Category Archives: Apologetics

IS HELL REAL?

Apologetics, ,

Jesus spoke of hell as a real place, a place of burning and torment which will never end. Why would God be so cruel? Why would He think up such a horrible way to punish people just because they don’t believe in Him? Does the punishment really fit the crime?

First, we must understand that God created humans for Himself. He owns every soul born on planet earth. He made them for a purpose, to be a mirror of His glory to the whole world, reflecting Him by the way they lived.

Psalms 24:1 NIV
[1] “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it… “

He created them for a purpose, and He paid for them when they chose to disconnect from Him and connect with His arch enemy. He had every right to pull the plug…but He didn’t.

1 Corinthians 6:20 NIV
[20] “… you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.”

He blew His own breath into the first man, giving him a part of Himself, His divine life. He created humans in His image, a shadow of Himself so that He could communicate with them. He opened the circle of His Godhead to allow humans access and fellowship with Him…Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Privilege on steroids!

He prepared an entire universe, and a planet for humankind, the universe functioning in perfect harmony and unity, and the earth equipped with everything humans needed for a perfect life. He gave humans the power to multiply through the pleasure of physical union, and the mandate to manage the earth and its creatures in partnership with Himself. Honour, privilege!

On top of all this, His plan was to prepare His human family for an eternal existence with Him by serving their apprenticeship on earth. Righteous living on earth would qualify them for eternal life in glory. Why would God do all this? He wanted to love and be loved!

One of the gifts God gave to all humanity was the gift of choice, free will, self-deternination, which echoed a part of His own nature. This gift was the core of the human being, a risky attribute that God intended to guide humans towards obedience and love freely given to their Creator. Freedom to choose meant that the ball was in their court. They could decide whether to stay connected to God or not.

Together with the gift came the possibility and the warning. Choice means that there are at least two alternatives from which to choose…good or evil. Good and evil are not tangible things, they are the motives and outcomes of choices based on the disposition of the chooser.

God created the first pair with His own disposion towards good, simply meaning living by the choices that work… functional living. He wanted them to have good lives, full of His favour and blessing with no obstacles.

They had the option to follow that disposition or to be enticed to choose the opposite way, the way of disconnection from God which would result in dysfunctional lives.

We know the outcome!

By lies and deception, the devil hoodwinked the first pair into believing that they didn’t need God. They could be free to make their own rules, come and go as they liked, do as they pleased, without the restrictions of righteousness and truth to guide them. He told them what they could be… their own authority… without revealing the small print. He told them how to walk away from God…just disobey His one instruction.

It’s the small print that revealed the consequences. God had been honest with them. “You will die!” He told them, “if you trespass outside the boundaries of everything my love has provided.” The devil not only contradicted God’s warning, but also sowed doubt in their minds about God’s love by insinuating that God was lying to them.

The choice was… “Who do we believe?” This choice was more than a simple decision to eat some “forbidden fruit”. The implication was far deeper.

Satan had always desired to be the supreme authority, Lord, in God’s place. He tried to replace God in heaven and was summarlity evicted from God’s realm. His only option was to win over to his side God’s highest creation, the human race, so that he could be Lord over them.

So, by deceiving Eve and, through her, Adam, into believing that God was shortchanging them, the whole human race was implicated. Their disobedience spelt rebellion, and rebellion brought on them the death penalty God had warned them would happen if they disobeyed Him.

This seemingly small act of defiance had huge implications. Through Adam, the human race inherited his nature. They are dead to God. Now humans can no longer choose righteousness. They can only choose between the various options of sin, rebellion, and disobedience. It would take a mighty intervention from God to restore our ability to do the right thing.

Now, hell was not designed to punish humans. It was the fitting place reserved for God’s arch enemy and his followers. The trouble is that those who side with him must share his guilt and his punishment. This means that the human race has chosen its destiny by default. It also means that man, not God, chooses hell for his eternal destiny…and God says, “Don’t tell me I didn’t warn you!”

So, what is hell really like? Does the Bible tell us anything about hell, enough to warn us of its terrors?, Let’s look at some Scriptures.

To be continued…

THE BIGGEST RUSE

Apologetics, ,

So, what English word can one use to describe the most ruthless, cruel, and destructive trick the devil has ever pulled on the people of the world?

A farce…? A farce is a ludicrously improbable situation. No, this word doesn’t fit.

A ruse…? An action intended to deceive? Perhaps.

A hoax…? A malicious deception? I think this is the most apt word to describe what I am about to disclose.

From where did he, this arch-deceiver, pull this hoax that the world is divided by race? Are humans grouped according to a variety of different kinds of bodies, basic shapes, or ways of functioning? What do we see when we peel the skin off an African, an Asian, an Australian, a European, an American, or anyone from a remote island somewhere in the middle of the ocean? Are we so different inside that we do not all belong to one race, the human race? Does the inside differ so much from one group to another, one continent to another, that we are unrecognisable as one race on the inside? Do we have differing hearts, kidneys or any other organs inside our skin?

Imagine trying to organise an international sports event between “races” that look and function differently, like tigers versus giraffes!

Can you see how ridiculous racism is! Racism isn’t about fact. It’s a way of artificially driving us apart, creating divisions between us that we cannot heal, that foster hatred, bitterness and even war.

We must turn to the one reliable source of information to find the truth.

Acts of the Apostles 17:26 NLT
[26] “From ONE MAN he created all the nations throughout the whole earth. He decided beforehand when they should rise and fall, and he determined their boundaries.”

Did you get that? “From one man..”! Nations, yes, but not races. God’s plan was to create a unified race from one man, divided into nations, not skin colours, to populate the earth. So, where are the races that are supposed to make us all different?

Until humans decided to rebel against and defy God, there were no nations. They were all one race with one language.

Genesis 11:1-2, 4-9 NIV
[1] “Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. [2] As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there…
[4]… Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.” [5] But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. [6] The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. [7] Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.” [8] So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. [9] That is why it was called Babel—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.”

It’s a lie, a hoax, and those who pull the race card use it to justify the lie and to hide the hatred, prejudice, and hypocrisy, not colour, that are in their hearts and that separate people from one another. They are liars because they base their arguments, even their policies, values, and beviour on a lie, creating artificial boundaries that don’t exist.

Why is the racist lie so devilish? People believe it because it’s the narrative used to get what they want. In my country, as in many, those who rule hide behind “the injustices of the past” of the white “race” to excuse and justify their evil desires…the power to control and even to possess what is not rightfully theirs. Why not just evil and misguided people?

So, what is the answer to the artificial boundaries human dishonesty has spawned? In Jesus’ day, the great divide was Jew and everyone else bundled together under the omnibus title of “Gentile”. Greeks, Romans, Samaritans, and anyone else who was regarded as their enemy, fell under the category. Even the use of the word “Gentile” was like a red rag to a bull.

After his arrest for supposedly taking a Gentile into the temple, Paul told his story to the hostile Jewish mob who had apprehended him.

Acts 22:1-2, 21-22 NIV
[1] “Brothers and fathers, listen now to my defense.” [2] When they heard him speak to them in Aramaic, they became very quiet. Then Paul said… “

… and Paul told his story until he mentioned the word” Gentiles”…

[21] “Then the Lord said to me, ‘Go; I will send you far away to the Gentiles.’ ” [22] The crowd listened to Paul until he said this. Then they raised their voices and shouted, “Rid the earth of him! He’s not fit to live!”

Such was their hatred for Gentiles that the Jews disregarded their own Scriptures which predicted their Messiah’s role to bring the
Gentiles into God’s salvation covenant.

Isaiah 49:6 NIV
[6] “…He says: “It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”

Jesus came to redeem and restore the whole world to fellowship with the Father. How would He accomplish so great a task in the face of such bitter hatred and division? How would He overcome the artificial boundaries caused by so-called racism?

In a nutshell, Paul gives us the answer. “Race” was not the problem. Hatred, enmity, hostility in the heart was!

Ephesians 2:11-18 NIV
[11] Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision”…
[12] remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.

[13] But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. [14] For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, [15] by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, [16] and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. [17] He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. [18] For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.”

The cross of Jesus dealt the death blow, not to racism but to the sin in the heart that uses racism as its expression. No laws or policies, no education, not efforts to eradicate the so-called “culture of racism”, can cure the evil in the heart.

Jeremiah 17:9 NIV
[9] “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?”

Jesus did it by living to fulfil the law and dying to take our penalty for not fulfilling the law.

Colossians 2:13-15 NIV
[13] “When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, [14] having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. [15] And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.”

Racism is a phantom, a ghost that does not exist except in the minds of evil people. There is no cure and never will be for racism, which is an invention of evil hearts, outside of the cross. No law or education can change that!

When Jesus changes the heart, racism fades like the morning mist, from thought and action.

2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV
[17] “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! “

Faith in Christ changes hearts, destiny, and citizenship.

Ephesians 2:12-13 NIV
[12]”…Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. [13] But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”

Galatians 3:26-28 NIV
[26] “So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, [27] for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. [28] There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

Black and white, Jew and Arab, East and West, are reunited as one in Christ. We have a new identity regardless of clan, tribe, or nation. We are all children of God. We have a new culture as citizens of heaven…

Galatians 5:6 NIV
[6] “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.”

Beloved children of God, God’s Word is truth. Let us who are His children cancel the lie by living by the truth.

SHAKING AND WAKING

Apologetics, ,

What on earth is happening in our world? One only needs to follow the information pouring out on social media, Google news, YouTube etc., to catch a glimpse of the goings-on in the nations. Yes, we must be discerning because misinformation is as prolific as genuine news. However, not everything we read and hear is false. Evidence is everywhere and available to confirm the information we are receiving.

How do we process this plethora of events, happening so fast that, before we blink an eye, situations have changed. It seems as though a mighty hand has dipped into the pot of nations, stirred them around to bring up the silt, and left their citizens reeling in confusion and fear.

Take, for one example, the mess that is happening everywhere as thousands of people flee their homelands because of strife, only to create more strife where they go for refuge. Whole nations are being diluted by immigrants, legal and illegal. Some of the intruders are even trying to force their own country’s laws and culture on their adopted homeland, causing as much strife as the strife they left behind.

While it is good to receive those who are fleeing from suffering in their own land, it is not good to be so overwhelmed when they bring with them their own set of problems and misdemeanours that the host nation begins to collapse.

The chaos is out of hand. Stability, economies, systems of government and control, law and order, are under severe pressure and collapsing under the weight of the disturbances. Money is losing its value, world leaders are scrambling for answers, stabbing in vain at new ideas to hold things together.

Then we have the plight of those who are scurrying around in their own countries like frightened rabbits because of wars and internal conflicts. They have nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. Fear haunts them like a ghostly monster. Enemies are everywhere. Who can they trust?

Then, just to add to the suffering, weather patterns have gone crazy. “Global warming” and “climate change” are on everyone’s lips. Huge areas, whole cities, are under water. Extreme heat and cold are swallowing lives. Storm more violent than the earth has ever known, are wreaking destruction. Homes, neighbourhoods, are disappearing into the collapsing landscape. It’s as though the earth is writhing in pain as it witnesses the bitter conflicts in the nations. And so it is!

Romans 8:20-22 NLT
[20] “Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, [21] the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. [22] For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.”

Where is God in this mess? Does He have anything to say?

There are two words that highlight God’ doings in these days. He is shaking the nations and waking the spiritually dead.

Hebrews 12:26-27 NLT
[26] “When God spoke from Mount Sinai his voice shook the earth, but now he makes another promise: “Once again I will shake not only the earth but the heavens+ also.” [27] This means that all of creation will be shaken and removed, so that only unshakable things will remain.”

The one great, overriding reason for this uncontrollable chaos is…

Romans 3:11-12, 16-18 NLT
[11] “No one is truly wise; no one is seeking God. [12] All have turned away; all have become useless. No one does good, not a single one.”…
[16] Destruction and misery always follow them. [17] They don’t know where to find peace.” [18] “They have no fear of God at all.”

Do you get the picture? When the people in the world deliberately choose to leave God out of their lives, they create their own consequences. God has no option but to leave them to their own devices or to shake everything people trust.

However, He also has a plan… to shake the world awake!

The global shaking that is going on under our noses right now, brings out two responses from us humans.

The Bible vividly describes the response of world leaders and all others, to the shaking.

Some shake their fists at God…

Psalms 2:1-3 NLT
[1] “Why are the nations so angry? Why do they waste their time with futile plans? [2] The kings of the earth prepare for battle; the rulers plot together against the Lord and against his anointed one. [3] “Let us break their chains,” they cry, “and free ourselves from slavery to God.”

Others flee in fear…

Revelation 6:12-17 NLT
[12] “I watched as the Lamb broke the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake. The sun became as dark as black cloth, and the moon became as red as blood. [13] Then the stars of the sky fell to the earth like green figs falling from a tree shaken by a strong wind. [14] The sky was rolled up like a scroll, and all of the mountains and islands were moved from their places. [15] Then everyone—the kings of the earth, the rulers, the generals, the wealthy, the powerful, and every slave and free person—all hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains. [16] And they cried to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of the one who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. [17] For the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to survive?”

No repentance, no taking responsibility, no grief over their ungodly lives…just defiance or panic and fear!

Isaiah 26:5, 9-11, 21 NLT
[5] He humbles the proud and brings down the arrogant city. He brings it down to the dust…
[9] In the night I search for you; in the morning I earnestly seek you. For only when you come to judge the earth will people learn what is right. [10] Your kindness to the wicked does not make them do good. Although others do right, the wicked keep doing wrong and take no notice of the Lord’s majesty. [11] O Lord, they pay no attention to your upraised fist. Show them your eagerness to defend your people. Then they will be ashamed. Let your fire consume your enemies…
[21] Look! The Lord is coming from heaven to punish the people of the earth for their sins. The earth will no longer hide those who have been killed. They will be brought out for all to see.”

Then there are those who steadfastly trust and obey the Lord.

Isaiah 26:16-18, 20 NLT
[16] ” Lord, in distress we searched for you. We prayed beneath the burden of your discipline. [17] Just as a pregnant woman writhes and cries out in pain as she gives birth, so were we in your presence, Lord. [18] We, too, writhe in agony, but nothing comes of our suffering. We have not given salvation to the earth, nor brought life into the world…”

…but the Lord says…

[20] Go home, my people, and lock your doors! Hide yourselves for a little while until the Lord’s anger has passed.”

Like those who were saved from death in the ark when the great flood fell on the earth, the Lord will protect those who take shelter in Him. Not even death can separate from the Lord those who trust in Him.

Isaiah 26:19 NLT
[19] “But those who die in the Lord will live; their bodies will rise again! Those who sleep in the earth will rise up and sing for joy! For your life-giving light will fall like dew on your people in the place of the dead!”

Not so prominent in the media but just as real is the awakening! God’s shaking is waking the spiritually dead and bringing them back to life. Thousands upon thousands, all over the nations, are turning to the Lord in their suffering. Celebrities in Hollywood, Jewish leaders and ordinarily Jews s of all persuasions, inside and outside Israel, Muslims and Imams in the Arab nations, ordinary people in the United Kingdom…England, Ireland, and Scotland reporting spiritual revival…joy despite their circumstances…singing and celebrating in the streets of London. Thousands in Iran are believing in Jesus. Even many ex terrorists, Jihad extremists, have turned to the Lord from their murderous hatred for Jews to faith in Jesus and love for God’s people. Reports in the media are telling the story.

We can only conclude that all this is the work of God. He is winding up history in preparation for Jesus’ return and the coming of His kingdom on earth.

How must we respond to these events?

Hebrews 12:28 NLT
[28] “Since we are receiving a Kingdom that is unshakable, let us be thankful and please God by worshiping him with holy fear and awe.”

Let’s rejoice in God’s intervention as we await the day when…

Habakkuk 2:14 NIV
[14] “… The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”

ONE!

Apologetics, ,

John 17:20-23 NIV
[20] “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, [21] that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. [22] I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— [23] I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

The Bible is shot through with the evidence of “echad”, the onenness that is everywhere in the universe and that echoes the “echad” in the divine Trinity.

Many religions try to deny, ignore, discredit, or argue away God’s “echad” by accusing us of worshipping three gods. No, the Bible never says there are three Gods. The Bible declares that there is one God, revealed in three distinct persons. In a sense, “God” (with a capital, “G”) is a species, just as “man” and “animals” are separate species. In the species, “God”, there are only three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and in the fellowship of the three persons, they are one. There is never conflict or dispute. They are one in essence, character and purpose.

The Bible speaks of another “god” species but they are not “God”. They are spirit beings, created by God, to manage the nations in God’s behalf. He called them “gods”.

Psalms 82:6 NIV
[6] “I said, ‘You are “gods”; you are all sons of the Most High.’ “

Deuteronomy 32:8 NIV
[8] “When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when he divided all mankind, he set up boundaries for the peoples according to the number of the sons of Israel (Hebrew – gods).”

The “sons of God” are identified as angels or spirit beings who were present at creation…

Job 38:4-7 NIV
[4] “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. [5] Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? [6] On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone— [7] while the morning stars sang together and all the angels (elohim bene…sons of God), shouted for joy?”

…and to whom God gave the responsibility to rule the nations under His authority whom He called His “divine counsel”.

Therefore, the idea of “god” in Scripture does not belong to God alone. Gods are beings who have power and authority, but the God of Israel, the God of the Bible is the supreme God and sovereign over the gods. He has all power and all authority.

Now, let’s, get back to the Trinity.

The Bible describes God’s character as love.

1 John 4:16 NIV
[16] “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. GOD IS LOVE. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.”

Since love has no meaning apart from an object, how can God be love if He has no one to love? Before He created humans to love, God was still love. He could only express His love within the Godhead if there were more than one person. When we speak of “God”, we are essentially referring the three persons who make up the Godhead or Trinity. The persons, who make up God have names… God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Each is a separate person, distinct but equal, and each relating to the other in perfect love and harmony.

Hence, Jesus prayed…

John 17:22 NIV
[22] “I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—”

During His life on earth, Jesus functioned as a son. He took on the role of a son, and a representative of all humanity, to fulfil the law and to usher in the new covenant.

After His victory over sin and death, the Father elevated Him to the status of “Lord”, the Supreme Authority in the universe because of His submission and obedience as a son.

Philippians 2:8-11 NIV
[8] “And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross! [9] Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, [10] that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, [11] and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Never once, during His time on earth, did Jesus ever do anything apart from the Father and without the Holy Spirit. His constant testimony was…

John 10:30 NIV
[30]”I and the Father are one.”

John 8:29 NIV
[29] “The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him.”

Jesus challenged those who opposed Him…

John 8:46 NIV
[46] “Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me?”

The Father gave the Spirit to the Son at His baptism…

Matthew 3:16-17 NIV
[16] “As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. [17] And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”

…God in three persons, together in that sublime moment, preparing the Son for His mission on earth.

Jesus testified to His dependence on the Holy Spirit…

Matthew 12:28 NIV
[28] “But if it is by the Spirit of God that I drive out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.”

Before He returned to the Father in heaven, Jesus promised His followers that He would send the Holy Spirit from the Father to be with them and in them and to continue His work through them.

Acts 1:7-8 NIV
[7] “He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. [8] But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

The Book of Acts is the historical record that tells the story of the Trinity at work through people to bring heaven to earth, the Kingdom of God to the hearts of those who would believe in Jesus.

Could there be any more convincing evidence from the Bible itself that God is in three persons, distinct and separate, yet perfectly one in all they were, said, and did?

No, Christians do not believe in three Gods. We believe in one God, revealed in three persons, perfectly one…echad…in essence and function, in love, in unity, and purpose, to restore those who believe in Jesus to unity and oneness with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, in answer to Jesus’ prayer…

John 17:20-21 NIV
[20] “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, [21] that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”

…the greatest testimony to the truth that Jesus came from the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit to restore humanity to God.

MOVE THE COMMA!

Apologetics, ,

It’s amazing what a difference it makes when a comma is put in the right place!

Isaiah 59:19 KJV
[19] “So shall they fear the name of the LORD from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him.”

Isaiah 59:19 NLT
[19] “In the west, people will respect the name of the Lord; in the east, they will glorify him. For he will come like a raging flood tide driven by the breath of the Lord.”

Isaiah 59:19 NIV
[19] “From the west, people will fear the name of the Lord, and from the rising of the sun, they will revere his glory. For he will come like a pent-up flood that the breath of the Lord drives along.”

It is unfortunate that many of us who grew up with the King James Version of the Bible, have entrenched in our minds the idea that it is the enemy who comes in like a flood. The translators put the comma in the wrong place!

The other two versions I have quoted seem to have understood that it is God’s Spirit, not the enemy, who comes in, Hebrew “nahar”, meaning “a stream or river”, like a river in flood.

Let’s look at the context of this chapter which begins with…

Isaiah 59:1-2 NLT
[1] “Listen! The Lord’s arm is not too weak to save you, nor is his ear too deaf to hear you call. [2] It’s your sins that have cut you off from God. Because of your sins, he has turned away and will not listen any more.”

The sins of God’s people had cut off His flow of power and grace. The verses that follow are a resume of the people’s sin and its outcome.

Isaiah 59:9, 12, 14-16, 18 NLT
[9] “So, there is no justice among us, and we know nothing about right living. We look for light but find only darkness. We look for bright skies but walk in gloom…
[12] For our sins are piled up before God and testify against us. Yes, we know what sinners we are…
[14] Our courts oppose the righteous, and justice is nowhere to be found. Truth stumbles in the streets, and honesty has been outlawed. [15] Yes, truth is gone, and anyone who renounces evil is attacked.”

So, God Himself would rise up in response to the terrible situation. Go’s is never neutralised by sin. He is never intimidated by human wickedness. He Himself would rise up and overwhelm the power of evil by His great goodness.

Isaiah 59:15b-16, 18 NLT
[15]”…The Lord looked and was displeased to find there was no justice. [16] He was amazed to see that no one intervened to help the oppressed. So he himself stepped in to save them with his strong arm, and his justice sustained him…
[18] He will repay his enemies for their evil deeds. His fury will fall on his foes. He will pay them back even to the ends of the earth.”

And then our Scripture…

Isaiah 59:19-21 NLT
[19] “In the west, people will respect the name of the Lord; in the east, they will glorify him. For he will come like a raging flood tide driven by the breath of the Lord. [20] “The Redeemer will come to Jerusalem to buy back those in Israel who have turned from their sins,” says the Lord. [21] “And this is my covenant with them,” says the Lord. “My Spirit will not leave them, and neither will these words I have given you. They will be on your lips and on the lips of your children and your children’s children forever. I, the Lord, have spoken!”

No! No! No! God won’t come in like a raging flood to judge and destroy. It’s His goodness that leads people to repentance. He will come to relieve the oppressed, to lift up the fallen, and the forgive the sin of the repentant.

Can you understand, then, that the KJV has put the comma in the wrong place! It is not the enemy that comes in like a flood. It’s the mercy of God, like a river in flood, moved along by His Spirit, that will come in to rescue those who “have turned from their sins.”

God is not in competition with the enemy. The Hebrew, “tsar”, translated “enemy” in the KJV, in this context implies “distress” or “adversity”. The sin of the people brought on them distress and adversity. Their suffering was of their own doing, but God promised to intervene so that, from east to west, they would know that it was God who came to their aid.

Let’s be true to God’s Word. We need His intervention in our day as Isaiah saw in his day. The situation is no different now, in our country, from what it was then. We read Isaiah’s account of Israel’s sin like today’s newspaper.

Since God is unchanging, we can call on His name to come in, like a raging flood driven by His Spirit, to help us in our distress. His glory will be revealed, from east to west, by His intervention for those who turn from their sin.

Come on! Let’s move the comma. Let’s forget about the enemy. Let’s put our hope in God who will answer our distress call. He will move in power to overturn the works of evil rulers. He will restore the fortunes of His people in our land so that, from east to west, His name will be exalted.