grace

Jonah: The Brooding Prophet

August 9, 2021 by David Noland Leave a Comment

Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, till he should see what would become of the city.

Now the LORD God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant. But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered.

When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint. And he asked that he might die and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”

But God said to Jonah, “Do you do well to be angry for the plant?” And he said, “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.”

And the LORD said, “You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?”
Jonah 4:5-11

Poor, pitiful Jonah. So angry with God for showing mercy to Nineveh that he goes east of the city (further away from Israel) and builds a temporary home there, perhaps still hoping to see Nineveh burn. The fact that the Scripture uses the term “suka” for “booth” suggests that this was also in keeping with the Jewish Festival of Booths or Sukkot, which occurs in late September as summer transitions into autumn. It is the first festival after the Jewish New Year of Yom Kippur, which is why it is also referred to the Feast of the First Days. As part of this festival, Jewish families are instructed to construct a temporary dwelling and to live in it for 3 days, as a reminder of the temporary dwellings of the Israelites as they sojourned through the wilderness of Sin towards Mt. Sinai.

As this is likely some of the hottest days of the year (the dog days of summer), God miraculously provides a shade tree to help keep Jonah comfortable – a tree that sprouts up overnight and Jonah was “exceedingly glad”. Overjoyed at the mercy that God had provided for him. Excited for the grace that God had extended to him in the midst of the glaring heat. So Jonah got comfortable. He relaxed beneath the shade of that tree. Until the dawn of the new day.

With the new day brought a different challenge as the tree withered away and Jonah was again angry and filled with self-pity. A tree that was miraculously provided for a night, that he did nothing to cause to come into being yet casually enjoyed the benefits of its presence, was taken away and he was left wanting. Interestingly, Jonah was not angry at God, but he was angry at the tree. The Father, knowing the motivations of the heart, challenged Jonah with a rhetorical question: “Are you right to be angry at the tree? A tree that you did nothing to cause to grow. A tree that just sprang up overnight, and because the benefits of that tree didn’t last more than a day you want to die?”

Are we not the same way? We expect the easy, casual benefits of grace for ourselves while we scornfully look down upon those whom God also desires to know His grace. We bask in the shade and comfort of His mercy, yet we sit in judgment upon the very ones that God calls us to go to and serve with an open heart. We take the benefits of His grace and mercy for granted and then when the Father brings discipline in an effort to get our attention, we withdraw into an emotional malaise and become paralyzed by our disillusionment.

The grace and mercy of God are not yours for your own enjoyment and selfish benefit. They are extended to you so that you might extend further to those around you. And when we hoard His gift to ourselves, blinded by our own warped sense of justice and self-righteousness, we quench the Holy Spirit of God and choke out the benefits of His grace in our lives. The tree of mercy withers in the baking sun of our discontent and self-righteousness.

If God chooses to have mercy on a repentant city of 120,000 people who are ignorant of the one true God, but demonstrate a heart seeking after Him, what right do we have to withhold mercy ourselves? The mercy of God is His alone to give. The grace of God is His alone to extend. He is the Sovereign Lord of the Universe and if He chooses to extend grace to our enemies who come forth in repentance, who are we to stand in His way.

I am reminded of the story of Corrie ten Boom, celebrated survivor of the Nazi concentration camps for hiding Jews during the Nazi occupation of Holland in World War II. She endured unimaginable horrors and lost all of her family, including her beloved sister Betsy in those camps, which she chronicled in her book “The Hiding Place”. Upon her release, she spent the remainder of her life telling the world “There is no pit so deep that God’s love isn’t deeper still.” After one speaking engagement she was approached by a man whom she recognized as one of the cruelest of the guards at the camp she and Betsy were interred at. He confessed his sin to her and begged her for her forgiveness. It took everything in her to not walk away in anger, disgust, and self-righteousness, but she had just spent the previous hour speaking on the power of forgiveness and to walk away would undo everything she had stood for. She took the guard’s hand and said “I forgive you…brother.”

Jesus said we are to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and the unjust.” (Matthew 5:44, 45). Do not take His grace and mercy for granted. Extend that same grace and mercy to those around you. No, they don’t deserve it, but neither did you. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be grace. This is the ultimate lesson of Jonah and it is the ultimate lesson that we all must take to heart.

Jonah: A Fishy Grace

July 7, 2021 by David Noland Leave a Comment

And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
Jonah 1:17

Even in the midst of judgment, God Almighty will often provide a means of mercy in accordance with His sovereignty in order to perfect His will. Even when the natural consequences of our sin seem to crush us, God Himself will prepare a respite in the midst of our judgment in order to give us an opportunity to repent and humbly turn to Him in obedience. Sometimes that mercy may come from the most unlikely, and miraculous, of places.

Divine Aseity

The first thing I want you to notice today is “The Lord appointed…”. One of the great attributes of Almighty God is that He is. His very name, YHWH, is literally translated as “I am”. When addressing Him in Scripture, in this specific verse, the writer of Jonah uses the word יְהֹוָה which is pronounced “Yᵊhōvâ“, which is translated as “the existing One.” God Himself is self-existing – an attribute of His divinity articulated as the doctrine of divine aseity. God was not created by human hands; He exists beyond our capacity for creation. And He does not need our permission to exist. This is a truth that is not only celebrated throughout the Old Testament, but reiterated by the writers of the New Testament. God is and He doesn’t require your belief in order to be.

The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.
Acts 17:24, 25

A basking shark (c) Jeremey Stafford-Deitsch

By virtue of His divine aseity, He alone has authority over Heaven and Earth and all of creation as our Creator. He alone has full authority to move within space and time to exact His will as He sees fit for His purposes. As Creator He also has the right to expect certain behaviors of His creation and when we step outside of His design, consequences, both natural and supernatural will manifest as a fulfillment of the simple law of cause and effect. Yet, God in His desire to see His will perfected will sometimes step in with a divine appointment that is designed to provide mercy and inspire repentance and submission to His will.

Divine Appointment

Because He is and He is the Lord of all creation, He has the authority to bend the rules of nature to His liking and His need. The word that is translated “appointed” is in effect a term of official assignment. It implies intent with a specific purpose. Just as judges are appointed and pastors are ordained, so God has appointed a “great fish to swallow up Jonah.”

Skeptics through the years have tried to deny or reinterpret this passage as “apocryphal” due to a fundamental lack of knowledge or belief in the possibility that God would use a fish to swallow a man. The passage does not say that God created some new species of fish that was large enough to swallow a man whole. Now does it say that it was a whale that shallowed Jonah. In the Mediterranean Sea there lives the second largest known species of fish called the basking shark. Reaching sizes of up to 10 meters and weighing as much as 7 tons, the basking shark is generally a harmless fish whose tiny teeth serve to filter planton and other small fish through its gills. Its mouth and jaws can open wide enough to swallow a small man in a single gulp.

Now I’m not suggesting that this particular species is explicitly what God used to contain Jonah in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. In fact, the only suggestion I make is to point out the natural possibility of a fish large enough to swallow a man whole and to point to the idea that God Himself will often use that which He has already created in order to get our attention when we have gone astray.

Divine Authority

Jonah remained in the belly of that fish for 3 days and 3 nights. Imagine resting in stomach acid of a fish that is only used to eating plankton and suddenly he has this large human in his belly. Naturally the fish’s body would compensate and produce more stomach acid in an effort to try to break down the foreign substance in the digestive system. Prolonged exposure to this acid would bleach the skin and cause one’s hair to fall out due to root damage. Imagine the sight when three days and three nights later, Jonah is coughed up on a beach near where he began his journey on the ship. I can imagine it would not have been an attractive sight and would not likely have endeared the people of Nineveh to come near to hear him speak.

For three days and three nights, the prison belly of that fish acted as a sort of tomb for a man that by all rights should have been dead. By the authority of God, Jonah was imprisoned with the body of large fish who would then carry him to near his intended destination all along. Even in the midst of judgment, God provided a shelter to protect Jonah from drowning in the middle of the storm. Even in the midst of discipline, God provided a safe place for Jonah to come to his senses and repent of his abandonment of the Almighty and submit to His authority.

When you abandon God, rest assured He will not abandon you. Even as He disciplines those whom He loves, He provides an opportunity for grace. Even when we deserve death, He gives us life. When we deserve isolation, He provides us with fellowship. When we deserve pain, He provides comfort. His love for us drives Him to seek our hearts. His love for His creation compels Him to exercise His authority to draw us to Him, no matter the cost. And it isn’t always going to come the way we might expect. Sometimes it’s something as simple as a phone call from an old friend. Sometimes it’s the righteous anger of an adversary. Sometimes it’s the discerning words of a pastor or mentor. Whatever the case may be, He will always pursue you with a grace that may sometimes smell noxious to the natural senses, but will always be for our good and for His purposes. The real question is whether or not we will embrace that good and submit to His purpose.

Jonah: Man Overboard

July 6, 2021 by David Noland Leave a Comment

Then they said to him, “What shall we do to you, that the sea may quiet down for us?” For the sea grew more and more tempestuous. He said to them, “Pick me up and hurl me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you, for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you.” Nevertheless, the men rowed hard to get back to dry land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them. Therefore they called out to the Lord, “O Lord, let us not perish for this man’s life, and lay not on us innocent blood, for you, O Lord, have done as it pleased you.” So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows.
Jonah 1:11-16

Jonah being thrown overboard. Source: https://injarsofclay.livejournal.com/252899.html

When you claim to be a follower of the Most High God, yet it is readily apparent that you are not following Him but rather you are running from Him, even unbelievers will see the consequences of your disobedience. Before I experienced the grace of God, I was a bit of an obnoxious, arrogant, loud-mouth of a kid. Ask anyone that I went to high school with and they will likely agree. I thought I was smarter than everyone else and I let them know it.

In 1995, circumstances and actions that I had taken in my life began to cause things to unravel and get out of control. I was left dissatisfied with my lack of direction, lack of discipline, and lack of definition in my life. I knew I wanted to serve God and that He had called me to missions, but after 4 summer missionary appointments and coming back excited only to be let down when the emotion didn’t sustain itself on a secular college campus, I grew discouraged. I found myself often engaging in doctrinal debates with people of other denominations. At one point, I even tried to work with other believers to create an “interdenominational council” to help foster cooperations for the Kingdom among other Christian organizations on campus. At the time, it failed miserably.

I became angry with God and everyone around me and decided I was better off running away from it all. I dropped out of college and moved to San Antonio, TX in 1996. Just when I thought starting over somewhere else leaving God and my faith behind, the storm had only just begun. Life started spiraling. I couldn’t find a job and was on the verge of eviction and homelessness. After 2 months of searching, I finally found work as a customer service agent for a national airline. Things started looking up, but my life outside of work was still a barren wasteland as I crawled into a bottle trying to hide from the pain in my heart and the storm that raged around me. Furthermore, I was determined to bring others down with me. The group of “friends” I hung out with were a lot of fun at first and then as the consequences of my decisions became more apparent and far-reaching, they all eventually tossed me aside and I rarely saw or heard from any of them again.

When you actively run from God, He will catch up with you. Inevitably, the consequences of your sin will spill over on those around you and it will become obvious that you are the problem. When that happens, you better know how to swim in the sea of your sorrows alone. Especially when they know the reason for your situation is your sin of abandoning God.

Additionally, rare as it may be, it is possible that the consequences of your sin will turn others to Him. They can see that your life is spiraling out of control because of your disobedience and out of fear they turn to Jesus in their own repentance in the hopes of avoiding the same consequences in their own lives. Like scared sailors tossed about in the storm you created, they turn from you and turn to God. And rightfully so, sometimes they will throw you overboard to swim with the fishes on your own in order to hopefully inspire your own repentance.

Are you a believer whose life is currently tossed about by a storm caused by the consequences of your own sin? As long as there is breath in your lungs, there is hope to calm the storm. Fall on your face in repentance before the sovereign Lord of Hosts. Cling to His grace. Perhaps you are not a believer, but you see the storm that unrepentant “believers” are living through as a direct consequence of their own sin. Call out to the one true God that can calm the storm around you and within you.

If you need to speak with someone directly about what it means to experience life in Christ, please don’t hesitate to reach out for help.

Jonah: In Over His Head

May 26, 2021 by David Noland Leave a Comment

And they said to one another, “Come, let us cast lots, that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. Then they said to him, “Tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us. What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you?” And he said to them, “I am a Hebrew, and I fear the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.” Then the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him, “What is this that you have done!” For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the LORD, because he had told them.
Jonah 1:7-10

Inevitably, any time you willingly hide from God in the midst of your self-induced circumstances, you will find yourself in over your head. There is no hiding from the One who can see deep into the recesses of your heart and mind. The Father will always pursue His wayward child in an effort to get his attention, but He will not force His will upon us. However, He will allow the consequences of your sin to exact its payment in kind. And sometimes, even in the midst of your rebellion, God will still get the attention of those observing from the sidelines.

In the fall of 1994, I actively watched my life begin a downward spiral of circumstances that were completely within my control, but I was too immature to recognize what I was doing until two years later I was a college dropout, three credit hours short of a Bachelor’s degree, and living in a city where I knew nobody. Situations in my life were spiraling out of control as I was building a life that was built upon one lie after another until I was in over my head. I became angry with my acquaintances, my friends, myself, and ultimately with God Himself. So I ran.

For two years I lived in a small apartment on the southside of San Antonio, scraping by from paycheck to paycheck. I crawled into a bottle and pretty much stayed there for a good long while. I took advantage of the very few friends I had. I was the definition of a prodigal – wasting my life knowing I was the child of the King of the Universe, but refusing to live as the Prince He desired, instead preferring to sleep in the pigpen of squalor and sin.

I would often find myself telling people, “Yeah, I’m a Christian, but I have no use for God.” I still had my Christian books on my bookshelf whenever acquaintances would visit. People would ask me about them and I would be dismissive because I was more interested in having a good time instead of being a good man.

When you allow sin to take over your life and you try to hide from God, it will always catch up with you and people will see because it will not only affect you, but it will affect those around you. My behavior during that time period would frequently put my job in jeopardy. I would find myself ostracizing my “friends” and being argumentative with them about everything. I rarely would allow myself to actually get close to anyone, even those who truly wanted to get to know me. The storm of anger became my driving force and the destruction it left in its wake is more than I have ever been able to recover, or ever will, and much of which I would prefer not to revisit.

Broken relationships. Estranged friendships. Less than edifying entanglements with people I had no business being involved with. All of which encouraged the continued descent into the inebriated black hole I found myself in. And it wasn’t long before all fingers pointed to me.

And the same was with Jonah. “So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah.” (Jonah 1:7) As the storm raged around the mariners, they called upon their own pagan methods of trying to determine why the storm was so heavy upon them and what they were supposed to do in order to survive. So they took a gamble and rolled the dice, and the lot fell to Jonah. The one who had already admitted he was hiding from God. And Jonah was sober enough to acknowledge that it was his own sin that put the group in that situation.

And he said to them, “I am a Hebrew, and I fear the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.”
Jonah 1:9

The mariners themselves were likely beholden to a pagan god of the sea of that day, as their belief was that they must pay homage to the one who makes their livelihoods possible. Even in the midst of his rebellion, Jonah acknowledged that he “feared the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.” His words spoke to the heart of their false belief. It wasn’t a pagan god that was causing the storm, but it was the Creator of the sea AND the dry land that was causing the storm in order to get Jonah’s attention, and perhaps the attention of the sailors as well.

Man Overboard

About a year and a half into my time in San Antonio, life began to get darker and darker. My few friends began to abandon me. The timeline of events that happened in my life over that time are somewhat jumbled by my perpetually drunken state. But I do recall finally waking up one day after a night of binge drinking, passed out and not knowing how I got where I was. I was a man overboard

Then came the crusade. In April 1997, Billy Graham brought his evangelistic crusade to San Antonio. While I did not attend, the impact of his presence in town was surely felt. A series of co-workers began witnessing to me in the midst of that week in ways that were quite jarring. A Messianic Jewish lady would have her prayer time during my lunch time. The next day, a Pentacostal gentleman would hand me a small 2 x 3 inch card with a Scripture verse on it. The next day, another Pentacostal lady gave me a ride to the bus stop. Still the next day, a Lutheran student would give me a ride to the bus and challenge me to “not forsake the assembly.” (Hebrews 10:25) By the end of the week, another young lady would sit beside me and share with me her materials that she was using to serve during the crusade as a counselor.

By the end of that week, I was floored. I was drowning in my own sin and God was screaming at me to get my attention. That evening, I picked up the phone and arranged for a pickup to a local Baptist church around the corner from my apartment and that Sunday morning, every song and every word spoken was as if God was speaking directly to me. The sermon passage – the parable of the Prodigal Son. The final invitational hymn – Lord, I’m Coming Home.

Over the Moon

I found myself that day weeping on the back row of the church as God’s Spirit washed over me. To this day, I don’t understand it so much as I embrace that experience of God wrapping me in His grace. Weeks later, an older lady who was sitting on that same row would remark that she could see that God was “all over” me. It was an amazing experience to be able to survive the reckless life I was living in order to embrace the grace of God again. And that lovely young lady that shared her materials with me at work would later become by beautiful bride, who still stands by my side to this day.

Not everyone is so lucky. Some continue in their sin and rebellion only to continue to dig the hole deeper and deeper, their hearts hardening more and more with each passing moment. And it is heartbreaking when you see others following in the same path you walked and refusing to learn from the lesson of your own failure. As long as the storm is raging and your ship is afloat, it’s not too late. As long as you are breathing, you can still cry out to the Lord for grace. Even when your life throws you overboard, there is still hope.

A New Creation: Unashamed Bride

May 17, 2021 by David Noland Leave a Comment

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
Genesis 2:24, 25

Shame. It is the most apparent curse of sin. Shame is what drives humanity to hide in fear, often behind fig leaves of pride. In some cases, shame drives people to drown their sorrows in substance abuse. In still others, shame drives people to run from the safety of the fruitful garden into the dangers of fruitless denial. However, there is only one remedy for shame and that is the sacrificial blood of the Lamb.

Created Without Shame

God created humanity without any need for shame. We were exposed to the elements in all of our created perfection. There was no need for shame for sin had not yet reared its ugly, serpentine head in our existence. The very concept of shame implies there is something wrong within our world. Our own internalized shame implies the belief that there is something imperfect within our hearts and minds. This was not what God intended for His creation. He created you to be free from the debilitating madness of shame.

“And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” (Genesis 2:25) The Hebrew word for “naked” is עָרוֹם (ʻârôwm). The term is used 17 times in the Old Testament to reference a state of being completely naked or at the least, very poorly clad with clothing. In this context, the first man and woman were both naked and exposed as there was nothing to hide from their Creator. As husband and wife, there was nothing to hide from one another. It is a picture of complete exposure and vulnerability. Nothing hidden. Nothing secret. And no cause for fear of judgement as there was no sin or guilt yet present in the world.

Consummated Shame

Judgement does not create guilt or shame. Divine judgement comes as a external result of guilt. Shame comes as an internalized verdict of guilt. However, in our modern world, the mental understanding of shame is distorted and often exaggerated by circumstance.

A child is beaten into submission by an abusive parent. A wife or girlfriend is abused into submission to her spouse or a companion. The weak are bullied into hiding by the strong. A man is harshly disciplined at work to the point of only seeing his failure, in spite of his successes. Shame has the potential to rear its head any time expectations go unmet. Whether it be the expectations of an unreasonable boss, an abusive parent, a domineering spouse, or even your own expectations of yourself, shame can be paralyzing and demoralizing and lead to an array of self-inflicted remedies that pale in comparison to the true remedy.

An abused child grows up to be an abuser. An abused spouse hides behind the facade of alcoholism. A bullied teen turns to suicide. A worker desiring to please his employer becomes a workaholic in order to overcome the deficiencies of past performance.

However, shame also has a useful purpose. Shame exposes our own sin. It pricks the conscience. It lets us know that something is indeed wrong within our world. However, in our broken mental state, we often do not process our shame in a healthy manner. Typically we turn our shame in on ourselves in self-destructive acts or habits. Abuse victims tend to see themselves as nothing more than a victim with no capacity to rise above their circumstances. So victims often “sew together fig leaves” (Genesis 3:7) to hide behind.

Interestingly, in the case of Adam and Eve, they tried to hide from God with the works of their hands to hide their exposure. Their secret was out. They had disobeyed the command to not eat of the forbidden fruit. They listened to the serpent that promised wisdom of their own apart from Him. Yet, the moment they ate of the fruit they were immediately aware of their sin. They immediately knew the difference between good and evil because the consequence of their sin immediately ripped the fabric of creation in a violent collision of epic proportions.

Consequence of Shame

Interestingly, as God went looking for his wayward child, Adam’s response was “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” Adam was afraid that he had been exposed for his sin, so he hid thinking he could keep secret that which the God of Creation already knew had come to pass.

He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” God begins with a rhetorical question. Of course, nobody told Adam or Eve that they were exposed. They discerned that for themselves. God had already built into them the capacity to know the difference between good and evil. At its simplest core, good is obedience to the will of God and evil is disobedience to His will. Now that Adam and Eve had transgressed God’s command, they knew good and evil in a more intimate, experiential sense as opposed to mere intellectual assent.

And all of humanity to this day has fallen for the same lie that we can decide for ourselves what is good and what is evil. Michelangelo Buonarroti once defined the humanist ideal this way: “I am a poor man and of little worth, who is laboring in that art that God has given me in order to extend my life as long as possible. Many believe – and I believe – that I have been designated for this work by God. In spite of my old age, I do not want to give it up; I work out of love for God and I put all my hope in Him.”

His belief, as was that of some of his contemporaries that the humanist philosophy was such that God has gifted each of us with certain talents and it is our responsibility to honor Him by being the best that we can be with that gift that He has entrusted to us individually. The Enlightenment period distorted this ideal and took God out of the equation to elevate mankind to the level of the idealized gods of Greek and Roman antiquity, a mistake that continues to this day.

Cleansed of Shame

There is only one remedy for shame and that is grace. Grace that is purchased with the price of blood. The blood of the Lamb. As a result of Adam and Eve’s sin, God pronounced in His righteousness and faithfulness to His word a curse – a three-fold curse that would change the way of the world as a result of the sin of doubt and disbelief.

First, the serpent received the first and greatest curse. He would be remanded to crawling on his belly and eating dust for the remainder of his days, as will his offspring. But his curse doesn’t end there:

I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.
Genesis 3:15

Here in the Protoevangelion the first declaration of the gospel to come lies the promise of ultimate deliverance. Even in the midst of the curse, God provides a glimpse of the grace that is to come in the ultimate final victory over the enemy. The victory that would be secured on the cross of Calvary, and assured with an empty grave three days later. The sacrifice of Jesus on Calvary was the bruising of the heel of the seed of the woman, but the bruising of the serpent’s head was the victory over the grave.

Secondly, instead of immediate death for the woman, He prescribed greater pain in childbirth. Pain that would know relief in the joy of parenting in the fulfillment of the command to be fruitful and multiply. Finally, for Adam, instead of immediate death, he would now have to work by the sweat of his brow to make the earth bring forth food for him and his family. While the garden was provisioned for the man and woman without the need for him to do much to make it reproduce, now Adam will have to contend with thorns, thistles, and toil to bring food to the table.

Yes. Death would eventually come for them both, but their lives would now be marked by pain and toil. They will also know joy in the birth of their children. They will learn grief and mourning in the murder of their son, Abel, and sorrow at the exile of the eldest, Cain, as a result of his own sin. They will know grace in the form of another son, Seth, and daughters and live to a ripe old age of 930 years.

However, in the midst of all of this, if you aren’t careful, you’ll miss it. “And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.” (Genesis 3:21) God replaced their hand-sewn fig leaves with garments of skins. Skins taken from the God’s own sacrifice from within His creation. He shed the blood of innocent animals to cover their shame and reconcile their hearts to Him. Thousands of years later, His own innocent blood would be shed to cover our shame and reconcile our hearts to Him as well.

Perhaps your life is marked by shame and regret. There is hope and grace at the foot of the cross. Perhaps you know the shame of abuse. There is peace and healing at the foot of the cross. There is enough blood shed at the cross to clean away the stain of the shame of all of our sin. Perhaps you live your life hiding behind the fig leaves of pride and arrogance and work in order to keep secret your failings and insecurities. The ground is level at the foot of the cross and spacious enough to lay down all of your failures.

To quote Michelangelo once again, “I live in sin, to kill myself I live; no longer my life my own, but sin’s; my good is given to me by heaven, my evil by myself, by my free will, of which I am deprived.” Come to the cross today. Pick up the cross and carry it with you as a lighter burden, identifying with the sacrifice that Christ made to rid you of the shame and make you a part of His spotless bride.

Let us rejoice and exult
and give him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
and his Bride has made herself ready;
it was granted her to clothe herself
with fine linen, bright and pure”— for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.
And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.”
Revelation 19:7-9

The Curse of the Gadarenes

October 27, 2020 by David Noland Leave a Comment

And when he came to the other side, to the country of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men met him, coming out of the tombs, so fierce that no one could pass that way. And behold, they cried out, “What have you to do with us, O Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?” Now a herd of many pigs was feeding at some distance from them. And the demons begged him, saying, “If you cast us out, send us away into the herd of pigs.” And he said to them, “Go.” So they came out and went into the pigs, and behold, the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the waters. The herdsmen fled, and going into the city they told everything, especially what had happened to the demon-possessed men. And behold, all the city came out to meet Jesus, and when they saw him, they begged him to leave their region.
Matthew 8:28-34

When you see someone who has suffered find relief, what is your natural response? Generally, our first response is to celebrate with them. But what about when that relief comes at a great cost to yourself without your “consent”? How do you respond then? Do you give glory to God for healing or do you curse Him for the price that was required to bring that healing?

Jesus and his disciples have just crossed the Sea of Galilee after ministering to Peter’s household and his local community. In fact, the primary reason that Jesus crossed the Sea of Galilee was to seek refuge from the pressing crowds (Matthew 8:18). After calming the storm and the fears of His disciples, they disembark the boat in the country of the Gadarenes, south of the River Yarmuk. Gadara was the capital of the province of Peraea, and is known today as Umm Qais in the country of Jordan, near the border of Syria. In 218 BC, the Greek historian Polybius described Gadara as the “strongest of all places in the region.” It was one of 10 cities in the region designated by the Roman governors as the Decapolis.

What is perhaps best known about Gadara is that it was the birthplace of Meleager, one of the most admired Hellenistic Greek poets of antiquity. He was most known not only for his own work, but more so for his compilation of the works of other Greek poets in his collection that comprised the “Greek Anthology.” Additionally, Gadara was known as a major trading station for pork, which was highly prized in the Roman Empire as a welfare allowance for the poor. As a result, Gadara was quite rich due to the herding and hunting of wild pigs.

At the time that Jesus was there, Gadara is known to have had no fewer than 3 performance theatres, a colonnaded market street, and a Greek temple to the mythological god, Poseidon – as evidenced by the large baths discovered during excavations. The god Poseidon was also known as “lord of the earth” or the “earth-shaker” and was historically credited as the reason for the seismic activity in the region as regaled in Greek myths. As you may recall from yesterday’s study of Jesus calming the storm on the Sea of Galilee, this speaks directly to the religious insights of the Gadarenes as it pertains to earthquakes in the region.

Not only did Jesus demonstrate His power over nature in the calming of the storm, He also demonstrated His authority over the “god of the earth”. Furthermore, in comes two demon-possessed men – likely adherents to the worship of Poseidon from Gadara. According to Mark’s account (which he sets in Gerasa – a few miles south of Gadara – which likely more accurately places the events somewhere in between the two cities), there were multiple demons – as many as 1000 – as evidenced by the name “Legion”.

As Jesus cast the demons into the pigs and the entire herd rushed into the Sea of Galilee and drowned, the herdsmen ran away and reported to the leaders of the city. Word got around so much so quickly that the entire city came out to meet Jesus. However, contrast the response of wonder from Jesus’ disciples with the response of the people of Gadara as they begged Him to leave the region.

They didn’t just politely ask Jesus to leave. They begged Him. Jesus was viewed as a threat to their economic way of life. He was a threat to their religious way of life. The very act of casting out the demons from these two men demonstrated that Jesus was a threat to everything they held dear.

And I ask you, what happens when Jesus upsets your apple cart? How do you respond when He challenges your way of life? How do you react when He takes from you that which holds you back from serving Him? Do you beg Him to leave you alone so that you can go back to the chains of this world? Or do you invite Him to make Himself at home within the recesses of your heart and mind? Do you offer Him your everything for the sake of His kingdom knowing that He has the power to overcome everything that binds you?

I beg you, I implore you. Open you heart to hear from Him today. Cling to Him for dear life and rest at His feet knowing that He has your best interests at heart. Let His Kingdom come in you today.