Perfect Covering

It is cold where I live.  There is a covering of ice and snow over the land.  But, God is faithful, He gave us the knowledge to design outerwear.  A friend of mine who is rather new to the area from sunny California told me a story about waiting for the bus the first winter she spent here.   She stood with her husband outside in the 15 degree temperature and started to panic because she could no longer feel her ears!  Then her face started to tingle.  She said, "Something weird is happening to my face!  I think I am starting to get frost bite!" It's true - she was!  She said after six years she has figured out how to dress for the occasion of winter in this new place she calls home.  And it no longer feels as cold.  But, of course we all know it is still cold in Chicago - but now she has the proper covering.

It doesn't take much for my thoughts to travel... to wondering how we have the choice to wear the proper garments for the climate we are living. Her illustration reminded me of Adam and Eve in the garden.  As a consequence of the fall of man to the temptation to eat of the fruit of the tree that they were told not to eat (Genesis 2:17), they felt they needed to make their own garments to hide themselves from God. Apparently, they too felt the coolness of the air on their skin and did the best they could do to cover up!  But, as my friend figured out, the proper covering would come a bit later.   First, Adam and Eve had to recognize they were no longer in sunny California - oops, I mean in the state of innocence for which they were first created.  They chose to leave their place of rest in the Sovereignty of God who gave His instruction regarding from what tree to eat.  They had a choice. They chose to depart from His covering.  In doing this, they would eventually answer to God  who in turn would make them a new type of covering.  They would now be wearing garments of 'skin' and not the inadequate fig leaf.

You see, God has always been in the clothing industry.

Noah was told to make a covering.  It was a boat or more specifically, an ark.  And God told him how to build it, why he's building it, who to put in it, and how long it would take to make it - 120 years (Genesis 6:3) .  Noah did everything just as God commanded him.  And sure enough, it happened just as God said it would - and only those who received the direction from the Lord on getting into or under His covering would be saved from the oncoming flood.  God runs a tight ship and His covering was adequate to salvation.

Moses preached about the God of Israel, and God instructed Moses on how to bring Israel to safety.  He told the community of Israel to take blood of a lamb and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of their houses.  On that same night,  God would pass through Egypt and see the blood as a sign where His people lived.  And when God saw the blood, He would pass over them. (Exodus 12:6-13)  That was God's perfect way to cover His believing people - the shed blood of a lamb without defect.  And there were numerous ways God protected His people through 40 years of wandering in the desert...covering them with a cloud by day and light by night.  Covering them with His protection in the wilderness - all to protect the promised One to come through a protected people.  When sin abounded in the camp of Israel, God sent the Law to keep them from harming themselves and His future Messiah.  Israel needed to exist, not for Israel's sake, but for the sake of God's Holy Name.  Though I never forget that God loves Israel and so do I.   First of all, that she was entrusted with the very oracles of God.  And through Israel's obedience and trials, and God's faithfulness, His Word was protected by those people so we can read them today.  Secondly, theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.

And then Jesus comes to earth - protected and Protector.  And in Him, through Him, and by Him, all Righteous clothing is received.  In us there is no good thing, though we may try to be good.  But, our good seems to fall short.  Almost like a jacket that doesn't keep us warm enough.  The works we do don't last - the good thoughts we have don't stick around - and the surrender to God is only in moments.   But now apart from the law -  the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets of the Tanakh testify.  This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus the Messiah to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile (though we tend to struggle with that fact),  for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,  and yet all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Jesus the Messiah - for all who believe.  Clothed in His Righteousness - perfect covering for sin. Try it on -  I would be very surprised if it isn't the Perfect fit.
 
"I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my G-d.  For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels." Isaiah 61:10

"I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from G-d, prepared as a bride beautifully clothed for her husband." Revelation 21:2

Denying

http://www.givesmehope.com/view/GMH/50245

Why would any human being want to deny that the events of the Holocaust happened? For what reason would you want to deny the testimony of these children in this film?  Or the people who still live today to tell their painful story.  It is like denying the testimony of the peoples who witnessed the events of the Bible.  

I believe the reason for denying the facts of the Holocaust are for the same reason people want to deny the events of the Bible.  In doing so, we choose to dismiss the Sovereignty of the God of Israel,  His Promises,  His Righteousness,  His Judgement of what we are doing compared to His Standard. 

And then the trajectory begins ... we deny that He has chosen a people.  And that through those chosen people that we deny,  we also deny His chosen Messiah. We then deny that He would come, and has come, and will come again.  We often dismiss the Truth when it means we have to adjust our own thinking. 

"The eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped"

The prophet Isaiah says in chapter 35:1-6, "They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God....Behold, your God ...Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy." 

There was another prophet some 800 years later, John the Baptist, who was the first to point to Jesus as the Messiah of Israel.  Jesus said of him, "Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist." If Jesus is the Messiah, then that is a high honor to be called the greatest among men.  And, John the Baptist was a man and like all humans, we can have a crisis of faith.  We can be raised with faith, we can come upon it later in life, we can even dip our toes in the water of it and not jump in fully.  But, at some point we are faced with the decision about what we believe, and no matter what the outcome or circumstance, we are going to stand in the stand we have taken.  That is true for an atheist or person of faith.  We die in the stand we've taken. 

So, doubt brought John to ask of Jesus, "Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?"  And Jesus sent back an important response.  He said, "Go and tell John what you hear and see; the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me." (see Matthew 11:2-7) The response is so important because Jesus used the words Isaiah prophesied.  And John had to either believe (again!) or not.  Isaiah's words told us that when we behold our God, He will come and save you (Is 35:4).   And Jesus is saying that He himself, is opening the eyes of the blind, unstopping the ears of the deaf, and the lame man can now leap like a deer because they can walk!  John would receive this message while in prison - and would know the Word of God as spoken through the Torah and the prophets before him that Jesus was quoting Isaiah.  He still had to line it all up and decide for himself.  And, he had to do so in a hurry, because what we know from scripture is that John was beheaded shortly after that while in prison.

Jesus also added something to his response, "Blessed is the one who is not offended by me."  I believe He said that because either you are so grateful for what He did - 'save you' as Isaiah prophesied, or you are completely offended by the idea that you need saving.