EMMAUS SCHOOL OF BIBLICAL STUDIES

In Malachi, God makes it clear that he cares about people fearing him and honoring him. However, these Israelites are not. The cause of this is disbelief in the love and character of God. The lack of this results in sin and selfishness.

This lack of the fear of God manifests itself through the people misrepresenting God to others, and this angers God. God cares about people knowing who he is –and it is this genuine, accurate understanding that will compel worship and a desire to live a life honoring him. Our not living godly is lying to the watching world that God is not sweeter than the ephemeral pleasure of sin.

Personally, I am very challenged by how I represent God to others. I mourn how in the past I have made decisions that have not accurately reflected how he has changed my life and how he loves us. However, I am refreshed by the truth of God’s forgiveness. Nevertheless, as Christians, we have the weighty privilege of showing God to others. We must not give people cause to question God’s love or who he is because of how we who bear his name treat others and live.

We must love and give extravagantly. We must not give the perception of wrongdoing. We have an amazing God that entrusts us with the privilege of showing himself to others. With such a calling, we must take it seriously and honor God in how we live.

            In a world that accepts corruption in every form, it is hard for Christians to live lives of integrity and strength.  I speak as a victim of this culture, fighting daily to overcome social pressures to be a certain way, say certain things and have certain goals, when 99% of these things disrupt my ultimate purpose on this earth-to serve God.  So what is the root of all this evil? A lack of a fear of God. 

As we have learned in the book of Malachi, the Israelites who have been back in their land for 100 years since their exile have lost their fear of the Lord and have turned to apathy.  Malachi’s oracle to the people is a series of dialogues the people have with God in which they have the audacity to question his love, justice, holiness, etc.  The fact that the people are questioning the Lord in the first place was the first huge indicator of their attitude towards him.  They were treating the Lord of the universe like they were a younger sibling and trying to walk all over him!  Wait, before I judge them, I guess I should evaluate how I live and treat God, because I am pretty sure I have not revered the Lord in every area of my life like I should have!

As I was contemplating this I realized that part of the reason people lost their fear of God was by letting the little sins slide and this snowballed into greater and greater indifference to the Lord.  When I think about my life, I know there are “little sins”  that I allow myself to continue in, convincing myself they won’t matter, and they always end up growing into a bigger sin and bigger problem.  The good news is I can cut these things off at the root to prevent such grow while simultaneously keeping my fear of the Lord intact.  I know I won’t be able to do this by myself, but that is why the Lord is so amazing, because he is there to help us be strengthened in his ways. So just remember, the next time you let a “little sin” slip take time to think how this is already tainting your fear of the only king of kings, and we should present nothing but our best to him for all he has done for us!

Isn’t it funny to think how we so often get caught up in life’s expectations and desires of material success and stability? We base our lives upon this false reality that we deserve good things in life, just because we are “good people”. However, this is not the way life really is at all.

The reality of life is that we all deserve justice – every single person in the world – and that justice is death. That’s right, death because of our sin nature. Therefore, the fact that we are not dead right now should cause us to ask some very important questions, like “why?” and “what for?” In answering these, we will find that the true reality, is that God’s love and forgiveness has changed our destiny; instead of justice, we get what we don’t deserve: life.

This doesn’t even make sense when we realize that we have never done anything to deserve it. We all deserve to die without any chance of redemption, yet the very fact that God gives believers not only temporary life, but ETERNAL life that is received through his very SPIRIT, is unbelievable!

Therefore, all false perceptions of our “goodness”, and “deservedness of a good life”, should be erased. For in reality, we only deserve death, but Jesus has chosen to given us His life – and this is MORE than enough to reward us! So why then, do we STILL think we deserve more?! This weird sense of entitlement to possessions is totally false and misleading, because we really deserve nothing in this world. We should be totally overwhelmed with receiving free love and life from God, and then expect nothing more. If we really live this way then perhaps we won’t always be expecting things from God, and then blame him if we don’t receive them!

We need to stop having this attitude of entitlement to money, relationships, success, health, careers, etc. and start recognizing the reward that we DO have is more than enough to satisfy us! God’s life is over and above anything we can imagine, and we don’t even deserve to receive it! Therefore, this should take away any false sense of privilege that we so arrogantly assume sometimes, and instead, cause us to live with a humble heart of thankfulness, for the unmerited gift of God’s LIFE that will far outweigh anything else we could desire.

 

            It amazes me that it was the fault of humans in the first place that they are sinners and yet the Lord still wants to give them a chance to be cleaned up from the mess sin has made of them.  On top of that he doesn’t make someone else to take care of the problem, he makes it personal, so personal that only by the great sacrifice of his son dying on the cross can these sinful people be clean again. The Lord should not have had to play any part in cleaning up the sins of his people that they got themselves into, but he cared that much, and that is the message that really stuck out to me from the book of Zechariah.  While the main theme of the book is that the Lord is calling his people, the now remnant, back to himself, he also alludes to what his son will do for them on the cross, which drew my attention to this truth that the Lord cares for us way more than he should!

We truly are so undeserving of God’s love and yet he continues to pour it out on me.  Thinking of this truth lead me to another thought, if I am to be like God, I should pour my love out on the undeserving as well.  It is easy to do nice things for people that are deserving of it, but for someone that has wronged me or someone I love, it never crosses my mind to return kindness to them instead of doing to them as they did to me.  But in acting in this kind of love, I am able to really demonstrate God’s love to another and that is what we are purposed for here on earth anyway, right?

Hardship and “closed doors” are never an excuse not to follow and obey God. All too often I get caught in the trap of believing that I am only to pursue those opportunities and people who are brought to my attention and are easy to pursue. In Israelite history, this is not the case. When the Israelites returned to Israel after being in exile for 70 years, they were commanded by God to rebuild the temple that had been destroyed. They started out doing well, but when things got hard and it was no longer easy or what they expected, they began to justify why God wouldn’t want them to do that, and they quit building the temple.
When looking at experiences in my own life, I sometimes equate God’s calling or will with what is easy. Surely, if he wanted me to do something, he would make it clear to me and “open the doors”. With the Israelites, this was not the case. It seems we need to hold loosely to our expectations and be willing to endure in our obedience to God, especially when things get hard. God has not promised us an easy life, or easy callings. He promises to be with us in them. Had Paul quit spreading the gospel because there were too many “closed doors”, who knows how the church would be affected today?
In our own lives, we must continue to do good, live godly, and follow God’s lead, even when it is hard and he doesn’t seem to make it easy. Perhaps part of our growth process is endurance, and perhaps we are to push through and make a way and not just expect things to come to us. Perhaps the “open doors” come when we create them. Let us not let unmet expectations and obstacles get in our way of obeying God.

      The book of Zechariah taught me many things about God’s character and love for the world, as well as the sinful nature of mankind and how that had to be dealt with before we could have right relationship with God. Throughout the book, Zechariah kept emphasizing that sin was the real enemy of the Jews in Jerusalem, and not the Babylonians. Therefore this showed them that it was not their outward sins that separated them from God, but their very sin nature.

This applies to us today too, because every single person in this world is still born with a sinful nature. Thus, there is no such thing as “a worse sinner”; in other words, murderers, rapists, thieves, liars, adulterers, etc. are no worse sinners than cheaters, gossipers, etc. This is because our outward sins are not what God looks at and judges our righteousness by. Instead, it is our very sin nature that we inherit at BIRTH that separates us from the righteousness of God, and this is what God condemns. True, our actions stem from that very sinful nature, but God doesn’t judge a person’s righteousness based upon the outward actions.

Therefore, we are doomed from birth to be judged and condemned as an enemy of God, just because of our very spirit that is wicked. Whichever way we live will not matter; whether we are the worst sinner in the world or a good person our whole lives, we still deserve the same punishment, simply because of our sin nature that all humans equally possess.

            Therefore, the only thing that God accepts as atonement for our sin nature is to get rid of it completely. This is where the death of Jesus came in; he atoned for our sins and God took out his entire rage, wrath, and hatred upon his body.

 God himself. Hated Jesus.  Because of our sin nature.

This shows such a justice for sin, yet unbelievable love for us, at the same time! Why would Jesus want to step into our place, and receive the fury of God for sin? Because He loved us. This is such a mystery to me, but I want to know Him better because of it.

In the meantime it is so good to remind myself that all people are equally sinners, and it is up to them to receive the atonement of Jesus for salvation, and not try to change their sins outwardly. For nothing will be accepted by God, except the atonement of Jesus, by killing our sin nature and giving us his own instead. Therefore, THIS is the only means of salvation, no matter how good or bad a person lives their life. 

            Why do we do the things we do? I eat because I am hungry, I sleep because I am tired, and I drink coffee because I want energy.  Why then do we do the things we do for the Lord? We pray because we want to or because we have to? What about reading the Bible or going to church, are these done out of a desire to know the Lord and to cherish him or because it will keep us from judgment? As I was studying the book of Nehemiah I noticed something, the people of Israel who had just returned to the land from exile desired to do things for the Lord because they loved him and wanted to give back.  Ezra had just brought the law to the people and was reading it over and the people realized just how sinful they had been and were remorseful but also they were encouraged to be faithful their second time around for all the faithfulness the Lord had shown them.

            This just made me think of the mentality of Christians today.  I would not be surprised to find that many Christians that go to church every Sunday do so because they feel like they have to or they will not make it into heaven. What about those who come on holidays just to pay their dues?  The problem with this picture is that people are doing these things because of obligation but not out of a desire to grow in the Lord. The Lord does not want the empty worship of his people, he wants their hearts and therefore we should do things in response to this principle and not because we don’t want to be punished.

            If more people can learn to do things out of love and not obligation, doing things for others may just come more naturally. And when that happens, others will be able to truly see what it looks like when someone reflects Christ in their life!

Making decisions is such a hard thing for me as I have found that not only am I terribly indecisive, but I also have an adventurous spirit and I tend to want to do any and everything I possibly can to “try it out.”  The problem is that while I am adventurous I am also a planner, so I can plan these adventurous things, trusting that they will work out and when they fall through I fall apart.  As I was reading the book of Ezra I couldn’t help but notice Ezra’s trust in the Lord as he chose to fast and pray to the Lord safety on his way back to the land of Judah instead of asking the King Artaxerxes for some soldiers and cavalry to protect him. For Ezra he did not plan his next move out in every detail and sort through different options-trusting it would work out, he just went straight to the Lord and said I am trusting you and your plan for me in this circumstance.  This of course made me think of several things: 1) what a bold step in faith that was for Ezra to really trust the Lord to protect him instead of having the backup from the king, 2) what a bold statement that makes to King Artaxerxes about this God that Ezra followed-that Ezra trusted him to be powerful enough to protect him from harm more than a physical soldiers’ protection, 3) having trust in the Lord like this could be quite a witness to non believers. I know for myself I have been having a hard time figuring out what to do next year and it is especially hard for me to tell non believers “I am just trusting in the Lord with my plans” but maybe I have been looking at it wrong.  Maybe instead of it being a bad thing it could turn into a great testament to those people to see that I trust enough in God to take care of these needs. I don’t have to worry about which decision to make or how to plan it out; I just have to worry about trusting the Lord will be there for me along the way. 

           One of the things that Nehemiah does when he moves to Jerusalem and rebuilds the wall, is to have the law of God read to the people. He instructs Ezra, the scribe, to read it and then explain it to the Levites, so that they in turn, can explain it to the people with interpretation. This shows that the law of God was not just automatically known or understood by the people of God. Instead, they had to read, discuss, and interpret the law, and then apply it to their lives.

            This is still true for us today; it is so important to be able to discuss the Bible with other believers around us, because it will challenge us to confront areas in our lives we may never have thought about, and then help us understand God’s word in a new way. Throughout my SBS I think one of the most important things for me that has helped my learning, has been to verbally process what I am learning, with other people. Not only has this brought up things that have challenged me, and made me seek out answers, but also it has really helped me to grow in my understanding of God’s word, and how I should interpret it. This in turn, has changed the way I live my life!

Isn’t it so wonderful that God has given us his word! I love the fact that he has not left us without encouragement, instruction, and hope; he has given us his word so that we can continually hear his voice and learn more about His character. Thus, when we are able to discuss this with other people, we will be even more encouraged and challenged to know this God who is so much greater and more awesome than anyone will ever know!

            Therefore, be encouraged to seek out God’s character from His word, and then discuss this with other people! We need to challenge and encourage growth in each other, so that we will not remain in a state of spiritual apathy, but will continually be growing and learning more about God, as He desires us to!

           In the book of Ezra, the aforementioned is very concerned with teaching the law of God to the returning exiles coming from Babylon to Judah. He is insistent that they follow every detail of the law of God, and instructs them to be holy, because God Himself is holy. This shows the zealousness of Ezra’s heart; he wasn’t just trying to please God, but he knew that because God was worthy everyone should know how to love and obey Him.

            This should be how we live our lives today. Most of the time, it is so easy to slip into this mindset of acting like whoever we are around; if we are around Christians, we act like Christians, if we are around people who don’t love God, we casually don’t bring up anything about God at all. Most of the time, we don’t even realize we are doing this.

            I think Ezra gives us such a good example of the way we should be living our lives as Christians. For one thing, we shouldn’t try to mold our lives according to the way others’ live around us. Instead, we should mold our lives around God’s law – not because we are religious, but because we simply love God! For another thing, we shouldn’t be afraid to share our love for God’s word with anyone and everyone around us! This doesn’t mean going door to door necessarily; but it does mean that we shouldn’t hide our love for God inside us, if we are around people who don’t share that same love. Instead, we should exude love for God and his law, just because we naturally love God, not because we are forcing our views on others, or trying to “witness” or “convert” somebody. I think most of the world would be shocked if they saw a Christian truly just in love with God, and not afraid to live this way!

            Most of the time it seems that I fall into the opposite category, of being afraid to display my love for God all the time, no matter whom I am around. But in reality, this is ridiculous, because if you love someone, you will love them all the time, no matter whom you are around! Therefore, I for one, would like to live my life loving God and being passionate about his law all the time, around everyone, just because I love God and want to show Him this love all the time; not because I am trying to witness or convert, but simply as a means of loving God. I think this is what Ezra’s life was really like, and it is such a good example of what ours, as Christians should be as well. 

Esther demonstrated real faith in God by deciding to trust in God no matter what happened in her life. When she went to the king uninvited, she didn’t know if God would save her life, but she didn’t let that stop her faith in God. Rather, she believed that if God wanted to save her then He would, but if he didn’t, that was for her good as well. Whether she was blessed or put to death, she decided that she must have faith, regardless of what would happen to her.

            This is so encouraging and inspiring to me! Today, so many people in Christian culture preach that faith means believing that God will bless you. However, if that blessing never comes, these people think their faith is weak!

        Esther demonstrates that God can decide to either bless, or not bless, a person’s faith; but that faith should not be dependent upon the blessing. Faith should just come from a deep trust that God works for our good, no matter WHAT the outcome is! If we are never blessed in our physical life, will we still have faith that God is good and loves us? Most people won’t.

            This is a good challenge for me: have faith in God despite physical outcomes. To realize that faith in God is not based in answers and blessings from him, but rather, in a continual knowledge of the truth that He is good no matter what He may or may not give us! 

This was a huge deal for the Israelites. There was about to be a massive genocide by the Persian government. But God intervened, miraculously, and saved them. He turned their mourning and sorrow into joy and gladness. God used an unsuspecting orphan to bring this about. Esther was called for a specific purpose and time, and she chose to obey God and risk everything to trust him.

In my opinion, although this is an actual, historical account, this is even more so a picture of the gospel. We were headed for death – massive genocide brought about by our sin. But God, in his great mercy, did the impossible. He sent his son to die on the cross and save us. However, he doesn’t force us to live. We still have to choose life, just like these Israelites. Death was still coming their way – their enemies were still coming against them. However, they just had to choose to accept the king’s verdict that they now had the right fight back and defend themselves. They were not damned. A way had been made. Likewise, for us, God paid the way for us to have life – we just have to believe it.

And like the Jews, our response should be lives of worship. We should obey God and live right, not to earn life, but because we have already been given it. How silly would it have been for the Jews to go back to King Xerxes and show him that they were good people? He would have thought they were ridiculous. He would have told them, “I already signed the edict, now just choose to believe I did!” Also, like the Jews, we should remember God’s faithfulness in our own lives. He has been good to us and saved us through the perfect sacrifice of his son. Now we must remember his faithfulness so that when we need protection, saving, and provision for much smaller things, in comparison to our reconciliation to God, we are able to trust him.

       Do I tend to put God in a box or limit his power? The people of the Bible constantly did this! In the book of Daniel, the kings of Babylon, Media, and Persia, were continually shocked at God’s sovereignty over not only His own people, but over them as well! God showed them that He alone was the King of kings, and that all the power these foreign kings thought they had, was really given to them by God Himself. Therefore, they should have used this power for His glory and not their own.

            Just like the foreign kings in Daniel learned this lesson, so too the people later in the 1^st century AD, around the time of Jesus, had to learn it as well! They were expecting a prophecy spoken in Daniel, to be fulfilled; this prophecy said that the Son of Man, or Messiah, would come and set up his kingdom forever. The Jews thought that this fulfillment would mean that the Messiah would wipe out all the earthly kingdoms of the world.

This was because Daniel had prophesied that Babylon would fall to Medo/Persia, and this was fulfilled in 539 BC. Then his prophecy that Medo/Persia would fall to Greece, was fulfilled in 331 BC. His prophecy that Greece would fall to Rome was fulfilled in 63 BC. But there was still one more prophecy they were very anxious about – the one that foretold their OWN King coming to set up his own kingdom! They couldn’t wait to see when this would be fulfilled, because they expected it meant they would have their own united monarchy again, just like they had under King David.

            Therefore, when Jesus came on the scene and announced that He was the Messiah, they were shocked at his life! He didn’t overthrow the Romans at all, but preached forgiveness of sins – not only for the Jews, but for the Romans as well! They became furious at his shocking behavior, and couldn’t wait to get rid of him. This was not the Messiah that they expected or wanted, therefore, it must not be Him!

            Do we tend to do the same thing in our lives? Does God ever shock us with his plans for our lives, or call us to do things that we may never have expected? Perhaps it would be good for us to realize that many people in Jesus’ day missed out on the kingdom of God, simply because they didn’t WANT it to be what it was. They were blinding themselves to God’s unexpected plan.

But in reality, this plan was FAR superior to their own, for it allowed Jesus to conquer every single person’s sin nature, and therefore, gain a kingdom made up not just of Jews, but also of every single human race! Now, all could believe and be a part of God’s kingdom, for it wasn’t a kingdom of race or politics, but a kingdom within them! Therefore, many more people could be a part of it!

            This is so important to me, because it shows me that God is so much bigger than I could ever imagine. It encourages me not to box in God’s character or plans, but to allow him to explode beyond my imagination and be who He really is! 

            Daniel was taken as a young boy into a foreign country, with a foreign language, and with foreign gods. Throughout his life, he resolved to remain faithful to God because he saw that it was ultimately God that is in control, not the kings he was surrounded by. He records his visions and life in the book of Daniel. The main idea of the book is that God is sovereign over everything, and it is God who sets up earthly kingdoms and tears them down. Every earthly kingdom and political power will fall, but the kingdom of God will last forever.

            The original readers of this book, the Israelites after the time of exile, although back in their land, were still experiencing oppression from the Persian government. This book would have been an encouragement to them to trust and follow the one that really is in control of all things. They should not disobey God for the sake of following the Persian laws, because God is more powerful than the Persian kings and rulers.

            Daniel very clearly illustrates God’s power and foresight of the future. He has the power to intervene and knows exactly what is going to happen. He tells Daniel that he is going to bring a kingdom that cannot fail. This is the kingdom of God, brought by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. As Christians today, we too should make our primary allegiance to the true kingdom. America will one day fall. Another nation will become the next major world power. When this happens, we have no reason to fear. God very clearly orchestrates the rise and fall of nations for some greater purpose. God is going somewhere with history and we can trust his character and goodness. We see that Daniel becomes heavily involved in the Babylonian political system; however, he would not compromise his commitment to the lasting kingdom, the kingdom of God.

            Like Daniel, our energies and allegiance should be on the kingdom of God and his principles. America is not God’s kingdom. We should live as if we live in another kingdom – pursuing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God, even when it contradicts the laws of the land. God’s kingdom is the only lasting one.

            I knew the book of Daniel was going to be a special book because it was a study of the book of Daniel I was doing last year with my Bible study that sparked my interest in doing the SBS this year. There are so many details that make up the book and from it so much truth but what I found to be the most surprising thing about the book was that the truth that stuck out to me the most came from the big picture of the book that our teacher enlightened us with instead of the details, “God knows world events, God cares about world events, God is in control of world events, God is with you through world events, God wins in the end!”

For me this is so encouraging because my personality type is one that is very interested in details and planning. I love to make lists and check off the entries as I go along because it gives me a sense of control and that things are getting done as I want them to be done.  There is not a problem with organization like this, but there is a problem when I get too caught up in details and planning that when my plans fall through I freak out and don’t know what to do with myself.  That unfortunately has happened too many times and God is not always the first place I go to fix my problem.  Here in the book of Daniel he receives visions from the Lord about the political conflict that is going to happen and this is given in great detail.  Each time a new world power comes into play people believe there is no way they will be overcome and yet they eventually are. Imagine if you are like me and you are really hinging on these powers to keep everything in order and then they are attacked and taken over by another power, I would think it was the end of the world, and that is probably what the people of God were thinking.   That is why Daniel had to write this book, to encourage these people to say “hey, stop looking at all that mess down there and getting all caught up in the details of what is going on, and look ahead, look at the big picture, and see that the point is I am with you and will bring you into my ultimate kingdom in the end.” For someone like me, that is all I need to hear, a plan, not just any plan, an ultimate, eternal plan, one that I did not create! The Lord is good and even though things may be daunting all around us, the Lord has a plan, so look to him!