Isaiah 6 Finished

I would like to finish Isaiah 6 today by looking at the call of Isaiah and the parallels to our call by God to ministry for him.

 ⁸Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.


I love this, we see after Isaiah confesses his sins and God forgives him, he is now ready for ministry. It is after Isaiah’s heart is right he is ready to work for God. This is Isaiah’s call to the ministry. I love that God asks him and he is ready to go right away.


 ⁹And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not.
 ¹⁰Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.


Here God is telling Isaiah that it will not be easy. He says the people will hear but not understand.  God says that people are fat and comfortable and are going to complain that his preaching will hurt their ears or is too long winded and they will shut their eyes and will not see the truth.  To all my preacher and missionary friends out there, does this sound like what is happening in our churches every Sunday?  Every time I preach or teach, at least one person will say I am too long winded.


 ¹¹Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate,
 ¹²And the LORD have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land.
 ¹³But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten: as a teil tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them, when they cast their leaves: so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof.

In these last verses we see that Isaiah is a little discouraged by what God had to say and ask how long he has to do this.  God’s answer is to the end.  I want to put that this is just like God’s call on all of our lives.  God is asking us to do something for him and people are not going to understand and will give you a hard time about doing God’s work.  And as our Awana Commander says all the time, I have never seen retirement in the Bible; just like these verses say, we are in it till the end. I know a lot of my readers are senior saints and even now you have several more years of ministry for the Lord, as we all do, we must persevere till the end.

In vs.13 there is one last idea, and in it God says there will be a tenth that shall return.  Isaiah is going to do all this work and preaching and he is only going to get a tenth of the people.  Just like today, we preach and work with many people and only have a small amount of people commit their lives for the Lord in return, but just like Isaiah we are called by God to do it anyway for His Glory.  We must persevere.  I have a hard time with preachers who say everything will be rosy when you become a Christian, this verse shows us that this is not true, but we are to work until the end.   

Isaiah 6:3 Continued

I would like to pick up were we left off last blog in Isaiah 6:3 it goes like this.
 ³And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.
Here is where the hymn Holy, Holy, Holy gets it start from this verse. You again have a picture of the Seraphim singing Holy, back and forth like a round. This is one of the places where people get the idea of angelic choirs. Also, we again see the idea that God is everywhere with the words “the whole earth is full of His glory”.
 ⁴And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke.
You see the power and grandeur again that the voices of the angels shake the temple so much the doorpost shake. We also get a unique picture here, the temple is filled with smoke. Smoke is a symbol of the Holy Sprit therefore; you have a picture of God and the Holy Sprit together. This is like the train we talked about earlier, how it filled the temple to show that God was everywhere. This is one of the jobs of the Holy Spirit,  to be everywhere, so God can be omnipresent.  
 ⁵Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.
Isaiah is admitting that he is a sinner. I have seen where this has been used to say that Isaiah was cussing and this verse used to denounce cussing. I am not saying that cussing is right, but this means much more. Isaiah is convicted of all of his sins because of being in the presence of the perfect, sovereign Lord not just cussing. This is hopefully how we are convicted of sin every Sunday when we come to church. The idea of unclean lips is more like how Isaiah has blasphemed (dishonored God) God in his words and actions. He also admits that the Jewish people have also done this. Isaiah is also scared because he has seen the Lord God and even God says that man cannot see Gods face and live. This is one way we know that this is a vision because Isaiah lives and does not die.
 ⁶Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar:
 ⁷And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.
Here we see the seraphim make atonement for Isaiah’s sin by burning his lips with the coal. As I pointed out earlier, this shows that the seraphim are the angelic beings that work with man. The angels are to help, guide, give messages, or just plan to urge us to do God’s will. 
Another point that is overlooked here sometimes is that immediately after Isaiah confesses his sin, God has his sins purged immediately. We need to realize that God gets rid of or sins immediately it is us that hold on to our sin or the Devil that tries to get us to remember our sin and convict us of it again and again. We must realize that our sins are forgiven and God remembers them no more.

Isaiah 6

I was humming “Holy, Holy, Holy” the other day, one of my favorite hymns, and it got me to thinking of one of my favorite chapters in the Bible; Isaiah 6. “Holy, Holy, Holy” is written with this chapter in mind. Therefore, for today’s blog let me try to explain it. 

Uzziah died in 740 B.C.

¹In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the LORD sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.
First of all, Uzziah was a good king of Israel and Isaiah was in the temple praying about how someone was going to replace this Godly king.  This is when Isaiah looks up and sees this vision of the Lord God. I want to try to give you a picture of this; the Mercy Seat, or the Ark of the Covenant was in the Temple, as I pointed out in my blog about the Temple

 For those of you that have not read that blog, if you remember the first Indiana Jones movie, the Ark of the Covenant is what they are chasing after for the entire movie. God said that He sat there in between the wings of the Cherubim on the Ark of the Covenant. That was His throne on earth. The whole temple was to be an earthly version of Heaven. So if Isaiah was transported in sprit to the Temple in Heaven, or that God came and indwelled the earthly temple so Isaiah could have a vision of Him, we do not know.  
Another word picture I want you to get is the verse that says God’s train fills the Temple. First, most ladies will pick up on the idea that the train is like the train of a fancy dress. One time when a train is important to a woman is on her wedding gown. This is the idea that is going on here, but the train is of God’s Royal Robe and it fills the temple. The Temple is no small place and the picture here is that God is so big that he takes up every little piece of the temple. It gives us the grandeur of God and the idea that He is big enough to be everywhere at once. 
 

 ²Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.
Now God adds to the picture. Let us first discuss Seraphim; most people would tell you that this is an angel and when they come to the word Cherubim, they would say that it is an angel, but there is more to it than that. These are both angelic beings, but have different functions. Seraphim, translated from Hebrew, means burning ones. This goes with every time you see an angel in the Bible, they describe it has having robes the glow or burn white. Seraphim are the angelic beings that deal with man. We see later that it is a Seraphim that takes a hot coal to Isaiah and burns his mouth to purge his sin. You see, the word Angel in Hebrew means messenger, therefore, the angel we see the most in the Bible is the Seraphim, because they deal with man.
Seraphim also do not look like the angels you see depicted in all the paintings, they have six wings. We also see the respect they have for God, the use two wings to cover their face, this is to shows that they do not even fell worthy to look upon God. With two they cover their feet, maybe a better translation of would be the lower part of there body to include what we would call private areas, if the angels have private areas. And the last pair they use to fly.  

What Was Paul's Vow

·         What was Paul's vow in Acts 18:18?
"And Paul after this tarried there yet a good while, and then took his leave of the brethren, and sailed thence into Syria, and with him Priscilla and Aquila; having shorn his head in Cenchrea: for he had a vow."

This is a very good question because that vow is very important to how Christianity was spread and influenced and how we got several books in the New Testament. Nevertheless, let’s start with the basics first. The vow that Paul is talking about is a Nazarite vow. We know this by the verse where it says that Paul had shorn his head. If you look at the requirements for ending a Nazarite vow, they had to shave their head and the hair was burned as a sacrifice unto the Lord. Please read below:

Numbers 6:13-21

King James Version (KJV)

 ¹³And this is the law of the Nazarite, when the days of his separation are fulfilled, he shall be brought unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation:

 ¹⁴And he shall offer his offering unto the LORD, one he lamb of the first year without blemish for a burnt offering, and one ewe lamb of the first year without blemish for a sin offering, and one ram without blemish for peace offerings,

 ¹⁵And a basket of unleavened bread, cakes of fine flour mingled with oil, and wafers of unleavened bread anointed with oil, and their meat offering, and their drink offerings.

 ¹⁶And the priest shall bring them before the LORD, and shall offer his sin offering, and his burnt offering:

 ¹⁷And he shall offer the ram for a sacrifice of peace offerings unto the LORD, with the basket of unleavened bread: the priest shall offer also his meat offering, and his drink offering.

 ¹⁸And the Nazarite shall shave the head of his separation at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and shall take the hair of the head of his separation, and put it in the fire which is under the sacrifice of the peace offerings.

 ¹⁹And the priest shall take the sodden shoulder of the ram, and one unleavened cake out of the basket, and one unleavened wafer, and shall put them upon the hands of the Nazarite, after the hair of his separation is shaven:

 ²⁰And the priest shall wave them for a wave offering before the LORD: this is holy for the priest, with the wave breast and heave shoulder: and after that, the Nazarite may drink wine.

 ²¹This is the law of the Nazarite who hath vowed, and of his offering unto the LORD for his separation, beside that that his hand shall get: according to the vow which he vowed, so he must do after the law of his separation.

You see a Nazarite had to do some very specific things to be a Nazarite. Please see below:

Numbers 6:2-8

King James Version (KJV)

 ²Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When either man or woman shall separate themselves to vow a vow of a Nazarite, to separate themselves unto the LORD:

 ³He shall separate himself from wine and strong drink, and shall drink no vinegar of wine, or vinegar of strong drink, neither shall he drink any liquor of grapes, nor eat moist grapes, or dried.

 ⁴All the days of his separation shall he eat nothing that is made of the vine tree, from the kernels even to the husk.

 ⁵All the days of the vow of his separation there shall no razor come upon his head: until the days be fulfilled, in the which he separateth himself unto the LORD, he shall be holy, and shall let the locks of the hair of his head grow.

 ⁶All the days that he separateth himself unto the LORD he shall come at no dead body.

 ⁷He shall not make himself unclean for his father, or for his mother, for his brother, or for his sister, when they die: because the consecration of his God is upon his head.

 ⁸All the days of his separation he is holy unto the LORD

Because of their vow, the Nazarite was whole unto God or they were to be doing the Lord’s work. The most famous Nazarite is Samson. In addition, because his hair was cut he no longer was a Nazarite; the Lord left him, and he lost his strength of the Lord. Please read the story in Judges 13-16.

 

Now that we have some background, we can see why Paul’s vow is so important. Paul needed to go back to Jerusalem to fulfill his vow of Nazarite; look again at Numbers 6:21”: according to the vow which he vowed, so he must do after the law of his separation” So Paul must return to Jerusalem and the temple to fulfill his vow. However, Paul is warned several times not to got Jerusalem.

Acts 20:22-23

King James Version (KJV)

 ²²And now, behold, I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there:

 ²³Save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me.

Acts 21:4
And finding disciples, we tarried there seven days: who said to Paul through the Spirit, that he should not go up to Jerusalem.

Acts 21:10-12

King James Version (KJV)

 ¹⁰And as we tarried there many days, there came down from Judaea a certain prophet, named Agabus.

 ¹¹And when he was come unto us, he took Paul's girdle, and bound his own hands and feet, and said, Thus saith the Holy Ghost, So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle, and shall deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.

 ¹²And when we heard these things, both we, and they of that place, besought him not to go up to Jerusalem.

Because of Paul’s vow, he went on to Jerusalem and was put in prison and the rest of the book of Acts is about this experience. However, God used this to help spread the Gospel. Because of Paul’s imprisonment, we got the books of Acts and Luke because Luke was a companion of Paul in prison. Most of Paul’s epistles were written while his was in prison. We would not have over half of the New Testament if Paul had not been put in prison. While in Rome, Paul also helped spread the Gospel. In the book of Acts, it talks about Paul teaching to all who would come hear him.

Acts 28:30-31

King James Version (KJV)

 ³⁰And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him,

 ³¹Preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him.

Now you can see why this vow is so important. We would not have most of the New Testament if Paul had not been compelled to return to Jerusalem to complete his Nazarite Vow. Most likely, he would not have been imprisoned and would have made missionary journeys until he died instead of being forced to reach out to the gentiles through his letters.

Wonderful Illustration

The other day I was in the car listening to some preaching, I heard a wonderful illustration, and I have to share it with you.

There is a Shepherd and he brings his flock to a babbling brook. As some of you who have been with me for a long time and read my series of blogs on the good Shepherd remember, sheep are dumb and are very scared of noise. That is why in the 23 Psalm God says he will lead them by the still waters. A sheep will not drink out of or cross a babbling brook; a sheep will drink out of a muddy hoof print rather than going near good clean water in a babbling brook. The Shepherd knowing this finds a suckling lamb of a leading sheep. He picks it up, lays it on his shoulders, and carries it across the babbling brook. Well, before you know it, the momma sheep was crossing over the babbling brook. Then here comes daddy sheep. Then slowly all the other sheep follow the leader sheep across the babbling book.

One of the hardest things in Christianity is why God allows bad things to happen to His good people. Most people question why, if God is all knowing and all-powerful, why He allows or even causes these things to happen. The only true answer is we must trust God because He is good, that He is doing what is best for us. I also believe with time you can possibly see some of the reasons why God does what he does.

For example, in 1969, I was a young boy, and my mom had a baby, Belinda, and she only lived a few hours. This was very devastating to our little family. I only remember my Daddy crying two times in my life and that was one of them. I remember it being a very hard time because I did not understand and if I tried to ask questions, it made my mother cry. (Which I am sure my mother is doing right now. Sorry mom, please finish the article.) Now, forty years later, I think I have a glimpse of some of the God's reasoning.

First, my sister also had her first child die at birth. My sister was in Tenn. at the time and my parents were here in Houston, but they packed up and were there for my sister and because they had lost a child too, they were able to help my sister in a very special way, because they had been through it. Then our youngest son was born prematurely, and his lungs were not fully developed, just like Belinda. My parents came through then too. They helped with our other children and they were there for us in more ways than I can count. Because of my parent's experience they were able to help their children live through the same thing.

Then there is the above-mentioned illustration. I had never really seen it before until I heard the illustration. You see, the preacher was using that illustration to show why Jesus will take a small child sometimes. You see the Shepherd is Jesus, and the small lamb is a small child. Jesus takes the small lamb to lead the whole flock to him. This is what also happened in my parents' case. The loss of Belinda caused my parents to move closer to Jesus. As in the illustration, my mother moved first, I will have to admit she was one of the biggest influences in my early Christian life. Then my father, and just like the illustration of the sheep, I am sure that there was a lot of influence from my mother. Now over forty years later, most of you do not know this, but my mother is taking seminary courses. She is the co-leader of her church's women's Bible study and teaches all the time. My parents hold a Bible study group in their house every Thursday that my dad helps teach. My dad also helps teach his Sunday school class. You see, now over forty years later, they are working on the flock, just like the illustration shows. Just like Paul says

Romans 8:28

King James Version (KJV)

 28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

I now have a small glimpse of what God's plan was.    

He suffered and died

Around this time of year when talking about Easter, we refer to the fact that Jesus suffered and died. We almost say this as a calisaya and do not really think about the pain, suffering and torture that Jesus endured. With today’s blog, I want to change that. I will lead you through a detailed look at what happened to Christ in those few hours leading to his death.

I must give credit where credit is due; I got most of the material for this blog from two sources. The first source was the book “The Day Christ Died” by Jim Bishop. The second source is an article in JAMA March 27, 1986. The article is by two M.D.s who look at the Biblical account of the Crucifixion of Christ and explain medically what happened to Him.

The first thing we need to look at is Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Luke 22:44

“And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”

Sweat turning to blood is a true medical condition called hematidrosis. This is where the capillaries (small blood vessels) break in the sweat glands and the blood mixes with the sweat making it look like the sweat has turned to blood. This is can be very dangerous, it can lead to low blood volume and even death. If a person does not die from hematidrosis, it affects the skin and makes it very susceptible to bruising, which in Jesus’ case is very important when He receives the whipping later.

Hematidrosis is also very rare, it only happens in very emotional states. We know Jesus was concerned about his death, but He was more concerned about the importance of His death for us. If Christ does not die, there is no atonement for our sin. Jesus literally had the whole world on his shoulders at that moment in time. This emotional stress is what causes the sweat to turn to blood. This really shows us how much Jesus loves us because of his concern for us. Jesus was thinking of you the reader right at that moment before you were even born. This is overwhelming for me.

The next important point in Jesus’ evening is His arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Luke 22:52-54

“Then Jesus said unto the chief priests, and captains of the temple, and the elders, which were come to him, be ye come out, as against a thief, with swords and staves? When I was daily with you in the temple, ye stretched forth no hands against me: but this is your hour, and the power of darkness. Then took they him, and led him, and brought him into the high priest’s house. And Peter followed afar off.”

It was very important that if a Roman solider was sent to arrest someone that they got their man and the man did not run away because if they were unsuccessful, the penalty was their life. Therefore, they were highly motivated to capture their man and not let him run. To prevent this they had worked out a very effective method. A roman solider would come up behind the man and wrap his arm around his neck quickly jerking backwards pulling the person off balance. As the person was stumbling backwards, the solider would stomp the instep of the person. In this time, Roman solider, had unique shoes or boots in that they would have taken nail and hammered through the bottom of their shoes to use like spikes just as a baseball player would today A solider needed to have good footing when fighting a battle and swinging his sword. Thus, the solider with nails in his shoes would cause great damage to the foot of the person being arrested and they could not run very fast. The soldiers would have done this to Jesus at His arrest and then they took him down the Mount of Olives across the city of Jerusalem to the high priest’s house on his bad foot.

The next torture they did to Christ was at the house of the high priest.

Luke 22: 63-64

“And the men that held Jesus mocked him, and smote him. And when they had blindfolded him, they struck him on the face, and asked him, saying, Prophesy, who is it that smote thee?”

You see here that Jesus was beaten by the Jewish guards while in the hands of the high priest.

Now we come to the most brutal of all of the tortures of Jesus when the Roman soldiers flogged him.

Matt 27:26-30

“Then released he Barabbas unto them: and when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified. Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the common hall, and gathered unto him the whole band of soldiers. And they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe. And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head, and a reed in his right hand: and they bowed the knee before him and mocked him, saying, Hail King of the Jews! And they spit upon him, and took the reed and smote him on the head.”

This passage quickly says they scourged Jesus, but this is a brutal beating designed to torture the person to be crucified and weaken them so they do not last as long on the cross. They would use what is called cat of nine tails. This is a small short whip. The soldiers were experts in using them for torture. The whips would have lead balls on the end that the soldiers would use first on the person’s back to make bruises and draw blood to the surface of the back. After the back was black and blue the soldier would then use the leather strap part of the whip that had bone chips and pottery shards imbedded in the leather. The soldier would then take the leather straps and smack them against the person’s back allowing the bone and pottery to imbed in the skin. He would then use a twisting motion to pull the whip back. In doing this, the soldier would rip open the back leaving ribbons of flesh.

In Christ’s case after he receives the beating the soldiers add more torture. The soldiers get a robe and put it on his back. If you remember your first aid to get bleeding to stop you apply clean dressings and apply pressure. The dressing gives the blood a place to clot, but when the soldiers get tired of the game they pull the robe off, pulling off the clots and making him bleed again, just like pulling off a band-aid but on a much bigger scale.

The soldiers make a special torture just for Jesus when they make a crown of thorns. The thorns are most likely from a Rose of Sharon bush. This is very similar to our Hibiscus bushes here in Texas. If you have ever looked at them very closely, you will see that they have thorns one and a half to two inches long on them. The soldiers would have used the bush trimming for kindling for starting fires so it was in their woodpiles. The soldiers wound this together and placed it on Christ’s head, then took the reed and beat the thorns into his head.

The final torture of Christ is the crucifixion itself. Part of the process was that the condemned had to carry their cross.

Luke 23:26

“And as they led him away, they laid hold upon on Simon, a Cyrenian, coming out of the country, and on him they laid the cross, that he might bear it after Jesus.”

Jesus was so week that he could not even carry his own cross. We need to talk about the cross. What we normally call the cross is like a small “t” but in reality, the cross was more like a capital “T”. The vertical part of the T would have been left in the ground year round. The part that Christ carried would have been the cross bar which weighed about 110 lbs.

At the sight of the vertical part of the T, the soldiers strip the condemned of their clothes, starting the flow of blood again. They would then throw them down on their back, which is like rare hamburger meat. Then they would step on the hands and put the nail (more like a railroad spike) in the wrist just below the bones of the wrist. This spot is chosen for two reasons. One the wrist bones would stop the nail from pulling thru the hand. Second, there is a nerve there, the one that they free when they do carpel tunnel surgery, which causes great pain when the nail is up against it.

The condemned would then be lifted up onto the vertical piece using tools like large barbeque forks. The cross bar would have a large hole in the middle and the vertical piece would have part of it cut away so they would fit together. The Roman soldiers would have lined up the notice and whole the just dropped the cross bar in place again causing great pain on the arms or nerves in the arm because of the great jerking from being dropped.

The condemned would then have their legs bent up toward their torso and then nailed to the vertical piece. This would force the person to hang with their chest out over the ground. This would expand the whole chest cavity so the condemned could breath in but could not exhale. They would be forced to pull back on the nails of their arms and push up on the nail in their feet to exhale. This makes every breath incredible torture. Death by crucifixion was caused by suffocation. This could take days. Because of the time it took, insects, birds and other vermin would attack the raw backs of the condemned.

In Jesus’ case this was not true, Jesus had been weakened by all the blood lost from the sweat turned to blood and all the beatings and the whipping. This caused his heart to beat too fast to pump what little blood he had left. This caused a little sack around his heart called the pericardium to fill with watery solution. This watery solution is normal, but the body produced more to help cool the heart and reduce friction. The body produced so much of this fluid that it squeezed the heart and caused the heart to fail.

John 19:33-34

“But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they break not his legs: But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water.”

According to the M.D.’s in the article, the soldier pierced Jesus’ lung up into the heart. The water was the watery substance around the heart and the blood was from the actual heart.

Christ’s death is different from most crucifixions. He died earlier than most because of the extra blood lost through the sweat turning to blood and the extra beatings. This allowed the two prophesies about his death to be fulfilled. The first was that none of his bones would be broken; the soldiers did not have to break his legs. The soldiers would break the legs of those being crucified so that they could not push up to exhale, thus causing the condemned to die quicker. The second is that Jesus died the exact hour that all the Passover lambs were to be sacrificed.

I hope this helps you understand what Christ went through for us. I know when I found this out that it changed my whole appreciation of what my Lord did for me and I cannot thank him enough.

Why Prayer Requests

I have had several questions about why have I been spending so much time on prayer lately and less on teaching. In addition, I have gotten more response about the prayer requests than on any of the teaching blogs; more than a whole year’s worth of responses on the teaching blogs. That is good, that means people are out there praying and that is one of the reasons I have added the prayer requests. I will be honest with you, the main reason I have put the prayer requests in is that I saw the gut wrenching turmoil the families were going through, and felt that the only thing I could do to help was to let the situations be known and to ask for prayer.


I believe in the power of prayer so much. I have seen it do wonders. My favorite example is when my kids were younger we had explained to them that all these hand places, (fortune telling) as we called them because of the big hand out front, were bad and that God forbid them in the Bible. Therefore, we made a pact with them that every time we passed one we would pray that they would go out of business. At that time the kids were big into dance and two or three times a week they would go into Houston and they would pass two of these hand places, so they would pray going and coming that the places would go out of business. After about a year and a half, in the same week, both of the hand places went out of business. You talk about a testimony to my children that prayer works. I remember how excited they both were when they told me that both of the hand places went out of business. Nothing is impossible with God.

I know that the prayers of all you of have helped both families. The Bible tells us

James 5:16

Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

Therefore, we are following scripture by praying for one another and I know there are righteous people out there so their prayers avail much.

I believe I will continue to add prayer requests, but I will go back to adding in teaching blogs. I will try to have the best of both worlds in my blog.

I would also like to add that I get a lot of feedback on FaceBook but I am going to be traveling more for Brad’s Briandrops. Therefore, I do not always get messages all that well. I do have a blackberry so I always get e-mails, so please e-mail me at braindrops@earthlink.net. I will get them and respond. I will always pray for you and your family just let me know. I may not post all the requests on the blog, just the big ones. However, I will be praying for all of the requests, not just the ones that are posted to the blog. If I could only say one thing, it would be that I am always praying and I would be honored to do it for you.

In addition, if you would like me to come speak at your church, Sunday school, Small group, etc. let me know and we can work out a date.

Question From a Child

 I just love to get questions from kids. To kids the Bible is more real than to grown-ups and they really ask some good questions. Just today, a pastor friend of mine shared this question with me. My friend was like, how do you answer this kid, not knowing what garbage that they are giving them at school. 

The question was did Adam live with dinosaurs? I can find no place in the Bible that specifically says that Adam lived with dinosaurs. However, the word dinosaurs was not even made up until 1842, and the Bible was written about 1800 years before that. Therefore, that makes sense. However, the Bible does say:

Genesis 1
King James Version (KJV)
²⁴And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

 ²⁵And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

 ²⁶And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

 ²⁷So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

 ²⁸And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

 ²⁹And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

 ³⁰And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

 ³¹And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

This shows that God made all the living creatures, Man, and dinosaurs on the 6^th day. He just does not call them dinosaurs because that is a man-made word that means terrible lizard. Therefore, the short answer is yes, Adam had to live the same time as dinosaurs.

That really leads to the next question, can you find dinosaurs in the Bible. I would say yes, the book of Job describe two creatures that must be dinosaurs. First is the behemoth found in Job 40,

¹⁵Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox.

 ¹⁶Lo now, his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly.

 ¹⁷He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together.

 ¹⁸His bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of iron.

I have had some people try to argue that this is an elephant but it cannot be because it says he move his tail like a cedar. Have you seen an elephants tail there is no way you can describe an elephant’s tail like a cedar. (See below) 

Also, see the size difference. I agree the parts of the description could be an elephant, except for the tail and size; therefore, it must be what we call a dinosaur today. 

 The second animal is the in the next chapter of Job and the description takes up the whole chapter. It is called the Leviathan. I will only give excerpts here for size but please go read the whole chapter 42. The Leviathan has scales:

   ¹⁵His scales are his pride, shut up together as with a close seal.

 ¹⁶One is so near to another, that no air can come between them.

 ¹⁷They are joined one to another, they stick together, that they cannot be sundered.

Scales are found on lizards and these are strong and impenetrable.

 ²⁵When he raiseth up himself, the mighty are afraid: by reason of breakings they purify themselves.

 ²⁶The sword of him that layeth at him cannot hold: the spear, the dart, nor the habergeon.

 ²⁷He esteemeth iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood.

 ²⁸The arrow cannot make him flee: slingstones are turned with him into stubble.

 ²⁹Darts are counted as stubble: he laugheth at the shaking of a spear.

The leviathan is so big that anybody who sees it is scared. No known weapon works against the leviathan. 

 ³¹He maketh the deep to boil like a pot: he maketh the sea like a pot of ointment.

He lives in the sea. 

 

I believe the only explanation of these two creatures is that they are what modern day people would call dinosaurs. Therefore, God did make dinosaurs because he described them in detail and He made all living beings as stated in Genesis. And God made all the living beings in the beginning, so dinosaurs were made, therefore, logic tells us that Adam lived with dinosaurs. 

Forgiveness

I came across a Christian friend the other day and he was just about paralyzed with fear about the sin in his life. I do not think I have seen someone as bad off as he was, but I have seen this before. Therefore, I really thought it would make a good blog and hopefully relive some of the fear out there among my readers. 

 

First, we have to go back to the basics, which is the very nuts and bolts of the Gospel and that is

1 Corinthians 15:3-4 (King James Version)

 ³For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;

 ⁴And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:

Jesus died for our sins. That means ALL our sins; past, present and future not just ours but everybody’s. God also says

Psalm 103:12
As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.

I love using this verse to demonstrate that our sins are gone. I know I have used this before in a blog, but it really shows God’s point. Go get a globe of the world and take your finger, put it on the North Pole, and run it south to the South Pole. Now to keep going you must run your finger north. Therefore, North and South meet at the poles. Now, take your finger and put it on the equator in South America and spin the globe so your finger goes east, keep going until your finger comes back to South America. You always went east. Not once did you go West in your whole spin around the globe; therefore East and West never meet. Take this one-step further; God removes your sins in ways so that they never touch you again. Bottom line, God has completely removed your sins.

The next thing is that we know sin in our life that is not confessed puts a block between God and us. This is why it is so important to confess our sins.

James 5:16 (King James Version)

 ¹⁶Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

I like to look at the Amplified Bible sometimes, because it uses a lot of synonyms for important words to really bring out the meaning, so here is the same verse from the Amplified Bible.

James 5:16 (Amplified Bible)

    ¹⁶Confess to one another therefore your faults (your slips, your false steps, your offenses, your sins) and pray for one another, that you may be healed and restored [to a spiritual tone of mind and heart]. The earnest (heartfelt, continued) prayer of a righteous man makes tremendous power available [dynamic in its working].
 

I like this because when it says healed, most people think of a bodily healing; but I think the better meaning is as this version brings out, to restore a spiritual mind. Sin can block your thought processes toward God, but confession of the sin and prayer will restore you, not save you, you are already saved, sinning does not make you lose your salvation. 

 

What happens is Satan likes to use this trick of remind you of your past sins, some that you have already confessed, and some that you have not yet confessed. What you need to do if it is a sin that you have already confessed, is tell Satan that it is already confessed and it is covered by the blood of the Lamb. That will give him a black eye as they say, because what he tried to do backfired. If it is a sin that you have not confessed, immediately confess it so you can be restored to a spiritual tone. This happened just last week to me at work, while I was working I just remembered something I had done as a child, I have no idea why it came back, but I right there confessed it and now it is over.

Some people will tell you to pray that God will show you all your sins so you can confess them. I not sure that is good idea; a person can get overwhelmed with their sin, especially a new Christian, which may be part of my friend’s problem. I prefer to tell people to ask God to show them their sin in His timing, so they can confess it and handle the weight of their sin.

 

One last verse I would like to point out is

1 John 1:8-10 (King James Version)

 ⁸If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

 ⁹If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

 ¹⁰If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

There are two points to this verse; one, that some people are the exact opposite of my friend in that they think they do not sin. That in itself is a sin. The point is, we are all still sinning even after we are saved. However, as the next verse says, and my second point, God is faithful and will forgive our sins and clean us up from our sin. 

That we have been forgiven and will continue to be forgiven is the point; there is no need to be paralyzed in our sin, we must give it to God to forgive.