What would a greeter at an average American church think when they first encounter my wife and I?

I introduce her as my third wife … and I am her fourth husband?

Perhaps they would be reminded of the woman at the well of John 4?  “You have had five husbands and the one you now have is not your husband”?

What percentage of greeters would dare take time to find out who we are?  Chances are they would just hand us a bulletin and hope that someone else will deal with us.  The obvious unspoken conclusion would be that we are “loose”.  Perhaps a more gracious church member would see an “opportunity” to take us in and help “straighten us out” by getting us to “repent” and accept God as our Savior?

How many would dare gaze into our calm eyes and notice that God has been working 40 plus years on crushing sanctification processes that most “church goers” will never be asked to endure.  How many would obey God and take our hand … or give us a hug and welcome us to their “house of worship”?  If any dare ask about our story … then we would be given an opportunity to explain God’s sheer power, and glory, and grace!

They would discover the following: my first wife of 20 years had an affair with my closest friend, the music minister.  After I unconditionally forgave both, she filed for divorce.  I fought it for two years and lost.  My second wife had rheumatoid arthritis for 20 years and during the last four years, stage 4 cancer … and then she passed.

My wife’s first husband beat her for over 20 years until, after 132 years, the laws of her country changed, and she was permitted a divorce.  At 14 months into her second marriage, her husband had a massive brain aneurism that should have taken his life, but he lasted 12 years.  After 8 years, her third husband was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and passed two months later.

In all this both of us ran to God … not away.  Both of us have personally experienced His grace, His plan, His timing, His glory.  It is that power, and grace, and glory that I wish to write about.

He is worthy.

Our lives evidence that.

I hope to evidence that for you.

I start with a premise that everyone has the inherent understanding that God exists.  Some of us thinkers and some of us “sinners” try to deny it.  That’s understandable in light of the injustices we see in the world, but in the end, most acknowledge that “there are no atheists in fox holes”.  When the difficulty is excruciating … we hope that there is a God.

The goal of the so-called church should not be to argue someone into a logic corner that they are unable to escape such that they are forced to admit that God does exist, but rather to evidence this God and His majesty and grace so as to return to Him.

To that end, my desire is not to prove that God exists.  You already suspect that He does.  Rather, my desire is to evidence to you God’s worthiness of us returning home to Him.  He awaits us with open arms, and a kiss, and a ring, and a robe, and a celebration.

There is of course empirical evidence of a creator.  The mountains, and forests, and canyons, and lakes, and sunsets scream out that fact.  His two trillion galaxies are as big as His nanoparticles and quarks are small.  We understandably try to explain those via natural processes, a rational but weak argument.

We also have forensic evidence of His work available … if we seek it.  He directed His servants to document His doings, His will for His creation.  As time goes on, the archeological and scientific documentation of those writings has increased, further validating Him.

I ask, what is the date today?  The correct answer begs the question – when was year zero?

Something happened about 2,000 years ago so significant that we mark time by it.

The media incorrectly uses the phrase “people of faith” to indicate the distinction from those who are of “science”.   But faith is not the opposite of no scientific method.  On the contrary, faith is what the Socratic thinker is confronted with after all the empirical and forensic evidence is reviewed.  It is the fractional remainder in the calculation of 10 divided by 3.  Faith is the conclusion of the thinker, the likely answer to the question of “is there a god”?

They also incorrectly use the term faith to denote a “religious affiliation” be it Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, or Christianity.  I heard a working definition of what faith should be.  The story goes that a man strung up a tight rope over Niagara Falls.  As he was doing it, a crowd began to form.  When he was done, he asked them if they thought that he could walk all the way across the falls and back?  Some said yes, but most doubted it.  So he climbed up on the rope with his balancing rod and proceeded to walk all the way across and back.  The crowd applauded and began to grow in number.  Then he took a wheel barrel with no tire on it and sat the rim on the rope and asked the crowd if they thought that he could walk the wheel barrel across and back.  This time many of them thought that he could.  So he did.  All the way out and back.  The crowd, which was continuing to grow, exploded in applause!  Then he loaded 175 pounds of block into the wheel barrel and asked the crowd if they thought he could take the loaded wheel barrel all the way across and back.  By now most of the crowd thought he could.  So he did.  The crowd was astonished!  When he returned, he emptied the block out and aske the crowd if they thought he could take a 175 pound man across in the wheel barrel.  They all agreed that he could and they were cheering him on!  Then the man asked who would be the first volunteer?

The crowd went silent!

Faith is getting in the wheelbarrow.

God has evidenced over and over that He is more than capable.  The question is do we trust Him?  Do we desire Him?

As I reconcile His word and His working in my life, I ask a pertinent question – Why did God create humans?

The way that I’ve solved the question is to take the known truths that He left us and reverse engineer things back to the beginning.  Take the empirical and forensic evidences that we do have, and solve for “X”.   Here is a puzzle that gives you the sense of how to solve the biblical question.  Take what we do know and use it to solve for what is “unstated”.  See if you can figure out the unstated values?

My childlike simple solution is that this existence is not primarily about us humans but rather it’s a test case for the group of Angels that put forth the accusation that “God is not just”.  Via the cross, God’s answer is that He is both Just … and the Justifier.  At the cross, God gave the righteous Angels the answer to the question that they had waited 4,000 years to see – how was God going to reconcile man back to Himself?  The cross evidenced God’s justice … and His worthiness.

As a young follower of Jesus, I asked the question – why did God create the problem of “sin” via Adam disobeying?  Clearly it was something that He knew would happen?  Why did He allow the creation of a relational chasm between me and Him?

At the cross, Jesus took on my Adamic sin consequence, a terminal dilemma that I had no way to cure.  Jesus served my sentence of eternal separation from His Father.  Because He was both man and God, He was a perfect substitute for mankind and a solution for the sentence of eternal separation.  He was without sin and therefore qualified to be a substitute (scapegoat) for me.  At the cross, Jesus took on my consequence of “infinite” separation from His Father, but as God, and outside of time, He had the ability to take it on in a “finite” amount of time … and then return to perfect fellowship with His Father … my Father.

Both Just and the Justifier.

Paul explains this in his letter the church in Rome in chapter 3 where he says that God “passed over” the sins of the past in order to be seen as both just and the justifier.  Here’s a story to help understand.

Picture a small town where everybody knows everybody.  In that small town there is only one Judge.  He is loving and righteous, always matching the sentence with the crime.  He has a son who while driving his car hit and killed a child on a bicycle.  If found guilty, the prescribed consequence is life in prison.  Everyone in the small town knows that the son will come before his father in court.  Now we have a dilemma.

As the trial begins, the courtroom is a buzz with people debating the dilemma?  Some argue how this loving father can sentence his own son to life in prison?  Others are arguing that he has to because he’s righteous!  The trial proceeds and by the end there’s a verdict to be rendered.  The courtroom is again buzzing with discussion.  The Judge asks for quiet.  He then announces that the verdict is “guilty as charged”.  Half of the courtroom erupts and says “see, I told you that he’s just”!  Then the Judge asks again for order and quiet and exclaims that the sentence is “life in prison”. The other half of the courtroom is in disbelief!  How can he do this to his own son whom he loves?

Then the Judge once again taps the gavel and calls for order in the court.  When the room is finally quiet, the Judge proclaims “My son is guilty as charged.  His sentence is life in prison … but I will serve the sentence for him”.

His son is free to go.

Both Just and the Justifier.

That is our Father.

He is worthy.

Jesus caused me to be “re-born” to His Father.  He gave me “standing” to go before the righteous Judge and make my case, to answer His question of “why should I allow you in My Kingdom”?  My answer is that on my own He should not … but that His Son purchased me for Him.  I am His now.  And I desire Him and His righteousness, His grace, His mercy, His love for me … the undeserving sinner.

So, let’s review some of the forensic evidence that there is a God who is outside of time. 

As the Hebrews were coming out of Egypt, God instructed them to follow His statutes, one of which was to let the land go fallow every seventh year, a “sabbatical year”.  He tells them that if they desire Him and let the land go fallow, He will supply the rains that will produce so much crop that they’ll have to throw out the old to make room for the new.  He tells them that He will protect them from attack so that they can live without fear.  He also warns them of the consequence if they reject Him, His statutes, and the land sabbaths.  He tells them that if they don’t let the land rest that He will exile them so that the land will get its rest, (Leviticus 26:34 and 43).  He lets them know that they will be exiled one year for every sabbatical year that they ignored.  Then He tells them four times that if after that exile they still reject Him, He will increase their consequence seven times (Leviticus 26:18-28).

For 490 years Judah rejected God and failed to let the land have its sabbatical rests.  So, in 605 BC. God allowed Nebuchadnezzar to come through Israel and take some of them hostage to Babylon.  While in exile, Daniel recognized that their consequence of 70 years of exile was almost complete.  He asked the Father if they will be able to go back to Jerusalem and be His people.  God’s answer is that they have not repented and although some will go back, the extra consequence of seven times seventy years (490) will begin when a decree to restore and rebuild the defensive walls of Jerusalem is issued.  But seven years short of the completion of the 490 years (483), the “anointed one” will be cut off and a prophetic gap of unknown length will ensue until the last seven prophetic years start.

According to Nehemiah, that decree went out in the month of Nisan in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes Longimanus.  According to Websters dictionary, that decree was issued by Artaxerxes in 444 BC.  Evidently it was Babylonian practice to issue decrees on the first of the month.  Start at Nisan 1, 444 BC and calculate forward 483 Jewish years of 360 days per year (173,880 days) and we arrive at Nisan 10, 33AD … the day that Jesus rode into Jerusalem as the prophesied “anointed one”.  The day that God told the Hebrews that they are to select their annual Passover lamb, (Exodus 12:1-3).

Jesus told His mother that His hour had not yet come.  He told His brothers that His time had not yet come.  In all but one of Jesus’ miracles of healing He told the recipient not to tell anyone, but on that day when the Pharisees told Him to quiet His followers who were acknowledging the arrival of their king, He said if these be quiet, the very rocks will cry out.  Indeed they would have!  God can make a bush burn … but never be consumed.  He can make a donkey speak truth when men speak lies.  He can make rocks announce His Son if we humans fail to do so.  His “time” had arrived.  His Father knew of that day over 500 years in advance.  His Father planned for that day.

So, there’s one remarkable bit of forensic evidence of a God who can know the future, not in general, but over 500 years in advance … to the day.  That’s our Father.

Lucky guess you say?

Consider the prophesied exceptionally detailed events revealed Daniel 10 and 11.  Take a look at that detail and then look on the internet for information that confirms every detail.  It’s there if you have a sincere interest.

He is worthy.

The Baptist lead the way (ahead of most other denominations) in trying to sidetrack the human into thinking that it’s about our “sin” … and God’s corresponding anger.  A brilliant move on the Adversaries’ part.  Make the subject think that God is angry and they are nothing.

The opposite is true. 

Adam disobeyed God’s instruction.  When his mind therefore became aware of things that he was ignorant of up to that point, Adam hid himself from God.  God did not hide himself from Adam.  God sought out Adam and clothed him and directed him in what would be a new way to live under this enlightened “fallen nature”.  God’s compassion and grace was evidenced right up front.  We inherit that fallen nature from our father Adam.  We are born alienated from God.  Yet God pursues us.

His Son paved the way.

His desire is that all come back to Him.  You know the verse don’t you.

The so called “sin” was dealt with in God’s mind before creation.  In real time, it was dealt with about 4,000 years after Adam … at the time of the cross.  “It is finished”.  Indeed it is!

Mat 21:33 

33“Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who PLANTED A VINEYARD AND PUT A WALL AROUND IT AND DUG A WINE PRESS IN IT, AND BUILT A TOWER, and rented it out to vine-growers and went on a journey.34“When the harvest time approached, he sent his slaves to the vine-growers to receive his produce.35“The vine-growers took his slaves and beat one, and killed another, and stoned a third.36“Again he sent another group of slaves larger than the first; and they did the same thing to them.37“But afterward he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’38“But when the vine-growers saw the son, they said among themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance.’39“They took him, and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.40“Therefore when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vine-growers?”41They said to Him, “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end, and will rent out the vineyard to other vine-growers who will pay him the proceeds at the proper seasons.”

The hearers of Jesus’ parable had the correct answer to His question: What will he (the Father) do to the vine-growers who killed His Son?  He will bring those wretches to a wretched end.

Indeed.  That is the logical answer.

But that’s not what the Angels looking on from Heaven witnessed at the cross.  They’d been waiting about 4,000 years to see how the “mystery” of God would play out?  How would the Father “bring back to life” Adam and all his offspring?  How would the Father cause them to be “born again”?

At the cross, it all became tragically clear.  The Son would temporarily separate from the Father.  As a sinless entity outside of time, He would then take on the infinite sin debt of all mankind, (eternal separation from the Father).  The “death” that Adam underwent the moment he ate the forbidden fruit.  And He would bear that sin debt in a finite amount of time.  He would then step back into time and back into perfect fellowship with His Father.

A brilliant plan that could have only been accomplished by God Himself.  Think about it?  God could have accomplished this rebirth right after Adam disobeyed?  Or perhaps just as Noah walked again on dry land?  But He waited until we were ready to kill His Son.

Do you see that Jesus didn’t have to physically die to give us eternal life with His Father.  Yet we murdered Him.

What’s stunning to me is that God granted His Son’s last dying request, “Father forgive them”.  Perhaps God should have denied that request?  But He didn’t.

His Father forgave us.

I conclude that He is worthy.

I hope that you do as well?

Recognize that Adam didn’t physically die “in the day that you eat”.  He died to God relationally.  At the cross Jesus purchased a new life for all mankind.  “In Adam all die.  In Christ all will be made alive”.  “So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life o all men”.

I’m not giving you the scriptural reference so that you will look them up for yourself.

Consider the phrase “second death”?  Found nowhere in the entire bible until we get to the book of Revelation where it is used four times.  What is it?  The logical answer is that it’s a spiritual death after a “first” physical death.

Perhaps you should look in Revelation where a couple evil fellas are thrown “alive” into the “Lake of Fire”.  Then see if you can find in that same book that the “Lake of Fire” is also known as the “second death”.

The “goats” of Matthew 25 are not killed first?

How can someone endure a second spiritual death unless they had first been re-born?

Jesus purchased us.  He gave us new life before His Father.  Some of us will put down the pig slop, rehearse our speech to ask our father to let us return as a hired servant, and then walk towards the Father.

Some of us will not.

To those who return home, the Father fails to let us finish our explanation of our sin and our unworthiness when he demands a ring and a robe and embraces us and kisses us and calls for a celebration!

My son is home!!!

Indeed!

He is so worthy.

I’m not a prophet.  Not righteous.  Not holy.  Note very bright, but do you see what our magnificent Father has produced in me via the trials?  This unworthy servant has been given a glimpse of His magnificent glory.

Just a glimpse.

Soon, I will see him face to face.