The Acts of the Apostles 1

Subtitle: Jesus Promises The Holy Spirit

Acts 1:1-8.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on April 24, 2022.

Today, we begin a journey through the book often called Acts.  We will take our time to go verse by verse, which will make this a long journey.  From time to time along the way, we will pause the series for special occasions.

The setting of the book (1:1-3)

First up, let’s talk about the setting and situation that gave rise to this book of our New Testament.

The author is not identified, but there is basically no dispute that the author is Luke the physician.  This is attested within the 2^nd century and there is no dispute from anyone at the time. 

We should note that even the Gospel of Luke does not identify the author in its verses.  However, the oldest copy of the Gospel of Luke that we have dates back to the 2^nd century (AD 100’s) and has written on it in Greek “According to Luke.”

In verse 1, the author refers to a former account, “The former account I made…”  He explains the subject matter of the earlier account.  It was about “all that Jesus began both to do and teach, until the day in which He was taken up…”  This clearly describes a gospel account, and makes Acts a second volume that essentially starts where the Gospel of Luke leaves off.

As for the title of the book, there is no title given by the author.  It is simply an account describing what happened from the ascension of Jesus forward.  Thus, it is historical with a theological emphasis throughout it, much like the gospel.  Since the Gospel is about what Jesus did and said, so this book has been referred to as The Acts of the Apostles, and the shorter form Acts.  Of course, we should recognize that Jesus is still acting through his disciples by the help of the Holy Spirit.

Both the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts are addressed to an individual named Theophilus.  The name means “friend of God,” and is used only in Luke 1:3 and Acts 1:1.  It is a Latin name, so the person is most likely a gentile convert.  I say this because Luke states that he wants Theophilus to be certain of the things in which he had been instructed (Luke 1:4).  Also there, Luke states that he had a perfect understanding of all things from the very first that he was writing about.

All of the Gospels portray a transitional period after the Resurrection of Jesus.  There are 50 days between the feast of Passover and the feast of Pentecost (called the feast of Weeks in the Old Testament).  Note that Pentecost is a Greek word for 50.  During the first 40 days, Jesus appeared on multiple occasions giving them commands, proving that it was really him, and that he was not just a spirit.  Luke states in Acts 1:3 that Jesus gave them infallible proofs of his resurrection to establish its reality beyond a doubt.  We see this with Jesus having them touch him and eating food in their presence and yet appearing and disappearing within locked rooms.

These first appearances happened in and around Jerusalem.  Then, there was an appearance in the area of Galilee.  This seems to be the situation that Paul speaks of in 1 Corinthians 15:6 in which he mentions Jesus appearing to “over 500 brethren at once.”  The end of the Gospel of Luke places the ascension of Jesus on the east side of the Mt. of Olives near Bethany.  This is a short distance from Jerusalem towards the east.

Verse 3 also tells us that Jesus used this transitional time to speak of things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.  This would be particularly important to the disciples because they were perplexed at how the crucifixion, and now resurrection, of Jesus would connect to the awaited Kingdom of God.

Jesus instructs the disciples (1:4-8)

This opens with the last appearance to them in this transitional period.  Jesus is giving them his last instructions before going into heaven.  Jesus commands them to wait in Jerusalem for the “Promise of the Father.”  This idea of waiting may seem strange or unimportant to us.  However, the followers of Christ (and even the followers of God throughout history) are to be characterized first as a people who have waited on God the Father. Isaiah 40:31 reminds us that those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength and be able to fly, run, and walk without growing weary.  We are not an inactive people, but we are not driven by the mission or task itself.  We wait upon the Lord and follow His leading like the righteous of every age.

The Promise of the Father is a reference to the prophecies regarding the pouring out of the Holy Spirit.  In Joel 2, the Father promises that a time will come when He will pour out His Spirit upon all flesh.  This is as opposed to being poured out on a few individuals hear and there, which was how it was experienced before then.

If there is any doubt about what promise Jesus means, it is put to rest in verse 5.  John the Baptist baptized people in water, but they were about to be baptized in the Holy Spirit.  We should remind ourselves of Matthew 3:11 at this point.  John himself said, “I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry.  He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”  (NKJV). 

Salvation is sometimes pictured as the Spirit of God putting or baptizing a person into Christ.  The disciples present were all saved members of Christ and his body.  Here the picture is reversed and Jesus will immerse his disciples into the Holy Spirit.  Notice that this picture shows a person being completely surrounded by the Holy Spirit.

There is another picture that is used of the Holy Spirit and that is being filled with the Spirit.  At salvation, Christ dwells in the believer through the Holy Spirit.  However, being filled with the Spirit pictures the Spirit flooding forth and filling our whole inner being until it overflows.  Both these inner and outer pictures are pointing to the same idea. 

Of course, salvation and Spirit baptism can happen simultaneously or separately.  The reason the disciples had to wait was mainly about the fact that the coming of the Holy Spirit in this new outpouring needed to coincide with the feast of Pentecost.  Just as the death of Jesus happened on Passover and conceptually tied to the sacrifice they made in Egypt, so the coming of the Holy Spirit conceptually tied to Pentecost.  This was a celebration of the harvest that God had given up to that point and the further harvest that would be realized in the months ahead.  The baptism of the Holy Spirit is connected to the harvest of believers who would come into the Kingdom of God through the work of the apostles and the Early Church.  They would be like a rock in the pond causing ripples down through history to our very hour. 

We see in verse 6 that the disciples are more concerned about Israel and what Jesus was doing in regard to reestablishing the kingdom.  Old Testament prophecy pointed to a time when the Anointed One of God (Messiah/Christ) would: break off the Gentile dominion over Israel, bring back those of Israel who had been dispersed to Gentile lands, fix all that was wrong with Israel, and bring the world under his righteous administration.  They believed that this would happen up until the cross, where their hopes were dashed.  Yet, these hopes were now restored since the Resurrection of Jesus.  They are like kids often are, asking the Lord, “Are we there yet?” 

Jesus tells them that it is not for us to know the times or seasons that are under the Father’s authority.  The Father would determine when that would happen and He was not giving the disciples more information.  It is important that Jesus expects it to happen.  He doesn’t berate them for not understanding that the Kingdom was only a metaphor and would never happen literally.  This is the approach that many liberal Christians take with such prophecies.  However, Jesus refocuses them.  Our focus is not to be on the “when” of God’s Kingdom restoration of Israel. 

Instead, their focus is to be on receiving power to be witnesses of Jesus to the ends of the earth (verse 8).  This power would come when they were filled with the Holy Spirit.  We will talk more about this when we get to chapter 2.  However, we must always remember that the power behind our activity must always be the Holy Spirit.  We must not let the lesser power of institutional momentum and pride of a brand fuel the task of taking the gospel to the ends of the earth.  The pouring out of the Holy Spirit would essentially be about giving a witness to the world of who Jesus is, what he did, what he has made available to us presently, and what he will do in the future.  We can be filled with the presence of God because of what Jesus has done.

In verse 8, Jesus highlights the concentric circles of the expansion of this witness.  It would start in Jerusalem, move to Judea and Samaria, and then to the ends of the earth.  Imagine, here we are today at the ends of the earth from Jerusalem talking about Jesus!  Yet, there are still many who need to hear about Jesus, and they also need to see Jesus in us.

May God help us not to run ahead without the help of the Holy Spirit in doing this work.  Without Him we will fail, but with Him we will succeed at doing the work!  That said, neither do we want to hang back when the Spirit of God begins to move.  May God help us to walk in step with His Spirit, and to stop in sync with His Spirit.

Acts Jesus Promises audio

Where Are We Headed? Part 5

Isaiah 25:1-12.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on April 17, 2022, Resurrection Sunday.

We will finish this series today.  We started off by talking about the fine sounding promises of the elite of this world: creating utopia, everyone learning to get along, science solving every problem, etc.  The problem is that at the end of every one of these promises is a road full of brokenness and being used. 

It is not like science was invented 20 years ago and we just need to give them more time.  The great powers of this world know that people see this, and so they build ever new forms making the same old promises.  They manipulate us to rebel against the old forms, which they created by the way, and put our hopes in the new forms. 

Of course, we should start asking ourselves a couple of questions.  Can they actually deliver such promises?  And even more insidious, do they really intend to deliver these things for every one?  Perhaps, this is their utopia and it requires a seething mass of humanity in shackles everywhere.

Twenty-nine centuries ago, God showed the prophet Isaiah that the capital cities of each nation, even Israel, were full of sin and tyranny over the people.  He promised two things: judgment on the cities and their elite, and salvation for the oppressed.

Let’s begin to look at Isaiah 25.

The world’s false promise of salvation

We should note that chapters 13 to 23 in the book of Isaiah are prophecies of judgment against each nation and its leading city that was around Israel.  Israel is included in this series of dooms (Samaria in Isaiah 17 and Jerusalem in Isaiah 22).  Chapter 24 becomes the climax and template for the book of The Revelation of Jesus Christ, or The Apocalypse.  It is sometimes called Isaiah’s Apocalypse.  It pictures the whole earth devastated under the wrath of God’s judgment.  This is not just a judgment on a particular nation, or city.  This is something that encompasses all of the nations. 

On the heels of this, chapter 25 is essentially a hymn of praise, a rejoicing over God’s saving judgment in chapter 24.  Humanity has been oppressed by other humans who have prostituted themselves to power, money, and even wicked spiritual beings who truly manipulate things on this earth.  The day will come when God will unleash a final salvation of the poor and needy from the oppression of the wicked.

In some ways, nothing has changed today, other than the oppression becoming more sophisticated and deceptive.  However, Resurrection Sunday and the Cross of Jesus the Christ is a reminder from God that He has not forgotten His promise.  The death and resurrection of Jesus shows us that our greatest problem is not billionaires and an elite shadow-government.  Rather, our greatest problem is our own sin and tendency to rebel against trusting God and His promise. In a sense, we are discouraged by the “success” of the wicked, and drawn into their world of compromise to whatever individual degree we choose.  If Christ did not do what he did 20 centuries ago, none would be saved from the wrath of God that even now looms over this world like a dark shadow because we all would be complicit.

Chapter 25 speaks of a particular city, even though the preceding chapters make clear that all the great cities of the earth will be judged.  It is called a “fortified city,” “a palace of foreigners,” and “the city of the terrible nations.  Note that the term terrible has the idea of awe and fear inspiring.  The shock and awe of the great nations of the earth is seated or headquartered in a particular city.  This is parallel with the city Babylon the Great that is destroyed in The Revelation.

This city is the city that rules over the world, and has changed locations throughout the centuries.  In fact, in keeping with Revelation’s harlot imagery, we should see the capital cities of the world as prostituting themselves saying, “Pick me!  Pick me!  I want to be the seat of power and authority in the earth.”  Of course, they do not cry out to God and His Anointed One Jesus.    Instead, they build an Olympus like system of oppression over the common people, and propagate themselves through a dog-eat-dog climbing of the mountain.  Those who are able to raise themselves up out of the sea of humanity and sit atop the pinnacle of earthly power become the modern demi-gods of this world.  Such is the true actions of Satan, always promising godhood to those who serve him and his purposes. 

This “godhood” is not all it is cracked up to be as the “demi-gods” realize that they are simply slaves to the devil and his angels.  The revelation of the One True God is that these beings will all suffer the second death and their greatness will be no more. 

Today, we see this same model and struggle.  The powerful cities of the earth merely struggle with one another for the “privilege” of being the next city that rules the world and oppresses at will, projecting power globally at will.  This final city is the one that Isaiah refers to and John as well.

In verse 4, we are shown that the poor and needy are under great distress.  The terrible ones of the earth blast against them like a storm against a wall, and like a hot desert wind serving as the furnace of their affliction.  They need refuge from the storm and shelter from the heat.  The elite have never cared for the average person of this world, the poor and needy.  No matter how much they may give lip service to it, they only care about themselves in the end.

Verse 7 mentions a covering of evil that has been cast over the nations.  This covering can also be seen as a veil.  It has several layers that are spiritually connected.  Ultimately, there is a veil of spiritual deception that has been instigated by the devil and his angels and cast over all the world.  Second Corinthians 4:3-4 says,

“…even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.…” 

Also, those powerful men and women of the earth, who have learned to also operate behind veils of intentions and actions in order to manipulate the masses for their ends, create evil covers.  Of course, at our current stage there are often competing veils.  However, even this competition is a kind of a veil.  In the end, they are all on the same team working towards the same ends.  Things are never as they seem with these people, and with these spiritual beings.  There is always enough truth to sell the poison and lies mixed into it.  This is their mode of operating.

Lastly, in verse 11, Isaiah prophesies that God will bring down their great pride and the trickery in their hands.  Their tricks are similar to the veils.  The tricks represent the plans they operate behind the veils.  Their cunning craftiness seems to work to their great gain, but God will eventually bring it down on their heads.  “What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?”  Matthew 8:36 (NKJV).  This judgment day is true for the individual powers as each empire replaces another one, and it is true globally as God promises an end to this dog-eat-dog wrestling of the terrible ones on the earth, and the oppression is puts on humanity.  In fact, it is time to admit that even Washington D.C. has taken its place as a city of the terrible nations oppressing the poor as they vie for power over the world.  Like little children, our state capitols are in her tresses scooping up what little tidbits they can from their mother’s industry, i.e., prostitution.

Enough about the wickedness of this world and its judgment.  This is a chapter about celebrating God’s final judgment!  Hallelujah!

Rejoice for Yahweh really saves!

Yahweh is the name given to Moses at the burning bush.  It speaks to God’s eternal being.  He is not only the always existing one, but also, He is what He always will be.  This word has historically been transliterated into English as Jehovah.  Regardless, it is not important to get hung up on the change of language and misunderstanding of scholars.  In the end, the One True God knows when we are faithfully referring to Him.  Many people knew the proper spelling and pronunciation of God’s name in the first century, but they perished because their hearts were far from Him. 

As I said earlier, this chapter is a hymn or psalm of praise as the dust settles from chapter 24. The righteous are seen rejoicing that God’s counsels of old have proven to be faithful and true.  Imagine it.  In Isaiah’s time (700s BC), the counsels of God were already ancient, starting with Adam and then to Noah, to Abraham, to Moses, to David, to Isaiah and lastly to Jesus.  In all of these, God has counseled us to trust in Him and His plan to save us.  If we do, we will not be put to shame, but all of those who cast Him aside and join the terrible ones will be put to shame.  Yes, it doesn’t look like that here on earth, but what we see today is not the whole sum of reality, nor of our existence.  Even now, those same counsels are a strength for the needy.  It gives us faith and purpose.  It gives us understanding and wisdom. 

We understand that Christ came to deal with our greatest enemy first, and it is our job to go to war against that great enemy within that seeks us to join the prostitution of the earth.  My sin and the desire of my flesh for it is the Goliath that I must slay!  Before we can deal with the tyrants of the world, we must all deal with our own inner tyrant screaming to get out.  This is why all revolutions ultimately fail.  Without facing truth, we only replace the old system with a new system destined to be corrupted and prostituted.  Praise God that He has revealed the things behind the curtains of today in the days of old, and we have these counsels faithfully preserved by His grace.

The salvation of Yahweh of course involves His judgment of those terrible ones.  You can picture the 2^nd Coming of Christ and his judgment against the kings of the earth along with the spiritual interlopers operating on the earth.  That day is coming as sure as the dawn.  We can even rejoice today as the Spirit of God opens our hearts to the truth that only He can deliver.

The great corruption across the world is part of the deception of the devil.  When his man the Antichrist comes forward, it will be a mockery, a trick, that pretends to put down the “wicked of the earth” for the sake of humanity.  Yet, his true intentions will quickly become seen.  By his fruits you will know him.  I don’t plan on being around to have to figure it out, but the counsels of God have warned the world of an arch-deceiver that will stand over all the earth at the end of time with an iron fist over religion, politics, and the economy.

Yes, there will be a revolt against the current political world in order to make room for a “grand new age of enlightened global governance.”  However, it will be done by people who are spiritually in chains to their sins, and they will only build a platform for the greatest evil this world has ever known.  Hallelujah that He promises to bring it down and remove it completely!  Here is a quote from Isaiah 24:21-22. 

"It shall come to pass in that day that the LORD will punish on high the host of exalted ones, and on the earth the kings of the earth.  They will be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and will be shut up in the prison; after many days they will be punished.”   

Note that it is referring to heavenly and earthly beings.  The rejoicing is not so much about their fate as it is about God’s relief for our oppression, and His restitution of righteousness.

Verse 8 talks about God swallowing up death forever, and wiping the tears from all faces.  Note that this identical to the language given to John in Revelation chapters 20 and 21.  The death of death and the destruction of the grave is something that seems to be mere poetry.  However, the resurrection of Jesus becomes God’s proof that He is greater than all of the things that oppress and hold us back from the destiny that He has for us.  Even death will flee away before the power of our God! 

The salvation of Yahweh is not just a temporary salvation during my short existence on this earth, but goes forward into eternity.  The shocking salvation of Yahweh is just as awe-inspiring, and even terrifying, as the actions of the terrible ones, but it is different in that it is good and righteous.

The tender picture of the Creator of all things wiping the tears from our eyes is what God wants you to know about Him, and to believe in Him, to trust in Him, to bring you to that precious moment.

Verse 6 pictures God creating a feast for the poor and needy after He has put down the terrible ones.  This is already spiritually true in Jesus.  At the cross, Jesus neutralized the only true weapon Satan could wield against us, our sin and the law.  Even now, we have a spiritual smorgasbord that Christ has given us in His Word, and gives to us daily by His Holy Spirit.  We can walk in these ancient counsels that continue to prove faithful and true.

This leads to verse 9 where the people celebrate by saying, “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He is saving us.  This is the Lord; we have waited for Him; we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation!”  Some versions say that He will save us, or in the future.  That is a possible translation.  However, the word simply means that it isn’t done.  In the context of God’s recent judgment here (recent within the prophecy, but still future to the hearers of the prophecy), it is better to translate it as something that is started, but is still continuing.  It’s not completed yet.

Friend, God has loved you with an everlasting love, but He is also truth.  Your sin, my sin, has to be dealt with.  Jesus did his part to pay the price for our sins.  However, can we do our part by repenting of not putting our full trust in him?  Can we begin trusting in Jesus today and start walking a life that is founded upon God’s counsels?  May we realize that without God, this world has nothing for us, but with Him it is an amazing world of God’s grace!  Don’t prostitute yourself by casting off God in order to get more of this world.  It will only bring pain in the end.

Yahweh Saves! audio

Where Are We Headed? Part 4

Subtitle: God's Plan for the Uber-Man

1 Corinthians 15:35-49.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on April 10, 2022, Palm Sunday.

We have been looking at humanity’s attempt to be its own god and chart its own course forward.  Today, we are going to look at God’s plan for humanity.

Friedrich Nietzsche in the 1880s pointed us to his idea of what some called the superman, but is better thought of as the over-man (uber mensch).  He felt that Christianity was too oriented to a world beyond, and so he pictured a true over-man as a human who had fully embraced their humanity.  This would be a human set free from all the bonds of tradition and religion, a fully actualized person.  It is no small wonder that Nietzsche went insane by the end of that decade.  Perhaps he succeeded in becoming his over-man and that is what it looks like.  We should recognize that Nietzsche did have some valid criticisms, but he over-estimated man’s ability to be his own god.

Let’s look at our passage and see God’s plan for the uber-man.

God will resurrect the righteous

Apparently, there were some Corinthian Christians who were saying that there was no such thing as a resurrection of the righteous (or of anyone of that matter) coming in the future.  This whole chapter is Paul responding to this group.  He demolishes the idea that you can be a Christian and yet not believe in a Resurrection Day.  This is in verses 1-34. 

They were wrong.  God has decreed that He will resurrect the Righteous.  Paul doesn’t get into whether or not the wicked will ever be resurrected.  His focus is solely on its impact on believers.  This is important because the heavenly body that he is going to describe later, is not an immaterial body.  It is a true body, but not of an earthly kind. 

In verse 35, Paul turns to several objections, or questions, about the mechanics of resurrection.  How are they raised and with what body?  Paul responds to this with an illustration from nature that anyone can understand.  It is the amazing and mysterious world of seeds and the things that grow from them.  Ultimately, he reminds them that a seed must die in order for the new thing (life) to come forth from it.  I wouldn’t get stuck on the word die here.  Scientists would most likely reject the idea that a seed is dying, but people do.  We are dealing with an analogy and shouldn’t get bogged down in how well the analogy fits the thing we are analogizing.

Instead of eating the seed, it is planted in the ground.  This is pictured as a kind of loss, and yet there is a gain in it.  Jesus uses this same analogy for a something a bit different in John 12:24. “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.”  Most people only think of this from a salvation standpoint.  If Jesus doesn’t lay his life down, die, and pay the price for our sins, then none would be saved and join him in heaven.  However, we should not truncate the importance of the Resurrection in what Jesus is saying.  Jesus dies, but then is resurrected.  Jesus would still dwell alone as a resurrected human if there is no general resurrection of the righteous.  The greater life that God has for us is on the other side of death, not to say that this life is unimportant.  It is extremely important for it determines our place in what is next.

For these Corinthian objectors, Paul pictures this life and these bodies as a kind of seed that is sown, but from which will come forth a different body and life.  This new body is determined by God, just as it was He who wrote the code for what comes forth from each seed.  You cannot tell what will come from a seed just by looking at it, unless you are a botanist and have studied that seed.  Even then, the proof would be in planting it and seeing what grows from it.

Humans also have seeds and a code that determines what will come forth from it.  We call this procreation.  However, there is a greater “code” than our DNA.  Or, perhaps, our DNA does have information that speaks to Resurrection.  How would we know?  Paul is not going into the science of resurrection, but if we try to do this without God, we would have to try and “crack” the code.  God Himself signals that it is possible not only to create a more powerful body, but to transfer the consciousness of a person into it.  This will prove to be an especially tricky quagmire for humans, but it is nothing for God.

A person is much more than a set of memories.  How would we know if a transference of consciousness had truly worked?  Mere answers to questions would not fully suffice.  Keep in mind that we are also dealing with evil spiritual beings who already know how to “hack” humans, at least those who open themselves up to them.  Why not just trust God instead of going down a path of Dr. Frankenstein?

In verses 39 to 41, Paul points out that there are many different kinds of earthly and heavenly bodies.  This great variety of bodies and flesh are not being considered from a moral standpoint, so don’t be thrown off by the word “flesh.”  Paul points to the heavenly bodies of the sun, moon and stars.  These are the most common for humans to see.  They are very different from the things we see on the earth.  Though it is not mentioned, we see this difference between the angels, cherubim, and seraphim. 

Paul’s main concern is not so much what these bodies look like, such as, will we have wings etc.  He is mainly pointing out that they will be different. He points to 4 points of difference between these bodies that we can know.  Anything beyond this becomes speculation for us.

Here is a list for us:

Earthly body  vs. Heavenly Body

Corruption  vs. Incorruption

Dishonor vs. Glory

Weakness vs. Power

Soul vs. Spirit

The first shows that the heavenly body is not mortal.  It does not grow old and die.  It is immortal. 

The second doesn’t mean that there is no honor or glory in this life.  Rather, this life is comparatively one that lacks the honor and glory of the life to come.  In this body, we still fall short of the glory of Christ’s righteousness.  In the heavenly body, we shall be like him completely.  Daniel even connected the resurrection of the righteous to shining like the stars (Daniel 12:3), i.e., heavenly beings.

The third comparison is between the weakness of this body.  That body will be a body of power.  Our bodies become sick, must physically go from one place to the next, need food to operate, and of course grow old and die.  The heavenly body is more than immortal.  It will not have sickness, or the same limitations of movement that these bodies do.  I refer specifically to the ability of Jesus to appear in a locked room, and later, ascend into heaven.  The heavenly body can interact in both the material realm and the spiritual realm.

Lastly, this body is animated by our spirit or soul.  Paul uses an adjectival form of the word psyche.  It is that life force that is within these mortal bodies.  The heavenly body will be animated by Spirit (pneuma).  I won’t pretend to understand completely what that means, but it is a true inner difference between the two.  In fact, it may even be a reference to our heavenly body being directly animated by the Spirit of God.  This is often translated as a natural body versus a spiritual body.  Again, don’t think that spiritual means immaterial.  It is a true body, just different.

The effects of Adam and Jesus

In verse 45, Paul points out how these very different bodies are part of the effect of Adam and Jesus.  Paul quotes from Genesis 2:7. “The first man Adam became a living being.”  However, Jesus is a Life-giving spirit.  The word “became” is not in the original language, so we should be careful here.  Jesus did have to go through his work on earth to be able to dispense life to us, but He always was a Life-giving spirit. Thus, we have living versus Life and being versus spirit.  From Adam, we can only obtain the natural breath of life.  However, Jesus has life in and of himself.  He gives this, or shares it with us.

Adam is the natural man who comes first, but Jesus is the spiritual man who comes after him.  This is parallel with our experience of first living a natural life, but being promised a life in a spiritual body that will come after our natural life.  I must live an Adam life before I can live a Christ life. 

Adam was a man of the earth and made of dust (language from the Genesis passage).  Jesus is a man of heaven, and though he put on a dust-body, he was far more than that.  He was the last Adam.  There are no more Adams to come forward and bring us into other states of being.  In Christ, we will be perfected.

Though we have all born the image of Adam, we are promised that we will bear the image of Jesus who was the exact representation of the Father.  We should not confuse this with discipleship.  Sure, even now, we work on becoming more like Jesus.  However, we cannot fully become like him because he is even now in a heavenly body.  The resurrection completes our discipleship.  It is the capstone to all that we have done on this earth.  It is Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith.  Our destiny is to be like Jesus in bodies that do not get sick, grow old, die, or have sinful attachments to fleshly things.  We will have bodies that have never been bitten by sin and its deadly effects.  Praise God!

This is where God is taking us.  Why do we insist on trying to forge a path alone and on our own?  Yet, even now, God loves you and calls out to you, “Why will you die?  Choose life (and that eternal)!”  This will be the true life of an uber-man.

God's Plan audio

Where Are We Headed? Part 3

Subtitle: Ungrateful Resentment

Romans 1:18-22.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on April 03, 2022.

Last week, we looked at the overall endpoint of where we would be headed if God allowed and helped us get there.  Today, we are going to step back to where we are now and show the trap that we have created for ourselves. 

Just as the universe would become a coffin in which we would find ourselves trapped, we are even now entrapped in the mechanism that will take us into what the Bible calls “The Last Things,” or the end times.

Let’s look at our passage.

Facing our true problem

Humanity is much the same as it was 20 centuries ago when the Apostle Paul described the plight of the world.  Yes, our buildings are taller and more sophisticated; our communication methods are more powerful; our weapons are far more devastating, and our wealth is vaster.  However, we are still doing the same things, just with far more powerful technology.  Our great buildings are still full of proud people who are plotting proud plans in the face of God and their fellow man.  Our communications are still used to lie and gossip about one another.  We still use our weapons in order to force our agenda on weaker nations.  We still blow that vast wealth on feeding our flesh rather than glorifying God.  Yes, we are in the same plight because we refuse to face our true problem, which is a spiritual problem that Paul highlights in this passage.

In verse 18, Paul points out that God is going to judge the ungodly for suppressing the truth even though it has been made obvious by God Himself.  We should also notice that the truth that Paul pictures being suppressed is essentially God Himself.  Through the creation, God has made His existence, eternal power, and divinity obvious to all humans. 

The Creator is ultimately something that is other than the stuff of this creation.  The incredibly complex systems that work just perfectly and with little tolerances to allow life on this planet speak of an engineer, a designer.  It speaks of a designer that is powerful enough to create all that we can see and more.  This designer would necessarily be an uncreated one.  Yet, we suppress that great and obvious truth that we call God. 

Friends, you cannot suppress the truth and be headed in a good direction simply because you desire it to be a good direction.  Truth by its very nature is unchangeable.  It simply is what it is.  In fact, it is only truth that can navigate the treacherous waters of this world for today and the future.

Like the young men in the illustration that I used during part 2 of this series, Paul points out the lack of thankfulness and gratitude that people have to God.  We deny His existence, suppress the truth about its necessity and this leads us to a place of not giving Him thanks for the plentiful resources all around us. 

We see this ungratefulness all across our land today.  We are materially blessed more than any society ever, and yet we are full of ungratefulness and still do not have enough.  Like the leech in Proverbs, we cry out, “Give more, and more!”  We are never satisfied.

This ungratefulness may seem perplexing, but you must understand that it is driven by a resentment of the Truth that we are trying to suppress.  This is why we see the purposeful breaking down of the concepts of family, marriage, gender, and even individuality.  All of these were created by God to be immense blessings to us, but our resentment of the Creator drives us to despise anything that could be connected to Him- consequently, we despise even ourselves (at least in our current form).  We despise things that are good gifts and will tear them apart with our own hands in a deluded attempt to be our own benefactor.  Ungrateful people driven by resentment of The Truth cannot hope to build anything that is good, much less a Utopian Paradise.

Verse 22 describes our society perfectly.  We are the apex of all human wisdom, but we have become fools.  We must understand that there are different kinds of fools.  Too often, we only see the moronic fool who is simple and unable to think beyond the moment.  However, there is another kind of fool, the sophisticated fool.  This is a person who is very smart in comparison to most humans, or it can be a group who represent the smartest of a society, even the world.  Yet, because they insist on disregarding the God of Israel, the One True God, they will not be able to navigate the catastrophic choices that are in front of them.

In verse 21, Paul describes how we get to such a state.  The rejection of the Truth about the One True God leads to thinking that becomes futile.  This is the phrase from Ecclesiastes, “Vanity, Vanity, all is vanity!”  Also translated as “meaningless,” futility pictures something that will not be enough no matter how sophisticated it is. 

Secondly, Paul pictures that their hearts become darkened.  Light and darkness are often employed to speak to truth and ignorance, and definitely this darkness comes upon the thinking of the fool.  However, a darkened heart recognizes that our desires, will, and affections take a turn for the worse when we refuse to admit the Truth.  Thus, the fool is not so much a fool because of his or her IQ, but essentially because their mind and heart have attached to futile, darkened things.  The fool is one who persists on a path that will destroy them over the top of all the evidence, that is, the Truth. 

This is what Paul pictures and it completely describes us today.  Even the Church has been closing its eyes and ears to the things that the Lord Jesus made absolutely clear in his word.  Thus, we can become the most sophisticated, the most religious, of fools of all time, quite literally, sophomores.

Falling into a trap of our own making

In Luke 21:34-35, Jesus warns us that Judgment Day will come upon the world like a trap.  The world cannot escape the trap of Judgment Day because it is already trapped by its own refusal to face the Truth of God.  This becomes a trap of our own making.  We can resent God for holding us accountable to Truth and Reality, or we can repent and be thankful that He loves us too much to abandon us to folly.

We are essentially trading our God-given freedom for a “scientific” dictatorship.  It matters not whether it is ran by one, a few, 545 (100 senators, 435 representatives, 9 justices, 1 president), or more.  Ultimately, we surrender our minds and hearts to an elite class that hold us in their sway.  By the way, this is even true within my life as an individual.  I can surrender my mind and heart to an elite idea (science=knowledge) that holds me in its sway.  Keep this individual aspect in mind as we move forward.

These elites are the pinnacle of society and power on this planet.  They have scratched and clawed their way to the top of the pyramid of humanity; they are the capstone.  They see themselves as having the evolutionary right to exercise dominion over all of humanity, and those who are not a part of the elite can come to admire them and vicariously lift them up.  Yet, even the elite are merely the base and slaves of the dark powers of Satan himself, many knowingly and a few unknowingly.

In rejecting God, Who is The Truth, they (I) become unaccountable to all but themselves.  There is no concept of the prophet who has stood in the presence of the Creator and can call all both small and great to repentance.  There is no true freedom of speech because, if you are not one of them, you have nothing to say that they want to hear.  Who do you think you are?  In evolutionary terms, the prophet is a nobody, and they don’t listen to nobodies.  Yet, what if God became a nobody?

Because they represent the smartest, strongest, and most beautiful of humanity (per an ungodly definition), we like sheep are led astray into a path of folly.  Is it not folly to pit all of society against itself into a seething cauldron of identities, all struggling against one another for power and ascendancy?  Who will hold them accountable for such atrocities?

The world’s vision of a utopia is not even its own vision.  It is a remnant of the Heavenly Vision of God.  The world has cast God aside, but then it has plagiarized God’s vision of a world in which there is no evil.  Of course, they have changed all of the definitions of the terms.  Thus, it will be no true utopia, and no true evil will ever be banished from its lands.  They will build a hell full of every wickedness and slap a utopia sticker on it when in truth it is only Pandemonium.

In this way, they abuse true utopia.  Any real thing of this world will fall short of the ideal.  A real parent falls short of the ideal parent.  A real government falls short of the ideal government.  In this life, nothing real can ever compete with the ideal.  Thus, it becomes an eternal mechanism of never being thankful for the enough that we have, and always trying to wring another drop out of water out of the cloth.

Ultimately, we are reduced to a slave-class under those who have crawled and scratched their way into the capstone.  Just as marketing campaigns use all manner of psychology to get you to buy their goods, so too, those in the capstone employ psychological programming against the lowly masses.  We the masses are too dumb to know what is good for us, and so they justify themselves in their deceptions.  This creates a sinister triad of resentment, arrogance, and deceit.  This is the trap that we have made for ourselves.

“Follow the science,” “Protect American interests abroad,” and “Save the planet,” have all become trite sayings that manipulate the masses, but never actually save anything.  Never fear!  They are working on new rallying cries, so that we can create a “Great Reset,” and “Build Back Better!”

This is where we are at, where we are headed without God.  We are moving full steam into a global trap.  However, I have good news for you!  The one who puts their faith in Jesus is never trapped because God is on their side, and they are on His side.  In the midst of the most manipulated generation ever, there is the True Church of Jesus of Nazareth that listens to his teaching and follow his instructions. 

Friend, God knew where this was all headed long ago.  He has pre-positioned the answer for us in this age through the work of His Son Jesus.  Embrace Jesus today, before you get so far down the trap that you no longer want escape.

Part 3 Ungrateful audio