(#7 Session 2) Day 3 - The Patriarchs

Shalom Aleichem and welcome to my bi-monthly blog!

As we continue our study of the Third Day of Creation, when we look at how God brought about this dry ground of salvation through the lives of the Patriarchs - Abraham, Isaac and Jacob - we learn some very important lessons about our Christian faith.

First, God’s gift of eternal life is unconditional, meaning we cannot do anything to earn our salvation. It only requires faith on our part. Like Abraham, we are called to believe in God alone and in His word for us in order for God to credit or give us His righteousness to cover our sinfulness.

What this means also is that, as Christians, we are children of promise like Isaac. Just as God promised Abraham a son and the blessing of descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, God promised us His very own Son Jesus and the blessing of becoming Abraham’s spiritual descendants and the very children of God. Now, we do not become Christians by being born into Christian families. Neither do we become Christians by trying to earn God’s favour through our religious works. We become God’s children of promise only through faith in Christ, when we enter into a personal saving relationship with Him.

Finally, we need to wait on God and not run ahead of Him. This is the main lesson behind Jacob’s life. Although he was already assured of God’s promises (Gen 25:23, Rom 9:10-13), Jacob did not wait for God’s Kairos but rushed ahead to try to steal the blessing. This led to a life on the run filled with lies and deception. Instead, we are to be like Joseph, who understood God’s Kairos and therefore knew what he should do.

Let me elaborate - Time is God’s gift to us. Our time thus belongs to Him, and the best time for us is always His Kairos. In His wisdom and love, God gave His Creation Seven Days (7,000 years) to make everything good and whole (Shalom - perfect/complete/at rest). When Adam and Eve sinned, God in His mercy sent them out of Eden away from the Tree of Life so that they would not eat from this tree and end up spending eternity in darkness, doom and death. In His time, God gave us a second chance through one man (Noah) and called another (Abraham) through whom we could be saved, promising him a son. But Abraham could not wait; he rushed ahead in his own time. Yet God is faithful. In His time, He fulfilled His promise to give Abraham a son (Isaac). In His time, Isaac had twins, and God chose the younger (Jacob). But Jacob could not wait; he rushed ahead in his own time. Yet God is faithful. In His time, He wrestled Jacob into submission and through his dysfunctional family of twelve sons, brought forth the nation - Israel. In His time, He revealed His plans to Jacob’s favourite son (Joseph) in a dream, which led to the beginning of his living nightmare. Joseph was sold as a slave into Egypt and later imprisoned on false charges. But Joseph knew God and trusted in His faithfulness. He did not rush ahead in his own time but waited on God’s time. So, in God’s time, Joseph was appointed to the highest position in Egypt after Pharaoh. In His time, God brought to pass His plans as revealed in Joseph’s dreams, and brought Joseph face-to-face with his wicked brothers. But Joseph did not harbour anger and bitterness towards them. He knew God and recognised His time and purpose; it was God who sent him ahead into Egypt to preserve a remnant by a great deliverance. In His time, God used one man, Joseph - who could understand the signs of the times and knew what he had to do - as part of His larger salvation plan for all of us.

Today, do we acknowledge that our time belongs to God? Do we know Him well enough and trust in His faithfulness to wait on His Kairos and not rush ahead in our own time? Do we know His heart and His purpose so that we can recognise the signs of the times that we live in today and know what we should do in such a time as this?

Link to presentation.

(#6 Session 2) Day 3 - Dry Ground

Shalom Aleichem and welcome to my bi-monthly blog!

Over the next few sessions, we will be looking at the Third Day of Creation and from there bring this discussion on the first three days of creation to a close.

If you recall, the first two days of creation pointed to Man’s fall into sin and how sin has to be dealt with by a holy and righteous God. This judgment eventually came about with the Flood but at the same time, God provided an Ark to save Noah and his family.

Now, following the Flood, God literally gathered the waters - like what He did on the Third Day - so that life can once again be revived on the dry ground of a new world. But mankind continued to drown in the sea of sin due to their fallen nature. Instead of repenting and turning back to God, they wanted to make a name for themselves, beginning here with the Tower of Babel. Throughout the rest of God’s Word, we will see the contest between this Satan-inspired kingdom of man (Babylon) and the Kingdom of God, which we will see later is represented by God’s chosen city - Jerusalem.

But the Third Day of Creation portrays an even more important reality - for just as God literally gathered the waters following the Flood, in symbolic terms, amidst what we could imagine as the sea of sin that threatens to engulf and drown us in eternal judgment, God gathered these waters and brought forth "dry ground" as it were, which is His plan to rescue us. God chose one man, Abraham, and from Abraham and his descendants, He birthed a nation, Israel, and it is through Israel that the world will be blessed, because out of this nation God gave us Jesus Christ.

Oh, what a wonderful picture of hope and salvation that God shows us on this Third Day of Creation!

Link to presentation.

(#5 Session 2) Day 2 - Reflections (Keep the Faith)

Shalom Aleichem and welcome to my bi-monthly blog!

As we end our discussion on the Second Day of Creation and the events of the flood of judgment and ark of salvation, I want to draw to your attention the prophetic significance of this period of time for us today.

In Mt 24:37-39, Jesus tells us that when He comes back, the world will be like that during the days of Noah. For in those days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. We saw how the flood only came after 1656 years, which is a very long time indeed. Enoch was born 622 years after Creation, meaning mankind would have heard Enoch’s warning of God’s coming judgment almost a thousand years earlier. But since nothing happened to the world for a long time after that, they doubted and ignored his warnings. By the time Noah came along, no one was listening. This is how the world will also be like when Jesus returns.

Today, we live in precisely such a world. We are almost two thousand years from the time Jesus first came. The Bible warns us that Jesus will soon return but as nothing has happened for such a long time since then, we doubt and ignore God’s Word. As we will see in our coming sessions through the 7 Days of Creation, the days of Noah are indeed here.

The question therefore is, do we recognise the times that we live in now? Is our ark - our faith in Christ - secure? Are we like the wise or foolish builders Jesus spoke about (Mt 7:24-27), able to withstand the rains, storms and floods of trouble and persecution that will strike before He returns? Have we put on the full armour of God (Eph 6:10-17) so that when the day of evil comes, we may be able to stand our ground, and after we have done everything, to stand? Are we able to eventually declare as Paul did, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Tim 4:7)?

As we reflect on this, we need to:

First, change our perspective if we are to understand the times we live in and know what we should do. We need to listen to God’s Rhema - His Voice of Truth - in this Kairos rather than the lies and deception of the devil and even of our own flesh and human rationalisations.

Second, know who we are in Christ and where we are in our walk with Him. We need to turn on and be guided by our spiritual GPS as it were to where God wants us to be in the world that we live in today, according to His eternal purposes for us.

Lastly, live holy and separated lives. We can expect the end times to be like the days of Noah. Life will appear normal with people eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, not knowing what will happen until the end suddenly strikes. Consequently, we need to be in but not of this world, building not our worldly livelihood but our ark of faith in Christ so that we will keep the faith when the rains, storms and floods come.

Link to presentation.