Mighty Resurrection

 

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Matthew 28:2-4 Good News Translation

 ² Suddenly there was a violent earthquake; an angel of the Lord came down from heaven, rolled the stone away, and sat on it. ³ His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. ⁴ The guards were so afraid that they trembled and became like dead men.

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In our Better Than 50 Club meeting the week before Easter, I asked the members to bring a text they liked about Christ’s death and resurrection.

John Champlin spoke about Abraham’s answer to Isaac’s question about a lamb for the sacrifice. “God will provide Himself a lamb.” He submitted that Abraham knew that God was providing His body as the sacrifice. He understood what God’s purpose to abolish sin would be.

Amongst other responses to the Easter message, I suggested: Satan, with the cooperation of God’s people had successfully killed Christ by the most inhumane method they could think of. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus had been assigned Christ’s dead body and had buried it in Joseph’s rock tomb. On Sabbath the high priest and Pilate, the Roman governor, had stationed a hundred tough Roman soldiers around the entrance to the tomb. No human disciples were going to steal His body and circulate the rumor that Christ had risen. Satan posted legions of his most ruthless angels around the whole area. No angel would dare break through their guard! Satan gloated over his victory over the Son of God.

Although He told them numerous times, Christ’s disciples never understood that Christ would rise on the third day. But God did. On the dawn of Easter Sunday, God’s mightiest angel descended directly to the tomb in a blinding flash of lightning. Satan’s legions of angels on guard, scattered in all directions. The flash of light and bolt of thunder caused a great earthquake and the Roman guard to fall as dead men about the tomb. With his little finger the angel flipped away the massive rock covering the tomb.

The angel called in a death-defying voice: “Your Father is calling You!” Christ immediately stood up. The grave clothes fell from his glorified body, and he strode out of the tomb, a conqueror.

The angel sat down on the rock he had flipped aside just as Christ’s devout women followers came up to the tomb, carrying embalming ointment. They peered into the empty tomb and then turned a questioning eye towards the mighty angel.

The angel spoke to the women. ‘You must not be afraid,’ he said. ‘I know you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. ⁶ He is not here; he has been raised, just as he said. Come here and see the place where he was lying. ⁷ Go quickly now, and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from death, and now he is going to Galilee ahead of you; there you will see him!’ Remember what I have told you.’” (Matthew 28:5-7 GNT)

“The Lord is risen!” Our salvation is sure. Let us rejoice in our glorious future.

Dear Lord, we thank You and praise Your name for Your unconceivable sacrifice and Your marvelous love for us.

 

 

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[1] https://baptistspirituality.org/2014/04/24/the-day-after-easter-fear-and-joy/

Eaten by a Snake

 

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Matthew 10:16 Contemporary English Version

¹⁶  I am sending you like lambs into a pack of wolves. So be as wise as snakes and as innocent as doves.

 

When Dad was teaching at Helderberg College, we lived in one of their houses across the valley from the college. It was one of a row of five houses nestled in a peach orchard. On occasion the farm manger, Lionel Webster, would have the ground ploughed between the peach trees to keep the weeds down. On those occasions I would set out, barefoot, through the freshly ploughed clods to my friend John Raitt who lived next door.  I would take frequent, short steps and trample out a path we could use to visit each other.

On one such occasion, I came across a small snake. Much like young Gerald Durrell on Corfu, I was enamored by the wealth of plants and wildlife that flourished in the Western Cape of South Africa. I already knew about many of the venomous African snakes such as puff adders, cobras, and boomslangs. I didn’t even think of these snakes as I leaned over and picked this snake up by the tail. This one was clearly not one of those poisonous serpents.

I held it up by the tail, intrigued by three lumps under its skin, each about a handsbreadth apart from the other. The snake’s head was well off the ground, even though I was only about seven years old. I held it out at arm’s length and watched, entranced, as the little lumps slid slowly down the snake’s body towards its head. Suddenly the naked, slime covered, pink body of a baby mouse came out of the snake’s mouth and dropped gently to the ground. This tiny pink, furless mouse was galvanized into immediate action. It raced towards the nearest dark gap under the clods and disappeared from sight. Looking back at the snake I was delighted to see a second lump materialize into another naked pink body that also disappeared under the clods. The third lump followed suit.

I dropped the snake and knelt on the soft ground to see what had happened to the baby mice. They had totally disappeared. I have long since wondered how they could have lived in the body of a snake for who knows how long with no air and whether they died because they had no fur and so dried up into a frizzle or actually survived and lived the normal life of a mouse.

I also can’t help but think of how Satan is often compared to a snake. He wanders around doing his best to gobble up innocent souls. Then, sometimes, along comes a messenger of God and releases the soul to give it another chance at life. If we are fortunate to be released, do we dash away from Satan's fearsome grip?

Thank You, Lord, for freeing us from the pitiless clutch of Satan and aiding us as we dash away!

 

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[1] http://gallery.kingsnake.com/data/68690DCP_0757.JPG

Enough for Every Good Cause

 

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2 Corinthians 9:8 Good News Translation

⁸ And God is able to give you more than you need, so that you will always have all you need for yourselves and more than enough for every good cause.

 

For many years we lived like the poor. During our graduate study years, we had to borrow against future service just to pay the rent and eat. A bit later we went on food stamps for a while. In Africa, we were often living hand to mouth. For five years we couldn’t afford a car. At Atlantic Union College I took on a moonlighting job to enable us to buy a house—the cheapest we found on the market. During this time, we paid a full tithe, and never went hungry or naked or homeless.

Since then, God has increased our allowance steadily. When our last child finished college, we were able to channel that tuition amount into a retirement savings account. When we paid off our house, we were able to channel the house payment into the retirement account. In this fashion, although we had been unable to save for retirement initially, when we retired, we had a nest egg that has seen us through the first ten years of retirement without embarrassment.

Since retirement we have stepped out in faith at the Spirit’s urging and supported Bible translation in an ever-increasing amount. We have not shirked our tithing responsibility. Last year our charitable donations totaled over 50% of our adjusted gross income. Never before, even in our wildest imaginings, did we ever think God would make us capable of achieving this goal.

This year we have expected that Satan would redouble his efforts to stop our giving. In January we totaled our car and bought a newer one; inflation is making our retirement savings stretch over fewer of our needs. In spite of this we are relying on God’s promises, like this one in 2 Corinthians 9:8, and God’s amazing grace to meet our needs.

We are grateful, Lord, for Your promise to give us “enough for every good cause.”

 

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[1] https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2017/may/together-for-gospels-bible-translation-unity-illuminations.html

The Grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ

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2 Peter 3:9

Holman Christian Standard Bible

⁹ The Lord does not delay His promise, as some understand delay, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance.

When I was 12, I was sent off to boarding school. Up until that time I had led a very sheltered life. I attended a preparatory school connected with a college where Dad was a very respected teacher. Over the next six years I picked up my “street smarts.” Originally I found it expedient to stand up for the opinions of the authorities. I regarded their rules, their opinions, their decisions as sacrosanct.

This submersion in boarding school was like taking large helpings of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Being a somewhat normal if nerdy teenager, I tried lots of forbidden things just for the kicks. I tried alcohol and tobacco, shoplifting, and other obvious sins. Worse, I learned subterfuge, deceit, and general distrust of the establishment.

The establishment had taught me the legal aspects of Christianity. They taught me to read inspiration their way. Their way supported church authority at all costs. Therefore I read the Bible with their interpretation. I read the Spirit of Prophecy with their interpretation. Everything I read showed me how evil I had become. Indeed, I quickly recognized that I was damned. Furthermore, there was no way I could change that status.  This led me deeper and deeper into a sinful, lawless life. My fellow students were quick to urge me on in my descent towards hell.

But God had decided to defeat the triumph of Satan and evil over my life. He led me to Germany. I went there to learn German—at another boarding school. This time my fellow students were all German. Knowing no German initially, I felt cut off from my fellow humans. To compensate, I attended a Sunday church on the American military base and joined its choir, merely for companionship. They spoke English, so we could understand each other.

These new friends came from all walks of life and all religious persuasions. Some came to church for exactly the same reason as I had—for companionship. They had as little Christianity as I did. Others came because they loved Jesus and wanted fellowship with other Christians. One of these made it his mission to introduce Jesus to me.

Yes, I knew Jesus. He carried around a big black book with all of my misdeeds in it underlined in red. He was seeking to punish me for all of my evil thoughts and actions. This new Jesus I now met was a savior. At first, I didn’t really know what that word “Savior” meant. But with long patience, this missionary taught me. He had a very simplistic understanding of Jesus, even childlike. But that’s exactly what Jesus had declared as essential to being a Christian. Finally I accepted this new concept of Jesus. Then I spent many years unlearning what my early training had so successfully drummed into every facet of my psyche. I was not doomed but, praise God, forgiven and a child of God.

Thank You, Lord, for working out things for good. Help me to communicate this with those You bring to me.

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[1] https://www.westminster.org.uk/school-life/pastoral-care/boarding/

He Is Risen!

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Matthew 27:65-66

Common English Bible

⁶⁵ Pilate replied, “You have soldiers for guard duty. Go and make it as secure as you know how.” ⁶⁶ Then they went and secured the tomb by sealing the stone and posting the guard.

 

During Easter time this year, I thought again about the burial and resurrection of Christ. Interestingly, Jesus enemies remembered clearly that Christ had predicted He would rise again on the third day—None of the disciples remembered it. His enemies went to Pilate and persuaded him to post a guard around the tomb of Christ. Even Satan himself wanted Christ to be forever entombed. He was hurting worse than ever before in his long evil history because he knew Christ had totally and irrevocably defeated him. Satan posted his demons around the tomb. The Sanhedrin and Pilate posted 100 soldiers of the most powerful nation on earth about the tomb. They sealed it with a Roman seal. There was no way on earth that Christ would ever see the light of day again.

But the rules of battle had changed. Things were no longer restricted to Christ’s humanity alone. One mighty angel of God showed up in full battle garb and nudged the massive stone cover aside. The soldiers all fell as though dead. The invisible demons from hell fled in chaotic disarray. Christ came forth from the tomb resplendent in divine power.

I am reminded of an experience on a miniature scale. In rural East Africa driver ants, each about a quarter of an inch long, can be found. They make “roads” through the bush and travel these roads by the thousands. They have been known to strip the flesh off an animal in a night. One evening they chose to go into the Conway’s home and clean it out. John Conway came to ask me for help. By the time I got there, there were several thousand ants milling around wildly on their concrete back porch. They must have been three-quarters of an inch thick, and they kept coming by the thousands. I went in and sprinkled kerosene on them and lit it. The whole floor burnt for some five minutes. When the flames went out, the ants continued to pour onto the porch. The Conways had to keep sweeping them out of the kitchen and back onto the porch. In their vast numbers, the ants calculated that they had us beat.

And they did—except for one thing: fire from above! I repeated the sprinkle-with-kerosene-and-light-it tactic, time and time again. This went on for most of the night. We must have burnt several hundred thousand ants that night. Since the colony of driver ants is not infinite, eventually we destroyed them. We stood there and laughed as they were completely incinerated by this fire from above, for which they had no defense.

The Psalmist describes the heavenly reaction to puny human and demonic attempts to keep Christ in the tomb: “From his throne in heaven the Lord laughs, and mocks their feeble plans” Psalm 2:4 (GNT).

Thank You, Lord, that You have beaten the devil, and Your triumphant and vigilant army is protecting me and everyone else who asks You to do so.

 

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[i] https://www.funeralwise.com/digital-dying/death-by-ants-from-africa-and-australia-to-florida/