Dem Bones, Dem Bones…Ezekiel 37 and Israel

Posted: January 30, 2020 in Christian, Life and Memories
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I have recently been thinking about some of my favorite bible stories from my childhood and this one had an accompanying song about the same subject but I can’t seem to recall how the song went…oh well…

The story was written by the prophet Ezekiel, and the book of Ezekiel is a hugely interesting volume as he paints awesomely descriptive pictures with words as well as some extremely precise end-time prophecy, however, Ezekiel chapter 37 stands out as the format of one of my favorite bible stories as a child.

In this particular chapter Ezekiel writes of a weird story of a bunch of bones that go though a sort of progressive reversal entropy as they reassemble from dry bones into whole human shells lying there awaiting the breathe of The Lord to complete the process of bringing them to life. I have decided to approach this review of the chapter from a sectional viewpoint, separating it into two main sections.

Ezekiel 37 verse one through verse ten could be a description of any one of us. Most of us have been self-absorbed within our own humanity at some point in our lives and have turned our backs on God and His Word while dallying and dancing with Satan, whether we realize it or not. I know many feel that life is full of gray areas, but it is clearly and simply black and white, according to Christ in Matthew 12:30 “He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad. (NKJV) Whenever the latter is the case, we are spiritually dead and as dry as kindling in the wastelands of our own self-worth and self justification without the Lord, just as these dry bones lying in the valley. Ezekiel tells us in verse 1 the Lord sat him down in the midst of the valley. My mind goes in weird directions sometimes and when I saw this I instantly wondered, “what valley?”. From a personal standpoint, I’ll call it the Valley of the Shadow of Death and since Ezekiel was with the Lord, he obviously feared no evil. When we are away from the protection of the grace of The Lord, we are lost and evil overtakes us and sucks the life right out of us until we are no more than piles of bones amidst the dusty remains of our former selves. Only the grace of Our Lord can reassemble our spirit and breathe the breath of his grace back into us, making us whole.

Anyway, there are more verses to this chapter than 1, and the description from verses one through ten is just pure fun. Continuing with verse two, Ezekiel continues describing what he sees in this valley full of bones, as the Lord has him walk amongst those remains. Verse three finds the Lord asking Ezekiel a rhetorical question and then tells him to prophesy to this very odd crowd, explaining to him what to say. When Ezekiel begins to prophesy, the weirdly fun portion of the chapter come leaping at us as the whitened, dried bones begin to physically react to the prophecy of the Lord culminating in them coming to life after the Lord breathed life into them, creating a massive army. Suddenly, the chapter does an about face as the Lord explains the meaning of the chapter through his prophet Ezekiel starting in verse 11: Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, Our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off!’ (NKJV) and continuing through the rest of the chapter. A good summary can be had from verses 21 and 22: “Then say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: “Surely I will take the children of Israel from among the nations, wherever they have gone, and will gather them from every side and bring them into their own land; “and I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king over them all; they shall no longer be two nations, nor shall they ever be divided into two kingdoms again. (NKJV). If we reflect on the history of Israel as the Holy Spirit has given us, we know that the nation went from the leadership of Moses and Joshua and then went through several regional judges until their first king Saul, then on to kings David and Solomon. After Solomon they had a civil war and the kingdom split and the people eventually were killed or taken into captivity. Therefore, what Ezekiel is quoting is future events and end-time prophecy that is still to come. OK, to continue.

Isaiah 11:11 It shall come to pass in that day [That] the Lord shall set His hand again the second time To recover the remnant of His people who are left, From Assyria and Egypt, From Pathros and Cush, From Elam and Shinar, From Hamath and the islands of the sea. (NKJV) reiterates the same thing; that The Lord is not finished with Israel and even though they disobey and take idiocy to operatic levels as has been proven by their history1, The Lord has punished but still loves his first chosen children.

We within the Christian community in this gentile era need to get over our “look at us…we have Christ and are so special and you had your chance and screwed up” mass ego trip that many denominations hammer at from their pulpits Sunday after Sunday and realize that we are, at best, an opening act while the real performers warm up in the wings. At the worst we are a traveling side show that the Lord gracious has allowed to perform…lets hope we don’t get booed off the stage, regardless which we turn out to be.

God Bless, Jim
1-30-20

1 I’m not Israel bashing, if you look at our compressed history compared to their few thousand years, we are extremely more stupid than they.

Is our reality nothing but a sim game?

Posted: January 26, 2020 in Christian, My view of the world
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I personally have come to the conclusion from reading the scriptures as well as biblical commentaries and also from physical evidence we can see and derive about our universe, that our existence is nothing but a huge sim game. Quantum physics proves that our local reality is just that…a reality that only exists only within the boundaries of the physical universe and outside of those physical limits, our reality that we so glibly refer to as the real world, ceases to exist (something in quantum physics called the Planck length…Neils Bohr and Albert Einstein also spoke about these boundaries). Therefore, from this observation, the eerie, sort of smokey and mysterious reality we refer to as the “spirit world” suddenly takes on much more significance, for there are inferences and direct references all throughout the bible about how we are pawns in the spiritual warfare taking place all around us. The book of Job is a microcosm and a cliff-note version of the rest of the scriptures including the behind-the-scene script of Satan. The prophet Daniel was given a glimpse by the angel of the massive warfare going on and a hint of the demonic forces behind the world powers. Isaiah asked for his servant’s eye to be opened so he could see a small example of the army of the Lord that was present but unseen. The Psalms are riddled with pictures of how we are helpless without the Lord, and his immediate protection from the evil that is intent on destroying us. There are many more examples of the ultimate reality of the multi-dimensional world of our Lord, but I feel those example above are enough to prove my point.

God bless, Jim

1-25-20

Is Cain a model of Israel?

Posted: January 26, 2020 in Christian
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I’ve been familiar with the story of Cain and Abel all my life but until I really started re-exploring the Holy Word of our Creator and Savior, I never actually noticed or really paid close attention to what I was reading or what I was being taught. In the past, I would read the scriptures much as one would read a required novel in school for credit; without a lot of enthusiasm or joy, but simply reading the words to get a bare-bones grasp of it in case I was tested. Now when I read the tragic tale of these two brothers, I see a lot more than I ever did before, somewhat similar to looking at an old familiar picture you have glanced at all your life but suddenly noticing the background scenery in that old picture for the first time.

Before we delve into the story of Cain and Abel, I want to mention that Genesis covers a huge chunk of time, especially in the early chapters and I want to point out a few things that show there are a lot of small items not covered but implied that are easy to miss if you’re not looking for them. For instance, the scripture doesn’t explicitly mention that Adam and Eve had a lot of kids. In fact Genesis 4 opens with the statement in verses 1 and 2 that Adam and Eve had Cain and Abel, but Genesis chapter 4 implies in verse 14 when Cain mentions there will be a price on his head for murdering Abel that there at least a few other siblings. Also as a side note, we find in chapter 4 verse 2 the first mention of sheep in the bible. The fact that Abel was a keeper of sheep, implies God had created sheep to be domesticated and kept, watched after and protected from the beginning of our existence after the fall. I believe we as students of the Most Holy Tome ever written need to be sensitive to these hidden constructs.

To get back to our story, as we read Genesis chapter 4 we see what seems to be a test for the boys from their version of a Grandfather…The Lord. It’s as he is seeing what they have learned from his lessons He has been teaching them. An example of one of these lessons is a subtle lesson in Genesis 3:21 that God shed innocent blood to provide covering and protection for them by clothing their parents with animal skins that replaced the paltry, unacceptable cover of leaves from the plants of the ground, and that The Lord expects an offering in kind to remind of what he has, and will do for us to protect us (the first instance of shedding of blood for our protection and salvation). It is revealed to us in verse 4 and 5 that Abel offers a fat firstborn lamb and Cain offers the fruits of his toiling the ground. Verse 5 also tells us that The Lord accepted Abel’s offering but rejected Cain’s. Afterward, Cain got angry and his mood darkened but God called him off to the side and explained to him why he had accepted Abel’s offering in the manner of a life lesson. When I first read this, I was of the mind that Cain had probably accepted God’s chastisement and explanation and then maybe Abel started goading him and Cain’s anger got the better of him…but…what if his mood stayed dark and he brooded and he didn’t actually accept God’s chastisement and decided to get even with his pure, sweet, innocent brother? (this is basically the version I was raised with; the evil, malevolent Cain and the jury is still out on his motive and I’m not sure the latter one works for me). I think his attitude matters because of the Lord’s reaction to the murder of his brother. The Lord could have struck him down and told Adam and Eve to produce even more offspring, but he didn’t. Instead, he punished Cain by cursing the fruits of his labor, forcing him to have to work harder and banished him from his family. When Cain in verse 14 complained that his siblings would hunt him down like a dog and exact revenge (another inference…the eye-for-an-eye rule that the Israelites would practice later on), the Lord could have said, “well Bub, you should have thought of that before you started going around committing murder!”…but he didn’t. He made sure no harm would befall Cain from his apparent siblings and he made sure he was protected by placing a mark of protection on him for all to see..does that sound like a reaction the Lord would have if it were a malevolent, premeditated, cold-blooded murder? After Cain was exiled to the land of Nod, Cain’s descendants, whose name meaning are reverential towrd the Lord, later went on to serve the Lord. It sounds like the lessons the Lord was impressing on Cain stuck and was passed down by Cain to his offsprings.

So this is the way I think this may have played out…verse 8 tells us Cain and Abel were talking about the whole sacrifice thing out in the fields and (knowing brothers) Abel probably started bragging about his sacrifice and goading Cain, and then Cain, most likely in a fit of rage, killed him. Seeing what he had done, he buried Abel trying to hide the evidence. Of course when you kill a major percentage of the Earth’s population in one fell swoop1, it would be hard not to notice the loss even if you weren’t God. Obviously, since God happens to be the omnipresent creator of the universe, He noticed. So God caught him, questioned him, punished him and banished him. There are multiple lessons to be learned here, but let’s just concentrate on a couple of major ones.

The first lesson to be learned is the acceptable sacrifice to the Lord. God explained to Cain that the spilling of blood of the healthy firstborn sheep is what is required to defeat sin. Genesis 4:7 If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee [shall be] his desire, and thou shalt rule over him. (KJV) Even more than that he also reminded him that Satan, the author of sin, wasn’t satisfied with deceiving Eve (which I’m sure Cain knew all about), but he was swirling all around them at all times like an evil wind, looking for an opening to blow their barriers away, exposing their weaknesses and frailties much like predators stalking the sheep in his brother’s fold. This is the second inference in the scriptures of the pattern, or model, of the need for the shedding of innocent blood to protect us and to help keep sin away from the door of our soul. Because Cain wasn’t protected by the offering of the acceptable sacrifice, he as was vulnerable to the evils of Satan as a sheep outside the fold is vulnerable to wolves, and regardless of motive or intent, he ended up committing sin by murdering his brother.

A second lesson to be learned from this chapter is the Lord’s reaction to the sin. We are told that Cain murdered his brother. In many societies this is punishable by death, but the Lord has a peculiar reaction to this apparent heinous crime. He shows compassion and grace to Cain. In this way, Cain is a model of us humans that blow it on a daily basis, but are saved through the Lord’s compassion and grace.

Thirdly, I believe Cain is a model or type of Israel. Much the same way Cain caused the death of Abel and was shown mercy and was given protection from those who would do him harm even while exiled. Israel, even though they were responsible for plotting the death of the Son of God, God punished them in an odd way for this heinous act, he blinded them but is also protecting them from those wanting to eradicate them until he brings them back into the fold, which is according to Paul in Romans 11:25 until the fullness of the Gentiles come in. After that event, Israel will once again take center stage in the world’s arena.

God Bless, Jim

revised 1-25-20

1 Think about this…(to throw a number out there) if there were 10 kids and Adam and Eve, that’s a population density of 12 people. You knock off one of them, you have just decimated 8% of the population of the world…

Cain’s sacrificial mistake…was it self-reliance?

Posted: January 26, 2020 in Christian
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Recently, I started thinking about Cain, Abel and the first recorded sacrifice, and I believe that Cain’s sacrificial mistake was primarily based upon not really paying attention to the desires, wants and needs of the Lord.

The common viewpoint I was taught early on is that Abel’s sacrifice was accepted because his sacrifice was based solely on faith, while Cain’s sacrifice was borne from his reliance upon his own works. I don’t believe that to be the case, because even though Cain was a farmer and did produce a sacrifice from the toils of his labor, Abel was a shepherd and therefore also produced a sacrifice from the toils of his labor also.

From the very beginning of the scriptures, we read that God teaches us about the importance of the shedding of blood. This early in man’s existence, that was something odd, as all people were vegetarians and were not allowed to kill animals for sustenance. The first inference of the necessity of the shedding of blood was when God clothed Adam and Eve with skins. He could have whipped the skins up out of thin air, but that is not probable, so the Lord would have killed an animal for the purpose+ of using the skins as coverings. This act also would have been the first example of a sacrifice and I believe it would have most likely been the skin of a sheep, since that was most probable purpose for them at this time.

For most of my life, I was taught to be self-reliant in all things, It wasn’t until the Lord saved me that I slowly started to learn that self-reliance is not the way to go, but to rely on the Lord in all things is how I should be living my life. That was a very tough lesson for me to learn, and the knowledge did not come over night. Cain was a farmer and to offer the toils of his labor would have been the natural thing to do. I do not know how the Lord attempted to explain his expectations to them, but apparently it went in one ear and out the other with Cain. I have lived most of my life as Cain did in his early years and when I look back I would have been a whole lot better off if I had relied upon the Lord instead of myself. The automatic nature of my “natural man” is to take on the burdens of life myself and to be self-reliant. The way I prevent that thought process is to constantly remind myself of the innumerable ways the Lord keeps blessing me and where I was when I relied upon my self, as compared to where I am when I rely upon the Lord

While I am on the subject of Cain, I feel the way Cain is portrayed in the scriptures, leads to an unfair assessment of him through potential translation errors, for he is lumped in with the “ungodly”, a term that creates completely awful connotations with us, however the Greek word simply means a lack of reverence toward God. Of course Cain went on to commit murder, (later in the scriptures we read that David was guilty of this sin also, but the Lord viewed David as a man after His own heart) but the Lord made sure he was unharmed, even though he was banished to the land of Nod. I believe Cain repented and asked for forgiveness at some point, for when we look at the meanings of the names of Cain’s descendants in the Hebrew, we find he named them names that were reverential toward God.

Jim

Is America a post-Christian nation…are Christians to blame?

Posted: December 11, 2019 in Christian, My view of the world
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During the middle of the twentieth century, it was common for preachers in America to teach about how we were blessed to live in such a God-fearing nation, a nation born with a freedom to worship our Lord, Jesus Christ as we desired without interference from the government. This sentiment was echoed in our schools, the halls of Justice, The White House and Congress.

Today, as we look around, it’s glaringly obvious to see that the America we currently live in is not the America of my youth. What has happened to our God-fearing nation? We as conservative, God-fearing Americans happened, or rather, we didn’t happen. The voting citizens of this great nation became so comfortable with our easy lifestyle and we as Christians (or people like me who turned his back on Christ) became so apathetic in our belief that this nation would never reject God, that we decided that someone else would take care of things as we grilled and played sports and watched television in the comfort of our cushy existence. We, the conservatives and Christians of America let the erosion of the culture of conservatism happen right under our noses. The American Christians have been like the proverbial frog placed in tepid water that is boiled alive before he realizes what happened. We allowed Satan to create holidays promoting the occult and demonology right under our noses as we blindly voted for his minsters and those at his beck and call. We allowed Satan to invite himself into lives and our government offices a step at a time while we smiled and welcomed him in, one vote at a time, and then went back to munching our popcorn and watching our movies while he silently and skillfully manipulated our lives with lies and deception behind our backs like a quiet, effective slow acting poison.

In the 1960s when elected radicals like Madeline Murray O’Hare appeared on the American political scene and became instrumental in influencing the United States federal courts into enforcing legislation that forced public schools to stop reading the bible, where was the tidal wave of public outcry to force the courts to reverse their decision? There was a small murmuring but we were generally politically quiet. When the famous 1973 landmark court decision named Roe VS Wade was enacted, forcing all American taxpayers to fund the legalized murder of our children, where was the explosion of conservative Christians voices to force the lawmakers to create amendments to the State Constitution to override the Court’s decisions? It wasn’t there, or at least it wasn’t loud enough or forceful enough to be heard, for it would have taken more effort to fight this baby-killing, population-control legislation than most Americans were willing to exert.

One of my father’s favorite sayings was, “the squeaky wheel gets the grease”. Agnostic and atheistic anti-Christian groups have been allowed to dictate law and legislation on the state and national levels of the American government, while the ‘silent majority’ sat back and kept their complaints and grumblings to themselves, to the point where the ‘silent majority’ is swiftly becoming a ‘silent minority’ and we are no longer considered a “Christian Nation” as was proudly stated by former president of our nation, Barack Obama. I recall listening to an interesting radio interview in 2001 where the guest stated, “for the aberrant to become normal, what is considered normal has to be marginalized.”. That was a very interesting observation at the time and when I started thinking about the odd events that America accepted as “progression” during the Clinton administration, I became afraid that this was a foreboding of what was beginning to happen in America…little did I know that was just the tip of the iceberg.

It is now eighteen years later and if you are a conservative, a Christian, a constitutionalist today in America, you are considered the fringe elements of society and potential terrorists according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Look all around us, our government, schools and society today accepts the precepts of all world religions with the exception of two; Christianity and Judaism.

Where personal responsibility and respect used to be the norm, they have now been replaced with; “I’m not responsible for anything”, “the government will take care of it” and “I’ll sue you if I become offended,”. People grew up feeling safe and didn’t lock their doors, now they are afraid to walk down the street. Our youth used to respect the laws, now it is a badge of pride if you’ve been arrested for a violent crime. We as a nation have forgotten our heritage as Israel did, and the bible brings the parallel between Israel and America to light in the following scriptures in Deuteronomy and also in Hosea: Deuteronomy 32:18-22” You neglected the Rock who begot you, And forgot the God who gave you birth. “The LORD saw this, and spurned them Because of the provocation of His sons and daughters. “Then He said, ‘I will hide My face from them, I will see what their end shall be; For they are a perverse generation, Sons in whom is no faithfulness. ‘They have made Me jealous with what is not God; They have provoked Me to anger with their idols. So I will make them jealous with those who are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation, For a fire is kindled in My anger, And burns to the lowest part of Sheol, And consumes the earth with its yield, And sets on fire the foundations of the mountains.(NASV) Hosea 4:1-3 Hear the word of the LORD, You children of Israel, For the LORD brings a charge against the inhabitants of the land: “There is no truth or mercy Or knowledge of God in the land. By swearing and lying, Killing and stealing and committing adultery, They break all restraint, With bloodshed upon bloodshed. Therefore the land will mourn; And everyone who dwells there will waste away With the beasts of the field And the birds of the air; Even the fish of the sea will be taken away. (NKJV)

I fear unless we learn from history and this once great nation makes a sudden change of course, we will go the way of the northern kingdom of Israel and be destroyed because we have already far surpassed it in corruption and idol worship. For example: from within our schools and from the seats of government, United States citizens are being inundated by scholars and elected representatives on a daily basis and we are slowly being forced to accept that homosexuality is an acceptable alternate lifestyle and the current iteration of ‘civil rights’, while at the same time, the God of Israel and Christianity for all practical purposes, have been rendered illegal in the United States. Today modern science wholly rejects the reality of creation as a silly myth and has replaced it with absurd and unprovable theories to elevate their religion of randomness while denouncing the Christian God. The bible has a few words to say about where we as a nation are currently in Paul’s letter to the Romans where God passes specific judgment upon nations and cultures that rejects the creation: Romans 1:18-32 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them. (NASV)

This passage from Romans sounds like it was written specifically for America where we have already been given over to our degrading passions and depraved minds. Also, about the attitude of the Scientific community and it’s arrogant attitude about the scriptures it has this to say: II Corinthians 2;14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know [them], because they are spiritually discerned. (KJV)

Why hasn’t America been judged yet? I agree with Chuck Missler‘s opinion on why the United States hasn’t been judged and conceivably, it is because of this passage in Genesis. We are basically alone in the world in our support of Israel, and that support is quickly slipping away. Genesis 12:2-3 And I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing; And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.” (NASV)

What can we do to turn things around? This scripture from Chronicles, even though it was given by The Lord to King Solomon regarding Judea, tells us that there may still be hope, but we, as people who are called by His Name, have to become diligent in our plea to the Lord and we also have to become diligent in our self-examination of our sins and shortcomings. II Chronicles 7:14 “if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. (NKJV)

I personally have to rely on the Lord and the Holy Spirit to teach me to become much more diligent than I have ever been. I saw an email in the fall of 2010 relating to the November elections. It stated that every evening at 8 PM, central time, Christian should devote a few moments to create a mass prayer for our nation and the candidates. I thought it was a wonderful idea, but I couldn’t seem to find the discipline to set aside, even that small amount of time. Before the 2016 elections there were signs around asking folks to prayat4.com for our nation. As has been proven by the lack of interest and the massive amount of inaction on the part of purported Christians in America over the last several decades, we are our own worst enemy, or, to quote Walt Kelly: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”.

Jim Bussell

updated 10-29-20

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