Insightful Musings on the Scriptures

by

Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67

Greetings, dear ones.

We’ve returned from early church. The little boys have been with us for the weekend. They will be returned home in just over and hour.

I guess I’ve missed a couple days of sending anything. Oh well. It’s been crazy busy. My previous essay from today’s passage spun off from the same FOCUS VERSE. But I decided to take a different spin on this one. At least Becki approved. Maybe that’s one reason I like her so much—not only do these ideas offer rich discussion, she tends to agree with me—then she offers an additional idea that I agree with—we’re just so agreeable!

Blessings on your unfolding day.

Love, Dad/Ray.

There is something profoundly obvious that I draw from an overview of this account—that is, the truth of the Biblical description of Satan and his network of subtle evil deceptive influences over human thought and behavior. The Bible defines that networking as a kingdom and makes it clear that there are only two—God’s and Satan’s. Whereas THE FALL deposited within the very progeny of humans a NATURAL SIN NATURE, all are more naturally affiliated with the Kingdom of Satan than with the Kingdom of God. Therefore an internal change of orientation and thought is required—something that the NATURAL SIN NATURE is incapable of achieving on its own. And that is precisely the beauty and glory of the Biblical Gospel—that transformation and transfer are available through personal repentance of sin and belief in the redemptive work of Christ.

Today there are widespread concerns over the mindset and behavior of radical Islam which reveals itself by the stated or implied message, “If you refuse to be like us we will kill you!” Does that make any intelligent sense? Who, in their right mind would want to be like them and embrace that attitude?” Bingo! There it is! It offers the glaring evidence that we are not dealing here with a mindset authored by the God of the Bible, but authored by the only other kingdom out there. (Consider again Ephesians 6:12.)

Radical Islam really doesn’t have anything over the evil represented by the Jewish conspirators in our reading. They were just as much governed by evil as any other evil conspiracy. It was just as unintelligent, lawless, and destructive. And the Biblical Gospel that Paul preached, by contrast, was just as good, effective, healing, and redeeming as it ever was.

I believe that the same standards of intelligence and the common good can be used to sniff out other issues in our present world. What about abortion, same sex marriage, soft borders, Marxist socialism, an escalating national debt to provide for an out-of-control influx of illegal aliens, etc? When the arguments of those promoting such concepts make little or no objective sense, I smell the scent of evil. And my Biblical-oriented mindset knows where that odor comes from.

Is it any wonder that we of this Biblical orientation find ourselves groaning as we grapple with the issues of our modern chaotic world? We might even say that groaning of this sort is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved” (Romans 8:22-24).

Speaking of being “saved,” I have no alternative but to view that status as a GOOD thing—something authored of God, something that makes a huge amount of intelligent sense, and that I earnestly desire and promote. Nevertheless, I find myself around a lot of people who view being “saved,” as an ugly, stupid, bad, even evil thing. I have no difficulty sniffing out the origins of those two opposing views.