The
SUSQUEHANNA SENTINEL
June 25, 2000
Vol. III, No. 8

In This Issue

RIGHTS

Pilate, the Roman governor, asked Jesus, “‘Do you not know that I have power to crucify you, and power to release you?’  Jesus answered, ‘You could have no power at all against Me unless it had been given you from above’” (John 19:10-11).  Why did God allow men like Pilate, the Herods, and the Caesars to rise to power in times past?  Why did He allow men such as Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler to gain power in more recent times.  And Fidel Castro and Saddam Husein?  I don’t know.  I won’t try to second guess Him.  I only know that they rule because He allows them to do so.

We hear much about rights today:  human rights, civil rights, property rights, states’ rights, women’s rights, minority rights, animal rights, etc.  About the only rights we hear relatively little about in our modern society is God’s right to command His creation and to bring it into judgment.  Please think with me on the subject of rights.

GOD HAS THE ONLY ABSOLUTE RIGHTS.  He created this entire universe.  ALL rights are by nature inheritantly His.  “But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God?  Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why have you made me like this?’  Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?” (Rom. 9:20-21).  Since God, as Creator, has all rights, the only rights others have are those that God sees fit to grant them.  The framers of our U.S. constitution spoke of “inalienable rights” with which God has endowed “all men.”  Among them, they wrote, are “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”  Let’s think about that for a moment.

LIFE.  The fact that God has given us life indicates that we have a right to live until God deems otherwise.

LIBERTY.  All have certain liberties; none have absolute liberty.  We today can see some of the inconsistencies of our forefathers.  Even as they were writing about “all men” being endowed by their Creator with the “inalienable” right to “liberty,” some of those same writers held other men in slavery.  Others can doubtless see some of our own inconsistencies better than we.  But the authors of that document were correct in their general philosophy.  All men SHOULD be free to do anything that is right.  Meanwhile, in the real world, men to whom God has granted the authority to rule have regulated and defined our freedoms, and it is our duty to “submit to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake” (1 Peter 2:13), unless, of course, man requires us to do what God forbids, or man forbids us to do what God requires, Acts 5:29.

PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.  While it is true that all people have the right to chase happiness, fact is that those who chase it most constantly seem to seldom catch up with it, while those who do their duty, mind their own business and live in harmony with God’s laws frequently enjoy happiness as a by-product of their godly lifestyle.

King Solomon pursued happiness, sought to find meaning in life in worldly knowledge, earthly possessions, personal achievements, wine, women, and song -- but he finally concluded:  “Fear God and keep His commandments for this is man’s all.  For God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil” (Eccl. 12:13-14).

Certain rights are granted to those who obey and faithfully serve Christ.  Those who believe the gospel and receive Christ as revealed therein have the RIGHT TO BECOME children of God in a special sense, a special relationship, John 1:12.  Those who work “full time” in preaching and teaching God’s word have the RIGHT to be supported financially by those who learn from them, 2 Cor. 9:3-14.  All Christians have been granted the RIGHT to an altar to which Jewish priests, even the High Priest, had no access: the benefit of the sacrificial death of Jesus, Heb. 13:10.  (Of course, many of the Jewish priests did gain the right to that altar, but only by becoming obedient to the gospel of Jesus Christ, Acts 6:7),

But of all the blessings, rights, and privileges of which we may be partakers in the here and now, the ultimate privilege, the ultimate blessing, the ultimate right is reserved for us in heaven:  “Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city” (Rev. 22:14).

--CRJ

SOME VOICES FROM THE PAST

Luke, the inspired historian, tells us that Christ’s disciples “were called Christians first at Antioch” over 1,900 years ago.  The apostle Peter makes known to us that it is by wearing that name that we are to glorify God, Acts 11:26; 1 Pet. 4:16.  Since the days of the inspired writers, many Bible scholars have recognized the importance of wearing this God-given name rather than wearing names of human origin in religion.

Martin Luther, reformer whose efforts lead to the formation of the Lutheran Church, said, “I pray you to leave my name alone, and call not yourselves ‘Lutherans’ but Christians.  Who is Luther?  My doctrine is not mine.  I have not been crucified for anyone.  St. Paul would not permit that any should call themselves of Paul, nor of Peter, but of Christ.  How, then, does it befit me, a miserable bag of dust and ashes, to give my name to the children of Christ?  Cease, my dear friends, to cling to party names and distinctions; away with them all; let us call ourselves only ‘Christians’ after Him from Whom our doctrine comes” (“Life of Martin Luther,” Stork, page 289).

John Wesley, founder of the Methodist Church is quoted:  “Would to God that all party names and unscriptural phrases and forms which have divided the Christian world were forgotten; and that we might all agree to sit down together as humble loving disciples at the feet of a common Master, to hear His word, imbibe His Spirit, and transcribe His life into our own” (“Wesley’s Notes on the New Testament,” preface, page 7).

Charles H. Spurgeon, one of the most powerful Baptist preachers who ever lived, was of like sentiments:  “I look forward with pleasure to the day when there will not be a Baptist living.  I hope they will soon be gone.  I hope the ‘Baptist’ name will soon perish, but let Christ’s last forever” (“Spurgeon’s Memorial Library, Vol. 1, page 168).

An abundance of like quotations could be supplied, but this is sufficient to show that great students of God’s word in many different periods of time have recognized the wisdom of calling ourselves after Christ who was crucified for us, and in whose name we were baptized, 1 Cor. 1:10-13.

 --CRJ

THE FEEDING OF THE 4,000

"Jesus called His disciples to Him and said, 'I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now continued with me three days and have nothing to eat.  And I do not want to send them away hungry, lest they faint on the way.'  Then His disciples said to Him, 'Where could we get enough bread in the wilderness to fill such a great multitude?'  Jesus said to them, 'How many loaves do you have"'  And they said, 'Seven, and a few little fish.'  And He commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground.  And He took the seven loaves and the fish and gave thanks, broke them, and gave them to His disciples; and the disciples gave to the multitude.  So they all ate and were filled, and they took up seven large baskets full of the fragments that were left.  Now those who ate were four thousand men, besides women and children.  And He sent away the multitude, got into the boat, and came to the region of Magdala" (Matt. 15:32-39).

Those who seek to find contradictions in the Bible cite this passage as being in contradiction to what the same writer had written in 14:13-21.  These critics charge that Matthew gives two contradictory accounts of the same incident.  Even a child can easily see that Matthew has recorded two similar, yet very distinct, events.

In the 14th chapter, 5,000 men plus an unspecified number of women and children were fed, beginning with five barley loaves and two small fish.  Compare Mark 6:30-44;  Luke 9:10-17, and John 6:1-14.

On this second but similar occasion, the Lord began with seven loaves and a few (unspecified number) of fish -- and from this beginning, He fed 4,000 men plus an unspecified number of women and children.  The number of loaves was different on these two occasions, the number of fish was apparently different, and the number of people fed was different.  Compare Mark 8:1-10.

After the meal was finished, in the first case, there were 12 baskets full of fragments gathered up, while in the second incident, there were seven baskets full.  The "baskets" in the feeding of the 5,000 were known in the Greek language as KOPHINOS.  This was a wicker basket often used as a measuring device.  The "baskets" in the feeding of the 4,000 were SPURIS in the Greek, a large hamper, sometimes large enough to hold a full grown man.  In Acts 9:25, Paul was let down from the Damascus city wall in such a basket to prevent his persecutors from killing him.

The feeding of the 5,000 took place in the area of Bethsaida-Julias on the east bank of the upper Jordan River, about a mile north of the Sea of Galilee, Luke 9:10.  The feeding of the 4,000 took place in the region of Decapolis a few miles south of the Sea of Galilee, Mark 7:32ff.

But the strongest proof of all is that Jesus Himself referred to both incidents in the same speech, Matt. 16:9-10; Mark 8:19-20.

It is truly amazing how blind a person can be when he is not willing to see.  But God's word cannot be defeated.

--CRJ

IF 99.9% WERE GOOD ENOUGH:

* 12 newborns would be given to the wrong parents daily.
* 114,500 mismatched pairs of shoes would be shipped per year.
* 18,322 pieces of mail would be mishandled per hour.
* 2,000,000 documents would be lost by the IRS this year.   (We can handle that one!)
* 2.5 million books would be shipped with the wrong covers.
* Two planes landing at Chicago's O'Hare airport would be unsafe every day.
* 315 entries in Webster's Dictionary would be misspelled.
* 20,000 incorrect drug prescriptions would be written per year.
* 880,000 credit cards in circulation would turn out to have incorrect cardholder information on their magnetic strips.
* 103,260 income tax returns would be processed incorrectly per year.
* 5.5 million cases of soft drinks produced would be flat.
* 291 pacemaker operations would be performed incorrectly.
* 3056 copies of tomorrow's Wall Street Journal would be missing one of the three sections.

--author unknown, from Laugh a Day