while he was still in his mother’s womb.  His assignment was to be over nations, to root out, to tear down, to build and to plant.  The only resource he had to accomplish this task was his mouth.  His response?  “Ah Lord God, I cannot speak, for I am a child” (1.6), and he was! He was only 14 years old!

He was given the unusual directive that he could never marry, never attend a happy event or a sad event.  He was not to experience any human emotion so he would never be confused as to what he felt.  He felt what God felt!

For forty years Jeremiah gave the nation’s leaders messages they did not want to hear.  They arrested him, they imprisoned him, and they almost killed him.

Jeremiah hung on.

He let them know that the Babylonians were coming and would carry them into captivity.  He warned them that alliances with powers like Egypt would not do any good.  They ignored him and he pressed on anyway.  Jeremiah made it clear, Judah’s only hope was to renew their relationship with the living God.

Jeremiah does not impress us like Isaiah.  His book is not poetic or beautiful in imagery.  The power of the book comes entirely from the insight of this prophet’s mind.

He was living a nightmare and that nightmare was coming true.

The nation was going under!

No person in the Bible shows their feelings like Jeremiah.  He quarreled with God.  He told God he wished he were dead.  He accused God of being unreliable. And yet, he stood, never wavering!  No relationship in the Bible speaks more to me of what it means to serve God.  He continued to follow God no matter what.

I am sure he tired of the ridicule.  He continued to stand alone against the crowd.  He spoke dark things in dark times.  His message was not wanted or popular.  In the end his message proved true.

He stands greater and more important to the kingdom of God than the very Kings who detested him.

The book of Jeremiah is an anthology of prophecies given at different times.  It jumps back and forth and is not in any chronological order.  It is a glimpse into the troubled mind of a man trying to warn a drowning nation.

300 years before the nation had been split into two nations with the civil war.  Israel and Judah had existed side by side for 200 years.  Then, 100 years before, the northern nation had been carried away into captivity into Assyria never to be heard from again.  He was seeing deja vu for Judah.  This time mighty Babylon was breathing down their neck and invasion was imminent.

Bullet points for Jeremiah:

  • Prophesied during 5 kings
  • Lived through the Babylonian invasion
  • Contempories were Zephaniah and Habakkuk
  • He was forbidden to marry
  • He was forbidden to go to any social meetings, happy or sad
  • His book has no particular order
  • He was called at 14 years old and preached for 40 years
  • Tradition says he was stoned in Egypt at the end of his life
  • He was the first person to speak of 70 years, then Daniel picked it up
  • Never liked his role but he obeyed
  • His only weapon was his voice
  • He was one man against a surging mass going in the opposite direction
  • He quarreled with God and told God he wished he were dead (20.14-18)
  • Accused God of being unreliable (15.18)
  • Had no social life (16.8)

Some of his memorable messages:

  • Broken cisterns
  • Potters house (18)
  • Rechabites (35)
  • The miry clay
  • The buried sash
  • The smashed pot
  • Purchasing land for the return after the exile

His supreme contribution:

It is my opinion that Jeremiah gives us the high point of the Old Testament.  In chapter 31 he gives the turning point after 1000 years of failure as a nation.

God wrote the law on tables of stone and the nation never was able to fulfill their destiny.  It was smoke, ashes, debris, and failure.  It was time for the second edition to be written!

Abraham was called in 1921 BC.  The children of Israel entered Canaan in 1451 BC.  It had been 1300 years since Abraham’s call and 800 years since they crossed the Jordan.  The judges, the kings, the prophets, had all proved unable to stem to tide.

God called a fourteen-year-old boy.  God quarantined him from social events, and gave him the New Covenant!

1000 years of history flowed into this young boy’s heart. From that river flowed out the New Covenant that is the foundation of the New Testament.

This time God would write it not on tables of stone, but on their hearts.  Jeremiah chapter 31 becomes the foundation of all the teachings of Jesus and the Apostle Paul.

It is an incredible story of an incredible man, used by God.

It is the story of a 14 year old boy who lived a lifelong nightmare!

Thanks for stopping by today.

 

Checkmate! When God plays Chess. Friday, Mar 19 2010 

Biblical history and Doctrine and Old Testament kennethbow 10:25 am

Checkmate! When God plays Chess.

Chess. Strategy, maneuver, tactics, ultimately expose the King by taking away all defenses.

Could I convince you today that God played chess on a worldwide scale for 450 years? Let me explain….

God called a nomad named Abram around 1900 BC, and began a nation. From his loins came Issac, then Jacob, then the twelve tribes and eventually the Hebrew nation. From there the 70 souls went down to Egypt to escape the famine, and emerged some 400 years later to cross the Red sea, and do the wilderness journey.

Once they entered the land of promise, there was a period of time of about 450 years when Judges governed the land. While the nation was making the journey from a nation of slaves to a nation of farmers, the Judges worked well enough. Then slowly they began to emerge as a nation of cities, and a whole new need arose.

Soon the cry for a King like other nations began, and finally became a din that God answered. The time had come for Israel to have a king, and the monarchy was born. Coming on the heels of the Judges, it certainly looked like anything would be an improvement. Sadly that was not to be.

Before the Monarchy had run it’s course, it would eliminate 10 tribes forever. It would also take all 12 tribes to spiritual lows never known before, and to this day, never matched again.

There was the period of the United Kingdom for 120 years. Each of the first three Kings ruled for 40 years (Saul, David and Solomon). Those 120 years were followed by a civil war that resulted in the nation being torn into two nations, known thereafter as Israel and Judah.

Israel was the northern kingdom and was comprised of 10 tribes. Over the next 200 years there would be 19 kings in a row and every one of them were bad. Not one King in 200 years of the northern kingdom served God. Finally God had enough. In 721 BC the nation of Assyria came and conquered 46 cities, and led away 200,000 captives.

The Assyrian army marched to the very gates of Jerusalem, the capital of the southern kingdom, and surrounded the city. Rabshakeh, the Assyrian general, informed King Hezekiah of the Southern Kingdom, they were next on the list to be taken captive. Rabshakeh mocked Hezekiah and said even if I gave you 2000 horses for war, you could not put riders on them.

The southern kingdom was at the mercy of the greatest army in the world.

Hezekiah asked Isaiah the prophet what to do, and what followed is one of the most remarkable stories in the history of mankind. Isaiah told King Hezekiah to not worry about those 185,000 men encamped about the city of Jerusalem. When the Hebrews awoke the next morning they found out that the Angel of the Lord had gone through the camp of Assyria and killed 185,000 men.

It ranks as one of the greatest victories ever, anywhere, in the history of the world!

The southern kingdom was spared and lasted another 135 years. There were 19 kings and one queen in the southern kingdom. I say there were 8 good kings. It does depend on what you call good. But from my perspective 8 kings in the south were good. The book of chronicles which was originally one book, (* see note below), unlike the book of kings, primarily deals with the good kings of Judah. It has even been referred to as the white washed history because it eliminates things like David’s sin with Bathsheba.

Chronicles focus is on the monarchy that was good, and the temple. These were the two things that had permanence in Hebrew life.

So was the monarchy, success or failure? There were 41 kings in all and one queen. At best 11 kings might be said to have ruled well. That leaves 30 kings who ruled poorly and one queen who was the most wicked monarch of all. The monarchy ruled for 455 years. It was almost the exact same number of years the judges ruled.

My conclusion is that it was a failure just as notable as the Judges. God never intended for man to rule over man. God has always been the right ruler in man’s life.

With the whole world as His chessboard, God exposed the Kings for their weaknesses. He ultimately took away their defenses and exposed the need for a Messiah.

Some day our great God will reveal the King of Kings, and believe me it will be checkmate!

Thanks for joining me today!

Note: The book of Chronicles and the book of Kings were written in Hebrew which has no vowels. When translated into English, both books were too long and so they were divided into two books. Kings divides when the divine ministry of the prophets begins with Elijah. Chronicles divides with Solomon who builds the temple. No doubt the translators felt the ministry of the prophets, which would replace the monarchy, and the Temple, were the natural points to divide the books.

 

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