Category: Ramblings

Heb 11:1

Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.

Faith, as in the context of the whole chapter of Heb 11, is hoping for SOMETHING. What is this ultimate SOMETHING ? It is given in verses 13 to 16. Today, we hope to receive many perishable things in life but of what profit ? Isn’t one wiser to live for imperishable things to COME. “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” ― Jim Elliot.

So what is this SOMETHING ? Heb 11:13 All these people died still believing what God had promised them. They DID NOT RECEIVE what was promised, but they SAW IT all from a distance and welcomed it. They agreed that they were foreigners and nomads here on earth. 14 Obviously people who say such things are looking forward to a country they can call their own. 15 If they had longed for the country they came from, they could have gone back. 16 But they were looking for a better place, a HEAVENLY HOMELAND. That is why God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

It is God’s original intent to let man had dominion over the earth and to enjoy all the prosperity it had to offer. God led His people Israel to a land flowing with milk and honey. Deut 8:7-10.
So why did our Lord pronounce woe to the rich and blessing to the poor ? Luke 6:20,24. And He added that it is harder for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of heaven.
Sin changed everything and brought curse to us and the whole creation as well. He foreknew when Israel settled down and built houses in the Promised Land, they would forget Him. Deut 8:11-14.
We are no longer able to handle prosperity in this fallen world and in our fallen nature. If we are able, there will not be poverty as we will perfectly love one another and share with one another. Covetousness and selfishness are here to stay till Christ comes again.
But God’s original grand plan will not be frustrated. He will renew the earth and sanctify us as a people for His Son holy and Christ-like to be His citizens again in His coming renewed heaven and earth. Eph 1:3-5.
Meanwhile in this present age, we are exhorted to live as exiles like the heroes of faith and to desire a better country (a heavenly one). And if we still love the country we have resolved to leave behind, we have never left in the first place ! Be warned ! Heb 11:13-16.
So any teacher who comes and tell you that abundant life in this present age is an abundance of every good thing in life, you know he is a false teacher because Jesus our Lord said that life does not consist in the abundance of things and we should store treasure in heaven rather than on earth now. So don’t try to find your own life now or you will lose it. But lose it for Christ’s sake and you will find it.
Let’s endure for a little while. Christ is coming very soon. When Christ appears, all our human aspiration will be realized. Nothing right now can be compared to the coming glory in Him.

Luke 13:1-5

2 tragedies are mentioned in Luke 13:1-5 – one massacre atrocity of Galilean worshippers by Pontius Pilate and an accident calamity of the collapse of a tower killing 18 people – which would be similar to the ISIS atrocities and the natural calamities of tsunamis, earthquakes and plane crashes today. It was natural for the people to ask Jesus our Lord to make some sense of such tragedies.

How do we usually react to such news of atrocity or calamity ?

Most will call for prayer mostly to comfort the loved ones of the deceased. But over time as I have noticed now, fatigue and familiarity set in and even call for prayer and assistance has lessened much. To be frank, sometimes I suspect it is merely a knee-jerk Christian response to show some concern and religious piety.

What should be our appropriate response as advocated by our Lord in Luke 13:1-5 ?

In my opinion, firstly our Lord seemed to emphasize that we should be more concerned with eternal life and death than physical life and death. Secondly, it was a warning that we should repent quickly without hesitation before similar calamity befall us suddenly and we are robbed of the last chance to repent. The Jews living then would face their own tragedy in AD 70.

We are now living in the beginning of the birth pangs and we should expect an exponential increase of disasters as told by our Lord. Luke 21: 10-11.  Though calamities such as major earthquakes will have heavy death toll and is likely to be flashed on TV and bringing home the agony of suffering, we often do not realize that there is daily tragedy of a bigger magnitude.

For example, the 2008 Sichuan earthquake might have killed 70,000,  but 110,000 died on the roads of China, 70,000 committed suicides and another few hundred thousand die of preventable illnesses yearly in China. Shouldn’t the church in China or everywhere be more concerned with the vagaries of life and lost souls every day instead of allowing our emotions to be stirred up by the media disproportionately ?

I do grieve over such senseless tragedy but it galvanizes me to witness and share about spiritual preparation with even more urgency, since more hardship should be anticipated in greater intensity as the birth pains intensify in these last days.

Many will encounter the plague of mourning or hopelessness, famine and death in this last period of the last days. We are already seeing a tragic sizable number of suicides in churches today. Like what Mother Teresa said, the poor man died of starvation not because God did not help him but because we as the church did not help. Likewise for many who are suffering emotional oppression, it is our duty to share the gospel as well as relieving the oppressed and setting the captives free.

Let’s start praying for the less fortunate, the emotionally oppressed and the physically challenged in our midst with more urgency today and take action to help which will be more practical.

Postscript : However, do not get me wrong.  It is good that we pray for the sufferers suffering at the time of disaster and ask God to use us as vessels of hope as well.  (In the Sichuan and Tacloban disasters, we have prayed for relief in sending basic necessities and solar lamps directly to the disaster area which God provided so promptly.  All glory to His amazing grace forever !)   But not miss out the bigger picture of sharing the gospel with the unsaved in our midst with greater urgency and compassion.

God’s Grand Plan (Eph 1: 3-10) :

Before the foundation of the world, He is giving to His Son a redeemed and renewed people holy and Christ-like to be citizens in His divine and eternal kingdom.

God’s Sovereign Work (Titus 2:11-14) :

1. Jesus CAME to bring salvation for all people,
2. Jesus TRAINED us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live godly lives in the present age.
3. Jesus GAVE Himself to redeem us from sin and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

Christian’s Walk (1 John 2: 6) :

To walk as Jesus walked in
1. Love. John 15:13
2. Humility. Phil 2:5-8.
3. Endurance. Heb 12:1-3.
4. Service. John 13:12-15.
5. Mission. Luke 4:18.

Postscript : Coming to God not knowing what He wants but what we want, we will be missing the whole purpose of our lives.

Phil 4: 6-9

⁶ Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. ⁸ Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. ⁹ Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

Whenever we face trials, it is human to be anxious.  Anxiety will set in and we will feel the tremendous turmoil in our hearts. Though we may come to God and present our requests to Him,  we cannot help but to feel anxious and think about possible scenarios and solutions that we can undertake at the same time. It is easier said than done to just switch off the turmoil we have when we are facing ongoing trials.

We often overlook the exhortation in verses 8 and 9 to have noble, excellent or praiseworthy thoughts instead of negative thoughts.  And we should learn from the experience of St Paul and other heroes of faith on how they faced trials and still kept faith in God.  St Paul had his fair share of the harshest trials.  He had almost nothing and his hands had to minister to his own needs even if it was the menial work of tent making.

Allow me to share this personal testimony to show that God’s peace is so amazing and beyond understanding.  I pray it will encourage the brothers and sisters who are struggling with trials right now.

Many years ago when I had a business enterprise, I once had a bad debt of 200,000 US dollars.  It was almost as good as gone. I prayed for God to give me the peace.  I dare not ask for the recovery of debt but rather the peace to deal with it.  I knew the anxiety would definitely debilitate me. Over the next few months, I really had peace instead of turmoil.  I thought about His amazing grace and the blessings I had over the years.  Out of the blue, I received payment of 80% of the debt.  Later I learned that the US debtor had been admitted to a mental institution due to mounting debt and bankruptcy.  In another case, I bought and sold a batch of goods costing 60,000 US dollars and the parts were not made to correct specification which could not be salvaged. Again, I prayed for peace instead.  Again, I received payment for it incredibly.  Both situation could have wound up my enterprise.

I faced life threatening situation several times as well.  I dare not say that I have the same courage to say this like St Paul : “For me to live is Christ, to die is gain.”   But after I prayed and starting thinking about the ordeal of St Paul and other heroes of faith,  my thoughts would drift to the scenarios of these heroes meeting Jesus our Lord.  How would Jesus commend them ?   Would He commend them as faithful servants ?   What will heaven be like ?   The fears dissipated and turned to excitement instead.  Indeed, since we are surrounded by such a great crowd of witness, we should have the same faith and join them in traveling as exiles on earth and looking forward to this better country of God. (Heb 11 and 12).   I would think about how to make the most of the time left, and turned from the feeling of weakness to renewed strength instead by the grace of God.   I guess that is the comfort we often pray for others in similar situation.

Although I received a happy ending for the trials so far,  it was the peace given by God in my heart to deal with the trials that is so amazing.  I thought I would be so drained emotionally without any solution in sight.  But God did give me this peace to move on.  All thanks and glory to God.  Amen.

There is this following saying attributed to St Augustine : Essentials, unity; Non essentials, liberty; All things, charity.

It is a good summary of how we should deal with matter of truth and matter of conscience.

I will paraphrase as such : Matter of Truth, unity; Matter of Conscience, liberty; All matters, love.

There should be absolute unity concerning matter of truth or doctrine. Any deviation from the biblical truth will be considered as apostate belief. We cannot agree to disagree on matter of truth. For example, if we hold the belief that Christ is the only way and others hold the belief that there is several ways to God including Christ, we are not traveling on the same road together anymore.

But concerning matter of conscience, we can have liberty to agree to disagree. One good example is found in 1 Cor 8 concerning eating food offered to idols. For those with knowledge will know that idols are lifeless artifacts and there is only one God who is spirit. They can have the liberty to eat without asking question when invited by the pagans to join their feast with the food offered to idols. But for those without knowledge, thinking that the food is defiled, they can choose not to eat as food does not bring us any closer to God anyway. The only concern is not to stumble the weaker brother in insisting on the exercise of our rights. Obstinate insistence on the exercising of our rights causing the stumbling of the weaker brother is sinning against Christ. Be warned.

The overarching consideration in all matters is to deal with love. As long as we put the interest of others above ours, we are doing well as we are following the example of our Lord Jesus.

Phil 2: 3-11 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. 5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross! 9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Acts 8:9-24

Simon was another clear-cut example of one who professed faith in Jesus and was baptized, and yet had no saving faith. Evidence of the lack of saving faith were clear when Peter said :

1. He would end up in hell with his money.
2. He had no part in the ministry.
3. His heart was NOT right with God.
4. He had to REPENT and pray in the hope that Jesus would forgive !

The word Simony is derived from this story of Simon – just like how the word Sodomy came about from the story of Sodom – which is defined as the making of profit out of sacred things.

Today, the hyper grace false teachers are also making huge profit out of twisting the true gospel to pander to itching ears of followers who do not want to hear about a life of obedience and discipline in the Kingdom of God, especially REPENTANCE from a life led by sin into a life of holiness led by the Spirit. After Peter rebuked Simon of his sin and pointing out his illegitimate faith, there was no evidence that he had godly sorrow for his sin and repented as he only wanted Peter to pray for him to avoid the consequences of his sin.

Matt 23:8-12 NLT.

8 “Don’t let anyone call you ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one teacher, and all of you are equal as brothers and sisters.9 And don’t address anyone here on earth as ‘Father,’ for only God in heaven is your spiritual Father. 10 And don’t let anyone call you ‘Teacher,’ for you have only one teacher, the Messiah. 11 The greatest among you must be a servant. 12 But those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

Westminster Catechism 1647
“The self-same bodies of the dead which were laid in the grave, being then again united to their souls forever, shall be raised up by the power of Christ.”

It is so important that all believers must believe in the self-same bodies in Heaven. Without this belief of self-same body that we will have in Heaven, then what Hope is there in the realization of ideals by man as a truly and fully human being in the original image of God and resurrect with Christ again ?

Otherwise, the Word of God will be wrong to say, “For me to live is Christ, to die is gain” and we are the most to be pitied for we have turned our back in enmity with the world.
Let’s trust God wholeheartedly for this Hope that Christ had been resurrected and we will do the same one day and that He had already gone ahead to prepare the mansions for us.

Following are the quotes from eminent theologians and pastors expressing the same belief :

J C Ryle
“The man who is about to sail for Australia or New Zealand as a settler, is naturally anxious to know something about his future home, its climate, its employments, its inhabitants, its ways, its customs. All these are subjects of deep interest to him. You are leaving the land of your nativity,you are going to spend the rest of your life in a new hemisphere. It would be strange indeed if you did not desire information about your new abode. Now surely, if we hope to dwell forever in that “better country, even a heavenly one” we ought to seek all the knowledge we can get about it. Before we go to our eternal home we should try to become acquainted with it.”

Randy Alcorn
“The empty tomb is the ultimate proof that Christ’s Resurrection body was the same body that died on the cross. If Resurrection meant the creation of a new body, Christ’s original body would have remained in the tomb….This, then, is the most basic truth about our resurrected bodies. They are the same bodies God created for us, but they will be raised to greater perfection than we’ve ever known…It is like the new upgrade of my word processing software. When I heard there was an upgrade available, I didn’t say, “I have no idea what it will be like.” I knew that for the most part it would be like the old program, only better. Sure, it has some new features that I didn’t expect, and I’m glad for them. But I certainly recognise it as the same program I’ve used for a decade.”

Hank Hanegraff
“There is a one-to-one correspondence between the body of Christ that died and the body that rose.”

John Piper
“Christianity is not a platonic religion that regards material things as mere shadow of reality, which will be sloughed off as soon as possible. Not the mere immortality of the soul, but rather the resurrection of the body and the renewal of all creation is the hope of the Christian faith.”

Bruce Milne
“The Jesus who says, “Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have,”… this is the Jesus who draws back the curtain on the heavenly life and shows us what it will be like: embodied !”

John Updike
“Make no mistake: if he rose at all it was as His body, if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules reknit, the amino acids rekindle, the Church will fail. Let us not mock God with metaphor, analogy, sidestepping transcendence, making of the event as a parable, a sign painted in the faded credulity of earlier ages; let us walk through the door.”

R A Torrey
“We will not be disembodied spirits in the world to come, but redeemed spirits, in redeemed bodies, in a redeemed universe. If we don’t get it right on the resurrection of the body, we’ll get nothing else right. It’s therefore critical that we not merely affirm the resurrection of the dead as a point of doctrine but that we understand the meaning of the resurrection we affirm.”

Martyn Lloyd Jones
“Everything will be glorified, even nature itself. And that seems to me to be the biblical teaching about the eternal state that what we call heaven is life in this perfect world as God intended humanity to live it. When he put Adam in Paradise at the beginning, Adam fell, and all fell with him, but men and women are meant to live in the body, and will live in a glorified body in a glorified world, and God will be with them.”

A A Hodge
“Heaven, as the eternal home of the divine Man and of all the redeemed members of the human race, must necessarily be thoroughly human in its structure, conditions, and activities. Its joys and activities must all be rational, moral, emotional, voluntary and active. There must be the exercise of all the faculties, the gratification of all tastes, the development of all talent capacities, the realization of all ideals. The reason, the intellectual curiosity, the imagination, the aesthetic instincts, the holy affections, the social affinities, the inexhaustible resources of strength and power native to the human sould must all find in heaven exercise and satisfaction. Then there must always be a goal of endeavour before us, ever future….Heaven will prove the consummate flower and fruit of the whole creation and of all the history of the universe.”

Albert Wolters
“God hangs on to his fallen original creation and salvages it. He refuses to abandon the work of His hands – in fact, he sacrifices His own Son to save His original project. Humankind, which has botched its original mandate and the whole creation along with it, is given another chance in Christ; we are reinstated as God’s managers on earth. The original good creation is to be restored.”

Paul Marshall
“This world is our home: we are made to live here. It has been devastated by sin, but God plans to put it right. hence, we look forward with joy to newly restored bodies and to living in a newly restored heaven and earth. We can love this world becasue it is God’s, and it will be healed, becoming at last what God intended from the beginning….Our destiny is an earthly one: a new earth, an earth redeemed and transfigured. An earth reunited with heaven, but an earth, nevertheless.”

David Lloyd George
“When I was a boy, the thought of Heaven used to frighten me more than the thought of Hell. I pictured Heaven as a place where time would be perpetual Sundays, with perpetual services from which there would be no escape.”

C S Lewis
“The hills and valleys of Heaven will be to those you now experience not as a copy is to the original, nor as a substitute is to the genuine article, but as the flower to the root, or the diamond to the coal.”

T S Eliot
“I had far rather walk, as I do, in daily terror of eternity, than feel that this was only a children’s game in which all the contestants would get equally worthless prizes in the end.”

Matt 22:1-14 NLT.
Jesus also told them other parables. He said, 2 “The Kingdom of Heaven can be illustrated by the story of a king who prepared a great wedding feast for his son. 3 When the banquet was ready, he sent his servants to notify those who were invited. But they all refused to come! 4 “So he sent other servants to tell them, ‘The feast has been prepared. The bulls and fattened cattle have been killed, and everything is ready. Come to the banquet!’ 5 But the guests he had invited ignored them and went their own way, one to his farm, another to his business. 6 Others seized his messengers and insulted them and killed them. 7 “The king was furious, and he sent out his army to destroy the murderers and burn their town. 8 And he said to his servants, ‘The wedding feast is ready, and the guests I invited aren’t worthy of the honor. 9 Now go out to the street corners and invite everyone you see.’ 10 So the servants brought in everyone they could find, good and bad alike, and the banquet hall was filled with guests. 11 “But when the king came in to meet the guests, he noticed a man who wasn’t wearing the proper clothes for a wedding. 12 ‘Friend,’ he asked, ‘how is it that you are here without wedding clothes?’ But the man had no reply. 13 Then the king said to his aides, ‘Bind his hands and feet and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ 14 “For many are called, but few are chosen.”

The characters in this parable are easily identifiable. Israel was the invited guests and they turned down God’s invitation flatly. God in turn opened the invitation to the Gentiles. God was already displeased with the insolence of Israel and had ordered judgment. So God took issue with the further insolence of one who did not come to the wedding feast in proper attire showing how disrespectful he or she could be towards the invitation.

The parable is a serious reminder that though we accept the invitation to receive Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we cannot come in an insolent or indifferent attitude without repentance. We need to come with a repentant heart and a total commitment to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Him. God had gone through the ultimate sacrifice of giving His Son for our sins to appease His justice and wrath, it will be so insolent of us to come to Him without true contrition and repentance. That is a fool’s presumptuous false peace to think he is justified by coming to Jesus with selfish motives of seeking food, wealth, health and escape from hell fire.

In John 2:23-25, we learned that many began to believe in Jesus when they saw the miraculous signs He did. But Jesus did not trust them because He knew all about people. No one needed to tell him about human nature for He knew what was in each person’s heart. We can profess faith in Jesus but can He trust us if we come to Him only for selfish motives ?