Everyone is invited

It's a celebration that's been planned before time began. It's in honor of the Lamb who was slain and the Lion who will reign. And you're cordially invited...to join the family of God.

Have you responded with your RSVP yet? Trust me on this...you will not want to miss-out on the cosmic social event of the ages. I imagine that after my arrival there I'll be somewhere between the giddy states of shouting "Wooohoo! Yes, I made it!" punctuated by spontaneous eruptions of praise for the King.

Of this much, I'm sure though. That had I known it would be so wonderful ...I would have spent more time on earth telling others about the boundless love and splendor that God has in store for those who respond to His invitation...to enter relationship with Him.

So this month we consider the Parable of the Wedding Feast and the incredible invitation of a lifetime that's extended to us all. Next, we turn our attention to the One to whom all praise is due, by hightlighting the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Last, we conclude with a prophetic article that examines the prospect of the Lord's soon return for His bride.

God loves you with an everlasting love, and He had you in mind...at the beginning, when He invaded time and space as a baby, when He went to the cross, when He arose, when He ascended into heaven, and when He returns to take you with Him...to celebrate in Paradise.

You were meant to be there,

Roy Tanner



The Wedding Feast

When one of those who sat at table with him heard this, he said to him, "Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God!" But he said to him, "A man once gave a great banquet, and invited many; and at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, `Come; for all is now ready.' But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, `I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it; I pray you, have me excused.' And another said, `I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them; I pray you, have me excused.' And another said, `I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.' So the servant came and reported this to his master. Then the householder in anger said to his servant, `Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and maimed and blind and lame.' And the servant said, `Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.' And the master said to the servant, `Go out to the highways and hedges, and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.'" (Luke 14:15-24)


What can a state dinner or royal banquet tell us about God's kingdom?

One of the most beautiful images of heaven in the scriptures is the royal banquet and wedding celebration given by the King. We, in fact, have been invited to the most important banquet of all time!

The last book in the Bible ends with an invitation to the wedding feast of the Lamb and His Bride, the church: The Spirit and the Bride say, Come! (Rev. 22:17). Jesus' parable takes an unexpected twist when the invited guests make excuses. Why is this the case?

A king or great lord normally sent out invitations well in advance to his subjects, so they would have plenty of time to prepare for coming to the banquet. How insulting for the invited guests to then refuse when the time for celebrating came! They made light of the King's request because they put their own interests above his.

Jesus probes the reasons why people make excuses to God's great invitation. The first excuse allows the claims of one's business to take precedence over God's claim. Do you allow your work to totally absorb you and to keep you from time with God?

The second excuse allows other goods or possessions to come before God. Does entertainment or other diversions crowd out your time with God in prayer and worship?

The third excuse puts home and family ahead of God. God never meant for our home and relationships to be used selfishly. We serve God best when we invite Him into the center our homes and work, and when we share the possessions He's entrusted us with.

The second part of the story focuses on those who had no claim on the king and who would never have considered getting such an invitation. The "poor, maimed, blind, and lame" represent the outcasts of society -- those who can make no claim on the King. There is even ample room at the feast of God for outsiders from the highways and hedges -- the gentiles.

This is certainly an invitation of grace -- undeserved, unmerited favor and kindness! But this invitation also contains a warning for those who refuse it or who approach the wedding feast unworthily. Grace is a free gift, but it is also an awesome responsibility.

Dieterich Bonhoeffer contrasts "cheap grace" and "costly grace". "Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves...the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance...grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate...Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life."

God invites each of us to his banquet that we may share in His joy. Are you ready to feast at the Lord's banquet table? "Lord, you withhold no good thing from us and you lavish us with the treasures of heaven. Help me to seek your kingdom first and to lay aside anything that might hinder me from doing your will."

Don Schwager



Behold the Man

“But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Isaiah 53:5-6

Pontius Pilot posed his challenge to the belligerent mob with the words “Ecce homo!” Demanding they take notice of the high-cost already exacted upon Jesus during his brutal scourging, this trial set in motion Christ’s torturous assent to eventual crucifixion, where Jesus fulfilled the vicarious role prophesied, as God’s suffering Servant.

Although two millennia have since transpired, the Christ event was so significant that virtually the entire world restarted its calendar because of it. But just who is Jesus of Nazareth, and why is his life, death and resurrection still so vital to you and me now in the 21st century? Stay with me, as we highlight three dimensions of the most notable person in history. While scholars of that era attested to a literal, historical Jesus, Scripture records that Jesus is:

Creator (God)…
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men” (John 1:1-4).

The apostle John’s meaning in this passage is hard to miss. With parallels to Genesis 1:1, John opens with an absolute reference to the beginning of the time-space-material universe, asserting that before the universe began, the Second Person of the triune God always existed. Unlike other gospel accounts that begin with Jesus’ human genealogy, in terms of His deity, He has no genealogy. And as the Father’s agent in creation, Jesus possesses all the divine excellencies, being coequal, consubstantial, and coeternal with the Father (John 10:30; 14:9). The “sonship” of Jesus helps us understand the 2nd Person of the triune Godhead; with some scholars even suggesting that submission (within the Trinity) was first manifest at the creation.

Many people today don't understand that Jesus claimed to be God. They're content to think of Him as little more than a great moral teacher. But even His enemies understood His claims to deity. That's why they tried to stone Him to death (John 5:18; 10:33) and eventually had Him crucified (John 19:7). C.S. Lewis observed, "You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to" (Mere Christianity [Macmillan, 1952], pp. 40-41). If the biblical claims of Jesus are true, He is God!

Carpenter (Man)…
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us...” (John 1:14)

While God is uncreated and eternal, He took on humanity (Heb. 1:1-13, 2:14-18). This reality is surely the most the profound ever because it indicates that the Infinite became finite; the Eternal was conformed to time; the Invisible became visible; the supernatural One reduced Himself to the natural. At the incarnation (God becoming man) Jesus surrendered only the prerogatives of deity but nothing of the divine essence, either in degree or kind. In this way, the eternally existing second person of the Trinity accepted all the essential characteristics of humanity and so became the eternal God-man (Phil. 2:5-8; Col. 2:9). Virgin born (Is. 7:14; Matt. 1:23,25; Luke 1:26-35); the purpose of the incarnation then, was to reveal God, redeem men, and rule over God's kingdom (Ps. 2:7-9; Is. 9:6; John 1:29; Phil. 2:9-11; Heb. 7:25,26; 1 Pet. 1:18,19). As a result, Jesus represents humanity and deity in indivisible oneness (Mic. 5:2; John 5:23; 14:9,10; Col. 2:9).

As a carpenter, Jesus was known as a man’s man…One whose chosen station in life allowed Him to relate equally well to either a working man or a world ruler. In His public ministry, Jesus chose to work as an itinerate preacher whose sermons would enthrall populist rural followers, as well as enlist the secret allegiance of the 1st-century’s greatest scholars. And if there were one feature of His character that stood out most (for me), it would be His meekness—literally translated “power under control.” Jesus was appropriately gentle with the innocence of youth, assertive with jaded adults, and confrontive with hypocritical leaders. Scripture tells us that Jesus was like us in all ways (experiencing joy, weariness, hunger and sorrow), except that He was without sin. He was essentially, God’s perfect man, and man’s perfect God.

Christ (the eternal God-Man)…
“He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to Hs own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God…” (John 1:10-12).

Jesus is the Savior, the promised Messiah. Since Christ is the culminating theme of the Old Testament and the Living Word of the New Testament, it should not surprise us that prophecies regarding Him outnumber all others. Many of these prophecies would have been impossible for Jesus to deliberately conspire to fulfill—such as His descent from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Genesis 12:3; 17:19); His birth in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2); His crucifixion with criminals (Isaiah 53:12); the piercing of His hands and feet on the cross (Psalm 22:16); the soldiers' gambling for His clothes (Psalm 22:18); the piercing of His side and the fact that His bones were not broken at His death (Zechariah 12:10; Psalm 34:20); and His burial among the rich (Isaiah 53:9). But the promise of His first coming had a very specific mission.

The Lord Jesus Christ accomplished our redemption—through the shedding of His blood and sacrificial death on the cross. His death was voluntary, vicarious, substitutionary, propitiatory, and redemptive (John 10:15; Rom. 3:24,25; 5:8; 1 Pet. 2:24). On the basis of the efficacy of the death of our Lord Jesus Christ, the believing sinner is freed from the punishment, the penalty, the power, and one day the very presence of sin; and that he is declared righteous, given eternal life, and adopted into the family of God (Rom. 3:25; 5:8,9; 2 Cor. 5:14,15; 1 Pet. 2:24; 3:18). And in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the grave, God confirmed the deity of His Son and accepted the atoning work of Christ on the cross. Jesus' bodily resurrection then, is the guarantee of a future resurrection life for all believers (John 5:26-29; 14:19; Rom. 4:25;6:5-10; 1 Cor. 15:20,23).

Even though God's justice demands death for sin, His love has provided a Savior, who paid the penalty and died for sinners: "Christ ... died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, in order that He might bring us to God" (1 Peter 3:18). Christ's death satisfied the demands of God's justice, thereby enabling Him to forgive and save those who place their faith in Him (Romans 3:26). John 3:16 says, "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life." He alone is "our great God and Savior" (Titus 2:13). So what can we conclude?

JESUS IS LORD
The New Testament reveals it was Jesus Himself who created everything (John 1:3; Colossians 1:16). Therefore He also owns and rules everything (Psalm 103:19). That means He has authority over our lives and we owe Him absolute allegiance, obedience, and worship. Romans 10:9 says, "If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved." Confessing Jesus as Lord means humbly submitting to His authority (Philippians 2:10-11). Believing that God has raised Him from the dead involves trusting in the historical fact of His resurrection--the pinnacle of Christian faith and the way the Father affirmed the deity and authority of the Son (Romans 1:4; Acts 17:30-31).

True faith is always accompanied by repentance from sin. Repentance is more than simply being sorry for sin. It is agreeing with God that you are sinful, confessing your sins to Him, and making a conscious choice to turn from sin and pursue holiness (Isaiah 55:7). Jesus said, "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments" (John 14:15); and "If you abide in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine" (John 8:31). It isn't enough to believe certain facts about Christ. Even Satan and his demons believe in the true God (James 2:19), but they don't love and obey Him. Their faith is not genuine. True saving faith always responds in obedience (Ephesians 2:10).

JESUS IS THE JUDGE
All who reject Jesus as their Lord and Savior will one day face Him as their Judge: "God is now declaring to men that all everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead" (Acts 17:30-31).Second Thessalonians 1:7-9 says, "The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. And these will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power."

HOW WILL YOU RESPOND?
Who does the Bible say Jesus is? The living God, the Savior, the only valid object of saving faith, the sovereign Lord, and the righteous Judge. Who do you say Jesus is? That is the inescapable question. He alone can redeem you—free you from the power and penalty of sin. He alone can transform you, restore you to fellowship with God, and give your life eternal purpose.

Pilot's challenge is posed to you and I still today. Will you repent and believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?

Behold the Man,

Roy Tanner

Reference material:
MacArthur Study Bible
Master's Theological Seminary
Grace To You Ministries



Discerning the Times

Prophecy - Signs Monday, February 21, 2005
Jack Kinsella - Omega Letter Editor

We live in an age of miracles unlike any the world has ever known. In this generation, man has unlocked the secret of the genome, can 'create' life in a test tube, can duplicate that which is already created [cloning], develop medicines and compounds that can prolong life, and it appears there is nothing that we cannot do.

Science expects to one day be able to control the elements, bring rain where drought is, anticipate natural disasters like earthquakes, and perhaps, even prevent them.

We can travel outside our atmosphere, and one day expect to reach distant stars. In the natural, it would seem that there is nothing we will not eventually be able to do.

Science has pretty much been able to naturalize, internalize and explain away what were, in previous generations, miracles, reducing them to probabilities, equations, charts and graphs.

With one exception.

We can do everything except tell the future. The future contains too many variables to accurately predict. Take the restoration of Israel, for example. Israel was destroyed in 702 BC by the Assyrian king, Sargon II, who conquered the kingdom of Israel.

It was common practice for a conqueror to uproot and displace the conquered people to another part of the empire, repopulating that place with a conquered people from somewhere else.

The reason for that was to separate a people from their land, which effectively prevented uprisings. The northern Kingdom of Israel was scattered throughout the Assyrian Empire, and was effectively lost to history, leaving only the tiny southern kingdom of Judah.

A century later, the Kingdom of Judah was similarly conquered by the Kingdom of Babylon, who also displaced its population, deporting them into captivity in Babylon.

To a Jew living in Babylon during the Captivity, it seemed certain that Judah would go the way of Israel and would similarly be lost to history.

Yet the prophets of the Captivity, like Daniel and Ezekiel, wrote confidently that in the last days, there would again be a nation called 'Israel' and that its citizens would once again inhabit the same piece of real estate from which they had been displaced, seemingly forever.

Yet Ezekiel wrote, "And I will bring them out from the people, and gather them from the countries, and will bring them to their own land, and feed them upon the mountains of Israel by the rivers, and in all the inhabited places of the country." [Ezekiel 34:13)

The Jews would be gathered from the countries, and brought into THEIR OWN LAND, upon the mountains of ISRAEL, and not some other place.

Writing of the Gog Magog invasion, God inspired Ezekiel to prophesy; "After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them." [Ezekiel 38:8]

In this passage, we find the time frame in which Ezekiel's prophecy would come to pass -- 'after many days, in the latter years'. And again, we find that it is not Judah, but ISRAEL, of whom the prophet prophesied. That they would be 'brought forth from the nations' to a land that had 'always been waste' -- until they returned.

For more than 2,500 years, this prophecy remained dormant, until, on May 14, 1948, the survivors of the Holocaust were 'brought forth' under the banner of 'never again' to the 'mountains of Israel' -- which 'had always been waste' as the nation of 'Israel'.

In his book, ‘Personal Witness' Abba Eban, one of the founders of Israel, noted that when David Ben-Gurion cabled President Truman to ask the United States to recognize the Jewish state, the Jews still hadn't decided what to call it.

Eban noted, 'Some wanted to call it Zion, others Judah . . .what about 'Israel'?' The name was chosen only hours before the state came into existence.

In 1897, the 1st Zionist Congress petitioned the government of Great Britain for a Jewish state in what is today the African country of Uganda. The British told the Jews to petition the Ottoman Empire, who at that time controlled Palestine.

The Jews would have settled for Uganda as a Jewish homeland, but the prophets said that the Jewish homeland of the last days would be 'on the mountains of Israel'. And that is exactly what happened.

The prophet Daniel, also writing from captivity in Babylon, penned the future history of Israel, [a nation that had not existed for a century] dividing its future into 70 weeks of years. During the 70th and final week, Daniel prophesied the revival of an empire [Rome] that, in Daniel's day, would not see its FIRST incarnation for another 500 years.

Today, the nation of Israel exists, composed of a people 'brought forth from the nations' while, for the first time in 2000 years, a European superstate made up of what had once been the territory of the Roman Empire, seeks involvement in a peace process that Daniel said would be confirmed by a leader of a revived Rome.

Israel was reborn in 1948, as the embryonic European Community of nations was being born out of the 1948 Benelux Treaty.

According to Jesus, the generation that would see His return would be one in which there would be;

"signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; Men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken."[Luke 21:24-25]

It would be a period of 'wars and rumors of wars,' when, “nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places." [Matthew 24:6-7]

Jesus noted that; "All these are the beginning of sorrows" [v.8].

Bible prophecy was given the Church so that, "ye in like manner, when ye shall see these things come to pass, know that it [His return] is nigh, even at the doors." [Mark 13:29]

We are indeed living in the 'age of miracles’ but they are miracles of God, against which the miracles of science cannot possibly compete.

We in this generation have been given the unspeakable gift of certainty that the Lord is about to return, a warning that time is running out, and a renewed commission to go out into all the earth and make disciples of all nations, before time has run out.

No man can know the future, but the God of Creation foretold it --in detail -- so that there could be no misunderstanding. The Lord is about to return.

"Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” [1st Corinthians 15:1-52]

"For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”

"Wherefore, comfort one another with these words." [1st Thessalonians 4:16-18]

Excerpted from the Omega Letter Daily Intelligence Digest, Volume 45, Issue 15