Thoughts on God

God puts in me in incredible awe. The more I dig into the Word, the more amazed I am at the power and glory He chooses to let us observe. His future kingdom that He'll share with us is above stunning; it's beyond human comprehension. A wolrd of total safety? A world with no more pain? A place of complete joy (Ps. 16:11) and no more sorrow (Rev. 21:4) is something that I often sit and ponder.


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GOD IS IMMUTABLE. Unchanging. Fixed and focused. He makes a vow and keeps it.

29 "And also the Glory of Israel will not lie or change His mind; for He is not a man that He should change His mind" (1 Samuel 15:29).
His Word is ‘forever settled in heaven’ (Ps 119:89).
His love is eternal: ‘I have loved thee with an everlasting love’ (Jer 31:3) and, ‘Having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end’ (Jn 13:1).
His mercy ceases not, for it is ‘everlasting’ (Ps l00:5)

Great weekend ahead

Ah, it's Friday and what a grand day we had in the classroom. It was TEST DAY and the students were challenged on the book of Revelation especially in chapter 21. Most came out okay, with a few low scores, but overall the grades were fine.

We're getting Nicholas ready for the final days of school along with prepping him for college. It will be hard to see him leave for ETSU, but he's got a great roomate as well as a whole ton of people praying for his growth and decision-making.

I will be going in to see the doctor and have an esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD) on Monday. That is an actual word: "esophagogastroduodenoscopy!" They'll be checking me to see if any damage was done with my reflux.

Revelation 21

This picture is part of the isle of Patmos, where John wrote the book of Revelation.

I am now teaching the 21st chapter of Revelation in my End Times class, and the teaching is absolutely stunning. THE NEW EARTH WILL HAVE NO MORE SEA! In a world that is dominated by water (almost 75% of our earth is covered in ocean/sea water), this is hard for us to put into perspective. Will we then be in a world with no need for the hydrological cycles of the water/cloud/rain, river sequence? It boggles the mind...

It is one of seven "evils" that the writer John says will no longer be in existence. The rest fo the list follows in the fourth verse:

No more:

1. sea
2. death
3. mourning
4. weeping
5. pain
6. curse
7. night

Fantastic teaching about Jesus

This is absolutely stunning. This comes from the Blue Letter Bible Institute, (blueletterbible.org) where I'm surrently taking classes on Christology. Hey, I love to continue learning. Read these excerpts from the teaching about the name of Jesus, and His Old Testament name before He was given the name "Jesus"...it was simply "the Name". Read this great teaching:

"When did Jesus get the name Yeshua? Only here, (in the New Testament) when He comes into the world. So what was His name before that? And it is interesting even discussing that. The word name appears 800 times in the Old Testament. It is the word shem. Remember that Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japhath. Shem is the line of the Messiah—the line of the Jews and the Semites. The word shem means "name." Therefore the Semites are the People of the name.

The word name appears 800 times in the Old Testament. It is the word shem. Remember that Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japhath. Shem is the line of the Messiah—the line of the Jews and the Semites. The word shem means "name." Therefore the Semites are the People of the name.
In Jerusalem there is a memorial to the Holocaust when six million Jews were killed by Hitler and his troops. The name of it is Yod ha Shem. Yod, meaning "monument" or "pillar." So it is a monument to ha Shem, "the name." It is really a monument to God and the survival of the Jewish people which He promised in His Word. There is quite a story behind that.
In the New Testament the word "name" is onoma and is used 200 times in the Bible. Now here is something interesting: not once does the word name, in reference to God or Jesus, ever appear in the plural. It is always in the singular, even when it mentions all three persons of the Godhead, like Matthew 28:19 which states, "Go and teach all nations in the name (singular) of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." There it mentions all three persons but they only have one name.

Now we are told in the New Testament as well as the Old, that our Lord has a name that is above every name. There is no name of anybody worth mentioning in the same sentence. His name is above every name. The Bible says in Acts 4:12, "Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved."

So the name Yehoshua, when did that come? When was that given to Him? At His birth. Well, then what was His name previous? Isaiah says that His name was Wonderful. You call Him wonderful in the Old Testament. But the Hebrew word Wonderful, means "difficult to understand" or "incomprehensible." So what are we talking about when we discuss the preexistence of Jesus Christ? We are talking about someone who has not yet received His name, Yehoshua, and whose name is beyond our ability to understand. That is really something important, yet we sometimes miss it.
Why is His name beyond our ability to understand? Now if you need to know the meaning of wonderful, you can check Psalm 139:1-6, where it speaks of God’s knowledge being so great that before there is a word on our tongue, He knows it altogether. Before we say anything, He knows exactly what we were going to say. He knows the end from the beginning. And the Bible says in Psalm 139:6, "Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high. I cannot attain it." There is a clear definition of the word wonderful. It is greater than your ability to understand it. When it says in Isaiah 28:29, "His counsel is wonderful," and in Isaiah 9:6, "He is the wonderful counselor," it means that it is "too difficult to understand." He is the incomprehensible Christ!"

Some great sources

The picture on the right is taken from my novel "Silmarrillion Weekend," for Breakaway Magazine, a division of Focus on the Family. The two figures coming through the door are C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkein.
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My wife Jill is responding well to the treatment that will help remove mercury that has been clogging her system for about two years. The fibro myalgia may have been aggravated because of this, but we are seeing hope! She is able to sleep better at night...for a while it was not unusual for her to up as many as seven times a night.

My chest pains are alleviated by Nexium and I am going in for more doctor visits in the next two weeks. I find it necessary to "cocoon" for stretches at a time...finding a quiet place to read or study, since I am with people such much during the weekdays and on Sundays. This has been a powerful time for me to see Jesus work in me and help me understand what people go through when they face death...I have begun to learn of the face-to-face reality of eternity.

Here are some excellent sites for Bible study that I heartily recommend for the serious Bible student:

http://www.biblebb.com/macsg.htm ... John MacArthur spends untold hours of research into Bible studies and it shows.

http://www.blueletterbible.org/ ...in my opinion, the flat-out best resource for the Christian student

http://bradzockoll.tripod.com/youthworker/ ...sorry for the self-promotion, but the youth leader will find plenty of resources that my brother and I assembled. This is an old site, but the ideas are still highly workable.

I will try to add more as the days and weeks go by!