I was raised in the Lutheran church, but due to military assignments around the world without Lutheran pastors, began attending Baptist / Bible churches with a slightly different theology. I would like to discuss the topic of baptism, and how these denominations see it differently.

In the evangelical theologies, baptism is merely an outward symbol of what happened internally when a person “accepts” Jesus into their heart (whatever that means). To them, there is nothing meaningful or lasting going on during the baptism, or afterward, as evidenced by many people getting re-baptized when they have fallen away from church and return with renewed sincerity. I have always been very uncomfortable witnessing baptisms in the Baptist tradition. It totally ignores what the Bible says about baptisms.

Lutherans are hyper-focused on what Scripture has to say on both baptism and communion (eucharist; the Lord’s Supper). For instance, John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins (Luke 3:3). As Paul teaches in Romans chapter 6, our baptism UNITES us with Jesus’ death AND resurrection. Baptism is tied directly to the resurrection of Jesus, and the assurance (promise) of OUR resurrection. It is way more than just a symbol. Again, in Colossians chapter 2, Paul directly ties our baptism to being buried WITH CHRIST and being RAISED WITH HIM (our resurrection – aka our salvation). Finally, in 1 Peter chapter 3, Peter also ties baptism to Jesus’ resurrection, and OUR resurrection through Jesus, this time directly saying “this baptism NOW SAVES YOU… through faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” The Baptists completely ignore these passages, skipping over the promise of salvation through baptism.

In the “Great Commission” from Matthew 28, Jesus says: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Here is the COMMAND to baptize people, and by what authority baptisms are conducted. What the Baptists miss are all the promises of being tied to Christ in His resurrection. Commands require an action on our part, but promises require faith in order to access the promise. They see the command and miss the promise.

Let’s examine the Philippian jailer’s conversion in Acts chapter 16. Having listened to the Apostle’s singing all night, when the earthquake came and shook open all the doors, he knew he would be killed for losing the prisoners. When he realized they were still there, he believed in their message about the Christ. His question “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” is the only time in the Bible where the question is directly asked and answered. And what an answer: ““Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you AND YOUR HOUSEHOLD.” They then taught him and his household about Jesus. He then took them in and he AND his household were baptized. They rejoiced that HE had believed. Surely his household included wife and children.

Baptists believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God, but they miss the Sacraments. Catholics have the Sacraments, but ignore the Word. Lutherans have both the Word of God and the Sacraments as the means of grace by which God delivers the benefits of his Promises. Baptism provides the assurance of our resurrection through faith in Jesus’ resurrection. The Lord’s Supper is the means by which assurance of the forgiveness of our sins is delivered to us. We will examine that in another post.

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Much has been written about the various ideas concerning how we got here. Let’s take a look at this first verse of the Bible.

I am admittedly not a Hebrew scholar. But after thousands of years of Biblical translations, the message remains the same. God spoke the universe into existence. There are those who claim He took a L O N G time to do that. the Bible says differently.

So let’s look at the first day as recorded in the Bible, then understand how this could be.

“1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.”

“The earth was without form, and void.” At this point we don’t know yet what it was composed of, but God immediately tells us it was made of water: “and darkness was upon the face of the deep.” The deep tells us the earth began as water. This is further confirmed by the next statement: “And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.”

Here is my personal observation: Any time the Spirit of God focuses on someone or something, He is aligning the object of his attention with the will of God. As He was hovering over the waters, He was aligning the H²O molecules (a polar molecule – meaning it has a positive side and a negative side). In essence, He magnetized the water, which with all the molecules aligned creates a North Pole and a South Pole. This in turn, necessarily forms a sphere (no longer without form.)

This is critical to understand verses 3-5. A polar sphere is necessary to be able to spin around an axis. So when God said “Let there be light, and there was light”, we have light on one side of the sphere of water, and darkness on the other side of the sphere, with the sphere itself spinning on its axis.

This is confirmed by the explanation that He separated the darkness from the light, gave them names (day and night). We know that the earth (at this point a sphere of water) was turning, because God tells us “so the evening and the morning were the first day.” As it turned, it alternately faced the light, then the darkness, just as it does to this day.

It really does not take rocket science to read the plain text of Scripture and believe it. “Evening”, “Morning”, and “first day” are all plain terms that practically scream to us that it was a 24 hour period.

To assume any other explanation is to directly challenge the authority of Scripture as God’s Word to us.

Things are moving rapidly toward the next big event in Biblical prophesy. Daniel’s vision of the goat vs. ram wars is nearly upon us. In layman terms, this means that Iran will be provoked into attacking the Muslim countries to its west, north, and south. It will do so initially with great success. This act of war will throw the world into an economic upheaval never before seen.

Two things have happened in the past few days that lead directly to this prophesy. First, Iran conducted drone attacks on a Saudi oil refinery, knocking out 6% of the world’s daily oil production in one attack. Secondly, President Trump stated that the middle eastern nations, Europe, and Russia, will have to “work out” the middle eastern issues, suggesting strongly, that the U.S. may no longer play the role of the world’s police.

I would look for Turkey to take this declaration as the removal of the restraints, and that they will finally attack the Kurds – something Erdogan has been wanting to do for some time. Iran has also issued grave warnings about Turkey taking this action. This is likely the provocation for the goat attacking the ram.

There is within us a “Cup”.

Why is it that so many Christians have trouble discerning the will of God? Why do they look more like the unsaved, godless society around them than they do the children of God? Why do they have such trouble when faced with worldly temptations and problems in life? The answer can be found by simply looking into this Cup within them.

First, let me explain how the Holy Spirit works in the lives of us mortals. The Holy Spirit was sent by Jesus after His Ascension into heaven to be our guide, our comforter, and the source of deep spiritual peace. The Spirit does all these things wonderfully well, but He does not do them in isolation. He most often draws from the resources we have put into our Cup. The fuller our Cup is, the more the Holy Spirit helps and comforts us. If the Cup remains empty, it is almost as if He isn’t even there because we have given Him little to work with. While it is true that the Holy Spirit is God, and that He needs nothing from us to do His will, it has also been my observation that He chooses to work in us and through us in a cooperative manner.

You see, it is our responsibility to fill the Cup with the Word of God – the Bible. That is what goes into this Cup. The more we read and hear God’s Word, the more we have stored those words in our Cup. When the problems and challenges of life come, and they will, the Holy Spirit within us looks into our Cup, and draws out the very verse, passage, or principle that we need to face that trial or situation within the will of God. If He finds the Cup full to the brim, He has all the resources He needs to keep us centered in God’s will. The more we can resist temptations. The more peace we will know because we can recognize God’s will in our daily living. But if He finds the Cup nearly empty, He will not bring to our mind things we have not stored previously.

So how full is your Cup? Do you keep it full? How often do you read the Bible?  How often do you turn to God’s Word for inspiration and comfort? What have you stored in your Cup for the Holy Spirit to work with?

As a student of Biblical prophesy, I have been keeping up with the news as it relates to prophetic passages in the Bible. Next month is the 70th anniversary of Israel becoming a nation after 2000 years of being abolished. That number is not insignificant. It is a number used for completion of a waiting period. Several things are being put in place that line up extremely well with passages in Daniel, Isaiah, Micah, and other prophesy books.

Of particular interest to me are: activities of the Temple Mount Committee; Trump and his Mid-East peace plans; and the rise of Erdogan in Turkey as the supreme ruler openly re-establishing the Islamic Caliphate with vocal intent to dominate the entire world.

The Temple Mount committee is planning a huge celebration on the Temple Mount. Trump is planning to formally open the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, as well as an anticipated announcement of a Mid-East peace plan between Israel and Saudi Arabia. So how does this align with Bible prophesy? Conditions must be first put in place before the battles described in the Bible can commence.

First, something must happen to enrage the Shia muslims to attack the Sunni muslims. (Iran attacking Saudi Arabia). The U.S. declaring Jerusalem to be Israel’s proper capital, along with a peace treaty with Israel would do exactly that.  Second, and this is a few years in the future, the Antichrist will not be revealed until the Jews are once again sacrificing in the Temple – he will enter the Holy of Holies and declare himself to be god, putting an end to the daily sacrifices. The Jews are on the brink of rebuilding the Temple.

Keep an eye on Jerusalem in the coming weeks.

Frank

Isaiah 55:9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Many people like to read a good book. One that has multiple plots, continually develops the characters, contains multiple unsolved mysteries along the way. A well written book holds your interest, and involves you in the story emotionally or in other ways.

The Bible puts all man-made books to shame in each of these areas. Consider a small sampling of the story threads in the Bible:

Creation: Spoken into existence in Genesis; The proof that evolution is a lie; Justification for not questioning God or his motives in Job; The basis for explaining who the true God is in Acts; The proof of God’s nature in Romans; The proof of God’s hand in sustaining all things in Colossians; and many, many more layers of the creation story.

Sin and Redemption: From the first sin in Genesis to the punishment for sin, to the entire narrative leading up to our Redeemer in the New Testament, to His death and resurrection, and ultimately to the destruction of death itself in Revelation, this is recognized as the primary story line of the Bible. But it is certainly not the only story line impacting human history.

The Unseen Realm: The Bible never says God was alone before He created the universe. The first words of the Bible say “In the beginning, God…”  But that is not speaking of God’s beginning. It is speaking of the beginning of the material universe. There is an entire thread of references throughout the Bible to the unseen realm of divine beings. Psalm 82 is one of the key passages opening the curtain to that which is unseen. Psalm 82:1 “God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment:” The divine council and their activities appear all throughout the Bible and human history, a fascinating thread explaining where other gods came from. Yes, they are real beings. Yes, they are supernatural beings. No, they are not god, although men worshipped them and most still do. Yes, some of them mated with women and produced half-human, half-god beings. They are the reason God flooded the world in Noah’s day. They are the ones Jesus visited between his death and resurrection to declare his victory over them. Some will be released for a short time for the final battle. The interaction of the divine host with humans is one of the least recognized threads in the Bible.

Prophesy: From Genesis chapter 3 through the end of Revelation, prophesy is perhaps the most complex and intriguing thread in the Bible. God wrote prophesy as a complex unassembled mosaic – with many multiple pieces sprinkled all throughout the books of the Bible. Almost everything in the Bible is related to, or directly part of this prophetic mosaic. The individual pieces are mirrors reflecting events of each generation of man. But the true picture that the final mosaic depicts can only be seen in the generation when all the events line up with the mosaic. The Jews of Jesus’ time missed who he was because they were focused on the wrong picture of who he would be (not looking at all the puzzle pieces). Prophesy is like that. Every generation of man forms an idea of what the mosaic looks like based on the events of their time. But as the angel told Daniel, the visions and words of the prophesy were sealed until the time of the end. That is when the events being reflected in the Biblical mosaic will all form the entire image. We are living in that generation!

The Jubilee Cycle: In Leviticus 25, God establishes a cycle of 50 years: “¹¹ That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; in it you shall neither sow nor reap what grows of itself nor gather the grapes from the undressed vines. ¹² For it is a jubilee. It shall be holy to you.” This cycle spoke of forgiveness of debts and restoration to the original state of things. As another intriguing thread in the Bible, the Jubilee Cycle also measures the major events of mankind (ultimately ending in forgiveness and the restoration of all things). There were 41 Jubilees from Creation to Abraham; 41 Jubilees from Abraham to Jesus (Matthew Chapter 1); and there will be 41 Jubilees from Jesus to the Day of the Lord. That day is nearly upon us!

The more I read my Bible, the more humbled I become at the awesome intelligence, power, righteousness, and wisdom of God. I get a glimpse of how utterly foolish we mortals are; and I long for the day He puts an end to sin and death. Oh, what an incredible creation he has in store for us. Our only response can be worship!

Proverbs 9:10 “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”

What is wisdom? If you read through Proverbs, paying attention to the references to wisdom, you begin to see that wisdom is tied directly to knowledge and understanding. When we begin to define those terms through the lens of the Bible, specifically Proverbs, then we can understand what God considers wisdom to be.

Biblical Dictionary Definitions:

Fear: Acknowledging that someone or something has power to harm you.
Knowledge: Knowing the text of God’s Word. Knowing that God exists.
Understanding:  Having a grasp of the principles contained in God’s Word.
Wisdom: Making each decision based on the principles contained in God’s Word. Bringing all our thoughts and actions into compliance with God’s principles.

The Fear of the Lord. We fear that which we think could harm us. We fear lightning. We fear the dark. We fear terrorists. Do we really fear the Lord? The fear of the Lord is more than a reverential awe – it is acknowledging our sinful state before the holy and righteous Judge, our Creator. It is understanding that we deserve temporal and eternal punishment for our sins. It is respecting God’s authority over us. The Bible has much to say about the Fear of the Lord. The proper perspective of who we are (fallen, sinful creatures) is the beginning of knowing God, and ultimately, living according to God’s wisdom.

Knowledge: When we become a Christian, we are likened to newborn babies. We have much learning and growing to do. Our spirit is like an empty vessel at first. The Holy Spirit is given us to help guide us through life. He uses whatever we put in that vessel to our benefit. The more of God’s Word we fill our minds with, the more raw material we give to the Holy Spirit to use at the appropriate time. A Christian who ignores the Bible has not given the Holy Spirit much to work with in their lives. The Christian who regularly spends time reading the Bible has given the Spirit a lot more to work with – to bring to our remembrance just the right verse at the right time to get us through life’s situations. Proverbs 1:7 says “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.”  Why? Because when we understand our sinful state before a righteous God, we will want to do what he desires. Therefore, we will spend time in His Word to learn what he asks of us. That is the step that gains us knowledge.

Understanding. As we read more and more of the Bible, the Holy Spirit enables us to understand the deeper principles behind the words and stories. We begin to learn more about our God and his character. We begin to see purpose and meaning to life. This deeper knowledge is called “understanding”. But even the “understanding” is not enough. We must also act on what we have learned.

Wisdom.  Knowing the principles and purpose of life, we begin to proactively base our decisions on God’s Word and those principles. This is wisdom. Wisdom is the practical application of all we have learned from our knowledge and understanding of God’s Word. Wisdom is all about living according to God’s will.

Quite literally, if you aren’t spending daily time in the Bible, you are cheating yourself out of the Holy Spirit’s counsel and guidance. Please make Bible time a top priority in each day, especially as the Day draws near!

When God made man, it was not like the other animals. Those he just spoke into existence. “Let there be… and there was.” But with mankind, he said “Let us make man in our image.” And he formed man out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. No, we are not at all like the other animals.

Being made in the image of God includes this yearning to be like God. Adam and Eve first discovered this yearning when the serpent suggested they could “be like God, knowing good and evil.” Sin has at its root this desire to be like God, controlling our own desires and destiny. We become our own gods, doing whatever we think pleases us. Our culture is now controlled for the most part by Humanism. We can solve all our own problems. We can explain away the universe and how we got here without a Creator God. We don’t answer to anyone but ourselves: To Be Like God.

But the Bible paints a very different picture of being like God for those who are his children. In Romans chapter 8, we find these wonderful words of encouragement: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.  And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.”

For the Christian, our desire to be like God means to be Christ-like, to reflect God’s glory. Sin seeks to usurp God’s glory.  Saint and sinner alike all desire to be like God. The difference is whether that desire is for our own glorification, or for God’s.

We spent Debbie’s 65th birthday driving back from Kansas City. It was a long, arduous drive with lots of construction delays in Fort Worth. I don’t think we’ll be driving that way for a few more years.

I just wanted to wish Debbie a most wonderful, happy birthday wish, as she has always made me the happiest man I know. She has made me stronger, more responsible, and more committed to Christ than I would have been without her. She has stuck with me through my foolishness, my dumb mistakes, my injuries and illnesses. She set the standards for our kids, and raised two amazing, wonderful children to be caring, responsible adults.

So here’s to my loving wife, Debbie: Happy Birthday, sweetheart. I love you more than words can express!

Frank

Genesis 41: 53 When the seven years of plenty which had been in the land of Egypt came to an end, 54 and the seven years of famine began to come, just as Joseph had said, then there was famine in all the lands, but in all the land of Egypt there was bread. 55 So when all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried out to Pharaoh for bread; and Pharaoh said to all the Egyptians, “Go to Joseph; whatever he says to you, you shall do.” 56 When the famine was spread over all the face of the earth, then Joseph opened all the storehouses, and sold to the Egyptians; and the famine was severe in the land of Egypt. 57 The people of all the earth came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph, because the famine was severe in all the earth.

Luke 12: 42 And the Lord said, “Who then is the faithful and sensible steward, whom his master will put in charge of his servants, to give them their rations at the proper time? 43 Blessed is that slave whom his master finds so doing when he comes. 44 Truly I say to you that he will put him in charge of all his possessions.

Revelation 13: 16 And he causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free men and the slaves, to be given a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, 17 and he provides that no one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark, either the name of the beast or the number of his name.

The time is coming soon when Christians will not be able to buy or sell anything, including food. God has graciously given us adequate information regarding the events that are beginning to unfold in preparation for Jesus’ return. Those events include terrible persecution against Jews and Christians. I expect we will not be able to buy or sell for a minimum of 2 ½ years, and we must be prepared for those hard times.

Putting these passages together, God has shown us what to do. Just as Joseph was given advanced warning of a famine, so we are given advanced warning of Satan’s attempt to starve us. The parable of the steward who gave the servants their rations at the proper time was not just speaking spiritually. This was a physical example of a real-world crisis God’s children will face. We need to be ready. I envision a world-wide organized effort for local congregations to store up for themselves food and supplies to survive the tribulation they will face. Compared to those times, we are now in the years of plenty. We need organized plans now that will enable us to give the servants their rations at the proper time.

Hurricane Harvey has shown us an unprecedented amount of relief effort for the victims of this terrible natural disaster. Yet the amount of food, clothing, and basic necessities pouring into Texas and Louisiana are but a fraction of what will be needed for Christians to survive the tribulation. An effort of this magnitude will not be successful until the Church recognizes that Jesus is right at the door, and that the Church will face the wrath of the antichrist. Just as Jesus said in the parable of the ten virgins, the entire church is asleep to the signs of His coming.