LVI: The Godhead

The Godhead is a quite complex and difficult matter to understand, and it is compounded by a multitude of misunderstandings and apprehension on the part of many. It is always difficult for humans to attempt to understand the nature of God, just as it is hard for clay to try to figure out the potter: we are finite, and God is infinite; we are dust and He is Spirit; He is infinitely greater than ourselves (Isaiah 55:8-9). Any attempt to understand God's nature must be predicated with the reality that we cannot understand much beyond what God has revealed about Himself to us. Never should we allow our own thinking or our own limitations to cause us to limit God, for God will always be greater than the box in which we would seek to place Him. On the other hand, God, so to speak, has put Himself in His own box, revealing many things about His nature to His creation that can and should be understood.

The nature of the Godhead has been a source of great contention throughout history. The first millennium of Christianity was spent in various disputations regarding the nature of God: the nature of the constituency of the Godhead, the supremacy of Persons in the Godhead, the human and divine nature of Christ, and so on and so forth. It also has represented a stumbling block to other religions: Christianity has posited many gods in the eyes of both Jews and Muslims since Christians posit three Persons in the Godhead, and not God of a singular Person. These difficulties make it all the more important for us to understand the nature of God as revealed in the Scriptures.

Let us begin with the Father. The Scriptures throughout reveal that the Father is God (e.g. John 8:42, Romans 1:7). The Father was before the beginning, and is the Creator (Genesis 1:1). The Father also is the source of all authority; He grants the Son authority in Matthew 28:18, and we read the following in 1 Corinthians 15:24-28:

Then cometh the end, when he shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have abolished all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign, till he hath put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be abolished is death. For, He put all things in subjection under his feet. But when he saith, All things are put in subjection, it is evident that he is excepted who did subject all things unto him. And when all things have been subjected unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subjected to him that did subject all things unto him, that God may be all in all (1 Corinthians 15:24-28).

Paul teaches us many things of value in this passage. We see that the Father is not subject to Christ, for "He is excepted who did subject all things unto Him" (v. 27). We also learn that at the last trump, the Son will restore all authority back to the Father and subject Himself to the Father, "that God may be all in all" (v. 28). We understand, therefore, that the Father is the source of all power and authority.

The Father is spirit, as is indicated by John 4:24. John 1:18 and 1 John 4:12 indicate that God has not been seen at any time; this means that the Father in His full, spiritual, glorious form has never been seen by the eyes of men. This will have implications for the Son, as we will see; nevertheless, one could ask what it is that people of old saw when they said that they saw God. It could have been the Son, as has been suggested by many, or perhaps a manifestation of the Father's glory but not the full glory itself, or perhaps an angel or some other delegated authority from God. Regardless, we may be sure that no one, at any time, in the flesh has seen the fullness of the Father in spirit.

When we consider the Son, we see that the Son is described as the Word, manifest in the flesh (John 1:1, John 1:14, 1 John 1:1-3). The Word, or the Son, is indeed God, as is made manifest by John 1:1, John 8:58, John 10:30-36, John 20:28, Romans 9:5, and Colossians 2:9. The Word was present and active during the creation (Genesis 1:27, John 1:2-3, Colossians 1:15-16); it is even possible that the Word was the executor of the creation by the will of the Father. The Son, on account of His humiliation, was glorified by the Father (Philippians 2:5-11), and now has all authority in heaven and on earth (Matthew 28:18). He will restore this authority, as indicated above, on the last day, and He remains subject to the Father (1 Corinthians 15:24-28, John 14:28).

The Scriptures reveal that the Son partakes of two natures. He is the Son of Man-- fully human. John 1:14 reveals that the Word became flesh, and those who would not confess that Jesus came in the flesh were disfellowshipped (2 John 1:7-9). Jesus also is the Son of God-- it is the Word that becomes flesh, and is no less the Word, God and with God, by being such (John 1:14). Paul indicates that "in Him dwells the fullness of Deity in bodily form" in Colossians 2:9, and while in the flesh He confessed that He was God (John 8:58, John 10:30-36). While it may not be easy for humans to understand how the power of Deity could be contained within a human vessel, "with God all things are possible" (Mark 19:26).

The Son came to reveal the Father, both in terms of His will and purpose as well as the nature of the Father (John 1:18, John 14:9). Even though humans cannot see God, it is enough to see Jesus-- he who sees Jesus has seen the Father; he who knows Jesus knows the Father.

The Holy Spirit is distinct from the Father-- He hovers over the water in Genesis 1:2, and descends on Jesus as a dove in Matthew 3:15-17 while the Father speaks from above. In 2 Peter 2:21, we see how the Holy Spirit is identified with God:

For no prophecy ever came by the will of man: but men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit.

Men "spake from God...moved by the Holy Spirit." The Spirit's role is too often interchanged with that of God for us to believe that He is not God, as is further indicated by 1 Peter 1:2, Jeremiah 31:33-34/Hebrews 10:15-17, and many other passages.

The Holy Spirit reveals the will of the Father and the Son to man-- He was the Comforter that came to the Apostles, leading them into all truth, bringing to their remembrance all that Jesus taught them (John 14:16-17, John 15:26, John 16:13). He had previously directed the prophets of old, as indicated in 2 Peter 1:21. The Spirit also has a role in sanctifying man, as indicated in 2 Thessalonians 2:13 and 1 Peter 1:2; Romans 8:16, 26-27 would seem to indicate that the Spirit bears witness with our own spirits, and that the Spirit also has a intercessory prayer role for the believer.

We see, therefore, that the Bible makes strong claims for the Father being God, the Son being God, and the Holy Spirit being God. It would also seem, from the Scriptures, that all Three represent YHWH, that even though the Israelites may not have understood the triune nature of their God, that YHWH in reality has always been Three in One. God speaks in the plural regarding Himself in Genesis 1:27; since there is no indication that humans are made in the image of angels, it is hard to believe that God is doing anything but speaking amongst Himself as His three Persons. The Father is clearly YHWH, as is evident from John 8:41-4, 54, along with many other passages. The Son also claims to be YHWH, as indicated in John 8:58:

Jesus said unto them, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was born, I am."

"I am," of course, is exactly what YHWH means, as indicated in Exodus 3:14. The Jews picked up stones with which to stone Jesus in John 8:59 for exactly this reason: Jesus declared Himself to be YHWH! Further testimony to this can be found in 1 Corinthians 10:9, and the fact that He is continually called "Lord" (Greek kurios) in the New Testament, the very same translation for YHWH in the Septuagint (Greek Old Testament, which uniformly translates YHWH as kurios).

The Holy Spirit also represents YHWH, especially since YHWH and the Spirit of YHWH are constantly interchanged and intertwined (e.g. Ezekiel 11:5, etc.). The fluidity between the two cannot be coincidental! YHWH is said to speak when the Holy Spirit speaks, as is indicated by a comparison of Isaiah 52:11 with 2 Corinthians 6:17, and Jeremiah 31:33-34 with Hebrews 10:15-17, among others. It seems quite clear, therefore, that YHWH has always represented one God in Three Persons.

Despite all of this, the testimony of the Scriptures are clear:

Hear, O Israel: the LORD is our God; the LORD is one" (Deuteronomy 6:4).

I am the LORD, and there is none else; besides me there is no God (Isaiah 45:5a).

So God is one, yet we have three Persons, as indicated by the revelation of God. How can this be? How does it work?

One ancient solution was to declare that God really was one, and He simply had different modes. This position is known as modalism, patripassianism, or monarchianism; it is seen in Oneness Pentecostalism to this day. Using a limited modern analogy, we can consider a man who has three particular jobs: he may put on the father's hat in the morning, the businessman's hat during the day, and the husband's hat in the evening, but he always remains one and the same person. Thus it was posited that even though God sometimes was the Father, other times the Son, and other times the Spirit, He was always the same God.

While this concept may be efficient, it does not adequately address what God has revealed. In Matthew 3:15-17, the Son is immersed in water while the Spirit descends upon Him as a dove and the Father speaks from Heaven; while it is possible that God could be the same God doing all three at once, it strains credibility. Perhaps the greatest detriment to this view comes from John 8:17-18:

Yea and in your law it is written, that the witness of two men is true. I am he that beareth witness of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me.

It is clear that Jesus here demonstrates a distinction of Persons between Himself and His Father-- it is not possible for the Father and the Son to represent two witnesses if the Father is the Son, and vice versa. It also renders Jesus to be quite odd-- if He is the Father, Son, and the Spirit, He would be praying to Himself (Luke 22:41-43), asking Himself to forgive those who crucified Him (Luke 23:34), and told Mary that He had not yet ascended to Himself (John 20:17). Above all this, such a view requires the idea that the Father was also on the cross, suffering from sin, and becoming a curse (hence, "patripassianism"; Galatians 3:13), a position that is blasphemous. Therefore, while it may be appealing to posit a modalistic view of God, it does not square with what God has revealed about Himself.

Instead we turn to a trinitarian belief-- God is Three in One, and One in Three. This concept is often difficult for people to understand, mostly because it is difficult to express and explain and there are more misunderstandings afoot than proper understandings. I find great value in the thoughts of Tertullian, a North African Christian of the late second/early third century, who wrote regarding the nature of God in a treatise entitled Against Praxeas. Tertullian is quite early, perhaps the "church father" least tainted with Hellenistic philosophies, and who delineates what the Trinity is and what the Trinity is not quite well.

God is one in His economy-- not economy as we often consider it, in terms of money and finances, but the Greek oikonomos, the matters of the household. God is one in purpose, substance, and power and authority. The three Persons of the Godhead are distinct in degree, form, and aspect: degree in that the Father is greater than the Son, and both are greater than the Spirit; form in that the Son took on flesh, the Father is spirit, unseen by men, and since the Spirit proceeds from the Father, the Spirit is similar but not precisely as the Father (just as anything proceeding out of another is similar, inseparable, but yet somewhat different); aspect in that the Father is the authority, the Son is the executor, and the Spirit is the revelator and sanctifier. The three Persons are different not in diversity but distribution (being the same substance), different not by division but by distinction (being inseparable), and different in dispensation.

[God is] One only substance in three coherent and inseparable Persons" (Tertullian, Against Praxeas, 7).

When we consider this, we can understand how God can be three Persons and yet be one: God is inseparable. The Father is in the Son as the Son is in the Father (John 10:30, John 17:11, 21-23). The Spirit is with the Father and the Son (Romans 8:9, Isaiah 61:1/Luke 4;18, John 14:16, John 15:26). The hangup that has caused so many to misunderstand is the a priori assumption that if God is one, God must be one in person. This assumption, as we can see, is unwarranted: God is sufficiently inseparable and singular in purpose and power to be considered "one". When Isaiah writes that YHWH is one and there is no other, he speaks of other gods like Baal and Marduk, and does not have the three Persons comprising YHWH in view. Christianity is not polytheistic, for we do not believe in many gods, separate from each other, with competing wills and competing values. Christianity is a religion of one God manifest in three Persons, inseparable, of the same substance (spirit) and purpose, with distinctions in degree, form, and aspect.

Certain images can be used to help illustrate the concept, allowing for the deficiencies thereof. We could perhaps compare the Godhead to a tree. A tree has roots, the trunk and leaves, and either fruits or nuts. We recognize that there is a singularity with the tree, even though it is made up of distinct objects having different functions. There is one tree with three inseparable parts: the roots with no tree have no value; a tree with no roots has no grounding or life; a tree and roots without fruit has no means of multiplication. Likewise, we can have a fountain that flows into a river which empties into a lake: three different forms, but the same substance traveling through them. We can also consider an image from the Scriptures:

"For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh."
This mystery is great: but I speak in regard of Christ and of the church (Ephesians 5:31-32).

Ephesians 5:31 is a quotation of Genesis 2:24, in which God establishes His concept of marriage. In marriage, the husband and wife, being two persons, become "one flesh". There are two distinct persons, and yet they are to make up a singular unity-- in purpose, in mind, an inseparable bond (cf. Matthew 19:4-6). Paul applies the image to Christ and the church, for the church is His body (Colossians 1:18, Ephesians 5:29-30). The church and Christ are to be one, just as a husband and wife are one-- there are "two", really, but they function as one. In fact, the church itself demonstrates the same concept: according to 1 Corinthians 12:12-28, even though the church is comprised of millions of different people having their own abilities and functions, all of them are to work together to comprise a coherent whole. We can see, therefore, that it is not a stretch to accept the idea that there can be a singularity-- "one"-- even though multiple persons are involved.

Can we understand all the intricacies of the nature of God? Far from it. We the clay will wonder about the Potter until we meet Him and be with Him for all eternity. Nevertheless, we can strive to understand what He has revealed about Himself in the Scriptures, and trust within it. Let us never be guilty of limiting God by accepting only that which makes sense to us about God, but let us seek to understand Him as He has revealed Himself!

ELDV

LV: America and Israel

As human beings, we learn much through metaphor, illustration, and example. We tend to mentally associate two different persons, events, or concepts, one better known than the other, in order to facilitate better understanding. This is natural and has its advantages.

Christians will often attempt to do such things with their own society in contrast to some culture described in the Bible. This can have great value and effectiveness, for if we can provide an accurate parallel between our own society/culture and a society/culture in the Bible, we can take God's instructions to that particular society and find relevant applications for ourselves. Note that this can only be effective when the parallel is accurate-- not the parallel we want, either in order to make ourselves seem better or, sadly, to make ourselves seem worse off-- but the parallel that works the best.

As American society has become increasingly secular, and immorality has become more public, many have established parallels between our own society and that of Babylon. Babylon, on the basis of its empire and what they did to Judah and Jerusalem, receives a great amount of criticism for its ways. Isaiah provides one such critique in Isaiah 47:7-15. Particular mention is made of their focus on astrology, their reliance in their military might, the sexual excess of many, and of course the rampant idolatry.

This parallel has some value: America trusts greatly in its military might and in its primacy in the world, there are many idols that people are worshipping, and there is a lot of sexual excess. Nevertheless, this illustration has its distortions, and it can lead us to false conclusions. Most Babylonians had little idea of who the LORD was; most Americans at least know something about Jesus, and most people are willing to even believe in Him. The Jews were entirely "the other" in Babylon; the books of Daniel and Esther provide many examples of the difficulties Jews encountered in the pagan lands. Christianity is not that foreign to America.

In the end, while America has its immorality and lack of knowledge of God, it can't quite be compared to Babylon (or Rome, for that matter).

I came across a recent article that made the case for a parallel between America today and Samaria of old. The author makes the case that just as Samaritans knew about the religion of the Israelites, held to a variant of it, and were suspicious of their claims, so America today stands as a nation that considers itself familiar with Christianity but is somewhat suspicious of those who live according to its precepts (cf. John 4, Luke 9).

This illustration can be quite seductive, and it has explanatory power for some elements of American society: secularists, atheists, agnostics, and others who bear some hostility toward Christians. Yet the illustration can't really explain the majority of Americans who do profess to believe in Jesus and the claims of the Bible...but do not do as He says.

I would like to posit that the best parallel to modern America is, in fact, Israel-- the Northern Kingdom of Israel.

The Kingdom of Israel was born out of the transgression of Solomon (1 Kings 11). Its first king, Jeroboam, son of Nebat, did not change the god who was worshiped (Yahweh), but changed the location, object, and other aspects of the service to God (1 Kings 12:26-33). He rationalized the change in terms of expedience and cloaked it in the events of the past-- "Behold, your gods who brought you up out of the land of Egypt," golden calves just as in Exodus 32. He did this for political purposes, and all of the kings who followed him walked in the same footsteps.

The vast majority of the citizens of the Kingdom of Israel followed after their king. Baal worship came and went; there were times of decadence and religious reform, but those calves and those temples stayed put.

Now, when we read about the Kingdom of Israel, we hear all the negatives: their idolatry, their iniquity, their faithlessness toward God. The parallel between Israel and America is hard to perceive in that light. We must not just consider the perspective revealed, but also what can be gained from the people of Israel themselves.

To the average Israelite living in the northern kingdom for the majority of its existence, everything seemed to be well. They were blessed with material resources; Israel was always more prosperous than Judah. They believed that they were Israelites, they worshiped Yahweh in temples erected for Him in Dan and Bethel, offering sacrifices there to the golden calves representing Yahweh who delivered them from Egypt. If you were to ask him who the God of Israel happened to be, he would answer that it was Yahweh, of course. His adherence to Yahweh as Israel's national god, however, may or may not keep him from also providing due offerings to El, Baal, Astarte, or other Canaanite gods, just to make sure that the land would be fertile.

There were, of course, those gadflies-- those prophets who had nothing good to say. The Israelites were of mixed minds toward these prophets: when times were bad, they would seek after them; if times were good, they were just downright irritating. Nothing was ever good enough-- Jeroboam's calves were wrong, the people worshiping on high places was wrong, and even Jehu in all his reforms still did not please Yahweh, according to these prophets. No matter how many other prophets spoke good news in the name of Yahweh, and no matter how clearly God had blessed the Israelites, these prophets-- Elijah, Elisha, Amos, Hosea, and others-- never stopped their complaints.

Perhaps the parallel is clearer now. How could the Israelites go so wrong? They were willing to follow after the dictates of the kings over the revealed will of God, and the people were ignorant of God's will, as Hosea indicates in Hosea 4:1-9:

Hear the word of the LORD, ye children of Israel; for the LORD hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor goodness, nor knowledge of God in the land. There is nought but swearing and breaking faith, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery; they break out, and blood toucheth blood. Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein shall languish, with the beasts of the field and the birds of the heavens; yea, the fishes of the sea also shall be taken away. Yet let no man strive, neither let any man reprove; for thy people are as they that strive with the priest. And thou shalt stumble in the day, and the prophet also shall stumble with thee in the night; and I will destroy thy mother. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I also will forget thy children. As they were multiplied, so they sinned against me: I will change their glory into shame. They feed on the sin of my people, and set their heart on their iniquity. And it shall be, like people, like priest; and I will punish them for their ways, and will requite them their doings.

The end of Israel is sobering: God delivers them into the hand of Assyria, and the people are exiled to other lands (2 Kings 17). Few, if any, return. The only remnant of ten of the tribes of Israel were the few left in the land and those who fled to Judah. Few states have ever been as obliterated as the Kingdom of Israel.

The parallels are many between Israel and America:

1. National religion. While America is officially religion-neutral, it is clear in practice that there is a variant of Christianity that represents Christian Americanism. In Christian Americanism, America is God's land and Americans are God's people. The condition of America is a direct reflection of God's indication that this is His land, and its people are special to Him. In this Christian Americanism, it is enough to believe in Jesus, and to believe that He is a gun-toting, flag-waving American hero. (Well, maybe not necessarily the gun-toting, but it wouldn't hurt). Since you're an American, and God loves and blesses America, that is sufficient.

This mentality has its origins in the Christian nation theology of the Puritans, and it falls into the same trap as Israel fell into. The audacity of the claims of Korah in his rebellion can only be understood in light of this flawed logic: God is our God, we are His people, therefore what we do is pleasing to God. You can see how well that worked out for Korah and his compatriots in Numbers 16.

This also caused the downfall of the Kingdom of Israel. Just because Israel was God's people did not give them the right to entirely adapt the religious observance to conform to their will. No Israelite was going to be saved merely because of his birth-- it was going to require their obedience.

2. Religion as tool of the State. Jeroboam made it abundantly clear from the beginning of his rule that the religion would serve the interests of the state, and not vice versa. In order to conform to the new political reality, the religious observance was changed; religious observance did not change the political reality. God's desires and intentions were thrust aside for the benefit of the state.

America does the same thing, even if not officially. God is invoked to bless this country in its conflicts and difficulties, even if they are Biblically unjustifiable. The USA would love to have a moral citizenry, but would not appreciate any who would strictly hold to the teachings of Jesus. By in large, Christian Americanism is American first, Christian second-- it serves the interests of the State.

3. Shallowness and ignorance. The faith of the Israelites was undoubtedly shallow-- it moved to and fro with the winds of change, sometimes focused only on Yahweh, including other gods at other times also. As indicated, they reached this level of depravity on account of not knowing God's will.

This is clearly present in America. Far too many people will profess belief but have no idea about many of the basics of the Christian religion. There are far more people professing Jesus Christ than having Christ live through them (cf. Galatians 2:20). The shallowness of faith has led to an ignorance of the Bible to a heretofore unknown level.

Just as the priests were faulted in Israel, so too must many religious persons in America. All of the doctrines of the faith are not being taught as they ought in many places. We have no reason to expect denominationalists to preach the full counsel of God, but I fear that brethren don't either. The conflicts in the brotherhood papers talk about "feel good preaching" versus "preaching the distinctives", yet in the end, neither of these represents the whole counsel of God. Doctrines and practices, works of the flesh and fruit of the Spirit, Old Testament and New Testament-- all of these things must be preached in balance to inform and encourage.

4. Comfortable, yet perverted, religion. How could Israel get everything so wrong? Many modern Bible scholars will go so far as to say that the idea of Jerusalem as primary and Yahweh as a god without an image are inventions of a later time period in an attempt to exonerate the Israelites for their misdeeds. "They did not know any better."

Such a justification is entirely unnecessary. History has provided plenty of examples of religion going quite astray when layers of tradition supersede what God previously revealed. When one compares the New Testament revelation to Roman Catholicism, or most Protestant churches, the distinctions are quite apparent.

Mankind, in their search for expedience and comfort, has always looked for shortcuts and easier ways to be religious. Conformity is easier than separation. It was easier for the Kingdom of Israel to have their own temples with the images that were familiar to people of the day and even to worship the gods of the other nations-- after all, everyone else was doing it!

The same is true in America. Religious traditions are held as sacred, even if they come with no Biblical authority, or even when the Bible contradicts the tradition. There is no logic or rationale necessary for practicing Christian Americanism, because the tradition itself is self-justifying. It's not comfortable investigating deeper and actually knowing what God reveals in the Bible, and what Jesus actually expects from us. It's a whole lot easier to say that Jesus is real and that we should pray to Him when things get bad, and then sleep in Sunday morning, go to Wal-Mart in our SUVs Sunday evening, and to keep the kids active in school events on Wednesday evening, giving as little thought to God as possible. After all-- everyone else is doing it!

5. True believers as enemies of the status quo and thus the state and its religion. Ahab called Elijah the "troubler of Israel" in 1 Kings 18:17. When we read the account of the events, we can understand, on a spiritual level, how the reverse is true. We must also understand why Ahab would say such a thing-- after all, Israel was "fine." Things were going quite well until Elijah brought forth this terrible drought, and he is the source of these difficulties. Elijah did trouble Israel-- he was willing to question the status quo.

While it is appealing to look to Babylon or Samaria for parallels, Israel is really the place to go, and this is the reason: it is not because Americans are thoroughly ignorant of Christianity that causes the difficulty, but because they have a distorted view of Christianity that is promoted in the media and in other places. Christian Americanism is a nice status quo for the government-- we have the appearance of having a god, we can claim to be a religious country, and yet not need to spend any time on it. When we stand up and speak the truth-- God is bigger than America, God will judge America for what it's doing, God is not content with people merely professing, but expects people to follow His commands (1 John 2:1-6)-- we are the "troublers of America." We go out and promote the truth in contrast to other religious claims (Matthew 28:18-20, 1 Peter 3:15)-- that's troubling to the champions of tolerance and ecumenism who think "proselytism" is a four-letter word. We go out and say that there is right and wrong, and that sin will lead to condemnation (Galatians 5:19-23, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, 2 Thessalonians 1:6-9)-- that's troubling to all the people who think that truth is subjective and we all must establish our individual moral compasses. We go out and establish that God expects Christians to function as communities of believers, working to encourage one another and to strengthen His Kingdom (Acts 2:42-47, 1 Corinthians 12:12-28, Hebrews 10:24-25)-- and that's troubling to all those individualists who find little worth in the church and don't want to have yet another time commitment in life. We go out and say that it's not enough to just believe, but one must obey (James 2:14-26)-- and that's quite troubling for Christian Americanists. So also is the idea that God's priorities and desires are not necessarily America's priorities and desires.

So what happens? Those who teach the truths of the Bible and seek to live its message daily are branded as intolerant, quaint perhaps, but definitely obsolete, never happy about anything, always willing to chastise. They are looked upon with suspicion, since they are troubling the national status quo and bringing up uncomfortable concepts that may prove detrimental to many people. Better, of course, to ignore them and hope that they go away.

Yet the LORD testified unto Israel, and unto Judah, by every prophet, and every seer, saying, "Turn ye from your evil ways, and keep my commandments and my statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by my servants the prophets." Notwithstanding, they would not hear, but hardened their neck, like to the neck of their fathers, who believed not in the LORD their God. And they rejected his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified unto them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and went after the nations that were round about them, concerning whom the LORD had charged them that they should not do like them. And they forsook all the commandments of the LORD their God, and made them molten images, even two calves, and made an Asherah, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served Baal. And they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, and used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger. Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight: there was none left but the tribe of Judah only (2 Kings 17:13-18).

Such was the end of Israel. They neglected God, they did not heed the warnings, and they were cast off.

The fate of America is not known. We cannot make such judgments about America as God did about Israel, but we sadly know the eternal fate of all the Americans who are seduced by Christian Americanism and not the true Gospel (2 Thessalonians 1:6-9).

America is parallel to the Kingdom of Israel. Let us be like the prophets of old, and do what we can to proclaim God's truth in the hope that some will hear, repent, and obey.

ELDV

LIV: Truly Trusting God

"Therefore I say unto you, be not anxious for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than the food, and the body than the raiment? Behold the birds of the heaven, that they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not ye of much more value then they? And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit unto the measure of his life? And why are ye anxious concerning raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God doth so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Be not therefore anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the Gentiles seek; for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Be not therefore anxious for the morrow: for the morrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof" (Matthew 6:25-34).

These are some of Jesus' best known words.

They have provided comfort to generations.

They also represent a continual stumbling-block, don't they? Sure, we say that we believe what He says, and we certainly want to believe.

But what happens in our lives when the bills pile up and the income doesn't get any larger? When healthcare costs increase, and you're afraid for yourself or your children getting injured or ill because you couldn't afford the hospital bill? When energy costs inflate far beyond income raises?

And the future doesn't look any better?

This is when the rubber meets the road, really. When prosperity is present it is easy to trust in the beneficent Lord of Hosts. When the financial difficulties mount, will we still trust in Him?

These are lessons and moments of faith that not a few of us are learning the hard way, I suppose. I pray that we can all have greater faith in the end, and trust in the One who has control. Whether we end up prosperous or barely getting by, we should maintain our confidence in the God who cares for us.

Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therein to be content. I know how to be abased, and I know also how to abound: in everything and in all things have I learned the secret both to be filled and to be hungry, both to abound and to be in want. I can do all things in him that strengtheneth me (Philippians 4:11-13).

Paul's lesson is one that many will be learning the hard way. It is easy to be content in abundance; let's pray that we can be content even when lowered.

ELDV