Just like "Of Cords and Ropes," the story of Rahab and the spies, "What's in a Name?" the study of the genealogy of Noah, and  the most recent gem "The Mourning of an Only Son," I want to share with you another wonderful passage out of Genesis that ties God's plan of redemption together.

The Construction of the Ark

God commands Noah:

"Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood; you shall make the ark with rooms, and shall cover it inside and out with pitch." --Genesis 6:14.

The King James Version states this passage:

"Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch." --Genesis 6:14 (KJV).

This translation works a little better to get at the original Hebrew.

The phrase "and shalt pitch" is the Hebrew word "kaphar." The phrase "with pitch" which is at the end of the passage is the Hebrew word "kopher."

• "Kaphar" means: "to cover, purge, make atonement, make reconciliation" or "to make atonement for."
• "Kopher" means: "price of a life, ransom."

In other  words, the Holy Spirit is making a huge pun with this passage. The eight people in the ark are protected from God's judgement by atonement! How is the Christian protected from God's judgment? By the atonement of Christ on the cross!

Dates and Calendars

Later in Genesis, we read of how the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.

In the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat. --Genesis 8:4.

Straightforward enough, right? Although we may not really get what the date is compared to our modern calendar. But that's okay. For our purposes, the calendar in use by the Jewish people was their civil calendar. This would all change in Egypt.

Let's fast-forward to the book of Exodus. God has already sent nine plagues upon Pharaoh and the Egyptian people. The tenth and final plague--the death of the first-born--has just been announced by God. Then God speaks to Moses and Aaron and makes a huge change:

Now the Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, "This month shall be the beginning of months for you; it is to be the first month of the year to you." --Exodus 12:1-2.

This month is called Nisan. Nisan occurs during our modern-day calendar months of March and April. It's the first month of the Jewish new year according to the new sacred calendar, but the seventh month on the civil calendar.

A few verses later, God institutes the Passover. He explains that the people are to take an unblemished lamb for a sacrifice.

"'You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month, then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel is to kill it at twilight.'" --Exodus 12:6.

Do you see anything remarkable yet?

Jesus was crucified on Passover, the 14th of Nisan. What happened three days later? He rose from the dead on the 17th of Nisan.

What also happened on the seventeenth of this particular month? The ark came to rest on Ararat.

There is no way you can convince me that this was all accidental. There is no way you will ever convince me that men wrote the Bible and put all this together. Impossible! This is nothing but concrete evidence of the supernatural origin of the Bible!

It's my hope that these awe-inspiring gems draw you deeper into God's Word which lead into a greater understanding of God's plan for your life and those around you!

May He Increase!

I ran across another one today that I've glossed over in the past while reading the book of Amos. It amazes me how many of these wonderful gems are tucked into the Word of God.

"It will come about in that day," declares the Lord God, "That I shall make the sun go down at noon and make the earth dark in broad daylight." --Amos 8:9.

On the one hand, you might read this thinking that it's related to end-time prophecy and certainly there are those implications. But when else did the sun go down at noon?

Now from the sixth hour darkness fell upon all the land until the ninth hour. --Matthew 27:45.

We miss this because we don't tell time like this anymore. The "sixth hour" is noon by our modern reckoning. More on this verse in a moment. First, back to Amos.

"Then I shall turn your festivals into mourning and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring sackcloth on everyone's loins and baldness on every head." --Amos 8:10.

Obviously, the thought here is grieving. But look at what the rest of Amos 8:10 says:

"And I will make it like a time of mourning for an only son, and the end of it will be like a bitter day." --Amos 8:10.

What was the rest of the passage from Matthew 27? A few verses after Matthew 27:45 we read:

And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit. --Matthew 27:50.

It was the day of the cross. It was the day that God grieved over His only Son. It was the day that the perfect, sinless Lamb of God was made sin for all the world so that you and I won't have to spend all eternity separated from Him! It was the day that our mourning could be turned to joy that we don't have to die in our sins!

May He Increase!

Recently, I joined the media team helping the church with their social networking including KACC's Facebook page. The media folks roll up to Mike Carman, pastor of Cross-Cultural Ministries. I've really grown to love and respect this man of God. He has such a love for the lost and hurting and showing them the way to Jesus.

Coming up in a week or so is KACC's Beyond...9 Days in March. It's our emphasis on the many missions KACC supports all over the world. In Mike's words:

I'm amped up, excited and can hardly wait. Next month (March 13-21) is our time of missions emphasis at Knott Avenue Church. We call it, Beyond...9 Days in March, and we use it to encourage those we support locally and globally, as well as to educate and challenge our people about missions on a worldwide scale. And what they can do to help get the job done.

You can read the rest of the post at Mike's blog: Eden's Dust. Please visit and say hello.

Watch KACC Services Live!

You can also watch a live stream of KACC's Saturday night service at 5:00 PM PST via USTREAM. Right now, Pastor Shane Womack is doing a study through the book of Daniel.

In case you don't, it says:

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. --Philippians 4:6.

I like the translation of this verse that I heard recently:

"Worry about nothing, pray about everything, and give thanks for anything."

I like that, a lot. The only problem is, a lot of times, it's a lot harder than we think. I've had to remind myself lately that worrying is a sin. Did you realize that?

How many times did Jesus command us "do not worry?"

• Matthew 6:31
• Matthew 6:34
• Matthew 10:19
• Mark 13:11
• Luke 12:11
• Luke 12:22

Just to list a few. I guess "do not worry" means, well, "do not worry."

How often do we view our worrying in direct violation of His commandment?

May He Increase!

Another one of these wonderful gems is found in Genesis. There are some folks that wish they could skim through the seemingly endless genealogies found in the books of Genesis and Numbers. Don't make this mistake! Can it be tedious? Sure. But when you find yourself feeling like this, search deeper!

The Genealogy of Noah

Some of you may have seen this before. It's been covered by different Bible scholars. My goal here is to present it in the hopes that maybe someone hasn't seen this before and will find it a blessing.

Noah's family tree consists of the following gentlemen (and their ages):

1. Adam - 930 years
2. Seth - 912 years
3. Enosh - 905 years
4. Kenan - 910 years
5. Mahalalel - 895 years
6. Jared - 962 years
7. Enoch - 365 years (Did not die. More on this later.)
8. Methuselah - 969 years
9. Lamech - 777 years
10. Noah - 950 years

Let's look at what each of their names mean.

Adam

Adam, as probably everyone knows, was the first man, the first human being. So it will probably come as no surprise that "Adam" means "man."

Seth

Seth was the third child of Adam and Eve. You probably remember the story of Cain and Abel, their first two sons. Cain killed Abel. When Seth was born, Eve said:

"God has appointed me another offspring in place of Abel, for Cain killed him." --Genesis 4:25.

The root word of Seth's name means "to put, to lay upon." If we take that an apply it to what Eve said, it means "appointed."

Enosh

Seth had a son and named him Enosh. His name means "man" but also means "mortal man."

Kenan

Next is Kenan, the son of Enosh. The meaning of his name is somewhat obscure. There are commentaries that say it means "nest" and others that say it means "sorrow" or "dirge." You will see that this apparent ambiguity doesn't matter for our purposes here.

Mahalalel

Kenan had a son named Mahalalel. His name means "blessed" or "praise of God." You get this from the two parts of his name. The "El" is the name of God. You see this in such names as Dani-el which means "God is my Judge."

Jared

Jared is next. His name means "descent." It means "to go or come down."

Enoch

Enoch is an interesting character. His name means "dedicated." The root means "to train, to train up." In other words "teaching."

Enoch was the father of Methuselah, the oldest person in the Bible at 969 years old when he died. But Enoch didn't die. One of the interesting passages in Genesis is found in chapter five, describing Enoch:

Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him. --Genesis 5:24.

The Hebrew word used for the passage "and he was not, for God took him" is "לָקַח" which is transliterated "laqach." It's a fascinating word that is full of meaning: "to take, get, fetch, lay hold of, seize, receive, acquire, buy, bring, marry, take a wife, snatch, take away."

There are commentators that believe and suggest that Enoch being "snatched up" to heaven is symbolic of the rapture of the church. It's a model of the rapture, in other words. I think it's no accident that the word "laqach" has meanings that include "marry" and to "take a wife." Who is the believer's bridegroom? Christ! Who is the church is relation to Christ? His bride!

Methuselah

Enoch's son was named Methuselah. His name means "man of the dart." It comes from two roots. One is "muth" which means "death" and "shalach" which means "to bring" or "to send forth." So, his name means "his death shall bring."

Like Enoch his father, Methuselah is an interesting guy. Enoch gave him a prophetic name.

And, indeed, in the year that Methuselah died, the flood came. Methuselah was 187 when he had Lamech, and lived 782 years more. Lamech had Noah when he was 182. The Flood came in Noah's 600th year. 187+182+600=969, the year Methuselah died. --Chuck Missler, Hidden Treasures.

Lamech

Lamech was the son of Methuselah and the father of Noah. His name means "powerful" but also means "lament" or "lamentation." His name is also somewhat obscure. Again, for the purposes of our study, we will go with "lamentation" or "despairing."

Noah

Finally we reach Noah. Noah's name means "rest." How picturesque. The man at the head of the only family that was spared the flood, was named "rest," or "to bring relief" or "comfort."

Putting all the names together

Do you see anything remarkable yet? Let's write out the meanings in a sentence:

"Man is appointed mortal sorrow. (But the) blessed God (shall) come down, teaching (that) His death shall bring (the) despairing rest."

I was stunned when I first encountered this. This is the gospel message that is found in the Old Testament! There is no way that a bunch of Jewish rabbis would have or could have conspired to hide the message of salvation in the Biblical text. There is no way the human mind could have conceived this. This was conceived in the mind of the Creator and King of the Universe.

He is worthy of our praise! Praise you, Father, for your wondrous works!

May He Increase!

Here's another open thread where you are welcome to share interesting finds on the Internet, share what God is doing in your life, share recent posts you have written, or prayer requests.

This weekend I'm participating in "The Game Plan: Men's Purity Seminar" at Knott Avenue Christian Church. It's being given by Joe Dallas of Genesis Counseling. Please keep us all in prayer.

May He Increase!

It amazes me how often "experts" and the average person will casually dismiss the Bible for what it really is. Have they actually read the Bible?

Then again, the natural man won't be able to comprehend what he is reading. Certainly when I first became a Christian I had no idea of the treasures that God's Word would reveal to me over time.

One of these treasures that was recently revealed to me is found in the book of Joshua. The term for it is a "remez," which basically means a hint of something deeper.

I believe that everything in the Bible--every place name, person, event, etc.--is there for a reason. Some may not be as exciting as others, but if you dig a little deeper at things you read, generally God will have a little treasure for you in the text.

Rahab and the Spies

In Joshua, there is the story of the two spies who find shelter in Rahab's house. There is a passage where they are having a conversation with her about how they will hide themselves and what sign she will hang outside her house so that the Israelites wouldn't destroy her house when they invade.

Then she let them down by a rope through the window, for her house was on the city wall. --Joshua 2:15.

Just a simple, informative verse, right? The word to pay attention to here is the word "rope." The King James Version uses the word "cord." Either way, the Hebrew word used is "חֵבֶל" which is transliterated "chebal."

The two meanings for this word are:

1. a cord, rope, territory, band, company
2. pain, sorrow, travail, pang (pains of travail)

Interesting dichotomy of meanings, aren't they?

Let's look at the next verse:

She said to them, "Go to the hill country, so that the pursuers will not happen upon you, and hide yourselves there for three days until the pursuers return. Then afterward you may go on your way." --Joshua 2:16.

What she's telling them is to hide out from the men of her city. She's protecting these two Israeli spies, basically. We'll come back to this verse. Let's look at the next two verses.

Then men said to her, "We shall be free from this oath to you which you have made us swear, unless, when we come into the land, you tie this cord of scarlet thread in the window through which you let us down, and gather to yourself into the house your father and your mother and your brothers and all your father's household." --Joshua 2:17-18.

The phrase to key into here is "cord of scarlet thread." The King James Version calls it "this line of scarlet thread." The Hebrew word used is "תִּקְוָה" which is transliterated "tiqvah."

The two meanings of this word are:

1. cord
2. hope, expectation (things hoped for)

Again, completely different meanings, right?

Have you picked up on this yet?

What separates the meaning of these two words for "cord?"

Three days.

Do you see something remarkable hidden in the text yet?

What happened at the Cross of Christ? Pain, sorrow and travail!

What happened next? He was three days in the grave!

What happened next? He rose to give us hope and expectation!

The Bible, friend, is not a collection of writings by men of old. The Bible is the Word of God, the creator and king of the universe. The Bible is God's plan of salvation.

Don't casually dismiss the Bible. Don't criticize the Bible unless you've  spent time in it. Read it! It is the only truly life-changing book in all history.

May He Increase!

Today we want to look at the parable of The Sower and its relation to the letter to the church at Ephesus.

The Parable of The Sower

That day Jesus went out of the house and was sitting by the sea. And large crowds gathered to Him, so He got into a boat and sat down, and the whole crowd was standing on the beach. --Matthew 13:1-2.

Before we get too far ahead, it should be noted that the parables we will be studying in Matthew 13 all deal with the kingdom after it had been offered to the people of Israel. This is based on:

• Whenever the kingdom is mentioned in the Bible, it comes in multiples of seven (seven parables, seven letters, etc.).
• The elders of Israel had effectively rejected Christ in the preceding chapters, most notably in Matthew 12:24, when they actually accused Jesus of doing miracles by Satan's power!
• The symbolism of Matthew 13:1-2.

When Matthew says "Jesus went out of the house," the symbolism is Jesus leaving the house of Israel for the gentiles. The sea that is mentioned is, of course, the Sea of Galilee, but symbolically it represents the nations of the gentiles. We see examples of this in the book of Daniel, for example, in Daniel 7:2-3. Therefore, this is Jesus giving parables of the kingdom from the time of His rejection to His Second Coming.

Jesus only interprets two of the seven parables: that of The Sower and that of The Wheat and the Tares. It's critical that we understand these two parables because the rest of them hinge upon the symbolism and interpretation of these.

And He spoke many things to them in parables, saying, "Behold, the sower went out to sow; and as he sowed, some seeds fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate them up." --Matthew 13:3-4.

The sower is Christ. The seed is the Word of God. What is crucial to understand is that the birds are representative of Satan.

"Others fell on the rocky places, where they did not have much soil; and immediately they sprang up, because they had no depth of soil. But when the sun had risen, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away." --Matthew 13:5-6.

How deep are your roots? Do you have a depth of relationship with Christ that your roots run deep into His Word and His promises? Or, when that sun comes up, blazing hot, do you wither away under it's heat?

"Others fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked them out." --Matthew 13:7.

Have the cares of this life and of this world choked out your relationship with God? Are you striving after things of this world that have no lasting value?

"And others fell on the good soil and yielded a crop, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty. He who has ears, let him hear." --Matthew 13:8-9.

If you are bearing fruit for the kingdom, keep on bearing fruit! Don't stop if you think "I've done enough." If you're still on this earth, don't stop bearing fruit for God!

The Sower and the Letter to Ephesus

Jesus commended the Ephesian church for:

1. Deeds and toil
2. Perseverance
3. Intolerance of evil men
4. Testing those who call themselves apostles who are not
5. Perseverance (a second time)
6. Endurance for Christ's sake
7. Not growing weary

Each of these require roots in the Word of God. As Jesus said in Matthew 13:8-9, the Ephesians were bearing fruit through their deeds, toil, perseverance and endurance. They could not test those who called themselves apostles apart from the Word of God. Without the Word of God, they would fall into the trap of tolerating evil as well.

Without roots in the Word of God, the evil one can easily snatch you away on every wind of false doctrine.

As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming. --Ephesians 4:14.

How do you avoid this? By getting rooted in the Word of God!

Next time

We will study the next parable, The Wheat and the Tares, and the letter to the church at Smyrna.

May He Increase!

• Contemporary
• Composite
• Chronological

As a recap, the churches Jesus wrote to were:

1. Ephesus
2. Smyrna
3. Pergamum
4. Thyatira
5. Sardis
6. Philadelphia
7. Laodicea

These churches represented the following periods in church history:

1. "The Light of Asia," the period just after Pentecost.
2. The Persecuted Church
3. The Pagan Church
4. The Church of Romanism
5. The Protestant Church
6. The Revived Church
7. The Apostate Church

The Seven Parables of Matthew 13: A Summary

When you carefully read the seven parables of Jesus found in Matthew 13, you are struck by the parallels between those parables and the seven letters.

The seven parables and their audiences are as follows:

1. The Sower - publicly given
2. The Wheat and the Tares - publicly given
3. The Mustard Seed - publicly given
4. The Leaven - publicly given
5. The Hidden Treasure - privately given to the disciples
6. The Pearl of Great Price - privately given to the disciples
7. The Dragnet - privately given to the disciples

Over and over again in the Bible we are presented with the number 7. Even the division between the publicly spoken parables and the private ones are a sum of 7. All of this is evidence of the skillful and deliberate design of the Creator.

Some commentaries have pointed out that the first parable--that of the sower--serves as an introduction to the remaining six. Of the remaining six, they can then each be paired up: the second and the seventh, the third and the fourth, and the fifth and the sixth. Each of these pairs speak the same truth but each in its own way. This, too, is evidence of deliberate and supernatural design of the scripture.

Why Parables?

Jesus' disciples asked Him privately why He used parables to teach the people. Jesus told them,

"To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted. For whoever has, to him more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him. Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand." --Matthew 13:11-13.

In other words, those who were rejecting Jesus as the Messiah, would be in capable of understanding the meaning of His words. This fulfilled exactly what Isaiah had prophesied in Isaiah 6:9-10!

Jesus continues:

"But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear. For truly I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it." --Matthew 13:16-17.

This is why Jesus spoke in parables.

Next time

In the next post, we will study the first parable, that of The Sower and its relation to the first church in Revelation: Ephesus.

May He Increase!

Paul accurately describes it this way:

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. --Ephesians 6:12.

These rulers, powers and world forces are not politicians or evil governments. They are demons and Satan's angels! These are behind all the wicked rulers of the world.

With this in mind, there is a scene from the Old Testament that gives us a glimpse into who fights for the believer. It's the scene where Elisha prays and asks God to show his servant that there is nothing to fear one early morning.

The king of Aram sent out a large dispatch of horses and chariots to go and arrest Elisha and bring him back. They surrounded the village he was in during the night.

Now when the attendant of the man of God had risen early and gone out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was circling the city. And his servant said to him, "Alas, my master! What shall we do?" So he answered, "Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them." --2 Kings 6:15-16.

This poor servant gets up and the first thing he sees is an army amassing on their position. He panics and asks Elisha what they should do. You get the feeling from Elisha's response that he might have still been lying in bed peacefully without a care in the world.

He then says something really provocative: "Those who are with us are more than those who are with them." Who or what is he talking about?

Then Elisha prayed and said, "O Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see." And the Lord opened the servant's eyes and he saw; and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. --2 Kings 6:17.

Elisha was surrounded by the angels of God! Whether Elisha saw the horses and chariots before he asked God to reveal them to his servant isn't clear. But that really isn't the point. The fact is Elisha knew that it was God who watched over them and would fight this battle for them, in faith.

Paul also reminds us:

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? --Romans 8:31.

I don't mean to minimize the power of the demons and satanic angels. They are powerful. On your own, you are no match for them. But they are created beings and they are no match for the power of God.

I take great comfort in knowing that there are angels watching over my children. They stand guard over my family in the battle that I cannot see with my human eyes.

May He Increase!