The Transcendence of God

Theological Definition of Transcendence

By Dr. Dave Johnson

www.daveanddebbiejohnson.com.

When someone says that God is transcendent, it means that he exists outside of his created order, such as the concepts of time and space, but regularly crosses the line and is active within what he has created.  The best example of transcendence is the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, where God entered our world as a baby and lived as a first century Jew (Galatians 4:4). 

Another example of transcendence comes from the modern space race.  A number of years ago, some Russian cosmonauts went on a spacewalk and later stated that they did not see God.  Had they read Moses rather than Marx, they would have known not to have expected to see him, although his handiwork in the heavens should have been obvious.  In responding to those remarks the late Baptist preacher, Dr. W.A. Criswell, stated that had they taken off their space suits while walking in space, they would have met God immediately.  Heaven, the throne room of God, exists outside of our understanding of space and time.  That is transcendence.

The Inauguration of Jesus' Ministry Part I: Setting the Stage

The Inauguration of Jesus’ Ministry Part I: Setting the Stage

 By Dr. Dave Johnson

http://www.daveanddebbiejohnson.com/

www.drdavejohnson.blogspot.com

Nazareth was hardly a thriving metropolis.  It was small hick town in the lower hills of rural Galilee. The townspeople, like everybody in Galilee, spoke the local lingo with a distinct dialect and were regarded by their countrymen as country bumpkins.  When Nathaniel asked if anything good could come out of Nazareth (John 1:46), no one who heard him, not even Jesus, wondered why he would ask such a thing. Kenneth Bailey, in his wonderful book Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels (Downer’s Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2008, 147-169) gives some excellent backdrop on the inauguration of Jesus’ ministry.  According to Bailey, Nazareth came into existence sometime in the second century B.C. Aristobulus the Maccadean intentionally settled Jews in Nazareth and elsewhere in Galilee to ensure that the area would remain loyal to him. Such settler communities, according to Bailey, tended to produce citizens that are politically nationalistic, which may partially explain what happened the day that Jesus spoke in the synagogue.

When the Romans came, one trusted source stated that they established an army outpost in Nazareth—complete with all the vice normally associated with military towns, which contributed to Nazareth’s poor reputation.  In all, it was a small town on the backside of nowhere.  Of all the desirable places for launching a global ministry to save the world, Nazareth was not on anyone’s list.

Except one.  

Our story begins in Luke 4:16-30.  Jesus had waited approximately thirty years for this moment.  For three decades, under the tutelage of the Holy Spirit, he had prepared for public ministry.  With a common name and growing up in the obscurity of a carpenter’s workshop with parents who had deep roots in the community, Jesus was thought of as an ordinary lad.  He was just one of them, or so they thought.

Bailey notes that around this time a lay movement of pious Jews known as the habarim sprung up in towns like Nazareth where laymen gathered to discuss the Old Testament, the Bible of the day, and how to apply it to their lives.  They likely also discussed the writings of the various well known rabbis.  These groups nurtured a rabbinic style of debate or discussion and we can be certain, based on Jesus’ knowledge of the law and his familiarity with the rules of rabbinical debate, that he was an active participant. Becoming known as a lay scholar maybe what gave him the opportunity to speak in his hometown synagogue.

By the time Jesus rose to speak in the synagogue, he had gone to Judea and had been baptized by John the Baptist, been driven into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit to be tested by the Devil, returned to Judea where he picked up his first few disciples, Andrew, Peter, and perhaps John and his brother, James, traveled through Samaria and encountered the woman at the well (John 4), performed some miracles in Capernaum, and returned home.

Since it was the custom of the Jews to allow any man in good standing in the community to address those gathered at the synagogue, Jesus had no problem gaining an audience.  According to Bailey, the text he read, Isaiah 61:1-2, could have been the assigned reading for the day, or Jesus could have arranged it in advance with the attendant.  Jesus’ intentional declaration that the text, which everyone understood to be a prophecy of the coming Messiah, was fulfilled that day suggests that he may have done the latter.  Bailey also notes that the phrase “bore witness to him,” (4:22 NKJV) could also been “bore witness against him.” The confusion comes from the fact that the Greek pronoun used here could be translated either way.  This would mean that the crowd was against him from the beginning rather than turning on him as he continued to speak.

A careful analysis of the text reveals that Jesus did some editing, something that was common practice in the public reading in the synagogue, according to Bailey, and similar to what modern preachers do when reading some verses from a given text and not others. It may be that the editing was done by Luke, the author of the account.  For reasons that will be obvious as we continue in this study, I believe that Jesus himself did the editing. 

Bailey also contends that the average villager did not understand Hebrew, the language of most of the Old Testament, as Aramaic had become the common language in Israel after the Babylonian exile, and that an interpreter was used to translate what was said.  Other scholars, however, believe that Hebrew, as well as Aramaic and Greek, which came into Palestine with the Romans, were understood by the masses.  That Jesus, a nearly life long resident of Nazareth, spoke Hebrew indicates that the latter was probably the case.  

Why Jesus selected Isaiah 61:1-2, how he edited it to suit his purposes, what exactly it was that so irritated his listeners that they wanted to murder him, and how he fulfilled the claims in the text will be dealt with in the blogs that follow.

PLEASE NOTE: Permission is hereby given to forward, print, and post this blog as long as it is done as a complete blog, and its authorship is acknowledged. Thank you for your cooperation.  For automatic notification of future blogs please visit, www.drdavejohnson.blogspot.com and click on “follow.”

Copyright 2011 Dr. Dave Johnson 

The Curse and the Cure: The Tower of Babel Part II

The Curse and The Cure: The Tower of Babel Part II

Dr. Dave Johnson

Assemblies of God Missionary to the Philippines

http://www.daveanddebbiejohnson.com/

[This is the second in a series of blogs on The Tower of Babel.  To read the first blog, as well as other blogs on theology, missions, and Christian spirituality, please visit www.drdavejohnson.blogspot.com.]

In the first blog we studied the historical backdrop to the Tower of Babel.  In this blog we will take a look at the fruit of the rebellion that was sown there as well as the redemptive purpose that God had in mind when he judged the people scattered them all over the earth.

The Plain of Shinar was well watered, situated in Mesopotamia (the site of modern Iraq), along the banks of the Euphrates river.  When Noah’s descendents discovered this plain, they decided to abandon their nomadic lifestyle and build a permanent community.  Settling into a permanent home, in and of itself, presented no problem to the plan of God, as God did not command them to be nomads.  Presumably, they could have started permanent communities all over the earth.  The problem was that they did not wish to be separated, despite God’s clear command to scatter and exercise dominion over the earth.  This, in a word, was rebellion.  Their defiance to the expressed will of God led to rebellious action—the fruit of which, as we shall see, continues to impact the world today.          

The tower that Nimrod constructed was most likely an early form of a ziggurat, which was a large, religious shrine that became common throughout Babylon and Assyria and was used for occultic rituals.  It was a terraced, pyramid-like structure, with external stairs that led to the top.  One writer claimed that the signs of the Zodiac, which originated from Babylon, were actually inscribed on the Tower of Babel itself, although there does not seem to be solid evidence for this. What is clear from Genesis 11:4, however, is that they built the tower in defiance of God, in order to make a name for themselves.  It was this allegiance to their own desires rather than God’s purposes that brought down his wrath.

Probably not all of humanity left Babel after God’s judgment as the city of Babylon was later built on that very spot and became an important center of early civilization.  Archaeologists note that Babylon became known as a center for mathematics, astronomy, religion, and various forms of witchcraft and astrology.  One writer claims that all false religions came out this city as well.  Since Buddhism and Hinduism came from India, Islam from Saudi Arabia, and Christianity from Palestine, this claim, per se, is not valid.  However, there is a kernel of truth here.  Man has always been a religious being and since all of mankind at this point lived at Babel, it is only natural to trace the root of religion here.  But this is not all. 

Astrology, witchcraft, and divination are some of the many expressions of a religious system known as folk religion or animism.  In America, the most common expression of this is found in the New Age movement and in literature such as the Harry Potter books.  Animism, a worldwide phenomenon, is also thoroughly imbedded in every major religion, including Christianity in some cases, but especially in Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism.

On the surface, consulting tarot cards or going to a palm reader to determine the best date for a wedding or other major events in life, giving a love potion to someone to make them fall in love with you, or playing with an Ouija board seems like innocent child’s play.  Witchdoctors in the Philippines are seen as philanthropists because they try to bring healing to people.  Reality, however, is something else.  One of the core tenets of animism is that there is supernatural power that can be harnessed and controlled by humans and can be used for either good or evil.  In an animistic worldview, man, not God is the center of the universe.  This is why the use of witchcraft, sorcery, and most forms of divination are repeatedly condemned throughout Scripture. As we have seen in the story of the Tower of Babel, God who will tolerate no rivals.  The issue, then, is allegiance. One cannot practice animism and follow Jesus. When those who practice these things come to Jesus, they must renounce their practices (see Acts 19:17-19 for a beautiful example) and place their trust in Christ as their all-powerful healer, protector, and guarantor of their future.

But God’s judgment at Babel has a hidden silver lining found in the genealogy that follows in the rest of chapter in Genesis 11.  From Adam to Nimrod, God had been reaching out to humanity as a whole.  When he confused their languages, he divided them in to the various ethnic groups, tribes, and nations we see today.  He did so in order that he to reach them one by one (Ralph Winter/Steven Hawthorne Perspectives in the World Christian Movement: A Reader Pasadena: William Carey Library).  He began with a man named Abram, who later became Abraham, through whom God promised he would bless the nations (Genesis 12:1-3).  First, Abraham became the father of the Hebrew nation who was called by God to be a “company of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6), living as God’s witnesses in a world of darkness.  Second, Jesus Christ, the seed of Abraham (Galatians 3:16), would come as the hope of all mankind and Savior of all who call upon his name from every tribe and tongue. 

PLEASE NOTE: Permission is hereby given to forward, print, and post this blog as long as it is done as a complete blog, and its authorship is acknowledged. Thank you for your cooperation.  For automatic notification of future blogs please visit, www.drdavejohnson.blogspot.com and click on “follow.”

Copyright 2011 Dr. Dave Johnson 

 

The Tower of Babel Part I: The Background

The Tower of Babel Part I: The Background

By Dr. Dave Johnson, missionary to the Philippines

www.daveanddebbiejohnson.com

Slowly the mud dried as the waters receded.  The flood had been catastrophic, wiping man and beast, flora and fauna, vegetation and crops from the face of the earth.  The destruction had been complete.  Only Noah, his family, and the animals he carried with him on the ark, had been spared.  God was starting over, purging the earth of the fruit of Adam’s rebellion.  But while God was giving mankind another chance, the seed of evil remained (Genesis 8:21).

From Genesis 8:17-9:17, God made a number of promises to Noah and gave several commands.  God also specifically told Noah and his descendents to multiply, which may be the most cheerfully obeyed command that God ever gave!  But along with the command to multiply came the expectation that they would fill the earth, a command which, as we shall see, was not joyfully obeyed.  

In Genesis 10:8, the Bible records that Cush, one of the descendents of Ham, the son of Noah, had a son named Nimrod.  From Noah to Nimrod human society was built around family clans, with the patriarch of the clan serving as the head and no one overall leader.  This understanding of the social structure fits the arrangement of the genealogies in chapter 10, which follow the husband’s, or patriarchal lineage.    

A word must be said about the chronology of Genesis 10 and 11.  First, the genealogical list here, as well as others scattered throughout the Bible, must be seen through a different cultural lens.  The Hebrew concept of fatherhood was different from that of modern western cultures.  To the ancient Hebrews, the term father could also mean grandfather, great-grandfather, or even ancestor.  This is why the Pharisees in John 8:39 could claim to be “children” of Abraham, even though they were many generations removed from him.  A close comparison of the genealogical lists throughout the Bible reveal a number of gaps, which make the various lists appear inaccurate and contradictory unless this cultural viewpoint is understood.  Second, different cultures view exact chronology with varying degrees of importance.  Tracing the timing of where in the genealogy the events of Genesis 11 took place may not be entirely certain because one cannot be sure that doing so exactly was important to Moses, the writer of Genesis and master storyteller. What is important to Moses, for reasons that will be covered in the next blog, is to trace the ancestry of Abraham, the father of the Hebrew nation.

A cursory reading of Genesis 10:5, 20, 32 and 11:1 suggests that these verses may be contradictory, but a closer examination resolves the conundrum.  In 10:6 Moses is giving the genealogy of Noah and his sons both before and after the Tower of Babel experience and, except for the genealogy of Shem, simply chooses not to break up the genealogical list to put in the story of Babel in the time frame where it took place.  The point Moses is making in 10:5 is that when God did divide humanity, he did so along family, clan, and ethnic lines.  In other words, families, both nuclear and extended, remained intact after the judgment at Babel.

Before moving on, two other observations must be about Genesis 10:5.  Here, the word Gentile (NKJV) is used for the first time in the Bible.  By doing so, Moses is preparing his readers to grasp the idea that the origin of the Israelites, God’s chosen people who were separated from among the other nations of the earth, was rooted in the Babel experience, an idea that will be explored more fully in the next blog.  The second is the word nations, which appears in the New King James Version and other translations.  The idea of the modern political nation states was unknown to the early citizens of the earth.  To them, the idea of a nation was more akin to our understanding of ethnic groups. 

Genesis 10:25 says that the earth was divided in the time of Peleg, a descendent of Shem, but it does not say what this means. It may mean that Peleg and his people settled in a land that was easy to plow, thereby dividing the earth into rows, for raising crops (Bible-History.com/isbe/peleg, accessed May 31, 2011).  The most probable meaning, however, is that “the earth” refers to people, not land.  It is likely that Peleg was a contemporary of Nimrod, and the phrase “dividing the earth” refers to dividing the people at Babel.

Nimrod was a descendent of Ham, the second son of Noah. Although we are not told how, he somehow managed to become the world’s first king.  In verse nine he is described as a might hunter “before the Lord” (NKJV). Most scholars suggest that this phrase should be understood as describing Nimrod as being in rebellion against God—a description that fits the context of Genesis well.

Genesis 10:10-12 records that Nimrod presided over the world’s first known empire.  What Genesis 10 does not say is whether his kingdom spread before or after the Tower of Babel experience.  Genesis 11:1, however, suggests that his kingdom did not expand until after the judgment at Babel.  We should also understand that Nimrod settled the areas mentioned in Genesis 10:10-12 rather than conquering them because there was most likely no one yet living in these areas after the Flood. 

Genesis 11:1 tells us that all of humanity lived together in one large community.  While they likely felt this was necessary for defending themselves against wild animals and the forces of nature, it was in direct disobedience to God’s specific command to populate and exercise dominion over the whole earth.   The people were at least semi-nomadic, moving from place to place to find suitable living places for themselves and, most likely, their herds of animals.  After the flood, the survivors and their offspring descended from the mountains of Ararat, which are in modern day Turkey, and migrated to the plain of Shinar, in modern day Iraq, not far from the Garden of Eden—the birthplace of humanity.  The city of Babylon would later be built here; the implications of which will be studied in the next blog.   

When they came to the land of Shinar, they decided to live there and cease their semi-nomadic lifestyle.  Why they chose Shinar is not stated but can be rather easily deduced.  Any civilization needs a water source, and the land of Shinar was in or near the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.  Rivers provide for arable land, good for crops and grazing cattle, and it is fair to assume that the early inhabitants of the earth did both.  Assuming that the plain of Shinar was well watered, it would have been an ideal place to build a permanent community.   

Understanding 11:4 brings us to the heart of the matter.  God had expressly ordered them to spread out and exercise dominion over the earth.  By building a city, they intentionally disobeyed God’s command.  The hint of humanity’s continued rebellion after the Flood that is found in Genesis 8:21 and that can be traced through the person and actions of Nimrod, now comes to full flower.

First, they would build a city.  This is the second reference to building a city in the Bible.  The first was by Cain in Genesis 4:16-17.  Both references indicate that these cities were led by men in opposition to God.  Things haven’t changed much.  Among other things, today our cities today are filled with crime, self-indulgence, greed, graft, corruption, and the breakdown of families.  Rebellion against God remains at the heart of the issue.  But not only would Nimrod’s followers build a city, they would erect a tower “whose top is in the heavens.”  They were not thinking of an early model of the Empire State Building.        

What they intended was a large ziggurat, an ancient altar found throughout the Middle East, that was the center of occultic practices.  As will be explored in the next blog, their intent was to “reach into the heavens” through practices such as astrology and divination.  Those involved in such things attempt to tap into supernatural power that is not submitted to God.

The motive for building both the city and a ziggurat is clearly revealed in verse 4.  Rather than submit to the will of God, they would stand against him.  Rather than seeking his glory, they would honor their own name.  Rather than seek his best, they would be abased.  Again, things haven’t changed much.  Both the full fruit of their rebellion and the God’s judgment, which must be seek as an act of redemption more so than punishment, will be the subjects of the next blog.

PLEASE NOTE: Permission is hereby given to forward, print, and post this blog as long as it is done as a complete blog, and its authorship is acknowledged. Thank you for your cooperation.  For automatic notification of future blogs please visit, www.drdavejohnson.blogspot.com and click on “follow.”

Copyright 2011 Dr. Dave Johnson 

Spring-Summer 2011 Newsletter

Dave and Debbie Johnson

Assemblies of God Missionaries to the Philippines

PH:(616) 558-1889

Website: www.daveanddebbiejohnson.com

Spring-Summer 2011 Newsletter

Hello Friends,

Itineration

As we have traveled from church to church, we sometimes sing hymns and songs together, expressing grateful hearts to the Lord who died and rose again for us.  He made us His children and gave us a place in this great end time harvest, along with friends and churches that so lovingly support us in prayer and giving.  We are so grateful to Him for so many open doors to share our ministry.  During the past months we have spoken in churches throughout the Great Lakes region as well as California, Washington, and Pennsylvania.  We have been encouraged to see how the Holy Spirit is moving His church to reach out, plant churches, and seek His presence with a whole heart.  We have seen that God is raising up many church members and equipping them to be a great army to accomplish His purposes in these days.  It is also a joy to talk to people who love the Lord so much and are seeking His face and His presence.  There is no greater association on earth than the church of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We have been humbled and so touched by the loving sacrifice of pastors and their families who minister and give to us in a time of financial difficulty.  And we are touched by our church family members who do the same.  How very grateful we are for God’s great goodness that we experience through the churches.  We can only say with all our hearts, thank you and God bless you.  Despite the generosity of churches and individuals, however, we still have a ways to go before we can leave.

Budget Needs

Our target departure date for the Philippines is September.  In order for us to go, our cash and monthly pledge budget must be raised—the greatest challenge being our monthly pledge support.

Monthly Pledges: $1,937.32 still needed

Cash: $43,818.03 ($28,000.00 of this is for our evangelistic outreaches)

There are several ways to help.  First, and most importantly, please pray that this need will be met.  We are in recession, but God is not!

Two, if you are a member of an Assemblies of God church, please channel your support through your church, designated for Dave and Debbie Johnson, Philippines, AGWM Acct. No. 2256006.

Third, for others, you may send your offering to AGWM

1445 Boonville Ave. Springfield MO 65802

designated the same as above, or you can give online at www.daveanddebbiejohnson.com.

Fourth, if you would like to make a monthly pledge (for four years as the Lord enables), you may fill out the enclosed pledge form or download one at www.daveanddebbiejohnson.com (a pledge form will be attached to the email edition of this newsletter).  Again, if you are a member of an Assemblies of God church, please do this in consultation with your church’s leadership team.

 

Our Evangelistic Team

Our evangelistic team in the Philippines has been working hard while we have been gone.  Almost every week they are holding outreaches in basketball courts and various outdoor public places in the towns and barrios around the Bicol region of the Philippines.  People are hungry for the Word.  God is drawing hungry hearts to Himself.  We are so very thankful for what the Lord is doing. 

It is harvest time and we believe that the greatest harvest, the greatest days for the church are yet to come.  “And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Your old men shall dream dreams. Your young men shall see visions. And also on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days” (Joel 2:28-29 NKJV).  This scripture has been from Acts 2 to the present. 

House Churches

There have been many prophecies regarding a great revival to come to the Philippines.  The cry that has been on our heart has been the cry to “GET READY!”  It was a prayer for wisdom from God to get ready for this harvest that took Debbie on a journey last term that led to the establishment of 15 church planting schools to train church members to plant house churches around our region.  We can only estimate, but we believe that the Lord and these house church planting students have planted between 100-200 house churches. We are looking for hundreds more because the harvest is so great.  Pray with us for laborers.  The harvest is white.

When we return we believe the Lord would have us study what is happening and strengthen the teachers and students in order to prepare for a much greater harvest.  God has a strategy.  We believe He is building a net to harvest an abundant catch of fish for His glory.  Please pray with us that God will raise up many more laborers to work in His harvest in the Philippines and that the Lord will pour out His Spirit on them.

We thank you so much for standing with us in prayer and giving.

Dave and Debbie Johnson

The Apex of the Plagues: Moses and the Gods of Egypt Part V

The Apex of the Plagues: Moses and the Gods of Egypt Part V

By Dr. Dave Johnson

Egypt lay in ruins from the effects of the first eight plagues.  Rotting carcasses of dead animals were strewn

across fields vacant for want of crops to harvest.  Depression and defeat permeated the country.  Yet

Pharaoh remained unbowed.  By contrast, the atmosphere in Goshen, where the Israelites lived, was bright

and cheery.  Fattened livestock fed on rich pasture land, and the people lived in exuberant expectation of

imminent deliverance. While pessimism reigned in Egypt, optimism pervaded Goshen.

We read of the ninth plague in Exodus 10:21-29.  No man or beast died during this plague, but they probably wished they could have.  The darkness was so thick that they could feel it and so thorough that they couldn’t move.  They could not tell night from day because sundials don’t glow in the dark.  They did not know when or if they would ever see the sun again.  Surely many Egyptians spent that time pondering the meaning of life—especially as the demonstrations of the power of God repeatedly challenged their animistic worldview assumptions.     

Ra (or Re) was the sun-god of Egypt and father of creation who was widely worshiped throughout the ancient Near East.  He was at or near the pinnacle of the Egyptian pantheon.  He was believed to ride across the heavens in his chariot during the day and travel through the underworld at night, thus explaining the how and why of the sunrise and sunset in the minds of the people.  Ra’s importance can hardly be overstated.  He was regarded as the creator of the universe and father of some of the Egyptian gods.  While he was also seen as old and reclusive, not active in the daily lives of the people, he was still a powerful force and was not to be ignored.  That the God of the Hebrews did defeat Ra by sending darkness was an undeniable fact.  In the power match between God and the gods of Egypt, the score was now nine to nothing in Yahweh’s favor.

Again, Pharaoh tried to negotiate without actually setting the people free.  By now he knew he was in deep trouble and wanted to appease the God of the Hebrews, but he also didn’t want to lose his control over the Israelites.  He knew that if the cattle and livestock were left behind the Israelites would have to return for them or be set free with nothing to sustain them in the wilderness.  But Moses would have none of it and rejected Pharaoh’s offer.  In response, Pharaoh threatened Moses with death if he should appear before him again.  Indeed, death would come, but it would not be Moses who would die.

Exodus 11-12 tells the tale of the final and most devastating plague—the death of the firstborn.  The impact on Egypt, when it came, would be incalculable.  Future years might erase or at least ease the memory of the first nine plagues, but the tenth they would remember forever. The foundation of any civilization is the nuclear and extended family.  This plague would rock the foundation of the most powerful nation in the Ancient Near East.

It was through this plague in particular that God said he would execute judgment against all the gods of Egypt.  In Exodus 12:12, the gods of Egypt are juxtaposed against the Lord himself.  Here, the Hebrew word for God is Yahweh, meaning the eternal, self-sufficient, all-powerful, covenant keeping God.  In this act of death and destruction, God would reveal the full extent of his power against the gods of Egypt—the power over life and death.  At the same time, he would also demonstrate to the Israelites his ability and willingness to keep his covenant made with Abraham more than 400 years before by setting them free.  Both would be accomplished in one dreadful night.

God had protected the Israelites from the effects of most of the plagues and promised to do so again this time but, in this case, his protection would be conditional.  If the conditions were not met, they would suffer the same fate as the Egyptians.  Thankfully, by now, the Israelites were convinced that God kept his promises and made good on his threats.  The conditions God set, found in Exodus 12:1-11, were both simple and symbolic.  The lamb had to be a yearling without blemish.  Its blood was to be sprinkled over the door and on the doorposts.  The Passover meal was to be prepared and eaten in haste, anticipating the hour of their redemption.  The rich symbolism of this event would not be properly understood until 1,500 years later when the sacrificial Lamb of God himself would die on the cross on the very day the Passover lamb was killed.  In both cases, the innocent died on behalf of the guilty.

The point in setting the conditions was that God wanted to create an object lesson that would be perpetuated from one generation of Israelites to another with the hope that they would never forget what God had done for them.  Through the reenactment of the Passover, the patriarch of the family would recount for the younger generations the story of God’s great deliverance.  Creating such memorials is important to any society, but especially in ones with a high degree of illiteracy—which was likely the case of the Israelites during this time. 

While the Israelites prepared and waited, the death angel swept over Egypt, bringing death and indescribable anguish to the Egyptians.  Apart from the flood in the days of Noah and the predictions of future judgment, no outpouring of the wrath of God in the biblical record was harsher than this.  Multiplied thousands of people died.  No household, not even Pharaoh’s, was spared from the slaughter.        

In striking the house of Pharaoh, God altered the dynastic line of descent, killing the son born to be the next Pharaoh.  Attacking the royal lineage, which was no doubt the epicenter of Egyptian culture, struck a blow at the heart of the Egyptian pantheon of gods. No deity had a more direct impact on the people’s daily lives than Pharaoh.  While Ra was remote and not active among the people, Pharaoh dictated their every move.  He was considered nearly omnipotent, and his rule was absolute.  When God killed Pharaoh’s son, he exposed the lie of Pharaoh’s acclaimed divinity, revealing him as nothing more than a mere mortal.  Perhaps nothing undermined the worldview of the Egyptians more than this.  Pharaoh had been checkmated by the God of the people he had enslaved.  Later, Solomon would write in Proverbs 16:18 that “Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall” (NKJV)—and Pharaoh was an outstanding example. Finally, Pharaoh caved and set the people free, not only letting them go but forcing them out.

The main lesson that we should draw from these two plagues and, indeed from all of the plagues is that, in both blessing and cursing, God keeps his promises.  Every plague that he promised would come came exactly as Moses said it would.  But God also remembered and kept his promise made to Abraham more than 400 years before that his progeny, now a nation, would be delivered from Egypt and returned to the promised land.  But God could only keep his promises because he is who he claims to be: eternal, self-sufficient, all-knowing, and all-powerful.  All of these characteristics were revealed in the plagues as he executed judgment on the gods of Egypt.  If he can keep his promises to Abraham, Moses, and the children of Israel, he can keep them to you.

PLEASE NOTE: Permission is hereby given to forward, print, and post this blog as long as it is done as a complete blog, and its authorship is acknowledged. Thank you for your cooperation.  For automatic notification of future blogs please visit, www.drdavejohnson.blogspot.com and click on “follow.”

Copyright 2011 Dr. Dave Johnson 

Soles For Salvation!!

Friends,

I just received a report that four new churches were planted and existing churches were able to impact their communities through our evangelistic efforts this past year in the Philippines.

Thank you to those who have prayed and given. 

But with four to five million people in our part of the Philippines, there is still much to be done.

That’s why I’m participating what we have dubbed the “Soles for Salvation” 5K Walkathon, and it’s why we need folks like you to sponsor me (Debbie was planning to walk but had to back out at the last minute).  If you do not already support us or could give an additional offering, we are asking that you would sponsor me for $1, $10, or more per kilometer.  The walk is tomorrow but you can pledge at any point.  We would like to raise $5,000.00 through this event.  We thank God for those who have responded, but we are still well short of the goal.

Anything you can do will help.

If you can help us, please let us know by return email.  If you are a member of an Assemblies of God church, please send your gift through your church designated for “Dave and Debbie Johnson, AGWM acct. # 2256006.  If you are not a member of an Assemblies of God church, just make your check out to me and send it to us at

1515 Blanchard ST SW Grand Rapids MI 49509

.  You can also give online at www.daveanddebbiejohnson.com.   

Thank you for considering this request.

Blessings,

Dave Johnson

AGWM Missionary to the Philippines.