"Understanding the End" - Ronald L. Dart

it seems fair to say that the world looks at christianity and judaism as two entirely different religions you might question the word entirely but by and large they do if that's the comparison there is something to say for that because christianity and judaism are quite different but if you're comparing christianity to the faith of abraham you're on entirely different ground because there you are dealing with something that is the same religion is the same faith and has been from the beginning christianity and judaism might be compared to two branches of the same tree but one does not grow out of the other at all to borrow a phrase from paul don't think that you bear the root the root bears you and so christianity and judaism if they're going to look to a root at all have to look to the root which is jesus christ in the new testament judaism is called the tradition of the elders that's the term for it you do find the word judaism in paul's writing where he says you have heard of my conduct in time past in judaism thus placing judaism firmly in his past in the context of that area and but in the new testament as i said it's called the tradition of the elders jacob nuzner in his book christian judaism when christianity began says that there were many judaisms in the first century and that is kind of evident as you read even in the new testament but more so as you read other histories the dominant judaism of the time which was held by the pharisees and the sadducees rejected jesus out of hand and it's easy to see why they did when you read carefully through the passages jesus did not fit the mold of the extant judaism he was in sharp conflict with it at just about every turn but he was not in conflict with abraham or abraham's god this is i think a really important distinction for us to make now there's an enigmatic statement of jesus following the episode on the mount of transfiguration that i want us to call it the call to your attention in matthew 17 and verse 10. the disciples asked him this is after they'd seen jesus talking and vision with with moses and elijah they said why do the scribes say that elijah must first come and jesus answered and said to them elijah truly shall come first and restore all things but i say unto you that elijah has come already and they didn't know him they have done to him whatever they wanted likewise also shall the son of man suffer of them and then the disciples understood that he was talking about john the baptist that one came through to them so he's already come and they didn't know him and they treated him however they wanted to in herod's case actually in the case of herod's wife it was to cut his head off in prison and deliver it to her on a charger now there are a lot of questions we could ask about this question this particular passage of jesus but there's one of them that stands out in my mind the elijah was to come and restore all things now what's implicit in that statement what does it imply to us it seems to me it suggests that there is something that is not there something perhaps that should be there but it's not and it's going to have to be restored at one time it was but now it's not now we know that jesus was talking about john the baptist who was an antitype of elijah who is if you use the biblic used these scholarly terms he was the archetype of all prophets now it's worth taking a moment to look at matthew's summary of john's message john the baptist in matthew chapter 3 verse 1 in those days came john the baptist preaching in the wilderness of judea the word for wilderness is basically lonesome the solitary place he's away from the city he's away from all the the noise and the bustle of things he's out there by himself but he is preaching out there so he doesn't preach to himself there are some people there and word apparently spread from there why wasn't he at jerusalem i think there's a reason for this and it kind of emerges as we go along john's message repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand for this is he who was spoken of by the prophet isaiah saying the voice of one crying in the wilderness prepare the way of the lord make his paths straight now this is a small thing but in the past i have read verse 2 repent ye for the kingdom of heaven is at hand as john's message and verse 3 as matthew's commentary verse 3 well this is he who is spoken of by the prophet isaiah the one crying in the wilderness prepare the way of the lord make his paths straight but i think both these verses are john's message which means he saw himself as the forerunner of the messiah if you take it those two together and there really is no reason not to he later denied he was elijah but jesus said he was and of course in literally speaking he was not his his denial was acceptable but jesus is talking about him as an eddy type of of elijah and a very real player in all of this at the same time john had his raiment of camel's hair and a leather girdle about his loins and his food was locusts and wild honey he was out there living off the land now it's a singular comparison but this statement is utterly irrelevant to the whole story here except for one thing there was an occasion when some men encountered the original elijah it was in the reign of king amaziah and they they he had been sent them off he said uh sent them to the bales above i think the god of ekron to see if he would recover of his injury and they started on their way elijah met him and sent them back saying no you're not going to recover you're going to die but when they showed up coming back and he said well we saw the prophet he sent us back said what'd he look like he said he was a man with a garment of hair and a leather belt around his waist and the king said that was elijah the tishbite soul elijah wore a leather a hairy garment and the leather belt around his waist here comes john wearing camel's hair and a leather belt around his waist i think that's why this is in this place because the camel's hair or the hairy garment and the leather around the waist are icons for elijah matthew 3 then went out to him jerusalem and all judea all the region around about jordan and they were baptized of him in jordan confessing their sins so repentance confession of sins baptism this is the core of john's message and therefore this is what john was beginning to restore and therefore this is what was apparently missing in society at this time or in the religion at this time now it's intriguing to me that this is seen as a restoration and all the more so when you read what follows when he saw many of the pharisees and sadducees come to his baptism he said to them oh generation of vipers who has warned you to flee from the wrath to come now i can't think of very many things that he could have said to them stronger than that i walk up to a guy he looks at me and says oh a generation of vipers who warned dutifully i would take it as an out-and-out insult and i'm sure they did who has warned you to flee from the wrath to come bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance and don't think to say within yourselves well abraham is our father for i say to you that god is able of these stones to raise up children to abraham now this is really fascinating and it's and it is i think extremely important to understand what is what is what is being said here they came down there as the carriers of abraham's faith that's what their claim was they claimed it in a way to jesus as well and jesus said back to them if abraham are your father you wouldn't be trying to kill me that's not the kind of thing abraham did and they thought i said at that point well you got it must have a demon because how their question was how did you know that we wanted to kill you they were convicted by that but in the clearest terms really john separates these practitioners of judaism who were in front of him on this occasion from abraham doesn't he he just takes a big ax and carves them out and say here you are and there abraham is jesus would make the statement the situation distinction even more clear later on if perhaps even a little less blunt but nevertheless quite clear and here john comes on and says now also the ax is laid to the root of the trees therefore every tree that brings not forth good fruit is cut down and cast into the fire i indeed baptize you with water unto repentance but he that comes after me is mightier than i whose shoes i am not worthy to bear he shall baptize you with the holy spirit and with fire funny i hear some christians talking about being fire baptized i would hope not i really would hope not because what he's talking about here fire baptism is a totally different matter listen to how he goes on his fan is in his hand he will thoroughly purge his floor he will gather his wheat into the garner but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire now basically he is telling these pharisees and sadducees who have come down here they're going to get separated out and they're going to be baptized with fire but that's another matter i i don't think i want the baptism of fire it's for those who are not bearing fruit it's for the chaff not the wheat now i told you all that to come to this of all the things i learned in writing the book the thread one of the greatest is that god has a consistent method of revelation throughout all the stories of the bible and a god is nothing if not consistent i've got some proofreaders that are on my case about all that time because i'm not necessarily but god is now there's an assumption abroad today that the holy days of the bible are jewish they came into existence to commemorate events in jewish history and now that christianity has parted company with judaism there is no need for christians to keep the holy days that's a common way people look at this thing now there are two scriptures that kept that from working for me one of them and i'm just going to read you a verse in each case hebrews 13 8 you know it jesus christ the same yesterday today and forever okay bingo the other scripture is james 1 verse 17. every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the father of lights with whom is no variableness neither shadow of turning now i take these two scriptures together and i conclude no god will be consistent right down through time in the way he works how he works when he works and so forth this is entirely logical it's what one would expect of the god who made all this you would expect him to be consistent you would expect him to have a plan you would expect him to work the plan and never miss a lick now i'm going to add one more scripture to the mix this is james speaking at the jerusalem conference one statement very important statement remember remember known unto god are all his works from the beginning of the world so whatever he was going to do he knew it before he ever started now all this being true it seems logical to me that the holy days that we observe were there right from the get-go and this was the thing that began to eat on me in the really years that led up to the publication of the thread but really kind of gelled in the monks leading up to the publication of the threat one clue for the me was found in leviticus 23 verse 2 in the meaning of a word speak to the children of israel and say to them concerning the feasts of the lord which you shall proclaim to be holy convocation even these are my feasts okay the word for feast is the hebrew moed it means properly an appointment a fixed time a season in other words god is saying these are my appointments and so i began to think about this and and consider that god has appointed times and consequently it's reasonable to think that any time he decides to act in history in a major way it will be at one of these appointed times we know them there's seven of them we got names for all of them and we've been observing them for a long long time now i want you to get all mystic on me on this though it's not as though there is a hole out here a spot in space-time where when the earth goes through it suddenly god is there and he will act and he doesn't act at other times no that's not what i'm driving at at all the calendar whether it be the hebrew calendar whether it be the roman calendar is a human invention just get used to the idea the calendar per se whether it's hebrew or what is a human invention so your god you come down to talk to people and to reveal to them when your appointment times are where are you going what are you going to tell them well you've got what choice you can do one of two things you can give them an entirely new calendar or you can tell them where they're going to happen in the calendar they're familiar with i think he did the latter because there is i mean if you take a look through the bible about this you will find the stark shortage of scriptures giving you any kind of instructions about a calendar i can think of one and one only in the entire bible and that's not enough what's the instruction this month shall be unto you the beginning of months that's all now they knew what month that was the only reason we know what month it was was because of their tradition that followed down through the years we was connected to the passover the passover was handed on down and we learned you know laws having to do with the first fruits and then we are able in the land to put this together and say oh that's the month that is the beginning of months but it's never really laid out calendar-wise in the bible and in fact someone pointed the fact that the word the name of the first month abim means green ears okay fine where were they when he told him that egypt do the ears become green in egypt the same time they do at jerusalem no they most certainly do not the big difference between them somebody drove down this year to tyler from up north and they were really commenting on how everything greened up as they came south and i've noticed it the other way when i've gone north leading up to the passover how everything dries out none green is going north and it's it's kind of a lesson well the same thing is true in fact there's an indication in the book of acts i'll leave it to you to look it up that the uh day of the wave sheaf or the day when they began their harvest was about a week later up in troas from what it was in jerusalem different time they did they couldn't actually start the harvest at the same time the jerusalem jews would have done okay it's true that the sun the moon and the stars were given at creation as a tool that could be used for the measurement of time or the creation of a calendar but the bible doesn't tell you what the calendar is there are no distinctions anywhere there's no specification of actually how you determine when the new moon is what constitutes the first day of another month when the 13th month is added in the years to keep it in sync you only can find little hints here and there because it will tell you how long it was from one month to the other and you have to realize oops there were 13 months in that year so you can see it that it was there there are no instructions for it so where did they come from the jews created their own calendar actually they probably adapted their own calendar from a babylonian calendar for the egyptian calendar or what have you it is a standard lunar calendar adjusted for the seasons so the agriculture comes out in connection with the holidays that simple now whatever the case it occurred to me to ponder how often god intervenes in human affairs and what happened on that day on those days before there ever was a jew an israelite or moses it's in there now it's my guess and it's only a guess that every major intervention of god in human affairs took place at a moed an appointed time if i'm right then the dividing of tongues at the tower of babel took place at a moed at an appointed time if you were god wouldn't you do that you say i know say i'm gonna i'm gonna divide their tongues when am i gonna do this i know what i'll do i have this moed coming up i'll do it on that day which one was it pentecost think about it think about it okay more important than that though is an event that involved abraham it's in genesis 22 verse 1. it came to pass after these things that god did tempt abraham he tested him and he said to him abraham i'm here lord he said take now your son your only son isaac whom you love and get you to the land of moriah and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which i will tell you of this is an absolutely crushing statement you know i don't know that i fully appreciate it's funny thing how sometimes things come to you in a in a movie an act a presentation a drama and this one really did because i'd heard a preacher in the past who was making a big thing out of our obedience to god and how we should obey without question and he said when god told abraham do this he didn't ask any questions just got up and went and he presented it to us as though god abraham was so strong in the faith that it didn't even bother him and then i saw george c scott in the movie the bible portray abraham in this situation and i began to realize you no no this was not easy for abraham if it was easy for abraham it was meaningless and if there's one thing this event is not it's not meaningless this is not done just routinely or just because there's a quirky god up there behind his console you know the one that uh gary larson drove through the picture of god sitting at the console big long beard and there's one button up there that says smite that he could hit it's not like that so anyway i have become absolutely persuaded myself that abraham here is a type of the father and isaac is a type of jesus and what god was doing in abraham was giving the lesson of what he was going to do for all of us when jesus came so we're again we're dealing with the same god same religion and that it really was a sacrifice for god to give his only son that way and i think this is here because we will have an easier time identifying with abraham than we would have identifying with god who knows what he's going to do knows when he's going to do it knows how he's going to do it and so forth we think it's easy i don't think so i don't think so because he gave us a very human example now for this to be meaningful abraham could not be told what the end he had to be kept in suspense about that god explains nothing he just gives instructions take now your son your only son whom you love and take him and offer him as a burnt offering now what kind of faith did this require well abraham rose up early in the morning and saddled his ass and took two of his young men with him and isaac his son he split the wood for the burnt offering and rose up and went to the place god had told him of then on the third day abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place way off now that's interesting by itself why the third day why not why even mention how long it took him to get there i think there may be something of interest here and it connects to the passover the lamb is selected when tenth day of the of the month when is it sacrificed on the 14th day so here this is three days out he spots the place and apparently then it's on the fourth day that they goes to the mountaintop to sacrifice idol isaac you wouldn't you'd never think about this just seeing breeds in here like part of the story but there's no reason for that statement about three days to be here unless it had something to do with the story abraham said to his young man you stay here with the animal and i'll go with go yonder with the lad to worship and come back abraham took the wood and the burnt offering that's our wood for the barnard and laid it up on isaac his son he took the fire in his hand and a knife and they went both of them together isaac like jesus had to carry the wood of his own sacrifice i think this is intentional isaac spoke unto abraham his father and said my father here i am son he said behold the fire and the wood where is the lamb for a burnt offering and abraham said my son god will provide himself a lamb for the burnt offering and so they went on both of them together and they came to the place which god had told him of abraham built the altar put took some stones i'm sure and put it together laid the wood on it in order and then he bound isaac his son and laid him on the altar upon the wood so little so little is said of what this felt like of the interaction between them of the expression on isaac's face of what isaac might have said of what he might have asked nothing is said we are left to think it through and for those of you who have a firstborn son it probably could come home a lot more bitterly than it might for someone who does not we know those emotions are there and we know it was not easy for either one of them well abraham then stretched forth his hand took the knife to slay his son and at that moment the angel of the lord called him out of heaven and said abraham abraham he said here i am he said lay not your hand on the lad neither do them any harm for now i know that you fear god seeing you have not withheld your son your only son from me now i think some people believe in a god who dissembles a god who would lie a god who would deliberately mislead you on something that he would be tricky about this kind of thing and therefore this statement now i know was really just for abraham's benefit and was not a true statement i don't agree i don't agree what i think it means to me is that god did not know and neither did abraham what he would do until they came to the moment why would god not know because he left abraham free to choose and if abraham was not free to choose then the whole exercise was meaningless if it was a fade accompli if it was certain which way it would go why go through it all in the first place and all the meaning is is milked right out of it unless you understand that abraham at any moment in time could have said nuts to this i'm going home but he never did and abraham lifted up his eyes and looked and behold there was a lamb caught in the thicket by the thorns and abraham went and took the ram and offered him for a burnt offering in the place of his son and he called the name of that place jehovah yirah as it is said to this day in the mount of the lord it shall be seen i think the niv catches the census verse very well it says abraham call that name of that place the lord will provide actually the idea of god seeing is he will see to it and to this day it is said on the mountain of the lord it will be provided as an aside the expression of the mountain of the lord seems to describe either sinai or zion at different times so i don't think you can draw any hard conclusions my guess is that abraham's sacrifice was on mount zion mount zion at what would later be called jerusalem and it wouldn't surprise me at all if it's right there where the dome of the rock is to this day but i think that is one of the traditions that go with it hebrews now chapter 11 verse 18. sorry verse 8. by faith abraham when he was called to go out to a place which he should receive for an inheritance obeyed and he went out not knowing where he went now it wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that abraham's departure took place on the 15th day of the first month his exodus from a gentile country to head off into the promised land was right there or perhaps it was on the 15th day of the seventh month with another festival by faith he adjourned in the land of pro sojourn in the land of promise as in a strange country dwelling in tabernacles with isaac and jacob heirs with him of the same promise and candidly this whole thing of the living in tabernacles this way as it's developed in hebrews i think definitely points at the feast of tabernacles the significance involved in it he looked for a city that has foundations whose builder and maker is god through faith also sarah herself received strength to conceive seed and was delivered of a child when she was past age because she judged him faithful who had promised and if memory serves isaac was born on a moab an appointed time and that's what god says we're going to do i'll be back here at the appointed time next year and sarah will have a son therefore they're spraying even of one and him as good as dead so many as the stars of the sky in multitude and the sand by the seashore innumerable these all died in faith not having received the promises but having seen them afar off and were persuaded of them and embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth man they died in faith without having received the promises boy what does that say i mean we pray and pray and pray we we're we're looking for a promise or a blessing or something from god and we want it to happen now at least while we're alive that's what we're looking for but to go all the way to your death in absolute faith looking for that city and knowing that it lay on the other side of the grave that's faith they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country if they'd been mindful of the place they when it came out of they could have gone back but now they desire a better country that is heavenly so god is not ashamed to be called their god for he has prepared for them a city what a fascinating expression i'm not sure that the translators got it right but it it sounds right god is not ashamed to call them that for them to call him this god which kind of suggests that it could be that he might be ashamed of them or shamed to call them god but anyway by faith abraham when he was tried offered up isaac and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son of whom it was said in isaac shall your seed be called accounting that god was able to raise him up even from the dead whereby he received him in a figure in other words typologically or figuratively he got his son back from the dead this is very revealing because paul sees it very clearly that he did not know that god was going to stop him from doing this his assumption was in faith that he would bring isaac back from the dead that god was able to do that a passage from isaiah comes to mind isaiah 46 verse 9 remember the former things those of long ago i am god and there is no other there is none like me i make known the end from the beginning from ancient times what is still to come i say my purpose will stand and i will do all that i please really i would expect he would did you catch this i make known the end from the beginning right from the start now if you want to understand what god is going to do you look at what he has done that's what he's saying the truth of god is in a way like a palindrome a palindrome is one of those words that spell the same front to back back to front like radar or madam exactly the same no matter which way you go and in fact history divine history is a lot like that it plays through to a climax and then it plays on beyond it going back to where it started out in the first place at the beginning genesis 2 verse 8 the lord god planted a garden eastward in eden there he put the man whom he had formed and out of the ground made the lord god to grow every tree that's pleasant to the sight good for food the tree of life also in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil this is where we start in a garden a paradise with the tree of life right in the middle of everything then there is the end revelation 22 verse 1 john says the angel showed me a river pure river of water of life clear as crystal proceeding out of the throne of the lamb of god and the lamb in the midst of the street of it and on either side of the river was there the tree of life which bear twelve manner of fruits and yielded her fruit every month and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations wow we come full circle right back to where we started from with a beautiful place a paradise with the tree of life in the middle of everything which can be for the healing of the nations of the peoples the gentiles of all of us as a matter of fact which is what this is all about later in verse 12 behold i come quickly he said and my reward is with me to give to every man according as his work shall be i am alpha and omega catch this the beginning and the end i am alpha and omega the beginning and the end the first and the last blessed are they that do his commandments that they may have right to the tree of life and may enter in through the gates of the city so we start out there we end up back there modified of course a little different somewhat but nevertheless back there and we should never make the mistake that the end has nothing to do with the beginning no matter how many detours we may take no matter how many errors we may fall into we must always find our way back to the path to the plan of god that will take us right on through now we see through a glass darkly the time is coming when we'll see more clearly but it's good for us to work our way through these things to study think about these things because in that we are looking toward the end from the beginning deuteronomy 29 29 the secret things belong to the lord our god but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever that we may do all the words of this law so there are things we will understand and things we will guess at we'll theorize over but we're always thinking about him and about what he is doing and finally proverbs 25 verse 2 it is the glory of god to conceal a thing the honor of kings is to search it out

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Length: 33min 27sec (2007 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 26 2017