- araratchurch
- Jul 4, 2024
- 3 min read
Updated: Jul 10, 2024
“For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace There will be no end, Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, To order it and establish it with judgment and justice From that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.”
Isaiah 9:6-7 NKJV
Today—being July 4th—we step aside from the story of Joseph to speak of the Kingship of Jesus.
So, what does the Kingship of Jesus have to do with the birth of our nation?
Before I answer that question, I want to say that I am tired of the arguments over whether or not the United States of America is a Christian nation, or whether it was founded on Christian principles. Depending on where a person is coming from, “evidence” can be found to support either side of the argument. However, I will say that there is overwhelming evidence that a majority of those involved in the founding, did have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
Yes, the point is made that Jesus is not explicitly referenced in our founding documents, but certainly the principles were incorporated therein. I will also note that Jesus not being explicitly mentioned, was one of our great mistakes. Notice, no other major religion backs away from associating their government with their beliefs.
As well, I’m also tired of pointing to things like the Crusades as proving that Christianity is oppressive. Dark moments in any history does not take away from the truth of any entity, religious, or otherwise.
Now, back to the question: What does the birthday of America have to do with the Kingship of Jesus?
First, I want to make clear that an honest study of how the events came together that we were able to form a nation, will reveal that there’s no other explanation except for miraculous intervention by God.
Clearly, there were major failings. As I mentioned earlier, not to directly own our Christianity was an error. As well, acquiescing to the horrors of slave trade, is a terrible wound only the Lord can heal. But, I will also point out that it was Christian leadership that abolished slavery in the United States.
In terms of directly answering our question: True justice will only be realized when our Lord rules and reigns over all the earth.
In the meantime, approaching any semblance of true justice is only possible when Christ is at the center of a government and repentance is the attitude of the people.
For today, I ask the Lord to bring justice to the United States of America, justice flowing through ditches dug by mercy.
Jesus Christ is the Prince of Peace. In His first appearing, He took on an envelope of flesh, coming to show us the Father, and to be the perfect sacrifice, making a way for us to obtain forgiveness of sins and be connected to His never-ending life. In His second coming, He will destroy the enemies of God and establish justice over all the earth.
As for now, any nation denying the sovereignty of Jesus Christ, any nation persecuting Christians, any nation that thinks government should be wholly separate from God, is destined to fail.
Justice will only reign when the Kingdom of God is on earth as it is in heaven. And even now, Jesus is our only hope.
Peace to you.
Jesus is coming! Get ready for Him!
(catch up with the previous installments of this blog series at AraratChurch.com/Blog )
- araratchurch
- Jul 3, 2024
- 4 min read
Updated: Jul 5, 2024
“Potiphar was furious when he heard his wife’s story about how Joseph had treated her. So he took Joseph and threw him into the prison where the king’s prisoners were held, and there he remained.”
Genesis 39:19-20 NLT
Let’s start with a funny story; it will be particularly humorous to any of you who had the honor of knowing my father.
When I was a little girl, I would often make things with my own hands, particularly cards for my family’s special occasions. To do so I would cut pictures out of magazines, postcards, and so on, transforming them into my works of art. Knowing this, my father, one day when at the carwash, picked up a few of the free postcards lined up in front of the cash register. He came home and presented these to me. Of course, I was very thrilled.
Now—although I was very young—I was also very conscious of not doing anything that might be offensive to the Lord. I saw that one of the cards was advertising the San Souci nightclub. My father only saw bright lights and a party scene; but I saw the word “nightclub.” Knowing what a nightclub was, I decided to get rid of it. Not wanting my father to be offended if he saw it in the trash, I folded it and put it underneath some other things.
That was the truth—the whole truth—of the story.
Well, it so happened that my mother and sister found the San Souci card I had folded and hidden. And—as outlandish as this may seem to ANYONE who knew my father—the only “logical” answer to them was that my father had it and hid it so nobody would see. (You see, none of the other cards were with this one, as I deemed the others “acceptable”). Clearly, there were no other “suspects” in the house: My sister and brother weren’t out driving around, much less frequenting nightclubs. My mother knew it wasn’t her card. So, it had to be my daddy!
I remember seeing my mother and sister whispering around about this. But of course, my tender ears didn’t need to hear anything about the San Souci nightclub.
Now, the end of the story—as I can remember—happened when I saw the card and said, “Oh, that’s mine!” I don’t know if I explained to them why I had hidden it or not. But I told them that daddy had gotten it for me from the carwash.
Of course, I felt responsible for this whole debacle. But the real culprit was suspicion and the lack of benefit of the doubt. Although it made absolutely no sense that my father would do such a thing, it was “the only plausible explanation,” “an airtight case,” until it wasn’t.
“The first to speak in court sounds right— until the cross-examination begins.”
Proverbs 18:17 NLT
Wow! That was a lesson I will never forget. Even so, I fight the tendency to run down the road and connect dots that shouldn’t be connected. In fact, jumping to conclusions is a product of the carnal mind. The mind of the Spirit uses discernment, not suspicion, to rightly judge.
Then there was a story my father told about a man (living back in the day) who had a dear wolfhound. The man, hearing there was a vicious wolf prowling around, went out to hunt it down to keep it from harming things on his property. Seeing no sign of the wolf, he called out to his dog, Gilleart, who was assisting the hunt. But Gilleart was nowhere to be found.
The man quickly returned home and went up to the bedroom of his dear baby son. Upon walking into the room, he sees a bloody blanket on the floor by his baby son‘s crib, and bloody-faced Gilleart sitting beside the blanket. Assuming the worst, the man takes his sword from its sheath and drives it through Gilleart. Gilleart died licking his master’s hand.
Suddenly, the bloody blanket began moving. Seeing this, the man grabs it up and finds his son, unharmed, sleeping soundly. Looking behind the crib, the man sees the wolf, dead. Gilleart had apparently followed the wolf into the house, saving the man’s son. Gilleart was thanked by being killed by his master.
I’ll offer one more story.
Many years ago, I was in a small group of very close individuals when the Lord put it on my heart to give a prophetic word, which I did. Afterwards, one of the individuals in that group, who I have known for a long time, came to me, accusing me of using that prophetic word to give them a “reprimand.” Now, I didn’t find out until a year later, what the assumed reprimand was about. You see, I had no idea that this individual was doing what they were doing; but apparently they thought I did know. In my scolding, they called me “shrill” and guilty of Proverbs 18:13:
“Spouting off before listening to the facts is both shameful and foolish.” NLT
The irony was that I was not the one who was speaking before hearing the whole story, they were. Assuming I knew what was going on with them, they thought I was using the name of God to issue a reprimand. That hurt.
Jumping to conclusions can hurt. And sometimes, it even kills.
In our opening scripture we see that poor Joseph, though he went out of his way to try to avoid Potiphar’s on-the-prowl wife, has been thrown into prison. Talk about jumping to a conclusion. Will this be the end of Joseph and his lofty dreams?
Peace to you.
Jesus is coming! Get ready for Him!
- araratchurch
- Jul 2, 2024
- 4 min read
“One day, however, no one else was around when he went in to do his work. She came and grabbed him by his cloak, demanding, “Come on, sleep with me!” Joseph tore himself away, but he left his cloak in her hand as he ran from the house. When she saw that she was holding his cloak and he had fled, she called out to her servants. Soon all the men came running. “Look!” she said. “My husband has brought this Hebrew slave here to make fools of us! He came into my room to rape me, but I screamed. When he heard me scream, he ran outside and got away, but he left his cloak behind with me.” She kept the cloak with her until her husband came home. Then she told him her story. “That Hebrew slave you’ve brought into our house tried to come in and fool around with me,” she said. “But when I screamed, he ran outside, leaving his cloak with me!””
Genesis 39:11-18 NLT
My uncle once told a story about a woman who had falsely accused her pastor of some sort of bad behavior. As time went on she became convicted over her lies. She told the pastor that she wanted to make things right and he agreed to meet with her to talk about it. Upon coming to talk to him, she was confused to find that he had a large fan blowing and was holding a feather pillow in front of it. When she asked what the meaning of this was, the pastor took a knife and cut open the pillow in front of the fan. As you can imagine, the feathers flew everywhere, even going out the open door and beyond. He then said to her, “If you can go recover each of those feathers, then you can make this right.”
Now, what was the pastor’s point? The accusation she had made against him had already gone so far, into so many unknown places, there was no way, in the natural, to make it right.
Certainly a person guilty of such behavior, should repent before the Lord, along with making every effort to withdraw what they have said, to everyone to whom they have said it. But sadly, the lie will forever be out there somewhere.
God looks with great disdain on those who engage in false witnessing. In fact, it earned its way into the 10 Commandments:
“You must not testify falsely against your neighbor.”
Exodus 20:16 NLT
When instructing the children of Israel, the Lord put quite a penalty on being a false witness.
“If a malicious witness comes forward and accuses someone of a crime, then both the accuser and accused must appear before the Lord by coming to the priests and judges in office at that time. The judges must investigate the case thoroughly. If the accuser has brought false charges against his fellow Israelite, you must impose on the accuser the sentence he intended for the other person. In this way, you will purge such evil from among you. Then the rest of the people will hear about it and be afraid to do such an evil thing.”
Deuteronomy 19:16-20 NLT
The Bible is fraught with examples of false accusations being used by evil people to get rid of their enemies.
Jezebel used false accusers to get rid of Naboth when he refused to sell his vineyard to Ahab.
“So she wrote letters in Ahab’s name, sealed them with his seal, and sent them to the elders and other leaders of the town where Naboth lived. In her letters she commanded: “Call the citizens together for a time of fasting, and give Naboth a place of honor. And then seat two scoundrels across from him who will accuse him of cursing God and the king. Then take him out and stone him to death.””
1 Kings 21:8-10 NLT
The Jewish leaders not only got rid of Jesus through false accusations, many early Christians were abused, even killed, because of lies told on them. Such was the case for the first Christian martyr, Stephen, when he bested some men from the Synagogue of Freed Slaves.
“But one day some men from the Synagogue of Freed Slaves, as it was called, started to debate with him. They were Jews from Cyrene, Alexandria, Cilicia, and the province of Asia. None of them could stand against the wisdom and the Spirit with which Stephen spoke. So they persuaded some men to lie about Stephen, saying, “We heard him blaspheme Moses, and even God.” This roused the people, the elders, and the teachers of religious law. So they arrested Stephen and brought him before the high council.”
Acts 6:9-12 NLT
After preaching quite a sermon to the high council, Stephen was summarily stoned.
Jesus promised that there is great reward for those who faithfully endure false accusations.
“God blesses you when people mock you and persecute you and lie about you and say all sorts of evil things against you because you are my followers. Be happy about it! Be very glad! For a great reward awaits you in heaven. And remember, the ancient prophets were persecuted in the same way.”
Matthew 5:11-12 NLT
When facing false accusations, let’s take hold of this promise to the people of God:
“But in that coming day no weapon turned against you will succeed. You will silence every voice raised up to accuse you. These benefits are enjoyed by the servants of the Lord; their vindication will come from me. I, the Lord, have spoken!”
Isaiah 54:17 NLT
Make no mistake, people do often use their tongues as a weapon. Tragically, that weapon has assisted many injustices and destroyed many lives.
As a practical statement: Let us be careful not to be guilty of spreading false information. Some juicy tidbit “just too good not to share,”may be the undoing of some innocent soul.
Remember, false accusation is the devil’s work, let’s not assist him.
We see in our opening scripture that Joseph, having spurned the overtures made by Potiphar’s wife, is being falsely accused of attempted rape! There’s a saying, “Hell has no fury as a woman scorned,” and Joseph certainly found this to be true the hard way. But, Potiphar has seen how trustworthy Joseph is; surely he’ll give him the benefit of the doubt….
Peace to you.
Jesus is coming! Get ready for Him!