Job 26:5-13

These verses, remarkably, describe the entire universe: the underworld (vv. 5-6), the earth (v. 7), the sun/moon/stars (vv. 10, 13), the clouds between space and the deep (vv. 8-9), the deep (vv. 7-8, 10, 12), and the north/God’s throne (vv. 7, 9). I think that “the empty place” is the reference to the deep, which is empty except for one occupant (v. 13; Is. 27:1; Job 41:31). The “pillars of heaven” are as literal as the “pillars of the earth” (9:6, 1 Sam. 2:8, Ps. 75:3), and each support a celestial or terrestrial structure. Amazing what the ancients knew and modern monkeys do NOT (Job 8:8, 15:18; Ps. 119:100)! 

Defining the "One Hundred and Twenty Years" in Genesis 6:3

"And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh; yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years." (Genesis 6:3)

No need to even leave the verse to answer this question, thank the Lord.

A common misconception is that here God decided to limit man's lifespan to 120 years. While it's true that lifespans decreased exponentially after the flood (see Gen. 11), a few people were living to 120 many centuries after the flood (e.g. Moses--Deut. 34:7; Jehoiada--2 Chron. 24:15). Two key words in the first part of the verse (v. 3a) unravel the second part (v. 3b): "not always." God is putting a limit on the time he will continue to strive with men (spiritually) to lead them to repentance (Rom. 2:4; 2 Pt. 3:9; Rev. 2:21). An example of this is Jonah's preaching to the Ninevites, in which God gives them 40 days to repent (Jon. 3:4). Since God publicly announces the "space to repent" for Nineveh, he may have done the same before the flood through Noah, "a preacher of righteousness" (2 Pt. 2:5) and his final voice of warning before the flood, since Enoch, also a preacher (Jude 14-15), had disappeared 134 years before Noah's birth.

A final thought in support of v. 3a expounding v. 3b is Gen. 6:7, where God determines to destroy mankind, pointing to the 120 years as a probation period, after which God decides to act. Man's wickedness (6:5) was already grieving the Lord (6:6) at the time the probation period is announced, and since mankind does not repent at Noah's preaching (unlike the Ninevites!), judgment comes after 120 years.

Yesterday I saw a rainbow while driving, and it reminded me that "in wrath" God "remember[ed] mercy" (Habakkuk 3:2) during the flood (Gen. 6:8, 8:1), NOT about a group of sinners (1 Tim. 1:9-10) "whose glory is in their shame" (Phil. 3:19). They are the losers, dear friends, not champions, if they refuse God's glorious gospel (1 Tim. 1:11) in the time THEY have left.

Appreciating Shamgar, the Third Judge

(Presented to the "Rooted" Bible Study Class, Faith Baptist Church, Fredericksburg, VA, on March 2, 2022.)

Texts: Judges 3:31, 5:6-8 

I’ve chosen to expand on the significance of the mysterious third judge, Shamgar the son of Anath, and see what practical lessons we can draw from his brief but momentous appearance on the stage of Biblical history.

 

Introduction

It’s definitely a case of quality over quantity, with his small verse footprint, but the two passages where Shamgar briefly appears are, as my old pastor used to say, “pregnant with truth.” Several other judges are only mentioned briefly, and one isn’t mentioned until a later book (Bedan, 1 Sam. 12:11), but there’s definitely value in looking at this judge more closely. 

In our last lesson, we studied the ministry of Ehud, and his triumph over Moab leaves a deep mark in the national soul, since Israel’s next major apostasy and affliction comes eighty years later (cf. Judg. 3:30, 4:1), at some point after Ehud’s death. 

Deborah appears in Judg. 4, and under her oversight the land enjoys forty years of rest after her victory over the Canaanites (5:31). In between the ministries of these two major judges, though, is the ministry of Shamgar. Here’s how I think that his played out.

 

Context of Shamgar’s Judging

Ehud dies, and the people begin to apostasize, and the Philistines invade Israel, perhaps as a call to repentance. God raises up Shamgar to deliver his people, and he does, but the downward trend continues until Jabin king of Canaan afflicts Israel after the Philistines are put down, and that’s where Deborah emerges.

There was a period of decline between Ehud and Deborah, which I think is accurate since scripture is silent about rest in the land after Shamgar’s triumph. Doubtless there was some respite, but likely not for long because of this omission. Shamgar slowed the tide of apostasy, but didn’t break it altogether, and here we can take an application “break.” 

It’s the duty of everyone in [the church] to resist evil in the world and in the church, to the best of your ability. You may not be able to turn evil tides, but you can at least oppose them and leave the final outcome to God. That’s what King Leonidas and his 300 Spartan warriors did when Persia invaded Greece in the 5^th century B.C. His tiny force held off a horde of Persians at Thermopylae to buy the rest of Greece time, and it worked--but at the cost of himself and his entire force. Are we willing to withstand spiritual evil like Shamgar and Leonidas did political evil? In the words of Isaac Watts:

Am I a soldier of the Cross--

A follower of the Lamb?

And shall I fear to own His cause,

Or blush to speak His name?

 

Are there no foes for me to face?

Must I not stem the flood?

Is this vile world a friend to grace,

To help me on to God?

 

Details of Philistine Oppression

The Philistines emerge as heavy oppressors of Israel in Judg. 3, for whatever duration, and details on their oppression can be found or assumed from elsewhere. 

First, the Philistines disarmed the Israelites. Shamgar is armed only with an ox goad, which is “a long wooden stick tipped with metal at one end, and a blade on the other for cleaning the plow” (G. Inrig, Hearts of Iron, Feet of Clay). They do this again in the days of Saul and Jonathan (1 Sam. 13:19-20), when the Philistines won’t even allow the Israelites to have a smith for sharpening their farming tools!

Defenseless in that way, the people leave their villages for walled cities (Judg. 5:7-8).

It's dangerous to travel, with occupation troops using the highways, so if the people need to move about, they use the backstreets or byways (5:6).

4.     Unlikely weapons are used to fight God’s enemies: ox goad (3:31), hammer and tent “nail” (4:21-22), millstone (9:53), and jawbone (15:15).

So into these perilous times steps Shamgar, likely a farmer of some sort, considering his ox goad. Some of the judges had “connections” to better families like Othniel, who married Caleb’s daughter, but many of the judges were nobodies, which in my view magnifies God’s power even more. Shamgar was likely one of these nobodies, since all we know about him was his father’s name and that he fought with an ox goad, an animal husbandry tool.

 

Primary Practical Lessons from Shamgar’s Life (et al.)

Let’s look at a few more practical lessons we can glean from this hero’s life, along with Othniel and Ehud: 

 1. God uses completely different kinds of men

a.      Othniel: important, with ability (1:13)

b.     Ehud: important, with limitation (3:15)

c.      Shamgar: nobody (period) 

2.     God uses people who draw their strength from him

a.      Othniel (3:10)—Spirit of the LORD comes upon him to drive out the Mesopotamians

b.     Ehud (3:28)—appeals to the LORD during the muster to rout Moab

c.      Shamgar (3:31)—compare his exploit to Samson’s slaughter of the Philistines in Judg. 15; in both cases, I think, the Spirit of the LORD came on these men and gave them superhuman strength to do what they did (15:14-16) and…the LORD kept their weapons from breaking!

3.      God uses people who step out in faith and trust him.

a.      Despite the supernatural strength, there still had to be faith that God would enable them to triumph, like David running toward Goliath.

b.     Marvel and DC have nothing on the Bible. Can you picture these scenes? A farmer sees a troop of Philistines bearing down on his village or walled city and confronts them with his ox goad. How they must have laughed at him, like Goliath did at David’s staff!

c.      But when they engaged him, they realized that this was no joke. And yet, they keep coming. I think that God was in that too. They, and the 1000 men that Samson slew, could’ve run, but they didn’t. God wanted them dead for oppressing his people, and faithful men like Othniel, Ehud, and Shamgar were his instruments.

 

Conclusion

So I think that my old pastor was right: lots of good stuff to discover by closely examining Shamgar. The details of his identity weren’t the point, just like the “great woman” of Shunem, whose name we’re never given. The point is who he was connected with and what he did in faith for his glory. When we stand before the Lord for our rewards one day, our station in life won’t matter—what we did with what God gave us will, even if it was just an ox goad.

 

Appendix: A Brief History of the Philistines

The Philistines are the ancient enemies of the Israelites, but not at first. In Gen. 21, we see them as allies of Abraham and him even living among them for “many days” (Gen. 21:34).

The “blood goes bad” when the Israelites enter Canaan. God says in Josh. 13:1-3 that that land of the Philistines belongs to Israel.

A partial conquest by Judah ensues (Judg. 1:18—Gath and Ashdod are not subdued). The Philistines recover from this partial conquest, and it’s a seesaw battle for centuries to come.

I’m not sure when the Philistines are completely obliterated, but as late as the sixth century B.C., Ezekiel prophesies against them in captivity (Ezek. 25:15-17), and they’re still around post-captivity trouble the Judeans under Nehemiah (Neh. 13:23-27).

They’re not, however, mentioned in the gospels as part of the Roman world, so I figure that they vanished in the intertestamental period, but I’m not sure.

Two Washings for the Child of God

 Text: Ephesians 5:25-27; Titus 3:5

In the Prison Epistles (Eph.-Col., 1 Tim.-Phile.), the pinnacle of the Pauline revelation, we read of two washings for the child of God. While not equating with those mentioned by Jesus in John 13:8-10 (before the cross) and by Paul in 1 Cor. 6:11 (Acts period, preceding the revelation of the one-body mystery), the principles are the same. A positional washing is followed by a practical, daily washing. 

The "washing of regeneration" (Tit. 3:5) occurs at the moment a sinner trusts Christ as his Saviour. Note carefully that "regeneration" is the subject here, not the object. In other words, regeneration (= "quickened" or made alive in Eph. 2:1) washes a sinner; not the other way around. Some have misread this verse to affirm that washing, as in baptism, regenerates a sinner, which we know is false in this age. Paul makes it very clear in the same verse that works like baptism have nothing to do with our salvation and that it's wholly a work of a loving God's kindness (v. 4), mercy (v. 5) and grace (v. 6). 

The "washing of water by the word" (Eph. 5:26) is a figurative way of saying that the word of God applied to our lives removes spots and blemishes (v. 27) from us spiritually like water does our bodies physically. This occurs after our salvation (Eph. 5:25) with a view to preparing us for union with Christ in heaven when he appears (Col. 3:4). Positionally we are prepared to meet him the moment that we're saved (Tit. 3:5), but practically we are not ready to meet him, i.e., without shame, if our lives are defiled and not in subjection to his word, which, if obeyed, would cleanse us. 

These two washings remind us how pure and holy our God is, since he not only washes us positionally when we're saved, but makes that washing practical by giving us his word to cleanse us daily in preparation for our appearance with him in glory, where we will be utterly cleansed, both positionally and practically. Hallelujah!

(At Least) Three Things that Dante Got Right

Although I have not read the entire Divine Comedy by the Italian poet Dante Alighieri, I am familiar with some of its contents, especially those of the first part of the poem, Inferno (Hell).  From what I have read of Inferno and the third part of the poem, Paradiso (Purgatorio being the second), I find at least three things that Dante had right about the underworld and afterlife.  The first two are more commonly agreed upon than the third.

1. There are degrees of damnation in hell and, ultimately, in the lake of fire (Rev. 20:14-15).  When Christ rebukes the scribes and Pharisees in Mt. 23, he warns them about the "greater damnation" in store for them (v. 14).  In Mt. 23:15, he also says that someone can be "twofold more the child of hell than" someone else (viz., the scribes and Pharisees themselves).  Dante's depiction of hell, though not scripturally accurate in many respects, does portray degrees of punishment for the damned, from lighter torment in the upper levels to greater torment in the lower ones.  Literal levels of hell are also something described in scripture (cf. Deut. 32:22; Ps. 86:13).

2. There are degrees of glory in heaven for the saints and contentment with the state of bliss given. A touching scene in Paradiso that highlights this truth is Dante's interview with Piccarda Donati in the outermost sphere of heaven (Canto III, ll. 49-90). Dante enquires about her contentment with this level of glory, to which she meekly replies, "His will is our peace." 

3.  Paradise in the heart of the earth is still occupied, not vacant. Eph. 4:8 is not a fulfillment of Ps. 68:18, since the prophets did not speak of the one-body mystery (Eph. 3:9), but rather used as an illustration that when Christ ascended, gifts were given (Eph. 4:11). The prophets saw Calvary, but not what God would do through Calvary in this mystery age. Peter confirms this truth in Acts 2:34, where he affirms, while filled with the Holy Ghost (Acts 2:4ff.), that David "is not ascended..." even though Christ is. Finally, there is no evidence that the saints who rose immediately following Christ's resurrection (Mt. 27:50-53) were taken up to heaven. The passage simply says that they "went into the holy city, and appeared unto many" (v. 53), but no further details are given as to the aftermath. Here's a possible scenario, however: if those who saw these risen saints connected their appearing with the other miracles attending Christ's death, it would serve as further testimony of his divinity (27:54), since no prophet's death resulted in an event like this. I think that this was the purpose of the risen saints' appearing, and I'm not sure they said a word to those who saw them. Their mere presence was to set people thinking as to why such a thing was happening and...lead their thoughts to Christ's recent death. 

So regardless of whether one agrees with Dante's theology in full, his great poem illustrates the three truths above, something we should greatly appreciate today, considering the advanced Biblical light that we have 700 years later (the Comedy was published in 1320!). 

Forgotten Hymns (Pending Project)

From time to time, as the Lord leads, I plan to post the lyrics of edifying hymns that I have found here and there that are no longer commonly sung, at least in the various churches I have attended in multiple denominations.  It bothers me to see so many fine hymns of yesteryear drop into oblivion, often because modern congregations don't have a taste for their contents. 

Please stay tuned!

Why Alpha and Omega?

 Text: Rev. 1:8, 11; 22:13 

…and not the “Aleph” and the “Tau” (first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet—see Psalm 119) or the “A and the Z”? Aren’t all of these titles saying the same thing, as defined for us in the Authorized Version, namely, “the beginning and the ending” (1:8, 22:13) or “the first and the last” (1:11, 22:13)? They are, but I believe there’s a reason that God insisted on “Alpha and Omega,” a transliteration rather than a translation from the underlying Greek text, as opposed to something else or merely using “the first and the last.”

 ·         “The first and the last” doesn’t mean that God himself has a beginning and ending, but that he begins whatever has a beginning (Gen. 1:1, John 1:1-3, Col. 1:18, Rev. 3:14) and ends whatever has an ending. God precedes everything created, including angelic beings, and when anything temporal passes away and eternity continues to roll, God will be there and already have been there, since time is not linear for God like it is us, and no one can get ahead of him as “Omega.” Following is an excellent explanation of this truth from A. Berkley Michelson’s Daniel & Revelation: Riddles or Realities (1984, p. 39)?

 

“God is called the Alpha and the Omega (Rev. 1:8; 21:6), which are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. We usually think of “beginning” and “end” as the chronological points of an event, but in the Book of Revelation “the beginning and the end” are God himself. God completes life just as the opening and closing letters complete the alphabet. As Christians, we must reverse our pattern of thinking about life in terms of physical beginnings and endings and consider the beginning and the ending as God, not as events. Overcoming the tendency to be event centered is difficult. Even nations and empires begin and end with certain events. But God must be central in our larger relationship with him. We must subordinate events to God; He is the originator and planner of the events of our lives.”

 

·          ·       Now let’s consider God’s use of the Greek alphabet:

 

a.      At the time of the new testament’s composition, Latin was the political language of the known world, but Greek was the common tongue, much like English is today (Eccl. 1:9-10). Note how Paul, a Hebrew, and the Roman captain communicate with one another in Greek in Acts 21:37-39. Paul chooses to address captain in Greek, rather than Latin, even though the latter is a Roman soldier, since the chances of him speaking Greek, the common tongue, were even better than him knowing Latin, which Paul, as a Roman citizen (21:39, 22:25-27) knew as well. The captain is surprised that Paul speaks Greek, which marks Paul as a man of the world, since Greek was spoken throughout the Roman world.

b.      By choosing the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, God is showing his identification with the Gentiles, from the beginning to the end of time. The nations have always been part of God’s plan, as revealed to the prophets regarding the kingdom (Mt. 25:34, Acts 3:21) and as hid in God until Paul regarding the one-body mystery in Christ (Eph. 3:9). God called out Abraham from the nations and separated Israel, but he wasn’t dispensing with the nations, just giving Israel primacy over them (Gen. 12:3). His plan was to use one nation to bring the others home, so to speak, but as we know, Israel for the most part failed in that mission.

c.       The title, then, is an affirmation that God not only identifies with Israel but with the other nations as well…forever. The Revelation describes the consummation of the kingdom program revealed in prophecy, not the mystery program revealed to Paul (its consummation is described in Eph. 1-3), and the fulfillment of God’s promises to Israel and to the nations. Note how “nations” is used in Revelation 19 times, all the way into chapters 21-22, the eternal state, and “nation” twice, for a total of 21 references (3x7 for numerology students—the nations are perfected in Revelation!).

So “Alpha and Omega,” which strikingly appears only in the first and final (21-22) chapters of Revelation (!), is as full of meaning to the nations as “JEHOVAH” (Ex. 6:3, Ps. 83:18, Is. 26:4) is to Israel. The next time you see the Alpha and Omega reference or image, remember God’s claim on the Gentiles. Praise the Lord!