A New Direction

I have been toying with an idea lately that concerns this blog. The idea is to post my thoughts here more frequently as a way to expand my ministry on the Internet. I have noticed that other pastors and theologians do this successfully, commenting on the passing scene and tossing out biblical principles on a wide range of topics and issues. In a way, I have been doing that all along, though in a more formal way.

Up to now, the posts on this blog have been the published articles and essays I have written for the periodicals of the Church of the Great God, of which I am a pastor and the managing editor. I started this blog to widen the reach of those articles and essays and perhaps to help raise our ranking on the various web search engines. Beginning in 2001, I used to write an essay for the CGG Weekly just about every week, only occasionally getting a break from one of our other writers. In addition, from its founding in July 1992, I usually wrote an article for Forerunner magazine just about every issue. Now, however, I am not writing quite so much, my time being taken up by more of my other duties, particularly letter answering, traveling, and giving sermons (which I have been doing all along).

I keep my Facebook page open just about all the time during the workday, as well as the Drudge Report, and I receive frequent updates on news stories from various outlets. So I am very plugged in to what is happening throughout the world, and I am in a position to comment on it and perhaps apply some biblical principles to present a godly perspective on the matter, as well as I can. I have not made a final decision yet about this--I am still considering how much time it will take out of an already busy schedule and if it will keep me from doing my more important duties on time. I am already behind in publishing the Forerunner, and I do not want to slip any further behind. So I may not get to this right away. Still thinking this through.

Christians and Evolution

Forerunner, "WorldWatch," November-December 2011

Most Bible-believing Christians are not particularly interested in—and perhaps not even aware of—the fact that February 12 is the birthday of Charles Darwin, originator of the Theory of Evolution. To honor him for his "vast contribution to science," an atheist named Robert Stephens concocted what he called "Darwin Day," to be kept on Darwin's birthday each year. In 2006, evolutionary biologist Michael Zimmerman began what was then known as "Evolution Sunday," but which is now called "Evolution Weekend" to accommodate those who do not keep Sunday as a day of worship.

Backing Evolution Weekend is an organization called the Clergy Letter Project. This effort encourages clergy from all religious faiths to sign a letter stating that they have accepted "evolutionary theory and have embraced it as a core component of human knowledge, fully harmonious with religious faith." Now for the potentially dismaying part of all this: 13,000 clergy—mostly American and mostly from Christian denominations—have signed the letter, and about 550 churches have planned to participate in Evolution Weekend this year.

While this may seem to some like the downfall of Christianity, it is not as bad as it looks. However, it does show that secular humanism—pushed as it is in the public schools and universities—is slithering into nominal Christianity and creating in too many minds a false synthesis of evolution and Scripture.

As many expositors have shown, the observable principles and facts of science are compatible with biblical Christianity, but evolution contradicts the Bible at nearly every juncture. Pure science is based on the pursuit of knowledge—call them "facts" or "truth"—but unfortunately, what scientists observe must be interpreted by fallible human beings, all of whom, Christian or secular, are biased and limited in knowledge, experience, and time.

In particular, to be confirmed, the science of origins requires the acceptance of reliable eyewitness testimony—which is available only in the Bible, if one believes it—along with expertise in comparing that testimony with present, observable scientific findings. But humanists do not accept the Bible, dismissing divine testimony and relying on their own suppositions and reason, and thus we have evolution.

In this vein, Dr. Jeffrey DeYoe, a clergyman, states:

If it is through literal devotion to stories such as these [Bible accounts] that we believe we are going to find true knowledge of our Creator, we are going to be sadly disappointed. This is the sin of Creationism (aka Intelligent Design) in Church and Society today: The belief that through the limited storytelling of an ancient people we think we have in our possession everything God wants us to know.

This hardly sounds like something a Christian minister would say!

Of course, creationists do not believe that the Bible contains all knowledge, but what it does contain about science and the origin of all things is true. Christians accept what the Bible says because Jesus tells us to live by God's every word (Matthew 4:4) and because "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God" (II Timothy 3:16). We can also easily see that Jesus, being the Creator (John 1:3; Colossians 1:16; Hebrews 1:2), believed and taught the seven-day creation (Matthew 19:4-6) and the account of Noah's Flood (Luke 17:27).

To believe evolution, then, is to deny Christ, His mission, and His message. In fact, the account of Adam and Eve and their sin has a direct correlation with the reason Jesus had to come as a Man and die to redeem us from our sins. In that account, in Genesis 3:15, is the first prophecy recorded in the Bible, foretelling the coming of a Savior to defeat the serpent, Satan the Devil. Therefore, Christians who believe in evolution have no excuse (see Romans 1:18-20).

Earlier, we saw that 13,000 members of the clergy have signed the Clergy Letter Project statement, but it is really not as bad as that number seems to suggest. While 13,000 men and women of the cloth professing their devotion to evolution seems high, there are well over a half-million clergy in the U.S. alone. Thus, these humanist ministers represent no more than 2.6% of all ministers in the nation.

Additionally, the roughly 550 churches planning to participate in Evolution Weekend is down nearly 50% from the high of 1049 in 2009. There are about 270,000 congregations in America, so 550 churches represent only 0.2% of churches, a quite insignificant number.

Further, we should note the kind of churches these 550 are: the most liberal, leftist, and humanist churches in the nation. Most hail from the liberal wings of the mainline Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Baptist churches. Seventy-nine of them list Unitarian Universalist as their umbrella denomination, and 74, United Church of Christ. Three are Metropolitan Community churches, a sect built upon homosexuality. Forty-four are not even Christian! Of these, one is Muslim and the remainder claim Reform Judaism, the most liberal branch of Judaism, as their denomination.

Other non-church organizations plan to celebrate Evolution Weekend too. These include the Gardenia Center ("bringing the metaphysical community together"), the Ethical Humanist Society of Chicago, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, The Washington Congregation for Secular Humanistic Judaism, and the Officers of Avalon ("providing a community and network for Pagan first responders").

How true the adage, "You are known by the company you keep"!

Evolution Weekend is confined, thankfully, to a small number of ultra-liberal churches and secular humanistic organizations. However, we need to be aware that anti-God groups are always pushing to advance their agendas, and clearly, they have made significant headway over the past few generations in America and abroad. Their influence will only increase as Christ's return nears, so God's people must stand firm (Ephesians 6:13).

Seven Billion and Counting

Forerunner, "WorldWatch," September-October 2011

Back in 1968, author Paul Ehrlich, along with his wife, Anne, wrote a book, The Population Bomb, which became the seminal work for population alarmists all over the world. The book posits that human population is increasing so rapidly that the earth will soon be unable to provide enough food to feed everyone. Ehrlich simplistically suggests, "We must rapidly bring the world population under control, reducing the growth rate to zero or making it negative. Conscious regulation of human numbers must be achieved. Simultaneously we must, at least temporarily, greatly increase our food production." Much of the book covers population-reduction schemes, including progressively taxing families for having additional children, giving tax incentives for men to agree to sterilization, adding "temporary sterilants" to municipal water or staple foods, increasing and improving contraceptives, advocating prenatal sex discernment, and legalizing abortion.

In 1968, world population stood at 3.5 billion people. When first published, Ehrlich's book began, "The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate." (This opening was changed in later editions.) Yet, just this fall, the planet's current population crossed the seven billion mark, double the figure that made Ehrlich's knees quiver in fear of imminent famine and mass death. Somehow, the world has found a way to feed twice as many people as were alive in the late '60s.

About India in particular, he writes, "I don't see how India could possibly feed two hundred million more people by 1980." Even so, India now has nearly 1.2 billion people, three times the number counted in the 1960 census. The reasons for the nation's increased ability to feed many millions more are simple: 1) India's political situation stabilized; 2) the stable government rooted out the most egregious forms of corruption; and 3) Western agronomists figured out how to increase crop yields, which they shared with developing nations. No population-reduction plans were necessary.

Even so, fears about over-population still exist, particularly in liberal, globalist institutions, led by the United Nations. As Stratfor explains in a recent "Geopolitical Diary" on the world's demography:

Conventional wisdom tells us that the increase in population is putting pressure on the global ecosystem and threatening the balance of power in the world. As the story goes, the poorer states are breeding so rapidly that within a few generations they will overwhelm the West and Japan—assuming the environment survives the rising tide of people. ("The Earth at Population Seven Billion")

Singing this same tune, The New York Times published a front-page story on world population on May 4, 2011, titled "UN Forecasts 10.1 Billion People by Century's End." It begins, "The population of the world, long expected to stabilize just above 9 billion in the middle of the century, will instead keep growing and may hit 10.1 billion by the year 2100, the United Nations projected in a report released Tuesday." The lead is intended to startle or even to scare the reader into believing that world population must be reduced immediately. Deeper into the article, it soothingly reports that "well-designed programs" of birth control are bringing birth rates down in the developing world, "but at a snail's pace."

However, what the Times is not saying is that this frightening article is based on a United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) report that presents a statistical worst-case scenario. The nose-counters at UNFPA and its sister agency, the UN Population Division, actually developed three different population scenarios—high-, middle-, and low-variant projections. The graph printed in the published report reflects the high-variant forecast, while the wording of the press release, summarized by the Times article, echoes the middle-variant. Totally ignored is the low-variant model.

Yet, it is this low-variant projection that most closely resembles reality. It shows world population rising to about 8.5 billion by 2040 and then declining to around 7 billion by the end of the century. Why is this projection more likely? Because it assumes that birthrates will continue to fall, as they have been doing for more than a century as industrialization and urbanization have spread around the globe. As the Population Research Institute reports:

Some 80 countries representing over half the world's population suffer from below replacement fertility—defined as less than 2.1 children per woman. The populations of the developed nations today are static or declining. . . . Europe and Japan are projected to lose half their population by 2100. . . . Even in the developing world family size has shrunk, from around 5 children per woman in 1960 to less than 3 today. . . . High fertility rates are becoming rare. The UN numbers for 2010 show only 10 countries with population increase rates at or above 3.0 percent.

Thus, while population continues to rise, it is rising more slowly, and in a generation, it will level off and begin to fall. The long-range problem, then, is not over-population but under-population. If these trends continue, after 2050, there will be increasingly too few people to maintain the world's economies at their accustomed levels. With human lifespans increasing, a far smaller number of young adults will be asked to support a huge mass of senior citizens, resulting in a vastly lowered standard of living for everyone.

However accurate their assumptions, these are only forecasts—ones that leave God and the prophecies of His Word out of the picture. Should Christ return in the next few years or decades, all of this angst over population will be for naught, since the Bible predicts that, because "the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23), the troubles of the end time will reduce humanity to a remnant, perhaps a tithe. But who knows what devilry population control advocates will do in the meantime?

Greece, America--Whatever

When we think of Greece—and frankly, most of us do not think of the small Mediterranean nation very often—we are more likely to think about My Big, Fat Greek Wedding; Troy; or 300 before we consider the ins and outs of international finance. More than 2,000 years ago, Greece was indeed a major player in the world, ruling over an empire that stretched eastward to India thanks to the military might of the Greek army led by Alexander the Great. However, since Greece's absorption into the Roman Empire, its influence has been cultural, not political.

Yet, the summer of 2011 has seen the eyes of the powerful turn their gaze on poor, little Greece. The nation belongs to an unfortunate subset of the European Union (EU) called the PIGS, named after Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Spain (recently, Ireland has frequently replaced or joined Italy in this group, making the acronym read "PIIGS"). These four or five countries are the economically soft underbelly of the EU, having high social spending, large public-sector workforces, and extremely high debt. Greece has become the poster-child of this group, being the first to succumb to the heavy weight of its liabilities.

Last year, Greece was loaned 110 billion euros ($156 billion) to rescue its faltering economy, and it now needs another infusion of cash to stave off going into default. Its current debt is around 340 billion euros ($483 billion). The latest EU plan is to give Greece more time to pay off its debts to banks and private investors, while the Eurozone and the IMF feed it new rescue loans. This partial renege on its loans will result in a "selective default" rating, meaning that the terms of the Greek bond have been altered, which will allow Athens to avoid actual default, although it will lower the country's financial rating still further and complicate future rescue plans. In reality, it is a last-ditch effort that will hold off inevitable default for a short while.

Greece may be a small nation—in fact, its economy is only about two percent of America's—but its recent experience in rising debt and near-default is a cautionary tale for the United States and any other nation in the same financial straits. And as the saying goes, the bigger they are, the harder they fall. If America wants to avoid following Greece down the economic drain, actions must be taken now to stop the money leak.

Former Nixon speechwriter and current political pundit, Pat Buchanan, combines the debt crisis in Greece with demographic trends across the West in a recent column. In a nutshell, people in the developed nations of European ancestry (as well as others) are not reproducing at a high enough rate to replace their populations. Buchanan uses Greece as an example:

According to the most recent revision of the U.N.'s "World Population Prospects," Greece in 2010 had 11.2 million people.

More than 24 percent were 60 or above, more than 18 percent 65 or older. Three percent were 80 or above. And, every year, for every nine Greeks who are born, 10 Greeks die.

Greece is slowly passing away.

According to the CIA World Factbook, Greece's fertility rate is 1.38. A fertility rate of 2.1 births per woman is considered even replacement. As the reference work explains:

Rates below two children indicate populations decreasing in size and growing older. Global fertility rates are in general decline and this trend is most pronounced in industrialized countries, especially Western Europe, where populations are projected to decline dramatically over the next 50 years.

Buchanan echoes this:

[By 2050] Greece's population will have fallen by 300,000 to 10.8 million. The median age will have risen by eight years to 49.5. Half the population will be 50 or older. More critically, the share of Greece's population 60 or older will be 37.4 percent, with 31.3 percent over 65. One in nine Greeks will be over 80.

Therefore, if Athens is struggling to pay the pensions of its retirees now, it is only going to get worse—much worse. The larger point is that Greece is far from alone in this predicament, and the one nation that may be hit the hardest is none other than the United States of America, which of debtor nations is the largest and most heavily indebted. And who among the nations of the world will bail America out of its mess?

America's fertility rate teeters at 2.1 births per woman. However, as Buchanan notes, by 2041, Americans of European descent will comprise only half of the population. The combined populations of America's minorities—whose birthrates far outstrip European Americans'—will soon surge into majority status (see Deuteronomy 28:43-44). Some might shrug and say, "No matter! America is still growing! Unlike Europe, we will continue our dominance!"

But when other factors are figured in, this argument proves hollow. Unfortunately, American minorities lack the education or skills to compete for jobs in our cutting-edge industries—the ones that keep America at the forefront of technology, efficiency, and productivity. While that could change, the trends say otherwise; the education gap remains the same and in some areas is even widening. In other words, the U.S. will not be able to maintain its dominance in most areas that matter, a fact that is already being seen as other nations take the lead in major technological, industrial, and manufacturing sectors.

In addition, nearly half of America's citizens pay no taxes. The unemployment rate is creeping toward ten percent, and it measures only those who are still looking for work. Forty-four million people—nearly fifteen percent—receive food stamps. Social Security already pays out more than it takes in, and the boondoggle of Obamacare looms. Nor can we forget that the U.S. owes a national debt upwards of $14.5 trillion, which does not include about the same amount of private debt, not to mention student loan debt, state indebtedness, unfunded pension plans, etc.

On top of all this, we need to remember that the largest generation of Americans ever, the Baby Boomers, is beginning to retire, expecting to receive large sums from the government, corporations, pension funds, and investment firms for their many years of labor, saving, and investing. It sounds suspiciously like the problem Greece faces. Sadly, American "leaders" are acting like children in their laughable attempts to solve the debt problem politically (see Isaiah 3:4).

Now we are beginning to see the wisdom in the Bible's well-known but oft-neglected proverb: "The borrower is servant to the lender" (Proverbs 22:7).

A Battle Group for Eastern Europe

Forerunner, "WorldWatch," May-June 2011

Visegrád is certainly not a household name in the United States—and likely nowhere else outside of Europe. It is the name of a medieval castle and its surrounding town situated in what is now Hungary, where two fourteenth-century meetings were held among the monarchs of the kingdoms of Poland, Hungary, and Bohemia. In the 1300s, Visegrád was the royal seat of Hungary, and in both 1335 and 1338, King Charles I hosted the Bohemian king, John of Luxembourg, and the Polish king, Casimir III, at his castle to hammer out a peace among the three kingdoms and to secure their alliance against Habsburg Austria.

This tidbit of Eastern European history was mere trivia until the late twentieth century, when the name of the alliance, the Visegrád Three, was revived by the modern nations of Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland. Leaders of these states met in Visegrád in February 1991 to band together to enhance their economies and their chances of joining the European Union (EU). Later, after Czechoslovakia dissolved in 1993, forming the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the group became known as the Visegrád Group or the Visegrád Four (V4). All four nations were accepted into the EU in 2004.

Until 2011, the Visegrád Group concentrated on economic growth and cooperation, and out of the stagnation of their former Communist systems have arisen vibrant free-market economies. Together, their 65 million people now comprise Europe's seventh-largest economy and the world's thirteenth-largest. While the citizens of these four nations may not have the per capita incomes of some of their wealthy neighbors to the west, both the United Nations and the world Bank consider them highly developed and high-income states.

Now that they have achieved a modicum of economic prosperity, the Group is moving forward. On May 12, 2011, the Visegrád Group announced that its four nations are forming a "battle group," which will be ready by the first half of 2016 and be commanded by Poland. In addition, it will be an independent force, that is, not under the authority of NATO. However, beginning in 2013, the four countries will participate together in regular military exercises with the support of the NATO Response Force.

What would make these V4 nations—Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary—take such independent action? Two major factors—one constant, the other ever-changing—have forced them to act on their own initiative to take on the costly burden of militarization during an economic downturn.

The first factor is geography. The Visegrád nations are tightly wedged between European powerhouse Germany to the west and a resurgent Russia on the east. Poland, especially, has seen armies from both east and west transit and fight on its wide plains for centuries, so it is always well aware that it has few natural impediments to its stronger neighbors' armed forces. Like Poland, the other states of the V4, despite their more rugged terrain, have long histories of being the bloody buffer zones between hostile major powers.

The second factor, which makes the first relevant, is the flow of recent trends within Europe. From its low days after the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia has significantly grown in influence among its former satellite states like Belarus and Ukraine. This can easily be seen in its successful 2008 campaign against Georgia. With its energy wealth to back it, Moscow is suddenly a frightening bogeyman again.

This growing concern to the east is not helped by events in the west. The economic woes of just about every EU nation except Germany have diminished the luster of further economic integration, particularly joining the Eurozone. Moreover, the plight of the EU has had the effect of strengthening the V4 nations' other historical nemesis, Germany. It would be an understatement to say that they are uneasy with the idea of having to take orders from Berlin. It is also possible that the V4 nations view their new battle group as a wise precaution should the EU fracture under the strains of mounting debt and almost certain future defaults by one or more of its member states.

Finally, the Visegrád Group obviously questions NATO's ability to defend it from Russian or any other power's aggression. The new NATO strategic concept, publicized in the last quarter of 2010, indicates that the United States, stretched thin by its handful of ongoing wars, is ratcheting back its commitment to European security. Under the new plan, should Poland come under attack across the North European Plain, the U.S. would send only one brigade to defend it. Aggravating this is the pitiful state of European military forces after more than six decades of reliance on American might.

The V4 nations are not alone in their pessimism. Since 2008, a Nordic Battle Group, consisting of a few thousand troops from Sweden, Norway, Finland, Ireland, and Estonia, has also been active. These northern nations also fear the rising strength of Germany and Russia, the instability of the EU, and the distraction of America by its economic and military crises. Clearly, these states believe that regional military alliances, as weak as they are at present, will provide a framework for larger defense forces just in case their fears become realities.

There are already signs that the Visegrád Group is seeking to expand its alliance southward to Romania and Bulgaria, and perhaps it will also make overtures northward to Lithuania and Latvia (or these Baltic countries could join the Nordic Battle Group). In any event, the nations of Eastern Europe are nervous enough to form a sub-alliance against the instability around them. Could this be the formation of an eastern "foot and toes" of the final kingdom of Nebuchnezzar's great image, as mentioned in Daniel 2:40-43? Time will tell, yet even if it is not, these new alliances presage a break with the familiar post-Cold War pattern and hint that major instability lies just over the horizon.

Bin Laden's Death and Our Response

This week has seen the announcement of the death of terrorist mastermind and al-Qaida head Osama bin Laden at the hand of American commandos at his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. While details about the raid have been changing since the late-Sunday night announcement by President Obama, the consistently reported facts have been that Navy Seals dropped in by helicopter into the compound, putting down all resistance, and killing the terror chief with shots to the head and chest when he refused to surrender. His body was photographed at the scene and then taken to a U.S. army base in Afghanistan before being transported to the U.S.S. Carl Vinson, an aircraft carrier, for burial in the Arabian Sea.

In immediate response, large crowds gathered in Washington, DC, and in New York City, both cities that bore the brunt of the September 11, 2001, attacks by bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorists. Students from nearby universities gathered in front of the White House on Sunday night to celebrate the death of America's number-one enemy. A similar gathering of predominantly young people took place at Ground Zero, where the World Trade Center towers once stood. There, the crowd recited the Pledge of Allegiance and sang "The Star-Spangled Banner." One man climbed a light pole and popped open a bottle of champagne to celebrate, while another waved an American flag. Bagpipers played "Amazing Grace" to the emotional bystanders, who immediately responded by chanting, "U.S.A.! U.S.A.!"

For their part, reporters and pundits have been dancing a fine line in their coverage of this story. While it is obvious that they are pleased that bin Laden is no longer a threat to America and her people here and around the world, many of them seem unsure how to react. Do they appear gleeful and proud of their country and armed forces? Or, not wanting to appear too jingoistic and offensive to Muslims, do they take a matter-of-fact approach, staid and serious? Most have opted for the latter.

Ordinary citizens have also expressed some confusion over the matter, especially those who are more religious. They know that Jesus teaches, "But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you" (Matthew 5:44). How are Christians supposed to react to news of this nature? Should we cheer and pump our fists into the air, saying, "Yeah! Got him!" or should we express sympathy for the "victim"—or somewhere in between? What is the godly approach?

Scripture presents a variety of examples of reactions to the fall of enemies without a great deal of commentary to guide us in our own responses. For instance, in pursuing the Israelites across the Red Sea, thousands of Egyptian soldiers died when the walls of water crashed down upon them. Exodus 14:30 reports, "So the LORD saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore," and the following chapter chronicles the jubilation of the Israelites as they sang and danced in victory.

Another example can be found in the story of the reign of King Jehoshaphat of Judah in II Chronicles 20. Reports came to him that a huge army of Ammonites, Moabites, and Edomites were marching on Judah. In faith, the king gathered his army and positioned them where the allied column would most likely strike, but in the morning, when they went forward to meet the enemy, they found a corpse-strewn battlefield. The troops of Ammon and Moab had attacked the Edomites among them, and the two sides had destroyed each other! II Chronicles 20:27-28 reports, "Then they returned, every man of Judah and Jerusalem, with Jehoshaphat in front of them, to go back to Jerusalem with joy, for the LORD had made them rejoice over their enemies. So they came to Jerusalem, with stringed instruments and harps and trumpets, to the house of the LORD."

It should be noted that in each of these cases God was responsible for the deaths of their enemies. He was the one who had given them victory, and their praises, celebrations, music, and dancing were directed toward Him. They were not glorying in themselves or even in their nation or their armed forces, but in God and His deliverance of them from their enemies. This is a crucial point in determining how we should react: Praise belongs to God.

A few verses specifically comment on rejoicing over a fallen enemy. Proverbs 24:17 is probably the clearest of them: "Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles; lest the LORD see it, and it displease Him, and He turn away His wrath from him." What he describes is a kind of malignant pleasure over an enemy's misfortune. The proverb suggests that God may be more inclined to punish the callousness of His people than to continue meting out His wrath against their enemies.

Obadiah 1:12 provides similar warning in the example of the Edomites' perfidy when Judah fell to Nebuchadnezzar: "But you should not have gazed on [margin: gloated over] the day of your brother in the day of his captivity; nor should you have rejoiced over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction; nor should you have spoken proudly in the day of distress." God sees this sort of gloating as particularly evil. A reading of Amos 1 confirms that God deals severely with those who treat their enemies cruelly.

In his defense of himself, Job cites the fact that he did not participate in any kind of dancing on an enemy's grave: "If I have rejoiced at the destruction of him who hated me, or lifted myself up when evil found him (indeed I have not allowed my mouth to sin by asking for a curse on his soul) . . ." (Job 31:29-30). To him at this point in his life, it was a mark of pride that he had not stooped to this level of evil jubilation. He saw it as a sinful act.

Finally, David's example at the death of his enemy, Saul, found in II Samuel 1, is quite poignant and instructive: He wept and composed "The Song of the Bow" in honor of Saul and his son Jonathan, commanding the song to be taught to the children of Judah. David had a famously tender heart—a characteristic that set him apart (I Samuel 16:7) and mirrored God's own heart (I Samuel 13:14)—and at the death of his enemy, he considered all of Saul's past wrongs as paid for in the justice of death.

Perhaps the sense of justice served is the balance we should aim for. Rather than rejoice that he is dead and curse him to the Lake of Fire, we should thank God that He has allowed justice to be done and beseech Him to deliver His people from further acts of wicked men. In this way, we will overcome evil with good (Romans 12:21).

Raising Our Conception of the Resurrection

This past Sunday, the day after the Sabbath during the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Leviticus 23:10-11), was the day of the Wavesheaf offering, which typifies the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. It also happened to be the same day that most of this world's Christians observed Easter, on which they celebrate His resurrection. Churches held sunrise services because this is when they suppose Jesus to have risen from the grave, and they joyously proclaimed, "He is risen!" (Mark 16:6). Churchgoers wore their finest new, spring clothes, with many ladies sporting the modern, stylish version of the Easter bonnet. Later, children hunted for Easter eggs and gorged themselves on chocolate bunnies, chocolate eggs, sugared marshmallow chicks, and other goodies. It was all great fun.

But is this the extent of today's understanding of the resurrection of our Savior? Has His awesome overcoming of death become little more than a trite service, new clothes, and candy? Do we realize the profound implications of what happened in that new, rock-hewn tomb just outside of Jerusalem all those years ago? From the way many people treat the holiday, it would seem that they have not truly—deeply—considered what it means.

First, if they had studied the gospels on the subject, comparing the various biblical accounts with the traditional teaching, they would have realized that the Bible's accounts make it clear that Jesus could not have risen with the sunrise on Sunday morning. Notice John 20:1: "Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb" (our emphasis throughout). Jesus had already been resurrected! If this part of the "Easter story" is incorrect, what else is wrong? Taking all the clues together, we find that the Bible indicates a Wednesday crucifixion and a late Sabbath—Saturday—resurrection, since, to fulfill the sign of His Messiahship, He had to remain in the tomb a full three days and three nights or 72 hours (for a complete explanation, see our booklet, "After Three Days").

Second, most professing Christians believe that Christ's resurrection focuses on the fact that, having suffered crucifixion and then being buried in the tomb, He was dead, but three days later, He was alive again. As far as it goes, this is true. Jesus Himself writes to the church at Smyrna in Revelation 2:8: "These things says the First and the Last, who was dead, and came to life." However, we must be careful not to be satisfied with the basic truth that He returned to life, for if we do, it does a grave injustice to the spiritual magnificence and significance of the event.

His was no ordinary resurrection, if any resurrection could be considered so. Other resuscitations down through history have been shown to be what we would call "reviving from clinical death": The person's heart stops, his breathing halts, and in effect, he appears dead, yet suddenly, he returns to life. In a similar way, just a short time before His own death, Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead (John 11), and later, at Christ's death, "many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many" (Matthew 27:52-53). These people were all returned to physical life, and while they are astonishing miracles and must have caused untold wonder and joy among their grieving relatives, their mortality was merely postponed. They would die again.

Jesus' resurrection was something altogether different: He was raised to everlasting life; He would live forever! In his first sermon on the day of Pentecost, Peter informs the gathered crowd, "God [the Father] raised up [Jesus], having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it" (Acts 2:24). Paul explains what happened in a similar way in II Corinthians 13:4, "For though He was crucified in weakness, yet He lives by the power of God." Finally, the risen Christ Himself says to the apostle John, "I am He who lives, and who was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen." (Revelation 1:18). The life that the Father returned to Him was not mere physical life but the immortal spirit life of God.

Third, because He has passed from death to life, He makes our salvation and eternal life possible. Paul writes in Romans 6:8-9, "Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more." He puts it succinctly in Romans 5:10, ". . . we shall be saved by His life," that is, the life He now lives as our Savior and High Priest. Hebrews 7:24-25 tells us, "But He, because He continues forever, has an unchangeable priesthood. Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them." In His final prayer with His disciples, Jesus begins with this thought: "Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You, as You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him" (John 17:1-2).

In these verses, we see hints of a fourth momentous product of Christ's resurrection that contains weighty implications for us. Paul writes in Hebrews 1:3, ". . . when He had by Himself purged our sins, [Jesus] sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high." Peter also mentions this in his Pentecost sermon: "This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses. Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear" (Acts 2:32-33).

Because He was raised from the dead, having paid for our sins in His sinless body, the Father has exalted Him to sit with Him on His throne, where He has the power and the authority to "pour out" the Holy Spirit on the elect, giving them the ability to have a relationship with God and to have eternal life through a similar resurrection. Paul writes in Philippians 3:8, 10-11: "Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, . . . that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, . . . if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead."

In this way, He is "the captain of [our] salvation" (Hebrews 2:10), the archegos, the Forerunner and Trailblazer, who opens the way before God's people and makes it possible for them to attain what He has. And this potential is not limited to some kind of quasi-angelic existence, for the apostle John writes, ". . . when He is revealed, we shall be like Him" (I John 3:2). Paul concurs in I Corinthians 15:49: "As we have borne the image of the man of dust [Adam], we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man [Jesus]." Man's potential reaches to the divine!

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is nothing to be taken lightly. We would do well to consider it deeply, since it is so vital to God's purpose and to the eternal future of God's elect.