R.P. Nettelhorst's Blog, page 22

A Death

The sisters sent to Him, saying, “Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick.”

When Jesus heard that, He said, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”

Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when He heard that he was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was. Then after this He said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.”

The disciples said to Him, “Rabbi, lately the Jews sought to stone You, and are You going there again?”

Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if one walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.” These things He said, and after that He said to them, “Our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go that I may wake him up.”

Then His disciples said, “Lord, if he sleeps he will get well.” However, Jesus spoke of his death, but they thought that He was speaking about taking rest in sleep.

Then Jesus said to them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, that you may believe. Nevertheless let us go to him.”

Then Thomas, who is called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with Him.” (John 11:3-16)

Just because Jesus doesn’t seem to be doing anything for you right now, doesn’t mean that he doesn’t care or that he doesn’t have a reason for it all. Jesus responded to the news that his friend Lazarus was sick by continuing to do what he was doing. He never visited poor Lazarus or his family. He let Lazarus suffer and die.

So what did Jesus mean by saying that Lazarus’ illness was “not unto death?” Not that he wouldn’t die, but that it wouldn’t be final. When bad things happen, it is hard to see past the pain of them. But from God’s perspective, Lazarus’ suffering and his family’s grief had meaning.

But that meaning came only after Lazarus was raised from the dead. The same goes for any suffering we experience. It may never make sense during our lives, but we should trust that God really does know what he is doing, always, just as Jesus knew with Lazarus. After his resurrection, Lazarus’ experience made sense. It will be the same way for us.

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You Can’t Handle the Truth

Jesus answered them:

“If God were your Father, you would love me, because I came from God and only from him. He sent me. I did not come on my own. Why can’t you understand what I am talking about? Can’t you stand to hear what I am saying? Your father is the devil, and you do exactly what he wants. He has always been a murderer and a liar. There is nothing truthful about him. He speaks on his own, and everything he says is a lie. Not only is he a liar himself, but he is also the father of all lies.

“Everything I have told you is true, and you still refuse to have faith in me. Can any of you accuse me of sin? If you cannot, why won’t you have faith in me? After all, I am telling you the truth. Anyone who belongs to God will listen to his message. But you refuse to listen, because you don’t belong to God.” (John 8:42-47)

No one wants to hear that it’s not the pants that make them look fat. The religious leaders of Jesus’ day were not so much interested in the truth as in maintaining their position and authority. The lies they’d lived with so long were comfortable. The truth was not.

The religious establishment received the harshest criticism from Jesus of anyone that he ever came in contact with. They claimed that the only Father they had was God. Jesus responded harshly by telling them that God was not their Father at all, since they hated his Son.

Jesus announced that their father was Satan rather than God. Jesus was not speaking literally. He meant that their actions and beliefs were those of Satan: they were liars and murderers.

Throughout the history of Israel, the religious establishment had been guilty of rejecting God’s prophets and killing them. They were at least being consistent by conspiring to kill Jesus. As to lying, they refused to believe the truth. They chose to accept false ideas about who the Messiah was and what he was supposed to do.

Those that belong to God recognize God. They believe what God believes. By not recognizing Jesus for who he was, Israel’s religious leaders demonstrated that they had nothing to do with God at all. Their claim to be faithful followers of God was demonstrably false. They were lying.

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Sacrificial God

John was again with two of his disciples. When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!”

When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, “What do you want?”

They said, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are you staying?”

“Come,” he replied, “and you will see.”

So they went and saw where he was staying, and spent that day with him. It was about the tenth hour.

Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah” (that is, the Christ). And he brought him to Jesus.

Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas” (which, when translated, is Peter). (John 1:35-42)

What do we want from Jesus? One of Jesus’ first two disciples was identified as Andrew. Who was the second, unnamed disciple? Most likely the disciple who remained unnamed throughout John’s gospel: John himself.

When Jesus asked Andrew and John what they wanted, there was more to his question than wondering about being followed. The word used for “following” indicates they had become his disciples. Jesus’ question, “what do you want?” was therefore his formal invitation for them to become disciples. They accepted his invitation by asking him where he was staying and by addressing him as “rabbi,” an Aramaic word which meant “my teacher.”

Andrew brought his brother Simon to meet Jesus. Jesus gave Simon a new name: “Cephas.” We see Aramaic words like “rabbi” and “Cephas” in the text because Aramaic was the language they were using. The New Testament was not written Aramaic, however, but in Greek because Greek was the dominant language in the eastern half of the Roman empire. The Good News of the Kingdom was not just for the people living in Palestine. It was for the world. “Cephas” means “rock” in English, as does the more familiar Greek form of the name, “Peter.”

When Jesus told them “you will see” it was not just to see where he stayed. It was an invitation to a life of wonder, a life as his disciples, where they would see more than they could ever imagine. He offers us the same vision.

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Past Due

He began to tell the people this parable: “A man planted a vineyard, leased it to tenant farmers, and went away for a long time. At harvest time he sent a slave to the farmers so that they might give him some fruit from the vineyard. But the farmers beat him and sent him away empty-handed. He sent yet another slave, but they beat that one too, treated him shamefully, and sent him away empty-handed. And he sent yet a third, but they wounded this one too and threw him out.

“Then the owner of the vineyard said, ‘What should I do? I will send my beloved son. Perhaps they will respect him.’

“But when the tenant farmers saw him, they discussed it among themselves and said, ‘This is the heir. Let’s kill him, so the inheritance will be ours!’ So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.

“Therefore, what will the owner of the vineyard do to them? He will come and destroy those farmers and give the vineyard to others.”

But when they heard this they said, “No—never!”

But He looked at them and said, “Then what is the meaning of this Scripture:

The stone that the builders rejected—

this has become the cornerstone?

Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces,

and if it falls on anyone, it will grind him to powder!”

Then the scribes and the chief priests looked for a way to get their hands on Him that very hour, because they knew He had told this parable against them, but they feared the people. (Luke 20:9-19)

Jesus had a way of infuriating religious people. Jesus’ parables were often obscure to those listening to them. But in the case of his parable about the tenant farmers, Israel’s religious establishment got his point immediately. And they were furious.

The religious establishment had made an accommodation with the Roman government that gave those religious leaders a very comfortable lifestyle. But they had turned their backs on God. By means of his parable, Jesus told those leaders that they were about to lose everything, because they had rejected God’s prophets, like John the Baptist, and were now rejecting God’s Son, Jesus. Within a generation the religious establishment would encourage a rebellion against their Roman overlords. The Romans attacked with overwhelming force. The Roman army destroyed the city of Jerusalem, burned the Temple to the ground, and scattered the Jewish population across the Empire.

If Jesus were here today, he would likely speak no more kindly to much of our religious establishment than he did to the religious leadership in Israel.

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Babies

Then the seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.”

And He said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.”

In that hour Jesus rejoiced in the Spirit and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight. All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.”

Then He turned to His disciples and said privately, “Blessed are the eyes which see the things you see; for I tell you that many prophets and kings have desired to see what you see, and have not seen it, and to hear what you hear, and have not heard it.”

Luke 10:17-24 NKJV

There were more than just the twelve apostles that followed Jesus. Crowds of both men and women followed him everywhere he went. From those followers, Jesus selected seventy for a special ministry, where they not only taught Jesus’ words, but also performed many of the same sorts of miracles that he had. The seventy came back excited most by the fact that demons would obey them.

Jesus informed them that Satan could no longer harm them. As spectacular as a lightning strike was, so had been Satan’s defeat at the hands of the seventy. Although Satan was a dangerous figure in the Bible, he was always completely subject to God and his people. He was minor figure who showed up rarely, and then only to be beaten up by either God or God’s servants. That the demons were subject to the seventy was therefore par for the course.

One of the proverbs says that we should not rejoice at the fall of our enemies (Proverbs 24:17). Jesus encouraged his followers to move past their glee over Satan’s defeat. He told them that rather than being excited by the destruction of their enemy, they should instead focus on something far more exciting: the glorious reality that their names were written in heaven.

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The Spirit

Jesus returned to Galilee with the power of the Spirit. News about him spread everywhere. He taught in the Jewish meeting places, and everyone praised him.

Jesus went back to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and as usual he went to the meeting place on the Sabbath. When he stood up to read from the Scriptures, he was given the book of Isaiah the prophet. He opened it and read,

“The Lord’s Spirit has come to me,

because he has chosen me

to tell the good news to the poor.

The Lord has sent me to announce freedom for prisoners,

to give sight to the blind, to free everyone who suffers,

and to say, ‘This is the year the Lord has chosen.’ ”

Jesus closed the book, then handed it back to the man in charge and sat down. Everyone in the meeting place looked straight at Jesus.

Then Jesus said to them, “What you have just heard me read has come true today.” (Luke 4:14-21)

Jesus lived and acted as a good Jewish man his entire life. He followed all the teachings of Moses and the prophets, because he was, himself, their fulfillment.

When Jesus finished his forty days in the wilderness being tempted by the Devil, he returned home to Nazareth, a village located in the plains between the coast of the Mediterranean and the Sea of Galilee. He regularly attended the local synagogue on the Sabbath. The idea of meeting together once a week for worship and instruction in the Bible had developed in Israel after the people had returned from exile in Babylon. God had sent them into exile for abandoning God. Therefore, when their descendents returned, they were determined to avoid a repetition of that fate. They decided that if they met together weekly to hear the Bible and Bible teaching, then they wouldn’t be tempted to abandon God again. The first Christians were Jewish, so they adapted the synagogue pattern for the early congregations of believers.

The rabbi called upon Jesus to read the passage of the Bible selected for that week. It was from the prophet Isaiah. Upon reading the passage, Jesus announced that he was the one Isaiah was speaking about.

John the Baptist had already identified Jesus as the Messiah. In his hometown, Jesus confirmed his identity to his friends and family. There’s no harder group to stand before than your own family.

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MOL

Source SPACE.com: All about our solar system, outer space and exploration.

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Good News

“Be on your guard! You will be taken to courts and beaten with whips in their meeting places. And because of me, you will have to stand before rulers and kings to tell about your faith. But before the end comes, the good news must be preached to all nations.

“When you are arrested, don’t worry about what you will say. You will be given the right words when the time comes. But you will not really be the ones speaking. Your words will come from the Holy Spirit.

“Brothers and sisters will betray each other and have each other put to death. Parents will betray their own children, and children will turn against their parents and have them killed. Everyone will hate you because of me. But if you keep on being faithful right to the end, you will be saved.” (Mark 13:9-13)

Taking the hard road will make you happier than taking the easy road. Jesus predicted that very bad things would happen to those who became his followers. Of the twelve original disciples, only John died peacefully of old age. All the others were murdered for their faith in Jesus.

But Jesus promised that those who were faithful to the end would be saved. Saved from what? Our vision is usually too small. We can only see our daily problems. We worry. But we miss the bigger picture. When Jesus told his disciples what was coming, they were thinking of God’s kingdom in physical terms. They expected the re-establishment of the Davidic monarchy. They understood that rebellions were hard. They remembered the stories about David when he was on the run from Saul and all the hardships both he and his men endured. The disciples knew that there would be fighting, that there might be setbacks. But for them, it would be worthwhile once they sat triumphant over the world with Jesus. Any hardship is endurable when one sees the bigger picture and understands the bigger purpose. For the disciples, they saw a big picture. Only later, with Jesus’ death and resurrection, did they realize that their vision of a physical kingdom on earth were insignificant compared to the everlasting Kingdom of Heaven.

Pain in childbirth is worth it for the joy of a new baby, and the years to be for a new human being. Our momentary sorrow is nothing in comparison to the glories to come.

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Crazy

The scribes who had come down from Jerusalem said, “He has Beelzebul in Him!” and, “He drives out demons by the ruler of the demons!”

So He summoned them and spoke to them in parables: “How can Satan drive out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan rebels against himself and is divided, he cannot stand but is finished!

“On the other hand, no one can enter a strong man’s house and rob his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man. Then he will rob his house. I assure you: People will be forgiven for all sins and whatever blasphemies they may blaspheme. But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”—because they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.”

Then His mother and His brothers came, and standing outside, they sent word to Him and called Him. A crowd was sitting around Him and told Him, “Look, Your mother, Your brothers, and Your sisters are outside asking for You.”

He replied to them, “Who are My mother and My brothers?” And looking about at those who were sitting in a circle around Him, He said, “Here are My mother and My brothers! Whoever does the will of God is My brother and sister and mother.” (Mark 3:21-35)

Opposition sometimes arises from where you’d least expect it. When the religious establishment that didn’t like Jesus finally tried to explain that Jesus was getting his power from the Devil, it wasn’t much of a shock. But Jesus’ own family did not believe that he was the Messiah, either. While the religious establishment was arguing that Jesus was filled with the Devil, his own family concluded that Jesus was simply crazy.

For the religious establishment, their unbelief led them to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit that empowered Jesus. They argued that it was really the Devil doing the miracles. His family’s unbelief led them to blaspheme merely against Jesus: they said he was crazy. Blasphemy against Jesus was forgivable—and in fact, his family eventually changed their minds about him. Then his own family joined his true family, the family of God. Where his family’s lack of belief had merely motivated them to try to rescue him, it led the religious establishment to seek Jesus’ death.

Be prepared. Doing the right thing, being a good person, making the best choices, does not guarantee you peace or prosperity. In fact, you’re very likely to face persecution.

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Scum

Jesus went out to the lakeshore again and taught the crowds that were coming to him. As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at his tax collector’s booth. “Follow me and be my disciple,” Jesus said to him. So Levi got up and followed him.

Later, Levi invited Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guests, along with many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners. (There were many people of this kind among Jesus’ followers.) But when the teachers of religious law who were Pharisees saw him eating with tax collectors and other sinners, they asked his disciples, “Why does he eat with such scum?”

When Jesus heard this, he told them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.” (Mark 2:13-17)

Jesus came to do the laundry. Levi, the son of Alphaeus, is sometimes called Matthew. He was a tax collector. Tax collectors were prosperous individuals, who lived well and never lacked for anything. But they were universally denounced. They were the lowest of the low. They were like drug lords living high and mighty off the sale of death. Tax collectors had turned against their own people. They accepted a fortune in exchange for their souls. They had sold out their homeland for money. They were collaborators and traitors. Most religious people wanted to see them dead.

But Jesus asked such a person to become one of his disciples. And then Jesus attended a party he threw, paid for by his ill-gotten gain. It was a party filled with more tax collectors and the women they kept. The Pharisees were besides themselves with righteous indignation. They wanted to know how Jesus could eat with the lowlifes of society if he really were the Messiah.

According to the expectations and understandings of the religious establishment, one of the roles of the Messiah was to cleanse the nation of sinners. Instead, Jesus was partying with them. It made no sense.

The religious establishment missed the fact that though one could get rid of dirty laundry by burning it, there was a much better way. Just clean it. God preferred to simply clean the dirt that had stained the souls of men, rather than to destroy the men. Mercy is God’s first choice, not his last choice.

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