Hidden messages

Once again, a wonderful sermon given by my brother in Christ amazed me that the Bible is not merely a record of Israel history but the very word of God through which He spoke to His people, Israel at that time and speaks to us as well as how He did to Israel. One of the wise interpretation approaches is to interpret the word of God from the perspective of the readers for whom the text was written. Moses wrote the first five books of Bible in order to inherit the word of God while there were many false teachings in Egypt where they lived for many ages. Therefore, we can believe that Moses wrote all these books for Israel, the people of God. They were the target that Moses addressed when he wrote the books. Right here, we shall see what we may get if we interpret from their perspective.  

However, there are many things in the Bible that we might find them irrelevant and indifferent sometimes that we often failed to appreciate them. One of the things is the names of Descendants. Over here, I will be the first to say I failed to appreciate the record of Descendants’ names. But somehow God hid some amazing truth in the way He listed out the names. Well, so here we go. Let’s read Genesis 4:16-5:32.

In these scriptures, I believe God wants to bring out several messages. We can see there are two lines of descendants, one was from Cain; another was from Seth. However, when their names were recorded down, both of them were written differently.

Difference 1

Moses mentioned that Cain built a city and named it with his son’s name, Enoch. From the list, we are informed that the descendants of Cain were all talented and skilled people who seemed to contribute a lot in the world and make the lives of people better. (They were the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock, father of all those who play the lyre and pipe, and forger of all instruments of bronze and iron.) Besides, we can see that there was a person called Lamech in the family who was really proud of being a murder, boasted about his evil to his wives, by the way he was first one we can find in the Bible who got himself two wives. Apparently he rejected the marriage system given by God. In contrast, we found no special contribution given by the descendants of Seth.

Difference 2

The ages of Cain’s descendants were not recorded while the ages of all Seth’s descendants were properly recorded.

Difference 3

There were two different persons named Lamech in these two name lists. However, there is a big contrast between them. At the same time, there were two different persons named Enoch, between them we can see another big contrast as well.

Difference 4

In these two families, there were 3 names at the end of each list, but the three in Cain’s family were the last generation of Cain’s family, while the three in Seth’s family are the ascendants of the human beings until today.   

All these differences actually were to show several big contrasts to the people of God, Israel. They were living in Egypt where many outsiders kept their own false teachings and beliefs. Of course in that situation, they had nothing to refer in order to judge the truthfulness of the words they were told. They sometimes thought of going back Egypt even when they were in the wilderness, complaint God and Moses for bringing them out of Egypt. But in this record, God wanted to show them the differences of the consequences between the people of God and the evils.

The difference 1 showed them that the family of Cain looked just the same as the people of Egypt. In that time, they surely knew that the people of Egypt showed their pride by naming their building with their names. They were good in showing and utilizing their talents like Egyptians. They were violent who didn’t care about the lives of men they murdered, they were just like Egyptians at that time. The Israelites would definitely recall how they were tortured by the Egyptians. Here they would conclude that the descendants of Cain = Egyptians = the sons of evil.

The difference 2 showed that Moses wrote down their descendants’ names differently. Moses wrote the names of Cain’s descendants in a way that their ages were not significant at all while the ages of Seth’s descendants were somehow appreciated and well-recorded. The difference is the value of lives. It is written in Psalm 115:15, Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His godly ones. We surely can tell that God treasured the death of Seth’s descendants very much that Moses was inspired to record the ages of their death while He didn’t care about the death of Cain’s descendants as if their lives were indeed worthless. Over here, the Israelites would understand how God valued their lives while devalued the lives of Egyptians who worshipped gods other than the Lord.

The difference 3 showed us that different people with the same name can have two different natures. This all depended on which family they were in. The Enoch in Cain’s family represented the pride of men, while the Enoch in Seth’s family walked with God and he was taken by God.  Likewise the Lamech in Cain’s family was a serious evil who boasted as being an evil-doer. He proclaimed that he was more evil than Cain. That was really terrible. However, the Lamech in Seth’s family prophesized the word of God and fathered a son named Noah. He was the father of Noah. Can we perceive the big contrast?

The difference 4, they both have three children at the last generation in their list. But the children of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth survived after the flood, and the children of Lamech, Jabal, Jubal and tubal-cain. They were all killed by the flood in Genesis chapter 6. Cain’s family was terminated at that generation while Seth’s family was saved by God. The Israelites would definitely recall of how the armies of Egypt were destroyed by the red sea when they chased after them!  Thank God that nothing in the Bible was written for nothing, we can always get something great from it if we read it prayerfully.   

   

                    

The Truth

Some say the world is falling sick, I would say that it has been sick for thousands years. Things changed. The telecommunication technology is getting advanced with time; it improved the efficiency of the connection among human beings. Previously, we just had cell phone to make voice call, that time the connection wasn’t that good. Right now we have internet which is available most of the area and smart phones are getting cheaper when the new model is being brought into the market. People can get on the line and communicate with another through internet with their smart phone. Of course, the speed of the connection is still improving, now it is considered sufficiently fast.

However, what surprised me the most is that people are not really comfortable with face-to-face communication. And this kind of communication is somehow getting a long way behind the efficiency of internet communication. We don’t like to converse with people who are physically present around us but we choose to chat with the people far away from us with the electronic device. Maybe people around you are not as important as the people you chose to chat with. But wouldn’t it be weird to see all people coming out for lunch and each of them having their faces down looking to their phones and being silent throughout the lunch. Normally, people find it normal and acceptable because everyone behaves the same. In my opinion, the behavior of majority never has the right to determine the norm but the Creator of the world who created for His purpose does. This phenomenon is considered common but abnormal. We are given a mouth not only for gustatory enjoyment but for communication. Our God communicates in trinity for eternity; they dwell in one another in love through the communication of love. We were created so to manifest the love of God through communication.

Besides that, I realized that people nowadays choose to get involved into topics which are not heavy and head-aching. They prefer to talk about something funny or casual instead of something critical or serious. When you talk about hobbies and entertainment, they never failed to be active in that conversation, but when you would like to know about their opinion on something serious, silence normally becomes their reply. I believe it is either they choose not to give any comment or they really never thought of that before. Normally, when I shared some ideas and opinions with other people, I am actually looking forward some feedback. Some might disagree what I said, but sadly they don’t seem to be confident enough to present their opinions, some just anyhow disagree my points without having their own opinions just because they don’t think it is right to comment on other people.

In my opinion, human right is being protected in a very superficial way. We all know that we have our human right being protected in this post-modern era. If you violate my right, the whole world would punish you, because this is the age of humanism. Therefore, no one can force me to do something that I don’t want to do. But we often misunderstand this kind of human right and abuse it most of the time. We would say:  “I have my own human right and you should take care of it, you shouldn’t give any comment on my life, get away from me and take care of your own business please.” However, this mistake influences us in a way that makes people to be over-protected and vulnerable. Eventually, we can’t take unpleasant comments and unfavorable words from honesty, most of the time we would overreact. However, I really hope my friends can realize that differences are not scary at all, but the fear of facing differences can kill us. Don’t we have the right to speak and make our stand clear? What makes us so afraid of revealing the differences by telling the truth we believe?

However, some often say: “Different people have different opinions. I can’t say yours is wrong.” What is the message of the statement? They refuse to comment or they don’t know how to entertain you? I am really surprised of how often I got this sort of reply in my life. I believe someone is trying to draw us from the truth and I can tell. We spend time on reading the most popular book, facebook and look how people enjoy their lives. The old folks spend time to look for the latest news from newspaper, try to stay up-to-date. But all these things that we can know are other people's things, mostly irrelevant to us. But that's all we like to know! In fact, what should we be looking for? We should be looking for the truth of life, shouldn’t we? The truth that give you a new and everlasting life. A life that you never had before! A life that your spirit desires ever since you were born! But what we are afraid of? We are afraid of knowing the truth that we never want to accept. Humans throughout the history tend to run away from God, as what Adam did after he sinned against God.

It is sarcastically paradoxical enough to see that we need someone to tell us the truths but we are afraid to face them. My friends, it is well saying that everyone has their own thinking. But what I would say next is that not every thought is true in the eye of God. (Judges 21:25) In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes (Proverbs21:2). Every man's way is right in his own eyes, But the LORD weighs the hearts. We don’t want to live under the sovereignty of God; we want to be independent from God. But what we need the most is the truth, the purpose of living. The Word is the only savior that can save us from this miserable world.                  

Ephesians 2:1-10

Thanks be to God, the Holy one. Once again, his words reached to me through the Bible early in the morning. I think I would better write down to share this wonderful reminder.

Scriptures Ephesians (2:1-10)

¹And you were dead in the trespasses and sins ²in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience – ³among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. ⁴But God, being in rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, ⁵even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved – ⁶and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, ⁷so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. ⁸For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, ⁹not a result of works, so that no one may boast. ¹⁰For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

The verse 1 of this scripture gave us a brief introduction of what he is going to talk about next. “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins” He is going to remind us about the worse condition we were in (we were dead), and how God revived us. (Made us alive)

From verses 2-3, Paul reminded us the way we lived. We walked following the course of this world and the spirit that works in the sons of disobediences. We by nature were the children of wrath. The judgment of death would reach us sooner or later, and that would be the only thing we deserve. However, it is very interesting to study the way Paul addressed this topic. He wrote to Ephesians saying that they were dead. The Ephesians were definitely alive when they received the letter, then we should ask what sort of logic that Paul used when he said that they were dead in sins and trespasses. In Genesis chapter 3, Adam sinned against God by disobeying His commandment. He was not dead immediately after he ate the forbidden fruit, but he was then spiritually dead from that onwards.

Let me clarify before we proceed. What does it mean by death? One should have the knowledge about true death, because that would show the difference between human and animals. When God created man, he formed the man of dust from the ground. And breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. (Gen2:7) Human was created differently in the comparison with other creatures. So literally, we can see death from two perspectives, one is the physical death and the other is the spiritual death. In this letter, Paul talks about the spiritual death. When someone is physically dead, he first would lose his breath and his body would stop to function subsequently and after that his body will corrupt slowly. However, when someone is spiritually dead, he can never give proper response to the word of God. To the word of God, he is helpless to respond appropriately. This is the condition where we were in and the first thing that he reminded us through this chapter. If you were to study the way that Paul wrote his letters, he often told the readers about the bad news which bring the readers into despair and afterwards he would share with them the good news – the gospel of the Bible as the ultimate comfort of their despair. He knew it very well that people need to have bad news before the good news come. 
  

In the verses 4-5, Paul reminds us that God is rich in mercy. Because of the great love with which he loves us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. Over here, Paul addressed us the reason of God to save us. It is not that there are still something good or valuable in us that made him choose to save us. As what he mentioned before, we are supposed to be the children of wrath. Due to his righteousness, he had 10000 reasons to put His wrath on us. God saved us because he loves us. He loves us because God is great in love and rich in mercy. This is the only reason that Paul told us through this chapter. For that reason, God made us alive. The English Bible used past tense to address this sentence and we can see that this has been accomplished by God and those in Christ were made alive and forever alive. (Matthew 22:32) “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” (1Corinthians 15:55) “Death is swallowed up in victory, O death where is your victory? O Death, where is your sting?” How great these scripture are! Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Besides that, God raised us up with him (Jesus Christ) and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. This is another interesting scripture. What does it mean when he wrote “He seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”? The readers might be sitting on the wooden chairs when they were reading the letter. Over here, Paul meant what he said, we were seated with Jesus Christ in the heaven. And this has been accomplished but may not be fully comprehended. I would believe that somehow spiritually we are sitting together with our Lord Jesus Christ in the heaven.

After all the bad and good news, Paul reminded us how we have been saved by writing that “we have been saved by grace through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Over here, I am going to talk about Solae Grace. Instead of highlighting the word “through faith”, I would prefer to highlight the word “by grace” over here. In this scripture what we can understand is that by grace we have been saved. I would say the faith on the gospel can never exist if the gospel itself doesn’t exist in the first place. As what I have mentioned before, since spiritually we were dead, we couldn’t respond to the gospel of God on our own. We lost the ability to respond and even receive this gospel through faith.

Let’s understand what grace is. Here is a wonderful scripture to help us understand the grace of God. (Psalm 103:8-10) The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.  Over here, we can understand what grace is, grace is due to the mercy of God, he doesn’t deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. As short, on this perspective, we know that grace is that we are not given the bad we deserve the most. Besides that, in Ephesian 2:6, we see that God gave us the goods that we don’t deserve which are the salvation through Jesus Christ and the glory in the heaven. As a conclusion, grace is that we are not given the bad things that we deserve the most; instead we are given the goods that we don’t deserve. What an amazing grace it is!

We have been saved by grace through faith. This is very true. Through faith, we can receive this amazing grace for the sake of our salvation. However, as what I said, we are helpless to respond in order to receive this gracious gospel. Some may refuse to believe the bad news that Paul addressed which serves to show our helplessness. They believe that we still have some ability to do goods and even respond to the good news. By reading other scriptures, we know that Paul was telling the truth that we were totally helpless. At the end of time, those who are in the heaven would only give thanks to God for the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness towards the people in Christ Jesus and no one would discuss about whose faith is the greatest among all because they know that the salvation is not their own doing but the gift of God. It sounds familiar, doesn’t it? In Luke chapter 18:27 Jesus said: “What is impossible with men is possible with God.” God made us alive and then granted us the ability to respond to his grace. This happened in John 11:38-44 where Jesus raised Lazarus. This man who had died came out from the grave. This was a miracle that is impossible with men but possible with God. Likewise, God made us alive and then we can only come out from our trespasses, and receive the gospel. The word of Jesus with the life-changing power and the dwelling of spirit changed the dead nature of Lazarus into living and active nature, and Lazarus was enabled to respond to the word of Jesus and eventually came out form his grave. Seriously speaking, after all, we have to believe that we have been saved through faith but this faith is given by the grace of God due to his kindness and mercy. This salvation is truly the gift of God given to us while we have nothing worth to be saved.

However, in Ephesians 2:10 we know that, with this regenerated life, we have been given the ability to do good works which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Doing goods is never the way of obtaining the salvation, but something that our Savior prepared us to do after this redemption. With a grateful heart, we should practise good works for his sake alone because we are meant to do goods beforehand.