The Heaton File

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1)

The Trinity Of John 1

There is remarkable symmetry in the nature of Jesus Christ when viewed from His own trinity of identification found in the gospel of John. Unlike the other gospels, John’s book is a brief look at the divine nature of Jesus. The purpose of the book is for all men to believe the man called Jesus is the Son of God and that believing may have life in His name. When John begins his book, he writes a novel in the first sentence. The triune nature of Jesus is found in who He is, whom He shared His glory with, and what He is. Jesus is part of the Godhead as He shares glory with the Father and the Holy Spirit, and He possesses His own trinity as the Word, dwelling with the Father, and Jesus Himself being God.

It is difficult to look at Jesus as a man and yet as one who existed before the beginning. The creation of the world took place thousands of years ago, and Jesus was before the beginning. As the Word, Jesus was with the Father and the Holy Spirit when the world was without form and void. Darkness covered the face of the deep. The word was spoken, and there was light. Creation continued for six days, the word spoke, and the world came into form.

Jesus was there creating. He was doing the will of His Father. He saw the seas and land separate and the trees and grass sprout for the first time. As the seas filled with creatures, the hand of Jesus was there. When the fowl of the air and the land animals were created as male and female, the Word was there. As Adam rose from the dust as a man and the woman formed from the rib of Adam, Jesus was there. When the serpent deceived Eve, Jesus heard the cries. He listened to the voice of the Father say the Seed would crush the head of the serpent. Jesus knew He was the Seed. The Word was in the beginning.

There are no words to describe or understand the nature of the glory shared by the Father and Son. The Holy Spirit enjoyed the bond with the Father and Son. Nothing was created yet. God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit dwell together in eternal glory. Jesus was with God. The Bible was not written to inform the world about eternal matters not relevant to redemption, but one has to long to see a glimpse of Jesus being with the Father. The church was discussed. Hell was prepared for the devil and his angels. Redemption was planned in the predestination of God’s people. There was talk of the cross and suffering. Jesus and God. Eternity. The Word was with God.

Jesus was born of a virgin in the city of Bethlehem. As a baby, His life depended on Joseph and Mary’s care. He learned to speak in the language of his native tongue. His mother taught him to read and write. As He grew into manhood, He shared the home with his half-brothers and half-sisters. He enjoyed eating certain foods and disliked others. Learning a craft from His earthly father, Joseph knew the trade of carpentry. He marveled at the sparkling waters of the Sea of Galilee and the mountain peaks of Mount Tabor. Jerusalem was an amazement to Jesus. The Temple was a grand edifice where the family often visited to worship. Jesus spent many hours in the synagogue, and as was His custom, He read often. There were times of sadness for Jesus and times of happiness. Jesus knew what a hard day’s labor felt like and the gnawing feeling of hunger and thirst. The man from Nazareth was ordinary in the eyes of everyone except Joseph and Mary.

Jesus was God dwelling in a body of flesh. He was completely human and completely divine. It matters not how men understand the nature of Jesus. He was in the beginning, He was with God, and Jesus was God. John’s gospel is the declaration that Jesus is God. The miracles prove He is God. His teachings prove He is God. His willingness to die on the cross shows His love for the world and His power as God. Jesus raised the dead, cast out demons, healed all diseases, and showed the power of the divine because He was God. The criticism was valid but misplaced when Jesus forgave a man of his sins. No one can forgive sins save God. Jesus could forgive sins because He was God. He proved it. His life showed the glory of the Father. Jesus was in the flesh among men, but He was God.

The trinity of Jesus is the completeness of the Son of God. All three attributes show the will of the Father for Jesus to be the beginning and the end, the Word, and God. Nothing is lacking in the Son of God. Everything a man needs to be redeemed is found in the Word at the beginning, the Word that was with God, and the Word that was God. What all men need is the Word – in all three forms.

Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, “All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’ ” (Matthew 4:8-10)

Tell Satan To Scat

The devil knew who the carpenter’s son from Nazareth was. He tried to kill the infant when He lived in Bethlehem but failed. For nearly thirty years, Satan threw every temptation he could at Jesus and never succeeded in tempting the Lord. At the age of thirty, Jesus was to begin His great ministry. After He was baptized in the Jordan according to righteousness, His Father sent Him into the wilderness without food and water for forty days. The tempter came to Him and suggested He create some food to nourish the ravenous hunger He had. Jesus refused without the authority of His Father. Defeating the temptation, Jesus appealed to scripture as His defense.

Seeing Jesus would defend Himself with the word of God, Satan took a stab at using scripture against Jesus. Quoting loosely from the Psalms, the devil misapplied a text to tempt Jesus to test the will of His Father. Again, Jesus refused. Satan had become bolder in his temptation. The third temptation was an affront to God and the work of Jesus. Satan took Jesus to an exceedingly high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. What knowledge Satan had about the work of Jesus is unknown, but the devil tells Jesus that he would grant the power of the world – literally – to be given to Jesus if He would only bow down and worship Satan. This was the last straw for the Son of God. Jesus does not begin by appealing to scripture. He will use a passage from Deuteronomy to defeat the devil, but first, Jesus has a message for His adversary – “Get out of here, Satan, be gone.”

Jesus lost patience with the wiles of the devil. There is a time to argue with the deceiver, and Jesus would tell the devil worship only belongs to the one true God, but the Son of God had had enough of the antics of evil. He demanded Satan get away, and Satan did. Jesus was tired, hungry, miserable, and weakened, but His resolve never wavered. Fasting for forty days was remarkable enough, but to face the onslaught of the devil full-bore without giving in is the answer to how much Jesus loved His Father. He knew the importance of His mission, and He was taking any shortcuts. After the devil left, angels came and ministered to Jesus.

Satan was not through with Jesus. For the next three years, the devil stirred up a tumult of hatred, criticism, betrayal, and finally, death when Jesus was nailed to a cross. The Lord was in Hades for three days to the delight of Satan and the complete amazement of the evil one. And then Sunday morning came, and Satan knew his adversary had crushed his head. Jesus defeated the work of the devil to live a perfect life without sin. He lived for thirty years in obscurity and was sinless. With every part of the Jewish leadership breathing down His neck and the final judgment by the Roman government, Jesus remained stalwart in His denial of sin.

There are many ways to view the perfection of Jesus and how He overcame sin. In the story of the temptation following His baptism, a pattern emerges that every follower of Christ must make part of their lives. Jesus faced His tempter with the word of God. We must face our tempter with the word of God. Jesus believed in the word of God and applied its message to His life so He could refute the devil’s advances. Reading the word of God will not keep us from temptation. It requires the doing of the word, the application, and the illustration of the word in our lives. Jesus had spent thirty years preparing Himself for the battle with Satan.

Finally, one characteristic of Jesus that comes out of the third temptation is that sometimes we need to tell Satan to scat, get out of town, go away and leave us alone, be gone devil, and don’t come back. If it takes shaking a fist at his imaginary head, shouting out loud (because he will hear you), or turning and walking away – tell the devil to scat. David wished he had done that when he saw Bathsheba. Peter desired to take back his failure. We all have times in our lives we should have told the devil to scat and didn’t. Learn how to react. There comes a time to argue, and there comes a time to emphasize the debate by telling the deceiver to go away – SCAT DEVIL!!!

For the children of Judah have done evil in My sight,” says the Lord. “They have set their abominations in the house which is called by My name, to pollute it. And they have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, nor did it come into My heart. (Jeremiah 7:30-31)

Human Sacrifice By God’s People

In the days of Noah, the world was filled with such wickedness that every intent of man’s thoughts was continually evil. Noah and his family found grace in the eyes of the Lord because they believed in the grace of God and His mercy. Abraham was the father of the nation of Israel through whom the promised Seed of Christ would come into the world. The nation of Israel was the apple of God’s eye, His Well-Beloved, and His chosen vineyard. He had given Israel the Law through Moses with all the blessings of His love toward them if they obeyed Him. The history of Israel is testimony to the long-suffering of God, His love to save them from Egypt and give them a land flowing with milk and honey. Of all people on earth, Israel was the greatest nation.

It took Israel five hundred years to begin spiraling out of control, falling under the weight of sin as wicked as the days of Noah. Following the death of Solomon, Israel was divided into ten northern tribes and the remaining tribes of Judah and Benjamin. All the kings of the north were wicked, filling the land with the abominations of the nations around them. Kings like Ahab and his wife, Jezebel, destroyed the people of God with idol worship. The southern kingdom of Judah would have nineteen kings, with only seven kings spanning just over two hundred years that were good kings seeking the will of God. It was a turbulent time for God’s people; and that was the tragedy.

Reading the history of Israel in the books of the Kings and the Chronicles is a tragic story of immorality and wickedness. The prophet Jeremiah preached to the people of God during the reigns of Josiah, son of Amon, king of Judah and his son Jehoiakim, and Zedekiah, another of Josiah’s sons. What makes the story of Israel most disturbing is the depth of sin the people fell into and the darkness of sin that covered the land. Truth had perished from the land. The people of God offered their children as human sacrifices to gods. Jeremiah declared the word of the Lord against the people of God – the chosen, the redeemed, the nation with a covenant of God. These were not the heathen nations surrounding them. Israel was guilty of the same immorality and evil as the world. Sin had transformed the kingdom of God into the kingdom of evil. And these were God’s people.

To appreciate the impact of the preaching of Jeremiah, a modern-day twist helps to illustrate what can happen to God’s people. Today, the people of God are those who are in Christ, in the body of Christ, the church, the saved, and the redeemed. Christ shed His blood to set apart those who come to Him and dedicate their lives to the will of the Father. These disciples were first called Christians in the city of Antioch. Taking a view of Jeremiah’s word against Israel is like filling in the blanks with those who are Christians today. No one can imagine a day when a Christian father or mother would offer their child as a burnt offering – literally. And yet this is where the people of God found themselves, and if it can happen to Israel long ago, it can happen to God’s people today.

Offering a child as a burnt offering is the most heinous crime imagined. This seems to be beyond the comprehension of those in the church today. Reading the text of Jeremiah must be kept in the context that burning children alive as offerings were done by the people of God. Satan gained power over the nation of Israel and can gain control over the hearts and minds of God’s people today if they are not diligent to be on the watch. Sin is subtle and quiet, but it leads to the same roads. The Old Testament is a story of God’s people and how sin can destroy righteous lives. It must never be lost on the reader that the nation charged with idolatry, human sacrifice, immorality, wickedness, and total disregard for holiness was once the people of God. These things were written for our admonition.

God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. (Acts 17:24-25)

God Does Not Need Anything

The difference between God and man is so vast that no words describe it. There is an old expression that says how small the boat of man is in the breadth of God’s ocean. That does not define the chasm separating the Creator from the creation. How can the wisdom of the human mind understand that God has named every star in the heavens and knows the weight of dust settled on the earth? The greatest accomplishment of history pales from one thing God has done. God is who He is as the Creator of all the universe, and man is what he is dwelling on the tiny piece of dirt that he stands.

Paul was in Athens when he looked upon all the gods worshiped by men and declared the name of the one true God. Standing on the small outcrop of barren rock called Mars Hill, the apostle views the Parthenon before him, surrounded by temples, the Agora, statues of gods adorning every hill and valley, and the folly of human wisdom. The Athenians were scholars of the human pursuits of folly, flesh, and frolicking. Through their idols, they boasted of their knowledge and power. Such was foolishness to Paul, who declared the name of the only true and living God. It was a bold move on the apostle to stand amid idolatry and show the message of the Christ, the Son of God.

All the wealth of Athens paraded itself before Paul. Temples were ornate with the fineries of human pomp and circumstance, but Paul was not impressed. He told the Athenians that the one true God is not worshiped in the temples of men as if God needed those temples. Nothing man can create will satisfy the worship of the Lord God. In fact, God has no need for anything from a man because He is independent of men. All men need life, breath, and everything to sustain their existence. Life is in the blood, and without the blood, man will die. Oxygen is required for the human body. Food nourishes the body. Everything about the human equation demands the existence of a life force.

God is not sustained by anything required for man. He does not need oxygen, food, nourishment, or breath. It is God who gives life to man and animals. Without God, man cannot exist. God existed before man was created. There was no light on the earth before creation. The trees, vegetation, heavenly bodies, land, sea, man, and animals were created by a God that sustained Himself without all of these things. God does not need man to sustain Himself. The happiness of God is not dependent on man, but the joy of humanity is reliant on God. Paul reminded the people of Athens that their idols were created for men to care for, tend to, and depend on. The true and living God is self-sufficient without man.

Separating the human spirit’s pride from the reality that God needs nothing is the beginning of truth. Men have always thought of God as needing man. God created man for His glory, not the other way around. The only god human wisdom can create looks just like its creator. God made man in His image as an eternal creature. The grace of God allows the puny human creation to approach Him although there is no comparison between the two. Learning to humble the heart before the great I AM is to acknowledge how great God is and how much of a sinner man is. God needs nothing. Everything man has accomplished in his short history is not a nano-speck of dust compared to the grandeur of who God is. And yet this great God gave us His Son to die for us. Now that is huge – large – immense – expansive – hard to believe. Thank you GREAT God, who needs nothing but desires our worship.

So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. (1 Corinthians 15:42-44)

A New Body

It is difficult for mortality to grasp the meaning of immortality. The limits of man’s understanding of the spiritual world beyond the carnal world are clouded by the inability to get a concept foreign to human wisdom. There is no explanation for a life that never ends. Death is so natural in the world that it is all the frail human spirit can see. Understanding resurrection is challenging because it goes against everything a man can abide by. Regardless of the frailty to grasp the whole meaning of eternity, God has written in His word the promise of the resurrection and eternal life.

One of the areas of confusion in understanding what happens in death is how another body can be created. Words fail to describe the meaning of an eternal body fully. The Holy Spirit seeks to fill that gap when Paul explains the nature of the resurrection. There are many different types of bodies. A physical body is easy to understand because it can be examined and studied. The eternal body cannot be found under a microscope. Using the light of God’s word, Paul opens the mind to see the beauty of the new body promised by God to all those who are saved.

The physical body is corruptible. Disease invades the body with sickness, injury, and death. When a body dies, it is put away in a tomb in dishonor because of the corruption that consumes it. The Egyptians mummified their bodies to last thousands of years, but they still bear the mark of death’s dishonor. The physical body is weak as it deteriorates over time. No matter how man tries to retain youth in his body, affliction and old age march on. All that man possesses in this life is a natural body. It is corrupt, diseased, and then it dies.

A new body is promised to the faithful of God. Death is transitioning from the old body of carnality to the new body of eternity. Christians have a different view of life. They do not look at their physical bodies with lasting hope because there is no hope. The natural body dies and disappears, but the inward man of Christ Jesus lives on after death. When saints breathe their last breath, they inhale the eternal spirit of life in Christ. A new body is created for God’s saved. It is a body that is incorruptible. The new body cannot be decayed, destroyed, or diseased. There is no corruption in this new body. God raises the body of the saved in glory and power. The new body has honor and beauty as God removes all sorrow, tears, and death. A spiritual body takes the place of the natural body. This new body will never cease to exist.

Each year, billions of dollars are spent on maintaining and beautifying the carnal body. Death takes all of that money and puts it in the grave. If men spent time seeking the new body in Christ, they would find a body that is indestructible, indescribable, and imperishable. Jesus said few would be saved. Few will receive a new body in death. Obey the word of God and find the hope of the power of a new body – in Christ.

So Ahaziah died according to the word of the Lord which Elijah had spoken. Because he had no son, Jehoram became king in his place in the second year of Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah. (2 Kings 1:17)

It Did Not Change The Mind Of God

Ahaziah was the eighth king of the northern kingdom of Israel. It had been just over eighty years since Solomon died, and the nation of Israel divided. All the northern kingdom’s rulers were evil, provoking the Lord with anger. Ahaziah had succeeded his father, Ahab, who filled Israel with great wickedness for twenty-two years. Like his mother and father, Ahaziah served Baal, worshipped him, and provoked the Lord God of Israel to anger. He would only rule for two years before his untimely death.

While at his palace in Samaria, Ahaziah fell through the latticework of an upper room and was seriously injured. He sent messengers to inquire of Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron, whether he would recover from his wounds. Ahaziah’s complete disregard and insult toward the Lord God of Israel was clearly evident as he denied any help from the prophets of the one true God. When Ahaziah sent messengers to inquire of Baal-Zebub, the angel of the Lord told the prophet Elijah to intercept them and tell them the king would die.

When the messengers returned early, the king asked the reason. The messengers told King Ahaziah Elijah had said he would die, which infuriated the king. He dispatched a captain of fifty with his fifty men to arrest Elijah. Finding the prophet sitting on a hill, the soldiers demanded Elijah to come down. Instead, Elijah called down fire from heaven and killed the troop. Hearing of the deaths of his first guards, Ahaziah sends another army of fifty men to arrest Elijah. Again, the fifty soldiers and their captain are devoured by fire. A third captain and his troop are sent, but the third captain comes to Elijah and falls on his knees, pleading with him to spare their lives. The angel of the Lord tells Elijah to go with the captain, and Elijah obeys.

Ahaziah is in his bed, seriously injured, when Elijah arrives. The prophet again tells the king that because he sent messengers to inquire of Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron, and did not seek the counsel of the prophets of the Lord, the king would die. Elijah leaves, and Ahaziah dies. Nothing changed from the first command of the Lord. Ahaziah tried to defy the will of the Lord by sending his army against Elijah, resulting in the deaths of 102 men. No army can stand against the will of the Lord. Ahaziah should have learned from his parents’ deaths (Ahab & Jezebel) that the word of God is true, and nothing can change that.

There are many Ahaziahs that believe they can change or ignore the word of God. Denying the Bible does not suggest it has gone away. Thinking that man came from green slime billions of years ago will not change Genesis 1. Indulging in the lusts of the flesh will reap the consequences of sin. What a man sows, he will reap. That law does not change. Ignoring the will of the Lord and the church does not suggest Jesus did not build His church. Failing to follow the word of the Lord cannot change the mind of God. Denying baptism as necessary for salvation will not allow a man to be saved by faith only. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life; nothing will change that. There is no other way to eternal life. The Bible teaches there is one church, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and get ready for this one – only one God and Father of all, who is above all.

A man will reject the will of God and say he will do it his way. When men seek their own paths, they seek the ancient counsel of Baal-Zebub. Ahaziah ignored the word of God, but the word of God did not ignore Ahaziah. He rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord rejected him. After all that Ahaziah tried to thwart the will of the Lord, nothing changed. You can argue all day long until you are blue in the face about what the word of the Lord says, but at the end of the day – nothing changes. Why don’t you change – instead?

That which has been is what will be, that which is done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which it may be said, “See, this is new”? It has already been in ancient times before us. (Ecclesiastes 1:9-10)

The Secret Of Life

Nothing has been more pressing on the hearts of men than to find why they exist and what the purpose of life is meant to be. Men are seekers. The yearning to explore is wanting to know what lies beyond the mountain range or the endless oceans. Before the days of technology, the sphere of man’s knowledge was limited. Men like Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama, Ferdinand Magellan & Juan Sebastián Elcano opened the world to discover new lands and shrink the view of the earth. With all the modern tools to probe deep into the universe and plumb the depths of the oceans, men still seek meaning in life.

There are thousands of books written on the secrets of life. Human philosophy exhausts the subject ad nauseum. One book has had the answer for thousands of years. God delivered His word to humanity to allow men to know what they are, who they are, and the purpose of life. The Bible is filled with answers to the identity of man and commonalities that never change. There is a misguided notion that each succeeding generation has greater knowledge than the previous. They are called “advancements” as if it is a new revelation. While the technology has not been realized before and changes the landscape of how the world functions, the Lord declares there is nothing new under the sun.

Solomon lived a little over nine hundred years before Christ. His kingdom was the greatest nation in power, wealth, and influence. He writes that life is vanity, suggesting a fruitlessness to the immense activity men put into life without regard to the eternal. No nation in the last three thousand years has reached the zenith of the United Kingdom of Israel under Solomon. He possessed the greatest wisdom any human being could have, including the intellectuals of modern history. And the wisest king on earth said there is nothing new under the sun. The reality of the frailty of the human struggle is underlined by the same problems men have always faced and the same solution God has given to His creation.

There is nothing new under the sun because men still fail when it comes to sin. Solomon faced the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life as all men face today. He failed often. His life was marred by ill-advised decisions based on his lusts that brought him the displeasure of the God who gave him everything. But Solomon was not unlike Abraham, Moses, Samson, Samuel, and his father, David. Sin plagues the souls of men today, thousands of years later, and will continue to do so until the Lord returns.

The answer to sin has not changed fundamentally. God has always shown His mercy, love, and grace to failed man. He did in the Garden of Eden, to Noah when he got drunk, for Abraham lying about his wife, to Moses who murdered a man and faced his own demons in the wilderness. Samson struggled as a man of God, David failed as a man after God’s own heart, and Elijah wanted the Lord to kill him. Peter denied the Lord three times. Paul struggled in his faith to be a faithful servant. The covenants changed over time to bring all men to Christ, but ultimately, the gospel of salvation was the same. God did not change His desire to save man. His will has never changed. Jesus said those who do the will of the Father would be saved. That is true of Abraham, Moses, and Paul; and of you who live in this generation.

The secret to life is to understand that sin still exists and that God continues to offer His grace to those who seek to overcome sin. That answer can only be found in Jesus Christ. There is nothing new under the sun. Man is the same. God is the same. Salvation is the same. Heaven and Hell are real and will not change. Eternity is the same. Nothing has changed. What God asked is that YOU change. You can do that. One thing that can be new under the sun is you can obey God’s word. Why not make your life new in Christ? It is then you will discover the greatest secret of life.

Then He said: “A certain man had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me.’ So he divided to them his livelihood. And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living. (Luke 15:11-13)

The Prodigal Who Did Not Return

When the Pharisees and scribes complained about how Jesus received ‘sinners’ and ate with them, the Lord spoke parables to them, showing how His Father loved everyone, even the one sheep who went astray. The parables of the lost sheep and lost coin declare God’s eternal love for those who cannot find their way home. Jesus tells another story about a young man who left home for a far country and lived a wicked and prodigal life. When the young man came to himself, he repented, confessed his sin, and was restored to the father. The story of the prodigal son is a powerful testimony to God’s love, mercy, grace, and forgiveness. But not all prodigals come home.

There are souls in the church who obeyed the gospel of Christ with great joy and, like the seeds of the sower’s parable, find the world’s attraction too great and succumb to its power. It is a tragic story when faith is lost, and the child of God lives apart from the grace of God. Sin attracts the holy to live unholily. Because of the influence of friends, reputations are lost. Children of God fill their lives like the prodigal son in the parable with wine, women, and merriment without regard for their souls. Hearts are broken. Lives are shattered. There is hope the soul will turn to the Lord again. Some do come back to the Lord. Their stories are powerful testimonies of how God will forgive and cleanse. When they tell how they forsook the Lord and returned, hearts are filled with courage and hope. But some never had a chance to return.

The tragedy of prodigal living is there is no guarantee of a day to repent. When those who tell of their struggles with sin find grace in forgiveness, they realize by the grace of God, time was allowed to change their lives. Sadly, those who think they have until midnight to repent die at 11:30. There are many prodigals who run out of time. If more time were given, maybe they would find in their hearts the comfort of a forgiving heavenly Father. There is no promise of today to repent. Listening to the stories of those who have returned is measured by all those who did not return. There is great joy in the prodigal coming home and greater sadness at the prodigal left in the hog pen dying.

Sin brings consequences. The example of the prodigals who changed their lives to serve the Lord should always be greeted with great enthusiasm and hopeful courage. A deeper question must be answered why they took that path to begin with? There is power in the story of those who fell away from the Lord and returned, but greater still are those who never fell away and remained faithful. The circumstances are not different. What makes a difference in life will be the choices that are made. The story of a man or woman living faithful and devoted to God all their lives may not be as exciting as the one who falls into drug abuse, alcohol, and sexual immorality, but the greater story is the first one. It grieves the heart of God to see His child live in a prodigal world. He will forgive if there is repentance. God is also aware of those who struggle with sin and refuse to allow its overwhelming power cause them to leave His grace.

Being faithful until death is not easy, but it makes for a more remarkable story. The baggage of sin is not carried, the guilt of a sinful past does not fill the heart, and the wasted years of righteousness are replaced by a lifetime of glory and honor to God. It is always a blessing to know of those who came back home. Thank you. To those who fought the good fight and won – thank you especially.

Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace? (Hebrews 10:29)

Killed For Picking Up Sticks

There is a tragic story in the history of Israel involving the execution of a man for picking up sticks. The children of Israel were in the wilderness when they found a man gathering wood. Nothing in the story indicates the purpose of this wood collection, whether it was to build a fire to warm by or to cook food. Whatever the case, the man was walking around bundling wood for himself. The people brought the man to Moses and Aaron, seeking guidance on what to do. All of Israel was brought together trying to find out what must be done to the man. As guidance was sought from the Lord, the man was arrested and put under guard. His crime was apparent: he was picking up sticks.

After inquiring of the Lord, Moses and all the congregation took the man outside the camp and stoned him to death with stones. It was a horrific way to die. The people took stones and threw them at the man. His death was slow as each stone bruised and broke him until he was unconscious. Finally, death came, and the rocks stopped flying. As the congregation walked away, the image of the battered and bloodied man burned in their minds. He was not executed by an unknown hooded executioner. Each member of Israel had taken part in killing a man who was found picking up sticks.

The story is not about gathering sticks. There is nothing immoral about working to gather wood for a fire to warm by or cook food. The people brought the man to Moses and Aaron because the man was picking up sticks on the Sabbath day. Under the Law of Moses and expressly declared in the Ten Commandments was the prohibition of working on the day God set aside as the Sabbath. The law clearly stated that any person who profaned the Sabbath day would be put to death. Any work done on the Sabbath day would bring a judgment of death against the individual. God had set aside the Sabbath day as a holy day, and the man picking up sticks on the Sabbath found the word of God to be faithful.

When Christ died and rose from the dead, the Sabbath law was abolished. Before His death, Jesus instituted the memorial feast of His death, burial, and resurrection. The Lord commanded the early church to meet on the first day of the week and remember His sacrifice. Paul wrote to the church at Corinth, warning them against taking the memorial feast in an unworthy manner. Eating the bread and drinking the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner brings guilt and judgment to the individual. Like the man picking up sticks, taking the supper in an unworthy manner can bring severe judgment as being guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.

The early Hebrew Christians struggled with their faith, and the book of Hebrews is a message of hope found in the covenant of Jesus Christ. Throughout the book, the appeal is made to see the failure of the old law and the glory of the new law. As the author begins to close the book’s message, he warns those who would refuse to assemble with the saints on the first day of the week. He exhorts them to remember the purpose of the assembly to consider one another in order to stir up love and good works. Another reason not to forsake the assembly is to realize that they profane the Lord’s Supper when a person refuses to worship on the first day of the week.

God requires His people to worship every first day of the week. This is not a suggestion from the Lord but a command He expects His people to keep. The man picking up sticks may not have thought it was a big deal to do so on the Sabbath, but God’s law was clear. He was put to death for profaning what God had made holy. The first day of the week is not an optional gathering that Christians can choose to ignore. When a person refuses to assemble with God’s people on Sunday, they trample underfoot the body of Jesus Christ, count the blood He shed on the cross as a common thing; and they insult the Holy Spirit. If a man can be judged for taking the Lord’s Supper in an unworthy manner while sitting in the building, imagine the judgment of the man who refuses to assemble.

The church has long turned a blind eye to those who fail to assemble as if some small thing is done. In the story of the man picking up sticks; it was not about the sticks but profaning what God had called holy. When a man or woman chooses to forsake the assembly purposely, they deny the memorial feast of Jesus Christ. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the One who commanded the memorial. These words from God must echo in the hearts of the disobedient: “Vengeance is Mine; I will repay. The Lord will judge His people.”

But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. (1 Corinthians 15:13-14)

The Consequences Of Unbelief

The early church lived in a time when many of the saints were eyewitnesses to the resurrection of Jesus. Paul reminded the Corinthians that over five hundred brethren saw Jesus at once, and most of those saints were still alive when he wrote to them. There was ample proof that the resurrection of Jesus took place. The twelve apostles had seen Jesus. James had testified to the resurrection of Jesus. Paul had seen the Lord himself. However, the false doctrine denying the resurrection plagued the church at Corinth. Paul had preached the resurrection when he was at Corinth. Why were their brethren who were denying the resurrection?

There were serious consequences to saying there is no resurrection of the dead. Paul’s argument is straightforward and demonstrative. He preached Christ was resurrected. If there is no resurrection, Paul is a liar. When a man denies the possibility of resurrection, he must deny what Jesus said He would do. He often told His disciples he would rise on the third day. Refusing to believe in the resurrection makes Jesus a liar. If the dead do not rise, the empty tomb is a lie. Resurrection is the foundation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Without the belief that Jesus died and rose on the third day, faith is empty, useless, vain, and the biggest lie committed to humanity.

Jesus came to take away the sins of the world. He died, was buried, and rose on the third day to confirm the covenant of grace with God and man. Salvation did not come because Jesus died and was buried. All men die and are entombed in one form or another. What makes the life of Jesus the eternal grace of God is that He rose from the dead and lives. The resurrection of Jesus is the cornerstone of the scheme of redemption. Without it, everything falls. With it, everything stands. The consequence of unbelief impacts the lives of all of God’s people who seek to die in the Lord. John writes in the Revelation that those who die in the Lord are blessed and rest from their labors. If there is no resurrection, this is a lie. Paul tells the Corinthians that all those who died as faithful children of God will be cast into Hell if there is no resurrection.

There are serious consequences to unbelief. The last enemy to be destroyed is death, but this will not happen without resurrection. Personally, a greater consequence to those baptized into Christ who see their loved one die in the hope of resurrection is knowing it is all a lie. Those who are baptized for the dead live in the hope of the saints who died in the Lord. Take resurrection away, and there is no reason to be baptized for the remission of sins. It is a hopeless and useless act. Paul would need to stop preaching salvation in baptism because what difference would it make? All of the work of the early disciples to go into all the world and preach the gospel, baptizing in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, is empty if there is no resurrection.

The language Paul uses of the baptism of the dead connects the spiritual death found in the waters of baptism to the hope of eternal life in physical death. Without the resurrection, none of this is necessary and has any purpose. The church Jesus died for needs to close shop, go home, and die miserable sinners with no hope. When a loved one dies in Christ, it is hopeless if there is no resurrection. But there is a resurrection! Jesus did rise from the dead. Baptism is the spiritual death, burial, and resurrection of the crucified old man. We preach Christ, and we preach the glory of the resurrection in baptism and the resurrection of the body. Many have gone before us and stand as spiritual sentinels of God’s grace that eternal life is real. Resurrection. Thank God for resurrection.