Focus Point #15

First let me thank those of you who have written or called to thank Bettie and me for our time and efforts to bring to you, via email, what we think is a biblical perspective of what's going on in the Middle East. I well realize that I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but at the same time, let me brag about those whose books I've read and studied under. They are the "sharp" ones! Most of the views I try to pass on are not original with me. I've never tried to hide the fact that I didn't want the churches where I was privileged to serve to suffer under my originality! So here we go with #15.

I'm sure that the accounts of some of the experiences that Adam and Eve had were passed on to their kids. These people had walked with the Lord Himself in the cool of the day. They had to have shared some of those things with Cain and Able. Those boys knew that their parents lived in the Garden of Eden and they knew what caused their eviction from that first address. Noah just had to have talked about what went on before he got on that boat with his family. They didn't talk about TV, politics or sports. They talked about why people rejected his preaching for 120 years.
They talked about the satanic, negative to God attitude of the people. You'll never convince me that Abraham didn't explain to his son, Isaac, why his mom and dad didn't have their first son until so late in life. (Abe was 90 when Ishmael was born and Sarah was 80, though she was not Ishmael's mother..Hagar was). Abraham was 100 when Isaac was born and Sarah was 90. I don't profess to know what they said, but you know they talked about it. There was far more said than was written in the Bible.

Likewise, when God made that covenant, that UNCONDITIONAL covenant with Abraham, surely God told Abraham what He had done while Abraham was in his "deep sleep." God told Abraham that his seed would go into a land of strangers and become slaves for 400 years. That's a literal 400 years (count em') and then that nation (Egypt) would be judged. (Most of them died in the Red Sea.) Just ask Charleton Heston....he was there! What's more, God told Abraham that after 400 years in slavery, they would come out rich, and they did.....literally!

I think God told Abe how He Himself, in the form of that smoking furnace and burning lamp, passed between those animals. And then - get this - He, God, laid out the boundaries to the Promised Land. Literal, identifiable boundaries. Check it out, it's easy. It's in Genesis 15:19,20 & 21. Why is all this so important in this angelic conflict? It's important to me because I believe that a large group of Christians, way more than just one denomination, have come to so interpret the Word of God, that it has led many to a very subtle and deceiving anti-Semitic attitude.

But before we deal with that issue, let's go to the next major passage that deals with this "unconditional covenant" issue. This next passage of scripture is the record of God's promise to David that his kingdom would last forever; that someday the children of Israel would occupy the "Promised Land" and that they would move no more and those who afflicted them would hassle them no more...never! The scripture is II Samuel 7:8-17. It's called "The Davidic Covenant," the unconditional agreement, or promise that God made to King David.
After David died, his son Solomon became the king..II Samuel 7:13. "He (Solomon) shall build a house (the Temple) for my name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever." Now tell me, how can you misinterpret that? How can you twist, turn, reverse or make that to mean any other than what it says without purposely changing the obvious meaning? Let me insert right here and give you the most widely accepted rule of interpretation in the Bible believing, evangelical world: "When the plain sense of the scripture makes common sense, seek no other sense. Therefore, take every word at its primary, ordinary, usual literal meaning unless the facts of the immediate text, studied in the light of related passages, axiomatic and fundamental truths indicate clearly otherwise.! (Author, David L. Cooper)

Why am I making such a fuss about these very important Covenants? Well, as I said, there are those Christians, and there are many, and make no mistake about it, I do believe many of them are believers and I think they really love the Lord, but I, along with many other Christians, believe they have made and are making a terrible mistake in what they believe and preach. They have, and they are taking literal statements made in the Word of God and giving them an entirely different meaning.

I'll give you one illustration of just how far these guys will go, just how much liberty some of them will take to change the Word of God just to make it fit their thinking.

From the Broadman Commentary (Southern Baptist Convention) published in 1969. These were bad years for our Convention. Anyway, you well recall that God told Abraham to offer his only son, Isaac, as a sacrifice to the Lord. Obedient Abraham and his obedient son, Isaac, did just what God told them to do, even to the point where God told Abraham to tell his son, Isaac, to lay down on the altar...and he did. God told Abraham to take a knife and slay his son...and he did....almost! They claimed in the commentary that the reason Abraham offered Isaac was..."The climax of the psychology of his life." What gobble-d-gook is that? When anybody takes so much liberty and freedom in interpreting the Word of God, no wonder they do so much glossing over and cover up when it comes to the literal fulfilling of literal prophecies concerning Israel. It winds up being pure anti-Semitic rhetoric.

Let me suggest one book, by one well known author, Jimmy Carter and his most recent fictional novel (it's not intended to be, but it is fiction) "Palestine;Peace, Not Apartheid." It has so many misleading, untrue statements in it that some of his most ardent supporters and board members of his organization have resigned. Some have even challenged him to a public debate! Make no mistake - Jimmy believes what he wrote because that anti-Israel attitude has been deeply engrained in him, even in his church life. For many years he belonged to a liberal church whose theology has no place for Israel. None whatsoever! So what did that old peanut farmer write that was so bad? Here's one thing he wrote that's a flat out lie. Jimmy believes that Yassir Arafat has never advocated the annihilation of Israel! Man, that was the gas in Arafat's tank! That's what kept him running...that was his life! That, and stealing money that was meant for his starving followers. And another thing - he said that in the so-called Camp David peace accords that Israel would withdraw to the 1967 border on the West Bank! Baloney! The real truth is "The negotiations concerning the West Bank and Gaza will resolve among other matters the location of the boundaries." No, my friend, Jimmy comes from a long line of Southern Baptists who believe there are no scriptures that teach any future for the Jewish people. They believe that because the Jews rejected the Messiah, God took the promises He made to Israel and gave them to the Church. How do you like them apples?

According to that line of thinking, what's to keep God from changing His mind about John 3:16 or I John 3:2? Don't even let it enter your mind!

More next time.
Blessings,
Bro. Bob