Inspirational Media Blog Archive

Copyright “This David Pawson video is the copyright of ©David Pawson Teaching Trust 2020 and is streamed with the permission of the David Pawson Teaching Trust. For a full library of David’s teaching resources please visit www.davidpawson.org”

THOUGHTFUL THOUGHTS 9.10.26  BY JOHN DUNNING.

A WARNING FROM ISRAELITE HISTORY (Numbers Pt.1)

WEEKEND THOUGHTS

PROLOGUE

St. Paul used the book of Numbers to warn the Corinthians with this; 

“These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the culmination of the ages has come”; (1 Cor. 10:11). 

In context, Paul is teaching that we need to heed the warnings and learn the lessons that Israelites had to learn the hard way… We can either learn the easy way, (ie from other people’s experience), or learn the hard way, (from personal experience).  

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INTRODUCTION

A). Stage 1;- 

It only took 20 days for Israel to walk out of Egypt into Kadesh;- (Numbers ch. 1-10). 

A Census was taken, showing the Israelite population to be 603,500 men, (excluding women and children), making a total population of over 2 million. 

The law was given for the first time.

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B). Stage 2;- Going nowhere…

The first generation of Israelites that came out of Egypt didn’t believe God could overcome the Canaanites… so, they voted to stay where they were… God didn’t force them to go against their will, so He left them where they were. They wandered around the desert for over 38 years. In Hebrew, the book is called “In the wilderness”… which is named after the opening few words in Hebrew, which seems more appropriate as the book is all about the Israelites wandering about for nearly 40 years. The result of the first Generation wandering round and round from Kadesh to Moab in the wilderness was that over that 38 years, that first generation all died out, except for Joshua and Caleb; (Num. 10-26). The last one of that generation to die was Moses, aged 120, who was allowed to see from a mountain top into Canaan before he went to be with His Lord.

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MONDAY THOUGHTS

C). Stage 3;- LESSONS Part 1 (whilst preparing to enter Canaan)

God waited for a new generation to emerge. This new generation spent a few months in the plains of Moab preparing to enter Canaan by being given the regulations that the first generation had been given, which they in turn had to promise to keep; (26-36).

The second census was undertaken which showed a DECREASE in population after 40 years! There were now only 601,000 men, (plus women and children). The part of Numbers dealing with this new generation breaks down roughly like this…

i).  Num. 26-31; The “Law” was given AGAIN, because they were a new generation. 

ii). Num. 31-33; Moses hands over to Joshua and dies…

iii).Num. 34-36; Joshua writes about what happened to Moses’ body after he died on the mountain, and how he then took the people into Canaan. 

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The regulations can be categorised in one or other of these next three categories…

i). Carefulness…

Carefulness about approaching God was critical. God is Holy. 

(ie. Remember when we spoke about Moses going up Mt Sinai to receive the 10 commandments he had to order the people to stay away from the mountain or die.)

Temple Priests had to have a rope tied around their legs when it was their turn to enter the Holy of Holies. If they had not prepared themselves properly, according to law, they would drop dead. Carelessness could result in the death penalty. A casual approach to God especially for worship could easily cost you your life. 

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TUESDAY THOUGHTS

LESSONS part 2

ii). Cleanliness…

Cleanliness was a legal requirement. There was a requirement for both outer and inner cleanliness. This tells us more about God. (When you know what the rest of the world did for their cleanliness, you appreciate just how revolutionary the Jewish health and safety laws were.) 

The priests had to ensure their body and clothes were clean at a higher level, as all the ceremonial rituals were observed on top of that, before going anywhere near the Holy of Holies. 

Cleanliness also included orderliness, as we see that when they camped. It all had to be in a certain way, and when they moved, they unraveled like an orange peel being peeled back, and when they camped, it was done in reverse.

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iii). Costliness…

Some sins would cost a life, which was why animals were sacrificed, instead of the life of the sinner. So they learned that the wages of sin is death.

When Esau sold his spiritual birthright to have a bowl of food, he was rejected by God. 

Jacob used what he had, in order to buy Esau’s birthright, because he valued what was spiritual. So, God was pleased with Jacob’s spiritual priorities and value system. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob all valued what God valued;- and were rewarded. 

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WEDNESDAY THOUGHTS

A WARNING FROM HISTORY

Whilst waiting for the new generation to replace the old one, the Israelites were taught in the desert how to live life God’s way. God provided for them miraculously, daily, and so they saw God in action and learned to trust Him. 

The census referred to at both the beginning and the end of the book of Numbers were 40 years apart and showed that the Israelite population had reduced in number over an entire generation. How could that happen?

We learn from ‘Numbers’ about a meaningless existence that befell a whole generation who had not been careful with the things of God. This was the punishment that Paul warns us of paying attention to. Entering the promised land is what the spiritual journey is all about, as John Bunyan pointed out in Pilgrim’s Progress.

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Let’s look at this point the other way around… Do you remember the story Jesus told of the importance of valuing what is spiritual in a story where a man found a pearl in a field and sold all he had to buy the field? (Matthew 13). Well, that puts the point the other way round – that God honours those who value what is important in His sight. 

Paul tells the Corinthians, (1 Cor. 10), to learn the lessons being taught in the book of Numbers, as they were written down to be a warning for future generations. The first generation did not trust God’s promise, but the new generation did. 

The new generation entered Canaan because they learned the lesson from the past…

We started with Paul’s warning that he took from the book of Numbers, which he used to warn the Corinthians; “These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the culmination of the ages has come”; (1 Cor. 10:11). 

Paul taught that we need to heed the warnings in Scripture, by learning the lessons from the experience of the Israelites who learned them the hard way… We can either learn the easy way from other people’s experience, or learn the hard way, from personal experience.  

How can Paul’s warning apply to us, that the new generation entered the Promised Land, not the old generation? Well, in the words of a friend,

‘The people came out of Egypt, but Egypt had not come out of the people’.

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THURSDAY THOUGHTS

A LESSON LEARNED

At the same time that God prevented the old generation from entering Canaan, He was protecting all the people from King Balak.  Have you noticed that in your Bible reading? Balak tried to use Balaam to curse the people, but time after time, Balaam found God intervened and as he opened his mouth, only blessing came out for the people, which even included a prophecy about the Messiah; (Numbers 22-25). 

Jesus severely warned against being like Balaam, (Rev. 2:14), who betrayed God’s people by telling Balaak how to make the people sin sexually in order to cause God to turn away from them. And Jude and Peter (2 Peter chapter 2), also warned believers to be careful not to be tempted like Balaam by money. Paul’s warning to the Corinthians to learn from Israelite history shows we must still learn from it. 

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Wandering in the wilderness.

Paul says their punishment is a warning…

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The singer / song writer, Matt Redman, explained in an interview that he wrote a song as a prayer of repentance for misusing worship as a way to promote himself, instead of worshipping Jesus, which is why the song ends “I’m sorry for the thing I’ve made it”. 

So when we sing that song, we are repenting of misusing worship, by drawing attention to ourselves, instead of praising God. That is a simple example taken from Matt Redman, regarding how we sing “worship” songs. We must worship God in the way He wants, with reverence and awe. Failure to do so means it is rejected. 

The second Israelite generation learned the lesson from their history about the unbelief of their fathers who had not believed that with God they would overcome the Canaanites. 

The second generation trusted God, by believing in Him. So, they became like a child standing on their father’s shoulders. Hebrews 11 comes up with a list of people who valued what God valued, and therefore became approved by God, as they tried to live life God’s way, in spite of some stumbles along the way. 

If you would like to know how to find peace with God, listen to the podcasts at this link…

https://www.inspirational.org.nz/pages/johns-devotionals-podcast

Next time in Numbers part 2, we see what they did about snake bites! Brrr…

Do share this study with your friends…

This is John Dunning signing off from “Thoughtful Thoughts” for another week.

For a message on Hearing God, called “The Cost of Discipleship”, 

visit this podcast link https://share.transistor.fm/s/1263bbab

PS. To help pray for the ‘suffering church’ see;- https://barnabasfund.org/nz/pray/daily-prayer/#previous-dates

Copyright “This David Pawson video is the copyright of ©David Pawson Teaching Trust 2020 and is streamed with the permission of the David Pawson Teaching Trust. For a full library of David’s teaching resources please visit www.davidpawson.org”

THOUGHTFUL THOUGHTS 2.10.26  BY JOHN DUNNING.

JESUS IN O.T. ‘SHADOWS’, Part 2;- (LEVITICUS Pt. 2)

WEEKEND THOUGHTS

PROLOGUE

Each year in Jerusalem, a great ceremony used to place the sin of the people onto a goat. The goat was a male (ie. a ‘ram’), given the title a ‘scapegoat’. Then it was forced out into the wilderness, where it was left to die. Holman Hunt recaptured that event in the painting called “The Scapegoat”. It was painted in the desert outside Jerusalem where these events took place.

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INTRODUCTION – THE SCAPEGOAT
Symbolically passing those consequences of sin onto a goat became known as the ‘scapegoat’, (which is how the word came into the English language.) That was a ‘shadow’ of what Jesus did for us. It enabled people to escape the consequences of their own sin. 

In Leviticus 16:2 God warns Aaron, through Moses, not to enter the “Holy Place” at just any old time or he will die, even though he was a priest. There was a process to go through first – that I’ve called “Terms & Conditions Apply”, named after the small print in contracts. This is relevant as next we move on to one of the “Terms & Conditions” relevant to getting cleaned up… “The Scapegoat”. 

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“THE SCAPEGOAT” (by HOLMAN HUNT)

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MONDAY THOUGHTS

“The Scapegoat” is a painting by Holman Hunt after he spent a long time researching the colours by living in the desert in order to recreate as accurately as possible what took place every year in Jerusalem outside the city walls. 

This symbolism represents the terrible cost to God to forgive us our sin. We know now of course that this ‘Scapegoat’ represented Jesus Christ, who would become the “Scapegoat” for sinners, but back then of course, the people just did as they were told. But we now know all this from Leviticus because of the ‘Scapegoat’. Holman Hunt was a Christian and wanted to use his talent as a painter to convey important Bible truths, and so he put Leviticus 16:10 in picture form, where it says “But the goat chosen by lot as the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the Lord to be used for making atonement by sending it into the wilderness as a scapegoat.” 

This is what Jesus did for us, demonstrated when Jesus prayed Psalm 22 from the cross which is worth meditating on, in your quiet time today.

Knowing all this, the text takes on relevance for us as we see that “shadow” of Jesus in 

Leviticus 16:20-22;- “When Aaron has finished making atonement for the Most Holy Place, the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall bring forward the live goat. 

21). He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites—all their sins—and put them on the goat’s head. He shall send the goat away into the wilderness in the care of someone appointed for the task. 

22). The goat will carry on itself, all their sins to a remote place; and the man shall release it in the wilderness.”
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TUESDAY THOUGHTS – 

Rev. Charles Jennens isn’t often remembered for his part in “The Messiah”, because it was Handel who wrote the music, but it was Rev. Charles Jennens who ‘compiled’ the lyrics from the Bible, for what we now know as “Handel’s Messiah”.

The Bible reference to the Messiah being, “despised and rejected, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief…”, touched the heart of Charles Jennens so much he included Isaiah 53:3 in the lyrics, “He Was Despised”. After Handel finished composing the music for “The Messiah” oratorio, he wrote at the end “To God be the glory”.

The Messianic connection with Isaiah 53 is so stark that a Messianic Jew in the testimonies on our internet radio station explains why many Rabbis don’t read from half way through Isaiah 52 to the end of 53. They can’t explain the suffering servant being the Messiah, so many simply skip over it!
I visited the museum in Jerusalem with David Pawson which holds the scroll of Isaiah. I saw the scroll open at Isaiah 53. Is. 53:4-5 says, “Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed”.

We don’t need the scapegoat now because it has been fulfilled in Jesus who carried our sins on the cross outside the city wall of Jerusalem.

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WEDNESDAY THOUGHTS

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A soldier ensured Jesus was dead.

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John saw blood and water coming from Jesus’ side when He was pierced with a spear, (19:33-34), which tells us he was a witness. The soldier made sure Jesus was dead by piercing His heart, before removing Him from the cross. (Cults which say Jesus didn’t die on the cross contradict scripture.) John’s description of seeing ‘water and blood’ points to a more precise autopsy type of record for the death certificate. It proves not only that Jesus had already died, but that His heart had burst beforehand, resulting in the separation of white and red blood corpuscles. That means that Jesus’ heart exploded from the trauma He had been through, called a “Ruptured Pericardium”. 

That all means that His suffering was so great, that He had died before the soldier pierced His heart with a spear. Normally, victims took days before they died. In Jesus’ case, the suffering was literally more than His body could take and His heart exploded. Jesus died of a heart that literally broke under the shock of all that His creation had done to Him. His own creation had done their worst to their Creator. He was killed as painfully as possible and Jesus endured all that suffering so that His creation could return to God and become part of His family. That was the price He paid to make it possible for His creation to ask for forgiveness and be redeemed because the sin was paid for. The meaning behind the ‘shadow’ of the ‘scapegoat’ being sent into the wilderness was that the sin of the people was taken away.

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THURSDAY THOUGHTS

EPILOGUE

“Gethsemane” is Hebrew for “oil press” in English. It is where Jesus sweated drops of blood whilst praying before being taken prisoner. Matthew 26:36 shows that Jesus goes to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray and prepare for His sacrifice. 

‘Bible hub’ helps us to understand the suffering of Jesus, by describing what was behind Matthew 26:36, regarding the olive press…  

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The olive crusher was a picture 

of what Jesus’ suffered.

CRUSHING OLIVES INTO OIL

This crushing that Jesus endured was like the olives being crushed until its oil came out. 

Olive presses were composed of a large stone basin where olives were crushed by a heavy stone wheel, or a screw press, as above.

The pulp was then subjected to further pressure to extract even more oil. This multi-step process reflects the complete crushing done to olives to get oil, which was used to describe what Jesus went through. 

This crushing destroys the olive so completely that it becomes a liquid and describes what Jesus did for us. That was the price that our creator (John 1) paid to enable us to return to God. A glimpse of what it meant for Jesus to be the “Scapegoat” paying for our sin, can  be seen in the hymn “There is a green hill far away…”, but Psalm 22 better explains how Jesus saw His suffering, as He prayed that Psalm from the cross.

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When the gospel was preached by Peter in Jerusalem, the people responded thus;-

Acts 2:37-41; “37 When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” 

38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 

39 The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”

40 With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” 

41 Those who accepted his message were baptized… 

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If you would like to know how to find peace with God, listen to the podcasts at this link…

https://www.inspirational.org.nz/pages/johns-devotionals-podcast

Psalm 51 is a prayer of repentance which you can make your own…

Do share this study with your friends…

This is John Dunning signing off from “Thoughtful Thoughts” for another week.

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PS. To help pray for the ‘suffering church’ see;- https://barnabasfund.org/nz/pray/daily-prayer/#previous-dates

For a message on Hearing God, called “The Cost of Discipleship”, 

visit this podcast link https://share.transistor.fm/s/1263bbab

Copyright “This David Pawson video is the copyright of ©DavidPawson Teaching Trust 2020 and is streamed with the permission of the David Pawson Teaching Trust. For a full library of David’s teaching resources please visit www.davidpawson.org”.

THOUGHTFUL THOUGHTS 25.9.26 BY JOHN DUNNING.

JESUS IN O.T. ‘SHADOWS’ – (Leviticus Pt 1)

WEEKEND THOUGHTS

PROLOGUE

All Christians know the story off by heart of the passion of Christ. But have we ever stopped to consider the meaning of the Temple curtain being torn in two… In summary, it means you and I no longer are under the 613 laws of Moses in order to be in a covenant relationship with God. At the moment Jesus died He said “It is finished” and the Temple Curtain was torn in two from the top down, by God. That curtain was a very thick heavy curtain. That meaning is why at the Last Supper, Jesus said He was bringing in a New Covenant. 

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The Temple Curtain Is Torn In Two

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INTRODUCTION

Christians almost never read Leviticus now because it is all about the law of Moses. But, that is why Synagogues still read it right through every year. It tells of the law we would still be under if Jesus hadn’t established the New Covenant. For the practicing Jew, obedience to the Law of Moses is still critical for their “Old Covenant” faith. Leviticus teaches them what kind of worship God told Moses to teach the Israelites to have in the Old Testament.

But we can still learn from it, as the principle of holiness still applies today if we want to worship God in a way that is acceptable to Him. 

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MONDAY’s THOUGHTS

“SCHOOLING”

Forgiveness back then was quite a process involving animal sacrifice, but it did at least teach the seriousness of sin;- (compare Romans 6:23 which says “The wages of sin is death”). The people are being taught that sin is a killer, so sin must not be taken lightly. When God chose to intervene to make forgiveness possible, it cost the life of Jesus the Christ. Forgiveness was an expensive gift for God to give us. 

Now, some may think that because we didn’t pay for our forgiveness then it must be free. Well, it is only free for us if we are repentant, but in fact, forgiving us cost Jesus His life. So is there any reason why Leviticus should be read now by Christians? Well, Leviticus is the one book that enables us to understand the book of Hebrews! Because of that, Leviticus and Hebrews go together as a “pair”, like two sides of a coin. The writer of the book of “Hebrews” calls the law of Moses being delivered in Leviticus, a ‘shadow of the good things to come’. We have been talking a lot about “Shadows” in the Old Testament. The book of Hebrews explains more about that. For example, we learn from the book of Hebrews in chapter 10 that there is to be no more sacrificing. That was hard for the Jewish religious leaders to swallow. It only stopped in AD 70 when the Temple was demolished, and sacrificing animals cannot be restarted because a mosque on the Temple Mount prevents it! For us now of course, we know that Jesus said, “No man comes to the Father except through Me”. 

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TUESDAY’s THOUGHTS

LEVITICUS IN THE NEW TESTAMENT!

A key Leviticus verse summary. 

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Aaron’s sons in Leviticus 10:1-3 dropped dead when they were not being obedient priests. Priests don’t drop dead now when they are sinful because God isn’t involved in what they are doing anyway, as that route is closed off now. If God was in it, unholy priests would drop dead like Aaron’s sons when they pretend to re-sacrifice Jesus’ body. However, remember that Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5:1-11 dropped dead when they lied to the Holy Spirit and Peter, – which tells us that God was in that meeting, as the unclean must never come into contact with the holy. It is Hebrews we can thank for teaching us that the system of using religion as a way to get forgiveness is man made religion. Forgiveness cannot come on that “lay-by” way any more, and Hebrews explains why. 

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The old way of doing things is no longer valid, yet even some churches pretend they are turning the wafer and wine into the body and blood of Jesus at a Mass, pretending they are re-sacrificing Jesus’ body and blood over and over and over again, which we know it is wrong, because Hebrews says there is no more sacrificing. Although on the one hand we learn in Leviticus a system of sacrificing was created for forgiveness, Hebrews tells us that it has all been done away with. What more, when Jesus was crucified, God ripped down the temple curtain to declare that system abolished.

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WEDNESDAY’s THOUGHTS

GOD’S PROVISION…

Before Jesus came into the world, the teaching from Leviticus was all they had to work with regarding what they were required to do in order to be in relationship with God. That old sacrificial system was what American shops call a “lay by”, where something is not yet paid for, but it is being held on one side for you, until payment is received. Now in the case of sin, it was because God knew He would be paying for sin later, that He accepted this “shadow” (as Hebrews calls it), of what was to come. Hebrews tells us that God has paid in full for our sin, there is no more need for the old “lay by” system. No more re-sacrificing. “It is finished”, as Jesus said… done, done, done, done. I once met a badly taught Christian who boasted that he had been circumcised. I told him that Paul taught that those that did that put themselves under the Old Testament curse that went with the law of  Moses. He walked away. Jesus said from the cross as He died, “It is finished”,  about the old covenant. 

What we do need to learn from Leviticus is the holiness of God. God will not come near whoever is unclean, as we must be forgiven first, and then live life His way, with the help of His Holy Spirit, (Acts 2:38), and that’s the deal, which hasn’t changed. 

I can’t copy Hebrews 10 in the space available so you’ll have to read it for yourself. In addition, in 1 Peter 2:5, Peter teaches the “Elect”, that all believers are priests because they pray for others. So if you are a disciple of Jesus, you too are a priest in the New Testament sense of the word, but not the Old Testament sense. 

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The “Feast Of Booths” – 

(remembering their humble beginnings.)

Every year in Israel there is a “Feast of Booths”, immediately after the Feast of Tabernacles, remembering the time the people lived in the desert, and the people put up a temporary structure to remind them of their humble beginnings. The Jews remember that God fed them and protected them. It helps them to remember where they came from and what they owe to God. Perhaps that humility is something we can learn of next!

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THURSDAY THOUGHTS

HUMILITY

While the Israelites were camped out in the desert wondering what to do next, God used that time to take them to school and teach them how to live life God’s way. Leviticus is that account of the laws that they had to live by, right down to the last detail, and it shows us where we have come from in our faith in God who is holy.

There are more of the spoken words of God in this book than in any other book in the Bible. The reason we find it boring is because we can’t relate to it now, but think of it like parents doing “home-schooling”. That picture might help us see what was happened to the people who had been brought up in Egypt, where there were many idols, and the people needed to re-learn what the Patriarchs knew, like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, and I might add, to God’s servant, “Job” as well, who knew a lot about God even though he lived well before Moses, somewhere around Abraham’s era. 

Paul tells us in Romans that everyone has some knowledge about God based on creation, and with a moral compass from a built-in conscience. 

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Jesus told a story about a tax collector and a pharisee who went to the temple to pray. 

The tax collector’s prayer asking for forgiveness was heard by God.

The Pharisees’ self congratulatory prayer was not heard by God.

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One example that comes to mind is that of a brother of my grandfather. Upon leaving school, the grandfather on my father’s side, skipped higher education and went out to work because his parents could not afford to put both sons through college. My grandfather helped his father pay to send the first born to go to theological college…

Decades later my grandfather was being made the mayor of a town in southern England, and there was a great celebratory meal. My grandfather invited his brother to say “grace” before the meal started… and all his brother could do was to show off the Latin he had learned at college. Showing off his education helped no-one look to their Father in heaven. I felt for my grandfather who we had come to celebrate, and who had enabled his brother’s higher education.

At the end of my grandfather’s life he was in a hospice when I visited him. As I entered the door he was singing the Hallelujah chorus, and when he saw me he said, “I’m ready to go”.

Next week when we look at the “scapegoat” in Leviticus, as a picture of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Do share this study with your friends… 

This is John Dunning signing off from “Thoughtful Thoughts” for another week. 

Copyright “This David Pawson video is the copyright of ©David Pawson Teaching Trust 2020 and is streamed with the permission of the David Pawson Teaching Trust. For a full library of David’s teaching resources please visit www.davidpawson.org”

NEW THOUGHTFUL THOUGHTS 18.9.26 BY JOHN DUNNING. 

Living Life God’s Way;-  EXODUS, Part 2

PROLOGUE 

Please email media@inspirational.org.nz to tell us whether you prefer Thoughtful Thoughts to be divided into shorter daily thoughts as in this week’s format, or kept all together as one long Thoughtful Thought. 

WEEKEND THOUGHTS

INTRODUCTION

CS Lewis used stories to teach children about God. He created characters around talking animals so that the stories would be child friendly. In his book “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”, there was a Mr and Mrs Beaver, who were teaching Susan and Lucy about Aslan the lion who was the rightful King. 

Lucy showed she understood what Mr and Mrs Beaver were explaining to her about Aslan, because she asked the question, “Then He isn’t safe?” 

Mr Beaver replied, “Who said anything about being safe? Of course He isn’t safe; but He is good! He’s the King I tell you.”

CS Lewis is teaching an important point about God’s holiness, that Jews understand only too well. Jesus is a King above all kings, who will judge the world. He will say one day to those who were once powerful, “Depart from Me, I never knew you.” And “Cast them into the outer darkness”. 

In the vision of the Revelation of John, when he was taken up to heaven in a vision and saw Jesus as He really is, he wrote that he collapsed when he saw Jesus.

We can lose sight of Jesus’ Divinity in the same way that John was completely overcome, and collapsed. 

We are wrong if we see Jesus in the way that some Christmas carols portray Him.

What we see in CS Lewis’ parable of Aslan is a great King giving up His life voluntarily to take the execution that His creation would have faced. 

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MONDAY’S THOUGHTS

Gentile believers hear about God’s love all the time, as if that was all we need to know, but that is only part of the picture. 

The word we translate as “love”, is “agape” in the original, and has a much deeper meaning. The word “agape” could be translated as “benevolent charity”, as that helps provide its much deeper meaning than we understand by the English word of “love”. To explain, Lord Shaftesbury provided homes for homeless street children, so a memorial statue was created in central London to him, correctly labelled “Agape”;- (but incorrectly later nicknamed “eros”, which was the opposite of what was intended.) Lord Shaftesburt is an example of “agape” love.

“Agape” is costly for the giver. God’s agape love caused Him to want to rescue His creation from the imminent punishment hanging over us, that Godly Law demanded. Justice demanded punishment for sin. The agape of God reached out to rescue us from the death sentence that justice demanded.

To do that, until the cross of Jesus, we see another “shadow” of animal sacrifice, to teach of the seriousness of sin, with costly recompense coming before forgiveness. Animal sacrifice was a stop-gap measure. The journey in the desert that we find in the book of Exodus was used to teach the people what was required of them. God used Moses to educate the people about God’s law, where the desert was their classroom.

The next generation were unanimous about trusting God as they entered Canaan. Even Moses was not allowed to enter the promised land as he had disobeyed God in the desert, so he was receiving his punishment for sin before dying, so that he wasn’t punished later, which also taught the people about crime and punishment.

TUESDAY’S THOUGHTS

HOLINESS

When Ananias and Sapphira lied in front of Peter in church, (Acts 5), they literally fell dead.

That taught the people about holiness – that we cannot come before God whilst worldly. Hebrews 10:31 teaches us “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God”.

Compare that with how the High Priest had a rope tied around his ankle when he went into the Holy of Holies in the Temple, so that if he entered casually without preparing himself and therefore dropped dead, he could be pulled out. 

Moses was the intermediary between God and the people, as he was the only person God would talk to directly.

Moses passed on to the people the laws God instructed, which became the national rulebook and constitution. 

We can learn about the holiness of God from the story on Sinai. If the people were to come into contact with the location where God was, on Mount Sinai, they were warned that they would drop dead. That was why God in His mercy He repeated to Moses that he must keep the people away from the mountain whilst He was there talking with Moses. 

As for us, God expects us to leave behind our sin after our own personal Exodus of escaping from the evil one. God is our King too, and expects His people to live life His easy.

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WEDNESDAY’S THOUGHTS

EPILOGUE – 

Alfred, King in southern England, became a Christian and used the Ten Commandments as the law of the land, and was the first King to do it outside of Israel. He was the only king to withstand the Vikings. 

Elsewhere in the world, the law was simply whatever their current monarch decided he wanted.

God’s laws came to the people because God is holy and His people must become holy too, if we are to be included in His family. 

Old Testament teaching repeats that what is unclean cannot come into contact with the holy, or it dies. That was why a man who touched the Ark of the Covenant dropped dead when he tried to stop the ark falling off a wooden cart when it was being moved. 

That caused David to park the Ark of the Covenant in a house nearby out of fear. The point is, that the unclean can never come into contact with the holy. That warning is repeated in the Old Testament over and over again. 

Now for Christians, once in God’s family, we are taught that if we go back to our former ways we grieve the Holy Spirit, and He can leave. 

Jesus taught His disciples that God is our Father, which is why Jesus said He commanded that we must not call any other man “Father”. (In the context of a spiritual Father – and not our biological father, who we are told to respect.)

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THURSDAY’S THOUGHTS

CHALLENGE

When we die, our human spirit goes to be with Him, which is what my sister saw when my mother went home to be with the Lord. She saw my mother’s spirit being clapped into heaven by those who knew her. My sister is a very “earthy” horticulturalist and dog trainer, and not the kind of person to speak irrationally. 

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On the one hand, we can end up leaving Egypt but not entering the promised land, just as the first Israelite generation that left Egypt, missed out on.

Or, alternatively, we can obey God and enjoy Him forever, by entering the promised land of the Kingdom of God, just as the second generation did enter Canaan; – which was their promised land. Jesus said His Kingdom is within, and closer than anything else can be. 

Jesus told His disciples not to do anything until after He sent His Holy Spirit, (Acts1:4), (which happened at Pentecost in Acts 2).

God rescued the Israelites first and then expected them to live life His way, afterwards. 

Previously we looked at God rescuing the people from slavery in Egypt, through the great Exodus, and how Jesus spoke to Moses in His transfiguration comparing Moses’ Exodus to Jesus’ rescue of us from sin and Satan, in our Exodus. God offers to take our filthy rags and give us in return His righteousness. Peter tells us to repent, be immersed and receive the Holy Spirit, (acts 2:38).

The Jesus Movie can be viewed at this link… https://www.jesusfilm.org/watch/jesus.html

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Do share this study with your friends…

This is John Dunning signing off from “Thoughtful Thoughts” for another week.

Copyright “This David Pawson video is the copyright of ©David Pawson Teaching Trust 2020 and is streamed with the permission of the David Pawson Teaching Trust. For a full library of David’s teaching resources please visit www.davidpawson.org”

THOUGHTFUL THOUGHTS 4.9.26  BY JOHN DUNNING.

GENESIS, Part 6

1). INTRODUCTION

The first 10 chapters cover many hundreds of years, and written as a newspaper journalist might record a story. The first of the main big covenants between God and man was with Noah, which was made for all of us, as it was general and unconditional. God used the rainbow as a reminder of the covenant with Noah, (see Gen. 9:12 ff), which was referred to by Jesus in Luke and Matthew. 

A Chinese film producer made a documentary called “Who Are The Chinese?” The first “Traditional Chinese” language is made up of picture symbols which are 3,000 years old. He showed how some words come from the Genesis creation story and from Noah’s flood. I have provided a link at the end of this Bible study…

2). THE “OLD” COVENANT WITH ABRAHAM

The next of the big covenants was the one God made with Abraham…

The next 40 chapters in Genesis deal with just a few hundred years, covering a few generations. It is written as if ‘Abraham & sons’ were keeping a diary of walking with God. God came up with a plan to save those that would listen to Him, and that all started with a covenant with Abraham, to be passed on down through his family. 

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i). Priorities

The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is a covenant making God. From the main characters in the Genesis stories we see that it is those who made spiritual choices at the expense of choices of the flesh, who were approved by God. Being the eldest was not the major consideration. Examples in Genesis are;-

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a). In Gen. 25:29ff we see that Esau, the first born, (by a few minutes!), sold his birthright to Isaac. Later on we see that God then said He hated Esau for not valuing what was spiritual, (Malachi 1:3; Romans 9:13). Then we see that God said He loved Jacob, who put God first; (Malachi 1:2; Romans 9:13).

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b). An example of that is when Abraham tried to argue a case for Ishmael, but then God pointed out that Abraham’s inheritance must be passed on through Isaac; (Gen. 17:18-19), called in the NT a child of the promise.
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c). We also see that Jacob blessed Joseph’s younger son first and not the oldest, (Gen. 48:17-20), even though Joseph protested. Jacob also gave Joseph more than than his older brothers, (Gen. 48:22).
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So as we see that spiritual inheritance was not something passed on to the eldest child, like a hereditary title, just because they were the oldest. We see in the Bible that the oldest sons were often skipped for spiritual inheritance (eg in the stories with Saul, David, and Solomon.)

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ii). Faith
Hebrews 11 tells us that the common denominator with all these men mentioned was “Faith”. (It’s worth reading to see for yourself). Notice that Solomon who started off so well, is left out of the list of the faithful in Hebrews 11. The Bible says that his heart was turned away from God by his wives (1 Kings 11:3-4). In the case of Esau, it was his stomach which he put before his spiritual inheritance which caused him to lose it.

Paul tells us God replaced the “former covenant”. The new covenant is on offer to us now – but – what hasn’t changed is the requirement for faith. (In fact Paul points out that Abraham’s faith came first before there was a covenant.) 

In other words, there is so much we can learn from the patriarchs in Genesis 11-50. Here’s some notes for your Bible study… 

a). ABRAHAM

Abraham put God first, and he was the “forerunner” of our faith. He believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.

Abraham is stopped by God, who provides a ram for the sacrifice. And it happened where Jesus was crucified for us.

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b). ISAAC

Isaac was in his early 30s when Abraham was about to sacrifice him as his only son, before God stopped him, and showed him a ram caught up in a thorny bush to be the real sacrifice. We know Isaac’s age as Sarah died aged 120 immediately after this event. This means that Isaac accepted his father’s word about God’s testing and didn’t resist, which he could have done. The ram caught in thorns represents Jesus… another “shadow”.
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c). JACOB

Jacob sold what he had in exchange for the spiritual blessing of the eldest son. Having done that, God loved Jacob’s priorities and changed his name to “Israel” and Jacob went on to father the twelve tribes of Israel.
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d). JOSEPH

Joseph was Jacob’s favourite son, and he went on to save Israel and Egypt from starvation. He was tested with temptations involving the 3 “Gs”;- gold, glory and girls, and Joseph passed all of the tests. He was proven to be so trustworthy he was given the top job of running Egypt. He made the Israelites promise to take his bones with them when they escaped Egypt.

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iii). Gentiles permitted to join God’s people by covenant

a). There were even some Egyptians who left Egypt with Moses and became Israelites, but they all had to solemnly join God’s covenant promises with Israel, and become part of the Israelite family, with all of the laws, rules and regulations. That was the deal.
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b). Non-family members (ie Gentiles like “Ruth”), could join in the covenant relationship provided they adopted all the terms and conditions that went with it, but it still centred around the covenant God made with Abraham and his descendants.
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c). The famous examples of this are Rahab the former prostitute in Joshua 2, who joined the people of God, mentioned in Hebrews 11:21; and Ruth the Gentile who chose to join the people of God, who married Boaz, (see the book of Ruth). They both ended up in the family tree of Jesus.
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d). The Rechabites mentioned in Jeremiah 35:19 is another example of Gentiles being included in God’s covenant with the Israelites.

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3). THE NEW COVENANT MADE POSSIBLE BY THE CROSS OF JESUS

The Bible says that without faith it is impossible to please God. Well, in Hebrews 11 we see these men used as examples of faith, and in that they led the way for you and me. 

In the book of Hebrews these events are called ‘shadows’, (ie to teach us). They point forward to “Who” was to come, (Jesus). –

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Jesus taught His disciples after His resurrection, on the road to Emmaus, (Luke 24:13-25), all about Himself from these “shadows”, so throughout the “Old” Testament, we learn from these “shadows” about our Messiah, which they remembered and told all the other disciples about. 

Further evidence to support the Genesis account is in the old “Traditional” Chinese language! A Chinese film producer made a documentary called “Who Are The Chinese?” The first “Traditional Chinese” language is made up of picture symbols. He showed how some words come from the Genesis creation story and from Noah’s flood. Here is a link to that study… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gb4e1dQRJT0

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It was said that the Old Testament is the New Testament concealed, and the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed. In these examples, we see these “shadows”. Augustine said;-

Do share this study with your friends…

This is John Dunning signing off from “Thoughtful Thoughts” for another week.

Copyright “This David Pawson video is the copyright of ©David Pawson Teaching Trust 2020 and is streamed with the permission of the David Pawson Teaching Trust. For a full library of David’s teaching resources please visit www.davidpawson.org”

THOUGHTFUL THOUGHTS 28.8.26  BY JOHN DUNNING.

GENESIS Part 5 – “THE SIGN OF NOAH”

A). INTRODUCTION

One of the saddest verses in the Bible is the one where God says He regretted making mankind, (6:5-6). It doesn’t say God regretted making the animals;- He only says He regretted making man.

At first, we read that even the animals were vegetarian, (Gen. 1:30), but St Paul noted that ever since the “Fall”, the whole of creation suffered, (Romans 8:22). After mankind went their own way, everyone and everything suffered. God decided He couldn’t stand by any longer, watching the depths to which mankind had sunk, He decided to do something about it. We read all about it in Gen. 6-10 which tells us about the great flood, (which many cultures around the world have stories passed down about, in their culture.)

Whilst the first five chapters of Genesis cover hundreds of years, mainly about Adam and Eve’s family, in chapter 6 we see the depravity and cruelty that God’s creation had fallen down to, resulting from man living without God, to the point where God could no longer stand aside watching it all. So…

B). THE FLOOD

The flood reset the clock. God started again. However, there was one man and his family who were living righteously, who was exempt from that judgement, which was of course, Noah, who was saved out of the flood. God extended grace to Noah and his family, to escape the sentence passed down on everyone else.

God’s rainbow covenant with Noah…

After it was all over, God provided an unconditional covenant that He would not flood the whole earth again. The rainbow would be the sign between God and man on that promise. As that covenant was unconditional it is called a “general covenant”, meaning it still applies to us all today. God also promised that there would always be seedtime and harvest for mankind. God has kept His promise by always providing enough food for the world – but mankind has not been sharing it equally. 

Official figures show that there is one third more food in the world than is required to feed everyone. (Remember the EU “food mountains” which was used to feed Russia at the end of the “cold war”?)

On the news now we hear of the grain mountains in Ukraine, feeding Africa. (Not to mention the USA’s gifting of grain around the world to trouble spots, under a programme called “USA Aid”.) 

Next time you see a rainbow, remember that God called it “The sign of the covenant”, (Gen.9:12 ff.) The rainbow is a covenant that God for His part will provide enough food.

c). THE COMING JUDGEMENT 

Then we see that Jesus uses that story of Noah and the flood as a sign… In Luke 17:26ff we read this, 26 “Just as it was in Noah’s time, so it will be in the Son of Man’s time. 27 People were eating, drinking, marrying, and being given in marriage right up to the day when Noah went into the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed all of them. 28 So it was in Lot’s time. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. 29 But on the very day when Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed all of them. 30 The day when the Son of Man is revealed will be like that.”

Jesus says that Noah and the flood should warn us of the judgement to come. The fact that Jesus used Noah and the flood as an illustration about the judgement to come, shows us that Jesus believed in the Genesis account but also of the judgement to come.

So when Jesus warns us that the “flood” is a sign of the judgement to come, it means we must take it seriously, by responding to the gospel message. 

– “The sign of Noah”

We are also told in Matthew 25:31-46 that Jesus will be the judge on that day. We see from the group of people drowned in the flood, who are then given a second chance, (1 Peter 3:18-19), that God goes out of His way to judge all, fairly… But what we need is mercy, because if justice were the only factor, we would be doomed. 

What we need is the answer God provided…

– “The just shall live by faith”

In the “Old” Testament God provided another covenant, we call the “Old Covenant” until it was “completed”, or “finished” by Jesus on the cross, (John 19:30),  bringing in the “New Covenant”. 

But even under the “Old” Covenant, we learn from Habakkuk (2:4) that “the just shall live by faith”, but more literally it says that those who  are “just” (i.e. righteous), will survive by continuing to live faithfully. The writer of Hebrews, (10:38), picks up on that verse in Habakkuk 2:4, that the righteous will live by being faithful, and applies it to the new covenant. 

Even Jeremiah had the answer when he said “If you seek Him, He will be found by you”, (Jer. 29:13).

St Paul also picks up on that principle (in Romans 1:17 and Galatians 3:11), about the righteous living by their faithfulness, which brings us to the cross of Jesus, next… 

– Fairness

What we learn in 1 Peter 3:18-20 that although those who died in Noah’s flood were given a second chance – it was the exception to the rule, on the grounds of fairness. Jesus does say in a parable that once we have died there is no second chance. However, back in time, those that died in Noah’s flood were treated differently to the rest of mankind, by being judged before they had died naturally. The world was judged before the Day of Judgement. Although they had been judged fairly, they had been treated differently to the generations that came after Noah, because God judged them before they died naturally. Matthew picks up on this. He adds extra information to what Peter tells us about Jesus preaching in the place of departed spirits, when His body was in the grave. Matthew adds that many were resurrected and were seen walking around in Jerusalem, (Matt 27:52-54). No wonder 3,000 were open to responding to Peter’s sermon at Pentecost, after that event!

D). THE ANSWER – 

Jesus brought in the New Covenant. Jesus told us that there would be a judgement, to warn us to get right with God. And what is more, He came to provide the answer on how to make that possible. 

As we need the mercy of God, now we see how Jesus came to make that possible. 

He came to save us from our sin and we need to obey what He said to Nicodemus that we must be “Born Again”, (in John 3:16). What does that mean? 

Peter summarised (in Acts 2:38) what to do to join God’s family where he tells us to repent, (like David in Psalm 51), be immersed (like John the Baptist), and receive the Holy Spirit, (like the disciples at Pentecost.)

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Do share this study with your friends…

This is John Dunning signing off from “Thoughtful Thoughts” for another week.

–

PS. To help pray for the ‘suffering church’ see;- https://barnabasfund.org/nz/pray/daily-prayer/#previous-dates

–

If you would like to know how to find peace with God, listen to the podcasts at this link…

–

For a message on Hearing God, called “The Cost of Discipleship”, 

visit this podcast link https://share.transistor.fm/s/1263bbab

Copyright “This David Pawson video is the copyright of ©David Pawson Teaching Trust 2020 and is streamed with the permission of the David Pawson Teaching Trust. For a full library of David’s teaching resources please visit www.davidpawson.org”

THOUGHTFUL THOUGHTS 21.8.26  BY JOHN DUNNING. 

GENESIS PART 4, PARADISE LOST…

INTRODUCTION – “You gotta serve somebody”.
In the lyrics of a Bob Dylan song are the words; “You’ve gotta serve somebody”. It was his way of expressing the choices we are discussing this time. Let me explain…
Satan convinced Adam and Eve that they could take control of their own lives, outside of God, by making their own decisions, quite independently of God. When Eve and Adam made a disobedient choice to get what they wanted, it resulted in God distancing Himself from their disobedient spirit, to do what they wanted. Disobedience to God has consequences and the consequence of their disobedience was separation from God. Satan was the voice that Adam and Eve listened to, in order to give in to temptation. To get what they wanted, they were prepared to be disobedient.

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A Chinese Christian said to me, if Adam had been Chinese, there would have been no problem as he would have just eaten the snake! That joke makes the point about how we should treat temptation.

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Well, I know Genesis only refers to fruit and not apples, but the joke makes the point about learning lessons. The first time around, Adam was standing beside his wife when Satan was speaking and he said nothing. He just went along with his wife.
After Adam and Eve chose to disobey God, (Ch.3), their biological body clock started ticking, until they would die a physical death, to go with their spiritual death. Ch. 4 tells us that the next sin was not very far behind when one son then murdered his brother out of jealousy, just because his brother gave more generously to God. Only one of the two was trying to live to please God. The brothers already saw that sacrifices were needed to say ‘sorry’ to God. Here we learn from Adam and Eve that it’s all about who we listen to. For God, obedience is not “mix and match”, by us thinking we can choose what we choose to obey, which takes me onto the next point…

Now all of us are in a pickle.

John Milton wrote a series of poems called “Paradise Lost”, about how disobeying God ruined God’s perfect creation, which brings us onto Adam and Eve being cast out of Eden.

God chose to keep man at a distance after his disloyalty. Man could no longer be counted on, which is a point for us to consider, as God knows who are in His real family and the unrighteous are out.
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Examples.
a). A warning

When Moses climbed up Sinai, God told him to warn the people, saying, “Warn the people, lest they break through to gaze at the LORD, and many of them perish”. God’s warning for them to stay away, saved their lives, otherwise they would have dropped dead on the spot. Their unrighteousness would have caused them to die instantly for trying to come into the presence of a Holy God without first getting cleaned up. God introduced a sacrificial system in the “Old” Covenant, which was a “stop gap” measure until the Messiah came with Plan A.

b). Familiarity

Another example is when the Ark of the Covenant was being transported on a cart by oxen. When it started tipping over, a man grabbed it to steady it, and he dropped dead instantly. This shows what would have happened at Sinai if Moses had not kept the people away. Anyway, David became so afraid after a man dropped dead, that he put the Ark into the home of a local Jew, as he didn’t know what else to do with it.

c). Holiness

My final example to make the point is, that before entering the Holy of Holies once a year, a rope was tied around the priest’s ankles, in order to pull him out of the “Holy of Holies”, if they dropped dead for failing to cleanse themselves through sacrifice, first. (The rope was because no-one else was allowed into the Holy of Holies, except the High Priest once a year.)

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EPILOGUE

David Pawson tells a joke about learning, like this…
A married couple were the only survivors of a nuclear third world war. 

The man says to his wife “Now what are we going to do?”
The wife produced an apple saying “I saved this!”
The man replied, ‘Let’s not go through that again”!

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We can’t change the past with Adam’s legacy of separation from God, but God has made it possible for us to change our future. Joshua said, “Choose you this day who you will serve…” How? Jeremiah 33:3 says “Call to me, and I will answer you”. God is just a prayer away – and mercy is His speciality!

To change our destiny, Acts 2:38 tells us that first of all we must accept God’s provision to get cleaned up through repentance, forgiveness, immersion in water, (which is what the Greek word ‘baptizo literally means), and then accepting God’s Holy Spirit, who enables us to live righteousness.
Bob Dylan was a Jew who became a Messianic Jew, so it was with feeling that he sang, “You gotta serve somebody”.

Do share this study with your friends…

This is John Dunning signing off from “Thoughtful Thoughts” for another week.

–

PS. To help pray for the ‘suffering church’ see;- https://barnabasfund.org/nz/pray/daily-prayer/#previous-dates

–

If you would like to know how to find peace with God, listen to the podcasts at this link…

https://www.inspirational.org.nz/pages/johns-devotionals-podcast

–

For a message on Hearing God, called “The Cost of Discipleship”, 

visit this podcast link https://share.transistor.fm/s/1263bbab

Copyright “This David Pawson video is the copyright of ©David Pawson Teaching Trust 2020 and is streamed with the permission of the David Pawson Teaching Trust. For a full library of David’s teaching resources please visit www.davidpawson.org”

THOUGHTFUL THOUGHTS  14.8.26 BY JOHN DUNNING. 

GENESIS PART 3;- “SHALOM”.

PROLOGUE – The genesis of Genesis…

“Shalom” means far more than just “peace”. It has a much deeper meaning of completeness, wholeness, well-being, and harmony. I say that because before the fall, creation had “Shalom”. Jesus believed in the Genesis account being factual and historical.

Jesus asks: “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?” (Matthew 19:4-5).

In the Garden of Eden there was harmony in creation itself, between God and man,  and all of His creation with each other, even to the point where God would come into the Garden of Eden to communicate with Adam. That harmony was heaven on earth, called “Shalom” in Hebrew!

INTRODUCTION – PARADISE…

The first couple of chapters of Genesis summarises creation before it was ruined by disobedience, when creation was still perfect. Genesis shows us what we have missed out on. It explains how we got here, and how things were before our disobedience ruined everything. We wouldn’t know how it happened without the book of Genesis. 

The Hebrew word for this kind of perfect, peaceful, harmonious order is summed up in “Shalom”. It was enjoyed by creation to the point where Genesis 1:29 tells us that man was originally a vegetarian, and the next verse tells us that even animals were as well. Even the lion didn’t eat the lamb back then!

Harmony… The genesis of Genesis

My sister is a dog-trainer and her Standard Poodle “Harmony” has won many prizes for obedience. Harmony’s obedience does not come from a fear of punishment, but from a relationship of complete trust. 

Harmony accepts the pecking order that she has, because she obeys her master, my sister. Harmony trusts my sister to look after her, and in that pecking order she finds security.

The harmony just after the world was created, was like the relationship between my sister and her dog. Man was given the common sense to look after the creatures God made, and when man’s heart was perfect, it worked perfectly. Now, that harmonious order is what God put into His creation. God offers to reconcile us with Himself. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father except through me”; (John 14:6). Jesus said to Nicodemus, John 3:3 “…no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” 

When Peter was asked “What must we do to be saved?”,  Peter replied;- “Repent (turn), be immersed (be baptised), and receive the Holy Spirit”; (Acts 2:38).

a). Mankind is a creature because we have a Creator.

We are told that man was made in the image of God in 1:27, and God breathed life into him; 2:7. That extra comment is not made about any other creature God made. The literal translation of the Hebrew word for that is that God “breathed the soul of life”.

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b). When God made woman she was made from a man’s rib, and not from dust. All creatures EXCEPT woman, were made from the dust of the earth, including man. The woman was made from the superior ingredient of a spare rib! So, God cloned the first woman from a man’s rib.

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c). Man was created to be a vegetarian.

Man (Genesis 1:29) and animals were made to be vegetarians, (Gen.1:30).

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d). God gave the vegetarian man the job of taking care of His creation. 

At the time that man was put in charge he was still perfect and managed creation benevolently, in the way we do for pets. When the vertical harmony between God and man was right, there was also harmony between man and creation itself. And the name for it was, “The Garden of Eden”! Google “Christian the lion” video for interest, as it shows that even today lions can be at peace with man! 

EPILOGUE – Shalom again! That’ll be heaven!

If you want to see what paradise will look like again one day, read Revelation 21. You can see what God is going to do in future! It will be bigger and better than the Garden of Eden and inhabited by people who made a choice to become one of God’s obedient people. 

God’s family will experience what it could have been like to live in harmony, when they live in God’s “paradise regained”, called “The New Jerusalem”, a brand new Garden of Eden, (mark 2). There, God will walk again with His people, and harmony will be restored, and you can be part of it!

Rev. 21:1 “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband”.

Read Acts 2:38 to see how to start a relationship with God. Become like the Recabites in Jeremiah 35:18-19, who were gentiles who decided to become part of God’s people through obedience to God, which caused Him to love them too. (In Jeremiah 35 we learn God loved the obedience of the “Recabites” so much that these one-time gentiles, who had chosen to become Jews, were given a very privileged position by God, (v.19). God loved them for their obedience (18) and He compared their obedience to the disobedient Israelites, that He had been having to put up with, and who He was about to punish, by sending into exile.

Next time we look at “Paradise Lost” – when man chose to disobey God.

If you would like to know how to find peace with God, listen to the podcasts at this link…

Do share this study with your friends…

This is John Dunning signing off from “Thoughtful Thoughts” for another week.

PS. To help pray for the ‘suffering church’ see;- https://barnabasfund.org/nz/pray/daily-prayer/#previous-dates

–

For a message on Hearing God, called “The Cost of Discipleship”, 

visit this podcast link https://share.transistor.fm/s/1263bbab

Copyright “This David Pawson video is the copyright of ©David Pawson Teaching Trust 2020 and is streamed with the permission of the David Pawson Teaching Trust. For a full library of David’s teaching resources please visit www.davidpawson.org”

THOUGHTFUL THOUGHTS 7.8.26 BY JOHN DUNNING.

GENESIS – Part 2. SPIRITUAL WARFARE

1). PROLOGUE

A science teacher visited a successful Christian businessman, who had been one of his pupils. In the office of the Christian businessman, the visiting teacher was impressed by a globe of the world in the corner of his office, and so he asked who made it. 

The Christian businessman replied that a big bang had made it, so the teacher laughed, replying, “No seriously, I would like to know who made it?” 

So, the Christian replied, “Well I’m just telling you what you taught us in school!”

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2). INTRODUCTION

My eldest brother lost his faith at University studying Bio-chemistry. 

If parents want their children to have their Christian faith after they pass through our education systems, it is important that parents take apologetics seriously.

This week our study is dedicated to students who need to defend their faith before fellow students. Students often have to contend with being laughed at if they believe in God. 

The theory of evolution is taught as if it were fact, making Christian students often crumple, if they have no answer to offer. Too often they give in to peer pressure to find acceptance.
What is unreasonable is to believe that matter appeared out of nothing, from a vacuum without a Creator. Faith in our Creator God explains how we got here, which is a perfectly reasonable explanation of how matter was created when there was “nothing”.

Note to parents:- statistically, churchgoing students who have not already made a commitment to Jesus before starting work, will show little interest in following Jesus Christ after they start work, and this shows the importance of what we are discussing here, and that statistic came to be true of my eldest brother. 

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3). CATCH UP ON SATAN’s PLAN A…

Last week we saw that Satan’s Plan A of using the church to ban the Bible (and science), was running out of steam. Bible believing Christians fought back against the church by printing Bibles in the local language, even at the cost of being murdered for it. Jesus said that the father of the murderer is Satan. But the truth of the Bible had finally escaped! Believers learned to ignore the church and obey God instead. 

For the first time since religious leaders tried to make an empire called ‘christendom’, but nicked-named “The Dark Ages” by historians, God fearing scientists started to be able to write about their discoveries without fear of being murdered for it.
CS Lewis writes about the tricks of Satan in his book, “The Screwtape Letters”. 

As Satan’s “Plan A” started to come apart in the Reformation, Satan came up with a “fix”, which we come to next… Jesus referenced Satan only a few times, but it was enough to recognise his existence and the problems he causes, which we will partly develop next…

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4). SATAN’s Plan B;- Discrediting Genesis.

Enter “Plan B”, which was to discredit the Bible… Once the truth was out, with the Bible being printed, Satan twisted science to discredit the truth. (In Genesis we see how Satan tricked Eve by twisting God’s words. In the temptations of Jesus in the desert, we saw how he twisted Scripture.) In our history, Satan introduces doubt on Genesis. Now, Christian students need arguments for their faith to reply with at school and Uni before they are made to feel ignorant, so I have come up with a few basic arguments students can use when challenged.

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5). EVOLUTION?!

Evolutionary scientists have invented a replacement for God, called “The Big Bang”. One smart reply for Christian students can be to ask, “Who made the Big Bang?!” In other words, those trying to replace God with theories can be answered back, by asking who created the matter for the big bang that evolutionists rely on?

Evolutionists can’t answer the problems they create, like who created the “matter” that is needed for their big bang theory, as it cannot be created or destroyed. So students can answer!

If Christians start winning the argument, evolutionists point to the church as denying science. For example, Galileo had to take back his scientific findings because he was threatened by the Vatican.

But of course the truth is that it was due to Christians at the Reformation that fought for the truth and fought against the church to bring about enlightenment. Twisting science for their own purposes the church did first and then evolutionists did later. 

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6). THE LAW OF PHYSICS…

The first law of physics that I was taught at school was; “Matter can neither be created nor destroyed – but only changed from one form to another”.

When Richard Dawkins was asked how “nothingness” could result in the Big Bang! He couldn’t answer and the audience laughed. 

Something cannot come from nothing. The laws of physics state it as an impossibility. Yet, the theory of evolution breaks the very laws of physics which scientists agree is the most elementary principle. Christians say that God existed first and created matter.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote the Sherlock Holmes detective stories… and he got his character to come out with;- “How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”.

That sounds very logical to me! Paul tells us in Romans 1:20 that creation itself points to a Creator God. The logic of that means that many thousands of scientists believe in God. 

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7). DARWIN & WHO?

This next section is to help students get answers for their studies.
David Pawson points out that Charles Darwin read the ideas of Erasmus Darwin (who was his grandfather), who wrote down his thoughts on evolution after first getting his ideas from the Greek philosopher, Aristotle. 

This becomes important as we see that Darwin’s book was a development of the philosophies of all that his grandfather had written about before, to which Charles added using his own thoughts. One of the things was the size of animals on Galapagos – but we know that before the flood, animals were much bigger, one of which David called Leviathan.

After doing a bit of research, I discovered that there is a great long list of philosophers and biologists who built on the ideas of Aristotle, and those that went before – like this…

a). Plato had a thought about human development, 

b). which Aristotle developed by adding biological development to it. 

c). His ideas were developed by Goethe. 

d). Then Count George-Louis Le Clere de Buffon developed Goethe’s ideas.

e). Then along came Jean-Baptiste Lamarck who developed Count George-Louis Le Clere de Buffon’s ideas. 

f). Then the grandfather of Charles Darwin, (Erasmus Darwin), copied and developed Jean-Baptiste Lamarck’s thoughts…

g). until Charles Darwin came along and developed his grandfather’s ideas. He ended up writing a thesis using his drawings from his great expedition. In other words, Charles Darwin did not come to his conclusions independently and by his own observations, but was already pre-programmed. He used his observations to fit the programming he already had from grandad.

The order of events for creation that science came up with for creation is the same order as described in Genesis. How could Moses have known that? Well could it be by Divine revelation?!!!

A huge number of scientists are Christians because of what they know as scientists. In fact David Pawson did a science degree before ever studying theology, and because of that, he trained in how to question things, in order to get at the truth of something.
David’s six part series on Genesis looks at ideas and theories as well as theology, so it should help students to prepare themselves for science studies, so that they can answer those who ask us to give an account of our faith, as Paul proposed we do.

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8). EPILOGUE

Especially for our students…

The picture with this blog shows how the sun gives heat and light to the earth. Think on the miraculous nature of the earth being exactly the right distance from the sun with the exactly the right alignment to benefit from the sun’s rays. That is just one of millions of miracles, and you are another. 

A Christian investigative journalist in New Zealand, ‘Ian Wishart’, went to the trouble of laying on a conference led by Christian creation scientists giving evidence for “Intelligent Design”. At the conference, they covered the details in basic life forms having advanced “motor” features. Darwin wrote that if it was discovered that basic life forms had advanced “motor” features, that would undermine evolution! 

Well that was discovered! It leaves us to wonder at God’s amazing design. 

Schools don’t go into “Intelligent Design”, after a USA court decided that “Intelligent Design” cannot be taught as science. (Doing so would undermine the politically correct theory of evolution.) Darwin concluded at the end of his book that there is a God, and that the world has a Creator.) Paul said that creation itself points to a creator;- (Romans 1:20).

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Richard Dawkins discounts the evidence of a creator God, and yet cannot explain how “nothing-ness” created “something”. 

If you are a student being made fun of for believing in a creator, know that more scientists believe in a creator than those who don’t, and an easy answer is to ask your peers how “matter” came from “nothing-ness”.

A great many scientists do believe in a Creator, so if you are a Christian student, rest assured that fellow students who make fun of Christians use shallow laughter to hide ignorance.

Jesus quoted Genesis and Christian students should rather believe Him!

Science does point to God and what God has made.
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Do share this study with your friends…

This is John Dunning signing off from “Thoughtful Thoughts” for another week.

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PS. To help pray for the ‘suffering church’ see;- https://barnabasfund.org/nz/pray/daily-prayer/#previous-dates

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If you would like to know how to find peace with God, listen to the podcasts at this link…

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For a message on Hearing God, called “The Cost of Discipleship”, 

visit this podcast link https://share.transistor.fm/s/1263bbab

Click the link below to Subscribe to John’s Bible Study.

Copyright “This David Pawson video is the copyright of ©David Pawson Teaching Trust 2020 and is streamed with the permission of the David Pawson Teaching Trust. For a full library of David’s teaching resources please visit www.davidpawson.org”

THOUGHTFUL THOUGHTS 31.7.26 BY JOHN DUNNING.

“BATTLE FOR THE BIBLE”.

INTRODUCTION

Genesis tells us that God made all that there is. It also tells us that God has an enemy who is real, who tempted man to disobey God. In this introduction to the Bible we look at spiritual warfare being waged over the Bible.

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1). THE GOOD NEWS SPREADS…

In this first of the series, I am referring to the spiritual warfare over the Bible, because it changes lives for good, turning people back to God. So, Satan opposes it. 

Firstly, we see a few examples of what happened as God’s Word spread.   

A). Acts 21:20 records that Paul had already led “many tens of thousands of Jews” to Jesus Christ. Then, there were all the Gentile churches he planted. Jewish believers were already teaching new Gentile converts the Scriptures in their house groups. As Paul went to the main centres, God’s Word spread quickly;- helped along by trades-people in transit.

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B). The Apostle Thomas planted churches in Southern India which still exist today as a denomination, known as the Church of St. Thomas the Martyr, but which has ended up becoming more like an orthodox established church.

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C). The Gospel spread throughout the Roman empire, wherever Roman soldiers went, even as far away as Britain, as shown from the excavations made of crosses. Before the church became an international corporation under Popes, so many Roman soldiers had become Christians in Rome, before being transported by the empire on a tour of duty to Britain, and elsewhere, that the Gospel spread like wildfire wherever they went.

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2) FOR BETTER…

A). An Emperor became a Christian…

i). Emperor Constantine stopped the persecution of Christians – and Sunday was given as a weekly day for worship. As the Jews had Saturday to worship, so now also Christians were given a day off to worship God. Hence what we call the “weekend” of Saturday and Sunday.

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ii). Contantine outlawed crucifixion as a way of execution.

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iii). Constantine stopped gladiator fights, and promoted chariot racing instead.

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B). The Bible…

Before the bishops of Rome took the former Roman empire in the fourth century, the Bible was spreading in this way…

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i). GREEK.

The New Testament was written in Greek, due to it being the common language.

The ‘Old’ Testament, (the Jewish “Tanakh”), had already been translated into Greek from Hebrew.

The influence of Greece was huge because Alexander the Great had expanded the Greek empire beyond even the extent of the Roman empire. After the death of Alexander, that empire shrank but left behind their language, which was used as an international language for trade and culture. (That is why we learn from John 19:20 that the sign above Jesus on Calvary “was written in Hebrew, Greek and Latin”. Those were the common languages of the day.) And so, the gospel was spreading like wildfire…

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ii). LATIN

Latin was the language of the Roman empire… So, the area in which Latin was spoken can still be seen from today’s European languages which had Latin as their common root. British private schools teach Latin to provide a head start for their children in European languages, but especially as it is used as a common international language in subjects from horticulture to science.

Because most people spoke Latin throughout Europe due to the Romans, the Bible was translated into a Latin text called Vetus Latina, very early on, and well before other Latin translations. All this was before the bishops of Rome extended their reach from Rome to Europe-wide. So, they imposed the control of the Roman bishop on Christian churches founded by soldiers and Constantine. When the Roman empire included Britain up to Hadrian’s Wall, Britain had embraced the gospel of Jesus Christ thanks to the witness of the soldiers, and crosses have been unearthed where their barracks used to be.

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3). FOR WORSE…

Now, compare that progress with what happened AFTER the bishop of Rome replaced the former area of influence of the Roman empire with himself, creating a church dynasty. 

If you have never studied church history, check these things out for yourself. I have been specific to make it easy to check.

The gospel was spreading before Popes took Europe, country by country. The spread of the gospel halted wherever Catholic armies took control. British church leaders refused to come under the Pope when Augustine was sent to Britain requesting it in 597AD. The Pope later took Britain by force in 1066 when William the Conqueror rampaged through the country under the Pope’s flag (called a falon). That  murderous rampage continued on in an event called “the harrying of the north”.

So bishops in Rome gained control bit by bit, until Europe was under the Roman dictatorship. As their control spread, more and more ministers were impacted by that dictatorship, and so ended up on the receiving end of persecution if they didn’t snap their heels and conform to the Pope’s wishes, which brings us to John Huss, (or “Jan Hus”), by way of example…

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4). ‘TO DEATH US DO PART…

4a). INTRODUCTION

Jan Huss was martyred in 1415 for teaching the Bible instead of things like indulgences, which was the sale of forgiveness for money. So much money was created for the Pope, it was used to build a palace and St Peter’s cathedral at the Vatican. The Popes became the world’s richest rulers in that era. All churches had to send a percentage of their income to the Pope.

When a Jesuit priest succeeded in finding a non-Catholic Bible, he wanted to satisfy his curiosity about what he was fighting against. He wrote that he was surprised to find that the Catholic church was a completely different religion to what was in the original Bible text. He had to get hold of the Bible secretly because,

i). The original Bible text had become banned.

ii). Non-Catholic evangelism was banned.

iii). Non-catholic preaching was banned.

iv). Disagreeing with Catholicism was banned – including even in science. The church dictated that the earth was flat! They were the original flat earth society!

Even after Galileo proved that the earth went around the sun, he had to take it back or face death for defying Vatican teaching.

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4b). JAN HUS (John Huss).

Jan Hus (or in English, John Huss) was martyred for preaching of the gospel.

Out of hatred, Popes later had his ashes dug up and tipped into the river, as they believed that would stop him going to heaven! (John Huss’s congregation were also murdered.) John’s church was then stolen for their Catholic religion. In response, the townspeople built a large building right in front of the main church front doors as a protest, shown in the picture below…

4c). WILLIAM TYNDALE

Tyndale, who translated the Bible, was burned at the stake for his trouble. (Others suffered the same fate.) It was Tyndale’s translation of the Bible that was used for the majority of the “Great Bible”, which was put into all British churches, after Britain “brexited” from the Popes.

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4d). MARTIN LUTHER

When Martin Luther came to compare and contrast the original Bible texts with Catholic theology, he then became a wanted man too, even though he was still a Catholic monk at that time, (until he was excommunicated). Luther was put on trial for his writings, and famously defended his books saying, “Here I stand. I can do no other.” 

After the trial, a friend “kidnapped” him, and took him into protective custody in his castle, to prevent the Pope finding and torturing him to death too, as others had been. 

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5). THE DARK AGES

Although the church called its sphere of influence, “Christendom”, historians called it “The Dark Ages”. A movie was made about the blood that the Vatican’s empire shed called “The kingdom of heaven”, which although had a fictitious storyline, was making a point about the blood shed by Catholic countries, (including at that time, Britain, as in the wicked crusades. Eventually Britain “brexitid” the Pope’s empire. A rather more accurate story-telling was in a BBC docu-drama called “The Borgias”.

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6). BREXIT

After the reformation arrived, more and more nations “brexited” the Catholic empire.

Wherever the church lost control there was more and more freedom for  translators and scientists. That freedom was good news for Bible believing Christians, but a new battle started that Christians had to contend with… which is next week’s story…

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7). EPILOGUE – VALUING GOD’s WORD

7a). PILGRIM’s PROGRESS

In Pilgrim’s Progress, “Christian” lost the directions leading to the heavenly city and so he retraced his steps until he found it again. 

The battle for the Bible was Satan’s way of trying to remove the directions provided by God on how to find Him. 

We need to put God’s directions before any other teaching, and we start doing that by reading the Bible to see what God says.

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7b). OBEYING GOD’s WORD

The reformers did that which is why they suffered as they did. Nicodemus went to see Jesus to find out what he didn’t know, which is where we get Jesus’ famous saying from, “You must be born again”. Nicodemus ended up as a disciple, speaking up for Him when other Jewish leaders were scheming to kill Him. 

If you haven’t read Bible books from start to finish before, I recommend starting with the Gospel of Luke and followed by Acts, as they were written for a Gentile lawyer, Theophilus.

Do share this study with your friends…

This is John Dunning signing off from “Thoughtful Thoughts” for another week.

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PS. To help pray for the ‘suffering church’ see;- https://barnabasfund.org/nz/pray/daily-prayer/#previous-dates

If you would like to know how to find peace with God, listen to the podcasts at this link…

https://www.inspirational.org.nz/pages/johns-devotionals-podcast

–

For a message on Hearing God, called “The Cost of Discipleship”, 

visit this podcast link https://share.transistor.fm/s/1263bbab